In the series, The Sufficiency of the Savior.
The sufficiency of the Savior for the church
life.
And what better preparation could we have than
what we've listened to?
And that carries us from verse 12 through
17.
That's Colossians chapter 3, Colossians chapter 3, verses
12 through 17.
I don't know what version you're following, but
I'm reading from the NASB, and I read,
as those who have been chosen of God,
holy and beloved, put on a heart of
compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
And then drop down, as we abbreviate the
reading, and whatsoever you do in word or
deed, do all in the name of the
Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God
the Father.
Our study, however, will take us right through
those verses.
And in these six verses, the apostle is
addressing the local church.
Of course, that refers to the entire church
universal, but he is writing to the church
at Colossae.
And I am so glad to be ministering
on this theme tonight, because from the tip
of my head to the sole of my
feet, not only because I believe in the
Bible, not only because I believe in the
head of the church, but because of my
involvement in church life for nearly 40 years
now, I believe in the local church and
its ministry within its own community, and, of
course, through missionaries to the uttermost part of
the world.
When the Lord Jesus stood on this planet
nearly 2,000 years ago, he said, I
will build my church, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against her.
And that promise is being fulfilled.
The flag of the church of Jesus Christ
flutters in every part of the world.
Still more territory to be occupied, but the
six continents of our world are represented by
the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And even in a land like China, where
the missionaries were thrust out, do you know
that the church has multiplied tenfold even without
missionaries?
And whereas when missionaries left, there were something
like three million believers, now it's between 30
and 50 million.
And those statistics occur.
James Hudson Taylor, with whom I ministered the
word of God throughout New Zealand last year,
and who knows more about China than probably
anybody else living today, and David Adeny as
well, God is working his purposes out, and
nothing's going to thwart him.
The gates of hell shall not prevail against
the church of Jesus Christ.
And with all her factions, with all her
failures, with all her foibles today, do you
know one of these days, one of these
days, that church is going to be presented
before the glory of the Father's presence with
exceeding joy, and the church is going to
be without spot or wrinkle or any such
thing.
And I'm happy I'm part of that church.
And that is what's going to occupy our
minds and hearts here tonight.
Would you notice how he starts in this
particular passage?
He talks about those gathered believers as the
elect of God, holy and beloved.
The words, of course, are very similar to
the introductory words to this epistle, if you
jot it down, in chapter one and verse
two.
Employing the language of the Old Testament, he
speaks of the church as the new Israel
of God, chosen and set apart and beloved.
And then with characteristic candidness, the Apostle Paul
tells us what a local church should be
like.
What a local church should be like.
A local church under the sovereignty of the
Lord Jesus, a local church under the Lordship
of Christ, has certain characteristics.
And we're going to look at three main
ones.
First of all, the church must be known
by its quality of life in Christ.
Its quality of life in Christ.
Notice how he starts.
As those who have been chosen of God,
holy and beloved, put on a heart of
compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one
another and forgiving each other.
Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as
the Lord forgave you, so also should you.
Beloved, you and I only know too well
the condition of the church of the Lord
Jesus Christ in Australia, in Britain, in the
United States of America, or any other part
of the world today.
And in many, many instances, she's a sight
to make one cry and weep.
What kind of local church do you represent?
Not only in this body here, but the
churches from where you come.
What strikes you as you enter into that
assembly, into that local church, into that body
of believers?
Do you detect what I am calling here
tonight deliberately quality Christianity?
Quality Christianity.
So many churches that I know are nothing
more than holy huddles.
They have no relevance to the world outside.
Some of them are social clubs.
Some of them are community centers.
And in a sense, that's all right, but
that's not all the ministry of the church.
Some of them are just places where people
escape from the responsibilities of real life outside.
Now Paul is talking about this, and he
strikes right at the heart of what we're
terming quality Christianity in every local church.
And of course, this quality Christianity is not
attainable except through the sufficiency of the Lord
Jesus.
And as we heard tonight, our glorious Lord
in all his fullness wants to indwell not
only the individual believer, but the body of
believers, which incidentally is an interesting thing for
you who are students of the word, for
invariably Paul uses the plural.
Even in this epistle to the Colossians, that
favorite verse of mine, Christ in you, you
as a body, you in the plural, you
the hope of glory.
Now, what are the characteristics of this quality
Christianity?
Paul chooses seven right here.
And I believe in the inspiration of the
holy scriptures.
I believe in the reliability and authority of
God's word, and that these words are not
just chosen haphazardly.
And Paul chooses these seven.
Let's look at them together.
First of all, compassion.
He says, put on a heart of compassion.
Anthropologists largely judge a man's race by his
skull.
The Christian must judge a man's race by
his heart.
If there was one thing the ancient world
didn't know anything about, it was mercy.
It was mercy.
They showed no mercy to animals, and very
often showed no mercy to people.
When anybody got in the way, or anybody
became a nuisance, they were liquidated right away.
But the Lord Jesus changed all this when
He came into the world.
He could never look upon human need.
He could never look upon a crowd of
people without being moved with compassion.
I'll never forget when Billy Graham came to
New York City in 1957.
He graciously asked me to come from my
church at that time in London City, Duke
Street Baptist Church, to help him in the
crusade.
And I went over to that great city
of New York, and it was my first
experience for many, many weeks helping him in
that great crusade, the marathon crusade of all
crusades.
No crusade in all his history ran as
long as that crusade.
He stayed at the New Yorker Hotel, and
every day at four o'clock I went
up to pray with him, go through his
sermon notes, giving him structure, illustrations, help, and
praying together as he preached night after night
until he almost dropped on one occasion.
He was so weary.
But I'll never forget the beginning of that
crusade.
He said to me, Stephen, let's go to
the top of the hotel.
And he had a private elevator out of
his room that went right to the very
top of that hotel.
We stood together and looked across that great
city.
Throughout my years there, it was something like
13.6 million metropolitan New York, eight million
alone in Manhattan, now even more than that.
But we were up there on those parapets
of the New Yorker Hotel.
And I said, Billy, this city needs Jesus.
And God has sent you to offer Christ
to this city.
And suddenly I heard those deep, deep sighs
of a man about to burst.
And I looked to my right, and there
was dear Billy Graham sobbing his heart out,
big tears rolling down his face, and crying
to God, God, God, have mercy on New
York.
Oh, God, give us this city.
Oh, God, give us compassion for the sinners
in this great city.
I'll never forget that.
That's how the Lord Jesus reacted to multitudes
when he saw them, and to people, a
heart of compassion.
Have you, beloved brother, sister, a heart of
compassion?
Because when you bring a whole body of
people together in that compassion, in that sense
of identification with human needs, for that's what
it really means.
Barclay tells us it actually means getting into
the skin of another.
It's not just pity.
It's more than pity.
It's identification with the hurts and needs of
others, getting into other people's skins.
I'll tell you, you have a quality that
the world cannot match anywhere.
Is that how people feel when they walk
into your church?
Not only compassion, notice kindness, put on kindness.
Archbishop Trench calls this a lovely word for
a lovely quality.
Josephus uses it to describe Isaac, the man
who dug wells and gave them away for
nothing.
You'll read that in Genesis 26.
William Barclay tells us that it's associated with
wine, which has grown mellow with age and
has lost its harshness.
It's the word that the Lord Jesus used
when he said, come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of
me, for my yoke is easy.
That's our word.
My yoke is easy, and my burden is
light.
It's a beautiful, beautiful garment to put on,
the garment of kindness, of kindness.
Are you a kind Christian?
Are you a kind church?
Look at the next word, humility.
Put on humility.
This is the temper of mind which affects
the testament of ourselves.
It's closely linked, by the way, to the
very word we've just been talking about, kindness,
for it takes an unselfish views of the
interests of others.
This word, humility, is a very important word
in the New Testament.
Andrew Murray has written a little book on
humility.
It's so thin, you can hold it between
your two fingers like that.
I read it at least once a year,
but I challenge anyone to read it through
at one sitting.
One chapter, and you're on your knees.
Humility.
You see, humility is not only the disposition
of Christ, but it's the discipline of ourselves.
It's the disposition of Christ because it's the
mind of Christ.
Christ living in me.
That's the whole meaning of that fabulous and
wonderful second chapter of Philippians.
And as great scholars have pointed out, and
especially the newest commentary that's just come out,
Hawthorne's great commentary on Philippians points out that
that's a beautiful hymn, and it's not intended
to be a doctrinal statement or a theological
statement to be debated.
It is an ethical, it's an ethical application.
Let this mind be in you, which was
also in Christ Jesus, and then that mind
is unfolded.
A disposition that leads us to die in
order that we might live.
It took him to the death of the
cross, wherefore God highly exalted him, and you
will never live until you know how to
die.
But it's also a discipline because the scripture
teaches us to humble ourselves under the mighty
hand of God, that he may exalt us
in due season.
So this humility should be seen in all
our behavior patterns day by day.
Humility in the church.
Oh, what a contrast to the arrogance and
pride and righteousness and my right as a
member that we hear so often in churches
today.
Look at the next one.
Patience.
Put on patience.
J.
Hudson Taylor once said that there are three
requirements for every missionary.
He used to go to Keswick to recruit
young people for the mission field.
He used to say, is Jesus Christ Lord
of your life?
And if he didn't get the right answer,
he would say, remember young man, he's Lord
of all.
Or he's not Lord at all.
And then he would say, if you mean
to be a missionary, you need three qualifications.
The first is patience.
The second is patience.
And the third is patience.
And I want to tell you that's a
quality we need in our churches today.
We live in an impatient world.
That's why everything we buy is instant or
instantaneous.
Instant postum, instant coffee, instant tea, instant everything.
Patience.
Paul is talking about patience for the long
pull.
Most people can endure for a little while,
but they give up after that.
The patience of Christ is that which bears
all the way with our human frailties and
never lets down, never lets down.
Patience.
Come a little closer home.
Forbearance.
Bearing with one another.
Here is a precious word indeed.
While it's difficult to translate into our English
with all accuracy, its main meaning is very
manifest.
And I've given it as my own definition.
I call it long temperedness, long temperedness.
It's the elastic love which covers a multitude
of sins without complacency on the one side
or compromise on the other.
It's possible to love.
It's possible to love all the little irregularities,
notwithstanding of my brother, my sister, my wife,
my child, without complacency and without compromise.
That's our forbearance.
And then he comes to the crunching word
of all.
Forgivingness.
Forgiving each other.
Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as
the Lord Jesus forgave you.
Paul describes this quality Christianity and moves higher
and higher and higher and higher until he
touches what I believe is the greatest word
to be preached all across Australia.
Forgivingness.
Show me any church that has a problem
and I'll tell you the solution.
Forgivingness.
Tell me any home that has a problem
here tonight.
We'll be dealing with that tomorrow night.
Any home that has a problem.
The solution.
Forgivingness.
The ability to just say, Sorry, darling.
Sorry.
And I mean it.
Sorry.
Show me any deacon group that's split down
the middle.
Is there a solution?
Yes.
Forgivingness.
And I want to tell you more revivals
have broken upon the church throughout the years
than I could go right off into one
hour's lecture on that alone.
Just because people were willing to forgive each
other.
And by the way, the Lord Jesus reminded
us in the Sermon on the Mount, and
it's backed up right here.
If we don't forgive one another, forget it,
my brother.
You can come to church until you drop
in your grave.
You will not move one inch in your
Christian life.
Not one inch in your Christian life.
Heaven is shot.
The heavens are as brass.
Because if you don't forgive your brother, your
sister, your husband, your wife, your children, your
pastor, your deacons, if you don't forgive them
their trespasses, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive
you.
Period.
That's why it's put at the very climax
here.
Forgivingness.
These are the ingredients that make up quality
Christianity.
This quality spiritual life, my brother, is what
should characterize the Church of Jesus Christ today.
Today.
Not just when she's spotless, without spot or
wrinkle, but today.
Right there in Colossae.
Right there in Ephesus.
Right there in Thessalonica.
Right there in Brisbane.
But quickly, let's move on to the next
characteristic.
The Church must be known by its quality
of life, yes.
But secondly, the Church must be known by
its unity of life in Christ.
And of course that follows.
That follows.
Given those seven qualities, unity is inevitable.
And so he says, beyond all these things
put on love, which is the perfect bond
of unity, and let the peace of Christ
rule in your hearts, to which indeed you
were called in one body, and be thankful.
Where the membership of a local church enjoys
quality Christianity, there is experience what Paul describes
here as the perfect bond of unity.
In Jesus Christ we are one, whether we
accept it or not.
Oh, I want to say that again.
It wasn't a slip of a tongue.
In Jesus Christ, if we are truly born
again, we are one.
Whether we accept it or not, I cannot
what label you wear.
If you are born again, even you may
not see the way I do, or I
don't see the way you do, if you
are actually born again on the basis of
the redemptive work of Christ, and you are
indwelt by the Holy Spirit, I'm your brother,
and you are my brother.
And we're one.
But the problem is not so much the
fact of our oneness, but the enjoyment of
our oneness.
And that's why in the corresponding passage in
Ephesians, Paul says right here, he says, keep
the unity of the Spirit in the bond
of peace.
You notice he doesn't say make the unity.
He doesn't say make the unity.
The unity has to be made once and
for all.
But he says keep it.
And that word is a military term.
Guard it.
Guard it with guns.
Guard it with bayonets, as it were.
Don't let the enemy come in.
Fight back Satan and keep this wonderful, wonderful
gift God has given his church.
It's the gift of unity.
I heard John Stott, probably one of the
greatest Bible teachers of our day, give Bible
readings at Keswick a few years ago when
I shared the ministry with him on Ephesians.
Four mighty Bible readings on Ephesians.
And he made this one statement that I
haven't forgotten.
He said, I don't believe there's anything that
grieves the heart of our priestly Christ in
heaven than the disunity on earth of his
church.
That seamless garment being torn asunder by his
people here upon earth.
If I could borrow Jacob's ladder and climb
right into the throne room of heaven tonight,
I know I would hear my priestly king
and priest, yes, praying the prayer of John
17.
Father, Father, make them one.
Make them one.
Make them one that the world may believe
that you sent them.
Unity.
Now, what is this unity?
Look with me quickly at the verses that
follow.
It's a unity of spirit.
Will you notice that?
The unity of spirit.
Beyond all these things put on love, which
is the perfect bond of unity.
God is love.
But God is spirit.
And when we're united in love, we're united
in spirit, and vice versa.
This is not an emotional attempt of carnal
men and women to try and make it
up by just holding hands and singing choruses.
No, it's far deeper than that.
It is the supernatural work of the Holy
Spirit by which people are united in the
bond of peace.
Or to quote Dr. William Barclay again, love
is the binding power which holds the whole
Christian body together.
The tendency of any body of people is
sooner or later to fly apart.
But love is the one bond which will
hold them together in an unbreakable fellowship.
That's why in the early church the heathen
looked on and said, see how these Christians
love one another.
Alas, alas, the world looks on today and
says, see how these Christians hate one another.
See how these Christians assassinate one another in
terms of their character.
You know, amongst Orientals, dressing was always completed
with one piece of clothing known as a
sash or a girdle.
This garment put all the other pieces of
clothing together in their proper place and for
their proper purpose.
And this is exactly what happens when the
Holy Spirit binds us together in love.
Let me read it to you in the
Revised Standard Version.
Put on love which binds everything together in
perfect harmony.
Oh, I love that.
I love that.
It's a unity of spirit.
But notice also it's a unity of soul.
And let the peace of Christ rule in
your hearts.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your
hearts.
Now, Paul employs a picture here that's drawn
from the athletic arena.
It's a word from which we get our
term umpire, or if you prefer, arbitrator, one
who settles the final decision in any matter
of dispute.
I know cricket, and I love cricket, and
I followed cricket in the old days in
England, and you know all about cricket.
And now your other games, you have these
months of the year, such as rugby and
so on.
But I don't think I've ever seen anything
more dramatic regarding an umpire than a good
old American baseball game.
And I don't know if you watch those
games on television or you've been to America,
but I want to tell you something.
A man's either in or out by the
decision of that umpire.
When he says out, you're out.
When he says safe or in, you're in.
You argue and you're out.
You're out.
Do you know something?
That broke in upon my soul.
So often we dispute and we argue instead
of bringing our lives under the sovereignty of
Jesus and saying, Lord, you make the decision
in this through your word by your Holy
Spirit.
It's not at this level.
We need to crown you Lord.
And I'm reminded that when Paul wrote to
Rome over matters that we would laugh about
in many ways and yet were just as
stupid, matters that were dividing the church at
Rome, having to do with meat, food, whether
you were a vegetarian or whether you're a
all-diet man, and holy days, holy seasons,
and here's a church about to be split
asunder about these matters.
And you notice Paul doesn't condemn one group
or condone the other, either the strong or
the weak.
He says, no man liveth unto himself and
no man dieth unto himself.
The answer to this situation is simply this.
To this end, both Christ rose and revived.
Died, rose, and revived, that he might be
Lord.
And it's in that very context that Paul
says, crown him as Lord, and you're going
to discover these matters will find their solution
and resolution.
He must be arbitrator, not only in the
home, not only in the church, but in
the council churches, wherever churches come together in
an assembly such as we've just had over
the past week.
Unity of spirit, unity of soul, and I
love this, unity of body.
You are called in one body.
Be thankful.
Now much has been written on body life.
My dear friend Ray Steadman has written an
outstanding book, and we've come to a new
understanding of what we mean by body life,
the discernment and development and deployment of gifts
in the church, and understanding each other within
the church, and recognizing that everyone has a
place in the church.
Of course, Paul dealt with this in the
first century, and especially in his epistle to
the Corinthians, where he says that we are
indivisibly joined to Christ, and we are indispensably
dependent on each other.
The eye can't say to the nose, I
have no need of you, nor can the
ear say to the mouth, I have no
need of you.
The hand can't say to the foot, I
have no need of you, and so we
could go on.
We are indivisibly joined to Christ, and we
are indispensably dependent on each other.
The eye can't say to the nose, I
have no need of you, nor can the
ear say to the mouth, I have no
need of you.
The hand can't say to the foot, I
have no need of you, and so we
could go on.
We're indivisibly linked to our common head, and
we're interdependently dependent on one another.
And I want to say something.
When a church sees that truth, all jealousies
are over.
All jealousies are over.
As I said at the assembly, God never
makes duplicates, he only makes originals, and your
place within the church is a place that
he has foreordained before the universe was ever
brought into existence, and you have a place
right there.
Now, have you recognized that one body?
And have you said, yes, I recognize that
hand.
I see that hand.
God made that hand.
God made that leg.
God made that eye.
God made that nose.
And he didn't make them to compete with
each other.
They're one body.
Get on your knees and thank him.
Be thankful.
You are called in one body.
Be thankful.
Nothing unifies Christians more than to recognize that
we need each other, and are meant for
each other.
And once we grasp this truth, I repeat,
I'll tell you, half the problems of the
church are resolved.
How beautiful to be able to drop on
my knees and say, Lord Jesus, I thank
you for Ron.
I thank you for Patricia.
And I thank you for the manifold gifts
you have endowed them with.
And I thank you, Lord, for the complimentary
ministry to the preaching of your word.
Lord, I thank you.
I thank you.
That brings a harmony into our ministries.
As I put it, this annihilates jealousy.
It stimulates unity.
To do so is to accept the fact
that God has made us one body.
What right have we to disembowel that body
by jealousy, by pride, by bickering, by vying
one with the other?
To do so affirms our oneness in one
body and assures our unity and harmony in
the ministry.
But there's a third characteristic, and it's on
this I want to major especially tonight as
briefly as I possibly can, because I see
how the time is slipping away.
Verses 16 through 17.
Just keep your eye on those verses.
We'll go through them.
The quality and unity of life in the
church leads to the ministry.
Notice the order.
Quality first, unity next, then ministry.
How often we reverse those.
But not so here.
Not so here.
The quality and unity of life in Christ
naturally leads to the ministry of life in
Christ.
And in these two verses, Paul sets out
what I believe to be essentially the ministry
of the church.
Now obviously we could break that down and
move out of the one context into wider
contexts and show the outflinging of these ministries,
even to the ends of the earth.
But here are the essential ones.
Number one, we will proclaim the word of
Christ.
Let me repeat that.
We will proclaim the word of Christ.
We start right with the pulpit.
We start right with the word.
Let the word of Christ richly dwell within
you with all wisdom.
Now the word of Christ here may mean
that which is spoken by Christ or that
which is spoken of Christ.
And exegetes agree that either of these can
be true.
I want to take them both.
In either case, we're confronted with the revealed
word of God in Christ Jesus, and that
refers to the ministry of the word of
God in the local church.
In the local church.
To me, even the position of this pulpit
is significant tonight.
The pulpit is not over there or over
there.
It's right here.
It's at the center of worship.
And a central pulpit is absolutely essential in
its symbolic significance, but it must be true
in our entire life of the church.
We start with the word, and everything flows
from that.
Everything flows from that.
Many of you are familiar with the name
of Dr. Harold Ockingay, probably one of the
most brilliant men the Lord gave the Church
of Jesus Christ in the last century in
America as a pastor, Ph.D., Fac.
II, earned a doctorate.
He was a pastor for many, many years
of the famous Park Street Church in Boston.
He was the founder of Christianity Today alongside
Billy Graham and Carl Henry.
He was the founder of Fuller Seminary in
its days when it was unquestioned for orthodoxy
and scholarship.
After 25 years of the life of Christianity
Today, he had an interview with the editor,
and he was asked, what is the secret
of all ministry, and what is the secret
of your ministry as you reflect back over
25 years?
He said, the pulpit and an open Bible.
He was asked, well, what is the most
important, what is the most important service of
the church?
He said, Wednesday night, Wednesday night.
He said, Sunday morning, in our culture, the
churches just fill up, I open the Word
of God, and I preach.
But God knows I never give the same
amount of time and prayer to Sunday morning,
or indeed Sunday evening, with a packed church
of students from the University of Harvard, MIT,
and all the rest.
I don't even give time to that service
as I do to Wednesday night, to Wednesday
night.
He said, Wednesday night, I expect my church
to be full anyway, but he said, it's
one solid hour of exposition of biblical truth.
And everything that flowed to the far ends
of the earth, and they had the biggest
missionary conference of any church for many, many
years, and sent hundreds of missionaries to the
field.
Thousands of students converted, who are now at
the highest positions in the land.
He said, it all started in our Bible
study on Wednesday night.
Now, that's a matter of convenience.
Some people have a Tuesday or a Thursday,
but he maintained that the crucial service of
his church was the in-depth Bible exposition.
That was true of Campbell Morgan, that was
true of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, and very
humbly I can say that's true of Calvary
Baptist Church.
How thrilled when we had a thousand people
for our Wednesday Bible study and prayer meeting.
That's where it all starts.
That's why Paul, just about to depart, hands
the torch over to his young brother Timothy,
and he says, Timothy, I've said many things
to you, but my final word to you
is this, preach the word.
Do the work of an evangelist.
That's my final word to you.
Sure, come, bring the parchments, bring the books.
I'm cold in this cell.
I need a little warmth, and to the
end I'm going to be a student of
the word.
Bring those books, bring those parchments, but my
final word to you is, preach the word,
preach the word, do the work of an
evangelist.
Proclamation, proclamation, invitation, proclamation.
That's the word put across in its convictive,
corrective, and constructive ministration, because the word says,
reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doubt.
But then, don't leave it at that.
Harvest what you preach.
Bring people to commitment.
If it's saints, bring them to surrender.
If it's sinners, bring them to repentance.
Harvest the work.
Do the work of an evangelist.
That's what an evangelist is.
An evangelist is a heralder of the truth,
but essentially a man who harvests the truth,
harvests the results of proclamation.
Preach the word.
Do the work of an evangelist.
And so Paul says here, let the word
of Christ dwell in you richly, in all
wisdom.
Make sure that that word goes right down
deep and produces fruit, dwells in you richly,
producing richness of life.
The second great ministry of the church is
worship.
Not only will we proclaim the word of
Christ, we will promote the worship of Christ.
And so the word goes on saying, teaching
and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in
your heart to the Lord, or singing with
thankfulness, virtually with grace, as we shall see
in a moment, in your hearts to the
Lord.
Worship is essential in the church of Christ,
if we're to glorify God as individuals or
as a congregation.
Worship is sadly lacking in most of our
churches today.
And this I say with a sweep right
across the world.
Sadly lacking.
There is pomp without power.
There is motion without unction.
Simply stated, worship is sharing of Christ.
We'll see that in just a moment.
And then it's singing to Christ under the
control of the Holy Spirit.
Notice the phrase, with thankfulness in your hearts
to God, better rendered with grace to God,
or in the grace of God.
Only God can give us the grace to
worship him right.
Now, the Ephesians epistle picks us up and
deals with it a little more fully, because
we have there that beautiful passage that I
love to quote.
Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess,
but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to
yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody with your heart to
the Lord, always giving thanks for all things
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
to God, even the Father.
God reminds us, of course, in the words
of our Lord Jesus, that they that worship
the Father must worship him in spirit and
in truth.
And essentially this means two things.
First of all, with this grace of the
Spirit, we are to share of Christ.
We are to share of Christ, his attributes,
his essential qualities, his glorious, glorious virtues, and
moral qualities.
Yes, we're to revel in those in the
word.
And notice we're to do it, we're to
do it, even in singing, teaching and admonishing
one another.
Before we can sing to Christ, we must
share of Christ.
This is what is meant here by teaching
one another and warning one another through theology
and hymnology.
And we all know this, but when you
take great theology and marry it to great
hymnology, it goes up in great doxology.
And that's what worship is all about.
That's what worship is all about.
But when we know how to share of
Christ, something happens.
Something happens.
We've got to sing.
So with the grace of the Spirit, we
must not only share of Christ through the
word, but we must sing to Christ.
In our worship, we must use psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs, singing to God.
And from the very beginning, the church was
a singing church, a singing church.
One of the earliest descriptions of a church
service we have on record anywhere is that
of Pliny, the Roman governor of Dithynia, who
reported to the emperor, and I quote, and
I love this statement, they meet at dawn
to sing a hymn to Christ as God.
They meet at dawn to sing a hymn
to Christ as God.
And the hymns they sang were undoubtedly the
old psalms of the Hebrew hymnbook.
We call it today the Treasury of David
and others.
They also used spiritual songs.
There were odes and poems which conveyed spiritual
truths.
There were the hymns.
Some of them we find right in our
New Testament that the Holy Spirit has incorporated
into the inerrant word.
Whether accompanied by instruments or sung a cappella,
all singing was an act of worship to
God.
And I want to say very simply, and
I want to say very sincerely, if you
want to know what I mean by this
aspect of my message tonight, you had it
demonstrated before I spoke, before I spoke.
That's worship.
That's worship in music.
We need to recapture this aspect of worship
today.
It's true that singing is the in thing,
but how much of it is true worship?
So often our songs lack content and depth
and are popular only because of catchy tune.
It is time to re-examine what the
New Testament really means by worship.
By worship.
So, we must proclaim the word of Christ.
We must promote the worship of Christ.
And finally, we must perform the work of
Christ.
And that's our closing verse.
Whatsoever you do in word or deed, do
all in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks through him to God the Father.
To me, there's no greater verse in all
the New Testament and its complementary version and
Ephesians that should be written all around the
church.
That's the motto of Christian service.
It covers the whole gamut of church life,
from the solemn service of Christian baptism, the
celebration of the Lord's Supper, the preaching of
a gospel, the visitation of the sick and
lonely, down to the simplest duties and details
of picking up hymn books and doing the
chores and catering of any church in any
culture in any century.
But two things should characterize all work.
And with this, I close.
Notice two things.
One, the presence or power of the Lord
Jesus, which activates service.
And the other is the pleasure and privilege
to serve the Lord Jesus.
Will you look at those two?
Notice the two things which determine work in
word or deed.
The presence and pleasure of the Lord Jesus.
The presence of the Lord Jesus should activate
our work.
Do all in the name, in the name
of the Lord Jesus.
The name speaks of His being, His nature
and power.
When the Lord Jesus sent out His disciples,
He said, preach in the name, baptize in
the name, pray in the name, lay hands
on in the name.
It's always in the name.
And the name, I repeat, speaks of His
being and nature and power.
Without Him we can do nothing.
Hence our theme, Christ all in all.
His sufficiency in us and through us to
do what otherwise we could never achieve.
And so much work in the church is
work for Christ instead of the work of
Christ.
Hudson Taylor said, I went to China and
I tried to work for God and I
failed.
Then I tried to work with God and
I failed.
And then He broke me.
And by the indwelling life of Jesus, the
exchange life, I let Him work in me
and through me.
And then I saw blessing.
That's the whole purpose of these days, of
learning the wonder of the meaning of the
incarnation.
Not just God stepping into human life for
thirty-three and a half years, but through
Christ's death and resurrection and ascension and the
descent of the Holy Spirit, that same life
being lived in me and through me in
everything I do, in everything I say.
But my last thought as I leave you
tonight is giving thanks through Him to God
the Father.
Not just His presence in everything I say
and do, but His pleasure, but His pleasure.
His presence activates.
His pleasure motivates.
That was the passion of our Lord Jesus
all through His life.
He said, there's nothing, nothing I do except
that which pleases the Father.
I do always those things that please Him.
And I don't believe any service counts for
God.
If I can't bow my head and say,
thank you Father, thank you for that privilege,
thank you for that pleasure of serving you.
Now sharing with Ron and Pat one of
the great movements of the Spirit we had
in our years at Calvary Baptist Church.
I went to a church that was very,
very seriously divided.
The less said about that, the better.
I had to start right from scratch to
try and build a new fellowship there under
the ministry of the Word of God.
One of the first things we instituted was
a hot night of prayer.
And for fourteen years I could say to
the glory of God every first Friday of
the month, every first Friday of the month,
whether I was on vacation, whether I was
sick, or whether I was indisposed to not
be able to be there, it never failed
to take place.
In an upper room that could seat five
to six hundred people, we had a hot
night of prayer.
Say, why not the whole night?
Because at twelve thirty, no more transportation left
Manhattan.
And people lived way out in the suburbs.
So we made it a hot night of
prayer from seven until twelve.
Seven and then twelve.
And I want to tell you, those are
the greatest hours I can ever remember in
my ministry at Calvary, because people came and
went as they were able.
Not everybody had to be the same time.
Some people came in half hour before midnight,
but they converged there.
It wasn't a stated meeting of the church.
It was left entirely open to those whose
hearts God would touch.
And throughout a half night of prayer, some
seven hundred people would come to pray, possibly.
On another occasion, perhaps only three or four
hundred.
Three or four hundred.
But you know what happened?
We got to prayer all right, but suddenly
the Lord dealt with me about the matter
of thanksgiving.
Of thanksgiving.
God dealt with me about the matter of
thanksgiving.
Were we truly thankful for the privilege of
ever being the children of God, of ever
serving Him, of ever being part of the
body?
And so we all decided as a group
that the first two hours, whatever followed after
that, the first two hours would be only
for thanksgiving.
Only for thanksgiving.
You know what?
We had the biggest shock of our lives.
Somebody would get up and pray and thank
the Lord for being saved, and sit down
again.
Somebody would get up, thank the Lord for
the joy of leading a soul to Christ,
and sit down.
And in a few moments, absolute silence.
You know why?
They didn't have anything to be thankful about.
And nobody could dare get up six times
and repeat the same prayer.
The same words.
The Spirit of God fell upon us one
night, and from thanksgiving we went to utter
brokenness, and we wept, and we repented, and
we confessed that here we were, Christians, who
didn't even know what to give thanks for.
And God dealt with us at depth.
And that was the whole turning point in
our ministry.
Whole turning point in our ministry.
It led to a tremendous revival.
Weeks after that, I want to tell you,
two hours was too short.
We spilled right over.
Just one torrent of thanks for souls saved,
for the wonders of His grace, for the
joy of being a Christian, for the insights
into His Word.
And it was thrilling to hear people get
up one after another and thank God for
encounters they had had through the week, and
for the souls they led to Jesus Christ,
for reconciliation in the home, for reconciliation between
brothers and sisters, just praising and thanking God.
And I want to tell you, God inhabits
the praises of Israel.
God came down.
And I believe the true thing that should
motivate all Christian work is His presence that
activates it, because without it we can do
nothing.
His pleasure which motivates it.
The sheer pleasure of sitting under the ministry
of the Word of God this week, each
Sunday, of doing anything for Him.
We Gentiles, sinners, under the curse, bound for
hell, gloriously redeemed by the precious blood, we
should be lending praises to our eternal Lord.
And it's in the light of that I
want us to leave this place tonight saying
to ourselves, can I really thank Him?
Can I really thank Him?
Or is God doing me a favor?
You know something?
I've made a sacrifice to be here this
week.
God ought to be jolly well glad about
that.
You see, it changes your whole concept of
God, and it changes your whole concept of
service.
It changes your whole concept of living.
This is the ministry of the Church.
God grant grace to proclaim the Word of
Christ, promote the worship of Christ, perform the
work of Christ, until the day when the
whole Church will be presented without spot or
wrinkle or any such thing.
The quality, the unity, the ministry of the
local Church under His Lordship, living through His
sufficiency.
Let us pray.
Our time is up, but we're going to
sing a hymn tonight, and each night until
Thursday.
And unless I say anything to the contrary,
I would like to leave the altar open,
the mercy seat.
If anyone would like to come and just
kneel for a few moments during the singing
of this hymn and return to their seat,
please do so.
If you want to remain there and be
counseled at the conclusion of the service, by
all means do so.
If any one of these nights I suggest
that we have a brief after-meeting and
some instruction, well that will be indicated.
But I believe a series like this ought
to be a time where we express some
response to what God has said.
If God has touched you last night, or
any of the nights of the assembly, and
you'd like to just come forward quietly and
kneel just in the presence of God, and
then sit back to your seat without counseling
or anything else, you do so.
But if you desire help, just remain there
and we'll be available at the conclusion of
the service.
Lord, seal with your Holy Spirit your word
to our hearts here tonight, and grant that
you will have your way, your full, undisputed,
unconditional way in all of our lives.
For your dear name's sake, amen.