Biblical Sufficiency

Christ’s Vision for the Church and the Move to a New Series

After 100 weeks in Ephesians, you feel like the children of Israel wandering through the wilderness, right? After 100 weeks in the book of Ephesians, we're going to press pause. We're not pressing stop.

We're just pressing pause. And this will take, at the most, I think, 10 weeks, so maybe a couple months. And we're going to begin a new series. Some of you already know that. Some of you are new today, so I'll explain it.

But I was reading a commentary this week by Richard Phillips, and what he said is so closely in line with what we're going to do in this series that I want to read it to you. So, Richard Phillips, he writes,.

From time to time I hear a question that is frequently asked of pastors today. What is your vision for your church? I do not mean to denigrate this question because it can be helpful for a congregation to think through its particular sense of identity and mission.

Yet, it must be emphasized that there's a far more important question than what is our vision. What vision Christ has for His church. However we may think of our church, we must acknowledge that the church belongs to Jesus.

Having been bought by His blood and therefore, His vision must be primary. Richard Phillips. The title of last week's sermon is now going to be the title of this sermon series that we're going to be in for a little bit.

Christ's Vision for the Church. Christ's Vision for the Church. What we're seeking to do in this series is two-fold. We want to identify who we are and identify what Christ's vision is for us. But actually I think I can put that in a more succinct sentence.

What we are trying to do is to identify who we are by identifying Christ's vision for us. So over the last couple of months I've worked on outlining ten biblical distinctives of our church. You've got a copy of that in your bulletin.

Take that home. Read that. But it will also be in the foyer in the coming weeks. This isn't something secret, some secret message. This is who we are. This is who I've been for almost seven years since I've been here.

But this is who we are.

And these are the distinctives that set us apart and we're searching to align ourselves with God's Word. Let me read the preamble to that. It's in the bulletin if you want to follow along. It says, We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, risen from the dead and now seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty as King of all, is worthy of a healthy church in Perryville, Arkansas.

We believe taking these ten distinctives together sets us apart as a local church in the location where God has planted us. These distinctives do not exhaust all of our beliefs as a body, but they are a non-negotiable part of who we are as a local church.

We hold these truths according to the Bible for the purpose of the good of one another and our community and ultimately for Christ's honor and glory. Now I don't know if it will take a full ten weeks or there might be a couple weeks we just end up combining some of these, but what we are doing here is searching the Scriptures and seeking God's way for this body.

We seek to align ourselves with Christ's vision for the church. So that brings us to our text today and I invite you to turn your Bibles to the book of John chapter 17. The book of John chapter 17.

The morning theme,.

Biblical Sufficiency and John 17:17

This morning's message is on biblical sufficiency. The first distinctive of our church is biblical sufficiency. And really, this is foundational for any healthy church. A church that is seeking to follow Christ must prize the Word of God as the inerrant, infallible, necessary, authoritative, clear, and sufficient Word that it is.

So this morning we begin our series in the book of John chapter 17 and we'll read one verse. Verse 17. I invite you to stand with me in the honor of reading God's Word. This is the prayer of Christ. It comes from the prayer of Christ.

I'll read this one verse. Sanctify them in the truth. Your Word is truth. Father, would You help us to understand who we are? Would You help us to understand who we are by understanding Your vision for the church?

Lord, we pray that we'd crucify preferences or tradition or anything that might get in the way between us and Your Word. Let us be people of Your book. Let us trust what You have to say to us. Help us to understand what it means to be a church that has a distinctive of biblical sufficiency.

Lord, there are those in our midst this morning, whether they be young or old or adults or children, who are not converted. Lord, help me to utter the Gospel clearly. Most importantly, I pray the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, would take the Gospel and apply it to hearts, calling sinners to Yourself, drawing them effectually in such a way that they will repent of their sins and look to Christ in faith.

Be with us, O God. May Your Spirit be in our midst and may Christ be honored. We pray it in Jesus' name, Amen. You may be seated. Let me give a little context here. In the Gospel of John, you have a major section known as the Farewell Discourse.

That runs from chapters 13 through chapter 16. This includes some things that you're so familiar with. The partaking of the Last Supper. Jesus washing the disciples' feet. Jesus teaching on the Holy Spirit.

Many more great truths that we know and we hold fast to all happen here in the Farewell Discourse. Then at the end of this discourse, we come to chapter 17. And in chapter 17, really it is what is properly ought to be called the Lord's Prayer.

Most of the time when we talk about the Lord's Prayer, we're thinking about what? Matthew 6. We're thinking about Matthew 6. Our Father who art in Heaven,.

Hallowed be Thy name.

We're thinking that's the Lord's Prayer.

Really, that's the model prayer.

The Lord's Prayer,.

More properly called, is here in chapter 17. Look at verse 1. When Jesus had spoken these words, He lifted up His eyes to Heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You.

This is one of the most astounding chapters in all of the Bible. We pull back the curtain, as it were, between the Trinity and we see a conversation between the Son of God and God the Father. Jesus prays.

He says there in verse 1 that the hour has come. And if you read the Gospel of John, you see that several times it says things like, His hour had not yet come. His hour had not yet come. His hour had not yet come.

But friends, now the hour had come. Here He is on the very precipice of the crucifixion. After this prayer, He will be arrested in John 18. He will be crucified in John 19. And He will raise again from the dead.

But in this prayer, not only does Jesus pray for His disciples, look what He says. Look at a couple of verses.

Verse 9.

He says, I'm praying for them. That's His disciples. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. He's praying for His disciples. He's not praying for the world.

He's praying for those who follow Him. But look at this. It gets even greater than this in verse 20. In verse 20, He says, I do not ask for these only, but also for those.

Who will believe in Me.

Through their word. This is amazing to think about. Because if you're a believer today, Jesus prayed this prayer for you. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. He was praying for His disciples, but He's also praying for His people of all time.

Those who will believe. In a sense, it's not inappropriate to say that Jesus is praying in this verse for Perryville Second Baptist Church. I'm not trying to be too crazy here,.

But I'm just saying in the context,.

Since we know that Jesus is not only praying for His disciples, but even those who will believe, it's not way crazy to say that verse 17, we could say something like, sanctify Perryville Second Baptist Church.

In the truth.

Your word is truth. Isn't that amazing to think about this morning? That Perryville Second Baptist Church is not an afterthought of our Lord Jesus, but that even 2 ,000 years ago,.

On His heart and mind.

And what we notice in verse 17 is that Christ is for the sanctification of His people. The holiness of His people. Christ is for Perryville Second Baptist Church to be set apart in the truth. Sanctify them in the truth.

Your word is truth. In fact, think about what a distinctive is. We're talking about Christ's vision for the church. Ten distinctives of Perryville Second Baptist Church. Think about what a distinctive is.

A distinctive is something that sets you apart. It's something distinct. And Christ, according to verse 17, Christ desires that His churches would be distinct.

Sanctify them.

That is, set them apart. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. How are God's people to be distinct? By the truth. One study Bible notes, error and deception are basic to evil, and truth is basic to godliness.

Do we long to be a godly people? Then we must be people of the truth. As an aside, let me just give you a quick application. You continue to fill yourself with filth and lies and deception and the false truths of this world, you're not going to be godly.

Because we're sanctified by the truth. Now, Jesus says sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth.

Your word,.

Thy word,.

Is truth. What word is that? Well, I think there's an application,.

First of all,.

That we make to the gospel. Now listen very carefully here. Christ, the God-man, came to fulfill all righteousness. Look what he says in verse 18 and 19. He says, as you sent me into the world, so I've sent them into the world.

As for their sake, I consecrate myself. I consecrate myself.

Or, I sanctify myself.

For their sake, I set myself apart. That they also may be sanctified in truth. Okay, so we need to begin this sermon by reminding ourselves that Christ is the sinner's savior. That he set himself apart and gave his righteous, consecrated life on the cross to bear God's just wrath against sinners.

And he rose again in victory and now he reigns on high. And without faith in this word, you cannot be sanctified. Now, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Listen, I'll be as plain as I can right now before going on.

There are some that are listening to this message. Young people, children, my children, friends of my children,.

Older people.

Before we go one second further, there are some in here who need to begin this message by repenting of their sins and embracing the Christ of this passage. You need to turn from your sins and believe the gospel.

Why have you not done so? Why have you not looked to Christ in faith? Why have you not trusted the one who set himself apart? For their sake I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth.

Do you know how you're sanctified? Because Jesus was sanctified. Jesus, the perfect one, set himself apart and then he was crucified on the cross for our sins bearing God's just wrath that is due your sins, and yet Jesus bore it in our place.

Why haven't you believed?

Why haven't you trusted Christ? Because if you're not set apart by the truth, then you will only end up where the rest of the world ends up.

Eternal hell.

And the only way to be set apart by the truth is to trust it. And what I'm telling you as we begin this sermon is that you're responsible to do that even now. You're obligated before God to give up your way, to give up your thoughts about life, to give up your ideas about the church and your plans, and you are called to repent.

The Bible says God commands all men everywhere to repent and to come to Christ. You are to come to Christ as your only hope, your only suitable and all-sufficient Savior. Savior, sanctify them in the truth.

Your word is truth. If you don't do that, then the rest of the sermon is just wait for you. But if you're in Christ, there's a further application here, a broader application than just on the Gospel, and that is the entirety of Scripture.

That is, I think that we can make an application from verse 17 that when Jesus says, sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth, that God's word from Genesis to Revelation sanctifies us. D .A. Carson notes, no one can be sanctified or set apart for the Lord's use without learning to think God's thoughts after Him.

Without learning to live in conformity with the word He has graciously given. Or R .C. Sproul, our sanctification comes from the Word of God and from the truth that is poured into our souls. Truth that renews our minds, renews our thinking, and renews our lives.

Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth. So this presses us closer to the point of today's message. Our first biblical distinctive here to cover as a church is biblical sufficiency. Essentially, we believe here at this church that our Lord Jesus would have us as a people to be immersed in His book.

That He would have us to trust it, to follow it, to preach it, to teach it to our children,.

To order our church by it.

That in order to be people of the truth, we must be people of the book. It's not popular today. I mean, OK, we live in Perryville. I mean, you can talk about the Bible. It's OK. But it's not popular to be a person immersed in the book.

So our first distinctive is biblical sufficiency. It's in your bulletin, but let me read it. It's kind of long. It might be the longest one.

But here it is.

We believe the Bible is enough to reveal to us the triune God and how we are to live in response to all He has done for us in Christ and His gospel. The Bible is our highest authority, having been breathed out by God Himself.

So to disbelieve or disobey the Bible or to fail to trust its sufficiency in all manner of Godly living is an insult to God. We look for no further word of God than that which has already been revealed in the Scriptures.

The 66 canonical books of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. With Christ Himself and by extension the ministry of His apostles and their close associates being God's final word to His people until the consummation of all things.

The Bible is enough to teach us to live for Christ, to order His church, to teach us how to reach every generation with the gospel, to counsel, to make disciples, and to know everything God requires His people to know in order to live a holy life pleasing unto Him.

Above all other ministry in the church, we prize the ministry of the Word. We preach the Word on Sundays. We teach it in Sunday school and on Wednesday nights. We hide it in our hearts. We talk about it with one another.

It is the Word of God that brings about reformation and revival and shows us every way a local church must go. A church must constantly check itself according to the Word of God and always be reforming according to the Scriptures.

In all that we do, we must always seek to be biblical. We might could preach 100 weeks right there. But let me try to give us a summary form of that sermonically this morning. So here's the outline. God's Word is firstly our foundation.

God’s Word as the Foundation for All of Life and the Church

Number one, God's Word is our foundation. Sanctify them in the truth. Your Word is truth. How firm a foundation. The Word of God is our foundation because without the Word of God, there are things about God, there are things about His church and His ways that we could never know.

And nature reveals God to all creations without excuse. There's no such thing as atheists, really.

Not in their heart of hearts.

Everyone knows God exists.

But it's the Word of God.

That reveals truth to us like the Trinity. Like, for example, in verse 5 in our text, where Jesus says, And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory that I had with You before the world existed.

Do you remember what God says in Isaiah about His glory? My glory I will not share with another. So how is it that Jesus and the Father have the same glory before the creation of the world? Because Jesus is one with the Father.

Jesus is truly God. The Word of God is our foundation. The point here is that all reality must be interpreted through this book. How we think about everything, how we think about the ballgame, how we think about the economy, how we think about the president, how we think about our finances, all of it is interpreted and seen through the lenses of Scripture.

And so if that's true, if all things are interpreted through the lenses of the Scriptures, how much more practical is this when it comes to understanding things like the local church? Friends, the Word of God is the highest authority for the church.

And when we ignore it or dismiss it or disobey it or scoff at it, or neglect it, we insult God. I don't have to convince you that you should read the Bible. Most everybody in here, you know I should read the Bible.

You know you should.

But when we neglect it,.

We insult the Lord. Now this is a ton of practical application for daily Bible reading and godly living and all of that. But for our purposes today, it has quite potent application for what we think about the church.

We have to reject worldly ideologies. We have to reject godless things that creep in like CRT or wokeness or Christian cliches about the church. Don't go to church, be the church,.

Or whatever.

That's dumb. God's Word is our foundation. It must shape all we think and we do in the church. Because this is Christ's church. It's the Lord's church. We must listen to Him in His book. Sanctify them in the truth.

Your Word is truth. Again, this means we prize the ministry of the Word above all. We prize the preaching of the Word. Why do you guys spend so much time preaching in the Word? It's not because your pastor is a good preacher.

It's because we love the Bible. We prize its teaching. We don't gather together and say, well, let's read the Reader's Digest today. You know what else to do for class today?

Let's watch VeggieTales.

Let's put the kids in a room and.

Let's let them watch VeggieTales.

No, we teach the Bible. Why? Because we prize its teaching. We prize memorizing it. We prize talking about it with one another. It is ever in our hearts and upon our lips. And we prize structuring the church according to what God's book says.

Because we're totally dependent on God's truth. I mean, can you imagine just for a moment, can you imagine a pastor going up to the throne of God and say, Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, I'd like to share with you my truth, right?

I want to tell you my truth about the church is that how nonsensical, irreverent, and blasphemous. That's what people like to talk about today, right? My truth, my truth. No, sanctify them in the truth.

Your Word is truth. There is not your truth and my truth.

There's just truth.

So many churches today are operating this way. We'll do this and this and this because it feels right, or it seems right, or because we don't want to offend sister so-and-so, or because LifeWay sells it without serious concern for what the Bible says.

Psalm 113 puts it this way, If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? And this is happening in too much of professed Christianity in America today. It's happening too much in the Southern Baptist Convention.

True Christians are part of churches or organizations that are neglecting the Word of God and it is destroying the very foundations as it were for the entire existence of the church. So here's what we're doing.

We're considering our context. We're considering our time. We're considering our place. And we are saying this is not who we will be. Everyone else may abandon the Word. Everyone else may go their own way.

Everyone else may come up with crazy ideas, which is on both sides of the aisle, right? There are certain ideas that are traditional that need to be done away with. There are certain ideas that are contemporary that need to be done away with.

What we care about is what the Word of God says. The Word of God is our foundation. We will be people of Christ's book. We'll take our stand right here. Right here. On these pages, come what may. God's Word is our foundation.

God’s Word as the Final Word and the Only Sufficient Rule

Secondly, God's Word is our finality. Sanctify them in the truth. Your Word is truth. Now look at that. Look at the text. It doesn't just say your Word is true.

Right?

There are a lot of things that we may say are true, but not necessarily describe them as the truth.

Right?

Like you would say about the basketball game last night. The Razorbacks lost the game. That is true. But you wouldn't necessarily say that's the truth in the sense that that captures, that summarizes all truth.

No, but we only say that about the Word of God. Sanctify them in truth. Your Word is truth. So Matthew Henry says of this Word, divine revelation as it now stands in the written Word is not only pure truth without mixture, but entire truth without deficiency.

Listen, what Matthew Henry is saying here is that the Word of God is God's final Word to His people in this age that contains all the truth we need to know of God and His ways and His nature and His people and His church.

That is, there is nothing about the church.

That you need to know.

That's not contained in the Bible. There's nothing about God that you need to know that's not contained in the Bible. There's nothing about the way that God would have you to live in a holy and sanctified life that's not contained in the Scripture.

The Bible is the final Word. Let me use some Bible for that. Go to Hebrews 1 real quick. In Hebrews 1, Hebrews 1, the author of Hebrews, said it this way. Hebrews 1. Hebrews 1, verse 1. Long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the Word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty.

On high.

In other words, God spoke in a multitude of ways. You can read that in the Old Testament. But in Christ, He's given us a final Word in the ministry of His apostles,.

A final Word.

What this means is that the church is, we're not looking for another Word of God except what He has already revealed to us in His Word. In other words, if you ever hear me or any other person stand in this pulpit and say, listen, I had a dream last night and God spoke to me in this dream and God told me in this dream that what we need to do now is this.

Better run me out. We'll not accept that. Because we have a final Word in the Scriptures. We don't look for an audible voice. We're not looking for God told me. We don't look for some secret message revealed in the clouds.

We don't look for new prophecies or more Bible to come somewhere. Rather, we look to the Word of God that we already have. The 1689 says it this way, The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.

Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave men inexcusable, yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary unto salvation.

Therefore, it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in diversified manners to reveal Himself and to declare His will unto His church. And afterward, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same holy unto writing, that's the Bible, which makes the Holy Scriptures to be most necessary, those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now completed.

All I'm saying here, beloved, in this point is that God has given us a final word in the Scriptures and it is this Word of God that the Holy Spirit uses to sanctify His people. Jesus prays, Sanctify them in the truth.

Your Word is truth. Now, when we talk about the sufficiency.

Of Scripture,.

I'm not saying that churches shouldn't use confessions of faith. Actually, I think they should. I think every church, by the way, I think every church ought to use the 1689 because I think every church ought to be a Baptist church.

I think that we live in a world that's pressing harder and harder and harder into new things and contemporary things and I want us to go backwards to a faith legacy. But the point is, we use a confession of faith not to detract from the Word of God, but to show our love for it, to summarize what we see the Scriptures teaching.

In other words, you could say it this way,.

It's because we are serious about the Word of God that we desire to be confessional. We're not afraid to put in writing what we believe. And we're not really going to say we believe the Bible.

If you go down the road.

To the Jehovah's Witness building and say, what do you believe? They'll say, we believe the Bible. Okay, well we believe the Bible, they believe the Bible, do we both believe the Bible? No. And so we're going to show what we believe in our words, also our lives.

And there are too many who say they believe the Bible to be the inerrant Word of God who are practically departing from the sufficiency of Scripture today. How so? When they preach for cultural relevancy rather than faithful exposition.

When they compromise on gender roles in the home and church. When they use carnal means to attract people into the church. When regenerate church membership is not practiced. What about the general lack of concern.

For holiness?

Or what about the disregard we have about the Lord's Day? Or what about compromise on wokeness or LGBTQ and all of these ways and so many more. There is real temptation in the church today to abandon the sufficiency of Scripture.

Well I know the Bible says it, but if I believe that, if I do church discipline, if I'm serious about the church membership,.

If I'm serious about.

God's sovereignty and salvation, if I'm serious about my duty for evangelism,.

People will think I'm weird.

I'll never reach anybody for Christ. Number one, it's not true. Well they will think you're weird. I think you're weird. Number two, it doesn't matter what we think the result will be. What matters is if we're going to be obedient to what God has said in His book.

You're not smarter than God. Neither am I. And I'm saying that we have God's final word in this book. And I'm saying friends, we must hold the line here. We must not shift here. We must not drift. We must not waver.

Come what may. Everything that God would have us to know about His church is in this book. God's word is our foundation. God's word is our finality. Finally, God's word is the means by which we must regularly check our faithfulness and fruitfulness.

Scripture as the Standard for Faithfulness and Fruitfulness

God's word is the means by which we must regularly check our faithfulness and fruitfulness. So the text says, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Okay, truth means there is a standard. That standard is the word of God.

The standard for a church's faithfulness and fruitfulness is the word of God. And what I'm saying here at church is that we must constantly check ourselves according to the word of God and we must always be reforming according to the scriptures.

In all that we do,.

Whether it's making coffee, whether it's going door to door, whether it's going on a mission trip, whether it's talking about a worship service, whether it's talking about who's qualified to be an elder, whether it's talking about who's qualified to be a deacon, in everything that we do, we seek above all to be biblical.

Not cultural, not relevant,.

Not soft, not squishy.

Biblical. You must look around today and you must understand how much compromise has taken place between churches in the world. Things that our grandparents understood as Christian ethics and orthodoxy are today cast by the wayside.

I was reading just some statistics from the 2022 survey on theology. It was put out by Ligonier and Lifeway. And it's atrocious. I think like 56 of evangelicals surveyed, there was a statement on there that said Jesus was a great moral teacher, but he was not God.

And I think 56 of evangelicals agreed with that statement. What? Where does this come from? It comes from cultural pressure with things like this.

Doctrine divides.

You don't want to go too deep. You don't want to go deep with people because doctrine is divisive. And so what churches have done is we've tried to boil Christianity down to the lowest common denominator where basically we just say the word Jesus.

Don't talk about who he is. Don't talk about his divinity. Don't talk about the words like propitiation, justification, election. Don't talk about those things. Just talk about the word Jesus and then we just keep it superficial and you do it that way,.

You'll reach more people.

Hey, evangelicals have reached a lot of people. But I don't know what they've reached them to.

Not heaven. Not Christ.

Not godly living. And what I'm saying is there's such compromise in the world today and I'm convinced today to truly be Christian in Perryville, Arkansas, you're going to have it difficult from multiple sides.

For example, the liberals are going to be mad at you. That's obvious. Because we say things like homosexuality is a sin. Abortion is murder.

Right?

But then you're going to also have those who profess to be Christian conservatives that they're just going to think you're weird because you're taking Christianity too seriously. You prize holiness. You're labeled a Pharisee.

You think corporate worship.

Is a non-negotiable aspect of your walk with Jesus. You're a legalist. You think family worship should be a routine in your home.

You're a weirdo.

You think the Bible alone dictates how the church is to be and worship and such. You're quenching the spirit. You're negating Christian freedom. But friends, here's my point. The Bible, the Bible is our standard for faithfulness and fruitfulness.

Nothing else. Sanctify them in the truth. Set us apart. Lord, set us apart.

At the end of the day, at the end of the day,.

Another person,.

If at the end of the day,.

Another person or ecclesiastical body or organization or the think tank,.

The brain power,.

The elite of the Southern Baptist Convention if they say that I'm faithful or unfaithful, I don't give a rip because what I care about, what matters above all, is what does the book say. We want God's truth.

The scriptures are the standard of a church's faithfulness and also our fruitfulness. That is, let me just mention this. We have a goal to begin knocking on doors in Perryville to take the gospel to them.

And here's what the church growth gurus will say. I know because I've read them. They'll say, no, you can't do that.

You can't. Don't go and knock.

Studies show that doesn't work. Or Sister Sally, she's well-meaning perhaps, but she says, no, no, no, no.

You can't do that.

It's not polite. Or Brother Bart will say,.

You know, if you do that,.

They're just going to think we're like the Jehovah's Witnesses. Okay, but here's the deal. Sister Sally and Brother Bart and church growth gurus, you are not our standard for fruitfulness.

The Bible is.

And by the way, let me just make this point. Shame on us that we're being out-knocked by the Jehovah's Witnesses, right? Shame on us that they're not saying, oh, Brother Hyde, here come the Baptists knocking on your door.