Finding The Perfect Church

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees and the Sadducees were kind of the liberals and the conservatives of their day.

The Sadducees didn't believe in the miraculous. They didn't believe in the resurrection. They didn't believe in angels and the supernatural. The Pharisees were sort of like the conservatives and they were right about a lot of things, but they just had no love and they hated, actually both sides hated Jesus.

So Jesus is saying, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Verse 12, then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of what? The doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

The point is bad doctrine is like leaven, bad doctrine. It spreads and it goes in and through everything and it has disastrous results. It can infect a whole body. So bad doctrine, we know this right?

Bad doctrine leads to what? Bad doctrine leads to bad behavior. The bad doctrine of legalism had led to the bad practice of the persecution of Christ's disciple, among other things. And now there was a risk for a church split, multiple churches in the region of Galatia.

You could have many churches splitting. So with the churches at risk, Paul makes this statement. Hey, remember a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Now let's go back to Galatians chapter 5. So the Judaizers are really having a negative influence.

And once they convince one person, then that person brings that false doctrine to somebody else and they convince someone else. And then that person goes and tells someone else and it just spreads from there.

And it's like an infection. It'll just continue to spread, continue to spread unless something is done about it. That's what Paul's trying to do. He's trying to do some surgery here. Now, by the way, on the positive side of things, talking about false doctrine spreading.

On the positive side of things, this is how Christian discipleship should work. That's how discipleship should be happening. It should just spread. It should spread like leaven. Well, leaven is always a reference to sin.

Not always. The gospel or the kingdom of God is like leaven, Jesus said. Jesus in Matthew 13, 33 tells a very short parable. He said, the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.

You think about it, the gospel of Christ started out over in the Middle East with one man and 12 disciples, a few women. It's just this small group of people and yet it spread and it spread and now it covers the whole earth.

There are Christian churches all over the earth. Oh, that the gospel would continue to spread like leaven. But that's where we come in. You realize that's the mission of the church. That's the mission of the church to spread the gospel like leaven.

So this is how discipleship works. This is how the Christian faith spreads. We are to be, we call ourselves evangelical, don't we? So we are to be evangelical about our faith. I'm preaching to you, you're listening, you're hearing.

For what purpose? So we can all just sit around and feel good. Hey, we're all going to heaven. Isn't that great?

Wrong.

I mean, that is true. But the point is not to just sit around and feel good about it. The purpose is to go out and spread the message. Lord knows there's enough bad news in the world today. We need people to be out spreading the good news.

That is our, that is the church's responsibility. And it's done through preaching, through service, through giving. There's all different ways people can help to fulfill the great commission. All right, you're in Galatians 5.

Look at verse 7. Again, he says, you ran well. Basically got, you know, you started out good. Started out good, but somebody hindered you. Look at verse 10. Paul says, I have confidence in you, in the Lord, that you will have no other mind.

But he who troubles you shall bear his judgment. Whoever, he doesn't say whoever they are. He says whoever he is. Pastor John MacArthur writes this about that verse. Paul expresses encouraging assurance that the Lord will be faithful to keep his own from falling into gross heresy.

That is, they will persevere or they will be preserved. In other words, the Lord knows, and I think Paul knows, that those in these churches that are saved, they can't, they're not going to be plucked out of the Lord's hands, but they can get really messed up in their Christian walk.

You know, a false teacher can't cause you to lose your salvation, but he can wreak havoc in your life if you start listening to him. So Paul seems to have one particular false teacher in mind. And don't you know that's true when churches have problems?

Usually, if there's an issue, there's often one person who's the ringleader, right? And they get other people on board. So just as one man, the Apostle Paul, had a great impact for good, all it takes sometimes is one person to come in and start to dismantle and deconstruct.

It's very easy. It happens. Somebody comes in, let's say it's a guy, good-looking, charismatic guy. He has all the credentials. You know he has, the Judaizers had their letters from Jerusalem. Do you remember we talked about that?

Fake letters, by the way. But there are Christian preachers, you know they have their Ph .D. And if somebody has their Ph .D. this is somebody that we should look to and listen to. Well, there are some men who have their Ph .D .s that you could find trustworthy in Christian doctrine.

Many you can't, though. So, you know, someone could be charismatic, good-looking, have all the credentials, they're a smooth talker, have a great smile. They earn people's trust, and then eventually they lead people astray.

And you could have a believer, someone who is normally solid, that you wouldn't think would be sucked in, but people do get sucked in. It could happen to anybody. It could happen to any of us. So this is a very important subject.

This seems to be what's going on. There's one guy in particular in the churches of Galatia that people are just enamored with, and he is leading the congregations astray. Why? Because false doctrine is like leaven, and a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

And sometimes you don't notice it until it's too late. You know, you don't notice it, you don't notice the yeast was in there until you open the stove and wait, the bread is rising. It wasn't supposed to do that.

The leaven got in. How does this happen? Well, we're just going to compromise just a little bit. We're just going to compromise a little bit on this one thing. You let the leaven in the dough. That's what you did.

Well, we're just going to turn a blind eye to this one thing. Well, you're letting the leaven in the dough. Okay, now we come to this verse, verse 11, the offense of the cross. We're going to take it piece by piece.

Notice what Paul says, and I think this is significant. How does verse 11 start? And I, brethren, Christians don't always, we don't always talk like this, calling each other brother or calling a woman sister, a Christian woman sister, or the older women are like mothers, Paul said.

But that's what Paul says to them. They're the brethren. What does that tell you? He loved them.

Absolutely.

So he's writing to Christians in the region of Galatia. Multiple churches would have received this letter, and he calls the people brethren. These churches had a lot of problems. That's clear. Legalism was starting to creep in, but at this moment, here's the point, they are still legitimate New Testament churches, and Paul reflects that by calling them brethren.

They're still brothers and sisters in the Lord. You know, some people think that they don't need church, because admittedly the Galatians had a lot of issues. A lot of people think they don't need church or they don't want to go to church because churches have too many problems.

Right?

It's like, well, have you ever read the New Testament? Like this is nothing new. Have you ever read Paul's epistles?

Yeah.

Churches have problems.

Why?

Because churches have people, and people have problems. And guess what? You're a people too. You have problems. But seriously, though, anyone who thinks there is no church worthy of their presence, they have bigger problems than they know.

So you know the saying, if you're looking for a perfect church, you've heard this. If you're looking for a perfect church, first of all, the perfect church doesn't exist. Just consider the first church, if you will, that had Jesus as the pastor.

Right?

Jesus and 12 members, the apostles. The first church with Jesus himself as their pastor had a founding member who was indwelt by Satan, Judas Iscariot. The first original church in Jerusalem at Pentecost, that's when it was formed, you had people, Ananias and Sapphira, lying to the apostles trying to look good about how much money they gave.

And then the church at Corinth had a man involved in a relationship with his stepmother. I mean, that must have been awkward at family reunions. And the people had no issue with it. I mean, that's the incredible thing that the church members had no problem.

It's like, what is happening here? And you remember those things were eventually dealt with.

Why?

Because a little leaven leavens the whole lump. But the point is churches have problems. So if you're looking for the perfect church, you know, you found the wrong place. But if you ever do find the perfect church, don't join it.

You will be the one who ruins it, but you're not going to find it.

So you don't have to worry about it.

Point is, Paul calls them brethren. Despite all their problems, they're still brothers and sisters in Christ.

And I appreciate that.

Verse 11, he says, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? So he seems to be responding to something specific. It appears as though the Judaizers were telling people that, hey, Paul actually agrees with us.

They've already done this with James. They tried to claim that James agrees with them, that the saints in Jerusalem, they sent letters with them. So, you know, James is with us. The church in Jerusalem is with us.

And now they're saying, it appears, even Paul agrees with us. Now, is that true? We know better. But the average church member in Galatia, they didn't know. They're hearing different things from different people.

Why would they say that Paul agrees with us? Some people have thought that there is an inconsistency in the apostle Paul's life or ministry when he had a young man circumcised. And who is that man?

Timothy.

Right.

Paul had Timothy circumcised. So if that was known, and it may have been, the Judaizers could have pointed to that and say, see, Paul had Timothy circumcised. Clearly, Paul agrees with us. Here's the thing.

Whether Paul was right or misguided in doing that, it was a ministry strategy. It had nothing to do with Timothy. You can't go to heaven unless you be circumcised. So they were wrong in saying that. So without getting into the weeds of this whole issue, Paul is writing to do what?

Set the record straight. If this is what the Judaizers are saying, that I preach circumcision or that I'm still preaching the law, then why am I being persecuted by the Jews? It doesn't make sense. It's either salvation by the law or the cross.

And if I'm preaching salvation by the law, then the offense of the cross has ceased. So he's showing them this makes no sense. Stop listening to these people. I mean, Paul must have been frustrated. And I think that might be why he says this in verse 12.

Look at verse 12. Paul, in reference to the Judaizers, he says, I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off. Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Coronet Church.

If you'd like to listen to the complete message or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, morriscoronetchurch .com. And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett.

Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.