Well, this morning we are going to continue in our series on the doctrine of the church, and we're going to do that by looking at Ephesians chapter one. So please, if you have your Bibles or your phone or anything in front of you, if you would turn with me to Ephesians chapter one. And let me read for us verses 15 through 23 we will primarily spend our consideration at the end of this passage. But let me read beginning in verse 15 for the context of what Paul is saying here. For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints? And what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe? According to the working of His great might, that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. and he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word that you entrusted to your servants, the prophets, and we thank you that you, in these final days, in this last age, you've spoken through your very own Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, He is our savior, he is our king, he is the head of the church, he is the fullness of him who fills all in all. So bless us now this time together as we consider your word. May you truly give us the eyes to see, the eyes of our hearts enlightened to receive all that you have for us in your holy word. Bless us now we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. So how does Jesus govern the church? That's the question that we're considering this morning. That's where we're at in this series. We've considered so far why the church is so important. We've considered what the church is and who the church is. And now we're asking the question, how do we run the church? How does Jesus run his church? How does the church work? That's the question behind church government. And you heard just in the vows earlier today, this vow that we will submit to the government of the church. What do we mean by that? It can feel so weird for us to talk about government when we come here on a Sunday. The government is so just everywhere in our lives already. That's the last thing we want to talk about on a Sunday morning is talk more about the government. But this morning, it's important for us to consider what church government is and why it's worth our time discussing. And it's important to discuss because, simply put, there is and there must be some way in which the church operates and the church organizes itself. And what we see from scripture is that Jesus, he does govern his church and he gives us instruction through his word on how things ought to be done. So that's what we want to consider this morning, that question of how Jesus governs His church. The government of the church, it's not something that's superfluous to it, but it's actually given to the church for her well-being, in order to protect her, to care for her. When it's done right, it does function to keep the church, to edify her, to grow her in holiness as Christ desires her to be on that last day when He returns. So where do we see this scriptural requirement for a well-functioning church government? Where do we go to find that? We see that in so many different places of scripture. This is the hardest part about doing a doctrinal series like this, is where do you start? And where do you go? There's so many places we could go. And we're not gonna be able to consider all of them today, though we'll stop and we'll consider some of them as we go along. We won't be able to talk about everything that we would want to talk about or answer every question that we might have about it. But rather, and using this passage in Ephesians, what we want to do this morning is see one of the fundamental and foundational principles of church government. And that is that Christ himself, he alone, he alone, no one else is king and head of the church. That's foundational. That's what we need to know. And if we keep that in mind, then that will help everything else to fall into place. So consider this passage with me here. This passage, Paul prays to the church in Ephesus that they would receive from the Spirit the wisdom and knowledge of God, having the eyes of their hearts enlightened, that they would be able to comprehend these certain spiritual realities. Paul prays that they would know the hope that comes from God's calling on them. And then he prays that they would know the riches that belong to them on account of their union with Christ and inheritance in his kingdom. And then he prays that they would know the greatness of God's power working in them, which was ultimately demonstrated in the resurrection from the dead. And so that's true of every Christian. That's true of every Christian and of every church. We need to know and we need to comprehend and rest in the hope of God's calling, the riches of our inheritance in Christ, and the power of God to accomplish everything that he promises that he will do for us. So what does this have to do with church government? We see why in the next few verses. It's because Christ is king over all things. He was raised from the dead, first of all, and then Paul goes on to say that Christ is now seated at the right hand of God in the heavenly places. To be seated is a symbol and status of authority. And to be at the right hand of God is the place of authority and honor. So Christ is given absolute authority. And then Paul goes on to say that Christ has been given absolute authority far above every other rule, every other authority and power and dominion. And each of those words has its own range of meaning and nuance, but simply put that there is no power or authority that comes close to rivaling the power and authority of Christ. And because of this, his name is above every name. And then perhaps to anticipate some objection that, well, maybe that's true now, but maybe there'll be another God that'll come along that will be more powerful than Christ one day. Paul goes on to say that there will never be a challenger to his reign. He says that this is true, not only in this age, in the present, but also in the age to come, that Christ is King forever. And so Christ is king, he's king over all things, that includes all nations, that includes all governments. But then we see that he's king of a particular group of people that he has a special relationship with that does not exist anywhere else in the world. And we see this in verses 22 and 23. It says, and he put all things under his feet and gave him as head, as head over all things to the church. the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. So Christ is king, he's king over all things, including his church, but his church also has a special relationship to him. Christ is the head of the church and the church is his body. And so from this, we understand and we can see this special relationship and this deep care that Christ as King and as head that he has for his church. And because he cares for his church, he governs his church. He protects his church, he rules over and provides for his church and everything that she needs. And so when we talk about church government, We're talking about how Jesus as king and as head runs his church. Because it's within the church that these spiritual realities that Paul prays for, it's where these can be found. It's within the church that Jesus gives his means of grace to edify and grow his people. It's within the church that Christ's name is glorified and honored. And it's therefore well worth our time to consider how this institution that we call the church, how it should be run. So Christ is king and head of the church. It follows then that he has a right to regulate, to say how his church ought to be run, how it should be governed. And that statement shouldn't find any disagreement. It really doesn't find any disagreement. The question and the debate hinges rather on whether or not Christ has given us any rule or principle on how we are to do that, how the church should be run. Are there any biblical principles laid down in scripture that would direct us how to do this? Or is it open to any group of people, any church, any denomination to choose and decide what's best suited for them? That's where the question lies. But from the doctrinal teachings of the apostles, from their own examples in the history of the church, we can say that Christ, he does give, in his word, principles for church government. There are biblical principles that govern how the church ought to be run, that we ought to follow. So for example, in Acts chapter six, a very important passage regarding this question. This is when the office of deacon is instituted in the church. There are members of the church who are in need. And that need is brought to the apostles. But instead of the apostles and the elders handling this on their own, they institute the office of a deacon, which is the office of service to care for these that are in need. And this office is distinguished from, and this ministry of service distinguished from the ministry of the apostles. So we see right here a clear biblical instruction on this office. We also find passages like Acts 14 where Paul and Barnabas are on their mission, their ministry, they're planting churches. But what we see is they don't just preach the gospel, plant a church, people are saved, and then leave. but it says that they appointed elders in every church as they went through their ministry. They did not simply preach the gospel and leave, but they established churches, they established elders, put things into place so that these churches would thrive after they left. So we see this in their examples. We also see it in the instructional passages like 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1. Those are the passages that give us the qualifications for elders and for deacons. the officers of the church. So Paul, he wrote these letters to his young disciples, Timothy and Titus, so that they would have everything that they need in order to be fruitful in their ministry and to do the work of their ministry. And we also see that they were instructed, likewise, to raise up the next generation as well. to raise up new officers in the church and to teach them everything that Paul through Christ and through his spirit gave to him and gave to Timothy and Titus, they were then to likewise go and teach that to the rest of their people as well. And so we see how this is to be a perpetual and ongoing process. Elders and deacons, the officers of the church, they were raised up in the expectation, and the expectation is that this will continue. In every generation, there'll be those who will serve Jesus's church in this way. We've already considered passages that talk about what this godly leadership is like. We considered Hebrews 13, 17 last week, but it's good for us to consider it again. It says, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of no advantage to you. And so we see the expectation and the mutual relationship that exists between elder, between leader of the church and between the people. So Christ, he's given us and he's given his church these clear biblical principles of how he governs his church through godly men raised up to be officers and elected by the people whom they will then likewise serve. But that doesn't answer every question that we might have. And that's also okay. And that's the second thing I want us to consider this morning is that the Bible is not a church manual. And that's by design. So though we have principles of church government from Scripture, our Bibles are not an exhaustive church manual. Holy Scripture is not a book of church order. It's an unfolding history of God's redemption of His particular people. We've been reading through that in our Scripture reading on Sunday mornings. how God redeems his people. He declared this redemption first in Genesis 3.15, the promise of an offspring that would undo the curse, that would defeat sin and death. And this promise is fulfilled in Christ Jesus, who is God incarnate, who is this offspring, whose sacrifice on the cross accomplished this mighty redemption. And so the gospels, they tell us this story. But then the book of Acts and the epistles, they tell us how people from every nation, they're being saved and they're being brought into the church and the churches are being planted and the gospel is spreading out to the ends of the earth, just like Jesus said that it would. And it will continue to do so until Christ returns. And it's within these pages of Holy Scripture, inspired by God, that we see the principles of how these churches were run and how they ought to be run. but we're not given exhaustive, detailed descriptions of everything that we might want to know about how the church ought to be ordered and structured and all those things. But that's by design. We are to take these principles from scripture and apply them to our given context. And that means that the way those things are applied out will look different across generations, they'll look different in different church contexts, however, the foundational principle will be the same and ought to be the same. So scripture shows us plainly that churches need elders. We see that clearly in scripture, that elders are trained, they're raised, they're equipped, and they're appointed and installed in churches. Scripture also shows us the qualifications for what those elders are, who those men are to be. And the command is given that they be raised up and trained in the work of ministry. But it doesn't tell us, Scripture does not tell us, what the best way of doing that training is, for example. It doesn't tell us necessarily how many elders there ought to be, other than at least more than one. There needs to be a plurality, but how many? How often do the elders meet in the congregation? All these kinds of questions. How they're voted on by the congregation. Is it a blind vote by a blind ballot? Is it a raising of hands? All these kinds of questions. Those are left to the churches, to the people, to use Christian wisdom to decide. And so we've, in this series, we've talked about helpful categories as we go through this and distinctions that we make. One of those distinctions was the visible and invisible church. We talked about that in the second sermon in this series. But here we can talk about another very helpful distinction that we've been highlighting already. And that's the distinction between principle and circumstance. It's a very helpful distinction between principle and circumstance. There are biblical principles for the church. And then there are the circumstances in which those principles are applied. So we just discussed the context of the elders. The principle is godly elders who lead the church. The circumstances include all those things that are not expressly laid out in scripture, left to the wisdom of the people. Again, when they meet, how many there are, all of those kinds of questions. Another great example of this distinction is the worship service. There are some principles that are absolutely clear. For example, we worship on Sunday. We worship on the Lord's Day. That is when God's people gather His new covenant community. We gather on Sundays to worship Him. We also know that we worship God in word and sacrament and in prayer. Those are His ordinary means that He gives us to worship Him. We worship Him through His word. He gives us His word and then we worship Him back with His word in prayer and in preaching and all these things. But what time should we meet on Sunday? That is not given to us in scripture. There is not one particular time that is more holy than another. What temperature should the room be set at? Should the AC be on during the pastoral prayer? I know he wouldn't want to be named, so I won't mention Stephen, but he did a great job of turning that off. I don't know how he did it. I don't know if he's the flash and he went up there and got down before anybody saw, or if he has some kind of magical power that we don't know about. These are all circumstances of our worship that we decide what's best for our particular congregation, but all of them must serve the underlying principle behind them. And so in pursuit, in our pursuit to fulfill these biblical principles for church government, we run into these questions about the circumstances like this. These are the questions that get us into the minutia and into the details of how the church runs. And so that leads us to the last thing I want to discuss today when we consider this topic broadly speaking. The last thing we want to talk about is that we are a Presbyterian church. And so what do we mean by that? We're a Presbyterian church and that word, that describes our form of church government. We believe that this system of government is both biblical in its principles and also provides the best application of those principles in the circumstances of the church. Do you understand that? That's what we're saying. That's what we believe. But let's start back at the beginning with just the word itself, the word Presbyterian. It's a biblical word. Presbyter is the Greek word for elder. And so our Presbyterian form of church government is one in which elders are elected to govern and shepherd their churches at every level, every respective level. And this is another important biblical principle that is often so overlooked, and especially in the American church today, and that is that we are not independent. We are not all by ourselves. That's a hard one for us to consider, but it is so true. We are not just one local church that is isolated and independent from everyone else. but our particular local, this expression of the visible church is part of the broader, larger visible church. And so we see this principle in passages like Acts 15. The early church, it faced its first major doctrinal crisis over the question of how these Gentile believers are to relate to the church. Are they welcome in the church? Can they just come right in? Or do you have to become a Jew first and then become a Christian? What are they to do? A lot of controversy ensued, but the individual congregations, these churches that were being planted, remember they're being planted in Acts 14, and now we get to Acts 15, they were not left on their own. But instead we see that elders and leaders from the churches were commissioned and sent to Jerusalem for a meeting of the church. It wasn't a meeting of a collection of elders of different churches, but it was the church that met there. And the church corporate, they made a decision on this issue. They were accountable to each other. They needed each other. And the churches were so much better off for it. And so the same is true today, that we cannot be isolated from one another. And that's why we are part of a denomination. We're part of the Presbyterian Church in America. But denomination isn't really the best word for it. It is a church. It's the Presbyterian Church in America. It is one of the visible, faithful expressions of the visible church here in this country. And so like we see in Acts 15, there is work that the church must do at every level. And the PCA recognizes this, and so it has structured itself in such a way based on biblical principles and on the circumstances of how best to do that. So the PCA, It meets annually at a general assembly. I was just there back in June. We met in Memphis this year. I won't say anything about Memphis. I was about to say something about Memphis and I won't. but it was a really good meeting. We met there and we meet annually. The elders who are commissioned by all the churches to meet together to do the business of the church that is appropriate at that level. Underneath that are regional presbyteries, we call them, which are made up of all the churches within its geographical bounds. And so our church, it's a member of the PCA, it's also a member of the Hills and Plains Presbytery. That's the name of the presbytery that we're a member of, and it serves Oklahoma, and the portion of Northwest Arkansas, and our little corner of Southwest Missouri. And we're, I'm, and our elders, we submit to them as brethren in the Lord, and they love and serve our church in many ways. That's one of the wonderful things about this, how we've structured things is we're able to support one another and to be held accountable to one another. You all voted and called me as your pastor, but that wasn't all there was to it. But I was then examined and examined by Presbytery and they have that authority to give the green light for any church that would want to call a new pastor. So we have these helpful checks and balances. And we've seen how they're able to support us as well. These brothers in the faith and these sister churches are praying for us, they love us. And last summer, many of you who are here, you know how faithful ministers from those churches came to fill this pulpit every Sunday. And so we're a part of something larger than ourselves. And then at the local church level, it's the teaching elder and the ruling elders. And we make up the board of elders that we call the session, which is just a fancy word that we use to describe our function as governing and having care over the church. And so that's how the PCA has organized itself. There's so much more we could say about that and how that works, what that looks like. But that does not mean, that does not mean that you're going to go into your Bibles and find a verse that says, this is what the General Assembly does, and these are how many presbyteries there needs to be, and what their jobs are, and this is, and all those things. You're not gonna find that. But what we're talking about is the principles of Scripture. and taking those out, the principles of plurality of elders, the principles of the larger church all working together, and then taking those principles and applying them to our context. And so this is why we believe that this is best done through a plurality of elders at every level. That's our conviction. Okay, so now you may be wondering, Why are we spending all this time talking about all these things? All these rules and regulations. Just believe the Bible. We hear that so often. Just follow Christ. Just love Him. Why worry about all these things? Stop wasting your time. To that I would say, first of all, that we cannot be so quick to dismiss these questions about how to govern the church because we do see these principles from scripture laid down for us and we see how much Christ loves his church. And if Christ loves his church in such a way that he gave himself up completely for her, we need to care about her enough as well to ask these questions about how we can do this for the good of all involved. And the other thing I would say is that at some point, asking these questions is inevitable. And I'll share a story that I think demonstrates this. When I was in the Boston area before I joined the PCA, I was part of a non-denominational Acts 29 church plan, it's a church planning network in the Boston area. It was a wonderful church family. It continues to be a great church. I love those people so much and I learned so much from them. I found it so interesting, though, was as they were doing the work of ministry, they would adopt a form of Presbyterian government without ever making that their aim or their goal. See, they were wanting to be biblical. They were wanting to love Christ and to love His church, and that led them inevitably to ask the question, well, how best do we do this? And so they would appoint elders, they would elect elders. They would call elders in the church, and then those elders would govern that particular church, and then they would raise up new elders to go and plant other churches, and they would plant many churches. It was awesome. And when I was there, there was about four or five different churches that were all part of this same family. But they realized, as they were going through this, that they were stronger together than they were apart. What relationship do they have to one another? So they would plant these churches, but then every few months or three times a year or so, they would get together, the elders of the churches, to meet together to do and discuss the business of the church and to pray with one another and to do that business that was appropriate at that level, all the elders getting together. So they had a presbytery meeting. They wouldn't have called it that, but that's what it was. They recognized that they needed one another. And as they attempted and as they pursued to be faithful biblically to scripture, this is what they ended up doing. So let me say this, it's not the name that is so important. That's not what we're saying. And again, we're not saying that we're the only true church. We got it all figured out. And you can go back and listen to the very first sermon in this series. That's not what we're saying. But what we're saying is that we belong to Christ. He has given us leaders in our churches to shepherd us. And we are not isolated. We are not all on our own, but we belong to the larger church. And when we talk about these things in our church here, And when we discuss these matters, please know that we are seeking to be faithful to the scriptures and in doing so, seeking to do what's best for this church body and what most glorifies and honors Him. So we're gonna talk more about all these things and especially the office of elder and deacon in particular in coming weeks. But let's end with this, which, you know, this is what it's all about. What God desires for you, for me, for His church, What God desires is the same thing that Paul wrote to our forefathers in the faith 2,000 years ago, that we read earlier, that we would know the hope of our calling, that we would know the riches of our inheritance in Christ, and that we would know the power of our God to accomplish these things, chief among them our salvation. This is the message that the church proclaims. Christ is king and he is head of his church. And within the church as the source of his power, he reigns and he rules always. And in doing so, he gives his church, his officers, he gives his church these ordinances and these means through which he exercises his rule. And all of this is for his glory. And it's also for the sake of his people and for our good. So please pray with me, let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you that you love your church so much. Not only did you die for her, but you live for her and reign over her as her only King. And you supply her with everything she needs as her head. Help us in all these things to be a faithful representation of your church here at Christ the King. You are our precious Savior. We are your precious church. Help us to believe that and to live that out in our lives. We pray all of this in your mighty name. Amen.