This passage of scripture has intrigued me for many years now as I’ve dealt with it in my mind. Several truths have jumped out at me recently as I have been meditating on it.

Many times this passage is used to exhort the church to become something they are not. It is used as a catalyst to stoke the fire of unity within the context of the local church. I have even heard preachers use it and say things like, “This is what Paul is telling us we need to strive for.” I believe that kind of preaching is needed. We should all strive for the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. However, in this particular passage of scripture Paul doesn’t exhort us, as a body, to become anything. He is not giving us direction or instruction. He simply states what GOD is doing in the midst of a real, true body of believers.

Look where all the action takes place and who is doing it. The conception of the body is found in the actions of God, “2:17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off(Gentiles) and peace to those who were near(Jews).” It was undoubtedly God who initiated the process of building this body, the “Holy Temple.” God is always the initiator in the building of His church. There wasn’t a rebellion in the ranks of Judaism that caused men to seek after God . Nor was there a discontentment in the sinful lives of the Gentiles that prodded them to run to the Saviour. Rather, it was God’s own determination and action that caused men to repent and believe in Him.

Notice as well that it was also God who grafted people with polar opposition together as one group. In doing so he formed a church. “19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, ” The Jews and Gentiles didn’t have a conference one day and determine that they would start to seek after God and form a new religion. It was the sovereign hand of God that worked them together forming one body with one father. Prior to God’s actions there was no common unifying element in the lives of these 2 groups. But now because of what God has done they have: a common spirit, a common father, a common household, a common nature and a common citizenship.

Further, we recognize that God is not only the engineer of this construction process but he is the carpenter as well. Ephesians 2:21 says, “21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” It is God who is building the body. Precisely putting every piece into place so that it becomes a dwelling place that is worthy for God to dwell in. He is the master carpenter. He knows what materials are needed and useful. He knows how to fashion each piece so that it fits perfectly.

This passage is not one of exhortation for us to “do better” at being unified. Rather, it shows how God is building His church so that He can have a place to dwell among men. We should relish the fact and feel priviledged at what God is doing in our churches.

Moses, was said to have been the meekest man that ever walked the earth.(Num 12:3) Moses, would not defend himself from accusations and anarchy but would walk up to an Egyptian King and command him to free his slaves.

In the Psalms we find David always running to his tower of refuge for protection against his enemies. He continually asked for God to deliver him. Yet, there were times when he took up the sword and led men into battle.

Jesus was the same. Pharisees called him a madman, a devil, and a liar but you never see Him getting out of control and defending himself. However, when the Glory of His Fathers name was on the line he turned over tables in the temple and made a whip and drove them away. Again, “Always angry at the right time and never angry at the wrong time”, that’s true meekness.

I think that meekness is essential to any true leader. Often it is equated with weakness or cowardice, but meekness is not weakness. A true and good leader knows that there are proper times for anger and offense. If we look at the scriptures those time are generally in 1 of 3 categories:

1. The protection of doctrinal truth

2. The demeaning of the Glory or Name of God

3. When others are being slandered or mistreated and it is undeserving.

A good leader can discern those times and be in control of his actions, even actions of anger or wrath. God has given us the ability to be angry for good; the upholding of his name and truth as well as the protection of others.

Jesus said, “Happy is the man who knows when to be angry and when to just take it.” What a much better and happier life we could live if we only could learn to be more meek. What much better church we could be if everyone, especially our leaders would pray to become more meek.

Like a bolt from the blue, a California appeals court has ruled that the state’s parents have no constitutional right to homeschool their own children. In a flash, a child welfare case that no one had noticed has become a flash point of controversy in the nation. Will homeschooling be ruled illegal in California?

Here is how The San Francisco Chronicle introduced the story:

A California appeals court ruling clamping down on homeschooling by parents without teaching credentials sent shock waves across the state this week, leaving an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants and their parents at risk of prosecution.

The homeschooling movement never saw the case coming.

“At first, there was a sense of, ‘No way,’” said homeschool parent Loren Mavromati, a resident of Redondo Beach (Los Angeles County) who is active with a homeschool association. “Then there was a little bit of fear. I think it has moved now into indignation.”

From The Los Angeles Times:

Parents who lack teaching credentials cannot educate their children at home, according to a state appellate court ruling that is sending waves of fear through California’s home schooling families. Advocates for the families vowed to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. Enforcement until then appears unlikely, but if the ruling stands, home-schooling supporters say California will have the most regressive law in the nation. “This decision is a direct hit against every home schooler in California,” said Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, which represents the Sunland Christian School, which specializes in religious home schooling. “If the state Supreme Court does not reverse this . . . there will be nothing to prevent home-school witch hunts from being implemented in every corner of the state of California.”

The court’s decision states that California’s compulsory education statute does not allow for parents to teach their own children as an exemption. Instead, the only teachers qualified to teach children under the law are those with official teaching credentials.

The decision is sending shockwaves across the homeschooling movement nationwide. In California alone, over 160,000 families homeschool their own children. Some believe that the number is actually far higher.

In an event, the requirement of teacher credentials has long been used by the public school systems and teacher unions as a ploy to shut down competition.

In the most important section of the court’s ruling, the 3-judge panel ruled that California parents have no constitutional right to educate their own children. As the decision reads [see full text here]:

The trial court’s reason for declining to order public or private schooling for the

children was its belief that parents have a constitutional right to school their children in their own home. However, California courts have held that under provisions in the Education Code, parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children. Thus, while the petition for extraordinary writ asserts that the trial court’s refusal to order attendance in a public or private school was an abuse of discretion, we find the refusal was actually an error of law.

The words, “parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,” is nothing less than explosive. Even as the court’s decision is expected to be stayed pending appeal, some parents are already making clear that they will move their families from the state if necessary.

As The Los Angeles Times reports:

Glenn and Kathleen, a Sacramento-area couple who requested that their last name not be used for fear of prosecution, home school their 9-year-old son Hunter because their Christian beliefs would be contradicted in a public school setting, Glenn said. He is troubled by the idea that his son would be exposed to teachings about evolution, homosexuality, same-sex marriage and sex education .”I want to have control over what goes in my son’s head, not what’s put in there by people who might be on the far left who have their own ideas about indoctrinating kids,” he said. If the ruling takes effect, Glenn vowed to move his family out of state. “If I can’t home school my son in California, we’re going to have to end up leaving California. That’s how important it is to me.”

This is a controversy that demands the attention of all parents. After all, if parents have no constitutional right to educate their own children, what other aspects of the parent’s choices for their own children lack protection? This question reaches far beyond educational decisions.

The theme of the conference this year was Church Discipline. Focused on both the theology and methodology of Church Discipline, the preachers exhorted us to consider that we will never have true churches until we practice the scriptures in their entirety and this includes discipline. They also challenged us to simply be humble men of God who base their life and ministry on the scriptures alone.

Tom Clay did an amazing job leading worship. I once heard a preacher say, “you don’t sing because you can sing, you sing because you’ve got a song.” I felt that the entire church had a song, the song of the redeemed. What a blessing to be around people who sing over redemption of the soul.

It was truly a wonderful weekend. Timmy Brister, live blogged the entire conference and has most of the sermon outlines on his website if you are interested in what went on.

My heartfelt prayers go out to all those that have endured such a tragic ordeal in the past few days. For all of you that may not know Union University has lost much of it’s student housing among other damages earlier this week as tornado’s ravaged across the south.

I urge you to help in any way possible.

Here is a list of websites to keep you informed on that status of the situation at Union University:

www.timellsworth.com

www.uuemergency.blogspot.com

Theology in and of itself is purely academic and meaningless. So, tonight I am going to deal with “ordo salutis” or the order of salvation. I have a pretty cool idea in mind for my congregation, we are going to play a game. I am going to make a card for each doctrine we have learned about that has that doctrines name printed on it. Then I am going to ask the congregation to put them in the correct order based on what I have taught them in order to get the dead man to live! In other words, I’m going to make them tell me how God saves some using theological terms.

This does 3 things. First, it causes them to THINK and use their minds to make sense of everything they’ve been taught thus far. Second, THEY will be the ones defining in their own minds that regeneration proceeds faith. Lastly, it primes them to look deeper at the sovereignty of God in salvation.

I’m super pumped. I hope my folks are getting it! We will see tonight.

 Evening, December 8
“Thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor”
                                                                                             Psalm 68:10

All God’s gifts are prepared gifts laid up in store for wants foreseen. He anticipates our needs; and out of the fulness which he has treasured up in Christ Jesus, he provides of his goodness for the poor. You may trust him for all the necessities that can occur, for he has infallibly foreknown every one of them. He can say of us in all conditions, “I knew that thou wouldst be this and that.” A man goes a journey across the desert, and when he has made a day’s advance, and pitched his tent, he discovers that he wants many comforts and necessaries which he has not brought in his baggage. “Ah!” says he, “I did not foresee this: if I had this journey to go again, I should bring these things with me, so necessary to my comfort.” But God has marked with prescient eye all the requirements of his poor wandering children, and when those needs occur, supplies are ready. It is goodness which he has prepared for the poor in heart, goodness and goodness only. “My grace is sufficient for thee.” “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.”

Reader, is your heart heavy this evening? God knew it would be; the comfort which your heart wants is treasured in the sweet assurance of the text. You are poor and needy, but he has thought upon you, and has the exact blessing which you require in store for you. Plead the promise, believe it and obtain its fulfilment. Do you feel that you never were so consciously vile as you are now? Behold, the crimson fountain is open still, with all its former efficacy, to wash your sin away. Never shall you come into such a position that Christ cannot aid you. No pinch shall ever arrive in your spiritual affairs in which Jesus Christ shall not be equal to the emergency, for your history has all been foreknown and provided for in Jesus.

This morning the Baptist Press has published an article that says after an extensive study of the effectiveness of their own programs WCCC have found their own programs to be faulty. Here is the quote,

“Willow Creek has released the results of a multi-year study on the effectiveness of their programs and philosophy of ministry. The study’s findings are in a new book titled “Reveal: Where Are You?,” co-authored by Cally Parkinson and Greg Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek Community Church. Hybels himself called the findings “ground breaking,” “earth shaking” and “mind blowing.” And no wonder: It seems that the “experts” were wrong.”

It seems that after all this time, millions of dollars and thousands of people they have found out what many knew all along. You can’t repackage the church. It only works one way, the way the Bible proclaims.

What does Bill Hybels and his billion dollar baby have to do with the Emergent Church? 30 years ago he set out to “wipe the slate clean” and come up with a fresh new way to do church. He looked at it through rose colored cultural glasses and set out to build a church around what he felt were the greatest needs to be met in a community. Obviously now he wishes he would’ve looked through the lens of scripture to see what the church looked like.

The same thing is happening today in the Emergent Church movement. They are trying to once again repackage the church and cause it to be more culturally relevant. The numbers will be there. Multitudes will flock to these places but ask Hybels after 3o years of ministry if it’s all about the numbers?

I have 2 great qualms with the EC. First, they are trying to build a church without a model ( ie.. Hybels. What he did had never been done before). It’s like trying to build a skyscraper without a blueprint or get somewhere you’ve never been without a road map. To be honest it’s insane. We have a model of how the first church was built and functioned and it worked extremely well. As a matter of fact the testimony of scripture is that they “turned the world upside down” through their church.

Secondly, they are doing the same thing Hybels did. In being seeker sensitive he was conforming to culture to make the Gospel more palatable.  This didn’t work for Hybels and it won’t work for the EC. Making the Gospel more palatable never works because it violates a scriptural principle. The preaching of the Gospel will always be offensive, foolish and a stumbling block. (1 Cor 1:23).

It doesn’t matter how we repackage it. If the Gospel is preached correctly no matter if it’s in a coffee house or an abandoned movie theater, it’s offensive. It doesn’t matter if we wear a suit or ripped jeans and a t-shirt, if preached correctly it’s going to be offensive. Furthermore, if you repackage the gospel in such a way that it removes the offense you also remove it’s power.

This isn’t a warning to the EC only. It’s a warning to all churches, including and most especially the traditional church. We can’t repackage the church, the way if functions or the Gospel and expect to get the desired results; Vibrant, Passionate, Effective Worshipers of God. It simply doesn’t work. If you don’t believe me, call Bill Hybels and ask Him. He will tell you the same thing.

In my own mind in the last few days I have been re-examining this issue and it’s importance. I believe this to be a topic to familiarize yourself with. Hope you enjoy.

Recently, the Lord has had me studying and examining a movement that in the past several years has been gaining much ground in Baptist circles, the emergent church. While you can’t define exactly what the emergent church is because it is born out of postmodern thought, you can see how the movement started and be clued in on some aspects of it’s nature.

This movement was spurred because our traditional churches, for the most part, have no life. These people see that most churches are stifled by tradition, have no sense of urgency to see people converted, and have no true fellowship(the EC would call fellowship “Community”). So because of this they have set out, or emerged if you will, to find true community, break the barriers of culture in witnessing, and undo the idea of traditional church in a hope of appealing to people.

Now, this doesn’t sound all that bad does it. Most would agree that our churches are dead and filled with traditionalists who care very little about the salvation of souls. However, I must say that after a brief study of what is going on in the emergent church movement I believe that they have missed the boat.

What the EC says is, ” the traditional church isn’t culturally relevant”. They don’t see people breaking barriers of culture to reach people. They see people who are stifled so much in tradition that they won’t break tradition in order to win souls. They see a people that have no community. This problem however goes deeper than the stubborn people they are looking at and emerging from. To this point no one has asked the most important question of all, “Why is the traditional church the way it is?”

I will say that the reason why our churches are failing is not simply because they are stubborn and unloving but because they are unregenerate. In the past 60 years there has been a downgrade of the Gospel, just like in Spurgeon’s day, that has caused many people to be religious and moral but not saved. We are now looking at the 2nd and 3rd generation of people in our churches that are being affected by easy believism and cheap grace.

So, now when people come along looking for real spirituality they can’t find it. It’s not in the churches. Furthermore, the reason why people won’t let go of tradition is because It’s all they have to hang on to for their assurance. The reason they won’t be bold and reach the culture is because they have nothing to tell. The reason they have no fellowship is because they don’t share anything in common to fellowship over.

The problem will not be fixed by new traditions or styles of worship or new church polity. It will not be solved by conforming to culture or dumbing down of doctrine. It will only be cured by a resurgence of the Gospel. It’s the Gospel that sets mens hearts free from the grips of traditional religiousity. It’s the Gospel that for hundreds of years has been preached in every culture imaginable and only the Gospel that has with it the promise of someone from every tribe, tongue, and nation will one day be seated at the right hand of Christ. It’s the Gospel that brings fellowship to people that is true and real.

The answer IS in being different and emerging. But the answer is not changing the things on the surface, this only makes things look better. The answer is found in fixing the underlying problem, this changes the heart of the problem. This can only be accomplished when men will start to have faith that the power of God is still in the preached Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Here is a word of warning to the EC. If there is no resolution of the root problem in 20 years or less the EC will so much resemble the traditional churches they have come out of, the only distinguishable marks between the two will be style and form.