This sermon was preached on Sunday
evening, April 26, 1981, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville,
New Jersey. In the ordinary course of our
Lord's Day evening ministry, We would be found going through,
generally in a consecutive series of messages or studies, opening
up the Word of God as the Word of God comes to us. And in our
Bibles, of course, it comes to us in terms of books and of chapters. In fact, we are presently engaged
in a study in 1 Timothy chapter 2. But in conjunction with our
open house to the public yesterday, it was announced that this evening's
meditation would be directed to the broad subject of the history,
the message, and the ministry of Trinity Church. Since how
we got here and why we are here are matters of which we are not
ashamed, Nor do they touch issues which we desire to pass over
in silence or veil in secrecy. It was the judgment of your leaders
that it would be wise to seize this occasion to address ourselves
to that subject, namely the history, the message, and the ministry
of Trinity Church. Now, in order to set our remarks
under those headings in a thoroughly biblical and, above a thoroughly
God-honoring perspective, and the two are mutually dependent,
I want to direct your attention to three simple principles from
the Word of God. The first one is that God is
a jealous God who will not share His glory with any of His creatures. God is a jealous God who will
not share His glory with any of His creatures. In Isaiah's
prophecy in the 42nd chapter, we read this very pointed word,
the prophet speaking in the first person as the very mouthpiece
of God, Isaiah 42 and verse 8, I am the Lord, that is my name,
and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise
unto graven images. Jehovah is my name. My glory will I not give to another."
God is committed in the entirety of His infinite being to the
preservation of His own unique glory. He is a God who is jealous
to preserve that glory. And we read a very striking incident
in the twelfth chapter of Acts where God manifests the disposition
of His heart in a very strange act early in the history of the
Jerusalem church. We read in Acts 12 of a certain
incident in which a pagan ruler made a very impressive speech,
Acts 12, 21. And upon a set day, Herod arrayed
himself in royal apparel and sat on the throne and made an
oration unto them. And the people shouted, saying,
The voice of a god and not of a man. And immediately An angel
of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory. And he was eaten of worms, and
gave up the ghost. God does not always act so drastically
and dramatically when men dare to rob Him of glory, but the
disposition of His heart which breaks out in this incident is
nonetheless the same. When a man dared to take glory
to himself that belonged only to God, God smote him with an
unusual and horrible death. The God of the Bible is a jealous
God who will not share His glory with any of His creatures. Therefore,
as I attempt to speak tonight of the history, message, and
ministry of an imperfectly sanctified company of God's people, it is
with a sense of holy dread lest in any way in my speaking I should
provoke the frown of God. written over everything that
is said tonight, if it indeed reflects anything of the work
of God, should be the words of Romans 11 and verse 36, for of
Him and through Him and unto Him are all things to whom be
the glory forever and forever. Now the second thing I want to
say by way of setting a biblical framework for my remarks is this. Not only is God a jealous God
who will not share his glory with another, but God is an active
God who manifests his glory among his creatures by his works. God is an active God who manifests
his glory among his creatures by his works. In the 19th Psalm,
there is a celebration of the glory of God seen in the work
of creation. The heavens declare the glory
of God, and the firmament showeth forth His handiwork. But in the
Psalm that was read in our hearing, there is the recording of the
glory of God manifested in the works of God, and in particular,
the works of God towards the sons of men. Psalm 145, verses
8 through 12a. The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and of great lovingkindness. The Lord is good to all, and
His tender mercies are over all His works. All thy works shall
give thanks unto you, O Lord, and your saints shall bless you. They shall speak, notice now,
of the glory of your kingdom and talk of your power to make
known to the sons of men your mighty acts. Therefore, the glory
of God is revealed in the acts of God and forms the basis of
the proclamation of the people of God. They speak of the glory
of God as revealed in His mighty acts. And so, on the one hand,
we feel that dread, lest in speaking of anything We should in any
way rob God of glory that is due to Him and incur His frown,
and yet, on the other hand, we can rob God by failure to speak
of His mighty acts in which His glory is revealed. As surely
as there is a carnal pride that would speak of the works of God
only to advance human praise, there is a sinful modesty that
in refusing to speak of the works of God, robs God of glory that
otherwise would be brought to Him as men rehearse His goodness. And I feel that tension as I
attempt to speak on this subject tonight. But then thirdly, to
set this in a thoroughly biblical context, there is this third
vital principle, and it is this. God has made a unique revelation
of His works in the Scriptures themselves. God has made a unique
revelation of His works in the Holy Scriptures themselves. When Moses records the works
of God in creation as we find them in the opening chapters
of Genesis, The mighty works of God in the flood, the work
of judgment, the mighty work of God in redeeming His people
out of Egypt, all of that record of the works of God which reveal
the glory of God is an inspired record. When we turn to the New
Testament and have the record of the works of God in the incarnation
of Christ, in the life and death and resurrection of Christ, the
sending forth of the Spirit and the formation of the Church in
its New Testament glory and power, here we have a record of the
works of God which reveal the glory of God under the direct
inspiration of the Spirit of God. And therefore, that makes
any recording of the works of God in Scripture qualitatively
different from any rehearsal of the works of God outside of
Scripture. All I can attempt to do, and
what I'm attempting to do tonight, and I've enlisted the help of
my fellow elders, is to rehearse Those things which, as we seek
to interpret our own fourteen years of history in the light
of Scripture, appear to us to be the works of God, but we do
so acknowledging that we are creatures who see through a glass
darkly that we are not omniscient, that it is only the last day
when all wood, hay, and stubble in the building of God's house
are consumed, that what is truly the work of God will be manifested
with absolute accuracy. And I'm very conscious of that
third principle, and I want you to know that I am. I am not standing
here as a prophet speaking in the name of the Lord with infallibility. I am but a servant of Christ
attempting, under the discipline of the great principles of Scripture,
to convey something of what appears to us to be the work of God that
together we might praise and bless our God. May I urge you
then to make a conscious effort as I speak tonight to keep those
three principles before you, regulating and conditioning what
you hear and how you react to what you hear. God is a jealous
God who will not share His glory with His creature. God is the
God who is active and manifesting His glory in His works among
His creatures, and God is the God who has spoken uniquely and
finally in the Word of Holy Scripture. Well then, with those principles
conditioning our thoughts, let me address myself, first of all
and most briefly, to the history of Trinity Church. How is it
that here tonight, on this last Sunday in April, there is gathered
together in Montville, in this relatively newly constructed
building, a congregation of the people of God? Well, in a sense,
that history goes back into eternity. For to the extent that we are
a people called by the grace of God The history of this church
has its cap roots in eternity when God loved us in Jesus Christ
and marked us out to be His own. But I want to speak of the temporal
history, and it all began from the human standpoint in January
in 1967, the last Lord's Day in January, when a group of some
60 to 70 people met in the women's club of Caldwell, New Jersey,
for a season of praise and worship and the ministry of the Word
of God. This group of some 60 to 70 people
shared a common background of previous church affiliation in
which they had been brought to the place where they were convinced
they could no longer carry out a full-orbed obedience to the
Word of God while within that denominational framework with
its hierarchical structure which precluded obedience to the Word
of God in some very vital parts. Now, the denomination was not
heretical. I have dear friends and even
relatives who are a part of that denomination. I have never spent
three seconds seeking to dissuade them from their labors in that
denomination, but it had come to the place where in the mind
and conviction of myself and these 60 to 70 people that if
we were to be obedient to the whole counsel of God as God was
giving us understanding in His Word, we could not do so ethically
within the framework of that denominational structure. And
so we met with the vision that God would be pleased to forge
us into a congregation of His people, determined to believe
everything that the Bible revealed, and by the grace of God to put
into practice everything that the Bible demanded. And that
was the vision. that forms our spiritual roots. There was that longing that our
obedience to Christ in faith and life would not on every hand
be checked by the structures of the denomination and its hierarchy,
but that under the Lordship of Christ we would be free to go
down any path of doctrine which the hand of Scripture led us.
and into any path of obedience which the same hand would mark
out before us. There were no dreams of establishing
a perfect church. There were no visions of establishing
the one true church. There was no desire to look down
upon other churches. There were none of these excesses
that mark the cults. and church movements that from
the outset are evidently not of God because of their crass,
judgmental attitude upon all other expressions of the Church
of Christ. But there was this burning passion
to press on into the measure of the stature of the fullness
of Christ in the language of Ephesians chapter 4. Well, then
the little group was able to secure the multi-purpose auditorium
of the Jefferson Elementary School, and for the next seven or eight
months, it was my privilege to preach on such subjects as the
nature of the New Testament Church, requirements for admission to
the New Testament Church, the responsibility of members in
the New Testament Church, the nature of the oversight and government
and worship of a New Testament church, the essential message
of a New Testament church. And when some of those basic
concepts had been hammered out from the Word of God, on September
the 24th of 1967, in the Jefferson School, some 42 people walked
forward and signed a piece of paper on
the table and covenanted to be constituted as the Trinity Church
to walk under the rule of Christ and in dependence upon the Spirit
of Christ to attempt by the grace of Christ to do the will of Christ. After some two and a half years
in that school building, God was pleased to make available
the old Elks Club in Essex Fells, which was purchased and renovated,
and within which we began to carry on our life together, figuring
that would be adequate until the Lord came or took some of
us home to be with Him. Well, in a matter of about five
years, we had outgrown those facilities and were bumped back
into the school system. First of all, to the Jefferson
School, where we had our beginnings, and then on into the Grover Cleveland
Junior High School, where we met for several years until,
in the good providence of God, After many difficulties and setbacks
and heartbreaking experiences, after literally dozens and dozens
of hours of prayer and waiting upon God and seeking His face,
God was pleased to bring us to these facilities at the end of
January in this past year. And we are here in phase one
of what is a proposed two-phase building program, worshiping
and ministering in this temporary auditorium until such time, and
we trust that time will not be far off, when we can construct
at the end of this building phase two an auditorium set apart specifically
for the worship and praise of God and for the preaching of
His Word. Now, if for some reason you'd
like a more detailed history, if what I've said has simply
whetted your appetite and, as it were, pricked your curiosity,
there is a tape available that has a more detailed account of
the history of the Church. And then also, if you would be
interested in what we feel are the primary lessons taught to
us, During that period, which I called our 14 years of nomadic
life as a congregation, when we were kicked, as it were, not
from pillar to post, but from one auditorium to another, there
is also a tape available going into some detail concerning the
lessons we believe God was pleased to teach us in that time. But
that will give you at least half of a thumbnail sketch of the
history of Trinity Church. Now we come to that which will
form the heart of our meditation tonight, and that is the message
of Trinity Church. And I direct your attention to
1 Timothy chapter 3, and I would appreciate it if you would turn
to that passage with me. Here in this passage, the Apostle
Paul describes the Church under a very graphic figure. He has been writing to Timothy
with respect to Timothy's responsibilities in ordering the life of the churches
in the area of Ephesus. And now in verse 14 of 1 Timothy
3, he tells Timothy why he has been giving him these directions. These things I write unto you,
hoping to come unto you shortly, but if I tarry long, that you
may know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God,
which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of
the truth." And here the apostle calls the church, not the church
universal. not the church in some notion
of the people of God wherever they may be in heaven and upon
earth, but he's speaking of concrete churches in which Timothy is
laboring. who are to have real elders and
real deacons who meet the real requirements in this very passage,
where there is real prayer for real kings and real rulers and
those that are in authority. And he says concerning real,
live, local churches that they are constituted in the purpose
of God, the pillar and the ground of the truth. What he is saying
is this, that the church is God's uniquely ordained instrument
to uphold, to proclaim, to defend, to embody, to manifest the truth
of God in any given place, in any given generation. Now this does not mean that the
church is the mother of the truth. No, no, Ephesians chapter 2 clearly
teaches that the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles
and prophets, Jesus Christ himself, the chief cornerstone. So we
do not accept the doctrine that says it is the church who is
the ultimate mother of the truth and therefore the infallible
guardian and definer of truth. No, no. The Word of God is a
self-interpreting body of revelation, is the ultimate court of appeal
in all controversy, and the meaning of Scripture is to be found in
Scripture, not some external court making pronouncements upon
the Scripture. But granted that precious truth,
we must not water down the vigor of Paul's imagery. that the church
which has come into being by means of the teaching of the
apostles and prophets, by means of apostolic truth, is that institution
ordained of God to uphold that truth in the power of the Holy
Spirit. And so nothing is more vital
and more significant with respect to any church that professes
to be a church of God and of Christ than its message. If you want to ask the question
which is more significant than any other question, you do not
ask, what are your assets? What is your plant? What are
your activities? You ask this question, what is
your message? That is the most strategic question.
And because of that principle, I want to address myself very
clearly, and I trust, by the Lord's help, accurately to that
question. What is the message of Trinity
Church? Well, basically, the message
of Trinity Church is a message which attempts to declare the
whole counsel of God. In the twentieth chapter of Acts,
Paul has set forever the standard for every church that professes
to be a church of Christ. He is talking to the spiritual
leaders of the church at Ephesus, and he's about to leave them.
and lay upon them in a formal charge the responsibilities that
are theirs. And in the midst of this, he
sets forth himself as an example of what a true minister of the
gospel is. Now he says in Acts 20 and verse
26, Wherefore I testify unto you this day, that I am pure
from the blood of all men. That is, no one will be able
to charge me with unfaithfulness, with the butchering of souls. And it's probably an analogy
or a reference to the charge given to Ezekiel the prophet.
As a watchman, God says, if you tell them what I've told you,
and yet they persist in their sins and are destroyed, He says,
your hands will be clear of their blood. And probably with that,
Old Testament imagery in his mind. He says, I am pure from
the blood of all men. No one can charge me with unfaithfulness
to my task. Why? Verse 27. Four. Four. Here is the reason for
my confidence that I am free from the blood of all men. I
shrank not. I did not draw back from declaring
unto you the whole counsel of God. You see, to the Apostle
Paul, his message was not a nose of wax to be pressed or stretched
or shrunk or shapen according to his own fears or according
to the desires or whims of his hearers. God's truth to the Apostle
Paul was, in the language of 1 Thessalonians 2, a divine trusteeship. He says, as we have been entrusted
of God, the truth of God came down to him. It was not his to
shape and mold it after his own whims or notions, or according
to the fancies and desires of the people. It was his to declare
it in its entirety, if he was to be free of the blood of his
heroes. The message of Trinity Church,
with all of its failures and all of its shortcomings, failures
and shortcomings, perhaps more keenly felt by those of us who
are most before you as public teachers, in spite of that felt
sense of weakness and failure, it is nonetheless our confession
in your presence that our effort is to declare the whole counsel
of God. that whatever God has revealed
has been revealed for our good. As we read in the book of Deuteronomy,
the secret things belong unto the Lord, but the things that
are revealed are for us and for our children. And we recognize
that there are truths that are very unpalatable in this book.
There are truths that are humbling to human intellect and to human
pride. There are truths that cut right
across the grain of our deepest, naturally depraved instincts. By the grace of God, our effort
is to preach and teach the whole counsel of God. That is why we
read through consecutively Old and New Testaments in our public
worship, so that we will not willfully skip over one word
of God. of all the things God could reveal
and give to us in a book. This is all He's given to us
in a book. And Jesus said, Man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth
of God. This is why Paul could say in
2 Timothy 3.16, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Literally, all Scripture is God's
breath, is breathed out by God, and is profitable. All Scripture
is profitable. for teaching, reproof, correction,
instruction, and righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect,
thoroughly furnished unto every good work. So what is our message?
Well, it may sound simplistic, but it's true. Our message is
the whole Bible. Our message is the whole Bible,
the whole counsel of God. all Scripture that is breathed
out of God, and that is the entirety of the Word of the living God. But you say, that doesn't tell
me anything specifically. Everybody claims to believe the
Bible and the whole Bible and nothing but the Bible. Can you
be a little more definitive? Can you be a little more specific?
Well, I've attempted to be, and time may prove that I was a fool
in attempting to reduce into about ten minutes the whole Bible. But he who makes the effort runs
the risk of being shown the fool, and I'm going to make the effort.
Now the most full statement of our faith, and we are committed
to an old historic confession of faith, is the Baptist Confession
of 1689, and we subscribe to this confession, not like it's
the Bible, but as the most accurate expression of what we understand
the Bible to teach. For any of you who'd be interested
to have one of these, there's some out on the table in the
foyer. You may take one. They're there for the taking.
But when we open the Scriptures, this book that is God-breathed,
what is the heart of its message? May I suggest that the heart
of its message comes to us in terms of three words? And I think
even you children can go out with three words tonight. Creation,
fall, and redemption. The heart of the message of the
Bible is summed up in those three words. Creation, fall and redemption. The opening words of the Bible
are the most important words of the Bible, not John 3.16. Without the perspective of Genesis
1.1, John 3.16 can be made into nothing but religious slush and
nonsense. What are the opening words of
the Bible? In the beginning, God. So whatever else the Bible
says about God, from the very beginning we are to understand
that the God of the Bible is in no way dependent upon the
creature. That the God of the Bible is
in no way manipulated by the creature. He is not a nervous
nelly who waits on the sidelines, twiddling his fingers, wondering
what the creature will do so that he may come along and give
his second to the motion. In the beginning God, and what
was before that beginning nothing but In all the glory of His triune
being from eternity, in the bliss of inter-trinitarian communion,
He was God. And the first thing we read about
Him is that He created. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. Then we have that brief, categorical
treatment of creation in Chapter 1. Then in Chapter 2, the zoom
lens comes in upon man and how God created male and female in
His image, in His own likeness. And everything from those two
chapters onward assumes those basic perspectives of Genesis
1 and 2. God created. Therefore, man is
dependent creature. Man is finite. God is infinite. The world is not eternal. Matter
is not eternal. The world and matter are not
self-interpreting. In the beginning, God created. Therefore, all that He created
reveals something about the Creator. And in particular, man who was
made distinctively and exclusively in the image and likeness of
God, man is a moral creature, accountable to God as his governor
and as his lord and as his judge. A hundred years of evolutionary
lie have eroded that concept, and now the chickens have come
home to roost. And there is hardly one fundamental
problem in our society, in its crumbling existence, that cannot
be found rooted in the jettisoning of Genesis 1 and 2. If man is
nothing but an animal, why not live like one? And you've got
no answer. So if he's got sex urges, go ahead and fulfill them,
like animals in heat. were not bound by moral principles
but only by physiological urges. Trinity Church proclaims without
embarrassment the historicity of Genesis 1 and 2, in the beginning
God created. We stand with our blessed Lord
who said in Matthew 19, Have ye not read that he who made
them in the beginning made them male and female? If it is foolish
to believe the historicity of Genesis 1 and 2, then we stand
with incarnate wisdom in our folly. We stand with our blessed
Lord in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
And we stand with Him and point to those opening chapters and
say, yes, in the beginning God created. Male and female roles
have their roots in Genesis 2. And with all the confusion of
identity of the sexes and the roles and domestic roles, why
all this confusion? Because of ignorance or willful
rejection. of what the Bible teaches about
creation. What is the message of Trinity Church? Well, we hope
it's the message of the whole Bible. Therefore, it is the message
of creation. This is God's world. We are God's
creatures. We are accountable to Him. Then,
tragically, it's also a message that has a second word, the fall. Do you know what we mean by the
fall? Not that Adam and Eve stubbed their toe on a root in the garden
and skinned their knees. But in Genesis chapter 3 there
is the tragic record of how our first parents and the responsibility
peculiarly upon Adam, they turned away from the position of dependantness. They turned away from the posture
of submissiveness. They turned away from the posture
and position of finiteness or attempted to. They would be like
God, knowing good and evil. And when they defected from the
path of obedience, the Scripture says, as through the one man
sin entered into the world, and death passed upon all men, for
they had all sinned, as in Adam all die. We stand, I stand, to
say on behalf of my fellow members that we as a congregation in
our message stand unashamedly in one sense, but inwardly in
terms of our involvement it is with shame, but it is the truth
of God nonetheless. We believe in the reality and
the tragedy of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. You say, Pastor Martin, you sound
like you're serious, but I can't believe it. You sound reasonably
intelligent. You holler a bit and sound a
little fanatical once in a while, but you sound like you've got
at least most of your marbles. And you are telling me, if I
understand you rightly, that you mean you actually believe
that when it says in Genesis 3, the serpent was more subtle
than any beast of the field which the Lord God made, and he spoke
to Eve as he spoke to him, you believe that's history? Yes. And again, we believe it because
our Lord believed it, and the apostles believed it. And we
stand with them in their confidence that this is the word of the
living God. What's the result of that fall?
The result is that man is guilty and liable to punishment for
the wages of sin is death. But more than that, man is not
only guilty, that is, liable to judgment because of his bad
record in the court of heaven, the fall brought about a tragedy
inwardly in man himself. The scripture says he became
spiritually impotent. He became a creature who was
in bondage and enslaved to his sin. So he's not only found with
a bad record, but God says he's got a bad heart. He is not only
guilty, but he is impotent. He is not only alienated from
the life of God, but he loves his alienation. And so the Bible
is full of such statements as these. They that are in the flesh
cannot please God. No man can come to me, except
the Father which hath sent me. Draw him. The heart is deceitful
above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? The carnal mind is enmity against
God. It is not subject to the law
of God. Neither, indeed, can it be. The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, because they are foolishness
unto him. Neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned. When we were without strength,
Christ died for the ungodly. That is our message, the message
of the fall in all of its horror. in all of the tragedy of it,
but there is no other answer to what we see with our eyes.
How does that sweet, loving bundle of apparent innocence that you
carry home in the crook of your arm from the hospital so soon
become a rebellious, stubborn, pouting little creature resisting
everything that looks like a father? Where does that change come from? How do you explain the behavior
of little babies? You can't talk to them and say,
hey, I want to make a naughty little brat out of you. How does
he learn to look up at you and stick his lower lip out and say,
no? Did you have to teach him? I
didn't have to teach any of my kids how to say no. I'd teach
them a lot of things, never had to teach them how to say no.
And I'm one of ten, and my dear parents are here tonight. I don't
think they had to teach any one of us how to say no. Didn't teach
us how to pouch. Didn't have to teach us things.
Why? We're born with a built-in teacher. Jesus said, for from
within, out of the heart, proceed all these forms of evil. We attempt
to take that seriously. That's why we don't go around
putting a little band-aid of a little bit of religious profession
or just try to get a little water on people or get them under a
lot of water and get them to go through some ritual. Why don't
we just put the band-aid of a little religious rigmarole? and a little
bit of the saccharine of just be nice and sweet and all will
turn out well. Dear people, we don't do that
because we take seriously what the Bible teaches about the fall. That man is condemned and will
perish under the wrath of God unless something happens. Man
is dead in sin and needs to be quickened. Unless he is born
of the Spirit of God, he'll never see the kingdom. But thank God
the message of the Bible is subsumed under a third word, redemption.
Redemption. The whole message of the Bible
is not only the message of creation and the fall, but its great message
is, assuming those realities and building upon them and expanding
them, it's the great message of redemption. That is, that
Almighty God in love and mercy and power, has determined to
do something for man, his creature, who fell from him and was helpless
to do anything for himself. And from the first intimation
of that, Genesis 3.15, right in the setting of the fall, God
says this, I will put warfare between the seed of the woman,
the seed of the serpent, and in that warfare, the seed of
the woman will have his heel bruised. Now, a bruised heel
hurts. Some of us who do some regular running, we know what
happens when we get a bruised heel. It hurts. But He says in
the process, though the heel of the serpent will be bruised,
of the seed of the woman will be bruised, the serpent will
bruise it. Ultimately the head of the serpent will be crushed
by the seed of the woman. There is the first little light
that God gives, that He is going to be a God of redemption. Man
turned away, but man had no power to rescue himself. Man was given
the power to choose in the garden, but having once chosen sin, he
had no power to reverse that choice. He was bound. He was
the slave of his sin. But God gave a promise there
in Genesis, and it's a wonderful thing as you read through the
Old Testament, not as a random collection of historical snippets
with a little bit of poetry and devotional literature thrown
in, but you look at the Old Testament history as the opening up of
that flower promise in Genesis 3.15. It's a beautiful thing.
The past days we've had the joy of watching a lily plant and
its various blossoms and Watch the thing open up. When the plant
was first brought in, there was just one bell open. But then
day after day, we've seen them open and open and open until
that lily in its full beauty has been there for us to behold.
Well, that's Genesis 3.15. There it is. Just the hard little
nubby substance of redemption. But then it opens and opens and
opens and opens until the Bible shows us that redemption in its
full glory in the face of Jesus Christ. And that redemption will
be consummated when Jesus Christ, who died and rose again, comes
the second time to take to Himself all who have trusted Him as their
only hope of salvation. He ushers in the new heavens
and the new earth and forever banishes the wicked from His
presence. The redemption of the Bible is
a message of which we sang tonight, a message of the free, sovereign
love of God to sinners. God so loved the world that He
gave It's a message of the free, sovereign, electing grace of
God that marked out a multitude whom no man can number out of
every kindred, tribe, and tongue, and nation and said, of those
my love shall accomplish something in them. It will not merely be
a canopy spread over them. It will actually be talons sunk
into them and will secure their rescue from the clutches of sin
and damnation. It's a redemption secured by
the unique activity of a unique person, the Lord Jesus, who is
truly God and truly man. lived the perfect life we sinners
could not live, died a death not for any sins of His own,
but under the weight of the sins that the Father put to His account,
so that Martin Luther in his striking way said, though Jesus
Christ was sinless, He became the greatest sinner who ever
lived. And how did He become the greatest
sinner? Not by His own acts of sin, not
by the pollution of His nature with sin, but by the charging
of our sins to His account. When our sins were charged to
His account, the Scripture tells us that He was made a curse for
us. He died not the death of a submissive
martyr. The scripture says he poured
out his soul unto death. He was active. He was the great
high priest standing, as it were, at the altar, offering up himself
in death, that you and I might be forgiven, that we might have
a perfect righteousness. And so central is this unique
person and his work that in one sense the Bible says the whole
message of the Bible is bound up in the little phrase, preaching
Christ. Paul says in Colossians, one
whom we preach, we preach Christ and Him as crucified, 1 Corinthians
2. Well, you see, That could be
carried out in many directions, but in summary, that's the message
of the Bible and that's the message of Trinity Church. It's the message
of creation. It's the message of the fall. It is the message of redemption. Now then, let me conclude and
address myself briefly now to the third category, the ministry.
of Trinity Church. Now, if the message is the most
critical issue, then the ministry ought to be a reflection of a
church's message. And as surely as the church is
not free to determine its message, it's not free to determine its
ministry. shall the church have a ritual
ministry, a social ministry, a political ministry, a philanthropical
ministry? Well, there are many in our day
who say, well, it's free to choose. No, it isn't. For Jesus Christ
said, I will build my church, Matthew 16. And in the building
of it, he not only gave a message to his church, but a ministry
by which to convey that message and to embody that message in
its corporate life. And let me try to collate the
ministry of Trinity Church under three simple headings. Those
ministries, I'm sorry, I want to touch first of all the ministry
in its broadest scriptural outline, then three simple headings. I
should stick with my notes. In its broadest scriptural outline,
our ministry is defined for us in Matthew 28. And I urge you
to turn there for just a few moments as we look briefly at
this passage. Matthew chapter 28. The Lord Jesus is risen from
the dead. He is now about to commission
the apostles, and through them the church for its entire life
upon the earth. And he says in verse 18 of Matthew
28, Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying, All authority has
been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore
and make disciples of all the nations. baptizing them into
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded
you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."
So you see, this commission extends to the consummation of the age.
Though originally given to the eleven, in being given to them
it becomes the deposit of the church for its entire life in
history. What is then the ministry of
any church that claims to be subject to Christ? Notice the
context. All authority has been given
to me. And what I pronounce as the church's
ministry, none have any right to adjust, to negate, or to alter. All authority is given to me
and under my authority and in the confidence of my presence
as you seek to accomplish it. That's the other side of the
context. The unique, the changeless, the
supreme authority of Christ on the one hand and the presence
of Christ on the other. And what is the task? Look at
it. Make disciples of all the nations. We are to make disciples
of all the nations. Well, how do you make disciples?
Well, you read the book of Acts and find out. How did the disciples,
how did the apostles obey this commission? Did they go into
an area and under political pressure get everyone to be baptized and
declare them a Christian? That's how people have made disciples
in the history of the church. That's not how our Lord said
it should be done. How did they make disciples?
They made disciples by preaching the gospel. The book of Acts
says they went everywhere preaching the word. And when they preached
the message of what? Creation, fall, and redemption. When God, by the power of the
Spirit, was pleased to open the eyes of sinners, to see their
accountability to God. They cried out as they did in
Acts 2. Sirs, what shall we do? We are accountable to God. We
are guilty before God. We are not fit to stand before
Him. What did the apostles tell them
to do? They pointed them to Christ. They pointed them to the one
who had died and been raised from the dead. Disciples are
made by the preaching of the gospel. Disciples are made as
the spirit in answer to prayer works in the hearts of people. That's our ministry. Make disciples
of all the nations. You see, God doesn't leave us
the luxury of saying, well, if people want to believe lies and
are comfortable in lies, leave them alone. No, He says we are
to be aggressive in making disciples. We're to go to men who are comfortable
in their band-aid religion. We're to go to men and women
who are comfortable in their ignorance. We're to go tenderly,
yes. We're to go with compassion,
yes. We're to go in prayerful dependence
upon the Holy Spirit, yes. But we're to go and confront
them with the claims of King Jesus. Make disciples of all
the nations. But then the second thing he
says we're to do is we're to mark out those disciples by baptism. Look at the passage. Baptizing
them. Now notice it doesn't say baptizing
them and their children. baptizing them and their households. No, the them refers to those
who are made disciples. We are to baptize them. So you see, baptism is the God-ordained
means to mark out those who become disciples. baptizing them into
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
That is by this watery ordinance to symbolize that they have come
into union with the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That when men believe the gospel
of Christ, through Christ they come into the fellowship of the
Father. And they do so by the mighty
regenerating work of the Spirit. You see, we are no Jesus-only
cult. Christ is to be central in our
preaching. Christ is to be central in our
affections. But it is never a Christ divorced
from the Father whom He has revealed, and from the Spirit who reveals
Christ to us, that we may know the Father. And so we are not
at liberty to say, well, we'll just make disciples and baptism's
been such a controversial issue and there's all kinds of theories
and books written that would fill 20 shelves, 20 feet long. Let's just forget. No, no, no.
All authority has been given unto me. Why do we have the name Baptist
in our title? To underscore that we take this
part of the commission serious. that those who are disciples
are to be marked out by baptism and become a community of the
marked out ones who in their baptism declare they are united
to Christ, that they have died with Christ to the world and
to sin, risen with Christ to newness of life, and are now
seeking to live in the power of Christ to the glory of God.
But that's not the end. He says, then they are to be
nurtured into a full-orbed obedience to all the words of Christ. Look
at the language. Teaching them. Those who have
been made disciples and baptized are to be taught. Now notice,
all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And the great
thrust of any teaching ministry that is biblical will be practical. It will not be theoretical. not
simply gathering people together to fill their minds with notions,
setting before them the most lofty truths, yes, but always
with an end that those truths will be converted into experience
and into conduct. And so you see, through the New
Testament, the most lofty doctrines again and again have a direct
line to the most mundane duties, again and again. What's more
mundane than trying to love your wife is yours. What's more mundane than trying
to be the wife you ought to be? That's pretty down-to-earth,
isn't it? And yet the lofty doctrine of Christ's distinguishing love
for His church is the framework of Paul's instruction in Ephesians
5. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the
church and gave Himself up for it, that He might sanctify it,
having cleansed it by the washing of water with the Word, and might
present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle
or any such thing. You see that relationship? Paul's
talking about a collection for poor saints down in Judea. And
right in the middle of it he says, For you know the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your
sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might become
rich. There is always that direct line from the loftiest doctrine
to the most mundane duties. And it's that kind of a teaching
ministry that Christ says we're to provide for those who've been
marked out by baptism, having become disciples, teaching them
to observe whatever He has commanded. Well, that's our ministry. An
effort by the grace of God to try to work out that great sweeping
panorama of duty in dependence upon the Spirit. You say precisely
how do you do it here? Well, here are my three little
sub-points and then I'm done. All right? By certain activities
connected with this building. I felt that was the easiest way
to collate them. Certain activities connected
with this building. Stated seasons of public worship
and preaching. That's central to our life. As
our little brochure says, with regard to our assembly and its
activities, the greater part of each service is given to expository
preaching, that is, the opening up of the Word of God, that we
may know the mind of our Savior and by His grace follow Him.
Then there are stated seasons for sacramental meals of remembrance. Jesus said, this do in remembrance
of Me. We do not have a fresh offering
up of Christ. The Bible says He died once for
all, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.
But He said, do this in remembrance of Me. And in this building,
on the first Lord's Day of every month after our evening service,
we gather In order to remember our Lord in His dying love, in
a simple meal of remembrance, without ritual, without fanfare,
we take a loaf of bread and break it. We take the fruit of the
vine and we drink it in remembrance of Him whose body was broken
for us and whose blood was shed. Here in this building, you see,
we seek to do what He commanded. This do in remembrance of Me.
Teach them to observe all things that I've commanded. Do this
in remembrance. We must have that meal of remembrance
if we're to obey Him. And it is in this building that
we also have stated seasons for corporate prayer. I will therefore,
1 Timothy 2, that prayers, intercessions, supplications be made for all
men, for kings, for rulers, for those in authority. And so we
meet here to lay hold of God, to pray for His working in the
grave concerns of His kingdom. And then we meet here for corporate
interaction and fellowship. You ever wonder, some of you
perhaps have just begun to come, what do people talk about when
they stand around here after services? Well, I'm not ubiquitous,
I can't be everywhere, and I'm certainly not omniscient, don't
know everything, but often my heart is thrilled as I come up
on a little group, one or two here, two or three there, four
or five. Last week this happened, I interrupted two women who were
talking, just wanted to greet them, and then they shared with
me what they were doing. They were pulling each other
up out of the pits. And how my heart was thrilled to say, this
is what God says we're to do. We're to exhort one another daily
while he's called today. We're to bear one another's burdens
and so fulfill the law of Christ. And these two sisters were sitting
in those comfortable brown chairs, not talking about the weather,
seeking to pull each other up out of the pits. God's given
us to one another. Thank God for that activity,
because Christ has commanded it. And that's one of the activities
we carry on in this building as we have opportunity when we
are together. But then there are activities
connected with our building in Essex Fells, what we call affectionately
our little cracker box. It now houses the Trinity Ministerial
Academy. You say, what in the world's
that got to do with Matthew 28? Oh, it has a lot to do with it.
made disciples of all the nations. How are they made disciples?
By preaching. Paul says in Romans 10, how shall
they preach? Except they be sent. How shall
they preach? Except they be sent. And what
is to be sent? Not clowns, not jokers, not salesmen. Jesus said, pray the Lord of
the harvest to send forth laborers. What's a laborer in a harvest
who doesn't know how to take his side and to cut down the
harvest? So 2 Timothy 2 says, the things
that you've heard of me among many witnesses, Timothy, the
same commit to faithful men who shall be able to teach others
also. Where was Timothy when that was said to him? In the
midst of the churches! He didn't say, Timothy, get an
institution that operates out in no man's land with no living
interaction with the church. Send men off there to get framed
and molded to be laborers." He said, No, Timothy, you commit
these things to faithful men. That is why we have a ministerial
academy with fifteen men in that academy. And thank God for those
who have already gone forth to make disciples of all the nations,
for those, God willing, that will go forth this May to go
into that harvest field. And then there is the Trinity
pulpit. We are to make disciples of all the nations. And in this
day where we have the mechanical means of tape recordings, we
seek to get the Word to the nations by means of those little cassettes.
And you'll notice in the report for this year, over 275,000 of
those little mechanical preachers have gone forth in the past few
years. This year alone, some 57,000. More than 75 countries where
the Word is being preached. Why? Not because we're trying
to promote ourselves. God knows we had no notion of
ever having a Trinity pulpit ministry. But the Lord has been
pleased to grant a hunger for His Word and these means and
those to serve in this capacity. Well, those are some of the ways
we're seeking to carry out the commission in that building.
But then there are activities connected with no church building.
There are the evangelistic endeavors joined with ministries of compassion. The missions in Newark, three
times a week, men go to minister to those who are the wrecks and
the offcast of society. Every Wednesday, every Friday,
and every Lord's Day, once a month, men go to the other mission in
Newark to go to those who are cast off by others, and that's
no little part of a true gospel ministry. Jesus said the poor,
those that nobody wants to have anything to do with, have the
gospel preached to them. And others go every Wednesday
and Thursday night to the Overbrook Hospital in Cedar Grove, where
you have those, many of whom are unwanted by their own loved
ones and have been shunted off into an institution. And they
go to bring the Word of God to them, to sit down and speak to
them and bring fresh baked goods in the name of Christ, giving
the cup of cold water in the Savior's name. And I'm pained
to even tell you these things, but I feel I must. You've asked
the question, what are the ministries? What are you doing to fulfill
Christ's commission? These are some of the doors that
God has opened outside of any church building. These evangelistic
endeavors joined with a ministry of compassion. Then there are
our missionary commitments. We prayed for some of them tonight
in Sweden, in East London, in Kenya, in other places. And then
the ministry of helps to other parts of the body of Christ.
Just today, five pulpits have been supplied by men from our
own assembly. That's not bragging, except bragging
in the Lord that He has given credibility to our men. And people
who want someone to come and give them sixteen ounces of the
pound Bible preaching know that they can look to us. And we thank
God for that as we seek again to fulfill that commission, to
make disciples, and to teach them all things that Christ has
commanded. There is a ministry of compassion
that has realized the expenditure of tens of thousands of dollars
for famine-stricken East Africa on one occasion, earthquake-stricken
Honduras, Guatemala on another occasion, Southeast Asia, other
things, we don't want to enumerate them. They are known fully to
God both in substance and motive. You see, some of you perhaps
have been a little disturbed and said, well, that's a church.
All they do is gather around the pulpit and gather around
the man. My friend, it pains me to tell
you these things, but I feel I must. Some of you have been
here some time and didn't even know these things. Why? Because
we feel it's contrary to the biblical doctrine of a sense
of modesty about those things God gives us to do in His name
to parade them. And there's the ministry to each
other. What a thrilling thing it is to have someone who's come
back from the hospital say, you know, I haven't had to cook a
meal for two weeks. And I checked with the deacons and many times
they didn't even do anything officially with the situation.
They didn't have to. The people of God spontaneously
responded outside of any formal church structure, ministering
to each other's need in their time of distress and necessity. Well, I conclude tonight by saying
if anything of good has come from this poor bunch of imperfectly
sanctified sinners, then we must say with Paul in 1 Corinthians
4, 7, what have we that we did not receive? And it's been all
of grace. When I think back over these
years and remember the pain and the anguish of wrestling through
some of the critical decisions that had to be made, putting
my own life in that sense, my own reputation, whatever that's
worth, on the line. When a church that had just built
a building seating 750, offering me adequate means to buy my own
home, credit card to charge all my gas, have a daily radio ministry,
wonderful opportunity, brand new building, thriving church. They were beckoning. And when
those 60 to 70 people said, Pastor Martin, will you stay with us
and help us under God see a church come to birth that will at least
begin to approach a biblical church? Oh, the wrestlings. There are no regrets now. But
the wrestlings were real. But the vision was real. And
the sense of utter dependence upon the Spirit of God was real.
And now as we look back over these years and survey the history,
as we meditate upon the message, as we think of the many ministries
God has entrusted to us, what can we say but blessed be God
who daily loatheth us with benefits. We have nothing but what we've
received and we say I trust to God's praise and God's glory
that the Lord has done these things And while understanding
we do not infallibly interpret what he's done, that qualifying
principle, some of you are such living monuments of the transforming
power of grace I could sooner deny my own existence than deny
that the grace of God is at work in you. And I think it fitting
as we close tonight to sing as what I trust will be the outpouring
of our hearts in the presence of God Hymn number 667, to God
be the glory, great things He has done. Number 667. No little
part of our gratitude to God has been the wonderful way that
He has graced our assembly with men to give us responsible spiritual
leadership, both at the recognizable office level, elders and deacons,
as well as those who have never been found in office, but who
serve so effectively and gracefully in the power of the Spirit. And
I'm going to ask Pastor Clark, whose presence amongst us has
been such a benediction through the years, to come and lead us
as we commit the things we've considered tonight in the Lord's
presence unto the Lord himself. Pastor Clark, would you come
and lead us in our closing prayer, please? Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, what shall
we say to Thee at the close of this service in which We have
been reminded of the wonderful works of God in the past, those
works which are revealed to us in the pages of Holy Scripture,
and then also the wonderful works of God which we have seen with
our eyes in our own midst. At the beginning of the preaching
tonight, we were reminded that the Bible begins with, In the
beginning, God, of Him, are all things. And we have learned that
by Him are all things. And we rejoice in the knowledge
that to Him are all things. As of all things have come from
God, and to God alone be the glory. So we look to Thee, our
God and our Father, with the confidence that everything will
terminate in God. While we live in a world which
is filled with turmoil, men's hearts are filling them for fear,
looking upon the things that are coming on the earth. We ourselves
are often caught up in that fear and apprehension and uncertainty,
yet we know that by the grace of God that we have a bright
and glorious future. All who trust in the Lord Jesus
Christ and acknowledge Him as their Lord and their Redeemer.
So we thank Thee for reminding us of these things tonight. We pray that as we go forward
as a church is a body of Christians that we may be more and more
repeatedly committed to the truths that are in thy word, and may
go from grace to grace, may go from strength to strength, carrying
the glad message of redemption from the fall and ruin of sin,
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Grant, Lord, that here in this
neighborhood of Montville, into which we have come now, in a
sense as newcomers, as an assembly moving into this neighborhood,
O Lord, grant that we may always be of good testimony to the grace
of God here. and that we may never as a church
or none of us as individuals give a lie to the things which
we profess and the things which we proclaim even as we have heard
them tonight. We thank thee for this day. We
thank thee for the glories of the Lord's day. Now tomorrow
We'll be going back, some of us, to a factory or to shop,
to places of business, to schools, to other mundane earthly activities
and rubbing shoulders with the world and hearing some of the
world's blasphemies, being subjected to the world's pressures. O Lord, we pray that that which
has fortified our souls even this day, being in the company
of God's people on the Lord's day, that those things may be
with us and may strengthen us and help us, that we may live
for God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation and win
others to the Savior whom we have been won, help us to this,
and we pray and dismiss us, we pray with thy blessing upon us.
We ask in the precious and fearless name of thy beloved Son, our
Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.