Corporate Means of Grace

Introduction to Corporate Means of Grace as the Sixth Principle

0:05 This adult Sunday school class was held on May 1st, 1983, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now, for many months in our adult class, we have been examining together what we have entitled some major principles of living the Christian life. And at the very outset of this series of studies, I mentioned that my goals in leading you into this study and all the way through the study were basically threefold. It was my concern to sketch in a theology of the Christian life, to seek to immunize you as God's people from the many errors that are floating about and have floated about in the past with respect to life. How to live the Christian life and then, if perchance any of these errors had taken root in your own thinking and experience, to have them rooted out or to change the analogy, if they were in your spiritual bloodstream, to have them purged out. And now we are presently examining the sixth and final major principle of living the Christian life.

1:26 And I have stated it this way, that there are no effective subsets. There are no effective substitutes for the God-appointed means of grace in pursuing the Christian life. As surely as God has appointed a way into life and no substitute will result in the attainment of life, so God has appointed means for the sustaining of that life and no substitutes of man, however sincerely conceived, can ever be effective in nurturing it. Nurturing the life which God has graciously imparted.

Categories of Means of Grace: Private, Domestic, and Corporate

2:05 Now thus far we've considered two categories within which these means to sustain life come to us. The first category I handled with you two weeks ago, and we called that category the private or the individual means for the development and nurture of spiritual life, secret or private prayer, the personal practice. Private study and meditation upon the word of God. And then the maintenance of spiritual health, whether we think of it in terms of keeping a good conscience or keeping up conscious communion with God, whatever terminology we use, it is the thing that we are concerned about.

2:49 And then last week, Pastor Nichols led you in a study of what we would call the domestic or family means of grace, those means of grace which God has deposited, deposited in the dynamics of family life, husband, wife, parent, child, relationships. And now we come this morning to consider the third category by which spiritual life is nurtured and maintained, and I'm calling this category the corporate or the social means of grace. The corporate or the social means of grace. And by definition, I am simply referring to those activities and relationships found within the church as the household or the family of God. The church is likened in the scriptures to the household of faith, to the family of God, to the body of Christ. The temple of God is another imagery. There are many images to describe the church in its corporate, corporate, and whichever imagery we use, when we turn to the word of God, it is plain that God has deposited within the framework of the family of God, the church of God,

4:15 the body of Christ, certain means for the nurture of the individual members of that body, and these means deposited in this framework, are not found elsewhere. And therefore to despise those corporate or social means of grace is to despise the means ordained of God for the nurture and development of spiritual life. Now there are several key passages which demonstrate that spiritual life is to be nurtured and maintained in conjunction with these corporate relationships. And I want to say that this is not a situation where we can just say, and I want to say that this is not a situation where we can just say, and I want to say that this is not a situation where we can just say, And I want us to look at these passages, perhaps you can tell me what some of these pivotal passages are which point in the direction of the nurturing of spiritual life within the context of the body of Christ, the family of God, the household of God. Alright, several key passages. Yes, Brian? In verse 10.25.

Biblical Basis for Corporate Means: Perseverance and Mutual Exhortation

5:26 Alright. We're speaking the assembling of ourselves together.

5:32 Alright, let's read the passage a little bit more fully. Let's turn to it together. Hebrews chapter 10, in which we are exhorted to a specific activity in a negative exhortation. Hebrews 10 and verse 25.

5:52 And as I mentioned two weeks ago, you bear with me as I go through the trauma of trying to get acclimated to a new Bible that just doesn't turn up the right pages on the right side and all of the rest. Hebrews 10 and verse, let's back up to 23. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope that it waver not, for he is faithful that promised. Here's an exhortation to perseverance.

6:23 And each believer must feel the weight of that responsibility to hold fast the confession of his hope that it waver not. He is to do so in the light of the faithfulness of God. But now notice. He is one of the means ordained for this perseverance.

6:43 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works, not forsaking our own assembling together as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day drawing nigh. So in conjunction with individual perseverance. Is this exhortation to our corporate life and to the maintenance of our corporate life, not only in what we might call its visible physical representation, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, but in the context of that assembling together, ministering one to another, provoking one another unto love and to good works. So here you see. The. Corporate life of the people of God in conjunction with individual perseverance in faith and in what this passage calls holding fast the confession of hope.

7:49 All right. Another key passage. Yes. David.

7:59 All right. Want to read it for us.

8:20 All right. Here is this responsibility. First of all, we have the warning. Verse 12.

8:26 Again, a warning against falling away. An evil heart of unbelief. In. Falling away and what's to be the antidote, exhorting one another day by day, so long as it is called today, lest any one of you individual be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, for we are become partakers of Christ if individually we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end.

8:52 So again, in a perseverance passage, which is a very individual responsibility, each one of us, as we've seen in our. Recent expositions of the doctrine of perseverance must continue in the way, but we do not continue in the way simply by means of the individual means of grace or the family means of grace. But here we have a corporate means of grace, exhorting one another, so long as it is called today. All right.

Biblical Basis for Corporate Means: The Body of Christ Imagery

9:22 Another key passage.

9:25 Surely you must hit upon at least two more. We'll come back to this side and then back here. Frank. Ephesians 4, 11 to 16.

9:34 All right. Ephesians 4, 11 to 16. Will you read the passage for us, Frank, so everyone can hear? And he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ.

9:58 And so we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, who are mature men. Amen. To the measure of the statute which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, taught here and there by ways and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by trash units, in deceitful feelings.

10:20 But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head and his Christ, from whom the whole body be included and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of Jesus. The individual part causes the growth of the body to the building up of itself as well. All right. Now, there are many, many strands of truth in the passage, but we want to consider it simply in terms of this overall thrust of the passage.

10:49 And it is this, that every individual member who is a true believer is highly joined to Christ the head. But he is joined to Christ the head, not atomistically. But he is joined to Christ the head in terms of this imagery of the body. You see the emphasis of the passage.

11:11 Every true believer is joined to Christ, but because Christ has a mystical, spiritual body called the church, we are all joined one to another. And this emphasis, of course, comes through in the book of Ephesians. Lie not one to another, seeing you have put off the old man with his deed. But then, nestled in the midst of that, we are told that we are members one of another.

11:39 We are members one of another. And the language of verse 16, From whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working in due measure of each several part, makes the increase of the body unto the building up of itself. In love. So here the dominant emphasis is upon this growth and development of the church, not atomistically and individually, but in terms of the growth of the body to that which every individual contributes.

12:21 There is certainly individuality in this picture, but it is individuality in relationship to the corporate identity of the people, of God as the body of Christ. All right, can you think of a parallel passage to this one? There's another key passage that is a parallel passage to this in the New Testament.

12:47 It's in the book, yes, John?

12:53 No, that's not the passage that I had in mind. And that would be perhaps a secondary passage, but one in which this basic imagery is set before us. Charlie?

13:05 Yes, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 12 to 26. And again, with very little comment, just so that you might feel the overall impression and weight of the text, I'll read it in your hearing. For as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body being many are one body, you see the emphasis now? The body is one.

13:32 Many members, individuality, but individuality in terms of the oneness of the body. Okay. So, So also is Christ. For in one spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free, and were all made to drink of one spirit.

13:53 For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body, is it not therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body, is it not therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing?

14:14 If the whole body were hearing, where were the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them in the body, as it pleased him. You see this constant interplay between individual identity and identity with the whole or with the corporate nature of the church. And if all were one member, where were the body?

14:36 But now there are many members, individuality, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. Or again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much rather those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary.

14:57 And those parts of the body which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor. And our uncomely parts have the more abundant comeliness, whereas our comely parts have no need, but God tempered the body together, giving more abundant honor to that part which lacked that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffers, or one member, I'm sorry, all the members suffer with it, or one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and severally members, members, thereof, or members, each in his part. So you see this constant contrast between the body in its corporateness, in its overall identity as a living organism, and then the individual differentiation of gift and contribution between each member, and then this mutual sympathy. When one member of the body suffers, all the members suffer with it. If you get a toothache, you don't just simply take the part that aches in your tooth and set it on the dresser while the rest of the body goes to sleep.

16:17 If you have a bad toothache, the whole body stays awake, suffering the reality of that toothache. And so likewise, we have this beautiful picture of the individuality of every member, distinctiveness of gift, distinctiveness of burden, of joy. When one member suffers, all suffer with it. When one member rejoices, or is honored, and so the picture then of the people of God is the picture of that group of God's people as an organic body.

16:50 So this crass individualism in which we think, well, I have God, I have the Holy Ghost, I have my Bible, I have my wife, I have my children, that's all I really need to become the most spirit-filled, mature Christian I can possibly become. That simply is not true. Nor can you add to that para-church groups and say, well, I have God, the Holy Ghost, my Bible, and I've got the Navigators, Campus Crusade, I've got mission organizations, I've got the Gideons, I've got this group, and that's all I need. No, God has ordained, God has ordained and constituted the church as the family of God, the church as the body of Christ, and those are, they're not just beautiful poetic images, for in the context, he's writing to specific groups of specific individuals with all of their own crass individuality and yet wonder of wonders, they have been constituted a body and they are to think in terms of that identity which God has given to them. They are to think and act in terms of the reality of this relationship. Now we could add many other passages, I want us to look at just one passage from the Old Testament, for this is not simply a New Testament doctrine,

Old Testament Support and Summary of Categories

18:17 Psalm 92, verses 12 to 14. Psalm 92, verses 12 through 14.

18:32 The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Now a cedar in Lebanon to us means very little, but it means a lot to us. But if you've seen pictures of the sequoias out on the west coast, you get a little picture of the majesty of those trees.

18:52 I can remember the first and only time I stood in the midst of a massive display of these sequoias and I felt so utterly, utterly swallowed up by the sheer size and majesty of those trees. Perhaps that's a modern day parallel. The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon, but notice where this happens, this flourishing and growing.

19:22 They are planted in the house of Jehovah. They shall flourish in the courts of God. And so the righteous are pictured in their flourishing state, not in isolation, not as just a bunch of little individuals, but as a group of people who are not only trees, but as trees that are planted in the courts of God in the house of Jehovah. Now again, I say there are many passages we could bring to bear, but I trust these suffice to demonstrate to anyone who takes the teaching of his Bible at face value that the means ordained of God for the nurture and development of the spiritual life are not only means that can rightly be categorized individual or private means, and there is no substitute for entering into your closet alone and praying to your Father in secret, reading and meditating upon the Word of God. There are no substitutes if God has placed you in an earthly family for that second category, the domestic or family means of grace, but likewise, we may say that whether or not God has given you this, He does give,

20:48 except in rare situations where a child of God perhaps is in prison or some other unusual circumstances, God has given these corporate or these social means of grace. The means of grace deposited within the framework of the family of God functioning as a family, thinking as a family, thinking, one to another as a family, or to change the imagery, he has planted them within the organic body of Christ, and they grow and develop, thinking in terms of their identity as a body, functioning realistically as a body. This thing must be taken out of the realm of mere lofty imagery, for you'll notice the passages in which we discover these things are passages written to specific churches in conjunction with specific needs and specific concerns of growth and maturation amongst the people of God. All right, any question on the basic establishment now of the fact that God has instituted this third category of a means of grace? Any question?

Public Corporate Means of Grace: Acts 2:41-42

22:09 All right. All right, if not, then let's move on to ask this question. What activities are generally involved in the church functioning as a body? Let me read my question from my notes and then it'll come out better.

22:27 What activities are generally public and involve all the members of the body together? What activities are generally public? Now notice we're talking about the social. Social or corporate means of grace, but not all of them are public.

22:47 They are social means of grace growing out of our relationship to one another in the body, but not all of them are public. Some of them are semi-public, some of them are private, but now, what means of the corporate means of grace are, by their very nature in the word of God and in apostolic direction, public means of grace and involve all of the members of the body gathering together at any one given point in time, and to help you, let me say there's one key verse in sort of a summary of all these activities. If you hit on it, you have all the others. Yes, Cliff?

23:42 Very good. Very good. And there was no collusion between us before. There was no collusion between us before the class.

23:47 He's not a plant.

23:50 I hope he's a plant in the house of God, but he's not a plant by the teacher. All right? Cliff, can you read loud enough from the back of the room for us all to hear? Acts 2, 41 and 42.

24:21 Okay? Here we have what is perhaps the classic passage in the New Testament describing those means of grace that will come under this general category of the corporate or social means of grace in which all of the people of God are engaged at the same time and in the same place in these activities ordained for their spiritual maturation. And what are they? Well, for the sake of making them stick in our memories, we can call them continuing steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine.

24:59 That's corporate adherence to the word of God. Amen. And in fellowship, that's corporate involvement with the people of God, in the breaking of bread, corporate feeding upon the Son of God, in the Lord's Supper, and in the prayers, corporate confession of dependence upon God. So here the corporate life of the people of God is described in terms of continuing steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers.

25:44 And the interesting thing is, you will notice that this is referred to, by and large, the entirety of the 3,000. Of the 3,000 added, they continued steadfastly. In other words, you have a situation in which, within that number of 3,120, 50,000 Q or robe and 500,000 monetaryuries, the first thing that is needed to go is free from the traditional certified conversion. So that's what we see happening in us right now. Less than 100,000 childbirths per second. What do you see?

26:36 Low births. Many who were so spiritual that they just were convinced the Lord was leading them to stay home and study their Bibles on their own. That's the most spiritual thing, you know. Oh, the Lord just made it plain to me that I was to stay home today and just spend the day reading my Bible.

26:57 With nature being what it is, I'm sure they had the full spectrum of all the same kind of kookishness that we have. But it says they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. You think they had some who said, what good can come from one or two of these blokes standing up? One-way communication, I mean, let's get with it.

27:17 I mean, if you're really going to learn, there's got to be the dynamics of interaction, question and answer, debate and discussion. And every time we go to Solomon's porch, oh, there's Peter or one of the other apostles just standing up and shooting off at the mouth like he knows everything.

27:38 It says they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. And that's how they grew. And they did so under the direction of Christ, the great head of the church, who was now forming by apostolic pattern and precedent the means by which his church was to grow up into him in all things. And it says they continued steadfastly in fellowship, koinonia, true sharing of life.

28:11 And as we read on in the passage, we see that that koinonia was not just good to see your brother, really love you in Christ, I'm for you, hope you're for me.

28:21 You read the passage, and the koinonia involved the total sharing of life, even to the point of people relinquishing title to homes and houses and lands. Read about it. Nobody commanded it, but so real was this sense that they were constituted one body, it was unthinkable. It was unthinkable that this individual would look upon his brother in need and say, well, God bless you, brother, I'll pray the Lord will meet your need, when he had the means to meet his need in his own bank account or in his own deeds to property.

29:00 You read the passage, it goes right on to say that. Look at it with your own eyes. Verse 43, fear came upon every soul. All that believed were together and had all things common.

29:12 Now, there's no indication the apostles commanded it. There's no indication that this...

29:16 This continued on forever. No indication that the apostles ever mandate this in their letters. Luke is simply describing what we might say is a blissful and blessed account of the excess of genuine Christian love and genuine Christian fellowship. And they sold their possessions and goods and parted them all according as any man had need.

29:43 And day by day, continuing steadfastly, with one accord in the temple and breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. So there was this continuance in fellowship that meant, in the context, a sharing of goods, but it meant more than that. Fellowship involves the willingness to be known and to know. And that's where true fellowship is costly.

The Cost and Nature of True Fellowship

30:14 True fellowship involves the willingness... The willingness to know and to be known.

30:23 You see, the moment you and I enter into something more than a mere surface relationship with another human being, we get to the place where we really want to know his heart or her heart, and they are us. What are we doing? We're making ourselves vulnerable to taking on burdens.

30:44 And burdens are just what they say, or what the word calls them, burdens. And if we're to bear...

30:52 We're one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. It means we've got to get to the place where we're willing to be vulnerable, to really know what the burdens of our brothers and sisters are. And it means we've got to be willing to be known. You see, we can't fellowship with mirages and with images that we project.

31:17 Some of us spend altogether too much time constantly projecting and protecting, the image of what we hope people will think we are. Scared to death that anyone would really find out what we are. Shaking in our boots, lest someone really find who's behind that image.

31:43 Behind that image may be a bundle of insecurities, a bundle of fears, a bundle of all kinds of problems. And we think in our folly. If anyone ever really knew what I really was, I would be totally rejected. Therefore, I must continually project and protect this image.

32:07 You can't fellowship with images. Only with people.

32:13 Only with people.

32:16 And some of you are stunted in your growth, because you're constantly projecting and protecting an image of what you think you have to appear in the image of God. In the eyes of others, in order to be accepted. When in reality, in any church that even approaches the biblical norm, it's the one place on the face of the earth where you can afford the luxury of projecting what you really are. Because we're a bunch of redeemed sinners.

32:51 And once a man or woman has stood stripped and naked before God and felt the arms of the Father, embracing the returning prodigal, when you've got a society of people who have felt that, when they are true to their identity, they're never pushing away fellow prodigals. They never push them away. Having been loved and received in all their undoneness by the God who knows the deepest recesses of their hearts, they're not in the rejection business, because a fellow believer lets them know what he or she really is. They continued steadfastly in fellowship. And you see, that's one of the great means, the public means of grace that we engage in when we fellowship together. But then they continued steadfastly in the breaking of the bread. When ye are come together is the language for the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11.

33:57 And by the way, this is why we don't practice private communion. In our congregation, we believe the Bible teaches it is a church ordinance and it's an ordinance of the gathered people of God in which we express our oneness. Now, if there were someone who was, for a long period of time, cut off from this means, whether we might take a representative group of the church of five or six people and then remember the Lord's table with them, that's another question altogether. That's an exception.

34:32 That's an exceptional matter. But in terms of the whole idea of coming to someone and giving the Lord's Supper to an individual, no, they continued steadfastly in their corporate identity in the breaking of bread and, notice, in the prayers. And the article is there in the prayers, that is, in their stated seasons of prayer, which could well have been the seasons of prayer at the temple, which they are now, as it were, Christianizing and turning over into a season of true Christian church prayers. Now, human nature being what it is, what the time of prayer came, do you think there were people who said, boy, I really feel so tired. I don't know that my presence would really add anything. In fact, I doubt it. I'd probably detract from the prayer meeting going feeling as dull as I feel.

35:30 Do you think they felt that temptation? Catch your boots, they did. They were men of like passions with us. But they continued steadfastly in the prayers, believing that they were a people dependent upon the power of God.

Cumulative and Imperceptible Benefits of Corporate Means

35:46 They were determined to express that dependence by their continuance in the prayers. And so you have some of these activities in which the body is gathered in its corporate identity, as the body, as the family of God, and the means are the public instruction of the word of God, general interaction amongst the people of God, a corporate feeding upon the Son of God, and a corporate confession of dependence upon God in constancy, in prayer. And many of the blessings, and I trust some of you who are young believers will listen to me especially at this point, many of the blessings, for, for spiritual maturation in this aspect of the corporate means or social means of grace, those blessings are cumulative but imperceptible at any given occasion of gathering together. Now let me explain what I mean. So often people assess these means in terms of their ability to identify the specific, kind of blessing received on May the 1st, 1983 between the hours of 9.30 and 12.30.

37:12 And if they cannot identify blessings A, B, C, and D, then they say, well really, was it worth it to be found amongst God's people? But the great benefit, the great benefit of these means of our corporate life together in which we gather as an entire body are for the most part cumulative. That is, there is this continuous input of the Word of God, this continuous building up of relationships to the people of God, this continuous remembrance of Christ in the way of His appointment, and this continuance of application to Him in prayer, and the benefits to our spiritual maturation during the night, now from that standpoint, because we're talking about the means of grace for Christian growth, though these activities have another whole sphere of reference, but from this standpoint, their benefits are cumulative. We may not be able at the end of a given Lord's Day to say, I receive this particular blessing and this unusually critical measure of light and help from God, but as you are faithful to these appointed ways, it means there is a cumulative influence in the maturation and development of your spiritual life.

38:41 And just like the growth of our children, often very imperceptible to us and those closest to them, yet we visit the grandparents who haven't seen them for a year, and they look at them and they say, why, I hardly recognized you. How you've grown. And this is what happens in the spiritual life as well, that there is growth and there is development, but it is so imperceptible as it were from week to week that to ourselves and perhaps to those closest to us, it cannot be seen. But over the long haul, that growth is indeed very real.

39:16 For instance, take the Ephesians 4 passage where the purpose for depositing these gifts of public ministry in the church, one of the purposes is that you be no more children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men. Well, you see, how are you going to measure the degree to which you have been immunized against the cunning craftiness of false teachers on any given Lord's day? You see, it's in the totality of life together. In a congregation where the worship is pervasively Trinitarian, you may not hear a sermon on the Trinity for months and months, and yet your whole experience of God's in the midst of His people is throbbing with Trinitarian perspective. The Father is addressed as Father in and through the Lord Jesus and in the power of the Spirit. And we invoke the presence of the Spirit to make Christ real to us in our access to the Father so that the believer without realizing it is receiving some very profound teaching and constant experience of the reality of Trinitarianism. And then when His doctrine of the Trinity is challenged, He not only can bring forward

40:45 portions in the Word of God to offset that challenge, but He knows, He knows that it is a violation of all of His religious experience to deny the Trinity. You see? And it's the cumulative effect of these corporate means, particularly, those means in which the people of God are found together in the exercise of those means. Likewise, with reference to so many other doctrines that are constantly set forth, not perhaps explicitly in a topical treatment of them, or in terms of a verse-by-verse exposition in which that doctrine is set forth in a very pivotal way in what we would call an epitomizing text, but it breathes through the entire context of the life of God's people. The whole grace of humility. How is it nurtured? Why, it's nurtured when we interact with others who stand far beyond us in their stature as believers.

41:49 And every time we're near them, we sense how little we know of Christ compared to what they know of Him. And we rub shoulders with fathers in the faith, and we feel so keenly what little pygmies we are. And then when we are led in prayer by mature men whose perspectives are biblical, and we hear them confessing dryness and barrenness and sinfulness and mourning their own poverty of spirit before God, and we enter with them into the spirit of that prayer, we are being taught the grace of humility. You see, and on and on we could go to indicate all of the ways in which these corporate activities are indeed a means of grace in the development of the life of the people of God. But we must hasten on and point out, and this is a vital distinction, that not all of the social or corporate means of grace are public. Some are semi-public or semi-private, and some are relatively private, but they are still corporate means of grace because they grow out of and are an expression of the relationships that exist within the church as the body of Christ and as the family of God.

Semi-Public and Private Corporate Means of Grace

43:16 Now, let's make them a male chauvinist. I've got to put another woman up there. All right. Okay, there we are.

43:25 You see the point I'm making? Some of these corporate means come to expression when the whole body is gathered as we are this morning. Some of them come to expression when just smaller segments of the body are gathered. Some of them when just two.

43:44 But these activities would be utterly unknown and inappropriate were we not members one of another. And that's the point I'm making, and that's why I place these means in the category of the corporate or social means of grace. Now, can you think of some of the semi-public or semi-private means? Yes, Gary?

44:08 Matthew 18, beginning with verse 15. Here we see it progressing from one to one. If thy brother sin, and there's a textual variant, if he sin against thee, or if he sin, go tell him his fault between thee and him alone. It's private.

44:42 But it's in the framework of your brother. The family of God. One who is joined with you in the body of Christ. If he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.

44:55 If he do not hear thee, then take with thee one or two others. Alright, now it becomes semi-private that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. If he hear them, then you've gained your brother. If he doesn't hear them, then, now it becomes a matter of concern to the entire church.

45:18 Tell it unto the church. And if he does not hear the church, let him be unto thee as the heathen and a publican man. A heathen and a publican. So here we have a case where there is a means of grace.

45:32 And we must never forget that. Discipline beginning at the lowest level of private rebuke leading to the pressure of two or three others coming or ultimately to the church itself speaking has as its end gaining the brother. Bringing him to face his sin. Bringing him to repentance.

45:55 That's the great end of this whole complex of events described by our Lord in Matthew 18, 15 and following. Alright, another passage in which we have even perhaps in the interest of time since we've only got about eight, nine minutes left. Either private, or semi-private activities. Yet, we fall within this category because they grow out of our identity as the family of God and the body of Christ.

Further Examples of Semi-Private Corporate Means

46:29 Alright, Jane?

46:34 Would Hebrews 13, 17 apply? Obey them that have the rule over you and submit to them for they watch for your souls as they that shall give an account that they may do so with joy and not with grief for this were unprofitable to you. And what would be the point, Jane? Alright, okay.

47:15 So, a means of grace then deposited within the corporate life is having constituted leadership and the mandate to obey them that have the rule over you for they watch for your souls. Now, if someone refuses to be identified with the body of Christ, the overseers have no right to exercise this shepherding ministry over them. So, that could be a very private and individual thing and yet it is found within the framework of the body of Christ and there the first Thessalonians 5, 11 passage would also fit. Alright, someone else had his hand raised.

47:56 Yes, Jim? Alright, but we could put that then, should we not, more in the second category, the domestic or the family means of grace. We're thinking now more of the corporate means of grace and those activities that are not necessarily found or in which we are found all together engaged in them. Can you think of some others? Yes, Wayne?

48:56 Excellent, excellent. Very good point. And I'll just pick it up, Wayne, because it's a bit difficult to hear from the back and it wouldn't get on the mic here, alright? The point that Wayne has made is that in the midst of these general exhortations in Romans 12, we have this exhortation to, hospitality, verse 13, communicating to the necessities of the saints given to hospitality.

49:20 Now we can take both of those. Would it be proper every time a brother sees another brother in need to come before the entire church and say, now I saw Brother Jones in need and I've just responded by giving him $300 and since that's a matter of our identity as brothers, the whole body ought to be aware of it. What other biblical principle would we be violating if we did that? What did Jesus say?

49:48 Let not your left hand know what your right hand does. Right, left, which is it? It all depends whether you're left or right-handed, whether you have a predisposition. But in either case, we are not to do our alms before men.

50:03 Likewise with the matter of hospitality. Generally speaking, in any congregation, it would be rare to find someone who had either the facilities or the money, to be continually giving himself to hospitality to the entire body all at once. And so what many of you do is you single out a couple or two, a single individual or two or three, and you open your home to them and you minister to them by hospitality, but you do so because they are members with you of the same body. So you see, though it is a semi-private activity, it is carried on because you are members.

50:44 You are members one of another. Likewise, this distributing to the necessity of the saints. Just a short while ago, someone whose family had been graced with the presence of a little one was just overwhelmed by the fact that with no specific planning from the deacons, no exhortation from the pulpit, they were overwhelmed by the outpouring of concern to minister to them in this time of adjustment to the presence of a little one. And the meals brought in, the casseroles brought in, the help offered, and this individual spontaneously mentioned to two of your elders that he was just overwhelmed by this.

51:26 And he said, I had no idea this kind of thing went on until I was in the position where I became the recipient. And he said, I doubt that my wife and I were the first ones to have received this outpouring of the expression of love and concern of God's people. Now that's true biblical, body, life. The body responding realistically in terms of needs.

51:51 Now there's nothing wrong with the fact that there are natural groupings of more intimate friendships within the body of Christ. There's nothing wrong with that. So that some of you who live in a particular area, say, of West Orange, when one of your number has a peculiar need, that you would be the ones responding to caring for the children and maybe some of the people, out in the North and West area, wouldn't even be aware of it. There's nothing wrong with that.

52:19 You see, some people have this notion that unless every member of the body can become fully aware of all the needs of all the other members, you don't have body life. That's sheer nonsense. How could you have that in Jerusalem? And yet it says, the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul.

52:40 So being of one heart and one soul does not mean that we all have an equal input concerning all of the needs of all of our brethren or that we have the same chemistry of intimacies of varying levels of friendship. Among the twelve disciples, Jesus had three especially close ones. Who were they? Peter, James, and John.

53:06 And among the three, how many leaned on his bosom? John. Now was Jesus embarrassed to make that known? How do we know that?

53:15 It was public knowledge. It was open for all to see. Otherwise, we never would have it recorded. He taketh with him.

53:23 Peter, James, and John. That means the other nine watched him take the three and go off with them.

53:31 Right? And it means when they were sitting at meat, they saw John lean his head on the breast of Jesus. And Jesus and John doing something totally sociably unacceptable, whispering in a public gathering, sharing secrets.

53:50 That's what my Bible says. I can't rewrite it. That's what it says.

53:57 And they spoke one to another. So this whole idea that if you have a healthy church, every single member has equal input from all the other members. It's sheer nonsense. It holds no water exegetically, psychologically, practically, from every standpoint.

54:16 I don't know what else to call it, but sheer nonsense. The only good thing to say about it is that it may have a noble gold at the bottom of it. It may. I'm not quite so certain, but it may.

Intimate Friendships and Mutual Ministry

54:28 That's about the only good thing that can be said. All right? What are some of the other ways that we have this individual or semi-private ministry one to another in virtue of our being part of the same body? Yes?

54:45 Arlene?

54:49 Very good. Colossians 3.16. I was hoping someone would bring up that verse.

54:55 Let the word, the word of Christ, dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in your heart unto the Lord. Now, does that mean that when we greet one another, we ought to start singing a psalm to one another? Well, for some, that would be a form of torture on the ears. Yes.

55:26 For others, it might be a very pleasant experience. But surely, surely, surely when we meet one another, we ought to be able to say, you know, in my reading of the word of God this week, God really blessed this portion to my heart. As I've been wrestling with one of my responsibilities as a workman, as a father, a mother, or as a single person, you know what God made real to me? And we minister to one another in the words of God Himself.

55:56 Well, our time is gone. Let me just add very quickly in the last minute, the whole concept of James 5.16, confess your sins one to another and pray one for another. As God gives us those more intimate friendships, we need to dwell together in the realism of true Christian fellowship and friendship.

56:20 And as God gives us those more intimate bonds, there is that peculiar chemistry which warrants those, those more intimate friendships. There should be that willingness to confess our sins one to another that we might pray one for another, responding to each other's material needs. 1 John 3.17 He that seeth his brother have need and shuts up the bowels of his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

56:49 Galatians 6.1 If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye who are spiritual, restore such a one, 1 Peter 4.9-10 in which we are told to minister whatever our gift is, to minister it one to another so that all might profit. Well, I trust at least this brief overview will convince us afresh and perhaps sharpen anew in our understanding this marvelous deposit of the means of grace that God has given, not only the private or individual means of grace, the family or the domestic means of grace, but thirdly, the social or corporate means of grace, and there are no effective substitutes for these God-appointed means of grace. Someone said we should have a lesson on what substitutes men try to have. Well, that could take up a whole month of Sundays. But whenever anyone offers you anything other than these things as the meat and taters by which you are to grow, remember, it's not meat and taters.

58:01 It may not be poison. It may be just sawdust dressed up to look like good food. But you cannot nourish your body upon sawdust. And you can't nourish your soul upon means that are not ordained of God.

58:17 Well, let us pray together.

58:22 Our Father, we are thankful that in Your great wisdom You have given to us as Your people these many means by which to nurture the life imparted by Your grace. And we pray that You will help us to use every means, the individual and private, the domestic, and then the social or the corporate means of grace. But, O our Father, we acknowledge the best of means are but means at best. And upon them all we need the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit to the end, that Christ may more and more be formed in us and that we may more and more be conformed to His image. Bless, then, the truth we've studied together and to Your name be praise and honor and glory as more and more we grow up into the fullness of the stature of Christ. We ask in His worthy name. Amen.