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We have a lot of scripture to get to. Whether or not we're going to get through this whole lesson tonight is up to the Lord. But we're going to do our best to learn as much as we can, do our best. But to open your Bibles with me to begin with, it's not on there.
I want you to open to Matthew chapter 16 and verse 18. Did the handouts make it around? I've got one. I brought me one up here. Thank you, Dale. Yeah, I always forget to get me one, but I got it tonight because I'm going to be teaching off of it.
Matthew chapter 16 is our focus verse tonight. And then we're going to be in a lot of different places. Now, if you haven't been here with us, if tonight's your first night with us, just to give you a little quick understanding of where we are.
We are smack dab in the middle of Systematic Theology, which is a course that has been going on for a long time. Systematic Theology means that we take the subjects of Scripture, God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Church, all the different subjects, and we break them into categories so that we can study them by category.
That's what it means to systematize something or put something into a system or a category. So we've been doing that for a long time. We went through Theology proper. Theology proper is the study of God in His nature and in His being.
And we looked at the Trinity. We looked at God's nature as sovereign and all those things. That was the first set of courses that took us several months. Now we've been in Christology. Christology is the study of Christ.
And we've been studying Jesus Christ. And tonight is our last study in Christology, if we finish it. That's a big if, because we've got a lot to get to. Did we run out? We've got just one more. Here you go, brother.
How many do you need? Here you go. Here's one for her. Okay, great. Thank you. So Christology is the study of Jesus Christ. And if you look at the top of your notes, you'll see there our categories have been the preexistence and eternality of Christ.
We looked at Christ as truly God and truly man and what the Bible says about that. We've looked at His peccability versus His impeccability. We talked about the fact that He is in fact impeccable, meaning not only did He not sin, but the fact that He is divine kept Him from sin, that He could not sin because He only did the will of the Father.
We looked at His earthly life and ministry. And we looked at what it meant when the Gospel talks about He died, He buried, He was resurrected. We looked at the meaning of all those things in that study.
Last week, brother Andy did a very good job of leading us through the subject of the offices of Christ. Christ, what are the three offices? Do you remember? Prophet, priest, and king. As prophet, Christ represents God to us.
As priest, Christ represents us to God. And as king, He is sovereign over all. He is Lord over all. And so we looked at those three things last week. Well, today we're going to look at the present ministry and the future work of Christ.
What is Christ doing now, and what is He going to do in the future? Now, for the sake of transparency, understand this. When we talk about the future, there's an entire subsection called eschatology, which is the study of end times.
That's not tonight. That's an entire subject all to itself. But we are going to dabble in it tonight. Because when we talk about what Christ is going to do in the future, well, He's going to bring all things to an end.
So the eschatology is part of it. But if you have questions about the millennium, or if you have questions about revelation, if you have questions about preterism or amillennialism or any of those things, save it.
I don't mean that in an ugly way. What I mean is that's just not the purview of tonight's lesson. We will get to those things, but it's not going to be the subject of tonight. It's just too broad a topic.
And it really doesn't fall under Christology. It falls under the subject of eschatology. So we're going to look at two parts. We're going to look at the present ministry and the future work of Christ.
If you look at your list here, you'll see all of these Bible verses and the things. But we're going to begin with Matthew chapter 16, verse 18. Now, you probably remember, if you have studied the life of Jesus, you probably remember this particular event in the life of Christ.
Because Christ is talking to His disciples, and He asked them, Who do the people say that I am? And they say, well, some people say that you're John the Baptist reincarnated. Some people say that you're one of the prophets come back to life.
Some people believe that you're this or you're that. And He says, but who do you say that I am? And Peter said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. In fact, that's called the good confession.
Every time somebody joins our church, they come forward. If they've already been baptized, we ask them, Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God? That's an initial question. Who do you say that I am?
That's who Peter said Jesus is. And when he answered that, Jesus said to him, verse 17, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, and I tell you, you are Peter.
And on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And that is our opening text. And you say, well, why are we looking at that text if we're looking at the future work of Christ and the present work of Christ?
Well, the reason is because this is one of the only times in the Gospels, that's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, where we see the word church. The word church is very prominent in Acts. It's very prominent in the Epistles.
It's prominent even in Revelation. We talk about the seven churches of Revelation. But the word church is only used in one Gospel, the Gospel of Matthew. And it's only used twice in that Gospel, and both of them come out of the mouth of Jesus.
One time he's talking about building his church, and the other time in Matthew 18 he's talking about defending his church, because he's talking about those who would sin in the church and the responsibility of the church to come and to put people out who are causing problems in the church because he says that those people who are continually sinning in the church cannot remain because it does damage to the church.
It's called church discipline. Again, that's a subject for another time. But the two times when the church comes up, Matthew 16, Jesus said, I will build my church. And what's interesting about that, he says, the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
Oftentimes I think people misunderstand that phrase because people think about the gates of hell, and what they think is Christ is going to protect us from the powers of hell. That's not what that says.
What it says is the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. Who's the attacker in that? The church. Because what's a gate do? It keeps out an aggressor. And he says, the church is going, I'm going to build it, hell's going to put up gates, but the gates of hell are not going to prevail, the church will prevail.
The church is the aggressor. The church is attacking the devil. The devil might be attacking the church, but we're on the offensive too. We have the sword of the spirit, and we go out into the world, and we go after the lost.
We don't just sit in the church with the walls closed and the doors locked. We go out of the church, and we go into the world, and we seek the lost. And so the gates of hell will not prevail. So Jesus gives us an insight here into his mission after his ascension.
You say, well it doesn't say anything about his ascension. I know that. But what he says in referencing the church, he's referencing the future. Because at this point, we are still under the old covenant.
The new covenant has not been established yet. What is the new covenant? The new covenant is in the blood of Christ, right? It didn't come until the cross, right? It didn't come until Jesus died, buried, resurrected, and ascended, right?
And then what happened on the day of Pentecost? By the way, I'm not Pentecostal, but I do believe in Pentecost. What happened on the day of Pentecost? Spirit fell. Filled the people. They spoke with the tongues of men of other languages, and they were able to speak with men of other languages.
I'm going to be talking about this on Sunday. They were able to converse. The walls of Babel fell, because Babel had caused the world to be divided by language. And the walls of Babel fell, and the gospel went out to all the world.
It now wasn't just in Israel. Now it was for every tribe, tongue, and nation. The church would not be made up of one nation. The church would be made up of all nations. And so, that is the point Jesus is making.
I will build my church. Now, we could say that Israel of the Old Testament was a type of the church. And that the people who were in the Old Testament believed and were saved the same way we are. They believed in the coming of Jesus.
They didn't know exactly what it was going to look like or how it was going to happen, but they were saved by faith. Romans 4 tells us Abraham was saved by faith. We're saved by faith, and it's all faith in the same object.
The object is Jesus. So, by me saying this, I'm not saying that there's a 100 disconnect between Israel and the church. What I am saying is there is a new administration of this gift or this covenant, and God's bringing in this covenant for the church, and there's this new thing going to happen.
This spirit's going to fall. He's going to empower. There's going to be this new thing that happens. This newness is going to come to the people of God. And it's going to be the church. And Jesus says, I'm going to build it.
I'm going to build it. Billy Graham's not going to build it. And I'm not giving Billy Graham a hard time, but what I'm saying is he might be an instrument. Somebody else might be an instrument. But God's building it.
Christ is building it. And so, when we talk about the present work of Christ and the future work of Christ, what you need to understand, and this is the key to the whole lesson tonight, it's all wrapped up in the church.
Everything Christ is doing now and everything Christ is going to do in the future is focused on the church. Now, me saying that, let's define our terms real quick. What is the church? We talked about that.
Jesus said, I will build my church. What is the church? Well, in English, we have the word church. What do we most associate the word church with? Somebody said it. Say it loud. It's a building, right?
Well, you know, yes. But we most associate the word church with a building, right? And yet we know that ain't so. What is the Bible word for church? Ekklesia, right? So the Greek word ek means out. That's where we get the word exit and things like that, ek.
And then kaleo, which is, let's see. It would be kaleo. That is call, to call out, right? And so the ekklesia is those who are called out, right? And so you have ek, kaleo becomes ekklesia, it's to call out.
But here's the problem with that. Just because you take two words, put them together, make one word, you would think that would be the meaning of that word. And so a lot of people think ekklesia means the people who are called out.
Not exactly because, and I've explained this before, television comes from the word far, tele, and vizio means to see. So television means to see from afar or far-seeing. But that ain't what television is, right?
Television is more than just far-seeing. But that's where the word, the etymology of the word means far-seeing. And the etymology of the word, ekklesia, means called out. But actually the word in first century Greek meant the ones who assemble.
It referenced the assembly. So the church, we'll get rid of all this real quick. The church is the assembly. Now you could say, why is ekklesia? It's the called out ones who come into assembly. So I mean, yeah, the word called out makes sense in that regard.
They've been called out of the world. They've been called to what? Assemble, right? They're the avengers. Now that's a... I don't know how many are my age. The avengers assemble. No, they're called out of the world.
They're called together. They assemble together. And they become the church in that assembly. A lot of people, you might have heard this. People will say, I don't go to church. I am the church. No, you're not.
Not by yourself. You're part of the church no matter where you are. But the church is the assembly. And you don't get to do that alone. You can't assemble by yourself. I had a guy tell me that at a restaurant.
On Jennifer's birthday, we were having dinner. And talking to the guy about church. And asked him if he goes to church. And he says, no, I am the church. I said, no, you're not. And I explained to him what I just explained to you.
I said, you can't be. You cannot be the church by yourself. You can be part of it. But you cannot be it. So when Christ focuses on the church. Here's an important part. It ain't focused on you. It ain't about me.
See, we have a rugged individualism that comes with being an American. Americans are very focused on our individualism. That we lose sometimes the collective nature of the church. Christ didn't die for you individually.
He died for the church. He said, well, He died for... Wait a minute, I've always been told, John 3, 16. I put my name in there. For God so loved Keith, He gave His only begotten Son. That if Keith would believe in Him, Keith could have eternal life.
Yes, you can do that. If it makes you feel connected to God's love for you individually. I don't have a problem with that. But the point of the text. When it refers to the church. Is more than you. It's greater than you.
Maybe I'm thinking too much about my sermon Sunday. Because my sermon Sunday is on spiritual gifts. And how people want to use spiritual gifts to build themselves up. And that isn't the purpose of gifts at all.
The purpose of gifts is to build up the church. Not you. If your gift's not building up someone else. And you're only building up yourself. It's not spiritual steroids, guys. It is not a spiritual booster shot for you.
It's to build up the body. Right? And so the same goes for Christ. Christ has a mission. His mission has always been centered on the church. So when we talk about what's Christ's present ministry. He's building up and interceding for the church.
What is Christ's future ministry? He's preparing a place for and coming back for the church. That's it. His present ministry. He's building up the church and He's interceding for the church. What's He doing in the future?
He's preparing a place for us. Which you could say that's present also. Because He's preparing it. But in a sense, we'll look at that as a future thing. And He's coming back for the church. So let's look at those things now with that in mind.
Alright, let's look first that He's building His church. Christ is building His church. He's building up His church. We're going to look at five scripture passages. Now who wants to read? Alright, brother.
Find Acts 2, 46 and 47. Who else wants to read? Alright, dear would you please? Ephesians 5. And I tell you what, I'm going to get you just to hold Ephesians 5. Because I got several verses from there.
I'm going to get you to read. So just go to Ephesians 5, starting at verse 23. And I'm going to get you to read several of them. I need somebody to read John 15. Alright, Jasmine, you got that? And then Ephesians 4.
Somebody want to do that one? Alright, brother, Ephesians 4, 7 to 12. And that will be our main ones that we look at. Alright, so. And if everybody will read along. And I know we got different translations.
But brother, we're going to start. Christ is responsible. He's building up His church. And the formation of the body. Read verses 46 and 47. Hear that last part again. And the Lord added, and your text says, to the church.
Is that what you said? And the Lord added to the church daily. Those who were being saved. Years ago, I had to come to a conclusion as a minister. I cannot get people saved. I can't even get people to come to church.
And that's a problem in and of itself. God is the one who forms the body. And He's the one who saves. Now that doesn't mean that I'm totally without a responsibility. I'm the ambassador for Christ, number one.
The Bible tells me that. I'm also supposed to be doing the job of soul winning. And by the way, just because I'm a Calvinist doesn't mean I can't use the word soul winning. If you don't understand, we'll talk about it later.
But we do go out. And we proclaim the gospel to anyone. And we know that God's going to save them. And so we proclaim the gospel to them and we leave it. This is the difference between me and somebody who doesn't believe like I do.
When I go to share the gospel, I don't treat it like a car sale. I don't try to sell somebody Jesus. I just proclaim the truth and let God do what He's going to do. That's the difference between what we might call Calvinism evangelism and Armenian evangelism.
Armenians are just trying to get you to say a prayer. And I know that saying a prayer don't change a heart. God changes a heart. So I go and proclaim the gospel and I leave it to God. He's going to change the hearts.
That doesn't mean that I get to be a jerk. It doesn't mean that I don't need to be winsome. It doesn't mean that I don't answer questions. But what it does mean is at the end of the day, I don't go home and beat myself with a stick because a person didn't fall down on their knees and believe in Jesus.
Ultimately, I cannot convert a heart. It gives me great peace to know that that's not my job. And I tell you what, I went to a school and we had a guy come one time who really believed that he had the power to convert people's hearts.
Now he didn't say it that way and I hate to feel like I'm besmirching his good name, but I ain't going to say it so it won't matter. But he really did. He said, you give me five minutes with anybody and I can lead them to Jesus.
I said, Jesus couldn't lead everybody to Jesus. There was a time when Jesus preached that everybody but the twelve disciples left. And he asked them, are you going to leave too? It's John chapter 6. And they said, to whom shall we go for you have the words of life.
Right? I mean, the idea that I can save everybody, that I can get everybody to bow to the knee to Jesus unless I'm a really slick salesman and I treat Jesus like a commodity. And I'm not going to do that.
The formulation, the formation of the church belongs to the king who's building his church. And he will, day by day. And you may not realize it, people get saved every day still. A couple, I don't remember when it is, the date's coming up and I'm going to start advertising it.
Pastor Rob, who's here Sunday, their church is hosting a convention. And remember how last year I preached on China? And how the Chinese church was suffering persecution? Guess who they have coming to their conference?
The very pastor, Bob Fu, the very one who was over there fighting that battle is here and he's going to be preaching at their convention about the persecuted church. And you want to talk about where people are getting saved day by day?
It's in places like China and Africa. That's where people are getting saved day by day as the gospel goes out. And those Chinese Christians, man, they're beautiful. They hold their Bibles like it's so valuable because it is.
And they understand they may not have it tomorrow. They may not have their lives tomorrow, but they have Jesus. God is building His church. Christ is building His church. He's forming His church day by day.
Alright, next one, we're going to look at the direction of the body. Who's in charge of the body? Let's look at Ephesians 5. If you would, just read verses 23 and 24.
For the husband is that of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Alright, real quick.
That passage is super unpopular today. Just because it talks about submission and husbands and wives. And that is the subject, so I don't want you to think I'm missing the context. The context of Ephesians 5 is the relationship between husbands and wives.
What, though, does the Apostle Paul point to as the example of husbands and wives relationships? Christ and the church. And in this passage it says, as the church submits to Christ, so should the wife submit to her husband.
Now, we can talk about wives and husbands later. The point of that is the church submitting to Christ. Here's the thing, we have elders in this church, and the elders are responsible to lead the church, manage the program, make decisions.
Sometimes those decisions are hard because we have to make decisions that are unpopular, but we still have to do it because it's the truth. But at the end of the day, every one of our five elders realizes this.
We ain't in charge. Christ is in charge. He is the one that's directing the church. And I've shown you, some of you guys have been to new members class, but I use this umbrella. I say, okay, if you imagine like this, you've got Christ is the head of the church, and then you have the elders, and then you have the deacons who have the responsibility to manage the ministry of the church, and the elders are leading.
What is between the elders and Christ? The Word. The Bible. Because that's how Christ governs His church. It's through the Word. We don't sit around with our legs folded up like the folks in India, humming, hoping for a revelation from God.
We've got 66 books worth of revelation right here. And this is how Christ manages the church. It's through the Word of God. And so if we have a question, brother, about something, what do we say? What does the Word say?
Now, the Word doesn't tell us what color to paint the walls, and that'll split a church quick, but the church doesn't always tell us whether or not we should have gluten-free chili or even gluten-free communion bread.
That's a big issue in some churches. Because if it don't have gluten, it ain't real bread. So is it really communion bread? I know that sounds silly. But those types of questions are not the point. The Word of God manages the things that matter, and so that's the responsibility, is to look to the Word of God.
And guess what? Every one of those elders is subject to himself being called out. The Word of God says don't accept an accusation against an elder unless there are two or three witnesses. It doesn't say don't accept the accusation.
It just says don't do it flippantly. Don't do it willy-nilly. Understand that when you do that, that's some serious business. But an elder can be called to account, too. And must be. Any man who puts himself in the position of a miniature pope, where he's in charge of the church, has taken the place of Christ, and in such is in sin.
Because that's a dangerous place to be. Some people say, well, Keith runs things. I don't even, well, no, I don't. Y 'all would be surprised how much interaction goes on between our elders and all the decisions that are made we talk about and decide and pray over, because it isn't about me.
And it ain't about you either. It's about Christ. So the direction of the church body. Are we going to get through all this? We got five. Well, we're going to go five minutes over. We're still not going to go over.
All right, so the nurture of the body. Number three, nurture of the body. We're still in Ephesians 5. Would you read verses 29 and 30, please? Think about the analogy that's being used there. The apostle Paul is writing.
He says, we all nourish and cherish our own bodies because it's the only one we got. Some of us are more meticulous than others as to how we care for our bodies. But we all get up. We all brush our teeth.
We all take showers. We all eat. We all sleep. We all do things to take care of this body, even though we know it's going to die. We focus on this body at some point, even if it's just eating and sleeping, because we know we have to.
And the point is, in the text, he's saying that as you cherish your body, because you have to, think about how much more. This is the lesser to the greater principle. How much more is Christ caring for and cherishing the church because we are His body?
We are the body of Christ. He cares about the church. And He cherishes and nurtures the church actively. How? Well, I would say through the word. I would say through the operation of the ordinances. What are those?
When we're baptized, that's a time where we're having our initial entrance into the, not salvation, but receiving the sign of the covenant that we're receiving. We're a part of God's, this thing called the new covenant.
And then we have the Lord's table every week. You realize that Lord's table we do? What is it? It's an opportunity for us to look at the body and blood of Christ and look what was done for the church.
And I'm a part of that. I'm a part of that body that He loves and nurtures. Christ loves and nurtures the church through the spiritual gifts. There's all kinds of things. All right, let's look. There's another verse.
Who did I give John 15, 5 to? All right, Jasmine, read John 15, 5. That's right. That passage should be written on the tablet of our heart because Christ is saying, He says, I am the vine, you're the branches.
Without me, you can do nothing. Think of the imagery. Again, this is all analogy, right? If you have a vine and on that vine are beautiful flowers that are growing off of it and you go up and you cut the vine off the tree and you cut off that point of nourishment, those beautiful flowers are going to dry up and die.
Your spiritual nourishment comes through your connection with Christ. You receive the Holy Spirit who lives within you and through that you bear fruit for the kingdom. You receive the Holy Spirit whereby you also have the gifts of the Spirit.
But it's all through that connection to Christ. None of that is done unilaterally. There is no salvation outside of Christ. You understand that? I mean, we've already talked about that. There just can't be.
You're dead and you're trespasses and sins. There's only one way to be made alive and that's through Jesus Christ. Yes, sir? Yeah, which is? Read it for us. Do you have it or do you have it? Okay, what does verse 7 say, Jasmine?
Just remind us. Okay, is that the verse you were thinking of? Okay. But yeah, we have through Christ what we need and we need but ask. Alright, so number 4. Cleansing of the body. Cleansing of the body.
Who had Ephesians 5?
It's still you? You're our Ephesians 5 reader. Go ahead. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
This is a beautiful passage. By the way, if you are a husband,.
If you have a wife, this passage is a call to sanctify your wife. So what does that mean? Well, the word sanctify has a wide variety of meanings in a sense because in its most basic sense it means to set something apart or to separate it.
But it also means to cleanse it. It means to purify it. And it's based on the word hagios, which is where we get the word holy in Greek. So it means to holy it or to set it aside, making it special. So we call it holy communion because it's special.
We have every supper that we eat, and then we have the Lord's supper that we eat. And that supper is different than all the other suppers. You have many suppers during the week, but you have one Lord's supper.
It's holy. It's different. And so in this passage, I saw my husband loving their wives, and it says that you sanctify her. I want to read it again. Pardon me. Washing, cleansing her by the washing of water with the word.
Having cleansed her with the washing of the water with the word. And this ain't a marriage night. That ain't the subject. But again, Christ is the model here, right? So Christ is doing what always? He's cleansing us.
How does He cleanse us? How does He wash us? How does He sanctify us? Through the word. In fact, I can prove this, because in Jesus' prayer in John chapter 17, when He's praying to the Father, and He's praying on our behalf because He says, I pray for you and the ones who will believe on me because of your testimony.
That means Jesus actually prayed for us specifically. 2 ,000 years ago, He prayed for everyone who would ever believe on behalf of the testimony of the apostles, and that's why we believe. And He said this.
He said, Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. Sanctify them with your truth. Your word is truth. So, husbands, that just puts a little onus on us. What are we to do with our wives? Bathe her in the word.
Sanctify her in the word. Love her with the word. Pour out the word upon her. Not in demand. You're not doing what the Bible says, woman. That's not it. That would be a rough night. But I'm glad you laughed and didn't scorn.
But you understand, that's not what I mean. Christ is bathing us in the word. He is washing us with the word. That's what this text says. It says, as Christ sanctifies us. Why? Verse 27, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor.
Here's the thing. Paul Washer is one of my favorite pastors. He's hard to listen to. He's so convicting. But that's good. One of the things that he tells a story. It's not my notes. It's just something that came to my mind.
He talks about a king that has a bride. And the king goes away. And he says to the people that are responsible for watching out for his bride. The people who are responsible for caring for the queen, essentially.
And he says, okay, here's what I want you to get her to be able to wear. Here's what I want you to get her to be able to eat. Here's what I want you to get her to be able to have and to live. And all these things.
And I want you to do this. And he says, and the king goes away. And while the king is gone, somebody else takes charge. And takes away the royal robes and puts upon her the robes of the prostitute. Takes away the royal food and gives her the food of the pigs.
Takes away the adornment of royalty and gives her the adornment of the world. And when he comes back, his wife looks nothing like he left her. And Paul says, what will happen to that man? Will the king not bring swift and deserving judgment?
And he says, think about what we've done to the church. Think about how we treat the church. The bride of Christ is to be loved. That's why I can't stand when somebody says, I love Jesus, but I hate the church.
You're wrong. You're just wrong. You're absolutely wrong. That's the body of Christ you're talking about. Is it hard to deal with? Oh yeah. Can it bite itself and hurt itself? Yes. Sheep bite sheep all the time.
Does the church make mistakes? Yes. But you don't solve the problem by hating the bride. And so really I think the heart of this whole lesson is, if the church is Christ-focused, it ought to be our focus.
Not the building, but the people. And I realize now the church is so divided it's hard to ever imagine any unity. But there is something called the universal church. Every person who is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is part of the greater body of Christ, which is the whole body.
But I believe this too, and I'll add this very quickly to say this. I don't think anybody in the universal church should be divided from a local church. What do you mean by that, Pastor? What I mean is this.
If you're a part of the universal church, but you're not part of a local church, then you're out of the will of God. Because Christ's mission in coming into the world was not to establish a bunch of little sovereigns.
He established the church that gathers to exercise three things. Preaching of the gospel, the practice of the ordinances, and administration of discipline. That's the three things the church does. I've never heard that third one before.
You will eventually when we get to ecclesiology. You'll understand what I mean by that. Church has a three-fold role in the life of the believer. To call you to repentance and faith through the gospel.
To administer the Lord's Supper and baptism to you. And to give you someone to call you to account. That's where the discipline comes in. If the church doesn't do one of those three things, it's not being the church.
It's not exercising the role of the church in the life of the believer. A lot of churches don't call people to account anymore. And they've thus given up one of the major responsibilities of being the church.
Church is such an important thing, and Christ is cleansing it. He's sanctifying it. That's why I do think when people get away from the church, doesn't it seem to be when people get away from the church, is when they begin to get more and more like the world.
It's almost like the story of the man who went and visited the man. A pastor went and visited this man who hadn't been to church in a long time. And the man said, well, I'm fine without the church. And the pastor said, well, can I sit with you at the fire?
It's cold outside. I want to sit here and warm by the fire. And he talked to the man and he says, why do you think you don't need to go to church? I'm fine without the church. I don't need to be at church.
I don't need to be in the church. And the pastor walked over to the fire and he took a pair of tongs and he reached into one of the lit embers in the fire and he pulled it out and he set it down on the tile right in front of the man.
And the man watched as the heat of the coal began to go away. And it began to smolder and it began to get cold and turn black. And he said, see, that's what happens when you separate yourself from the people of God.
When you're in with the people of God, there's a fire, there's a commitment, there's a drive. When you take yourself away, you grow cold and hard and dark. It's a good reminder of the role of the church.
Alright, last one and then next week we'll look at Christ interceding for his church. Looks like this is going to be a two-parter at least. Giving of gifts to the body. Now, here's the thing about this one.
You might say, pastor, it's the spirit who gives the gifts. Slow down. You're right. But I want to show you one last passage before we close. Who's got Ephesians? Brother, would you read Ephesians 4, 7 -12 for me?
Stop right there real quick. Who's gift? Christ. Okay, just very quickly, because this is what I'm talking about. When I talk about the giving of gifts, I'm not necessarily talking about the spiritual gifts, but this particular gift.
Alright, go ahead, brother.
And he gave gifts to men. And saying he ascended, what does it mean, but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.
Stop right there. Who is the subject?
Jesus. Who's the one doing these things? It's got to be Christ, because he's the one who descended. He's the one who ascended, right? So, just to be clear, we're talking about Christ. The person hasn't changed.
Now, verse 11, please.
He gave the apostles, the prophets, and the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.
Alright, right there. The point, all the point I'm trying to say is this. We can divide the Trinity in the sense of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit economically have differing roles. The Father is the one who elects, the Son is the one who redeems, the Spirit is the one who regenerates.
There are things that you can look at and say, Okay, well, the Father didn't die for our sins, the Son died for our sins. You make distinctions in that regard. But when it comes to spiritual gifts, there is a sense in which they administer through the Spirit, but Christ, it says in this text, he's the one giving these gifts, and he specifically looks at certain gifts.
He looks at the gifts of those who are called to preach and teach in the church. The apostles, the prophets, the pastors, and the teachers. And he says, this is a gift given by Christ. I jokingly say sometimes, because my wife will say, I'm thankful for you, and I say, well, I know I'm no gift.
And I mean that, I don't feel like I'm anything special. But in one regard, and I say this with no pride at all, in one regard, pastors and teachers are a gift to the church. Christ giving the church men who are called to proclaim the truth.
Because while everyone is called to share the gospel, not everyone is called to preach. Right? James chapter 3, verse 1. Not everyone should presume to be teachers, because teachers are held to a different standard.
And what's that standard? It's not that we're going to be saved by something different. The standard is we have to give account for what we teach. And that's a gift to the church. Teaching is a gift to the church.
Brother Andy had it right. The mind cannot be disconnected from the spirit in regard to how we learn. You don't learn by, I saw a picture the other day, this guy had a Bible on his head. I can't even do it.
He had his Bible on his head, and he was like this, and he's up on the stage. And underneath it, it said, this is not how that works. And I said, yeah, it's right. That's not how it works. Preaching and teaching the word of God takes work.
The willingness to put your knees under a desk and sit behind the word of God and wrestle with it until you have something to say. And you pray every week as a pastor. Lord, don't give me a message because it's an hour for the message, but give me a message for the hour.
Give me the message for this hour. And let me preach as a dying man to dying people. As if I were the man running around on the deck of the Titanic, I'm not rearranging deck chairs. I'm calling men to repentance.
And no man should feel special because of this call, but it is a call of God to do a specific thing in the church. And it's a gift to the church. Not that I'm the gift. Please, again, don't take it that way.
But as people are called to preach, that's a gift of Christ to the church. And so Christ gives gifts to the body. He cleanses the body. He nurtures the body. He directs the body. He forms the body. So Christ's focus right now is the church.
Next week, we're going to see how he intercedes for us. And that'll be our focus. I don't even want to try to preach that now. That's too precious a topic. So let's end with prayer. Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you for your truth. Thank you for your building up of the body. Lord, may we appreciate ever more what you give us in giving us the church. And we ask it all in Christ's name. Amen.