SImple Church: Back to Basics #2 - "What is the Purpose of the Church?" (Selected Scriptures)

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Let's get to the ministry of God's Word. We are continuing on in the sermon series that we began last week that we have called
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Simple Church Volume 2 Back to Basics and this afternoon we come to the second message in that series.
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For those of you who are on our email list, I said that as I put this message together and I've got time to meditate and think over it,
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I am pretty convinced this may be one of the most crucial messages ever preached in the history of Redeemer.
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Not because I'm impressive or I have anything impressive to say, but because I think understanding the themes and topics we want to talk about today are critical to the life of our church.
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And so if you have a copy of God's Word, and I hope you do, take it and turn with me to Matthew chapter 28,
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Ephesians 4, and 2 Timothy 1. If you borrowed one of the hardback
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Bibles in the back, that's page 886, 1038, and 1055. Matthew chapter 28, verses 16 through 20,
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Ephesians 4, 11 through 16, and 2 Timothy chapter 1 from verse 13 through to chapter 2 verse 2.
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Quite a lot of reading as we get started. But I hope that it will lay a foundation for what we're going to talk about this afternoon.
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So join me over in Matthew chapter 28. We will start there and work our way across the
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New Testament a little bit. So Matthew chapter 28 from verse 16 through to 20.
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And if you're able to do so, can I invite you to stand with me out of reverence for God's Word as we read this portion of the
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Scriptures. Matthew chapter 28, reading from verse 16 through to verse 20.
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Brothers and sisters, these are God's words. The eleven disciples traveled to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them.
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When they saw him, they worshipped, but some doubted. Jesus came near and said to them, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
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Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
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Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything
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I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
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Turn over with me to Ephesians 4. Ephesians chapter 4 and verses 11 through 16.
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Ephesians chapter 4 and verses 11 through 16. Paul says,
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And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of God's Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ's fullness.
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Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown about by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.
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But speaking the truth in love, let us grow up in every way into him who is the head,
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Christ. From him 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.
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And finally, 2 Timothy chapter 1. 2 Timothy chapter 1 and reading from verse 13 right down to chapter 2 and verse 2.
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Paul says,
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May the Lord grant that he may obtain mercy from him on that day. You know very well how he ministered at Ephesus.
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You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
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What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commits to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
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Pray that God will bless those readings from his word and grant us understanding. Let's pray, ask for the
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Spirit's help, and we will come to the ministry of God's Word this afternoon. Let's pray together. Gracious Father, we thank you so much for your word.
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We thank you that, as the psalmist says, the entrance of your word gives light and it gives understanding to those who are simple.
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Lord, compared to your infinite wisdom, we are all simple. And so Father, we would ask that you would cause the entrance of your words, the arrival of your word, to give light to all of us.
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And Father, as we pray for our body, we pray also for Coram Deo Medford. Thank you for Pastor Brian and Pastor Jason who serve there.
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Pray for them as they continue to minister downtown and pray for their continued growth and their continued pursuit of you as a body.
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Pray that your spirit would be at work among them, causing Jesus to be known through that body of believers.
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And Father, that's our prayer for ourselves as we come now to the ministry of your word. May Jesus Christ be known in word, in deed, and in power.
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For we ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Please be seated.
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Well, for your family, we, as I said, are continuing on in this sermon series that we've entitled Simple Church 2,
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Back to Basics. And this afternoon, I want to speak to you from the theme really is a question, and all my sermon touters for this series are questions.
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My question for this afternoon, as you can see from your study guide there, what is the purpose of the church?
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What is the purpose of the church? Well, if you talk to different people, you get the sense that as far advanced as we are as a society and where we are in the history of the church, we still haven't quite figured out what the purpose of the church is, if you were to speak to certain folks.
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So some folks will tell you that the church exists to bring about social transformation. This was the idea of the social gospel that came around towards the end of the 19th century.
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That essentially the gospel purely deals with the social ills and social concerns of man.
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If you don't have a gospel that deals with those concerns, you have no gospel at all.
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And the social gospel has waned and waxed a little bit, and in its most current form, we see it with so many of the conversations surrounding issues of so -called social justice and what have you.
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So that's one group of people. Another group will tell you that the church exists purely for evangelism and mission.
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As one rather prominent megachurch pastor put it, quote, if you got saved last Sunday, that was the last
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Sunday—I won't mention the name of his church—but blank church existed for you. And his sentiment there was simply that we exist to deal with non -Christians.
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This church doesn't exist for Christians. So if you became a Christian, this church stopped being for you last
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Sunday. Now your job is to turn around and go get more people to come. So some folks will tell you social transformation.
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Others will tell you we're purely here for evangelism and mission. Others will tell you that the church exists for community.
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This was the idea that really came to the fore through the Seeker Church movement. One of the unsung fathers of that movement was a businessman named
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Peter Drucker, and his whole emphasis was that modern society is losing its sense of community.
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The church and religion in general, but especially the Christian church, is the one last place where people still care about community.
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So let's give people a sense of community through building churches they want to be a part of.
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And so the Seeker Church movement was born, and we haven't got rid of it ever since. So you hear all of these competing voices, and especially in our day where we have social media and whereas once upon a time you had to pay money to be able to put your opinions out there, now you can just turn a camera on yourself and talk to everybody with one fell swoop.
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But with all of that, it raises a question. How on earth can something as simple as the purpose of the church get to be so confusing?
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Last week we looked at Matthew chapter 16. Jesus said, I would build my church. Well, when
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Jesus said, I will build my church, sometimes you have to wonder when people talk like this, do we even know, did he even know, forgive we knew, did he even know what he meant by that statement?
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Well, of course he knew what he meant by that statement. I put it to you that the Lord of the church actually does have a purpose for the church.
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That he clearly tells us what that purpose is. You can know it and you can assess churches by their commitment and their faithfulness to that purpose.
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And we recognize this in every other sphere of life. So if I walked into Carl's Jr. and Carl's Jr.
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started, well, actually I can't use that anymore because they do say plant -based burgers, don't they? Um, but let's suppose they said, we don't do burgers anymore.
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Okay, what do you do? We're an Italian restaurant now.
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Some of you in this room just look to me like, what on earth? Because you recognize, hold on, that's not your job. That's not what you do.
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You're the burger place. Or I went to the airport and the airport said, well, we don't fly anywhere anymore.
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Now we just drive people everywhere. You do know you're, some of you would look at that and say, you do know you're an airport, right?
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Like your job is to fly planes, you know, big metal things that go up in the air. We recognize that if we get off purpose, something is wrong.
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But somehow at times when it comes to the church, it's perfectly fine for churches to be off purpose as long as they mean well.
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Well, actually I'm going to say that the Bible is very clear about the purpose of the church. And to the degree that we are unclear, we're not going to know what our role in the church is.
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Beloved, why do faithful churches exist? Why has
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God predetermined that of all the things that should exist in this world that He has made, one thing that should be in the world are faithful churches for His glory.
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Why has God determined that the church should exist? That's really the question
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I want to explore in this sermon. Here's my answer to that. My big idea for today, it's very simple. Faithful churches exist for three reasons.
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No more, no less as we read the Bible. Three reasons. They exist for the exaltation of God, the edification of God's people, and the evangelization of the nations.
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That's why every church exists. For the exaltation of God, the edification of God's people, and the evangelization of the nations.
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I'll make this point at the end of the sermon, but I'm going to make it now as well. A church can't decide we're big on one and we don't care about the other two, or we're big on two and we don't care about the other one.
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As we'll see when we start to compare Scripture with Scripture, the Scripture assumes the church does all three.
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Maybe we don't do all three well, and maybe we don't do all three with the same amount of vigor and the same amount of effort, which of course that raises some questions.
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But either way, the church exists for these three reasons. The exaltation of God, the edification of God's people, and the evangelization of the nations.
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Simple enough, and that's actually really my point for this sermon. Let's get straight into it. Point number one, first reason why faithful churches exist, they exist for exaltation.
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Exaltation, simply put, we mean that the church is a worshiping body.
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The church is a worshiping body. So first and foremost, the church exists for the purpose of worship.
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When you look at God's people, God's covenant people, Old Testament Israel and the church in the new covenant, you look at God's description of the purpose for why the church exists, and worship is a vital component.
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I'm going to fly through a lot of scriptures, so if you're the note -taking type, please use that study guide and take some notes of some of these references. I think they might even be on the study guide.
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So Exodus chapter 3 and verse 12, God has sent Moses to go and deliver his people.
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Exodus 3, 12, Moses says, I will certainly be with you. This is God speaking. I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign that you are, to you, that I am the one who sends you.
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When you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God on this mountain.
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So God says to Moses, he's worried, like, you're sending me to Pharaoh, you know,
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I can't go back there. And God says, don't worry, I'll be with you. And here's the sign.
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When you go and when you bring them out, you'll come back to this very mountain to worship.
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Moses took that to heart because multiple times in Exodus, he tells Pharaoh that's where they're leaving. So Exodus chapter 7 and verse 16, he says,
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God says to Moses, here's what you tell Pharaoh. Tell him, Yahweh, the
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God of the Hebrews has sent me to you, has sent me, excuse me, to tell you, let my people go so that they may worship me in the wilderness.
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But so far you have not listened. So Moses is clear, you're, he's going to bring these people out, but they're coming out for the purpose of worship.
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Chapter 8 verse 1, same thing. Then Yahweh said to Moses, go into Pharaoh and tell him, this is what
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Yahweh says, let my people go so that they may worship me.
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Isaiah chapter 43 and verse 21, easy way to remember it, 4, 3, 2, 1. Isaiah 43, 21, the people
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I formed for myself will declare my praise.
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We cross over into the New Testament and Jesus says exactly the same thing. And this one I do want you to see. So tell me to John chapter 4.
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To have this in front of you, John chapter 4. John chapter 4 from verse 20 through to 24.
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John chapter 4 from verse 20 through 24. This is the story of Jesus and the, what church history now knows as the woman at the well, the
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Samaritan woman. They've been having a discussion about the nature of worship. But pick up what
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Jesus says in verse 20. In fact, this is the woman speaking.
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Let me read from verse 19 to give us context. John 4, 19. Sir, the woman replied, I see that you are a prophet.
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Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.
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Now some people have said that this woman is just basically trying to be a distraction and not basically not trying to deal with the heart of the issue that Jesus is going to raise later.
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I don't think he's doing that though. I think he's, she's asking a legitimate question. Because look at what Jesus answers, verse 21.
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Jesus told her, believe me woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain, and the mountain he's referring to was
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Mount Gerizim. That was the mountain that the Samaritans worshipped on instead of Jerusalem. And so Jesus says, the hour is coming when you will worship the
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Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know.
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We worship what we do know, because salvation is of the Jews. But an hour is coming and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the
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Father in spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him.
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God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
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So right from the mouth of Jesus, he says, the Father's great concern is that he would have a people who would worship him, and that those who worship him would worship in spirit and in truth.
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After all, this makes sense when you think about it, doesn't it? If God is supremely zealous for his own glory, if God is,
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I want to be careful how I put this, but if he is passionate for his own glory, if that is true, why would he not be passionate to have a people who worship him?
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I mean, after all, if we are his people, shouldn't his glory, the glory of our triune
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God, shouldn't that be our biggest preoccupation? I mean, wouldn't it make sense that the greatest good that could possibly exist, our triune
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God, that the greatest good would be the pursuit of his children, that we as his children would seek to pursue worshipping him.
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Puritan pastor Thomas Watson spoke to this theme. I love the way he puts this. He says, this divine worship
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God is very jealous of. It is the apple of his eye, the pearl of his crown, which he guards as he did the tree of life, with cherubim and a flaming sword, so that no man may come near it to violate it.
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God is deeply concerned that his people render to him the worship that is due, that is appropriate to his name.
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Well, then that begs the question, what does it look like for us to be a people who worship? If we say the church is a worshipping body, that we, having continuity with the saints of old, the people of God, that we are a worshipping people, what does that look like?
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A few thoughts. First of all, worship is ascribing appropriate honor to God.
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It's ascribing appropriate honor to God. It's saying and doing that which is worthy of who
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God is. So the psalmist can say in Psalm 29 and 2, ascribe to the
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Lord the glory due his name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. One of my favorite call to worship verses,
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Psalm 95 and 6, come let's worship and bow down. Let's kneel before Yahweh, our maker.
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Psalm 99 and 5, exalt the Lord our God, bow in worship at his footstool, for he is holy.
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Psalm 99 and 9, exalt the Lord our God, bow in worship at his holy mountain, for the
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Lord our God is holy. We cross over into the New Testament, and in the Old Testament where the worship was incredibly localized to particular places, the author to the
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Hebrew says, therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful.
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By it, we may serve God acceptably, appropriately, with reverence and awe.
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So worship is ascribing appropriate honor to God. Secondly, worship is expressed not just through our words, but in deed as well.
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Worship is expressed through word and deed. Now one of the sad realities of the modern church is that at times we confuse worship with the singing time, such that everything before that isn't worship, and everything after it isn't worship.
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So I said, worship is what we do when we come together, and that's true to an extent.
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Our corporate gathering is a part of our worship, all the things we do, but worship is not just words.
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Worship is also our very lives. So Paul can say in Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, that the presenting of our bodies to God is a living sacrifice.
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The Christian standard Bible translates this last phrase, this is your true worship.
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That genuine worship, your reasonable worship, your spiritual worship, as some of your translations will say.
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That true worship is not just we sing some songs on a Sunday and we go our merry way, but it's the offering up of our very lives in gratitude to the
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God who has saved us. That's how Paul can say in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 31.
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So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.
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So on your job, that's a form of worship. With your family, that's worship.
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Talking about the things of the Lord after service or in a growth group, that too, that's also worship.
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We ought to think of all of our lives in terms of worship. And like I said, of course, what we do in our gathered worship is special and unique, and the
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Bible has much to say about that too. But really what we do when we gather on the Lord's day ought to be an outflow and at the same time an encouragement to worship through all of life as we live life to the glory of God.
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So worship is ascribing appropriate honor to God. It's expressed through word and deed. Thirdly, worship is focused on the
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Lord Jesus. Worship is focused on the Lord Jesus. So you read the
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Bible, the Bible makes it very clear that the Lord Jesus is the focal point of our worship.
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So Acts chapter 5, verse 31, Peter's preaching and he says that God exalted this man, that he lifted up this man,
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Jesus. Philippians chapter 2 that we read so often, especially during Christmas time,
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Philippians 2, 9 and 10 says, for this reason, the fact that Jesus was obedient all the way to the point of the cross, for this reason,
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God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow.
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Hebrews chapter 7, verse 26 that we have, says we have a high priest who is holy, innocent, undefiled, separate from sinners and exalted above the heavens.
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And if you, again, you just think about it for a moment, this makes perfect sense. How could
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Jesus not be the focal point of our worship when he left the throne of heaven and added perfect humanity to his deity?
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Why wouldn't he be the focal point of our praises when we fail to live a perfect, a life of perfect, entire, exact and perpetual obedience to God?
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And he did. Why wouldn't we worship at the feet of the one who went to Calvary's cross for us?
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Why would we not raise our voices and our hands and the entirety of our being in praise of the one who sits enthroned in glory, pleading for us as his people?
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I don't understand how that cannot be the logical response for us as God's people.
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I mean, we're going to do it for all eternity. Why don't we just get the jump on it now? Worship is ascribing appropriate honor to God.
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It's expressing, it's expressed, excuse me, through word and deed. It's focused on the Lord Jesus. Fourthly, worship is fueled by dependence in prayer.
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Worship is fueled by dependence in prayer. Fifthly, prayer is how we give voice to the desperation of our souls for the presence, the power, and the provision of God.
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Allow me to say that again. Prayer is how we give voice to the desperation of our souls for the presence, for the power, and for the provision of God.
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What does it communicate? When a body of believers, and I'm speaking just very generally here, but what does it communicate when a body of believers struggles to gather to pray?
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Can I make a suggestion what it says? I could be wrong. If I'm wrong, let me know. Send us an email, cuttingroomfloor .redeemamedford
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.org. We'll cover it on this week's episode. But can
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I put it to you that when a body of believers, any body of believers, struggles to gather to pray, part of what we're communicating is that we are really not that needy.
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Kofi, you can't say that. Actually, I can say that.
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James chapter 4 and verse 2. James says, you do not have because you do not ask.
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The implication being you need to ask, but you don't ask. That's why you don't have. Remember what
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Jesus said in the Beatitudes, Matthew chapter 5 and verse 6? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness because they will be filled.
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I don't know if you've ever been hungry or thirsty before. But if you've ever been hungry or thirsty before, you need very little external motivation to go find something to eat and go find something to drink.
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And can I put it to you that it is a soul that is conscious of its spiritual need, cries out to God in prayer for the provision that only
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God can give. Here at Redeemer, we recently kind of reset and restarted our prayer meetings and given that we don't own our own space, the only time we could really make work in the week was three o 'clock on Sunday before our worship service.
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Can I take a moment of privilege since I have the mic and unless you're going to tackle me, you really can't stop me.
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Can I take a moment and encourage you to come together at that time of prayer as we as a corporate body gather before the throne of grace?
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I get it. Our Sundays are relatively long. There's lots going on. I fully understand that.
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But can I encourage you that if we are going to be a body that receives from God, we have to be a body that is willing to humble itself to ask together.
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So the church exists for the exaltation of God through his son, Jesus Christ.
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In the study guide, I actually printed out a copy of our core values. And in our core values, we put it like this.
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That here at Redeemer Bible Fellowship, we desire to be a body of worshiping saints engaged in the means of grace and energized by prayer.
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That's what it looks like when a church takes seriously, or one expression of what it looks like, when a church takes seriously its call to exaltation.
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That's one facet of the purpose of the church, but there's more. So there's exaltation, but secondly, there's edification.
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Edification. Edification. The church is a growing and a learning body.
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Edification. The church is a growing and a learning body. Edification isn't a word we use in everyday life, generally speaking.
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Well, maybe if you're in my line of work, it might be. But in general, it's not a word we use every day, but it is an important biblical word.
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At its core, the term simply means to build something. So my
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Spanish is not that great, but I'm made to understand that the Spanish word for building is edificio or something along those lines?
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Edificio. Thank you. Has that root term edificin, something that is built up.
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When we speak about edification in the spiritual life, we're referring to the process by which
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God's people are built up in their knowledge, their character, and their service.
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That's all that term edification means. It's the process by which God's people are built up in their knowledge, their character, and their service.
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I mean, it's very clear when you read the Bible that God wants his people to grow. So 1 Peter chapter 2, remember that from when we studied 1
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Peter in the summer? We're to desire the pure milk of the word so that we may grow up into our salvation.
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In Peter's second letter that Lord willing we'll look at this summer, he says, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our
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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Beloved, I would put it to you that a growing
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Christian is a healthy Christian. That a
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Christian who is growing is a Christian who is showing signs of spiritual health, and that what is true for the individual
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Christian is true for a church. A growing church, spiritually speaking, is a healthy church.
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Now few churches, if any, consciously reject the need for believers to grow.
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We all recognize Christians should want to grow. Churches should want to grow spiritually. We all understand that.
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But can I put it to you, the disagreement comes in when we ask what growth looks like and how it happens.
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For some people, our church is growing numerically. It must be growing spiritually. Well, weeds grow numerically.
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Doesn't mean that they're good for you. So let's ask the biblical question.
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What is actual edification? What does it look like when a church is being built up and it's growing? Well, as you can see up on the screen, there's two sides to this.
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First of all, there is what we can call objective edification. The first side of this.
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On the objective side, if you will, all that means is it's referring to our learning of the
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Word of God as individuals and as bodies of believers. I think
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I've said this before, but if I haven't, the reality is growth doesn't happen where there is a closed
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Bible. Now, whenever I make that statement,
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I usually get told, well, Kofi, what about believers who don't have access to a Bible? My simple response is, you aren't one of them.
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Think Logan Hart about it. We live in the West. This is my phone.
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I usually have it in the pulpit to help me run the slides, but for a moment, I can push one, two buttons.
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Logos. For those of you who can't see that at home, Logos Bible software is opening up on my phone.
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I have in English about 25 translations of the
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Bible on my phone. That doesn't include all the foreign language ones they threw in because they thought I speak all those languages,
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I guess. I don't. But I have all of those, not to mention countless books. I am not in the position of someone who doesn't have a
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Bible, so I'm not going to talk to people like they don't have access to a Bible in 2022. For the normative
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Christian, for the Christian in ideal circumstances, growth happens as they encounter the
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Word of God. So Paul can say in Acts chapter 20 in verse 32, Now I commend you to God and to the
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Word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all who are sanctified.
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In the original language, it points even clearer to the fact it's the Word of God that does both those things. I was telling the guys who gathered this morning that I received an email this week from somebody who apparently came across our church online— praise
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God for that— but had some concerns. Don't know where this person lives because they didn't say where they lived, just that they had watched the live streams and felt the need to, as they put it, give me a friendly word of advice, which usually when someone tells you that what they're about to say is friendly, it usually isn't.
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That's been my experience anyway. But in this particular instance, the criticism that came in this email—you probably guessed it was a criticism— was that they had come across our services through just the wonders of YouTube, as YouTube does, and they were concerned that—and they specifically blamed me— that I am fixated—this is what they said in the email—quote, that I am especially fixated on creating theological nerds.
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I've really got to stop reading the church email, but that's a conversation for another time. I read it for a while, and I just looked at it on my computer screen.
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I was like, that doesn't even make any—okay, never mind. I hear a lot of criticism, most of which
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I keep away from this pulpit, because my mother raised me to believe that the best answer to the foolish is silence and doing your job.
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But I do want to address that one. Do I want to create a bunch of theological nerds as pastor?
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Not particularly. What I do want, not because I want to, but because the
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Bible tells me to, is for you to be so strong in this word of God that you can glorify
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God in the area that He has called you to serve Him in. Can I also put it to you that that's your birthright as God's people?
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Think about—I wonder if Christians often think about this—it is your right to be able to understand this Bible. Not it's a privilege.
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No, it's a right. Where do I get that from the Bible, Kofi? Well, Jesus said it,
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John chapter 8 verse 32, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free, implying that you can know it and you can walk in the result of knowing it, which is the truth setting you free.
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Paul said it, 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 12. He says that we have not received the
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Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who comes from God, so that we may understand the things that are freely given to us by God.
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And in its context, he's talking about the revelation of God's Word. He says that's freely given to us by the
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Spirit. And in fact, the one who gives it to us also gives us what we need to understand that which
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God gives. Paul also says it in 1 Corinthians, excuse me,
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Philippians 1 and 9, where he says that he's praying for the Philippian Christians that they would grow in knowledge.
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We often hear people talk about this distinction between head and heart knowledge. You've heard people say that before? You know, we should don't pursue head knowledge, pursue heart knowledge.
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Well, first of all, this isn't a history lecture. Otherwise, I'd tell you where in history that comes from. Hint, it doesn't come from people who believe the
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Bible is the Word of God. Actually, the Bible doesn't teach this, in my opinion, made up distinction between head knowledge and heart knowledge.
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In the biblical understanding, your heart can't have any knowledge that your mind doesn't have. That's why
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Romans chapter 12 verse 1 says that we should be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
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In the biblical understanding, knowledge begins with the renewing of your mind, which leads to trust in your hearts and then obedience with your hands.
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So actually, you know, I'm not interested in creating theological nerds, whoever said that. I'm interested in ensuring that you as God's people know this book, both in your own personal study and reading of it.
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And when we gather together so that you can glorify God by enjoying that which Christ died for, which is the fact that you would have the
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Spirit who helps you to understand the things that are freely given to you by God.
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I've said it before and I think this might be a good time to repeat it. When God created the world the first time, the world that we see,
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He created it by His Word. And when God brings about the new creation through the salvation of the sinner,
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He does it through His Word as well. And so it's my long -term goal for you, for those of you who are members of this body or even just regular attenders, it's my goal for you as a shepherd who is tasked with feeding the flock to see you grow in your knowledge of God's Word.
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That's why you have this promise for me. And I've said it multiple times in the film. It might be a good time to reiterate it as some of you are thinking about joining
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Redeemer. As long as I'm here, and I plan on being here a while, but as long as I'm here and if the
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Lord brings other leaders, I'm sure they would say the same thing. As long as I'm here, we will always keep this book front and center.
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I really don't care what people do anywhere else. I really don't. What I care is that this body, that God has brought together in His wonderful and mysterious providence, that we would keep this
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Word of God front and center. So we're always going to offer classes and training opportunities. We're always going to make resources available, whether we give them away or we ask you to pay a little amount for it, that are rich in Bible and rich in gospel.
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We will always be committed first and foremost to doctrinally rich, content -driven,
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Christ -exalting preaching. Why? Because we need
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God's Word. And that also means we need to train others to teach and preach that Word.
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It's one of the reasons that after two years of laboring in this body, I finally said, you know what, we're starting some training.
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Because we want to equip men to be better handlers of the Bible so that in whatever capacity
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God calls them, because God has a purpose for every one of our lives, not my job to tell you what your purpose is, but in whatever capacity
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God has for you, that you would be able to see His kingdom advance, to see believers strengthened and built up in their faith.
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Brothers and sisters, people can't grow where there are closed Bibles.
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So here's my wonderful suggestion. I'm not a genius or anything, but how about we just open the thing and let it roar to the glory of God.
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All of that is the objective side of edification. Believers encountering the
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Word of God in a variety of ways and a variety of formats leading to spiritual growth. But there's a flip side to this.
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Let's talk real quickly about subjective edification. That's what happens when believers practice care and concern for one another by speaking
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God's Word to each other and meeting each other's needs. That's another way in which believers are built up.
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And in a lot of ways, this side is built up by everything, or is informed, I should say, by everything we just talked about.
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So if the Word of God is how people grow, well, how we minister to one another is informed by knowing
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God's Word. It's by knowing God's Word that we know how to care for one another. In fact,
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I would put it to you, the Bible even gives you a blueprint for what caring for one another looks like.
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In the bulletin that you received, there was an extra page in there, a page called the one another's of the
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Bible. I put it to you that that is the blueprint for how we minister to one another as God's people.
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And we take the one another's very seriously here at Redeem. I'd encourage you in your own time to read those one another's, read those passages, and see for yourself what ministering to one another, no pun intended, looks like.
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I need to move on, so I'm going to try and be quick. Just a few points of application before I move on to our final point.
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First of all, these one another's that you have in front of you, they form the basis for ministry in the body.
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If you want to know what your ministry, what your gift looks like, here's a wonderful suggestion.
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Start with these one another's, and pretty soon, I'm pretty certain, your ministry will find you.
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Just start by ministering to one another as best you can. Secondly, the one another's apply to all believers, not just the ones you like or are close to or have an affinity with.
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I've been in church long enough to know that cliques are a thing in church. They just happen. They're like weeds.
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It's one of the things I hate about home ownership, weeds. Especially when you've got big feet like mine.
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I trip over them a bunch. Not a fan of weeds, but if you don't watch out for it long enough, they start to form.
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But here's the thing, when you got saved, God placed you in a spiritual family, and He didn't give you or I or anybody else the option of picking and choosing which members of the family you choose to minister to and be in relationship with.
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Folks who are members, look around. Look around at this church for a moment. You see the other members of this body?
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They need your ministry and you need theirs. I don't know them that well.
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Well, that's not that difficult to sort out. But get to know them so that you can actually serve them and they can serve you.
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Final thought. The one another's when imperfectly and faithfully pursued are the environment in which the
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Word of God begins to bear fruit among God's people. It's the teaching of God's Word that equips us for ministry, and it's the practice of the one another's that shows us how to do the ministry.
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That's how we have it like this in our value statement. We say that we desire to be a living body of God's people, seeking to be equipped for the work of the ministry through the study and understanding of God's Word.
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The church exists for worship. The church exists for exaltation.
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The church exists for edification and growth. But even then we're not done. There's a final reason that the church exists.
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Probably saw it coming. Evangelism. Evangelism. The church is a proclaiming community, a proclaiming body.
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The church is a proclaiming community. As you know,
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I have a heart burden for this, and I've expressed that burden in a number of sermons, and I'm going to do so once again. Have you ever thought about this?
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Why are you still here after becoming a Christian? Why didn't, once you became a
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Christian, God say, you know what? He saved. She saved. We're all good. Bring him to my side.
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Bring him up with me. Why does God leave us here as the church?
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Well, I put it to you that it's for this reason. After all, we could do a better job of worship in heaven than we could do here.
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For those of you who are in Redeemer, you were looking at Isaiah 6. I think we can agree. They've got the worship thing on lock in heaven.
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We're not going to add anything to what they're doing up there. And the whole growth thing would become a moot point.
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You wouldn't really need to grow because God could just take you to heaven. You'd be perfect straight away. So why keep us here?
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Well, that has something to do with the text we started with. Matthew chapter 28. Verse 19, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 1
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Peter 2 .9. Remember this when we studied 1 Peter? The reason why we are chosen, raised a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession is so that you may— this is what
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Peter says—so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
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Ultimately, the church doesn't exist for itself. Anything we do here in worship, anything we do in here, when we gather for worship and as we gather in various times of equipping, all of that is so we can be witnesses out there.
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In the words of one of my favorite books on evangelism, that God doesn't just make us so that we can be salt and then we can all just live in the salt shaker.
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At some point, you need to come— there's the name of the book—come out of the salt shaker. Really, this is what makes the difference between a church that is inwardly focused versus outwardly focused.
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You know what I mean when I use that distinction? If not, I have a diagram for you. Some churches function with the assumption that since the pastor or preacher or preachers are trained and are better at proclaiming the gospel than them, that their job and the church's job—and sometimes the leaders perpetuate this—your job is basically bring people here.
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We've got the rest. We'll call that model
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A churches, if you will. But compare that with the book of Acts.
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The church in its infancy. And one thing you see is that the assumption is never they're going to come to us.
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The assumption is we go to them. So in Acts chapter 8, Paul is persecuting the believers.
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And as a result, the believers scatter. But they don't just scatter. Acts chapter 8 verse 4. So those who were scattered went on their way preaching the word.
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And again, that's not just the apostles. It's all the disciples. Wherever they went, they went preaching the word.
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A few chapters on, Acts chapter 11 and verse 19, it says, now those who had been scattered as a result of the persecution that started because of Stephen made their way as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews.
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So they're limiting their evangelism to the Jewish community, but what are they doing? Evangelism.
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Now hear me, I'm not saying don't invite your unsaved friends to church. I'm not saying that. Please invite your unsaved friends to come to church.
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But what I'm saying is that the gospel doesn't reside in just a worship service.
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The gospel resides in the hearts and in the mouths of God's people. So if that's the case, then maybe we need to turn the focus outward a little bit and be out with this message.
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I don't have time, but if you're taking notes, Colossians chapter 4 verses 2 through 6. I don't think I put this in the study guide. Colossians 4, 2 through 6 make us to understand that a faithful church will be eager in prayer and in practice to see souls come to Christ.
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That's why when we kind of replanted Redeemer in 2020, this became one of our core values.
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That we desire to be a body of saints engaged in bringing the good news of the gospel to all men everywhere as the
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Lord provides opportunity. Because that's why the church exists.
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Faith family, I'm done. As I conclude, can
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I leave you with just one reality as we close? A faithful church should be about all these three things we've talked about.
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Exaltation, edification, and evangelism. A church should be about all these three purposes in balance.
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Yes, it's actually very possible to get lopsided one way or another. But kind of think of this like a three -legged stool.
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If you pull a stool out from a three -legged stool, it's not going to be balanced for very long. It's my hope and my prayer that our body would do well on all fronts.
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Being committed to corporate worship and prayer as God's people. Being committed to the Word of God and to ministry to one another.
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And being committed to taking the gospel to as many people as the Lord will give us opportunity and patience to do so.
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And I happen to think that if this is God's desire for us, that God's desires for us are typically higher and greater, and they're just frankly more for us than even our desires are for us.
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I pray that God would help us in being a church that pursues those purposes to the glory of God.
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And Father, we thank you so much that your Word does indeed give us so much clarity about what we are to be as a church and who we are to be as a church.
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Father, help us to be faithful in this endeavor. Help us to be faithful not just in one area, but in all these areas.
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So that you would receive the praise and the glory. Be with us as we come now to the