Old Path of Gospel Holiness, Part 2

Introduction and Recap

0:04 One of the real blessings of this type of conference is that you don't have the problem of a whole week of mental and spiritual leakage. When you're bringing a series of messages, Lord's Day by Lord's Day, you've got to assume that the six days between the Lord's Days, a lot has leaked out or failed to be absorbed, but I hope there's not been that kind of leakage in the last 40 minutes since we met together in the previous hour. Let me just kind of tie everything together and then launch into our study together.

0:44 We're considering, under the heading of walking in the old paths, those old biblical paths, as preached and taught by our Lord, the apostles, the reformers, and the true giants of the Christian faith, and believed by the rank and file of God's people throughout the world. And, of course, I've had to be selective on which of those paths, and so we've considered together the old path of a heart and life-transforming conversion to God, and began to consider in the previous hour. the old path of gospel holiness.

1:29 And I had time to open up the first two lines of consideration regarding this old path, the absolute necessity for gospel holiness, and I gave you four lines of biblical evidence that together tell us no holiness, no heaven. And then I took up with you the essential elements of gospel holiness, dealt with four of them rather thoroughly, and then skipped over quickly, just giving you the heads of the final two, six things that comprise the essential elements of gospel holiness.

The Provisions for Gospel Holiness: Introduction

2:08 Now we come in this hour to take up what I am calling the glorious or gracious provisions for gospel holiness. At the end of the message in the previous hour, I said, God was not lying. Like Pharaoh's taskmasters, he demanded that they make bricks. But he did not give them the straw with which to make them.

2:34 They had to go out and gather their own straw as well as make their own bricks. Well, the God who says, Be holy, for I am holy, the Savior who says you shall be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect, is the God and the Savior who, who has given us ample provisions that we may indeed be a people marked by gospel holiness. And I want to set before you four major provisions for gospel holiness given to us by our great and gracious, sovereign, triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Provision 1: The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

3:19 And the first provision He has given is what I'm calling the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is one of God's great and gracious provisions that we might be a people pursuing and making progress in gospel holiness. There are many things about God's redemptive grace that cause us to be a people marked by gospel holiness. It causes amazement, astonishment, and wonder.

3:54 And not the least of them is the fact that in the application of redemptive grace, one of the persons of the Godhead actually takes up special and real residence in our humanity. It's an amazing thing that the God who dwelt with His people in the wilderness, by the pillar of cloud by day and the fire by night, that that God actually has taken up residence in my body, in my personality, in my humanity. That's not a metaphor. It's not a figure of speech.

4:38 It's not a lofty ideal. And we see this clearly taught in several passages. Look with me first of all in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, where Paul says, Paul writing to the Corinthians dealing with the problem of Corinthian moral laxity is seeking to give them antidotes to sexual impurity. And one of them is this, verse 19 of 1 Corinthians 6, Or do you not know that your body is a temple or a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you?

5:19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple or a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you? Which you have from God, and you are not your own, you are bought with a price. An amazing statement. And Paul says, look, don't you Corinthians know this?

5:31 If you know it, you're not remembering it. When you go out and fornicate, you are implicating the very sanctuary of God in your fornication.

5:45 And that would be like a bucket of cold water on a fevered brow in a summer summer. It's a sultry day in southern Florida to be told the Spirit of God dwells in me, in my body, and I'm joining my body to a prostitute. What a horrific thought. Paul says, don't you know, don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?

The Spirit as Seal and Dweller

6:14 Or in Ephesians chapter 1, in that wonderful hymn of praise to the triune God, for all of the blessings that are ours in redemptive privilege, the praise focuses in the opening verses of Ephesians 1, 3 through 14, on the Father's place in our redemption. Then it moves to the place of the Son, distinctive ministry of the Son in our redemption. But then, in verse 13, In whom also, having heard the word of truth, the gospel of your Son, your salvation, in whom having also believed,

6:55 you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is in earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory. And he says of every true child of God, no matter how humble his background, no matter what his level of present growth and understanding may be, every true believer, one who has embraced the gospel of God's salvation, having believed upon the Lord Jesus, is sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. And it is the Spirit Himself taking up His residence in us

7:39 that is the seal of God's ownership of His own. And then one third text, Romans chapter 8 and verse 9. Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8 and verse 9.

7:52 But you are not in the flesh, that is, you are no longer living out your life in the realm of the dominance of the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, that is, does not have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him, he is none of his. It is of the very essence of being a true Christian that the Spirit of God Himself dwells in us. And He dwells in us not as a figurehead,

Spirit's Power for Mortification and Transformation

8:33 but of an active presence and power enabling us to kill our sin. Romans 8.13. If you by the Spirit do put to death the deeds of the body, you shall live.

8:48 You and I are to be conquered. You and I are to be put to death. You and I are to be put to death. You and I are to be put to death.

8:51 You and I are to be put to death. In our endeavor to mortify sin. If you put to death. John Owen in his marvelous treatise on mortification.

8:59 This is his framework text that he expounds thoroughly to set the boundaries of his treatment on mortification. And he emphasizes so strongly, if you put to death. We are active. We are not passive agents.

9:15 We do not just lean back, let go, and let God and pray God will do it. No. We put to death, but it is only by the agency, enablement, and power of the Holy Spirit. My action does not cancel out the necessity for His action.

9:34 And His action does not cancel out the necessity for my action. If you by the Spirit put to death. And it is the gift of the indwelling Spirit who enables us, effectively, to put sin to death. Or as we saw in the previous hour, it is by the ministry of the Spirit that we are progressively conformed to the likeness of Christ.

10:04 2 Corinthians 3.18 We all with open face, beholding as in a mirror of the glory of the Lord, are being continually transformed into that image from one stage of glory to another, even by the Lord. The Lord, the Spirit. It is a wonderful thing to know and to believe that the Spirit of God is actually changing.

Personal Illustration of Spiritual Refinement

10:28 I do not know how else to describe it, but the texture of our inner life. So that change is actually going on within us. As an older Christian, there are times this absolutely amazes me and fills me with wonder and with thanksgiving. When I was a younger man, when I would do something stupid, I mean stupid, stupid, you know, like you're putting something up on the wall and you don't want to go get the stepladder, so you take a swivel chair and think you can get away with it and you stand on it and you spin and you end up on your butt.

11:02 And I would go down on myself, you stupid man, what in the world? I wouldn't curse, but I'd come as close to it as you could without doing it. And I'd be all agitated inside and stupid to doing this. I don't think it's just because I'm getting old.

11:18 The Spirit of God's doing something. I do stupid things now and I'm able to just laugh at myself. And if it was stupid to the point where I could have done harm, I ask the Lord to forgive me for breaking the sixth commandment, not being careful to preserve my life. I did something recently where I made a vow, Lord, I'll never do that again because I could have really.

11:40 You want me to tell you what it is? I'll tell you what it is.

11:46 They had a tire replacement and the tire wasn't worth throwing away. It still had enough tread that if the spare went on, it was ready. The rest would be good to keep it. So I wanted to store it up in like an attic place through a little opening in our garage.

12:00 And I have a step ladder, aluminum step ladder, and I opened it up and I found it. Boy, I was going to have to get up pretty close to the top to get this tire up and put it in place. Well, in so doing, when I pushed with my shoulders to get the tire in, the ladder went from underneath me. And here I am hanging eight feet above the concrete floor in the ladder.

12:24 It's tipped to one side. And I said, oh, Lord, that was stupid, stupid. Forgive me. Forgive me, Lord.

12:30 I tempted you. Shouldn't have done it. Now, Lord, please help me out.

12:36 Well, the Lord did. I was able with my foot to get the ladder back under my feet and come down. But I had serious dealings with God that were profitable. I wasn't going around flagellating this.

12:47 God's done something to refine my spirit. That's what I'm talking about. The work of the Holy Spirit actually. Owen used the term exerts a physical energy upon the soul.

Spirit's Cultivation of Graces and Enabling of Will

13:00 He was fishing for terms like I am. God is doing something in us to make us more like our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the gift and operation of the Spirit, enabling us to kill sin, conforming us to the likeness of Christ. He's the one who cultivates Christ-like graces.

13:20 When you read 1 Corinthians 13, the description of what? Love does and does not do. Substitute the word Christ. Christ suffers long.

13:33 Christ is patient. Christ is not easily provoked. You say, this is a description.

13:42 And the Holy Spirit is in me to do what? The fruit of the Spirit is love. It's the Holy Spirit who produces in me joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness. He is there.

13:56 Not dormant. Not dormant, but as a living principle of spiritual light and life. Enabling us to kill sin, cultivating Christ-like graces, actually conforming us to the image of Christ, and then giving us, and this is the amazing part, an influence upon our wills to do what we should do, and then the power actually to do it. Because isn't that what we lack?

14:25 Here's something I know. I know I should do. If I'm going to do it, I need two things. The will to do it, and the power to accomplish it.

14:35 Well, where's that come from? Well, let's look at Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2, verse 12. So then, my beloved, even as you've always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now, much more, make it evident that your religion is not Paul's religion, but your religion is not Paul's religion.

15:00 I'm gone. I'm no longer around to influence you, so much more in my absence now. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. In other words, you're not to go around like a scared person wondering God's going to zap you, but with utmost seriousness, that being a Christian is a serious business.

15:22 Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. And what is to motivate me? The confidence of verse 13. For it is God who is working in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

15:41 God, by the Spirit, is actively working in me, giving me a will to choose what I should do, and then the actual power to do it. So that when I have seen my duty, set my face to perform it, looked up, looked up, looked up in dependence upon God for the grace to perform it. When I'm done, I don't reach around and pat myself on the back and say, good old boy, you did it. I say, thank you, Lord.

16:13 Apart from the present, constant working of your grace, I would not choose to do what I should do. And if I chose, I wouldn't have the power unless you gave it. But here, God says, He is it. Working in us both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

The Reality of the Indwelling Spirit

16:38 This is God's gracious provision by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who works in us these graces that we might be men who grow in gospel holiness. And I ask you, dear brethren, has this truth grown? Gripped you?

17:01 That the God who called you out of darkness into marvelous light, who calls you to live a supernatural life, has endowed you with supernatural power in the person and ministry of the indwelling Holy Spirit. That's a marvelous reality. And we need as believers to lay hold of that reality so that, when we read the promises of Jesus, if any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink. As the Scripture says, he that believes on me out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.

17:45 This He spake of the Spirit. For the Spirit was not yet given. For Jesus was not yet glorified. But when you came to faith in Christ, He was glorified.

17:56 He has received the Spirit. He pours His Spirit into the heart of every true believer. And we are endowed with a gracious, divine enablement to pursue gospel holiness. That's why it's so important that when we read in the epistles such commands as these, be not drunk with wine, but be being filled with the Spirit.

18:22 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. We take that seriously because by grieving Him, by ethical conjuring, by verses not resolved, by repentance in faith, by unbelief, and we grieve Him, the Spirit does not withdraw as to His indwelling presence. For the Bible says we're sealed to the day of redemption. But He withdraws in the same dimension of His active working power.

Provision 2: Vital Union with Jesus Christ

18:49 Being filled with the Spirit is being controlled by the Spirit, enjoying the divine enablements of the Holy Spirit. That's the first line of gracious, godly provision for gospel holiness. Secondly, and only second in my sermon, not second in importance. You can't teach four points all at once.

19:12 You've got to have a one, two, three, four. But I'm not putting this in order of importance. We have the reality of a vital life union with Jesus Christ. We have the reality of a vital life union with Jesus.

19:31 Jesus Christ Himself. No truth is more foundational and more vital in seeking to be holy men and women than is the truth of our union with Christ. The little phrase, in Christ, in Him, in Whom, is used more than 150 times in the letters of Paul. It is the most central little prepositional phrase in the whole of the New Testament.

19:59 It is a definition in many, many form of what a Christian is. He is someone who is united to Christ. And we saw, I trust, in the previous hour when the reading of Romans 6, when Paul is going to address this matter of why every justified sinner becomes a holy man, his central doctrine is union with Christ. He says, don't you know as many of us as have been baptized are placed into Christ.

Implications of Union: Death and Resurrection

20:30 And that becomes crucial to his whole argument. You and I have been vitally united to Jesus Christ. And when we understand the implications of that union, it has tremendous effect upon this issue of gospel holiness. So we're able then to do what Paul says in Romans 6, 11.

20:53 Likewise, reckon yourself to have died unto sin and to be alive unto God through Jesus Christ. Well, how can I reckon that it be true that I died because I'm united to Christ? When He died, I died with Him and I died in Him. When He went into Joseph's tomb, I went in there with Him.

21:11 When He came out, I came out with Him. The very resurrection life of Christ is now my possession because I'm united to the resurrected Christ Himself. Colossians 3, 1-3, If then you were raised with Christ, seek the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set not your mind on things below, but things above.

21:37 You died and your life is hid with Christ in God. This is the language of union with Christ. And then one of my favorite portions of Scripture, I try to read it every morning before I preach. John 15, I am the vine, you are the branches.

21:57 Without me, you can do nothing. But if you abide in me and I abide in you, you're going to bring forth fruit. If my words abide in you, ask what you will, it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified that you bear much fruit.

Union as the Source of Power

22:15 It is the doctrine that we are united to Christ in a living, spiritual, organic relationship that is parallel to the relationship between the branch and the main stalk of the vine. They share a common, common life to the end that in the branch fruit may be born by the virtue of the life-giving flow of that which comes out of the vine. This is why when Paul is bragging about what he can do in Philippians 4, he said, I can do all things. Oh, wait a minute, Paul, that's a rather boastful, bragging statement, isn't it?

22:55 He said, no, I can do all things through him who strengthens me, literally strengthens me from within. What's he talking about? His union with Christ. The living Christ by the Spirit dwells in me.

23:11 And in that reality, I am to live my Christian life. I and Christ are one. Not one person so that I'm absorbed into him or he's absorbed into me in some kind of a mystical or New Age nonsense, but in the reality of gospel privilege. I and Christ are one.

23:35 He uses the analogy of marriage. Paul starts out by talking to husbands and wives and he ends up saying, nevertheless, I speak concerning Christ in the church. Well, are you talking about marriage or Christ in the church? Paul can't talk about one without talking about the other.

23:51 We are one with our Lord Jesus Christ and all the wisdom and the strength and the virtue and power that is in him, is now ours in Christ. In him you are made complete or fully in union with him. There is this bottomless, shoreless ocean of divine grace available to us. So Paul can say, I have been crucified with Christ.

24:23 Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. In Christ, the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. There's the faith of the objective Christ outside of me who died, who rose, who's at the right hand of the Father.

24:47 But he says, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. There's the faith focused upon the reality I am united to Christ. Christ is united to me. And again, brethren, this is to be an object of believing, humble trust.

Appropriating Union's Virtue

25:07 I cannot dissect and analyze all of the aspects of this blessed doctrine, but it's clearly revealed by metaphor, by analogy, by explicit statement. And this is God's provision. What is that vicious temper? What is that tendency to irritability?

25:29 What is that power? What is that passionate, unmortified lust? What is that impotence before a given duty? What are all these things in the face of a mighty, living, triumphant Christ who conquered death in the grave and went back to the right hand of the Father?

Provision 3: Exceeding Great and Precious Promises

25:49 I am united to him, and by faith I am to appropriate the virtue of that reality of the indwelling Christ. But then there's a third wonderful provision of grace for making progress in gospel holiness, and it's what I'm calling, using the language of Peter, the exceeding great and precious promises of the Word of God. And here I ask you to turn to 2 Peter 1, 2-4. 2 Peter 1, 2-4.

26:26 Grace to you in peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing, His divine power has granted unto us all things that pertain unto life, now notice, and godliness through the knowledge of Him that called us by His own glory and virtue, whereby He has granted unto us His precious and exceeding great promises. Why? That through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

27:12 He's given us exceeding great and precious promises that these may be a means by which more and more we partake of the divine nature. A difficult phrase to expound, but bringing the analogy of Scripture, we know that it doesn't mean we're becoming more and more into gods. It doesn't mean that at all. But it does mean that we are more and more becoming like the one who is the great pattern for all of God's people.

27:44 Exceeding great and precious promises. And what are the promises there for? Not to be admired, written out in calligraphy and put on a plaque on the wall, to be a nice little touch in our living room or our den. They are there like blank checks to be signed in your name and presented to the world.

28:04 Presented in the bank of heaven. You know Spurgeon's little devotional book, Checkbook of Faith? That's the whole analogy. God's given us in every promise a blank check, signed in blood by the Son of God.

28:19 For the Scripture says, how many soever be the promises of God, in Jesus Christ those promises are yes and amen to us. By the virtue of His own blood, He has made the promises overflowing. He has signed the check in His own blood. We must now take that and fill in our name to it.

Personal Testimony: Applying Promises to Temptation

28:43 It's made out to us. So when we read this, sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. There's a clear affirmation of my privileges in Christ. What do I do?

29:00 And here I would give a little testimony. In my period of widowhood, widow word, I was a widow word. There were times when I was assaulted with some usual temptation. It wasn't sexual, but an unusual temptation that assaulted me and as it were took me by the throat and almost if it could talk, it would have said, I'm going to get you old man and I'm going to pin you down and make you cry uncle.

29:30 Morning after morning, I would go up to my study and open my Bible. Just me and the Lord. Nobody else in the, in the large house in which I lived. I would open up Romans 6 and I'd read verses 1 to 14.

29:45 And I would come to verse 14 and say, God, this is what you said. Sin shall not exercise lordship over me. Lord, this particular sin that I'm being tempted to has got me by the throat and it seems like it's determined to pin me to the ground and negate the truth. But Lord, I believe what you've said.

30:04 I'm united to your son. I've died to sin's lordship. In this sense, sin is a big bluffer. He's got a lot of blow, but he's got no teeth behind it.

30:14 Lord, I reckon myself to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto you in Christ the Lord. Day after day, week after week, this went on for several months. And I still to this day don't know the peculiar dynamics. But as quickly as it came and as fiercely as it assaulted me, the back of it was broken and I could say, yes, Lord, you've proven it true.

30:40 Sin shall not have dominion over me. That sin bluffed and threatened and cajoled and tormented, but it did not exercise lordship. There's the promise. Take another one.

Applying Promises to Weakness and Trials

30:56 You feel I can't go on. This particular thing is such an impediment to me. Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's a physical affliction with Paul.

31:07 It was the so-called messenger of Satan, 2 Corinthians 12. Well, and Paul said, Lord, I can't fulfill my mission as an apostle. This impediment is going to keep me from doing your will. Take it away.

31:21 He had another season of intense prayer. Take it away. Another season of intense prayer. Take it away.

31:28 It is inconsistent with me doing the will of God. And God said, my son, no, no. No, you don't have all the facts. What would be inconsistent with you doing my will as if...

31:40 If you became puffed up and proud. So because of the abundant revelations I've given to you, which the devil could use to make you think you're somebody special, I'm going to allow this messenger of Satan, whatever it is that makes you feel so weak and so inadequate that you feel you can't do my will, I'm going to allow that to remain to keep you consciously, desperately dependent upon me because I can't do my will. I can't use a weak man who trusts me, but I can't use a proud man who thinks he doesn't need me.

32:19 And then God said, my grace is sufficient for thee. The promise. My dear brother, what is it that you say, no, if only God would remove that, then I'd bust out and I'd be useful for God and useful for his kingdom. Take hold of this promise.

32:38 My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect. Not removing weakness. But Jesus said to Paul, my strength is made perfect in the midst of weakness.

32:53 Most gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may drape itself like a tent around me. That's the force of the original. He said, I'd rather be intended in the power of God than naked in the weakness of Paul. So if God, if God wants to make me consciously weak, then I may be strong.

33:18 Then I believe his promise. Am I making sense, brethren? Trying to expound a text in a way that I hope is coming through to you. This is one of the exceeding great and precious promises.

Applying Promises of Renewed Strength

33:33 Take the promise of Isaiah.

33:36 Isaiah the prophet in chapter 40 says,

33:41 you're talking about, you think God's forgotten you? You're in a bad state. Have you not heard? Have you not known that the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, neither is faint nor weary?

33:56 Oh, yes. Young men, paragons of strength, they'll lose their strength and they'll fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles.

34:11 They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. That's a promise handed over to God. It's handed over to you in the face of a situation where you say, Lord, I can't run in that direction.

34:23 I can't walk in that direction. I can't mount up and fly. God says, yes, you can if you wait upon me. Lord, I'm waiting upon you.

34:35 Lord, strengthen my weak and feeble knees that I may walk. Lord, expand my lungs that I may run and not be weary. And Lord, give me grace. Grace to sprout wings and fly.

Promises as Gifts to Be Used

34:49 You do that with the promises. Or are they just nice little sayings hanging on the wall, lying dormant there in your Bibles? He's given exceeding great and precious promises that by these we may be strengthened and partake of the divine nature. Our Heavenly Father delights to give what?

35:16 Good gifts to those that ask Him. That's a promise. How much more shall your Heavenly Father, give good gifts to those that ask Him. Lord, I'm asking for the good gift of patience with this kid of mine that all of a sudden he's bucking me every time I turn around.

35:35 He's trying to find his manhood, and he feels the only way he can do it is by bucking his dad. Lord, I don't know what to do. Give me wisdom. Give me patience.

35:45 Give me moral courage if I needed to put this young buck in his place and tell him, I'm the head of this house, and as for me in this house, we'll serve the Lord. You can whine and pout and sulk. You're in that car at 9, 10 in the morning. We go to church.

36:04 It's non-debatable, non-discussable. Now, keep your mouth shut, son. This is the way this house is run. If you need grace to do that and need a shot of sanctified testosterone, ask God.

36:17 Come and stick it in your butt.

36:21 Not serious, man. This is what some of you need to do to take hold of a promise. You say, well, where does God say we can get holy testosterone? When he said, my grace is sufficient, my strength is made perfect in your wimpy weakness.

36:37 Lord, I'm not an aggressive, principled man that can stand his ground. But, Lord, you said you'll take the weak to confound the mighty. I offer up my weakness. Make me strong in yourself.

Provision 4: The Church of Christ and Its Ministries

36:52 May God help us, brethren. This is a wonderful provision, but don't leave it unused. Don't leave it unused. So, we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the reality of our union with Christ, the exceeding great and precious promises of the Word of God, and now this fourth major provision for our progress in gospel holiness.

37:18 It's the provision. It's the provision. It's the provision of the church of Christ and its manifold ministries to the people of God. It is the church of Christ and its manifold ministries to the people of God.

37:35 The Bible clearly teaches a very powerful, focused individualism. We're born into the world as individuals. We're born into God's kingdom as individuals. We'll die as individuals.

37:50 Individuals will go to the judgment as individuals, but the Bible teaches with equal clarity that sinners saved as individuals are not to remain as little lone ranger individual Christians. Incorporated into Christ, they are to be incorporated into the body and the church of Christ, and I shall never forget the time when, coming out of a background where I had no knowledge, where I had no doctrine of the church and the Salvation Army, I didn't get it in the two interdenominational schools I attended, I didn't get it in five years of bopping around

38:31 the country as an itinerant evangelist and Bible teacher, but when God thrust me into a church situation and I began to study my Bible, it suddenly hit me. All of those letters that I've been reading for ten years as a Christian, they're not letters written by the Apostle, apart from individual letters of an Apostle to men who were working in churches, Timothy and Titus, and the situation with Philemon. They were not letters written by the Apostle so individual Christians could have individual devotions in their individual Christian lives. They were written to churches.

39:09 Boom! I further say to myself, you dummy, that's so plain, why didn't you see it? But once I saw it, it changed my whole perspective. When God unites us to Christ, He unites us to His people.

The Church in Acts and Revelation

39:25 And in that relationship, God intends that we shall make progress in maturity, in growth, in grace, including gospel holiness. So when we turn to the book of Acts, what do we find? No sooner is the Spirit poured out in power on the day of Pentecost, and Peter preaches and the Spirit of God plows up three-thirds of the world. Three-thousand hearts.

39:50 What's the first thing that happens? There were added unto them in that day three-thousand souls. Added to Christ, yes, but added to the church of a hundred and twenty. And throughout the book of Acts, it's an account of the growth of the gospel, producing the multiplication of churches, and apostles visiting churches, establishing elders in those churches, strengthening the believers in the churches.

40:18 It's so powerful. Exhorting them until we come all the way clean through to the book of Revelation. And what do we find in the opening chapters? John has a vision of the ascended Christ.

40:29 Where is He? He's in the midst of the lampstands, the seven churches. And He's inspecting and counseling and exhorting and admonishing and threatening the churches. That's the perspective of the Scriptures.

The Church as the Context for Growth

40:45 As surely as it is Christ-centered Scripture. It is church-centered Scripture as well. And it's in that context that God intends for us, Ephesians 4, to grow up into Christ in all things. And it's through that which every joint supplies, the whole body fitly knit together.

41:09 This is the language of Ephesians chapter 4. And it is God's purpose that our commitment to a biblical church, to a biblical church, a church that takes the Bible seriously in the totality of its life, gives a place of predominance to the exposition and application of Scripture from the pulpit, the same Scriptures regulating family life and interpersonal relationships and the standard for office bearers. The Bible, as it were, puts out its tentacles and gives a blessed stranglehold upon the Bible. And it's a biblical church.

41:47 It puts out its tentacles and gives a blessed stranglehold upon every single facet of church life and the people of God within it. And that's blessed liberty. So if we are to make progress in gospel holiness, then we must take seriously our commitment to and our conscientious involvement in the life of a local church that seeks to be governed by the Word of God. To seek to make progress in gospel holiness while putting ourselves outside the very context

Pastors, Teachers, and One-Anothering in the Church

42:28 within which God has deposited the means to promote that holiness is self-defeating. Where has He placed His pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints? He gives them to the church. Ephesians 4, 11 and 12.

42:46 Where has He placed a group of people committed to the church? Where has He placed a group of people committed to the church? Where has He placed a group of people committed to the church? Where has He placed a group of people committed to the church?

42:50 Where has He placed a group of people committed to the church? Where has He placed a group of people committed to love one another with a love that will impel them to exhort one another, to admonish one another, to weep with one another, to rejoice with one another? Where? In the church!

43:03 And as we trace out the one-anothering text of scripture, there are no fewer than close to three dozen of them. They all assume the one-anothering by which we are nurtured in the pursuit of gospel holiness and usefulness. takes place in the church. No, we Americans are crassly independent.

43:26 One person, one vote. And this idea that I'm dependent upon others and I'm vitally integrated with others and have obligations to others, we don't like it. But God demands it. And if we're serious about growth in gospel holiness, we're going to be serious about our commitment to the life and ministry of a Bible-regulated gospel church.

The Church as Mother and Theater

43:58 I preached a few months ago a sermon along these lines and I quoted what is attributed to Calvin and several of my brethren who are very adept at tracking things down in their computers traced the saying way back to a couple of the early church fathers. But the way Calvin is reported to have said it is this, He who will not have the church for his mother cannot have God as his father. Well, I think if Calvin did say that, that's a bit imbalanced. I'm not saying he did.

44:33 The quotes from a couple of the church fathers could be construed that way, but I would have no reservation saying it this way. He who willfully refuses to have the church as his mother, the instrument to nurture him, to train him, to mature him, he who willfully refuses, that means he knows the church is a divine institution for his spiritual growth, his progress in gospel holiness, but for one reason or another he stubbornly, willfully refuses to commit himself to the life and ministry of a God-honoring gospel church, he who willfully refuses

45:18 to have the church as his mother, most likely does not have the church and does not have God as his father. And I would stand by that statement. The growth of the individual believer is to take place in the context of his relationship to other believers. Now, there may be some of you that have a common law relationship to a church.

45:46 You attend regularly, you fulfill the duties and responsibilities, but there's no commitment. It's like a common law marriage. A man and this woman, they live together five, ten, fifteen years, produce three kids. They say, what's a piece of paper?

46:02 Well, you see, in that common law relationship, either one, any given day, can get up and walk away with impunity. No moral obligation to remain in the relationship, no legal obligation to remain in the relationship. Don't carry on a common law relationship with Christ's church,

46:24 to that church, to its leadership, to its oversight, when people pick up, pick up the book of Hebrews, and they read, obey them that have the rule over you, as they that watch for your soul. The assumption is, there's nobody going to read the book of Hebrews who doesn't have somebody over him in the Lord in the context of the church. Likewise, when Paul writes to the Thessalonians, know them that are over you in the Lord and admonish you and esteem them highly in love for their work's sake. Oh, my brothers, be high churchmen.

46:59 That does not in any way detract from the glory of Christ because it's in the church, Paul says in Ephesians 3. Ephesians 3, God makes known through the church His manifold wisdom. The church is the theater in which God is showing the principalities and powers, good angels and demons and devils, His mysterious wisdom in the salvation of His people as He brings them from all kinds of backgrounds and subdues their rebel wills and opens their blinded eyes and shows them the glory of God in the face of Christ and they're bound together in a bond of spirit-wrought love.

47:42 And God is saying to demons and evil powers and angels, look at my amazing wisdom in my church. My church is my theater in which I show off myself. What a wonderful thing to be part of a biblical church. And to be an actor on the stage of the theater where God is showing to principalities and powers His manifold wisdom.

48:09 I'm quoting from Ephesians 3.

Conclusion and Call to Commitment

48:12 My brothers, are you excited about the church?

48:17 If not, then either you're not in a good church that ought to make you excited, or maybe you're so crassly independent you don't like the idea of giving up your independence to the extent to which you must if you're going to take on the burdens of others and the joys of others and accountability to others. But it's one of God's great provisions that we might indeed make progress in gospel holiness. So I leave with you, dear men, these four wonderful provisions of God's grace given to us freely, graciously, out of the goodness and mercy and grace of God that we might be men who,

49:02 by His grace, walk in that old path of gospel holiness. He's given us the Spirit. He's united us to His Son. He's handed over to us exceeding great and precious promises.

49:20 And He's instituted His church to be the theater within which He carries on His work of making us more and more like Jesus and taking us home to the great church of the firstborn enrolled in heaven. And then we shall be forever with the Lord. Let's pray together.

Prayer and Benediction

49:48 Our Father, how we do thank You that You have opened Your heart and Your hand to us in giving us such wonderful provisions that we might be holy men. We pray for any man sitting here today who is struggling, deeply with any of the issues that we've addressed. We pray that conviction will soon give way to a heart and mind yielded to the pressure of truth and then to experience the transforming power of that truth. We do thank You with unreserved gratitude and joy for Your presence with us

50:32 in these three sessions we have been privileged to have together. We thank You for this assembly, for its leaders, its elders, deacons, the dear women who have served so faithfully. We just give You praise that You have, as it were, spread a canopy of blessing over us in these few hours together. And now we pray for the men that must travel any distance at all.

50:59 Fulfill Your promise. You have said You would preserve our going out and our coming in from this time forth and forevermore. So we pray, preserve and protect Your servants as they make their way back to their homes. We pray for Your grace to rest upon us as we would prepare ourselves for Your day tomorrow.

51:26 Receive our thanks for all of the ways in which Your kindness and mercy have been displayed to us. We feel our words, our prayers are so inadequate, but Lord, what else can we do but say thank You. Thank You for Your goodness. Receive our praise.

51:45 Hear our prayers as we offer them. In Jesus' name, Amen.