The Original Church Consultant

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It's pretty funny, because he actually, you know, I sent him a list of books. Leviticus wasn't on it, but we sent him on 1
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Timothy. How do you go about running a church, establishing a church?
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I was talking to a man who told me that he planted, like, six churches in five years, and it just got me thinking, how do you do that?
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How is that even possible? How do you grow a church? How do you lead a church?
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And naturally, I went to the internet to find my answers. Here are principles of church leadership.
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Principles of church leadership. And I love this. I have to read this, because this phraseology is so good.
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Principles of church leadership. The seven principles of transformational leadership. To create a synergy of energy within the flock.
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A synergy of energy. Here's principle number one.
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It's the principle of simplification. Successful leadership begins with a vision which reflects the shared purpose.
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I don't even know what that means. But listen to this. Now, he breaks it down. The ability to articulate a clear, practical, transformational vision, which answers the question, where are we headed?
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Principle number two. The principle of motivation. Kind of reminds me of the army.
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You get up in the morning, determination, motivation, motivation, motivation, motivation. He says the ability to gain the agreement and commitment of other people to the vision.
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In other words, you set out the vision, then you motivate people to bring the vision about. Principle number three.
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The principle of facilitation. The ability to effectively facilitate the, you just, yeah, you get it.
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Principle of innovation. The ability to boldly initiate. Now, listen to this, because this is the only really kind of biblical reference here.
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Principle of innovation. The ability to boldly initiate prayerful change when needed.
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Number five. The principle of mobilization. The ability to enlist, equip, and empower others to fulfill the vision.
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Number six. Principle of preparation. The ability to never stop learning about themselves with and without the help of others.
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Number seven. Principle of determination. The ability to finish the race. A leader's missions are sometimes difficult, and their journey often lonely.
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I read that, and I just go, what does that have to do with the Bible? How could these be principles of church leadership?
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Does that, I mean, other than that one little mention of prayer, it doesn't sound, it sounds like a business.
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You know, here, set out your vision, motivate your people, enlist, equip, motivate, send them out, get them moving on your vision.
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Well, that's not what the Bible says at all. How about church growth? Again, I mean, you know, you give me something like this to do this week, and it's just going to be internet crazy.
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Church growth. I found a book called Go Big, Lead Your Church to Explosive Church Growth.
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The author asks, is your church big enough? Fewer pastors are answering yes to that question.
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The modern trend for Protestant churches, especially evangelical churches, is the mega church.
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Consequently, numerous pastors are reading books and articles about how to achieve massive church growth.
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Why not just put the church on steroids? They want to know how to grow their congregation into mega churches.
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And this book is predicated on several philosophies. Listen to these. Most small churches are small because their structure and culture keeps them small.
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You know, things like preaching the Bible, expecting people to live holy lives. Church growth.
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Church growth. Indeed, fast, rapid church growth is biblical. Why? How do we know that?
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Well, because it happened in Acts, and therefore it must be normative. And finally, God will reward big dreams and big faith.
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Maybe. Again, no scripture. None of that stuff. Does any of that match up with what the
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Bible says about how to run a church, how to found a church, how to grow a church? The answer is no.
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I want to just open by reading a couple of verses from 1 Timothy, and I would invite you to turn there.
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We're not going to really walk through a verse in particular. We're going to be going through several. But I wanted to read the first two verses as kind of a starting point.
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1 Timothy 1, verses 1 through 2. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the commandment of God our
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Savior and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope, to Timothy, my true child in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the
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Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, tonight, as I walk through kind of a jet tour, again, of 1
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Timothy, I want us to see several principles, and I'm going to say that just to drive my wife crazy.
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Several principles the original church consultant gave
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Timothy on how to run a church. These are divine prescriptions, not the machinations, not the imaginations, not the inspirations, not the whatever motivations, what are all the other things he used in there.
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They're not made up. They're not the wisdom of modern church consultants.
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You know, you can go on the Internet, you can actually hire people to tell you how to come in and grow your church. But these six, there
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I gave it out, six building blocks, are as relevant and non -negotiable today as they were nearly 2 ,000 years ago when
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Paul wrote them. There's this message out there that the
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Bible is out of date, that it's no longer valid, and I just don't see that, and I hope we see that tonight, that just nothing has changed.
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Mankind hasn't changed, and God has not changed, most importantly. But first,
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I think it's just important quickly to look at the authority of Paul. Our text does tell us that he's an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to God's commandments.
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He's a messenger specially commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ to the
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Gentiles, and we'll see tonight also to some Jews. But his role in life after he got saved was to take the gospel and to transmit it, to teach it, to preach it, to exhort people to live it.
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And he didn't just plant six churches in five years and then, you know, leave them spinning on their own.
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He spent a lot of time with these churches and grew the leadership there. And what he's doing in this letter is he's passing the baton to Timothy.
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Again, look at the text, to Timothy, my true child in the faith. I mean, this is a letter of love, concern.
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He says, listen, I'm the apostle. You're just Timothy, but you're not just Timothy, because he was
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Paul's constant companion throughout the book of Acts. He'd kind of, since he was a young man, maybe 15 or so, right up until this point where he's probably in his early to mid -30s, he had been
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Paul's closest, I would say, disciple, someone who had learned, as it were, at the knee of Paul.
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And now Paul has a concern for the church at Ephesus, and he wants to make sure that Timothy is able to do it.
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In fact, let's look at that, 1 Timothy. We're going to be looking through a lot of scriptures tonight. His purpose in writing, 1
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Timothy 3, verses 14 and 15, Paul tells us why he wrote this letter.
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He says to Timothy, I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long.
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But in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living
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God, the pillar and support of the truth. Paul had a purpose in writing.
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He said, I may not make it. I have this sense that I'm not going to be there, and I want you to know how this all should go.
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There are issues, and we'll look at them, but there were some issues in the Ephesians church, the church at Ephesus, and Timothy was
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Paul's man, as it were. Just as Paul was Christ's man, Christ's apostle, well, now,
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Timothy isn't an apostle, but he's going to act as Paul's messenger, not just as a pastoral authority in the area, as a pastor, but also as representing the apostle
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Paul himself. Stott put it this way. Here is Paul's self -conscious apostolic authority.
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He is planning to visit, and he says so twice in two different verses, and he intends to straighten out the problems that are at Ephesus, and so he writes this letter, and then he writes this thing so that doctrine, ethics, unity, mission of the church, all these things that he could have and probably did tell
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Timothy, but now he's got a record of them, so if he forgets, if he gets lost, or if people want to question him on anything, he can say, listen, not only have
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I been Paul's closest associate for 15 plus years, but I've also got his letter where he told me exactly what to do, and as I said before,
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Paul was integral. He was vital to the life of the church at Ephesus.
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He didn't just pop in for a couple weeks, then move on. Well, I helped you guys out.
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If you would, just go ahead and keep your finger on 1 Timothy, but turn over to Acts 19, the book of Acts, where we get the history of the early church, first focusing on Peter and then on Paul and the missionary journeys that he took.
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Acts 19 verses 8 through 10, talking about his first visit to, or this is his second visit to Ephesus.
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The first one was brief. The second one is in Acts 19 verses 8 to 10, and he entered, talking about Paul, entered the synagogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months.
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That was some kind of Bible conference. Reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God, but when some were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the way before people, speaking evil of Christianity, of the gospel, he withdrew from them and took away the disciples, those who were listening, those who wanted to learn, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.
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In other words, he moved them away from all these scoffers. Verse 10, this took place for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the
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Lord, both Jews and Greeks. Ephesus being a port in the kind of Southwest portion of, you can't see the map, can you?
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Southwest portion of Asia Minor, what we would call modern Turkey, and Paul spent two years there teaching daily.
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Imagine, no television distractions, no other distractions, but just teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching.
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And then later, when he is subject to increasing, Paul is subject to increasing persecution, he calls the leaders of the church to come to him.
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In Acts chapter 20 verses 17 to 21.
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Again, just think of how much of his life he had poured into that church.
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Acts 20 verses 17 to 21. From Miletus, he, Paul, sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church.
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Verse 18, and when they had come to him, he said to them, you yourselves know from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how
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I was with you the whole time, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials which came upon me through the plots of the
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Jews. How I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you publicly and from house to house, solemnly testifying to both
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Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
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He just, he gathers the elders here and he says, listen, you guys remember me, you know my credentials, you know what
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I did, this is how I spent all that time with you. More than two years, well more than two years.
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In fact, it borders on three years as we'll see in a moment here. Acts 20 verses 26 to 31, just a little further down in the chapter.
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Verse 26, therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.
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Why is he telling them all this? Why is he running through his resume that they already know? Why is he emphasizing all these things he tells us?
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Verse 28, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the
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Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood.
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He's giving a charge to these men. I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.
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And from among your own selves, men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them.
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Therefore, be on the alert, be on guard, that night and day for a period of three years, oh, remembering, remembering that night and day for a period of three years,
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I did not cease to admonish each one with cheers. To call
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Paul a church planter, to say that he was the one who planted the church at Ephesus, it's kind of an insult to what all the
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Lord did through him. How he literally poured his life, all his emotion, everything that he was, he gave of himself entirely to building the people and building the church at Ephesus.
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I came across this definition of a church planter and just compare how some people think of modern church planning with what we just heard
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Paul describe his life was like. A church planter is a compassionate leader who knows they, meaning the compassionate leader, the church planter himself, knows they need others to make a difference.
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So they get a team of like -minded people who want to be a church, not just do church.
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A church planter loves people who have not yet to begin a relationship with Jesus and they want to minister to the whole person.
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Are you ready to stop reacting to culture and start leading culture? Maybe it's time for you to check into becoming a passionary.
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That is so trite. What does it mean that they want to minister to the whole person?
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Does that mean that you're going to go start a church and you're going to start a physical boot camp in the morning and then feed them breakfast and you're going to deal with the whole person?
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We deal with the souls of people. Paul was preaching them the truth. Why? Because he needed to engage their minds and he wanted to convict their souls.
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I don't know what the idea of the whole person is. Paul spent three years admonishing, it tells us.
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The text tells us, admonishing the Ephesians. It means to counsel about avoidance or cessation, stopping an improper course of conduct, to warn, to instruct.
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So he taught them, he prayed with them, he chastised them, he cried over them.
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This was not somebody who simply loves people. He loved the church and every single person in it longing for their full obedience to the
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Word of God. That's what he was after. He wanted to just so instill a love for the
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Word of God into those people that when he left, they would continue right on. He didn't want there to be any kind of break.
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He wasn't just interested in starting something and then letting somebody else go. He was going to stay there until the
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Lord called him somewhere else. He wanted to make sure that they were ready.
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And just think about it, after just a few years there, they had elders that he could call. How many places could say that?
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How many church planners could say, I was there for two years and after two years we had a group of men who were elders, spiritually qualified to be elders, that I called to come see me.
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Very rare indeed. And now after all that introduction, we get to the first principle.
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The church must have sound doctrine. Any church worthy of the word church must have sound doctrine.
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And wait a second, you say, what about vision? Enough of that. Back in 1
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Timothy, 1 Timothy 1, verses 9 and 10, and all those other things, those business principles that are somehow applied to the church as if they preempt everything the
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Bible says. When you run a church like a business, what do you wind up with?
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A business, a money -making machine. That is not what the church is called to be.
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1 Timothy 1, verses 9 and 10. These are killer verses talking about sound doctrine.
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Realizing the fact that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those, listen to these sins, who killed their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men, which is fornicators and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, those who lie under oath, and whatever else is contrary to the law.
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No, that's not what he says. Whatever else is contrary to sound teaching.
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That word teaching is the exact same word that has translated doctrine so many times. Teaching, doctrine, they're virtually interchangeable.
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In fact, that noun, that word, appears 21 times in the
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New Testament. And with two exceptions. It appears only in the epistles and the letters.
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But here's the best part. 15 of these times, it's in the pastoral epistles. This is what
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Paul wrote when he wrote to Timothy the first time, the second time when he wrote to Titus. Doctrine, doctrine, doctrine, teaching, doctrine, teaching, doctrine.
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This is where he stressed over and over again. The church has to have sound doctrine.
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Doctrine matters. Paul was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and he emphasized it to these men over and over again.
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It's interesting that that word, I'm not going to bother to try to pronounce it in the
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Greek, but it really means the teaching or doctrine, it means apostolic or Christian teaching as a whole.
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You can't just take a part of doctrine. It's either whole or it's not.
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It's either sound or it's not. It's either right or it's not. There is no middle ground. There's no shade of gray.
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In fact, and I'm probably getting ahead of myself, but whenever it talks about doctrines, you know, plural doctrines in the
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Greek, it's false. It's false doctrine. There's one doctrine that's true and right.
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And when you have doctrines, they're false doctrines. There is only one right set of doctrines.
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You can't just have a little of this and a little of that. You can't mix in a little bit of that and take a whole bunch of that.
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It's not like you can say I'll have a bit of election, a smidge of sovereignty. It'd give me a whole great big serving of that free will.
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I'd like to fill my plate up with that. It's got to be sound doctrine. In that same way, when
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Paul, you don't have to turn there, but when he was talking to the Galatians, and he was actually, he opens up his letter by just berating them.
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And he says in verse 6 of chapter 1, he says, I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him,
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Christ, who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel. Different is the word heteros.
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That's a Greek word for it. If you're a heterosexual, that means you like people of the opposite sex, and that's a good thing.
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But when you're talking about doctrine, it's not good to be heterodox, to like doctrine that's other.
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Paul says about gospels, these other gospels, a different gospel.
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He says, which is really not another. Why? Because there is no other gospel.
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There is no other truth. Just as there is no other doctrine, there's sound doctrine, and there's false doctrine.
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One is either orthodox, meaning you have right thinking, or you're heterodox, meaning you have different thinking.
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I mean, what does all this mean when we hear things like, you know, there's a new perspective on this.
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I've discovered some previously unknown nuances to certain
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Greek words. I was reading somebody I graduated from seminary with who, you know, is dabbling in all these.
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I could not, literally, I could not even understand what he was talking about that he was studying. And then, you know, these things that he was studying led him to some new understandings, and I thought,
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I'm not smart enough to do that. I don't get it. There is no new, new story.
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It's the old, old story. And I like the word there, too, sound.
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Sound doctrine, you have doctrine, and then sound doctrine. It means healthy. If something is sound, in the
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Greek, and we would say in the English, too, if something is sound, if I'm sound, then I'm healthy, and that's the same idea.
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This just means that it's free from error, that it is correct, that it is right on the money. Now, going back to verses 9 and 10, isn't it interesting that all those sins, verses 9 and 10, he doesn't really call them sins, but he says that they are contrary to sound teaching, to healthy doctrine.
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You know, much was made when Rick Warren was asked to give the inaugural prayer at President Obama's inauguration, but a lot less attention,
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I think, was paid to Gene Robinson, who was asked to pray also at one of the ceremonies there.
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He's an Episcopal bishop up in New Hampshire, our neighboring state. He divorced his wife some years ago and confessed to being a homosexual, and he now has a live -in companion.
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Now, how can he be celebrated, how can he be appointed to be a leader in the
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Church of England? I mean, it's a branch of the Church of England, and the answer is because they've chucked sound doctrine.
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Again, what did he say? He said it's contrary to sound teaching. They've just left all that.
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And when you move away from the truth, eventually it will result in kind of the downward spiral of Romans 1.
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You'll go from one level of depravity to another, to another, to another, and you finally wind up with men and women leading the
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Church who are completely unqualified. Homosexuals leading the Church. And again, the
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Internet can be a dangerous thing, and I went on the Internet and found out that there are support groups for homosexuals who are
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Roman Catholic, Seventh -day Adventist, Mormon, Jehovah Witness, and even
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Baptists. I shouldn't have been surprised, and you shouldn't be surprised.
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When people set aside sound doctrine, when they allow things to be taught that are not right, everything is going to go.
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If truth is negotiable, then everything else is negotiable as well.
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It's all going to slide downhill. There are always consequences for abandoning the truth, for abandoning sound doctrine and healthy teaching.
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But you say, well, wait a second. Isn't doctrine just for wonks? I like that word, wonks.
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You know, talking heads, pastors, theologians. I don't know, somehow when
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I say wonk, I just think of Nate, but we can edit that out of the tape. But isn't it just for those people?
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No. 1 Timothy 1 .5, Paul writes, but the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
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The telos, the end, the purpose for which Paul and Timothy taught the truth was the love that they had for those they would teach.
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They knew, as the pastors, elders, those who teach here know, that what you believe impacts how you live.
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And the converse of that is true too. The way you live reflects what? What you believe.
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Godly living can only result from godly instruction in the
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Word of God. Principle number two. The church must reject false doctrine and those who teach it.
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The church must reject false doctrine and those who teach it. Again, the contrast between sound doctrine and false doctrine could not be more stark in Scripture.
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Whereas Paul said that he taught the truth because of love, that was his motivation, the false teachers have different motivations for their teaching.
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1 Timothy chapter 6, verses 3 to 5. 1
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Timothy chapter 6, verses 3 to 5. Paul writes, if anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. Look at that equivalence. Sound words, those of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. And with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing.
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Not, oh the poor lad, he's just a little misguided. But he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.
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Look at verse 4, where he uses the word conceited. I did a little research on that word, and one of the possible translations for it, and I like this one, is insane.
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They're not just conceited, they're not just puffed up, they are crazy. How crazy do you have to be to think that you know about something that you can't know about?
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Without the Holy Spirit, you cannot properly interpret the Bible. So what do they do?
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They argue for the sake of arguing, and they argue, really, to kind of justify their own guilt, to get out from underneath it.
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And they teach false doctrine, a different doctrine. In fact, it's really doctrine with the alpha privative negating it, so it is not doctrine.
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It's doctrine that is not doctrine. It's teaching, but it's not what the apostles taught. It's not what the Lord taught.
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It's not what the Holy Spirit would have these men write Again, to chapter one of 1
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Timothy, the very first instruction Paul gives them, he says, hey, from Paul to Timothy, I mean, that's how
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I start my business letters, but from Paul to Timothy. And then verse three.
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As I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God, which is by faith.
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They wanted to wrangle over words.
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They wanted to teach unsound doctrine. They wanted to speculate. They wanted to take away from the gospel by adding obedience to the law.
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And Paul says to Timothy, look, I want you to go to Ephesus and I want you to set things right. Give them a cease and desist order.
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Reminds me of being out on patrol, one of my early experiences. And pretty much there's almost nothing more insane than the idea of maybe two, three, four officers going to one of these massive parties.
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I mean, literally hundreds of kids where they're all drinking and it's quite a rich area. And so it would just be packed.
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And we came up on this one and it was just the entire block was full of kids.
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And we got there. We were the second unit there. The sergeant pulls up behind us and he looks at us and he goes, who's in charge of this thing?
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And we just kind of pointed to the other guy. You know, it's his call. He's got the call. And the sergeant went up to him and he said, he goes, what are you doing?
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He said, well, sarge, I've given him a warning. And he goes, a warning?
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He goes, tells me and my training officer, he goes, clean this mess up. And so we just go walking down the street and we just start, you know, arresting people.
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And guess what? The crowd just disperses. Randomly arresting people.
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Well, they were all drunk and disorderly. So there you go. I don't know how many people we arrested, but when people start seeing them, other people go to jail and they break up.
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And that same way, he's saying to Paul, look, you are the officer in charge. I'm sending you. You have my authority and you got to get these people under control.
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Stop them from teaching these false, these false doctrines, this unsound doctrine.
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I want you to stop it. Don't let them do that.
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Especially now, obviously you can't stop them from, it reminds me from being a grace community church, there was a man who would stand out and picket across the street.
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Well, there's nothing you could do about that. But within the church, you have control.
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Paul says, stop that. Stop them. False teachers always believe they know more than they do.
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Verse seven in chapter one says, wanting to be teachers of the law, even though, listen to this, they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.
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Imagine that. I mean, it'd be like stepping into a calculus class and the highest thing you ever took was pre -algebra and you're going to start waxing eloquent about calculus.
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It's not going to work. But in that same way, Paul says they don't know anything. They don't understand the law.
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And yet they make confident assertions about it. What do true teachers do?
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They approach scripture with humility. They want to get it right. They don't want to be wrong. Why? Because they know it is a great responsibility that they have.
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A false teacher doesn't care about that. He doesn't care. So full of themselves are these false teachers that they'll pontificate, they'll ramble on about things that they don't know anything about.
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I found this in Christianity Today this week. It's called Power Pentecostalism.
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And you want to talk about what happens when there is kind of no controlling authority and by no controlling authority
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I mean the Bible isn't preeminent. And when the Bible isn't the foremost thing in a church, this is what happens.
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The most prominent item in many Latin American churches is the
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Bible. The pulpit. How about the drum set? The drum set.
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Many congregations spend over an hour standing and singing, often songs written by church members before the sermon.
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They have this new movement called the Apostles and Prophets. And these people who are running these movements, they don't know anything about the
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Reformation. In fact, I was reading that one man actually, when he started studying the Reformation, he'd been a pastor for 20 years, he started studying
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Reformation theology and he changed. He was like, I've got it all wrong.
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But most of them down there are running crazy with this thing where even men who are pastors will say, you know what, you shouldn't call me pastor, the appropriate title is apostle.
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And then they've got groups who host lessons on how to prophesy and then they'll separate off in groups of two and they'll prophesy blessings over each other for practice.
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One theologian says there is little or no emphasis on sola gratia, grace alone, sola scriptura, scripture alone, or justification by faith alone.
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He says, sadly, the Apostles and Prophets are not teaching the central message of the gospel, but a gospel of prosperity.
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It's a series of teachings where you go and you make, you are taught to make a pact with God and you show your seriousness about this pact by sending money.
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A lot of these churches are surrounding the culture, all the kind of, what's the word, the superstitions.
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So they pay money for these amulets, all kinds of magical ways to make money and become happy.
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And that is what's going on. Anytime you get away from scripture, false teaching is going to come in.
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And in fact, we know that Paul also wrote in 1 Timothy that false teaching is going to proliferate, it's going to get worse.
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1 Timothy chapter 4, verses 1 and 2. But the
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Spirit explicitly says that in later times, and when are those later times?
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I don't know, but I certainly think we're in later times now because it's later than it was then. A lot later.
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The Spirit explicitly says that in later times, some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, like believing you can buy the favor of God with money, like believing some kind of magic amulet is going to make you happy or bring you the things of your dreams.
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Verse 2, by means of hypocrisy, of the hypocrisy of liars, seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.
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They have so deadened their conscience they don't even feel, they don't even feel the weight of their sin.
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They are, as it says in verse 2, liars. And after this morning, I just thought this was such, so appropriate because this is really a composite of two words, liars, and it's not liars, no, in the
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Greek, it's pseudo, or false, fake, and then the second word is lagas, pseudo lagas, false words.
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What do liars give you? False words. I thought, perfect. That's exactly what they do.
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Hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience. They give you these false words, these pseudo lagas.
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So we've seen, first, that the church must have sound doctrine. Secondly, that it must reject false doctrine and those who teach it.
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You can't make room for false teachers inside of the church. Third, the church must have sound leadership.
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It must have sound leadership. I mean, if you're going to plant a church, if you're going to run a church, who should run the church?
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Who should lead it? Sounds like I'm picking on the Episcopal Church, but they just had a meeting here a few weeks ago in Anaheim, California, a lovely place, by the way.
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The Episcopal Church lifted a de facto ban on gay and lesbian bishops and appears headed toward adapting rights for same -sex unions.
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One question, and this is the part that really caught my eye, one question has repeatedly surfaced in these debates.
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Does the church take its cues from culture or stand against it? Should the church import the things that it sees in the world around it or should it fight against it?
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Well, that should be a no -brainer. But the Episcopal bishops passed a resolution that allows for flexibility in devising blessing ceremonies for same -sex couples.
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And here's the resolution. Listen to this. The changing circumstances in the
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United States and in other nations in legalizing gay marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships call forth a renewed pastoral response from this church.
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We stand on the law of the land. We stand on the culture.
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We don't stand on the word of God. The following Tuesday, after they took that vote, the church voted to lift a three -year moratorium on consecrating gay and lesbian bishops.
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As I read earlier, homosexuality is contrary to sound doctrine. But supporters of gay clergy argue that this was pertinent.
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They'll say, well, you know what? Paul was only writing to Ephesus. That's all he had in mind. Well, first of all, you have to read it even in context.
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In 1 Timothy, you read it and you go, well, it's contrary to sound doctrine. If you're saying that all those other things are also just for Ephesus, murderers, you know, kidnapping, all that other stuff, and you're saying, well, you know, that's really not against the
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Bible anymore, you've got a real problem. I mean, we have absolute chaos. But again, in 1
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Corinthians 6, Paul wrote different context, but he said, or do you not know that the unrighteous, he calls it unrighteous, eventually we'll see that, will not inherit the kingdom of God.
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Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
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And may I say, they shouldn't be in charge of the church either. If you've got a man who's a known idolater, a thief, a drunk, a swindler, put him in charge of the church.
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No. But you know, as Paul so often does, he gives hope.
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And this is the message that the Episcopal church ought to preach and that we ought to preach. Verse 11, he says, such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the
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Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. Every single one of those buts, as I was looking at it in the
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Greek, it's just amazing because it is the strong contrast. It says, look, this is who you were, but you're no longer that person.
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You were washed. You were changed. You were sanctified. You were made holy. You were even declared righteous.
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Why? Because you put that off. Whatever your behavior was, you put it off. We don't call simply homosexuals to repentance.
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We call every unbeliever to repentance. And again, in 1
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Corinthians, the Greek couldn't be more clear. The term righteous, which means living an upright life, living a straight life, has been negated again with the alpha privative.
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It is arighteous, without getting into the Greek pronunciation. And it means crooked.
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It means they veered off from what God demands. If you're going to set homosexuality aside, especially when it's in that list of sins, of things that disqualify you from the kingdom of heaven, of things that are contrary to sound doctrine, then what you're really saying is there is no standard anymore.
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Who should be in leadership? What about women? Paul addresses that in 1
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Timothy as well. Turn over to chapter 2. It really shouldn't be confusing at all.
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I don't know why people get muddled about this. 1
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Timothy 2, verses 12 to 14, but I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over men, but to remain quiet.
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You say that's very unloving, Paul. Verse 13, he tells us why. For it was
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Adam who was first created and then Eve, and she was to be a helper. And it was not
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Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. It wasn't a cultural argument he made.
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He didn't say, you know, there's a particular woman in Ephesus. Don't let her near the pulpit. Anybody else can be a teacher, but not her.
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No, he said it's tied to the fall. It's a response to what
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Eve did. In fact, this is a different translation. It's the new
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English translation, the net translation of Genesis 3 .16, God talking to Eve and giving her the curse in the garden.
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He says, you will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.
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So a woman's desire for her husband, you know, what does that mean? It's to control her husband.
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That's the whole point, and Paul applies that then to women being teachers over men.
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You know, they may know more. They may be better communicators. They may have a better skill set.
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They may even know more doctrine, but that is not the point.
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The point is this is a result of the curse. And there's a survey, and this is scary.
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It just kind of shows you how much people have just thrown aside 1 Timothy. 51 % of churches do not allow women to become head pastors.
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33 % of churches, now this kind of confuses me. 33 % of churches do not allow women to preach.
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You can be a head pastor and not preach, I guess. And only 12 % of churches do not allow women to teach classes of adult men.
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12 % of churches do not allow women to teach classes of adult men. I think it's pretty clear right there.
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So women cannot be teachers, leaders in the church. Who should the spiritual leaders be?
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George Barna, talking about leadership, said the church seems afraid to invest in, listen to this, new modes of being the church, breaking free from antiquated, out -of -date models and irrelevant traditions toward living the gospel in a 21st century context.
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Putting things in context, getting it up to date, making it relevant for now. Here's one more quote from Barna.
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He suggests that church leaders need to think outside the box, and wait for it, and the
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Bible. Spiritual men, those who are qualified, who would lead the church, want nothing to do with those kind of ideas.
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1 Timothy 3, 2, we see that they must be skilled in teaching, an overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, and it really means skilled in teaching.
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They have to have an aptitude for it. They don't just muddle their way through, and it certainly doesn't mean that they're able to hoodwink the unsuspecting, that would be a false teacher.
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They are skilled in teaching, implied, again, sound doctrine. Because what else would spiritual men teach to a church?
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Sound doctrine. What else should they be?
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Well, they should be disciplined. 1 Timothy 4, 7, Paul writing to Timothy says this, and this is applicable to every man who would be a leader in a church, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.
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Exercise yourself. He says, listen, physical exercise is of some benefit, has temporary benefits, you feel better.
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But spiritual training, spiritual discipline, doesn't just make you feel better, it has an ongoing impact.
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It's good forever. There's plenty of instruction for Timothy.
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It applies to all leaders. 1 Timothy 6, Paul writes, I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or approach until the appearing of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. We could say that's just for Timothy, but I think it has an application to everyone who would be in church leadership.
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Now, there are some things, and I really have to go quickly, but there are some things that I don't really know that we want to apply to every church leader.
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For example, 1 Timothy 5 .23, no longer drink water exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.
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As somebody who has a bad stomach, I don't know that wine would really help me, but different times, and we'll get to that later.
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But the point is that there must be spiritual men, men who are disciplined, men who are focused on sound doctrine, men who are skilled and able to teach, not women, not men who are sinfully disqualified from the ministry.
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Also, in the idea of who should lead the church, well, we have to have men who are supported by the church.
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They have to be supported financially. Faithful men are to be rewarded.
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1 Timothy 5 .17, the elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor. Especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.
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There's just kind of an extra category, an extra blessing that comes to those who work hard at preaching and teaching.
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Now, there are specific means for bringing accusations against elders, against leaders.
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You can't just make accusations blindly against them. 1 Timothy 5 .19 and 20 says, do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses.
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Don't even listen to it. Those who continue to sin and sin, in other words, elders who continue in sin, listen, rebuke in the presence of all.
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Stand them up there on Sunday morning and rebuke them in front of the entire congregation so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning.
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Why? You know, why are they special? Why is it that you have to have a couple witnesses?
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Well, because elders have a special responsibility and because they're in that place of responsibility, there is more of a tendency,
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I would say, to murmur, to rumor monger against them. You know, if you want to split a church, if you want to divide a church, speak ill of the leaders.
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Murmur about them, spread rumors. The elders who continue in sin will become an example of what you don't want to be.
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They'll be the ones who are shamed. Okay, so number one principle, timeless principle, is the church must have sound doctrine.
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Number two, the church must reject false doctrine and those who teach it. And number three, the church must have sound leadership and it must support that leadership.
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Fourthly, and I'm going to go really quickly through the last couple, the church must pray. 1
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Timothy 2, verses one and two. First of all, first of all, then
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I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men.
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And Pastor Mike did that this morning. He brought up many of our leaders, those elected officials over us.
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Why, why do we pray for them? So that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.
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We want them to be saved. We're thankful to the Lord for them. Even as he said this morning, why should we be thankful for government?
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Because anarchy is worse than no government at all. The worst government in history is better than no government.
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Fifthly, the church must read scripture publicly. We do that. We do it in the morning. We do it in the evening.
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Why? Because it says so. This is how you run a church. 1
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Timothy 4, 13. Until I come, until Paul gets here, I don't mean here, but until he gets to the church at Ephesus, he told
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Timothy, he said, give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation and to teaching.
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When they say reading, it was reading aloud typically thought of in the laws and the prophets,
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Old Testament. In the synagogue, they would do that. They didn't, he wasn't talking about, you know, just go anywhere randomly and start reading.
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He talked about in the worship service, in church. Church also must, number six, must care for widows.
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1 Timothy 5, 5. There are a number of little smaller things here, but this is one. Now she who is a widow indeed and who has been left alone, in other words, has no other means of support, doesn't have family because he's kind of gone through that and fixed her hope on God.
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She is relying entirely on him and she is faithful. She continues in her entreaties and prayers night and day.
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Church needs to take care of that woman. You know, in conclusion,
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I would just say this. Jesus promised to build his church. He promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against it.
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They're trying. The gates of hell are trying. I mean, I just have example after example after example of bad stuff, trends, culture, fads.
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Everything is new and improved, better, more effective, guaranteed to bring results.
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But Paul wrote to instruct Timothy on how to run the church. He didn't focus on specific programs.
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He didn't mention anything about the building. He didn't talk about, you know, the dimensions of it, what it should look like, what the walls should be painted, what color the carpeting should be.
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I wonder why he didn't do that. He didn't talk about the seats. He didn't talk about the music style.
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He didn't even talk about translations. Paul never promised numerical growth.
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He didn't say, Timothy, if you'll just do this, the church at Ephesus will blow up in six months, man.
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It'll just be huge. You're going to have to build some satellite campuses. That wasn't the point.
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In fact, he said the ministry would not be easy. In 2 Timothy, he said, suffer hardship with me.
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It's not easy. It's not simple. It's a weight. It's difficult.
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Paul knew that. And Paul never stopped emphasizing the principles of running a church in the manner in which
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God would have it run. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the book of 1
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Timothy, the word that you've given us, that we might see not how a church should have run 2 ,000 years ago, but the timeless principles that you have given us to run a church even today.
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It's amazing how just using your book, we are able to address so many issues.
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We don't need business plans or anything else. And, Father, your insight, your plan, as it were, is flawless.
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Father, would you keep us, hold us to that, turn us again and again not to some new fad, some new plan, some new anything, but turn us back again and again to the old book.