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Well, good morning everyone. That was a great time. I especially liked the Lord's Table and I was reflecting on what Louis said about spiritual nourishment and I just thought, you know what, I can't really define that this morning but I feel it.
That was just a great time and I really appreciated that. It's always a great time to share the Lord's Table and to be reminded of His goodness and His love toward us. I like to look at the internet from time to time and you'll see some of the fruits of that labor this morning.
Firstly, I don't know if you guys caught this or not, but in Istanbul, Turkey, on July 8, 2005, this occurred. First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1 ,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish media reported.
In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall got more cushioned. Sheep, sometimes they're not too bright.
That was for you. But you know what? Today's churches are a lot like those sheep. They are so concerned with not being left behind, with following suit, with following the current fad, that they just go over that cliff over and over and over again.
The pressure on churches to grow, to be culturally relevant, to be purpose-driven, to be with it, to be cutting-edge, has never been greater. In fact, when I thought about cutting-edge, all of a sudden it hit me.
And if you sit at the computer too long, this probably happens to you too. I thought, you know what? I'm going to Google cutting-edge church and see what I get. This is what I got. We have some steps here.
If you want to make sure that your church is cutting-edge, this is what you do. Identify and articulate shared purposes, values, and vision. This is a must, a non-negotiable. Values and vision provide the direction and energy to keep the church on course and moving forward.
Secondly, you must become entrepreneurial. Try saying that three times real fast. Churches on the cutting-edge adapt entrepreneurial strategies to church ministries. In other words, cutting-edge business philosophy must be part of the church's mode of operation.
Thirdly, learn to thrive on change and uncertainty. He then quotes a chairman, a big business guy. This business guy, Al Flood, says this, In a fast-paced, continually shifting environment, resilience to change is often the single most important factor that distinguishes those who succeed from those who fail.
So the idea is you have to be opportunity-oriented. He says there are five basic characteristics of opportunity-oriented people. And these are, number one, you must be positive, display a sense of security and self-assurance based on a view of life as complex and challenging, but filled with all kinds of opportunity.
Secondly, you must be focused. Have a clear vision of what you want to achieve. Thirdly, you must be flexible. Demonstrate a special pliability when responding to uncertainty. I don't even know what all this stuff means.
Fourth, you must be organized. This is really the worst. Afterwards, anybody who knows what this means can talk to me. You must be organized. Develop structured approaches to managing ambiguity. How do you manage ambiguity?
That's ambiguous in and of itself. Number five, you must be proactive. Engage change rather than defending against it or evading it. So that all falls under being opportunity-oriented. Then you must encourage experimentation and ministry.
Promote a learning lab experimental mentality. Just imagine, just show up on Sunday and just make things up as you go. Number five, you must become more risk-taking. This is how you get your cutting-edge church.
Number six, you must facilitate cross-pollination. Mix team members around in ministry as much as possible so they can develop new perspectives and new skills. Maybe we should just pull somebody out of the congregation to lead worship, you know, the singing next week.
Charlie, have a seat. That's the idea here. Got to keep things fresh, cutting-edge. And then finally, seventh, you must become a cutting-edge leader. And you must recruit cutting-edge leaders. All that to ensure that you have a cutting-edge church.
And I think, you know what? If you're starting a business, maybe some of these are good ideas. But if you're trying to function as a church, as God's chosen instrument on this earth, then shouldn't you follow his instruction manual rather than employing current business leadership ideas and principles in order to become cutting-edge?
Two weeks ago, I began a biblical look at Mark Dever's nine marks of a biblical church. I focused on the pastoral epistles, which are 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. And the reason I chose those is because Paul gives these young men, Titus and Timothy, instructions on how to set up, how to organize, and how to run a local church.
Now, my purpose this morning, as it was two weeks ago, is to detail for you these essential ingredients of a biblical church so that you will know a good church from a bad one. If you're out here church shopping this morning, a good church from a bad one, and so that you, the people who regularly attend and belong to BBC, will hold the leadership of this church up to this biblical model.
This is what we want. Of course, you know, you say, and I mentioned this, I think, a couple weeks ago, there might be more than nine. There might be 15 or 20. And maybe we should correct Dr. Dever at some point, but I'm not going to do that this morning.
And just by way of review, and I'm not going to do the typical review where we get one new point. I'm going to go through all nine points this morning. We're going to move. We're flying. Okay. Number one, expository preaching.
Preaching, that is, expository preaching is verse-by-verse preaching through a book, which notably I'm not doing this morning. But it's done in such a way that the text, it's essential, but I'm not doing it this morning.
It's done in such a way that the text is exposed, revealed, made clear. And I argue that it may be absolutely the critical ingredient. Why? Because if you have that, you're going to want these other nine.
You're going to understand what the Word of God says, and you're not going to be satisfied with Pablum. You're not going to be satisfied with some prepackaged program. The clear teaching of the Word makes plain what the children of God ought to be doing.
We talked about the exclusivity of preaching, that it is pastors, they are exclusively commanded to preach the Word. They're not commanded to preach anything else. They're not commanded to come up with cutting-edge technology to keep their church at the forefront of everything.
That's not their job. We talked about the excitement needed on the part of the preacher. Excitement not in the sense that he's a great guy when he gets on the pulpit, but he must be determined that he's going to preach the Word only, and he must be ready at a moment's notice.
I'd like to publicly commend Lewis Brown for being ready last week. Somebody couldn't preach, and he just got up and said, I'm ready to go. That's exactly right. We also talked about preaching. Biblical preaching is not limited in its extent.
By that I mean there's no time limit on it. Whether it is timely or untimely, whether it's in season or out of season, whether it's fashionable, or whether it's considered passé, the preacher has only one burden, one task he must fulfill.
He must preach the Word. That's it. We said it is also exactly God's remedy for solving many problems. Many problems. You say, well, how can that work? How can it be that just by going through book by book by book you get to apply the Word to so many different problems?
Because as we go through, this is what Paul especially is doing, but Jesus also. As they go through and they teach, what are they doing? They're helping people with problems. And so when we preach the Word to you, what we are doing is we are applying the Word to your life.
God is applying it through us. Secondly, we talked about, so the first one was expository preaching. The second one was biblical understanding of theology. A church must have a biblical understanding of theology.
Paul uses the term sound words, which means Scripture and theologically correct teaching of Scripture. And because of that, what he's actually telling Timothy, and Titus too, he wants them to teach that which is theologically sound.
And as I said before, every Christian understands some theology. You say, well, I don't know, I haven't read too many theological books. You don't need to. You don't need to. Are you saved? If you know who God is, and you know who man is, and you know what God has done for you through Jesus Christ, then you know some theology.
Now to be, and you can grow in that obviously, but to be un-theological, a-theological, to not care about theology, is to be undiscerning, to not really care about the truth or the error that is being taught, to maybe hold some mixed up muddled positions.
And if we do that, if we are undiscerning, if we just kind of accept everything in, then what are we doing? We're modeling what the world does. Thirdly, we must have a biblical understanding of the gospel.
Simple enough, but I bet if I was asked this morning, some people probably couldn't give me the gospel. We ought to know that. It ought to be the first thing we think about. When a conversation starts with somebody new, our first objective should be, how can I preach the gospel to this person?
How can I turn this conversation around so that I can evangelize this person? The gospel, biblical understanding of the gospel, it is the grace of God through faith in God, which is a faith that is given by God, and that faith must be in Christ alone plus nothing.
Man cannot save himself, nor can he reach out somehow and accept God's help. God doesn't offer help. He offers salvation fully and completely from every sin that we've ever committed or ever will commit.
Fourthly, a biblical understanding of conversion, which I would simply say this, salvation changes people. If you know someone who says that they've received Christ, and there is absolutely no difference before and after, none.
I'm not saying they're not saved. I'm saying that the Bible teaches that when the Holy Spirit comes and indwells you, the Holy Spirit will change you. And if there is no change, then there's cause for concern.
I also mentioned that Bethlehem Bible Church, we do not do altar calls. We do not have people sign a salvation card. And we're not particularly fond of leading someone in the sinner's prayer. Why? Because we don't want to give false assurance of salvation.
If those people belong to Jesus Christ, he knows that, they know that. And it's not a matter of me telling somebody, hey, thanks for praying that prayer, you're now in the family of God, and you will live eternally with Jesus Christ.
That's not my job. Steve Cooley does not have the gift of assurance. That is the Holy Spirit's job. In fact, just as a little testimony on that, I once led somebody in the sinner's prayer many years ago.
And I think I last saw him maybe two years ago. What was I thinking? There is absolutely, you know, in six years, there isn't any evidence whatsoever that that man is saved. And as soon as he prayed that prayer, we were assuring him, and I'm just ashamed to say that.
So those are the first four that we talked about. Number five, biblical understanding of evangelism. A church, a good church, will have a biblical understanding of evangelism. Please turn to 2 Timothy 2.
2 Timothy 2, verses 8 to 10. And again, we're going to be moving around a little bit in the pastoral epistles. By the time we get done, you ought to have a pretty good idea what the pastoral epistles are.
1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. We're in 2 Timothy, the last book that Paul wrote. Chapter 2, verses 8 to 10. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel, for which I suffer hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal, but the word of God is not imprisoned.
For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, and with it eternal glory. Now Paul is in prison again. This time things are a little bit different though.
Nero is the Caesar, he is the emperor. And Nero has started really an unprecedented persecution of Christians, just brutal and vicious. Nero was, it was like they put Charles Manson in charge of an empire.
He was crazy. But Paul's first exhortation to Timothy is to remember, to keep in mind, to keep the frontal lobe of his brain, Jesus Christ. Why? First of all, because he's risen from the dead. According to Paul's gospel, which he gives fully in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1 to 4, it is the resurrection that gives believers hope.
Also, as Paul wrote in Romans 1, it's the resurrection that demonstrates the deity of Jesus Christ. Secondly, Paul wants them to remember the Lord because he is a descendant of David. Now being a descendant of David demonstrates that Jesus is not only fully God, but that he is also fully man.
He couldn't be a descendant of David without being fully man. But also, by being a descendant of David, it proved that he fulfilled the biblical prophecy and that he was the long-promised Messiah. Paul also wants them to remember Jesus because he embodies, Jesus embodies hope.
The gospel, what is the gospel? It's good news. God, through Christ, saves sinners. And Paul was willing to suffer anything in the furtherance of that gospel. In the furtherance of that hope. In the furtherance of that good news that saves people.
Now, Paul may be in prison, and he says then, and he puts in this verse, there's a strong contrast, the strongest contrast possible, but, and there are a couple of different ones, but he gives the strong contrast, the word of God cannot be imprisoned.
Paul is stuck in jail, but the word of God is never stuck in jail. What's the principle? What's he trying to tell us? That with or without Paul, the work goes forth. And the same here. If Mike's gone, does the church stop functioning?
No. If Dave's gone, does the church stop functioning? No. The church keeps going, the work keeps going, in spite of the fact that it may be missing a cog here or two. Here or there. But Paul was in jail, he was stuck, and he says, listen, here's the good news.
You still have the word of God, and that's what saves people. And it's the same way with any evangelical effort. It's not dependent upon Paul, it's not dependent upon Steve, it's not dependent upon the missions committee.
It doesn't matter how clever you are, it doesn't matter how slick your brochure is, and it doesn't matter even how sincere you can be. You know, well, I don't think they accepted the gospel because my sincerity was at level 7.
No. No. They need to hear the word. God uses his word. Romans 10 .17 tells us this. So faith, saving faith, comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. They hear that word, they believe that word, they internalize it, and that is how they get saved.
Not by some slick presentation by you. Now again, Paul says, for this reason, at the beginning of verse 10, what reason? Because scripture is not imprisoned. Paul endures all things, that is, he suffers trials, afflictions, persecution, and his upcoming death, but he's not complaining, he's not whining, he's not worried, and he's not focused, in particular, on the trials themselves, on his sufferings.
He, rather, endures them. Hendrickson says this about enduring. He says, it means more than merely accepting them, shrugging your shoulders. It means going right ahead, full speed, believing, testifying, exhorting, though the load under which one is traveling on life's pathway has become very heavy.
Paul's got a lot that he's carrying around. He's got a lot of things he could be worried about. He's got a lot of things he could be complaining about, but he's not. Instead, he is enduring those, pressing on.
Why? Because there are more important things than his particular struggles. He is imprisoned for the sake of the gospel, suffering at every turn, facing, as I said, what will be, no doubt, not a pleasant execution, but what is his focus?
He tells us in this verse, he says, the elect, those who are, in the Greek, eclektos, chosen by God. Why? Why is he focused on them? He says, I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen. And that's what that word is, chosen, eclektos.
Because their salvation will only come about by the faithful proclamation of that unimprisoned word, of that word that cannot be contained, cannot be stopped. Paul is going through a lot, and he doesn't care.
Why? For the sake of the elect. He wants to see people come to Christ. Now, I would just say this, what about you? What are you willing to endure? What are you willing to carry on your back? What are you willing to suffer for the sake of the elect?
You're not imprisoned. You have the word of God. Are you willing to be embarrassed to present the gospel to someone? Are you willing to lose friends? Are you willing to lose money? Opportunities can go right down the drain sometimes.
Are you willing to suffer? As a church, what is Bethlehem Bible Church willing to endure for the sake of the elect? Now, we've got an outreach to a few rest homes. We've got some ideas for a prison ministry that I think is forming.
We've got a missions committee. We support missionaries. We've done Christmas caroling. And we've got a few people with measurable and vast evangelistic zeal. But I think we can do a whole lot more. How long have you been a Christian?
Some of you, it's been a short period of time. Some of you, a very long period of time. But ultimately, it doesn't matter whether it's a month or whether it's 40 years or longer. How many people have you shared the gospel with?
How willing have you been to endure hardship? Not just being a good example, but by actually presenting the biblical good news. People don't come to faith by watching you live your life, seeing how that you mow your lawn, you edge it, you sweep up all the leaves, you're a good neighbor.
They don't do that by watching you play catch with your kids out in the yard. They come to faith by hearing the word. Somebody has to do that. If you don't know how, talk to the guys on the missions committee.
Raise your hand if you're on the missions committee. Where are those guys? Talk to those guys. They all know the gospel. They can help you out. And they'd love to have some volunteers. I'll tell you something.
If you see even during your lifetime one person, one person that you know, one person that you don't know, somebody in your family, one of your friends come to Christ, it is something that you will never forget.
And it's not something where you notch your Bible because you know it's not you. Sometimes it's just amazing to see what God will do. We think, oh, God never saved that person. Well, in that case, I never would have got saved.
God shouldn't have saved me. You know, the friend I had who led me to the Lord, for lack of a better term, when I first asked him to go to Bible study, he laughed at me. Listen, we don't know what God is doing with the people that are all around us.
Our obligation is not to figure that out. It's not to come up with some kind of strategy. It's not to pick the most likely person to come to Christ. It's to preach the word. It's to give them the good news.
We must have a biblical understanding of evangelism. It's an imperative. It's not an option. Sixthly, we must have a biblical understanding of church membership. Turn to 1 Timothy 3, verses 14 and 15.
I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long. But in case I am delayed, and by the way, that means that he will be delayed, absolutely. Well, that's the condition in the Greek. He absolutely will be delayed.
I write so that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. Paul had a great desire to come and see Timothy, but he wanted Timothy to know how one, notice he doesn't say how you, Timothy, how you, pastor, should conduct yourself in the household of God.
This is for everybody, how every single person should conduct themselves in the house of God. And by the way, that isn't so, just so you know how to act when you come in the door on Sunday morning. It's not just so when you come on Wednesday night for Awana, you know how to act.
This is, the idea is not when you enter the church building. The idea is you are in the body of Christ. You are in the local church. How should you behave? It has to do with body life, how we interact with one another.
Now, why is proper conduct so important? Well, because he tells us here, the church, this is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. We are the church of the living God. How do we reflect that living God?
What are some practical ways that this kind of fleshes itself out? And I had to go outside of the pastoral epistles, and I'm just going to give you these references rather quickly. Hebrews 10, 25, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
I like that part where he says there, the habit of some. Some do that. It's not good to do that. The habit of some is what some are still trying to pull off. There are still people out there trying to be what one of my professors used to call the lone wolf.
You know, me, myself, the Holy Spirit, and the Bible, just us four and no war, right? But a believer by him or herself is asking for trouble. Why? Because there are no checks and balances on doctrine.
They can come up with all manner of things. There is no one else to serve or to be served by. No supply of biblical teaching. No singing. How can you take that? Especially if you can't sing, how are you going to be all alone with no music?
There'll be no public reading of Scripture, which Paul commanded Timothy in another place. I ran across a guy here, actually he came to the church to sell me something. We didn't buy it, but he said, you know what, I checked out your website.
You guys have a great website. How great is that? People can go to your website and not even go to church on Sunday. No. Wrong. Wrong. Just like those sheep that jumped off the cliff is the sheep who tries to be by himself.
Sheep belong together in a flock. Or as that professor used to say about the lone wolf, he used to say the lone wolf is the dead wolf. You don't survive very long on your own. And as believers, every one of you need to assemble together as often as possible.
Sunday morning is good. Sunday evening is better. Wednesday evening is great. Thursday evening, super. Friday night, better. Let's just get together. Serve one another. 1 Peter 4 .10 says, As each one has employed or has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
We each have a particular gift. God has gifted every single person in the church, but it only benefits the body when it is used for the good of the body, when it is used interactively, not when it's used in your home by yourself.
This is not an option. It's not optional whether you want to serve or not. It's commanded. It means you must serve in the body. If you're not serving, I would urge you to serve. Being part of the local body means being part of the local body.
You must function as part of that local body, not just coming in here as the sponge, although that's a good thing, but sponges can only hold so much water, then they have to do something with it. Use something.
Use some of that spiritual giftedness the Lord has blessed you with. Thirdly, in 1 John 4, 20, if someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
John MacArthur says this, One cannot love God without first loving his fellow believer. A claim to love God is a delusion if not accompanied by unselfish love for other Christians. Just to clarify, I wanted to read that comment by MacArthur just to clarify what 1 John 4, 10 is talking about.
It's not talking about loving your fellow men generally, although we're committed to do that even. But there's a special love that goes in the body. We are to look out for one another. We are to love one another.
And John says, you know what? If you don't love fellow Christians and you say you love God, guess what? You're a liar. That's strong, but I didn't say it, God did. We need to love one another. Now how does that manifest itself in your lives?
How do you exhibit love for your brothers and sisters in Christ? How do you do that? I think there are a variety of ways, but my challenge is for each of you to just kind of think about it. How do I love my brothers and sisters in Christ?
How do I show that? How would they know? Fourthly, Hebrews 13, 17 says, Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give and account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would not be profitable for you.
Now Mike gave, I think, a 15-part sermon on this, so I'm just going to summarize it. Submitting to the elders at this church or any church is not very popular. Why is that? I think it's inherently un-American to say, you know what, I'm going to submit to the elders because we all want to be in an equal playing field and in some senses we are.
But believe me, you look at James where he talks about teachers being held to a higher standard, you look at this, the elders are going to give an account for those in the body. We don't want a level playing field.
We want to submit to those that God has placed over us. And it's not an option. Again, we can't pick and choose what we want to obey in the Bible. We must believe and submit to all of it. And also note, I think it's interesting that there really is no such thing as free agency in the Bible, meaning this, you know, I get the free agency thing when I'm thinking about sports.
Everybody moves around from team to team. And there are some people who want to be a church-free agent. You know, I'll go here for a while and then I'll go there for a while and if it starts getting too hot, not physically, but if they start getting too close to whatever problems I have, then I'll move on.
That's not the way the Bible works. That's not the way the church works. That's not the way the Lord designed it. The way the Lord designed us as believers is that we ought to join a church, we ought to serve in that church, we ought to submit to the leadership, and we ought to love our brothers and sisters in Christ within that local body and beyond.
Paul also tells us that we dare not trivialize or make light of our membership in the body. We just can't do that. It is a sacred and a solemn thing that we do. When we are brought into the body of Christ, we are united in a specific bond, a special bond, and we need to be focused on that and serving, as I said, joining the church, serving, submitting, and loving one another.
So, so far we've seen biblical evangelism, biblical understanding of church membership, and going right along with the biblical understanding of church membership is a biblical understanding of church discipline, number seven.
And there are two aspects that I want to bring out of that. First is sin, the second one is factiousness. Now, church discipline is, and by the way, you can turn to 1 Timothy 5, verses 19 and 20. Church discipline, if submitting to elders is an unpopular idea, church discipline is probably like, probably at the top of most people's bottom ten here.
They really don't like it. It is not a fun topic. Well, you know what? It is not designed to be fun. 1 Timothy 5, verses 19 and 20. Now, why is church discipline not very popular? First of all, I think it is seen as judgmental.
Who are you to judge? But you know what? It is not a question of judging anyone. It is a question of being obedient to what Christ himself commanded in Matthew 18. And Paul gives a slight variation of this for leaders, but it is basically the same process as we will see in a minute.
You know, Paul, if you read through the New Testament, and I would encourage you to do that, if you read through the New Testament, you will find that Paul often mentions people by name. Why did he do that?
Because he was unloving? Often he had to warn people about these divisive people, whether it was Alexander the coppersmith or other folks, that had caused problems. And he was warning them through letters.
He didn't have the internet, he had to send letters. But let's walk through church discipline. Paul tells Timothy not to receive an accusation against an elder unless there are two or three witnesses.
Now, this is an Old Testament standard, and it is really not new at all. And in fact, even if we look at it as just for an elder, this really isn't a new standard. We wouldn't take a charge against anyone as elders unless there was some reason to think that it had some veracity.
And we would say, have you gone to that person? Yes. Have you taken one or two witnesses with you? And the answer should be yes. So, we've already jumped as elders, we've already jumped up to that two or three witnesses stage.
Why? Why? Why can't you just have one person say, you know, I saw Pastor Steve do so and so. Well, because that, first of all, that person needs to come to me or to whomever and confront them face to face.
But secondly, there is something, and I'll mention this in just a second in a little bit more depth, there are some people that just like to sling accusations. And elders, they're carefully chosen, they must be carefully chosen, and so there is a little bit of a higher degree of difficulty to accuse them of something.
But there really is no higher standard of church discipline in the sense that it takes two or three witnesses to take it to the church anyway. In Matthew 18, for anyone. I think about a situation I was involved in in California.
This guy had been in sin for a period of time and it hadn't come to the church because he'd never been confronted by two or three people, and so we went and did that. But if the elder or anyone else does not repent when they are confronted by two or three witnesses, Paul tells us here in 1 Timothy 5 that the matter must be made public.
And he or she, in the case of an elder, that would not be a she, but anybody in the church must be, who will not repent, must be treated as an unbeliever. And others, why, I guess is the question why, because others will recognize their own need to repent and thus avoid church discipline.
That's what he says. He says, listen, you tell it to everyone so that everyone will be afraid. Of what? Of sinning and also of not repenting of their sin. Nobody should want to be called out in church discipline.
But if it's biblical, if this is biblical, why don't more churches practice it? I remember talking to an elder at Grace Community Church and he told me, you know what, we have a real hard time. What's church discipline?
And I said, why? It's right there in Matthew 18. Why don't you just do it? He says, that's not the problem. The problem is people will move on to another church and when we contact that new church, the people will just say, we don't do that here.
We don't do that because we don't think it's very loving. Some people have said, it's embarrassing to call someone's name out. Well, I think that would be right. It would be embarrassing to call someone's name out if it weren't for two things.
Number one, that person claims to be a Christian and is in unrepentant sin and it's not against the church. It's not against Pastor Mike or Pastor Dave or Pastor Steve or the Elder Gordon. It's against God.
We're not trying to embarrass anyone. We're not out for that. What's the objective? The objective of church discipline is not to embarrass anybody. It's not to show anybody up. It's to see them repent.
It's to see them restored to the body. That's what we want. Matthew 18, verses 15 to 17, the Lord says it, And if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private. Not shout it from the rooftops. Not tell your neighbor.
You go to that person and you talk to him. If he listens to you, and not just if he hears you, but if he listens to you and turns away, if he repents, then you have won your brother. That's what you want.
That's the objective every step along the way. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. And again, that's an Old Testament principle.
And if he refuses to listen to them, to these witnesses that you have with you, tell it to the church. You bring it to the elders. They'll confront him. The elders acting on behalf of the church will confront them.
And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax gatherer. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants that. What we want every step of the way is for that person to repent.
Objection number two. That's not very loving. Really. What could be more loving than wanting, wishing, praying, pleading, and exhorting someone away from their sinful path? What could be more loving than that?
Now, who are we worried about offending? The sinner? The person who names the name of Christ and yet will not turn from their sin? Or are we more concerned about being obedient, about honoring, about obeying a holy God who commands his people to be holy?
That's the issue. So that's the first part, sin. Secondly is divisiveness. Titus 3 verses 10 and 11 says this. Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self -condemned.
There are those who do not sin in the sense that they typically get to the level of church discipline. A factious person is someone who seeks to divide the body. This is not somebody who is in adultery or something like that.
Now, that may not be their plan. They may not go in saying, you know what, I'm really going to divide the body at Bethlehem Bible Church. But that's the end result of gossip, complaining, and rumor-mongering.
That's what always happens. They toss, as it were, spiritual hand grenades wherever they go and just watch them blow up. They sow division and dissatisfaction with the leadership in between brothers and sisters in Christ.
And can I say something? There has never been a church split without some of these folks in the middle of it. It doesn't happen. People don't come to church on one Sunday morning and go, you know what, it's been nice, but let's just go our separate ways.
That's not what happens. There are people running around, rallying little pockets of resistance long before a church split takes place. Those are the factious people. And I will say this, too. It is easier to deal with 10 people in unrepentant adultery than it is to deal with one factious person.
Why would that be? Because it becomes pretty obvious who the people in unrepentant adultery or whatever sin it is are. It's a little harder to nail down who are the rumor-mongers, who are the people that are just trying to be divisive.
And it's hard to articulate it. How do you say, you know, I know that... What's the safe name? I know that so-and-so is being divisive. We have evidence of that. Unless they're sending out emails or something like that.
It's hard to do that from the pulpit. How does Paul describe these people? He says that they're perverted. Well, what does that mean? He says that they're perverted. It means that they have turned aside from that which is proper.
And how do we know that they have turned aside from that which is proper? Because a Christian, as I said before, loves unity, loves the brothers, loves the sisters, and desires what? Unity in the body.
He's not one... Somebody who... A Christian is not one to snipe at the leadership. He's not one to pick on somebody. He's not one to launch some kind of an attack. That's not what Christians do. So we know that he has turned away from what is right by the fact that he's doing that.
Paul also tells us that these factious folks are habitual sinners. They're in the habit of sinning. And that goes really without saying, if you are working against the unity of the body, how is the love of God abiding in you?
How are you showing that you are a Christian? But Paul also says that they're self-condemned. What does that mean? Self-condemned. I like this definition of it from Freyberg. He says, It's of a person who shows by his own actions that he is wrong or guilty.
So it's really self-evident. It reminds me of a time I went to a traffic court. And I won't go through the whole thing in the interest of time, but by the time the guy got through giving his side of the story, the judge just looked at him and said, based on your testimony, I find you guilty.
And I'm going, that's exactly the point here. These factious people, just based on their lives, based on what they do, it's self-evident. They're self-condemned by their actions alone. They do not love Christ or his church.
Now we all sin and we all stumble in many ways, but those who are divisive are a special category. And Paul instructs us to deal with them very harshly. Number eight. A biblical concern for promoting discipleship and growth.
Titus 2. I'm going to go a little faster here. Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love and perseverance. Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored.
Likewise, urge the young men to be sensible. In a nutshell then, Paul writes Titus and he says, discipleship is not an option. It must go on within the church. I remember once I was discipling, the idea of coming alongside instructing younger believers.
I was once asked by a young man to disciple he and his fiance. He wanted my wife and I to disciple them. And I said, you know, I don't think I'm the right guy for this job. I think you ought to pick so and so, who by the way had been married for 50 years to his wife.
I said, you want to know how to love your wife, you need to talk to that guy. And he says, well, you know, that guy is of such and such a theological persuasion and, you know, I would rather learn from somebody who has good theology.
And I just looked at him and I said, you know what, we're talking about marriage. You want to learn how to love your wife, you talk to a guy who's been doing it for 50 years. And so I would just exhort you, if there is a particular area that you are struggling with in your life, if you want some discipleship, you seek out somebody who has a good track record in that area.
But some believers act as if this is optional. Discipleship is optional, that they'll get around to it maybe at some point. But in the Great Commission, Jesus ordered us to do what? To go and make disciples of all the nations.
How do we do that? Well, right here, right in our own congregation, we have the opportunity for discipleship. Now, certainly that means that somebody might wind up discipling you, and that's fine. Unless you've arrived, unless you've been perfected, you need discipleship.
And you need to be discipling somebody else. Whatever it is that you do well, help somebody out with it. And it goes for teaching also. Timothy had a responsibility, if we went to 2 Timothy 2 .2, Timothy had a responsibility to make sure that there would be men after him who were able to teach.
So he was instructed to disciple those men in how to teach so that there would be a continuation of that teaching. And that is discipleship as well. But again, discipleship is not an option. It is a commandment, and we need to be involved in that.
So we've seen evangelism, membership, church membership, church discipline, the importance of discipleship, and number nine, biblical church leadership. Please turn to 1 Timothy 3. An overseer or an elder then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, uncontentious, free from the love of money.
He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity. But if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?
And not a new convert, lest he become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church so that he may not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
Deacons, likewise, must be men of dignity, not double-tongued or addicted to much wine or fond of sordid gain, but holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let these also first be tested, then let them serve as deacons if they are beyond reproach.
First, and I'm going to make this rather rapid, but first note that elders and deacons are not chosen by election. We don't submit to the congregation for names and then print up a big ballot and go with it.
Nor do they just kind of rotate through the congregation. So-and-so is going to be an elder this year, so-and-so next year. That's not how it is. There is a very high standard to be an elder, which is good.
If these guys are going to be the ones to whom you submit, there should be a high standard. And, of course, the typical model in many churches is they pick the people that are successful businessmen, they've been around maybe a long time, or maybe they're just the oldest people in the church.
But that is not the definition of an elder. That's how things are done. A few notes. They must be devoted to their wives. That's what it means to be the husband of one wife. They must be temperate. They have to be self-controlled, which means they can't be a hothead, someone who's given to excess in anything, whether it's alcohol, money, or anything else.
And there's only really one exception to this. You're allowed to have an excessive amount of love for the Lord. You're allowed to have an excessive love for His Word. And you're allowed to have an excessive love for the people here, the congregation.
Elders must be hospitable, and that means that they must be welcoming to strangers, because you don't want elders who chase the strangers away. That would be bad. They must be able to teach. The New American Standard says, and you know what, a much better understanding of that is that they must be skillful in teaching.
You don't want people that are going to get up and just make a mess out of the Bible. They must run their own household well. And he tells us why. If they can't do that, then why would you put them in charge of the church?
These must be men of humility, character, and leadership. And the qualifications for deacons are basically the same, except they don't have to have great skill in teaching. Some of them do, but they don't have to have that.
None of the biblical qualifications for leadership, note this well, are that they must be familiar with cutting-edge business strategies. That is not a requirement. They are to be faithful to the Word of God, not captured by the philosophy of the day.
And their focus is to be on equipping the saints to do the work of ministry, as he tells us in Ephesians 4 .12. Again, Bethlehem Bible Church, and I'll speak for myself in particular, we're not perfect, but we have a good many things underway to help equip you.
We have Sunday evening services. Many of you do not take advantage of that. We have Sunday school. Many do not take advantage of that. We have a prayer ministry that many folks don't take advantage of.
We have biblical God-honoring music. You heard it this morning. We have a book table ministry. We have a library. We take men to the Shepherds Conference. We are going to be starting shortly the Institute of Biblical Studies.
We have downloadable sermons, so that you can stay home on Sunday. No, wrong. Mike sends out theological emails several times a day, it seems like, several times a week. And those are great ways to find out what's going on in theology and to keep up to date, and to just be challenged in your own life.
We have an excellent women's ministry. We have an excellent AWANA program. We have an excellent high school program. We're really kind of looking for ways to build up the rest home ministry. As I said, we're looking at a prison ministry.
There are no shortage of ways for you to be plugged in, for you to be equipped, for you to serve, for you to exercise your spiritual gift. It's on you. And as more and more people get involved, we'll find more and more ways to equip you.
It's just that, that's just the way it is. It's a synergy. So just to summarize, expository preaching, biblical theology, biblical understanding of the gospel, biblical understanding of conversion, biblical understanding of evangelism, biblical understanding of church membership, biblical understanding of church discipline, biblical emphasis on Christian discipleship and growth, biblical church leadership.
And I guess number 10, I just have to say the Bible. You've got to have the Bible, if you didn't notice that already. It's not about being relevant in the sense of being culturally on the cutting edge or having great business-like principles.
It's not about being purpose-driven or worrying about our culture, post-modernism. It's not about being tuned in to what's happening on the streets. The objective of any biblical, good, solid church is to be Bible-based, to be God-honoring, to be Christ-exalting, and to be, may I say, antithetical or opposed to the culture.
That's what the church is. And that's what you need to look for. And that's what you need to hold us accountable to. Let's close in prayer. Father, I thank you so much for your word. Father, that you have provided it and kept it from error, that you have handed it down from generation to generation.
Lord, that you've not left us without a manual. That we're not stuck, that we don't need to Google for strategies, that we don't have to know what the latest fad is. Father, that your word is eternal, that your principles are eternal.
Lord, I pray that you would continue to build us at Bethlehem Bible Church, not in numbers, but in strength, in spiritual strength, and in love for you and for one another, and in service to one another.
Father, may our objective every Sunday be to glorify you. And as we leave on Sunday, may our objective be to glorify you throughout the week. Lord, let us know how to conduct ourselves in the household of faith.
Let us know how to conduct ourselves within the body of Christ. Father, let us not bring reproach upon the name, but let us be known by the people in this community for the love that we have for one another, and for our willingness to share that love with them in the manner of the way that we give the gospel to them.
Lord, that we would just be evangelists, messengers sent by you. Lord, for the sake of your elect, who are out there waiting, Father, for the proper time, for the proper person to come and give them the gospel.
Lord, use us at Bethlehem Bible Church to do that. Father, we're so grateful for your Son, even as we were reminded this morning of the greatness of your love that you manifested by sending your Son to die in the place of those who deserve that horrible death.
Lord, we owe you a debt we can never repay. Nevertheless, let us work as if there was some way that we could, not with that attitude, but with that zeal. Father, knowing that we owe everything to you, let us act as if we do.
In Christ's name, amen.