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Bibles tonight, Philippians chapter number one. I do want to mention this, I got a text there right as we was getting ready to, I was already praying and I'd sent Frank to watch the video because they're traveling this week and he said both their youngins are sick. And they're in that camper and about to blow away. He said, they're about to blow away down there. He said, you're going to come home tomorrow. That's miserable when you're away from home like that and youngin's is sick. I've been there and done that, son. That ain't no fun. One of the worst trips I ever had in my life. Trey got the flu and we decided to bring him home. Him running a temperature and hacking and coughing in the cab of that truck. It's hard to hold your breath from Florida home. But we didn't catch no flu somehow, I don't know. So let's remember them when we pray. Philippians chapter number 1, I want to continue this thought on the healthy church. And our desire is that our church should be healthy. I told you when I first started into this series. I'm going to draw these out of the book of Ephesians, Philippians, and 1 and 2 Thessalonians. So far, we've only seen stuff out of Philippians. But those three churches, I believe, are models for health, a healthy church. And I want to look tonight at how Paul starts the book of Philippians. Look at the first five verses. Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi with the bishops and deacons. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you always and every prayer of mine for you all making requests with joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. Let's pray together. Father, we ask, Lord, that you'd help God in the service tonight. Lord, I thank you for already helping our hearts. Lord, it's been good to be here. If we left now, we'd say it'd been good to be in the house of God. I pray, Lord, as we try to convey a few thoughts, Lord, that you've laid on our heart today out of the Word of God, I pray that they would be received with hearing ears I pray that we'd apply them to our church. We'd continue, Lord, to grow and be healthy and do what you'd have for us to each day. We'll thank you and praise you for all that you do. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen and amen. So far we've seen that the healthy church, number one, loves sinners. And then last week, we talked about how that a healthy church loses selfish attitudes. Can't be about you. And so we looked at that last week. I want us to look at this. Well, I want to point out two things in Philippians 1. First, I would point out to you that this book is co-authored by Timothy. The Bible says there in verse 1, Paul and Timotheus. the servant of Jesus Christ. And so that'll be important here in a minute with something I'm gonna deal with. But this letter comes not only from the Apostle Paul, but also from his spiritual son, Timothy. Then look what is said in verse five, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. I wanna deal with that phrase, fellowship, in the gospel. When Paul thought of the church at Philippi, he began to have fond memories of their fellowship around the Word of God. And I'm going to tell you tonight that that ought to be what church is all about, is fellowshipping around the Word of God. Let me put it to you this way. Not only does a healthy church love sinners, But a healthy church loves the scriptures. That's what I want to preach on a little while tonight. I want to preach on a healthy church. loves the scriptures. Now the Bible said in Philippians 3 16, nevertheless where unto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule and let us mind the same thing. I'm glad tonight that we have a common rule book. And let me just go ahead and say this, you know where I stand on it, but it's a 1611 King James rule book. Amen. And wouldn't it be something if we went on the job site tomorrow, and we was carpenters, and one fellow said, well, I've got a measuring tape here that measures with an inch. It starts at three inches. And another fellow got there, and he said, mine starts at two inches. Another fellow got there and said, mine starts at six inches. and then they went to build a house and everybody using a measuring tape that measured different, playing by a different rule saying, wouldn't that be something? What kind of house do you reckon you'd build if you had a bunch of different tape measures that measured a different way trying to build a house? Why? You wouldn't build no kind of house at all. And so we've got to have the same rule, a common rule book. Can I say to you tonight that in the pages of this book, thank God, are life and liberty. In the pages of this book, we find the way of peace. We receive directions for living inside the pages of this book. Somebody said, well, independent Baptists make too much of the scriptures. How in the world can you do that? That's like saying a baseball team makes too much of hitting the ball. It's like saying a football team makes too much of scoring touchdowns. Can you imagine looking at a baseball team and saying, why don't y'all not worry so much about hitting that ball? Or why don't you, a football team, don't worry so much about running touchdowns? No, that's what it's all about. Amen. And so the scriptures are what it's all about. There's no way that you can overemphasize the word of God. So I would say first of all tonight, that the scriptures should be preeminent. I got three little things I'm gonna share with you tonight. The scriptures should be preeminent. The Bible says in Colossians 1 18, and he is the head of the body, the church is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead and all things. that He, Christ, might have the preeminence. Can I say to you that there is, according to John 1, there's no separating the Word of God from the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when it says that Christ should receive the preeminence, That means that the Word of God must receive the preeminence. Now, it's not just, and I got to think about this today, Brother Gary, it's not just that the Bible is the principal thing. It's not just that we should have the Bible as the main thing, but rather that we should have the Bible as the only thing. In other words, anything that the church does should be scripturally based. And it should be with the effort of trying to further the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm telling you, the church world in which we live gets in a lot of different businesses in our day. They get in political businesses and social businesses and all kinds of things. But I'm going to tell you, the church was put on this planet, thank God, to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we're here, and that's what should receive the preeminence. That's what we should lean on. How could a church ever, ever overemphasize the Word of God? So a healthy church will fall in love with the Scriptures. I tell you, we live in this time now where you've got men that are ascending up, and a lot of them following in Father's footsteps. And they are belittling the Word of God. And they are de-emphasizing the importance of the Scripture. Well, I would say, I believe I ought to stick with the Bible. Let me say this about the King James. It's the Bible that does not deny the deity of Christ. It's the Bible that does not remove the blood. It's the Bible that does not remove verses. You know those newer versions, every one of them got verses. Why in the world would somebody want a version that had verses taken out of it? Huh? Why would anybody want that? And so I believe I'll just stick with what thus saith the Word of God, the King James Bible. I say, thank God I'm not looking for another one. I don't need another one. I've got the only one that I need. And it speaks and the Spirit uses it and God dealt with it. It's how you got saved. It's how God has spread revival over this country. I say thank God for the Bible. What we need is not less Bible. What we need is more Bible. Everybody in this church ought to fall in love with this Bible. It ought to be a constant companion to you. It ought to be something that can speak to you in the midnight hour. It ought to be something that's an encouragement when nobody else knows how to encourage. There's something about your Bible. Everybody here ought to have a love relationship with the Bible. So the Bible should be preeminent. But then let me say this, the Bible should be preached. Paul began to instruct his two preacher boys. Paul had two preacher boys. One of them was Timothy, the other one was Titus. And in the books of 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus, 17 times Paul exhorts them to preach doctrine. 17 times Paul deals with doctrine. Can I say that doctrine is important? Amen. It's doctrine. We need the preaching of the Word of God. Paul told Timothy there in 1 Timothy chapter number 4, preach the Word, not preach an opinion, not preach an ideal, but preach what thus saith the Word of God. I want to tell you what we've got in independent Baptist churches. A lot of times we fall in love with and encourage bad preaching. What do you mean by bad preaching? I mean preaching that's not Bible-based, contextually it's not correct, it's not rightly divided. A preacher takes some kind of a thought on a topic and run with it and over-spiritualize it and not bring any truths out of the Scriptures and when it gets done, you don't know any more about it than when you started. That should never be the case. I'm gonna tell you, I'm all for hard preaching. I like to preach hard. I went down to Durham there on Monday night, and boy, just had myself a time preaching hard. I love hard preaching, but hard preaching is not always spiritual preaching. I'm gonna deal with that here in a minute. But what we need is preaching that's based on the Bible. We ought to learn something from the Word of God when we leave. I'm reminded of what Eddie Davis told me one time, said he walked into a camp meeting and there was a preacher up. He said, you never heard such preaching. He's hacking on the way out and on the way in. He's jumping pews, he's running circles. Eddie said he sat down next to a fella in the back pew and that fella goused him and said, boy, ain't that some preaching? Eddie said, well, I'll have to trust you for it. I can't understand anything he's saying. That fella said, me neither, but ain't it good? What good is it if you can't understand it? It's like speaking in an unknown tongue. Let me give you this, Bible preaching should be contextual. The Bible says, and don't let this bore you, Isaiah 28 and 9, whom shall he teach knowledge and to whom to make understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts, for precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, hear a little and there a little. In other words, a message must be about the context. When it comes to preaching, context is king. And we've got to consider what the Word of God says, who it's speaking to, when it says it, all of those things. must be considered if they're going to be rightly divided. We've got to have contextual preaching. I'm telling you, in this day, I see so many fellows, they'll take a text and scream for 30 minutes, but they're not bringing you any contextual message. That's how you get all these false doctrines. My friend, that's how you get that you can lose your salvation and that you need to work your way to heaven and all those things. It's through preaching that is not done according to the context. I'm glad the Bible has 66 books. God put them, everyone, in there for a reason, and He wants us to understand them and, my friend, to preach from them contextually. So preaching should be contextual. then preaching should be spiritual. The Bible said in 1 Corinthians 2, 4, in my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in the demonstration of the spirit and the power. People these days say, well, preaching's either gotta be educational or spiritual. Why can't it be both? Why can't you have spiritual preaching where you learn something from it too? I say, hallelujah! That's the kind of preacher I want to be. I want to be a preacher that stands in the demonstration of the Spirit and the power of God. Boy, and I tell you, without that, we're just a tinkling brass and a sounding cymbal. We'll do nobody any good. We've got to have the touch of God. We've got to have the Spirit of God. Preaching ought to be done in a spiritual way, and we need that in our day. We need spiritual preaching that is also contextual preaching. We've got to have both. I tell you, I've seen some men, my goodness, Dr. Bottlestopper, and boy, they can really give a dissertation. They got all their T's crossed and their I's dotted, but it's deader than four o'clock. I mean, you couldn't find, there ain't no Holy Ghost in a hundred miles of it. I'm telling you, that ain't doing nobody any good. What we need is some preaching that's sent from heaven, but Bible-based and touched with the Spirit of God. That's the kind of scriptural preaching that the church needs. Scripture should be preached, and it should be spiritual. Let me say this, spiritual and powerful is not a style. It's not a style. I say, well, old so-and-so's really shuckin' the corn. We get hung up on style in independent Baptist church. He really shuckin' the corn. He really preachin' hard, and boy, that was spiritual. But you know, I've seen men get up under the unction of the Holy Ghost and weep and cry most of the time, really not hardly be able to preach very hard at all, just weeping and crying. The paragods are thick around the church, you couldn't stand it. I mean God moving and doing the work. I've seen that. I'm telling you, spiritual's not a style. It's a lifestyle maybe, but it's not a style of preaching. We need spiritual preaching. Boring's not style either. I'll just throw that out there. Bible preaching is effectual. God has guaranteed that his word will have an effect. And that's something I forget sometimes, Brother Allen. I preach and nothing happens. I love to preach and the alders fill up. I see something happening. I preached Sunday night, and I thought I did pretty good. I mean, I didn't think it was my best, but I thought it went all right. And the Lord orchestrated the service. The brother preached in front of me. Older, older preacher. I mean, that I've had respect for for years. And he preached in front of me on a mission's call from heaven. I had no idea what he was going to preach on. I got up and preached out of Luke 16 on a mission's call from hell. I mean, that's pretty good orchestrated service. I say God put that thing together pretty good. Had to call that rich man calling for missions from hell. Well, he gave an invitation and the pastor came and he was the only one in the church that moved. Boy, I felt like I'd swung and struck out bad. I thought, my goodness. I thought I'd done good. I thought I'd preached what God wanted me to preach. Nobody moved. And stuff like that gets you down. You think, well, I must not have done good. But here's the thing. It's not about me doing good or doing bad. It's about the power of that Word. And if the Word is being delivered, if the Word It's been delivered. Then guess what? It will have its fed. The preaching of the Word of God, Bible preaching, is effectual. If you just keep hammering and preaching the Scriptures, it'll work. Too many people give up on the preaching of the Bible and go to all kinds of gimmicks when all we need is the preaching of the Bible. We just need the preaching of the Bible. You know what? You know I make Concord Baptist Church different than the majority of churches in the United States of America if we just stick with it and preach the Bible. That's different than the majority of the other churches in the United States. And so the Bible, number one, should be preeminent. The Bible should be preached, but then let me give you this and I'll be done. The Bible should be practiced. Romans 6, 17 says, but God be thanked. that ye were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you." Do you see what Paul just said? He said salvation comes from an obedience of the heart to doctrine. Now what is doctrine? Doctrine simply put is a teaching of the Bible. That's simple terms. And Paul says here that it's doctrine that convinces a man to obey with his heart and to become no longer the servant of sin. It's right there in your Bible. Now, I remember one time I invited an old fellow to church, a revival meeting, and he said, well, I would come. But he said, I'm afraid. He said, I hear your church preaches that old doctrine. He said, I don't want to go to a church that's got doctrine. There's entire churches now that are based on the fact that they have no doctrine. They call them non-denominational. They're not related. They're just not gonna preach any doctrine. Well, what that means is they're not gonna preach the Bible, because the Bible is doctrine, and it's the preaching of the doctrine that is obeyed in the heart that leads a man to be saved and no longer the servant of sin, right there in your Bible. I say thank God for doctrine. Thank God for preaching of the scriptures. Thank God. I'm glad one day somebody preached doctrine to me. We gotta have it. We gotta have it. See, we gotta have a big dose of it. Extra load. That's what we need. Because the preaching of the Bible, brother Billy, changes the hearts of men, women, boys, and girls. I believe it. I believe it. Now, I left down there, like I said, from Durham, feeling like I hadn't done the greatest job in the world. Good church. I don't want you to think I'm belittling that church at all. Great church. Just nobody moved. Felt like I hadn't done so good. But you never know what you've done. Plant a seed, sow a seed, put the word of God out, you never know what might be done. Because the word of God's powerful. You know, we was talking about gospel tracts, you wanna learn some gospel tracts. You say, what good does that do? Well, it's the word of God. Ain't no telling what it might do. You put that, I ordered, just this afternoon, I ordered some more banners that's got John 3 16 on them. I had a fella call me while I was on my way to Durham Monday and he said, Preacher, if I, he said, lived right there on Possum Trot, said, if I build me a frame on my property, would you come put one of them banners on it? I said, yeah. He said, I like John 3 16. He said, I've been praying for Melissa. She gets saved. Maybe if we put it right there on, put it right there on Possum Trot, she might see it. John 3, 16, I saw two more, I thought, man, that'd be good to have John 3, 16 on a banner. I'll get two of them, we'll find someplace else, put one up. You know why? Because the Word of God's powerful. It's powerful. Who knows, somebody riding down the road, see that, and I mean, that's enough to save them right there. See, John 3, 16, that's enough to save them. They could get saved right there in their car from seeing John 3, 16 on the highway. You believe that? Oh, yeah. Sure you can, because the power is in that book. The power is in that book. It's a powerful word. It's a powerful word. So if we're going to be a healthy church, we got to love this book. Cover to cover. When we agree with it, when we don't agree with it, the parts I understand, the parts I don't understand. Teaching through Hebrews chapter 12 in Bible college. Getting ready to do a video tomorrow on it. And I was studying on it this week. Got in some verses again. There's been several times I've gotten verses in the book of Hebrews I didn't understand. And I'd read them and go, I don't understand that. What's that say? But I go dig, I believe it. Whether I understand it or not. But if you'll go to digging and praying, God will help you understand it too. You have to understand it to boot because he ain't hiding nothing in this book. What a Bible. Y'all agree with me, what a Bible? What a Bible. What a Bible. What a Bible. I say, let's just go with it. I say, let's stand on it. I say, let's believe it. Let's stand our feet.
A healthy church loves the scriptures
Série A healthy church
Identifiant du sermon | 52423234997511 |
Durée | 24:13 |
Date | |
Catégorie | Service du dimanche |
Langue | anglais |
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