What are the Threats to the Future Health, Well– Being and Usefulness of Trinity Baptist Church?

In this part of the sermon: Martin welcomes guests, establishes a biblical framework from Acts 18 permitting women to speak freely in this informal home gathering under male headship, introduces the two…

Martin uses the incident of Priscilla and Aquila instructing Apollos in their home as the biblical warrant for women speaking freely and even instructing men in an informal domestic meeting, while the husband's headship provides the proper canopy.

But before I put the topic on the table, I want to set a framework for how I believe it is honoring to God for males and females in an informal domestic situation to enter in equally, and for you gals not to feel at all reluctant that you're violating any biblical principles by being as vocal, and in some cases perhaps even more vocal than the men. In Acts chapter 18, in my own devotional reading recently, in my New Testament reading, brought me to that incident regarding this man Apollos in Acts 18 and verse 24. Now a certain Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by race, an eloquent man or learn...

1:04 - 2:19 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin welcomes guests, establishes a biblical framework from Acts 18 permitting women to speak freely in this informal home gathering under male headship, introduces the two…

Martin notes that in Acts 18, Priscilla is listed before her husband Aquila as those who expounded the way of God, suggesting she may have had a leading or equal role in instructing the learned Apollos in their domestic setting.

And when it says, knowing only the baptism of John, Apollos had not yet heard that Jesus of Nazareth had been crucified, buried, risen, the Spirit of God had been sent on the day of Pentecost, and Christ's identity as the Messiah had been validated. So what he knew was true, but it was very limited. He had a truncated message, but he was preaching what he knew, with fervor, with power, and with the blessing of God. But two individuals, and notice who is listed first, but when Priscilla, that's the wife, and Aquila, her husband, heard him, they, it doesn't say he, but they took him unto them, a...

3:03 - 4:29 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin welcomes guests, establishes a biblical framework from Acts 18 permitting women to speak freely in this informal home gathering under male headship, introduces the two…

Martin highlights the remarkable humility of Apollos -- eloquent, university-educated, publicly prominent -- who was willing to be corrected and taught by tent-making tradespeople, and specifically by a woman.

and he's willing to even learn, and he learned from this man's wife, who obviously took a very active part in that work of instruction, and then you remember the rest of the story, that he embraced what was passed on to him by Priscilla and Aquila, and as a result of it, we read, when he was minded to pass over into Achaia, the brethren encouraged him, wrote to the disciples to receive him, and when he was come, he helped them much, and had believed through grace, for he powerfully confuted the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. Now, the principle tha...

4:30 - 5:52 Read in full sermon

The point: Guard against formalism by deliberately pressing through spiritual disciplines to actual heart dealings with Christ -- reading the Word to commune with Him, praying to have dealings with Him, gathering to know Him minist…

Martin observes that once spiritual disciplines become habitual, the greatest temptation is to assume that because the form is locked in place, the life and power are present. Like a shell without the creature inside, the discipline can remain while the soul departs.

I'm sure all of us realize this, that once we become aware of the disciplines that are essential to nurturing spiritual life, both privately and corporately, and we've begun to develop some discipline in that area, the easiest thing in the world is to begin to assume that because the discipline is locked in place, the life and the power of those disciplines is present and the soul can go out with them if we're not dependent upon the Spirit of God. And so that's always the danger with respect to those matters. I'm sure we would all agree that that is the very real danger. Maybe follow up on tha...

13:52 - 14:31 Read in full sermon

Driving home: They had the language of devotion, but the spirit of devotion had gone out of it.

Martin uses Jesus's quotation of Isaiah against the Pharisees -- 'This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me' -- as the scriptural definition of formalism: the language of devotion without the spirit of devotion.

Matthew 15 would be a classic example of formalism. Jesus is condemning not only the fact that they were adding to the words of God and canceling scripture, but notice in quoting from the book of Isaiah, Matthew 15 in verse 7, You hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people honors me with their lips, they were saying the right things in the right places, but their heart is far from it. The heart had not been engaged. They had the language of devotion, but the spirit of devotion had gone out of it.

17:21 - 18:04 Read in full sermon

Driving home: They had the language of devotion, but the spirit of devotion had gone out of it.

Revelation 3:1 is cited as a biblical case study of formalism -- the church at Sardis had an impeccable reputation for spiritual life and vigor, yet Christ says 'Thou art dead.' The form and reputation remained while the soul departed.

Another passage that points in that direction would be Revelation 3 in verse 1, where the Lord speaks to the church of Sardis, I need the messenger or angel of the church in Sardis to write these things that have the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works. You have a name that you live. Their reputation was impeccable because apparently their outward demeanor sustained their reputation.

18:04 - 18:32 Read in full sermon

Driving home: They had the language of devotion, but the spirit of devotion had gone out of it.

A participant observes that Trinity's worldwide reputation for blessing makes members -- especially those who grew up in the church -- tempted to assume that mere association with a blessed church conveys spiritual life, a specific form of formalism.

Yes, ma'am. I want to say one of the reasons why it might be particularly a struggle for us is that truly, it's such a, well it's a church that's looked to by so many other churches and people all around the world and that, like you said before, God has blessed us in so many great ways and so, it's the tendency to sort of think that because you're a part of Trinity, you're going to be blessed and you're a part of the body of Christ and even the young children, the teenagers growing up, you know, the struggle that some of us have who've grown up in the church is that, you know, we question ours...

19:15 - 20:29 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: A participant's comment about the blessing of Trinity's present leadership transitions the discussion to the second major threat -- lightweight, unspiritual, or perverse…

A participant illustrates inexperienced leadership with the analogy of someone unfamiliar with a house not noticing where ants enter under the baseboard -- before long they are all over the building. A leader who did not live through the church's struggles may miss slowly encroaching threats.

They could say, the ants come in under the baseboard. You know where they come in at. Some other person might come in and they might not notice that at all. Before you know it, they're all over the campus.

21:44 - 21:55 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: A participant's comment about the blessing of Trinity's present leadership transitions the discussion to the second major threat -- lightweight, unspiritual, or perverse…

Martin unpacks Acts 20:28-30 -- Paul's two categories of threatening leaders: wolves who seek to devour the flock, and ambitious men who concoct doctrinal novelty to draw a following after themselves.

I know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock if among your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. All right. So he envisions the church being threatened by, this is not just a matter of incompetent leaders, but we'd say wicked men, on the one hand, whom he describes as wolves, predators, men who look upon the flock not as the flock to be served but the flock to be devoured. And then you've got these people that are ambitious.

23:16 - 23:46 Read in full sermon

Driving home: God preserves or curses his people in terms of the kind of leadership that he gives them and the kind that they want and retain.

Martin references the Jonestown Kool-Aid analogy that Kevin had introduced earlier in the evening to illustrate the gullibility of people in religious matters -- far more willing to follow the most bizarre novelties than the beaten paths of truth.

So there's no new thing under the sun. The people are far more willing to run after the most crazy, bizarre things in the name of Christianity than they are to follow the beaten paths of truth. You shake your head and say, how can people be so gullible? When you mentioned earlier tonight, oh, you mentioned, Kevin, that the standard drink was going to be Kool-Aid.

24:22 - 24:46 Read in full sermon

Driving home: God preserves or curses his people in terms of the kind of leadership that he gives them and the kind that they want and retain.

Martin observes that the sorry state of Israel under the scribes and Pharisees at the time of Christ illustrates how a people's spiritual condition is visible in the leaders they produce, accept, and tolerate -- they laid burdens on people beyond what God required, and the people bore it without protest.

Through the heel of the Philistines, God would then raise up a judge whether it was Samson or Jephthah and through them God would bring deliverance and then you'd have that motif and then there would be declension and they'd again come under military conquest and God would raise up a leader and God just all the way through the scriptures God preserves or curses his people in terms of the kind of leadership that he gives them and the kind that they want and retain. You know, the state of the Jews at the time of our Lord is the kind of leaders that they produced, accepted and tolerated the scrib...

26:47 - 27:54 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Jonathan Hughes (the Scottish overseas guest) warns of the danger of comparing any future pastor unfavorably to Martin, falling into a traditionalism that says 'we've always done…

Jonathan Hughes, the Scottish guest, warns from personal observation that the greatest danger at a pastoral transition is congregants comparing the new man unfavorably to Pastor Martin -- 'Pastor Martin used to do it this way' -- and refusing to receive scriptural leadership because it differs in style.

I think one of the biggest dangers is that the congregation can look to a man and when your time of 20 years old comes to an end and hopefully in the goodness of God another man will be provided to land with you. But the danger is too many people can say that he's not like you. They compare the new man with yourself and see differences. And Pastor Martin used to do it this way.

30:25 - 30:51 Read in full sermon

The point: When evaluating future pastoral candidates, distinguish biblical non-negotiable criteria from matters of preaching style and personality preference. Refusing to receive a man God has sent because he lacks a particular ma…

Martin openly admits he far prefers vigorous, animated preaching and a preacher who works up a sweat, but immediately corrects himself: to require that style and refuse to be blessed through other styles is sinning against God and despising His gifts.

tried to neutralize that is by giving as high a profile as a man's gift will warrant to as many men as God puts before you the different men who lead you in your public worship all do so with a different style they pray in the different way so that no one thinks the only proper way to pray is the way pastor Martin prays and likewise with the public ministries to have men of different style and temperament and the rest so that you don't subtly think well this is the only way or this is the best way and thereby fail to be prepared to receive those who God has equipped and fitted to give you lead...

34:26 - 35:46 Read in full sermon

The point: When evaluating future pastoral candidates, distinguish biblical non-negotiable criteria from matters of preaching style and personality preference. Refusing to receive a man God has sent because he lacks a particular ma…

Martin uses Absalom's standing at the gate and winning popular loyalty away from David -- God's appointed king -- as a warning that personality and charm can float unworthy men into leadership when the congregation fails to test candidates against biblical standards.

because he may have he may have appalled who doesn't work up a sweat and there are others who like a certain style of ministry much better and if they had their way they'd rather never have a thunderclap or a drop of sweat in the preacher well they have to be careful that they don't reject the thunder in the sweat when that's how God's chosen to convey his word to them so that's a critical thing and those are matters that in the years to come with the Lord tarry's and some of us are in our grave and you're discussing the recommendation of your leaders that someone be recognized in a place of p...

35:46 - 37:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Take 1 Peter 3:15 seriously as an individual directive -- have Christ set apart as Lord personally, be grounded enough in the content of your faith to give a reason for your hope, and be a reader and a thinker. You canno…

Leslie raises the danger that because Trinity has such gifted and active leaders, members can fall into thinking that the leaders' kingdom labor -- their preaching trips and evangelism -- discharges the congregation's own responsibility to evangelize and work their corner of the vineyard.

that Jonathan you all want to pick up on that and yes Leslie oh no I have a different point but okay anyone want to follow through on that all right then Leslie well I was thinking that Ephesians 4 where the elders are supposed to equip the saints to work in ministry yes I would think of sometimes because there's such a great deposit of gifts that we're always looking to you we're looking well you're going here you're preaching here we're doing this or doing that and we tend to forget that we're to be doing and we're to be um you know evangelizing the consciousness I think that's a danger just...

37:10 - 38:37 Read in full sermon

The point: Appoint yourself a committee of one to provoke someone in your natural social circle to love and good works. Ask a brother or sister what has happened this week in terms of witness or opportunity. Do not wait to feel qua…

Martin describes how, if each believer assumes they have nothing to offer, a congregation ends up with an unwritten contract: 'You no bother me, I no bother you, and together we'll bother no one' -- the death of mutual accountability and exhortation.

as the custom of some is but exhorting, encouraging one another, and so much the more as you see the day drawing near so the exhortation not to forsake our assembling together is couched on both sides with our responsibility to provoke one another unto love and good works and to exhort or to encourage one another so that in this setting you ought perhaps wisely and judiciously and in terms of the natural groupings that always emerge in any social context where there will be some that you'll have a greater liberty to speak more frankly and freely be asking one another is there something that th...

41:49 - 43:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Appoint yourself a committee of one to provoke someone in your natural social circle to love and good works. Ask a brother or sister what has happened this week in terms of witness or opportunity. Do not wait to feel qua…

Martin illustrates the danger of sinful complacency under strong leadership by analogy to a husband who becomes a mere facilitator -- occasionally nudging left or right, saying 'you're all doing fine' -- instead of actively leading his wife. Her security in his leadership must not produce her spiritual laziness.

and if anyone then begins to feel he has a special mission from God to be everybody's exhorter it will soon become evident and somebody will have a hand on his or her shoulder and say look, I appreciate your zeal but let's temper it with a little bit of grace but I don't think that's our practical danger in this setting I think as Leslie said, in any setting where God does give the blessing of strong and multiple leadership and people have the sense of feeling secure in that leadership then there's nothing wrong with that I would like to feel my wife could testify that she feels comfortable an...

43:15 - 44:43 Read in full sermon

The point: Those who know unconverted attendees must be willing to bear the reproach of Christ by eventually asking directly: where do you stand in your personal relationship to God's Lord? Genuine friendship earns the right to tha…

Martin alludes to Proverbs 23:23 -- 'Buy the truth and sell it not' -- to insist that second-hand faith appropriated from leaders is not really one's own. Each person must pay the price to own the truth personally, not take things on second-hand reports.

but until you've done the latter is it really yours Marilyn? I don't want to use Marilyn I've had twice of her after all these years psychoanalyze me Val alright? Marilyn will do that when she gets home she'll do that her sister is up in an intensive friending situation this summer I'm sorry Val go ahead you're making your own it's not your own but that's dangerous so we're back again to be readers and thinkers on our own and not take things on second hand reports making sure that in the language of Solomon we buy the truth for ourselves only then are we prepared not to sell it and we pay the ...

45:43 - 47:12 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The crossless religion, with regard to how our salvation was procured, is a damning religion, and a crossless religion that has no cross for us to bear, is equally damning.

Martin recounts a man in the early days of Trinity who felt his calling was to confront every visitor immediately about their conversion -- cornering them in the school foyer with his Bible six inches from their face. The elders finally had to station themselves between him and any visitor to prevent him from scaring people away.

So, not that the first time someone shows up, everyone pounces on a visitor and nails him to the wall, and are you converted, and when were you, and how were you? I mean, that's the quickest way to get a reputation for being a bunch of headhunters. And we had a guy once who felt that was his calling. If there was any visitor, he would nail them in the foyer when we were still meeting in the school.

52:15 - 52:35 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The crossless religion, with regard to how our salvation was procured, is a damning religion, and a crossless religion that has no cross for us to bear, is equally damning.

Martin warns against a Christianity that wants the cross smoothed of all its splinters -- no social reproach, no relational rejection. A crossless religion with no cross to bear is as damning as a crossless religion that denies the atonement.

To say that, you know you're running the risk of having this guy turn you off, break whatever level of friendship is there, and you've got to be willing to bear the reproach of Christ, and feel the rejection that comes with bearing the cross of Christ. And that could be one of the great impediments of wanting orthodox religion. With no splinters of the cross, they want it smoothed off to where there's no cross bearing, and there is no such thing. The crossless religion, with regard to how our salvation was procured, is a damning religion, and a crossless religion that has no cross for us to be...

53:26 - 54:02 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin shares a personal vignette about hearing his age (61) said aloud at the doctor's office, underscoring how quickly the years pass and how urgent it is for the young to act…

Martin recounts sitting in the doctor's office and hearing the nurse tell the physician that the patient's age was 61 -- his own age -- and feeling as though it must be someone else. The anecdote underscores how quickly life passes and how urgent it is for young people to act on these dangers now.

Because the years pass very, very quickly. The older you get, the faster they go. When I sat in the doctor's office yesterday, I had to...

56:06 - 56:15 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin shares a personal vignette about hearing his age (61) said aloud at the doctor's office, underscoring how quickly the years pass and how urgent it is for the young to act…

The doctor visit led to the discovery of a tear in Martin's retina and same-day laser surgery -- deepening the vignette about mortality and the speed of aging as motivation for the younger generation to take church health seriously.

They discovered I had a tear in my retina, and I had laser surgery all in one day, the discovery and the surgery and all the rest. But when the nurse was telling the doctor, he was saying, now, what about this, what about this? He asked his age, he said, 61. Hearing someone say of me that I'm 61...

56:15 - 56:33 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: A participant raises the danger of self-centeredness among the singles group. Martin affirms that singleness, lacking the God-ordained pressures of marriage and parenthood…

Martin illustrates the God-ordained, external pressure that parenthood places on self-centeredness: however self-centered a woman is, a baby screaming at 2 a.m. forces her into other-centered orientation. Singleness lacks this providential pressure, making self-denial more demanding.

Self-centeredness is, is part of the dynamic, uh, reality. But, no matter how self-centered a woman is, a baby crying at two in the morning shocks her into other centered orientation. Either the baby screams and wakes up the whole neighborhood, or she's gotta get herself out of bed and care for that little one. There's something about the very nature of the responsibility of being a wife and a mother or a husband and a father that ought to strike at some of the roots of selfishness.

60:10 - 60:41 Read in full sermon

The point: Commit yourself to a specific, regular church responsibility that exerts a moral obligation on you -- a fixed duty that will break you out of inertia the same way family worship breaks a married man out of his impulses. …

Martin describes his daughter Beth whose child is cutting teeth and screaming half the night -- watching her rise to a physical and emotional challenge far beyond what she would have chosen on her own, illustrating how parenthood forces growth that singleness must seek deliberately.

And I think of my daughter Beth right now, the child that's having such a rough time cutting teeth, that, you know, she's screaming half the night, night after night. Well, she, if there's some areas of self-centeredness there, she's having it purged out of her night after night after night. And, uh, my wife and I were just commenting, it's amazing how when those demands of motherhood kick in like that, how someone who might not naturally have a lot of physical strength, which neither of my daughters have, to see how they've risen to that challenge, not because they chose to, but because God g...

61:15 - 62:23 Read in full sermon

The point: Commit yourself to a specific, regular church responsibility that exerts a moral obligation on you -- a fixed duty that will break you out of inertia the same way family worship breaks a married man out of his impulses. …

Martin's wife suggests that singles could approach couples living on a shoestring -- who can afford neither a babysitter nor a restaurant -- and offer to watch the children for an evening while providing money for a meal, a concrete act of other-centered service that breaks self-centeredness.

I think there's a lie that we can do that with motherhood. It doesn't affect somebody who cares only of the family. They're just perceiving needs that aren't made known. I mean, what would happen to some of the couples who are living on a shoestring if they were to have a couple of singles come up and say, hey, I imagine it's a long time since you've been able to go out for an evening and just have a meal and take a walk in the park. And just have a stroll holding hands like you did at your courting days before you had all these fruits of your courting around you and all the burdens that have ...

62:23 - 63:41 Read in full sermon

The point: Singles should actively minister to widows and widowers -- visiting them, praying with them, sharing photographs from trips, helping fill the loneliness of lost companionship. This is precisely the self-denying service t…

When his wife went to care for her mother, Martin spent four evenings alone continuing their nightly devotional ritual -- reading William Jay aloud and praying aloud where she normally sat. This gave him a new, felt empathy for widows and widowers he had never had before.

If he were left to his impulses, he might do it once a week. But when his conscience is bound by the circumstances of duty, and I think Kevin's point is a good one, and that's one of the things the deacons were going after in this recent letter that they sent to all the men, how many of you are willing to commit yourself to a specific responsibility or a specific number of hours? And I would say, at the practical level, at any time that any one of you becomes convinced that I need the pressure of some kind of ethical commitment to get my self-life off dead center and my tendency to waste time ...

66:29 - 67:49 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin and his wife illustrate practical ways singles can break self-centeredness -- babysitting for young families, visiting widows -- with Martin sharing how four nights alone…

Martin contrasts two neighbors observed over decades: a retired man who spends every day puttering around his house, his world shrunk to the dimensions of his lot; and a widowed woman now living with a man out of wedlock, lolling around the pool. Both illustrate the misery of a life lived for self after the children leave.

Some of them weren't even born when we moved here in 1967. And now that their nest is empty we've contrasted our lives. A couple across the way, the man's retired. He literally spends seven days a week puttering around his house and his garden.

70:35 - 70:54 Read in full sermon

The point: Every young man should study the biblical standards for elders and deacons and pursue those virtues now as the ordinary calling of any Christian man -- not as a far-off aspiration for officers. A church full of men pursu…

Martin argues that every virtue listed as a requirement for elder or deacon (apart from 'apt to teach') is simply a virtue the New Testament enjoins on all Christians -- so a congregation of genuinely growing believers will naturally produce its needed officers.

And to go through the Scriptures and just with a concordance. You don't need to know any Greek or Hebrew. Take the standard of what an elder and a deacon must be and go through and look up the usages of those words. And you'll find that with the absence of the requirement of apt to teach, nothing is set in the standard for an elder or deacon that is not found elsewhere in the New Testament as a grace, as a virtue, that God enjoins upon all Christians, male and female, and in some settings, in particular, of men, so that those are things that you ought to be pursuing simply as a Christian man, ...

75:18 - 76:47 Read in full sermon