The Stability of Truth - Nathan Yoder

Greetings to each one tonight in the name of Jesus,

our Lord. It's a joy to again be in the

house of the Lord see what he may have for us.

Appreciated the singing that prayer of is the prayer of

mine as well, that the Lord would open the wells

of grace and salvation and pour out a blessing upon

us that would challenge our hearts in the way of truth.

I appreciated the prayer of the brother in his prayer,

he mentioned a few things that we want to consider

further tonight. But before we go there, let's go to

Isaiah sixty two. You may well be wondering when are

we going to get to work on that well that's

yet coming up Sunday morning. But Isaiah sixty two and

verse three and four again verse one and two say,

for Zion's sake, hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake,

I will not rest until the righteousness thereof go forth

as brightness, and the salvation thereof is a lamp that burneth.

And the gentiles shall see thy righteousness in all kings,

thy glory, and thou shalt be called by a new name,

which the mouth of the Lord shall name join me.

Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the

hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the

hand of thy God. Thou shalt no more be termed forsaken.

Neither shall thy Land anymore be termed desolate. But thou

shalt be called Hefzebah, and thy Land Beulah. For the

Lord deliighteth in thee, and thy Land shall be married.

Invite you to turn to John chapter fourteen for an

opening scripture and text portion. The first several verses is

where we will be taking our initial thoughts from John

chapter fourteen, thinking especially of verse six. But the setting

is pertinent. John fourteen, Verse one, Let not your heart

be troubled. Ye believe in God. Believe also in me.

In my father's house are many mansions. If it were

not so, I would have told you I go to

prepare a place for you. And if I go and

prepare a place for you, I will come again and

receive you unto myself. That where I am there ye

may be also. And whether I go, ye know, and

the way ye know, Thomas saith unto him Lord. We

know not whether thou goest, And how can we know

the way Jesus saith unto him, I am the way.

I am the Truth, and I am the life. No

man cometh unto the Father, but by me I'm entitled

the message tonight the stability of truth. And I had

some problems coming to that conclusion. There's a few other options,

and I'll introduce them as we go along, as we

think of the stability of truth. Now, the burden of

the message tonight is in relation to a couple of things.

One is simply the current events and the life situation

around us. It is not hard to see that we

live in a day of problem. We live in a

day of relativity. It seems as though truth almost doesn't matter.

We live in a day when you can choose what

you want to believe, and you're supposed to be accepted,

regardless what that might be. We are living in a

day of apostasy. We're living in a day of backsliding,

and both I see that both on a world scene

and in individual churches, with individual people thinking of the

world ever so briefly, but the world's in a mess.

It doesn't take long as you look around, you look

at Ukraine and Russia. I pay a little mind to

that on a daily basis, simply because of our interest

in what's happening there. And it's not hard to see

the mess that that is in. But in Haiti, and

in Gaza, and in Afghanistan and Syria, in Iran and

Israel and a dozen other places, there is war. There

is fighting, there's animosity, there's hatred, there is there's all

kinds of wickedness that goes with that. It leads to

poverty and displaced people and homelessness, and then there are

all levels of abuse that come out of that. It's tragic.

It is a tragedy. It's the factors of on the

world scene, to be sure. Bringing it just a bit

closer home, in many of our churches, there's brokenness. There's

family relations that are strained and hurting between couples. We

find homes that are in a mess. On a world scene,

I hope this isn't in our midst. But out there

people can't figure out even anymore what is male and

what is female. If you'll check in yesteryear, I had

checked one time what the Wikipedia said about that. They

there's sixty three genders. And I have no idea quite

how you come up with that I checked more recently

and number was seventy two. I checked today and they

said it's fluid. It's an infinite number. It's all depends

what you think. And as many people as think is

how many genders there might be. And again, the foolishness

of that simply almost knows no bounds. But be that

as it may. Thinking of the situation in our churches,

the burden of my heart tonight is where will this

church be in two or three or five or ten generations?

And will in one hundred years from now will there

be a conservative Anabaptist witness in Hall's the Orgon? And

I know that's a big question, and probably there's not

many of us that will be on the on the

scene one hundred years from now. But if the Lord

doesn't return, we can rest assured that there will be

somebody here. What will the what will the church situation

be like? Then? Now? Just looking at the at the

things of apostasy, if we look in the scriptures, we

could see in the Book of Judges, for example, how

things go through cycles. And I'm not talking about motorcycles.

I'm talking about the cycles of going from faithfulness to

cooling off to turning away from God, and there's uh,

there's idolatry, and there's all kinds of wickedness that are accepted,

and then there is a there's a punishment from God,

there's a chastening, there's a crisis that develops. In the

Old Testament, it was the enemy countries nations would come

and take Israel and jude to captive and just make

it really, really tough for them. And eventually they would

recognize the foolishness of their way and the idolatry of

their path, and they would humble themselves and cry out

to God, and God often usually sent a deliverer, and

again there was a revival scene and people would turn

their hearts back to God and drive the enemies out,

and once again they were sacrificing and worshiping God and

things were going well, and then this thing returned. I

think there's at least seven cycles like that you can

follow through the Book of Judges. It's tragic. Today we

see a bit of that going on as well. We

see it in individuals, individuals who once were walking with

the Lord who drift away until there's no interest there

anymore in following Jesus. And we see it in families,

we see it in churches. We even see it in constituencies,

where there's entire conferences that move, that drift, and that change,

and that follow the patterns of the world, until there's

a very little semblance there to the practice of godliness

from the Word of God. And we ask ourselves, how

can these things be? Why? What happened? What went wrong

that a group of people or an individual or a family,

or you can name the size of the group, But

what went wrong that there was that kind of backsliding

and turning away from God? And of course I have

no silver bullet or exceptional wisdom and identifying that, I'm

going to point to a few things tonight. But I

was thinking about these things, you know, and especially as

it pertains to the church, because the Church is intended

to be the pillar and ground of the truth. And

the truth is stable, the truth is solid, the truth stands,

the truth is a place we can build on. And

I was thinking of just a few verses. It says

the pillar, the church is the pillar and ground of

the truth. There's a verse that has often blessed me,

and from Deuteronomy thirty two, where in Moses' song he

says he God is the rock. His work is perfect

for all his ways are judgment. A God of truth

and without iniquity, just and right is he. That would

be a great text for a sermon some time. But

think of the solidity, the solid foundation ideas that are

in that verse of God being a rock, his ways

are judgment. He's a God of truth, and we can

build on that. And in John seventeen, in the high

priestly Prayer, Jesus prayed, sanctify them through thy truth, and

then he said, thy word is truth and just. In

the very next chapter, in chapter eighteen, Jesus was before

Pilot and this question came up, the idea, the question

of truth. And of course Pilot was trying to understand

Jesus' position and where he was on these matters, and

he asked Jesus if he was a king, and Jesus answered,

this way to this end was I born? And for

this cause I came into the world, that I should

bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth.

Here my voice. And then Pilot asks those timeless words

in that question form what is truth? What is truth?

Now tonight? That would make an interesting open discussion here

to answer that question what is truth? And there's a

couple of characteristics of truth that I want to consider here.

Just in the opening ideas of the message, I find

that truth is narrow. Truth is narrow, and just an

example of that, as I think of the narrowness of truth,

mathematical truth is narrow. Two plus three is five, not four,

not six, only five. And we can add that thing

upright horizontally. It doesn't matter, it doesn't change. It is

a very narrow truth. It's not what you decide, it's

not what I decide. It just is that's truth. Truth.

Mathematical truth is narrow. Scientific truth is narrow. I wonder

who knows what NaCl is Sodium chloride? What is it?

It's the chemical name for table salt, not table sugar,

not tea bags, not pepper salt, only salt. Whenever you

mix ANACL together, Whenever you mix sodium and chloride, you

get salt H two O. You put two atoms of

hydrogen and one of oxygen together, you get water, not gasoline,

not crude oil, not soda pop. You get water. It's

a narrow truth. It is that way, and it's consistent

geographical truth is narrow. The borders of Oregon are where

the borders are, and they don't move around much. The

border is where the border is, and we could go

there and wish it was different. We could try to

pull it one way or the other, and it really

doesn't work. The geographical truth this is the border. Beyond

that is another state or the ocean or whatever. Geographical

truth is narrow. Historical truth is narrow. Abraham Lincoln was

the sixteenth president, not the seventeenth, not the fifteenth, not

the tenth, not the fourteenth, the sixteenth. It's the way

it is. It just stands there. It's truth, and that's

the way truth is. Now. Another thing that is narrow

is the gateway to truth is narrow. Jesus talked about

this in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter seven.

I suppose you have those verses memorized where he says,

enter ye in at the straight gate, the straight gate,

and that's a narrow gate, because he says, why does

the gate broad is the way that leadeth to destruction?

And many there be which go in thereat because straight

is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth

to life. And it's because it's a it's the gate

of truth. It's narrow, straight is the gate, and narrow

is the way which leadeth unto life. And the sad

thing is, he says, few there be that find it now.

I drew a little diagram on the board behind me.

It's it's not polished, it's kind of rough, but I

want you to take a look at that, and I

have there. There would, of course be multiple ways that

we could try to describe the broad road and the

narrow road, but I have at least put an illustration

there of the two. There's two ways there. The one

up there starts one way and goes another way, and

the down here is another road, and both of them

are traveling from this side to that side. Tell me

which is the depiction of the narrow way and which

is the depiction of the broadway? Trick question? No, this

one's not even a trick question. Anybody want to venture?

I guess the narrows on top. You agree with him? Okay,

I see some heads nodding. That's very good. I have had.

I've had this question in various settings that I'm often

asked told that this one here's the narrow way. I'm

not sure, why But you're right. The one up here

is the narrow way. Why is that? Well, it's I

think pretty obvious the as you get close to the

gate that enters into that way, it is narrow. It's

unapologetically narrow. You can't do this and you can't do

that in that in that gate. Now, two other questions

before I draw further. What is the most liberating condition

known to man? It's life. Life is liberating. What is

the most restrictive condition known to man? It's death. When

you die, you can't do anything for yourself. They do

it for you. They put you in a box and

bring you up frontier and we have a service, and

then you're buried. And so it's very restrictive. You can't

do anything. You're totally helpless. You're bound. That's the condition

of death. Now, looking at these ways, he says, the

gateway into the narrow way is indeed narrow. But what

does it lead to? Do you see what's happening. The

further you go in the gate, the further you go

on the narrow way. With this illustration, the wider it becomes,

the more room, the more freedom there is in that way,

Because it's a way of life, and life is liberating.

Life is freedom, life is joy, life is peace, life

is good. Let's look it the other way. This way

here is very broad. Where it enters, there's lots of

room for freedom and joy and do what you want to.

You can live in rebellion and fit in here, no problem.

It leads to death, and death is incredibly restrictive. It

becomes narrower and narrower and narrower until a person is

in bonded. You're bound. There's nothing you can do for yourself.

You're on the table with lung cancer and the doctor

can't help anymore because of the freedom and the joy

of enjoying that cigarette until lungs are burned out that beer,

until kidneys are destroyed, and it leads to death. It

leads to destruction. Sin is that way. Now there's one

other detail that I say, just a little bit tongue

in cheek, but it is true. Did you know that

on both of these ways you can do what you

want to? Now? What did the preacher mean that I did?

When you start in this way, you can do what

you want to, and you can live according to the

flesh for a time, and suddenly you can't do what

you want to anymore because of the restriction here you begin.

And when God gets a hold of your wanter, when

God gets a hold of your will and changes that

so that you want to follow him, suddenly you can

live like you want to and enjoy the freedom of life.

How can it be better than that? It's a it's

a win win. You can do what you want to

and it leads to life. Now that is of course,

on the basis that your wanter has been thoroughly converted

and you want to follow the Lord and please him

and do what he wants you to the narrowness of truth,

the stability of truth. Now another quick illustration that will

use for the rest of the evening. What I am

trying to illustrate there is that truth stands on two legs,

just to say it bluntly or simply, And that diagram

is like a two supporting pillars. And we have this

ball of truth on top. And obviously what we want

to do is we want to elevate the truth. We

want to hold it high. Now we know that if

you have a ball on top of a of a

step ladder or whatever it may be, a diagram like that,

and you kick either leg away, what's going to happen

to the structure it falls, it won't stand. Both of

those legs have to be there for the truth to stand.

And as I was studying Scripture, I came across many

pairs of ideas, pairs of truth that in a sense

are opposing each other, and yet they balance each other,

and some were puzzling. Just for example, early on, there's

one in Galatian six that says that we should bear

one another one another's burden, and three verses later it

says for every man shall bear his own burden. How

does that work? I mean, as the writer confused, And

we could look at other portions like that. I think

it's in Philippians where we are told to on the

one hand, it is God which workethin you to bring

you salve ation, and a few verses later work out

your own salvation with fear and trembling. And again it's like,

excuse me, now, which one is true? Why is he?

It almost seems in opposition to each other. Well, as

I began noticing these, suddenly I found them all over

the Bible, and I want to share some of them tonight.

We'll start with just some obvious things in the idea

of salvation. That's where we're going to start in the

plan of salvation, which is the primary which is more

important God's part of salvation or man's part of salvation. Well,

I wouldn't be surprised if somebody would just shout it out.

It's God's part obviously, and that one's easy, is it not. Well, Indeed,

as we look at salvation, there is a primary part

that God plays. In fact, the Trinity plays a part

in salvation. We could look at God the Father from

John three point sixteen, and it says, for God so

loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,

that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have

everlasting life. So that's the Father's part of that salvation.

We could look at Jesus part of the salvation, and

there's many of course that versus that we could consider.

But like from Isaiah fifty three, verse five, it says,

but he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised

for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him,

and with his stripes we are healed. So Jesus provided

salvation in fact, he died, he shed his blood, he

did everything necessary for salvation. Did he not even to

the point of rising again? Well, if he did that,

why has the whole world not saved? What's lacking? Even

the spirit is involved in salvation. The Spirit and the

bride say, come, and whosoever will come, and whosoever here

hath come and take of the water of life freely,

the Great invitation from Revelation twenty two. Well, the simple

truth is when we look at salvation, we have God's part,

and we must have man's part. And when we look

at man's part, man must repent. For salvation to take place,

man must believe. For God so loved the world that

whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Romans ten nine and ten teach us that there must

be public confession as a part of repentance, that if

thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and

believe in thine heart, thou shalt be saved. And we

could look at many other scriptures. The point that I

want to make is that in salvation, there's God's part

and there's man's part, and it's really an irrelevant question

to ask which one is more important. They both must

be there or salvation doesn't take place. That's the point

we want to consider tonight, and we're going to see

that over and over again. The other night I looked

at the verse from Revelation three. A beautiful truth that

I love. He says, Behold, I stand at the door

and knock God's part. If any man opened the door,

Man's part, and both of those have got to happen

for supping, for fellowship, for him to come in, they

both must be there. There's another beautiful truth in First

Corinthians three nine that has challenged me over and over again.

It's a very simple verse. It says, for we are

labors together with God. We are labors together with God. Now,

if you allow me to, I'd like to pick on

a few people here, and I don't know you real well,

but I'm going to try. So. Brother Gerald here had devotions,

and I think he has a wife. I assume she's

here tonight. She's here. I don't know the sisters as well.

It didn't take time to scan to see. But anyway, Jerald,

Jesus loves your wife. Did you know that God loves

your wife, indeed, but he doesn't just love your wife.

He gives you the opportunity and responsibility to be a

labor with him. In illustrating that, in showing it, in

carrying it out well, you are a labor together with

God in loving your wife. Is Joel here? Where's Joel?

I don't see Joel there? He is? Joel's in the back.

He kept his distance, but we were at his place today.

Joel has children, Joel. Does Jesus love your children? He does?

He nods his head. Jesus loves Joel's children. How are

the children going to understand that? From early on? They

understand the love of God? Because Joel is a labor

together with God to love them, And it's God's love

comes through him to them. We are labors together with God.

God could reach down, I suppose, and do these things,

but He chooses to work through us. It's really an

incredible concept. Is Darren here tonight? And I see headshaking?

Where's another teacher? Isaac is here? Isn't he there? He is? Isaac?

Jesus loves your students. But how are the students going

to feel the love of God? They feel it because

you are a labor together with God to love those children.

It's an incredible partnership, labors together with God. God does

his part. We do our part to carry that work out.

Brother Leland, I see you here. There's a church here

that you are responsible to lead. Does God love the church?

Of course, He loves the church dearly? Well how does

how is the church going to feel that and understand that?

You get to be a labor with God in leading

the church. Isn't that incredible? A labor together with God.

God's part, man's part. Somebody's going to preach your next Sunday.

Well maybe it's me, I mean the next Sunday. But

so God has a message. Somebody needs to study and

be prepared to be a labor with God to carry

that out. God's part, man's part. We are labors together

with God. Incredible concept. Let's move on the one in

Philippians I've already mentioned where he says, work out your

own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God

which worketh in you, both too willing to do of

his good pleasure. So on the one hand we are

told to work out our salvation. On the other hand,

we are right in the next breath said that God

is the one who does it. Both of them must

be there, both God's part and man's part for salvation

to be realized. Let's look at another idea. I have

four or five that I want to consider in the

natural laws of productivity. We have this idea and we

see it in many different facets of life, positive and negative.

Let's think about a battery and a car. Which one's

more important, the positive or the negative? Trick question? You

know the answer, right, I see smiles. So it's the

positive that's most important. Right, sisters? What happens if we

just have the positive hooked up nothing? What happens if

we just have the negative hooked up nothing? Both of

them must be hooked up. Both of them must be there, positive, negative,

Which is more important? Work or rest? Six days? Shalt

thou labor and do all thy work? The seventh is

to be a day of rest. Why did God make

the night? The day is for work, the night is

for rest. And I don't have enough room to write

all of these down. I would continue to list them.

You can list them on your diagram. But if there

is going to be physical output, we can't just say, well,

work is more important than rest. And we just work

twenty four hours a day. How long can we do that? Well,

obviously it doesn't go long until we aren't doing any

work anymore. There must be work and rest. It's in

the natural laws of productivity, in the spiritual laws. It's

the same way. As you read through the Bible, you

will find over and over again commands thou shalt not

take the name of the Lord, thy God in vain,

thou shalt not steal, kill, whatever part of the ten commandments.

But then there's the positive. Honor the Lord, honor thy

father and mother, and so on. And Jesus gave many rules,

many laws, many commandments of both. There were times when

he said, don't do this, and then there were times

that he said, do this, judge not, don't pray to

be seen or heard, swear not at all, resist not evil.

But then he said, teaching them to observe all things

that I've commanded you, and lo I am with you,

and so on. There is both the positive and the negative.

And this is true in so many areas of life.

Let's apply it, just for a minute to child training.

So there's popular philosophies around today that there should be

no negative. And I will be the first to admit

that probably too many of our homes have too much negative.

We let the child do as he pleases until he

does something wrong, and then we pounce. And I understand

that I've been around that block. I've had lots of

opportunity with ten children. But the idea is that a

child needs both the instruction of righteousness. It's as Ephesians

four said, don't provoke your children to wrath. Don't be

angry with your children, but do this. Bring them up

in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, Train them,

instruct them, teach them, bless them, praise them. And there

must be that balance there. And whenever you hear a philosophy,

may I name one or two that don't include both

of those strands. You can know they're not from truth.

Gentle parenting. Case in point, it is you don't need

and you don't need that thou shalt not. All you

need to do is just direct their behavior or ignore

the wrong and that kind of thing. Reason with the

child and praise him for the good and ignore the bad,

and eventually it'll all go away. I beg to differ.

It's not scriptural Let's look at the third idea, and

this one is so fundamental as to all almost not

need to be mentioned. But in the in the whole

process of reproduction, which is more important male or female? Well,

we know it's a Again, that's not even a trick question,

that's an obvious idea. They must both be there. One's

not more important than the other one. And we could

look at scriptures. In the beginning, God made the male

and female and so on. But let's make some spiritual

applications for that. In the spiritual aspect of reproduction, in

the spiritual aspect of growth within the church, what are

the two things that we must have if growth and

maturity is going to take place? And by the way,

it's not that one side of this diagram is the

good side, on the other side is the bad side,

or one is right and one is wrong or positive

or negative. I make no issue with that. It's both

must be there for these processes to work and take place.

So if there is going to be growth and maturity,

we need the Word and we need the spirit. Think

of scriptures, like where Jesus was at the well in

John four and the woman was questioning him and Jesus said,

God is a spirit, and they that worship him must

worship him in spirit and in truth. And there we

have two ideas. There must be spirit and there must

be truth. It's not hard. It's no secret that there

are groups that capitalize on one and there are groups

that capitalize on the other. And when that is done

to any exclusion of the other, it will fail. Guaranteed,

it will not stand. There must be both of them there.

Now there are people who quote them from Second Corinthians,

and they say, but Paul said, the letter killeth, but

the spirit giveth life. Well, this is true, and we

could look at the context there and learn some things.

But instead of going there, I'm going to turn to

John six, where Jesus was dialoguing with people who were

questioning him on these very things. And Jesus said this

in John six and verse sixty three. He said, it

is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. The

words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and

they are life. And there he pointed to the idea

over here, and he said, the words that I speak,

they are spirit. The words must be there, and it

is in the setting of the bringing together of the

Word and the Spirit, that there is life that results.

If tonight the Spirit is not active in your heart.

You can listen to these words, and that's all they are,

is just words. It must be there must be the anointing.

There must be the activity of the Spirit of God

in our hearts that takes the words from His Holy

Book and applies them to our heart. And suddenly those

words are not in paper and ink. They live, and

they become a part of our life, and they change us,

and they mold us into the character and image of

Jesus Christ. But the two must be there. And if

we ignore the word and we say I just need

the Spirit, that's what's the important thing is if we

capitalize on that at the expense of the truth of

the Word of God, we will run off the track guaranteed.

In fact, maybe I should just introduce this idea at

this point. I believe the things that I am sharing

are so important, not because I'm saying them, but there

has no church endured from generation to generation unless they

get this right. If there is, if there is a

veering off on one side or the other here, on

any one of those we become lopsided and ultimately lose out,

ultimately apostasize. They must both be there to stay on track.

Turn to Romans chapter twelve. There's one there that I

didn't see until just recently. I was studying this idea, well,

I was studying another subject or chapter. I think it

was when I was preaching through the Book of Romans.

I came across this idea here in Romans twelve, and

I said, wow, there it is again, another two legs

of truth right there. In Romans twelve, Verse one, he says,

I beseech you there, for brethren, by the mercies of God,

that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable

unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not

conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing

of your mind, that you may prove what is that

good and acceptable and perfect will of God. I think

we do pretty good on the first of those two categories.

The two legs of that truth are be not conformed

but be transformed. Are both of those ideas active in

our life tonight? We could? In fact, I think they're

important enough. I'm just going to identify them on here.

Not conformed but transformed. It's not you don't have to

be around the block long to find groups of people

that do quite well with not being conformed, but the

transformation is lacking. The transformation is lacking. I'm not sure

if it's possible to be transformed without the conformation, uh,

without the without the other way working. But the point

is both of those ideas have to be there for

this to be a truth that is life changing. Now

there's too many of us that you know, we're we

get the clothes right, and then we are not to

the world. Well, it's much more than that, of course,

it's an entire change of life and lifestyle to not

be conformed to the world. And that's important, it's very important.

But it's as important for maybe even more so, to

be transformed by the renewing of the power of God

in our life. And when that transformation is there, suddenly

the be not conformed makes sense and it's not a

burden anymore. It's a freedom because it's a balancing truth.

Be not conformed, but be transformed. Let's go on to

another area. Let's look at church life. This is my

fourth point in church life, which is more important. The

where's the the emphasis is it on the individual or

is it on community. Well, I can turn to number

of scriptures. We could look at the a scripture from

Romans fourteen where he tells us, so every one of

us must give account of who the person beside you

the preacher, No, it says himself. Every one of us

needs to give account of himself to God. And that's

in the community, that's in the church, that's this group

that is here. But each one of us must give

account of himself to God. No one else is going

to be there for us. Well, we could say wow,

And there's many other aspects where the individual is important.

I can't get saved for you and you can't get

saved for me. It must be an individual relationship with God.

But it doesn't end there. There's so many scriptures. Far

as we have many members and one body, and all

members have not the same office. So we being many

are one body in Christ and everyone members one of another.

It's because we are a community, and both of those

ideas need to be there and active. For a church

to prosper, there has to be individual accountability and there

has to be a group consciousness of the entire community together.

Both of them must be there. Another idea within the

church in one sense. I've already mentioned this, but I'm

going to capitalize on it. The whole idea of spirit

life and the other one just falls out of my

mind right now. The structure, or we could say form.

Have you ever heard people that are a little disenchanted

with the structure in the church, and they say, what

we really need is life. Our church is dead. Well

maybe it is. Let's visit a wax museum, Organder Mountain,

or Cabella's or whatever your favorite store of that nature is.

There are lots of forms. There are life like forms,

there lots of them. I was in a wax museum

some time ago and there was a display there and

this wax figure. Ah, it was very lifelike. And I

was there scrutinizing this character sitting there. I wish I

could have gotten closer. They had it roped off for

a good reason. And all of a sudden the fellow

winked at me, and I said, this is too much.

I wish I could have gotten close enough to pinch

his nose, you know. But it was a very life

like wax figure. And of course you've seen the forms

that are in these kinds of places. But they're dead.

They're dead. They look real, they look very real, but

they're dead. And the possibility is that here tonight there

are life like forms that are dead. I hope that's

not the case, but I'm saying the possibility exists. Now

let's look at the other side. So we've talked about

structure and form. What we really need in church's life

we need to get the spirit. What do we mean

by that? I mean we should hop around, we should

yell a little bit, or run or jump or shout hallelujah.

They are amen. If that's the case, we're real quiet

here tonight. But no, so what do we mean by

life in the church? So I'd rather not take anybody

apart here. Let's move outside to a tree. I would

like for somebody to go out to a tree and

bring me in some life, or go home to your

cow and bring the life back here. What would you bring?

Is it possible? Well, we could bring the blood of

the cow or the sap of the tree or whatever.

But is that the life. No, it's pretty dead. And

even that stuff it can be fluid, but it's not life.

You know what. Life doesn't exist outside of structure. Did

you hear that life doesn't exist outside of structure, as

I understand it. And so in that tree out there now,

the tree can be dead, to be sure, But for

the tree to be alive, there must be the structure

there that carries the life, or it ceases to live.

It's it can't exist in any other way. Same thing

is true with the cow. There can be structure there

without life. Can't be life there without structure. They have

to both be there. You can't extract the one without

the other. And tonight in this church there can be

structure without life. I guarantee that there cannot be life

without structure. Life exists within the structure. And so when

we ask for life and spirit and enthusiasm and emotion,

well then we need to back up and ask ourselves

what are we asking for? What do we want? What

do we mean by that? Are we talking about emotion?

Are we talking about enthusiasm? Are we talking about people

following Jesus? What are we talking about when we talk

about getting the spirit or getting life? I hope that

that makes sense to us. Jesus said, in him is life,

and his life is the light of men. His life

in us is what shines out and there's a number

of verses that we could read John five twenty six,

for as the Father hath life in himself, given to

the son to have life in himself, I given to

them eternal life, and they shall never perish, we read,

and so we understand as we consider that, that it

is life that energizes the structure. It is life that

gives life to the structure and makes it a living entity.

And those two things have to be present in this

church if it's going to endure for generations to come.

Not only does life energize the structure, but it is

the structure that protects the life. And that's a very

interesting concept as well. When we think of the life

of a tree, it is the woody structure of that

tree that protects the life within and it continues to

flourish from generation to generation. It's that way in your cow.

It's that way in you. It is your structure that

protects the life within and makes it possible for that

life to energize the structure. It works together. They must

both be there. Let's go on. The next concept that

I want to consider is simply a few factors of

the Christian life, kind of personal ideas of the Christian life.

The first night we talked about the first Commandment, and

I didn't make much of an issue of it. But

Jesus said that one of the important things, the most

important thing, is the first commandment. And then what did

he say next? He said, the second is like unto it.

He said, on these two hang all the law and

the prophets, the first one and the second one. And

that's very interesting when you take and start to explore that,

because the first commandment has to do with our relationship

with God. The second commandment has to do with our

relationship with each other, loving our neighbor as ourself. And

he said, there are no two commandments. There are no

two others that are greater than these two. And I'm

not going to say that they are equal to each

other or whatever. That's beside the point. I'm simply saying

they must both be there. He said. The one is

like he said, the second is like. The first is

as important as the first. Perhaps in fact, that is

consistent with scripture. Go to first John four and we

find out that a person who says I love God,

I sure can't stand that boy on the front bench here.

He said, he's a liar. He's a liar. There's no

truth in him. He who doesn't love his brother whom

he can see, how can he love God whom he

doesn't see? And there we have that same truth of

the first and second commandment coming together. The whole idea

of doctrine and practice in a sense, we've already talked

about that, but let's just put it on here because

I think it is a very important detail. As I

look back over church history, there were churches who had

their doctrine pretty much down to a science. They knew

the truth, they taught the truth, but somehow they didn't

get around to practicing it. Those constituencies are not around

today in any conservative manner. The whole idea, we can

be profound on our doctrine unless it finds expression in practice,

our church will not endure from generation to generation. It

simply will not happen. The two must be there. There's

a few other just ideas. I'm going to put two

more down than I amount of room anyway, but the

whole idea of inner experience an hour very similar. I

guess inner or our more important. It's not more important.

They must both be there. And perhaps the epitome of

these is the whole idea of faith and works. Faith

and works. You know, when we compare faith and works,

if i'd ask you tonight which one's more important, faith

or works? Duh, it's faith, Come on, you know. I

mean that's the spiritual entity, or is it. The Bible

is very clear in the Book of James that to

say you have faith and to not have works, Sorry,

my friend, you're not speaking the truth. It doesn't work

that way. They must both be there. He says, faith

without works is dead. It's a nonexistent faith. It really

isn't faith at all unless it is unless it is practiced,

unless it is lived. Now again, we could if we

come over here and capitalize on here, well, then the

important thing is works. No, we can't go there there.

Works without faith is dead as well. It's simply a show.

And so it's not. Again, it's not one side of

this structure that I'm capitalizing on. Both of these things

must be there. If our church is going to endure

from generation to generation, they must both be there. So

I think about the stability of truth. I think, and

earlier one thing I was going to I thought about

entitling the message inseparable twins. Inseparable twins, because that's what

they are. What you're looking at. There is twins that

can't be separated. If we take either side away, we

will suffer. They've got to both be there. The whole

idea is that truth stands on two legs. Now I

need to qualify that. I think I'm sure there are

truths in scripture. If you read through the New Testament,

you'll find individual what statements of Jesus or whatever that

are truth as he said them period end of discussion.

I recognize that I didn't look for them or quantify

them in that way. The other side of it is,

as I continue to read, I continue to add to

this list. This list is incomplete. There's a I just find,

just like the Romans twelve idea of be not conformed,

be transformed. I said, yes, there is two legs truth

and they must both be there. And the Bible is

full of those kinds of things. I've just given you

an overview, just to scratch the surface. But again I

remind you that doesn't get that balance right from generation

to generation will endure. So may God give us wisdom,

May God give us grace to work on those things,

to consider them well and to apply them, to apply

the stability of truth, and to enjoy the stability of truth.

What a blessing that we can with confidence, walk, live, move,

practice knowing that there is that we are on the

narrow way and we can look forward with open face

to the future and the return of our Good God.

Let's stand for prayer. M m Our Father, which are

in heaven. We come to you tonight in Jesus' name,

thanking you that we have the truth. And Lord, we

well recognize that we are human, and we make mistakes,

and sometimes we misapply truth. Forgive us these errors. Lord.

Our desire is that by your Holy Spirit, that we

can open your word and between word and spirit find

the reproduction of spiritual life active in our heart growth

there and Lord, tonight, I want to pray a special

blessing on Hall'sy Mennonite Church, and pray that as they

live as a community, Lord, and indeed we recognize the

importance of the individual and the need for each individual

to be accountable to You and to follow You. But

then as a community as a body, as they seek

to have faith and seek work that out, as they

apply the word to practice the doctrine to practice. Lord,

I pray that you would bless them with wisdom and

courage and understanding. We don't know when you're coming back,

but should this church be here for a century or two,

that there would be both faith on the earth and

a conservative witness here in this community because of men

and women of God who love you and are committed

to following you. Now, Lord, we pray or dismissal blessing

upon us. May your peace and grace be upon us,

Your joy be our strength. May your spirit guide us

and fill us with ongoing truth to apply these few

ideas to our lives as we live day by day.

And we want to give you the honor and glory

in Jesus name a man