Elders, Deacons, Members

Elders, Deacons, Members

Chet Phillips

Transcript

All right. How are we doing this morning? My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in our Home Sweet Home series and we're talking about the church. And that's why that video is just a bunch of people, because the church is the people of God, the people rescued and saved and distinctly loved by Jesus.

And so we've just been spending some time walking through and saying, what should the church look like? How should the church act when it comes to leadership? What comes to mind? Like when you think of a leader, who do you think about? What do you think about what makes a leader a leader? Is it is it power?

Is that is that like the baseline thing that makes a leader a leader so they they can enforce whatever they say? So does that there was Stalin a leader because he could do what he wanted? Does that make Patton a leader just because he it has some power over military? Is the U.S. government, do they get to be leaders just because they can take you out and nobody would know? I mean, I don't want to be like a conspiracy theorist, you know, saying they can take you out. Nobody would know, but they can take you out.

Nobody would know. Like what what makes a leader a leader? Like, is it is it vision? Is it they can see a preferred future and they can articulate it? Well, is that JFK saying we're going to we're going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade and bring him back safely? And I think I got that order, but he said something along those lines.

I wasn't there. But like, is that is it Martin Luther King Jr. And his I have a dream speech where he was able to articulate this is what this ought to look like. And he just has a vision for how this ought to be. And that's what makes him a leader. Is it is it authority?

Police officer, your bosses, are they just a leader because they have some authority over you? Is it influence that makes a leader a leader, that they have the ability to influence people, that they have the ability to to call more out of people? So maybe you had some coaches like this or a mentor, an uncle or even like a cousin that just kind of had influence over you and had the ability to to lead. Here's what I know about leadership. Culturally, we love and celebrate leadership. We try to define it a lot.

I think you can go to any bookstore and find racks of books about leadership and how to lead and the 10 things you need to do and the seven things you need to do and the 21 golden keys to it and the 15 magic nuggets of leadership. Like, I mean, you can go find any kind of book you want to find on leadership. We celebrate it. That's why there's been like seven Steve Jobs movies recently. There's another one coming out. Steve Jobs, The Untold Story.

Like there's just it's just we we know that we there's something special about leadership. We're also afraid of leaders and leadership. So we we have this celebration of it. And then we also have this kind of like reticence, this hesitancy. And I can prove that just by let's talk about Donald Trump for a minute. No, let's talk about Bernie Sanders.

We're going to talk about Bernie Sanders for a second. And the truth is, you can start talking about either one of those. You can start talking about Hillary and immediately you'll have some people who are just like, yes, if we could only have that person. Oh, my goodness, everything would be great. You have other people that as soon as you start talking about the other candidate, they get really terrified and they want to fight you. And they're like, they're going to ruin everything.

They're going to burn this down. It's going to be horrible. And it just depends on who you're having the conversation with, because the truth is we have some leadership is great. And at the exact same time, some. Oh, no, that would be terrible. And the reason why is this when leadership is good.

Like everything's actually like it's great. Good leadership is great. And when leadership is bad, it can be horrible. And so when it comes to us in our series, what we've been walking through, one of the things we're basically asking is what makes for a healthy church? What should a church look like? How should it be organized?

One of my goals, really, we have kind of a migratory church family in some ways. We've got college students that are here for a little while. And then they're going to be they always come tell me they're like, oh, I just got accepted to graduate school. And I'm like, in Columbia? And they're like, no, you know, like a like another city. And I'm like, have you thought about not going and just staying here?

Every every time this happens, Matt always comes to me. He's like, man, I don't know. I don't even know if they're supposed to. I think maybe they're supposed to stay here. And I have to ask Matt. I'm like, Matt, is there ever going to be one where you're like they're supposed to leave?

Like because it just seems like you like people and you always want them to stay. Kind of one of our goals in this series is that if you get your job transfers you or you move, that you would show up to a local church knowing what a local church ought to look like, that you would know how you ought to be the church in that city from the day your feet touches the feet. Your feet touch your touches the ground. I said it right. I just had to fix it. Feet touch the ground.

Boom. Boom. All right. That you would know what a church should look like and that we collectively would know what one looks like so that we could all be when we start drifting or start doing something stupid. Everyone here can go. I don't think that's what we're supposed to do.

And we could be like, good point. Thanks. And we could get back on track. Like that's one of our goals is for us to know what a church should look like. And so what we're going to look at today is that there should be leaders in the church. Leadership is good.

There's a lot of qualifications for it and kind of some guards around it because leadership can be bad. Dad. The Bible. And we're basically going to go through and just see what the Bible says. So one of the things that I appreciate church history and I appreciate I have some form of appreciation for denominations.

It's not a really great appreciation for denominations. I think they're good and they serve a purpose. But a lot of times when you get into discussions about how church is organized, you get into a lot of discussions about like, well, Methodists do this and Presbyterians do that and Baptists do this. And so here's our goal. Let's just see what the Bible says.

That's always been our goal in planning a church was to open this and say this we think falls in the bounds of what we're going for. Let's try to do that. What it basically says is that there are elders, deacons and members. And members is maybe not the way you're hearing that. And so we'll talk through that to maybe clarify that a little bit. But there are elders, deacons and members.

And we're going to walk through each of those and kind of quickly say what's the purpose and what are the characteristics and then how do we apply that here. So what's the purpose of this? What are the characteristics of that? And how do we apply that here? Hopefully it'll be helpful. So let's pray.

God, we pray that you would teach us from your word so that we might know what a healthy church looks like. We might understand what Christian leadership ought to look like. We have a good handle on what you have for us here and how we ought to organize as we try to be best suited for your mission in this city. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. In a minute we'll go to Ephesians 4.

But first I want to show us a verse in Acts chapter 20 to get started. In the Bible there are Greek words where we get our words for elder, bishop and pastor. And so maybe you've heard all of those. They're all Greek words. They basically are all always talking about the same role, same position in the church. Just kind of different what they're doing or what they're supposed to do.

And so we're going to refer to it as elders because that kind of is the office. We also call them pastors around here. I'm trying to get bishops started because that just sounds cool, but it's probably not going to work. But it's in the Bible. All right.

So here's one of the questions we have to ask is why. Why is there leadership in the church? What is it designed for? And this is Paul talking to the Ephesian elders and he calls them together and he's basically going to lay something out for him. But he says this so clearly here.

I think it's helpful for us as we start our time this morning. He says, pay careful attention to yourselves. So he's talking to the elders of the churches in Ephesus. That's who he's called together here in Acts chapter 20. Pay careful attention to yourselves. So that would be talking to the leaders of the church, the pastors of the churches.

He's saying, watch your heart, watch your own actions and watch each other. Pay careful attention to yourselves. And to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Overseer there, that's the word we get, I believe, bishop from. So what he says is when he talks about the flock, he's talking about the church, people of God.

So the Bible calls Jesus the great shepherd. It also calls him the good shepherd because he lays his life down for his sheep. His sheep are all the Christians who've been invited in based off of his work. And we talked about it when we were walking through 1 Peter, but it's actually really nice to be a sheep. Because when anything bad happens, you just get to look to the shepherd. Sheep aren't supposed to be good at stuff.

Sheep aren't really good at stuff. My grandparents are missionaries in Nigeria. They don't even get out of the way of cars. Like they need a shepherd. And so we get to be sheep. We get to be flock of God.

And what he says here when he's talking to these people who he's saying, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock. He says, in which, meaning you elders are sheep. You pastors are sheep. You're in it. Not over which, in. So leaders in the church are sheep first.

Should be followers of Jesus first. In which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God. Some versions are going to say to shepherd. That's the word we get pastor from. To care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. The reason there is leadership in the church is because Jesus loves the church.

Period. Period. The reason there are leaders in the church is because Jesus loves the church enough to purchase her with his own blood. And so he is designed to call through the Holy Spirit certain people to help shepherd, to help defend, because he loves the church. And he specifically multiple times in scripture says he's going to hold leaders in the church accountable for how they lead. Because he's specifically designed leaders to shepherd and care for his church.

One of the ways I know that God loves my son Archer is that he gave Archer parents. Like he specifically designed human babies are useless for a really, really long time. My dad asked me yesterday, he's like, is he talking yet? And it's like, no. And he doesn't even seem close. Like he's not even, he's not even barely accidentally saying words sometimes.

Like he's never been like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, piano, blah, blah, blah. Like it's never happened. He's bringing nothing to the table. God loves him. He gave him parents. One of the indications that God cares about his church is that he specifically designed for there to be some leadership.

I know that we've had some pushback. There's been really poorly handled leadership in the church with money. I mean, I've heard some stories that are pretty terrible. I heard of one pastor. They locked the doors and they said they were going to keep taking up offerings until they could buy his wife a car. And he'd say stuff like, it's not going to be some cheap car either.

It's going to be a good one. So if you'll, if you'll lock the doors real quick, I'm just kidding. There've been abuses. I've seen YouTube videos that just make me hurt inside as pastors have used the pulpit to bully people. And to, but so I know there's been some responses. And when I was going to plant a church, people would say, but yeah, like we're just, we're going to have a church, but there aren't going to be any leadership.

We're all going to just kind of be on the same level. We're all going to be just getting a circle. And it's like, no, no leadership's good. God bought the church with his blood and specifically has designed for some people to be held accountable for the leadership and the defense of the church. Okay. So Jesus loves the church.

Holy spirit has made some leaders in the church specifically for that purpose. But why, what are they supposed to do? And so we're going to go to Ephesians four. It'll be on page six 34. If you have a blue and white Bible, this is the primary responsibility of leaders in the church. And it doesn't say pastors here.

It just kind of covers giftings and leadership roles that are given to the church. And we're going to see what the primary role is. We're going to start in verse 11. And he gave, that's Jesus. So, and Jesus gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers. So he gave leadership, equipped these roles, these leaders to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

Okay. Just want to show you this real quick. Saints are all the people who've believed in Jesus. Every time you see the word saint in scripture, your little heart should go aflutter. Because you're a sinner. And you've been made a saint by Jesus.

That's worth celebrating. That's exciting. But what it's saying is that these leadership roles, these positions were given to equip saints, to equip the church, to equip all those who follow Jesus for the work of ministry. So you're a saint. You get to go marching in for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. That's all Christians.

That's seeing more people come to know Jesus. That's equipping and helping other Christians, building up the body of Christ. Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of fullness of Christ. Leadership exists in the church to equip the church to do the work of ministry. So sometimes pastors have been called ministers.

Like we need to get a minister. Christians are ministers. All of us as Christians are supposed to do the work of ministry. Pastors, elders are supposed to equip. Which means that I'm a pastor here, which means I get to be Alfred and you get to be Batman. I heard someone explain it that way recently and I thought that's so helpful.

That's what it is. I'm Alfred. You get to be Batman. All the Christians get to be Batman. A team of Batmans running around. Like that's what it is.

Like you know how they say be yourself unless you can be Batman then be Batman? You get to be Batman. Like that's how that works. Leadership in the church exists to equip. To see more leaders equipped. More leaders raised up.

More people able to go share their faith. To go build relationships with their neighbors. I've seen churches before where the pastor would retire and then the church would kind of sit still for like two years waiting on a new pastor to come in. And it's like no. Like if that happens here we've failed. Because our job was to equip.

You should be ready. If I got hit by a bus. It better be a big bus. That's what I got to say. No I'm just. If I got.

We should just keep on moving next week. Somebody get up and say Chet has been hit by a bus. Open your Bibles to Paige. Like that would just be. And y'all be like yep. Let's do this.

Like because we're designed to equip. That's one of the reasons why if we have elders or pastors that we're training. We wouldn't pay somebody. Have an elder. Have anybody be an elder paid or not paid. To just do a task.

Because elders are supposed to equip. So primarily the church has been given elders to equip and to defend. Because Jesus loves the church. And he wants the church to be on mission. He wants the church to be equipped for the mission. So.

A couple of things. That we just need to know about what the Bible says about eldership. First of all. They're always plural. Unless it's talking about a specific leader. So we believe that every church should have multiple elders.

We think that's the healthiest way to go about it. Not one senior person and people underneath them. We believe it should be a group of multiple leaders. Multiple leaders. Sometimes we've had people say. Because we're planning a church.

Like doesn't that slow things down? Like y'all got to agree on everything? The answer to that is yes. It does slow things down. And yes. We do have to agree on everything.

But we believe that the Holy Spirit's in us. And can give us unity. So that we can get on the same page. And we think it's biblical. So if one of us absolutely disagrees.

And says there's no way we can do this. We probably should fight that out. And we do. Look. We believe if we don't yell at each other every once in a while. We must not care.

We care a lot. So okay. Real quick. I'm going to run through this list. Of just where the scripture says. Things that elders.

That pastors should do. Pray and study scripture. That's Acts 6. 4. Rule and lead in the church. That's 1 Timothy 5.17.

And Hebrews 13.17. Manage in the church. That's 1 Timothy 3.4.5. Care for God's people. That's 1 Peter 5.2-5. Live their lives as an example.

That's Hebrews 13.7. Rightly use the authority given to them. That's Acts 20.28. That's what we just read. Devote themselves to teaching and preaching the Bible correctly. Ephesians 4.11.

1 Timothy 3.2. 1 Timothy 4.11-16. 2 Timothy 3.16. 4-5. Says that one a lot. Because of how much weight is given to the scriptures.

Pray for the sick. That's James 5.13-15. Teach sound doctrine and refute false teaching. That's Titus 1.9. Work hard. 1 Thessalonians 5.12.

Rightly use money and power. 1 Peter 5.1-3. Protect the church from false teachers. Acts 20.17-31. That's the whole section. Equip the church.

Ephesians 4.11-16. 2 Timothy 2.1-2. Develop and appoint new leaders and elders. Titus 1.5. Acts 14.23. 1 Timothy 4.14.

And 5.22. God's given elders to the church. Leaders to the church. To defend and equip the church. That's the point. Now.

That's kind of the purpose. Are there qualifications? Are there characteristics? Go to 1 Timothy. And we'll spend the rest of our time in 1 Timothy. That's actually not true.

But I have the other stuff. We'll show it on screen. Because it's just going to be a couple other verses we'll reference. Spend most of the rest of the time in 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy chapter 3. It's on page 643.

If you have a blue and white Bible. That we put on the row. If your Bible just happens to be blue and white. I can't guarantee what page this will be on. The saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer.

He desires a noble task. Some of you should want to be an elder. And that's good. If you want to be an elder. We have a pastor training process. I'd love to talk to you about that.

Some of you are being called to be elders. You should be. Therefore. An overseer. So what we're reading through.

Is he's going to give. What pastors should look like. What elders should look like. Characteristics. Qualifications. Therefore.

An overseer. Must be above reproach. The husband of one wife. That phrase in Greek means a one woman man. So you don't have to be married.

But you can't be chasing women. Multiple. All the time. Women. Pornography is an issue. Like.

That. That. If it was. Had to be married. That would exclude Paul. And Jesus.

Timothy. That would be a problem. So you don't have to be married. If you are married. One wife. Husband of one wife.

Or one woman man. Sober minded. Self controlled. Respectable. Hospitable. Able to teach.

We're going to come back to that one. Not a drunkard. Not violent. But gentle. Not quarrelsome. Not a lover of money.

He must manage his own household well. With all dignity. Keeping his children submissive. For someone does not know how to manage his own household. How will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert.

Or he may become puffed up with conceit. And fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover. He must be well thought of by outsiders. So that he may not fall into disgrace.

Into a snare of the devil. The only thing in that list. That was a skill. Was the ability to teach. Everything else was character. That's why our pastor and training process.

First of all. We believe that as a local church. We're supposed to equip the saints. So that we should be having more pastors. And church planters. And missionaries come out of our church.

We believe if that doesn't happen. We're not doing this correctly. Our pastor and training process. Is long. And we move slowly. One of the things we say.

Is that we want to move more slowly. Than we want to move. Like we want that to take longer. Than we'd like for it to take. Because it's character qualifications. That's why it bothers me.

With all the float your resume out. And go talk to some people. And give them a DVD of your preaching. And then you can go be their pastor. Creeps me out. That's scary.

Because I interview really well. Firm handshake. A lot of eye contact. Repeat people's names. I could be crazy. Some of you know.

I kind of am. Like there's. There's character. That's why we take very long time. When we first. One of the things we see in the church.

In the New Testament. Is that churches are started. And then later they have elders. When we first started. Matt and I were working together. To start this church plan.

But we were just leading. In community groups. We were not elders. We started in. March of 2013. Was our first group.

It was eight people. Together in my house. We did not officially say. Hey we. We want to put ourselves forward. As elders.

Until January. The following year. Raz Bradley. Many of y'all know him. He's been. Officially.

In pastor and training. Since January. Of 2015. And he's still not a pastor. Because we're taking it slow. Trying to get to know him.

It's just character qualifications. And here's the truth. If he was freaking out. About having to be a pastor. That would scare us. If he came to us.

And said. All right guys. Y'all need to give me. It's like. No. If he.

If he can't handle. Not being some kind of title. Or something. That's scary. So we just get to keep walking.

And every once in a while. We go and say. Hey man. Let's talk about this. He's like. Man.

I'm not in any hurry. At some point. You might just have to say. No. You're going to have to be a pastor now. Quit putting this off.

And being lazy. Like we may have to have that conversation. But we just take it slow. Because it's character qualifications. Which have to take time to see. You got to see people in different situations.

To learn that they're. A little bit crazy. Like you got to go to lunch with somebody. And see them. Have a terrible waitress. And see how they handle it.

Because we got to find out about character. You got to be around their family. You got to be around their kids. Okay. We believe that elders should be. There should be multiple elders.

That it's based way more off of character. Than ability. That's why we see so many pastors flame out. In the U.S. Is because we love ability. People's abilities outpace their character.

And that's a problem. We believe it's good. Healthy. Designed to defend. And equip the church. Okay.

Deacons. That word is another cognate. Kind of like the word baptism. It just means servant. So when we see it in scripture.

And it says deacon. Or if you see the word servant. That's the same word. So sometimes we don't know. If they're talking about. Like an official title.

Servant. Or just. A descriptive word. Servant. But in the church.

We have elders. Deacons. And members. Deacons. We don't know much about. But keep reading.

Because he's going to give some qualifications for them. Deacons likewise. Must be dignified. Not double tongued. Not addicted to much wine. Not greedy for dishonest gain.

They must hold the mystery of the faith. With a clear conscience. Let them also be tested first. Then let them serve as deacons. If they prove themselves blameless. Okay.

Beginning in verse 11. I want to explain this. And how we think about it. Their wives likewise. Must be dignified. And he begins to give qualifications.

For as our text reads. Their wives. The word in Greek. For woman. And for wife. Is the exact same word.

So whenever it's translated wife. Or it's translated woman. It's based only off of context. This has been traditionally translated as wife. But could just as easily.

And it fits in the sentence. Just as easily to be translated as women also. It makes sense to me. And as we have prayed over this. And looked at it. That that is actually referring to female deacons.

Not the wives of male deacons. And the reason being. Elder is. Talked about much more in scripture. And is a higher office in the church. And it does not give any qualifications.

For the wives of elders. So it seems odd. To have qualifications. For the wives of deacons. Even though it mentions wives. And families of elders.

And not give qualifications. For their wives. So what we believe. Is that deacons. Are lead servant roles in the church. That can be male or female.

We believe that elders. Is a male only office. We also firmly believe. That doesn't have anything to do. With intelligence or ability. We believe it has something to do.

With creation. And God's specific call. And design for masculinity. And for femininity. And we do believe. That elders should be males.

But even personal experience. Would say that doesn't. Not at all. Because we think men are smarter or better. Some of them. Some of them not so much.

And there have been a lot of churches. That have been led by females. That I think have done. A really good Job. So if you say.

Well I know a woman pastor. Who's great. I don't doubt it. I do believe. That it was designed. For that to be a male only role.

Just like you may know. A single mother. Who's crushing it. But biblically. They're designed. For there to be a father.

There in the home. Doing what fathers are supposed to do. So we believe that. Men are supposed to lead. In the church. And the family.

And we don't believe. That negates all leadership roles. For females. Everywhere else. But we do believe.

That deacons can be male or female. Because it's a lead servant role. The word just means servant. Ministry leaders. I'll tell you how that kind of works. Here in a second.

So their wives likewise. Must be dignified. We would read that as women. Likewise must be dignified. Not slanderers. But sober minded.

Faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband. Of one wife. So again. Males be one woman men. Manage their children.

And their households well. For those who serve well as deacons. Gain a good standing. For themselves. And also great confidence. In the faith.

That is in Christ Jesus. There is not a whole lot of instruction given for deacons. And really. It's people who lead in the church by serving. And they can kind of do anything. God is smart enough to give a lot of wiggle room there.

So we believe we can have a deacon who runs all of our social media. That they lead by serving there. And if that was in here. That would be weird. Later. There is going to be a thing called the internet.

And it is going to be helpful for sharing the gospel. And deacons can do that. Like this just doesn't spell everything out. And that is fine. We believe that elders have a specific role that hasn't changed. Defend and equip.

And that deacons can kind of do anything. Our group leaders are deacons. Our kid city leaders are deacons. Some of our worship leaders are deacons. We just hold them to those standards. Talk about it.

But we don't use that term a lot. I know that if you have grown up in some churches. That may really mess with your head. We can discuss that later. If you have not grown up in church. This is what the Bible says.

So let's rock on. For us. And for the church. Currently we have two elders. We have one pastor in training. We want to have more elders here.

I'm an elder. Matt's an elder. We have deacons who are group leaders. We have leaders in training. Who are training to be deacons. That's being tested first.

And then if they prove blameless. To get to keep doing it. We have deacons that lead in other aspects of our church. The rest of all of us. Every single person in this room. Should be a member.

Should belong to this church. And so I'm going to talk a little bit about what we mean by the word member. And how we're going to apply that here. So you can stay here. Or you can go to 1 Corinthians. We're only going to read two kind of basic passages on this.

And I'll have that on the screen. 1 Corinthians chapter 12. To just explain a little bit about how the church ought to work. So the church is all the people who belong to Jesus. All of us should be Christians. Should be Batman at different times.

Equipped to serve and do ministry. There are things I do just because I'm a Christian. Not because I'm a pastor. Things we all do because we're Christians. And then we all should belong to one another. And so here's kind of what I want us to see.

One of the I think misconceptions that people have is that in the New Testament church. They really didn't have any kind of formal who was in and who was out. Didn't know who was a part of their church and who wasn't. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. First of all throughout the New Testament. It says they added to their number.

It talks about putting people on rolls. I think we just assume because it was way back in the day. They didn't write stuff down. Talks about putting things on rolls. It talks about having a majority at one point when they do some church discipline. It talks about removing people from your number or removing people from your local congregation.

So it seems as if they knew who was in, who was around, who was a part of their church. And in their culture there was no benefit of being a part of a church unless you were a Christian. In our culture it's a little bit different. You want to run for office? You need to probably have been a part of a church. Some of that's changing which is good.

But culturally we're all kind of Christians around here even though people don't know what that word means. So here 1 Corinthians 12 verse 12. I just want to show us this. For just as the body is one. So physical body is what he's talking about.

And has many members. He's talking about all your body parts. And all the members of the body, though many, are one body. So it is with Christ. And then he goes into this long section about how that plays out. And we'll talk that through in just a second.

That applies to the whole earth-wide church. That we are one body in Christ. It specifically and particularly applies to our local church. So in hanging out with us this morning today is a missionary from Guatemala. His name is Mr. Rolando.

He's part of the body of Christ. Just getting to hang out with us today. He's a body of Christ with us in Guatemala. And I'm sorry if that made you uncomfortable. People might be looking for you now. So sorry about that.

He's part of the body of Christ. But in particular, Paul's writing this letter to a local church. And he's saying, you are one body together. And so here's what all of us ought to do. Every Christian everywhere ought to be a member. Just like you'd be a, your body is members of itself in a local church.

You should belong. It's the best way to put that. You should belong to a local church the same way that your hand belongs to your eye. Does that sound weird to say? That's what Paul says. He goes through this list and says, if a foot says, because I'm not a hand, I'm not a part of the body, that's not true.

If a hand says, because I'm not an eye, I'm not a part of the body, that's not true. And what he says is, no, everybody is a part of the body. Everybody belongs. And he ends it with this. Jump down to verse 27 and 26. 26 and 27 is how we'll read it because of how Numbers work.

If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. You are a body of Christ and individually members of it.

You should have a group of people, if you are a Christian, that you belong to and that belong to you. All Christians should be a part of a body so that if one member suffers, you suffer. And if one is honored, you rejoice. That's how that's supposed to work. Now, does that take commitment? Yes.

Does that mean you have to actually know real humans? Yes. Do Americans like this? I don't think so. One more question. Do I care?

Not really. I don't like this sometimes. I think it's biblical. So I think it's good. I think it's something we ought to do. And here's what I've seen in churches that I think is a major problem.

We belong to a church as long as there's honoring and rejoicing. As soon as the suffering comes along, because of a bunch of local churches around here, we just go to another one. As soon as the difficulty comes along, we pack up and move. I don't know your specific situation. I don't know how that's played out in the past. But I know that in this passage, it says that we should belong to a group of people so that when they suffer, we suffer.

And so they are honored, we rejoice. You should belong to a group of people that when they hurt, you hurt with them. And that takes energy and that takes effort and that takes sweat and pain. But it's what we're supposed to do. So every Christian should be equipped and doing the works of ministry.

Every Christian should belong to a group of people. I don't know if that has to be here, but it should be somewhere if you're a Christian. So when Christians say, it's just me and Jesus, it's like you haven't been talking to him lately because he disagrees with you. You should be a part of a local group where you belong to a body where you suffer alongside of them. That also means that if the church suffers globally, we should suffer with them. But it does mean locally as well.

All right, Hebrews 13, 17. One more thing that I think applies to all of us as we are Christians. And again, kind of addressing this. First of all, the New Testament is written to the church. So we covered a good bit of ground on what the Bible says about elders because it says a good bit about elders in different places.

The rest of the New Testament, though, is written to the church. It's written to Christians and how Christians ought to organize and act and be. And so I'm just covering a few things as it comes to the organization of belonging to a local church as we talk through this. But really, the whole New Testament is written to members, to saints, to Christians. Hebrews 13, verse 17. Verse 17.

Verse 17. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. A couple of quick observations from this. He starts off with obey your leaders. If you are a Christian, you should know who those are.

You should have leaders that belong to you. They're yours. That doesn't mean all Christian authors. It doesn't mean anybody you see on the TV that's holding a Bible. It means local leaders that you know. You should have local people that are your leaders, that you belong to and that belong to you.

That's healthy for a Christian. Okay, now he says some stuff though about them that I personally don't really like. I wish he had said it differently and I'll explain that in a second. Obey your leaders and submit to them. When I was not a pastor, I actually found that passage pretty nice. I thought it was pretty refreshing and I'll explain why.

When I was at Midtown Fellowship, I did a year-long residency in Midtown before we planted this church. Showed up. I thought I was going to pretty much disagree with most of what they did. Learned some things from them and then we would go plant. When I showed up, I thought everything they did was great for the most part. Like it was, they were trying to be the church and I loved it.

Love those guys. They're over in Columbia. If you get mad at us, go hop in with them. They're great. But you probably, never mind.

There's issues with what I just said, but whatever. If we get mad at you, we'll send you to them. After a while, I realized that there was nine pastors that they loved Jesus, that they loved his church, that they loved his word. And so what I decided was these are my leaders and I submit to them. And here's why. At some point, I was going to go to them and say, hey guys, I think I'm ready to plant.

Because they were doing training with me. I was going to say, hey, I think I'm ready to go. I think I'm ready. Matt and I are going to go. We're going to go start this church. And here's what I knew would happen if I hadn't predetermined in my brain that those were my leaders and I was submitting to them.

If they said, man, we think you're ready. We think you're ready. We co-sign on this. We think Jesus is at work here. We think you should go. My response would have been, man.

These guys love Jesus. And they're smart. And the gods at work in them. And they're great. And I trust them. And I submit to them.

And I follow them. And if they'd have looked at me and said, bro, you don't need to do this. You're not ready. This is a terrible idea. We're going to show up at y'all's first gatherings and tell people to go home. Don't do this.

My response would have been, what did these idiots know? They know nothing. I'm a genius. They are morons. I love Jesus. They do not.

I'm reading the Bibles correctly. They are not. Like, I would have had this immediate prideful response to them. But what I was able to do was beforehand just said, I trust these guys because I've seen Jesus at work in them. I've seen how they study the scriptures. I see how they care.

I see how there's a pattern of following Christ here. And I'm going to obey and submit to them. And what that set me free from my own sinful reaction. And it gave me the ability to win. If I stood before God and he said, hey, you were supposed to start this church here and you didn't, I would have said yes. But Hebrews 13, 17 says for me to obey my leaders.

And that's what I was doing. And then he would say, well done, Bible reader slash follower. And then he would go talk to them. That's how I think that would go down. Because I would just be saying, I was just trying to follow the Bible. I was trying to do what it said, which was I'm submitting to them.

Now I'm a pastor. And that verse is terrifying. Because he says, he gives a reason why you should follow your leadership. Obey your leaders, submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls. As those who will have to give an account. I don't know what that's going to look like.

I don't know if we're going to go group by group. I don't know if we're going to go year by year, name by name. I know that I will stand before the king of the universe and give an account for souls. And I wish now that that verse was framed a little differently. This is one of the reasons why we have multiple pastors here. Because on that day, I want to have a group of men standing beside me that say, we studied together.

We worked together. We tried together. We tried to figure out who was there. Who was under our leadership that you'd given us to shepherd and to care for. And we worked really hard. This is why I want a group of men who will stand toe to toe with me and shout me down.

Raz Bradley, who's in our pastor and training process, went to work. Left work. Came to an office. We argued for two and a half hours about membership for our church and what that should look like. And then he went to a kickball game because he's trying to build relationships with people who love Jesus, to help people love Jesus. And I texted him when I got home and I said, thank you so much for caring enough to come argue with me after work.

And he responded any day. Matt Freeman worked all day, went to Glen Forest to do golf practice, and then came over there because he knew we'd been arguing for two hours and wanted to come help us resolve that. He didn't help, but he showed up. Christians, you should have a place where you get to be equipped, where you belong to a group of people who belong to you so that when they're honored, you're honored. And you have something to celebrate. And when they suffer, you get right in and suffer with them.

And you should have leaders that you follow and that you challenge and that you love enough that when you think they're wrong, you don't leave. You tell them. You say, hey, I'm reading the scriptures. I've been talking to the other people in our group. You're going to be held accountable for this. And I think you're wrong.

That you care about enough that they're your leaders so that you come to them and talk to them. That doesn't have to be here. I know what goes on here. I believe this is a good place for it to be. But it's got to be somewhere.

All of us need to be doing the work of ministry as Batman. We need to belong to a group of people. And we need to belong to some leaders. We would be confused and have done this poorly if we didn't make it to Jesus. Matthew 20. He is the example of leadership for us.

He shows us what leadership in the church ought to look like. This is one of my favorite passages because I think it's just so clear. Matthew 20. If you want to go there in your Bibles, it's page 535. We'll have it on the screen. I love this because James and John have their mom come ask Jesus a question.

Happy Mother's Day. You knew it was going to show up. No, you didn't. But it's here. James and John go to their mom. And they're like, Mom, will you ask Jesus something for us?

So their mom comes and asks Jesus if they can be sitting at his right and left hand in his glory. They don't really know what they're asking for. I don't think she really knows what she's asking for. But they ask because they thought he was going to be a king. And they wanted to be right and left hand men. And I hope, the Bible doesn't say this, but I hope that the rest of the disciples never let them live that down.

So they'd be like, where'd Jesus go? And Peter would look at them and be like, I don't know why you have your mom asking. I just hope that happens every day. Like it was brought up just once a day. Not to be annoying, but once a day to remind them you had to have your mom come talk to Jesus for you. But they come ask Jesus, can we be in charge over everybody, basically.

And they have their mom do it because they figure he'll yell at us, but he won't yell at you. This is what Jesus says in response to them. He calls them all together because the other ten were mad, which makes sense. And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles, that's the rest of the people around them, not the Jews, but the Gentiles, the non-Jews.

Lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant. And whoever would be first among you must be your slave. Even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. The King of the universe left his throne to go to a cross.

To be a servant and a slave for his people. And that is the model for Christian leadership. One of the rules we have here is you don't get to lead anything unless you can take the trash out. If you can't help move chairs, if you can't do any Job at all, if you can't just do whatever anybody asks of you, you don't get to lead anything because you don't realize what Christian leadership is. It seems like you've risen up. You've actually gone further down.

You went from servant to slave and from slavery to death. There should only be a handful of elders in a local church because there should only be a handful of people who are serving in a way to equip and defend the church. And everybody else should be on mission as missionaries to their city and to their neighbors and to their co-workers. God has designed his church to do the work of the ministry, to do the work of reconciliation, to be on mission. And there should only be a handful of people that are working to serve and equip them and defend them. There should be a handful of deacons who are helping lead ministries and serve in those capacities because the whole church is supposed to be at work.

But all of us, all Christian leadership is service, slavery, and death because Jesus, the son of the living God, came and died on our behalf that we might be free and that we might have life and we might have hope. And any Christian leader who thinks, I'm rising up the ladder, I'm going to make a name for myself, I'm going to get some glory, has completely forgotten and lost what the gospel is about, which is that the king of glory became our shame and our guilt and was crushed on our behalf so that we could just have hope and life and joy and peace and be a family. The band is going to come back up. We're going to sing and make much of Jesus.

I would encourage you to find a church where you can belong, to a group of people that when they get a promotion, you feel like you got promoted. When something good happens in their life, you're excited. When they hurt, you hurt. When they lose sleep, you lose sleep. I'd encourage you to find a church where you can have leaders that you trust and submit to and follow. That you know, love and follow Jesus.

And I pray for our church that we would be filled with great Christians. Because Jesus says to be great among us is to be a servant and a slave to all. And I pray that this room is filled with great Christians. Who know that their role is to serve and to slave away on the behalf of others. Let's pray.

God, I pray that you'd help us to be a healthy church. A healthy group of your people on earth. That we would love one another. That we would be committed to one another. That we would belong to one another. As your people.

Help us to lead well by serving well. By being slaves to you and to one another. May we die to ourselves for your name and for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Bible

Bible

Chet Phillips

Transcript

Good morning. I feel like I have so much room up here. Just run back and forth. We are in the fifth week of our Home Sweet Home series where we're looking at the church and we're trying to understand who the church is, how the church ought to act, how the church ought to practice, how the church ought to, to what we ought to do, what we ought to look like. And so we spent some time talking about that we're the church because of what Jesus has accomplished for us, that the church are the people distinctly loved and saved by Jesus. And that when that happens, we begin to love and we begin to pursue certain things.

We begin to change. We're made different by His work in us. That the church then relates to one another as family, that we are made into a new people of God. And we've just kind of been walking through. And last week we spent some time saying that the church practices baptism and communion for specific purposes, that God's gifted the church with that. And today we're going to talk about something that's actually very important for us to understand, for us to study.

So today we will be, we'll spend most of our time, when we're in Scripture, in 2 Timothy 3. It's going to take us a minute to get there. So I just wanted you to know, if you're like me, and 10, 15 minutes into this thing, you're going, bro, if you don't open the Bible, I'm going to fight you. Like, we're going to get there. We're going to 2 Timothy 3. If you want to turn there, you can.

But it's going to be a minute before you get to read anything out of it, because we're going to be picking up there in a minute. But here's what we're talking about today. Every week, we get together and we say, grab your Bibles, go to such and such a place. I don't know, hypothetically, 2 Timothy 3. It's on page 646 in your Bible, if your Bible looks like this. We'll say something along the lines of, if your Bible doesn't look like this, best of luck to you.

But the assumption is, you're going to somewhere in your Bible. We're going to take some time, and we're going to read this, and we're going to talk about what it means and how it applies to us. For 45 minutes to an hour, we're going to open this up and talk about it. Honestly, the way we structure our sermons is we want them short enough to be bearable and long enough to matter. But we're taking the Bible, and we're going to study it.

When we sit down and do counseling as a church family, we're going to open this up. As Christians, we're going to open this, read it, and then make decisions based off of what it says. What we're going to do with our lives, what we're going to do with our relationships, how we're going to handle something that's currently facing us. We trust Scripture. We go to Scripture. And here's the question.

Can we? When you read Scripture, do you know that it can be trusted? Because in our culture, and currently there's a lot of arguments against that, against the trustworthiness of Scripture, against the truthfulness of Scripture. And so today, we're going to take a minute to just try to say and explain clearly that we believe that Scripture is trustworthy, sufficient, authoritative, and powerful. That we believe Scripture is trustworthy, sufficient, authoritative, and powerful. And that is the church believes that about this text.

I'm going to pray, and then we're going to begin talking about this this morning. God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for Scripture that you've blessed the church with, that we can trust, that we can lean into, that we can make decisions based off of, that we can believe. God, I pray that you'd help us to see clearly some real reasons for that this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Some of y'all maybe have seen this meme. Maybe you haven't, but I'm just going to be on the screen. I'm going to read this quote. Maybe you've seen this on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, some of y'all on your MySpace page. Back when the Bible was written, then edited, then rewritten, then rewritten, then re-edited, then translated from dead languages, then re-translated, then edited, then re-written, then given to kings for them to take their favorite parts, then re-written, then re-re-written, then translated again, then given to the Pope for him to approve, then re-written, then edited again, then re-re-re-re-re-written.

Again, all based on stories that were told orally 30 to 90 years after they happened to people who didn't know how to write. So I guess what I'm saying is the Bible is literally the world's oldest game of telephone. That's a quote from David Cross in a stand-up routine that he did. Now I'm like you. I get a lot of my information from stand-up comments. Especially ones that's major role was playing a never-nude on Arrested Development.

And if you don't get that reference, probably not worth looking up. But it's not bad because he was never-nude. Alright, we're going to keep moving. If that's true, keep that up there for a second. If that's true, what we're doing right now is an utter waste of time. We should have all slept in.

It was raining. Some of you right now, even though you don't believe that, are like, I should have slept in. It's raining. It would have been wonderful. But if that's true, what are we doing?

Why would we study this? Why would we trust it? Why would we believe it? Why would we look at each other and say, no, you can't do that. Or you should make decisions based off of this. Or you should read this and pray about this and follow this.

Like, why would we do that if this is true? So here's what we're going to do for just a minute before we get into our passage that we're going to look at today in 2 Timothy because we've got to answer the question of when we're reading this, what are we reading? So before we get to 2 Timothy, we've got to do just a little bit of background information. And so we're going to do something that I don't think he messed with much. We're going to look at facts. All right, let's do that.

All right, so the first question is, how do we as humans, how do historians know history? How do we have the information that we have about things that we did not see happen? It's easier now. Well, my wife and I have been watching this documentary on the 60s and it's very interesting, but they're talking about that in the 60s is when people really started trusting and believing in their televisions. That there were, that was really the JFK assassination that people in America realized the best thing for me to do is to turn a television on. But it's easier now because people can show us pictures.

We're even starting to learn now that like even the pictures and the videos that you see aren't always exactly what they were portrayed to be. But how do we know things that nobody videoed? How do we know things that we can't see? How does history go about doing this? So here's what we want.

We want a document that was written down, that was well preserved. We want what they originally wrote. The best thing that we would want is actually, so if we're going to read what Plato said, we want the stuff that came off of his pen. We want the actual one that he wrote in his handwriting. That's known as an autograph. When it comes to the Bible, we don't have any autographs.

We don't have the stuff that came actually out of John's writing. We don't have the stuff that actually came out of Paul's handwriting. We don't have that. We don't have autographs on anything from this time period. So don't feel bad.

So if you don't have the original one, the original document, the thing that Matthew wrote down, what you want is one that was hand copied from that. That's called a manuscript. So you want someone who sat down with Matthew's document, hand copied it. Then we know that that gets passed out. Other people are going to hand copy from that one because they didn't have a printing press. So everything that was prior to the printing press is a manuscript.

If we can get them, then we want them to be dated, the copies that we have, the manuscripts that we have, as close to as possible as to when the first one was written. So, something about the Roman Empire. If we have a copy, a manuscript, of something that one of their historians wrote and we have it within 200 years, we have one copy within 200 years of when the first one was written, we got a pretty decent idea. This is probably fairly close to what was originally written, probably fairly well. I mean, nobody would take the time to write out a manuscript if they weren't trying to at least pass on what was originally written.

So we've got a pretty good idea. If we've got 12 of them, well now we can compare them to each other. We can say, all 12 say the same thing or six of them say this and six of them say that and then we can try to decide timeline on the documents that we have. If we have 100 of them, it makes it easier. When it comes to the New Testament, when it comes to the Old Testament, let's talk about the Old Testament in just a second. We'll spend more of our time on the New Testament.

Old Testament text was, let me go back one step further. When you were holding this, you're holding a book that is 66 books written by 40 authors over the time span of 1500 years in three continents and in three languages. Most of it written in Hebrew and Greek. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New Testament was written in Greek, certain sections were written in Aramaic. But it's 66 books written by 40 authors over the course of 1500 years that tells one really big cohesive story.

And it is written as a redemptive history of God and humanity. That's the point. The Old Testament, the canon of the Old Testament just means the set amount of books that were going to be in it was closed, meaning they weren't adding anything to it by the time of Jesus. It had actually been closed for a couple hundred years. They said, the Jewish people, this is what's in the Old Testament and that's it. We've got some history books, we've got some books explaining the Old Testament, but these are the ones that we believe were written by God.

These are our scriptures. We have about 14,000 copies of the Hebrew Old Testament. 14,000 manuscripts, handwritten manuscripts of the Hebrew Old Testament. They were all relatively not close to when they were originally written because they were written hundreds of years B.C. In 1947, they found a place called Qumram, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and they realized, oh, the Bible's written on this. I remember I had a professor in a seminary, really old guy, and this was pivotal for him and he said, I remember when they said they found the scrolls and I told myself, I don't care what they say, I'm still going to believe the Bible.

And it was just like, yeah, it's good, but what if they said completely like the opposite stuff, like we would have some problems here. So they said, oh, we realize that this has got the Old Testament on it and it's dated way earlier than the manuscripts we have. These are much older and so there was this excitement of like, we're going to figure out what the Bible actually says because we're going to realize that people went in and edited and rewritten and rewrote and translated and did all this stuff and you know what they came out and said? It says the same as the other ones. What y'all's Bible says is right in the Old Testament.

So let's just talk about the New Testament. We have 5,760 Greek copies of the New Testament. 5,760 Greek handwritten manuscripts that we can compare to one another. Some of them and they're not full copies, some of them parchments that just have a certain section date to within 30 to 50 years of the original document. Some of these manuscripts were copied down while the people who wrote the original were still alive. But we have 5,760 in Greek.

We have 10,000 Latin Vulgates which was the first translation from the Greek into Latin. We have 10,000 handwritten copies of the Latin Vulgate. We have 9,300 in other languages mostly Comptic and Syriac. So here's what we get to do. He said it's a game of telephone. You ever play the game of telephone?

You have professors say this. They say, we know that the Bible. Ever played telephone? One person is told a sentence and then he whispers it into the ear of this other person. This isn't my same professor. This is a different professor.

They talk similar for some reason. And he whispers it into the ear of this person and the ear of this person and the ear of this person. And by the time we get to the end the sentence is nowhere near what was originally whispered. And if it's like Mail-in-Many School it's because that kid made up a whole new sentence in the middle just for the heck of it. He wanted to make it seem like the teacher said something offensive about Billy. He gets to the end and says, I heard Billy's an idiot.

And it's like, oh, the teacher said you're an idiot. Sorry. But we're told this. The only way that makes sense is if when they translated the ESVs which is what we hold on Sundays some of you have different versions. It's the one in the row there. If they went back to the New King James and if the New King James had gone back to the King James and if the King James had gone to the Geneva Bible and the Geneva Bible had gone back to the Latin Vulgate and the Latin Vulgate had gone to the Greek.

But the problem is when they translated this they looked at 5,760 Greek copies. They went to the original. So if the telephone game was everyone has the teacher whisper the thing in their ear sure it's not a fun game. It's called let the teacher tell you a sentence game. That's what we've got. And we can compare the 5,760 Greek copies to the 10,000 Latin copies what we can do is we can compare them to each other and say does this Greek copy say the same thing as this Greek copy?

Does this Latin copy say the same thing as all these other Latin copies? Do these Compton copies say all the same things as the other Compton copies? Do the Syriac copies say all the same things as the Syriac copies? When you translate them into different languages do they say the same thing? We get to do that with the New Testament. Now just to help you see how this compares to other documents from this time period.

The second most well-attested document in antiquity is Homer's Iliad. Some of y'all read that in middle school high school Homer's Iliad. We have less than 1,800 copies. We have 5,760 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. We have less than 1,800 of Homer's Iliad. The closest one to when Homer first wrote that down is 2,000 years.

We're within 30 to 50 years. Julius Caesar's the Gallic Wars which is what we know about Caesar. We have 10 manuscripts. The earliest one is within 1,000 years. So when they stood up and told you stuff about Julius Caesar 10 manuscripts within 1,000 years.

And they didn't start by saying now we know that this was probably written and rewritten and re-edited and is probably pure nonsense at this point but you'll be tested on it. Julius Caesar. They didn't do that. They said this is what's true about Julius Caesar. Pliny the Younger. Y'all love that guy.

He wrote Natural History which is we learn stuff about Rome. We have about 200 manuscripts within 750 years. Thucydides history which we learn a lot about Greece from. We have eight manuscripts within about 1,300 years. Herodotus history we have about eight manuscripts. That's where we learn a lot about Persia, Egypt, and Greece.

Eight manuscripts within about 1,000 years. Everything we have from Plato seven manuscripts within 1,300 years. Everything we know about Socrates we got nothing that Socrates wrote. We've got the seven manuscripts that Plato wrote and he taught us some things about Socrates. Aristotle's Poetics we got less than 10 within 1,400 years. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales we got about 80 copies.

Greek New Testament we've got 5,760 just in Greek 10,000 in Latin 9,000 in Syriac and Compton. Okay. Oh, one more. I love this stat. Livy wrote 142 books on Roman history. We have about 35 of those that survived in the form of 20 manuscripts.

We're pretty sure one of those 20 only survived because the book of Hebrews was written on the back of it. So you're welcome, Livy. The Bible saved one of your books. And we believe the Bible saves. Okay, sorry. Jesus saves through the Bible.

Anyway. All in all, we have about 25,000 manuscripts. Handwritten copies. Now, obviously, these have to be just written with they just say all different things, right? Like the Syriac, the Comptic, the Latin, the Greek. They're all all over the place.

They are not. 94% is the exact same. If we all got a piece of paper and a pen and had to copy down, I don't know, the New Testament and we got within 94% in the same room at the same time, that's a win. Let's go get ice cream. You copied well. You took minimal bathroom breaks.

You stayed focused the whole time. 94% word for word exact same. At least 6%. Okay, now we got to talk. 3% of that 6% is just like obvious errors. Like it's nonsense.

It's a misspelled word. Sometimes like where it would be verse 12 and then it would be verse 13. It goes verse 12 and then it starts back up at verse 9 and goes back through. So we just know, okay, this guy got confused. He picked up a word. He was like, oh no, I started this verse.

He's like, I'm just going to finish it and just make it seem like this is twice as important. That leaves 3% that are some words in different orders. Sometimes it's a whole different section just put in a different place. We have some that your Bible will say this verse is in a different spot. What we're able to do with that 3% is we start comparing timeline and we say, oh, it looks like somebody added this verse to help explain this section about 600 years later but all the ones back here don't have it. So we know this is more close to what was originally written.

It comes down to about one half of 1% that we're really not sure. One half of 1%. 99.5% of the Bible we're pretty sure is exactly the words they wrote when we look at the Greek. And the other 0.5% has nothing to do with a major point of doctrine. It's not sections where it's like, oh, maybe Jesus didn't rise. No, it's in some sections where if they took it out we'd have the exact same thing we have. when you look at this New Testament, this Old Testament, what you are holding is an English translation from the Greek and Hebrew words that they wrote down.

That's important. When we talk about the Bible's trustworthy, we're really asking two questions. Are we reading what they wrote? Then we have to ask, is what they wrote true? So are we reading what they wrote?

Is what they wrote true? The second thing that comes in here though, the second pushback that you'll hear often is yeah, okay, so you may say that y'all have the most well-attested to document in antiquity, which you do. And nobody's really disputing that at this point, except for David Cross. A handful of other people. You can look it up yourself. Would love for you to.

Nobody's really disputing that this is the most well-attested to document in antiquity. But people do say, okay, yeah, yeah, but they got together a couple hundred years later and they all just picked the books they wanted. And there's a whole bunch of other books that say other things that they just left out because they didn't like them. They took the books that said Jesus was God, they kept those, they edited some of them, which we know they didn't because we've got the older manuscripts, but then they took ones that didn't say Jesus was God and they left those out because they were against them.

They didn't want people to have that. Heard this argument? There's books left out? Okay. Just like the Da Vinci Code, some of those different ones talk about this. The Jesus Seminar, which they called it the Jesus Seminar and then they got together and denied the divinity of Jesus so your seminar didn't go well.

Here's the thing. The answer to that question or that rebuttal to the they left a bunch of books out is nope. They didn't really leave out any actual contenders to anything. By the time they got together at the Council of Nicaea, which was a couple hundred years later, they basically were saying, hey, some random spurious books, some random made-up books are starting to show up. We need to go ahead and just say, clearly, these are the ones that the church has always had. If anything, there was some debate over some of the books that are in here.

The Bible would have been less, not more. There were a couple of books that were written a little bit later, like the book of Revelation was written in the 90s. The first, second, third John were written kind of late. So there was some discussion about whether or not third John should be in there. There was some discussion about whether or not Hebrews should be in there because they don't know who wrote it. But they basically said, which are the ones that say what we've always said, have apostolic authority, we can go back and know who wrote them, which are the ones the church has been using.

We've got, there was a guy who wrote the Acts of Paul and 3 Corinthians in the second century. They, they, basically, the third Corinthians showed up and the Acts of Paul showed up. It was like people were, were passing off bootleg copies of the Bible. Hey, third Corinthians has been hidden but I found it. This is the real deal right here. It's like, why are you darting back and forth?

Just hint, like what is this? Like they, they started just passing these out. It'd be kind of like, it's a hundred years later, it'd be kind of like, um, if I came out now and said, I've got the real declaration of independence. It was Herbie Hancock, John Hancock's brother wrote the whole thing. They don't want you to know about it because of the government. Y'all would say, oh, okay, good.

Let's say I was able to get on the news. You know what would happen? They'd do some research and then they'd say, no. So books started showing up, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Bartholomew, third Corinthians, Acts of Paul. They basically, they found out that a guy really liked Paul so he wrote the Acts of Paul in third Corinthians. He was a pastor and they de-pastored him.

There's a letter with Tertullian's writing to someone else and he's like, we figured out who wrote that. He doesn't get to be a pastor anymore. It's poor pastoring. So if I get up here and I'm like, hey, I got fourth Timothy. Let's do this.

Y'all should de-pastor me. Um, okay, how do we know this? Uh, one of the ways that we know which books of the Bible should be in the books of the Bible and one of the ways that we know that the Bible is what was originally written is we can read the letters of the early church leaders. They quote the Bible 36,000 times. By year 150 AD, the only book of the Bible that was not quoted as a book of the Bible, was not quoted as Scripture and given authority in one of those letters from early church leaders is 3 John. By 150 AD, every other book of the Bible has been quoted.

By 300 AD, there's 36,000 quotes from the Bible. We could almost recreate the New Testament without any of the manuscripts just by looking at the letters of the first Christians. They wrote commentaries on Scripture. When you hold this, you hold what was originally written and you hold what was always understood to be Scripture. Now, best kept document in antiquity. it's trustworthy that you're reading what they wrote, which is good. The other half is, is what they wrote true?

So what we know is that Matthew sat down and he wrote that Jesus walked on water, that Jesus fed 5,000 people, that Jesus had people, made blind people see that Jesus died and rose from the grave. We know he wrote that. The question is, did Jesus? Is what he wrote true? Now, we could, there's a few questions we have to ask when we're asking that question. One is, have we disproven this?

Can we obviously see that the Bible just has some really fake stuff in it? It's got 23,000, we've done about 23,000 archaeological digs, none of which have disproven the Bible. Somebody, there's a quote of an archaeologist, he said, one of the best ways to base an archaeological dig is to base it off of Scripture because Scripture has accurately told us where places are who was where, who was in charge when. We've done 23,000. The reason, if they had disproven the Bible, you would know. They found something, they come out every once in a while and like, we found Jesus' body.

You've seen this on the news? And then at the end of the show, it's like when they're looking for the giant squid or whatever. They're like, we're going to find the giant squid. You watch it for an hour and at the end, they're like, the giant squid has eluded us once again. And it's like, why did I watch this for an hour? You watch that show about we found Jesus' body.

They get to the end and they're like, probably not. Not really. It's not him. But thanks for watching our show. We can say it doesn't contradict itself. We can say that what it says, it continues to say the same thing.

It gives the same testimony throughout. Other than that, when it comes to the truthfulness of Scripture, we can't really prove it. we can say what Scripture believes about itself, what the authors thought, what Jesus thought. So let me tell you a little bit about what Jesus thinks just from passages in Scripture. Jesus says Scripture cannot be broken. He says that heaven and earth will pass away but not a dot will pass away from the law. He's talking about the Old Testament.

He attributed a Psalm of David to being written in the Holy Spirit. So Jesus says that that Psalm of David was written by the authority, the power of God. He referred to what Moses wrote as God said. So at one point when Jesus was quoting Moses, he said, well, God said because he believes that what was written in the Old Testament is the Word of God. Jesus trusts the Scriptures enough and the transmission of Scripture enough to in an argument with the Sadducees, he goes to verb tense. He says that God says he is the father of Abraham.

I am the father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he says he is. He am. Therefore, they're alive. He didn't say I was. So what he's saying is that he trusts the Scripture enough to even look at verb tense and say, no, that's reliable.

Then Jesus looks at his disciples and he says, when he's gone, the Spirit of Truth will come and guide you into all truth. And the apostles believed him. They believed that they were being led by the Holy Scripture to write more Scripture, which is words of God. So Peter, Paul, and the apostles believed three things about the Scriptures. One, that they were eyewitnesses, which is how we get testimony now. They believed they were eyewitnesses.

They wrote as eyewitnesses. John says he's writing as an eyewitness. Luke says he's writing an orderly account from eyewitnesses. Paul writes during the time of eyewitnesses, mentions names of eyewitnesses, said there's 500 people, some of whom have died, but there's a lot left. Peter says these aren't cleverly devised myths. This is eyewitness testimony.

They also wrote as apostles, which means sent ones or emissaries or delegates. It's like when I was a little kid and my dad would tell me something and I had to go outside and tell my brother, my older brother Logan. I had no authority over him as proven by all the many fights we got into. I was capable of punching him. I was not capable of punching him enough to where I won. So I didn't have authority over him.

He had authority over me. But I would come outside and I'd say, hey, daddy said you gotta go inside. And Logan never looked at me and said, you tell daddy to come out here and tell me his self. You know what Logan said? Okay. And he went on inside.

I didn't have authority. I was just speaking on behalf of daddy and daddy had authority. When the apostles write as apostles and they say, I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ, that's what they're doing. They're saying, God said, Jesus said, this is authoritative not through me but through Jesus. And they wrote as if they wrote authoritatively. They believed that.

Peter refers to Paul's writing as scripture meaning that he believes it has the weight and the authority of the Old Testament. Paul says, Paul at one point says, as it says in scripture and he gives two quotes. He quotes Deuteronomy and he quotes Luke. He gives a Greek verbatim quote of a part of Luke chapter 10. Paul says that you took my words as not from man but as they were the words of God. Paul believes he writes with the authority of God and he says at one point, he says, if anyone who says they're spiritual doesn't acknowledge what I write, then don't acknowledge them because they're not spiritual.

They're not following God because what I write comes from God. That's a pretty bold claim. They believed, they wrote as eyewitnesses, they believed, they wrote authoritatively scripture and they all believed what they wrote. I'm going to give you a quick rundown list of the authors of the New Testament and of all of the disciples of Jesus and how they were all brutally murdered for what they believed. James, the brother of John, was killed by the sword. That's what it says in Acts under Herod Agrippa.

Peter was crucified upside. A lot of this comes from church history, not from scripture, but what we're, has been passed down in letters and what we understand to be true about these guys after the time of scripture. Peter crucified upside down in Rome. Matthew is beheaded in Ethiopia. Mark dies in Egypt after horses drag him through the streets of Alexandria, which is a form of torture. Luke is hanged in Greece because of his preaching.

Andrew is crucified in Greece. Thomas is thrust through with spears, then tortured, then burned alive in India. Philip is tortured, then crucified in Phygeria. Nathanael, who's also called Bartholomew in scripture, is whipped, then crucified. James, Jesus' brother, who was the leader of the Jerusalem church, is thrown down from the top of the temple. He survives and then is beaten to death.

Simon the Zeal is crucified. Matthew, Matthias, the guy who replaced Judas, is stoned while hanging on a cross. Maybe he wouldn't shut up. I don't know. Paul is beheaded in Rome. John, the only disciple who was not martyred, is boiled alive in oil, does not die, and is exiled to Patmos, where he writes the book of Revelation.

The disciples believed they wrote as eyewitnesses, they believed they wrote authoritatively, and they believed what they wrote. Every single one of them believed that Jesus Christ was God, that they saw him after he had died, and that death no longer had a hold on them. And so when people came to him and said, you better shut up, and you better quit writing what you're writing, and you better quit preaching what you're preaching, and you better just deny what you're saying, they all said, kill me, it'll do nothing, because I believe in the God who rises from the dead. Now, all I have said is that we know we're reading what they wrote, and we know that the Bible says that it is from God.

But that is a circular argument. You can trust the Bible. Why? Because God wrote it. How do you know God wrote it? The Bible says.

Well, how can you believe the Bible? Because God wrote it. It just, it goes in a circle. The Bible's trustworthy because God wrote it, we know that God wrote it because the Bible says it, and we can trust the Bible because God wrote it and the Bible says it. You can have this discussion with people, it just would continue to be the same discussion. Be like, if I said, you can trust me because I don't lie.

And if I lied, you wouldn't be able to trust me, but I don't lie. I just told you that. And you can trust me when I say I don't lie because I don't lie. And you would say, you have said that way too many times and I'm never going to believe a word you say. Okay? Now, that logically, that God wrote the Bible and therefore it's trustworthy and we can trust that because it's written in the Bible, is a logical fallacy.

It's a circular argument. It makes logical sense though and here's why. If the Bible pointed to something else as authoritative, that thing would be more authoritative than the Bible. So if the Bible said you can trust that I'm written by God because that says I'm written by God, then we would say, okay, y'all are either equal or that thing has more authority than you. The reason why when you're talking to somebody, you say, I swear to God I didn't do it. Which you probably shouldn't say, but if you say that, the reason you say that, people say that, is because God has more authority than you do.

God in the Bible says I swear by myself because who else is he going to swear to? So when the Bible says I'm authoritative and you say, on what authority? And it says, mine. It's because it's not going to point to anything else as authoritative. The Bible is. Now, at this point, the third argument that I'm often faced with and that I have discussions with people about is that they say things like, yeah, okay, but we know the Bible isn't true though.

But we just know because of the stuff it says in it. I was watching a comedian the other day and he said, he's British, he said, do we have any Christians in the room? And some guy way in the back, there's this giant auditorium and there's a guy in the back, he's like, hey! And he's like, oh, you're a Christian, what's your name? And if I'm butchering this accent, I don't care, I'm going for it. And the guy says, his name was Paul or something, he goes, oh, Paul, welcome.

I've got a special offer just for you, Paul. Would you like to buy some magic beans? Because if there's one thing I know about you, Paul, it's your really gullible. And then he goes into this thing about the virgin birth and how if you were watching, what I can only, I don't understand, he's British, but I can only assume it's like their version of Jerry Springer. And the girl said that she was a virgin and that's why she was pregnant, that nobody would buy that. And so basically, the argument that we're faced with at some point when we get here is that someone just goes, yeah, but we know the Bible's not true because it says all these things in it that we know are not true.

That argument, though, is also a circular argument. If you came to me and said, my Uncle Ted said he saw a ghost in his attic. And I said to you, yeah, but you can't believe anything your Uncle Ted says. And you said, why? And I said, because your Uncle Ted said he saw a ghost in his attic. So you can't believe what he says because Uncle Ted says he sees ghosts.

That's all I'm doing is basing my argument off of my argument, which is the same thing people do when they come to Scripture. They say you can't believe it because it has miraculous things in it. And if I were to say, well, yeah, but there's a lot of testimony throughout human history of the miraculous happening. And they're responsible, yeah, but you can't believe that. Why? Because those people said that something miraculous happened.

And so all they're doing is it's a belief system that just says, I can't believe that miraculous things happened so I can never believe this book. And they'll say things like, but we all know. And what they mean by we all know is white Europeans for the past couple hundred years know. They don't mean human history and they don't mean the amount of people, like they're not including Asia and Africa and South America where there's a vast majority of humans on Earth that would say there's actually more to life than what we can see. There actually is something beyond just what we can touch and measure under a microscope.

I can't prove the Bible to you. I can show you that they believed what they wrote. As Christians, we know that what we're reading is what they wrote and we know that they believed it. At some point, you have to place faith in that what they actually wrote is true. And there is your personal experience, the testimony of others, and then at some point there's faith. But we do believe that if there is a God, it would be on Him to reveal Himself to us.

He'd have to show up. He'd have to give us something. We couldn't just find Him on our own. And we do believe that He has revealed Himself through Christ. Okay. I said we'd get there.

2 Timothy. So we believe the Bible is trustworthy in both senses, that what we're reading is what they wrote and that what they wrote is true. That's what Christians believe. I can show you verifiably that we're reading what they wrote. You're going to have to come to the conclusion on your own that what they wrote is true. But, assuming that, 2 Timothy, what they wrote is true.

That's what we believe. That's why we open this. That's why we study this. That's why we read this. We believe that the Bible is trustworthy. We believe the Bible is sufficient.

2 Timothy, chapter 3, starting in verse... 14. But as for you, he's writing to a pastor named Timothy. Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. When he talks about the sacred writings, he's talking about the Old Testament. And he says something that Christians don't always know, which is that the Old Testament is sufficient for faith in Christ.

We're going to spend our whole summer walking through the Old Testament and talking about how it points us to Jesus. That was just a shameless plug. It's going to be fun. But he says that they're sufficient. You know that they're... which are able to make you wise for salvation through Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

He says that the Bible tells us what we need to know about salvation and gives us enough to be equipped for everything. We believe that the Bible is sufficient. That it has in it what we need. That it's profitable for rebuke, which means showing you where you're wrong. That we can definitively look at someone and say, no, you are wrong here. The Bible says the opposite of what you were doing.

For reproof, which just means correction. Just kind of getting lined back up for teaching, which means you're ignorant and you get to study it and you get to learn. For training in righteousness, that we might know how to live, that we'd be equipped for everything and wise for salvation. The Bible was primarily written as a redemptive history of God pursuing people. So, when we say the Bible is sufficient, we mean that it has everything we need to know. Not everything that you can know and not everything that is true.

So what I don't mean is this. if you started showing some symptoms of some sickness, I would pray for you. I would encourage you to pray. I would encourage your community group to pray. I would not hand you a Bible and say, study this and you'll find out what's wrong with you. I wouldn't because the point of the Bible isn't to be a medical textbook. I would say, you probably should go see a doctor because they know things about like, maybe what's wrong with you and maybe they'll take a needle and stick it in your arm and then you get all better.

We're going to pray for you and we're going to pray that they know what's wrong with you. But we're not going to do this in a medical textbook. Matt left for Cleveland last night. He and Katie and Emmy to drive all night long with an infant. So that was a good decision.

I did not hand him a Bible and say, use this to find your way to Cleveland. That's not why it was written. This would not be helpful to find your way to Cleveland. It would be helpful to find your way to God to understand the redemptive history of humanity. It's sufficient for what we need to know about God. When it talks about things, it speaks truly about them.

So the Bible, when it refers to the earth, calls it a circle. It says that God hung it out there in nothing, which is some sort of an old school reference to gravity. But it doesn't tell us whether or not Pluto is actually a planet or a ball of ice that's been tricking us for years. Because we have what we need to know about God and redemption and who He is and what He's accomplished. We don't have everything we want to know. That's why whenever somebody comes out and says, I need to tell you about the secrets of the blood moons.

That's a pretty good Hagee impersonation. Y'all don't know who I'm talking about, but man, that was on point. And I need you to know about the blood moons and what the blood moons testify. And I need you to look at this chart and it has a dragon and it has timelines and it has all these other things that I drew up in my basement. Like, my response to that is, that's cute. Bible doesn't say it.

Bible doesn't make a big point of that so it can't be a big point. Somebody's like, you need to know about the secrets of the Shemitah, which is another book that came out and it's like, no I don't. Because the Bible is aggressively plain and aggressively clear that we are sinners in need of a Savior and that God loves us enough to die on a cross for us to rescue us and to make us His and that the secrets and the answers belong to Him and that we get to belong to Him through Christ. That's the point of Scripture. That we get to trust Jesus. So when someone comes out and says, I did the secret Bible math.

No, you didn't. Because there ain't any. And if you're including verses and chapters, which is real cute, but those were added later, so nonsense. Sorry. That annoys me. It's sufficient.

It has what we need. We're going to go to this when we talk about things. We're going to open this up. We're going to study this. Secondly, we believe it's authoritative. Starting in chapter 4.

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by His appearing and by His kingdom preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, and do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. We believe that the Bible is authoritative.

When we get together, when we study, what we're studying is scripture, not our opinions. When we get together, when there's an issue, when there's a problem we're facing, we open this up, we pray, we read, we try to find out what God says, we try to lean into scripture, we try to, when we get together for counseling, we're going to open this up and we're going to say this is what it says. This is what we get to know about scripture. This is what we know about Christ. He's given us authority authority. And this word is authoritative over all of us.

It is the highest authority. It is not the only authority. Which means that if I'm at some point correcting Archer, and I say, dude, you got to, I don't know if I was about to call him bro and dude, but I don't think I'll do that with my son. I'll say boy. How about that? I ain't got to practice this much yet.

I'll say boy. It's 9.15, I told you to go to bed. And if he says something really smart to me like, the Bible doesn't say I have to go to bed. I'm going to say the Bible says to do what your daddy says. And it also says if I spare the rod, I'll spoil the child. So why don't you go get in that bed?

And he'll say, good point daddy. Feats don't fail me now. So the Bible is the highest authority. It gives us other authorities like our parents, like church leaders, like governmental authorities. But all of them have to submit to scripture.

Church leaders have to submit to scripture. That we as a church should be reading this and studying this and if any of our leaders get off or begin to do something weird, we correct with scripture because scripture is the authority. My dad watches the preaching channel. I don't know what it's called. There's always like people with like thrones and globes in the background and all that kind of stuff. And he said he was watching a guy that he was an alright preacher.

He was just watching some, you know, he's drinking coffee in the morning and stuff. And he said he got to watching him one day and he realized the preacher would always start off by saying, turn to page 552. And he said sometimes he'd say things like, turn to chapter 3. We'll be in chapter 3 today by page 221. And he said he got to watching him at one point he was walking around with the book and he realized that the book had the preacher's face on it. That he wasn't preaching from the Bible, he was preaching from a book he wrote.

And that was what he took up on stage and that was what was in the pews and everybody would get his book out and would read it and he was just walking around with his own book and teaching out of it like it was authority. I'm going to tell y'all, I'm going to invite y'all. If I walk up here someday and I have a book with my face on it, I'm going to need you to assault me. And I'm going to need you to punch me in the face that is not on the book but that is on the top of my head because that is nonsense. And I need you going to take the Bible and begin to teach authoritatively out of that because that's the authority and we as Christians submit to it.

We believe that the Bible is trustworthy, we believe that it is sufficient, we believe that it is authoritative, and finally we believe that the Bible is powerful. Jump back up to where we started in chapter 3 verse 14. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings. These are sacred, they're holy, they belong to God. which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus, all scripture is breathed out by God. We believe that God at the very beginning of time and history spoke the world into existence and that he uses his word to accomplish his will and that throughout the history of the church the proclaimed word and the studied word and the written word have been capable of making people wise for salvation, have been powerful to lead to repentance, to see so clearly Jesus Christ on a cross dying for us to save us and that we can be changed through the word.

We believe that it's powerful, that it's capable of making us wise for salvation, it's capable of changing us, it's capable of leading us, that it's sufficient, powerful, authoritative, that we can trust it. And so we're going to get together every Sunday and we're going to open this up and we're going to talk about it. And every church everywhere is going to get together and open this up and study it and read it and go back to it and point to it and bend their own will to it and submit to it and follow it because it's sufficient, authoritative, and powerful and it's trustworthy. When you read this, you're reading what they wrote and what they wrote was true.

That's why we believe the Bible, why we follow it and in the pages of scripture we meet the ultimate Revelation of God which is Jesus Christ who loves us enough to die for us and to make us his. And if you're a Christian and you're not reading the Bible on a regular, normal, active part of your life, you're just missing out on all of the goodness that God has offered to you through his sacred writings that are capable of making you wise, capable of working in your life for your good, capable of leading you to repentance, capable of making you follow Jesus even in the face of opposition and death because of the truth found in these pages. we're going to pray and then we're going to sing together. God, I thank you for your word. Thank you for your word that is capable of leading us to salvation, your word that is capable of giving us hope, changing us.

God, we thank you for preserving it accurately for us, for giving us the document that is most well attested to in history. God, we thank you for that and I pray, Lord, that this would be a church that would trust your word, submit to your word, follow your word, and follow Jesus through it as your Holy Spirit works in us. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.