Simple Church 2: Back to Basics (6) - "What are the Means of Grace?"

Well, with that, we come to God's Word, and we continue on in the sermon series that we have been in now for the last six weeks, we've got two more weeks, and we'll be back in our regular preaching and teaching in the book of Genesis.

But for now, part six of our series, Simple Church, volume two, back to basics.

If you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, take them and turn with me to Acts chapter 20. Acts chapter 20, that's where we're going to be this afternoon.

Acts chapter 20, and I want to draw your attention to verses 17 to 32 as we get started today.

Acts chapter 20 from verses 17 to 32. If you grabbed one of the red hardback

Bibles we give in the back, that's page 984. Acts chapter 20 from verse 17 to 32.

It's our custom here at Redeemer that when we read the Word of God, we stand as we read it. So if I can invite you to stand with me as we read this portion of God's Word to open up our time this afternoon.

Acts chapter 20, beginning in verse 17. Brothers and sisters, these are

God's words. Now from Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and summoned the elders of the church.

When they came to him, he said to them, you know, from the first day I set foot in Asia, how

I was with you the whole time, serving the Lord with all humility, with tears, and during the trials that came to me through the plots of the

Jews. You know that I did not avoid proclaiming to you anything that was profitable, or from teaching you publicly and from house to house.

I testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance toward God and faith in our

Lord Jesus. And now I am on my way to Jerusalem, compelled by the

Spirit, not knowing what I will encounter there, except that in every town, the

Holy Spirit warns me that chains and afflictions are waiting for me. But I consider my life of no value to myself.

My purpose is to finish my course and the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of God's grace.

And now I know that none of you among whom I went about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again.

Therefore I declare to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, because I did not avoid declaring to you the whole plan of God.

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as overseers, to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood.

I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Men will rise up, even from your own number, and distort the truth to lure the disciples into following them.

Therefore, be on the alert, remembering that night and day for three years, I never stopped warning each one of you with tears.

And now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all who are sanctified.

Pray that God will bless that reading of his word and grant us understanding. Let's come before the Lord, ask for his help as we come to his word today.

Well, Heavenly Father, we would ask as we open up your word, you would, as we pray every week, shine light upon the word.

As we think about a concept and an idea that isn't often talked about in our churches, but it's so, so necessary,

I pray that you would grant me clarity of thought and clarity of expression as I speak to your people, and I pray that you would help all of us.

As we hear these things, we would not dismiss them. We would not wrestle with them, but we would come with hearts that are ready to hear you speak to us.

Father, it's our custom each time we gather to pray for another area church, and this afternoon we take a moment to pray for Heritage Christian Fellowship.

Thank you for Pastor Paul Stevens and Pastor Jeremy there and the leadership there at Heritage.

Pray for them as they are seeking to develop godly leaders and to create a culture of discipleship in their fellowship.

Pray that you would bless those efforts. Bless the preaching of the word, bless the use of the means of grace there, and bless the fellowship of your people there.

Father, we pray that for them and we pray that for ourselves even now. We ask you in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.

Please be seated. Well, this afternoon

I want to tackle a subject that we don't often talk about. I want to talk to you for a few moments, really just asking the question, brothers and sisters, what are the means of grace?

What are the means of grace? If you're here today and you're a

Christian, I want to begin by reminding you of a truth that I trust you know at least intellectually, but I think it's good to be reminded every now and again.

Christian Jesus loves you. Not sure if you heard that this week, but just in case you didn't hear it, let me say it again,

Christian Jesus loves you. You are a part of his bride and he loves you and he desires your good.

And he loves you and therefore he died for you, he rose for you, and most importantly for our message this afternoon, he is in heaven interceding and mediating for you as the head of all things.

I start there this afternoon because as Christians, we can often feel a little bit disconnected from what

Jesus is doing in heaven for us right now. If I were to ask most of you, what is

Jesus doing right now? I wonder how many of us would be able to give a biblically accurate answer.

And it can sometimes feel like there is a disconnection between we here on earth and our glorious saviour who is up above.

And I say feel because if we read the Bible, the Bible actually makes it clear that there isn't a disconnect between us and him because we're united to him, or as the

Bible says, we are in Christ, because we are in Christ, where he is seated, we are seated. So in a very real sense, there is no disconnection.

But that doesn't stop us from feeling like that in the here and now.

And maybe this is just the way I think, but maybe you've grappled with this question like I have grappled with at times, like how does the grace of Christ get from Christ to me in real time?

How is it that this glorified and blessed saviour who sits at the right hand of God forevermore, how is it that he pours out his grace upon my needy soul?

Again, maybe this is just the way I think, but have you ever asked the question like, how is it as a Christian that I can plug in regularly into this grace that is made available for me in Christ?

Now, that analogy of plugging in maybe isn't the best one I'll acknowledge because grace is not a substance that you plug into like electricity in a wall socket.

I want to be clear about that. But I mean, the question still stands. How does the grace of God shown to me in Christ come to me in everyday life?

Well, that's actually what I want to talk to you about this afternoon. Now, you remember in message one,

I told you that some of these messages will feel like lectures, some will feel like sermons, and some will be somewhere in the middle. This one might feel more like a lecture,

I apologize. But hang in there with me. I think understanding this concept might revolutionize the way you view a number of things in the

Christian life. And more importantly than that, I think it will minister to you in terms of realizing how it is that Jesus has set up a system whereby you, his precious people that he loves, can receive the grace and the strength that we need in our innermost beings to glorify him.

That's what I want to consider this afternoon as we tackle the question, what are the means of grace?

Now, as a heads up, I actually preached a sermon series about this all the way in January. That was Simple Church 1.

I encourage you to go to our YouTube channel, all four of those messages are up there. 1,

I might need to re -preach because my microphone wasn't working that day, but that's a sermon for another time. Now the content is there,

I'd encourage you to go and listen to that series. I'm not going to deal so much with the what of the means of grace,

I'll deal with that in passing. Really, I'm trying to deal with the big picture of when we use this language of the means of grace, what do we mean, and more importantly, why does it matter?

So I hope you grabbed a study guide on your way in, because you're going to want to write some stuff down as we get into this.

Like I said, this will get technical at points, but I will do my best to not move too quickly and to hopefully bring everybody along with me.

Let me start by just summarizing what I want to share with you this afternoon. You see, out of his love for us,

Jesus uses particular means to minister his grace to us as his people.

Let me say that again. Out of his love for us, Jesus uses particular means to minister his grace to us as his people.

That's really the big idea of everything I want to say today. If you don't remember anything else I have to say, if you remember this and at least some of the little details here and there, you'll be fine.

To help us in getting our arms around this, I want to consider four key questions that will help us unlock the value of the means of grace, especially in church life.

Remember, this is a series about the church. So how does this affect us, particularly when it comes to what we do in church?

So four questions, I'll try and move as quickly as I can. Question number one, when we say the grace of God, what exactly do we mean?

I think that might be important here, because if you get this wrong, you'll make a bunch of mistakes in relation to this whole topic.

So you've encountered churches, no doubt, who will say, for instance, that we've got the

Lord's Table right here. It's our custom here at Redeemer that we have the Lord's Table every week. And you'll encounter churches that say, oh, this table and baptism, yes, they're means of grace.

But what they mean by that is they actually minister justification to you.

So if any of you from Roman Catholic backgrounds or have familiarity with Roman Catholicism, that's

Rome's teaching, that these means of grace actually work about justifying grace in the

Christian. In fact, they say there aren't, we say there's four, we'll get to what we mean in a moment. They say there are seven.

And you need all seven sacraments, as they call them, to receive justifying grace. Well, that's not what we mean.

But the reason they think that is, well, I would argue a confusion as to what grace means.

So for a moment, we need to do some Bible work and differentiate the way the Bible talks about this word grace.

There are three different ways the Bible uses the term grace. I'll do my best to try and make this as simple as possible.

First of all, there is grace as one of God's attributes or perfections. Grace as one of God's attributes or perfections.

When we talk about the attributes, or I prefer the term, the perfections of God, we are talking about the essence of God as a being.

Simply put, that which makes God, God. I mean, you could say the divine nature, if you will.

I think that's a little more broad, but it's the same general idea. So when you read the

Bible, the Bible describes God as being various things. That he is love, he is holy, he is just, he is merciful, he is gracious.

All of these various things in the Bible describes God as being. When we look at them in the totality of his being, that's what we would mean by the attributes or the perfections of God.

And of course you read the Bible and the Bible says grace is one of his attributes. Now I don't want to get too technical with this, but these are not parts of God.

God is not like a pie in various slices and you know, one slice of the pie is grace and one slice of the pie is love and one slice is holy.

No, God is all of his attributes all the time. There are no parts to God. That's a doctrine called the doctrine of simplicity.

Again, that's a different message for another time. This is how one writer puts it, quote, grace is unmerited favor.

And in a more specific sense, that's favor towards sinners. This grace has no means by which it is induced or brought about.

It chooses and creates its own means.

So again, I want us to go to scripture. So John chapter one, verse 14, Jesus is described as the only one and only son from the father full of grace and truth.

Ephesians one seven says that we have received redemption through his blood according to the riches of his grace.

That's referring to grace as exists in God himself. That attribute, that perfection of his being whereby he displays and bestows unmerited favor on those who don't deserve it.

So that's one sense in which the Bible talks about grace. Grace is one of God's attributes or perfections.

But secondly, there is grace as an objective gift in Christ. So there is the attribute of God, but then there is essentially the

Bible refers to Christ himself as the grace of God. So one of my favorite verses,

Titus chapter two, verse 11 says, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.

And in the context there, the grace is a person. It's not a thing we get.

You know, it's not a what, if you will. It's a who, a person who reveals to us the unmerited favor of God.

And that's why it's important that as we proclaim the gospel, we proclaim the gospel in such a way as Christ is put front and center.

Because ultimately, God's grace is revealed, not in a plan.

Yes, we talk about the plan of salvation and what have you. But that plan only has meaning because there is a person called

Jesus. And he is the objective revelation of the grace of God.

I need to pause here for a moment and appeal to anyone who may not know the Lord without knowing the Lord Jesus. This is why we say if you don't know

Jesus, you cannot know the grace of God. The plan of salvation is designed to revolve around Jesus like the earth and the planets revolve around the sun.

If you reject Jesus, you're rejecting your only hope of salvation. And if that is true, the implication is you need to run to him.

And we need to call others who don't know him to run to him.

So there's grace as one of God's attributes and perfections. There is grace as an objective gift in Christ.

And here's the sense I'm talking about today. All of those are true and we're not taking anything away from those that just know what we're talking about today.

We're thinking about grace as God's strengthening work in us.

And in particular, God's strengthening work in our souls.

Now for this to make sense, I need to talk to you about your soul for a moment. If you've gone up in church, you've heard the idea that you have a soul, it's immortal, it's all the rest of it, which is true.

But I think for a moment we have to ask the question, what do we mean when we talk about this thing called the soul?

Quick straw poll. How many of you would say, if someone asked you, what does it mean when you say you have a soul? How many of you feel confident answering that question?

I expect you to, you're a biblical counselor. Well that's why we're here.

Let's talk for a moment about what your soul is. When you read the Bible, the Bible makes it clear that you, human being that you are, there is a material part to you and there is an immaterial part to you.

The material part is what I'm looking at, all of you sitting here right now and you're all looking at me. This part of flesh and bone and muscle and nerves and all of that stuff, that's the material part of you.

But the Bible also makes us to understand that there is an immaterial part of you, that there's a part of you that can't be seen by the naked eye as it were.

And that immaterial part of you, the Bible says, is just as much you as what we can see.

We are not as Christians what some call materialists. We don't believe that, oh well, just the body is all there is and there's nothing spiritual to us.

Like when you die, that's just the end. No, that's not what the Bible teaches us. The Bible is very clear that there is a material part of us and an immaterial part of us.

There's some debate. Some people say there's a soul and a spirit separately, there's a spirit and soul. I'm not going to get into all of that today.

For now, let's just assume material and immaterial part of us. Well, for a moment, let's talk about that immaterial part.

I would argue that that's what the Bible refers to as your soul. In some cases, it will interchange spirit.

I don't think they're two separate things. Like I said, that's a discussion for another time. Maybe we'll pick that up in our cutting room floor this week.

But when the Bible talks about your soul, your soul has really what we could call three faculties to it.

Your soul is made up of your mind, your will, and your affections.

Your mind, your will, and your affections. Your mind is where your understanding sits. Your will is where your decision -making sits, informed by your mind.

And your affection is where your desires sit, as it were. And so all three parts of...

All three parts there, the mind, the will, and the affection, they come together to comprise what you call your soul.

Now, how does the soul work? Well, when we think about the soul, the soul extends itself primarily in its affections.

Now, your affections are built up of what you love and what you hate. Kind of think of it this way. You've got what you love and what you hate.

Now, if we were to talk about what's near and far in relation to those, let me use an example. I love cheesecake.

Cheesecake is a great dessert. If you don't like cheesecake, repent because it's great.

I'm very touchy about cheesecake. I love cheesecake. When I don't have cheesecake, it's far from me.

We'd all agree from that because I don't have it. So what do I do? I desire it. I want cheesecake.

Now, if I should go to... I don't buy cheesecake generally because I know how much I like it. But let's say I go to somebody's house or I go to an event and they've got cheesecake.

I go from desire, wanting the thing because it's far, now I've got it. Now what do I experience?

Delight. I'm happy because I've got my slice of cheesecake. Let's pick something

I don't like. Going to my dentist. My dentists are actually great people, shout out to Dr.

Ferran. But I don't like going to the dentist in general. So again, near and far.

When it's far away, what do I experience? Fear. Oh, heavens,

I have to go to the dentist again. When that day arrives, the next time for me is

October 31st. When that day arrives, what do I experience? Sorrow. Why? The thing I don't want is here.

That's how your soul works. Kofi, why are we taking weird details to talk about the soul?

Because when we talk about the means of grace, God has designed the means of grace to minister directly to your soul.

So this is from Gerard de Vos. He was a theologian in the early 20th century. He said this.

There are certain instruments by which God wills for us to come to know and to apply his favor residing in Christ.

These are means connected with the communication of grace. Grace is hereby taken in its widest sense so that it is not limited to effectual seeking or regenerating grace.

In other words, we're not talking about saving grace here, but it includes everything that happens subjectively in or below our consciousness.

In other words, we're talking about grace as we experience it in our very souls.

You can't see it, but by faith we know we are experiencing that grace because of what

God's word tells us. That's the kind of grace we're thinking about when we talk about the means of grace.

It's God's great supply for the needs of your soul, purchased in Christ and made available in Jesus for strengthening your faith.

And like I said, it hits us in the level of our mind, our will, and our affections.

So again, I start there a little bit technical, but I start there because it's crucial for us to understand that as we get started.

If we get the definition of grace right, the rest of this conversation will fall into place.

If we confuse grace, whether we think we're talking about like this substance, it's not a substance, or we're talking about saving grace, listen, this

Lord's table, and when you get baptized, they don't save you. We're not talking about that. We're talking about the operation of the

Spirit of God upon the soul. Okay, so we've talked about that.

Let's get to question number two then. Well, what makes something a means of grace? So when we use this language of means of grace, again, it's not language we use all the time, but it's important to think about.

How do we know that something is a means of grace that God approves of, that God gives to us, versus something that we might be tempted to make up?

Well, a few thoughts. First of all, when you read the Bible, the means of grace are God -appointed. The means of grace are

God -appointed. I mean, that should be pretty straightforward. If the grace we experience through these means comes from God, it should make sense to us that God is the one who determines what is and what isn't a means of grace.

So let me give you just one example of this. Tell me if you read to Matthew chapter 28. Let me show you something there. Matthew 28, Matthew 28 and verses 18 through 20.

Familiar words to you, I'm sure. This is the Great Commission passage.

Jesus is about to leave the disciples. He's given them some marching orders.

In Matthew chapter 28 and verse 18, the text says, Jesus came near and said to them,

All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore baptizing them, go therefore, excuse me, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything

I have commanded you. Now, we often focus on the go, make disciples and baptizing part, but Jesus says part of the

Great Commission isn't just going, it isn't just making disciples, and it isn't just baptizing those disciples.

He says, you are to teach them to observe everything I have commanded you.

There were certain things that Jesus commanded, and he wanted his people to do them.

And so, beloved, we have no warrant to invent things in doctrine, in worship, and in discipleship that God hasn't sanctioned in his word.

If God in his word hasn't said we should do it, we should at best ask some questions.

And at most, we should say, we ain't doing that. That leads us to a second truth we need to consider.

The means of grace are God appointed. God alone, Jesus alone gets to determine what is a means of grace.

Secondly, whatever these means of grace are, they are powerless without the word.

Now, this is again where this becomes very important. If I can use an example. So, here's our communion tray.

I'll grab one of these nice gluten -free ones. This has no inherent power in it.

I've actually not had one of these, so I don't know how they taste. But I have to trust that they taste at least okay, because they've made them for people to eat.

But when you drink it, it's grape juice. When you eat it, it's a wafer of some sort. This has no magical powers to do pretty much anything.

I say that because, again, there are traditions that will teach you that this, when the priest says a particular set of words, that this transforms.

It looks like juice and looks like bread, but it transforms into the very body and blood of Christ.

That's not what the Bible says. This is just a juice and a cracker by itself.

Okay, then, Kofi, if it's just a juice and a cracker by itself, why do we do this? Simply put, we do this, and we do all the means of grace, because they are vehicles for the promises of God given to us in his word.

Remember, think about this. Romans 10, verse 17, those of you who are taking notes, what does the Bible say? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God or the message about Christ, some translations will have.

According to the Bible, what is it that produces faith? According to the Bible, Romans 10, verse 17, it's the word of God that produces faith.

Okay, Kofi, what does this have to do with the means of grace? Everything. It has everything to do with the means of grace, because these means of grace only have any power as they're connected to the word.

So when we hear the preaching of God's word, which we'll talk about next week in its own sermon, the preaching of the word of God only has any power in God's people's lives as it's truly the preaching of God's word.

That's why you want to be careful to ensure that you are actually teaching the Bible and only the Bible and not your ideas.

When we partake of the Lord's table, the Lord's table doesn't have any power in and of itself, but as we remember the promise of God that he nourishes our faith through this means, it has power.

When we baptize someone, baptism has never saved a single person because it can't save a single person.

However, when we baptize someone, they are being reminded of the fact that they are united to Christ, that they are identified with his death.

That's why we immerse. They are buried. They stay down there for a little bit, and then they are raised to newness of life.

The promise of God is connected to that visible side. And it's the same with prayer.

When we pray, we pray back. Hopefully, I hope you do this. When you pray, you pray the promises of God to him.

And as you pray the promises of God to him, the Bible says, if we pray according to his will, he hears us. The act of praying has no power in and of itself.

But it has power because it's connected to God's word. And so we do these things because the word commands us and the word tells us that they're effective for growing and for nourishing our faith.

So what makes something a means of grace? Well, it's God appointed and it's connected to the word of God.

Everyone tracking with me so far? Okay, I want to make sure I'm not losing anyone. So we've talked about what the grace of God is.

We've talked about what makes something a means of grace. Well, we might want to define what we mean by the means of grace, don't we?

Well, glad you asked. Question number three, how many means of grace are there? Again, if you come from a

Roman Catholic background, they tell you that there are seven sacraments. Is that correct? There are some churches that will tell you that there are three.

Baptism, the Lord's Supper and foot washing. Is that correct? There are some churches that will tell you that they are non -sacramental.

They don't have anything. They just, you come, you hear God's word and the word of God ministers directly to your soul.

That's about it. Are they correct? Well, reading the word of God closely, churches that come out of the

Reformation, which rightly include Redeemer Bible Fellowship, they confess the following.

Again, like I said last week, confessions are not a replacement of scripture. They're a helpful statement of what scripture teaches.

Here's an example of that. In the Westminster Larger Catechism, question 154, this is the question that they give.

Quote, what are the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of his mediation?

So remember what we said? That there is Christ who is up in heaven, who loves his people dearly and wants to minister every good and perfect thing to them.

And so we're asking the question, how does he do that? Well, here's the answer. The outward and ordinary means whereby

Christ communicates to his church the benefits of his mediation are all his ordinances, especially the word.

They use the term sacraments. You can interchange it with ordinances and that's fine. The word, the sacraments, so baptism, the

Lord's Supper, and prayer, all of which are made effectual to the elect for their salvation.

And when they say salvation, again, they're not talking our justification. They're talking our ongoing self, our sanctification, as it were.

So our fathers in the faith read the word of God and they rightly understood that there were four means of grace or what they called the four ordinary means of grace.

God could use all kinds of other things, but these are the things God has guaranteed to bless.

Four. They said there was the word of God and they said that this was the preeminent means of grace.

You then had the sacraments or the ordinances, baptism and the Lord's Supper, and then you have prayer. One, two, three, and four.

And like I said, back in January, I preached on all four of those individually. I encourage you to go back and listen to that.

Allow me for now though, just to summarize real quickly. Like I said, the word of God is the preeminent means of grace.

In fact, you could rightly say all the other means of grace have no power except they are connected to the word of God.

And it's interesting, our fathers in the faith, we'll talk about this next week when we talk about preaching. They were very careful to say that it wasn't just the reading of the

Bible that's a means of grace, but it was the preaching of that word. And so they distinguished between the general use of the word and the specific use of the word.

Generally, the word of God is a means of grace as we read it, as we study it, as we meditate on it, and we apply it to our lives.

That's why it's so crucial for you to be in your Bible daily. And sometimes

I think we as churches have not done a good job of encouraging this because you make it sound like it's a law to be observed under the threat of punishment.

I understand why people say this, but it's not my favorite phrase anymore. Some of you may have heard that if you grew up in church like I did.

No Bible, no breakfast. So basically the idea was, I'm not even gonna think about having breakfast until I've read my

Bible. I applaud the desire to read your Bible. But sometimes that can come across as though this is a chore that needs to be done.

Do your chores first, and then you can go do everything else you wanna do. Well, think about that.

If that's the case, why would you want to? At some point, it's gonna become a drudgery to you.

I don't think that's what God intends for us as his children when he says that we should be in his word.

Now, I don't think this is a new law to be observed under threat of punishment, but this is feasting on that which truly satisfies our souls.

That's why Jesus could say in his temptation to the devil, Matthew chapter four, Luke chapter four, man does not live by bread alone, quoting

Deuteronomy. A man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

So the word of God generally is a means of grace, but our fathers in the faith were also careful to distinguish that the preached word is specifically a means of grace.

Because in this moment where the word of God is being preached, faltering and as non -amazing as it may seem, the

Bible would make us to understand that Christ is being set before his people in all of his glorious fullness.

Okay, Kofi, why do you say that in the Bible? I'm glad you asked. So Galatians chapter three, some of you were here when we did

Galatians last year. Galatians chapter three in verse one, Paul says, you foolish Galatians, who has cast a spell on you, but for whose eyes

Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Hold on, the lesson to the

Galatians is written some 15 to 20 years after the events of the Gospels. How could the

Galatians who were thousands of miles away have seen Christ portrayed as crucified? Oh, it was as Paul preached

Christ. Pastor, a friend of mine, pastor called Ike out in Des Moines, Iowa.

He famously said in a sermon that it stuck with me. First of the time I heard him preach, he said this, and it stuck with me.

He said, in the preaching of Christ, the Spirit does something amazing because ears become eyes.

That as Christ is proclaimed, yes, you're hearing something, but something is being seen, something is being displayed in front of you.

And the Spirit of God, if you will simply just submit to him, he is showing you something in that moment.

That's what Paul could say in Ephesians chapter four, verses 20 and 21. Most of our English translations do not do a good job with this verse.

I will credit the New American Standard for getting it right. Ephesians chapter four, verses 20 and 21. It says, but you, referring to the

Ephesian Christians, 17 to 19, he says, don't be like those who don't know God, and gives an example. Verse 20, in the

New American Standard, it says, but you did not learn Christ in this way. If indeed you have heard him.

Well, how did the Ephesians hear Christ? They heard

Christ in the preaching of Christ. As Jesus is proclaimed through the ministry of the word of God, God's people are seeing in a very visual sense, the

Lord Jesus. That's why you probably noticed in some reformation traditions, they don't believe in pictures of Jesus.

And we can debate that whether they're right or wrong. The reason why they don't believe that is because they rightly say, I agree with them on this much.

God hasn't designed for us to see Jesus in pictorial form. He's designed us to see

Jesus in the preaching of his word. And so when we say that the word of God is both generally and specifically a means of grace, that's not a statement of value as much as, again, we're talking about the church.

In the context of the church, the preaching of the word of God is how Christ ministers to his people.

And with the word of God functioning as a foundation, baptism and the Lord's Supper act as visible signs and seals.

I wish I had time to teach that out. I will save that for our cutting room floor show if you watch it on YouTube. I'll get into a bit more detail on that.

But they act as visible signs and seals of God's promises in his word. Like I said, bread and juice have no power in them.

They're just bread and juice. Water has no power in it, it's just water. But they do have some spiritual power when they are accompanied with the word of God.

Same thing with prayer. It's one of the reasons why corporate prayer is so important for the life of a church.

Yes, individual prayer is important and you should definitely be praying. But it's when we come together as God's people and we go back to him with the promise of his word that he promises to shower his blessing upon his people.

And again, like I said, in each of those, there is a clear connection to the promise of the word of God. You have the word of God and in connection with the word you have baptism as we come in and join the people of God and we have the

Lord's table as we commune together as God's people. All right, kid, you've made your point.

You've defined what this grace of God is. You've talked about what makes something a means of grace. You've even kind of quickly told me what a means of grace is.

Okay, why does any of this matter? I'm glad you asked, that's my final question.

And before I get to my final question, can I give you a health warning? This might hurt. Because I might say some things that make you uncomfortable here.

But again, I simply ask you to go back to God's word and ask, okay, crazy as that boy might be, and I'm somewhat crazy, crazy as that boy might be, is he on to something?

Question number four, how does this affect the local church? Does this affect the local church?

You better believe it does. Allow me to give you a couple of implications as we close. Number one, if this is true, the word of God has to be central in the life of a local church.

Has to have central place. Those of you who are considering joining membership at Redeemer, we don't have a ton of ministries, you've probably noticed.

Some of that is just personnel. We can do what we can do with what we have. And some of that is just, well, if you've got so much resource, focus on the most important things.

But aside from those two practical concerns, we're very intentional here at Redeemer in prioritizing this book and all we do.

So you come to our worship services, they are heavy on the reading and teaching of Scripture.

Eddie, wasn't it a few weeks ago in one of the climbing room floors that we kind of counted how many times we either read or refer to Scripture in the service?

It was a lot more than I thought it was. We sing songs that are true to the promises of Scripture.

We prioritize the reading and the teaching of Scripture. We partake in the Lord's table as a visual representation of the promises of God in Christ as we find them in the

Word. When we baptize someone, we do so in obedience to God's Word and in reminding both the person who's being baptized and the church, this is what

God has said about you. If the Word of God is how faith is created and it's how faith is nourished and it's how faith is strengthened, it seems to me,

I'm a very simple person, so give me a moment here.

It would seem to me, if that is true, that if faith is created, the Bible says through the

Word of God, if faith is nourished through the Word of God, if it's strengthened through the Word of God, then it stands to reason that maybe this book should be the central thing in all we do.

So the Word of God has to have central place. Here's the part that I thought might hurt. You need to be in church.

I'll be honest. I was sitting there. It was Thursday night, Friday morning, very early

Friday morning. I was writing this and I almost apologized for including this.

I'll be honest. Maybe you've not encountered this with preachers in the past. We all go through moments where we get terrified to say certain things out loud.

But we're like, I don't know if I should say that. That might not work out well for me.

I almost had that moment. And then I did what I often do.

I talk to myself. Talking to yourself is not craziness. It's if you start hearing voices, that starts a problem.

So I started talking to myself. I said, Kofi, why are you so nervous to say this? Why does it feel like an imposition to tell

God's people that being in corporate worship is a priority? Could it be?

I might be off. Just give me a chance. Could it be that we have so individualized the

Christian faith that when we tell people or we tell someone, listen, you can't live the

Christian life on your own. You need to be with God's people. There's something instinctively in us that says, ew, don't say that.

And my question is, why do we feel that way? That's the question

I had to ask myself very early. It was like 2 a .m. on Friday. I had to ask myself, hmm, why do you feel this way?

And then I began to realize, well, I'm just a child of my times, I suppose. I was raised,

I mean, you all were raised in this if you think long and hard about it. What's the most important thing about being a Christian? A personal relationship with Jesus.

Now, it's true. You do have a personal relationship with Jesus. I'm not trying to downplay that at all.

But here's the thing. How does that relationship get nourished? When I read the Bible, the Bible seems to suggest that happens when we come together.

In fact, here's the part that might hurt. If everything I've said so far doesn't. Beloved, you cannot be spiritually healthy if you are not regularly gathering with God's people.

That sounds kind of arrogant. I know, I know. How dare you tell me, don't you know,

I read my Bible every day. I listen to Christian music.

I read good Christian books. What do you mean I can't go spiritually if I don't come to church? Well, first of all,

I didn't say it. The Bible says that. So remember what we read in Matthew chapter 28?

Think about this. Who is commanded to baptize? The churches.

Who is commanded to teach everything Jesus commanded us to do or to observe? The churches.

In fact, when you read the Bible, where does the Bible locate spiritual growth? Before you answer that question, two texts.

Ephesians chapter four, verses 15 and 16. Paul says, but speaking the truth in love, if you've been a redeemer for any length of time, you have heard me quote these verses, because I love it.

But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head,

Christ. From him, the whole body fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament promotes the growth of the body.

What promotes the growth of the body in that verse? It's the body.

How are you going to grow if you've disconnected yourself from the body? Paul says that it's from Christ that the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part.

You, individual Christian, have a part to play in the life of the church. We'll talk about that in our final message in this series in two weeks.

You have an individual part to play. As you play your part, your brother and your sister are edified.

They're built up in their faith. They play their part. You're edified in your faith and the whole body grows together.

If you aren't part of a body, if you aren't regularly there when the body is gathering, explain to me how you expect to grow when you've cut yourself off from the body that allows you to grow.

Okay, Kofi, that's one verse. All right, I've got another one for you. Hebrew chapter 10, 24 and 25.

We'll come back to it in our final week. And let us consider how to consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together.

Brief grammar lesson, the not neglecting part tells you how to provoke to love and good works. So if you want to see your brother and your sister grow in love and good works, if you want to be provoked, stimulated, encouraged to pursue love and good works, that doesn't happen on your own.

The instruments that Jesus uses to build your faith in him and your love for all his people, they all take place in the context of a local church.

The word of God is preached here. Yes, we live stream for folks who are checking our church out.

And as a convenience for when folks are sick, we've got a couple of mothers in the room, God bless them. Like we understand that, again, that's not to say that that's wrong, but I think

I talked about this in the first week. COVID introduced a bug into the system for some of us. It told us that, well, as long as I hear a sermon online,

I'm good, no you aren't. You need to be here under the direct ministry of the word of God.

Not just from the person who preaches, but for one another, because Ephesians 4, 15, you're to speak the truth to one another.

When we baptized, we baptized doing so in the midst of our body, testifying both as the body to the grace of God and the person being baptized, they testify to the grace of God.

When we partake of the Lord's table, we are receiving real spiritual nourishment. As I would believe the

Bible teaches, Christ is present among us, not in the elements, but he's present by his word and present by his spirit.

When we gather to pray together, you ever notice this in the Lord's prayer, Jesus doesn't say, he tells the disciples, when you pray, he doesn't say pray my father who is in heaven, he says our father who is in heaven.

Why? Because prayer in the life of the church is a corporate event, not just individual. This might be a punchy idea, but hear me out on this brothers and sisters, and I say this, please receive it in the spirit in which

I intend. Maybe we would all be spiritually healthier if we, think about this, if we didn't plan church around everything else.

This is a piece of advice my pastor back in London gave me years ago. He said, Kofi, be careful that you don't,

I was starting work, I was like starting to lose a lot of my free time that I'd had for a long time. He said, Kofi, be very careful that you don't plan everything, that you don't plan church around everything else.

He said, endeavor as best you can, Kofi, he said, I've seen it happen to too many young men, I don't wanna see it happen to you.

Endeavor that the church is central and you plan everything else around that. Kofi, that sounds radical, maybe it does, but I would argue it's the spirit of the

New Testament. And what if we did that? Not because we just come to hear a sermon and if I don't, the preacher's gonna come after me.

Like, no, what if we did this not as a sort of ticking of a religious box? What if we did this?

Let me connect you back to my thought from the beginning of this message and I'll be done. What if we did this because, like I said,

Jesus loves you. And because Jesus loves you, he gives you particular and practical means by which you and I as his people, we receive the grace that he has for us and we deepen our relationship with him.

One final thought and I'll be done. If all this is true, then churches should stick to this and I would argue not much else.

As I was prepping this this week, I came across an article in the Nine Marks e -journal from a pastor in Florida, Eric Bancroft, he said this, quote,

Pastor, God has not called you to creativity or outpacing expectation. He's called you to a ministry of proclamation where you preach

God's word without reservation or hesitation. He's called you to a ministry of shepherding and he's told you that you will give an account for the lives he has entrusted to you.

So stick to the ordinary means he's given. I put it to you, it's liberating for me and actually it's liberating for you as a body when we stick to the things that God has asked us to do and in the words of Nine Marks Ministries, we don't do weird stuff.

I mean, if you've been in church any length of time, you know some churches do ridiculously weird things just like, why are we doing this? Well, if we stick to stuff the word of God tells us, these ordinary means of grace, you've got plenty to be getting on with.

We read the word, we preach the word, we sing the word, that's why we're very careful what songs we sing here, we pray the word, we see the word in the water of baptism and in the

Lord's table. Listen, Christian, have you heard this already? Jesus loves you and because he loves you, he gives you these tokens as it were, these means by which we come to know and experience that love.

And Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for these tokens of your love that you give to us in Christ, these means of grace for the strengthening of our souls and the building up of our bodies.

We ask that you would increase in us a hunger and a passion for these things, that we would not allow ourselves to be filled up on the junk food of this world as it were, but that we would find true spiritual nourishment in the means that you have graciously given to us.