68a) The Church Ministering to Itself in Love #2

Constantly Directing Members to Scriptural Activities for Mutual Ministry

0:04 All right, brethren, let's pick up on the strands of our thinking where we left them in the previous hour. We're seeking to give some guidelines with respect to creating among those whom we seek to lead the proper biblical perspective on what it is for the body to minister to itself in love. And we have set before you two categories of spiritual guidance and activity by which this goal should be pursued. And now we come to the third, which I've described as constantly directing the members of the church to the scriptural activities by which they perform this duty.

Spiritual Duties: Mutual Prayer, Encouragement, and Reproof

0:45 And the three categories, the spiritual, secondly, the social, and thirdly, the physical and the material. And the first is prayer, one for another. Now, the first time I went through the scriptures seeking to cull out text which clearly established the duty of people within the same ecclesiastical framework to pray one for another, I was shocked in that the materials did not seem to be as rich and as profuse as I would have expected. And I had to wrestle with that, and then I came to two conclusions.

1:22 Number one, that the duty is so self-evident that it's difficult to find God commanding explicitly what is as self-evident as the need to breathe. If you want to live. I don't know a command in the Bible that says you ought to draw in your next breath if you expect to live. But because it isn't there, if you think because you can't get a text for it, you're at liberty to stop breathing, then go ahead and make your choice.

1:49 And the second thing was the realization that so often our reading of the New Testament is read in this individualistic, atomistic framework, and we fail to remember that with but several exceptions, the epistles, are written to communities of the people of God. And as such, most of the imperatives are in the second person plural. And whatever individual application they may have, we must not neuter their corporate implications. So that when we read in the many texts that are listed in the scriptures concerning our responsibility to pray one for another, to pray for our enemies, to pray with all, to pray in prayer and supplication in the spirit, etc., as we'll seek to demonstrate in another setting, these passages must be understood as coming in their original setting to communities of the people of God who would have heard them articulated in the second person plural and would have understood immediately that they had implications for their relationships one to another. When we are to confess our sins one to another and to pray one for another, and then I've listed in your notes texts which point both to our Lord Jesus as our great example and pattern and to the Apostle Paul who could say, be followers of me even as I am of Christ

3:18 and certainly our Lord Jesus is eminently the one who prays for his brethren in the community he has redeemed by his own blood and called by his own grace ever lives to make intercession for them and the Apostle again, then and again could say in his letters how much he prayed for individuals and for groups of churches and then even gives a distillation of the burden of his prayer for them. Now along this line I want to recommend a book that I'm working through right now and have found it nothing short of revolutionary in certain aspects of my own prayer life. It's Donald Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation. It's been highlighted in the book service and I, alas, am ashamed. I've not read it till now but I'm working through a few pages four or five mornings a week and I have found it revolutionary. I really have to take his expositions and his pastoral exhortations and then to turn them right in to the stuff of the nuts and bolts of my own seasons of intercession. It's been a tremendous benediction this past week.

4:27 I even took time in my elders meeting, our elders meeting last night to exhort my fellow elders to get that book and to work through it and to seek to apply the directives in it to our own intercessory prayer for the members of our assembly. So we are to seek under God to direct our people into thinking that if I truly love my brethren the place where I'll show that love where it perhaps costs the most is in the secret place as I pray for them. But then there's to be mutual encouragement and exhortation. And here the key texts again are listed where the people of God, as the people of God are commanded to exhort one another with these words.

5:08 In 1 Thessalonians 5.11 that the people of God are to encourage and to exhort one another. Colossians 3.16 and 17 the word of Christ dwelling in us richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another.

5:25 And Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 29 no corrupt communication proceeding out of our mouth that's the negative. But the positive is just as much a duty that which is good unto building up or to edification. A person who doesn't speak that which becomes the stuff of building up his brother is failing in an explicit biblical directive and a biblical duty. 1 Thessalonians 5.14 Hebrews 3.13 Hebrews 10.24 all of these texts which clearly lay out the responsibility and privilege of mutual encouragement and exhortation and then thirdly under this general category of the spiritual mutual reproof and admonition. The text that J. Adams

6:13 and the Newthetic Counseling Movement has made quite prominent and rightly so where Paul speaking of his confidence remember again that principle confident of the grace of God toward the Roman Christians I myself am persuaded of you my brethren that you yourselves are full of goodness filled with all knowledge and how does that moral quality of goodness and the spiritual knowledge find expression able also to admonish one another not simply to be admonished by your elders that's one of their duties 1 Thessalonians 5 know them that are over you in the Lord and admonish you in their office in fulfilling their responsibility but here the people of God their moral goodness and their spiritual knowledge finding expression in this mutual admonition that is the tactful loving but pointed addressing of fault that needs correction and calling one another to repentance and reformation in an area of aberration from the norms of scripture and again Galatians 6.1 if any be overtaken in a fault go tell an elder and have the elder address him no if any be overtaken in a fault you who are spiritual restore such a one do it in the spirit of meekness considering yourself lest you also be tempted

7:41 but that is a responsibility Matthew 18.15 in one of the two passages in which our Lord explicitly addresses the subject of the church as church he does so with this dominant emphasis upon this duty of mutual reproof and admonition if thy brother sinned or if the proper rendering is sin against him hence thee in either case go tell him his fault perhaps one of the most disobeyed injunctions in all of scripture if thy brother sinned go tell a sister or a brother so you can pray for him go tell a sister or a brother so you can pounce no go tell him his fault between you and him alone Luke 17.3 if thy brother sinned against you we are conscious of being a brotherhood we are part of a family and we can't tolerate these aberrations that disrupt the family unity if thy brother sinned against thee rebuke him if he repent forgive him and although we must guard against abuses we must always seek to have the disposition and the spirit of the love that covers a multitude of sins nonetheless we have this responsibility of mutual reproof and admonition and you see if the rank and file of God's people take this seriously it has a role in our lives it has a role in our lives it has a role in our lives it has a tremendous it becomes a tremendous instrument

Spiritual Duties: Mutual Forgiveness and Instruction

9:09 in the hands of the risen Lord not only to keep that group healthy but it also has a powerful repelling influence to those who simply want to jump on the church bandwagon as a social club they will sense look if you're not serious about being holy amongst these people serious enough to welcome these people lovingly getting in your face not just the padres doing their thing on Sunday but throughout the week the rank and file being their brother's keepers no man dared join himself to them but the Lord added such as should be saved and we must lay this responsibility upon the consciences of our people and then fourthly mutual forgiveness and forbearance we are not to be nitpickers we are to have the fervent love among ourselves that love which covers a multitude of sins 1 Peter 5 and verse 8 is the wrong text that should be 1 Peter 4 and verse 8 above all things being fervent in your love among yourselves for love covers a multitude of sins every one of God's people has a heart that is a blanket factory not a magnifying glass factory

10:36 not magnifying glasses to amplify the faults and sins of the brethren how do we know when should a sin be forgiven when should it be rebuked well every believer must develop his own spirit taught casuistry and the Bible gives us no manual of ten rules but the duty is laid upon us very clearly admonish one another someone overtaken in a fault restore someone if your brother sins against you rebuke him while at the same time having fervent love that covers a multitude of sins if you are a man you may as well I never saw even a woman wounded but the very moment in which God foretells to her owing their sins against you your benevolence will never come from you that I am a creature and that I am a force from the power that I am sent Figured toř deducted German D Time Ex Made ante

11:35 where do I have this that I do work that move towards us and then the only petition he amplifies is that one, if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly father forgive you your trespasses and then the frightening indictment of our Lord in Matthew 18, 21 where the master takes the servant who ostensibly having been forgiven much and ought to have a spirit suffused with the wonder of that forgiveness, gets his fellow servant by the throat and is ready to choke him demanding all that he owes him remember what the Lord Jesus said so shall my heavenly father do to every one of you if you do not forgive every man his brother from the heart it's damnation or forgiveness there's no middle ground and we have to inculcate this in our people, we must by the grace of God constantly seek to lay before them these attitudes and activities by which they perform their duty one to another and then the fifth thing under the spiritual is mutual instruction and teaching, Hebrews 5 12 to 14, the writer to Hebrews rebukes these people because he says the time that you the rank and file of the people of God ought to be able to teach others you have need that someone teach you again the very rudimentary elements of the Christian faith, the assumption is that with maturity will come the ability and the actual performance

13:04 of this mutual instruction Titus 2, 3 to 5 here you have different age groups within the church instructing others in Colossians 3, 16 the word of Christ dwelling in us richly with this end in view that we may be able to teach and admonish one another and Philippians 3 17 where we're to mark those who walk by the apostolic pattern and they are also to be the object of godly imitation well you see these duties and these are only a sampling of the biblical text, these are clearly duties laid upon all the people of God and if we are teaching the whole council of God we must in due proportion emphasize these duties as the expression of biblical body life, but then there are social duties as well which become the expression of biblically channeled love visible physical confirmation of their mutual love now some say this is a hobby horse of mine no it's not a hobby horse but when you've got five imperatives in the new testament you can't ignore them in 2nd Corinthians 13 we are told in verses 11 and 12 finally brethren farewell be perfected be comforted be of the same mind live in

Social Duties: Physical Confirmation of Love and Hospitality

14:30 peace, now just take those simple imperatives be perfected be comforted be of the same mind live in peace, the God of love and peace shall be with you there's the cultivation of the internal dispositions the promise of God's presence with his people who take them seriously, what more could you want well notice the capstone greet one another with a holy kiss, to the extent that these internal dispositions are being worked in you by the spirit of God and God is present with you as the God of love and peace who dwells in a climate of love and peace you be sure in your interaction to visibly physically confirm your love to one another and that is as much as imperative as any of the other imperatives and I refuse to de-culturalize it, I'm prepared to adjust the particular manifestations to various cultures but I am not prepared with neo-platonism to de-physicalize greet one another with a holy kiss I don't know how you can do that without some physical expression of affection and the absence of irritation and ill will amongst the people of God and then you have the four other imperatives Romans 16.16 we are to greet one another with a holy kiss

15:58 1 Corinthians 16.20 the same imperative 1 Thessalonians 5.26 and then 1 Peter 5.14 greet one another with the kiss of love there's the different nuance of Peter the kiss of love not of eros not of sensuality but the kiss that is born out of genuine internal spirit wrought love that is finding expression in keeping the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace and brethren you have a responsibility to get over your own hang-ups about physical contact with other men and assuming that any physical contact with women must of necessity be sensual and must be a stumbling block if the Son of God let a woman express her affection by wiping his feet with her tears then the answer is not legalism this is never let a woman touch you in any circumstances in any way it's going to lead you down well if you want to go the route of legalism then you justify before God your failure to obey the injunction I find it impossible and each man in every setting must work out the particulars but brethren we are not at liberty to say God didn't know what he was doing when he mandated five times expressions of our love that have physical tangible stuff to them

17:26 now if you can get me off that dilemma of saying how we can be physicalized those commands you'll help me because it's meant I've had to put behind me so much that was part of the baggage of my upbringing and conform my practice to my Bible and I didn't inherit it as part of my personal or ecclesiastical heritage and when you see a bunch of men around here who hug without embarrassment that didn't happen it came out of explicit Biblical instruction dealing with the internal issues dealing with the proper Biblical expression of it but then they're not only in the social is there the physical confirmation of mutual love but we need to set before our people the responsibility and privilege of aggressiveness in hospitality and here I've listed a major New Testament text 1 Peter 4, 8 and 9 where hospitality is identified as a generic Christian duty Hebrews 13, 2 where it is commended among the people of God and it is set before them as a responsibility Romans 12, 13 Acts 2, 46 the example of the Jerusalem church and then certainly if it's one of the requirements for one in spiritual leadership and for others then by deduction we can say that it ought also to mark

Social and Material Duties: Sympathetic Identity and Sharing Resources

18:54 those whom such a leader is privileged to lead but then thirdly sympathetic identity with each other's joys and sorrows you would think this would come naturally but again God joins it upon us Romans 12 and verse 15 we are to weep with those who weep and we are to rejoice with those who rejoice and in Job 30 and verse 25 Job underscores the fact that this is one of the marks of his own piety or one of the things that gives him confidence that he has walked with integrity Job 30 and verse 25 did not I weep for him that was in trouble was not my soul grieved for the needy you see when you're being pummeled with accusations that you're a hypocrite and you're confused with God's dealings with you your conscience is a wonderful companion you can't sort out a lot of things but you can know I am no hypocrite I am not sham I'm real and to look at those tangible evidences well Job pulls up as one of them that there was this sympathetic identity with others sorrows and that pivotal text set before us in Matthew 25 verses 34 to 40 where the Lord Jesus in the day of judgment to justify before the moral universe the declaration that these on his right hand

20:23 are the righteous describes them in terms of these very things they identified with their brethren in their affliction and in their periods of unusual trial I was in prison and you visited me sick and you came to me naked and you clothed me in as much as you did it unto the least of these my little ones you did it unto me and then there is the physical and the material in which the people of God are privileged and mandated to demonstrate that they understand that they are body that they are a family and here again several pivotal texts Romans 12 and verse 13 distributing to the necessity of the saints and that's not an exhortation given to deacons rejoicing in hope patient in tribulation continuing steadfastly in prayer communicating to the necessities of the saints and it's all the saints communicating to the necessity of the saints now some of you begun in some measure to be aware how much of this goes on in this big cold place called Trinity Church your wife has had a baby someone's been sick and in the hospital next thing you know somebody was calling and saying your meals for the next three weeks are going to be taken care of now the deacons often never had a hand in that whatsoever

21:51 your elders had no hand in that first thing we know first time we know about it is when we see a notice on a Wednesday night to read at a prayer meeting dear brothers and sisters at Trinity thank you for the meals brought in for the last three weeks now how does that happen folks that didn't just happen in this cold dog eat dog northeast section of the country that didn't just happen there was a lot of working of the soil and it won't continue unless there is a continuous working of the soil by the tender of these things by exhortation by exposition all of those means may not need to be the same ground clearing work but there's got to be the conditioning of it because the human heart individually and corporately is like a field leave it alone and it will be full of weeds and it will choke out all the good plants and so the weeds of self centeredness and selfishness and indifference must be pulled out and the fertilizer of biblical exhortation and counsel and admonition must continually be brought into the heart 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9 two whole chapters given over to this principle and then 1 John 3 16 and 19 where John puts the whole issue of whether God like love an indispensable mark of grace is in us and he says now let's get down to the nitty gritty he that sees his brother in need notice not he who is ignorant of it you'll have people at times come and berate you

23:19 that you didn't respond to a need and you say I'm not omniscient did I ever claim to be omniscient and be in all places at all times and know all things and you must not be bullied into false guilt because you're not omniscient but John says he that sees his brother have need and deliberately shuts up his bowels of compassion from him how dwelleth the love of God in him he saw us in our need and his bowels were open to us and the opening of his bowels cut a swath of Gethsemane and the horrors of Golgotha but if that love is in you then certainly it doesn't lead you to shut up the bowels of your compassion how dwelleth the love of God in him my brethren let us not love in word only he's assuming we will be able to say we love one another we've gotten over the hang ups we can say I love you he says that's a given but let's not love in word only I'm assuming you're going to do that that's the easy one that's the starting block of truth and hereby shall we assure our hearts before him this will give us confidence that we have more than a notional acquaintance with God as revealed in Christ that the very spirit that wrought our redemption has come to indwell us and is moving us to a much lesser degree but nonetheless in the same category of sensitive responsive love to perceive need

24:47 that that love is operative within our hearts and then you have the account of that spontaneous sporadic community of goods recorded in Acts 4 32 to 35 and whatever we say about it this much is clear where the spirit of God was powerfully present he moved the hearts of people to express their love in this practical way now then in the time that remains large letter C I want to bring some concluding warnings and cautions in the light of our current situation that is the situation that exists in much of evangelical or many evangelical churches that is in a state of flux and there is nowhere near to my knowledge nowhere near the emphasis now on body life that there was 20 to 25 years ago it has shot its wad and now the church growth movement has come along and it too will shoot its wad and some of us have seen the first wave and the second wave of the charismatic movement and we've seen these things come and go but nonetheless there is still some of this stuff out there and you may encounter some of this and you may have people who will import into the sphere of your spiritual oversight some of the remnants of these perspectives and you need to recognize them and know how to deal with them and so I've left you here with three practical exhortations and this first one is the most critical

Concluding Warnings: Primacy vs. Exclusiveness of Preaching

26:16 do not fall into the notion that the biblical doctrine of the primacy of preaching equals an unbiblical doctrine of the exclusiveness of preaching as God's appointed means of edification our bible set before us a doctrine of the primacy of preaching in the advancement of God's purposes of grace both in the calling of his elect and the building up of his people I trust each of us is deeply established in that biblical perspective however don't fall into the notion that holding that doctrine means you have to hold an unbiblical doctrine of the exclusiveness of preaching as God's appointed means of edification that God has appointed preaching and its proper sphere has appointed all of these dimensions of the body ministering to itself in love and the preaching is to serve the ends outlined by God in equipping the saints to fulfill those duties and privileges in their mutual edification and here I list the Ephesians four passage bringing to it the matters that we underscored when treating it more fully in the first lecture but then secondly do not be bullied into an unbiblical and unrealistic notion that your biblical body life must be immediately

Concluding Warnings: Visible Body Life in Stated Meetings

27:44 visible in your stated meetings now this is where I've had to deal with people who came from the outside with certain expectations and after attending two or three services that's all they did didn't stay around to mingle with the people didn't come to our prayer meeting didn't come to any other expression of our life together were prepared to conclude this is a one man show or a two man show in a preaching center that's all it is that doesn't bother me I just say you don't know what you're talking about I've been around here long enough to make any such judgments and I just if they aren't willing then to talk and say well then please help me then I just say he that is ignorant let him be ignorant and I'll tell you in our stated meetings for worship and ministry what should dominate I'm prepared to say with the text that I've listed before us that the vertical dimensions of spiritual reality ought to predominate what does Paul say when the unbeliever or the unlearned comes among you first Corinthians 14 and the various divinely deposited gifts are functioning according to biblical norms apostolic directive what will be the conclusion the ignorant or unbelieving comes to the thoughts of his heart are laid bare and he falling upon his face will cry out oh you're a lovey-dovey group of people I want to be a part of you no he will fall upon his

29:12 face crying out God is of a truth among you what he's struck with is not your gushy gooey drippy lovey-dovey horizontal climate but there is an awesome terrifying majestic God who's in the midst of this people and his word has exposed me for who I am and for who and what he is here again Acts 2 42 with Acts 2 46 what is emphasized with respect to the corporate life of the Jerusalem church these all continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine fellowship breaking of bread and prayers and out of those activities comes that beautiful description of their warm social interaction that follows in chapter 2 and verse 46 again Matthew 18 15 and following here our Lord sets forth the church in its disciplinary activity and moves on into the promise of his own presence in the midst and where two or three shall agree two shall agree on earth is touching what they ask it shall be done you see this is not something that is immediately visible to an outsider coming in the whole process of the church having this internal self cleansing mechanism in which brethren who sin against one another are

30:40 dealing with those issues behind the scene telling the brother alone bringing one or two that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be confirmed a vital part of that church life likewise Galatians 6 and verse 1 that we've already alluded to where the brother is seeking to restore another brother that's not being done publicly and visibly before everyone and then the final text that I've listed Jesus forbids us to be parading our alms our religious duties before men and straining to make everyone know what we are doing what would it be like if every Lord's day I stood up and said now lest any visitor get the wrong impression that this is primarily a preaching station with a rather stodgy stayed framework of worship do you know that this week we've had three people who've been in the hospital and come home and so many men do you want us to parade our alms before men but those things are going on in any given week and I'm amazed sometimes when I find out how much is going on in any given week and I'm sure I've never known exhaustively the full extent of it but the Lord forbids us from parading these things before men so don't be bullied into an unbiblical and unrealistic notion that your biblical body life must be immediately visible in your stated meetings and then thirdly do not be weary of reminding your people again and again of their duties in this area of Christian experience

Concluding Warnings: The Necessity of Constant Reminders

32:09 Jesus said by this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love one to another John 13 35 and then I've listed John's constant emphasis in first second third John and then one of the texts that I hope when I go to my grave and people say what were his ten favorite texts this will be one that a number will remember where Peter says look I'm going to tell you these things not because you don't know them not because you're not doing them he said you know these things and you're even established in them but I think it meet or I think it right as long as I'm in this tabernacle as long as I have bodily existence and I've got a pen and a tongue to stir you up how by putting you in remembrance stir you up by putting you in remembrance what's that sound like well on certain things you tell your wife she's nagging you what's she doing she's trying to stir you up to do something you should have done long ago by reminding you you ain't done it

33:12 is that what you call nagging Peter says I'm going to engage in some holy nagging and the difference is they were doing it is that what he says verse 12 I'll be ready to put you in remembrance though you know them and are established in the truth that is with you wasn't that they were ignorant or that they were presently lessening their grasp upon these truths they knew them they were holding them but he said I'm going to stir you up they're so important I want you to hold them all the more firmly stir you up by putting you in remembrance and so we could do a lot worse and have people say well you know man was just always reminding us that we need to forgive one another we need to forbear with one another we need to yield to one another I'm going to have to sound some of these notes that they had at the congregational meeting on the 21st when I suggest that given some of the attrition in numbers with people transferring elsewhere and a few disaffected families leaving us we've got some holes in the congregation Pastor Brevard and those who now constitute Grace Church having had a holy separation and there are holes and the sense of togetherness and community is being lost in the way people are sitting and the elders and deacons have made a decision that we're going to deal with that and we're going to rope off the pews and we're going to tell people we want them to sit closer together some people aren't going to like it so what am I going to have to do I'm going to have to quote the passages

34:41 look every man not on his own things but on the things of one another let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus and I have to be reminded of these things when getting a simple directive about where we sit in the building you've got to come back to these basic issues again and again you see I used to get irritated when I'd have to go over some of these things year in and year out and say when are the people going to grow up and then I finally said no this is going to be part and parcel of my job description until I go to heaven and the people go to heaven and we don't so you can do one or two you can be irritated about it you can say it's part of the way human nature is and that's what we've got to do so just do it keep a sweet spirit use a little sanctified humor and just say well when you perform perfectly in this area you'll never hear another thing about it from me never hear another thing as long as we've got some ground to cover we have to go back over these things again and again and again so brethren if you're going to have an assembly of God's people drawn by the blessing of God upon the preaching of the word validated by your own walk of godliness before the Lord if it's going to be anything approaching what the scriptures describe as a healthy spirit filled church then there's going to have to emerge in that congregation of God's people these valid expressions of the church ministering to itself in love i.e. biblical body life

36:10 and the means that God will use at least in great measure are these things that we've set before you and I trust you will find them helpful and with the blessing of God that you'll have the joy of ministering in a context where when you read that the people of God are a family that they are a body they are the living temple they are that holy nation they are that royal priesthood that those things will be something more than noble concepts that float by you when you read your bible that you'll be able to say by the grace of God I see at least a little something of that in these dear people for whom by the grace of God I'm prepared to labor and lay down my life as a faithful shepherd in the strength of Christ