Our study of the church, the
Ekklesia of Christ, the Christ Church, we've been doing an extensive
study on this term, Ekklesia, and what all encompasses with
that word. We've seen the nature of the
church. We've seen that it is a local, visible, gathered assembly. It is not a universal, invisible
body. of people, but it is always found
in a locality of assembled people. And again, to reiterate, that
does not mean that those who are not in a local assembly are
lost. That does not mean that they
have not been saved or that they are not the elect, but that the
local visible assembly is what Christ instituted for all those
who are elect, who have been converted and made disciples
of Jesus Christ. who have been baptized to now
commit themselves to assembling together for the teaching and
the ministry of the gospel. That is what the commission was
all about, which we just studied not too long ago. But we see
that the local church, the nature of that is a local, visible assembly,
and only that, that the church is separate and different than
the family of God. and the kingdom of God. The family
of God is all the elect of all time, of all places, whether
in heaven or whether in earth. The kingdom of God is that spiritual
kingdom that is here now of Christ and the church is the one that
God has ordained or Christ has ordained to oversee the kingdom
of Christ and his ministry of the gospel within the kingdom
of Jesus Christ. And so the kingdom is those who
are the people of God of any specific time period while alive
here on earth that is being ministered to by the gospel of Jesus Christ
by the church who is the, again, the administrators, the executors
of that kingdom. And so we've been seeing that
the nature of the church is a local visible assembly. We've seen
that the church began with Jesus as he took what John prepared
and started building his church, first and foremost with the apostles,
and then began to add upon that and laid them as the foundation.
So we've seen that the beginning of the church was with Jesus,
it wasn't before. In the Old Testament, the church
did not exist in the Old Testament, even though the scriptures say
that there was a congregation in the Old Testament. That congregation
is not the New Testament church. That was just a visible assembly
that was a gathered assembly. So the congregation in the wilderness
is not the New Testament church. Completely different things,
although the word applies as a gathered assembly, okay? However,
we see that the church began with Jesus Christ, not at Pentecost,
not with John the Baptist. So we also learned that the gospel
of the church is the sovereign grace of God in salvation, that
that gospel is good news because it means that man has no conditions
to meet for that salvation to be given. It's good news in the
fact that God can give it to whoever he wants to give it to,
regardless of how evil or hard their heart is. That no matter
how wicked or how antithetical to God a person might be, they
can be overcome by the grace of God and be given new life. But that gospel is sovereign
grace. We've seen that Jesus preached
that, taught that, that is the doctrine of Christ. That is the
things that Jesus taught that first church, delivered to that
first church to teach to other generations, and has been perpetuated
now ever since that very first church. And so we see that the
gospel of the church is the sovereign grace gospel. Any other gospel
is not the gospel. Any other gospel is a false gospel. And any church that continues
to preach that is a false church. It's not a real church. So we
must keep those things in front of us and in our minds as we
look at what we see today in these false religions and false
churches of our day. After we've seen the gospel of
the church, we've seen the commission of the church. We've seen that
the commission was given directly to the local visible assembly
as that institutional form. And so that every church that
bears the marks of a New Testament church being that It is comprised
of a regenerate, and again, I don't like that word, a quickened membership,
people who have been quickened of God, converted of the gospel,
baptized scripturally by immersion by that local church, and then
admitted into membership for the teaching of all things whatsoever
God commanded. That commission, that threefold
commission, was given to the local church to carry out. And
it was only through the local church that we should be carrying
these things out. That is who the commission was
given to. And so whenever we say that,
we do not mean that people cannot do good deeds outside of that.
We're not saying that people who are witnessing and doing
things that are not in local churches aren't doing things
good. But we are saying that the proper service, the proper
place for that is to be carried out and conducted through, is
through the local gathered assembly. That Christ has ordained the
way, not only that he is to be worshiped, but the way that his
gospel is to be carried out and to be administered. And that
is through the local church. And so while we have many friends
who are out there who are not part of local assemblies, we
encourage them to find local assemblies and to become a part
of that. and to begin to administer the
gospel through the local church. But we see that you don't find
anywhere in scripture that that was ever administered outside
of the local church, that all the ministry of the gospel, all
the ministry of the ordinances was all within the confines of
the local assembly. And so we find that that is the
true and proper way of service. And we can go back and find examples
of that in the types and foreshadows of the Old Testament. We can
find that in the New Testament, but we see that there's a way
that God desires to be worshiped and that to be followed, and
that is the proper way of service. And so that's what we are talking
about, not about salvific things. Being baptized doesn't save you.
Being a member of the church doesn't save you, okay? That
is not what saves you and it is not a salvific issue that
we're talking about. And I have to make that clear
because a lot of people, whenever we talk about these things, they
disagree with what we believe and what most of our churches
throughout the years have believed as far as this very thing. They don't believe that. They
believe in that universal invisible body of people called the elect,
that that makes up the true church, okay? That term was never given,
never given to the body of Christ's people, except whenever they
were gathered. The body was always used in a
gathered assembly, okay? A body is not a body that's scattered
all over the world. That's not a body. That is a
dismembered body. A body is one that is gathered
together, that is together in one place, one location, okay? And so there's a lot of people
that disagree with this theology or this teaching or this doctrine.
And so a lot of times we'll say, well, then you're saying that
those who are not in the church are lost, that there could be elect
people who are not in the church. Well, yes, there could be elect
people who are not in the church. John the Baptist was an elect
person who was not in the church, and he even said so. He said
that the bridegroom has the bride, but the friend of the bridegroom
rejoices. He was the friend of the bridegroom. He was not in
the bride. He was not in the church. And so we see that in
this lifetime, the church is a local visible assembly and
that it is given the authority or the administration of the
kingdom and that is where we are to serve. And so the commission
of the church is to go make disciples with the gospel, to baptize those
that are made disciples with the gospel, and then to bring
them back into membership of the church as those who are being
taught all things whatsoever Christ has commanded. And then
last week, we started a new section on the polity of the church,
P-O-L-I-T-Y. And if you remember last week,
I mentioned to you that the word polity means government, the
government of the church. how the church governs or is
to be governed, okay? And we've seen that this term
can be viewed in different ways by different organizations outside
the New Testament church. However, the New Testament church
follows the polity of that first church, which was a congregational
or an independent government, okay? But if you remember from
last week, just to recap, number one, the headship of the church
or the head of the church is Christ. We are not the authority. We have been delegated authority
to carry out the commands and the ordinances of Christ and
the gospel of Christ, okay? So we can only do what Christ
has given for us to do in the parameters that he's given us
to do it, okay? He is the head. So we look to
him. So we don't make up new laws. We don't make up new things. That's why we're against all
these different programs and all this stuff that's out there,
these boards and these conventions and missionary societies and
all that kind of stuff. Those are things that Christ
did not institute in his church whenever he began the church.
And when I say that, I mean that in its institutional way, okay? Just like whenever I say the
family, Okay? I'm not talking about all families
everywhere or any particular family. I'm talking about the
institution of the family. When Christ or God instituted the
family, how did he institute the family? As a husband and
a wife and children. Okay? And that's how he instituted
that. Not as a husband and a husband,
or a wife and a wife, or a husband and two wives, or a wife and
three husbands, or, you know, an aunt and uncle. Okay, he instituted
the family as one man and one woman, and then thus any children
that God would give them. And those children are to be
subservient to the parents. The wife is to be in submission
to the husband, and the husband is to be the head of the household.
And he also is to be in submission as far as not his role, but as
in submission one to another with everyone else. And that
is the picture of the church, just like The family, the church,
and its institutional way, any kind of church that is the Lord's
churches would follow that deal. Christ is the head, and then
there are roles underneath that that are to be followed. The
wife has a role, the children have a role. In the church, we
have the church is in its congregational form having roles. They have pastors and teachers,
they have deacons, and we all have our roles within the church.
but we see it's an institutional thing. Now, the polity of the
church is looked at, like I said last week, as, and everyone will
say Christ is the head of the church. However, we see that
there is a Presbyterian form of government that is exercised
in some organizations, and that Presbyterian form has multiple
levels of control. with over the body. And the whole
body is not the ones who are in governing power. It is the
elders or the leaders who are the ones who are governing over
the people. And we found that that was not
the scriptural way that the Bible taught. We also seen that there
was an Episcopal form, which is even more severe than the
Presbyterian form, where it sets up men and clergy over the people
of God, and they have ultimately one person, the Pope, who is
over, and this is within the Catholic Church, but within other
Episcopal-type churches, you see that there are deacons and
elders and bishops, and they have districts and superintendents,
and they have people that govern and regulate the bodies wherever
they're at, of people, and so we found that that is not biblical
either. However, we do find in the scriptures,
and we looked at several places last week where the scriptures
teach that the church, the New Testament church or Christ's
church, is a church that exercises or follows congregational or
independent governance, meaning that every church is autonomous,
every church is a government in and of itself. It conducts
its own affairs. It has its own policies. It governs within itself. It
doesn't govern the church down the street and is not governed
by the church down the street. It's not overruled or governed
by a fellowship, by an association, by a convention, by a board,
by any elder boards. or anything like that, it is
governed by the actual congregation. That is why everything is discussed
openly in our congregation, okay? We don't have the men of the
church get together in a little group back here in the corner
somewhere and discuss what's best for the church and come
and say, this is what the church ought to do, and then put it
to, no, we openly discuss everything just as they did in the New Testament. We've seen in several places,
and I'll just kind of recap this as well, we've seen in several
places in the New Testament where this was acted out. We've seen
first and foremost in the choosing of Matthias to replace Judas.
If you remember there in Acts, we've seen that the whole church
was involved in choosing those men, and then after choosing
those men, prayed and cast their lots, everybody cast their lots,
and the lot fell on Matthias. So it wasn't just the disciples
or the apostles or an elder board, but it was the whole congregation
that was involved in choosing them. We also seen that that
same thing took place whenever there was discipline to be done
within the church. Well, and also don't forget the
deacons also in Acts. In Acts 6, the deacons were chosen
Acts 6 or 7. The deacons were also chosen
by the multitude. They were prayed upon by the
multitude. They were laid hands upon by
the multitude, okay? So it was the whole congregation
that was involved in that. We've seen that discipline was
carried out by the congregation, not by the pastor, not by deacon
board. And if you remember, in the Presbyterian
form of government, The session was the one who was in control
of receiving and rejecting, excommunicating, kicking out, disciplining members. However, we see in the New Testament,
it was the whole church who was involved in doing that. Jesus
instructed in Matthew that if you have an issue with somebody
that you are to go to them and try to work that issue out. If
you don't, can't work that out, then you're to take somebody
with you from the church. And if you still can't work that
out with that person, then you are to bring them before the
church and let the whole church preside over what's going on. Not the elder board, not the
deacon board, okay? Not any of those things that
are unbiblical, but to the whole church. And the whole church
is to sit in and judge upon these matters. And once they judge
upon these matters, if they find that man to be in fault and he
not be repentant of that thing and willing to repent and to
make things right with the other brother, then he is to be put
out of the church. He is to be disciplined. We've
seen in Corinthians where the man who was committing fornication,
sexual sins within the church and the church wasn't dealing
with it. They just was letting it go, turning their blind eye
to it. And Paul, that's what he wrote to them and said, you
know, I find fault with you. Yes, that guy is wrong, but I
find fault with you because you're continuing to let this go on
in your church. And he said all, and the admonition
to them, or the exhortation to them, and correction, I guess
I should say, is that they all should be involved in that. If you remember, it was in 2
Corinthians 2, Verses six and seven, he said,
sufficient to such a man as this punishment, which was inflicted
of many. Okay, so the man was eventually
kicked out by the church of Corinth, but it was kicked out of the
many. So that contrary wise ye, again, that was the whole group,
ought rather to forgive him and comfort him, lest perhaps one
should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. So he said that, You're
the ones as the congregation who put the man out of the church,
but upon repentance of that, you as the congregation ought
to forgive him and receive him back into the church. And we
follow that policy here. The church needs to be the one
who makes the decision on whether to put somebody out of the church
or not if they are not abiding by the things of scripture. bringing
dissension among the brethren, if they're being divisive, if
they're bringing in false doctrine, these sort of things, we judge
on that. Now, I know a lot of people,
that's not popular in today's society to say that we can judge.
Who are you to judge? Only God can judge me. You know,
all those things that people say. But the Bible is very clear
that those who are on the outside, we don't judge, but those on
the inside, we do judge. And that's what the church has
been given for. That's why the ecclesia Remember, the ecclesia
was a gathered body of people that was gathered together to
conduct the business of the city or the city-state. That's what
the church is, is it's presiding over the kingdom of God and it's
gospel and it's ministry. And so if there are those in
here that are not keeping with Christ's commands, then the church
as the body, as the whole, The congregation is the one who deals
with the discipline and the judgment of that. And so we saw that that
was done by the whole church and not by just an individual
or a group of men. There was a lot of times we saw
last week also where the church retained its autonomy even among
other churches. We've seen that, let's see who
was in, Look through my notes here. It's a 2nd Corinthians
in chapter 8 2nd Corinthians chapter 8 Look at verse 19 Matter of fact, let's back up To verse 16, but thanks be to
God which put the same earnest care into the heart of Titus
for you. For indeed, he accepted the exhortation,
but being more forward of his own accord, he went unto you.
And we have sent with him the brother whose praise is in the
gospel throughout all the churches." Notice, by the way, through all
the churches, not through all the church, okay? If the church
is one body, this mystical, all the people elect of God everywhere,
then Paul should have just used the singular, through all the
church, not just the churches. But he used plural, why? Because
the church is individual local assemblies, okay? But notice,
and we have sent with him the brother whose praise is in the
gospel throughout all the churches, and not that only, but who was
also chosen of the churches to travel with us with this grace,
which is administered by us to the glory of the same Lord and
declaration of your ready mind. Look down in verse 23. Whether
any do inquire of Titus, he is my partner and fellow helper
concerning you, and our brethren be inquired of they, excuse me,
concerning you, or our brethren be inquired of, they are the
messengers of the churches and the glory of Christ. So see,
this is one of the things that the church does. The church sends
men out as messengers to proclaim the gospel at other places besides
within the local church. That's why there is, we believe
that there are plurality of elders within a church in the fact that
God raises up men who have the qualifications to be teachers
and preachers of the gospel who are ordained to the ministry
but may not hold the office of pastor. There is the office of
pastor who is the overseer, not overseers, but overseer. And then there are the teachers
or the preachers of the gospel who not only preach amongst the
congregation, but are also sent out to preach in other places. Now, we kind of call that today
what the term, and it's not in the Bible anywhere, but they
call them a missionary, okay? Don't particularly care for that
word because the connotation that it originally had was that
there is a mission that we got to go out and reach those who
are dying, who are not hearing the gospel and going off into
hell because nobody's reaching the gospel for them. Now, whenever
we talk about missionaries, quote unquote missionaries, we're talking
about what the Bible term is actually called is an evangelist.
is one who is able to proclaim the gospel and is given the gift
of proclaiming the gospel. And he is being sent out by the
church to minister in other places wherever the Holy Ghost puts
within the hearts of the people to send these men. But here we see that they were
chosen by the churches and sent out by the churches Verse 23,
they were sent out as messengers. The Bible calls them messengers
of the gospel, okay? Back in 1 Corinthians 16, we
also see this. 1 Corinthians 16. Starting in verse one, it says, now concerning
the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the
churches of Galatia, again, Plural, he could have said the Church
of Galatia, meaning the body, mystical body of elect people,
but he didn't say that, because Paul knew and was taught of Christ
that churches were local gathering assemblies. For I've given order
to the churches of Galatia, even so knew ye, upon the first day
of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store, as God
hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.
And when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters,
then will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem. Now, I want you to pay close
attention here, because a lot of times we skip over these things
in our reading and don't meditate upon what's being not only said,
but practiced here. Here is the apostle who is overseeing,
now remember, during this apostolic time, This is a formation period
of the church, institutional, of Jesus Christ. As the churches
are coming into existence, as the commission is being carried
out by the Jerusalem Church and now by Paul, as the commission
is being brought out and churches are coming together and forming,
there is this formulation period. this time of instruction. Because
remember, for thousands of years, the Jews were under a law system
which was only a substance, a shadow, a type of the things that was
to come. But yet now they are in this
whole new dispensation. I want to be careful when I say
that because I don't want to mean dispensational as in the
Armenian eschatological view dispensationalism,
but in a new time or a new period, a new age, which is the age of
the gospel, which is the time period from Christ's death until
his coming again. During this age or during this
dispensation of time, at the very beginning was a formulation
of of these new covenant principles, these new covenant teachings
that Jesus had taught to those apostles and laid those apostles
in the church first so that they might instruct and ground the
other churches as they come into existence as the commission and
the gospel is being spread, that they begin to form those churches
underneath the teachings of Christ in the order that Christ had
ordered them. Okay, and so during this time
period, there were certain things that went on that not necessarily
go on today because we now have the word of God who takes the
place of those foundational apostles that was needed at that time.
We have the word of God now that instructs us in those formulational
things and in those doctrinal things that Christ had taught
them. And so, but if you look here and notice again, Paul was
instructing these churches who were voluntarily bringing gifts
together for the Jerusalem church who had been under persecution,
okay? And so all the churches were
coming together to give relief or help to those who were being
persecuted. And so Paul was going around
and messengers of the churches was going around and was collecting
those collections from the other churches to take back to help
those people that was in need. Okay, now, side note, this in
no way is a stamp of approval upon socialism, okay? There's
a lot of people that want to make this, there you go, there's
socialism right there. Everybody contributed to the
good of the whole, okay? And while yes, the disciples
did that, but if you wanna get down the brass tacks on that
issue, it was only the churches who did that, it wasn't everybody.
And it wasn't forced upon them. It was voluntary. If you remember
Aquila and Priscilla, not Aquila and Priscilla, who was the ones that lied to
the Holy Spirit? I just lost their names. Remember that they
came and they lied to the Holy Spirit and they said that, hey,
we're giving everything that we got. Well, they didn't have
to give everything they got. They couldn't give whatever they
wanted. It was theirs to give. But they lied and said that they
had, even though they kept back a lot for themselves, They only
give a certain amount, but said that they'd given everything
that they'd give to make themselves look more generous. And the Holy
Spirit killed them right there in the door of the building as
they came in. But anyway, they could do that
voluntarily. It wasn't demanded of them to
do that. There's never a demand of giving. The Lord loves a cheerful giver.
And we are to give out of what Christ has given us. as God has
put it in each one in his own heart to give. Now, the Bible
does encourage us to give though, okay? I'm not gonna go from one
extreme to the other and say, don't ever give, you're not to
give if anybody gives or if any preacher preaches giving and
you're a hireling. That's not true either, okay? We're to preach the whole counsel
of God and the Bible has a lot to say about giving to the ministry
of the gospel, okay? I don't work for money, I don't
preach for money, and I've never asked for a red cent since I've
been here, okay? And neither should any preacher.
Preachers don't preach for money, at least true gospel preachers.
They don't preach for money, okay? But that doesn't mean that
they shouldn't preach on giving, but they ought to preach biblical
giving, okay? We're not bound by the law to
give a certain percentage, like the tithe in the Old Testament,
okay? We're not under the tithe system,
okay? However, we are under the grace-giving
system. We should give as the Lord prospers
us. As we find need here, we need
to give. We ought to give, and give till
it hurts. A lot of people really don't
understand that sometimes, but we ought to give, and we shouldn't
hound each other about our giving, but we should know what the Bible
says about it. But anyway, I didn't mean to
give up on that. However, we see here, look what it says.
Paul, again, instructing the churches in their gathering of
these funds, he says, as touching our brother Apollos, I greatly
desired him to come unto you with the brethren, but his will
was not. I'm in the wrong spot, sorry. Verse two, upon the first day
of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store as God
hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. And when I come, whomsoever ye
shall, here it is, approved by your letters, then will I send
to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem. So basically what
Paul was saying here is he was appealing to the individual churches
and saying, you decide the ones who you want to be the ones to
distribute, to bring these things. He said, I will send your liberality
unto Jerusalem by the hands of those that your church decides
to do. See, Paul didn't make that decision. He didn't say,
you at Antioch, you need to send Silas. Send Silas. No, he appealed to the church.
Why? was the ones who was in the governmental authority, okay? Paul didn't have any authority
over the churches in Galatia, other than in a spiritual way
of teaching them as the apostle of Jesus Christ. But as far as
the government of the church and conducting the affairs of
the church, Paul didn't have any authority over them, nor
did he have over the church at Antioch where he was a member
of. He didn't have any authority The authority was within the
church. And so we've seen that the congregation
was the ones, but he appealed to the congregation. He didn't
appeal to the eldership. He didn't appeal to the pastor.
He didn't appeal to the deacons. He didn't appeal to a session,
a synod, a general assembly. He appealed to the local church
themselves. Why? Because God has placed the
local church as the highest office of authority in his kingdom. Now, as we've said, congregational
polity or government is actually implied in the nature of the
ministry. As elders, we are not clerical
priests. I'm not your priest. You don't
have to come to me and confess your sins. Now, the Bible says
we're to confess our sins one to another. If I've sinned publicly,
I should confess that sin to you publicly. But I don't have
to come and tell you all my deep, dark secrets that I've done,
or you come to me so that you can get forgiveness. That's what
the Roman Catholic system does. People can't find forgiveness
unless they go to a priest and ask for it, and only he can absolve
sins. Well, there's only one mediator between God and man,
and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one who can forgive
sins. He's the only one who can grant you pardon. He's the only
one that can reconcile you to God, and he's done that once
for all time by his blood. Okay, and so elders are not clerical
priests, so we don't lord over the Lord's heritage or the Lord's
people. The only way that we as elders rule in the sense of
ruling is by teaching the truth and setting an example. We minister or serve among you,
not as your lords, but as your servants. Look with me if you
would at Matthew chapter 20. Matthew chapter 20. There's a
lot of preachers out here that, there's a lot of preachers out
here that need to learn a lot of stuff about biblical pastoral
ship, about being a servant of the church and not a conductor
or director or dictator or CEO or whatever you want to say.
There's a lot of preachers out there that needs to listen to
what the Bible says about its role of pastor. We have a lot
of men out there who are prideful that they take advantage of the
Lord's churches and control them as their own little organization
and business. But that is not what we are to
do. In Matthew chapter 20, look with
me if you would, at verse 24. And when the ten heard it, they
were moved with indignation against the two brethren. But Jesus called
unto him and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercised
dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority
upon them, but it shall not be so among you." You see what he's
saying there? He's saying the church is not
to be run like the world. The church is not to be governed
like a business, like a corporation. And buddy, listen, we've got
churches out there by the millions now. who try to run like a corporation. First and foremost, they signed
up their 401K, or not their 401Ks, their 401C3s or whatever it's
called, 501. 501C3, see, it's been so long
since I've even been in the midst of that stuff. 501C3s, they wanna
make sure that they get set up with the government so they can
get their tax reimbursements or their tax write-offs, okay? Again, the church dabbling with
the state You know? Let the state be the state and
let the church be the church. And you as a church quit relying
on the state for what you need. Let that be taken amongst yourselves. So when I ask my preacher, does
your church take tax exemptions? No, we don't. You mean your church
doesn't buy things and get the tax taken off of it and everything? No, we don't. Everything that
we buy, we pay taxes on. Because we do not find ourselves
beholden to the government for anything. The government isn't
our beneficiary. And we shouldn't
be tangled up in the government. Now, that's a whole other teaching
in and of itself, but anyway. But Jesus here, he says that
it is not to be run like a corporation. It's not to be like how the world
runs things, where you have someone who is in charge, and that person
rules over the people that is under him. He says, it's not
so. Look at it again, verse 26. But
it shall not be so among you, but whosoever will be great among
you, let him be your minister. Now, in today's society, the
word minister has become a place of prominence. I'm a minister
of the West, I'm a minister. and we have all these stupid
names that we shouldn't even be calling men like, you know,
like Reverend and all that kind of stuff, you know, let's stick
with biblical terms, okay? If you wanna call somebody by
the title that was given to them and acknowledge that title, there's
Pastor, there's Elder, there's those things like that, but let's
not be giving the title Reverend to a man because there's only
one who is revered and that is God, right? So please, don't
ever call me Reverend. If we ever have a sign that,
matter of fact, I've made it clear, if we ever have signs
put out here, which we do have signs out here, I don't want
my name on them. I don't want, you know, Pastor Michael Smith
underneath there or Reverend Michael Smith. This is the Sovereign
Grace Baptist Church. This is where the church meets.
It's not where Mike Smith presides over the church. This is the
church. Okay? So I don't think we ought
to display our names in such a way, but if you'll look here,
he says, and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your
servant. So the word minister there is
the same as a servant, one who serves the other ones. Okay? To be a minister isn't meaning,
hey, I'm a clergy and you're down here. A minister is one
who ministrates. You know what that is? the ministration
of the gospel, the serving of the gospel, the giving of the
gospel. Whenever we, matter of fact, remember we read it last
week about the deacons and they said that the Gentile widows
were not getting things before they were serving the Jewish
widows before the Gentile widows in the daily ministration. You know what that ministration
is? The daily handouts, the daily giving, of help and needs, okay? That word minister comes from
that. We are to minister. We are to give out. We are to
be the ones giving out, not the ones getting in, receiving in,
okay? So we have been called to minister
the gospel. Now that doesn't mean, you know,
we need to be ministered of the gospel as well too, but that
is our chief deal is to serve the church. with the gospel.
That's what we do, okay? And he says, even as the Son
of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to
give his life a ransom for many. So we take our example from the
Lord Jesus Christ. So if that's the case, if we
see that the eldership, our servants, our ministers, then we see that
there is no such thing as these sessions. presbyteries, synods,
general assemblies, lording it over the church because there
is no one to lord over the church except for Christ. So congregational
polity, even in the fact of the offices of pastor and deacon,
those elders are serving elders. not ruling elders. And the reason
why we have churches, quote unquote churches, who believe in these
things is because they do not follow congregational polity.
They follow some sort of augmented, some Baptist churches have this
augmented congregation. They still say they're congregational,
but yet they have a ruling body of elders. All that is is a Presbyterian
form of government. The scripture is equally clear
concerning the independent nature of the church. Again, if you remember, the churches
are local assemblies. There was never any mention of
any church being part of some larger organization or entity. Even in that gathering of collection of funds,
they still were autonomous churches. They were not functioning as
one church. They were functioning as churches
working in conjunction with each other for a common good. Now
again, I bring up the fact of just like how in a lot of the
churches that we fellowship with, we have men who have been called
in those churches, been ordained of God and sent out as evangelists
out of those churches to minister like Paul Brown. Him and his
wife who have moved over to Thailand and is now over in Thailand ministering
among the Thai people. Okay. They're not from our church.
We did not send them out. However, we recognize that that
ministry is a good ministry and Brother Paul is a faithful minister
of the gospel sent from that church. If we want to take part
in helping out in that ministry, we can do that, but we have no
obligation to do that. And we are not constrained by
doing that. We are not lesser. or more, if
you allow me the word, if we do it or if we don't do it, okay? It's as the Holy Spirit guides
us and with the funds and abilities that Christ gives us to work
with here. And so we see that even at that, it is not a big,
large organization, but it still is local assemblies. Nowhere
in the Bible are a group of churches in a locality or in the aggregate
of churches referred to as the church, okay? Again, I appeal
to Galatians, the churches of Galatia. In Galatians 1-2, Paul
used the term plural. If it was an aggregate of churches,
then he would have said to the church in Galatia. If it was
a mystical, invisible body, he would have said the church, but
he said churches. Each assembly was a body of Christ
in the house of God. If you speak of the Presbyterian
or the Episcopal form of government and those churches that have
those, then the term the New Testament church cannot be applied
to that because the New Testament church did not have that form
of government. Matter of fact, even Baptist
churches that don't conform to that form of government cannot
be considered a New Testament although Baptist churches historically
have always had that form of government. It hasn't been since the downgrade and the great contest,
the downgrade in England and the great contest here in the
United States. The downgrade that Charles Spurgeon
wrote about was this downgrade of of ideas that was not what
the Baptist churches had practiced. Anyway, not to get
off on all that stuff either, but the New Testament church, it follows the government that
God has given us, that Christ has given us. The New Testament
describes each local church as one that exercised the responsibility
of having the keys of the kingdom. Each New Testament church elected,
ordained, sent out preachers. Each one received members. Each
one disciplined. Each one conducted business.
Each one did God's work. So there is no other appeal outside
of the local church, okay? Now, each church answers for
its own actions. So as the autonomous, independent,
governing agent of the local assembly, each church is responsible
for its own actions. And we find that in Revelations,
in chapters two and three, where Jesus is writing to those individual
seven churches. And if you remember, we already
talked about, who is he talking to? He's given the letter to
the angel of the church, who is the pastor, okay? To read to the church, but yet
the whole church is the one who is in view, not the pastor, okay? Look at chapter two, verse one.
Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write, These things
saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who
walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. I know thy
works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst
not bear them which are evil, and thou hast tried them which
say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars,
and hast borne, and hast patience, and for my namesake has labored
and has not fainted. Nevertheless, I have somewhat
against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember,
therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the
first works." You remember back whenever we were talking about
the ye's and the thee's? The ye, you, and yours were plural,
but the thee, thou's were singular? Notice here, he is talking to
this church as a particular church apart from the other churches,
okay? Apart from the other churches.
He's making this specific, this specific problem, thou hast left
thy first love, applies to the church of Ephesus as a single
entity. And he reiterates that at the
end whenever he says, Verse seven, he that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Okay? So he's speaking particularly
to this church in Smyrna, but this application can be made
to every church that's out there. So he was specifically talking
to Ephesus, but he said, hey, listen, Sovereign Race Baptist
Church, If you lose your first love, I'll have that against
you also. No matter how faithful you are in other things, you
need to be faithful in this as well. Now, of course, we know
the Lord is the one who enables us to be faithful and we pray
that he gives us that. But these are the admonishments
that we have in Scripture. So he didn't write, notice, he
didn't write to the elder board. He didn't write to a convention.
He didn't write to a board of elders. He sent the message to the angel
or the messenger of the church for the messenger to deliver
what Christ has said. Is that what I do here? I deliver
what Christ has said in His Word to you guys every week. But that
doesn't make me of any importance. That message comes to me just
as much as it comes to you. So whenever Christ here is telling
the church at Ephesus that they have lost their first love, he's
including that pastor along with it. And then he's warning and
exhorting all the other churches who read and hear these things.
Take example from Ephesus. If you left your first love,
I'm not gonna be happy with that, okay? So even the fact that Jesus
addresses the churches in their specific church, shows that the
church is a congregational system of government, not a hierarchy
of government. The letter was to the church. The letter was for the churches. I want to read you a quote here,
and this is quite ironic. This is Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. And again,
the word doctor, I don't have any use for those terms. Again, we don't need to use those
terms. All that is is people wanting to let their prominence
be made known. But Lloyd-Jones here writes something
on the congregational form of government. Now, if you know,
Lloyd-Jones was a Presbyterian. He wasn't a Baptist, he was a
Presbyterian. But yet he made this comment,
and I want to quote this, read this to you, of what he made
about church government. And this is what I don't understand.
Guys that have this understanding, guys that know these things,
believe these things, and even are quoting and teaching these
things to some degree, but yet they continue in the form of
government, in the form of practice, contrary to the scripture. But
look what Lloyd-Jones says here. He says, quote, and then finally
there is the view of church government which we call congregation or
independent. It is rather difficult to handle
this subject nowadays because not one of the descriptions which
I will be given is strictly in correspondence with what is actually
in practice today. Here I am beginning to talk about
independency or congregationalism, but there is very little of such
a quality to be had today. The Congregationalist, those
who believe in the congregational system, affirmed that every local
church is an entity in itself, that it has supreme power to
decide everything itself. Okay, so he agreed that that
was what Congregationalism teaches, right? It is a gathering of Christians
who believe the Lord is present and is the head of the church.
That's what we've been teaching here, right? That he's the head
of the church. that His presence in the commission, He promised
His presence among the church, that we are the sole and supreme
power on this earth that He has given to conduct these things. It is a gathering of Christians
who believe the Lord is present and is the head of the church
and who believe that as they look to Him and wait upon Him,
He by the Spirit will guide them and give them wisdom they need
to decide about doctrine and discipline and so on. That's
what we've said about how we are to conduct church. The local
church is autonomous, it governs itself, and does not look to
any higher body, be it a bench of bishops, a presbytery, a general
assembly, or anything else. And those are the very things
they have within the Presbyterian church that he was a part of.
But I ask, how many such churches are there today? Originally,
the description applied to the so-called Congregationalists
and to the Baptists, for the Baptists believe in congregational
church order, independency from the standpoint of government.
But in general today, both the Congregationalists and the Baptists
have adopted the Presbyterian idea with their sustenation funds
and their control over the local church through funds. They are
no longer Congregationalists but have become Presbyterian
with power given to a higher body which can influence the
local church. But ideally, and originally in
the 17th century, congregationalism or independency conformed to
the pattern which I have just been describing. Many boards,
associations, fellowships, and conventions claim to be servants
of the churches while usurping the local church's authority.
That's all these parachurch organizations. All these men who have their
own little individual ministries in their house doing their thing
apart from the local church. That's what he's talking about.
Many boards, associations, fellowships, conventions claim to be servants
of the churches while usurping the local church's authority.
For example, mission boards will allow churches to ordain missionaries
while reserving to themselves the authority to send them. They,
by doing this, are merely tipping their hat to the local church. Some have pointed to the convocation
described in Acts 15 as being in contradiction to the Baptist
view of local church autonomy. However, scholars who write without
bias recognize that in this passage, the church at Jerusalem was only
giving brotherly advice to the church at Antioch, end quote. So we see that not only church
historians But the Bible itself teaches that the government,
or the polity of the church, is a congregational form of government. And we as Baptists, historic
Baptists, as biblical Baptists, as those of the first century,
first church, exercise a congregational form of government. We teach
a congregational form of government. We do not assert the authority
that Christ has laid. That authority is to be given
by the assembly, or as the assembly, not as the individuals. And so
we must continue to not only practice that, but to also preach
and to teach those things. Let's take a break. It's 15 after 11. Let's get a
drink and We'll come back in and we'll begin to start looking
at these individual officers of the church and start seeing
what the scriptures say about them.