Responsibilities to the World, Part 2

Driving home: To authenticate something is to prove it to be genuine, or what it is represented to be.

The imagery of a circle representing the church with arrows pointing upward (to God), inward (to one another), and outward (to the world) is used as an organizing principle for understanding the duties and privileges of church membership.

First of all, I apprised you of the reason for this series, and the basic reason was that, as your annual report will show, we took in forty-one new members over the course of the past year, with quite a few waiting in the wings to come into the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ. And in the last year, we were able to get a lot of new members to come into this assembly. And we felt it was an appropriate time to underscore afresh some of the duties and privileges of that new relationship into which many of you have entered, and also to remind those of us who have lived within that privile...

2:49 - 4:15 Read in full sermon

Driving home: To authenticate something is to prove it to be genuine, or what it is represented to be.

The process of authenticating a work of art to prove its genuineness is used to explain the church's duty of 'authentication' – proving its identity as the new humanity in Christ.

The church is comprised of those within. And the world and sinful men are described as those who are without. And I asserted on that occasion that our duties and privileges as church members, with reference to those who are without, can be reduced under two very simple words, or two very simple concepts. The words are not so simple. Authentication, and proclamation. And all we had time to consider was our duty and privilege of authentication. Now, to authenticate something is to prove it to be genuine, or what it is represented to be. If someone is negotiating with you to sell you a given work...

7:57 - 8:57 Read in full sermon

Driving home: If in our churches evangelistic meetings and evangelistic sermons are thought of only as special occasions, different from the ordinary run of things, it is a damning indictment of our normal Sunday services.

Martin quotes J.I. Packer's 'Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God' to argue that all scriptural preaching is inherently evangelistic, not just 'special' evangelistic sermons, and that a lack of evangelistic thrust in regular services is a damning indictment.

Now it's in this very spirit that Dr. Packer in his classic little work, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, writes as follows, dealing with the whole question of evangelizing and proclaiming the gospel. He says, And most important, there are regular services Sunday by Sunday in local churches. Insofar as the preaching at our Sunday services is scriptural, those services will of necessity be evangelistic.

23:29 - 24:01 Read in full sermon

Driving home: If in our churches evangelistic meetings and evangelistic sermons are thought of only as special occasions, different from the ordinary run of things, it is a damning indictment of our normal Sunday services.

Martin quotes Puritan Robert Bolton, who stated that Christ is offered 'most freely and without exception of any person every Sabbath, every sermon,' reinforcing the idea of incessant internal proclamation.

All Scripture bears witness in one way or another to Christ, and all biblical things relate to Him. All proper sermons, therefore, will of necessity declare Christ in some fashion, and so be more or less directly evangelistic. Now some sermons, of course, will aim more narrowly and exclusively at converting sinners than to others, i.e., this recent series that Pastor Nichols is bringing in the evening. It is more narrowly aimed at the conversion of sinners than, say, his series on the post-war generation or Christian maturity that was aimed more narrowly at seeing Christians brought to maturit...

24:32 - 25:43 Read in full sermon

The point: Pray fervently that the Holy Spirit will make the incessant internal proclamation of the gospel effectual in the hearts of those who hear.

The example of Jesus praying as the Spirit came upon Him at Jordan is used to illustrate the close relationship between the prayers of God's people and the mighty operations of the Spirit.

Oh dear people of God have we grown to despise our privilege? Can it be that we have heard incessantly gospel notes sounded and woven into the texture of consecutive expository ministry that we've lost that sense that unless God the Holy Spirit makes it effectual it will never penetrate the heart. My daughter, my nephew my mother-in-law my uncle who comes with me my neighbor who's come along with me that stranger who sits in the pew across from me oh may God grant that we will be renewed in our conviction that though we cannot explain precisely how this interaction operates the Bible does inde...

32:10 - 33:37 Read in full sermon

The point: Pray fervently that the Holy Spirit will make the incessant internal proclamation of the gospel effectual in the hearts of those who hear.

The parable of the importunate neighbor at midnight is used to describe the kind of earnest, fervent, desperate prayer believers should offer for the Holy Spirit to make the gospel effectual.

And I urge you as the people of God though commending you for your constancy in prayer as we do in the annual report I would admonish and entreat you to cry to God if nothing tangible is seen in our life together in the coming year beyond this that this will be something none of us can deny that God increased among us the Spirit of holy wrestling the Spirit of earnest fervent desperate in previewing that we should be like that man whom Jesus described as the great paradigm and example of importunate prayer who comes to his neighbor at midnight and knocks and knocks and knocks and knocks until ...

33:37 - 35:05 Read in full sermon

The point: Come to church every Lord's Day with believing expectation that God will make His word effectual in someone's life.

Mary's question 'How can I... be a mother?' and God's answer 'No word from God shall be void of power' is used to illustrate the power of God's word (the gospel) to effect the most amazing miracles, including salvation.

and brilliant intensity that sinners even almost cannot see and almost imperceptibly will be caught up in the sight of his glory as the Spirit gives them eyes to see and a heart to believe. But not only ought we to seek to grow in the fervency of our prayers to this end but in our believing expectations is the Gospel the power of God unto salvation or is it not? If it is and we know that as the Lord's day by the Lord's day to one degree or another with varying degrees of concentration and detail of explanation and application that the Gospel is going to be preached you remember that word that ...

35:05 - 36:34 Read in full sermon

The point: Cultivate a spirit of biblically disciplined discernment to confirm the gifts and graces of men raised up from within the ranks for ministry.

The story of Gideon's army being whittled down from 30,000 to 300 is used to illustrate God's principle of using the weak and few to accomplish mighty works, ensuring that He receives all the glory, and to encourage the relatively small congregation.

You're just about double what God used to bring down a whole nation of big shots. Remember those Midianites? You kids know the story of Gideon and the Midianites? Like sand upon the seashore, God says.

65:15 - 65:29 Read in full sermon