Enhancing the Beauty of the Bride, Part 7
Enhancing the Beauty of the Bride • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Today we are continuing in our series: “Enhancing the Beauty of the Bride” based on the principles of Natural Church Development. This morning, we will be discussing the sixth principle: Empowering Leaders
Let’s go back to the diagram we started with in week one:
As we have seen: The foundation of a healthy church is passionate spirituality by each believer, inspirational worship when we come together as one, and the loving relationships that we have with each other.
It is the individual’s walk with Christ, the whole churches relationship with Christ, and the relationships between each individual within the whole that forms the foundation.
Then, the church that is laid on that foundation is built up by two things: need-based evangelism and gift-oriented ministry. Remember, the church is built up in two ways - we bring the Gospel to the unsaved so that God may bring them into His fold and grow the church.
But then everyone who is in the fold of God - everyone who is part of the body of Christ - uses the gifts that God has given us to serve each other and to enable the church to carry out her mission of bringing the Gospel to the world. And as we do that, we grow in faith, in spiritual maturity, and in our knowledge of God.
Now, part of the capstone of the church - one of the finishing touches to make a church truly alive - is Empowering Leaders.
And what this is talking about is how leaders empower everyone in the congregation to be all God calls them to be.
This is how Natural Church Development describes it:
“Empowering leaders” do all they can to equip, to support, to motivate and to guide those they are developing in order that they might become all that God wants for them. These leaders rejoice believing that God has a special plan for each person and that the Kingdom of God is much bigger than their local church.
And we see how this is so closely tied in with what we looked at last week. We saw last week that the Holy Spirit gifts everyone to serve the church and the kingdom of God.
And I placed the focus on all of you last week. I preached from Ephesians and talked about how Paul’s focus there wasn’t on the pastor but on everyone else who is gifted to do the work of ministry.
Well, today, the tables are turned. Because the focus of today’s topic is me and the other elders. It is on how we work to equip you to work and how we help nurture those gifts that God has given you.
But, like last week, I want to first ask the question: why? Why is it so important for the health of our church, and any church, that the leadership empowers the whole church to do the work of ministry and supports them in their work?
That almost sounds backwards to our modern ears, doesn’t it? The pastor empowers everyone else to do ministry? The pastor supports the rest of the church in their ministry?
But the fact of the matter is that this is exactly why I’m here. This is why the other elders are here.
Because that is our gifting. That is what the Spirit works through us so He can work through all of you.
Because we are all called to work. In a sense, I am not called to do anything different than the rest of you. I am - just like all of you - called to use and nurture my gifting. And my gifting may mean I spend more time in a week on ministry than anyone else, but it does not make my ministry any more important than anyone else’s.
In fact, my ministry is only important in as much as your ministries are. My ministry is only successful if your ministries are.
Think about it. If my ministry was the only ministry in the church, I would be failing miserably at my ministry.
And that is the point of empowering you all to do the work of the ministry. We are in this together. Each of our gifts help each other use our gifts so the church can be the church.
And that is God’s design. And it’s wonderful.
Some churches have a vertical structure. (top down) That’s wrong.
I have been told my leadership style is more horizontal. But that isn’t quite right.
God’s design for the church is really more circular. The Spirit empowers each of you, an then empowers me to empower you, and as we each use your gifting to serve each other and others the circle grows and the church and the kingdom grow.
As that happens, there are more gifts in the church, we all grow in faith and the knowledge of God, we are more empowered by the Spirit, and the circle grows even more.
And this is the way God has designed it, because we are all equal in the church. We are all part of that circle.
I know it appears to be so in some churches, but the pastor is not more important than anyone else. He is not closer to God than anyone else. He is not more necessary than anyone else.
I know we’ve all seen the church vans where the pastor’s name is larger than the name of the church, or the signs out in front of some churches where the pastor’s name is prominent.
But that’s not the way it should be.
Brothers and sisters, this is not my church. This is our church. It is as much yours as it is mine. God has given you a responsibility for this church just like He has given me a responsibility for this church.
The only difference is our individual gifting.
As we saw in our passage this morning: we are all together being built up into a spiritual house. Because we are all God’s possession. And we are all priests of God.
This is what theologians would call the “universal priesthood of believers.”
The Universal Priesthood of Believers:
The Reformation principle that declares that the privilege and freedom of all believing Christians is to stand before God in personal communion through Christ, directly receiving forgiveness without the necessary recourse to human intermediaries. As priests, believers directly offer sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving to God and minister to the needs of others. (Here’s the important part!) Ordained pastors, in turn, are not different from other believers in spiritual status but only in function and appointment.
The only difference between us is our gifting. And as I said last week: every gift is important.
So God does not expect me to do the ministry of the church - He expects us to.
And this is the way God has always worked. He gifts some for leadership, yes, but He always gifts others to do the work along with the leaders.
Let’s go back to the book of Exodus to see a foreshadowing of this. Israel has just been freed from their captivity by God, Moses has been up on Mt. Sinai to get the Ten Commandments, and we read:
Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.
So there are a few things to notice about this passage.
First, this is the only time blood is sprinkled on the people in the Old Covenant. When they commit to their part of the covenant with God. They are sprinkled with the blood of the covenant. This is an obvious foreshadowing of the blood of Christ through which we are in covenant with God.
Second, note that there are these 70 elders along with Moses and the priests in the presence of God. And they eat and drink in God’s presence - a foreshadowing of our final salvation and the marriage supper of the lamb.
But Moses was not the only one allowed in the presence of God. The priests were, obviously, but so were these 70 elders.
And what else happened with all 70 elders?
Well, let’s move ahead in time a little:
Numbers 11:16–29 (ESV)
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone… So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord. And he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it. Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”
Note a few things here, as well. All of these elders are given the Spirit by God. This is the same Spirit - the one Spirit - that has made us all one and Who empowers us to do the work of ministry.
Here, God tells Moses that the burden of the ministry was not just on him, but that others would be empowered to work alongside him.
Moses was the leader of Israel, yet God showed us that it isn’t just Moses who was invited into His presence and who was empowered to serve - God empowered others to serve.
Also note Moses’ heart in this. While Joshua may have been jealous for Moses’ sake that others were empowered by God, Moses wanted them to be empowered by God. He said he wished all of Israel would be empowered by God to work. He wanted them all to take part in what he was doing in the power of the Spirit.
Moses didn’t want his name on the van.
He was what we would call an empowering leader. He rejoiced believing God had a plan that included all of His people.
And of course, this is a pointer forward to the fulfillment of Moses’ desire. God now has put His Spirit on all of His people. Christ came and died, rose again, ascended on high, and then sent His Spirit as a gift, and to gift His people to equip them to do the work they are called to do.
God’s plan that includes all of His people.
But there’s more here. The number 70 is significant. The number 70 was especially significant in Jewish theology up until they ceased to be a nation, and it was significant in Christian theology in the first few centuries of the church - and it still should be.
The 70 is a reference back to Genesis 10 and what is known as the Table of Nations. Here’s a plug for the Tuesday night Bible study - we will be going through the book of Genesis beginning on September 19th and we will cover this in detail.
But for now, realize that when all people were scattered from Babel, God spread them out over the earth and they all became their own nations. And how many nations are listed in Genesis 10?
Seventy. There were seventy nations thrown out of God’s presence - seventy nations that were sent away from Him. Seventy nations that God disowned.
Here in Exodus, the 70 elders or representatives of the people represent people being called back into God’s presence and being called to fulfill His purposes yet again.
It foreshadows a time when all nations, tongues, and tribes will be called to be one in Christ, and those that are part of that one - because they are priests of God - will be called right into His presence.
That’s us.
Even Christ foreshadows this during His ministry.
It is no accident that Christ did the same thing. Yes, Christ called 12 Apostles to be the leaders of His church. Like we saw last week, one of the gifts God gave the church were the Apostles.
But according to Luke, Christ calls and empowers 70 others to carry out the mission of the church.
70 or 72 others (explain why 70 is the right number) - we’ll get further into it during the Genesis study - I hope your interest is piqued
But look at what these 70 are empowered by Christ to do.
Luke 10:1–20 (ESV)
After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves… “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Christ sends laborers out to reap the harvest of souls, and tells them that isn’t enough and to pray for more. Here we are. The church since the coming of the Spirit has built itself up so that the laborers would be many!
Also note that none of them were sent to do anything alone. Christ sends them out two by two just like He does with the Apostles.
Also note that a primary result of these 70 using their gifts to build up the church is that they have authority over the spiritual powers of darkness. Like obeying Christ and using their gifts is spiritual warfare, and they are victorious.
Does that sound familiar? We discussed that last week.
What’s the point?
These - the 70 elders that helped Moses - the 70 that helped Jesus and the Apostles - these all foreshadow the reality of what we are as the church on this side of the cross.
We are those empowered by God’s Spirit. We are those called to be part of the harvest of the world - the calling back of the nations to God. We are those called to engage in warfare with the powers of darkness and empowered to be victorious over them as souls are saved by God.
We are the one body baptized by the one Spirit into one hope as we work as one to carry out the Great Commission by each using our gifts.
We are together a spiritual house for God. We are together a holy priesthood.
Because we are those who have been sprinkled by the blood of Christ - blood He shed to make a New Covenant with us. Just like the people of Israel were sprinkled by the blood of the sacrifice to be in covenant with God, so we, through the blood of Christ, are God’s covenant people.
This is why Peter starts his letter this way:
1 Peter 1:1–2 (ESV)
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:
Peter addresses those dispersed throughout the world. But unlike those dispersed at Babel, we have the Spirit of God. God is with us.
And then we have that sprinkling of the blood that saves. We are the covenant community of God who have all been given the Spirit and have been called and empowered by God to be His hands and feet.
Then Peter talks about our hope as God’s one people (sound familiar? We spoke about that last week.)
Then Peter goes on to talk about our election in God that makes our final salvation sure (sound familiar? - we talked about that last week, too.)
He then talks about how that means we should grow in holiness (sound familiar?)
And then he says:
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
There is a call for holiness and everything else, but then there is this encouragement to long for pure spiritual milk. This idea of spiritual milk has deep roots in ancient Judaism. Milk was used to refer to spiritual nourishment from God.
But think about how an ancient Israelite would be spiritually nourished. They didn’t have the Scriptures readily available to them. Individuals only knew what they had memorized or what they may have heard during a public reading of Scripture. There was no Bible Gateway.
Neither did they have direct access to God. We talked about this a few weeks ago.
Remember, they had to go to the priest who represented them before God. They couldn’t get near God like we can.
So what did they have? Obedience. Those who were spiritual were the ones who obeyed God’s commands.
So what does that mean for us?
Well, the point Peter is about to make is that we have much more than they did. We have - each of us and all of us - direct access to God. We have - every single one of the us - the Spirit of God.
But we still have - each and every one of us - the call to obedience.
This is why Peter tells us that the promises given to God’s people in the Old Testament were for the spiritual people, not the physical people.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
These are all promises God gave in the Old Testament. Peter strings together promises from Exodus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Hosea and applies them to those who have been sprinkled by the blood of Christ and who have the Spirit of God.
That’s us.
But note, we are now the chosen race, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, the possession of God as a people - that - for the purpose - that "you” (PLURAL!) - that we may proclaim the excellencies of Him Who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
This is the purpose of the church - of the body. This is why the Spirit has gifted us and why we are to be equipped to use those gifts.
But not only do we all have gifts to serve the body so we can together bring the Gospel to the world, but we have direct access to God, to His Word, and His Spirit abides in us so that we can have that spiritual nourishment in a way the physical people couldn’t even imagine.
Because we are the priests of God. All of us. So:
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious,
This “stone” language is used throughout the Bible to refer to the interactions between God and man.
When Jacob takes a stone or a rock and builds a pillar when he enters himself into a covenant with God, and calls the stone - what? Bethel - God’s house.
He does the same thing years later when God reestablishes the Abrahamic covenant with him.
In Exodus 20 God says that any altar Israel builds must be of unhewn stone. Where they come to offer anything to God is on a mere, natural block of stone.
The Ten Commandments are written on stone.
In the Exodus passage we just read where Moses and elders meet with God, He dwells on pure sapphire stone.
God provides water from the rock - the same Hebrew word that’s translated “stone” in these other places.
Joshua sets up a stone or rock when the second generation of Israel agrees to enter into covenant with God.
Over and over again throughout the Old Testament, stones are set up when people encounter God.
It is quite an interesting study if you were so inclined to do one.
Here, Peter makes a point using this stone language. He uses the same word that the Greek Old Testament uses in place of the Hebrew word for rock or stone.
All of these stones that represented God’s presence, His provision, His covenant with people, people's commitment to Him - they all pointed to Christ. Christ is the true stone.
He is a living stone, rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious.
And in Him, we become living stones:
you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Peter is using Temple language here. The Temple represented the place of God’s presence, and it was the place God’s people came to give their offerings to God.
We as the true priesthood, however, offer spiritual sacrifices to God directly.
In the Old Testament, I brought my offering to the door of the Tabernacle or the very outer part of the Temple, and I gave my offering to the priest who would make the offering to God on my behalf.
Now, we are all the priest. We all make our own offerings. And we don’t come to the altar of stone to do it - we are the stone.
Christ is the stone, and we are the stone.
Because Christ is the Temple, and we are the Temple. We are the true “Bethel” - the house of God.
Peter is using Temple language here.
And he continues that:
For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
If you’ll remember a few weeks back we touched on the whole Zion idea. Zion - the mountain of God - the place of His presence - this is the church! We are together Mount Zion where we worship our God and offer Him our spiritual sacrifices.
So just like God had Solomon build the Temple on Mt. Moriah, and then the Ark that represented God’s presence was brought from Zion to the Temple and then the Temple Mount became Zion - so too, God has built His true Temple - His church - the spiritual Zion.
And Christ is the Cornerstone of this Temple.
And for those with faith in Christ, Peter says we will not be put to shame.
But for those who do not place their faith in Christ:
1 Peter 2:7–8 (ESV)
So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”
Peter here also uses a string of Old Testament warnings about stones. He uses the Psalms and Isaiah.
The stone imagery for the people of God meant God’s presence, His provision, and our offerings back to Him.
This applies to the gifts He has given us to be His church - to be His Temple. We saw last week - Christ provided gifts to all of us by the Spirit. We saw that the Godhead is present with us - the one Spirit, one Lord, and one Father of all - as the Temple.
We are the place of God’s presence.
But as we saw, these gifts are given to us so that we may give them back to God by using them to build up His church. They are given to us so we can widen that circle.
Peter uses the stone imagery to speak of how we as God’s people do that.
But for those who are not God’s people - who are not part of the Temple - there is a warning. The Stone - Who those of the world reject - He has become our Cornerstone, but their stone of stumbling and their rock of offense.
Why?
1 Peter 2:8 (ESV)
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
Peter again brings this back to obedience.
Obedience in what?
In our calling as the church. In our calling as all those called and empowered by God to do the work of ministry.
All those who Peter talks about when he says:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Again, these are all things said to Israel in the Old Testament. But Peter says they really apply to us - we who were not part of God’s people in the Old Testament are now God’s people.
We who had not received mercy like the physical offspring of Abraham, have now received true mercy.
This is another reference back to Babel. Where God disinherited the nations and turned them over to the rule of angels. We were excluded from the Old Covenant because we weren’t Israelites.
But Christ changed all of that. And now all people are called to repentance and to become part of the Temple of the living God.
We are all called to be priests of God, who as living stones can come to the living Stone - the very presence of God in Jesus Christ - and we are called to offer Him our spiritual sacrifices - why? - that we - as the church - may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light.
And I have to be honest, I hate to be so repetitive for two weeks, but the Bible really hammers this point home. We are to be priests unto God - we are to serve Him - so the church that is the Temple of God can proclaim the Gospel.
And we are all priests unto God. We are all - me, you, each of us - we are all therefore necessary building blocks of the church - the true Temple.
We are the called from every nation, tribe, people, and language. We are the reestablishment of those that live in God’s presence, reversing the curse of Babel where languages were confused and nations were scattered.
We are the fulfillment of the covenant with Abraham - there is no longer a physical people of God but only one spiritual people - one body held together by the one Spirit:
for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Or:
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
I want to repeat that quote I used last week from Andrew Murray:
“The Holy [Spirit] is the director of the work of God upon the earth… What we should do if we are to work rightly for God, and if God is to bless our work, is to see that we stand in a right relation to the Holy [Spirit]… and that in all our work… the Holy [Spirit] shall always have the first place.” - Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender
The Spirit has given us all gifts and if we are using those gifts, He uses that to build the church. It’s His work that He works through us.
He empowers us through the use of our gifts to be part of the mission of the church
And if He has first place. If we know what we are called to do and know that the Spirit has gifted and empowered us to do it - then all we have to do, really, is get out of the way.
We need to make sure we don’t put our will ahead of His will. We need to make sure we don’t work in our power, but in His power.
We need to make sure our pride or our doubt or our fear or our self-sufficiency do not keep us from our obedience to God.
And this is where I come in.
I need to make sure that I equip and empower you all to do the work of God. So part of that is that I have to be sure I am out of the way, too. Often, a pastor’s pride, or doubt, or fear, or self-sufficiency keeps him in the way of his congregation using their gifts for the building up of the church.
I pray to God that I don’t do that. I pray I won’t ever do that.
Because my calling is not to “be the man.” The elders’ calling is not to do it our way.
When James and John - Apostles - asked Jesus if they could be the man along with Him, what did Jesus say?
Mark 10:42–45 (ESV)
“You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But 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 slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
So to the elders, I say what Peter says at the end of this letter:
1 Peter 5:1–3 (ESV)
So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder... shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.
This is what we’re here to do.
And to the rest of you, I remind you: the elders are here to serve you.
To equip you for the work of the ministry so that you may have great faith, be spiritually mature, know Christ, and engage in spiritual warfare.
To empower you to be who you are: a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people for God’s possession that the church may proclaim the excellencies of Christ.
But we can’t do what we are gifted to do, if you don’t do what you’re gifted to do. It’s a circle, not a line.
So I ask you all to consider stepping into the circle. Do it for the sake of the church - help us build the spiritual dwelling place of God.
Do it for the sake of the world who need to be brought into the circle of faith.
Do it for the God that sent His Son to make a way for us back into His presence and has called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light.
Brothers and sisters, let’s be the church.
(lead in to Communion)