24-0602p Transcript

Preacher: Scott Reynolds

(1:01) We’re picking up with part three of equipping the saints, (1:06) realizing equipped saints. How do we go about doing that? And I’m not pretending I have the (1:14) answers.

What I’m looking for is to see what scripture has to say. We are to equip the saints (1:24) for service. And what do we teach? What do we do? What service are we to do? It has something to (1:35) do with building up the church.

So then you look at the scriptures, they’re full of things. (1:45) It’s inexhaustible. The study of the scripture, the more you study, the more you learn, (1:49) and the more there is to learn.

The more you find out that you know a lot less than when you started. (1:59) So it’s, you know, Jesus is right. He is the living water.

And you’ll never thirst because (2:08) there’s just too much. It’s all there. We might be those that will be coming out of our nostrils.

(2:19) When God gives you something, he gives you a lot. So what do we teach? What are we doing? (2:27) We have focused on becoming evangelists and making every member an evangelist. (2:37) And I’m sorry, it’s something I harp on.

It bugs me. And I just don’t see it in the scriptures. (2:46) Yes, when we have the opportunity, but not every member is an evangelist.

(2:52) Not every member is his mouthpiece. If all were the mouthpiece, where would the ears be? (3:00) Where would the eyes be? We all have our place. And it’s not to make everybody an evangelist.

(3:11) So where do we go? I think we have the basics down pat. We know, you know, I was (3:21) watching Del. Del Tackett is not Church of Christ.

He’s denominational. And you can tell (3:30) because his plan for salvation, he happened to incidentally mention it, has four steps. (3:38) Guess which one of the steps is missing? We have a five-step plan to salvation.

They have four. (3:50) To be saved. So in that regard, it’s always been a problem to me.

(4:00) Where do we go? I was first a Christian. I’m going off script here. I’m not doing the lesson, (4:07) per se.

I’m doing the lesson, but not as it’s scripted. You know, when I was first a Christian, (4:16) that it was like, well, man, there’s so much stuff. What do you do? (4:20) And it was hard.

And we had those, remember those quarterly? (4:26) In the west side here, we did the quarterly Bible study. And you went through the Bible. (4:34) I don’t know.

I don’t know how long it took you to get through doing the quarterly. (4:39) You’d have four quarters a year of study. And you always got a big book.

And by 13 weeks, (4:49) 13 weeks in the quarter, it’s 52. 26 and a half year makes 52 weeks in a year. (4:58) So every week was covered in a 13-week quarterly study.

And they were interesting studies, (5:08) but it’s, where are we going? What am I learning? They didn’t seem to have a plan (5:18) other than to get through the Bible. And doing my own study, I started learning how to do topical (5:26) studies. It took forever to get through Robert Milligan’s scheme of redemption.

(5:34) The most valuable thing I learned in that book was that the Bible teaches, (5:41) it has a system of teaching, not total, not everything, but it teaches in types and (5:50) anti-types examples and the outcome of that example. And it was eye-opening because a lot (5:58) of the things that looked incongruent, didn’t look like they went together, suddenly fit. (6:05) The Old Testament and the New Testament, suddenly there was purpose behind it.

And (6:11) it wasn’t just, you know, the critics of the Bible will tell you that Christians made up the (6:19) idea that Jesus was God. It didn’t start that way. Jesus wasn’t really God in the beginning, (6:25) but later on, they decided to make Jesus God.

That’s blown me. The types and anti-types don’t (6:34) allow it. He’s deity.

And it was that way from the beginning. He, the kingdom was going, it’s (6:44) a mistake. And he just, you know, he wasn’t able to set it up when he first got here.

(6:51) They ended up killing him. Well, killing him was the whole reason he came was to die. (6:58) It was three years.

He didn’t have to accomplish anything other than not sin (7:05) and to die at the end of it. It’s a lot like the Harry Potter series. In the Harry Potter series, (7:14) you got this little wizard kid, and these evil wizards and good wizards, and they’re battling, (7:23) and the bad wizard has been vanquished some time ago, but you know what? He’s clever, (7:30) and he figured out a way to come back from the abyss, so to speak.

And it hinges on this little (7:39) kid. And so how, okay, so this evil wizard killed his parents, and when the evil wizard (7:51) tried to kill him as a little baby, it boomeranged and finished him off instead, the evil wizard. (7:59) And so now, but he figured out how to come back, and that he set up ahead of time.

(8:09) And then so this kid, this kid’s going to have to vanquish the evil wizard again, (8:17) and you know what? He just isn’t up to it. He’s not really good at being a wizard. (8:26) He has friends that do things much better, and he’s a wimpy little kid, (8:33) and he’s not the smartest kid.

He’s impulsive, and you find out, you know what his job was? (8:42) His job was to be killed by the evil wizard, and he would vanquish the evil wizard (8:50) by being killed by him. And you know, I’m sorry, but that story’s been done before. (8:58) This story’s been done before.

Did you recognize the story? It’s Jesus and Satan. (9:07) Satan is vanquished when he is responsible for killing Jesus, and kills him. And that’s (9:20) what crushes his head, because death can’t keep Jesus.

He hasn’t sinned. (9:29) But anyway, that’s the same idea with Harry Potter. So you have all these things in the scripture, (9:39) but what do we do with it? Where do we go? (9:48) We’re like this.

The traditional thought is because we’re not out evangelizing, (10:00) and which, you know, I’ll give it something. We have (10:07) Fishers of Men. Fishers of Men’s pretty good, pretty good stuff.

(10:12) But I think Del Tackett pegged it, where we are living. Our culture isn’t the same culture (10:21) as 50 years ago. Our culture has changed.

It’s evil. It’s worse than it was. (10:32) And that seven threat series, Del pegged it.

(10:40) God has given our culture over to a depraved mind. And you know, you may or may not know (10:49) of Dennis Prager. He’s conservative.

But there are a lot of intelligent conservatives, (10:59) and they’re recognizing that these people, and it’s the people on the left, mostly, (11:06) some people on the right too, because they don’t know. If they don’t know the scriptures, (11:12) then they’re all working for the devil. He has them.

And they’re all doing this. Their father (11:19) is Satan, as Jesus told the Israelites. You’re not from Abraham.

You’re not Abraham’s seed. Your (11:28) father is Satan, because you do the works that he has for you to do. And that’s what they’re doing, (11:37) basically, the liberals.

But you’ve got conservatives doing that too, (11:41) especially those that are financial, fiscal conservatives and not moral. (11:49) Don’t believe in morality of the scriptures. Don’t believe the scriptures.

(11:57) So yeah, Del pegs it with God has given these people over to a depraved mind. And it’s not (12:06) because they’re not smart. And that’s what Dennis Prager and these other conservatives (12:11) are recognizing as Dell himself, when he has a PhD, and he has some other kind of degree, (12:20) but it’s equivalent to a PhD, some kind of doctorate.

He is a doctor, (12:26) not of medicine, obviously. It’s got something to do with computer stuff, (12:32) knowledge, some kind of knowledge thing. But anyway, he went to school and studied under (12:40) these people, had to take psychology.

And when we go through the Truth Project, you’ll see (12:51) some of the things that they were having him do and scratching his head. These people are smart. (12:58) They’re not wise.

And they do stupid things. And they’re ruling the world and ruining the world. (13:07) And they think they’re doing right, which is why they’re so vigorous at what they do.

So (13:19) how do you how do you deal with people that God is God that gives them a depraved mind? I believe (13:26) that. I think Dell put it together. And I like that for him, even though he’s from a denomination (13:36) and not the Church of Christ.

But anyway, so looking at this, and he’s the one that came up (13:48) with this idea of equipping the saints, that it’s the purpose of the leadership. Jesus put in place (13:54) the leadership specifically, as Ephesians 4 says. And I’ll read that again, because it’s worth (14:01) reading.

And Ephesians 2 also probably. But Ephesians 4, 11 through 16 says, And Jesus gave (14:09) some to be apostles, some prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers, to equip the saints for the (14:16) work of service, for building up the body of Christ, until we attain to the unity of the faith (14:23) and of the knowledge of God, of the Son of God. And just a little bit of time, we’ve been going (14:29) through this study of equipping the saints.

And this isn’t Dell’s, by the way, study. This is my (14:35) study that I’m presenting, and have been presenting. It’s based on the scripture he (14:41) identified.

But that said, it is my study. But just on what we’ve looked at so far, (14:52) everything has everything to do with the knowledge of the Son of God. (15:00) Building up the church, that building metaphor, who would have thought, you know, that’d be like, (15:06) it’s not like somebody just said, you know, that kind of resembles building a house.

It’s what the (15:12) scripture says. The scripture tells us that there’s a bedrock that the foundation’s on. (15:19) The scripture tells us that there is a foundation.

The scripture tells us that not only is there a (15:26) foundation to what we believe, but there is a cornerstone in that foundation that sits on the (15:35) rock along with the foundation and aligns the whole structure. And all of that refers to (15:42) Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So equipping the saints, first and foremost, has to be learning (15:52) about the Son of God.

And I have to tell you, you know, of course, read through the Gospels and (16:02) that, but it’s been a while. Watched The Chosen. Had to go back to my scriptures when I saw a few (16:11) things in there and said, especially when they suggested, or not only suggested, showed that (16:18) women were part of his entourage.

I said, what? So I go, that’s pretty unlikely. You go through (16:24) the scriptures and sure enough, they were. He did have women in his entourage, Mary Magdalene being (16:32) one of them.

That’s where you find out. When it tells you that she’s in his entourage, that’s (16:39) where you find out that she had had seven demons living within her. That’s the very place where you (16:47) find it in John.

So knowing about Jesus, and Paul suggests that one of the things we need to do (17:00) is, you know, he says, talks about Jesus' ancestry from David, especially ancestry through David. (17:12) Well, that must mean something, you know? So we need to flesh that out. And that, of course, (17:21) through the resurrection, proved with power that he is the Son of God, because (17:30) Jesus was raised from the dead, never to die again.

So that knowledge of the Son of God in (17:39) verse 13 of chapter 4 of Ephesians 14, that we should know, and the reason why we need to know (17:47) this stuff, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind (17:55) of doctrine, by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of deceitful schemes. And (18:06) have you heard the conspiracy theories? Have you heard the philosophies that are out there (18:17) that man is a product of molecules, chance, and accident, or a happy accident? We live in a solar (18:34) system of happy accidents, not just one. We got a lot of happy accidents, and if you were able to see (18:46) the eclipse of the sun, total eclipse, and when it blocked, when the moon blocked out the sun, (18:54) and did you get an opportunity to look at that and see how the moon fits so perfectly inside (19:05) the sun that you can actually look at it and it doesn’t damage your eyes? (19:13) Now when it starts to move off of that, you can’t look at it anymore, or any prolonged look, (19:19) and it will damage your eyes.

You can go blind, because at that edge, when it starts coming (19:26) through, all the good rays are filtered out, and it’s just the bad rays that are hitting (19:36) your eyes there, and they’ll damage it. They’ll damage that work. (19:43) So you have all kinds of things that are going on that were just a happy accident, (19:51) and tell me those coincidences are acceptable, but the coincidence that Jesus is our Passover lamb (20:04) of the Jews, well, that’s just a coincidence.

The Jesus followers just made that up. (20:18) Christian coincidences aren’t acceptable. There’s no such thing as miracles.

(20:30) So they don’t—religious people, religious scholars do not accept miracles. (20:41) So this whole idea that we should no longer be—the reason to be equipped, (20:49) that we, in verse 14, should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried (20:53) about by every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of deceitful (21:00) schemes, and in the Truth Project, Del brings some of that out, and he shows you (21:10) some of the deceitfulness in the schemes that’s being presented by the world, (21:18) and it becomes obvious once it starts to be exposed as what’s going on. (21:27) But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, (21:33) into Christ.

So our objective of being equipped is to be just like Jesus, (21:42) and to grow up into Him. He’s our model. He’s what we’re shooting for.

(21:50) From which the whole body, joined and held together by every joint supplies, (21:57) when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love, (22:04) and the characteristic of His Church will be that there is love there, (22:10) and if we are equipping ourselves or being equipped by our leadership, (22:18) it will be—the Church will be building up. And that’s not just numbers. (22:23) It’s the quality of the numbers, and I don’t know about you, but to me, (22:37) a lot of Christians seem to not hear, per se, because we’re different than a lot of churches (22:45) are, I believe, here.

But the typical church, you got a lot of people who play church, (22:59) and I don’t know why they do it or what they hope to achieve or what’s going on, you know. (23:08) Myself, I can’t do something I don’t believe. I can’t pretend to be a Christian if I don’t believe (23:19) in Christianity and about Christ and all that, and if I do believe that, I can’t just go and be (23:28) a lukewarm Christian, just one to show up on Easter and Christmas.

(23:37) How do you do that? And then think you’re all right. Your values cannot be any different (23:49) than the world because you haven’t exercised the Scripture. You haven’t practiced.

You know, (23:57) Mike read in Hebrews chapter 5, verses 13 and 14, and the 14th verse talking about, (24:10) let me bring it up, 14 of chapter 5, but solid food is for the mature, (24:21) for those who have their powers of discernment trained by—how do you have your discernment? How (24:31) do you decide? How do you train your decisions, your discernment? Have their discernment trained (24:40) by constant practice to this practice of what? Scriptures. Actually, you know, James, (24:50) talking James, you know, if you just read the Scriptures and go away, you forget who you are. (24:59) You have to not only know the Word, you have to be a doer of the Word, (25:07) and who have trained themselves by constant practice to distinguish (25:15) and evil.

That’s not a natural process. We don’t just naturally know. (25:22) And this is where I disagree with the denominational world.

The denominational (25:28) world thinks we’re all inherently, we’re born being sinful. I don’t believe that. (25:36) And we’re not necessarily born not being—well, not being sinful, but (25:42) not sinners.

We just a short time, and we are sinners. But you don’t just know inherently, (25:54) just automatically. We’re not—it’s not built into like birds that know how to migrate (26:02) from Canada to South America.

You know, hummingbirds that know how to cross the Gulf (26:09) of Mexico and go, you know, all these things, go all over the place. Well, they do inherently know (26:15) certain things. We don’t.

So we have to practice. (26:23) Through constant practice is how we discern, distinguish, can distinguish between good and (26:31) evil. But so the equipping, we’ve got to build, discover that foundation.

(26:45) And Hebrews and Romans help a lot. And Ephesians chapter 2, you know, we’re no longer strangers (26:59) and aliens, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. And that (27:04) household of God is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.

That’s where we’re going to (27:10) learn. You know what it also says, the apostles and prophets? Jesus being an apostle, I’m going (27:19) to learn about the foundation from Jesus' teaching and His main teaching and the Gospels. (27:28) We’re going to learn some of the foundation in the Gospels.

But the foundation built on (27:33) the apostles and prophets tells me, especially the meatier stuff, the solid food, isn’t in the (27:43) Gospels. It’s in the apostles and prophets. I will go through what I had planned for this idea.

(28:03) What makes something milk and what makes something solid food? Why does the Bible make a distinction (28:12) between milk and solid food? It seems today we don’t even notice that the Bible even mentions (28:20) this point. Paul, the writer of Hebrews, plainly tells us that they couldn’t discuss certain (28:27) things with their audience because they were dull, Hebrews says in 5.11. And Paul says to the (28:33) Corinthians that they weren’t ready for his message. He had to feed them milk.

And Paul (28:41) makes the distinction. He tells them because you were fleshly and not spiritual. So some information (28:48) then in the Scriptures isn’t suitable for fleshly people.

Perhaps they wouldn’t be able to appreciate (28:54) the message and we might be casting pearls before swine, as Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount (29:01) in Matthew 7. Do not give dogs what is holy and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they (29:09) trample them underfoot and turn and attack you. And let me suggest then, and this is my opinion here, (29:18) that what the difference is between teaching, a teaching that is a basic principle or milk, (29:24) and solid food for the mature. When instructing an infant or a juvenile or a small child, (29:33) they don’t have the capacity for much logic.

They aren’t emotionally mature. They’re immature (29:41) and they can’t fathom many times the seriousness or consequences of their actions. (29:49) So we instruct them with true basic commands that do not rely on logic but that the fact (29:59) that it is a command.

When a child asks why, they can’t appreciate a deep logical response. (30:10) Not understanding, they continue to ask why. And when you give them another answer, they’ll say why.

(30:17) And until we finally have to end the discussion with because I said so, it’s a command in other (30:24) words. And another way of saying that is because it’s a command. Or biblically speaking, we could (30:31) say as it is said in the Old Testament, thus says the Lord.

And tell me, that isn’t God saying (30:43) because I said so. That’s why basic principles are needed for the immature. For the mature, (30:57) and Hebos tells us, and we just read it, how we mature in solid foods for the mature who (31:03) have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good and evil.

(31:10) It’s through practicing the basic principles and living our lives through faith in the word and (31:16) doing what it says that we learn and mature in Christ. For the mature, God can give us logic. (31:26) He can let us in on his motivation for doing what he did and what he does.

(31:35) If we have matured by constantly practicing the basic principles, then we won’t be confused (31:43) into thinking that his motivation for saving us replaces what basic principles we must do to be (31:51) saved. And I think that’s a problem that the denominational world has, and why they

only have (31:58) four steps in salvation. Because God told them in the apostles' doctrine, in the letters, (32:09) that you know what? Yeah, you were saved, but you were saved by grace.

(32:14) And then they say, see, we’re saved by grace, so I don’t have to do. In fact, if I do do something (32:24) to be saved on my own behalf, then I’m just doing the work, instead of understanding that, (32:33) you know what is a basic principle? As an example, baptism is a basic principle. (32:42) That’s not my opinion.

It’s not my opinion that baptism is a basic principle. (32:50) Hebrews tells us so in Hebrews chapter 6, verse 2, and in Acts 2.38, and other scripture that (32:58) says it’s necessary for salvation. And by the way, in Hebrews 6, it is listed as an elementary (33:07) teaching, a basic principle of Christ.

So why God responds in essence when he tells us in Acts 2.38 (33:22) to repent and be baptized, or that it’s a basic principle? Because I said so. Thus says the Lord. (33:35) Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins.

No rationale given unless you count and wash away (33:43) your sins. That’s rationale. That tells you why you should be saved.

It washes away your sins, (33:51) Acts 22.16. Baptism, though, is also a solid food. It’s not just a basic principle. (34:02) Romans 6.1-10, Paul tells us that baptism isn’t just getting wet.

It’s not an outward sign of an (34:12) inward whatever. In baptism, Paul says, don’t you know that all of us who have been baptized (34:21) into Christ were baptized into his death? And he goes on to say that in baptism we have died (34:28) with Jesus. And in verse 6, he says we were crucified for him.

Not only where we died, (34:35) we shared the same form of execution. How did we share the same form of execution? How did we die (34:50) with Christ? We were buried with him, verse 4. Well, actually, in verse, (35:01) he goes on to say that in baptism we have died with Jesus, in verse 6. And he says we were (35:08) crucified with him. We were buried with him, verse 4. And for if we have been united with him in a (35:18) death like his, and how are we united with him in a death like his? Through baptism.

We certainly (35:32) shall be united with him in a resurrection like his, verse 5 of chapter 6 of Romans. So (35:44) I don’t know how they get around that. Tell you the truth.

That’s so obvious. I don’t know how (35:55) they get around that. But they don’t have five steps.

So laying the foundation involves moving (36:04) on from the basic principles, that we agree, to maturity feeding on solid food. And, you know, (36:16) our study in Hebrews, we learned a lot. Jim’s study on Jesus in the Old Testament, (36:22) the angel of the Lord.

We’re very meaty in the study of Romans. (36:31) So I’m not saying, as I said earlier, I have all the answers as to what’s needed to teach and equip (36:37) us for the service Jesus wants us to do. But we need to be involved in this process.

We cannot (36:45) expect God to send people our way if we’re not going to service their needs and equip them (36:53) to serve also. We don’t do service, frankly, I believe, because we don’t know

what to do. (37:02) Remember, what we’re doing here is looking at how we can equip the saints, and we’re using (37:08) instruction of the building metaphor suggested by Paul in his works.

And I do know that this (37:17) equipping begins with building a foundation, a complete foundation, so that we can begin to (37:25) build on it. That’s not the end of what we’re doing. No one’s going to think we’re very good (37:31) architects or contractors or builders if all we do is plop down foundations.

We need to learn (37:38) how to build on top of that one foundation that is Jesus Christ. And we need to learn how to build (37:45) holy temples, because that’s the object of what we’re doing. That’s what Paul said in Ephesians 2. (37:56) We’re saints and members of the household of God built on the foundation of the (38:02) apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure (38:10) means, that’s what you build on top of the foundation, grows into a holy temple (38:22) in the Lord.

That’s our objective, building a holy temple. In him we are also being built together (38:29) into a dwelling place of God by the Spirit. So where we’re headed from here with me (38:39) is the next one lesson I’m bringing up on June 30th.

We’ll be exploring (38:50) what do we build on top of the foundation that’s set on the rock. Jesus is the Christ, (38:58) the son of the living God, him being the cornerstone aligning all this foundation. (39:05) And on top of all that, we can build a holy temple.

And I’m going to suggest, because that’s (39:14) probably where I’m headed, that it involves building ourselves, each of us, a Christian, (39:24) a biblical Christian worldview. We need to be able to ask to figure out from the scriptures (39:33) how we ought to act in regards to government, in regards to labor, in regards to (39:45) the citizenry, in regards to church, in regards to the family, (39:54) all those issues, financially, all of that. The Bible has something to say on absolutely (40:01) everything that impacts our life.

God has an opinion. He knows how he wants us to live, (40:13) and we need to learn what that is so that we can build that biblical Christian worldview, (40:22) and that’s how we should live our life. (40:28) Then, once we’ve done that, we have our head on straight, we can learn, (40:35) through Dell’s Engagement Project, how is it then that we engage a society that has collectively (40:45) lost its mind? How do we teach them? How do we reach out to them? How do we make a difference (40:54) why should they even listen to us? And that involves building relationships, and it makes (41:03) sense.

So, that’s where we’re headed with what I’m teaching. I’d love any kind of feedback. (41:11) I’d love all of us to start working on it ourselves, not just what I’m bringing up, (41:18) but figuring out what is it that we need to do? How are we to be equipped? What do we do? (41:24) Supposed to learn.

What have you learned through your life as a Christian, and how can you pass (41:30) that on to someone else? So, any of that, and I’d appreciate feedback on that, too. (41:40) But I’d like us to see us come up with a plan, set out, and try to do something. (41:54) It’d be nice to see more.

I love the core group. Great people. That’s what I got to say. So, (42:03) we’re extending the invitation. So, shall we stand while we sing? (42:09)