An Apostolic Church Without An Apostle

And if you'll remain standing, we will be turning in the Bibles to the book

of Acts, Acts chapter 20, beginning with verse 17.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

We'll be reading down to verse 38.

Acts chapter 20, beginning with verse 17.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

And this is, don't forget, this is God's holy and authoritative inspired word. So listen accordingly.

Now from Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.

When they came to him, he said to them, you yourselves know how I lived among

you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia,

serving the Lord with all humility, with tears, with trials that happened to

me through the plots of the Jews,

how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and

teaching you in public and from house to house,

testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of the repentance towards God and of the

faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit,

not knowing what will happen to me, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to

me that in every city imprisonment and afflictions await me.

But I do not account my life of any value, nor as precious to me,

if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I have received from the

Lord Jesus Christ, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

And now behold, I know that none among you.

With whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again.

Therefore, I testify to you this day that I'm innocent of the blood of all,

for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole gospel of God.

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit

has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

And from among you, from your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things

to draw away the disciples after them.

Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or

day to admonish every one of you with tears.

And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to

build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

I coveted no one's silver or gold apparel. You yourselves know that these hands

ministered to my own necessities and to those who were with me.

In all things, I have shown you that by working hard in this way,

we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus Christ,

how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive.

This is the word of the Lord. Thank you. You can be seated.

Let's pray together. We ask, Holy Spirit, that you would help us, guide us, and direct us.

Open the word of God to us this morning. Open unto us, to our ears,

the words of the Apostle Paul that he spoke to the church at Ephesus and that still speak to us today.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Notice the title of the sermon is, An Apostolic Church Without an Apostle.

An apostolic church without an apostle. That title came early in the week.

So sometimes when you entitle your sermon and you move through it,

you're like, eh, but it stuck. So, and I want to focus on that whole issue of

what it means as we've gone to the book of Acts.

We just said in our creed, we believe in the holy, Catholic, and apostolic church.

And so what does it mean to have an apostolic church without apostles?

What does it look like? Well, we have a glimpse of it here in Paul's address

as he's saying farewell to the.

And we see here, by the way, something of what we would understand as apostolic succession.

What does it mean to be an apostolic church? Well, this church in Ephesus,

you can see it literally in our story.

Paul is, as it were, taking the word of grace, the gospel, the scriptures,

the teachings that he has been given directly by God.

Remember, the apostles were given these things from the ascended Lord Jesus

Christ himself, and they are now sent to establish churches,

Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and now they're going to the ends of the earth.

And what Paul has been given by Christ himself, he now literally entrusts.

That's what he says. I'm now commending is the word in the ESV,

but it should be more like entrusting.

The apostle Paul is basically saying, I'm handing you the apostolic authority

that has been given to me so that you elders, you church may continue the apostolic

ministry of the church. It's happening right in front of our eyes.

Sometimes we talk about apostolic succession, and I know young men today are

attracted because they're told by the Roman Catholic Church,

the Greek Orthodox Church, we have apostolic succession. We are the ancient

church. And what do they begin to do?

Peter was the first pope, of course, according to Rome.

Peter, this guy, this guy. So they literally tried to chain together,

link together a series of men who were literally from Peter to the next guy

to the next guy can be traced all the way up to the present Pope of Rome.

But that's not what apostolic succession looks like. You'll notice he's entrusting

it to elders, plural, to the church.

So it's not to one man per se, or one Pope or one patriarch, but it's to the church.

And it's not even a man per se, it's doctrine. It's the teaching of the apostles

that has been entrusted to the church. That's what makes a church apostolic.

And everybody talks about this. I want to give a thumbs up to our Sunday school.

Cole Branham's going over the history here. And next week, I think the focus

will be the second Great Awakening, which is very critical for understanding

where we are here in Clinton County, where we are in Midwest,

and where we are in America in general,

where a lot of the movements that began there, they all said,

let's go back to the first century church. Let's go back to the apostles. Oh, really?

The apostles here are telling us that doctrine, sound teaching,

is the most central thing that pastors and ministers must entrust to their people.

Then you have entire groups that just erase pastors and ministers.

We don't need no pastors.

We don't need no elders. Who do you think you are, elders? You think you have authority over me?

Well, according to Paul, they're overseers. And the word that's used there is

episkopos, which means bishop.

You have bishops today. We call them elders, same thing.

They are ruling over the church with apostolic authority according to the doctrine,

right? The doctrine that has been given to them. And that doctrine,

as we see in this passage, must be guarded, kept, treasured,

and yes, even fought for.

That's one of the keys here. These elders, the elders of this church,

and I'm going to include myself and elders, and you'll see why in a moment,

because the word elder, presbuteros or episkopos or poimen, which is a shepherd.

They're all used interchangeably in the New Testament.

So the elders, the pastor and the elders are given the job of fighting warriors for the church.

Warriors for what? Sound doctrine, the word of God.

It's central to everything Paul's talking about here as he goes through his farewell address.

I'll tell you structurally what I'm going to try to do.

There's a lot here. I've got like a lot of notes. They're really hefty,

but they're just outlined. So don't worry.

And what I'm going to try to do is go down through his farewell speech,

look at it, pull out salient, important points, but not try to dig too deep

because there's too much.

Pastor is always at this crossroads. Every sermon, you're at a crossroads. Do I do one verse?

We could be seven years in Acts if I did that. So I thought,

no, let's go through the farewell address.

And then I'm going to divide the conclusion of Paul's farewell address into

two parts. So next Sunday, we'll tackle more of his section on the inheritance

that we have in God. Very powerful way of living and understanding.

So Paul's farewell address. We see him.

He goes to Miletus, a port city just south of Ephesus.

We don't know why he didn't go to Ephesus because at that time,

Ephesus now is landlocked, but at that time it was a port city as well.

Nonetheless, he calls the elders down. They meet him at Miletus.

It's a very, very, very poignant emotional situation here. You'll notice the

whole thing's scattered. I'll mention with tears. everybody's crying.

Everybody's, at the end of it, everybody's weeping.

What is this speech about? Well, I was looking at, there are people that have

tried to look at like farewell speeches of Caesars or great generals or rulers

or philosophers who knew they were about to die.

And there was in classical culture, a fairly formed farewell speech that you were to follow.

Paul didn't follow that. So he wasn't just going, taking the classical rhetorical

approach to farewell addresses.

It's very different than that. It's a bit more like Joshua's farewell address.

When Joshua was saying, choose you this day whom you will serve.

That farewell. Or Samuel, when he gives a farewell address to the nation of

Israel as he's passing on the priesthood, you know, moving down in that way.

Paul's speech as Luke records it is also, it's interesting in Acts.

This is the first recorded speech of Paul to fellow Christians.

Up to this time, you know, he's been preaching, preaching to the Athenians,

preaching in Thessalonians, preaching and addressing usually a hostile audience

or Jewish people or so forth.

But this is the first time we have been asked, Paul's saying,

brothers, elders, let me speak to you directly. So it's pretty powerful in that sense as well.

You'll notice that he says, you yourselves know, Acts 20, 18b,

you yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia.

One of the things Paul highlights, and he's not just puffing himself up,

he even says, you've seen it, you watched me.

If there's something that I'm saying that's wrong, tell me, but he said,

basically, my ministry has been entirely dedicated to sacrificial service.

I've given everything, given all that I have to this local church and to other

churches and so forth to serve Christ and to serve his church.

You notice those two are connected together. There's no such thing as serving

Christ without the church.

Are you with me? There is no such thing. In spite of our, again,

our Clinton County history and the diminishment of clergy and churches and all

that, there's no such thing in the apostolic church as serving Christ without

the church. The two always go together.

And he says, you know, I have fought. And he keeps that fighting analogy up.

He has warned, he has admonished, he's fought, he's been a watchman over and

over throughout the address.

A fight in essence to be like Christ.

To pour himself out for the ministry of the church. In 2 Timothy 1,

12, he says, for this reason, I also suffer these things. Nevertheless,

I'm not ashamed for I know whom I have believed.

And then in verse 13, he says, hold fast the pattern of sound words, doctrine.

I'm gonna just keep going over and over that. Doctrine, teaching, theology.

That's what the apostles were entrusting to this apostolic church and to us,

if we're to be faithful to the apostles.

And you'll notice the sacrificial service is characterized with tears.

Chapter 20, verse 19, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears.

Verse 31, remember for three years, I did not cease to warn them every night and day with tears.

Verse 36, then they wept freely. They're all, Paul's talking about we wept together,

we worked together, we struggled together.

And you know that my ministry, as we've gone through all the things we've gone

through, And he was there for three years in Ephesus, a bit longer than he was in most places.

It looks like he even started a seminary. It looks like he started a pastoral

training center. And that's not easy. I know I did. I did that.

It's hard. It's difficult. You have obstacles. There's struggles.

We've already seen that there's riots, everything.

So Paul says, my ministry is characterized by tears.

And it's really poignant at the end where he's leaving. And this comes up twice

where they all knew they were never going to see him again. And so they were weeping.

It's a very powerful scene. It reminded us when we left for Africa,

we were at a church and we're leaving. And by the time I finished my last sermon,

everybody was crying. I was crying. The church was crying.

Little children who didn't even know what was going on, they decided they needed

to be crying. Everyone was crying.

That's exactly what you have here at the end.

It reminded me, I saw William Bradford's account of the pilgrim's departure,

where he goes over this. He says, the night was filled with friendly entertainment,

Good Christian Discourse.

The next day, they went aboard with friends. They were truly,

Truly doleful. I forgot my reading glasses, so you're going to have to forgive me.

Truly doleful was the sight of that sad morning party to see what sighs and

sobs and prayers did sound amongst them.

And he says, tears, just like this, tears did gush from every eye and pithy

speeches pierced each heart.

Sundry of the Dutch people who stood by looking, they also were crying.

It's like everybody's crying. It was so sad that even spectators who stopped

to see were also crying because it was so overwhelming. I mean,

the true expression of dear and unfeigned love. These people were,

these pilgrims were leaving from the Netherlands to go to the New World.

Most of them, that very same year, more than half of them die.

So they literally were not ever going to see anyone again, let alone their beloved

ones on the shores of Holland that they were leaving.

And it's just a tearful, emotional, that's the scene we have here.

So it's more than just Paul going on doctrinally about this.

They loved him. He loved them.

Tears characterized his ministry, and tears were staining the goodbye party.

As they literally, you literally, they kind of fall down on him.

You get the picture of people, that kind of crying. It wasn't just like a normal,

you know, a few tears squeaking out.

And guys were crying too, by the way. Man, it's okay.

Everybody's emotional about this. He goes on, he says, verse 19,

Serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and trials that happened to

me through the plots of the Jews.

This will become, and we should become increasingly aware as we go through the

book of Acts, that the main opposition to the kingdom of God and to the church was Israel.

It was the Jewish leaders. And as we move through the book of Acts,

we're gonna increasingly see how Israel is going to pay for this,

the judgment that God brings in 70 AD.

But you'll notice he just mentions plots of the Jews, Jewish opposition.

There were plots in Greece, Macedonia, Jerusalem.

I have a huge list everywhere Paul went, if you'll recall, except perhaps maybe

Demetrius the silversmith in Ephesus.

The main opposition, it's not from Roman officials, it's not from governors,

it's not from judges, most of the judges will go, he's done nothing wrong.

It's the Jews that are constantly, and by the way, not the Jews.

I know it's popular, blame the Jews for everything today.

That's not what I'm doing. But what I'm talking about is that the Jewish leadership,

has determined from the beginning, and we saw Peter, who was Peter's main opposition?

It was the Jews, the Jewish leaders. They hated him, the Sanhedrin, the leaders.

Every city Peter went to, Stephen was killed by a mob of Jewish protesters. They killed him.

Paul now does the same thing. From the very beginning of his ministry,

even though Paul was a Jew persecuting the church, when he became a Christian,

suddenly, before he has a chance to even get settled in the city,

they're lowering him out of a basket.

Why? Because Jewish opposition. Just a note.

And he just throws it aside as if everyone should know that the Jews,

again, not Netanyahu or Israel today, but the Jewish leadership,

the nation of Israel, covenantally represented by the Sanhedrin and their leaders,

have determined to reject Jesus Christ.

That's a big deal. It doesn't mean Jews are still cursed today.

But it means that at that time, the premier opposition to the church has been Jewish leadership.

And he tells them, he continues, I did not shrink from declaring to you anything

that was profitable, teaching you in public and from house to house,

testifying both to Jews and the Greeks, repentance towards God and of faith

in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Everything he did was gospel focused. This is, by the way, when we send you

that email or text you and say, we'd like to come on a visitation.

This is one of the passages of many that we derive. It looks like Paul was in people's homes.

And when he was there, he was teaching and admonishing and rebuking and listening

and praying and overseeing the church in their homes.

So don't say no, please, to our pastoral visitations when we call to come see

you. It comes from this very idea that your elders are here to oversee you.

And how are they going to oversee you if they don't know you?

They need to get to know you. And Paul evidently got to know them.

You'll notice, by the way, his primary interest in getting to know them wasn't

just look at the passage and read Paul's. It's not necessarily nurture.

I'm going to mention women in leadership here in just a minute,

but the main characteristic of a pastor and elder is not nurture.

You'll notice Paul's, it's more warrior-like, guarding, protecting,

overseeing, leading, fighting, fending off fierce wolves.

And Paul's willing to do that in public, in private, and it's all gospel focus.

He says, and now behold, I'm going to Jerusalem.

Constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to be,

except everywhere I go, I'm going to be persecuted.

But I do not account my life as any value nor precious to me,

if only I may finish the course in ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus

Christ to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

It's the gospel that is at the center of Paul's ministry and should be at the

center of every apostolic church.

The good news of that body of knowledge that we know, not just smile,

Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan to you, but the whole body of knowledge

that these apostles are always preaching.

Jesus came, he died, he rose again on the third day, and he's raised and seated

at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty.

One of the reasons we use the creed so much is to just keep reminding ourselves

over and over that we are descendants of the apostles. This is what they did.

They didn't just say, if you died tonight, would you go to heaven or hell? Do you believe in Jesus?

That's a pretty easy thing. I know a lot of people that have done that. They thought,

I guess hell doesn't sound like a good option. Yeah, I'll choose Jesus. Why not?

And now they're told you're a Christian. Hallelujah. They weren't given a body

of knowledge of who Jesus is and what he did and what he calls you to do,

particularly calling you to this kind of zealous and sacrificial service for him.

If you want to follow Jesus, reject everything in the world,

take up your cross and follow me.

That's the kind of message that the gospel includes here. So Paul is sacrificial.

He doesn't care about his life.

He's an active shepherd of the church. None of these things move me,

nor do I count my life dear, he says.

And it's characterized by his ministry as well.

It's the grace and gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that calls Paul to go forward

to the next city, to the next city and to the next city, knowing that the Holy

Spirit has already told him, you're going to have troubles here.

You're going to be persecuted there. They're going to hate you there.

You may die in Jerusalem. He didn't know whether he would live or die.

And you see that also in Paul's ministries.

And encourages us to think the same way.

We, he says, are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed.

We are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken,

struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying about in our bodies the dying

of the Lord Jesus Christ, that the life of Jesus Christ may be manifested in our body.

Your lives, our lives, particularly your elders' and pastors' lives need to

be characterized by a willingness to sacrifice themselves for Jesus Christ.

Testifies over and over. I've done it in distress and needs and tribulations

and stripes and imprisonments and tumult. The list, you've heard some of these

before. The list of Paul's life is almost difficult to recount. So many things.

And it led him, by the way, to teach in his letter to the church at Philippi,

he said, so now also Christ, as long as Christ is magnified in my body,

whether by life or by death.

And then that famous Philippians 121, for me to live is Christ,

to die as gain. It's just like the focus of his life is what he hands to the

elders, pastors. It's what he hands to us as a church.

Do you see life like that? I don't care whether I live. I don't care whether

I die. For me to live is Christ to die as gain. And that drove his life forward.

It drove his ministry in the church.

It should drive the ministry of the elders and pastors in any church,

and it should be the compelling interest of the church itself.

You'll notice Paul also mentions, verse 26, I testify you to this day that I

am innocent of the blood of all men, for I have not shunned to declare to you

the whole counsel of God.

Doctrine, doctrine, doctrine, theology, the whole counsel of God.

You'll notice he uses here the example from Ezekiel's warning of the leaders of those day.

The prophets, the pastors, the elders of the church are to be like watchmen of the church.

They're to watch out, they're to warn, and to blow the trumpet if there's danger.

And the prophet makes it clear, son of man, I've made you a watchman by the

house of Israel. Therefore, hear a word from my mouth and give them warning from me.

When I say to the wicked, you'll surely die and you give them no warning,

your blood will be on your head.

Next chapter, verse 33 or chapter 33, he says, when he sees the sword coming

up on the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people,

then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet does not take the warning,

the sword comes, their blood is on their head.

Okay. This is one of the things elders and pastors have to do.

And this is one of the difficulties sometimes of preaching.

You know, you have to, you have to tell people, stop it.

Stop this. You're in danger. Your marriage is not going to prosper this way.

Your children won't grow up well.

Your life will be miserable. Stop this, please. In the name of Jesus,

stop it. People don't like that.

But the pastor, the elders have to, you and you have to understand from our

perspective, we have to blow the trumpet.

We have to sound the warning or your blood will be on our heads.

And that's a pretty powerful motivation for saying things that are uncomfortable

or difficult or hard for a congregation to hear. It's what our job is.

And you'll notice that the job is connected to, this is such a powerful phrase.

I almost wanted to preach a whole sermon just on this one, just so you know,

that I could have gone longer. But the whole counsel of God, what does that mean?

The whole counsel of God. Paul didn't pick and choose what he wanted to teach.

The great thing, by the way, a good discipline about preaching through books

of the Bible is that it forces a pastor to preach through things that the text

brings to him, not just things he likes, not just things he wants,

not just his hobby horse, not just this or that issue.

I grew up in a church, little church, Baptist church in Bloomfield,

Indiana, and every single Sunday for about three years, all I ever heard about

was the great tribulation and the rapture and who the Antichrist was.

I think every other Sunday, the pastor was guessing, is it Gorbachev?

Is that maybe it's even Reagan. I mean, there's always discussions about this one topic.

It was the driving topic of our church. Every revival we had every summer,

the evangelist would come with his charts and graphs about the great tribulation

and the rapture and what happens three and a half years in and all these things.

And we're obsessed with that.

I never heard a sermon about the church.

I never heard a sermon about the order of salvation or repentance,

regeneration, predestination. I never heard any of that.

I go to college and all of a sudden my friends are like, are you this?

Are you that? I don't know.

I have no idea because I wasn't taught the whole counsel of God.

I didn't know these things.

I found it frustrating and it's frustrating for the church, even if the church

doesn't know it. I didn't know it growing up.

I didn't know what I didn't know because the whole counsel wasn't really brought

into of the picture, which means all of Scripture,

and the doctrines that come from all of Scripture must be something that you're

receiving Sunday by Sunday in your homes, in our discussions,

in our prayer meetings, in our Sunday schools.

All of that needs to be from the whole counsel of God, not just things we like or don't like.

And if you don't, then, by the way, we don't do it out of like a strong sense

that Presbyterians are theological nitpickers.

You know, we don't just love, we do love doctrine, I have to admit.

We're guilty, but the doctrines that we choose to preach from this passage or

any other are not just things that I'm just particular keenly interested in. It's just what God says.

And it comes from the whole of the scriptures. And every generation,

every single generation, you young children, you need to be learning your catechism

and you need to be learning the creeds and you need to be learning the confessions.

You need to be learning the doctrine of this church.

We're assuming it's apostolic and biblical.

The Bible doctrines of this church so you can pass it on to your children as well.

The next generation, every single generation, every single generation must take

up the task of studying and consuming and understanding the whole counsel of

God from Genesis to Revelation, all of it.

And the elders are called to be vigorous guardians of this. It's our job as

elders primarily to guard this.

And then you'll notice that it leads to, this is just inherent,

but I pointed out, it leads to, sound doctrine leads to love and unity in the church.

That's not true. That can't be true, because everybody knows doctrine divides.

Doctrine divides. We don't need to know about these doctrines,

because the moment you throw out these doctrines, you'll start dividing the

church, and people that don't like this doctrine, blah, blah, blah.

But you'll notice the doctrine is at the center of it.

And just a word before I go on to that, it's a warning here as well for the

elders, pastor, again, including this.

Let me just go to this verse 28. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to

all the flock in which the Holy Spirit, remember it's holy, Catholic, and apostolic.

We don't just ordain ourselves. We don't dunk ourselves or sprinkle ourselves.

The Holy Spirit has made you overseers. And that word there is episkopos.

So he's saying presbyteroi, elders, you're also episkopoi, you're also bishops, overseers.

And then in other portions of the scripture, Paul will refer to pastors as shepherds.

Pastors is where we get that word. So the word elder and bishop and pastor are used interchangeably.

We don't believe that there's a bishop that has any more authority than any

other presbyter or elder or pastor.

We're all elders. We're all overseers. We will oftentimes, and it's practically

important to distinguish between the pastor and elders. We will call our elders ruling elders.

And myself, I'm a teaching elder or minister or pastor, somehow he referred

to me. Why? Well, because Paul makes that distinction.

He tells us and tells you, let all the elders who rule well be considered worthy

of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.

So there are distinguished elders, not that we're distinguished in terms of.

Eliteness, but we're distinguished as our role of labor.

And he says, and rightfully so, the guy who does that, the elder who does that

is essentially your pastor, and you should pay him for it. Thank you. You do.

I appreciate it. But that's the role. So you will hear us refer to me as the

pastor and them as the elders.

But you could designate it ruling elders, teaching elders.

When we vote in our session meetings, when we go to Presbytery next week, everyone gets one vote.

As a pastor or minister, I don't get two votes or three votes.

I'm not a bishop in that sense. We all get one vote and we agree in council

to rule the church, which the church should be ruled by elders,

pastors, teachers, as well as ruling elders.

And these elders, pastors and teachers are to guard themselves.

It's very important that.

It says, pay careful attention. This is for elders and pastors.

It's for any leader. Fathers, it would transfer. But elders in particular,

pay attention to yourselves.

Guard yourselves. Guard your hearts. There's nothing worse, and we all know

it, than when a pastor or an elder falls from grace, commits great sin.

It's a higher offense to God when an elder or pastor does this than when another

person does because of their position.

That's why Paul is saying, you guys.

Almost him shaking his fingers. You guys, where are you, elders?

You guys pay attention, watch out because there's nothing worse than your fall.

Not only are you to watch out for your own fall, but you're to watch out because

you are to guard the church.

And this is just suffused in the whole passage, the church that Jesus Christ

loves so much, he died for her.

The church which he purchased with his own blood.

Elders and pastors are to love the church as Paul loved the church and as Christ

loved the church and gave himself for it.

By the way, that's true of all of us.

There's no Christianity without the church. There's no Christ without the church.

It doesn't work that way.

And so we're reminded we should love this church. We are brothers and sisters in Christ.

One of the early criticisms of the classical world against Christians is that

they said, these guys are involved in incest. What?

Yeah, because they marry brothers and sisters only. Okay, well,

we're spiritual brothers and spiritual sisters, a family of God.

And we're to be of one mind, having compassion for one another,

loving each other as brothers, being tenderhearted, courteous,

never returning evil for evil.

There should be a deep love within the church. Why? Because Christ loves the

church so much, he died for us, which is why we celebrate every single Sunday, the Lord's Supper.

We remember the memorial that Christ is loving us so much that he's gathered

us together as a forgiven community.

And finally, where am I here? Oh, I have plenty of time. I need to slow down.

Finally, you'll notice this transfer of apostolic authority.

Verse 32, he says, And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace,

which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance.

That's where I'm going to split it up. I'm going to focus primarily on the word of grace.

At the very end, Paul's saying, and again, the word in trust.

It's not enough to say commending.

A commendation is, all right, guys, do a good job. All right,

elders, do a good job. That's not what he means.

The word is entrusting, as in entrusting yourself or someone to another person's authority or care.

And so he's saying to them, I commend you. I entrust you to God.

The apostolic church belongs to God and to the word of his grace.

So the word is packed with this transfer of trust and authority.

We ought to be an apostolic church in this sense, that our authority comes directly,

not through a succession of physical apostles, but to the doctrine and word

they've given to us, the holy scriptures, and to God.

The church belongs to this. The word, he says here, it's interesting, it's the word of grace.

It's the word of grace. And this is where I want to try to draw it to a conclusion here.

This is powerful. The church belongs to God, and God has given her,

us, his word of grace, the word, the holy scriptures.

That's to be the central focus of the teaching and preaching ministry of the church, the word of God.

It's not new to you, but it's powerful. It's exactly what Paul says in 2 Timothy 3.16.

All scripture is God-breathed. It's theonospos.

It's a word that comes from the breath of God.

The scriptures. And you should even think about this sometime when you're listening

to a sermon, as long as it's biblical,

not my stories that here and there that may be off trail, but when it's in line

with the doctrine, it's as if you're breathing in the work of the Holy Spirit.

You're breathing in the word of God and your soul and your spirit is fed by his word.

All spirit is God breathed and profitable. Listen to for teaching,

for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of

God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

It's close to the word Paul uses here, the word of grace that will build you

up, that will make you strong, that will give you a foundation to follow after

Jesus Christ. It's not true that doctrine divides.

The whole counsel of God and sound doctrine is what's being given to the church

and it's our job to protect it, defend it, cherish it, preach it and fight for it.

It's our calling as ministers, elders, and as a church.

To fight for sound doctrine. I'm going to go through a few passages here because it's astonishing.

What Paul says later in many other passages is doctrine, doctrine,

doctrine, theology. It all matters.

In fact, it's the difference between life and death.

It's the difference between a sheep and a wolf. It's the difference between

safety and survival within the church.

I don't know how many times I've met Christians, and again, come to Sunday school

because Cole's going over this. This is good stuff. I mean, churches that developed

in our lands right here in Clinton County and across Ohio are churches that

came and said, we don't need no doctrine.

We don't need no preacher. We don't need, I know my grammar's wrong,

by the way, for you homeschool moms, but we don't need no doctrine.

We don't need any of this. We don't need preachers. We definitely don't.

You've heard me say this.

We just need Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the word of God.

No creed but the Bible. No creed but Christ, which by the way is a creed.

That's a creed. You know, we say, I don't believe, I only want Jesus in the Bible. That's a creed.

Then the next question is, well, what do you mean by that? And so forth.

So we live in, and the word evangelical church no longer means anything anymore.

I don't know if you've noticed that.

I wouldn't say discouraged, but I'm a little bit like, wow, there's a lot of

churches that would, I meet someone, I'm conservative evangelical, they say.

Okay. By the way, would you meet Pastor Susie? Wait, what?

You just said, oh, we're a Bible-believing church. Pastor Susie is doing a special

on Sunday night. Pastor Susie?

Really? You're a conservative, evangelical Bible-belie? No, you're not.

And they say, oh, he's going to pick on women.

It's not about women. This is about the doctrine that is pressing in most pointedly at the church.

I didn't just choose it because I have this bugaboo about women preachers.

I look at people who say, we are a Bible-believing evangelical church.

Historically, there's a work by David Bevington who outlines four basic tenets

of what it used to mean to be an evangelical.

And the number one item was biblicism, a high regard and devotion for the authority

of the Bible as inspired.

Now, if you're one of these, now we have people who say they're evangelical

and Bible-believing, and then the Bible says, I do not permit a woman to teach

or have authority over a man, and they just change it.

They just ignore it They just say, oh, it's cultural It's, you know,

Paul You know Paul Paul was a bit of a misogynist.

So they just change it. The question you should ask yourself is what's next?

What's next? What's going to be changed next? Whatever. Right now,

after 100 years of feminism pounding and pounding and pounding away at the church,

then we have churches that they don't want to say no to women's ministry.

They don't want to say no to women elders. They don't want to say no to women pastors.

It sounds too harsh. It sounds patriarchal and misogynistic,

but it's in the word of God.

And it's contrary to sound doctrine, which we need. Unapologetically,

I'm not against women, but God says no, so we say no.

Of course, if you believe the Bible.

Sound doctrine comes from a solid commitment to the word of God and its authority.

We do, we listen to it, we read it, we do what it says, we obey it,

we don't try to change it, we don't try to mold it, we don't allow cultural

pressures to push in on us.

One of the things about sound doctrine, according to the Holy Scriptures,

it's great for the church.

Doctrine doesn't divide. Bad doctrine divides.

That's the key. Sound doctrine is at the heart of everything Paul wants us to know.

Listen to 1 Timothy 3. I urge you when I was going to Macedonia,

remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach anything

that's a different doctrine.

Stop this bad theology that they're promoting because notice what he says,

they devote themselves to myths and genealogies and speculations and their aim

is to get, it creates chaos.

What does, doctrine? No, bad doctrine. Bad doctrine creates division.

In fact, good doctrine we're supposed to guard. Paul says in Ephesians 4,

that's why he's given us elders and pastors for the building up of the body of Christ,

built up in the ministry, just like he says here, Where does that come from?

The building up of the Word of God.

It fosters true love and unity.

Teach, he says in 1 Timothy 6, teach and urge these things. If anyone teaches

a different doctrine, notice the Bible is never against doctrine.

It's never against theology. It's against bad theology. If they teach a different

doctrine and do not agree with the sound words,

logoy there, the same word, sound doctrine, sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ,

and a teaching that accords with godliness. You'll notice that's another connection.

Sound doctrine produces godliness.

You want your home to be run well? Believe, believe the doctrine and live the

doctrine that you're taught.

He is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving

for controversy and quarrels. We know that.

We know that guy. He loves to argue about theology all the time.

Doesn't have a job, lives in his mom's basement, right?

But he loves to talk about theology all the time. No, all this does,

he says, they have a craving for quarrels about words.

And this produces envy, dissension, slander. This is division in the church.

This divides the church. What does? Bad doctrine.

What Paul keeps saying over and over. It's not sound doctrine, it's bad doctrine.

Titus 1 says he must hold. Again, these are pastoral letters urging the church

on how to be a strong church, particularly to Timothy and Titus.

He says, he hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that you may be able

to give instruction in sound doctrine and also rebuke those who contradict it.

Paul was telling these elders, you're going to have people not only from the

outside, you're going to have people from within.

We're going to want to change the doctrine. They're going to want to argue all

the time. They're going to want to cause these doctrinal disputes,

which causes division and controversy.

And he told Titus, guard against these people.

They're fighters. Again, elders and pastors have to be fighters, warriors.

Titus 2.1, but as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.

Older men are being sober-minded, dignified, et cetera, sound in faith.

Notice again, there's always the connection. Sound doctrine produces sound life.

Good doctrine, good theology, good behavior, holy behavior, and godliness.

Of course, there's always that great passage from Timothy where it's on so many

seminaries. We thought about putting it on the wall of our seminary at Knox

that, you know, whatever you have, entrust such things to faithful men.

Take the doctrine from one generation, pass it on to pastors and elders that

they may be able to lead the church.

The word of God and the teachings of the apostles have been entrusted to the

church of Jesus Christ. they have to be guarded, cherished, preserved,

and passed on to future generations. And this will be, as Paul says, grace.

It is the Word. The Word of God is the Word of grace, grace to you.

The trustworthiness of the Scriptures, says B.B. Warfield, lies at the foundation

of the trust in the Christian system of doctrine, and therefore it's fundamental

to all our Christian hope and life.

It's what we have to guard and cherish and love it's what ultimately drives

us as paul said to the gospel of the lord jesus christ the church,

elders pastors and the whole church must cherish the whole council of god preach

sound doctrine and guard it and cherish it and pass it on to our children,

to the next generation and to be apostolic church and therefore to be what to be blessed,

we want as a local congregation sound doctrine the whole council of god and

we want the blessings of the Lord, which Paul says, I'll tease you for next

Sunday, leads us to understand and have God as our inheritance.

Jesus Christ is ultimately the inheritance of the church. What we live for,

it's what we die for, it's what we're about to celebrate this morning. Let's pray together.

Heavenly Fathers, we come to you in this supper. We are so thankful and grateful

that all of the doctrine that we believe leads us here.

The theology of Lord that we hope to guard and treasure and protect leads us

to grace through our Lord Jesus Christ, through his body and through his blood.

Feed us, Lord, on your word as what we've heard this morning,

but on your body and blood to nourish and cherish us, to go from here,

and to live the kind of life Paul describes as one that leads him to say,

for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.