Automatically Generated Transcript

In Sydney, there was a young couple who had been married and were seeking to get established.
And in life, I think we're all aware of the fact that there is strong motivation as you grow up
and seek to understand what direction to go in, what job to work at, who to marry.
I think all of us have some inbuilt awareness we would like to become established,
not just fritting around or not just being someone at a loose end or having no purpose,
and they were both employed with salaries which stayed the same no matter what state you lived in.
And they learned – I think I told them, we'd been in Tasmania – that the prices are so much lower
lower. I don't know whether that's still true but it certainly was back then and
so they decided that's it'd be stupid to stay around where we were in ride where
all the prices were going up and up and up and most of the young couples who
got married had to move away from the church in order to get established as
far as housing is concerned. So they decided that they just pull up shop and
and go down to Tasmania, because they didn't
want to be stuck in the mud in terms of that getting established.
And so they shift a very successful move,
because down there at the time, their salaries
were exactly the same as had they stayed in Sydney,
but the prices were much lower.
And not only in terms of physically, economically,
in terms of your development of job and whatever. Do we have that same desire to be established?
But I think it's true of us all as Christians, the part of what the Scriptures tell us in
the book of Romans, the whole of the idea of the book of Romans is about not only coming
to Christ, but also getting established. And so the travel through the book of Romans
takes you from beginning chapters, as how to come to Christ and be forgiven, to chapter
12 where it talks about a full surrender – that you might be able to go deeper and have the
Spirit of God working in you, and showing you what He is wanting for your life.
And we had another passage up on the screen earlier, from Ephesians where it talks about
it's one of the passages of the gifts of the Spirit in, uh, in the New Testament.
But in that particular case in Ephesians 4, the listing of the gifts there are specialized
gifts in order for Christ, after his ascension to heaven, to be able to then have his leadership
over the church.
And one of the features about the Scriptures is to talk about the need for the church to
be established. And that establishment of the Church through the Apostles, the Prophets,
the Evangelists, the Pastors and Teachers, was a scenic going so it always remained under
the leadership of Christ. Now we call that a type of leadership that's not necessarily
democratic. But it's one of the failures of Baptists, that's us most of us, that we think
that being Baptist is like being democratic in how we organise things. That is actually
a misunderstanding because it's not democratic that is our history and our conviction that
we try to live out. It is actually should be theocratic which means God is the one in
not the people but where do the people come in? Well the theocracy happens
through members meetings and if we have a members meeting you're all welcome even
if you're not a member, though you can't vote if you're not, but in a
members meeting what happens is there's opportunity to discern whether God is
speaking to the members and so when something suddenly becomes apparent that
the Spirit of God has led to some unity of understanding, it turns up in the
members' meetings and there is a sense in which God has spoken
through the people. That's what it is, to be a Baptist. In contra-
distinctions some other denominations which may still be Christians –
we're not saying they're not Christians – but
other denominations have what's more a top-down sense of God's leadership
through their being bishops or whatever, or in the case in England. I think there's two versions
of the Church of England, but one of them King Charles is still the head of and that's the idea
that there are persons appointed and the leadership comes all the way down. But in Baptists we believe
that there is leadership that God speaks through, but it's always to be tested by the people and
sensing God's Spirit moving through them. Our church as far as we have there to be
a pastorate and we have a council, these groups are operative and they have come
to a decision to bring to the members an idea they have which I'm going to be
very pleased with I'm gonna tell you in a moment, make sure these things are
working in my ears. I'm gonna tell you in a moment why I'm
so pleased at this that we're recommending for the decision to be taken, it'll be up
to the members to pray about it, which is why I'm giving you a bit of a start-up to
think about it, of getting the whole of this sanctuary air-conditioned.
Why I'm interested in that is not because I worry about getting too hot, I think that's
for other people who aren't as skinny as me to worry about.
The trouble is, when I sit back there, I hardly hear,
especially when they're leading from over here,
Kieran, sorry to disappoint you,
but most of what you say, I can't hear.
And I look around and try and frown at the person
in the desk that he might turn it up.
And the only trouble is,
I think you might've done,
but this morning, I wore these new earplugs,
ear, what do you call them?
Things in your ear to help you hear.
Hearing aids, yeah.
But you know what, it worked.
just meant I heard the fans all the more. Oh well, I'm waiting to see what that
members meeting will do. But that's just giving a bit of a review on the facts
that the New Testament speaks about there being leadership in the Church, and
it's meant to be an autocracy. Notwithstanding that leadership is also
the fact that God gives his gifts to his people. And the gifts in the body of
Christ is how He's the head, Jesus is in heaven, but we're the body on earth, that's
how it's meant to work.
He's gone back to heaven, and He gives His leadership over the church by how He sent
His Spirit to be on the body of Christ that began at the day of Pentecost, and we've been
talking about that as the beginning of the new covenant experience, from Peter's 1st
Pentecostal sermon, where He called on them to come to Christ, know the forgiveness of
sins. 5 Get baptized, and you shall receive the gift of
the Holy Spirit.' And by that Holy Spirit, God's
third person, the good, the third Person of the Trinity
coming to dwell in your heart, he brings you the
leadership of Christ from heaven. and he speaks to, and in the Gospel of John, I've
talked about, and we've been reviewing this in
recent weeks, that he comes to speak in Jesus name.
He comes to represent Christ.
He comes to show you things that you could never have understood.
And there are so many people who are religious – even in the Christian religion in its
general sense of the word – around Brisbane today who do not understand the spiritual
things of the Gospel.
And the reason is that they've been worshiper of God, they believed in God, they've recognised
Christmas, Easter And they've had beliefs.
But they've not yet come to that moment of Repentance.
That means change your verdict,
Reversing your direction.
That means acknowledge that you are what the Bible says you are.
Say the same as God, for all have sinned and are fallen short of the Glory of God
And when we agree with God we say the same and we confess that to him that is how you
get in the Door to have the holy Spirit.
And that is what is mentioned in that first wonderful sermon.
The first Pentecostal sermon was a gospel message given by Peter to begin the era of
the new covenant available to the Jews at first, by the way.
The new covenant was always promised to them.
are some people say oh no no more Jews and Gentiles business well the only way that that's true that
there's no more Jews and Gentiles business is in terms of access into the new covenant. there
is still it says no more male or female but thank goodness that's not something that's done away with
um that would spoil anyway um but what I'm saying to here this morning is the Jews and Gentiles all
all have access the same way
into the New Covenant.
So there's one body,
whether you're a Jew or a Gentile,
a male or free,
a male or female or a slave or free,
those things make not a bit of difference.
But that You've come
and repented of your sin
and You've put your trust and faith
and belief in Jesus Christ
as your Saviour.
And that gets you
into the New Covenant.
It gets you to have
the Holy Spirit within.
And as He comes,
He gives, equally so, to every Christian a gift.
They're not all the same gifts.
Sometimes in discussion about the gifts of the spirit, people think oh everybody has
a gift that's made us all exactly the same, but it hasn't made us that same.
Any more than the illustration of the Bible in Ephesians about us being the body of Christ.
Paul makes the point, you know what if the hands said to the eye no need for you or what if the
legs said I'm doing all the walking you can forget being important you load up there if the body
were to fail to recognize that when you're a foot you're meant to be walking these shoes are made
for walking the feet are made for walking and that's what that what they'll do wasn't there it no that
was a song of another sort. But anyway, the point is that we are very different in the
body of Christ, just as much as we are all equal, equally important to make up the complete
body and every one of us has been given a gift. Now those gifts of the Spirit,
some are very spectacular and if you've got a gift that when you pray for people,
They suddenly get healed. I think you know it and that happens that you still hear of
healings especially where the gospel goes to a New Continent like when the missionaries first
began to spread out in Indonesia, there was a whole book talking about revivals in Indonesia
which recorded all sorts of miraculous events as people with gifts. God's Holy Spirit chose
to do it very flamboyantly but he doesn't always so do.
sometimes the gifts are obvious and sometimes they're not and another thing
about the gifts is that they take their time turning up. some people have them
immediately they know from the moment they come to Christ something begins to
happen and its God the Holy Spirit doing it through them and you hear some very
dramatic stories of people like that and other people try and copy them and it
doesn't always work for the other people. But it's because God has given gifts to each one,
but sometimes they await you to grow sufficiently through the book of Romans,
perhaps, to chapter 12, where it talks about this call for people to be surrendered,
and as you're surrendered, so God works in you to cause your sanctification to progress and
so for you to be able to discover the will of God. I was always impressed with
that young couple because they got the right balance of things not being stuck
in the mud but willing to move and to seek to find what God wanted for them.
I sort of made tentatively the title of this message, You are getting what's the
word I used before are you getting fixed or are you
getting established in your Christian life and in your overall life, like them included
where to build a house? Are you being
established? Or are you stuck in the mud? There
may be people here who are stuck in the mud because you haven't been able to discern the
difference between something that might be a good idea or a principle in your humanity.
family always had the thing that you know and I've had people tell me you know all sort of
in pleasant terms that I didn't attend to getting a house properly when I was a young man,
I can remember getting married to Michele I wasn't really a young man then either, but
when I married Michele that I could have bought a house in Chapel Hill for forty four thousand
You couldn't.
You I don't think you don't do anything but pay for the insurance, well maybe that's not
that bad, but if you tried today, and my life went through and we didn't have a house, just
till a couple of years ago.
But I'll tell you, the reason why is that I had a calling on my life and the calling
meant that I had to be prepared to be trained and go overseas.
It meant I had to follow where the evangelism opportunities were and I had to do that and
God would lead me and I left it to him to worry about the rest.
But that's because you need to know what is your calling.
That came to be tested to me.
Now I've told this story before and I'm told by people in our house that I shouldn't
tell you too many of my old stories but I've got one this morning extra.
and that is, that I went overseas and after being at one institution and graduating I ended up at a discipleship conference
and at this discipleship conference they had a time when they got all the participants
and we're all like, graduate students from universities and theological colleges and ministers and workers in what was
then known as Campus Crusades, they got us all to participate in one of the meetings
participation they wanted is for everybody who was a person like me to
come along to give a 10-minute message. Now, we had some of the best speakers in
the continent there that that conference, that went for six weeks. They were heroes
of the faith, people that I admired. And for us to then get a time to speak was a
bit like, you know, wow, well I had learned at Dallas seminary how to do a
a children's talk by learning it off my heart. It takes months — you write it out it had to be 10
minutes long and then you gradually learn it across a couple of months and you have to give it in front
of a video camera and do it without any notes. And I actually borrowed from one of C.S. Lewis's
books, I think something about Eustace and the Dragon, and I learnt it off my heart. They didn't
know what it was, I just gave a wonderful children's talk and one of the speakers who was one of my
heroes' and his name was Ray, Ray Stedman. And he'd written a book called
Body Life, a book which Amazon tells us was brought about a real turning back to
authentic Christianity. I think there's another one by him, Authentic
Christianity, and Amazon tells us how it was a turning point for the Western
churches to get back to the Place of the Body. The book was called Body Life
And it gave the idea, don't worry about who's ordained and who's the leader and what ever,
get all the people of the church doing their thing. It was a wonderful correction of the
period of time that we'd all been through in Australia, and England and America,
which you would call a time that was led by the clerics. Clericalism was the name.
and there would be ads on TV of some man with a dog collar and a funny-looking
black clothes, and he's mowing the lawn and tripping over, and we laugh at
the fact that he's so impractical. But it's the Minister, but he doesn't have
anything to do but to do all the work of the ministry. And in the churches back
then, the people of the church would come along and put their money in the plate
but otherwise leave the ministry to the minister. After all, that's the name we
him. And that was called in the era of clericalism but it was based on the fact of that Ephesians
four passage that we read from our Bible reading, of got Christ giving gifts to people, it was a
way the people somehow understood for their denominations, whom God had called to do the
ministry. And this man, Ray Stedman, his book was a tremendous correction to the overemphasis on
leaving the ministry all to the ministers. And, so it was used of God and Amazon is not wrong about
– excuse my voice – Amazon is not – I hope you can hear with the fan noise – Amazon is not wrong
about the fact that it did act, you know, as a beautiful turning us back to authentic Christianity,
but it's an overturn if you think by that, that we're a democracy. American Christianity even
more than Australian, although we're following hot on their heels, often Baptist churches think
it's a democracy where everybody gets a vote. Let me tell you, the vote is to discern whether
we as a group have heard from the Holy Spirit. It's not to give us a chance to lobby and push
for our opinion or to always demand that we have got a say in the leadership – we're meant to be
a theocracy at seeking the lead of Christ. Well, anyway, this man, Ray Stedman, came
to me after I'd given my, Houston the Dragon talk, and he said he really liked the talk,
and he said, ''I've got a church where we have 80 elders, and they all have some particular
ministry." And he says, basically he was scouting for more people who had a gift of some sort
other to come along and be in his church and invited me. He said, we'll get all
the funds to pay your salary and you will be one of these 80 and you'll
participate in speaking and whatever and you'll be my name. Now he was famous. I
was greatly flattered. The only thing was I had a sense of call that I was over in
America to come back to Australia. So I apologized to him and turned him down.
But before I could get around to apologize, I wanted to turn it into a little bit of a
less tense moment.
And so I made a joke and I said, but my problem is I've read your book about body life and
what you're suggesting you now do is not what's in that book.
And he says, yes, I've changed my mind.
He realized there was an overemphasis on the body life at the expense of not recognizing
what Ephesians 4 has to say about leadership that God gives.
Well, do you know, I walked away from that conversation admiring him even more.
What I admired him for was the humility to change his mind when he realised from the
Bible he didn't have it all right, but he was a great man of God already and he was
an even bigger one in my mind.
When I saw him say no I had it wrong, or slightly wrong.
He's actually had a very big influence.
Even today I looked up Amazon at home yesterday to check up on my ideas and it's all talking
about his book and the big effect on Christianity in the West.
And it must have been very humbling for him to admit that the thing that got him there
speaking at the conference, is one of the important persons to come and speak on
discipleship in a conference like that and to admit to me that he actually had
it wrong. Boy did I admire him. You know, it's really interesting in the
Scriptures and I'm not going to give a long message today on exactly how that
passage in Ephesians. We've even been on it before but we've worked through. But I
just want to point out one of the things about what it is to trust the
Scriptures. It is as you take it seriously in how it's worded there's
actually a viewpoint about scriptures that some people especially scholars who
want to avoid the conflicts about how to interpret the Bible use about the
Scriptures and they say we go for the dynamic view. And back in the time in the
time I met Michelle at the crusade at her church there was a time where
the whole of the Baptist Union of New South Wales was having an assembly
debate about the College and what it was teaching as to the Scriptures.
And the College was teaching a view called the dynamic view. And that dynamic
view meant that you don't take the wording to be literal, but you find some dynamic thing to do
with it under the seams and that's what's meant to be believed. There is a good aspect of using
the word dynamic because I think the scriptures are very dynamic in how they have a very powerful
effect on you. I think they're dynamic in many ways. But the other view that was put forward
down there was referred to as the verbal inspiration view and the verbal
inspiration view was taught by the College to mean that you take it
literally. But that's not actually what the origin of the term verbal
inspiration means at all. Why the word verbal is talking about the language and
when you talk about the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures you're
talking about the inspiration at the level of the language, so the language
used has been inspired of God that is carrying correct propositions. It's not
going to deceive you, you don't have to supply the meaning from some other thing.
But the meaning is in the language and when you come and listen to me and I
thank you that you do on Sunday mornings you are hearing me pull out words and
try and get to their exact meanings or phrases.
And what I deliver to you in terms of exposition, is precisely taking seriously the language
that it's set in and trying to put it in understandable terms for us today.
And that's what I see my role in this Church is to bring an exposition of the Word of God
because I believe the Word of God is accurate, and it's dynamic as well, and it is powerful,
powerful, more powerful than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul
and spirit and the joints and the marrow. That's what the book of Hebrews says about the Word of
God, but what's interesting of that passage, and that quote is that it goes on to say that all of
of us are naked before the eyes of him with whom
we have to do when we gaze into the word of God,
for the power behind the dynamic is the person none other than the Lord Jesus Christ.
Or in the ancient times, the pre-incarnate Son of God,
who was always called the word in the beginning, in John's Gospel, was the word.
He was always in the beginning the word.
are speaking of the Godhead, and when Jesus speaks, it is God speaking through Him. God,
the 3-in-1, has decreed that Jesus is the Word.
He is the one who stands behind the inspiration of every chapter of the Old
Testament or new. He is the Flavour who is behind every part of the Book. He is the One.
give yourself to study the Bible and keep doing it prayerfully please, but you pray
over the Bible I want to tell you there will come a time when you'll realize that you have
been studying a Person, none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, The Flavor, Behind Every
Chapter.
He's the One, and when He calls you by the gospel.
What I want to show you next, in this beautiful verse, at the end of the book
of Romans, now by the way, I got to look at this
verse again, because of this mention that was given...
what am I searching for, I was thinking about some Nick, your wife, what's her name again?
As Kieran gave the announcement we got this Apologetics Club
It's had three meetings already.
The first one was sort of introductory, but then the second one we're talking about, this
very verse in Romans 16, 26.
And it's talking about the Gospel as having been disclosed through the prophetic writings
there in the Old Testament, has been made known to all nations according to the command
of the eternal God, to bring about obedience of the faith.
And just earlier than that, the previous first Paul was saying that he's an apostle that
mentions him, and as he does in his Gospel of Romans, Chapter One and Verse One.
Here he says, The Gospel has come as the Command of the Eternal God.
That really struck me.
is one of those moments when I'm reading something to take along to the apologetics class the
actual word that I wanted to get to because it says it's able to strengthen you and I
think that the idea of the gospel strengthening you is what I wanted to to bring out to them
because we were talking there about getting established in the role of apologetics and
establishing a person I was keen to get across with apologetics can come before your
converted to clear reason why you're holding back or can come
afterwards and you've come to Christ and then you're getting attacked and you're
under spiritual oppression and you wonder whether it's all true.And so the
gospel made more clear to you that helps you to get strengthened.And there's a role for
the gospel, the exposition of the gospel.That's why we go through the
whole book of Romans. That's why the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are
not just two pages, like 26 pages or whatever it is.
How come the Gospel's got all these things written?
Because it's not only to get you in the door to start off with,
you can get converted without knowing very much,
but I want to tell you that the reason why we're given Gospels with so many pages
and chapters is because it strengthens you when you take on the whole and study it.
Just like when I came to Christ, They gave us the little Gospel of John
took me three days to read it because I was only nine,
but that doesn't matter.
That Gospel has been with me ever since.
It strengthened me
and that was the word that I wanted to get to.
But just before we got into the word strengthen,
which coming down is not the one that was this here,
but it talks about the fact
that this fellow Paul is an apostle by the commands
also, of God, and the Gospel has come as a command. Both Paul and as
an Apostle, and the gospel come as a command. I think if you look at verse 25,
don't do it, but you could see where Paul is talking about himself as a
apostle by the command of the eternal God. And so it's, I looked up that word
command. And why it was of interest to me is because I knew in other places
sometimes when Paul talks about his being an Apostle, he'll say in Rome is 1 1 would be 1,
I think 1 Corinthians is 1. 1 is also another. But it says that he's an Apostle by the will
of God. And so in my mind I wanted to know what was the little difference—not a big difference,
what's the little difference between will of God and command of God. This is important for
somebody here who's struggling with some of the issues to try and understand theology.
pathology, and about whether or not God just zapped you and you became a Christian because
He did it or whether you had some part to play in it, because when you talk about it
being the will of God that you became a Christian you could be led to think it just happened
and you had no choice about it, just like God didnít.
There is an aspect in which God did have His big place to play, but when it says the command
of the Eternal God, it actually is talking about their being a communication in order
to discover the meaning of this word command epitage, I think that is in Greek, not that
that matters to our sermon as well.
That word need is discovered by the scholars by looking up all the instances that have
been used in anything in Greek.
they did that, they discovered one place that was used, is when people gave an epitag, that's
what the word is, they gave a command for certain things to be done.
And there was a fellow who had a dream, and in his dream he dreamed about a certain Greek
goddess, Sybaly, or something like that.
The name doesn't matter, she probably didn't even exist, but that doesn't matter,
he thought so.
this Sibili spoke to him in a dream, and told him things to do and gave
him a command that he was to dedicate a altar to her.
And so he went along and saw to the construction or I don't know the
details, but he wrote on and in rotating an
inscription which has been recorded and it's what the scholars discovered
using this word which we translate as command
about how in a dream he was commanded to make it.
Now what caught my attention, I wish I could get across to you, is the gospel comes as
a command.
Paul as an Apostle, they didn't, God didn't ask his permission.
God commanded him to be an Apostle.
There was something God commanded, but the idea of command is that He had to act in
response and the fellow who had the dream had to go and do the inscription.
And He was putting on the inscription about this who this God this is.
He says by the command of God.
And that's what the phrase means and you find that it turns up in different places
in the Bible that the Gospel is a command from Heaven.
And when you proclaim the Gospel, there's something that happens, especially in the
spiritual dynamics of it whereas people are listening know God is speaking to them. They
know, there is some communication coming that is calling on their response. When the apostle
Peter began in the New Covenant to call people to come to Christ, he called them to as many
as the Lord our God shall call, and the call is coming as a command, and the command is
one that you either obey or disobey.
I remember well, my Sunday afternoon of becoming a Christian, though I always thought I was one,
but discovered I hadn't really done business with Christ as Saviour. When the person speaking spoke
and called them to make a physical response, although you don't have to do anything people say
do this or do that, there's no formula or physical response, except baptism after the
factors which you can do, although some people even get converted when they obey the command
to be baptized. But when that moment came, and I've told you many times before, it boiled down
whether I'd go and whether I'd move this leg. I had to obey, and it was in the step to take
a step of faith. When I obeyed the Command of the Gospel, I knew it happened, and although there
was a counsellor I listened to him through and didn't tell him he wasn't needing to do it,
I just listened but I knew it had happened the moment I moved that leg.
Not because moving legs is important, I'm not starting a new idea, but when there's a command
and God was commanding me to respond to the call of the Gospel, can I ask you a question?
Are you in obedience to the Gospel? The book of Acts records that when after the day of Pentecost
and lots of people come to Christ three thousand on one day, it goes on to say,
a great many of the priests, the Jewish priests, were obedient to the faith.
When you've responded to Christ the response is a response of obedience to the Gospel.
For the Gospel states no maybes. The Gospel states the certainties of what God has done.
You are a sinner and that's taken as those just true but that's not the big thing the
For that's not the big thing, the Gospel says.
What God has done,
what God has done is that He sent His Son
who lived according to the law,
who was sinless,
who went to the cross and suffered your sin.
He was made to be sin for us.
He who knew no sin,
that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
And because of what He has done,
God commands you to repent.
You've had the wrong idea.
God commands you to take Jesus as your savior.
He commands you to be a Christian and you can either obey and believe.
Or you can disobey and be lost.
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whosaver believes in him.
and the the center of the belief is not just a matter of intellectual thinking alone
it is the heart of you saying I will obey." When God called to little Samuel in the Old Testament
he's not in the new covenant time he's in the Old Covenant time he's in the temple
his mother's given him to be looked after by a priest and he's in the temple in the night
time the Bible says that At that time Samuel did not know the Lord.
3 But God called him and said Samuel!
Eventually he ran to the old priest who kept telling him to lay down.
4 Eventually the old priest twigged.
It was God calling the boy and there is the in the call.
called the call to be a Christian this command to answer,
3 And the priest said to the boy Go back and lie down.
4 And if he calls again, you say, Speak, Lord your servant is listening.
And from that moment on of his so sang, Samuel knew the LORD.
That's what Christian conversion is.
It's the eternal God chasing down people for whom his Son has
died and calling them to respond. And the response doesn't come as a maybe. It comes
as a command for you to obey the Eternal God. Because that command is designed to bring
about the obedience of faith.
If you become a Christian but you don't do what God says and you keep going your own
way, just think what that means. You've somehow reneged on the command of the
Eternal God to bring about the obedience of faith. That's my message this morning.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you. Lord, sometimes you put me under a
pressure to say things that I know. They're not always easily heard. They come as a command when
they come from the Scriptures. Oh, Father, help us to have hearts who gladly respond in obedience,
like little Samuel. Speak, Lord, for your servants listening.
Lord, I thank you for the nature of the gospel that it's been designed
to bring people to a place not just of knowing they're going to heaven—that's big, but it's
not the only part—but to bring to what is called here the obedience of the faith.
And I thank you for such a powerful message that calls on us so to respond.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.