God's Glory in Our Order (Ephesians 3, Jeff Kliewer)

Cornerstone Church

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when Paul was in Troas, he preached literally until midnight.

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He went on so long, the Bible says, that there was somebody sitting in the window named Eutychus, and he fell into a deep sleep and fell out the window and died.

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But right there in the middle of the night, Paul went down the stairs and picked him up and prayed for him, and he was resurrected back to life.

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You know what they did next? They went back up into that room, and it says they conversed with Paul until daybreak.

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So following that pattern today, hopefully without the resurrection experience, we are going to have a short teaching from the

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Bible by comparison, and then we'll have a little break, and from 12 o 'clock to 1230, 1245,

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I just want whoever is able to hang around to converse about this subject that we're talking about today.

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It'll just be an informal time to sit around and ask questions of me, and I'll listen to comments from you, a way for us to process what we're learning.

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I think sometimes it's important not just to hear the preaching of the word, but then to process that with some conversation.

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So if you if you can't stay at 12 o 'clock today, don't worry. You can head out. Nobody's going to look down on you, but if you're available,

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I would love just to sit and talk with you, all right? So that's available afterwards, and hopefully nobody will fall asleep during the sermon.

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And toward that end, let's pray. God, we do pray that your

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Holy Spirit would be with us here today. If it's just me up here talking, giving a speech,

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Lord, how worthless and empty and meaningless would that be? But God, if I have your word, the precious scriptures, and if you by your

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Holy Spirit will fill me to say what you want to be said through your word, and Lord, if you will give us ears to hear and attentive hearts minds that are eager to receive the truth of your word, then this is a meal.

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This is a feast. This is a banquet where we come together to receive from you, the living

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God. Speak to us, Lord God, in Jesus' name. Amen. As we drove up this morning,

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I'm sure everybody noticed the beauty of this church building. Covered in snow, it reminded me of the picture of a bride, adorned in white, in a white gown, ready for marriage.

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That's just our building, but don't you know that the scripture teaches that the church is the bride of Christ?

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The church is the bride of Christ. Now, today, it's popular to be spiritual without being religious.

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You'll hope you will hear people say, look, I'm not a Christian. I'm not religious. I'm just spiritual.

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And they'll talk about how they even like things about Christianity, but they don't like the church.

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They don't like the formal, the religious, the traditional. They don't like the church.

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Well, imagine going to a groom on the day of his wedding, when his bride is adorned in white.

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And tell him that you like him, but you don't like his bride.

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You will not endear yourself to the groom on that day. You see, the groom is

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Christ, and the church is the bride, and he loves his bride.

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He is the Good Shepherd, and we are the sheep. He is the representative who fulfills all righteousness on our behalf.

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He is the substitute who stands in for us, the church, filthy in our sins, and clothes us with his righteousness by standing in and taking a punishment that we deserve.

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His love is so ferocious for the church that he is even willing to shed his own blood.

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And on the cross, pouring out that blood, he atones for the sin of all who will believe in him.

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Brothers and sisters, we call each other brothers and sisters because we are the church.

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We who belong to Christ. This morning, we need to talk about the church.

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The church is important. It's important to God. It's important to glorifying his name.

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The key text that we've looked at in this series, Glory in the Church, is Ephesians 3, verse 21.

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To him who is doing exceedingly, abundantly, beyond all that we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church, we're told.

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Glory in the church. That's the name of this series. Now, how is God glorified in the church?

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We talked in the first week about in our worship. How we come, how we speak to one another.

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Each one of us, a priest, a kingdom of priests. How, what we say. Secondly, what we hear from the word.

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How do we listen to the word? We talked about baptizing, bringing glory to God. Communion, to remember his body and blood.

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How we worship. The next week, we talked about our unity. The unity that we display brings glory to God.

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How we evangelize indiscriminately, as Roger talked about, to all the nations, without discrimination.

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The gospel is offered to all. And how we welcome all, because Christ has torn down the dividing wall of hostility and made of all the nations one new man.

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There's no longer Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female. There is one in Christ, a unified body.

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We talked about how we achieve that unity by loving one another and by serving. This week, we're going to take more of a peculiar topic.

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Something that you might experience more in a seminary class. And so, everybody's about to get into eudicus mode here.

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Oh, no. Not seminary class. See, anybody play golf?

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If you're a golfer, you realize that if you're off by only one degree, when the ball comes off of the tee, it might look like it's going perfectly straight, but by the time it gets to the fairway, flies out, it'll either land in the middle of the fairway, or it will drift a considerable distance from where you aimed.

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One degree can make all the difference. For me, it's many degrees, and you're out in the woods somewhere, out in the drink, probably a slice in my case.

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A little bit off of the center, and it throws everything off. Well, the order that we have in the church matters.

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It might not become obvious as you hear this sermon, and it might be something that you've never thought of before, but talking about these things actually matter.

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My discovery has been, whatever I study in the Word, the more I go into the Word of God, a lot of times,

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I have no idea why I'm studying what I'm studying, especially in the depths of Ezekiel, or certain parts of Leviticus.

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But the more I study through the Scriptures, there comes a time later to be revealed, when that word becomes relevant to something in my life, or in the church.

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And so Paul will say in Acts chapter 20, when he's on the beach at Miletus, he calls for the elders from Ephesus.

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They come to him, and he tells them, the first thing he says to them, I have not shrunk from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

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He'll repeat that twice on the beach. He makes the point that he told them everything they needed to know.

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He preached the Word. Not just the most important things, which we focus on those things.

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We major on the gospel in this church. We major on the gospel.

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We notice that all things point to Christ, because he is the image of the invisible

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God, and his grace is on display when he is lifted up on the cross.

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He atones for our sins, and so all these things point to him. But see, the Logos, the Word of God, who is

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Jesus Christ, is the God -breathing author of Scripture, by his

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Holy Spirit, and every word that he speaks matters to our lives.

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We might not know it now. We might not know why this matters so much, but the whole counsel of God matters in our lives.

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And so we're going to get into the subject of order in the church. What do I mean order? Well, we're going to talk about Congregationalism, the role of the congregation in the kingdom of God.

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We're going to talk about the role of elders, the role of deacons, and the role of every believer in ministries.

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How are those things sorted out? But before we dive in, and really the heavy lifting of this sermon will be that part, while we jump from Scripture to Scripture, looking at those things, but before we just dive in and grab verses and and correlate them together,

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I want us to see a display of glory. We're going to go to Ephesians chapter 3 first, and I'm going to need to be fast through this part, so speed me along somehow, but I want to spend a ton of time in this section.

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But unfortunately, we don't have that time right now. So we're going to, first of all, look at the glory of God in the church in Ephesians chapter 3.

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We'll make two observations that will set the foundation for the rest of what

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I'll say. The first is that the writings of the

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Apostle are prophetic, meaning revelatory, and they are the authority for the church.

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They're the foundation stone that we build on. Any order that we have in the church has to come from the foundation of the

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Word of God. Christ is the cornerstone. The foundation is the

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Apostles and Prophets, Ephesians 2 .20. Find that before we get into Ephesians 3. This structure, this temple, which is the church, is built on the foundation of the

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Apostles and Prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. The writings of the

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Apostles who are writing prophetically, revealing the will of God. This is the foundation of the church.

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Now, the second thing we'll see in Ephesians 3 is the glory of the church displaying the glory of God.

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How it is that God has created a church for a purpose. If I ask you right now, why do you exist in the church rather than being raptured up the minute you believed?

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Why is that? In other words, if you became a Christian, your purpose is to be with God forever.

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You'll be with him. Why didn't God just snatch you up to heaven? Why did he leave you here for X number of years?

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The answer is found in verse 10. He is displaying his manifold wisdom to non -human sentient beings somewhere in the cosmos through the church.

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Angels, demons, good angels, bad angels, are observing the glory of God through the creation of this people on earth.

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We'll read that. So let's go through. Once we see that glimpse of glory, we'll grab some specific applications about congregations, elders, deacons, ministries.

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Chapter 3 verse 1. We're going through 9. For this reason

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I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation.

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As I have written briefly, when you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the

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Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

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Of this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power.

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To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the

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Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.

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Paul is speaking of himself in this passage a lot, and he's telling us, verse 5, that he is an apostle and prophet.

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He is an apostle and prophet. He has that particular stewardship, verse 2.

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It's given to him to do this, and what is it that he does in this apostolic, prophetic role?

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He reveals the will of God. Verse 3, the mystery was made known to me by revelation.

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He receives revelation from God and reveals that to everyone, we learn in verse 9.

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Notice in verse 4, this revelation is put into writing.

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He's writing the Ephesians, and when you read this, this letter, which is 100 % human, in that there's a human authorship, we also have a 100 % divine revelation from God.

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Just as Jesus is 100 % human and 100 % divine at the same time, this book that we hold the

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Bible, has human authors who are ordinary humans like us, writing in their context and for their purpose.

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He's writing the Ephesians, and yet, it is 100 % the very Word of God. Phaenusta, breathed out by God, 2nd

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Timothy 3, 16. All scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, rebuking, training, and righteousness.

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When you read this, verse 4, the written Word coming from the

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Apostle, you know this insight into the mystery of Christ. This is how we know.

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This is the foundation of all that we do. We are a people who know

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God through His Word. Apart from the

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Word, we know nothing. We're just groping in the dark, and everybody's opinion is as good as anybody else's, but if we have a revelation from God, then

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God has spoken. Then we know truth. Verse 6, this mystery is that the

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Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

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There again is a reference to chapter 2. We studied this last week. The dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile has been torn down, making one new man.

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The church, one, made up of all nations, all believers within the nations.

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Verse 7, Paul says, of this gospel, I was made a minister.

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The Greek for that word minister is nothing other than diakonos, from which we also get deacon or servant.

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He says he's a servant of the gospel. Now all believers are servants of the gospel, but Paul in this context is talking about his special apostolic role.

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That phrase, apostle and prophet, appears three times in the book of Ephesians. Look back up at chapter 2, verse 20.

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The church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. We saw it there in chapter 3, verse 5.

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It's now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets. And then in 411, the gifts that are given to the church, the first ones listed are the apostles, the prophets.

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In the context of Ephesians, Paul is saying that as an apostle, he has been commissioned and sent out by Jesus Christ himself.

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The other twelve apostles, according to Acts chapter 1, verse 21, had seen

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Christ and walked with him from the the baptism of John. From that point on, they were eyewitnesses and they testify they're commissioned by God to be apostles.

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Paul is different. He's abnormally born because he encountered Christ on the road to Damascus and was knocked off of his donkey.

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And he became an apostle in an abnormal way, but he is one of the apostles who is sent to speak authoritatively.

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But it's not just that sending commission, it's also that he's prophetic. What does prophetic mean in this context?

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Apostle and prophet. When he speaks and writes these words, he is speaking for God.

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Thus says the Lord. This New Testament, which is even here being written as Paul writes it, is the

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Word of God. And so we see in verse 8 and 9, he calls himself the least and yet this grace was given to him to preach to the

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Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ. Christ is at the center.

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And to bring to light, you see that that picture of revelation, what is in the dark is now brought into light.

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God is revealing something previously hidden. In fact, that word mystery that you see there. A mystery isn't a paradox in Scripture.

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It's not something that contradicts our logic or anything like that, as sometimes we use the term mystery.

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No, here mystery is something that's always been true, but it was hidden until the revelation of it at a certain time and place.

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Something previously hidden now made known. The mystery here is that Jew and Gentile would be brought together in one church.

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Paul is revealing it in this apostolic writing. So the larger point, we have the

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Word, the apostolic, the prophetic, bringing to light of revelation, revealing mysteries that we would know what we need to know.

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That's the foundation. That's the foundation on which the whole structure arises.

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So if you look at it as a picture of a temple, temple has a foundation, but a temple has many rooms.

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Maybe one room that we're going to talk about is congregations. Another is elders, deacons, ministries in the church.

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Those rooms have to be built on the foundation. We only know about these things by what the

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Word teaches us. That's our foundation stone. And so continuing on, we're going to read 10 through the end of the chapter, and here we're looking at the display of God's glory in the church.

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So that, that word so that is a hena clause. It gives the purpose of what's gone before.

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So here's the purpose of it all. So that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

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This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.

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So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. For this reason

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I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.

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That according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his

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Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

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That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

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Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

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Amen. Why should you care about this church? I know we have a lot of cares in our lives, and many of them rightfully so.

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We care about our family. We care about the sports teams we're on. I'm playing in a men's league, and I care if we win the playoffs.

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I'm into it. It's fun. Why should I care what happens at church?

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Why should you care? And how important should it be in your life? This scripture teaches us that the glory of God is displayed in the church.

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This is the display of his glory. Matthew Henry summarizes this last verse that we saw, glory in the church, 321, by saying the seed of God's praises is in the church.

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That little rent of praise which God receives from this world is from the church.

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Every particular member of which, both Jew and Gentile, concurs in this work of praising

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God. The church is the display of God's glory. Look at chapter 3 verse 10.

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This is why we aren't just snatched up into heaven the minute we believe we're left here to display

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God's glory, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

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It's a very interesting verse. There are some rulers, some authorities in heavenly places that are observing the church.

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Angelic beings, the four living creatures that surround his throne, seraphim, and there are demons that oppose him.

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But this, what we do, the coming together of a people, both Jew and Gentile, in praising

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God, gives glory to God and puts the spotlight on him.

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It demonstrates his glory to the cosmos, to all created things. This, what we do, this who we are, the church is the display of God's glory.

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So all the things that you do in life, whether it's sports, fishing, motorcycles, whatever your thing is,

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I have a question for you. How much do you care about it compared to how much you care about the church?

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The church should be the number one part of your life.

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It should be the centerpiece because this is how God brings Jew and Gentile together to glorify himself.

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I'd love to spend more time in here talking about how it is that God is glorified by displaying his wisdom.

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In revealing these mysteries, he's glorified in showing that all things are working according to his plan.

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That he has a plan even for suffering, we're told. Paul is a prisoner. He identifies himself as a prisoner, chapter 3 verse 1, and so he says they should not lose heart, verse 13, in his suffering because these things are revealing the plan of God and the glory of God.

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The bringing together of a people in Ephesus to praise his name, it's all

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Paul needs. He's willing to suffer in prison. He's like, fine, let me be locked up in a

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Roman prison if I know that it's achieving the purpose of God in calling out a people to worship his name.

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He makes that connection. So this is the foundation. We have the apostolic word to tell us how things should be.

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It's for the purpose of glorifying Christ in a church, and so now

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I'm going to make four applications from that foundation for that purpose, and it'll apply to all of us.

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Number one, what does it say to congregations? Does the

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Word of God teach about congregations? The answer is yes, it does.

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The first place we'll see that, we're not going to be able to turn to all these scriptures, so I'm just going to kind of give you references and ask that you write them down and look them up later, but the first thing

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I'll reference is Galatians 1, 6 to 9. Paul says that even if an angel or he himself, an apostle, were to come to them preaching another gospel, let him be accursed.

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The implication of this is that every congregation needs to be discerning the Word of God like Bereans, that what they're being taught is truly the

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Word of God. So the church itself has the authority and needs to discern what's being taught, and if I, the preacher at this church, or an apostle or an angel from heaven comes here and teaches a gospel other than what this word reveals, let him be accursed.

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Relegate me or anybody else to the ranks of the false prophets. It's the Word that tells us, and it's the church that needs to discern that.

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If you doubt that, read in Matthew 18, verses 15 to 18. If you have sin in the camp, and there's a problem brewing, the first thing you do is you go one -on -one with that person who caused the offense.

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They don't want to listen to you. Bring a witness or two, and you go, the two of you, but the final step in that progression is to take it to the church.

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The church needs, in that case, the language is of discipline. Someone might need to be put out of fellowship for a time in order that they could heal.

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The church has that responsibility, and in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul laments that they're not using that authority, and they're tolerating sin in the camp.

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Finally, evidently, they listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians, because they put that person out of fellowship for a time.

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They take away his membership, and in 2 Corinthians 2, verses 5 and following, we're told now that they are to be merciful toward this person, and bring them back in.

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But I want you to notice this, when you have a chance to look it up. Paul says, the decision reached by the majority is sufficient.

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The punishment of excommunication for a time, until they would repent, that punishment executed by the majority is sufficient.

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Question for you, how can you count a majority if you can't recognize who the church is?

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This is the reason why a church needs to be a recognizable, countable group.

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This is the reason for church membership. In this culture where there's many churches, and people can check out churches, and that's great.

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We welcome all the visitors in the world, but if we're going to do church discipline, think about church discipline.

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It is the most important thing a church can do. Putting somebody out of the church is a big deal.

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It makes the church what it is. Including members in membership, or excluding members, is the highest authority.

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We need to know who is the majority in order to be able to discern what that is.

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So I would encourage you, if you're not a member of a local church, pray about it. Don't listen to me.

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Go to the word, Matthew 18. That book I wrote talks about this, if you want to look at the exegesis of it.

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Pray about it. Seek from the word, if it might be God's will for, or his timing now, for you to join a church.

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That's the first application. Congregationalism. The highest authority in the church is the church itself.

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Now, next thing, does that mean we should call a congregational meeting, and vote on how to decorate the

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Christmas tree? Should we vote on every decision that the church makes?

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The answer is no, and we move on now to the subject of elders. Because, yes, the congregation needs to vote on the most important matters, including excluding members.

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Things of that nature, calling a pastor, firing a pastor. Whatever needs to happen, the congregation votes on those most important things, but elders are given to the church to lead, and to rule even, according to 1st

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Timothy 5 17. Elders. Now, who are the elders? I'm gonna blow your mind here.

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You guys ready for a moment? All right. Look with me to Acts chapter 20 verse 17.

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Paul is on the shore at Miletus. He's trying to get down to Jerusalem before Pentecost, so he's in a hurry.

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Kind of like me preaching right now. I got 10 minutes left. I got to get this in. Paul calls a meeting at the beach.

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He calls specifically for who? The elders. He gives them this instruction, that he's preached the whole council to them.

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He warns them of coming wolves in sheep's clothing, but in verse 28, addressing who?

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The elders. He tells them that these, the elders, are the overseers, and he goes on, he uses language of overseeing the flock.

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Under whom you are, you are shepherding, you are giving care. Here's the moment of blowing your mind.

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The pastor is only an elder, and the elder is a pastor, is an overseer.

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The three terms are describing the same people. We don't have one pastor in this church.

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We have four. We have four elders at the moment, and those who have previously been in that role of elder, in a sense, are still in that elder, pastor, overseer role.

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They were commissioned as elders, and they still are looked up to. Elder, presbuteros, communicates this idea of having trustworthiness, being faithful over time, and looked up to, and wise, an elder.

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The word episkopos, overseer. Chapter 20, verse 28, that communicates this idea of having oversight, or ensuring that things are running the right way, and are are done right, making decisions.

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They're overseeing the work. As I said, 1st Timothy 5 17 also speaks of that as a ruling office, in charge, 1st

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Peter 5 1 to 5, and the word poimen, pastor.

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Chapter 20, verse 28, refers to caring for the flock.

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Feeding the flock. The Word of God. When someone is sick, to go and visit and pray.

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When somebody is wandering, to go look for that wandering sheep, to bring them back. It's caretaking.

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It's concern. You see, a pastor that's not an elder makes no sense, and an elder who doesn't care, or feed, makes no sense.

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The three are held together as one. The pastor is the elder, is the overseer, and so congregation, let your elders lead.

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Trust their leadership. Follow their lead. That's what you're told to do, in Hebrews 13.

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Obey your leaders, we're told. Well, wait a minute. We're congregational. Yes, we're congregational. The final ruling authority is the congregation, but the scriptures are the foundation, and there is, according to Hebrews 13, but also 1st

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Peter 5 5, be subject to the elders. There is a ruling aspect in the governance of the church that belongs to the elders, and elders, preaching to a couple of us now, love the flock, care for the flock, pastor the flock.

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Next year, we're gonna spend more time just trying to come and care for people in their homes. Say, how is your walk with God?

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We're gonna try to come and just care, and shepherd, and pastor better than we've been doing. Lead.

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Elders step up and lead. Next, the third category, deacons.

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What is a deacon? Well, let's start with, what does the word mean? Deacon, diakonos. Break that into two parts.

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Dia means thoroughly in the Greek, and konos means dust. The idea of a deacon is one who thoroughly kicks up dust as they're moving about, according to Thayer's and Robertson.

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Diakonos is a servant. It's one who's busy serving the church, kicking up dust as they go.

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Where did they come from? Well, in Acts chapter 6, there was a problem in Jerusalem. That was the

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Hebraic Jews and the Greek -speaking Jews were different groups kind of within that local church, and the widows of the one were being neglected, and others were being favored, and the apostles were trying to deal with this problem, but it was draining all their time, and so the answer was, let's appoint seven men to be deacons to care for this work.

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And so seven men were chosen in this official office as deacons. Now, we know it's an official office because of 1st

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Timothy chapter 3, where there's qualifications given for those who would be appointed to that office.

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The role of the deacon is important, because according to Acts 6, it frees up the pastors to focus on the teaching of the word and prayer.

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As deacons are then fulfilling other aspects of the ministry, getting things done, the apostles, in the case of Acts 6, and in our case, elders, pastor, overseer, are able to do the work preaching, teaching, praying.

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The question remains then, who can be a deacon? There is a controversy, and there is room for disagreement in what

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I'm about to say. Are deacons only to be men, or are women also allowed to be deacons?

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That question is not settled entirely in my mind. I see weight on both sides.

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However, I lean towards the idea that deacons are men. The seven deacons chosen in Acts chapter 6 were

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Philip and Stephen, Nicanor, Timon, all the seven guys. Now, it's not a concrete argument there, but how is it then spoken of later?

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In 1st Timothy chapter 3, the list of qualifications for deacons seems to be male.

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Now, the issue is, in that verse referring to their wives also in the ESV, that word gune just means women.

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Does that word mean women as in the sense of the wife of a deacon, or does it mean a deaconess?

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There is room for disagreement based on how you translate the word gune. And to strengthen the argument that it is possible that women can be deacons,

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Romans chapter 16 verse 1 refers to Phoebe as a deaconess of the

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Church of Centuria. So, does that word refer to deaconess, as we mentioned earlier, as a minister or a servant or the official role of deacon from the

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Church of Centuria? There's a bit of an open question there, based on translation of that word.

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So, we don't need to go into great depth on it. I will only say that it looks to me personally, as I read through the flow of the text of 1st

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Timothy 3, that it's male only, but disagreement on a minor point of doctrine like this is not something to divide over.

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Where there are people who hold differences there, that is fine. What really matters, I'm getting excited again, what really matters is that each of us humbly and faithfully go to the foundation and study and come to a conviction that's biblical.

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The plain flow of the text, trying to be faithful to that, let that form your thinking on the question.

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And where there's points of disagreement, that's okay. We can love each other despite minor differences in those things.

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Now, if you deny the Trinity, there's a problem. But if there's a difference in an opinion like that, so be it.

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So finally, and this will be quick, the last thing to mention is ministries. We talked about all -male eldership.

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We know that is clear from 1st Timothy 2, 11 to 15, the teaching and exercising authority. Women are not to have that over men.

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But listen, Galatians 3, 27, 28, in that section, tells us that there is no longer

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Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. But all together are one in Christ Jesus.

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We, men and women, are common heirs of grace. All of us together, and all of us together, have ministries to accomplish in the church.

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According to Acts 21, Philip's four daughters prophesied. Doesn't mean they held an office of bishop.

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It means they prophesied. It means they spoke words that were edifying to the believers.

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And you find in Romans 16, the list of those who are helping Paul, as many women as men.

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All of us here in this church need to be involved in ministry. Women teaching women.

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Titus, older women teaching the younger. Every man involved in serving.

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All of us are called to be diakonos, servants in the broad general sense.

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So analyze your life. Think about it now. What is God calling you to do? Somebody is thinking of a

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Spanish Bible study. I affirm that. Go for it. Step out in faith where the

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Lord is calling you. Consult with the deacon, the elders, the overseers, to talk through that.

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And they can pray with you on those questions and affirm that that gifting is in you for that thing.

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Don't go renegade and just, you know, be your own kingdom. But recognize that every one of us is part of this body of Christ.

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We need each other in ministry. We all have a ministry to do. The children's ministry.

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Teachers of children. Men and women both. It's needed. Ministering to the youth.

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Ministering in music. Some of you are gifted musically and you can step up and use those gifts. Come talk to the elders and pray about where God might be calling you to serve.

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And I know in this particular church almost everybody is serving. I think all of us are serving in some capacity.

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Praise God for that. So let's close with this thought from Ephesians 3, 21.

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To him who is able to do far more than all we ask, think, or imagine. Imagine a church that has its house in order.

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Where elders are elders. Where deacons are deacons. Where every minister has a ministry.

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Every one of us is involved in serving the Lord together. Imagine it. Imagine what glory will be displayed to the cosmos as men and women.

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Every race and ethnicity unified in Christ are serving him together. What will that look like to the world?

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Imagine the worship when when people come in and they're praying with each other in the halls. And when we come in here to sing, every voice is raised up in true worship from the heart.

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When we celebrate baptisms. When we take communion with serious hearts. Examining our hearts and enjoying that fellowship together.

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Imagine whatever you just imagined, he is able to do far more abundantly than anything you think or imagine.

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The glory in the church. This is what's coming for us as we remain faithful to the foundation, the

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Word of God. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for this church.

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I love this church. Thank you for every brother and sister that you have brought here and unified in this the

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Bride of Christ. Your sheep of your pasture. Thank you for how you love us.

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We ask God that you would be glorified here. Help us to reform our thinking in any area where we are wrong.

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Let your Word bring conviction. Let your Word bring new insights. Lord, we know these things matter.

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We might not get it now, but over the years set us on that trajectory being constantly reformed by your

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Word. Thank you, God, for this church. Thank you that you would draw us together to worship your name.