Archive for October, 2009

Week 5: The NEW Bible Institute on Ephesians: Stop Living Like Unbelievers:(Ephesians 4:25-32) Part 2

Posted: October 31, 2009 in Ephesians Class, Sermons
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Week 5 Assignment: Read pages 181-191 in MacArthur and Eph 4:25-32 and comment.

In my last post we looked at where the old nature came from, the Fall of Adam, and, how the image of God is restored at conversion, which includes a new nature. Now we will consider the battle between the old and new natures and the defeat of the old so we no longer live like the unsaved. Not everyone believes there is a battle.

I love the story of Charles Spurgeon when he “was a speaker at a conference along with another man, who publicly proclaimed that Christians could reach a place of sinless perfection where they no longer struggled with sin or had any desire to sin because they were perfected in the love of God. The speaker went on to suggest modestly that he had realized this in his own life. Spurgeon said nothing, but the next morning, at breakfast time, he crept up behind the man and poured a jug of milk on his head. He quickly discovered that the man still had his sinful nature!” (Gary Inrig. Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay. Chicago: Moody Press, 1979, page 158).

After Conversion

Just as the totally depraved nature of the unsaved “old man” in 4:17-19 produces a sinful lifestyle, so the converted “new man” with a new nature or renewed spirit produces a righteous and holy lifestyle in 4:25-32.

The new nature, however, by itself is not enough to overcome the sin nature. Paul asked “who (not “what”) shall deliver me from the body of this death” (Romans 7:24). The answer is the Holy Spirit that Paul clearly describes in Romans 8:1-4. The Holy Spirit has two ministries that enable us to overcome the old nature.

1. The Holy Spirit regenerates and places the new nature in the believer. In Titus 3:5, the Holy Spirit not only regenerates the lost and places a new nature in the believer but continues to renew. We received our old nature at our first birth; we receive our new nature at our second birth.

2. This ministry of the Holy Spirit to renew the new nature is what Paul prayed for in Ephesians 3:16. Having the “inner man” or new nature is not enough. The Holy Spirit must “strengthen” and work through the new nature.

     a) When the Holy Spirit energizes the new nature, Paul in Ephesians 3:17 said, Christ can “dwell in your hearts by faith.” No longer is the old nature like an unwanted quest taking over the owner’s house against the owner’s wishes. Now Christ, our permanent resident, enjoys fellowship with us.

     b) When the Holy Spirit energizes the new nature, we are no longer slaves to the old nature (Romans 6:6-17). We become slaves to Christ when we take three important steps in these verses. The first step is to “know” that our obligation to obey our former master has been put to death (Romans 6:6). Next, we must not only know but believe this truth (Romans 6:11). And lastly, because the old sinful master wants to recapture us, haul us back to the plantation and dominate our lives, we must yield the members of our bodies to the Holy Spirit who will enable us to overcome the old sinful nature. In our own strength we cannot defeat our old slave master.

     c) When the Holy Spirit energizes the new nature, with the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-17), we defeat the old nature that is “warring against the believer’s mind” (Romans 7:23). We have the “helmet of salvation” for our minds, where the battle is won or lost, and “the Sword of the Spirit” for our temptations.

Paul in Ephesians 4:25-32 describes what the lifestyle of a Christian looks like in whom the Holy Spirit is strengthening the new nature. Paul chose five areas of the unregenerate’s life that the Holy Spirit energizes the new nature to overcome: Lying, Anger, Stealing, Corrupt Speech, and Bitterness. In these five areas, Christians do not live like the unsaved. In each area Paul follows a similar pattern: A negative command, a positive command, and a reason for the positive command.

1. Lying (4:25)

     a) Negative command: “Put away lying.” Habitual liars, unbelievers, will not go to heaven (Revelations 21:8).

     b) Positive command: “Speak truth.”

     c) Reason for the positive command: “For we are members one of another” in the Body of Christ. Paul has already challenged us to “speak the truth in love” for there to be unity in the Body of Christ. Because our “Head, Christ is truth” (Ephesians 4:15, 21), His body should and can be truthful when the Holy Spirit through our new nature conforms into His image.

2. Anger (4:26-27)

     a) Negative command: Don’t sin by being wrongfully angry. Because God can be angry at sin (Deut. 9:20) so can believers be righteously ticked. Believers, however, should not only be angry at sin in others, (Psalm 139:19-22), which is right but not enough. Even the Pharisees were hypocritically angry at sin in others (Matthew 23:24). Even the unsaved get angry at injustice in the world. Believers should get angry at sin in their lives (Psalm 139:23-24).

     b) Positive command: “Do not let the sun go down on your wrath.”

     c) Reason for the positive command. If anger, even righteous anger is prolonged, it may give the devil an opportunity to move us to take vengeance in our own hands (Romans 12:17-21).

3. Stealing (4:28)

     a) Negative command: “Steal no more.” “Grand larceny, petty theft, taking some of your dad’s money off the dresser, reneging on a debt, not paying fair wages, or pocketing what a clerk overpays in change are all stealing. There is simply no end to ways we can steal, and whatever the ways are and whatever the chance for being caught, stealing is sin and has no part in the new walk of the new man in Christ” (MacArthur. Ephesians, page 186).

     b) Positive command: “Labor” in God honoring work. There is dignity in hard work (Exodus 20:8-11).

     c) Reason for the positive command: “That he may have to give to him that needs.” Instead of selfishly stealing, work hard so you can share unselfishly with others. Paul had practiced at Ephesus what he was now preaching to the Ephesians (Acts 20:33-35).

4. Corrupt Speech (4:29-30)

    a) Negative command: “Let no corrupt or unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth.” “Corrupt” means rotten as in rotten fruit in Matthew 7:17-18. “Unwholesome language should be as repulsive to us as a rotten apple or a spoiled piece of meat. Off-color jokes, profanity, dirty stories, vulgarity, double entendre, and every other form of corrupt talk should never cross our lips” (MacArthur. Ephesians, page 187).

    b) Positive command: We may not be guilty of the rotten language just mentioned but as Christians are our daily conversations “edifying”? Are the people we talk to and about built up or torn down?

    c) Reason for the positive command: “That it may minister grace to the hearers and grieve not the Holy Spirit.” When we tell people the truth in love, even if it is a rebuke of their sin, grace or spiritual strength can be ministered to them if they accept our words. Jesus spoke “gracious words” in Luke 4:22 to his enemies who turned on Him; nevertheless He spoke graciously. Not only should our words as Christians strengthen others but not grieve the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not only deity but personality with feelings.

5. Bitterness (4:31-32)

    a) Negative command: “Let all bitterness…. be put away.” These sins from bad interpersonal relationships begin internally with bitterness and anger and if not confessed become outward outbursts. Like a boiling pot of water which spills out all over the kitchen doing all kinds of damage. There are some people if you accidently bump them you will get scalded.

    b) Positive command: “And be kind one to another tenderhearted, forgiving one another.” Just as God is unconditionally kind to us (Luke 6:35b), tenderhearted or compassionate and forgiving of us so should we be to others who have hurt and disappointed and even betrayed us. For all of these offences have we committed against God.

    c) Reason for the positive command: “Even as God in Christ has forgiven you.” God has forgiven us unconditionally; We should forgive without first exacting a pound of flesh. God has forgiven us eternally. Therefore, we should forgive and not hold grudges.  God has forgiven us completely. Thank God, He is not keeping records. “Love doesn’t keep records” in 1 Corinthians 13:5. If we keep bringing up someone’s fault against us then we have not forgiven. The unsaved get even. Believers forgive like our Savior who on the cross prayed for His enemies, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Is there someone for whom you need to pray this prayer and act like Christ rather than getting even like unbelievers?

We began this sermon in part one with the results of Stetzer’s research on how to reach the unchurched young adults from 20-29 years old. The young adults rightly demand authenticity which our text is all about. That spoke to my heart. Stetzer also addressed the SBC and further challenged us on how to reach our culture. I am including the Youtube here.

Week 5: The NEW Bible Institute on Ephesians: Stop Living Like Unbelievers:(Ephesians 4:17-24) Part 1

Posted: October 31, 2009 in Ephesians Class, Sermons
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Week 5 Assignment: Read pages 163-179  in MacArthur and Eph 4:17-24 and comment.

One of the greatest evidences of true Christianity is a changed life. One of the greatest proofs to a skeptical world is a changed life. One of the greatest hindrances to the world is the absence of a changed life. One opponent of Christianity said, “Scratch a Christian and you will find a pagan.” 

Michael Duduit, editor of Preaching Magizine interviewed missiologist Ed Stetzer about his new book Lost and Found. In this book Stetzer tells us how to reach the young unchurched. Stetzer said among the unchurched 20-29 year olds that he surveyed, 81% believed in God or a higher power and 57% believe that there is only one God, the God of the Bible. But this same group said the church was full of hypocrites and not helpful to their spiritual growth. Preaching and living the book of Ephesians,with its doctrine of the church, can be a remedy.

In Ephesians 4-6, Paul is showing us what the changed life looks like.

1. Ephesians 4:1-16 “Wherefore Walk” in Unity. Christianity is a lifestyle where God’s people humbly co-operate by using their spiritual gifts unselfishly for the good of others.

2. Ephesians 4:17-32 “Wherefore Walk” not as the Unsaved. Christianity is a lifestyle different from the unbelievers.

Paul first described what the unsaved lifestyle, “the old man,” with his old, sinful nature looks like in 4:17-19. It is totally depraved.

Next, Paul explained that the believer is now a “new man” with a new nature in 4:20-24.

Finally, Paul described what the new lifestyle of “the new man” with his new nature looks like in day to day living in 4:25-32.

There is a constant 24 hours a day battle between the old and new natures in a believer as Paul described in Galatians 5:17: “The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other.” Paul calls this struggle a war in Romans 7:23. Have you experienced this 24 seven conflict. The alarm goes off in the morning, and what does the flesh say? “Don’t move. This feels too good just to get up and read the Bible. Hit the sloth, I mean, snooze button.”

John MacArthur rejects the terminology of the old nature in a believer: “The new nature is not added to the old nature but replaces it….Sin is still resident in the flesh….Biblical terminology, then, does not say that a Christian has two different natures. He has but one nature, the new nature in Christ. The old self dies and the new self lives; they do not coexist. It is not a remaining old nature but the remaining garment of sinful flesh that causes Christians to sin (page 164)….It (sin) is still present in the flesh, the body, the unredeemed humanness that includes the whole human person’s thinking and behavior…Paul summarizes the dichotomy with these words: ‘So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind [synonymous here with the new self] am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh [synonymous here with unredeemed humanness contained in our sinful bodies] the law of sin (Rom. 7:25)” (Ephesians, page 179).

What some theologians call the “old nature” MacArthur calls “flesh,” “remaining garment of sinful flesh,” “the body, the unredeemed humanness that includes the whole human person’s thinking and behavior.”

Renald E. Showers wrote an entire book on this subject called The New Nature in which he defends the terminology of old and new natures in believers.

1. There is a board definition of “nature:” “A nature is a complex of attributes” such as human nature and divine nature. Jesus was one person with two natures: Divine and human (The New Nature, page 16).

2. There is a narrow definition of “nature:” “A nature is that inherent disposition of a person that affects his conduct and character (page 17.”)

The sinner has an old sinful nature or disposition (narrow definition) in his human nature (board definition).

The believer has an old and new nature or disposition (narrow definition) in his human nature (board definition).

Before The Fall

Before the Fall, Adam had only a human nature with a favorable to God but unconfirmed disposition. When Adam was tempted by Satan, Adam choose to rebel against God and lost his favorable disposition and was confirmed with an unfavorable, sinful disposition or nature of enmity against God. Therefore Adam no longer met daily with God (Genesis 3:8) (page 24).

After The Fall

Every person is born with a sinful nature in his human nature (Psalm 51:5).

1. That sin nature is called “sin” in Romans 6:2, 7, “carnal” (Romans 7:14), “flesh” (Romans 8:5-7; Galatians 5:17). Paul in Romans 7:14 said, “I am carnal, sold under sin.” Paul was not carnal or fleshly like the Corinthians in 3:2, but he had a fleshly nature 24 seven. “Certain types of criminals were executed by the Romans with special brutality. Sometimes if the man had committed a murder, he was bound hand to hand, face to face with the corpse of his victim and then thrown out into the heat of the Mediterranean sun. As the corpse decayed, it ate death into the living man and became to him, in the strictest literal sense, ‘a body of death’” (John Phillips. Exploring Romans, Chicago: Moody Press, 1969, page 119). What that dying corpse was to the murderer, the old nature was to Paul and every believer, a reality we can not rid our lives of in this life.

2. The sin nature in the sinner is like a slave master that rules his life (Romans 6:6), an unwanted guest who takes over the owner’s house against his wishes (Romans 7:17), and an armed soldier that wages war against the believer’s mind (Roman 7:23) (The New Nature, page 63).

3. Theologians call this sinful condition “total depravity.” Paul describes total depravity in Ephesians 4:17-19. Totally depravity means that the Fall of Adam totally affected every fiber of our being.

    a) Our minds were totally affected or depraved because of the Fall: “vanity of the mind,” “understanding darkened,” “ignorance that is in them” and “blindness of the heart” which includes the mind.

    b) Our emotions were totally depraved: “who being passed feeling.” The unregenerate person has no shame or sensitivity to God concerning their sin.

    c) Our wills were totally depraved: “Have given themselves over to lasciviousness” or sexual indecency “to work all uncleanness” which is sexual impurity according to Galatians 5:19, and “greediness” or covetousness or idolatry in Colossians 3:5. The same language is used in Romans 1:24, 26, and 28 when Paul says, God “gave them over.”

First, the sinner gives himself over to sin (Ephesians 4:17-19) in his total depravity.

Then, God gives him over to the consequences of his sin (Romans 1:24, 26, 28).

At Conversion

1. At conversion, “the old man” is “put off” in Ephesians 4:20-22. At salvation, the believing sinner ceased being “the old man” or the unregenerate man who was corrupting, deceiving, and lustful. The same word is used in Acts 7:58 to describe the members of the Sanhedrin who “laid down” their outer garments to more easily stone Stephen. MacArthur illustrates this word and action: “Many rescue missions have a delousing room, where derelicts who have not had a bath in months discard all their old clothes and are thoroughly bathed and disinfected. The unsalvageable old clothes are burned and new clothes are issued. The clean man is provided clean clothes” (Ephesians, page 179). Conversion is even more drastic than this experience.

2. At conversion, we gain a new nature in Ephesians 4:23. Not only is the believer no longer unregenerate, but has the resource to live for God by being continually renewed in the spirit of his mind or new nature (Romans 7:23). Whereas the putting off of “the old man” is final the renewing of the new nature in ongoing. The mind of the unregenerate is empty, darkened, ignorant and blind, but the mind of the believer is renewed by the process Paul lays out in Romans 12:1-2.

3. At conversion, “the new man” (the regenerate man) is “put on” in Ephesians 4:24. The believing sinner put off the unregenerate life, and he put on the regenerate life “which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” God created Adam after His image which was marred at the Fall but not completely destroyed (Genesis 9:6). What was lost in the Fall of Adam, however, has been regained by Christ at our salvation as a new creation of the likeness of God “in righteousness and true holiness” (Colossians 3:10). Paul put this blessed truth concisely in one verse in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation, old things (the unregenerate old man) are passed away and all things (the regenerated new man) are new.”

In my next post for Week 5, “Stop Living Like Unbelievers:(Ephesians 4:17-32) Part 2″ I will continue with the ministry of the Holy Spirit through our new nature to produce righteousness and true holiness in our lives as believers.

Week 4: The NEW Bible Institute on Ephesians: “Five Marks” of a Healthy Church (Ephesians 4:12-16)

Posted: October 27, 2009 in Ephesians Class, Sermons
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Week  4 Assignment: Pages 133-162 in MacArthur and Eph 4:7-16.

What would you list as marks of a healthy church?

1. A large congregation

2. Programs for every age group

3. Plentiful parking

4. Vibrant music

5. An increase in baptisms and membership

6. Giving (More than 20% of the people giving)

What are the Marks of a Healthy Church according to the church consultant of all church consultants, the apostle Paul, to whom primarily was given the revelation of the Church?

In chapters 4-6, Paul has clearly moved from doctrine to practice (orthodoxy to orthopraxy) with his “Five Walks” of the Believer.

1. “Therefore Walk” in Unity (4:1-16)

2. “Therefore Walk” not as the Unsaved (4:17-32)

3. “Therefore Walk” in Love (5:1-6)

4. “Therefore Walk’ in the Light (5:7-14)

5. “Therefore Walk” in Wisdom (5:15-6:9)

1. “Therefore Walk” in Unity (4:1-16). We are not surprised that Paul begins his practical section with unity when that is the theme of Ephesians. Paul gives two ways for a congregation to “walk” or move forward in unity.

A. We can walk in unity by humbly co-operating with one another (4:1-6). We discussed these verses last week (Orthodoxy verses Orthopraxy).

B. We can walk in unity by using our spiritual gifts selflessly for others (4:7-16)

1) In verses 7-11, Paul describes the giving of spiritual gifts by the Ascended Christ.

    a) At the end of verse 8, Paul says that the ascended Christ “gave gifts unto men” or His Body so His Body could function on earth. A list of those permanent service gifts that are operative for today are listed in Romans 12:3-8. I would suggest you study those gifts and identify which gift or gift mix God has given to you.

    b) In verses 11, Paul adds that Christ has also given gifted men to lead His church. The first two, apostles and prophets, were used by God to lay the foundation of the church (Ephesians 2:19-22) and once the revelation of the church and the canon of Scripture were complete these offices ceased. But the next two, evangelists and pastor/teacher, continue to this day because we need leaders to win people to Christ and leaders to equip them to serve the body of believers to which God has added them.

2) Next, in verses 12-16, Paul states the purpose for giving gifts and gifted leaders to the church.

The purpose of the gifted leader called pastor/teacher is to equip the members of the church to do the work of the ministry as laid out in 4:12.

1. “Perfecting” comes from a medical work by the first century surgeon, Apollonius Citiensis, who wrote a commentary on Hippocrates. “Perfecting” was the setting of a broken limb or bone (Harold W.Hoehner. Ephesians, page 549). The ministry of the pastor/teacher is to make the body healthy through faithfully preaching expository messages.

2. The immediate goal for the pastor/teacher is to motivate the saints to do “the work of the ministry” which according to Acts 20:24 is to the Lord. The pastor must get his members out of the bleachers onto the field involved with the team. Christianity is a contact sport.

3. The ultimate goal is not just busyness, however, but ministry that “edifies or builds of the body of Christ.” Paul will come back to this thought and very words at end of this unit in verse 16.

Pastors/teachers primarily equip the saints to do the work of the ministry through “prayer and the ministry of the Word” (Acts 6:1-7).

    a) Epaphras made healthy his congregation through prayer (Colossians 4:12): “Epaphras…always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect (same word “prefecting” in verse 12)” On a regular basis, the pastor prays Prison Epistle like prayers (1:15-23; 3:14-21 for the spiritual needs of his people.

     b) Timothy had the inspired Scriptures which were profitable to “perfect” or make healthy in 2 Timothy 3:14-4:3. Paul called inspired Scripture “sound or healthy doctrine” in 4:3. To be healthy, God’s people must eat right. They must lay off the Hardee’s Thick burgers and eat more fruit, fiber, and veggies. We pastors must help them develop a taste for healthy doctrine through consistent, expository preaching.

In 4:13-16, Paul provides Five Marks of a healthy church where the saints have been equipped to serve by building the body to which God sovereignly placed them.

First Mark: There is a Unity of Faith (4:13a).

“Faith” in this verse is the objective body of truth or the essential doctrines of God’s Word.

1. These are essential doctrines that each member must be in complete agreement with to be a member of that church. Hopefully these doctrines are reflected your church’s doctrinal statement that all members understand and sign before they join your church.

2. There are other important doctrines with required limited agreement, such as music style for church services.

3. And then there are areas of complete liberty, “such as the rightness of armed resistance or the question of who wrote the book of Hebrews” (Mark Dever. What is a Healthy Church? pages 71-72).

What are essential doctrines that calls for complete agreement on to be a member of a Baptist church? I would include in that list the Virgin Birth of Christ, Christ sinless life, His penal substitutionary death on the cross, Christ’s literal and physical resurrection, salvation by grace alone by faith alone and in Christ alone, the inerrancy of Scripture, and the return of Christ of His church.

4. Paul expects God’s people not just the preachers to be Biblically literate enough to identify error. Paul wrote Galatians about heresy in the churches of Galatia not just the pastors.

Second Mark: There is Intimate Fellowship with Christ (4:13b).

“The knowledge of the Son of God” is what Paul prayed that the Ephesians would experience in his first Prison prayer in 1:17, 18a.  An intimate relationship can only be enjoyed by spending time together with each other. Individually we spend time with Christ in His Word and prayer. Corporately we spend time with Christ by assembling together around His Word and prayer so that the pastor/teacher can fulfill his ministry feeding the flock of God healthy doctrine.

Third Mark: There is Spiritual Maturity or Christlikeness (4:13c).

The result of the first two marks is a growing Christlikeness: “a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Notice that Paul used the singular “man” not “men.” The entire church, not just individual members, is to be more humble and gentle and Christlike in its relationships. More and more the virtues of humility (4:2, 3) are evident in our lives.

Fourth Mark: There is a Recognition of False Doctrine (4:14).

Healthy believers are no more weak, undernourished children who are easily deceived but are “meat eating” adults.

1. The Corinthians were spiritual babes still on milk, who wanted “meat,” and were carnally divided over men (1 Corinthians 3:1-4). When someone asks me who is my favorite preacher is, I respond, “I don’t have one favorite preacher.” I have lots of preachers I like to hear and read. I don’t want to get caught up in any cultic following of any single preacher so that I start interpreting Scripture according to that preacher rather than a consistent historical/grammatical hermeneutic.

2. The Ephesians were not to be spiritual babes concerning doctrine. They should be “meat eaters” that is, not just knowing the shallow, milk version of doctrine but the meat or more in depth version. Paul spoke the milk version of the gospel to the Philippian jailor in Acts 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.”  There is nothing wrong with this version for the unsaved as demonstrated here by Paul. Paul wrote the meat version of the gospel to the Romans (1:15). The book of Romans is Paul’s most comprehensive, in depth explanation of the gospel in chapters 1:18-15:13.

3. If believers are not grounded in truth they will be easily deceived by “the sleight of men and cunning craftiness” of  TV personalities  and sending them their money.

Fifth Mark: There is a Speaking the Truth in Love (4:15-16).

It is not enough to be able to sign the doctrinal statement of your local church or detect false teachers a mile off and “earnestly contend for the faith” (Jude 3). We must “adorn the doctrine of our God” (Titus 2:10) by “speaking the truth in love.”

When we speak the truth in harshness, we do damage to the truth and those who need the truth. Humility expresses itself in “meekness” in its relationships (Ephesians 4:2). Pride is harsh and causes divisions (Proverbs 13:10).

A pastor friend told me of a couple in his church who had a son who was homosexual. The mom and dad were very concerned for their son and had talked to my pastor friend many times and had requested prayer for him. Finally, they were able to get their son to come to church and on that Sunday morning there was an evangelist speaking who went off on homosexuals calling them queers from the pulpit. He got a lot of “Amens” that morning but he also turned away that son. Did Paul condemn homosexuality? Yes, in the strongest biblical language (Romans 1:26-27). Did Paul win homosexuals to Christ? Yes, just read 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. You don’t win sinners by making cute mocking remarks. Put yourself for just a few minutes in the shoes of those parents for whose son they were heartbroken.

This word translated “speaking the truth” is used only one other time in the New Testament and it is used by Paul with the Galatians in 4:16. Pastor Paul is heartbroken, that even though he spoke the truth in love, false teachers had turned the Galatians away from him.

How do we present truth to those in sin? According to Galatians 6:1 “in the spirit of meekness.” Jesus was not harsh even  with Judas Iscariot (John 13:27), His betrayer.

These Five Marks are necessary so that the body of believers where we serve “may grow up” (Ephesians 4:15). Not just grow older but stronger and healthier. Have we as a church grown stronger this year over the past year? Are these Five Marks more prevalent this year over last year? When our boys were little, we would mark their height on the inside of the pantry door each year and they would get all excited over the years growth. Maybe should mark where we are as a church, and come back next year and see the growth in these five areas.

These Five Marks are necessary for the members to gain strength from “the head, even Christ” (4:15) so we can supply our contribution to the health of the body to which God has added us to serve and build.  Each “part” (4:16) or member of the local body must be actively using his/her gift to build up the body. In fifth century B.C., Hipprocrates in De natura hominis used this very word “parts” when he “observed that good health proceeds when the various parts of the body function proportionately to one another (Harold W. Hoehner. Ephesians, page 576).

When every member of the body is healthy, the body can “walk in unity” and move forward and meet the potential God intended for that local body to accomplish.

Conclusion:

Am I a healthy member or a sick member?

Am I helping the body move forward or am I dead weight?

Am I making my “part” of the body strong or because of sin in my life is my “part” is like a stroke to the body. Have I paralyzed my “part” of the body. Paul asks a very searching question in 1 Corinthians 12:19: “For the body is not one member, but many….If the body were all one member, where were the body?” If I were the whole body, how healthy would the body be? If the whole local church where I attend were one member and that member was me, how healthy would my church be?

If the whole body used its gifts as I use my God given gift how would the body function? Would we be walking and progressing in “Unity?”

Some Practical Tips for Series Preaching Through a Book

Posted: October 23, 2009 in Homiletics/Preaching
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First, it is important to start early in your planning. Six months in advance will can give you time to start reading through the book and even having your devotions from the book from which you will be eventually preaching. This is method of Jim Rose and I believe Ezra. Ezra 7:10 gives me Biblical justification for this approach. Like Ezra, we read the Book, mediate on the Book, apply the Book, fall on our knees in confession because of the Book, and are changed by the Book long before we preach the Book to others.

Also, this will give you time to order audio, video sermons, and listen to podcasts on the book and listen to some of the great preachers and teachers on your subject. Not only will you gain great content but hopefully some of their preaching skill will rub off. Augustine, who wrote the first book on homiletics, taught his students to listen to great preaching and read great sermons to become better preachers. One time in preparation to preach through Nehemiah, I order audio sermons by Warren Wiersbe, Adrian Rogers, and John Whitcomb on Nehemiah. I was chomping at the bits when it came time to start the series.

I like to balance exegetical commentaries with expostional. The combination of these commentaries helps the preacher to answer the four rhetorical questions that your listeners are asking while you preach:

Explanation: “What do these verses mean that the preacher just read?”

Argumention of the explanation: “How does he know that is the meaning?” (The Expositional and Exegetical commentaries help answer these questions).

Illustration: “What does that explanation look like?”(The sermonic commentary will help answer this question and the Application question).

Application: “What does all this have to do with my life?”

Before I delve into the heavy exegetical commentaries, I like Donald Sunukjian’s suggestion, that the preacher start with the expositional or synthesis commentary which “will quickly give you  the large units of thought and the lines of argument of the text” (Invitation to Biblical Preaching, page 25). For my series on Ephesians, I am using The Bible Knowledge Commentary for this purpose.

After I get the big picture from BCK, then for the explanation of the text I reach for the exegetical or critical commentary.  These are usually the hardbacks that give you “sticker shock.” On the series on Ephesians that I am curently preaching I am reading Harold W. Hoehner’s Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary. This scholarly work of over 900 pages in my opinion is the standard for Ephesians. Hoehner will give you about 20 pages of exegesis on each paragraph in Ephesians. This volume gives the preacher the explanation of the text. If you sentence diagram and block outline, Hoehner can help. I am using other exegetical commentaries as well.

There is a third kind of commentary that the preacher needs. In addition to the expositional or synthesis commentary and exegetical commentaries, the preacher needs the sermonic commentary. To balance Hoehner’s heavy exegetical work, I am reading John MacArthur’s sermonic commentary on Ephesians. MacArthur first preached this material to his congregation and therefore he provides application and occasional illustrations which, of course, Hoehner does not.

The order of the commentaries I have discussed is the order you should follow. Here is Sunukfjian wise advice: “Study thoroughly in the first two catergories before you read the third. If you start with sermonic commentaries, you will be tempted to prematurely conclude, ‘That’ll preach!’ without first determining whether the printed sermon accurately reflects the meaning of the biblcial author” (page 25).

When I am preaching through a book like Ephesians where a doctrine is prominent such as the Church is in Ephesians, I like to read, in addition to good commentaries, related books such as Driscoll’s book on the doctrine of the Church, Vintage Church, Mark Dever’s book on what marks a healthy church, What is a Healthy Church? and The Nine Marks of a Healthy Church and John S. Hammett’s book on ecclesiology, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches. Driscoll’s, Dever’s and Hammett’s books give relevancy to my preaching. Their books help me make current applications to the church in our generation and culture.

I just read chapter eight, “How is Love Expressed in a Church?” in Vintage Church. Driscoll builds this chapter on the Trinitarian community of God in which the three Persons of the Trinity have loved each other for eternity and since we are created in their image so should we love each other in His church. This is helpful because Paul mentions the Trinity eight times in Ephesians to bolsters his theme of Unity.

Vintage Church: Timeless Truths and Timely Methods is Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears next Re:Lit book. Their first Re:Lit was Vintage Jesus. Mark Driscoll is pastor/founder of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, president of Acts 29 Church Planting Network and the Resurgence Missional Theology Cooperative. Gerry Breshears is professor of theology at Western Seminary. Also part of the Re:Lit series is Death by Love coauthored Driscoll and Breshears.

I have read Mark Dever’s little book, What is a Healthy Church?  in which Dever gives nine marks of a healthy church. Nine Marks of a Healthy Church is a much more indepth treatment. The first three marks Dever categorizes as essential: Expostitional preaching, biblical theology, and biblical undestanding of the gospel. The balance of the marks are important but not essential: A biblical understanding of conversion, a biblical understanding of evangelism, a biblical understanding of membership, a biblical understanding of church discipline, biblical discipleship and growth, and biblical church leadership.

For the essential doctrines, Dever says, there must be complete agreement for a healthy church. On the important doctrines there does not have to be complete agreement. “Churches without these important marks can be places to pray, to be patient, and to set a good example by your own life.” When preaching on “the unity of the faith” in Ephesians 4:13, this insight will become invaluable to my congregation.

These are some practical tips for series preaching through a book of the Bible that has helped me. I welcome any input you have found benefical in your series preaching through a book.

Week 4: The NEW Bible Institute on Ephesians: Orthodoxy verses Orthopraxy: Eph 4:1-6

Posted: October 23, 2009 in Church Ministries, Ephesians Class, Sermons
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Week 4 Assignment: Read pages 115-131 in MacArthur and Eph 4:1-6 and comment.

Emerging Church Theologian, Scott McKnight states that “a notable emphasis of the emerging movement is orthopraxy.” McKnight wrote a very helpful primer on five basic themes in the Emerging Church in a Leadership article entitled “Five Streams of the Emerging Church.” The five themes that characterize the Emerging Church are:

1. Prophetic (or at least provocative)

2. Postmodern

3. Praxis-oriented

4. Post-evangelical

5. Political

Concerning number the third theme, Praxis-oriented, McKnight writes:

The emerging movement’s connection to postmodernity may grab attention and garner criticism, but what most characterizes emerging is the stream best called praxis—how the faith is lived out. At its core, the emerging movement is an attempt to fashion a new ecclesiology (doctrine of the church). Its distinctive emphases can be seen in its worship, its concern with orthopraxy, and its missional orientation.

Orthopraxy: A notable emphasis of the emerging movement is orthopraxy, that is, right living. The contention is that how a person lives is more important than what he or she believes. Many will immediately claim that we need both or that orthopraxy flows from orthodoxy. Most in the emerging movement agree we need both, but they contest the second claim: Experience does not prove that those who believe the right things live the right way. No matter how much sense the traditional connection makes, it does not necessarily work itself out in practice. Public scandals in the church—along with those not made public—prove this point time and again.

Here is an emerging, provocative way of saying it: “By their fruits [not their theology] you will know them.” As Jesus’ brother James said, “Faith without works is dead.” Rhetorical exaggerations aside, I know of no one in the emerging movement who believes that one’s relationship with God is established by how one lives. Nor do I know anyone who thinks that it doesn’t matter what one believes about Jesus Christ. But the focus is shifted. Gibbs and Bolger define emerging churches as those who practice “the way of Jesus” in the postmodern era.

Jesus declared that we will be judged according to how we treat the least of these (Matt. 25:31-46) and that the wise man is the one who practices the words of Jesus (Matt. 7:24-27). In addition, every judgment scene in the Bible is portrayed as a judgment based on works; no judgment scene looks like a theological articulation test.

There is no conflict between orthodoxy and orthopraxy with Paul. Neither is it a problem for orthopraxy to flow out of orthodoxy, which would chafe some in the Emerging church movement. In Ephesians 1-3, Paul lays a theological foundation for his practical exhortations in chapters 4-6 which he begins with a huge “Therefore.” We need both doctrine and application. Just look at the Pharisees in the New Testament who were theologians in empty suits. Contrast the Pharisees with Paul’s command to “adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things” (Titus 2:10).

In Ephesians 1-3, Paul teaches three core doctrines to the Christian faith: The Trinity, Salvation, and the Church. He ends this section with a doxology to God’s ability “to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.” After teaching these doctrines and leading us in worship with his doxology, Paul then gives his “Five Walks” of the Christian Life.  Our walk with God will stream out of doctrinal teaching that leads to meaningful worship of the God just studied. In each of the Five Walks he combines two words so we cannot miss these five principles of Christian living portrayed as walking. The two words are “therefore walk.”

1. “Therefore Walk” in Unity (4:1-16)

2. “Therefore Walk” not as the Unsaved (4:17-32)

3. “Therefore Walk” in Love (5:1-6)

4. “Therefore Walk’ in the Light (5:7-14)

5. “Therefore Walk” in Wisdom (5:15-6:9)

Before we can live like God, Ephesians 4-6, we must learn what God is like (Ephesians 1-3). There are 41 imperatives in Ephesians. While there is only one imperative in chapters 1-3, there are 40 in chapters 4-6. Paul has clearly moved from orthodoxy to orthopraxy.

1. “Therefore Walk” in Unity (4:1-16)

Appropriately Paul begins his practical section of Ephesians, the theme of which is Unity, with the appeal to walk in unity. In these 16 verses, Paul mentions the word “unity” twice, the only two times this word is used in the New Testament. Paul gives us two ways to walk in unity in your local community of believers.

A. We can walk in unity by Co-operating humbly with one another (4:1-6).

1. Paul lists the virtues of humility that result from God’s call at salvation in verses 1-3.

a) Humility or lowliness.

Humility or selflessness produces unity and humility’s opposite, pride, destories unity. There is a powerful little aphorism in Proverbs 13:10: “Only by pride comes contention.” When Lucifer in pride exalted himself above God (Isaiah 14:12-15), heaven split and one third of the angels followed Lucifer in rebellion against God (Revelation 12:4). Whenever there is conflict over nonessentials, there is pride and only humility is the cure. When is the last time you said, “I am sorry. I was wrong. Will you please forgive me?” As soon as I finish this post, I plan on calling a friend whom I embarrassed in front of his family, and ask his forgiveness.

b) Meekness or Gentleness.

Gentleness is the outward expression of humility. We cannot see humility in someone, but we can observe humility’s gentleness in interpersonal relationships. The word “gentle” was used to describe a powerful and swift horse that was broken and submissive to the rider’s commands. The horse was still strong and fast but controlled. That is meekness. Proud, weak people bless out waitresses, blow their horn in road rage at the slightest infraction, and make a fair show in the flesh at church business meetings.

Jesus said, “Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:29).” When Jesus was betrayed by Judas, Peter wiped out his sword and cut off the ear of a servant of the high priest. Contrast Peter’s action with Jesus who said in the same episode, I could at this moment “pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels.” But Jesus who was meek, restrained himself and did the Father’s will.

c) Patience

Here is another attribute of God (2 Peter 3:9). As we learn what is God is like we can become more God like. We should be as patience with others in their weaknesses as God is with us and our weaknesses.

d) Forbearance

Secondary differences between believers are to be tolerated. Or as Paul stated it in 1 Corinthians 13:4, “Love suffers long and is kind.”

e) Peace

“Peace with God” (Romans 5:1) at salvation should produce “the peace of God” (Philippians 4:7) in our circumstances with difficult of people (Euodias and Syntyche) because Christ “is our peace, who has made both one (former enemies)” (Ephesians 2:14).  It is people who can’t get along with God who can’t get along with God’s people. If someone does not have peace with God it is unlikely he will have peace with others. Trouble makers are troubled. The cure is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength” and then it will be much easier to love our neighbor as ourself.

2. Paul exemplifies the Trinity as the perfect model of unity in verse 4-6

Not only can we co-operate humbly with one another in a local congregation by allowing the Holy Spirit to produce in us the virtues of humility in verses 2-3 but also by emulating the perfect example of unity: the Trinity. This is the seventh time Paul brings to our attention the doctrine of the unity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. There goes Paul again bringing orthodoxy into our orthopraxy. The unity of the Trinity was first depicted by Paul as the three Persons involved themselves in our salvation in 1:3-14, now the Trinity is involved in our adorning of doctrine with practical godliness. Paul’s presents three triads of truth about the Trinity.

a) The Unity of the Holy Spirit in verse 4 with one body, Spirit, and one hope.

b) The Unity of the Son in verse 5 with one Lord, faith, and baptism.

c) The Unity of the Father in verse 6 with one God and Father who is over all, through all, and in all.

The usual order in the Trinity is God the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, however, Paul reversed the order for emphasis as did in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 where he was stressing to the carnal Corinthians who were divided over the gifts of the Spirit. Paul reminded the Corinthians and us that there is unity in the Trinity concerning the gifts of the Spirit and so should there be unity in the church concerning the practice of the gifts of the Spirit.

Similiarly, Paul reverses the order in Ephesians 4:4-6 because he is emphasizing the “unity of the Spirit.” In the church at Corinth, it was the gifts of the Spirit and at the church at Ephesians, it was the unity of the Spirit that called for a reordering of the Persons of the Trinity.

The Holy Spirit gives us gifts that if properly used can bring unity to a church, as we see as needed at Corinth but also next in Ephesians 4:7-16.  Also, the Holy Spirit can bring unity to a local church where the members are co-operating in humility from being Spirit filled (Galatians 5:22-23). What power houses for God would our local congregations be if all our members were Spirit filled and humble and using our gifts of the Spirit for the building up the body of Christ not our self exaltation.

Mark Driscoll devotes one chapter in Vintage Church to the impact of Trinitarian love on the church. “Inextricably connected to the doctrine of the Trinity is love….A loving church is a visible manifestation of deep Trinitarian love where people can connect to and live out the inner life of the Father, Son, and Spirit on their mission of fulfilling the great commission” (pages 189-211).

The last post for Week 4 is “Five Marks” of a Healthy Church (Ephesians 4:12-16).

Week 4: The NEW Bible Institute on Ephesians: Paul’s Prison Prayers: A Model for Our Praying: Eph 3:14-21

Posted: October 23, 2009 in Ephesians Class, Sermons
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Week  4 Assignment: Read pages 99-162 in MacArthur and Eph 3:14-4:16 and comment on the three posts for this week.

Paul is physically bound to a Roman guard in prison, but his soul is free to access through prayer the very Throne of God. Paul exercises that privilege four times in his Prison Epistles (Ephesians 1:15-23; 3:14-21, Colossians 1:9-14, and Philippians 1:9-14). Do you feel incarcerated in your dilemma, then escape to the throne room with your requests.

There are two characteristics in Paul’s Prison prayers that should mark the way we pray. First, he always prayed for others, not himself. Second, he always prayed for the spiritual needs of others and not the physical or material. 

Perhaps you are thinking, “Does that mean we can never pray about our physical healing or another  job since we were laid off?” No! Even Paul prayed that God would remove his thorn in the flesh; three times. Our Lord taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” But praying for the greater spiritual needs of others should be the more common way we pray as Paul practiced in prison.

Paul had physical, material, and financial needs in the hired house where he was imprisoned (Acts 28), including room and board. The Philippians knowing of this need, unsolicited by Paul, sent him money (Philippians 4:18). Still he prayed unselfishly for the deeper needs of others rather than his felt needs.

In his first Prison prayer in Ephesians 1:15-23, after presenting the doctrine of the Trinity (1:3-14), Paul prayed for the enlightenment of the saints: Know or experience your power for Christian living. Realize you have the God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit as your resources for your walk with God.

In his second Prison prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21, having delved into the glorious New Testament truth of the unity of Jews and Gentiles, former enemies, in the Body of Christ, Paul prayed for their enablement to love one another in their local body of believers. On paper it is easy to believe that Jews and Gentiles should love one another. But what about the interracially married couple that has been visiting your church and now wants to join? How real is equality in the Body of Christ now?

1. Why Do Believers Pray?

“For this cause” (Ephesians 3:14). Paul repeats this clause from 3:1. Between these two statements is further information about the Body of Christ which Paul apparently thought was needed before he prayed for believers to love one another. Paul knows the truth that there is positional unity in the body of Christ, but now he prays that there will be relational unity in their local body of believers. Do your relationships in your local church reflect the doctrinal unity that Christ’s death brought to the Body of Christ? Are you a peace maker or a trouble maker in your fellowship of saints? Have you torn down the middle wall of partition that divides God’s people or are you erecting barriers?

2. What Posture Is Necessary For Prayer?

There are different physical postures for prayer mentioned in Scripture: Standing (Genesis 18:22), sitting (1 Chronicles 17:16), prostrate (Matthew 26:39), and bowing the knees (Ephesians 3:14). Wiersbe mentions that this position was a little difficult being chained to a guard but Paul knelt and prayed anyway (Be Rich. Wheaton: Victor Books, 1977, page 82).

The spiritual posture of our heart, however, is what Paul emphasized in Ephesians: We are spiritually resurrected and seated with Christ in heavenly places (2:4). We are spiritually walking and progressing in Christ (4:1, 17; 5:2, 8, 15). We are to take our stand against “principalities, powers, the rulers, and spiritual wickedness in heavenly places (6:12-17). Thank God the handicapped, shut-in, and bedridden, though limited physically, have equal access to the Father and we in our local congregations should enlist their prayers by providing them prayer needs.

3. To Whom Do We Pray?

We pray to “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named” (3:14, 15). We not only pray to God the Father but we pray as the family of God. We have not only been reconciled to God (2:15) but we have been reconciled to each other in Christ (2:16). I like the way Mark Dever expressed this reality:

“If you’re an orphan, you don’t adopt parents; they adopt you. If your adoptive parents are named Smith, you now attend the Smith family dinners with the parents and all the children. You share a bedroom at night with the Smith siblings. When the teacher at school calls out attendance and says, ‘Smith?’ you raise your hand like your older brothers did before you and your younger sister will do after you. And you do this not because you decided to play the role of ‘Smith,’ but because someone went to the orphanage and said, ‘You will be a Smith.’ On that day, you became the child of someone and the sibling of others. Only your name’s not Smith. It’s Christian, named after the one through whom you were adopted, Christ (Eph. 1:5). Now you’re part of the whole family of God. ‘The one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family’ (Heb. 2:11). And this is no dysfunctional family, with family members estranged from one another. It’s a fellowship. When God ‘called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord’ (1 Cor. 1:9), he also called you into ‘fellowship’ with the whole family (1 Cor. 5:2) (Mark Dever. What is a Healthy Church? Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007, page 26). Let’s practice the bumper sticker: The family that prays together stays together.

4. For What Do We Pray?

Each of the three petitions involves one of the three Persons of the Trinity. This is the fifth of Paul’s eight references in Ephesians to the perfect model of unity.  Paul included the Trinity in his first prison prayer (1:15-17) for knowledge and now he mentions the Trinity in praying for the enablement believers need to love one another in the Body of Christ. Again, all things are possible with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Even unity in a local body of believers. Here are the three petitions. I will elaborate on the first.

The first petition for the enablement of the members of the Body of Christ to love one another is that God the Holy Spirit would strengthen us in the inner man (3:16).

The second petition for the enablement of the members of the Body of Christ to love one another is that God the Son would feel at home in us (3:17-18a).

The third petition for the enablement of the members of the Body of Christ to love one another is that God the Father would control us (3:18b-21).

The first petition for the enablement of the members of the Body of Christ to love one another is that God the Holy Spirit would strengthen us in the inner man (3:16).

In 2 Corinthians 4:16, Paul reminded us that “our outward man is perishing but the inward man is being renewed day by day.” How can the Holy Spirit strengthen and renew us in the inner person day by day? Through the Word! To be healthy physically you must eat properly, bath, and exercise.

The same is true for the inner person. You cannot live on bread alone “but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Have you eaten today? You must exercise by being doers of the Word and not hearers only (James 1:22, 23). I challenge you to exercise your spiritual biceps and pray this petition for someone throughout this day. In Ephesians 5:26, Paul talks about “the washing of the water by the word.” As we read God’s Word and listen to it preached, we are cleansed. The purpose of Bible study is not to produce Google Christians who can answer every inquiry. But to be cleansed so we can live godly lives. “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to your Word” (Psalm 119:9).

When we fix spaghetti in our home, we fry the hamburger and then dump it in the colander (the plastic bowl with holes). We then run hot water over the fried hamburger to wash off the unhealthy but very delicious tasting grease. The colander does not hold the water but lets the hot water run through the meat and wash off the artery clogging drippings. We must study God’s Word and hear God’s Word preached to be cleansed by the Word not so we can be walking databases. “Your Word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11).

For whom will you pray that he or she would hunger and thirst after righteousness by means of God’s Word? Do you need to pray for a son or daughter? Parents? Siblings? Church member? Practice this prison prayer on someone today.

The second post for week 4 is Orthodoxy verses Orthopraxy: Eph 4:1-6.

Sermon Illustration: Praise Choruses Or Hymns?

Posted: October 21, 2009 in Music, Pastoral Theology, Sermon Illustrations
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I heard this illustration from two different preachers on the controversy of church music and thought some of you would apprecate it and may want to file it away for preaching on Romans 14 and Christian Liberty. That is what I did. When I heard it the first time, I told the preacher I would give him $10 for that illustration. He graciously gave me the illustration at no charge.

An old farmer went to the city one weekend and attended the big city church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was. ”Well,” said the farmer, “it was good. They did something different, though. They sang praise choruses instead of hymns.”

“Praise choruses?” asked the wife. “What are those?”

“Oh, they’re okay . . . they’re sort of like hymns, only different,” the farmer said.

“Well, what’s the difference?” Asked his wife.

The farmer explained, “Well, it’s like this. If I were to say to you, ‘Martha, the cows are in the corn,’ that would be a hymn.

If, on the other hand, I were to say to you, “Martha, Martha, Martha, Oh Martha, Martha, Martha, the cows, the big cows, the brown cows, the black cows , the white cows, the COWS, the COWS, COWS, COWS, are the corn, corn, corn, they’re in the coooooorrrrrnnnn.” Then, I repeated it three times, that would be a praise chorus.

Wouldn’t you know it, that farmer’s little chuch had a visitor from the big city church that same Sunday. He went home to his wife and she asked him how it went.

He said, “Oh, it was okay,except they don’t sing choruses–they sing hymns.”

She asked, “What’s a hymn?”

He said, “Well, it’s like a chorus, only different?”

She said, “What do you mean?”

He explained, “Well, if I said to you, Martha, the cows are in the corn–but say it like this:

Oh Martha, dear, Martha hear the words of my mouth, Turn thou thy whole wondrous ear to this glorious truth;

For the way of the animals who can explain; there in their heads is no shadow of sense, Hearkenest they in God’s sun or his rain, Unless from the mild corn they are fenced;

Yea those cows in glad, rebellious delight, Have loosed their shackles, their warm pens eschew, Yea goaded by minions of darkness and night, They all my sweet corn are now destined to chew.

Martha, look to that bright day when earth is reborn, And I shall not see those cows in my corn.

That would be a hymn!

Week 3: The NEW Bible Institute on Ephesians, Part 3 “God’s Call to The Ministry Verses God’s Call to Ministry”

Posted: October 16, 2009 in Ephesians Class, Homiletics/Preaching, Sermons
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Week 3 Assignment: Ephesians 3:1-13.

In his book, So Beautiful, Leonard Sweet slams God called pastors, ordination, and any distinction between clergy and laity calling such ideas “heresy.”

Sweet writes: Presbyterian Robert T. Henderson and Southern Baptist Ed Stetzer are calling loudly for the de-clergification of the church. How “clergified” is your church? If the distinctions of “clergy” and “laity” are not biblical, where should our emphasis be—abolishing the clergy and making all of them ministers, or abolishing the laity and making all of us ministers?

The heresy of clerisy (only priests are ministers) is killing the church. I heard the story of a member of the church approaching their pastor and telling him that they had been called into full-time ministry. The pastor did not respond in the manner they were expecting when he said, “Oh, I thought you were a Christian.”

This set the member back a bit. He answered that of course he was a Christian. Then the pastor said, “Then, too late…” by which he meant that when we became disciples of Jesus, we accepted the call into full-time ministry.

So much of the time we write a check and think we have done our part. Or, if we are really trying to be spiritual, we may go on a mission project for a few days a year. In reality Christ turns us into “Mission 365,” as my friend Tom Ingram calls it. We are in mission in the car, in mission at the grocery store, in mission at Starbucks, in mission on Twitter.

It is time to abolish the laity and make everyone clergy, “minister.” Or maybe we should abolish the clergy and make everyone laity, “ministers” (Leonard Sweet. SO BEAUTIFUL. Colorado Springs, David C. Cook, 2009, pages 5, 7).

Ed Stetzer defines clergification: This is the belief that the professionals carry out the real work of the church, and everyone else simply lends a hand here and there and says we should reject the “called to the ministry” for “called to ministry.”

I agree that there are abuses of vocational ministries as Stetzer rightly exposes. But that does not mean we abandon what is taught in Scripture? There is a special call of God to men to preach His Word. But, there is also a general call to all believers to serve (Ephesians 4:1). This attitude and view of Leonard Sweet is in stark contrast to some of the most influential preachers and teachers of preachers of the past and present.

Homilitican Lloyd Perry (Warren Wiersbe’s teacher): “The primary requirement for preaching is a divine call to preach” (A Manual for Biblical Preaching, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1965, page 4).

Pastor W.H. Griffith Thomas: “This is the Divine Call, and it is the foundation of all else” (Ministerial Life and Work, Chicago: The Institute Colportage Association, 1927, page 27).

Pastor and author on preaching Martin Lloyd-Jones: “Nothing but this overwhelming sense of being called and of compulsion should ever lead anyone to preach” (Preaching and Preachers, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972, page 107).

Homilitican John Broadus: “The preacher should be a person with a call from God. Ministers are called as professionals, but they should never be persons with just a profession” (On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, ed. Vernon C. Stanfield, 4th ed., rev. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1979, page 13).

Charles Spurgeon: “It is a fearful calamity to a man to miss his calling” (Lectures to My Students, Grand Rapids: Associate Publisher and Authors, n.d., page 22).

G. Campbell Morgan: “The only men who can really enter this ministry are those whom the Lord chooses, calls, and equips, by the bestowment of gifts according to the wisdom of His will” (The Ministry of the Word, New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1919, page 127).

John MacArthur: “The gospel is spread by men whom God calls to proclaim it” (Ephesians. Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, 1986, page 93).

The Call to The Ministry and The Call to Ministry is not Either/Or but Both/And.

God called Paul to preach the truths in Ephesians 3:1-6 as he states in 3:7: “I was made a minister.” This historically happened in Acts 26:14-18.

1. What are the Evidences of God’s Call to the Ministry?

A. A God given desire to preach.

“The primary way this intuitive understanding of the call is manifested according to the New Testament is a desire for the ministry (I Timothy 3:1), caused by God (Philippians 2:12-13), and growing into a virtually irresistible constraint (1 Corinthians 9:16)” (Stephen J. Hankins. The Call to the Christian Ministry. Biblical Viewpoint: Unusual Press: Bob Jones University, n.d. page 88). When men would come to Spurgeon who were struggling with the call to the ministry of preaching and pastoring he is credited with saying, “If you can do anything else and be happy, then do it.”

God uses desires to lead all believers into His will as Psalm 37:4 indicates: “Delight yourself in the LORD; and he shall give you the desires of your heart.” Again, it is not either/or but both/and. God calls some men specifically to preach through a desire for His will and God leads other believers through desire into other ministries.

B. A God given ability.

“God never calls without equipping, and the very fact of equipment proves the call (Ephesians 4:11)” wrote W. H. Griffith Thomas (page 94). Paul refers to this reality in his life in Ephesians 3:7. Paul was made a minister by God to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ, in other words, the ministry of preaching for Paul was not a career choice. In the same verse, Paul informs us that the God who called him equipped him with “the effectual working of His power.”

C. A God given recognition.

“The man who thinks he is called to the ministry must also meet, to a blameless degree, the qualifications presented by Paul in formal lists in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:6-9… A man cannot lead people who refuse to follow him, nor can he provide spiritual food and protection for those who do not accept him as a shepherd” (Hankins, page 89). The local church at Antioch recognized that the Holy Spirit had called Barnabas and Paul to plant churches, laid hands on them, and sent them out as the church’s first missionaries (Acts 13:1-3).

2. What are the Characteristics of God’s Call to the Ministry?

 A. Service: “Whereof I was made a minister.”

The word “minister” “is used of a ‘waiter’ at a wedding feast” (John 2:5, 9) (Harold W. Hoehner. Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002, 449). The preacher serves God’s people God’s Word. I worked my way through graduate school by serving as a waiter at a fish camp. The customers would complain to me if their fish was not good.  I felt like saying, “I did not gig your founder, nor did I cook it, I only served it. Why are you complaining to me?” The same is true sometimes with serving God’s people God’s Word. They complain to us about the food. It is our job to faithfully serve God’s Word and leave the results to God.

B. God’s power: “According to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power” (Ephesians 3:7b).

It is true that all believers have this power, as Paul made clear in his first Prison Epistle prayer (1:19) and therefore all believers should be experiencing this equipment in ministry in and through their local church. Every believer, including the pastor, has the omnipotence of God behind his call to serve. Paul made a great statement on preaching in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 when he said he did not preach with eloquence or erudition, but “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power that your faith should not stanD in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”

C. Humility: “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given.”

Paul felt undeserving of salvation (1 Timothy 1:11-15) and the ministry (Ephesians 3:8) “Because,” as Paul made clear in 1 Corinthians 15:9, “I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” God help us preachers to possess the humble attitude of Paul even when we are criticized for serving God’s Word. In Philippians 1:14-18, instead of retaliating against those who attacked him, Paul rejoiced that souls were saved under their ministry. Someone asked Spurgeon: “How can we reconcile the Calvinists and the Arminians?” Spurgeon replied, “You don’t have to reconcile brothers.” We need this attitude of humility today.

A must read for all believers, including pastors, is C. J. Mahaney’s Humility: True Greatness. Mahaney starts chapter one, “The Promise of Humility” by referring to Jim Collins’ bestseller, Good to Great. The result of Collins researching 11 corporations which had become great was that each corporation’s CEO was “quiet, humble, modest, reserved, shy, gracious, mild-mannered, self-effacing, understated, did not believe his own clippings” and thus respected by their employees.

Humility not only attracts the attention of the world but, vastly more importantly, God according to Isaiah 66:2, “This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my Word.” In addition to attracting God’s attention, humility  moves God to fulfill the promise of humility which is found in James 4:6, “God…gives grace to the humble.” As I read this chapter, I am asking myself, “Is God looking with pleasure on my life because of my humility?” “Am I experiencing His grace, His spiritual strength, in my life and ministry because of my contriteness?”

3. What are the Ministries of the God Called?

A. For Paul: “To make all men to see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world has been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 3:7).

B. For All Preachers.

It is our ministry to preach “the unsearchable riches of Christ to make men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world has been hid in God.” “Paul is saying in effect, ‘I am not only called in the vertical area to preach the unfathomable riches of Christ, but in the horizontal area to teach about the administration, the stewardship of dispensation, of the mystery of the church age’” (MacArthur, page 95). We must preach so men can be vertically related to Christ and once that is true they will be horizontally right with one another in unity. Translated, we preach to win men to Christ or as Paul will later say to Timothy, “Do the work of an evangelist.” Then we preach to win them to each other in unity and ministry.

4. What are The Results of God’s Call to the Ministry?

A. God’s wisdom will be displayed in the unity of the local church (Ephesians 3:10-11).

Even angels, “principalities and powers in heavenly places” (3:10), did not know about the church in the Old Testament. Since angels were created to praise God (Psalm 148:1-5) our unity in the local church can give angels cause to praise the Lord. While God revealed the mystery of the church to Paul and others, God did not reveal that mystery to angels. Angels must learn about this mystery by observing our unity in our local church.

God planned the church from eternity past, Christ accomplished its unity by His death on the cross (3:11) when He tore down the middle wall of partition, but the local church must display its unity. What do angels see, for they are watching (1 Corinthians 4:9; 11:10), as they observe our local church? Unity or division!

B. Believers’ responsibility (Ephesians 3:12-13).

Jews and Gentiles, “we,” for the first time, can now in unity access God together. In Acts 2, the church was in “one accord” and look what happened. The church in Acts 2 experienced for the first time what God the Father planned, what Christ accomplished on the cross, and what the Holy Spirit birthed. Unity can be a powerful weapon in God’s hands. Warren W. Wiersbe has a little book on the prayers in the Book of Acts entitled, “Something Happens When the Church Prays.” Something also happens when the Church preaches, as Peter did in Acts 2 and experiences the results of this God called ministry.

Justin Taylor tells how God called John Piper to the ministry that puts a well-known personal face on this lesson. His post is entitled: 30 Years Ago Today: How God Called John Piper to Become a Pastor.

THE TEXTUAL SERMON

Posted: October 13, 2009 in Homiletics/Preaching
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If God is a God of infinite variety then we should emulate Him in our preaching. Certainly our staple preaching is through a Book, verse by verse expository preaching. But we do not want to feed our flock this dish 52 weeks a year. Therefore preaching a topical or doctrinal sermon series is very necessary. See the Driscoll’s topical 13-week series titled “Doctrine: “What Christians Should Believe” that he requires his potential church members to hear.

The same is true with textual sermons. “For variety’s sake, however, we will find occasions in which preaching one verse does something we could not otherwise do—stamp that verse on the minds of our people” (Robert Delnay. Fire in Your Pulpit, page 135).

James Braga has an older book on preaching that is very nuts and bolts. In his simple but hands on book he provides this definition of a textual sermon: “A textual sermon is one in which the main divisions are derived from a brief portion of Scripture. Each of these divisions is then used as a line of suggestion, and the text provides the theme of the sermon” (How to Prepare Bible Messages, page 35).

Dr. Delnay provides this example among others in chapter 15:

The text: 1 Timothy 2:8

The Proposition: We must pray fervently

The Interrogative: How?

The transtional sentence with the key word “ways:” Paul gives several ways to pray fervently.

I.  By Using Any Place We Are: “I will therefore that men pray everywhere”

II. By Offering Clean Hands to God: “Lifting up holy hands”

III. By Clearing Our Minds: “Without wrath and doubting”

James Braga gives Psalm 23:1a as another example in chapter 2:

The Proposition: We must be properly related to the Lord

The Interrogative: Why?

The Transitional sentence with the key word “reasons:” Because of the following reasons:

I.  Because “The Lord is my SHEPHERD”

II. Because “The Lord is MY shepherd”

III. Because “The Lord IS my shepherd”

I have a textual sermon on Romans 8:28 entitled: Reading the Fine Print in Romans 8:28.

Dr. Delnay elaborates on some practical advantages of textual preaching:

The first advantage: The textual sermon stamps a particular verse on your people’s memory.

There are some important verses in God’s Word that need to be indelible in our people’s thinking that they can recall when in need: Proverbs 3:5-6; 1 John 1:9; Psalm 103:1-2, Matthew 28:19-20, etc.

The second advantage: The textual sermon does preach the Bible.

A topical sermon may become a sword drill or an expository sermon a running commentary. Of course the topical and the expository do not have to fall prey to these weaknesses.

The third advantage: The textual sermon offers a certain simplicity in preaching.

Once the proposition is discovered the main points sort of fall in place. Two examples above illustrate this third advantage. Also, Braga gives 20 examples of textual sermons. I have a textual sermon on Proverbs 3:5-6 posted under sermons.

Dr. Delnay, being fair and balanced, gives some disadvantages of textual preaching. 

A major disadvantage: A steady diet of textual preaching may not get as much Bible across.

How can the pastor preach through Books of the Bible textually?  For example, D. M. Lloyd-Jones preached his famous series of sermons on Romans at Westminster Chapel, London, on Friday evenings beginning with Romans 1 through 14:17.  He preached from October through May each year from 1955 to 1968 (13 years in one series). I have the six volumes that cover 3:20 through 8:39. Most of the sermons were textual or topical covering one or two verses at a time. To preach textually through a book like Romans is possible, especially if you have the preaching skills of a Martin Lloyd-Jones. The rest of us may want to preach expositionally through Romans in a briefer series.

Another disadvantage with textually preaching through a book is the difficulty of the preacher giving the overview of the book.

Dr. Delnay gave this example: “In his adult Sunday School class a certain preacher took more than six years to teach the book of Revelation. We may hope that his people got some gems along the way, because they seemed to get only the haziest idea of what the whole book is about….a twenty-four week series would probably have left them with more knowledge of the book” (page 136).

Dr. Delnay provides some requirements for textual preaching.

Exegete the passage.

Find the main idea and how the idea is developed in the one or two verses. Each main division needs to come directly from a word, clause, or phrase in the text. The examples from 1Timothy 2:8 and Psalms 23:1a make this point.

Give greater attention to the context.

With the expository sermon, you have already discovered the theme of the book and the development of the theme and you are constantly interpreting your literary unit in that context. But with a textual sermon you will be tempted not to research out the theme of the book and where your text is in the development of the theme. Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin.

Since many texts are not preached in context, doing so will add a freshness to familiar verses. For example, try preaching Galatians 6:8: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap” in its context of 6:6. “Let him that is taught in the word communicate (give money) to him (your pastor) that teaches.” Your sermon proposition could be, “Pay the preacher now to reap a bumper crop later.” Have you ever heard Galatians 6:8 preached in its context?

Do a more intensive word study: You finally get to use Kittel’s ten volume Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.

Mediate on your text: Crock pot the textual sermon; don’t microwave this sermon nor any sermon for that matter.

An example of a textual sermon is provided in Haddon Robinson’s book, Biblical Sermons: How Twelve Preachers Apply the Principles of Biblical Preaching. The sermon is by evangelist Larry Moyer on Romans 4:5. After the manuscript sermon Robinson evaluates the sermon and then interviews Moyer with questions like, “How long does it usually take you to prepare a message? What sources do you find most profitable? Do you often preach from a single verse? If you had one comment to give to a young preacher, what would it be?

Robinson provides 12 sermon manuscripts, his commentary on each of the sermons, and his interview with each preacher. This is helpful approach to improve our preaching of topical, textual, and expository sermons.

Week 3: The NEW Bible Institute on Ephesians, Part 2 “The Church”

Posted: October 10, 2009 in Ephesians Class, Sermons, The Church
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1. There is Positional Unity in the Church (Ephesians 2:11-13).

2. There is Positional Unity in the Church because of the Reconciling Death of Christ (Ephesians 2:14-18). Two reconciliations took place at the cross.

A. The first was the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles.

The death of Christ is repeated throughout verses 13-16: “by the blood of Christ” (v. 13), “having abolished in is flesh the enmity” (v. 15), and “by the cross” (v. 16).

The death of Christ broke down “the middle wall of partition” that separated Jews and Gentiles in Old Testament. Is this the literal wall in the temple court referred to earlier? It can’t be the literal wall because that wall was not literally destroyed until A.D. 70. How then was this barrier figuratively destroyed? When the law was rendered inoperative “abolished” by Christ’s death.  The Law that was given specifically to Israel to make Israel unique had caused hostility between Jews and Gentiles as seen in the “circumcision” holding in contempt the “uncircumcision” as seen in verse 11. Since the death of Christ we “are not under the law but under grace” (Romans 6:14). The civic and ceremonial requirements including dietary laws that separated Jews and Gentiles in the Old Testament are abolished and also the hostility created by them. The difficulty of overcoming this barrier is seen in Peter’s reluctance to eat pork at God’s command in Acts 10:9-15. Now you can eat country ham biscuits from Bojangles guilt free.

Christ took these two hostile groups and created “one new man” in verse 15. This “one new man” is new in time (since the day of Pentecost) and quality (no racial distinctions) entity. Paul has already identified this new entity as “the church” 1:22 and Christ’s “body” in 1:23.

B. The second reconciliation between God and sinners.

In verse 16, Paul writes, “and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross.” There was not only “enmity” between Jews and Gentiles (v. 15) but there was “enmity” between God and sinners (v. 16). Because of the death of Christ we can be right with God and each other in Christ.

Paul for the third time refers to the Trinity in 2:18. Because of the reconciliation of Christ at the cross, the Spirit makes former enemies “one” who both now have equal access to God the Father.

Jesus tells us how this practically works. If you have offended someone, “Leave there your gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother” (Matthew 5:24). Or if someone has offended you “go and tell him his fault between you and him alone; if he shall hear you, you have gained your brother” (Matthew 18:15).

Also from these two reconciliations, we learn that we not only have a relationship with Jesus but His church. Some people today say they love Jesus but not the church. How can they love Jesus and not love what He loves. Paul informs us later in Ephesians 5:25 that “Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.” If you think the church is too old fogie and institutional, then get in there and help fix it and stop complaining about what Jesus died for.

3. There are Pictures of our Positional Unity in the Church (Ephesians 2:19-22).

A. Believers are One Nation (Ephesians 2:19a).

This includes believing Jews and Gentiles. Paul is not saying that the Church has replaced Israel and is the New Israel or he could have easily repeated “Israel” as he did in 2:11. Paul is simply saying that today there is no chosen nation as in the Old Testament and therefore no second class citizens.  Peter said a similar truth in 1 Peter 2:9: “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and holy nation.” In stark contrast to the Old Testament, not just Jews are chosen, not just Jews are priests, and not just Israel is the nation with access to God. This picture should promote unity in the church. Jesus died for all nationalities and commissioned us to take the gospel to all nationalities.

Therefore all nationalities should be welcomed and accepted in our churches. This is what makes the church Missional. Missional church researcher Ed Stetzer warns against being missional in wanting to reach your local culture but not being Missions in wanting to reach those not in your culture. Some Missional churches are focused on the local not the global. Some Missions churches are only concerned with cultures an ocean away. The remedy is for the church to be “glocal” as Bob Roberts says in Transformation: How Glocal Churches Transform Lives nd the World. Driscoll, in Vintage Church, gives a good introduction to the Missional movement in chapter nine, “What is a Missional Church?” He strikes a balance: “It is unfortunate that foreign missions is not part of the vision of many missional churches….It is also unfortunate the local community is lacking from the vision of many missions churches….Subsequently, their youth spends ten days building a house in Mexico rather doing repairs on the run-down apartment building across the street” (page 242).

B. Believers are a family (Ephesians 2:19b).

God is our Father and we have brothers and sisters in Christ on earth and in Heaven (3:14-15). You have seen the license tag: The family that prays together stays together. The same can be true for God’s Family.

C. Believers are one Building (Ephesians 2:20-22).

In the Old Testament, God dwelt in buildings (The Tabernacle and the Temple) until He was driven out by sin. Today, God doesn’t dwell in material buildings, but in His body which is also depicted as a Building of God which is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (2:20).

The order, “the apostles and prophets,” means these men on whose teaching the church was founded were New Testament apostles and New Testament Prophets. If the church is in the Old Testament and has replaced the Israel in the New Testament, the order would have been the “prophets and apostles” or Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles. Paul repeats this same order in 3:5. The new truth about the mystery of the church was unknown to Old Testament prophets and therefore was revealed to New Testament apostles and New Testament prophets. Paul repeats this order in 4: 11. When Christ ascended back to heaven to be head of the Church, He gave gifts and gifted men to build up this new entity which included “apostles; and some prophets” i.e., New Testament apostles and New Testament prophets.

In Revelation 21:3, John in describing the future eternal home of God’s people in the New Jerusalem in which will be “his people and God himself shall be with them.” John uses the plural for people (Gk. laoi) because the “peoples of God” will be distinct in eternity. This is made clear later when John states that on the 12 gates are written “the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel” (Revelation 21:12). In eternity Israel will be distinct as one people of God. But in Revelation 21:14, John writes that on the foundations of the New Jerusalem will be written “the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” This corresponds to Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 2:20 that the apostles’ teachings make up the foundation of the church who is the new people of God.

There are huge ramifications if the church is in the Old Testament and is interchangeable with Israel. The covenants God made with Israel in the Old Testament concerning a land, king, and blessing have to be spiritually fulfilled by the church today and not literally by Israel in a future Millennium. This destroys a consistent historical/grammatical hermeneutic. All theologians use a historical/grammatical hermeneutic for the first coming prophecies of Christ which were literally fulfilled, but Covenant theologicans flip flop and use an allegorical hermeneutic for the second coming of Christ. Ephesians 2:11-3:13 teach that the Church is a new people of God that is distinct from Israel now and forever.

John MacArthur made this connection between Israel and hermeneutics in his controversial lecture, “Why Every Self-Respecting Calvinists Is a Premillennialist” at his Shepherd’s Conference at Grace Community Church on March 7, 2007.

What made MacArthur’s lecture controversial were the Reformed amillennarians present and several well-known amillennarians who were invited to speak at the conference by MacArthur.

When live-blogger Tim Challies posted his initial report about MacArthur’s lecture the blogosphere went nuts with e-mails: “Did you hear what MacArthur said about Calvinism?” “Did you hear what MacArthur said about amillennialism?” “Did you hear what he said about Calvin?” Here are some of MacArthur’s comments about Israel and literal hermeneutics.

“Now all that leads us to this: if you get Israel right you will get eschatology right. If you don’t get Israel right you will never get eschatology right. Never. And you’ll migrate from one view to another just depending on the last book you read or the last lecture you heard . . . . If you get eschatology right it’s because you get Israel right. You get Israel right when you get the Old Testament covenants and promises right. You get the Old Testament covenants and promises right when you get the interpretation of Scripture right. You get interpretation of Scripture right when you’re faithful to a legitimate hermeneutic and God’s integrity is upheld. Get your hermeneutics right, you’ll get the Old Testament promises right. Get promises right, you’ll get Israel right. Get Israel right, you’ll get eschatology right. The Bible calls God the God of Israel over 200 times. The God of Israel. There are over 2,000 references to Israel in Scripture, not one of them means anything but Israel. Not one of them, including Romans 9:6 and Galatians 6:16 which is the only two passages that amillennialists go to trying to convince us that that cancels out the other 2,000. There is no difficulty in interpreting those as simply meaning Jews who were believers; the Israel of God. Israel always means Israel, never means anything but Israel. Seventy three New Testament uses of Israel always mean Israel.”

The final post for Week 3 is “God’s Call to The Ministry Verses God’s Call to Ministry”: Eph 3:1-13.

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