Unbelievers in the Assembly - Part 1

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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March 17, 2019

My Pathway to Calvinism (Part 2)

00:00: With your Bibles open, I want to invite you to turn to 1 Corinthians 14, verse 24.
00:11: This morning we're going to read verses 24 and 25.
00:18: We're going to look at the subject of unbelievers in the assembly.
00:23: Unbelievers in the assembly.
00:28: For if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all.
00:40: The secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so falling on his face he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.
00:54: Father God, I thank you for your word.
00:57: I thank you for the truth of the word, and I pray that I would, Lord, get out of the way this morning, and that the Spirit would take center and focus, and that he would be the teacher.
01:11: And Lord, that anything that I would say that would be wrong or ill-advised, Lord, that you would take that from our minds and apply the truth of the word to our hearts this morning.
01:24: Lord, as we consider the fact that there are always unbelievers amongst us, Lord, may we never shy away from the responsibility of proclaiming the gospel both outside the church and inside as well.
01:38: We pray all this in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.
01:58: As most of you know, I prepare my messages early in the week, and that gives me time to think on them and edit and do more reading and make changes.
02:12: And oftentimes on Saturday, I will sit down with my wife and read to her the message so as to make sure that I haven't gone astray.
02:21: She's a very good barometer of my spiritual wind, and she tells me if I'm blowing in the wrong direction, as it were.
02:29: And so last night I sat down with her to read the message, and we both agreed when I was done, there is no way in the world I'm going to get through all of that in one message.
02:41: And we also agreed that were I to do so, it would be unfair to what I'm trying to get across, because there are actually two things I want to talk about.
02:50: And so because there are two, essentially two points that I want to make, I'm going to focus on the first one this week and focus on the next one next week.
03:00: And so that will, one, allow you to get to lunch at a reasonable hour, but more importantly, not so bombard you with information that you're unable to digest it.
03:12: Because this is really a very serious and important subject.
03:16: As you all know, we've talked about this for many months, 1 Corinthians is written to a church with problems.
03:25: The church had a problem with authority, it had a problem dealing with sin, and it had a problem with loving one another.
03:33: In short, the church in Corinth is not too dissimilar from the modern church.
03:38: Because of this, it's not difficult to find points of application to our own situation as we make our way verse by verse through this book.
03:45: And two weeks ago, I went through 1 Corinthians 14, 1-25, and I went verse by verse, and I gave an explanation of what the verses mean in context.
03:54: And we noted that the most important thing that we need to understand about these verses is that Paul's point is that the greater gifts are the gifts that build up.
04:06: And we should be seeking the gifts that build up, not our own personal individual selves and our own personal individual experiences, but we ought to be seeking those things that build up the body.
04:21: It's never about me and what I want.
04:24: It is about what the body needs.
04:28: That's Paul's point.
04:30: And when we walk through verses 1-25, I noted that there are a few passages that I wanted to return to.
04:37: Because I said, here's something that we need to think about.
04:39: And so that's what we did last week.
04:41: We looked back at verse 15, and if you remember verse 15, it talks about that Paul says, I'm going to pray with my mind and with my spirit.
04:48: I'm going to give thanks and sing with my mind and with my spirit.
04:52: And so what was last week's sermon about? It was the fact that there are two extremes that people take.
04:56: The extreme of unbridled emotionalism on the left and the extreme of unbalanced intellectualism on the right.
05:03: People who are all emotion and people who are all brain.
05:06: And Paul says neither one is correct.
05:09: That we are to have an experience of the spirit and of the mind at the same time.
05:14: We should not abandon one for the other, and often times that's what we see in churches.
05:19: Either a church that's all emotion and no truth, or a church that's all intellect and no heart.
05:28: Well this week we're going to look again at what I see are two dangerous extremes in the church.
05:36: But this time it's on the subject of unbelievers.
05:40: And for the sake of giving you the outline of the next two weeks, or today and next week, I want to just tell you what the focus is going to be on to help you maybe stay with my train of thinking.
05:53: Here is my concern, and it comes from this passage, because this passage deals with unbelievers in the assembly.
05:59: And here's what I have found and what I think you would agree.
06:02: Some churches focus the entire service of worship around the wants and needs of unbelievers.
06:10: They focus everything around trying to appeal to the world.
06:16: And then there are other churches that never consider that there may be unbelievers among them.
06:21: And they don't attempt at all to give the gospel during worship.
06:26: And so both of them are unbiblical extremes.
06:30: And so, that is going to be our two parts.
06:34: One, is the danger of focusing worship on the unbeliever.
06:38: And two, the danger of failing to worry at all about the unbeliever.
06:44: I think this passage gives us warrant to find a balance between the two.
06:50: Again, if you look at the passage with me, Paul says this in verse 24.
06:54: If all prophesy, and remember what prophecy is in relation to the tongue.
06:59: The tongue was speaking and no one understood what was being said.
07:01: It had to have an interpreter, because it was a language that they didn't know.
07:05: And he said, if everyone speaks with a tongue, they're going to think you're mad.
07:09: But if all prophesy, and what he's referring to in prophecy here is the giving of revelation in a way that is understandable.
07:16: In a way that is to be understood.
07:18: He said, if all speak with understanding, if all prophesy with understanding, and an unbeliever or an outsider enters, he is convicted by all.
07:31: So let's for a minute look at those two words.
07:34: The word unbeliever and the word outsider.
07:38: Because that's two different categories of people.
07:42: And I found it interesting as I was studying this week and I was thinking about those words.
07:47: Unbeliever and outsider.
07:50: What the difference is, from at least a linguistic perspective.
07:57: Unbeliever is the word apistas in the Greek.
08:02: And if you're familiar with the Greek language, you probably are familiar with the word pistis, pistouon.
08:07: Those are words for belief or believer.
08:12: And so when you see apistas, that is an unbeliever.
08:19: Putting the alpha at the beginning, putting the alpha primitive at the beginning of a word shows its negation.
08:25: We're familiar with that.
08:26: Words like atheist and other things.
08:28: Anytime you put the word, the letter A at the beginning, it makes it the opposite of what it was.
08:32: So apistas would be a believer.
08:36: And an apistas would be an unbeliever.
08:41: Simple enough, right? So I just translated English into English.
08:45: How'd you like that? I didn't do anything really for you.
08:47: Except for to point out that this word is different than the next word.
08:50: That's my reasoning.
08:52: It's because Paul here is identifying a very specific type of person.
08:55: A person who does not believe.
08:57: In fact, in the Gospels, Jesus uses that word and it's translated faithless.
09:05: I thought that was an interesting way of saying an unbeliever is a person who is faithless.
09:10: Jesus talks about the faithless.
09:12: He uses the word apistas.
09:15: Now, the next word where it says if an unbeliever or an outsider enters, the word outsider is not the same word.
09:23: The word outsider is the word idiotes.
09:27: Idiotes.
09:29: Now I don't have to tell you what English word derives from idiotes.
09:38: Idiotes literally means unlearned, illiterate, or unskilled.
09:46: So we know what that means in English.
09:50: And I want to remind you of a passage.
09:52: If you remember when Peter and John are preaching the Gospel after Jesus' ascension, and they're preaching in Jerusalem, and it says the Pharisees perceived them to be uneducated, common men.
10:09: The word uneducated there is agrammatos.
10:12: It means without letters.
10:13: It's literally like saying without schooling, without a degree.
10:17: You know how people put letters after their name when they have a degree? That's usually a sign of having gone to school.
10:25: And agrammatos means you don't got no letters after your name.
10:28: I mean in a modern context.
10:30: It means you don't have any schooling.
10:32: Well, agrammatos, without letters, and idiotes, and unskilled.
10:38: Not only do they not have schooling, they're unskilled.
10:41: They don't know anything.
10:44: That's the idea behind idiotes.
10:48: So understanding that in context, now looking back at 1 Corinthians 14, Paul is dealing with two types of people.
10:54: One, he's dealing with the unbeliever.
10:56: This is the faithless.
10:57: This is the person who doesn't believe.
10:59: And then there's the person that doesn't know.
11:05: Why does Paul create a second category here? Well, I believe that this word could also be translated uninitiated.
11:13: They're not standing opposed, but they don't yet know enough to be called a believer.
11:19: This happens.
11:20: People come in here, and they hear the gospel, and they don't understand it.
11:25: They're not rejecting it as to say, I'm an unbeliever.
11:29: But they're also not believing it.
11:31: They're not believers.
11:33: They're listening.
11:34: That's good.
11:35: It's good that they're listening, but they're not saved.
11:38: They still need to receive Christ.
11:40: They still need to bow the knee to Christ.
11:42: I think a lot of people end up in the position of idiotes.
11:45: They sit and they listen forever, and they never decide to follow Jesus.
11:51: That becomes a problem.
11:52: Now you say, decide.
11:53: Oh, you Calvinist, you can't use the word decide.
11:55: No, what I mean is the conversion never takes place.
12:00: They continue in ignorance.
12:03: But they like community.
12:07: Maybe they like the music.
12:09: Maybe they like hearing somebody yell at them for 45 minutes.
12:11: I don't know what gets them to come.
12:13: But they come, and they're here, but they're not initiated.
12:19: That's why I like the word uninitiated.
12:21: So Paul's addressing the uninitiated and the unbeliever.
12:30: They've entered the assembly.
12:31: That's an important word here.
12:32: If you look back at the passage, it says, But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an uninitiated, an outsider, enters.
12:41: That's key to me, because I think oftentimes we get the wrong picture of the first century church.
12:45: I think we get, especially today, with the rise in house churches, and the rise in the idea of house churches, people think any time there was a gathering of people, that was a church.
12:55: No, churches had structure from the beginning.
12:57: In fact, I read that the other day.
12:58: Somebody put on Facebook.
12:59: It says, A church is just a gathering of people who believe in Jesus.
13:02: That's not true.
13:05: A church has structure, and it's had structure from the beginning.
13:09: And I don't mean structure by four walls and a roof.
13:12: But you'd be amazed how early that came.
13:15: Yeah, they were meeting in houses, but it was very soon that they began to meet in facilities.
13:19: And in fact, if you remember what Paul did when he was at the Hall of Tyrannus, he had taken that hall as a place to teach.
13:28: It was the first seminary, in a sense, where he would teach daily the Scriptures.
13:34: In a hall, not a house.
13:37: And so the idea that the house church is the model is, take a step back.
13:42: The model is Christ is the head.
13:45: The elders give oversight with the word of God.
13:48: The deacons minister, and the people serve with their gifts within the church.
13:51: And there's oversight, and there's authority in the church.
13:53: That's the model.
13:54: People say, well, we don't need elders in our church.
13:56: Then you don't have a church.
13:58: We don't need deacons in our church.
13:59: Well, your church is not functioning properly.
14:01: We don't take communion in our church.
14:02: Then your church is not a church.
14:05: Call it what you want.
14:06: It's a glorified Bible study.
14:09: I ain't trying to be ugly, but that is the truth.
14:15: The church has been given structure from the beginning.
14:17: So Paul says when they enter, he's making a distinction between the church and the world.
14:24: They've gone out of the world, and they've entered the body, the assembly.
14:30: And whether they're meeting in a hall or a home, it was a church.
14:35: And when they enter, he doesn't tell us why.
14:37: That's another thing I think is interesting about this passage as I was reading it.
14:40: He doesn't tell us why they came.
14:43: He only says they came.
14:45: And we can assume why.
14:46: Maybe they had an invitation.
14:50: Maybe somebody brought them with.
14:53: Maybe they were walking by and they saw a group of people going into a room and said, I wonder what's going on there.
14:58: Maybe they've come to spy out the believers.
15:00: It doesn't say why they're there.
15:02: It just says there's unbelievers and there's common folk or people who don't know, and they've come.
15:10: And what this indicates to me as I was studying it, I said, you know what's funny, is even in the first century, because by the way, this is written probably in the 50s, meaning like the real 50s, not the 1950s, but the real 50s.
15:22: That probably means that the church was welcoming unbelievers.
15:32: They wanted them to come hear the word.
15:35: It wasn't a secret society that was closed off from the world that you've got to have your hand stamped before you can come in.
15:42: No, come and hear.
15:45: And it's okay, we want you to.
15:48: And so he says they enter.
15:50: Why do they enter? Because they're welcome.
15:53: You say, why are you making such a big deal about that? Do we make unbelievers feel welcome here? We should make them feel like they're welcome here.
16:01: Now, I'm going to talk in a minute, and I'm going to say this, and this is part of the sermon today.
16:04: We're not going to tailor our worship around them, but we are going to welcome them when they come to hear the gospel.
16:11: So that's the point.
16:12: When they enter, why have they entered? Because they're welcome to enter.
16:17: And Paul's making that point.
16:21: And why is it essential that they receive a message that they can understand? Paul gives us four reasons.
16:25: One, so they'll be called to account.
16:27: Two, so that the secrets of their hearts will be disclosed.
16:30: Three, so that they'll be convicted.
16:33: And four, they may be converted.
16:35: That's why we welcome them in.
16:37: So we can preach to them, and by God's grace, they might get converted.
16:44: I want to quote Gordon Fee, he's a commentator.
16:47: This is what he says about this passage.
16:48: He says, You say, what's he talking about there? I can't tell you how many times I've been preaching.
17:20: I go back to the back, somebody walks up to me and whispers in my ear, you were talking to me.
17:25: How did you know? I don't know how I knew.
17:28: I didn't know anything.
17:31: And I didn't know it was you.
17:32: Now I do, but I didn't know before.
17:35: But you come and you hear the word of God, and it pierces your heart.
17:40: Even the believer gets pierced to the heart, dividing.
17:46: That's what the Hebrew says, it divides.
17:49: Even down to bone and muscle and tissue.
17:52: And all of those things, right down the center.
17:55: That's the work of the Holy Spirit of God.
17:58: And God does that for believers, praise God.
18:00: And He does that for unbelievers.
18:02: And that's how He changes their heart.
18:05: By cutting it in half.
18:10: You cannot hide from God.
18:14: That's the blessing of this.
18:15: You can't hide.
18:18: And I'm not preaching to any one person, I never have.
18:22: But if the word of God pierces your heart, it's the word of God doing it, not me.
18:27: It's the Holy Spirit of God opening you up, laying you bare, and letting you hear what you need to hear.
18:31: That's not me.
18:35: So Paul indicates, when an unbeliever comes in, that conviction can accompany their visit.
18:46: And that's what we should want to see.
18:48: We should want to see the unbeliever come to Christ.
18:53: And if it happens in the midst of our assembly, all praise to God.
18:58: If somebody falls on their knees in the middle of the service and cries out for forgiveness, praise God.
19:04: We shouldn't say, oh no, that's not here.
19:06: We do evangelism out there, go outside.
19:09: I don't think anybody should be so foolish as to say that.
19:11: But really, we think of evangelism as what happens out there, and worship is what happens in here.
19:16: And that's true as far as it goes.
19:18: We should be going out and we should be sharing the gospel as we go, where we go, when we go.
19:24: But if an unbeliever just happens upon us, we ought not say, I can't do it here.
19:30: Here's where it's got to happen too.
19:31: We've got to preach the gospel here and there.
19:34: You know, Martin Luther said this, and I think I was going to mention this in the next part of the sermon, but I'll say it today.
19:38: Martin Luther said this.
19:39: He said, I preach the gospel every week because every week people forget.
19:44: I preach the gospel every week because every week they forget.
19:50: If you ever get tired of hearing the gospel, that's something about your heart that's not right.
19:55: And I'm not being ugly or trying to hurt you, but if you get tired of hearing the gospel, there's something wrong with that.
20:02: Unbelievers ought to be welcomed, and God uses the proclamation of his word to convict and convert, and that should be a desire of our heart.
20:11: Now, having said that, I want to now move to where it's going to be two parts.
20:17: That was my introduction to understanding the text and bringing us to an application.
20:22: Because, as I said, there's two parts to the application of this.
20:25: One, the danger of focusing everything on the unbeliever.
20:27: And part two is the danger of not considering the unbeliever.
20:32: And just for a preview of that part, we're going to talk next week about five different types of unbelievers that show up among us every week.
20:40: Five different types of unbelievers that show up every week.
20:44: One of them is our kids.
20:46: We're going to talk more about that next week, though.
20:49: But there's at least five different types of people that show up every week that are unbelievers, if you can imagine.
20:54: So that's next week.
20:55: But today we're going to talk about this.
20:57: The danger of focusing our worship around the unbeliever.
21:03: Would you agree with me that many churches today tailor their worship to attract the unbeliever? Would you agree with that? I didn't think you would argue with me.
21:16: And as I was thinking about this message, I began to think about when I was younger, and I am getting older now, but when I was younger, I remember a common phrase that was among the churches.
21:29: And those of you who have been in church for a long time, you'll remember this.
21:31: It was called the Seeker Sensitive Movement.
21:37: And it had its heyday with Rick Warren and the Purpose Driven Church and Willow Creek.
21:43: If you've never heard of the Willow Creek, I heard this one pastor one time.
21:47: He said, we follow the will of God, not the Willow Creek.
21:49: But Willow Creek had a model that was designed after trying to reach the lost, or what they called the unchurched.
22:01: But in reaching the unchurched, which I'm all for reaching the lost, but in reaching the unchurched, the model was, let's make our worship services look like what the lost would want, and what the lost would expect, and therefore we'll win them by looking like them.
22:20: And then, of course, they used the passage where Paul says, as a Jew, I became a Jew, and as one who's not under the law, I became as not one under the law.
22:27: I became all things to all men, so as to win some.
22:30: And so they used that passage to argue, well, that means our worship services should look like a concert.
22:37: Our worship should be performance-based.
22:40: Our preaching should be self-help, model, guru-type, 15-minute little pep talk.
22:48: You're okay, I'm okay in that.
22:49: You're not okay, I'm not okay, and that's okay, type message.
22:54: In fact, I want to read a quote.
22:58: This is from a particular site I frequent, and it talks about what a seeker-sensitive church definition.
23:05: Quote, Expertly run nurseries, daycare, adult daycare, community programs such as ESL, English as Second Language, and much more are common fixtures in the larger seeker churches.
23:19: Short sermons, typically 20 minutes at the most, are usually focused on self-improvement.
23:24: Supporters of this movement will say that the single reason behind all the expense and the state-of-the-art gear and the theatrics is to reach the unsaved with the gospel.
23:33: However, rarely are sin, hell, or repentance spoken of, and Jesus, as the exclusive way to heaven, is rarely mentioned.
23:40: Such doctrines are considered divisive, and the seeker-sensitive church movement has pioneered a new method for founding churches involving demographic studies and community surveys that ask the unsaved, what do you want in a church? So the seeker-sensitive movement rests on this formula.
24:00: Find out what unbelievers want and give it to them.
24:04: Find out what unbelievers want and do that.
24:16: Often the question arises, well, what's wrong with that? We want people, and so because we want people, we should do whatever it takes to get people.
24:24: And if changing our style appeals to the lost, isn't that worth it? But here's the problem, beloved.
24:32: It's not about style.
24:35: It's a change of substance.
24:38: Because if all it was was painting the walls, which we're going to paint the walls eventually.
24:43: We've got a master painter right there.
24:44: We're going to paint the walls.
24:46: We can do some nice things.
24:47: We can expand the chancel out, make it look a little nicer in here.
24:49: We can put some nice whatever up.
24:52: I'm not opposed to making the building look nice, just so you understand.
24:57: That's not the point.
24:59: The point is substantively, by the substance we don't want to change.
25:05: Excuse me, I got a little off there.
25:08: Let me quote another.
25:09: This is from Little Church Went to the Market.
25:12: This is a book by Pastor Gary Gilley.
25:15: And he notes that professional marketing journal American Demographics recognizes that people are into spirituality but not religion.
25:22: Behind this shift is the search for an experiential faith, a religion of the heart, not of the head.
25:27: It's a religious expression that downplays doctrine and dogma and revels in direct experience of the divine, whether it's called the Holy Spirit, the cosmic conscience, or the true self.
25:37: It's practical and personal, more about stress reduction than salvation, more about therapeutic than theological, and it's about feeling good, not being good.
25:44: It's as much about the body as it is about the soul, and some marketing gurus have begun to call it the experience industry.
25:51: It's the experience industry.
25:53: We do everything we do to try to create an experience.
25:59: In fact, that's the language today.
26:01: Come to our worship experience.
26:05: It's not a service.
26:07: It's an experience.
26:08: Six flags over Jesus.
26:12: It's like Jim Boyce said.
26:13: He said, it's doing the Lord's work in the world's way.
26:20: And here's the point.
26:22: The most dangerous theological error in all of this is in the very language that's being used.
26:27: Because if you tell me that we are seeker-sensitive, I'm going to respond to you and say, who in the world is seeking God? I don't know what I'm getting, but I'm getting something.
26:40: Can we turn the gain down? It's on my microphone? It's okay.
26:49: Don't worry about it.
26:50: It's not my microphone.
26:51: Then I just turn my microphone off.
27:02: Just turn the board off.
27:06: Go turn the amp off, somebody.
27:09: Christy, now turn the amp off.
27:12: Don't worry about that.
27:25: Maybe somehow this is a message.
27:28: Maybe we do need to modernize a little bit.
27:34: We'll turn it back on before we do the last song.
27:36: Hopefully we'll stop doing that.
27:40: But getting back to what I was saying, the first and foremost theological error is the idea that there are those people...
27:46: Can you still hear me? Amen.
27:48: Because I want to make sure that my voice usually carries.
27:57: He's not wrong.
28:02: Everybody in your Bibles, turn to Romans 1.
28:06: And then turn to Romans 3, because I was wrong.
28:08: Turn to Romans 3.
28:10: I said Romans 1.
28:10: I meant Romans 3.
28:15: Now you all know this.
28:16: Especially if you're Reformed, you know this passage.
28:18: But I like to point it out.
28:20: Anytime somebody tells me that we're going to be seeker-sensitive, or we need to be seeker-sensitive, I take them to Romans 3, and I show them something, because it's very important.
28:34: Paul has just spent the last two chapters explaining why men are all sinful, whether they be Jew or Gentile.
28:39: And now in verse 9, he says, No, not at all.
28:47: That's his point.
28:48: All Jews and Greeks are under sin.
28:50: Jews don't get off just because they have the law.
28:52: In fact, they're worse off because they have the law, because the law condemns them.
28:55: But the Gentiles don't get off for not having the law, because they have the conscience, which tells them their law is in the heart, and they know they've broken the law too.
29:02: So everybody's a sinner.
29:03: Now he goes on to say, How many is righteous? None, not one.
29:09: That's good.
29:10: That you understand.
29:11: No one understands.
29:13: No one seeks for God.
29:19: Now we can go on, but I just want to stop there for a second and ask you, how many seek for God? According to this passage, which is what we call the universal negative, no one seeks for God.
29:32: And you say, well, what is the universal negative, Pastor? When you say someone doesn't seek for God, that's not universal.
29:39: But when you say no one does, and some of you have heard me use this illustration, if I walk outside and I say, no one can ride a bicycle, and I see a little kid, ride by on his bicycle, I am absolutely proven wrong, even if it's just one.
29:54: One person riding a bicycle would prove me wrong, because I said no one can.
30:02: That's universal negativity, or the use of the universal negative.
30:07: So when the Bible says, no one seeks for God, and I turn around and I say, well, I'm going to center my service around God-seekers.
30:16: I mean, really? We're going to seek the seeker.
30:27: Wait a minute.
30:27: Who's the seeker? According to Scripture, God's the seeker.
30:31: According to Scripture, Jesus came to seek and save the lost.
30:36: So if we're going to try to please a seeker, what seeker should we try to please? God.
30:41: He is the one who seeks.
30:43: And He is the one who is the seeker.
30:49: And I know the argument, and I can hear it palpitating in your heart.
30:54: It's just palpitating, just ready to go.
30:56: I know unbelievers who are seeking for God.
31:00: I've heard it.
31:03: Let me respond by saying this.
31:09: Nope.
31:13: But just in case you need more than just nope, because I stand on the text and say nope.
31:18: But just in case you need more than the nope, I will agree with Thomas Aquinas, who said this, 14th century scholar.
31:30: He said, All men seek for what God only can provide.
31:37: Everybody wants health.
31:39: Everybody wants prosperity.
31:40: And everybody wants to go to heaven.
31:42: And they know they're the only one who can look to for that is God.
31:46: Everybody wants God's blessing.
31:49: That's not the same as wanting God.
31:52: Everyone seeks the blessing of God.
31:54: No one wants the being of God.
31:56: No one wants the God who judges sin.
31:58: No one wants the God who created hell.
31:59: No one wants the God who calls us to holiness.
32:02: Therefore, in a church, which is seeking to appeal to unbelievers, these truths are often subverted or simply denied outrightly.
32:12: And in fact, I would say this.
32:13: The vast majority of seeker churches end up in some way or form or fashion becoming prosperity driven, because that's what the people are really seeking.
32:21: Health, wealth, and happiness.
32:27: It's essential to remember that when people tailor their worship to the unbeliever, they're focused on the wrong audience.
32:35: Who is the audience of worship? God.
32:40: God.
32:41: You are not here to listen.
32:44: You are here to participate in worshiping God.
32:48: That's this place and what it's for.
32:52: God is the audience.
32:53: He's our audience of one, as many have said.
32:55: We have one in our audience, and it's God.
32:57: That's why we don't clap when we're done singing.
33:01: Even when somebody sings a special.
33:04: We don't clap because it's not a performance.
33:12: It's why you say amen when I preach.
33:14: You don't clap.
33:15: Amen says I agree with you.
33:18: I'm not a stand-up comic waiting for your laughs.
33:22: I do want you to agree with what I say, though.
33:27: Somebody asked the question, well, don't we want the unbeliever to feel comfortable? Yes, but not...
33:31: Let me say this.
33:32: If what you mean by that is we want to provide an environment where the unbeliever is welcome to come, they hear the word, and they're aided in their understanding, then yes, we want them to be comfortable in that regard.
33:43: But if what you mean is that we fundamentally change the service to make it feel like it's not church, then no.
33:52: That kind of thinking leads to all kinds of ungodliness, such as secular pop songs taking the place of spiritual hymns and songs, movie and television clips taking the place of preaching of the word, and an atmosphere of observation rather than participation.
34:09: The internet is filled with videos of churches that have acquiesced to the culture.
34:13: One shows worship beginning with Ozzy Osbourne's crazy train as the call to worship.
34:18: If I'm lying, I'm dying.
34:20: I got the video.
34:23: Another church up in Atlanta had an ode to the Backstreet Boys.
34:28: Five of their very talented young men, and I won't lie, there were five talented guys, did all of the different Backstreet Boys and NSYNC songs in a medley, and that was worship.
34:47: I want to say this, and hopefully you'll understand what I'm saying.
34:49: I do believe there is a sense in which an unbeliever should at least feel a little uncomfortable here, because it shouldn't feel like the world.
34:58: I'm not saying they need to be sitting on a hard seat or being flogged with a stick, but I am saying when they come in it shouldn't feel like normal.
35:06: Because it ain't normal.
35:09: What we're doing is special.
35:11: It's not normal.
35:13: R.C.
35:13: Sproul in his book, The Holiness of God, he talks about holy space and holy time.
35:17: And we can argue about whether or not we understand certain places as being holy, but the reality is what we do here is different than what we do out there.
35:27: This should be different.
35:30: And the more the world tries to make it like out there, the less special it is.
35:44: And in many churches the concern for the unbeliever has encapsulated the concern for the believer, and believers in the church are left hanging out to dry.
35:54: You say, Pastor, you're exaggerating.
35:55: Let me quote a few things for you.
35:57: This is from a very famous pastor.
36:01: He's a young man, and he now has one of the largest churches.
36:06: I do believe it's the largest church in the SBC.
36:09: And here's a quote that he said.
36:12: If you know Jesus, this church is no longer for you.
36:17: That's a direct, if you know Jesus, this church is no longer for you.
36:22: He goes on to say this.
36:24: We don't teach from books of the Bible because it gets in the way of evangelism.
36:29: We don't offer different kinds of Bible studies because it gets in the way of evangelism.
36:33: We don't teach doctrine because it gets in the way of evangelism.
36:36: If you want to be fed God's Word or have the Bible explained to you, then you are a fat, lazy Christian, and you need to shut up and get to work, or you need to leave this church because we only do evangelism.
36:50: End quote.
36:51: That's a direct quote.
36:52: I saw him say it.
36:59: We don't study the Bible.
37:01: We don't go deeper.
37:02: And if you want to, you're fat and lazy and you need to leave.
37:14: Translation, the focus of this church is unbelievers.
37:18: The focus of our worship is appealing to unbelievers.
37:31: G.A.
37:32: Pritchard, in his book, Willow Creek Seeker Services, which is an older book, but he wrote on this movement, estimated that the targeted unchurched made up only about 10-15% of the 16,000 or so who attended the weekend services.
37:50: He said, what is that talking about? Well, this was the issue that he wrote about in the book.
37:54: He said, they say they're reaching the lost, but they're really not.
37:57: Only about 10-15% of the people who go to those churches actually are people who are being saved and baptized.
38:02: Most of them are coming out of smaller churches that just can't afford the accouterments that they have.
38:08: And so little churches are dying, and bigger churches are just getting bigger because they offer all of these services.
38:14: And he made a great argument in the book.
38:16: He said, from where then do these megachurches, which have outfitted themselves to accommodate the unchurched, get their members? Mostly from smaller churches that aren't interested in or can't afford fleshly attractions.
38:29: And this has led Andy Stanley, and I do mention his name, Andy Stanley is the son of Charles Stanley, big preacher up in Atlanta.
38:37: Charles has always had, I would say, a pretty decent ministry, but his son has gone way off the rails.
38:42: And one of the things his son has said, because he has one of the largest churches in the world, he says, the little churches just need to close down and all assimilate into the bigger churches.
38:50: In fact, this is what he said in a recent sermon.
38:52: He says, when I hear adults say, well, I don't like big church.
38:55: I like a church of about 200, which to us is still big.
38:57: He said, I want you to know, I say you are stinking selfish.
39:02: You care nothing about the next generation.
39:04: All you care about is you and your five friends.
39:07: You don't care about your kids or anybody else's kids.
39:09: You're like, what's up? I'm saying if you don't go to a church large enough where your kids can have middle schoolers and high schoolers to separate them so you can have small groups and grow up in local church, you are a selfish adult.
39:21: Get over it.
39:22: Find yourself a big church where your kids can connect with a bunch of people and grow up and love the church.
39:31: Small churches are needing to go away and we all need to assimilate in churches where all the kids in middle school can be together in middle school and all the kids in high school can be together in high school and all the elementary kids can have their elementary school.
39:43: And because of a church like ours that doesn't have enough kids to necessarily have a middle school class, we're not loving our children.
39:50: No, we don't bring them into worship with us to love them.
39:53: That's wrong.
39:55: In fact, they would say we're being wrong by bringing our kids into worship with us.
39:58: What a shame.
40:00: What an absolute shame.
40:02: And to his credit, the reason why I said his name, he did come back and apologize later.
40:07: And I do know as a pastor, sometimes we say things out of turn.
40:12: So to his credit, he did come back and apologize later.
40:14: But the point was clear.
40:15: The small church needs to go away.
40:17: We need to assimilate in all these large communities of churches and the satellite churches where one pastor gets piped into four different campuses.
40:24: That's what we need.
40:27: Because we need church on television in a room together.
40:35: Beloved, this kind of thinking has led to all kinds of dangerous motivations and all kinds of dangerous methodologies, but it's all centered around one idea.
40:43: The church is supposed to be focused primarily on the unbeliever.
40:49: And my message for you today, the thing I hope gets through to everyone today is the church is supposed to be focused on Christ.
40:59: It's not supposed to be focused on the believer either, by the way.
41:02: It's supposed to be focused on Christ.
41:05: And we do what we do because it's what Christ has called us to do.
41:10: And if it appeals to the culture, we're probably doing it wrong.
41:18: Because the Bible clearly says that the natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit of God.
41:30: Dr.
41:30: James White says this, What you win people with is what you win people to.
41:38: As a result, if you win a person with a party, they've been won to the party.
41:45: And when the party's over, that's as long as they last.
41:51: What you win people with is what you win people to.
41:55: I tell you, that's been my philosophy for a long time in this ministry, and I believe it's shared by my other elders.
42:00: That's our philosophy.
42:01: We're going to preach the gospel and let God save who He's going to save.
42:03: But that's probably going to keep us small.
42:07: At least in the sense of the type of growth that we see in churches that are expanding exponentially.
42:16: But I will tell you this, if a person is won by the gospel, they are won to Christ.
42:21: And not to me, and not to you, and not to this building, and not to this ministry, but to Christ.
42:28: And that is what we seek to win people to.
42:32: He is who we seek to win people to.
42:35: Churches that make unbelievers the focus of worship have a terrible imbalance.
42:40: And here's the danger.
42:41: I want you to turn one place, one final verse, and this will draw us to a close.
42:45: Turn to Leviticus chapter 10.
42:53: Leviticus chapter 10.
43:07: Beginning at verse 1, it says this, It's now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, and laid incense on it, and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord.
43:30: And if you have your ESV, you'll notice there's a number next to unauthorized, and down at the bottom it says strange.
43:38: Offered strange fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them.
43:46: And fire came out from before the Lord, and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.
43:57: Then Moses said to Aaron, This is what the Lord has said, Among those who draw near to me, or who are near me, I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.
44:15: And Aaron held his peace.
44:20: Now I could spend another half hour talking about how a father just watched his sons literally get torched before his eyes, and yet he held his peace.
44:31: But I won't go there.
44:34: I want to just think about that word unauthorized.
44:39: What are we to do in worship? We are to do that which God commands and nothing more.
44:51: We are not to become the creators of new worship.
44:58: But we worship in spirit and truth according to the word of God.
45:03: Nadab and Abihu brought something to the Lord that he did not command.
45:10: And God said, I don't want it.
45:19: Worship is not a place to play.
45:22: Worship is not a place to figure out what I can come up with.
45:29: Worship is where we focus on the word.
45:32: And we don't let unbelievers say, Well, I like Ozzie, or I like Six Flags, because that's not what it's about.
45:41: If it pleases God, we do it.
45:43: And if it pleases not God, it matters not whom it pleases.
45:49: Let's pray.
45:52: Father, I thank you for your word.
45:54: I thank you that you have called us to worship you in spirit and in truth.
45:59: And I thank you that you have given us the opportunity to hear again your truth.
46:03: And I pray, Lord, again, that what that which is true that you'd write on our hearts, that which is false, Lord, if I've said anything wrong, that one, you'd correct my heart, but also that you'd wipe it from our minds.
46:13: Wipe it from their minds, Lord.
46:15: Sanctify them in your truth.
46:17: Your word is the truth.
46:19: And your word does tell us we should welcome the unbeliever.
46:21: We should preach the gospel to the unbeliever.
46:23: We should know that every time we gather, there are unbelievers here.
46:27: But Lord, we should never center everything around them, but we should center everything around you.
46:31: For you are our God.
46:33: And there is no other.
46:35: You are our audience of one.
46:37: There is no other audience that we should focus upon.
46:40: You are to whom we sing.
46:41: You are to whom we pray.
46:43: You are to whom we share in fellowship.
46:45: And you are to whom we worship.
46:48: For you are God.
46:50: And there is no other.
46:53: In Christ's name.
46:55: Amen.