Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Series: Considering the Church

  • Zeal From an Enduring Realm

    Zeal From an Enduring Realm

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 14, 1993.

    About this sermon

    The parable of the sower gives the pattern for members who wander from the church, since not every seed takes root. Luke’s narrative zeal, and the zeal of the healed lame man in Acts 3, flow from a realm of glory that endures. Real zeal comes from outside ourselves.

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    Sermon transcript

    We begin in Acts chapter 3, Acts chapter 3. We are starting with the first verse. Listen to the word of God. Acts 3.1.

    Now, Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain man, laying from his mother’s womb, was carried, whom they laid and exhaled at the gate of the temple, which is called beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple. Who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked an alms, and preserved that through his eyes upon him with John. on us.

    He gave heed unto them, expecting to see something of them. Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.’ And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.

    And he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him. As the lame man which was healed, that tells Peter and John, all people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering.”

    Then, turning over to Chapter 16, Acts 16, again, beginning with verse 1. Then came Paul to Germany and Lystra, and behold, a certain disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a servant woman, which was a Jewess, and believed that his father was a Greek. which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium. Him would all have to go forth with them and circumcise him because of the Jews which were in those quarters, for they knew all that his father was a Greek.

    And as they went through the cities, they delivered them decrees for to keep that were ordained in the apostles in Belgrade, which were in Jerusalem. And so were the churches established in the faith and increased in number daily. Now, when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the regions of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, after they were come to Mycenae, they were saved to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them not. And they, passing by Mycenae, came down to Troas, and a vision appeared to Paul in the night.

    There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, After he had seen the vision, immediately he endeavored to go into Macedonia, assured the gathering that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel unto them. Therefore, loosing control of us, we came with a straight course to Samothrace and, the next day, to Neopolis, and from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia and of Colony, and we were in that city abiding certain days. On the Sabbath, we went out of the city by a riverside where prayer was wont to be made, and we sat down and spake unto the women which resorted thither, and a certain woman named Lydia, seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshiped God, heard us, whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and bide there. And she constrained us.

    Pray with me. We know, Lord God, that this day many will preach, some of whom are called by you. We are asking, Lord God, that those who are called by you may sense your presence and see your blessing. Our God, we are asking that you will increase the time of those called by you, and that you would prosper them. But we would also pray that you would overturn the works of the sons of darkness, those who are not of the Church of Christ, but of the synagogue of Satan. We are praying these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

    Which of us has not witnessed the red-hot fervency of a newcomer? Which of us has not witnessed the intensity of someone who has just discovered the riches of Calvinism, only to see that intense fervency die, disappear altogether. this congregation has had its share of such cases. An individual apparently electrified by the Gospel, seemingly, of all appearances, very much alive to the word of God, Someone coming to life, it seems, maybe for the first time as they hear the doctrines of grace and are introduced to those riches of Calvinism. Someone who finds a special blessing in the ministry of this particular congregation, professing time and again that it is only here that they can find those blessings. One of joy is their faith alive to talk about God and about their Savior, talk about the Bible and about the great truth of the Word. These people are not only present every time the Church’s doors are opened, they are present with a flare, with an intensity. and at all times assuring the pastor that they, they better than others, maybe better than the rest of the benighted congregation, most assuredly understand his messages and never fail to live in a way consistent with those messages.

    But then comes the disaffection. The glow fades. They might have given sacrificially at one time. They now don’t give at all. Their attendance inexplicably drops off. Contacts that they have in the congregation are strained. They are less and less frequent.

    And when there is conversation, even with a master that was so emulated before, admired, there is a deep air of dissatisfaction, followed by an endless line of rationalization. And then, sadly, tragically, It’s these sorts of histories that make the more experienced and perceptive ministers less than enthused about the overly enthused.

    Jesus met his share of the overly enthused. those momentarily religiously intense. To some of them, Jesus pressed the point immediately. They came at him with their overture, Lord, I will follow you anywhere you go. But Jesus then places before these would-be disciples the high cost of discipleship, and then stepped back to watch them wither on the spot. If you would like to review Jesus’ encounters with the would-be disciples, I direct you to Matthew 8, verses 19 through 22. There were others that Jesus allowed to tag along for a while. And they did tag along for a while enthusiastically, but eventually, as John chapter 6 makes clear, the reckoning comes. And these who had followed Jesus enthusiastically have had enough.

    John tells us that when Jesus makes clear the nature of His message and the character of His kingdom, There were many disciples who drew back and walked with Him no more. But Jesus is active in these matters not only for Himself and for the sake of His message as He delivers it to those who originally heard Him. for His ministry along these lines anticipates the ministry which the Church itself shall have, as with the Master, so also with the servants.

    And He forecasts this ministry particularly in the parable of the sower. You remember how he describes one of the types of soils upon which the seed falls? He said that the one on whom the seed was sown is on the rocky ground. This is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself. And when troubles and persecutions arise because of the Word, he falls away.

    But having said this now, we, stepping back from the overly enthused, We must not think Jesus the champion of a placid, emotionless, stoical style of religious devotion. Quite to the contrary, Jesus is the advocate of a proper type of passion, an appropriate intensity and vigor with respect to the faith, with respect to the living of that faith. All we need do is to think of another passage in which Jesus applies to himself a text out of the Psalms. The wheel for thine house hath consumed me. Now, that is not just pattern for a Messiah. That is pattern for all who would follow the Messiah.

    The seal for thy house hath been But nothing less than this properly generated enthusiasm, intensity, and vigor for the faith and the living moment is in view when we come to the Book of Acts. And I believe that that is one of the reasons why we are drawn again and again to this book. What if we find such a solid and substantial exuberance? This book is positively positive. And at the same time, as we appreciate the positive character of this book, we realize that there is absolutely nothing superficial or shallow about the zeal described, the enthusiasm communicated. communicate a message of sustained, and emphasize that, underline its very tone, communicate a message of sustained, enduring excitement for the faith, for the kingdom of God, and for the Church of Jesus Christ. This book is not only inspired by the Holy Spirit, it is inspiring. that the Holy Spirit uses the constant, faithful, radiant enthusiasm of his servant, Luke the physician, the writer of it, for his purpose and for our good.

    But what now makes the difference between Luke, who writes Acts, and those wouldn’t-be disciples that we read of in the Gospels? Can we chalk it up simply to the special work of the Holy Spirit in this man by which the Spirit rendered him an instrument of divine revelation?

    Or do we chalk it up to Luke’s natural personality, his inherent effervescence, that which he is in and of himself? He’s just an optimistic fellow, brimming over with enthusiasm. I don’t think that the root cause of Luke’s constant, faithful, radiant enthusiasm registering in this book is found in either of these areas. Otherwise, Luke would be exhibiting an enthusiasm that has its cause in reasons that are not open to us. If, in fact, the cause of his enthusiasm is that he is the instrument of the Spirit’s special use, to the end that divine revelation might be given, that certainly isn’t open to us, and none of us are claiming that. But neither is it his personality, for we do not all have Luke’s personality, nor is it a biblical mandate that we adopt Luke’s personality. At the same time, we must admit that as we read through the Book of Acts, Luke’s enthusiasm is infectious.

    That is, it is meant to be communicated to everyone who reads. It is that for all of us, and therefore the root of it, the fountain of it, is open to all of us. What then might be the root of it, the root of this sustained, enduring enthusiasm, the fountain of it, of which we all would share? Now, I judge that many have answered this question too quickly.

    They have decided that the inherent cause for the exuberance of Luke in Acts is traced to Luke’s personal conversion and the prospect of his personal entrance into the kingdom of God in the coming resurrection. Now, please don’t misunderstand me at this point. Luke is most certainly regenerated by the Holy Spirit, that it can be no question.

    And he most earnestly looks forward to the day when he will be raised up in his body and enter into the kingdom of God finally and fully. And most certainly, these truths, his regeneration and his hope, contribute to his joy. but the root of his enthusiasm, the root of his joy, and its sustained character goes much deeper. Most specifically, Luke is caught up with an enduring zeal and enthusiasm. because he has been made a part of an enduring realm in which joy and enthusiasm and zeal do not diminish. Luke is caught up with an enduring zeal, a zeal that is open to us all because he himself has been made a part of an enduring realm, the very realm of glory, where Christ, the Ascended God, sits at the right hand of His Father.

    It is the nature of the realm that begets the quality of the zeal. You lose sight of the realm, and then the zeal goes. If you don’t love the realm, you can’t have the zeal. If you do not love glory, the realm of glory, there is no possibility for you sharing its joy. The nature of the realm begets the quality of the zeal. Do you want to write that down? The nature of the realm begets the quality of the zeal. You see, further, what Luke presses home, the enduring realm of glory.

    He is declaring to us, has intersected the plane of this world. The enduring realm of glory has intersected the plane of this world, and the point of intersection is not Luke individually. It’s not even one of the apostles. It’s not even those individually described throughout the course of the Book of Acts. The point of intersection, according to Luke, is the Church.

    And this is why he is so high on it. The church into which he, with the apostles, and all of these individuals described, are gathered, and in which and from which they serve, But having backed off now from a mere individualistic understanding of what Luke is endeavoring to communicate, we now endeavor to recover the individual emphasis that the Book of Acts properly lays before us. This enduring realm of glory, the source of Lucidium, presents itself in the Church, specifically when we look at the blessings granted to those individually gathered in by the ministry of the Word and by the work of the Holy Spirit. The story of Elaine Baker will push us to this conclusion. That’s why I read it with my own zeal and enthusiasm. The lame beggar of Ash Tree is a figure through whom Luke now will begin to communicate to us the greatness of the blessings from that enduring realm of glory asserting themselves presently upon the plane of this world.

    And I hold that there is probably no verse in all of Acts that better lays before us the magnificence of what Luke is endeavoring to communicate to us than Acts 3.8. Look at it again.

    He stood upright and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.” Focus on the leaping, if you will, because Luke mentions it twice. Obviously, for the purpose of stress, the leaping man formally crippled Rather, the leaping of this man, formally crippled, is not stressed by, look, merely to emphasize the fact that the man has been healed. Rather, the stress upon the leaping is meant to punctuate the irrepressible joy this man experiences. Why? Because he’s healed? Partly. But why else might he be weeping for joy? He has been lame from his mother’s womb. Do you realize what this means? It means that this man has never been allowed to enter into the temple itself. Elite Kingdom punctuates the irrepressible joy this man experiences when he now, for the first time in his life, is enabled to enter the place where we believe.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Kingdom’s Blessings, Already

    The Kingdom’s Blessings, Already

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 31, 1993.

    About this sermon

    Acts exists to show a church already living inside kingdom blessings rather than merely waiting for them, which is why Paul can be genuinely at peace and genuinely free even while imprisoned. The baptism of the Holy Spirit stands behind that freedom. Acts 2:42-47 catalogs exactly what the church already enjoys in the meantime.

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    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are reading first of all in the Acts of the Apostles in chapter 1. And we are beginning with verse 1. Give your attention to the Word of God. The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up after that he, through the Holy Ghost, had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen.

    To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs. being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power. After that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria. and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

    And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And then, turning over to the second chapter, we begin reading verse thirty-seven. Now, when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.

    Then they that gladly received his word were baptized. In the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers. And here came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be said.”

    Then turning over to the last chapter in Acts, Acts twenty-eight, beginning with verse twenty-three, “…and when they had appointed him a day, that is, Paul, there came many to him into his lodging, to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets, from morning till evening. And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not. And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word.

    Well spake the Holy Ghost by Isaiah the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and ye shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive. For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. Be it known therefore unto you that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it.’ And when he had said these words, the Jews departed and had great reasoning among themselves. And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house and received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him.”

    Oh Lord, we have had enough of the words of men. And we would have your word. We would have it in full. Please God, if there is resistance in us, May you remove that resistance this morning. We ask, therefore, that we might hear what you have to say and that hearing obey. For Jesus’ sake, Amen. The book of the Acts of the Apostles is an exquisitely complex and challenging piece of work.

    In it, we watch the immediate impact of the transition of the ages. In it we behold the immediate impact of the transition of the ages. The monumental, unparalleled change brought about in the history of redemption, and in the history of the world for that matter, because of the death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. We witness the impact of this transition in a calculated way upon ancient Jewish and even Gentile institutions. and even those institutions that have in the past been stamped with God’s imprimatur, particularly the temple in Jerusalem. Now, God himself directs the impact of this great transition, specifically by his Holy whom he pours out upon those who believe in Jesus Christ, the Son.

    Those who are now gathered together in Jesus’ name. Here then, set before us in the book of the Acts, is the beginning stages of God’s new order, taking shape in the church, the church being so prominent in the acts of the apostles. This new order, then, taking shape as it does in the church, takes shape in the face of Jewish hostility and Gentile indifference, when such indifference hasn’t joined the hostile ranks of the Jews.

    The Church of God, as it is called in Acts 20.28, summons Jew and Gentile to the kingdom of God. That kingdom being a kingdom of transcendent nature that cannot, because of its inner character, cannot acquiesce to Jewish or Gentile worldliness or earthiness. The Church of God belongs to the higher plane. of the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God is to be understood at that higher plane. But belonging to this higher plane that the kingdom of God is, does not mean that the church is to be complacent or static. or that it is to be detached from the world.

    The Church of God is engaged for God’s glory in Christ-like service in the world. Service played out particularly by the Apostle Paul, who becomes a central figure in this biblical book. A man whose wife, as it is depicted in this book, bears the mark of a self-conscious conformity to Christ. Now, such service, as we see in the Apostle and reinforced everywhere throughout the book of the Acts, extends to Israel and the nations the message of redemption in the forgiveness of sin.

    And such service is consistently offered despite opposition, despite stonings from the Jews and imprisonment from the Gentiles, in the certain confidence, as the Apostle Paul says in Acts 14.22, in the certain confidence that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. It is this perspective Namely, the prospect of entering the kingdom of God that orchestrates so much of what we hear, so much of what we find of the Church’s life in the Book of Acts. The prospect of entering the kingdom of God, indeed the Church herself, moves through humiliation. She moves through this time of suffering to the exaltation in her own resurrection and in the consummate restoration of all things.

    Now, not only is this perspective given us in the book of the Acts an antidote to any temptation in the direction of complacency and apathy towards the world. Since we are moving, we are on the move, it serves as a perfect therapy for this man to whom this book is written, Theophilus. You may recall that when he is first introduced to us in the Gospel of Luke, he is called Most Excellent Theophilus. He bearing, therefore, a title reflective of high honor and position within the world in which he lives.

    So this matter of us moving towards the kingdom of God, the prospect being our entrance into the kingdom of God, is an antidote against any temptation we might have in the direction of complacency and apathy towards the world, but it also serves as perfect therapy to this individual to whom Luke writes. And it serves as perfect therapy for any other Christian who might think that the gospel is the sure-fired shortcut path to power, privilege, and a plot of ground in this created order. God is not particularly flattered by believers or by a church that gain high position within the cultural settings of this world. And I might add at this point that this is as much the issue of the Reformation and its doctrine of justification as anything that Luther might say with respect to the righteousness of God and our righteous standing before God in Christ.

    But while the Book of the Acts has as a dominant theme this prospect of the kingdom, the prospect of our entering it, our future entrance, we the Church, into that kingdom through suffering, it also proves to be a first-class apologetic for the paradox of the Christian life. Thus, by all means, we await our entrance into the kingdom of God, but we also delight in the blessings of that kingdom given to us already, as if we had already entered it.

    The conclusion of Acts powerfully yet subtly communicates this paradise. The Apostle Paul is the prisoner, you note, at the conclusion of Acts. He is the prisoner of the Roman government, a fact that makes it clear that he presently faces many tribulations and must, in the predicament of those tribulations, anticipate his entrance into the kingdom of God, he not having yet arrived.

    However, Paul is also free. Notice the emphasis and the wonderful note upon which this biblical book concludes. Paul is also free. He is free in his reception of all who seek him out, free in his preaching and teaching of the gospel. The very last verse of this book makes that evident.

    Now, Paul’s freedom, remarked upon here at the conclusion of Acts, should not be read in strictly historical manner, but also along theological lines. Paul is a prisoner to Jewish intrigue and to Roman complicity, but he is also a free man in Christ. his freedom speaking to us of that grand liberty that belongs to all of those who believe in Jesus.

    And this freedom, here is the point, this freedom is of a peace with the kingdom of God. It is a present kingdom blessing enjoyed by this believer, the Apostle. as if Paul were not waiting to enter the kingdom, but had already done so. The conclusion of Acts, therefore, is most positive and helpful to us. We too, in various ways, experience a binding, because we continue in this world and await our entrance into the kingdom of God. But at the same time, we are free men and women in Christ, and our freedom transcends any religious opposition or political constriction. Our freedom is the very air of the kingdom of God into which we have already entered. in this precious book of the acts will set before us our present possession of the kingdom and its blessings in other ways as well.

    This is most obvious when we consider the person of the Holy Spirit central figure for the Book of the Acts, who comes to the church as the great kingdom blessing. Baptism into the Holy Spirit is baptism into the blessedness of the kingdom. And baptism into the Holy Spirit is baptism into the blessedness of the kingdom. We watch as the Church, then, throughout the Book of the Acts, in its breath, is constituting is brought together, is formed through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. From that initial effusion of the Spirit in Acts 2, upon the Jews at Pentecost, to the blessing now that comes to the Samaritans in Acts 8 at the hands of Peter and John, to the grace visited upon Gentiles in Cornelius’ home in Acts 10, And finally, that grace that comes upon the orphaned disciples of John the Baptist at Ephesus in Acts 18. To be a part of the Church means to be baptized into the Holy Spirit, whose presence with us means our presence in the kingdom of God. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not some sort of second work of grace. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is that by which the Church itself is constituted. We are baptized into the Holy Spirit when in fact we come into the Church.

    There is Luke’s treatment of ancient prophecies that we observe in the book of the Acts. The ancient prophecies are treated in Acts in such a way that they emphasize our grasp of the realities of the kingdom in our present circumstance. Peter in Acts 2 sees the ancient prophecy of Joel fulfilled at Pentecost.

    The Spirit, as the great kingdom blessing, comes upon all flesh in keeping with that prophecy. Sons and daughters, young men and old men, male and female servants, are granted a prophet’s status. That is, they are seen as those who enter into the Lord’s pretty council in his kingdom, have access to the inner chambers of God’s sanctuary. Later in the book of Acts, chapter 15, James sees the ancient prophecy of Amos fulfilled as the Gentiles approach and are included into the church. Here now is the realization of the promise made with respect to the restoration of those fortunes that had been promised to David and to his house. The long-expected kingdom has arrived. It is evident in the Church as the Gentiles stream into it, Acts 15, 16-18.

    But not only is the present glory of the kingdom perceived in the gracious and blessed gift of the Holy Spirit, not only is it perceived in the complex of events that herald the fulfillment of ancient kingdom prophecy, The present glory of the kingdom is furthermore perceived in Acts in the overwhelming portrayal of the fellowship enjoyed by the Church. In this regard, I defy anyone genuinely born of the Spirit of God to read those sections in Acts that speak about the fellowship of the church and not break out into a wide grin. Most particularly, I have in mind Acts 2, verses 42 through 47. And I ask you, in looking at those verses, is there anything so sweetly compelling in all of Scripture? as pertains to the life of the people of God. And I do not hesitate, I do not hesitate to declare to you that smack dab in the center of this extraordinary text and the fellowship it describes is the rich sense of the presence of the kingdom experienced by these radiant and exhilarated people.

    Now, the ways in which they express their fellowship are indeed somewhat different than we express our fellowship presently. We will not go into the reasons for those differences this morning. Nevertheless, the basic ingredients remain, binding us with them. We, with these described here, continually devote ourselves to the apostle’s doctrine and to their fellowship. How so? Through the apostles’ word.

    We also break bread. We break bread together in common meals, and that’s why common meals for the saints are important. And those of you who have been engaged in hospitality week after week, having other saints into your homes know that to be true. We break bread together in common meals, yes, when we get together here, but also personally as we have opportunity in our own homes. But most specifically we break bread in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and in that common meal.

    Furthermore, we with them congregate to pray. This is not individual prayer that is reflected upon here. This is the gathering together of the Church for the purpose of prayer. Do I need to emphasize the importance of prayer for the Church and even those occasions on which the Church gets together specifically to pray? If you hear in that the faint encouragement to take advantage of prayer meeting, well and good.

    But we also stand ready to forego our financial advantage when others in our fellowship are in need. And thus our substance is placed at their disposal, we becoming their servants. through this means. And we are continually involved with one another, not just when we assemble, but day by day, in the various courses of our lives, in that intimate bond of our common faith.

    Now, need I draw out the conclusion for you. Here is the stuff. Here is the stuff of the kingdom. Here are the realities of the kingdom, enjoyed by us already. Yes, it is true, we await the coming of the kingdom. We await an entrance into that kingdom. Our eyes train toward the future, but there is also this matter. present blessings, present realities of the kingdom communicated to us already. Truly a foretaste of eternal glory.

    If you are a stranger, if you are a stranger to these things, freedom in the midst of present restrictions from the world. If you are a stranger to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, if you are a stranger to that grasp of the fulfillment of ancient prophecies with respect to the kingdom, if you are a stranger to the fellowship that belongs to the household of God, won’t you heed the message that we hear in Acts? Repent of your sins, believe in Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, ascended, and become a member of Christ’s church. Do this that you may enter the kingdom when it comes in all of its glory, but also that that kingdom might be a blessing to you now.

    Do this before it is too late. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we are thankful to you for the abundant, rich blessings of the kingdom. We thank you for our present enjoyment of them. We are asking, Lord, that we might understand the great gifts that are given, the marvelous blessings that are conferred and that we might live more perfectly in keeping with those blessings as children of the kingdom. We are asking also, Lord, that we might bear in mind that the kingdom of God asserts itself in an unqualified way at the conclusion of everything. and therefore it is imperative that we give our souls to this matter of the prospect of our entrance into that kingdom when it shall come in glory when our Savior shall return we are praying our Lord that you might bless us to this end richly and abundantly as a fellowship But here in this church, we might know, in the fellowship that we enjoy, that glory, which belongs only to your sense, through Jesus Christ.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Why the Church Is Not Optional

    Why the Church Is Not Optional

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 24, 1993.

    About this sermon

    Obedience to Christ cannot happen outside the church, and Scripture settles the church’s necessity. John 13:31-38 and 15:1-12 say three things about loving fellow believers. Church membership belongs to loving obedience itself.

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    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are reading from John’s Gospel, Chapter 13, and we are beginning at verse 31. This is John 13, verse 31. Therefore, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself and shall straightway glorify him.

    Little children, yet a little while I am with you. As I said unto the Jews, Whither I go ye cannot come, so now I say to you, A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

    Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards. Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice.”

    Then turning over to chapter 15, beginning at verse 1, I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. and every branch that beareth fruit and purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. he that abideth in me, and I in him, and the same bringeth forth much fruit, but without me he can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered, and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If he abide in me and my words abide in you, he shall ask what he will, and it shall be done unto you.”

    Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit. So shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.

    You are the Lord of all the earth. Your plan and purpose are perfect. We rejoice, our God, that we see the evidences concerning the outworking of your plan, your intention, your word going forth and gathering those whom you will, you having mercy upon those upon whom you will have mercy. We thank you, Lord, that you have graciously granted life to many. and that even now you gather them into assemblies throughout the world. May it please you, Lord, to bless those we know who labor in foreign places, bringing your word to the peoples of the earth. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. Apart from the church, there is no possibility for our obedience to the command of Jesus our Lord.

    Now I plead with you if you are put off by that statement that you not turn to me out before hearing me out. I have not succumbed to what some derisively call churchianity by making such a statement. I remember one woman making that charge to me and against me while I was still a college student. She told me that I would never hear the truth. I would never be open to the truth of the Bible until I was delivered from the church.

    In that sentiment she was echoing the thoughts of many of the cults that arose in the last century, and particularly the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Church of Mormon. But she had her own cultic attitudes and ideas. She went further and told me that nursery rhymes were a modern-day revelation from God. She also informed me that she was God’s special agent, whose purpose it was to herald the sure and certain presidency of Barry Goldwater. This woman was not a prophet. But as much as this woman and those cults from the last century belong in many respects to the lunatic fringe, she with them have become the spokespersons for much of American Protestantism.

    How often in our day and age do people in their minds and by their actions place Christ’s commands on one side and the Church on the other? As if they could be separated. The will of God, so we are told, even finding the will of God for our lives. is something that involves the Church only tangentially, only if we are of that special temperament that needs such things. And if that is the case with respect to us, the Church becomes attached to us and to the will of God because of our special case. We dare not draw up any equations in which our own particular need becomes the mandate for all. As a matter of fact, the gospel, according to the general spirit of American Protestantism, carries us in precisely the opposite direction.

    Church membership is now widely viewed as optional. of only relative importance. And churches taking themselves quite seriously, taking church attendance quite seriously, taking vows made in the church quite seriously, are viewed as doctrinaire, legalistic, and even oppressive. the enemy of true Christian freedom. But these attitudes may now be judged in terms of their consequences. The word is out.

    Fewer and fewer Protestants are following through with their membership to the extent that fewer and fewer attend church, less and less. Recent polls have shocked many church observers. These recent polls have proved George Gallup’s claim nearly fifty percent of all American Protestants attend their weekly services is highly inflated. The actual truth is about half of that figure attend church weekly. While a larger and larger portion of the Protestant population marginalizes the church I, in this ministry here at Grace Church, have pressed the matter of the Church more and more.

    I have pressed you with respect to the Church’s centrality and indispensability. And I have done so not because I am interested in making a name for myself. not because I’m interested in wielding a club by which I might constrain people to come into this congregation and swell the numbers and thus make an impressive statement before this community and before the world. Nor have I pressed this matter because I’m intent upon feeding an inner sinful desire of mine to control your lives. you in here so I can tell you how to live. I have pressed more and more consistently with you the centrality and indispensability of the Church, because I am convinced that the Bible demands nothing less. Therefore, by setting before you this message, my contention is when I am setting before you God’s will.

    You understand, maybe a little better now, why I cannot apologize to you for making my strong and repeated appeal. Nor do I apologize for the statement with which I began this message this morning. Apart from the Church, there is no possibility for our obedience to the commands of Jesus our Lord. I admit that this is a very, very strong statement and liable to be misunderstood, but I am claiming for it biblical grounding.

    To be more specific, I am playing biblical ground in the text that we have read this morning from John 13 and John 16. And most specifically, the sentiment that is repeated in both of those texts, namely the new command given by Jesus that his disciples are to love one another. Now I could appeal to any number of texts to prove my point. Old Testament and New Testament, but these texts are especially helpful. They are helpful because many who believe in less church claim that they believe in more love and see themselves the champions of more love over against less church. They have even gone so far in some instances to say that the church, the organized church, is the obstacle to love, a hindrance to it.

    But if I am reading these texts correctly in John 13 and John 15, Jesus’ contention is just the opposite. The Church is made to be the environment in which love, the love Jesus commands and the love that he graciously gives, must be expressed. Jesus does not envision a situation. where one must ignore or leave the Church in order to express his love for Christ or for God. One may have to leave a false Church, as Jesus’ disciples in these texts are about to do. But such action does not leave us with no Church, rather it leaves us poised for a new and a true church. Looking at these texts then a little bit more specifically, and the line that comes to us from each of them with regard to Christ’s commandment, that we love one another.

    I want you to mark three things. First of all, I want you to mark the corporate character of Christ’s command. Jesus has in view the group. He has in view the community of his followers. His language is plural, not singular. You, plural, love one another. The love that Jesus has in mind here demands the other. And the language that he uses excludes the sort of privatized version of Christianity some people have. as if the faith were a matter of their exclusively personal and individual relationship to Jesus. It’s you and me, Jesus. Period. But this language which Jesus uses here also focuses specifically what Jesus has in mind when he speaks in the plurality. that he does, that we might understand the nature of the community more perfectly.

    The community that he has in mind cannot, and is not, the members of one’s own family. It cannot be so restricted as if merely loving the members of our family, we were fulfilling Jesus’ intention. Nor, as time tells us, works out according to God’s sovereign plan, can the community be one that is constituted out of one’s own tribe, race, or nationality. Much less can it be a community that is made up of one’s peers. Jesus is addressing his disciples as the church in its infancy. and he has in mind the diverse community of his church that transcends all these natural and earthly distinctions.

    There can be no doubt about this, and if you do doubt it, I encourage you to look at another text from John’s hand, namely Revelation 5.9, where you hear about the new song that is to be sung in glory by all of God’s people So it is not just then a new commandment that is given to the people of God, to the community of Christ, but a new song sung by those gathered from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. The transcending corporate nature of Jesus’ command makes it quite plain. intention is that we the church, the community of Christ, ought to love one another. Specifically, that is the focus. We are to love one another.

    Something, I add, we make ourselves quite incapable of. Something we do, in fact, violate, and that’s flagrantly and simply, when we ignore and abandon the fellowship of the Church. You cannot love one another if you don’t see one another. You cannot love one another if you are not with one another. It is impossible And if that is true, there is no sense in which you can fulfill this command which Jesus has uttered. No sense whatsoever.

    You understand then why I become so impatient with people who construct their ideas about the will of God apart from any consideration of the Church whatsoever. It is ludicrous and utterly contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Indeed, as I have been insisting apart from the Church, There is no possibility for our obedience to the commandment of Jesus, our Lord.

    But secondly, there is an exclusiveness to this commandment. When Jesus utters these words in John 13 and 15, He makes it sound as if there is no other commandment. He has no other commandment to give you. This is it. And if you’re following my train of thought, it is as if Jesus were saying, miss this commandment and you miss all my commandments. Miss this one, you don’t have any of them. Miss this focus and understanding of my will for you, and you miss my will for you entirely.

    And that Jesus places the community that belongs to him in the center of his command, love one another. Those who refuse to acquiesce to him in this regard, regardless of their claims, are living in sin of the most severe sort. They are living in rebellion against the most central command that Christ honors. So as Jesus speaks, the command is corporate, plural.

    It is also exclusive focusing for us our understanding of His will, but finally, it is new. It is new. Now the thing that we must understand in relationship to the newness of the command is that we are here dealing with the new day of God. that has commenced with the coming of Jesus Christ. And even one’s understanding of command and commandment is now reassessed in light of the glory of that day. You cannot see things the same way anymore, not even command and commandment. The commandment is new, and the newness of the commandment has most to do with the fact that a new day has come.

    Jesus has come. But included in this new day is the gracious workings of God by which he regenerates. He regenerates those who belong to the company of that community organized under Christ and in him. And it is specifically this regeneration, this birth from above, this rebirth, that enables us to see Jesus’ point at this specific juncture. and to acknowledge that the fulfillment of the command that he uttered is found, despite our sin and failure, in him and in him specifically.

    But I ask, can I truly claim him? Can I claim to be a part of his new administration? Can I claim the new life which he has offered, the eternal life that is extended, if I do not discern his work in me to be such as to convince me of this singular point?

    Namely, apart from the Church, there is no possibility for my obedience to the commands of Jesus my Lord.” And I hope that you understand that I am not the spokesman for formalism. As if some sort of ritual like going to church week by week was guaranteed assurance for your place in glory. I do not mean that at all. I have a great deal for the assembling of the saints, our gatherings week by week, and they, yes, I believe, are indispensable to our lives.

    But I also have the wide angle at work with respect to this commandment of Christ and our responsibility. is to love one another presently in the assembly but also continually at all times in the rich fellowship that is found nowhere else by him Jesus Christ and that because of his great and glorious saving work on behalf of us all. Let us pray. deal with us if, Father, we struggle with the whole question of our love for one another. And deal with us also, Lord, if our attendance to the matters of the Church is purely a formalism and a ritual. no heart in it at all. Graciously deal with us that we might reflect the character of the community of Christ growing more and more in his likeness. We thank you for your mercy to us as a congregation and as individuals. that may we not be confused in this present age, may we not separate our Savior from his church, much less separate Israel from that body which bears his name. This we ask

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • A Love That Is Not Natural to Us

    A Love That Is Not Natural to Us

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 26, 1993.

    About this sermon

    John’s doctrine of love stands apart, and Romans 5:5 locates its source in the Holy Spirit poured into the heart. That cuts against a culture, Mr. Rogers included, that treats love as ours for the choosing. Paul’s description in 1 Corinthians 13 gives the real alternative.

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    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are reading, first of all, from Paul’s letter to the Romans. This is Romans chapter five, and we are reading the first eleven verses. Listen to the word of God. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. by whom also we have access by faith into this grace, wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

    And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us.

    For when we are yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet for adventure for a good man some would even dare to die. God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

    And not only so, we shall also join in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.” Then from John’s Gospel, the thirteenth chapter, beginning at verse thirty-one, Therefore, when Judas was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself and shall straightway glorify him.

    Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me And as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go ye cannot come, so now I say to you a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another.”

    It is inevitable when we consider the doctrine of the Church in John’s gospel, we come round to this word, love, and what this particular word means and communicates in the vocabulary of that gospel. Not that the word love, nor the subject love itself, for that matter, is peculiar to John. Neither does love have any different meaning in John than in the rest of the New Testament.

    That is proved to us when we have investigated the matter thoroughly and completely. However, there is a forthrightness, a directness, with respect to the doctrine of love in John’s gospel, a unique angle that sets the brakes upon us for our reading of the rest of the New Testament witness. John’s gospel on this subject, as on other subjects, stops us in our tracks. It holds us in our pell-mell face through the New Testament record, and this by God’s design, I am sure, so that in taking a deep breath of the spiritual air found in John, we might better realize the character, the quality of that atmosphere we have been breathing all along in our reading of, in our consideration of, the New Testament and its witness. Now, that New Testament witness is singular when we come to this doctrine of love, as I have already indicated.

    For there is a common thread that is woven throughout the entirety of the New Testament with respect to this matter. If we were to take our cue from John, we would have to say that that common thread is characterized by a transcendent quality. a gracious quality, particularly as we think about love. The common thread then moving throughout the New Testament, and accented so well by John in his gospel and in his writing, is this reality with respect to the matter of love, its transcendence and its gracious character.

    We are not to miss this. To miss it means to miss the mark, to not understand. But I want us to look this morning, not at John, but at a passage that will help us for an eventual consideration of John on this matter. And that passage is Romans 5. And I turn to Romans 5 because I think it is important for us to establish the common features of this love as we back our way into John for a more concentrated look at him. The passage I want you to focus on this morning is Romans 5. Keeping in mind what we said already about this common thread, and the transcendent gracious character of love in the New Testament. First of all, verse five in that fifth chapter, where we read these words.

    Because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us. Great words. But what should be obvious to us at a glance is the connection in these words between that love poured out within our hearts and the Holy Spirit, who has himself been poured out.

    Paul has in mind then, specifically, the transcendental or the transcendent origin of this love of which he speaks. As the Holy Spirit himself comes from without, as he comes from beyond, as he comes from above, so also this love which he works in us. This love is supernatural. This love, then, is utterly unique. It is not a love that rises within us, nor is it a love that has its origins in this world, regardless of what we may say about the love that has its origins in this world. regardless of that love’s civility, its respectability, its ennobling and moral character. The love spoken of by Paul, therefore, is an otherworldly love. It is a heavenly love, and it intrudes upon us by God’s grace. This leads us, then, to consider the other aspect of this love, yes. It is transcendent but also gracious, and notice this love’s absolutely and perfectly gracious expression.

    Verse 8, in that fifth chapter, God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Is it not clear to you in this verse explicitly, though obviously in view in the prior verse as well, but here explicitly set before us is God’s sovereign grace, which assigns to the love each conveys a necessary priority of God’s action. God must act first. Not only does this love then come to us from above, it comes through the necessary and prior act of God. And just as in the earlier verse this love is inseparably bound to the definitive work of God in the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, so it is here in this latter verse where this love is inseparably bound to the definitive work of God in the death of His Son.

    God’s love, then, is graciously bestowed because it is visited upon the unworthy. while we were yet sinners. It is necessary and prior, because in our sin we are utterly incapable of saving ourselves. Saving ourselves specifically from the wrath that is mentioned in the following verse, verse 9. The condemnation that is in view. Now I make this point for reasons that I hope you understand.

    Namely, because of all of the loose talk we hear about love, even within the Church. You see, it almost seems as if many within the Church have come to the conclusion that love is a natural ability. Love is a natural ability easily cultivated by us all.

    Therefore, many speak about love, even within a Christian context, as if it were a reality realized by us and within us without any regard for its heavenly origin, its transcendent origin, or its complete dependence upon divine action, prior divine action. Some have even gone so far in their vocabulary when it comes to this matter of love. as to suggest that this love can be abstracted from our situation, not applied to us with any reference whatsoever to the fact that we were at one time enemies of God, that we were in need of reconciliation. Some have gone so far. as to dismiss Paul’s talk about wrath and condemnation completely from their considerations when it comes to the matter of love. The kind of love then which is heard about too often in the church today It is not the kind of love of which Paul speaks.

    It is another kind of love. It is an earthly and worldly love. It may be very honorable. It may be very civilized. It may be very charitable and sacrificial. It may be moral. familial and chaste, it may be kind, it may even be romantic. The only problem is that it is not the love of God. It is not the love of which Paul speaks. What we are faced with in this kind of love is a love that finally admits to no need for transcendence, or even of grace. He acknowledges no need of the work of the Spirit, no need for the crucifixion of the Son of God.

    It may act heroically Paul even speaks about the heroic action it may generate. He says this kind of love may inspire someone to die for another, but the fundamental conviction of that love is the worthiness of those for whom it sacrifices itself. If you are having trouble understanding my point here, let me say it again clearly. That kind of love that is a love of the world, regardless of how admirable, that in the end doesn’t match up to what Paul speaks of here, is less than supernatural. less than miraculous, less than heavenly, less than eternal. I am tempted to give you a concrete illustration, but I fear that by this illustration I may offend. In fact, some of you might get up out of your seats and walk out. You see, we have a patron saint in Pittsburgh who virtually preaches this worldly love every day at 11.30 a.m. on QED TV. It’s the kind of love, this worldly love, found in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood. Do you listen to what Mr. Rogers says?

    The implication is that he and God like you just the way you are. No change, no transformation, an appeal to your natural ability, nothing transcendent, nothing ultimately gracious from God’s side, No change. No intrusion by the Spirit. No necessity for the crucifixion of the Son of God. There are no enemies in this neighborhood. And there is no such thing as the wrath of God.

    The doctrine of love, as taught by Paul, does not shy away from the direct and crucial issues of human existence, as brutal, as stark as they may be. For a direct presentation of the positive virtues of this love, I encourage you to look once more to 1 Corinthians 13. Keeping in mind what you have read in Romans 5, I dare say that you will find in that lovely passage an affirmation of love’s origin in heaven, of its wellspring being nothing less than the gracious action of God. But here in 1 Corinthians 13 you will see even better than in Romans 5. that the love Paul describes matches what description he may offer us of Christ himself, who is the embodiment of that love come down out of heaven, demonstrating just how that love behaves in a heavenly manner in a wicked world.

    We don’t want to lose sight either of John’s gospel or the doctrine of the Church, which we have been dealing with over the course of this series. I take you into call that we might then, in subsequent messages, back up into John and think a little more deeply about the doctrine of love. found there, and specifically its bearing upon the doctrine of the Church.

    And with that we close. Help us, Father, help us Lord in this matter of that love which is transcendent and gracious coming from above and utterly dependent upon your action that it might in fact be realized in us and have expression in our lives may we think about heaven and what it is like there. May we meditate upon those things that are above, where Christ is at your right hand. And the very power of the love of that place, by your Spirit affecting us, that we might walk as we should. With this in mind, our God, we come to the table mindful of the sacrifice that Jesus has made for us. What love! How glorious! How complete! How satisfying! And we thank you for it.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Two Worlds, Two Kinds of Faith

    Two Worlds, Two Kinds of Faith

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 12, 1993.

    About this sermon

    John’s Gospel keeps two worlds in view at once, earth and heaven, and lets ordinary words like water, bread, and life carry meaning in both. That same doubleness shows up in John 2:23-25, where Jesus recognizes a faith that believes in him without yet trusting him. The line between true faith and merely immature faith runs through that distinction.

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    Sermon transcript

    Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he showed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus unto them again, Peace be unto you, as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whosoever sin he remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosoever sin he retain, they are retained.

    But Thomas, one of the twelve called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord, but he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst and said, Peace be unto you.

    Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands. Reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless, but believe. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.

    But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name. Again, Lord, we ask you that we would not be short-sighted with respect to your church and her task. We pray, Lord, that our hearts might be directed towards those in other places those in fact who call upon you truly, and may it please you, Lord, to bless them this day with a full understanding of your word, and give them grace in your spirit to live in keeping with what they have heard. Lord, we would not be remiss in our prayers As far as those who are without faith are concerned, may we see here and elsewhere those whom you would call brought to you itself, and may we rejoice in their coming. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen. We have concluded our messages on Matthew’s gospel, his sixteenth chapter, with respect to the theme, Considering the Church, and we are moving on this morning to John’s gospel, particularly with that same theme in mind.

    Now, by way of introduction, I might say to you that when we set before ourselves the task of identifying the purpose statement in a particular piece of biblical writing, we are oftentimes faced with a real challenge. Sometimes those purpose statements, those threads that would weave their way through the entire fabric of a piece of biblical literature, are hard to find. For instance, try to find it in the Gospel of Mark sometimes, or try to find it in the Epistle to the Hebrews, or even in 1 John. There are those biblical writings that are transparent, obvious.

    I have in mind, for instance, Paul’s letter, his first letter to Timothy. Now, you don’t get his purpose statement right away. You have to wait for the middle of the epistle, but it’s there nonetheless. You come to the third chapter of 1 Timothy, the fifteenth verse. You find Paul writing there that he writes these things to Timothy that he might know how to conduct himself, that is, how to behave in the house of God.

    Luke’s gospel offers us a convenient introduction. The very first four verses of his gospel introduce us to his purpose and his intention. John also is obvious in the presentation of his purpose. He doesn’t have it at the beginning, nor does he have it in the middle. He reserves it for the end, and we’ve read it this morning in the concluding verses of that twentieth chapter.

    Many other signs, therefore, Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.” But I might add at this point that finding the purpose statement may in fact offer its own challenges, since there may be set before you in that purpose statement more than you think at first glance.

    Let’s look then at this purpose statement at John 20 verses 30 and 31. Now, according to the plain reading of this text, it seems so obvious, does it not? According to the plain reading of this text, it would appear that John is zeroing in on a particular audience, an audience that is readily recognizable.

    It seems on the surface of things that John is directing his gospel to an unbelieving audience. I have written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. Now, it is this plain reading, this obvious reading, that has led many to the conclusion that this gospel is essentially an evangelistic tract that was to be circulated in the first century. And from that insight they have gone further, many of them, and looked at the other Gospels in turn, Matthew through Luke, and come to the same conclusion with regard to them, that the Gospels are essentially gospel tracts or evangelistic tracts.

    The intention is that then these words would be set before an unbelieving audience in order that that audience might be convicted, come to have faith in Christ, and to share in the blessings of redemption. But there are many reasons why This approach, even through the plain text, there are many reasons why this approach is inadequate, if not even superficial. Can we actually say that as we read through once more the section that we had before us this morning, peruse it with your eye, that these words are meant exclusively, exclusively for the unbeliever? This does not mean that, in asking the question, we are not willing to grant that in nature the unbelieving audience is in mind. In fact, this gospel given to the Church can be for the purpose of setting it before an unbelieving audience, even though it is, in fact, directed to the Church in the first instance.

    Jesus will instruct his Church through these words by his servant John as he speaks about the commission that has been given to the Church through the disciples gathered in that upper room described for us beginning in verse 19. And with Jesus breathing upon those disciples and then speaking to them about the authority that they possess. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.

    It seems obvious that yes, here is a word to the Church defining the Church’s authority and in part her ministry. The Church is in view also in what Jesus says to Thomas. Of course, there will be those who are brought to faith through the evangelistic witness of the Church, but they are incorporated into the Church as their recipients of the message that is proclaimed, despite the fact that they have not seen the Lord himself. But going on from this chapter to the concluding chapter in John’s Gospel, can we say, as we read about Jesus’ encounter with Peter in that text, that evangelistic tract is all that is in mind for the Apostle as he writes these words?

    Remember how that goes. Jesus repeatedly asking Peter whether he loved him, and Peter saying yes, that he did, and then Jesus’ instruction to him, take care of my sheep. It seems then that there is as much a church interest in John’s gospel as there is an interest in that unbelieving world that would be brought to faith through the testimony of the gospel. But we’re back to this purpose statement once more. Chapter 20, verses 30 and 31.

    If what I am saying is correct, if the Church is as much in view as an unbelieving audience, in what sense possibly can John be directing these words to the Church? Imagine yourself, that Church in the first century, receiving this gospel, hearing it for the first time. When this purpose statement is read out in your hearing, you say to yourself, I already believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and I am resting in the promise that I have life eternal in Him. So what possible purpose is there for John if, in fact, what we have been contending, these words are written to the Church as much as to an unbelieving world?

    But in order to answer this question, it is essential for us to keep in mind a chief feature of John’s Gospel. You see, John’s Gospel clearly moves along two lines simultaneously. It keeps in mind two levels that sets before us two worlds. There is the world in which we live, the plane of this creation in which we exist, but there is also the world above. Let me remind you of one of the famous texts from John’s Gospel.

    I have in mind a passage in the third chapter, the story of Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus. Remember the words from the third verse where Jesus says to Nicodemus, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Those of you who have a New American Standard version with the marginal notes may notice that there is an alternative reading for that text. Not just the familiar reading given to us, namely, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God, but unless a man is born from above, He cannot see the kingdom of God.

    Jesus, in this gospel, will set before his disciples and before those whom he addresses this truth. Yes, we are to see things moving along two lines, moving along two levels. There are two worlds. There is this world, this plane of creation, but beyond this world there is the world above. Notice, then, the language of John throughout, where he’s always pushing you to get beyond the mere appearance of things.

    In the very next chapter in John’s Gospel, chapter four, we have the story of Jesus and his meeting with the woman at the well. There is a discussion about water. Well, of course, there’s water, the kind you pull out of a well, and then there is water. The kind that Jesus can give. Move on to the sixth chapter of John.

    There you have John’s account of the feeding of the five thousand. There’s a discussion there about the nature of bread. There is bread, the kind that we eat at our tables, and in this bread it seems Jesus even includes banana that was given to the children of Israel in the Old Testament. But beyond this bread, which we can call the bread of this creation, there is the true bread which comes down out of that world which is above. We can do the same with all of the many terms and phrases that are used in John’s Gospel.

    So John is always pushing us beyond the mere appearance of things. It is the same with light. There is light, and then there is light, the kind of light that illumines the soul. It gives you spiritual understanding. There is life, biological life, but then there is, again, life, such as God gives in a supernatural work of regeneration, eternal life, life from above.

    You see where I’m going with this? If we are moving on two levels with respect to these matters which I have mentioned thus far, let’s come back to John 20, verses 30 and 31, to understand a little bit better how John is prodding his church audience as they receive this gospel. So you see, even in the matter of faith, John is going to see these two worlds opposite.

    There is faith, and then again, there is faith. And what a message for the church. There is a kind of faith that is content in itself. But yes, in itself. And then there is another kind of faith altogether. Now John, with his gospel, is going to push his readers and his heroes toward the latter. But they might always be scrutinizing their lives with respect to the true nature of things, or the nature of true things. And this comes out repeatedly in his gospel. We see it brought out time and again in the gospel itself, in the stories that are presented to us by John with respect to Christ and his interactions with people.

    I have in mind, for instance, the end of John chapter 2, verses 23 through 25. Here we are told about Jesus’ first trip to Jerusalem at the beginning of his ministry. It was during the Passover season. But you’ll notice what is said in that twenty-third verse of the second chapter. Now when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in his name.

    They believed in his name, beholding his signs which he was doing.” Then we go on, verse 24, “…but Jesus on his part was not entrusting himself to them, for he knew all men, and because he did not need anyone to bear witness concerning them, for he himself knew what was in them.”

    In this text, there is set before us two kinds of faith, or one kind of faith which is wholly inadequate, suggesting the second type which must be pressed on too. What kind of faith is it that is described here? It is a particularly defective faith, an immature faith. It is a faith that is dependent upon the observation of things, seeing the signs. Whole churches have been established now that, in fact, could use this text as their motto. They depend completely upon the things seen. They are so utterly dependent upon proofs and evidences and signs They need a recent miracle. They need a bleeding crucifix. They need a weeping statue of a Madonna.

    This is not a commendable faith. In fact, Jesus will not himself be committed to such faith. He withdraws from such faith. This is not the discount the purpose and the intention of signs, as they are both biblically defined for us and used, but is to tell us that a faith that ultimately rests upon what one sees, or upon signs or proofs or evidence and so-called, is in the end immature and defective. So we have in this text a faith that is crippled. tragically inadequate. Second passage, John 12. There are 42 and 43. Nevertheless, many, even the rulers, believed in him. There it is. They have faith. Many of the rulers believed, but because of the Pharisees, they were not confessing him lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.

    Once more, there is a faith that is specifically spoken of here, and this faith, again, is defective. It is defective because of fear, and it is defective because of the adulation that is desired. The faith that John would commend to us from his gospel understands the costliness of the And finally we have from the twentieth chapter, John, a very confusing and ambiguous text, to be sure.

    I have in mind the story of the resurrection, the first Easter, and what transpires when the two disciples come to the tomb and find the body gone. Reading from verse 8 of that 20th chapter, then entered in, therefore, the other disciple, we assume that is John himself, who had first come to the tomb, and he saw and believed the form of faith that is here operative. But then we have the 9th verse, and yet he did not understand the scripture that he must rise again from the dead. And then the quencher, verse 10, so the disciples went away again to their own homes, as if nothing had changed. Jesus has been raised, and they go home. There is a faith, whereby an individual attaches himself to Christ or even the Church, who has a faith that just doesn’t quite get it, doesn’t quite comprehend.

    And what is it specifically now that we ought to comprehend, that we ought to understand? The rest of the story spells that out. You move on from this account of Peter and John’s visit to the tomb to Jesus’ visit with Mary Magdalene. And you remember the nature of that encounter? Here’s Mary wishing to hold Jesus in that place. What does he say to her? He says, stop clinging to me, for I must ascend. There’s that other world again. I must ascend to my Father and your Father, my God, your God.

    But specifically in you then, in relationship to this thing, Is that other world that John has been pressing upon us throughout the entirety of his gospel, in your faith, such that you see it, that you grasp hold of it, that you understand all other things in light of it? I dare say, if yours is such a faith, you will not ultimately be dependent upon signs, nor will you have a fearful disposition in the expression of your faith, nor be overly concerned about what people think about you. Here, then, is the pressure that is brought to bear upon the Church as John writes these concluding words in that 20th chapter to the Church. I write them that you may believe, believe truly, you who are of the Church, that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that you are the Church. may have life, that is, eternal life, through him. Else shortchange the importance of this matter. For there is another Bible writer who in writing to the church says, without faith it is impossible to please God. Will you not then, you who have professed faith, scrutinize your own faith? to be certain that it is true faith indeed.

    Help us father in this matter of faith Our faith will be such as would please you. And we confess now that we have no greater desire than to be found pleasing in your sight. Help us, Father, that we would not be weak and immature in our faith, dependent upon its strength. Bless us with that kind of faith, Lord, that is not fearful nor overly concerned about the opinion of others. But above all, Lord, may our faith be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, grasping hold of the realities of that world which is above. We ask this in Jesus’ name.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Calvin’s Rediscovery

    Calvin’s Rediscovery

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 5, 1993.

    About this sermon

    Calvin invented no new religion. He rediscovered a buried biblical Christianity, summed up in the five points that bear his name and in government by elders. The same rediscovery separates church and state. ‘Orthodox’ means straight thinking, and Matthew 16:28 calls for it.

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    Sermon transcript

    This morning, we begin our reading in the Epistle of Jude, the Epistle of Jude, beginning at verse 1, and reading through verse 4. Here are the words of God. and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called, Mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. When I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

    For there are certain men who crept in unaware, who were reporable or gained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. And I’m turning to Matthew 16. One more reading of this very important text, beginning at the thirteenth verse. Matthew 16, verse 13.

    When Jesus came into the co-successory of Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I am? They said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He said unto them, Whom say ye that I am?

    And Simon Peter answered instead, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And Jesus answered instead again, Blessed art thou, Simon Bartholomew, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against me. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bond on her shalt thou defend, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on her shalt thou loose in heaven.

    Then charge he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was the Jesus of God.” From that time forth began Jesus to show him, his disciples, how it must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and prophets. And he killed, and he raped in the immature days. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Jesus, Get thee behind me, Satan, and lower the fence under me. For Thou savest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him be nigh on himself, and take up his cloth, and follow me.

    For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. But what is a man’s profit? If he shall gain the whole world, And what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? The Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father and his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his worth.”

    Dear Lord, keep us from thinking merely of ourselves. Instead, Lord, help us to so that our thoughts will be for your church throughout the world, fed this day with your Word, and that with us. Lord, we ask also that we would keep in mind those whom you are calling to yourself. O Lord, may it be this day that many shall come and fall down before You, and acknowledge that there is one true God, Bhagavad-gita, that Jesus Christ hath come into the world to save sinners, and that they being awakened by the Spirit, are confessing their sins and expressing their faith in the Savior, whose name is exalted above the heavens. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Amen.

    It may have occurred to you, especially those of you who are still with one family, especially with children, that you are not sitting in an ordinary Presbyterian church this morning. There is a sign outside. Maybe you’ve read this line from time to time. He’s identified this church as Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Or you might look at your bulletin. You will find at the bottom of the front of the bulletin the name of the church in large letters. Once more, Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

    So this congregation is distinguished from other Presbyterian Bibles. This is a congregation of a denomination known as the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And if you have been baptized into this Church, although you are still quite young and maybe don’t understand much about the distinction between Churches, the fact remains you are an Orthodox Presbyterian. But what does it mean to be an Orthodox Presbyterian? First of all, let’s think together about this word, Presbyterian. You are a Presbyterian because you belong to a church that traces its roots to the middle of the 16th century. Now, don’t panic.

    That’s about 450 years ago. You’re part of a church that traces its roots to the middle of the 16th century to a city in Geneva, Switzerland, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland, to the leading churchman in that city at that time, a man by the name of John Calvin, a Frenchman. Calvin, along with others, was at that time rediscovering the wonders of biblical Christianity. Those wonders had almost been lost from sight. That’s for a very long time.

    Calvin, along with others at that time, set in motion within the Church forces in keeping with their basic commitment to the oneness, the singleness of the Bible’s message, from the first book, Genesis, to the last, Revelation. The oneness of that biblical message that the all-powerful God, Father, Son, and Holy in a single plan to bring to glory his chosen ones. Those who followed Calvin understood this single plan at the heart of the Bible’s message to be best described by the word covenant. in which God had committed himself, had bound himself to save his elect through the sacrifice of his son and his son’s atoning death. Now, the implication of this view of the Bible message worked themselves out in what would be called the five points of Calvinism. Now, Calvin didn’t come up with these five points himself. Rather, later, about fifty years after Calvin had died, in Poland, the Calvinists there had constructed these five points in answer to those who were, in fact, denying them.

    Now, subsequently, some clever people provided T.O.P.S. with an acronym to help us remember these five points. An acronym is a word that’s been constructed from other words. First letter. First letter taken from another word to construct other words to construct a single word in order to communicate. The acronym that was chosen was the word tulip, T-U-L-I-P. And each letter of that word gives to us an essential doctrine of the Calvinist system. First, the letter T. That letter stands for total depravity. And here we are given the calvus or the presbyterian doctrine of humanity.

    All humanity, having been created good, has been lost in sin and to depravity, totally affected. That is, affected in every aspect of their being because of their sin. in conjunction with their relationship with their birth parents and their needs. Now, though depravity doesn’t teach us that we are as sinful as we might seem, it merely teaches us that we have been affected in every aspect of our personality by sin, thus making us incapable of ourselves to put ourselves in right relationships with God. This leads us down to the second letter, the letter U. Remember?

    This letter stands for Unconditional Election, and here we have set before us the doctrine of God the Father, as He has chosen us to salvation apart from any condition in us. We’re totally depraved, we’re unfit, there’s nothing in us that can be commended to God. So God doesn’t look upon us, to find something attractive in us, as the ground for His saving of us. Rather, the reason for His saving of us is found in Him and in Him alone. He has chosen us out of His love and mercy.

    This leads us to the third letter, L, which stands for Limited Atonement, and here we have the Presbyterian doctrine of the Son of God, and it concerns Him in His death. The word atonement refers to his death and the payment in it he made for sinners.

    But we must understand, you see, that the Presbyterian doctrine of Christ’s death is that Christ’s death really saved. It doesn’t merely provide an opportunity for salvation, as some teach. Rather, it actually, really saves, so that not one drop of Christ’s blood is shed in vain. Thus you see that the Presbyterian doctrine of the atonement teaches us that Christ’s death is limited. limited with regard to the extent Christ died for His elect and for His elect alone. And His death truly and really saves them.

    This brings us to the fourth letter, the letter I. This letter stands for irresistible grace, and here we are face-to-face with the Presbyterian doctrine of the Holy Spirit, at least in part. As the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, all-powerfully applies to God’s elect the grace of Christ’s death. If God determines to save us We shall indeed be saved, there being no power, not even our own will, that can thwart the purpose of God and His intention. Finally, the letter P, which stands for the perseverance of the saints, is the doctrine of the future and of the Church’s certain glory. Those rocks of glory have been preserved by God. not one of God’s own is lost.

    This, then, is the Presbyterian position as far as its basic doctrines are concerned. The overarching all-powerfulness or sovereignty of God sets, at the center of the Bible’s story, the covenant, a bond between God and his people. And it works out along the lines of these five points, which we have just enumerated.

    So, doctrinally now, we understand a little bit better what this word Vesicterian means. But Calvin was interested more than the Bible’s doctrine of salvation, how in fact we are saved by God’s sovereign workings. We owe Calvin much for his grasp of the Bible’s view of the Church and its governance, this also being a dimension of what it means for us to be called Presbyterians. You see, the word Presbyterian essentially relates to the way in which the Church is governed. The word Presbyterian means elder, and refers to the fact that as a Presbyterian Church, we are governed by elders.

    Now, this congregation has six elements. It has two ministers, myself and Dan Knox, who is presently serving in Washington, and four ruling elders, whom you know—Mr. Gidley, Mr. Hardesty, Mr. Yonch, and Mr. Stark. We have a representative form of government. The elders are themselves representatives.

    Christ is represented in them, to the people, as Christ himself exercises his rule in their midst. There is also the fact that in a certain sense, They play the role of representative as they function within the courts of the Church, representatives of the congregation and of other assemblies. But persecutorianism is essentially representative in its form of government.

    That means that we are not a congregational democracy. Neither are we a priorogical episcopacy in which the rule is vested with one religion. As to the nature of the elder’s rule, it is important to understand that that rule is spiritual, moral, and churchly. It does not carry with it the authority of the state. The Church does not wield the sword in the interest of carrying out its discipline.

    You might excommunicate the heretic, but you don’t execute one. This means that the Church and state are separate authorities, and we owe a great deal to Calvin in this respect, even though in subsequent years it was very difficult working out the particulars of Calvin’s insight. The Church and the state are separate authorities, each with their own properties of discipline. Calvin was particularly concerned in his time that the state not intrude upon the Church at Geneva to force the Church to do things discipline-wise that it would not otherwise do. that we should keep in mind as Calvin scholars, and eventually as they were worked out under the Calvinist and Presbyterian system.

    This means that the Church does not, should not, rule the state. That sets us apart in our estimations for what Rome holds. Well, regardless of what Rome is presently saying for the purpose of politics, it still maintains the original commitment that it had, namely that the state is under the Church, and the supreme ruler on earth, be it politically or religious, is the Pope. Period. At the same time, Calvin was saying this, the state should not, must not, rule the Church. That was the conclusion to which the Anglicans came. That is why, to this present day, the Queen of England is still the titular head of the Church of England. The state rules the Church. In Calvin’s view, the faith and the Church are separate.

    The one institution, though ordained of God, is temporal, the other is eternal. As things have turned out in the sin-incursed world, these two are perpetually, it seems, standing in tension to each other. Now, I have to admit at this point, in order to make plain the present predicament into which many have come, that many Calvinists have borrowed trouble for themselves when they have failed to recognize the inherent tension that exists between the Church and the faith, and endeavored to apply to our present situation the Old Testament system of life in which the Church and the state were in effect one. That Old Testament system was a preview of the eternal kingdom, when all redeemed would dwell under God’s perfect government. But many Calvinists presently make the mistake of trying to translate the temporal into the eternal, thus making the state the extension of the Church. even though this provision is incorrect. At the same time, the Church must maintain a witness in this world, as she herself remains the witness in this world to the eternal state and to the Kingdom of God, she being a manifestation of that Kingdom in the present time.

    Now, I have given you here an overview of the Presbyterian tradition, doctrine and government. But, as I said at the beginning, we are not just Presbyterians, we are Orthodox Presbyterians. So, what does the word Orthodox mean? For us to call ourselves Orthodox means that we consider ourselves to be holding fast to the historic position of Presbyterianism while others default.

    Hopefully, without pride or vanity, we are contending that we are straight-thinking when it comes to our doctrine in our Presbyterian confession. that plays on the word orthodox. Some of you have been to the orthodontist. An orthodontist straightens teeth. An orthodoxist straightens doctrines. And we are the orthodoxist Presbyterian Church. For us then to be orthodox, with straight thinking in our doctrine, means, of course, that we stand over against those who are unorthodox, those that become crooked in their doctrine and are no longer true to their confession.

    Matthew 16 is not a bad passage to look at to see how the division in Presbyterianism between the Orthodox and the unorthodox came about. Look at verse 28, the last verse of the chapter. Here Jesus says, Truly I say to you, there are some who are standing here who shall not face death until they see the Son of Man coming to be his King. Now I think that it is obvious to all of us sitting here today that this is no simple text. However, it has become the distinction of the unorthodox, the distinction of the liberals, to make it a simple text.

    The habit of mine was, at the turn of the century, to look at this text and to say that Jesus has only one thing in mind, and can have only one thing in mind, namely, the end of the world. But then, these unorthodox people, who, I might add, were with him for all of the Presbyterian Church at that time, would go on to say that this is evidence that either the early Church, or Jesus, or both, believed that in their time the world would shortly end. But of course, as we know, the world didn’t end. Those standing there that day, the disciples, did not see the end of the world before they faced the death. Which means, in the estimation of those who are unorthodox, those who are liberal, those that Jesus, and for the early Church, but most definitely this text, are wrong, are in error. There is no getting around it, they said.

    Here is testimony from the text, even from the lips of Jesus himself, that amounts to an error. Do you see what is going to happen from this point on? If applied to Jesus specifically, this means that Jesus now must be reassessed. He must be seen as a fallible man, if not a deluded Jewish teacher with somewhat grand illusions about himself and about the immediate future. Now, that happens to be Albert Schweitzer’s point of view. But when this is applied to the Bible, it means, of course, that we must now surrender the doctrine of biblical infallibility, because there is a mistake here, an error.

    The end did not come. The program of the unorthodox, therefore, became one in which they had to reinvent Jesus and the Bible. so as to preserve their religious value when stripped of their infallibility, their primitive supernaturalism, and their estimations of the future. A whole new Jesus, a whole new Bible. Do you understand now why In the midst of the battles that took place in the earlier part of the century, James’ Reformation said, we are not here dealing with an average form of Christianity, we’re dealing with another religion altogether. This isn’t Christianity at all. It is something else.

    Now, although we don’t have time this morning to go into a detailed exposition of Matthew 16.28, let me say that there was an Orthodox Presbyterian by the name of Matthew Stonehouse who didn’t shy away from affirming that this text has in it a reference to the future and to the end of the world. But he also noted that this text must be understood, complex as it is, as a reference to the immediate coming of the Spirit, in whom the soul of man would make his impression undoubtedly upon his own for the constitution of his church, which would be, in fact, the manifestation of his kingdom in the world. It was for the sake of not giving up on a text like Matthew 16, 28, and countless others like those texts that speak about a virgin birth, about miracles performed by this Jesus of Nazareth. Texts that speak about His vicarious death upon a cross in which He was a substitute for others. texts that speak about his literal bodily resurrection. It was for the sake of not giving up on texts like these that the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was founded.

    And unorthodoxy overran the Presbyterian Church in the early part of this century. and says, among other things, that the historical Jesus is either unknowable, or mistaken, or a man of his times, or must be understood as a social reformer and nothing else, suggesting him and the Bible to its conviction that the supernatural is impossible.

    It can’t happen. Not only doesn’t it happen, it can’t happen. If you miss that point, you will always misunderstand liberalism and modernism and unorthodoxy. It cannot happen. There is no such God as the Bible describes. There is no such Jesus as the Bible describes. There is no such person. We must invent a new God, a new Jesus. For only the natural is true.

    Today, President Manchin, founder of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and others objected to this line of thought. and declared themselves for the Scriptures, the infallible Word of God, and for the Lord of Glory, Jesus Christ, presented there, when the alternative was to become unorthodox Presbyterians.

    They remained orthodox Presbyterians, and so must we. Let’s do it. Our God, again teach us, well, lessons to come from. And if you have given us mercy, And if you have provided us a shelter in this church for this time, we give you thanks. But Father, we would not boast in ourselves, but in the truth. We would boast in the gospel. We would boast, O Lord, in the full range of that message and in the full counsel of our God. and asking to forgive us if we, then, have become fat and complacent in our Orthodox Presbyterianism. O Lord, may your grace work in us so that we are helpful to others, recognizing ourselves as a servant church Be pleased to use us so this testimony to your infallible word and the matchless perfections of your Son may be maintained in part by us, as it is also by many others throughout the world.

    And give us a heart that is loving towards those who stand with us. though they are a part of another denomination, that we may have a common voice in this terrible day of apostasy. It may not merely be a matter of tolerating those other denominations and communities. May we love them, and may they love us.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Not a Hierarchy, Not a Building

    Not a Hierarchy, Not a Building

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, July 18, 1993.

    About this sermon

    The church is no hierarchy, building, or political organization, and Matthew 16:18 does not establish Peter’s primacy the way Rome has long argued. Rome adds four things to that verse that the text will not bear. The disagreement matters, and Reformed believers can hold it without contempt.

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    Sermon transcript

    in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 22. We are reading from verse 24. There was also a strife among them. which of them should be accounted the greatest. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But he shall not be so. But he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he that is chief as he that doth serve.” For whether is greater he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth, is not he that sitteth at meat, but I am among you as he that serveth. Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom. and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

    And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee both into prison and to death. But he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me. Then turning to Matthew 16, beginning at verse 13.

    When Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the son of man, am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah, one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

    And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

    Then charge he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.” From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offense unto me, for thou savest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

    Let’s pray together. Our God do set before us our place within your kingdom and within your church. This, Lord, that we might again marvel at your love. But Father, work in us so that we would not be selfish, so that we would not be self-centered and think that we are in this relationship to you alone. Instead, Father, bless us by your Spirit so that we understand the extent of your Spirit’s ministry in the world. Even now, Lord, from amongst all the nations and from all the races of mankind, You are drawing to yourself your elect. And Lord, you are not a regarder of persons, nor do you think of some more highly than others.

    In this fellowship then, O God, may we be committed as members of your church to pray for those who are even far away and unknown to us by name, that they with us may be strengthened unto the day when we will see one another’s faces and behold each other in glory. This we ask for the sake of our Savior, who shall greet us in that day.

    It has been my interest in this present series to set before you, piece by piece, the truth from God’s Word about the Church. And in order to do this, I have directed your attention, week by week, to this rightfully famous passage, Matthew 16. Now our messages on this passage have been direct. These messages have had at their center a single point. Thus far we have distinguished the biblical view of the Church from those too often expressed through the course of history and even into our present situation.

    To be specific, the Church is not a hierarchy. That is, the Church is not to be defined by some superstructure of leadership. Now I might go even further than that. The Church is not defined by a single individual, a single human being who presently lives in the world and claims to have authority over the Church in its entirety. Church is then not hierarchy, nor is it identified with the pinnacle of that hierarchy. But secondly, we have said the Church is not a building.

    Now, I know that we have all made this mistake in the most innocent way. And maybe we have made this mistake as recently as this morning. Parents gathering their children together, saying to them, we’re going to church, having specifically in mind the building in which we gather. But no, I think that we all understand this, the Church is not the building. And as with the previous point, so with this we can go even further.

    The Church is not defined in terms of its properties. Now, some of you are somewhat versed in Church history, and you may know a little bit about the course of things in the last century, how things were going with the mainline denominations in this country in the last century. You may even know that the battles over church properties got as far as the Supreme Court of the United States. But interestingly, While the Church was confused on this matter, the Supreme Court wasn’t. For the Supreme Court, during those years and in the midst of those battles, recognized that the Church is essentially a spiritual institution, and the authority of the Church is vested with the spiritual officers, not with the trustees who were to be the custodians of the properties.

    Well, we understand full well, do we not, then, that the Church is not the building, nor is the Church to be defined in terms of its properties. But thirdly, this our message last week, the Church is not a juggernaut, it is not a colossus of impressive worldly might, in which political power and religious sensitivities are blended. Therefore, the Church is not defined in terms of an irrepressible or inextinguishable zeal for social cohesion, social betterment, in a quest for what the Church may well judge to be the greater good for the greatest number. But neither is the Church to be the agent, the purveyor of human arrogance that at bottom is concerned with the worship of man. not the worship of the trine God of scripture and submission to him.

    Now I trust that it is clear to all of us that over against these three tragically flawed and in the outworkings by some wicked doctrines of the Church, the true doctrine of the Church teaches us that the Church is the people of God. You are the Church. And adding to that, we are not to forget that the church is a veritable living temple, made of human stones in which God himself dwells. Nor are we to forget that in the language of our confession, the church is the kingdom of God, as the living, vital center of God’s visible rule in this world, separate from but influencing, according to the pattern of Christ, the forms of this world. The Church is God’s society of the first order.

    And I know that what I am about to say is judged to be heresy by some, especially those who have been swept up into the idolatry of the social sciences. The Church is God’s society, His community of the first order. It is, in a proper biblical theology and definition, the primary social unit. Allegiance to which takes precedence over all other social ties.

    Listen to Jesus. Whoever shall do the will of my father, he says, speaking to his disciples, the church in its infancy. Whoever shall do the will of my father who is in heaven, he is my brother, my sister and my mother. Jesus will even make it a little bit more explicit. It will become even more direct.

    He says in Luke 14 verse 26, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. And concerning the blend of political and religious might, with respect to that matter of the juggernaut that the Church often imagines herself to be, Jesus has this to say, speaking to a man well acquainted with political intrigue and power. My kingdom is not of this world. else would my servants fight.

    Having now laid these things before you, in our quest to understand this whole matter of the Church better, we must speak more fully about certain things that are set before us that remain to be considered in this sixteenth chapter of Matthew. I envision three more sermons rising out of this chapter. First, a message dealing with the description of Peter as the rock. You have him so described there in verse 18.

    Now the reason why this matter is of such great importance is because of the continuing dispute that goes on within Christendom. The dispute between Rome on the one hand and Orthodox Christianity or Orthodox Protestantism on the other. The second message must handle the question of the relationship between the church, mentioned in verse 18, and the kingdom, specifically the keys of the kingdom, spoken of in verse 19. And this issue demands our attention because it is at the center of one of the major ruptures that has overtaken conservative Protestantism in the last century and a half. This rupture has come in the wake of so-called dispensationalism, a system of teaching that not only denies the current presence of the kingdom of God in the world, but separates in an absolute sense the Church from that kingdom, and then even goes further and separates the Church spoken of by Christ in this passage from the Church described later by Paul in his letters. And there is one final message that we will be delivering on this sixteenth chapter of Matthew. one that focuses upon the relationship of the church, verse 18, the kingdom in verse 19, but then looks towards the end of the chapter and specifically that last verse and its mention of the kingdom. Discussion of the ties between these verses is important once again because of a rupture that has taken place within the ranks of Protestantism.

    This time not between conservatives, but between conservatives and modernists or liberals. When Jesus says in verse 28, there are some standing here who shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom, modernists take it That is the statement as a reference to the end of the world in which God would destroy evil and vindicate good. But of course, they point out, all who were standing there that day with Jesus in Caesarea Philippi have tasted death and the end of the world has not occurred. Therefore, Jesus was wrong, disproving that he was a fallible, if not deluded, Jewish teacher, subject to somewhat grand delusions about himself and a wild-eyed expectation with respect to the immediate future. These conclusions, embraced by modernist liberal Protestants probably the most famous of which is Albert Schweitzer, have forced them to invent new and improved interpretations of Jesus, wherein they strip him of all of these fantastical ideas.

    So this gives you an idea of where we are going with our messages. Presently we want to focus upon this controversy over the rock of verse 18. The controversy that rages between Rome and Orthodox Protestantism with respect to the interpretation of this text. Generally, the popular form of the debate focuses on the question of whether Jesus is calling Peter the rock upon which he will build his church, or is it Peter’s confession that is the rock? Catholics have held to the former, Protestants traditionally to the latter position.

    Now, if this were all there was to the issue, after a little bit of study we might conclude, what’s all the fuss? In fact, the emerging consensus among Protestants now, even the most orthodox of Protestants, is to recognize a certain primacy for Peter.

    A primacy amongst the Twelve. He is invariably listed first when the disciples’ names are given. He appears time and time again as the spokesman for the disciples. He heads up the small band that seems to be most intimate with, closest to Jesus. Note the next chapter and the description of the events on the Mount of Transfiguration.

    Peter is given a lead. In many of the gospel stories, then, Peter is a primary figure, and in one generally overlooked text, one that we read this morning, Luke 22, verse 32, Peter is given specific responsibility for the other disciples once he comes through his trial and testing. Nor can it be denied that Peter, in the book of Acts, has a leading role not only at Jerusalem, but also as the gospel is taken to the Gentiles.

    Protestants then, more and more, feel compelled to admit the weight of the biblical evidence Peter has a unique role. Yes, there’s a sense in which we can say Peter is the rock. At the same time, Catholics, those most biblically sensitive among them, have had to admit that Peter, in relationship to his confession, is quite to the point. and that the confession from Peter plays an important role, in fact just as important role, as Peter himself. Therefore, the confessing Peter and even the confession itself, standing as it does over against the effrontery Peter offers Christ later in this text, are constitutive and essential as to what the rock means. So are saying some Catholics now, the confession itself is the rock. Well, isn’t this great? Catholics are talking like Protestants, and Protestants are talking like Catholics. We’re all set to get back together again, aren’t we? Well, not quite.

    You see, as much as Rome may be prepared to add to their interpretation of Matthew 16 verse 18, this consideration that the confession itself of Peter stands rock-like in the text, They have not been willing to subtract any of the extended doctrines they draw out of their recognition of Peter’s primacy. And what are those extended doctrines? According to Rome, they are these.

    Primacy for Peter equals infallibility. If he is rock, his rock-like character cannot deceive. Primacy for Peter equals infallibility. Secondly, Christ conferred primacy not just to Peter, but upon those who succeed him in his specific office as the Supreme Bishop of the Church. And you might note that this is a privilege that Christ gives only to the successors of Peter, according to Rome, not to the other disciples. Thirdly, the extended doctrine drawn out of this text by Rome states that the Holy Spirit in time draws Peter to Rome At the conclusion of his life, for the express purpose of exalting both the man and the place, thus Rome, ever after, is to be the seat of the Church’s supreme earthly authority. And finally, the exaltation of Peter and those who follow him in his office are in their person the very essence of the Church.

    Without him, the Church itself is fatally obscured and disfigured. Now, I hope that you need no argument from me about how these extended doctrines go far beyond the warrants of Matthew 16. In fact, these extended doctrines go far beyond the rest of the relevant biblical material that would pertain. And in actual fact, they are the product of tradition and fanciful Roman folklore. But I also hope that you are not naive.

    As much as Rome may be willing to add Peter’s confession to its interpretation of what constitutes the rock upon which Christ builds his church, Rome is even more adamantly unwilling to subtract any of these extended doctrines from her theological treasury. These doctrines are non-negotiable, as anyone who follows the present ecumenical scene well knows. And there is a reason why these extended doctrines are non-negotiable. For if these extended doctrines fall, the Church of Rome herself falls. We do not pray for Rome’s fall. We pray for Rome’s repentance.

    That she with us might learn from Peter and the rest of the biblical leaders to confess Christ as the only head and king of the church, and be conformed to his perfect law of liberty. Most specifically, we pray that we all may give heed to the infallible word of God the only rule of faith and practice and with courage and determination put the traditions of men and fanciful ecclesiastical folklore in their place Let us pray.

    Our Lord, there is that true sense in which we are all descendants of Rome and the Roman Church. And our Lord, as you have been pleased to give us life from the dead and light instead of darkness, we would intercede for this communion, that she in fact may be brought to her knees with respect to these matters that are out of accord with your holy word. May it please you, our God, to set before all of us the proper doctrine of infallibility that it rests within the scriptures and our lives are bound by that word even above the traditions of men and above the stories that men may in fact produce even for religious ends. O God, may we ourselves be helped in our understanding of your word.

    We would not shy away from giving Peter his due when the biblical evidence seems so clear. At the same time, Lord, would you help us in our confession that our confession may be like his? In fact, built upon it, and rock-like. Surely, Lord, such confession pleases you. It pleases you with respect to us, as surely as it pleased our Savior with respect to Peter. This, then, we pray, our God, looking to ourselves that we with all humility may pursue the truth.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Christ Confronts the Devil at Caesarea-Philippi

    Christ Confronts the Devil at Caesarea-Philippi

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, July 11, 1993.

    About this sermon

    Caesarea-Philippi’s own history, layered with Danite idolatry and successive Syrian and Roman conquest, made it a fitting stage for humanity’s oldest ambition: to be a god and to own the land. Christ deliberately brings his confrontation with Peter’s confession to that exact place. The location is not incidental background; it is part of the argument.

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    Sermon transcript

    Matthew 20, verse 20, is where we begin our scripture reading this morning. Matthew 20, verse 20. Don’t you listen to the word of God? Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshiping him and desiring a certain thing of him.

    And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She said unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, one on thy right hand and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of? to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with, they say unto him, We are able. And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with.

    But the sixth on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father. And when the ten heard it, removed with indignation against the two brethren that Jesus called them unto him, and said that you know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise demean over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it is not so among you, that whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister, and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. Turning back to Matthew 16, beginning at verse 13.

    When Jesus came into the co-successory of Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others Jeremiah, one of the prophets. And he said unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

    And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

    Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus Christ. From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised again the third day.”

    Lord, perfect the unity for us here, that we would have no divisions among us. Thus seeing the wonderful truth of your Spirit played out before our very eyes and the power of your word. But give us a heart, Lord, for those in every place where you are known in truth and worshiped according to the truth of your gospel. May it please you, Lord, then, to grant here amongst us a great desire expressed in prayer and in other ways, whereby our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world would be expressed. Keep before us, Lord, the denominations that we have fellowship with in this land. May we be in prayer for them May we be showing our love for them, and may you work in us patience, may our patience be fruitful in our relationship to them. As indeed, Lord, their patience would be a blessing to us. And Father, throughout the world, not only in this land, but in all of the lands of the where your people are brought together, give us a zeal and a love for your saints.

    And even though we have never seen their faces, even though we do not know their names, may we be in prayer for them as those who are of the same family as we. We ask this, and now look to you that with your word you might be at work in us so that we would be conformed to the image of your Son perfectly. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

    We have been considering the Church, looking at this passage in Matthew 16, and this morning we want to do a little geographical theology and consider the setting for this familiar story of the confession of Christ in the region of Caesarea Philippi. Now, if you look at Matthew 16, verse 13, and you have before you the King James Version, or if it is your habit to read only the King James Version, you find these words.

    When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, and that word coasts might leave you a bit confused. Since ordinarily we associate coasts with the sea and its shoreline, we may well know that Caesarea Philippi is landlocked and is far distant from the sea coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. That word coast is translated in all modern translations as region or district. It sets before us the fact, then, that it is the region of Caesarea Philippi that is before us.

    We are particularly concerned with the region in which that city was the most prominent. However, we are not to ignore the city, for the city is the concentration point of the region and speaks eloquently about the truth of that region, as does the region itself.

    What about this region? This region in the Middle East, tangential to the territories of Israel at one time, has been incorporated into it. What about this district? This district was Not a part of the original territories, the queens to Israel under the original covenant.

    It was a secluded district surrounded by mountains north of the Sea of Galilee in the regions of the headwaters of the Jordan River. If you have a map in the back of your Bible, you may want to track down this region as you move up beyond the Sea of Galilee and toward the headwaters and just below Mount Hermon. You will find the regions that we are speaking about. lay east of the territories originally allotted to Israel and her tribes. In the days of the conquest of Canaan by Israel under Joshua, this territory and its principal city, Leshem, L-E-S-H-E-M, or Laish, as it was also known, L-A-I-S-H, were occupied by a reclusive people most likely related to the Cydonians.

    Maybe they were Cydonians themselves who had withdrawn from their Phoenician homeland, moved eastward into this region in order to seclude themselves from the intrigues and possibly even the materialism that had overrun Phoenicia. They lived in this region, these people, they are unnamed in the Bible. They lived here quietly and securely, away from the politics of Phoenicia and safe from the insanity of the Canaanite tribes, the Amorites, protected as they were by mountains on all sides. was a tranquil and idyllic life. Maybe they even thought that they had found utopia on earth. But their tranquil and idyllic life was destroyed about 1200 years before the birth of Christ. It was destroyed not by the Phoenicians to their west, nor by the Amorite and Canaanite tribes to the south. It was actually destroyed by the Israelites.

    This world was torn apart by a specific tribe, the tribe of Dan. What about the tribe of Dan? The tribe of Dan had its own peculiar problems when it entered into the land of Canaan under Joshua. Since the days of the conquest, about 200 years before the date that we’ve mentioned, The Danites had been unable to gain control of their patrimony, their inheritance allotted to them under Joshua.

    The territory that lay directly north of Judah, east of Benjamin, bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, so we’re quite a distance to the south. We have a brief account of the Danites’ frustration, and their subsequent journey north and conquest of Leshem, recorded for us in Joshua chapter 19, verse 47. But the account there is so skeletal that we hardly figure out what is going on. This account is actually filled out for us later in the book of Judges, particularly Judges chapter 18. And here we are told about the treachery and religious perversion of the Danites. The Danites, frustrated as they were, maybe because of their religious declension, a failure of faith on their part, a refusal to completely submit to the Lord.

    Then, in their frustration, set out to spy out a territory that they might call their own. They send out five messengers and come upon this territory to the north, in the regions of the headwaters of the Jordan. They love it. They covet it. They take it for themselves. The story is told in Judges 18 of how the Danite army came together and began on its journey northward.

    In the process of that journey, they came to the house of a man named Micah in the hill country of Ephraim. Not Micah the prophet from a later time. At the house of Micah, they enticed a renegade Levite who had come to Micah from the town of Bethlehem, of all places. And this renegade Levite had actually been placed in the employ of Micah to become his officiating over a cult there in Micah’s house, complete with vestments, ordinations, and a god, an idol of silver which Micah himself had made. Well, if Jehovah has let you down, what then might you do? if you are a Danite frustrated with your lot within the territory of Israel. Well, what we do is we take this priest, we take some of the wealth of Micah’s house, including his silver god, and make our way north to the territory we covet We overrun the territory, we conquer it, we set up our own shrine far removed from the center of religious life in Israel, we establish our own priesthood, and we rename the territory after our ancestral father.

    We call it Dan. Here is a story of raw power. Here is a story of militarism. Here is a story not just of political ambition, but of outlaw worship, the two melding. that this story of raw power, militarism and outlaw worship anticipates what the future promises for the northern tribes, once the kingdom of Israel divine, about 250 years later, when civil war breaks out between Rehoboam in the south and Jeroboam in the north. we read about that conflict in First Kings twelve. Jeroboam, the king of the northern tribes, although chosen of the Lord, displays his contempt for Jerusalem and its worship, and in the interest of maintaining the allegiance of his subjects, he doesn’t want them to go down to Jerusalem to worship. And out of his hatred for the throne of David, he sets up two shrines adorned with golden calves at the southern border of his kingdom at Bethel, and in the north, of course, at Dan.” You’ve heard about Dan and Bethel, the shrines of the northern kingdom. The Danites have done well in this civil war. They have traded up. Remember, their first idol was silver. They now have a golden one. The Danites trade up, and all of Israel was traded off to the spirit that had infected the Danites, so that now all of Israel, the northern kingdom, is consumed by the Danite cancer.

    Frustration born of spiritual weakness, breeding a philosophy of might and power, even a philosophy of terror, by which the Lord God himself is spurned for the sake of better gods, who better serve those ends. Frustration born of spiritual weakness, breeding a philosophy of might and power, a philosophy of terror, by which a belief in human sovereignty entails the weak and destroys the helpless. Jehovah’s judgment reverberates through the plush mountain valleys in the regions of Dan, moving southward from there to the capital city of the northern kingdom, Samaria. Words of the prophet Amos echo throughout the streets of that city a number of years Amos says, As for those who say, As your God lives, O Dan, they shall fall and not rise again.”

    Amos 8.14. While these might not rise again, the spirit of the God who is worshiped in Dan does. God judges the place, but the place is now left the haunt of seven demons far worse than the first driven out. It becomes the haunt of apparitions and ghosts. And in time, its beauty attracts overwhelmingly.

    The Greeks invade in the fourth century B.C., and when they come into the regions of Palestine and its environs, they set up in Dan, in the regions of Dan, a sanctuary to one of their own gods, the god Pan. From Dan to Pan. They renamed the city there, the chief city, Tannian, T-A-N-E-A-N, in honor of the beauty of the region, Tan himself being the patron deity of rustic bucolic settings. But not even the mischievousness of Pan prepares the citizens of that region for the panic and the pandemonium that strikes about 200 B.C. When the Syrians in the north and the Egyptians from the south square off in this region, for a major battle in which the Syrians gained the upper hand and claimed control over the entire region to the south, all of the territory of Palestine.

    Syrian power from that victory point now spreads as a plague over all the territory of Israel, finally resting in Jerusalem and residing in the treachery of a Syrian king named Antiochus IV, otherwise known as Epiphanes, a name which he gave himself because he believed himself to be the appearance of the god Zeus walking in the earth.

    Panion, this city, becomes then consistent with the intrigues that had been worked out in its regions previously. A symbol of a bond between religious and political might, such a bond that ultimately is described and defined by God himself as inherently blasphemous. Daniel, the prophet would reflect upon this marriage of religious and political might, and he would call it the abomination of desolation that raises its head against God. After the Syrians came the Romans. and particularly one Roman, Augustus he too embodying the spirit that emanated from Panion and Dan he representative of a marriage of religious and political might but he was in a generous mood and he had a particularly useful individual living in the territories of Israel. So in 20 BC he made a present of Panion and its regions to the infamous Herod the Great. And the blasphemy continues. Herod died in 4 BC. His kingdom was divided among his sons.

    Panion came into the hands of his son Philip, who rebuilt the city of Panion in honor of Augustus. In honor of Augustus, Caesar renamed it Caesarea after Caesar, but Caesarea Philippi in order to distinguish it from the Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast. no region, no city, so represents the profanation of the things of God by the things of men. In fact, it was the coasts or the regions of Caesarea Philippi that stood as monuments to the insatiable quest by man for deification. Oh, to be a god, to walk the earth as a divine figure and to claim it for yourself. When Jesus makes his way to the regions of Caesarea Philippi, he is on a march.

    It is a deliberate excursion. The purpose of it is not as one preacher once said, to forever afterward provide his disciples with an example of how to get away from the crowds and have a real vacation. Just an aside at this point. Do you know why the Church is in trouble? It’s not just because such sermons are preached. It’s because people sit there and listen to them. is quite deliberate. Not just to get away for a while, for a little R&R. Jesus sees at the center of this journey and his arrival at Caesarea Philippi a symbolic confrontation, a confrontation with the history, the historic personages, and the significance of this region. Jesus comes into that territory.

    He, in the Spirit, hears the voices of the Danites, the voice of Jeroboam, the voice of Antiochus Epiphanes, of Augustus, of Herod the Great. from the pit of hell, but he also hears the bold, blasting voice of their master, that one who still boasts, who is busy enlisting the men of the earth into his employ, Satan himself. And for this confrontation, no mere prophet’s voice will do, be it even the voice of Elijah or Jeremiah or the greatest of the prophets, John the Baptist. For this is the climactic cataclysmal confrontation between the Son of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, the regions of glory, God in the flesh. and the vain boast of men who, in the employ of the devil, parade their marriage of religion and politics in order to carve out for themselves a kingdom, build for themselves a temple, and set themselves up in their own sanctuary. As the Danites and as Jeroboam, a Jew, prove, the Jews themselves are not immune to this disease, immune to such wickedness.

    They themselves become purveyors of this ideology, no less than the Gentiles, for whom they have such contempt, thought at the same time. Cut it. The whole world then gathers at Caesarea Philippi, it seems. No more, the very armies of heaven and hell gather there. No one sees it, not even Peter who utters such a marvelous confession. Only Jesus perceives the significance of what is transpiring. It is not his vanity then that extracts from Peter his confession that day.

    Rather it is his zeal and love for his father, for his father’s kingdom, and for his church. These, then, are those and what Jesus serves. his words concerning his church in this context are meant to have incredible, monumental meaning. What is said that day in Caesarea Philippi will be drawn out further by Christ when he must deal with an ambitious mother in whom the spirit of the Danites lives.

    She wants the chief places in the kingdom for her sons. And it is in this context, and in dealing with its aftermath, that Jesus so eloquently sets before us the charter and the constitution for his church, which stands against the arrogance of political and religious blasphemy. Listen to Jesus once more.

    You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom. Is there any doubt, O Lord, what awaits your people if they forsake the charter and constitution of the church? and lust after the power of the world, and in order to gain it, become participants in a blasphemous union between religion and politics. O God, though we parade beneath the banner of orthodoxy, it may well be that that is exactly the state of our heart.

    And if it is, Lord, We ask that you will forgive us, that you will work in us your grace so that we would repent of such idolatry. And Father, cure us of this sickening pride that is so destructive to our souls, in order that we might serve and serve well the Lord Jesus, who has given us such a marvelous declaration of the charter and constitution of his church. Those words which we read today help us our father in light of.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Machen’s Church and Christ’s Church

    Machen’s Church and Christ’s Church

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, July 4, 1993.

    About this sermon

    J. Gresham Machen’s reading of Acts 20:28 and Christ’s own words in Matthew 16 are set side by side, both converging on Peter’s confession as the church’s foundation. A church built on that confession cannot expect to avoid controversy or confusion; it has never had that luxury. What it can do is actually live the gospel it confesses.

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    Sermon transcript

    We read today from Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 16, and we begin at verse 13. Let us listen to the word of God. When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, He asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

    And I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

    Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offense unto for thou savest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

    For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

    How rich and wonderful your mercy, Lord, even in the temporal affairs of life. How you give us the bread of this creation. How wonderfully, Lord, you give us homes, you grant us peace within our homes. You grant us those about us who love us. And Father, you set us in a land that is most dear to us. If we ask you, Lord, that your mercies may continue with us as we live in this land, that we would be respectful of its laws, that we would also pray for its well-being, and pray for the well-being of those who are in authority over us. O Father, we ask also that we would keep in mind that such things as you give us in this creation, those are things of which we are to be stewards and faithful stewards.

    So Lord, may we have regard to the liberties, the temporal liberties that have been given And Lord, may it please you to continue those liberties, that we might live without harassment, that we might worship you freely, that we might in fact be free to give unto you and to others in the name of Christ. This we ask for the sake of our Savior, the Lord, who surveys all of creation and all of the nations. On June 14, 1936, in the evening as the first General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was being brought to a close, J. Gresham Machen, the Church’s first moderator, rose to preach.

    His text that evening was 20, verse 28, which speaks about the Church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood. In that sermon, Manchin mentioned many of the obstacles and attitudes which the new Church would have to face, especially those rising from the ranks of the old Church. the Presbyterian Church, USA. Machen was quite direct in his remarks.

    He was, after all, speaking out of the background of his own upbringing, having been raised in the lap of fashionable Presbyterianism. But he also spoke against the background of a century in which Presbyterians had spent much time building cathedral-like structures. So it was in June 1936 that very expensive cathedral-like structures dotted the landscape, many of them raised up by Presbyterians.

    And this led nature then to say, in his sermon these words, “‘How often in these days, when men put church buildings on one side and Christ on the other, do they choose the building and let Christ go?’ Nathan’s words that night mark out one dimension of the cataclysmic crisis that has overtaken the American church in this century. Booths, edifices, and real estate are judged more important than the truth of the gospel. In fact, it seems the gospel and its truth are virtually acquainted with buildings and properties as if they mutually bind and define each other. Now, such thinking is an old heresy. An old heresy that has wormed its way into the religious sensibilities, even of those who otherwise are most devout and doctrinally straight.

    Few in this church today remember Ralph Cameron. a godly, elderly Scotsman from Bellevue, who joined this congregation in its early days in the late sixties, and then shortly afterwards passed away. Mr. Cameron, so I am told, had great difficulty initially coming to Grace Church. You see, at that time, Grace Church was meeting in what is now the Switly Country Inn down on the boulevard. Mr. Cameron’s feelings were these.

    Motels are not churches, and people who meet in motels can’t be meeting in the church. One of the things for which Mr. Cameron was grateful before he died was how God used this church for him even in his latter years to correct his thinking at this point. The church is the people of God. who are made by him to be a living temple. It is they who sanctify the place where they meet, not the place that sanctifies them.

    So it doesn’t matter whether it’s a motel, or a storefront, or as was the case in the early days of the OPC, a chinchilla farm, or a hayloft, or someone’s backyard. Shortly after I arrived here to pastor this congregation, a well-meaning friend told me, Swickley and Osborne will never accept Grace Church as a church. Since you are not really a church, just a group of people meeting in a renovated schoolhouse. Sadly, my friend’s words have proved all too prophetic.

    Still, I continue to pray that God will be gracious to the people in this area. by showing them that buildings and property are not the church, and by convincing them through his word and spirit to let such things go for the sake of the gospel and its truth. As much as we might understand As much as we might understand that the building, the property, is not the church, neither is it adequate for us simply to identify the church as the people of God or as that living temple, as electrifying as those truths are when properly grasped. Too often, the notion of the Church remains for us quite indefinite, quite nebulous, and people, even we ourselves, allow our minds to be numbed by talk about the Church.

    Consider Jesus’ statements in Matthew 16. Brief as they are, they are remarkably full and expansive, setting before us in short order a proper definition of the Church. Notice this as well. The context for these statements in Matthew 16 serves to drive home their content.

    That context underscores the significance of Peter’s confession, which stands so central to this section. At first glance, we might not be overly impressed by Peter’s remarks, especially if we are alert to what has happened earlier in this very gospel. For you see, Peter is not blessed because he is the first to confess that Jesus is the Son of God. No, not at all. Turn, for instance, to Matthew 14, verse 33. Here we find the story about Jesus walking on the water, a story, I might add, in which Peter again plays a very important role. But notice that thirty-third verse.

    When Jesus gets back into the boat with his disciples, they worship him and say, surely you are the Son of God. So the importance of Peter’s confession is not that he is the first to make such a confession. Indeed, the disciples as a group have confessed Jesus’ dignity and utter uniqueness prior to what we read in Matthew 16. This being the case, then, what is the importance of Peter’s confession? Why should it elicit such remarks from Jesus, especially such remarks about the Church?

    Because it is precisely at this point that the ministry of Jesus has reached a critical stage, a crucial point. Matthew himself understands this, and shows that he understands this by the way in which he structures his gospel. There are two main divisions for Matthew’s account of Jesus’ ministry. The first division begins at the seventeenth verse of the fourth chapter, where we read these words. From that time, Jesus began thus and so. From that time, Jesus began thus and so. Notice what occurs immediately after the confession of Peter and Christ’s attendant We have there introduced to us the second division of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ ministry.

    That second division begins at the 21st verse of that 16th chapter, a verse which we read this morning, where the very words that we found in Matthew 4.17 are repeated.

    This means, then, that Peter’s confession is climactic. It is strategic. It comes at the critical juncture in the account of the ministry of Christ. Consider its importance. On the one hand, it comes when there is great confusion about Jesus and even widespread rejection of him. read through the opening verses of Matthew 16.

    The disciples themselves are not immune to this confusion, as those verses prove. And as is proved by the exchange between Jesus and Peter after the initial confession, Peter himself is not immune to that confusion. So on the one hand, this confession by Peter comes at this strategic point. It comes when there is great confusion about Jesus and even widespread rejection of him. And that confusion and rejection have reached a crisis point in themselves.

    On the other hand, Peter’s confession comes when Jesus is preparing now from this point on, that’s the point and force of that twenty-first verse, when Jesus is preparing from this point on to make his way to Jerusalem for the express purpose of fulfilling his father’s will, that is, to suffer at the hands of the Jewish leaders, to die and to rise again on the third day.

    It is in this setting then, in this context, that Jesus chooses to draw from Peter’s confession in order to set before his disciples, and I may say by way of extension, set before us as well, the true nature of the Church. You see, Christ’s Church is specifically defined not just by Peter’s confession or anyone else’s confession, but by Peter’s confession in its specific context. That definition of the Church is no different now than it was then.

    The confession standing central to the Church must then be the one that is articulate, bold, and resolute, specifically now, specifically in the face of confusion and in the face of the rejection of others. If your confession, if your confession as part of the Church is not standing over against the confusion of the world and the rejection of the world, yours is not a true confession. If a church’s confession is not standing over against mass confusion with respect to the person of God and His Son, Jesus Christ, and the rejection of God in all of His persons, then if That church is not standing over against such things, it is not itself confessing truly.

    Now one need not go out and look for controversy. But the church of Jesus Christ by definition cannot avoid controversy. And some have made Christianity into a religion of non-controversy. And how odd that the church of this century should not only tolerate but embrace those who are so obviously confused. about who Jesus Christ is. Not only confused, but those who seem, those I might say who are the more intelligent, most articulate when they are rejecting the scriptural testimony to the fullness of Jesus’ personality and identity. Now where do you place Albert Schweitzer in the scale of things? Is he not the patron saint of Protestantism in the twentieth century? If he is for you, let me disabuse you of that attitude and idea. This is Albert Schweitzer’s confession.

    Quote, the names in which men expressed their recognition of Jesus such as Messiah, Son of Man, Son of God, have become for us, modern people that we are, historical parables. We can find no designation which expresses what he is for us. Consider the confession of one of the more popular Roman Catholic theologians of our time, Hans Kuhn. The whole point of what happened in and with Jesus depends on the fact that for believers, God himself, as man’s friend, was present at work, speaking, acting, definitely revealing himself in this Jesus. as my father-in-law would say, weak as water. Both of these statements, one from Schweitzer the Protestant, one from Kuhn the Catholic, are outstanding for their theological dishonesty and cowardice. No less important from Jesus’ point of view as to what constitutes a true confession at the center of his church is the truth about his mission, not just his person, but his mission.

    That mission was to suffer, to die, to rise again, and specifically, as is said elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel, for the purpose of saving his people from their sins, Matthew 1.21, and for the purpose of giving his life a ransom for many, Matthew 20.28. Here, too, is indispensable content for the confession by which the church is to be identified. Yes, with respect to the person of Christ, but also with respect to his mission.

    What do we do then with those efforts in our own time, in our own century, to transform Jesus into the grand humanitarian? the famous writer and one-time missionary of the Presbyterian Church, contended that the notions of redemption and blood sacrifice were but hangovers of superstitious beliefs. What do we do about those who transform Jesus into a symbolic figure of human transcendence? that somehow humanity will make it through and will triumph in the end. That was the position of James I. McCord, former president of Princeton Seminary, for whom neither Jesus’s substitutionary death on the cross nor bodily resurrection were essential for the Christian message.

    The Church then being defined by confession in context, wherein the confession, be it personal or corporate, stands over against the confusion of the world and even the rejection by the same. But of course, Jesus’ Church will not be defined by those who merely say the right things about Jesus’ person and work.

    That is evident also from our text. The lives of those who truly confess and show in their confession and by their lives they understand will be lives then, as Jesus himself describes, lives of self-sacrifice after the image in the likeness of their Savior. If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it.” Fine words are not enough. Fine words must be joined with fine lives. in a proper definition of the Church. And finally, those who confess, those who then will unite themselves to Christ by way of confession, will be under his both with respect to their doctrine and their lives.

    Such scrutiny comes to bear upon them through the living Christ, who is at work even presently through those to whom he has given the keys of the table. It may well be that you do not understand the full force of that 19th verse where Jesus speaks about the keys of the kingdom. But do not chase, do not automatically get your back up, but realize that if you are going to say that you have place in the true Church of Christ, that you have understanding with respect to a person in ministry, then understand this also, that that church is governed. It is necessarily governed by the living Lord, who exercises his rule in the church through those to whom he has committed the fees of the kingdom. Discipline is an undeniable, essential mark of the true church.

    If you don’t like that, Will you not ask yourself the question whether or not you belong here? If it is your private opinion that verse 19 has no place in your life and that discipline should have no place in the Church, will you please reconsider your position here and save your elders the trouble?

    Because it is truly a grief for us to deal with you. Why don’t you make it easy on us and just ask to be released. I like the confession part though. I enjoy saying nice things about Jesus that make me feel warm and fuzzy. So we move on to this living business and this discipline matter. That you fellows seem to slip into opinions and abandon what I judge to be the true meaning of Christianity. My friend, your living Lord is speaking to you here. Yes, we glory in our Savior, we thank him for the glorious body that is his, the Church. We rejoice in our union with him and in our knowledge that the Church is not a building but a living, confessing group of believers.

    But we also acknowledge the pressure that being in such an assembly brings upon us with respect to the scrutiny and discipline that surveys us, that rightly surveys us, in our speaking and in our living. That scrutiny and that discipline spoil our complacency. They spoil our sham comforts, lest we too prove to mind the things of men and not the things of God.

    Is your confession proper and true? Appropriate to the Church rightly defined as Jesus himself in this marvelous chapter sets before us. I pray to God that it may be so. O Lord, we ask you that as we are mindful of the greatness of your Son, we would consider the extensiveness that pertains to his work, not just to be confessed by men at one point during his earthly stay, not even just to suffer in Jerusalem, to die, to rise again, but to build his church of which we are a part. And if we are bold to confess him, then may we live him also. And if we are living him, may we also welcome the scrutiny and discipline that he has placed in his church for our well-being. We ask, Lord, that you would be pleased to work with us even to bring us to a proper submission so that you, the Lord, may be exalted.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Christ Builds His Assembly

    Christ Builds His Assembly

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, June 27, 1993.

    About this sermon

    Luther and Calvin both defined the church simply as the people of God, a definition modern experience has quietly made expendable. Against that drift, Christ’s own word in Matthew 16 answers directly: he builds an ‘assembly,’ a dwelling place for God, something no merely personal faith can substitute for. The series opens by putting that assembly back at the center.

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    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are reading from Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 16, beginning with verse 13. Let us give attention to the word of God. When Jesus came into the co-successory of Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?

    They said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elijah. and others, Jeremiah, are one of the prophets. He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

    And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, And upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

    Then charged be his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an absent son to me, for thou savest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

    For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. But what is a man profiting? He gain the whole world, and lose his own soul. What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? The Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”

    O God, give us a zeal for your word and for your gospel, even as we ourselves express that May we think long about the need of your people in the world, and also the matter of that calling of your elect from various nations and tribes of the earth. O Father, in this our zeal for your word and your gospel, may we be concerned to pray always that word and its success, knowing, Lord, that you are faithful in calling your own. And as we have evidence of your call at work, may we rejoice, rejoicing as much in these that you have called as we do rejoice in our own calling. We ask this for the sake of Christ, who is at work by his Spirit presently. to draw all your elect unto you. Amen.

    Once he marched, even a child of seven knows what the Church is. Now, his comment had nothing to do with the precociousness or the intelligence of children in the early part of the sixteenth century. But rather, that comment had to do with how much everyone in German society, from the youngest to the oldest, was vitally interested in the Church. A child of seven, no less than a middle-aged former Augustinian monk. in that early part of the 16th century was absorbed with the subject of the Church and the Church’s true identity.

    Now in the high times, we who are the descendants of the Reformation, Get this matter straight. It is high time that we get it straight once and for all. Reformation, which had at its center the work of a monumental figure like Martin Luther, had nothing to do, in Luther’s mind, with what we call modern individualism. Consider Luther’s doctrine of personal justification by faith. Luther pressed that doctrine in the interest of identifying the true evangelical Church, into which a justified person is incorporated. That justified person does not stand alone by himself, autonomous. separated from the assembly of God’s people, rather that justified person is identified specifically as he is incorporated into the Church that preaches truly the doctrine of justification.

    If that is not enough for you and you are not particularly impressed by Luther, let me cite Calvin. Calvin, in writing the preface to his now-famous Institutes of the Christian Religion, said that he had no other goal in writing those volumes and in his ministry as a whole other than his service to the Church. But I didn’t know that you had to require it.

    Now we might judge that these attitudes by Luther and Calvin are a bit too conservative given the mood of our day. We might even judge that the attitudes expressed by Luther and Calvin are too churchy and much too close to Rome to suit us. to have control over the candle blocking on table 15. Indeed, there is a conservative element to the doctrine proclaimed and declared by both of these individuals. But a conservatism that we would do well to hold close.

    Luther and Calvin thought a reformation of the church, not a revolution, nor were they interested in anarchy. Those claimed Luther and Calvin would get it straight. Now given their conservative bent and their interest in the church, We do well to press further and deeper so as to not miss their contribution to the discussion about what the Church is.

    For them, conservative as they were, the Church would not be defined in terms of its hierarchy. This is where they differed from Rome. They had as much zeal for the Church as they had as the church, as those in Rome did. Where they differed was that they refused to define the church in terms of its hierarchy, as if the church existed only where the Roman poppet, the Pope, was represented.

    No. The reformers saw and claimed to see clearly in their Bibles that the church is foremostly defined as the people of God. Rome’s view does not necessitate of itself the people, but only the Roman Pontius and his representative. And this is why, to this day, a priest in the Roman Church can celebrate the Mass regardless of whether there is a congregation present or not. You don’t need the people.

    Luther and Calvin’s insight proves to be that. As conservative as it was, as insistent upon the institution of the church as it was, a recovery of the biblical truth, namely that the church is the people of God. Now while this insight was made an article of faith for the reformers, and became an article of faith among the spiritual descendants of the Reformers, it was retained in the conscience of evangelical Protestantism for a mere three centuries. And then it began to be challenged and even eroded. I mean, you should call more. You have a great voice.

    It was eroded by the rising disgust amongst many Protestants over denominationalism, the fracturing of the Church, the endless division that we observe within the Churches. It was eroded by a flood of suspicion about Church structures per se. I just don’t trust them. And it was also eroded by an out-and-out sinful disregard for personal accountability to the Church and to the Church’s rightful authority. I grew up in the subsequent schizophrenia of modern Protestantism.

    On the one hand, I had a lingering respect for the Church. Even from a very young age, I was concerned to be faithful to the Church. However, now, looking back upon those young days, I can only describe my attitude presently as a desire I had in myself honor and institution upon which I believed, however naively, God had placed his stand.

    I was regular. I went to Sunday school. I went to church. I was dutiful, responsive. I even went to summer camp. I didn’t miss a retreat. I was even enthusiastic. But, I have to admit that I was enthusiastic about the regularity of the whole thing. I was enthusiastic about the form and structure of things. So that is one side of my schizophrenia.

    The other side, as I recall, was this, I was possessed of a spirit, being the modern evangelical that I was, I was possessed of a spirit that saw the church as extendable. I was possessed of a spirit that saw my individual personal Christianity as all that mattered. I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and that was all important. And therefore, as far as my religious identity was concerned, I had an existence That was, by and large, for all intents and purposes, cut off from, independent of, detached from the Church. I couldn’t stand without it. But I don’t want you to miss the precise nature of what was going on in my young mind. I might well pride myself in my personal relationship to Jesus Christ, and I might even take pride in my steadfastness, my faithfulness, my dutifulness with respect to the Church.

    But even at these points, I was laboring under confusion. Even the notion of the Church that I held on to was itself corrupted. That view of the Church which I had embraced as the child of decadent Protestantism was a departure from the Reformation and from the Biblical view. I had no real spiritual or religious interest in the people at all.

    There was a certain social interest. Do you get my drift? I was interested in young ladies, if I have to spell it out. There was a certain social interest. But I like being with a crowd. But I have no real spiritual, religious interest in these people. I have no true sense that these people worry that. The church is gone. I had no real appreciation of their identity or of my own identity with them as the people of God.

    In relationship to whom I and my personal faith in Jesus Christ was intimately bound through whom then I was to be defined. I must say that my awakening to the truth about the Church as the people of God, my awakening to the corporate character of the Church of Jesus Christ, was as astounding to me as my grasping of the grace of the gospel. It was electric. If therefore you have noticed an emphasis in my ministering upon the church and corporate nature, you are indeed picking up on something that is deliberate. Together with my interest to set before you the excellence of Christ as he is presented to us from Genesis to Revelation, it is my concern that you would live fully in your identity as the Church, that is, as the people of God. The excellence of Christ and our identity as the Church are interconnected, intertwined, inseparably bound.

    Jesus says, does he not, I will build my Church. He is his church. He, in that statement, speaking as he does, seeks to distinguish his church from a church not specifically identified as his. What church might there be that stands over against Jesus? which necessitates him now to identify what he is about as his church. Now, in order to understand our Savior’s meaning at this point, we must not allow ourselves to be distracted, at least at first, by the image he uses. I will build my church.”

    It’s a building, Jesus, not its building language. It may be tempted to think his comment then to center on an architectural point of reference, as if Jesus had in mind a literal structure, a literal building. Or, even carrying things a little further, we might I think the image of a building suggests a structure and has in view the organizational structure and order of the Church. But Jesus here has neither a literal building nor the organizational superstructure in mind when he speaks about building his Church.

    He has first in mind an assembly. That is what the church translates to be. He has in mind an assembly, an assembly that is recognizably his, at the center of which is the confession by all who are a part of it that he, Jesus, is the Christ, the son of the living God. This assembly, which Jesus is specifically now identifying as his own and distinguishing from another assembly, is built by him as an answer to and over against the assembly of Israel, which, even though it has a fine pedigree and hails from the hallowed ground of Mount Sinai, both is resistant to and critically confused about Jesus’ identity. Although it is not explicitly stated, the clear implication of what Jesus is saying in Matthew 16, verse 18, is that his church is the new Israel of God. Jesus, then, is about the business of building his assembly. an assembly of people incorporated unto him and through him. This assembly then being the center of God’s activity, the true Israel of God.

    But we must not lose touch with the building language that Jesus uses in the statement, I will build my church. Yes, to be sure, the people there are prominent, they are what has the preeminence, they are what is at issue, not brick or boards or nails or mortar. The building language is instructive. Not only is there the assembly of Israel in the background through Jesus’ statements, over against which now he sets his own assembly, but you will recall that there was a building enterprise associated with the primal assembling of the children of Israel after they had come out of Egypt.

    After they were gathered to Sinai, they set about the task of constructing the tabernacle, a tabernacle that in time gave way to the temple. Jesus’ words, therefore, are not simply intended to set before us the Christian assembly as the replacement for the assembly of Israel. His words are meant to suggest that this Christian assembly, the true people of God, are in actual fact the temple of the Lord.

    Not only the assembly of God, but as the assembly and in their corporate identity the very dwelling place of God. You begin to understand why I personally was electrified by these considerations. You understand why, when I began to see these things, I was so thoroughly excited about the Church. And though there were all of these pressures around me to minimize the Church and its importance, seeing the things that I was seeing in Scripture, I could not do that.

    We are the people of God, the assembly of the Lord. We are the temple of the living God, and he dwells in our midst. None of this is lost on the Apostles, and is evident in their subsequent message. Should I remind you of the Apostle Paul, writing in Ephesians chapter 2, beginning at verse 19?

    So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with the saints in our of God’s household, of God’s building, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

    It doesn’t become grander than that, and if that doesn’t thrill you, If that doesn’t cause your blood in the veins to course faster, if it doesn’t cause your heart to beat a little faster, then you’re dead. You’re a loser. And I worry about your spiritual destiny. And then there’s Peter. One of the central figures, if not central disciple. in the story that we read this morning from Matthew. You hear what he later says in his first letter, the second chapter of that first letter, beginning at verse four, and coming unto him, that is, coming unto Christ as to a living stone rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God, you also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable through Jesus Christ. And skipping down to verse 10, for you once were not a people of God, but now you are the people of God.

    It takes my breath away. And that is what I wish for you. And I know that if it takes your breath away, I will never have to argue with you about how often you have to come here. Never. and that’s what makes me sad because presently I have to argue with some of you about how often you have to come here here is the common and powerful message that moves consistently through the New Testament from Jesus to Paul to Peter.

    The Church. It is the assembly of the Lord. The people of God. The Church. It is the temple of God. The very dwelling place of God. You may well long for former days of Reformation zeal, but I can tell you that there is no way back to that Reformation zeal but through these truths. You may long personally for individual satisfaction in your Christian life, but I can assure you that there is absolutely no route that satisfies and pleases God. There is no route for you to individual satisfaction apart from your realization that your identity is wrapped up in the corporate assembly of the people of God. the veritable temple of the glorified Lord. Let us pray.

    Our Father, You are here with us now. You bless us with Your Son in your Son’s presence by the Spirit that we might know that we are yours that we are your people that we are made to be a living temple made of living stones a dwelling place for our God Lord, strengthen us in our resolve to live like the people of God and to behave as those who are part of the temple of the living Lord. We ask it in Jesus’ name, that one who is the chief cornerstone and even the foundation for this structure which he himself is building.

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