Hating Organized Religion

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One of the most common objects to Christianity is the supposed opposition to "organized religion". Some Christians have even bought into the idea the the church is not supposed to have structure and order, and chaos has been the result. But what structure are we called to as a church? We answer this question in today's message...

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I want to ask you to open your Bibles with me, turn with me to the 6th chapter of the book of Acts.
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Hold your place at verse 1.
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We are continuing this morning in our series entitled, Beyond Our Borders.
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We are examining the missionary zeal of the early church.
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And today, as part of this study, we are going to, as we examine chapter 6, address one of the most common objections that we run into in regard to the faith.
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Because as we go out into the world, and I don't know if this ever happens to you, but when I go out into the world and I share the gospel, not everybody is real receptive.
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You ever notice that? And not everybody is ready to hear what you have to say.
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In fact, a lot of people have almost an immediate wall that comes up.
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You can talk about anything else.
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You can talk about sports, politics, all kinds of stuff, and they might entertain you.
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But you start talking about Christ, and people say, slow down, I don't need that.
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And they have all kinds of objections that they'll put up, all kinds of walls that they'll put up between you and them, when it comes to the subject of Jesus Christ.
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And learning how to respond to those objections in a loving and godly way is part of what we are supposed to do as evangelists.
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Remember, evangelist is something that we all are, in a sense, because we are all called to be gospel proclaimers.
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And so we all need to understand that we're going to face objections, and how we respond to those objections should be in a godly and knowledgeable way.
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And one of the most common objections that we run into from those who do not participate in church life, or those who do not know Christ, is that they do not like organized religion.
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Have you ever heard that one? Oh, well, I have no problem with Jesus.
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You know, I consider myself a spiritual person, but I don't like organized religion.
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This is from the Huffington Post, that great bastion of truth.
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Mick Mooney wrote this.
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He says, Believing in God doesn't mean I believe in religion.
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And believing in Jesus doesn't mean I believe in the religion of Christianity.
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While I'll accept I'll often be lumped into these groups because I believe in God and Jesus, I know that I myself don't subscribe to any organized religion.
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I have in the past, and I've learned my lesson." So says Mick Mooney of the Huffington Post.
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And certainly Mooney is not alone, as many would agree with his sentiment.
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And it usually works its way out something like this.
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You begin to talk to somebody about their faith or about spirituality, and they'll say, Well, I'm spiritual, but not religious.
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And what they're usually saying is that they don't like the organized church.
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So, when we come to our text this morning, what we see is a church which is beginning to find its structure and order in the midst of a very powerful evangelistic movement.
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There's a great revival happening, and people are being saved every day.
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And yet, they're not being told, Well, just go about your lives in your own little spiritual cocoon.
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They're not being told, Oh, just go out and do your own thing.
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Be your own type of Christian, and you can be your type of Christian, and you can be your type of Christian, and you can be your...
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And everybody just sort of do their own thing.
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No, what we see in chapter 6 is that we see order begin to develop.
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We see things begin to develop in structure.
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And by the time we get to 1 Corinthians, which is likely one of the first books of the New Testament written, by the time you get to the 14th chapter of the book of 1 Corinthians, you come to the Apostle Paul's admonition that all things are to be done decently and in order.
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That statement assumes something.
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It assumes that an order has been established and should be followed.
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So our focus today is going to be seeing how and why the early church established order and why we should continue to apply the same structure of order for ministry today.
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So let's begin by standing and reading God's word.
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We're going to read chapter 6, verses 1 through 7.
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Now, in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.
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And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.
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Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom whom we will appoint to this duty.
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But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
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And what they said, please the whole gathering.
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And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith, and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Procurus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch.
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These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.
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And the word of God continued to increase.
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And the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
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Our Father and our God, we ask now that you would, by the power of your Holy Spirit, keep me from error as I seek to preach your word.
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As I certainly am capable of preaching error, I pray that your spirit would keep me from it.
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I pray also, Lord, that he would convict hearts for those among us who do not know the gospel, that they would hear it today, and that by your sovereign will you would draw people to faith.
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And for believers, O Lord, that they would see the value of structure and organization in the church, knowing that the church is not an organization, but it is an organism.
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People, believers are the church.
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May we understand the value of your structure that you've called us to fulfill.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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Last week in our study in chapter 5, we addressed the first major sin issue that was dealt with by the early church.
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And as we noticed, the church was in its infancy and God intervened to ensure her purity.
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Ananias and Sapphira were the first to receive church discipline, albeit in a very unique way.
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Well, this week, we're going to see that the church is facing its first ministerial issue.
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Last week, we looked at the first sin issue.
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Now, it's going to be dealing with its first ministerial problem.
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And having dealt with its first sin, now the church must deal with complaints and division which is arising among the people.
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And John Stott makes a good point.
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He says, this is actually Satan's third attack on the church.
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Stott says, the devil's next attack was the cleverest of the three.
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He failed to overcome the church by persecution or corruption.
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Now he tries distraction.
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You see, they tried to persecute Peter and John, bring them before the Sanhedrin.
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They're going to go to jail if they preach Jesus.
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And they say, we have to obey God rather than men.
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Persecution can't stop the church.
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So we'll try corruption.
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Here's Ananias and Sapphira.
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They come in, they bring sin in the church.
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Church still goes and it grows strong even after two people die in front of the apostles.
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Amazing thing.
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The church continues to grow.
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You'd think people run away fearful.
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But the church grows even in the midst of such a heavy discipline.
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Then what? Well, Satan can't stop them by persecution.
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He can't stop them by corruption.
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Well, let's add distraction to the mix.
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Stott continues.
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He says, if Satan could preoccupy the apostles with social administration, which though essential was not their calling, they would neglect their God-given responsibilities to pray and to preach and so leave the church without any defense against false doctrine.
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What persecution taught the church about being bold and corruption taught the church about being pure, today's lesson teaches the church about being organized.
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The importance of a church that understands that God has called us to order and not anarchy.
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So we're going to begin our exposition of the text beginning at verse 1 as we see the complaint arise.
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It says, now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.
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Now, the first thing we note when we come to this text, verse 1, is that the church was increasing in number.
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The disciples were increasing in number.
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And this is speaking of the fact of the health of the church.
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Because a church which is not healthy doesn't grow often because the people are not sharing their faith.
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They're not seeking to win converts to Christ.
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They're not seeking to share their faith.
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But this church obviously was because they were out in the temple.
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They were out in the streets.
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They were telling people about Jesus.
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And the number of the disciples was increasing all the time.
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They were going about doing what Christ had called them to do, making disciples.
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And yet in the midst of this blessing, new people coming in all the time, a complaint arises among them.
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And the word that we see here for complaint is sometimes translated murmuring.
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The Greek word actually sounds like what's happening, gagusmos.
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It's this thing that kind of is happening.
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There's this little bit of quiet rumbling that's happening in the church.
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Mount says this.
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He says, "...the expression of secret and sullen discontent." The people are quietly whispering their dissatisfaction with the ministry of the church.
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It kind of reminds me of Moses.
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Remember back in the Old Testament when Moses was leading the people out of Egypt, seeking to bring them to the promised land.
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They got hungry.
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They felt like they were going to starve.
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So instead of going to Moses, they began to complain among themselves.
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And the complaints began to get more and more out in the people.
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And it began to kind of whittle its way into every area.
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And it's common among large groups for that to happen.
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Discord creates quiet complainers.
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Very few people are bold enough to actually stand up and speak loudly when they have a discontent.
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Instead, they would rather find themselves in a dark corner with someone with a listening ear, and whisper in that person's ear about their discontent, rather than standing up in the midst and saying, Hey, we got a problem.
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We need to deal with it.
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One of the things that we must recognize at this portion is this is one of the most unhealthy things that can happen in a church.
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And it should be addressed.
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Many churches collapse because of dissension and disunity in the body.
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These are normally begun by small groups of complainers.
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Small groups of people, they get together, they find somebody who agrees with their complaint, and they just complain to one another.
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And oftentimes, the leadership goes without any knowledge of what's going on.
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We should consider that the next time someone comes to us wanting to complain.
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Have we addressed this with who we're talking about, rather than continuing to talk about that person? It's a serious concern.
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Now, what's the issue that's coming up here? What's the murmuring all about? What's the complaining? Well, it says that the Hellenists, and some of you have translations that say the Greeks, or the Greek-speaking Jews, that's what these are.
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These are the Jews who spoke and adhered to Greek custom rather than the traditional custom of the Hebrews.
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So they would have been using the Septuagint, which was the Greek translation of the Old Testament.
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They would have had a different Bible, a different language, and ultimately a different way of life.
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And yet, they're in the church with Hebrew people who have a very traditional Hebrew background.
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They read and write Hebrew.
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They talk Hebrew.
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They have a totally different language.
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And it says that the widows of the Hellenists are being neglected.
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Now, that's a serious issue.
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And the thing is, that's a serious issue not just in the church.
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That was a serious issue in Judaism to begin with, because one of the things that the Jews sort of prided themselves on, it was very important to them, was that they took care of their old women who didn't have husbands.
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They had things set in place.
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It was even in the law that these things were supposed to be set in place, that they were supposed to be taken care of.
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If anybody else didn't get what they needed, the widows were very important.
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And so this isn't just a church issue.
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This is an issue that would have been a scandal even among just the Jews.
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But yet, it's found its way into the church.
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There was a daily distribution of food and a daily distribution of needed funds.
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And it was going without for this particular sect among the church.
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The Hellenists' widows were being overlooked.
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And we're not told why.
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Some have assumed that there was cultural bigotry, sort of a first century type of racism going on, that the Hebrews just didn't like the Hellenists.
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And they didn't care.
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And they were always last in line.
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They didn't get what they needed.
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And who cares? Because they're different than us.
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And you know, cultural racism is not a problem 2,000 years ago.
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It continues to be a problem today.
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But the text doesn't tell us that.
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The text doesn't tell us that was the reason.
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And so to apply that reason to them is somewhat reading into the text something that's not necessarily there.
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We can't say that for certain.
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More likely, it was simply just a lack of organization.
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Could it have been racism? Could it have been social bigotry? Possibly.
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But the likelihood is simply that the organization was not being done correctly.
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Why do I know that? Because later in the text, it says that when they finally got around to choosing guys to organize it, they chose from among themselves all Hellenists, all guys who had Greek names, which likely meant they were from that order.
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So there might not have been such a hatred towards them.
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There just might not have been very well organized ministry going on.
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And the thing is, this is a worthy concern.
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And one that deserved to be addressed.
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This is...
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Now, by saying that, I'm not saying murmuring is positive.
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But what I am saying is that what they're murmuring about is serious and needs to be addressed.
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How do I apply that? What am I saying that for? Well, I'm saying that for this reason.
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Sometimes there are issues that are going on in the church that the leadership does need to know about.
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Murmuring isn't the way we should handle it, though.
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We should be addressing this with those who need to hear it so that they can deal with it.
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So a point of order is recognized in verse 2.
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It said, The Twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.
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Now, when it says the full number here, that's kind of an interesting thing to think about.
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Because the full number of disciples at this time is huge.
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By any one stretch of the imagination, this is a mega church.
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Because it says, just a few chapters before, that there were 5,000 men.
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And in the Greek word, there is for men only.
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5,000 men had been converted.
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And if you assume that each man would probably bring with him a wife, and each wife would probably bring at least one child, we're looking at possibility of 15,000 people that are being ministered to at this time.
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Potentially more, because families back then tended to be a little bigger.
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But the idea of a minimum of 10,000 to 15,000 people are being ministered to at this point.
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And it says the apostles summoned the whole number.
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Now, one commentator I thought had an interesting take on this.
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He said that at that point in time, most of the individuals, they were meeting in groups in small houses.
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And most likely, each house group might have sent a representative.
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Because you can imagine 20,000 people coming to a church meeting.
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Might have been a little difficult to handle.
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But the full number is represented here.
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And they're coming with this issue.
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What do we do? The apostles bring them in, and they say this very simple thing.
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It is not right.
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And by that, not proper, not acceptable, not pleasing.
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It is not correct that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables.
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Now, that might sound like somewhat of a prideful statement.
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As if somebody is saying, I'm too good to serve tables.
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But if we read it that way, we are missing the point of this entire section.
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The apostles are not saying themselves too good to serve tables.
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What they are saying is that the ministry that they have been called to is not the ministry of serving tables.
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The ministry they've been called to is serving the Word.
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And we'll see that same word, same verb is used later to indicate how they handle the Word.
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They are to serve the Word of God to people.
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These tables need to be served.
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We can't do that.
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So we've got to establish here someone else to take the task.
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And by the way, this is not just a first century bus boy.
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We hear the word serve tables and we kind of think of maybe like a waiter or waitress.
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Somebody is going around with a little iced tea, you know, container and serving tables.
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That's not what is indicated here.
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This is an administrative position to ensure that the tables, and by the way, the tables at that time didn't just have food, but they also were a place where finances were divided and given as people had need.
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So this particular time in the church, these tables had a very important place.
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And this was a huge administrative task.
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And the apostles are saying, we cannot break from our preaching ministry to come and administer all of this that has to be administered.
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We cannot do that.
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This task is too big.
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So a division of labor is established.
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Verse 3, therefore brothers, pick out from among you.
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I like how they put the onus on them.
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The responsibility is on the church.
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Look among yourselves and choose seven men.
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Still a huge job for seven guys.
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I've been thinking about this all week.
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You've got thousands of people to minister to.
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This is why I know this is not the iced tea walking around table thing.
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These are leaders being established for administrative responsibility here.
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They're servant leaders in an administrative capacity at this point.
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And it says, pick out from among yourselves seven men of good repute, full of spirit, full of the Spirit and of wisdom whom we will appoint to this duty.
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But we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word.
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Now this is the first time we see structure developing in the early church.
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And within the church, there's a very simple division of labor.
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I've taught on this many times.
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We even wrote a book about it.
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About the biblically functioning church.
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How is the church supposed to operate? It's very, very simple.
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There are teachers who are supposed to lead God's people and govern God's people.
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And then there are servants who are supposed to care for and administer to their needs.
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We call those elders and deacons.
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And that's the division of labor in the church.
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And both are ministries in the church.
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People often call me minister.
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As I keep asking, he's a minister.
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And that's true as far as it goes.
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I do minister the Word of God.
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I serve.
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That word minister means to serve.
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I serve the Word of God and the sacrament to the people of God.
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But the deacons are also ministers.
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And they minister within the church.
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John Stott says this.
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He said, it is surely deliberate that the work of the twelve and the work of the seven, the leaders and the servants, the apostles and the newly established deacons, are alike called deaconia, servants.
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The former is the ministry of the Word or the pastoral work.
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And the latter is the ministry of tables or the social work.
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Neither ministry is superior to the other.
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On the contrary, both are Christian ministries.
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That is, ways of serving God and His people.
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Both require spiritual people full of the Spirit to exercise them.
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And both can be full-time Christian ministries.
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The only difference between them lies in the form of the ministry and what it takes, requiring different gifts and different callings.
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We do a great disservice to the church whenever we refer to the pastorate as the ministry.
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Forever when we speak of the ordination in terms of entering the ministry.
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Because the use of the definite article implies that the ordained pastorate is the only ministry that there is.
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And that is not right.
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I like what Stott is saying here.
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He is saying, we talk about me being the minister and I am not the only one.
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I serve with other elders, they are all ministers.
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And also the elders serve with deacons and they are all ministers.
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We are just ministering something different.
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We are ministering in different ways, but we are all ministers in God's church.
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And guess what? That extends out into the congregation as each one ministers to one another with his particular spiritual gifts.
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What does the book of Ephesians tell us? That we are, as the ministers, the elders, we are equipping the saints for what? The work of ministry.
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That is the goal of the pastorate, is to equip the saints.
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All of you should be ministering in the church in some capacity.
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But there is structure.
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There is leadership.
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There is administrative duties.
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And then there is each of us ministering one to the other.
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So then the group is commissioned in verse 5.
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It says, And what they said pleased the whole congregation.
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They chose the seven men.
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There in verse 5.
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And verse 6 says, These they set before the apostles, and they prayed, and they laid their hands on them.
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That laying on of hands is something we still do as a church.
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When we call a deacon to service or we call an elder to service, the elders will gather around that person, will lay hands on them as to symbolically demonstrate that the leadership of the church is charging them to this task.
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We are charging them to this duty within the church.
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And it is symbolic of the Holy Spirit now being given and used for that ministry.
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And what do we see in verse 7? Well, another obstacle is over.
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It says, And the word of God continued to increase.
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And the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem.
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And a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
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God has spared the church again from what could have been major disaster.
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There could have been disaster when the persecution arose.
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God intervened, and now the church is thriving.
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There could have been great disaster when Ananias and Sapphira brought corruption into the church.
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God intervened, and now the church is thriving.
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There could have yet again been great disaster when murmuring and dissension and division began to arise in the church.
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God intervenes, and there is great blessing.
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And we see the church even reaching priests.
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They're reaching people who are sold out to their Jewish religion, and yet the gospel is reaching them because the apostles are there in the temple preaching the gospel.
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And these guys who are serving there every day are having to hear this every day.
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It's beginning to influence them, and the church is beginning to grow even among them.
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We're seeing disciples made.
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So therein lies our understanding of this text.
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How then do we apply the text? Because we can understand a text and not properly apply it.
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So let's now apply the text.
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And I put a note in the back of your worship folders.
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I do every week, try to give you something to consider and to take home and questions to go with it.
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So let me seek to bring an application.
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I think that we apply this passage by asking ourselves two important questions.
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The first question is this.
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Are we biblically organized? Are we biblically organized? The church, as I said earlier, is an organism, not an organization.
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For far too long, the church has been treated like a social club or a business rather than what it is, the called out people of God and community together.
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It's not...
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Well, I'll be correct.
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Somebody will correct me because I'm going to say it's not a corporation.
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Well, we are incorporated.
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So I'll make sure I don't get...
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Pat will catch me on the outside.
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Well, we're incorporated for the reasons of the fact that it operates as a business in that capacity.
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But here's what's the problem.
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And it's been a problem for a long time in the church.
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For centuries, but decades specifically, the last hundred years, we began as a community in the American church to start treating the church as if it were a business.
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And so what we did was we took the business model, the business world, and we applied it to the church.
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And we got rid of elders.
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And we applied the business of the church to a board.
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It became structured like a CEO.
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And all of the way it was supposed to be structured was the way that you structure a business.
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And it began to function that way like a corporation.
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And we adopted all the world's methods for advertising.
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We adopted all the world's methods for outreach.
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We adopted the world's methods for everything.
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We brought everything into the church trying to make it like the world.
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And that's not good.
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But it is what has happened.
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On the other hand, and I have to make the caveat, it is not good either that the church be disorganized.
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So while we don't want to adopt the worldly methods, and while we don't want to adopt the methods of Wall Street, and as has happened...
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Do you realize there are franchised churches now? Literally franchised churches.
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We could franchise.
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If Sovereign Grace, if we want to grow in that type of growth, we could franchise out and become one of the many thousands of churches.
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Instead of having a preacher, you'd have a guy come up on the screen who's going out from 50 different locations, all being funneled in through the internet.
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And that's the way...
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It's franchised church.
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We're a part of the blank network.
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So let me say this in regard to my point.
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We talk about organization.
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There's a worldly organization that we want to avoid.
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We don't want to take the business model of the world and necessarily apply it to the church.
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But that doesn't mean we're supposed to be disorganized.
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Because I've seen that as well.
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Some people believe that's the case.
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Some people believe that the more disorganized you are, the more spiritual you are.
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Because you're just letting Jesus take over.
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And there's no organization at all.
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And I've seen it.
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I've seen it where you come into church, there's no rhyme or reason for anything.
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And there's no rhyme or reason in the ministry.
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There's no rhyme or reason in the worship service.
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There's no rhyme or reason in any part of the ministry of the church.
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And they say, well, we're more spiritual because we've let go and let God.
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Beloved, that's not what we're called to.
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The Scripture gives us two clear statements that I think speak to this issue.
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One I've mentioned already is 1 Corinthians 14.40.
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If you want to write that down, 1 Corinthians 14.40.
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I joke, I have Presbyterian friends, and obviously we're more, we're Baptistic, we're a Reformed Baptistic church, and they're Presbyterians.
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But oftentimes we joke and say, this is sort of the passage that brings us together.
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Because we both believe in orderly worship, and we believe in orderly arrangement of the church.
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Because this passage tells us that all things are to be done decently and in order.
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This does not just refer to corporate worship, even though that is in view.
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All ministry is to be done decently, that means in a seemly manner, one that would please God.
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And all ministry is to be done orderly, according to an arrangement.
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And that includes preaching God's Word.
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I've seen guys don't study at all.
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They don't spend any time in the Word of God.
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They come up to the pulpit on Sunday morning, they drop their Bible down, they open it up, bam, they're right there and they start preaching.
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No idea of the context, Jesus is just going to give it all.
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No study, no nothing.
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If you think I'm lying, I ain't.
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I've spent enough time on Bible study, both sides of the pulpit, to see a man enter the pulpit without any preparation.
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And what do they blame it on? I just needed the Spirit.
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I didn't need to prepare.
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I didn't need any order.
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You know my sermon, it should have order.
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You should expect orderly thoughts and an orderly arrangement of how I'm presenting to you the Word of God.
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You should expect that out of me.
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You should expect orderly worship.
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You should expect that people aren't running around hitting themselves with pine tree needles and throwing things at each other and screaming out words we don't understand.
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Yet go to many churches and that's what we see.
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And they say, but that's just us being spiritual.
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No, it ain't.
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It really ain't.
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It's not.
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I like Titus 1.5.
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We read it as our call to worship today.
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This is why I left you in Crete.
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This is the Apostle Paul speaking to Titus.
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He said, this is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order.
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And appoint elders in every town as I directed you.
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There's an order that you are establishing.
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Titus, I'm giving you a job.
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And you are to go about and establish order in the churches.
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It's not supposed to be anarchy.
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It's not supposed to be nonsense reigns and every man is a man unto himself and an island unto himself and a spiritual man unto himself doing his own thing his own way in his own house.
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No, there's order and structure and discipline in the church.
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How can you have discipline if there's no order? You can't.
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It's impossible.
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And church organization is not difficult, folks.
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I've talked about this so many times, but I know we always have new folks.
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So let me just explain it again.
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Very simple biblical model for church order.
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Christ is the head.
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Always.
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I remember one of my professors who just recently died.
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He went to a church one time as an interim.
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He walked in.
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The head deacon walked up to him, shook his hand.
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He goes, I just want you to know I'm the head of this church.
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And he said, well, I'm glad you told me because I thought Jesus was.
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Glad you let me know because I came in under a false assumption.
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Thought Jesus was the head of the church.
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Christ is the head of the church.
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He administers his authority through his word.
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The word is interpreted and applied by the elders.
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The deacons are the arms and legs of the elders administering the word of God among the people.
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And the people of God are administering one to another their gifts in community.
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That's the structure.
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It's very simple.
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It's very simple.
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That's the biblical model.
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And it's very simple.
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The church gets overwhelmed with boards and committees.
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It stops functioning like a church.
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Starts functioning like a corporation.
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Instead of trusting God, we trust in the world's methodologies.
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Organization is essential, but it must be biblical organization.
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So we understand? It must be biblical organization.
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So we move on to the second thing.
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We say, we ask the first question, are we biblically organized? We must be.
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We must be biblically organized.
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Number two, are we biblically prioritized? Are we biblically prioritized? One of the most precious things we see in this passage as we study this event in the history of the church, it's that the apostles, the first century preachers of the church understood their role as preachers.
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They knew that it was their job to administer and serve the Word of God to the people of God.
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And one of the passages that I was reading this week, one of the commentaries, made a really interesting observation that I had never considered.
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He said, you know what? The first century preachers, the apostles, had to study and prepare their messages.
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And oftentimes we think of the apostles as sort of just getting this all from God, sort of like there's a big funnel on top of their head and the Holy Spirit's just pouring it in and giving them this information.
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They're going out and preaching extemporaneously.
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And no, there's a point that's being made in this passage, and that's this, they have to give time to the preaching of the Word and to prayer.
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And what they mean is they have to give time to the study of the Word of God so that they have something to give to the people of God.
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And they have to study to function as preachers among God's people.
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And that took such a high place that it could not be relegated to any secondary place in their life.
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So many in the church have abandoned or never had a right understanding of the preaching of the Word of God.
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They've abandoned it, they've lost it, or they never had it.
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And instead of seeing preaching as a priority in the church, it's seen as secondary or tertiary or even worse as part of the preacher's responsibilities.
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As a result, preachers are often tasked with thousands of responsibilities just to ensure he's kept busy.
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Hey, we're paying him, we've got to keep him busy.
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So he becomes a secretary, a repairman, a carpenter, a chauffeur, a greenskeeper, an events planner, a webmaster, you name it, he does it.
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Because he's got to be busy because the Word of God is not enough to keep him busy.
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He's an employee, so he has to be treated like it.
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Now I ain't up here whining about myself.
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I'm speaking for every man of God that's preaching the Word of God because, and I'm not trying to guilt trip anyone, but understand this, my first and foremost job is to preach the Word of God.
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That's my job.
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That's what I do.
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That's what I have to spend most of my time devoted to.
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It's not fixing lights and other things like that.
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And those type of things are necessary and important and that's why people need to be doing them.
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But the pastor's first primary job must be the preaching and the study of the Word of God in prayer.
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It must be.
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And that's just as important for me to remember as it is for you.
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As I said, I'm not just preaching to you and trying to lay a guilt trip on you.
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As I'm preaching this, I'm considering all the things in my life that shouldn't be there and that I need to get rid of because I need to be in the Word more.
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So I preach to myself as much as I preach to you.
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Instead of studying the Word, ministers often find anything else they can do to fill their time.
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They become masters on the golf course at times.
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But, I don't play golf, but that's, you know.
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And then they spend all their week doing everything else they can.
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They say, oh, well I'm busy about the work of the ministry and I've got to do this, I've got to do that, I've got to do that.
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And then finally, Saturday night comes, well, I've got to preach some more.
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Maybe I'll go on sermon.com and find me something to preach.
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And you know what, I don't think that happens.
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I know that happens because I contribute my notes to an online database because I want to be able to have the things that I've studied and learned.
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I want to contribute to the overall bank of information of the Word of God that's growing.
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So I contribute my notes.
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And I've had on at least two, possibly three occasions.
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Because two times I was called, one time I was called but I never got back a hold of the person.
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But two times I've spoken to churches that their minister was under investigation because he was using my notes and preaching them as his own.
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I don't say that to say, hey, look how great my notes are.
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I'm saying somebody out there ain't doing his job.
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They call me, did you write the sermon? What can you do while waiting on God? For some reason, that's the popular one.
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That's the one everybody likes.
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Preached it like 15 years ago.
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And they say, did you preach the sermon? Yes.
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Did you write it? Yes.
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Well, somebody else preached it as you.
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And he's under investigation.
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Beloved, biblical priority is that the man of God who's charged with preaching the Word of God must be studying the Word of God so that when it comes time for the Lord's day, we have something to serve the people of God.
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We must, we must understand the priority of the Word of God.
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This cannot take second place to anything, especially in the life of the man who's charged to serve it to the people of God.
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As we take the gospel into the world, we will run into all kinds of objections.
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And one that should never ever disturb us is when people object to organization in the church.
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Ministry is not meant to be haphazard or confused.
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It is meant to be decent and orderly as the Apostle Paul told us.
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And when someone challenges the organization of the church, here's my response.
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It's very simple.
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And if you want to write this down or just listen to the recording later.
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If somebody says, I don't like organized religion.
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I say, listen here.
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The organized church is the reason why we have food banks, orphanages, mercy ministries, mission societies, Bible colleges, seminary, you name it.
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And it's a result of the organized church.
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Some of the biggest colleges in America were established first as seminary extensions of the church.
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And yet they have lost their way.
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But still, Princeton wouldn't be there if it weren't for the church.
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Tell me, tell me that God has not called us to organize ministry.
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He has.
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God is a God of order.
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We see this in His creation.
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His order in creation is seen.
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His order is seen in the interaction of His people.
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We read earlier from a catechism.
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What did the catechism teach us? It teaches that God has decreed from eternity past, all things whatsoever will come to pass.
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That's an orderly God.
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That is a God of order.
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That is a God who established the end from the beginning in such a way that would most glorify Himself and save a people for Himself through the work of His Son.
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He is a God of order.
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And even in the Gospel, we see a very orderly arrangement.
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God who is holy cannot tolerate that which is sinful.
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And yet, He has a desire to save because He is a merciful God.
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So in His orderly arrangement, He sends His Son to be the propitiatory sacrifice for all who would ever believe on Him.
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He transfers by divine fiat the guilt of their sin onto the Son.
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And He transfers His Son's righteousness onto them in a divine transaction, which is an orderly arrangement which could be understood in any court of law.
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God is not a God of anarchy.
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He's not a God of disorder.
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He is a God of order.
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And He's called us to order.
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He's called us to decency.
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He's called us to arrangement so that we might flourish in ministry.
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May we never be fooled into thinking that a disorganized church is what most glorifies God.
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As we draw to a close, I want to encourage two things.
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One, if you're a believer and you came here as a believer today, you came here as a person seeking to want to most honor God, here are some things for you to consider from this message.
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Are we, as a body, seeking biblical order in the church? And are we seeking that the Word of God be our priority? And are we seeking each and individually, each one of us, what ministry we can be doing in the church to help the ministry flourish? That's number one.
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Number two, if you're not a believer, and I always know that I speak to groups and there's always people in here who come who might not be believers.
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I ask you this, when you look at the order of the world, and you look at the order all around us, and you look at the establishment of how God created the world, we know God exists.
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You know God exists.
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The Bible says that the only reason why you might not believe God exists is because you're suppressing that truth in your heart.
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You're suppressing it in unrighteousness.
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The order of the universe proves the existence of a creator, and you know God exists.
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So I call you now, repent of your unbelief, repent of your sins, and trust in He who has ordered all things for the good of those who love Him.
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Let's bow our heads.
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Father, I thank you for your Word.
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I thank you for the opportunity to preach your Word.
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I pray that your Word would be the priority in our church.
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That all that we do in organization of the church would be focused on what saith the Scripture.
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Not on our personal experiences, not on our own desires and whims, but what says the Word.
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I pray for conviction for believers to be more active in using their spiritual gifts.
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And I pray for conviction for unbelievers that they might see you as God and repent of their sins and turn to Christ who is the only one who can save, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
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In the name of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.