Spirit Empowered Local Church

The Church’s True Marks and the Authority of Scripture

I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to 2 Timothy 3, and find your place at verse 16. And as is the tradition in my church, I don't know what it is here, but in our church we stand for the reading of God's Word,.

So I would invite you to stand, and we are going to read verses 16 and 17.

And I'll be reading from the English Standard Version of the Bible. All Scripture is breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Father in heaven, I ask even now, as I know my brother has already prayed, I want to pray again. First and foremost, Lord, as I pray every time I stand behind your pulpit and preach your Word, that you would keep me from error.

For Lord God, I know that I am a fallible man. I know of my own failures. And I pray, God, that you would keep me from error for the sake of your name, and for the sake of your people, and for the sake of my own conscience.

I pray, Lord, as we look today at the Spirit-empowered local church, that we would think about each of those words, what it means for the Spirit to be empowering the local body. And Lord God, as we seek to see that this empowerment comes through the preached Word of God, and through the application of that Word, I pray, Lord, that again, we would have our hearts and minds attuned.

To what your Word says.

And I pray, Lord, for everyone in this room, I pray for the believer, God, that they would be edified by the Word, that they would be instructed and do all the things that this text says the Word will do, rebuke, reprove, correct, and train.

And Lord, for the unbeliever that is here today, I pray, God, if there be a man or woman or child today who has not bowed the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ, that today they might see Him as glorious and wonderful and beautiful, and see His Word as the light unto their feet and the lamp unto their path.

And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I know that not everyone here has been with us for the past few days of the conference. And this conference, which began on Friday, had the purpose of proclaiming, as Brother Claude already said, the work of the Holy Spirit in the church.

And brothers have been preaching various aspects of that reality. And Pastor John yesterday said, well, you're the last one up, that means everybody's already said what you're going to say, or something to that effect, like people have already said everything.

Well, that's true, but I have the benefit of knowing that some of you weren't here. So I can repeat it and you won't know it. There is a historical debate in the church. And the historical debate is the debate over which church is the true church.

Which church is the true church? Rome believes that it is the true church, and they make this claim based on the papacy. They say because they have an unbroken line, according to them, I don't agree, but we'll allow them to speak.

They'll say because they have an unbroken line of apostolic succession, going back to Peter, that they have the right to claim that they have the true church. They have what's known as the cathedra petri, the seat of Peter.

And they say as long as they have Peter's successor sitting on that seat, that they have the true church. Well, the Eastern church, which split from the Western church, what we might call today the Orthodox church, they split in the great schism that was in the middle part of the 10th or the 11th century, 1054.

And that break that happened created a divide. And they would say, no, we are the true church. It is we who have apostolic succession. We're the ones that go back to the apostles. And so this great divide within the body of Christ between the East and the West has stood now for over a thousand years, both claiming to be the true church.

Then you meet some fundamental Baptists. I'm a Baptist. But there are some fundamental Baptists who will say, no, neither Rome nor the Orthodox. But we go back. We have always been the persecuted minority.

We have always been those who are on the outside. And if you never heard this particular brand of Baptist theology, it's called the trail of blood. And they argue that their church goes back to the original.

And some of them even say back to John the Baptist, the original Baptist. Well, he weren't like y 'all. Just or me. He was not that kind of Baptist. But that's the claim. The claim is always who is the true church.

We know one thing from Scripture. There are false churches. You read the book of Revelation and you see in the book of Revelation the reference to the synagogue of Satan. And the synagogue of Satan can certainly be seen throughout our land and throughout the world.

Those who that are not true churches. Those that do not proclaim the word of God. Those that pervert the word of God. Those that mistreat the word of God and God's people. Certainly false churches exist.

But that doesn't answer the question, who is the true church? The reformers thought much differently when it came to the question of the true church. In fact, one could argue that they were less concerned about who was the true church and rather more concerned with what constitutes a true church.

Rather than saying my church or your church or this church or that church is the true church. The question is, is the church that you are a part of a true church? And so they came to the conclusion that there were three marks of a true church.

And those three marks of a true church should be identified in every church that claims itself to be part of the body of Christ. First mark of a true church was that a true church must preach God's word.

The second mark of a true church, a true church must properly administer, and this word might get you Baptist, sacraments. We could call them ordinances, call them what you want. If you ain't baptizing and if you're not having the Lord's Supper together, then you're not a church.

That's what they were saying. If we're not administering the ordinances, if we're not doing that, then we're not a church. And the third aspect, and this one's going to, this will hit you for a loop when you hear this one.

If you never heard these three, they said, you got to preach the word of God. You got to administer the sacraments and you must exercise discipline within the body. For if sin is allowed to go unchecked, if sin is allowed to go rampant within the church, it is a cancer that will kill the church.

So they said any church that does not preach the word that does not administer the sacraments and does not practice discipline within itself is not a true church. Now, again, that's not my words, that's their words.

You can argue with them, but I want to today in my message, as we're talking about the spirit empowered local church, I want to talk specifically about the first of their three marks. We can talk about sacraments and discipline another day.

Maybe brother Claude will have me back. But today we're going to talk about the first mark of a true church. And that is the preaching of the word. I agree with all three of them, but I want to expand on this first one because I believe and will argue that if you do not have a church which is proclaiming the word of God, you do not have a spirit empowered church.

That's the simple thesis of my message. We can go have lunch because that's really it. All of what I'm going to say from now to the end of the sermon is going to build on that idea. If your church is not proclaiming the word of God, you do not have a spirit empowered church.

That's where it starts. That's where it must start. So with that, we have chosen, or I've chosen today, the seminal text for what the word of God is in our Bible. The Bible defines itself by its own terms.

And so we're going to look today at 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, which we have already read. And we're going to seek to get an understanding of it. And I'm going to seek to hopefully provide to you some understandings of this that may go beyond what you've seen before.

Hopefully doesn't change anything because I know you've been taught the truth by your pastor, but maybe add some thoughts that we haven't considered before. Most importantly among them, again, is that when we consider the word of God as the foundation of everything that we do, that is the beginning of being a spirit empowered local church.

So 2 Timothy 3, 16, let's talk a little bit about the text. This is not a pure exposition because I'm not preaching verse by verse as I would normally in my church, but I still want to make sure that we understand the context of the passage and how it's coming to us and from whom.

The book of 2 Timothy is written, of course, by the apostle Paul. The text comes at the end of his last epistle, written to his beloved son in the faith, whose name was Timothy. And it comes right after, we call this the literary context, comes right after Paul tells him in chapter 3, verse 14, he says, continue in what you have learned.

And then it comes right before what he says in chapter 4, verse 2, where he says, preach the word in season and out of season. So he's telling him, continue in what you have learned. And then he's saying, preach the word.

And right in between those two admonitions, he has this statement about what the word of God is. And he says that the word of God is breathed out. The scripture is breathed out by God. Now, this comes in the historical context of what we call a pastoral epistle.

Timothy, again, was a pastor, protege, son in the faith of the apostle Paul. And Timothy was receiving from Paul these letters to help him understand how the church was supposed to function, how the church was supposed to be structured, and how the church was supposed to operate in the world.

That's why we call 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus the pastoral epistles, because they are written to pastors, for pastors, for the purpose of helping them understand how to structure and minister within the local church.

And again, this passage stands out, chapter 3, verse 16 and 17 stands out as a key text in regard to the foundation for the local church. And this text has come down through the ages to become one of the most important passages for teaching a doctrine, and the doctrine is called the doctrine of inspiration.

You've all heard of the doctrine of inspiration? The doctrine of inspiration is that God's word, the scriptures are God's word, they come from Him. And it actually comes from the primary word in this text, which is the word theanostos.

And it's a combination of words, the combination of the word theos, which means God, and panuma, which means breath or spirit. And so the word combined, and it's only used once in the Bible, it's one of those words, it's called a hapoxlegomena, I mean, it's the only time it's ever used.

And so that word has to be interpreted according to how it's being used in context, because you can't go to other places and see it used somewhere else and kind of find out how it was used. It's only used once.

And I'm of the opinion, I think Paul invented it. Paul liked to make up words. And I think Paul took the word God, and he took the word panuma, which you know that word because you use it in English, we use the word pneumatic.

You ever wonder why pneumatic starts with a P, but you don't say pneumatic? Well, the reason why is because it comes from Greek. Pneumatic means air driven, like a pneumatic tool or a pneumatic cylinder.

So air is where we get the word, or air is what pneumatic means. And so when it says theopneustos, or if you hear some guy say theopneustos, they'll add the P, pop that P. They'll say theopneustos, and it simply means that it was breathed out by God.

And so the ESV, I think, translates it very well. It says all scripture is breathed out by God. It's literally what the text is saying. And if you're using a King James Bible, the King James Bible says all scripture is given by inspiration of God.

And that actually comes out of the Latin. The Latin word inspire is where the King James translators get that English word and pull it into the English and use that word. And essentially what we find there is we find the idea of the source of it.

The source of scripture is that it is from God. The source of scripture is that it is from the mouth of God. I use this illustration with my church sometimes. I say, you know, people will talk about the word of God and they'll say, well, this is not God speaking.

This is just words on a page. I want to hear God speak. And I say, well, if I get up in the morning and my kids are still asleep and I'm heading out for the day and I write a note to my daughter and I say, hey, here's what you need to do for the day.

And I leave that note next to her bedside and I go on to work. When she wakes up and she reads that letter, she's reading my word. And if she chooses to disobey that letter or disregard that letter, guess who she's disregarding and disobeying?

She's disregarding me because I wrote that. And people will argue, well, God didn't write this. Peter wrote this and God didn't write this.

Paul wrote this.

Yeah, but if we go over to Peter's writings, he says holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. You see, inspiration, the doctrine of inspiration is the doctrine that says the Holy Spirit of God is the author of this book.

That's what we're saying.

The Holy Spirit of God is the one who gave us this book. And so when we talk about the scriptures, it is not inappropriate to say this is the word of God. Even though I might say Paul wrote this or Timothy wrote this or not Timothy, but Peter wrote this or whomever.

I'm saying those men were used by God as the mediums of that particular writing. But God himself is the one who gave us what he wanted us to have. And let me back up a second, because I said mediums, that sounds kind of too spiritual.

They were the instruments. I don't want you to think any kind of like automatic reading, some kind of Indiana Jones type stuff. That ain't what happened. And it's interesting and I don't wanna get too far away because I do got somewhere I'm going.

But the doctrine of inspiration, I could spend all day just talking about it because we have such an interesting reality that when you read Paul's writings, you know it's Paul. When you read Mark, you know it's Mark.

When you read Matthew, you know it's Matthew because God didn't divorce these men from their individual styles, neither from their individual use of vocabulary. Paul has a very unique vocabulary as opposed to Luke who had a different vocabulary.

And we're able to see the way that these words are used. Paul makes up words, like I said before, we see all kinds of stuff in the scripture that's unique to these men, but God is the superintendent of this word.

Years ago, I started using that because when people say, what do you mean when you say this is God's word? I say, God superintended this word. God ensured that this word was his word and not merely the words of men.

And so with that being said, I wanna now make three points from this text regarding a spirit-empowered church. Now that we know what this text, where it is in the text, what it's talking about, what the focus of it is, I now wanna draw out three specific points from this text regarding a spirit-empowered church.

I'll give them to you now. I know some of you may be taking notes.

If you are, I'll give them to you.

And then we'll go back and walk through them. A spirit-empowered church, number one, submits to the authority of God's word. Number two, a spirit-empowered church ordains biblically competent men. You might think that one's a departure, but it ain't and I'm gonna show you why.

Number three, a biblically functioning, I'm sorry, a spirit-empowered church equips the saints for the work of ministry. That's what a spirit-empowered church looks like. It submits to the authority of God's word, it ordains biblically competent men and it equips the saints for the work of ministry.

So now let's look at each one of those as we unpack it out of the text. Number one, it submits to the authority of God's word. When Paul calls scripture theanoustos, he is calling the church to submission to that theanoustos word.

He is calling us to not only believe it, but to do what it says. Because this is God's word, there can be no higher authority. Put that in your mind for just a moment. Because remember I mentioned earlier about all these groups that call themselves the true church.

One of the big issues when you conversate with someone from a Roman Catholic background or you have a conversation with an Eastern Orthodox person or whatever, it will always fall to the question of authority.

The reformers said sola scriptura, which was Latin for the scripture alone is the sole infallible rule for faith and practice in the church. It's the only infallible rule. There are other traditions and there are history and we can study all that.

But there is nothing that is on par with the word of God. Nothing can compare to the word of God in authority and nothing stands beside it in way of power and might and truth in the church. No tradition, no person, no pope, no priest, no pastor stands beside the word of God.

Every single one of us are under the word of God and the word of God is the authority. A church which does not submit to God's word is a church that does not submit to God. And when we place our traditions beside the word of God or heaven forbid above the word of God, then we have done the very thing that Jesus condemned the Pharisees for when he says you take your traditions and you teach them as doctrine.

A spirit empowered church cannot be a church which disregards the word of God. It cannot be a church which puts other things on par with the word of God. Years ago I wrote a book and the book was entitled The Biblically Functioning Church.

In fact, one of my former elders is here with us today. Brother Byron is here. I'm thankful him and his family came and he served with me when we went through a very difficult time at our church and it was out of that that I preached a series of messages on what elders do and what deacons do and how the church is supposed to function, how the word of God is supposed to operate as the authority in the church and how Christ leads his church through the word of God and those sermons ultimately became the book.

But the reason why I bring it up today is because that term, it became part of the DNA of our church. Biblically Functioning Church.

It ain't pretty.

It ain't a fancy phrase. It ain't nine marks to a healthy church. That was much better as far as titles go. But what it did was it identified what we wanted to be as a church. We wanted to be a church that functioned in one way according to the Bible.

We wanted to be a church which was a Biblically Functioning Church. The spirit of God is the author of scripture. Therefore, we wanted to be a spirit-empowered church by being a Biblically Functioning Church.

We wanted the scripture to be the primary voice within the church that everything else had to be compared to. We wanted the scripture to be the standard that everything had to be standardized against.

The norm of norms, as the reformers would say. They said that there is no norm greater than the scripture. It's the norm of norms against which everything else is normed. That's a weird sounding phrase, but basically it means it's the standard of standards.

And every other thing that we do must be standardized against it. It's the rule. It's the canon. That's what the word canon means, a standard. It is the standard. And you might think to yourself, and I think sometimes we do naively think, that there are churches out there, or that there are no churches out there that disregard the Bible.

May I tell you there are. There are churches out there that outright disregard the Bible. In fact, in 2 Timothy chapter 4, Paul tells Timothy that's going to happen. If you just look over just for a moment into chapter 4, he says in verse 3, for the time is coming when people will not endorse sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

Beloved, doesn't that sound like Paul had a vision of 2024 church? That he could look into the internet today and look into the televisions and radios today and see exactly what we see, people who will not endure sound teaching.

Brother Claude, after each of the messages, that's sound doctrine. Well, you can't say that in every church, could you? You might have to say, I got to go. And what's sad is it don't normally come all at once.

Most churches don't go crazy overnight. It takes a steady decline. And you know what's funny is if you go back and read Charles Spurgeon, you'll know in his writings, he was talking at that time about the downgrade controversy.

They were seeing the downgrade 200 years ago in the churches. Well, that downgrade continued. Every major Protestant denomination has within it churches that absolutely disregard the Bible, don't believe it, don't apply it, mistreat it, misuse it, mishandle it.

And we know it because I mean, we got some great Presbyterian brothers. Brother Dan was here yesterday, preached the word of God powerfully. But he ain't part of PCUSA. More letters you get, more trouble you get.

No, I'm just kidding.

No, it's the PCUSA has gone a different direction. And, you know, you look at the United Methodist Church and all the things that are happening there. And again, I'm not up here trying to bully, pulpit nobody or beat nobody up.

But, you know, part of how I've met a lot of people is I make little videos where I make fun of denominations. Most of what I say ain't too far off. In fact, some of it's me pulling back a little because I can't even talk.

Some of the crazy stuff that these people do. They disregard the word of God. And when the Bible is disregarded, let me tell you two things that happen. When the Bible is disregarded, miracles become myths and standards become suggestions.

Miracles become myths and standards become suggestions. Let me give you an example of what I mean by that. John Dominic Crossom is probably one of the most famous liberal teachers of biblical history and theology in the world today.

John Dominic Crossom teaches at churches all across our land and seminaries and other places like that. And if you ask John Dominic Crossom what happened to Jesus when he died on the cross, he will say he was buried in a shallow tomb.

His bones were dug up by dogs and he was eaten by dogs. Now, this is a man who is brought into seminaries to teach. He is brought into churches to teach. There was a church in my town that had him. I got the invitation to come.

I didn't go. I actually wanted to go. Had a whole bag of tomatoes. No, I just... His level of what's known as higher criticism. Higher criticism is where they will take the Bible and they will look at it from the purview of the anti-supernatural worldview that they have.

And they will say, well, this couldn't have happened because these things, the miracles don't really happen. So there was really no parting of the Red Sea. Miracles don't really happen. There wasn't really the feeding of the 5 ,000.

And this is why I say what happens is miracles become myths. You get online, you listen to these teachers who are talking about all the social goodness and wokeism and all that nonsense. You'll hear them proclaim those things.

But then when they get around to Jesus feeding the 5 ,000, that's not about a miracle of Jesus multiplying bread and fish. What that is, was that was a socialist miracle. Jesus talked the ones who had into serving the ones who had not.

And the great miracle of the feeding of the 5 ,000 is the miracle of socialism. Socialism ain't no miracle, y 'all. Sorry, I'm getting a little old now. The reality of it is there are churches which disregard the word of God and they do so boldly.

Beloved, a spirit empowered church will submit to God's word start to finish. That ain't meaning we can't have disagreements. We got men in this room who disagree on the millennium. We got men in this room who disagree maybe on the mode and candidate of baptism and things like that.

But what it does say is when we come around the word of God, we all agree on one thing. This is God's word. I'm imperfect in my interpretation, but it is not imperfect in what it says. It is perfect in every word.

And so it begins with a submission to the word of God. And I say with Martin Luther, if you got a position that differs from mine, you bring me the scripture in plain reason. As he says, if I can be convinced by scripture in plain reason and not by princes and popes who have often contradicted themselves, my heart is captive to the what?

The word of God.

My conscience is captive to the word of God. That's what the man of God must be. He must be a man whose heart is his conscience is captive to the word of God. So and that's again, the spiritually, the spirit empowered church is a church which submits to the authority of God's word.

Biblically Competent Men and the Equipping of the Saints

Number two, the spirit empowered church ordains biblically competent men. Now, this is going to flow all together. It all comes out together because it really is just flowing right out of the same idea because you might think that's a departure, but it's not.

Notice in this text, when we look at 2nd Timothy, notice in this text what the scripture is able to do. It says all scripture is breathed out by God and it is profitable for four things. It's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

The word of God is a powerful tool. In fact, it says in Hebrews that it is sharper than any two-edged sword. So because of what it is, it must be handled correctly. It must be handled competently. In fact, just for a moment, since you're in 2nd Timothy, turn over to chapter two.

Notice what it says in verse 15. Now, if you have a King James Bible, I actually prefer the King James use of the word study here, but in the ESV, it says do your best. The idea is the same, but I just, because I'm a teacher, I like the word study because I tell my students they've got to study and here it is.

But what does it say? It says, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Beloved, if the word can be rightly divided, it can be wrongly divided.

If the word can be handled properly, it can be mishandled. And the word of God mishandled is more dangerous than a firearm in the hand of any psycho. Because what man can do to the flesh is not to be compared to what can be done to the soul by a man who mishandles the word of God.

And therefore, when we consider the man of God, the man of God must be a biblical man. The man of God must be a word of God man, because if he is not, he will not be complete and equipped for every good work.

That word complete, the word harteas there means qualified. It means competent. And how is a man made competent? He's made competent by the word of God. In fact, you don't have to turn there, but if you look at the qualifications in 1 Timothy chapter 3, and you look at the qualifications for what it means to be an elder in God's church, and the word elder and the word pastor and the word bishop all come from the same idea.

They're different words, but they all have the same office in mind. And that is the office of the man who stands behind the pulpit and preaches the word of God is the office of leader in the church. Our church has three pastors, three men who share that office together.

We are all elders. I'm the primary preaching elder, but we all share the role of pastor together. And we all have the same title. We're pastor Keith, pastor Mike, pastor Andy. But if you look at the qualifications, and certainly there are moral qualifications, the moral qualification of being the husband of one wife, the moral qualification of not being a drunkard, not being a violent man, not being an abusive man, all those things are there.

But there's one qualification that sits under the office of elder that does not sit under the office of deacon or any other place in the church. And it is this qualification. He must be apt to teach. The man who qualifies to be God's man, standing behind God's pulpit, preaching God's word is a man who must be gifted to teach and preach that word.

So what that means is it's not a position for every person. And that does not elevate one or put one in a position of saying, I'm greater than you. Paul destroys that in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. When he says, the hand can't say to the foot, I have no need of you.

The eye can't say to the ear, I have no need of you. No one can look at another and say, because I'm gifted differently than you, that makes me more valuable in God's church than you. That's not the way it works.

But what it does say is that God has set aside certain men, and by the way, it's men, say amen. It's men, because here's the thing, the pulpits in this land are filled with unqualified men and unqualifiable women.

Unqualified men don't need to be in the pulpit, and no woman needs to be in the pulpit. You can get mad and you can talk to Claude later. But the reality is this. The reality is this. When we see this text, it tells us in 1 Timothy 3, he must be apt to teach.

He must have that ability. He must have that ordained of God competency. And we live in a land, as I said, of men who are unqualified. And I won't say this. It has nothing to do with their outfits or their haircuts.

Even if they're wearing big pink sweaters and tight pants, might look foolish, but that don't make them unqualified. What makes them unqualified is how they handle the Word of God. That's what matters most.

You can see a man in an Armani suit who's spitting out nonsense. I did last night. I just, for the sake of knowing I was preaching this morning, I said, you know, I wonder what kind of crazy is going on today.

There's a pastor. I just pulled up social media, just looking. There's a pastor charges $550 for a one-on-one phone call. That's his counseling fee. $550 for a one-on-one phone call. Out in California, Bethel Church is charging $6 ,000 per person for a prophetic two-day conference.

You want to come learn how to prophesy? $6 ,000, two days, and you'll be anointed a prophet. First of all, that's just a lie. God is the one who gives gifts, particularly in regard to that. But think about what is happening around our land.

Think about how the Word of God is being mishandled, mistreated, and the people of God being abused. And as goes the pulpit, so goes the pew. As goes the pulpit, so goes the pew. It will flow out, and it does flow out.

When you have unqualified men preaching the Word of God, I have a hard time believing you have a Spirit-empowered church because the Word of God does not have its way in that church. The Word of God is not being preached in that church.

And in fact, the Word of God is being criminally mishandled in that church. Years ago, Dr. James White wrote a book called Pulpit Crimes.

It is a good book.

Pulpit Crimes was all about what was happening in the vicinity of this sacred desk and the crimes that were flowing forth from here. And, beloved, you do not have a Spirit-empowered church if you have a church where the Word of God is being mishandled, the people of God are being abused, and criminal acts are being done behind the pulpit.

And it is criminal. It's absolutely criminal. If the man of God is not rightly handling the Word of God, it will quench the Spirit of God. So the Spirit-empowered local church, number one, it submits to the authority of God's Word.

Number two, it ordains biblically competent men so that the man of God will be competent. He will be complete. He will be the one who is equipped. But then, out of that flows a third thing. The Spirit-empowered local church equips the saints for the work of ministry.

And this, honestly, I want to tell you the truth. This was the whole sermon. I rewrote the sermon on the way here, but I originally was going to preach just this. So we got another hour to go. No, originally I was going to preach 1 Corinthians 12, 4 through 7, which ends with this passage we're fixing to look at.

But I just, because this whole thing could be really, because everything I've said up until this point really is introduction, because if you have a church submitted to God's Word, and you have a man who's preaching God's Word, or men who are preaching God's Word, then what flows out of that is the Spirit-empowerment of the church, which is the people of God doing the work of ministry within the body as they're supposed to.