Ephesians chapter 4, the Bible reads in verse 1,
I therefore the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith
you're called.
The fact that he's the prisoner of the Lord is something that he's bringing up over and
over again.
Because look at the beginning of chapter 3 verse 1,
For this cause I Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles.
So he brings it up twice in a row right there.
And if you would just flip back a couple pages in your Bible to Galatians chapter 6.
He says in Galatians chapter 6 verse 17,
From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
So the apostle Paul brings up in a lot of his epistles,
1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, the fact that he's in jail, the fact that
he's been beaten, the fact that he has marks on his body from where he'd been whipped and
scourged and beaten just like Christ had been beaten.
Why is it that he brings this up over and over again?
He keeps reminding people, hey, by the way, did I mention I'm writing from jail?
Because of the fact that he's giving himself credibility with these people saying, look,
I'm being persecuted for the cause of Christ because we know that all that will live godly
in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
And so he's letting them know, look, I'm not just talking the talk here.
I'm walking the walk.
I'm practicing what I preach and I'm enduring tribulations and afflictions and I'm in prison
and he brings that up quite a bit.
A lot of today's preachers, they want to have just an easy cush lifestyle, no persecution,
make no waves, make no enemies.
They're not following the footsteps of an apostle Paul or of the other apostles or even
of Jesus Christ himself who were persecuted for their beliefs.
Look at Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1, he said, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech
you that you would walk worthy of the vocation, vocation simply means calling, vocation wherewith
you're called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another
in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
So what he's talking about here is getting along with your brothers and sisters in Christ
in the local church.
He's saying that in order to get along, you've got to be humble, you've got to be lowly,
you've got to be meek and obviously you must have long suffering.
What does it mean to have long suffering?
It means that every little thing doesn't get you mad or doesn't get you upset.
It means that you're willing to put up with a lot.
To suffer means to allow something to happen.
Long suffering means that you'll let things go, let things go, let things go for a long
time and not just be on a hair trigger that as soon as somebody does you wrong or says
something wrong to you, you're just ready to get upset.
The Bible says we need to have long suffering and then the next thing it says forbearing
one another in love, which is pretty much the same thing as long suffering.
Forbearance means putting up with something.
Because we love each other, we put up with each other, we're long suffering, we don't
have a short fuse and because we have lowliness and meekness, we esteem others better than
ourselves and that helps us to get along.
Now at the end of the chapter, he comes back to the same topic.
So he starts and ends this chapter with this type of teaching.
Go to the end in verse number 26 where it says be angry and sin not, let not the sun
go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil.
Jump down to verse 30, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you're sealed
under the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from
you with all malice and be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even
as God for Christ's sake had forgiven you.
So when it comes to getting along in the local church, first of all, we can't let every little
thing bother us.
We have to have long suffering and forbearance, but then when things do bother us, when we
do get mad, the Bible says be ye angry and sin not.
Don't let your anger lead you into sin.
Now when does your anger become sin?
Well first of all, if we're quick to anger, then that's sin because God commanded us to
have long suffering and to be slow to speak, slow to wrath.
But even when we become legitimately angry, if we let the sun go down on our wrath, then
it becomes sin.
Holding a grudge from day to day is what becomes sin.
And that's what we would call bitterness as well.
A root of bitterness inside of us where we have a grudge against our neighbor, a grudge
against our brother and sister from day to day.
The Bible says let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be
put away from you with all malice.
So malice is that evil intent towards someone else.
Clamor is making a lot of noise.
You're angry.
You're blowing off your mouth.
The Bible is saying, look, if there's something that legitimately gets you angry, you still
need to give place unto wrath.
You still need to put off anger.
You need to forgive.
You need to move on.
Now the Bible says that if your neighbor sins against you, to rebuke him.
But it says not to hold any grudge against him.
It's better if something is really bad to get it out in the open and to go to that person
and just confront them and say, hey, listen, what you did was wrong.
You've offended me.
You've upset me.
And hopefully they'll say, boy, I'm really sorry about that.
And you can make things right between believers.
Now obviously we don't want to do this about every little thing because then you're creating
bigger problems where problems didn't even exist.
So somebody just looks at you funny or doesn't say hi to you or makes a joke that was just
kind of barely at your expense and you didn't appreciate it.
Obviously we don't want to be thin skinned and just be constantly approaching people.
Hey, I was offended.
It's a good night.
Don't be a snowflake generation type.
But sometimes there are grievances that are real, things that are a big deal.
And if it really bothers you and it's a big deal and you can't just brush it off and get
over it, which would be obviously the best course if it's just something small.
But if it's a bigger deal, then you need to just go to that person and tell them what's
on your mind and get things cleared up.
You don't want to just keep that inside all bottled up and just keep getting angrier and
keep getting more bitter.
And you see sometimes when people blow up and they bring up something from six months
ago, they bring up something from nine months ago, a year ago, you know what that means?
They've been thinking about it the whole time.
Because you're not going to have something happen.
Six months go by without thinking about it.
You will never remember that thing again, period.
Because that's the way our minds work.
Our minds are created to forget things.
So when things happen that are not important, we forget them.
The things that we remember are the things that we think about and dwell on and ponder.
So when somebody gets angry and is bringing up something from a year ago, two years ago,
five years ago, it's something that that person has thought about repeatedly.
We need to learn to just let things go, forget about things that are offensive to us, that
are just little things.
Forgive one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven us.
If God has forgiven us all of our sins, we should be able to forgive those that are indebted
to us.
And so the Bible says here, be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another,
even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you.
And God's forgiveness runs deep.
And that's the kind of forgiveness that we should have, where he forgives and forgets.
Amen?
And the Bible says, as far as the east is from the west, so far as God separated us
from our sins.
The Bible says, their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
And so that's the kind of forgiveness that we should practice in the local church.
Because as the church gets larger, there are all kinds of personalities at play, and we
need to endeavor to keep the unity, the Bible says in verse 3, of the Spirit in the bond
of peace, meaning that unity and peace in the local church is not going to come automatically.
We don't just sit back and just act however we feel like acting, and then we just have
unity.
I don't know how we got here.
The Bible says we need to make an effort to have unity.
We need to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, meaning that
we need to put forth some effort to let things go, put forth some effort to overlook small
grievances and faults, make an effort to forgive and forget, why?
For the sake of the church, for the sake of the work of Christ.
Your drama with other ladies in the church is not as important as winning souls to Christ
or raising our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
These little petty grievances need to take a back burner, and we need to endeavor to
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
And he says this in verse 4, there's one body and one Spirit even as you're called
and one hope of your calling.
One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and through
all and in you all.
What's he saying?
These are the things we have in common.
We all have one Spirit, the Holy Spirit.
We're all saved, and we have the same Holy Spirit living inside of us.
All of us here are part of this one body here.
All of us have the same Lord.
We have the same hope.
We have the same faith.
We believe on Jesus Christ as our Savior.
We all have the same baptism, right?
Being dunked underwater, amen?
Not being sprinkled or dumped upon, but being dunked underwater, baptized by immersion.
We all have the same God, the same Father.
This is what bonds us together.
This is what unites us.
We have unity because we can all rally around one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.
It doesn't matter the fact that we come from different nationalities.
It doesn't matter that some of us grew up rich, some of us grew up poor.
We might come from a broken home.
We might come from a long line of preachers, or we might come from atheists or Hindus or
Muslims or whatever, Roman Catholics.
It doesn't matter what our economic status is, what our demographics are, because the
really important things in life are the things that we have in common.
One Lord, one faith, one baptism.
That's what draws us together.
That's a much stronger bond than, hey, we listen to the same kind of music.
I remember when I was in high school, that was what bonded you together.
I remember my first day, I went to a Christian school, then I switched to public school.
I remember my first day of public school, I was in 11th grade, and I'd been to public
school in elementary, but it was my first year in high school in public school.
The first day, I saw a backpack that had a patch on it of a band that I listened to.
I said, hey, you listen to that band?
Yes, okay, I'm going to have lunch with you.
That's who I had lunch with for the next two years, because that's the way it works in
high school.
It's all about, there's the rockers and the rappers and the country western and the skaters
and the tweakers.
We have something greater than drugs that unites us, more than just the potheads.
We have something a lot better than country western music or rap music or rock music or
alternative music or electronic music or whatever to bring us together.
Those things are so shallow, if you think about it.
Even adults today, their friendships are based on the same sports team or something like
that.
Look, those aren't the most important things in life.
I have way more in common with the people who go to Faithful Word Baptist Church than
I do with people that I maybe play the same sport as they do or whatever the case may
be.
These are the things that bring us together and give us unity in the local church.
Now look, if we have different baptism, how can we have unity?
If we have a different faith, a different Lord, a different spirit, we're not going
to be unified.
A different body.
We can't be unified with every body.
There are all kinds of churches.
Don't fall into this teaching of the universal church.
The Bible teaches the local church, churches.
There are hundreds and hundreds of churches across Phoenix.
We can't be unified with them all because we don't share the same doctrines.
We don't share the same baptism.
We don't have the same Bible even when they're using these new Bibles or modern perversions
of the Bible that aren't the King James Bible.
How can we have unity?
There's got to be something that brings us together, something that we can rally around.
There's got to be our faith in Christ, our love for soul winning, our love for the Word
of God.
That's what brings us together.
That's a strong bond here.
There are people in this church that if it weren't for Christianity and if it weren't
for this church, would never be friends with each other.
We're totally different.
It's church that brings us together.
Isn't that amazing?
It's funny how I was just talking to a visitor before the service.
He went to the same school I went to.
He went there a couple of years after I did, but he went to the Citadel Baptist School
that I went to.
Then of course Mrs. Morgan went to Victory Christian School with me, so different people
who went to the same school.
What's funny is that I never even knew her at Victory.
I had every class with her, never even talked to her one time.
I don't think I did.
Did I?
I don't think we ever even talked.
Why?
Because we just ran in different circles.
That's just the way it works.
The thing is though, church brings people together from all different backgrounds, all
different personalities, red, yellow, black and white, people who are in high school or
anywhere else might have just not really run in the same circles, but here at the church
we're united.
There's unity here.
One thing I love about our church is that this church really does have unity.
This isn't something that we need tonight.
This is more like a preventative maintenance because we don't have a problem in this area.
It's great to be in a church where we have so much in common and where there's so much
unity.
You walk into a lot of churches today, they don't have unity, meaning that you walk in,
you talk to people, you ask them about salvation and you're getting different answers, answers
all over the board about salvation.
I've had it happen.
Or you walk in and the pastor says, oh yeah, we're King James, but then you start looking
around and you see the NIV, the New Living, the New American Standard.
That tells you that the pastor's not really teaching people.
Now obviously if you see a few, okay great, we're bringing in visitors, we got new people
coming in, but when everybody's got a different Bible in the whole church, long time members
are carrying around the wrong Bible, that shows you there's not a lot of teaching going
on and there's not a lot of unity when everybody believes something different.
That's not the right kind of unity.
We need unity around these common cores of our faith here.
The Bible says in verse seven, but unto every one of us is given grace according to the
measure of the gift of Christ.
Wherefore he saith when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts
unto men.
Now this is a quote from the book of Psalms about leading captivity captive and giving
gifts unto men.
Now if you would flip back to Judges chapter five and I'm going to explain to you what
the term he led captivity captive means.
There's confusion about this and so we want to make sure that we stop and understand this
because there's a lot of weird doctrine out there about this phrase captivity captive.
Now whenever there's a phrase in the Bible that's a little odd or something that we don't
say in our modern vernacular, these are the type of passages that false teachers love
to twist.
There's not much they can do with a clear scripture.
There's not much you can do with John 3.16.
It's pretty clear what it says.
It's going to be hard to twist that one, but they love things that are a little vague and
they can kind of make them say whatever they want.
Here's what I've heard a lot about this.
I've heard it said Jesus leading captivity captive was when he went down into Paradiso
because they claim that the Old Testament saints, they didn't go to heaven.
They went to Abraham's bosom or Paradiso or whatever and he went down into the earth and
went to paradise and he took all the people that were saved down there in paradise and
he basically brought them all to heaven.
He took all the people out of paradise and he removed them to heaven.
That's what it means when it says he led captivity.
That's a lot to get out of those two words.
Captivity captive.
That's a lot.
You know what's funny is that let's pretend for a minute that that actually happened,
that Jesus actually went down into the earth in order to just transport these millions
and millions of Old Testament saints to move them to heaven.
That's a pretty huge event.
That would be a big deal.
That would be a massive turning point in the history of mankind.
When God just takes these millions of people.
Think about it.
There's going to be a pretty big event one day when Jesus Christ returns and the dead
in Christ rise first and we which are alive and remain are caught up together with them
in the clouds.
That's a pretty big deal but you know what?
That's why there's a lot of scripture about it.
We point to a lot of scripture about it.
It's mentioned in Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 17, Luke 21.
We see it in Philippians chapter 3.
We see it in 1 Thessalonians 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
We see it in 2 Thessalonians 1, 2, and every chapter of 1 and 2 Thessalonians makes allusion
to it.
It's mentioned a few times in Revelation.
That's a big deal but this would have been a huge deal too.
You're telling me that that whole event is just captivity captive?
Come on.
That's a lot of meaning to pack into those two words.
If we actually compare scripture with scripture, we can see what captivity captive means by
comparing that term because it's used in one other place because Ephesians is quoting Psalms
but it's used in one other place which is Judges 5, 12.
Look what the Bible says in Judges 5, 12.
Awake, awake Deborah.
Awake, awake, utter a song.
Arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoham.
So this song that's sung after the great victory by the biblical judge Barak is telling Barak,
lead your captivity captive, Barak.
Now what was meant by that?
What did he mean by that?
Here's what it meant.
The children of Israel were captives to a foreign nation and because of that, they had
to fight a battle in order to be liberated, in order to be free from that yoke.
So what they did was they ended up taking their captivity captive.
They ended up leading their captivity captive.
What does that mean?
That means they turned the tables on the captor.
So they went from being captives to taking the enemy captive.
That's what actually happened in the story.
They were servants or slaves or in bondage to another nation that they turned around
and made their captives.
So they led captivity captive.
Now how does this apply to the Lord Jesus Christ?
Well, go back to Ephesians chapter 4, Ephesians chapter number 4.
Now that we know what leading captivity captive means, it basically means to take captive
that which had kept you as a captive, to turn the tables as it were.
Well let's look at that in Ephesians 4 with that in mind, with that definition from Judges
5-12.
The Bible says, wherefore he saith, verse 8, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity
captive and gave gifts unto men.
Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts
of the earth?
He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill
all things.
Okay now, look if you would at Acts chapter 2 verse 31, Acts chapter 2 verse 31.
So the Bible said he led captivity captive and then it mentions that he descended first
into the lower parts of the earth before he ascended up to be with the Father.
He descended first into the lower parts of the earth.
This is also alluded to in Romans chapter 10 that says, but the righteousness which
the faith speaketh on this wise, say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven
that is to bring Christ down from above or who shall descend into the deep that is to
bring up Christ again from the dead.
So Christ was brought up from the dead, the Bible says in Romans 10, from the deep, from
the lower parts of the earth.
Jesus said in Matthew 1240, as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly,
so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
So Jesus descended into the lower parts of the earth.
He descended into the heart of the earth.
He descended into the deep and he was in the heart of the earth for three days and three
nights.
The heart of the earth is not six feet under.
It's not the tomb where the stone was rolled.
The heart of something is the center of something.
The heart of the earth is the core of the earth, the center of the earth, just like
the heart of an artichoke or the heart of anything else is at its center or core.
So where did I return?
In Acts chapter 231, the Bible just clearly tells us this.
It says he, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ that his soul was
not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.
This is also quoting Psalm 16, where he says, Therefore my flesh also shall rest in hope,
because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to
see corruption.
So Christ's soul was not left in hell.
That's the significance of the resurrection, meaning that he was in hell, in the center
of the earth, in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights and then his soul
was not left in hell.
That was what gave him hope, was that he's getting out of there.
Now people will try to say, well, hell is not really talking about hell there.
You got to go back to the Greek, they'll say.
If you go back to the Greek, it's not really hell.
Well, is there anything else you want to change about the Bible while we're at it?
You know, I mean, have you ever even eaten at a Greek restaurant, but you're going to
tell me what the Greek says to try to change what the Bible says.
Now I believe that the King James Bible is the word of God without error.
I mean, this is, this is my final authority right here.
And I believe that this should be the final authority in every English speaking church.
And we speak English and this is our final authority.
It's been tested and proven and tried for the last 400 years.
And we know that it's the word of God.
We know that it represents exactly what it said in the original Greek and Hebrew translated
into our native language, English.
And we can read it clearly, but you know what's interesting is that not only does the King
James Bible translate this as hell, but multitudes of other Bibles and other languages throughout
history until modern times translated this as hell also.
And it's in modern times that the modern scholars of our day have gone a little deeper into
the language and told us that it's not really hell, it's just Hades because the Greek word
here, you know, and they're not even pronouncing it right, but you know, they say it's Hades.
Well here's the thing about that though.
In Hades, he lift up his eyes being in torment and said, father Abraham have mercy on me
and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue from
tormented in this flame.
Same Greek word.
And that's what it says here, hell.
So what they'll do in the NIV is they'll, they'll take out the word hell and every time
it says, it says Hades in the Greek, they don't translate, they just leave it as Hades,
right?
Everybody listening?
Pay attention.
This is real simple.
Every time the word Hades occurs in the New Testament, the NIV just leaves the Greek word
and does not translate it into English except in this place.
Isn't that interesting?
Because apparently they're just leaving it as Hades to let the reader decide.
But isn't it interesting that they don't leave it as Hades here because then people would
just put two and two together.
Oh well if the guy's burning in torment in Hades, every single time Hades is mentioned
it's always a punishment, it's always fire, it's always bad.
So what they do in the NIV is they put Hades everywhere else and then here they just put
the grave.
He's not left in the grave.
Well that's a totally different meaning.
I mean the grave is just right there on the surface of the earth.
That's not the same thing.
So you know this whole going back to the Greek is a scam.
You know it doesn't really matter because we have the Bible in English, we know that
hell is hell.
If you go back to the Greek you're gonna see the same place that, that the rich man's burning
is the same place that Jesus was for three days and three nights and here's the thing.
I challenge you, look up the 54 times that your King James Bible mentions hell and show
me which one of them is a good place.
I mean look it up, look it up 54 times.
Show me where it's a place you want to be.
But people will say well there's a good side of hell.
There's a good part.
It reminds me of when I used to live in Hammond they were always telling me about the good
part of Gary, Indiana but I could never find it.
They said I live on the good side of Gary.
Now I'm not saying it wasn't there, I'm just saying I never saw the good side.
But the bottom line is every time hell is used if we just read the Bible and don't let
some theologian explain it to us but rather just read the Bible, just let the Holy Spirit
show us, all we're gonna see every time is hell's a bad place.
You don't want to go there.
And so hell's hell.
I mean I don't have anything more profound than that.
So what does it mean that Jesus led captivity captive?
Well the Bible's real clear that Jesus when he rose from the dead that he had the key
of hell and of death.
He conquered hell and he owns hell and he said I have the keys of hell and of death.
He said I'm he that liveth and was dead behold I'm alive forevermore amen and I have the
keys of hell and of death.
That's leading captivity captive.
He was captive of death and hell but he conquered death and hell.
Oh death, where is thy sting?
Oh grave, where is thy victory?
He conquered death and hell, he now has the keys to hell and to death.
So that's what it means when it says that Christ led captivity captive.
Go back to Ephesians chapter 4 if you would, let's continue on.
So the Bible says that he led captivity captive and he gave gifts unto men and that gift is
talking about the grace that he gives unto us, the gift of Christ in verse number 7.
Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into lower parts of
the earth.
He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill
all things.
Now not only did he give us the gift of his grace mentioned in verse 7 according to the
measure of the gift of Christ, the gift of eternal life, but he also gave some apostles
and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.
These are also things that God has given us for our benefit, for our edification.
He gives them for the edification of the church.
It says for the perfecting of the saints.
So why do we have these different ministers whether they be apostles, pastors, teachers,
and evangelists, it says that they are for the perfecting of the saints, for the work
of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
Now something that always kind of was a question mark in my mind when I've read this passage
is I thought to myself, I understand why the pastor and the teacher are there to edify
the saints and to perfect the body of Christ, right?
Because we go to church and Christians, the saints are assembled together in the body
and pastors and teachers are teaching them things and instructing them, right?
And I understand how in the early church the apostles were there and they were teaching
the churches because they had first-hand experience with Jesus Christ so they're teaching the
churches what they need to learn, what they need to do, and so that all made sense to
me but the one thing that kind of made me, and the prophets are prophesying or preaching
to them, but the one thing that kind of confused me a little, and you know, sometimes it seems
silly once you understand why did this ever confuse me, but I puzzled over that term evangelist
because I know what an evangelist is.
It's easy to know what an evangelist, and by the way, it isn't what people call an evangelist.
I mean obviously the word evangelist means to evangelize.
That's where the word evangelist comes from.
Somebody who evangelizes.
So that's a person who's getting the gospel to the lost.
That's somebody who's taken the gospel to people that need to be evangelized, that need
to hear the gospel, unsaved people.
He's reaching unsaved people with the gospel.
That's what evangelism is.
But you know why the evangelist edifies the local church is because the evangelist is
a guy who can train you to reach the lost.
Think about that.
See, the evangelist's job is not just to go out and win souls, but it's also to take you
out soul winning, and teach you how to win souls, and organize you, and lead you out
soul winning.
I mean that makes sense.
Why we would need an evangelist to teach us that, and to help us grow in that area, right?
And the Bible calls Philip the first deacon, it calls him also Philip the evangelist.
He was a guy who really specialized in getting the gospel to the lost.
And so the evangelist edifies the body of Christ.
Why?
Because look what it says that he does in verse number 12, it says, for the perfecting
of the saints.
For what?
For the work of the ministry.
And what's part of the work of the ministry?
Preaching the gospel to every creature, getting people saved.
Well, the evangelist, he helps with that.
The pastor also is told in 2 Timothy 4, do the work of an evangelist.
That's what every pastor is told.
Every pastor should also be an evangelist.
Or even if he's not an evangelist, he should do the work of an evangelist.
Even though that's not technically his title.
He's to do the work of an evangelist.
What we call today a missionary is what the Bible calls an evangelist.
Because you don't see the word missionary in the Bible, so where's the missionary in
the Bible?
It's the evangelists.
Because what's a missionary doing?
Bringing the gospel to the lost.
Going into an area where they don't have the gospel and bringing it to them.
Getting them saved, winning them to Christ.
That's what a missionary does.
See, a lot of our Baptist Church today, they call things by the wrong name.
So the guy that they call a missionary, biblically, is actually an evangelist.
The guy that they call an assistant pastor, biblically, is actually a deacon.
He's actually a deacon.
The guy that they call a deacon isn't in the Bible.
He shouldn't even exist.
Some wealthy businessman, some respected guy in the community who works a full-time in
another job, who just votes or makes recommendations or sits on the deacon board.
That doesn't even exist in the Bible.
The deacons in the Bible were paid full-time positions.
And they did the day-to-day work of the church every day.
They weren't just some guy in the church who's upstanding.
So the deacons shouldn't exist.
What they call an assistant pastor, that's the true deacon.
Or the associate pastor or whatever.
Those are the deacons, actually.
And then the missionaries are actually what the Bible calls the evangelists.
Now the one thing they get right is they got the pastor right.
The pastor is the pastor, amen.
And he can either be called the pastor, the bishop, or the elder.
Those three terms are used interchangeably.
And they have to do with three aspects of the pastor's ministry.
Pastor means shepherd.
So that has the aspect of caring for the flock, overseeing the flock.
And actually the word bishop literally means overseer.
So he's the one who's overseeing things.
And then elder has to do with the fact that he's not a novice.
He's somebody who's been saved a long time.
And again, just being old doesn't make you an elder biblically.
You might be 70 years old, but if you've been saved for two years, you're a babe in Christ.
Or a toddler at least, right?
Whereas you could be a younger man, you know, I'm a young man, but I've been saved for a
long time.
I've been saved now for almost 30 years.
I've been saved for 29 years.
So elder, bishop, pastor, these are terms that are used interchangeably.
You say, okay, well, what's the biblical term for evangelists?
They don't exist in the Bible.
What we call an evangelist, because here's what we as Baptists usually call an evangelist.
Because what's the real, the real evangelist is the guy we're calling a missionary.
He's the evangelist.
What they call an evangelist is this guy who travels around in an RV preaching at a different
church every week.
And he travels around preaching at a different church every week, and that's the evangelist.
That's not even biblical.
There's no such animal in the Bible.
You know, of just this guy who travels, and you're just like, oh, I can't believe I've
never heard this before.
Well, sorry that you've been going to places that taught you the wrong stuff, but sorry
to confuse you with the facts.
Sorry to confuse you with the Bible, but that's not biblical to have some guy who travels
around and he's like this sideshow circus guy who the circus is in town and he shows
up and he puts on a show for you.
That's not even biblical.
And what do we need that guy for?
Can somebody explain to me what we need that guy for?
What do we need some guy who just travels around preaching at a different church every
week and collecting a love offering?
You don't need that guy.
You know what we need?
Pastors in the church.
We need teachers in the church.
We need prophets in the church.
And then what we need is evangelists who are soul winning.
That's what they're evangelizing.
I mean, a lot of these evangelists, they show up, they're not even knocking doors.
They just show up and preach a sermon.
And these guys, they write like 10 sermons for the whole year, if you're lucky.
And they just preach the same sermon everywhere that they go.
They got their sugar stick sermons.
That's what they call it.
I'm going to preach a sugar stick.
And that's what they preach on.
And it's just this well scripted, it's like an act that they put on where it's not from
the heart.
It's not the Holy Spirit driven.
It's just this stage, they've got certain jokes.
And the Internet's exposing these guys now.
Because now with the Internet, they go and they preach the same little song and dance,
fake little sermon that's not real, not from the heart, so scripted and thought out.
Now they go and preach it, and it's uploaded from each church they preach at.
And you download them, and it's identical.
And it just makes it feel so plastic and fake.
The jokes come at the exact same time, and then they act like they're thinking of things
spontaneously.
Like, you know what, I just saw something.
And they're doing it every time.
Identical spot.
Just making it look spontaneous.
It's weird.
And you know what, I don't believe in that kind of preaching, this well scripted, just
getting up.
You know, if you can't preach from the heart, maybe you shouldn't even be preaching.
Now obviously, I'm not against having some notes and having some points and an outline.
Those are good tools when you preach.
But you should be able to get up and preach from the heart, and preach as the Holy Spirit
leads, and not just have some script.
And look, I've preached on the same topic again different times, but it's not the same
sermon.
The points come out different.
You turn to different scriptures.
You say different things.
I don't even have any notes tonight.
You say, well, I can tell because of the way your sermon is, but you know, I don't have
any notes.
Why?
Because I know what this chapter's about.
I know what this book's about.
I know what the Bible's about.
I'm preaching from the heart tonight, just getting up and telling it like it is.
And we need pastors and preachers and church members that are planted in one place where
they can actually do a job.
The only reason to go travel to other places is to go bring the gospel to the lost.
But these evangelists, they're not bringing some new unique truth.
They're not showing up to a church that has zero soul winning and saying, hey, I'm here
to teach you how to start a soul winning program.
I mean, that would actually make sense.
If a guy called an evangelist came in and he said, hey, listen, I'm showing up to teach
you guys how to win souls.
You're not doing any soul winning.
Let me show you how to do it.
Let's establish.
That's not what these guys are doing.
They're coming and preaching these well polished, cute little sermons.
And you know what?
That tradition needs to die and go away because these guys are usually just spreading false
doctrine anyway.
But why?
Why are you being down on evangelists?
Because they usually are just catalysts for spreading false doctrine.
That's why the whole point of being an independent Baptist is so that we don't all get the same
junk from these guys who bring it from church to church.
This is why the evangelist is usually a carrier of false doctrine.
It's real simple because he's got to fill his schedule with churches.
So that means he's got to please like 40 or 50 different churches.
And they all have to like him, right?
Well the kind of guy who just has all these people liking him, you know what he's doing?
He's a compromiser.
He's going like this.
Now look, I can't find 40 churches to preach in.
I can't find 50 churches to preach in.
You know why?
Because I'm not a compromiser.
That's why.
Because I'm not just trying to tell everybody what they want to hear and just have these
smooth sermons that aren't going to offend anybody and preach these safe sermons and
put out this advertisement, hey, I'll come and preach at your church and you don't got
to worry about anything.
It's going to be everything you already believe.
That's what they're doing by nature.
And by nature, and look, I know this is offending people.
Well, you know what?
Don't let the door hit you on your way out.
Because you know, our independent Baptist movement is so screwed up right now and so
messed up, somebody needs to start telling it like it is.
And let me just, while we're on the evangelist, let's talk about the missionaries.
They're a bunch of compromisers too because they go around and raise support from like
a hundred different churches and everywhere they go, they tell them what they want to
hear.
If the church says it's repent of your sins to be saved, that's what they'll do when they're
at that church.
And at the next church is faith alone.
A bunch of muchinary false prophets and false teachers.
The whole system is broken and bust.
Say, well, you got a better idea?
Yeah, look around.
This is the better idea.
We started this church from scratch.
We're running 300 and we have 200 people out soul-learning every week and we've already
started several churches and we're evangelizing our area and the Native Americans and our
state and we're going to evangelize this whole nation.
Get off this unbiblical methods and get on the Lord's program.
He gave us what we need and he didn't give us this traveling circus guy.
He gave us pastors, teachers, prophets, and evangelists by the biblical definition.
That's what he gave.
He didn't give us a Bible college.
Was that one of the gifts that he gave?
Oh, he gave the Bible college.
He gave the traveling evangelist with his quartet.
He gave us, no, no, no, look, he gave us what we need, folks.
And why don't we get on his program and get something done?
And don't tell me that the system's not messed up.
You got so much false doctrine in these fundamental Baptist churches, it's mind blowing.
It needs a revolution.
I'm not kidding.
God gave us what we need and we need to get on God's program and follow his plan.
The Bible says that he gave us pastors, teachers, and he said that they're to edify the body
of Christ until we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son
of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
that we be henceforth no more children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind
of doctrine by the sleight of man.
Sleight of man.
Sleight of hand is like what a so-called magician would do when they do a trick that you think
that they've done something that they haven't really done.
They take your thumb and move it like this or something like that, right?
That sleight of hand.
He's saying that these tricksters will come in with their sleight of men and their cunning
craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but speaking the truth in love may grow up
into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly
joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual
working and the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of
itself in love.
So the body edifies itself.
Do you see that?
What does it mean to edify, to build up?
Iron sharpens iron and the body edifies itself.
And again, we're not talking about all believers in the world.
We're talking about the local church, the local body, the local assembly.
And so the Bible is saying here that we have these pastors, teachers, prophets, evangelists
in the church, and they teach us and guide us so that we're not babes in Christ where
every little trick, we fall for it, every sleight of hand, we believe in it.
No, no, they can't fool us because we know the Bible, we know doctrine, and if they tell
us something that's false, we'll instantly know.
We'll know the truth.
We'll know that it's wrong.
And the Bible says that we're going to speak the truth in love so that we can grow up,
in verse 15, growing up maturing, not being a babe in Christ, into all things which, into
him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined
together and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth, according to the effectual
working and the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of
itself in love.
Now, I know that's kind of a mouthful, but what he's saying is that every person who's
in the body plays a role.
Everybody's important.
And of course, the apostle Paul goes over this in great detail in 1 Corinthians chapter
12 when he talks about the different members of the church, the different spiritual gifts,
and he's saying, look, one person's the nose, one person's the foot, one person's the hand,
and they don't want to say, well, you know, because you're not the hand, I have no need
of you.
We need to realize that every part of the body has a purpose and is there for a role
and that God gives us different talents, different abilities, and we have different functions
within the local church, and we all edify each other in love.
The body edifies itself in love.
And so that means that not just the pastor teaches the members, but actually the members
have influence on one another as well.
So for example, you go out soul-winning and you have a soul-winning partner.
That fellowship where you're talking about the Bible, you're watching them preach the
gospel, they watch you preach the gospel, iron sharpens iron there, and the church,
the body is edifying itself, and everybody's learning from one another.
The Bible even says when we sing songs, we're teaching and admonishing one another in psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs.
Before the service, conversations are going on.
After the service, conversations about the Bible.
On a church van, out to a soul-winning trip or whatever, at a door, between doors, you're
chatting, you're talking, and when we talk about spiritual things, we're actually having
influence on other people.
And we're actually learning things together and growing together.
I go out soul-winning and I learn things from people.
Or I just talk to people after the service, I learn things from the Bible.
I'm not above learning anything.
No one's above learning anything.
We all learn from each other.
We all play a role, especially, you know, the Bible even talks about the ladies, the
older ladies teaching the younger ladies.
Obviously, they give tips, they give advice, and so everybody plays a role in the body.
We all work together.
Now, this is the problem with not being a part of a church.
You miss out on all this.
We live in a day of the technology to just listen to a sermon online or on TV or on the
radio.
And look, the technology is great because I remember when I was a teenager, when I was
a young man, I downloaded all kinds of great preaching that really helped me grow in the
Lord.
I learned a lot.
I'm not against that at all.
But I also showed up at a physical church.
Also, why is that important?
Because when you don't go to church and you isolate yourself, you can tend to go into
fanaticism or strange doctrines or eccentricities that if you were around other people, they'd
straighten you out on that.
People get into weird doctrine, weird ideas, weird beliefs when they're just locked up
in the basement with the keyboard and the computer.
When you get around people and you start bringing out these weird ideas, they tell you, no.
No, that's not right.
Look what the Bible says.
Talking about the flat earth is pretty cool when you're online and you're in all the chat
rooms and all the forums about it.
You take that into a flesh and blood local church, it doesn't fly.
People are going to tell you that you're wrong.
People are going to edify you and tell you, no, wrong.
And it's like that with lots of things.
The weirdest doctrine comes from people that are out of church.
Now look, all of us could make mistakes or get a weird idea in our head.
Being around other people, listen to me, it keeps you normal.
Church, here's the takeaway from the sermon.
Church makes you normal.
It does, especially this church.
This church, look, come to us and we will make you normal.
I'm serious.
I remember a pastor friend of mine said that when he first started the church, they were
just bringing in a lot of brand new believers and just bringing in all kinds of people.
And he said one night he was laying in bed with his wife and you're just kind of laying
there talking.
And his wife was just kind of staring up at the ceiling and she said, do you think we'll
ever have anybody normal in our church?
And he said to her, we have to make them normal.
That's our job.
Make them normal.
It's true.
You know, this is like the most normal church I've ever been to.
I've never been to a church that was more normal.
I mean that.
I mean the people who go here are normal.
It's not a bunch of weirdos and creepy people.
I mean you walk around in fellowship, it's just there's so many great friends here because
there's just so many normal people.
And people who come here who are a little weird, we make them normal.
And they're normal by the time they leave.
I'm not kidding.
I'm dead serious right now.
You get around people that are normal and you learn how to act normally.
You learn how to have social skills and be polite and act like a normal person.
You get normal beliefs, all the weirdo beliefs, people are taking you aside, hey look, this
is why you're wrong.
Let me show you what the Bible says.
But I'm telling you, if you just do online only, what you'll do is you'll just seek out
other weirdos.
It doesn't matter what you believe, somebody out there believes it too.
And the internet will help you find them.
And then you guys are going to just make each other even weirder.
I'm not kidding.
Whereas you go to church, it has a normalizing effect on you.
I mean, you hear the weirdest doctrines and you'll see, I mean there's videos on YouTube
of every weird possible doctrine.
And then you read the comments, oh yeah, this is so true, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, totally
true.
Oh, finally somebody else who believes this.
Because they come in all kinds folks.
I mean there's a guy over in England who literally ate an entire airplane piece by piece, swallowing
every little piece of metal and passing it through his body.
There are some weird people in this world.
I mean that'll kill you.
Am I telling the truth?
Who's heard of it?
Who knows?
Yeah, see lots of people raising their hands, see?
That guy doesn't go to church.
I promise you that.
I don't know anything about the guy, but I put money on it that he doesn't go to church.
I'm saying every weird thing is out there folks.
You got to get in church, you got to get around some people, you got to meet some friends,
you got to have that fellowship so that you can get grounded and get in reality friend,
edify each other, build up each other in the faith, let iron sharpen iron.
Not just be by yourself, isolated and online doesn't count, you need real friends, human
flesh and blood, people that you can reach out and touch them.
That's what you need.
I got to be real specific.
The Bible says verse 17, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you henceforth,
henceforth means from here on out, walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their
mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the
ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart.
That describes the atheist, the agnostic, the ones who really, their religion is science,
who being past feeling have given themselves over into lasciviousness to work all uncleanness
with greediness, but you've not so learned Christ, if so be that you've heard him and
have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus.
That you put off concerning the former conversation, the old man which is corrupt according to
the deceitful lust and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the
new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
The old man is referring to the unregenerate man.
It's the man that you are before you get saved.
It's the woman that you are before you get saved.
That's called the old man.
When you get saved, God creates a brand new creature.
He said if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature.
Old things are passed away and build all things are become new.
That's the new man, but here's what we've got to understand.
The Bible is very clear on this in many places that the old man is still there.
See the false doctrine comes when you say old things are passed away, all things have
become new, new creature and they act like the old man has been replaced by the new man.
Wrong.
The new man is additional.
The old man remains.
The old man is still our flesh.
The new man is our regenerated spirit.
That's why the Bible says the flesh lust against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.
These are contrary the one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would.
The Bible is teaching that we need to make an effort to put on the new man.
Verse 24.
Verse 23 says be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man
which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
So yeah that new Steven Anderson is created in righteousness and true holiness but the
old Steven Anderson which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts is still present as well.
The old corrupt Steven Anderson that is still influenced by deceitful lusts is still there.
So what I have to do is to put off the old man and put on the new man and this doesn't
happen once.
It happens daily.
Paul said I die daily.
Church helps us do that.
This whole passage is about church.
It starts on church.
It ends on church.
It starts with having unity and getting along with people in the church.
It ends on having unity, getting along with people in the church.
Why?
The middle section of the chapter is all about what?
It's about not being deceived by false prophets because you're not tossed to and fro with
every wind of doctrine.
And it also talks about how you're not living like the other Gentiles live where they're
just walking in the old man, just walking in the flesh, lots of lasciviousness, deceitful
lust going on, stealing, all these different things.
So what's the takeaway from this chapter as a whole is that being in church, but not just
showing up three times a week, but actually socializing with people in church, right?
Actually talking to people.
Because look, why would he spend so much time on getting along with one another, forgiving
one another?
I mean, there's not much to forgive if you just show up right when the service starts.
Sit in your chair, sing the songs, listen to the preaching and go straight to the car.
You're not going to have much to forgive.
I mean, unless somebody dings your car in the parking lot with the door.
I mean, is that what this whole chapter is about?
Parking lot damage to your vehicle?
No.
Obviously it's because you're working together, you're soul winning together, you're talking
together, you're fellowshipping together, you're spending time together.
That's where these problems could even arise.
But by being in church, getting plugged in, doing the work, socializing, meeting people,
making friends, getting a part of the team, what does it do for you?
It helps you grow, not fall into false doctrine, and it helps you not go back into the worldly
sinful past lifestyle.
Or maybe you don't have a sinful past, maybe you grew up in a Christian home, like I did
and like some people did, but it'll keep you from going there for the first time then.
Out into the wickedness of the world and out into everything that the world has.
So church does a lot for you, right?
And we need church, we need unity in the church, we need to have a good church that can make
us better Christians and keep us on the right path.
Look, I'll be honest with you, I'll be perfectly honest with you, I need church.
If I didn't have church, and you're like, oh, Pastor Anderson, he's so into soul winning.
Look, if I didn't have church, I wouldn't go soul winning very much.
I'm just being honest.
I promise you, I know myself.
And if you'd be honest, it's probably the same thing.
If I didn't go to church, I would probably go to soul winning very little, or maybe not
even at all.
I'd probably go a little bit and then peter out, and then maybe a few months later, man,
I need to be soul winning, go out and do it a little.
No, no, no, it's church that keeps you going soul winning on a regular basis.
Keeps you motivated.
Iron sharp, and I'm the pastor, but yet I'm motivated by the church members to keep me
rolling, to keep me going.
The assembly motivates me.
I guarantee you that the vast majority, and maybe there's some people that could handle
being a solo commando, but I'm telling you, most of us would not be living for God.
We'd get more backslidden, more worldly, more sinful, less soul winning.
I know I would.
I'll just tell you like it is.
I mean, church keeps you on the right path.
We need church.
God gave us church for that exact purpose.
Preaching, reading our Bibles, coming to church, it keeps us on the right path.
Let's borrow our heads and have a word of prayer.