This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at gracetruth.org and anchoringfaith.org. A people
for His glory, by His grace. Every few weeks, I do get the
question related to church membership. Why do we join a church? Where
in the Bible does it teach us that we're supposed to be part
of an organized religion? all sorts of things and these
questions are sincere and they're fine and they're good because
it shows that people have this idea that something needs to
be understood in relation to what the church is, who she is
and how she functions. I had a conversation yesterday
with a young man and he's not sure why his church is doing
what they do. Not sure why they don't teach
scripture. The good people. They have a good time together.
They enjoy doing life. But when it comes to spiritual
things, there's none. There's none whatsoever. There's
not any place where God is working literally and truly through the
Word. People don't understand. People
have been hurt by institutionalized, quote, Christianity. And because
of that, they have dismissed the church at large. And if you
know much about word history, you know the word church is a
misnomer. It's a misapplication, it's a
misidentification. This is not church. Church, by
definition, is a transliterated term that means institution. The better translation of ecclesia
is assembly, because that's exactly what it means. So, we're gathered
together. I would prefer to call it assembly. But as we'll see here in John
10, this isn't a place where we find direct teaching about
the church. Here is your exposition, now
we know and understand the church. We glean from this what the apostles
teach us. very clearly about who the church
is and what she should be doing. And I'll say to you this, is
that it's all a symptom of several things. What am I talking about?
The symptoms. Not understanding the church
is a symptom of not being taught the Word of God. Not understanding
the church is a symptom of being in a culture in which we can
attend and, I don't know, participate in an observatory way but not
engaged whatsoever with anyone. It's a symptom because we have
come to understand the gospel through osmosis and indirect
expression rather than direct teaching. And that gospel in
our culture is a false gospel and there's no gospel at all.
We've come to see these symptoms of not understanding and being
part of the local assembly of the body of Christ, the flock,
the sheep folds, because we really have bought into a free will
mentality that I get to choose what I like best about what I
do as a Christian in regard to how I worship God together with
His people. And the reason that these things
happen is because there's no great and direct teaching and
then also direct application of the teaching of Scripture
regarding the church. And it sort of hit me a couple of weeks
ago, though I've studied John a lot. By the Lord's mercy, I
hope to finish a commentary as I finish this sermon series. But Jesus is illustrating some
things about the church here that are emphatic. and that are
so related to the gospel of grace and His finished work of justifying
His people, that if we're not careful, we will pit the gospel
against the very nature of being the body of Christ. And I can say this, we need to
be in the Scripture more now than ever before, beloved. I'm
not, you know this is not my style, and I don't mean to make
you feel guilty, but if you haven't read the Bible in your hand this
week, I want to encourage you not to let next Sunday come if
you have not read the Bible. If you have to get up at 4 a.m.
on Sunday morning and read at least where we are in John's
Gospel. Friends, you are not growing in your faith. You are
not growing in Christ if you are not reading Scripture in
your own hand. You are not growing in Christ if you were just listening
to me talk. What you're doing is your appetite
is being wet to want more and you can't wait to come back and
hear me teach you more. Why don't you eat? Why don't
you eat? We find ourselves on the edge
of falling away and frustration and exhaustion and all these
things and we wonder where our power and our strength is going
to come. When's it going to come? Got to get to church, maybe it'll come there.
It's not going to come here if you haven't already fed yourself
already. Coming malnourished to a surgeon, he will only keep
you alive. You must eat the Word of God. And if you don't have time, Do
me a favor, just take a piece of paper or a cardboard or whatever
it is that you write on, keep it with you, and every time you
change tasks every day, write what you're doing in the time.
I promise you, I promise you, I promise you, as much as Christ
upholds the elements of this universe by the Word of His power,
I promise you there is so much more time in your life to be
intimate with God's Word that you would be blown away. You'd
be blown away. There is time. There is time. There is time. Nobody is so busy
that there's not time to be in God's Word. I know people who
work 14 hour shifts and work 9 of them straight. I know people
who work 3 24s as soldiers and public service people and they
read their Bible. during those times. You see,
we're busy. I know we are. But friends, why do I insist
on that? Because you are not going to make it if you were
not eating of Christ and His Word. You're not going to make
it. And the way that these people
in John's Gospel, the way these Pharisees have not been able
to understand is because they've not been eating the Word of God.
God has not given them eyes to see, so even when they do eat
of it, they don't understand it. But you, beloved, have been
redeemed. You have been regenerated because
you have been redeemed. You have been born again by the
Spirit of God to have not only the desire, but the ability to
absorb and to understand and see with great spiritual and
divine illumination the truth of Christ and the Scripture And
friends, there is no counsel I can give you. I've said this
probably 15 times this year. There's no counsel I can give
you apart from being in God's Word and being with God's people
that'll help you. It doesn't matter what kind of
credentials I have, how much I understand the mind. It doesn't
matter how many prescriptions I could write you. Nothing's
gonna help you. Nothing's gonna help you. outside
of being with God's people and being in God's Word. Nothing. And that's why it's
a tragedy of our culture when we see people just treat the
church like a restaurant. You know, I really enjoyed that
food. Man, that was the best piece of steak I've ever had.
Those mashed potatoes are like heaven. I mean, we've all said
that. But get that snotty waitress,
we're not going back. Somebody don't wipe off our table,
I'm just going to go somewhere else for a while. I'm talking about petty things.
I'm talking about personal things. I'm talking about things that
we want to see happen and we want to see do and we want to
see change versus things that are dynamically and intrinsically
dealing with the truth of Christ. That pastor preached too long.
Our meal took a little bit too long to get, so I want to try
another. I want some fast food, and I
don't have time for church. I don't have time for this restaurant.
Oh, they really charge too much. We went to a restaurant yesterday.
My wife likes to get fish, and the piece of fish we typically
get there is about like this. And it's like they gave her two
fish sticks. No kidding. And I'm like, I know good and
well, that is not all the fish they're going to bring you. You
know, I'm like, this is a call the waitress over. I said, Ma'am,
you see this picture? You see this right here? I said,
This is all my is there a hidden camera right here? I mean, that's
what I was thinking. It's just candid camera. No. So we've all got our nuances.
We've all got our pet peeves. We've all got our American kingship
mindset. We got things the way we like
them and we want them the way we want them. Friends, that's
the beauty of being in the body of Christ in a covenant relationship
with the church. We can leave all that out there
and we can come together as a family. And there is nothing formal.
I like things polished. But friends, there is nothing
less formal than how I just played that song. I'm like, this is
not one I've ever done before. And for those of you who play
piano, look at the key changes in that thing. That is a nightmare.
I can't even see that with my eyes, much less do it with my
fingers without practice. Who writes like that? Somebody
that needs a life. We're not here to woo you and
to impress you and to professionalize the worship of God. God has ordained
how He is to be known, and it's in His Word. God has ordained
how He is to be worshipped, and it's written in His Word. God
has ordained how He is going to save, and it's written in
His Word. God has ordained how He has saved, and it's written
in His Word. And God has done all the works
of salvation for the sake of calling a people for Himself
that He owns, that He purchased through the blood of His Son,
so that they would be in intimacy together as the flock of Christ,
as He has written. I get invited all the time. Maybe some of you have gotten
these invitations to workshops and think tanks. and discussions
and breakfasts and lunch by a number of organizations. Oh, we want
to hear your thoughts on that. I said, no, you don't. We've
got a strategy meeting on evangelism. How can we better and more relatively
evangelize? You don't want me there. Hell,
we want all the pastors of all the churches, of all the denominations,
no matter what. Well, I'm the church of the pizza
pepperoni man. You want to come hear what I
have to say? Yeah, come on. We love a pizza. And it just
goes on and on and I get these invitations and I used to go
years, not since I've been in Georgia, but years ago, I mean,
oh, an invitation to discuss the scripture and discuss the
truth and discuss the Bible, discuss the church and reaching
the lost and equipping the saints. Absolutely. But I'm just overwhelmed
by this. What is the word? Pragmatic professionalism. Pragmatic professionalism that's
constantly saying, well we gotta assimilate people, we gotta put
them in this, we gotta give them ownership. Listen, I want you
all to take ownership. I want somebody to take ownership
of this baby so bad. I'll dust my fingerprints off that. I want
somebody to take ownership of that. I want somebody to take
ownership of opening the building in the mornings, on Sunday mornings.
Like some of you did today, not because I told you to, because
I was late. Praise God. But it's not what's going to
keep you in the church. It's not what's going to make you part
of the body. It's not what's going to make you feel good.
I want some of you people to come up here and sing a little bit. Great. Brother Mike's been looking for
some musicians and singers for a little bit. I mean, they're
just not there. It's okay. When the Lord calls us, we'll
see that. Don't take that away from this sermon, by the way.
This is not the point. But in all that, is any of that necessary?
None of it's necessary. What's necessary is the Word
of God and God's people to be here, to be together, to be intimate. To know that when you're sitting
in this chair right now and you're listening to my voice, and I
will get to the Bible in a minute, I promise, that you are at a
place where you're not just thinking about, now what am I going to
get from this today? But you're thinking about the person from
your left and right, behind you, in front of you. You're considering,
even if you don't know their name or you've never met them
before, You're considering what God might do for His people today.
What God might show His people today. What God might do to encourage
His body today. Because you know how strong we
are? And this sounds so cliché. We are only as strong as our
weakest member. So we could have the greatest
of theological hearts and minds, and have someone who is unable
to function because they can't see the joy of Christ, then that's
as strong as we are, as we are a body that can barely function
because we can't see the joy of Christ. And so if we're not considering
one another in our daily lives, in our intimacy with the word
of God, in our intimacy when we gather together here today,
see God has set the church and established her as he sees fit
in order that you, every one of you, whether you're a child
or whether you're not a child, let's just put it that way, we
all have been established by God to be a gift to someone else
every single day. And that's what Jesus is showing. His finished work accomplished.
Not just an eternal glorified people that we are longing for.
Glorification is the culmination of salvation. But right now Jesus
is just talking about a sheepfold and one flock. Listen to these
words. Look at verse 16. Last week we talked and you heard
the entirety of this dialogue today. Brother Trey read it.
Last week we looked at Jesus laying down His life for the
sheep and the love that He has for the sheep and the love that
He has for the Father and the love that the Father has for
Him and in the same type of relationship there is a divine relationship
that the sheep have with the shepherd. But then He goes on to say in
verse 16, And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I
must bring them also, and listen to this, listen to how he says
it, and they will listen to my voice. So now the illustration
and that parabolic reading, that figure of speech as we see in
the first five verses, it's clear, it's very clear now. Jesus is
not just the shepherd, He's the gate to the sheepfold. And He's
not just any old shepherd, He is the shepherd which is good. He is the great shepherd, the
only one. And then he says, they will listen
to my voice. So there will be. You see that? One flock and one
shepherd. And that's all I'm going to deal
with today. There will be one flock and one shepherd. Now,
that doesn't mean, and I've had people argue this, see, you don't
have to have a plurality of pastors. You can't have a congregation
if you don't have a plurality of pastors. That's nonsense.
This doesn't teach that. Jesus is speaking on himself
as the shepherd. And when He talks about hirelings,
He's not negating having pastors. That would be silly and it's
absurd. We need to understand to read
this in its context and the context is Jesus is calling all those
who come before Him saying they are the way to God, liars. whether they've claimed to be
Messiah, whether they've claimed to be prophets, whether they've
claimed to be spiritual leaders, whether they've had the Bible,
whether they've had a congregation or not. The Jews and the leaders
of the Jews are liars and thieves and robbers. They are the sons
of iniquity. They are the children of the devil. They always will
be. There will never be a time when
Pharisees and ethnic Israel will ever be the children of God.
Jesus forbids it in the name of the Father. It is never going
to be the case. There is only one flock, and
it is only those who have been given by the Father to the Son,
and it is only those He died for on the cross and atoned for
their sins. There is no other way to life
except through Jesus Christ. And there is only going to be
one Shepherd. And those flock, that one flock. Many sheep folds,
one flock. Many congregations, one body. They have one shepherd. And it
is Jesus Christ who is the Word of God that came and tabernacled
with us, the God of heaven, the God that sits at the side of
the Father that makes God known, the one and only begotten God,
who is Jesus Christ, who created the heavens and the earth, who
is worshipped as God. The sheep in the pen here in
this illustration are not all the sheep of the shepherd. That's
what we need to understand. Not all the sheep that are in
this pen. So in this illustration, we're not differentiating between
sheep and goats. This illustration is just an
illustration. It's just a figure of speech.
It's just a picture of saying, there's a lot of sheep here in
Israel, a lot of Jews who say they're sheep. And you know what?
The ones who come out after me and follow my voice, they're
the sheep. They're the true sheep. The ones who are following anybody
else are not sheep, and the ones who they're following have come
in a different way. They've not come in through me,
they've snuck over the wall. This is the picture. Keep it
in mind. But we're so linear in our day. We're so quick to
want that sandwich now. We want everything immediately
that we forget that we have to just digest. We have to chew
the cut, if you will, in the Word of God a little bit so that
the Spirit continues to work it in us that we understand it
more and more and more. It's not an academic venture,
friends. Yeah, we use our mind and academically if we can understand
language it does help and if we can understand grammar it
helps a little bit more but in the end it's just about the Holy
Spirit helping us chew on the Word of God more and more and
more. That's why I started the service this week as I have for
the last probably 20 weeks that you need to be in the Word of
God. So all the sheep that are in
this pen that Jesus is talking of here, these people listening
begin to think of themselves. The Pharisees and the spiritual
leaders begin to think of themselves and they start to think, well
who's he calling a thief? They couldn't understand. They
couldn't comprehend because they've been judicially blinded by the
will of God. Don't believe that? Jesus shows
that in John chapter 12. He reveals it very clearly. He's
already done so in John 3. You cannot see me. You cannot
see the kingdom of heaven. Stop thinking the kingdom of
heaven is some literal thing that Jesus is bringing with Him.
He is the kingdom. If I've got to spend 17 years
and 5 million pages to prove a point theologically, I'm wrong. If I can't go to the text of
Scripture and just show what Jesus is saying in John 3, then
Jesus is an imbecile and I shouldn't be listening to His voice anyway
because He's a mystery man and He hasn't revealed anything to
His people. Jesus is saying, Nicodemus says in John 3, we
know that you are a man come from God, and Jesus says you
can't see the Kingdom of God. Context. And the reason you can't
see the Kingdom of God, Nicodemus, is because you've not been born
from God. You've not been born from above.
You've not been born from heaven. I come from heaven. You don't
come from heaven. You're flesh. And so the only
thing you know is flesh. Unless you are born from above,
you cannot see the kingdom. As a matter of fact, you cannot
even enter in. Jesus has already said, He is the way. Or He will say. He will say,
He is the truth. He will say, He is the life.
He will say, I am the bread, I am the living
water, I am the good shepherd." I mean, these people were really
not seeing it because they couldn't see it. And it's very clear and
evident after Jesus proves without any room. On the contrary, Jesus
proves He's God when He raises Lazarus from the dead. And He proves it And they kill
Him anyway because now though He is God, and they can obviously
see it with their logical minds, they cannot believe it because
they've been blinded. Jesus says in John 12, or John
says in chapter 12, that the words of the prophet
Isaiah have been fulfilled. And He's talking about Isaiah
6 where God tells Isaiah to go preach to these people. And then God says something else
about it to Isaiah. And it really hurts us the first
time we see this because most of us have had a caricature of
God that's not biblical. God says, go preach, but I will
not let them hear. I will not give them eyes to
see. I will not allow them to understand. For if they did, they would repent,
and that is not my desire. I'm going to mow them over and
bring them to ruin. And if there is a stubble, I'm
going to mow it over again. They will not be saved." What's
he talking about? He's talking about this very
day in the life of Jesus Christ when Israel would be mowed over
and condemned forever. There are sheep in this pen,
but not all of them belong to the shepherd. The sheep in this
pen, who are true sheep, hear the voice of their true shepherd. And in doing so, they follow
him out. I didn't really bring this point to light the last
few weeks, but those who are the sheep here in Israel, following
after all of the robbers and thieves for so long, listen to
the Pharisees, listen to my teachers, listen to my pastor, listen to
all these people, and they're not pointing to the true shepherd
and to the true gate, Jesus Christ, but ignoring Him and averting
their gaze upon the God-man. The true sheep of God, like this
blind man who was ejected from the synagogue, who worships Jesus
in John 9. And all the rest of those who
belong to Christ, they will hear His voice. So when He teaches,
they will go, we're going with Him. Now we see in the synoptics,
we see in the book of Acts, we see what it costs when the sheep
hear the voice of the shepherd. What does it cost? Everything.
But you know what's amazing about that? We don't have to count
it. We don't have to count the cost of discipleship like Bonhoeffer
so passionately deemed. We don't have to count the cost
of following after Christ. We don't have to pick up a literal
cross in order to be saved. When God calls His sheep out,
we follow and then we see the fire and the hell that ensues. And we're going, man, we didn't
sign up for this. But He's with us every step of
the way. We don't count the cost. We don't
resolve to be dedicated to Jesus. Jesus is dedicated to His people.
and He saves us, and He calls us out powerfully by His Word,
and we come out of false religion. We come out of evangelical cults. We come out of all these things
and all these places where we've been planted for so long. Because
when we hear the voice of Christ as His sheep, we know what our
true food is. We know who is fending for our
lives. We know who the Father loves, so we follow Him because
He laid down His life for us. So the sheep in the pen that
hear the voice of the true shepherd follow him out if they're in
a false sheepfold. I'm not going to say it yet.
I'll hold that thought. Remind me about that thought
right there. I'll put it right there. These sheep who follow out Jesus
are fed. Have you ever not been fed in
the fellowship of the saints? Have you ever been in a place
where you weren't sure if what you were hearing was biblical
or not? Or worse, you were pretty sure that it wasn't biblical. Yes, we have. Have you ever been
part of a teaching ministry and then you're gone for a long time
and you go back and it's worse than you thought it was? You're thinking, oh my goodness,
I've forgotten what the Word of God sounded like. I mean,
I've forgotten what the lack of the Word of God sounded like.
It's difficult. It's hard when we come to this
realization. But what we need to see there
is not like I did in those days and just woe is me, woe is me
and fall into self-pity. We need to say, praise God for
giving me the ears to hear the truth that I might have been
stuck in this. Some people might think, well,
that's a little self-serving. Listen, if you think I'm self-serving,
just rewind for the last 11 years. I promise you, I'm a nothing.
And if I'm not teaching Scripture, please, by all means, don't listen
to me. And better yet, how about you
rebuke me publicly that I might be quiet? But the true sheep are fed by
the Word of God. The true sheep, as I said in
the beginning, are protected by the Word of God. The true
shepherd protects the flock. Do you want protection? A lot of Christians, yeah, I want
to be protected. You know what's wrong? When you have a false
church under false teaching, And things get in the way? What
gets in the way of that type of ministry? Any real life situation. Sister so-and-so, she's a little
depressed, she can't play the piano anymore. Why not? Let her
play melancholy. We'll just do funeral dregs for
a couple of Sundays. And then the first time we open
up with joyful, joyful, the Lord's working in her. Why do we have
to be, why do we have to be at a state of some type of perfection
or false joy? This, oh God, it's good, yay,
yay. And then inside we're thinking
life stinks. This is terrible, I'm faking
it. Don't fake it. It's actually, I'm not gonna
say it's sinful, but I'm gonna say it's deceitful. It's deceitful
to tell people everything's awesome when everything's not awesome.
And I know it's a coping mechanism, because you don't want the next
question, what's wrong? Have the liberty to go, I don't
want to talk about it, I just need your prayers. Praise the
Lord, you got it. We are protected by the shepherd.
We're protected by proper ecclesiology, understanding the church. We're
protected by being a body who does what the body's supposed
to do. According to the Word of God,
that's how you're protected. Church discipline protects us,
beloved. Church discipline helps us. Exposition
protects you. Protects you from my crazy mind. If I were able to just teach
anything I wanted to teach and pick and choose, I would be the
most insane philosopher you've ever met. And then I would forget
what I talked about yesterday and I'd start all over today
and y'all would be like, what is going on? And most of you
would say he's either crazy or there's a sense of spirituality
that I'm just not there yet. No, I'd be crazy. Thank God for
exposition, because I don't get to run away. I don't chase rabbits. They're running from me because
I'm crazy. You're protected because of the
Word of God, the voice of your shepherd. You know it when I'm
not teaching it. You're cared for by the shepherd.
Not this shepherd, not other shepherds that are in our congregation,
but by the Great Shepherd. When the body teaches you the
Word of God, when we are recalling for one another the Scripture,
when we share the faith, we are being cared for. As you are being
taught to do this very moment, the reason we come is that you
learn and you are reminded of the things that Christ has done,
you are reminded of the power of the gospel, you are shown
in the Word of God, and then in the midst of all that you
are being prepared and trained and equipped to do the work of
the ministry which happens right in the life of the people that
are sitting here and those who haven't made it yet this morning. And when those who are fed and
protected and cared for follow continually the voice of their
shepherd, they are led into the right sheep pen." Now you see
where I'm headed. Led right into the right
sheep pen. Into one where there won't be a majority of sheep
that we will call now goats that don't belong. See, the Jews thought that they
were all God's sheep. because of their lineage. But most of
them were not sheep. Only those who were given to
the Son by the Father were the true sheep. And those who are
the true sheep, as it says there, listen to the voice of their
shepherd. They know the shepherd and the
shepherd knows them. What does it mean to hear the
shepherd? Well, it means to know him, for one. You must know him in
order to hear him. You ever had a voice of someone
that you listened to for a while, whether it be an actor or a musician
or a vocalist or someone, and years later you're watching a
cartoon and you hear a voice, you go, wait a minute, I know
that voice. And everybody in the room thinks you're like this
weird guru of voices, but you just recognize it because you've
heard it so often. I can listen to classical singers
and I can tell you who they are just from a long note, just a
timbre, if they're famous. Now, I'm not all of them there. I don't have that kind of brain
power, but you know the ear, you hear it. I can tell the difference if
a student is playing one of my horns rather than his own. I
can tell it's my horn because it sounds like one of my horns. I'm like, wait a minute, who's
playing my horn? Do we know our shepherd that
way? And some of us go, no, I just, I don't know. Well then read
the word, you'll be familiar with the voice. If you read the word of God,
you'll be familiar with the voice of your shepherd. You'll be familiar
with right exposition, which hopefully aligns with what you're
hearing today. that what I'm saying is congruent
with what is being taught in this very passage, though it
is not the exact argument, it is an expansion of this very
teaching. Because exposition also deals
with that. Otherwise we just read the text
and go home, which would not be a bad idea, but we need to
think about it a little bit. Not only do the sheep who know
the voice of the shepherd know the shepherd, it also means that
they're hearing the voice of the shepherd and knowing Him,
and also knowing the sheep. Do we know the sheep? Do you know each other? Do you
really know each other? Not really. I mean, a little
bit. Some of you more than others, and it's growing every single
day. The more calamity we have to go through together, The more
illness, the more prayers, the more hardships, the closer we'll
be. An older pastor told me that,
goodness, 14 years ago. James, don't give
up in ministry when you feel like nobody loves you. And that's an easy thing to think,
isn't it? Nobody cares. After you go through a few funerals
and a few illnesses and a few deaths, he said, people will
begin to see you love them. And people will begin to see
people love each other. And there'll be an intimacy that
you can't create. But even the world can have that. So what's the difference? The
difference is on where we end. The difference is we're not standing
here cherishing the intimacy of pastoral care from one another
in the hardships. The difference is that we have
an intimacy that carried us through the valley of the shadow of death
and then we came back out into the joy of the light of Christ. We don't stay there in the valley. We are back in the light of Christ. Friends, people will hurt you
People, even your brothers and sisters in Christ, will sometimes
hurt you. Not willfully, but it just happens,
human nature. God permits it. I like the way
you prayed today, Trey. Permit this, Father. I lost my whole train of thought.
I'm like, yes, that's it. God permits all the suffering,
God permits these things, and we know, because the voice of
our Shepherd has taught us through the Word, that God is sovereign
over it. He permits it, for He has decreed
it, that it will come to pass for the good of those who love
Him and are called according to His purpose. So that when
we find ourselves complaining in the mire of life, we are actually
complaining about the gift of God that He's brought us to,
to bring us through, that we might rejoice in Him. We need to know each other. Listening
to the voice of our shepherd calls us to know the sheep. It
calls us to know the Scripture. Because we know what Christ is
teaching. It calls us to know what is true. So that then we can pay close
attention and then we can hear very clearly the snare of robbers,
thieves and wolves. We know what they sound like.
We know what they think. We don't pass judgment on them.
We just pass judgment on what they teach. And we don't even
have to pass the judgment. The judgment's been passed. We
say, the voice of my shepherd says this. I mean, for those
of you who have seen me debate or in a public discussion, I
mean, how do I answer rebuttal? That's interesting. But the Scripture
says this, how do we deal with that? Help me understand what
it means when the Bible says, boom! Then the Word of God, the
voice of the shepherd is arguing. Christ is debating. The Word
is lifted up, not me. Not the debater, not the polemicist,
not the apologist, but Christ is exalted. And everybody leaves
there going, man, the Bible is the answer. The Christians are
not trying to call the apologists, can I have the answer? Can I
have the answer? But they know now the answer's in the Word
of God. So we know the snare of the robbers,
the thieves and the wolves, because we are called by God
to life. We are called to life by God.
We're no longer dead. So we understand what dead works
look like. We understand what lordship type
stuff that I still have not been able to understand how we define
what that term means. But let me tell you, the gospel
is a finished work of God. And whether you are falling and
failing in your faith, or whether you're falling and failing in
the substance abuse, or whether you're falling or failing in
just being able to overcome the loss of your flesh, if you are
a child of God, Christ has paid for those sins too. And the struggle is real, beloved.
And if there's anyone in here without sin this morning, By
goodness, would you stand up here with me so I can hear your
testimony. See, the standard is impeccable. Our lives are not. We know the
truth of the gospel. We know we've been called to
life. We know that we're called then also to each other. And
that's the crux of this. We're not just called to life.
We're not just called to truth. We're not just able through the
work of the Holy Spirit to understand and know the voice of the Shepherd.
We're called to Christ because He came and found us and brought
us to life, brought us out. Why did He do that? Moreover,
how could He do that? How can Christ call me, a sinner,
messy in a sheep pen, out to His pastures and out to His sheepfold? The clean, perfect, holy, righteous
shepherd. Because in His death, He paid
the penalty of my guilt. That's how. So I'm redeemed. You're redeemed. And Christ calls
the redeemed to life. Don't conflate those two. They're
not the same thing. We're called to each other. We're called to each other. And we're called to be in intimacy
with the body of Christ. We're called to be subject to
one another, to listen to the teaching of the word of God,
to be obedient to the commands of the apostles as we relate
to one another. I mean, what is the point of the New Testament
epistles to the church, to the body of Christ, to the assembled
ones? What is the point? What's happening there? What's
going on in every aspect of every letter of the New Testament?
Number one, they're written all only to the elect, only to the
saints, only those who have actually been regenerated so that they
can have a mind to understand it. They're written to the church,
to the saints of God, to those for whom Christ died. No other
person has been addressed in the Scriptures. No other person
but the bride of Christ. No one else. The lost have never
been written a love letter by Jesus. Because all the love letters
that Jesus wrote were written by the apostles and all of them
were written to the beloved of God. Those whom God loves. And the only ones God loves are
those for whom Christ died. No more. So that's one thing that's true
about the New Testament writings. Secondly, they're always written
on a particular occasion or reason of some type of heresy that was
active in the church that sheep were believing. Wrong things
that true, regenerate, elect saints were believing. Like Galatia. The gospel, God saved His people,
they were flourishing. Judaizers come in, no, no, no,
you better get to be a Jewish. You better get to being circumcised,
you better get to being... And people were falling into
this. Here's my son, I'm next. And Paul was correcting them.
He says, if you hold fast to this, you're cut off from Christ.
Why? Because you can't hold fast. It doesn't mean that if you were
circumcised, you're lost. That's ridiculous. But if you
begin to put your hope in circumcision, you have not put your hope in
Christ alone. So there is no activity of your
life as a believer that you can put your hope in. Paul says you're cut off. So those
who teach this gospel are cut off. So it was correct heresy,
the Bible was written for, the New Testament, to instruct in
truth. Not only is this wrong, but this
is the truth of it. Here's the truth. Here's the
church in Rome, Jew and Gentile alike. Here's the truth of how
God justifies His elect. Here's the truth of what God
did judicially. Here's the truth, Church of Ephesus. of who you are in Christ, before
the foundations of the world, the reality of the love of God
for you who predestine you to be in the image of His Son. And
there is no way possible that this will not come, for God has
purposed and decreed it and finished the work of redemption for you.
You are in Christ and God has given you the seal of His Holy
Spirit. He will not condemn Himself. You were far away and you thought
you were nobody because you were so far away. You looked at Israel
and you thought they were so close, but they were further
away than you were. They had the oracles of God and couldn't
see God when He stood in their face and said, I am, I am, I
am. And they said, you're not. They couldn't see it. You couldn't
see it. You were blinder than they were, but they were dead
in their sins. The difference is that God has called those
from Israel and called those of the Gentiles, and He's called
them all who are in Christ to come and to believe. And you
have been made one man out of the two, and there you are. It's
irrevocable. So therefore now, I, Paul, a
prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of
this call. You see what I'm saying, brothers
and sisters? We know the voice of our Shepherd, and we know
that He's called us to this end. And we know that even when we
miss the call, trip the call, hang up the call, or don't answer
it, we know, I'm being funny now, we know that God will call
us anyway. He'll call us to life, and in
doing so, He calls us to one another that we are actively
and intimately and divinely and supernaturally able to live together,
come, good or bad, as God's people. This is what the local church
is supposed to be, beloved, and I would say that if we aren't
striving to this end, we are anathema. But oftentimes people come to
the fellowship of a church and then real quick, I want to be
in covenant. I want to be a part of this. This is awesome. This
honeymoon phase, you know, I believe in the truth that you teach.
I love the people that are here. I want to be a part of this ministry.
I want to do what God has called me to do. God has called me to
this body. Great. Six months to a year later,
God's called him to something else. That's not true. Somebody
lied along the way. When Jesus calls us to Himself
and then He calls us to be part of a sheet pen, it's not about prerogative or
preference. It's about commitment. Something changes, something
happens, things become problematic. Yes, they will. We should put
that in our membership covenant. We know that stuff's going to
hit the fan often. We know things are going to get
hard. We know that sin is going to enter in our midst and we're
going to be gentle and loving and passionate about helping
each other in the midst of this. We know some things that we know. When things happen, problems
come, we as the church who hear the voice of the shepherd, listen,
we don't blame God, do we? We don't now blame God for our
refusal to listen. We don't come to the body of
Christ in covenant, and then when things don't go the way
we like them, then accuse God of calling us wrongly, and then
come to a place of self saying, well, what is being taught in
Scripture is not to our liking, so it's not right, so we refuse
the voice of our shepherd that way. Have you ever done that?
We've all done that. But the true sheep then, by being
committed, grow through it. When we run from the body of
Christ, listen to this, we run from Christ and His ordained
way of ministering to us. I know some people say, but you
don't know my last church. I'm saying that your last church
probably wasn't a true church. Did it have a true gospel? Did
it exposit Scripture? Did it operate as the Bible commands
us to operate? No! Then why in the world would
you compare that? I've said this since July of
2007. The first time I ever said this
was July of 2007. July 26th. You want to hear me preach, and
you like the way I preach, but you don't want me to shepherd
you. I said that to somebody. Our children have that problem.
You know how children, when they're doing things, and you're just
asking, or you see them and you just ask a question, you're like,
hey, what you doing? What's been going on? Tell me about this.
What is it that children do often when they become teenagers? Those
questions of inquiry become the inquisition in their mind. Not
just like, hey, what's up? How you doing? Are you getting
your homework done? Where'd you get those shoes? Housework, house
school, whatever. Hey, how's it going? What's happening
here? It becomes inquisition. What,
I didn't do nothing wrong? I mean, you know how it is. They don't snap anymore, but
we snapped. I didn't do nothing wrong. And that's what happens, our
flesh beats hard and we're like, who's this, why are they, they're
accusing me. No, listen, when we ask questions
of one another, it's sincerity. It's not judgment. The true sheep
of God, even in that moment, now let's be honest, even me,
somebody asks you a question, it's a little bit confrontational,
the first thing we do is think, you're getting in my business.
Let's don't think that. Now they might, and if it flushes
itself out, you could say, don't get in my business. But it could
just be sincere. But the sheep, after we feel
that for the first or second or third time, we then begin
to grow and learn, wow, this is part of what intimacy has
to offer. This is part of what it means
to... So let's, in the mind of Christ, respond in a way that
we look at one another in that lens of thinking, this person
is my leg or my arm or my ear. I don't want to cut it off and
throw it away just because it has a pain in it. Because when we do that, We are not hearing the voice
of our shepherd. We love the voice of our shepherd. Those who do not know the voice
of the shepherd will not listen to the voice of the shepherd.
And because of that, there are several things that happen in
their life. Let me give you just a few. They do not remain in
the truth. I know that there are some that
might say, well, you're making a strong indictment. No, no,
no, no. Jesus says, if my word abides in you and you abide in
me, then you will, what? Live. Abide in my word, abide
in my truth. People who say they believe in
the gospel of grace, sovereign and free grace, and then by their
own actions, Destroy those for whom Christ died because they
refuse intimacy. Have walked away from the truth.
Because the gospel is not something Christ did for you, beloved. It's something Christ did for
us. One flock, one shepherd. One body. Christ is our head. See this imagery? They don't remain in the truth.
But those who listen to the voice of the shepherd remain in the
truth. There are some people who you think they're believers,
you think they believe in the gospel, then some things happen
and years go by, they become stagnant, you try to encourage
them, you try to inquire, you ask a question about their heart
or their life or their mind, or God forbid, the spirit that
is in them, and they're offended. And they walk away. They no longer
believe the gospel. They begin to create a God of
regiment. They begin to create a God of
the Old Testament blindness of Israel. That's not the God of
the Bible at all. God hasn't changed from the Old
to the New Covenant. It's one covenant. It is the
same thing. Redemption. They do not resolve conflicts.
They just walk away from them. Now listen, let me give an explanation
here. I'm not talking about people
who are just downright wicked. I'm talking about people who
confess to be in Christ and are willing to reconcile with others
who confess to be in Christ and aren't willing to reconcile.
That's what I'm talking about. There are many snakes and robbers
and wolves and thieves and dogs and all sorts of people who come
under the guise of being brothers and sisters in Christ. And let
me tell you something, if they don't have a love for you and
they treat you with disdain, dust the sand off your sandals. And if they're in this fellowship,
we'll make quick work of it. And by the Lord's mercy, they'll
be corrected if they hear the voice of their shepherd. These people aren't into restoring
relationships. People that don't hear the voice of their shepherd
are not into reviving intimacy. And some people are like, well,
I just can't do it right now. I didn't say you can't. There's a difference. There's
a whole lot of things I desire in my life that I just am not
able to do right now. How about you? And ultimately it means that
they haven't remembered the gospel of grace. The gospel of grace,
grace, grace, grace. You've been saved by grace, beloved. By grace you've been saved. What
is that? The mercy and the kindness of God. The love of God for His
people. But the only effectual way that one stands justified
before the Father as innocent of all charges of sin is that
He has justified them in the blood of Christ. That Christ
was punished in their place. But people don't like to talk
about things like this. There are many people in our lives,
brothers and sisters, who are going to come and go and come
and go and come and go. And I'm going to tell you this.
People have their motives and their reasons, but when we sit
down with one another and we open up the Word of God, there's
a tenderness toward the Word of God for the sheep of Christ.
Even if it's obstinate at first, there's a tenderness that comes
that we want to hear more and all of a sudden we realize there's
no condemnation with each other. Do you know that? What sin could
befall us? What person who we have disciplined
from this church, who if they truly had a heart of repentance
and came and asked for forgiveness, would we not give? As if it were
not even better, not even like before, better than before. None of them. They would all
be welcome back in our lives. Not back in this building. This
is just a building. This building's got nothing to do with church
discipline. It's our lives that has to do with church discipline. And church discipline is correction
out of love. Some of us talked about this Wednesday night. We
correct out of love. We see a kid, I won't say it
because then they might go do it, but doing something dangerous
with a light socket. I mean, we go, no, no, no, don't
do that. You know, sometimes you say things and the kids,
well, that sounds like a good idea. We discipline them, we teach
them. That's what discipline is, we teach them. We prepare
them, we train them. We're all being disciplined by
the Father because He loves us. When we as a church, if you have
to discipline me, if you have to come to me and say, are you
angry, are you upset? Are you in sin? Is everything
okay? And I confess you these things,
it's over. Church discipline's done. If
you have words, it's over when the reconciliation happens. If
it happens again tomorrow, we do it again tomorrow. But it's
for correction. It's out of love. We're not trying
to hurt people. We're not trying to create this
spotless person. Christ has already created a
spotless person. You're spotless. But we're trying to make sure
we maintain an intimate body. And beloved, Cancer is not intimate
with the cells around it in a pleasing way. Church discipline is never condemnation.
It's never coercion. You better do this or else. Or
else what? You'll love on me? Church discipline is love. Why
in the world would it be coercive? It's always restorative. How
does that look in light of those who refuse fellowship? Look at
the Jews here. They refused fellowship with Jesus. And in doing so,
they refused fellowship with Jesus' people. They kicked Jesus'
people out of the status quo of the modern day religion. They
kicked Jesus' people. Listen, Grace Truth Church was
persona non grata of the status quo of the Baptist churches in
our culture. Not only by letter, but by pulpit after pulpit after
pulpit after pulpit after pulpit. And I've got the recordings. Why? Well, either they're right
or we're right. So what shepherd are you listening
to? What voice are you hearing? The
voice of a God who teaches in His Word that His gospel is attached
to His sovereignty? His good news is that He saved
His people from their sins through the finished work of Christ?
Or do you hear another gospel ringing in your ears? Friends,
we don't have fellowship with darkness. This isn't an issue
of being almost right. Almost right is what? Say it. Wrong. Can there be correction? Can
there be ignorance? Absolutely. But those who refuse fellowship,
either we're wrong, and disciplining people out of the church and
removing them from fellowship, people say, well, we're wrong
because we're just being judgmental. We're just being tough. We're
not... What do we discipline people for anyway? When they
do something in the body and in their homes that divide the
body. That bring reproach on the body. And if we're wrong, then we're
not listening to the voice of our Shepherd. If we're right,
we are. Everyone who has ever been disciplined always claims
what? The victim. Now here's the kicker. What if
you're disciplined out of a church that's apostate, that's not teaching
the Scripture? What if you're run off? Are you
a victim? No, you're a candidate of correction. Even in the erroneous discipline
of false congregations and false gospel pastors, if they dare,
I've not heard of many who do, but if they dare kick you out
either through formal means or otherwise, being ostracizing
you, pretending like you don't exist, it's a blessing if the shepherd brings you into
a sheep pen that'll feed you and protect you and care for
you. God sorts out the sheep from
the goats. The sheep from the goats. God will sort them. God sifts the sheep and restores
them to each other. But we remain patient and loving
no matter the pain or time frame. And we need to recognize a couple
of things in closing. I have other sheep that are not
of this fold. All sheep are part of the same
flock, but not all sheep are part of the same fold. The whole point of this verse
is to point out the glory of God revealed in His working to
unite a people who have been given to His Son. The emphasis
that I want to put on this text as we continue in it and close
it out in the next two weeks is that the church is important. I would say that without the
local assembly and covenant together, there's no sense to have the
gospel. Because God has never called
an individual to be an orphan. He's never done it. Yeah, the formalities and all
the ways we do things in our culture, not necessarily in line
with everything biblically. We need to work on that even
as a congregation ourselves. We need to work on that. but
there are other sheep that need to be brought into the fold.
There are sheep who are way off, who need a foal to be a part
of, who need elders to help them. We need to contemplate, church,
this is a little practical sense that this is real at our doorstep.
We need to contemplate and pray how we can have some intimacy,
not a full intimacy like the Bible says, it's not possible,
but some intimacy, some covenant, some way with some of these people
who are displaced and orphaned. We need to be praying for the
large number, now about five families, who are desiring to
move to this area, uproot themselves, California, Pittsburgh, other
places. Of course, you know the families of Minnesota. To be
part of our local fellowship. We've got to pray in a lot of
ways that God will work that out for His purpose, but moreover,
we need to make sure that we understand what being the body
is all about so that when these people come into our fellowship,
we're not just making sure they have a place to sit. but they have a place at our
table in the lives that we live. They have a place in our prayer
closet. They have a place in our life to where we're going
to have to, it's going to cost us something sometime. That's
what being the body of Christ is about. There are other sheep out there.
There are also other sheep, Jesus specifically was talking about
Gentiles. But I'm relating that to those
who are displaced and orphaned. We need to be about planting
churches. Friends, this is a slow process. I don't see us planting
a church in the next five years, but it will happen. It's not on our timeline, it's
on God's timeline. When He puts a person in place,
in a particular place, when He puts a group of individuals in
place, we can begin to prepare a shepherd for them. And God knows alone how that's
going to work. There are other sheep, but only
one flock. There are other foals, but only one flock. There are
all believers in one faith and one shepherd. If we say that
we're part of the true flock of Christ, but we can't fellowship
with somebody, something's wrong. We cannot say we're in one shepherd
if we cannot remain one flock. And friends, I'll tell you this,
I've grown up in the ministry and still growing up in the ministry.
It's all I really know. And in this, I've seen a lot
of cooperation that was not true cooperation. We need to see what
the Bible would show us. Friends, I'll be straight. There
are very few congregations whom I will call sister churches. In this area, Like within a decent amount,
one. One. A hundred miles, two, maybe? And I'm not, somebody's
gonna call me today and go, you didn't mention me! I said, I
did not mention you either, so. I might be forgetting some, but
it's just so rare. Across the country, a dozen. or less, that
I know that I can put my finger on. Every single week, without
fail, somebody emails me something else about a congregation they're
in that's supposedly a sovereign grace or a reformed church, and
they're doing things They're doubling down on these works. They're doubling down on these
areas of abusing Scripture. They're doubling down on this
overbearing eldership, you know. We're the elders around here.
Shut up and listen. That kind of thing. I mean, it's just... Three. Yeah, I figured another
one. And I'm not saying that they're all the pastors. There
are more pastors than that, but congregations. who are in line
with these things, who I would feel good sending my own children
to fellowship with. There's so few because it's so
easy just to hear a sermon, go home and not deal with being
the body of Christ. It's so easy. We must remain
one flock though we are many. But I'll tell you, the obstinate
judgmentalism of the Pharisees refused to hear, and God, death
in the ears of their soul. And only a powerful spirit-powered
regenerative work of God will bring anybody to a different
place. So the body of unity is the point
for which Jesus died. that God will be just and righteous
in His forgiveness of a people who are fully guilty in sin,
but Jesus paid the penalty of their sin so that they could
be His righteousness. This passage is so vital to our
understanding of the assembly of Christ. Jesus died to create
His church, and that's why the Father loves Him. For this reason the Father loves
me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it up again."
What laying down is he talking about? Dying for the sheep. We cannot serve Christ effectively
and thoroughly when we are not in the body in a covenant way. And we're really unable to rightly
be used by God without a local assembly. And I know a lot of
folks, and this is it, a lot of folks say, well, I've got
an online ministry. No, you don't. No, you don't. I've got a speaking ministry.
No, you don't. You're no different than a pamphlet sitting on a
shelf. When I teach at a conference
or when I teach in a classroom or if I write a blog post or
I do a podcast or I do a video, there's some interaction, but
it's no different than a pamphlet sitting on a shelf. It's just
in a different format. Can it be used? Yes. But is it
intimate for you? No. Not at all. Not at all. Without a body, without
being part of the local assembly, without equipping the local assembly,
and for the sake of the local assembly, every apologist, every
evangelist, every so-called pastor, every theologian, just a clanging
cymbal. Just like the church of Ephesus
in Revelation, forsaken their first love, though they had the
right doctrine. Beloved, Christ died for His
church. Christ died for His sheep. The
body of Christ, the local church is vital if we are indeed the
sheep of Christ. Let's pray. God, there's a lot
of pain in our assembly today. There's a lot of pain in those
who are at large, sheep all over the world, all
over the country. Lord, there's a lot of pain in
the life of the reprobate, there's a lot of pain in the world, but
Lord, right now, we are a body, we are a people, and we love
You, because You've loved us, and we pray for one another this
very moment. Lord, it's difficult to carry
burdens, So help keep us in the understanding
of the gospel, which is that there is no burden for us to
carry any longer when it comes to our standing before you, for
Christ has taken it all upon Himself. Infuse our hearts and minds with
that truth. Give us rest for our souls. Lift up our heads. Help us to
have a joy that is in Christ alone. Help us to resolve and
purpose us. And Father, permit us to love
one another as Christ loves us. That it would start in our homes,
that we as husbands would love our wives as Your Son has loved
the church. Father, that our wives would
love us also, and that our children would see and behold repentance
and forbearance and gospel-powered living as we work through this
life, that we might bring it together in the lives of each
other and live as a body set apart by You because of the finished
work of Christ, striving with eagerness to maintain the
unity and the bond of peace through the Spirit. In Christ's name
we pray, Amen. Thank you for listening. We hope
that this message has encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to
these messages and other teaching resources and podcasts at anchoringfaith.org. More information about the church
can be found at gracetruth.org.