Reduction of Elders: What Might God be Saying? Part 7

Review of the Biblical Framework for Interpreting Providence

0:03 The following message was delivered on March 7th, 1993, in the Adult Sunday School class of the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. We do extend a very special welcome to some of the visitors that we see among us this morning, and particularly for your sakes, let me seek very briefly to review where we have been in the last seven weeks of our study together, this being the eighth week and final week in this brief parenthetical series of studies. In the providence of God, we experienced in our church life an attrition, a numerical decrease of our eldership, and we felt it would be good to wrestle together as a congregation with the question, what might God be saying to us through this providence? The providential fact of the attrition in our eldership, and we have laid out from the Word of God this triangle, adding a base to it last week, I trust to remember that whenever we seek to understand, to interpret,

1:19 to learn lessons from God's providential dealings with us, we must do so within this biblical framework. At the point or apex of the triangle, is the biblical truth that everything that comes to pass in our lives, individually or corporately, is but an exegesis, an unfolding of God's eternal decree. The scriptures tell us, Ephesians 1.11, that He, God, works all things after the counsel of His own will.

1:59 And whatever secondary causes He may use, whether they are verbal, virtuous or vicious, whether they are righteous or sinful, all of them fall within the orbit of the sovereign control and will of God, yet in no way making God the author of our sin. But then the second biblical principle that we must always bring to bear in seeking to understand God's acts of providence is this, that God alone exhaustively and infallibly, knows His purpose in any one strand of a providential act in our lives together, because God alone sees the entire fabric, and we use the symbol for eternity, from eternity to eternity, and the thread that is woven into our lives can only comprehensively and infallibly be known by the God who sees His own purposes. From eternity unto eternity. And then thirdly, the scriptures teach us that the child of God is responsible, prayerfully and humbly, to seek to understand scriptural principles that may be highlighted, underscored, by God's providential dealings.

3:27 Some of you, when you are reading, you use highlighters, often a yellow or an orange highlighter. And often in God's dealings with us, His providential acts are the divine highlighter with respect to things that God is attempting to say to us, not beyond or outside of His word, but things perhaps we've overlooked, maybe read many times, even hold as part of our standing confession of faith that God is getting our attention and divine presence, and that providence becomes the heavenly highlighter, and we are responsible, humbly and prayerfully, to seek to know what God is highlighting by His providence, and then in the process of that, at the base of that, is the principle, while prayerfully and humbly assessing what God may be highlighting in His providence, while fully understanding that He alone, comprehensively and infallibly, understands His providence, we are always to hold to and pursue the path of present duty. We are not to stop in the path of present obedience, try to get God in a hammerlock and tell Him we must know here and now

4:55 what it is that He is saying to us, but rather, we must continue in the path of His revealed will, knowing that in the path of obedience, further light will be given, the great principle of John 14, 21, He that hath my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me, he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will manifest myself unto him. So then, with that perspective before us, you as a congregation came forward with a number of things that might constitute God's call to us as a congregation through these providences. And you came to eight such things, and when we came to the eighth, there we have parked for the last five weeks. And the eighth thing which one of the brethren suggested may indeed be that which God is highlighting in this providence is a call to Trinity Church to take more seriously its biblical responsibility to minister one to another according to the Scriptures and to be more aggressive in our own evangelistic endeavors. The latter part of that will await, God willing, a subsequent series of studies,

The Purpose of Elders: Equipping Saints for Service

6:23 whether in the Sunday school or preaching, has yet to be ascertained. That was an item that had to be tabled at the elders' retreat for lack of time. But when we came to this eighth call of God to the Church, we then focused upon Ephesians 4, verses 11 and 12. Wondering what God might be saying to us in the attrition in the number of our elders, we turned to the question, who gives elders to the Church, and why does He give them?

7:01 Or, in terms of this passage, to be more precise, who gives pastors and teachers to the Church, and for what purpose does He give them? And we saw together from Ephesians 4, verses 11 and 12, that it is the ascended Christ who gives pastors and teachers, and He gives them, according to verse 12, for the perfecting, or the equipping, or the outfitting of the saints unto service work. He gives pastors to perfect the saints that the saints might minister and serve. And so for a number of weeks we have been looking into the Scriptures, and you have been bringing from the Scriptures those ministries which the people of God, when made healthy by a Bible book, a Bible-based, Spirit-anointed, ministry of the Word of God, both publicly and privately by pastors and teachers, what are those ministries which we ought increasingly to perform one to another? Those ministries for which we ought increasingly to be equipped and made competent. The point being, if we are asking God to strengthen the eldership, we are not asking Him to do it

8:29 simply to make the load of the elders lighter, or not even only to make their workload lighter, certainly not to do more work that we might otherwise have to do. If we are asking God to grant us more elders, what we are saying is, Lord, we are prepared to do more service. For God gives pastors and teachers to equip the saints unto service work. And therefore, the more pastors and teachers He gives, the more He intends that His saints be equipped for service work.

Recap of Previous Service Works and Introduction to Hospitality

9:06 And then, going to the Scriptures, you have come forth with some five specific service works that we are to perform one to another. The four imperatives of 1 Thessalonians 5, 14, secondly, focused appropriate verbal exhortation and encouragement, Hebrews 3, 13, thirdly, spontaneous material and diaconal help, Romans 12, 13, Hebrews 6, 10, the practical instructional input one to another, Hebrews 5, 12, Titus 2, 4 and 5, and then, two weeks ago, we considered the gracious principled reproving, forgiving, and restoring of one another in cases of evident offense. Matthew 18, 15 and following, Luke 17, 3, Ephesians 4, 31 and 32, Galatians 6, 1, and then four texts in Proverbs which fine-tune the manner in which we graciously and principally reprove and seek to restore one another. Now, in the remaining forty minutes, I want to cover two more of those service works which God lays upon His people in general,

10:36 for which the ministry of pastors and teachers ought increasingly to equip the saints of God. Number six, aggressive, reasonable, and even structured commitment to hospitality one to another and to visitors. I've chosen each of my words carefully and purposefully. Aggressive, reasonable, and even structured commitment to hospitality one to another, and to visitors. Now, the two words, and they're in the same family, that are found in the New Testament in four passages and are translated in most cases, hospitality, are philoxenia and philoxenos. And those words are compound words and literally mean phileo, love, and then to strangers. Now, that this should be

Aggressive Hospitality: Pursuing Love for Strangers and Saints

12:00 an aggressive ministry within the body is very clearly taught in Romans chapter 12 and verse 13. In Romans chapter 12, we have a collection of various exhortations given to all of the saints, which are part of the fleshing out of what it means in response to the mercy of God to present ourselves a living sacrifice unto God with sober self-assessment of the measure and nature of our giftedness, Romans 12, 3 and following. Within that context, there are a number of body ministries, ministries that the body of Christ is to have to itself, within itself, by the various members of the body, and there is not the slightest suggestion that these are limited to the official office bearers. And among them, we read in verse 13, communicating to the necessities of the saints given to hospitality. Now, the word given to, there's our word, hospitality, but the word given

13:27 is really a weak translation. It's the Greek word dioko, translated in all the places where it's describing the act of persecuting. Paul was persecuting the church. It is the verb used in Hebrews 12, 14.

13:47 Follow after the holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. We are to pursue that holiness, track it down with serious, holy aggressiveness, for without it, no man shall see the Lord. This text says, we are to persecute hospitality, one to another. Now, it doesn't say persecute one another in the midst of your hospitality, but it says we are to pursue, we are to be aggressive in our commitment to show hospitality one to another. And this is why I began the statement with the word aggressive hospitality one to another. We don't just sit back and hope that it will happen, wait for it to happen to us, but we take upon ourselves the responsibility to exercise that grace among ourselves. In Hebrews 13 and verse 2, the emphasis falls there and the translation reflects it not only within the body itself, that is,

15:15 those whom we know and love as members of our own assembly, but in Hebrews 13, 2, it is translated, forget not to show love unto strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. And most of the commentators agree that this is a reference to Genesis 18 when Abraham entertained these men whom he subsequently found out were indeed angels of God. And in 1 Peter 4 and verse 9, using hospitality, here's our word again, one to another. Now notice the realism of Peter without murmuring. Now why would he ever add the words without murmuring? Because Peter knew that hospitality makes demands upon unmortified selfhood.

16:20 It means the disruption of our ordinary schedule, our ordinary pattern of preparing a meal or structuring our day or our evening. And Peter the realist knew that remaining sin in believers could cause them to say, well, it's my duty and I'll do it, but to do it murmuring, to do it grudgingly, to do it with the manifestations of something less than sanctified, holy aggressiveness. And so I urge upon you as the Lord's people to consider that if God has given you pastors and teachers to the end that you may be equipped unto service work, one of those service works is aggressive hospitality one to another. But then I use the word reasonable. And what would I mean by that? I mean by the word reasonable.

Reasonable and Structured Hospitality

17:21 I've chosen that word to underscore that there are no unnatural collisions in the will of God. For example, God calls upon a husband primarily to love his wife as Christ loves the church. And one of the practical expressions of that according to Ephesians 5 is this, Christ nourishes and cherishes his church. A man is to nourish and to cherish his wife.

17:56 Therefore, the brother who's so zealous to pursue, to persecute, track down hospitality that he is forever inviting a third of the church to his home and his wife never knows it until an hour ahead of time, he's being insensitive to his wife. He's not dwelling with his wife according to knowledge. Furthermore, if we anticipate hospitality that involves food, and I want to say something about that in a moment, then we must remember the reasonableness of God as found in 2 Corinthians 8, 12 through 15. You remember Paul is administering the collection for the poor saints in Judea. And in the midst of that, in the midst of giving the principles relative to that collection, he writes, verses 12 to 15 of 2 Corinthians 8, for if the readiness is there, that is, a disposition to do, it is acceptable according as a man has, not according as he hath not. For I say this, that others, for I say not this, that others may be eased, and you distressed, but by equality,

19:22 that your abundance, being a supply at this present time for their want, that their abundance, in the providence of God in a future state, their abundance may also become a supply for your want, that there may be equality. In other words, Paul is saying, dear saints of God, though I'm seeking to lay upon you manifold motives to be generous in this benevolent gift for your poor brethren in Judea, remember, God sees your heart and he knows what he's put in your hand. And he's a reasonable God. He doesn't squeeze blood out of turnips. He doesn't lay on the back of a seven-year-old boy a hundred-pound bag of cement. And say, carry it ten blocks. He is our Father who knows us, who knows what he has providentially put in our hands.

20:27 And therefore, within the body of Christ, within this body, if the word of God is equipping us with increasing measures of the mortification of self-centeredness and selfishness that would murmur at this beautiful expression of Christian love in terms of hospitality, it must not only be aggressive but reasonable. But then I said, and even structured. And why did I use those words? For the simple reason that for many of us, generic, that is, general biblical duties never get implemented unless we actually make specific commitments to do them and put them on the calendar. There's not a Christian here who would not confess and acknowledge freely that it is both his privilege and his duty to read his Bible daily and to pray. It might be embarrassing if I were to ask how many of you read your Bible and prayed every day this past week, at least a few minutes. And the fundamental difference between those who could say with good conscience, I did, and those who didn't is the way is the word structure.

21:53 Commitment that shows up on the calendar, whether written or unwritten, that shows up in the 24 hours of the day. People say, well, I couldn't find time. My friend, you're never going to find a block of time floating around you with the word stamped on it, please use me to pray, please use me to read your Bible, please use me to show hospitality. No such time is floating around out there waiting for you to find it.

22:24 Convinced of your duty, you must allocate time. And I know there are some within our own assembly that they have just said, as an ordinary rule, on the second Lord's day of the month, we're going to make specific efforts to have at least one or two of the families of the people of God that we don't know into our home for hospitality. And they've made a structured commitment. And dear people, if we are growing in grace, even as children grow, isn't that one of the marks of maturity?

22:58 That what mom and dad had to constantly either help the child to do and remind him to do, he now does on his own, all the way from going to the bathroom at the proper place, at the proper times, to tying his shoes, to picking up his room. It's one of the marks of maturation. And if our ministry as pastors and teachers is owned of the Spirit of God and you are being equipped unto service, this will be one of the marks. There will not have to be constant reminders, but knowing your duty from the Word of God and your privilege, there will be a commitment to aggressive, reasonable, and even structured hospitality to one another and to visitors. I would urge those of you who are able to do so in concluding this heading to listen to the two tapes that I did in a Sunday school or preachment, I don't remember what, many years ago on the subject of Christian hospitality. The code number is TER, Thomas Edward Robert, TER 1 and 2. And if they're not in the library, a couple of sets will be duly placed in the library.

24:19 Kevin, if you take note, of that, please. Our dear brother who operates the library. And in those tapes, I'll only mention this much. I sought to emphasize that the biblical doctrine of hospitality places the emphasis upon the open door and the open heart, not so much upon the full table and the overstuffed belly.

24:45 And we've allowed ourselves to think that hospitality means a lot of money and time spent on food. No, that is not the emphasis. If the food is necessary to validate that your heart is open, because a hungry, starving person isn't so much concerned that you'll love him until you put enough food in his tummy to where he can concentrate on the fact that when you say you love him, he's not distracted by his hunger pangs. But in our present society, in our present state of affairs, brethren, we all get our three squares plus a lot more than many of us should have.

25:28 So hospitality, then, is more the emphasis upon the open heart, the open door, and the open mouth to have a more intimate framework to know one another in order to fulfill these many other works of service one to another, to encourage one another, to exhort one another, to instruct one another. In one another's homes, one of the children does a certain thing and you handle it a certain way, and the younger couple says, you know, I never would have thought of that. How did you come on handling the situation that way? And here an older mother or father is instructing a younger parent in that natural intimacy of Christian hospitality. So may I urge some of you prayerfully to consider committing yourself to one Lord's Day per month in which you're going to have at least one family into your home, maybe for the noonday meal, maybe after the evening service, and a family that you don't know well. And when you approach them, you say, I know we're members of the same church family, but I hardly know you by name. I want to get to know you better.

26:43 I hope you want to get to know us better. Will you? And then put it down, sit down, settle it, and in this way minister one to another. There are some within our assembly, and this is not paraded, and I'm glad it isn't because the scripture says we are not to do our alms before men who so arrange their Sunday meals that at any given time if they meet a visitor, they can always find another place at the table without even having to thin down the soup.

27:14 But even if you had to thin down the soup, I don't know anyone that would be offended by thinned out soup if behind it was a heart thick with Christian love and outgoing concern. All right, then we come to the seventh of these works of service that we are to perform one to another. And if indeed you are rightly receiving the ministry of your pastors and teachers, you ought increasingly to be equipped for this work of service. And I keep emphasizing it because I don't want you to look at these things as isolated.

Maintaining Openness, Honesty, and Vulnerable Transparency

27:54 In a very real sense, the measure and the quality of your performance of these works of service is the litmus test of the spiritual effectiveness of our ministry. For God has given us as pastors and teachers to perfect you, the saints, unto service work. And here is the seventh category. Maintaining openness, honesty, and vulnerable transparency one toward another or towards each other.

28:38 That's a little smoother English. Maintaining openness, honesty, and vulnerable transparency towards each other. As we are grounded more and more in the truth, as we interact with those over us in the Lord, we should learn this vital lesson that we are in a fellowship of imperfectly sanctified saints and that we can afford the luxury of being honest without any fear. Now, some of the texts that we must take, I believe, more seriously, and who can forget how powerfully we felt the impact of this first text when Pastor Dom was with us several months ago. Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 25.

29:50 After that very condensed, powerful exhortation in verses 17 to 23, in which the Apostle exhorts the Ephesian Christians no longer to walk as the Gentiles walk, whose walk is fundamentally rooted in the spiritual darkness of the heart and of the understanding. And he says that I urge you no longer to walk that way because having been brought into the school of Christ by the effectual call of Christ, you did not so learn Christ but rather you so learned Christ as to put off the old man and to put on the new who is constantly being renewed unto the very image of God in Christ. But now you see he doesn't leave them to work out what that means in its particulars and say now follow the guidance of the Spirit. But he gets down to the nitty-gritty and to the particulars wherefore in the light of this exhortation don't walk like the Gentiles walk. They have a walk framed by a darkened and perverse heart and by a darkened mind.

31:12 But having learned Christ in such a way that you've put off the old man and put on the new that is being renewed unto the image of God in the light of that, putting away falsehood, speak. Remember how Pastor Dom emphasized speak each one with his neighbor. Well, speak truth, yes, but speak. You see, you can be guilty of falsehood by your silence.

31:45 Silence can be a form of blatant violation of the ninth commandment. If someone is insulting my wife in my hearing and I'm silent, I'm blatantly violating my covenant obligations to love her, to honor her. If I'm silent while her name and virtue are defamed, my silence is betrayal of my marital vows. If I'm in the presence of brothers and sisters in Christ and for fear of being hurt, the vulnerability of transparency, for fear that what I say may be misunderstood, I am mute, I am silent, I am not obeying the word of God. Putting away falsehood, each one with his neighbor. Speak the truth, yes, for we are members one of another. And our speaking is to the body of Christ what the nerve system is to the physical organism of the human body.

33:04 The messages are sent through the body by means of nerve impulses, I put my finger, I'll use the glass of water from which I'm not drinking, otherwise some will say gross, I put my finger in the water and the nerves say the water is colder than the air and the signal is sent along the nerve system up to the brain and registers. What would it be to have no interconnectedness between this physical organism called the body, that when the mind says, frames such a word and the signal goes out that operates the tongue and the lips and the teeth and the larynx and the diaphragm, which by the way are all involved in speaking as we ought to speak. God gave you lips and tongue and teeth and diaphragm and larynx to speak, not just a little something here to mumble. He misused God's way of making you if you don't use all he gave you to speak as you ought. That's just a little aside.

Vulnerable Transparency Through Confession and Empathy

34:12 But speak the truth. Why? Because by speaking the spiritual nerve system keeps en rapport with the entire body, keeps in touch with itself. And therefore I say if the ministry of the word is a biblical ministry and if it is equipping us more and more for service work, then part of that service work is the maintenance of openness by verbal communication marked by honesty and vulnerable transparency one toward another. So vulnerable and transparent that James is bold enough to write James chapter 5 and verse 16. Book of James chapter 5 and verse 16. After a directive that had to do primarily with a man so sick that he apparently is prostrate upon his bed.

35:30 He cannot be among the saints and he is to call for the elders of the church and whatever this may mean notice they pray over him and the prayer that is of faith is such that the Lord shall raise him up. Here is a distinctive explicit directive that involves what we would say is an unusually sick man and his spiritual overseers but now there is no indication that at verse 16 this is limited to that context. Confess therefore your sins. The authorized version probably in a reaction against the Romish doctrine of auricular confession. The horrible Romish doctrine. That we must confess our sins into the ear of a human priest through a dark veil in the confessional. And at that time that was such a critical issue the translators of the authorized version certainly know that the word hamartia is the standard word for sin.

36:40 Not fault. And the proper rendering is as the 1901 renders it confess your sins one to another now notice what follows and pray one for another. What's the assumption? If I confess my sins to you you will not make a lead pipe out of that confession with which to beat me on the head.

37:08 Nor will you construct a megaphone through which to trumpet my sins to the entire Christian community every time you get on the telephone or in the coffee class. The assumption is it is one who himself struggles to be more like Christ and longs to be more like Christ. I'm in fellowship with another fellow struggler and as I pray lead me oh Lord not into temptation and deliver me from evil. So I will now include my brother or sister who has in vulnerable transparency confessed his or her sin to me and solicited my prayers and I will pray for them and with them particularly if it is a sin in the same area of weakness because I can empathize with them. Then he goes on to say the supplication after saying that ye may be healed pray one for another that ye may be healed the supplication of a righteous man avails much in its working. Elijah was a man of like passions with us and he prayed. Don't say Elijah's prayer effected such great things because he lived in a different category from us.

38:31 No, he says man of like passions with us yet he prayed and mighty things were accomplished by his prayers. Notice it doesn't say confess your sins only in the intimacy of a counseling session to your elders. Now again someone says oh but can't this be abused? Of course it can be.

38:55 There's no privilege or duty that the flesh will not abuse. A lot of people abuse food today and will be gluttonous but I wouldn't be preaching if I didn't have a moderate adequate breakfast. I properly used my food. I ate to the glory of God this morning.

39:14 I ate what and as much as was necessary to fuel me to glorify God in my calling today. Ah but all over America people are gluttons this morning. That's right but I ain't fasting. No I'm not.

39:33 People will abuse this. Let them abuse it. Let this assembly be a monument of the proper ministry of auricular confession in the proper setting with the proper relationships. Many qualifying principles I don't have time to go into them but dear people not children do you have to be given a twenty point qualifying manual on every biblical duty?

40:03 James didn't do it. And frankly I'm weary of so many how-to books that assume people don't have the Holy Ghost and a growing acquaintance with the Bible to have spiritual discernment to know how to take a biblical directive and to find the golden mean in its outworth without having the experts to give you fifty qualifying principles on the one hand and twenty-five on the other. Pasting on to another text that points in this direction of maintaining openness honesty and vulnerable transparency one to another Romans chapter 12 Romans chapter 12 verses 15 and 16a Romans chapter 12 in that same context that I've already underscored and I'll not repeat the context where we have the collection of various directives notice verse 15 Rejoice with them that rejoice weep with them that weep be of the same mind one toward another Now do you see what's involved in just a simple directive like this? Here God has I'll use the illustration

41:30 in my own immediate family in recent days God has blessed my daughter son-in-law Gord and Heidi not only with a little one after almost eight years of marriage they'll be married eight years this May God's blessed them little Landon but God willing they'll be entering their own home or a home that they will be in the process of purchasing the titles of which will be held by some bank out there in Michigan sometime in the end of March early April and they are rejoicing at the goodness of God in the gift of a son a child in giving them a home of their own something they never expected to have that Gordon never expected to have going into the ministry in a relatively small church with a parsonage arrangement something for which he never asked engineered hinted suggested etc but as an expression of their appreciation of Gord's ministry and a number of other factors and other factors that entered in God has given them exceeding abundantly above all they could have asked or thought for they had set their sights on a home that would have this this and this that would be on the very very far reaches of the marginal allowable adequacy and God's given something that's far beyond the middle in the direction of far more than adequate and they are rejoicing and they are rejoicing and they are rejoicing

42:58 and they are rejoicing and they are rejoicing and they are rejoicing and they are rejoicing and they are rejoicing now suppose you're a couple and you've been covetous to have a home and resentful might un- God give me a home and Heidi and Gord know that will they feel free to share their joy about their home in your presence hmm will they if you've known as some of you do and I look into your faces the pain of years of barrenness and in the midst of that pain you've not yet come to the resignation of saying God's will is true and through your tears continually acquiesce in the rightness and the goodness of the will of God and you've become cynical sour and bitter God owes us a child why doesn't he give us a child if that's known will Heidi and Gord feel free to try to share with you the joy that God has turned their long night of weeping over their barrenness into a morning of joy would they come on be honest would they no you see the assumption is that within the body of Christ people are increasingly mortifying that horrible

44:25 selfhood that will enable them to be of the same mind one toward another that enables us to rejoice with those who rejoice as well as to weep with those who weep I could go on giving many other examples but let me just take one or two from the weeping of those that weep you see the assumption there is that you are delivered enough from self preoccupation that someone has enough time to convey to you into an uncluttered heart the thing that's breaking their heart and if you're a person who in every one to one relationship is so full of your sorrows or your struggles or your disappointments immediately become the focus of discussion of conversation God's people will say no way that I can ever get that man or that woman to weep with me I can't get them to shut up long enough to even be interested in what's happening to me they look upon every brother or sister as a set of ears into which to pour what's going on with them they never look upon themselves as a big set of ears

45:54 and antenna to hear not gossip but the real struggles and the burdens going on in their presence now do you see why it says he gives pastors and teachers to perfect the saints unto service work and what is that perfecting but an increased measure of death to self preoccupation that's why some of us hate with holy hatred this new religion of self actualization and self fulfillment and self realization and self esteem because with it you look upon the whole creation as one massive set of hands to stroke you rather than looking upon the whole creation as that which in God's name and for Christ's sake we have to weep with the one that weeps weep with the one that weeps and weep with the same mind one towards another and I jokingly said at the retreat when we were talking about something that had to do oblique with this

47:23 I can't remember the connection but I said With the measure of deference to one another which scripture commands, every Lord's Day, we'd come and find a log jam all across the patio by the front doors.

47:42 Because we'd all be seeking to prefer one another. You'd be going to hold the door for your brother or sister and say, no, no, no, let me hold the door for you. Oh, no, no, no, let me hold the door for you. And someone would have to come and break the impasse and say all the A's through D's you go through first.

47:57 And all the E's through S's you go first. You see what I'm saying? If that's really the spirit that is in us, I exist to take your burden on my...

48:07 My tear ducts exist to be opened up to bingle my tears with the things that's breaking your heart. My ability to exalt and rejoice exists standing in the wings waiting to come in and be the second part of your duet of rejoicing and praise.

48:33 Brethren, that's what it is to be of the same mind one to another.

The Cost and Necessity of Vulnerable Transparency

48:39 And if this ministry is not equipping us for this service, there's something either radically wrong with this ministry or radically wrong with what you're doing with it. And in recent days, a number of you have commented to me personally and in notes and in telephone calls that there's been an intensification of this emphasis from this pulpit. And you have rightly discerned it. Because that which will spell death to this assembly...

49:05 This assembly! This is the idea. If you sit here and are a polite hearer and a financial supporter, you've done your duty. Now, you're sowing the seeds of death.

49:19 Unless you become a member of the body equipped by this ministry for service work, even the service work of maintaining openness, honesty, and vulnerable transparency. Why do I use the word vulnerable transparency? I want you to look. In one other key text, and then one final text in the last three minutes.

49:48 2 Corinthians chapter 6. I had the joy of preaching three times to the brethren down in North Carolina last week, and then had an open-ended pastoral workshop session in the fourth. But I preached to them on the subject of ministerial transparency in one of the pivotal texts that I used with them. 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 11 through 13.

50:18 You remember what happened. Paul was the spiritual father of the Corinthian church. These super-apostles came along, undermined the people's confidence in Paul, questioned the validity of his apostleship, were even flirting with some false teaching, creating havoc in the church, seeking to turn the people away from Paul. And in this second letter, the scholars speak about a lost letter.

50:44 The harsh letter. And there are some allusions to that letter in 2 Corinthians.

50:51 But in 2 Corinthians, as we have it in our Bibles, and by the guidance of God's providence, part of the canon of Scripture, this matter of the vulnerability of true love stands out more vividly in my understanding than in any other portion of the Word of God, with perhaps the exception of the book of the prophecy of Jeremiah, and of course the life of our Lord himself. But Paul, knowing what these people had done to turn away from him, to accuse him of all kinds of things, to even doubt his apostleship, when he says, your very existence as a church is the proof of my apostleship. But what does he do? Verse 11.

51:32 Our mouth is open unto you, O Corinthians. Our heart is enlarged. You are not straightened or compressed. You are not compressed in us, but you are compressed or straightened, hedged up in your own affections.

51:52 Now for a recompense in like kind, I speak as unto my children, be ye also enlarged. What have they done? They have stuck knife after knife into Paul's heart to hurt him. But he said, you haven't shriveled my heart.

52:10 My mouth is open.

52:15 And my mouth... My mouth is but the sacramental picture of the state of my heart.

52:23 Our heart is not maintaining its present state. It is enlarged. My love is increasing to you. And that that is not a forced interpretation is clearly brought out later on in this same epistle, when he says, so the more we love you, 2 Corinthians 12 in verse 15, and I will most gladly...

52:48 Spend and be spent for your souls. What souls? They're not like the Thessalonians and the Philippians who brought him much joy. This is a bunch that grieved him and wounded him and stuck him again and again and again.

53:03 But he said, I'll spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more abundantly, am I loved the less? But be it so.

53:15 I'm going to go on loving you with all the vulnerability of true love. And dear people, we live in an age where in the litigious climate, where once the doctor and the patient had a bond of goodwill, they now look at each other as threats to one another. It's tragic. It's tragic.

53:38 People enter marriage with prenuptial agreements to make sure that one is not ripped off by the other if the marriage comes to a demise in the divorce court. The whole litigious...

53:51 ...alignment of I'll sue you and you'll sue me.

53:55 I fear much of it is entered over into the church and kept us from the vulnerability of real transparency one to another. I've had people say to me, Pastor, you're too honest about yourself. You say things that people will take and turn against you. So be it.

54:13 And I could give you the chapters and verses in which our Lord did that and many in which the apostles did it. And I refuse to be bound by any man-made standard. In fact, I'll tell you enough about myself that if you become my enemy, you can become my slanderer. You'll answer to God for it.

54:34 But I'll answer to God if I refuse the vulnerability of transparency.

54:42 Dear people, this is a ministry we desperately need within our own ranks. And it is for that work of service for which God gives us pastors and teachers. Yes, we're warned in Proverbs about the indiscriminate and careless establishment of intimate friends, Proverbs 18, 24. I know that.

55:05 But the church is the family of God and the brotherhood.

55:10 If you start looking at your brothers and sisters like your enemies, you're in bad shape.

55:18 Jesus knew from the beginning he had an enemy. It didn't keep him from those intimate times with the twelve. So when the night came when Jesus wanted to betray him, John 18 says he knew exactly the place for all times Jesus resorted with his disciples. And he even let Judas go with him.

55:38 Dear people, there's no other way to love but to be vulnerable. And that means you're going to be hurt. But you see, that hurt becomes part of the fellowship of Christ's suffering.

55:51 And he becomes more precious. We become more holy. Is that the kind of church life you want? If not, I say it politely.

56:00 Either go and get alone with God until you do. Or if you just want to come and warm a pew and throw your dollar in, the places are legion.

56:12 If you want to go and get alone with God until you do, if you don't want to know and be known and be vulnerable and transparent, you're going to be uncomfortable here. Because by the grace of God, we in leadership are committed to be pastors and teachers whose ministry and example equips the saints unto service work.

Concluding Prayer and Exhortation

56:35 Well, our time is gone. Let us pray.

56:42 Father, we thank you for these lessons that we've been privileged to have together for the study in your word. And we pray that the Holy Spirit would not only persuade our understanding and our judgment, but that he would incline our wills. For you have said you work in us both to will and to work for your good pleasure. More and more use every pastoral ministry to equip the saints unto service work, unto the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the full glory of Christ.

57:21 The fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ. Seal them, these things, to our hearts. Give us grace and understanding and wisdom in the outworking of them. Keep us from rationalizing them away.

57:37 Keep us from a fanatical, imbalanced implementation of them. Give us moral discernment and wisdom that we may run in the way of your commandments. For Jesus' sake. Amen.