The Great, Greater & Greatest Glory

As you're being seated, get your Bibles and let's go to 1st Timothy chapter 3, 1st Timothy chapter 3. I'm preaching through 1st Timothy, but we're jumping over from where we are. Lord willing, two weeks from today, we'll be back in our regular spot of exposition through the book. But I built on this section in 1st Timothy 3 for our conference, but I was strongly impressed.

We needed these exhortations as a church family. So this is my third installment of this message, I guess you would say. Three parts in one message. But this morning, I want to inform you that I've changed a lot of stuff. I've changed the title and I've changed the outline somewhat.

I think it flows a little better this way. I sometimes tease with pastors when I'm talking to them about preaching or preparing to preach. And that is that I never finish studying a message.

Never. I just run out of time. And I have to just kind of, when time's up, I have to just put together what I have. And this particular message, I had a lot of preparation.

I took a week off from preaching here and studied extra. And I wanted you to get the grasp of this. And here's something I want to put in your mind that you kind of know already.

We talk about it a lot. If we could just keep this centered in our hearts. And that is that everything that God does, He does of His own wisdom.

It doesn't look to anybody else. His wisdom is pure and perfect and holy. He needs no other wisdom. Everything God does is of His own wisdom. Secondly, everything God does is by His own power. He doesn't need man's power, man's ingenuity, man's help in any way, shape, or fashion. It's by His power. Everything God does is of His wisdom. Everything God does is by His power. Thirdly, everything God does is for the good of His church.

Did you hear that? You. You are the apple of His eye. Absolutely everything that's ever happened and everything that is going to happen is unto your good. Everything God does is of His own wisdom. Everything God does He performs by His own power. Everything God does is for the good of His church. And everything God does is unto His own glory. Those four thoughts of His wisdom, by His power, for the good of His church, for His own glory. Everything.

I'm not talking about most things. Everything is focused there. You are the pinnacle of God's work because you're even called the body of His Son, Jesus Christ, and He's the head. You're called the building that Jesus builds. And by the way, there's nothing more important than what Jesus does.

What He does is it. Now, we come to this message and we're talking about God's glory. And I've retitled it this way.

Go ahead and put it up, guys. The great, greater, and greatest glory. The great, greater, and greatest glory. Now, we already talked about the great glory. Matter of fact, look at our text right quick.

I'm building off of this as a springboard as such. 1 Timothy chapter 3, beginning in verse 15. Paul writes to Timothy, who's now overseeing the church at Ephesus.

And Paul writes, but in case I'm delayed, I write to you, Timothy, so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God. That's the local church, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. So, Timothy, I want you to know that the way you fashion and function as a local church is very important because the local churches are the pillars and the support of the truth of God. God has designed that the truth of God in the earth will be upheld by and proclaimed by his local churches. So, Timothy, listen to me, Paul is saying, it's very important that you do the church right because so much is riding on the church.

It's the pillar and support of the truth. Now, he says, everything that's going to happen comes from this one whom God sent, the one who whom God sent that's now been unveiled before you, verse 16. By common confession, greatest, the mystery of godliness. He, that's Jesus, who was revealed in the flesh, was vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up into glory.

In other words, God is forming this great work, this work of building his churches through Jesus Christ. And it required Jesus Christ to come and be unveiled before us. Now, it wasn't a final and full unveiling because when he came to earth, born of the Virgin Mary, grew up and performed his earthly ministry, culminating in his death on the cross for the children, for the church. There was an unveiling of him. We saw him.

We touched him, the apostle said. We heard him, but yet he was veiled in his glory. And, of course, that reminds us there's an ultimate future, final, full, fabulous unveiling coming when Christ will return in all of his glory.

He wasn't manifested in all of his glory in his first coming. In one sense, you could say, in his first unveiling, he was forming his church, the formation of his church. In his final unveiling yet to come will be the glorification of his church. The formation and then the glorification. But it's all centered in Christ. It's all centered in him coming and performing this work. And it's all for the good of his church and for his own glory. Now, I'm going to skim through here because we've already talked about God's great glory. And I reorganized the outline this way.

This is past material we've already looked at. God got himself or received glory through Israel and her foes. Remember the Bible says that God would harden Pharaoh's heart. God acted on Pharaoh, Israel's enemy, when she was enslaved there by the Egyptians.

He acted on Pharaoh's heart hardening him. And he says to the end that he would be honored through Pharaoh. So God says, I want to be glorified through Israel, but I'm not even going to be glorified through Israel's foes. Now, remember how I defined glory for us.

It is a multifaceted word, but for our purposes, if we would think of glory as deeming one worthy of honor and praise. So God is saying, I'm going to so work on O Pharaoh that I'm even going to call Pharaoh in the Egyptians to see me, the God of Israel, Jehovah, as the one God worthy of honor and praise. Then I'm going to so bless my nation Israel that they too will look to me and say, you're the God worthy of honor and praise. And now God's not just interested in lip service. What he means is I'm going to perform such wonders in, through, and for Israel. And I'm even going to do such works in Israel's enemies that all of them from their hearts, they may not believe in me savingly, but at least from their hearts, all of them will say, he, Jehovah, is the one God we deem worthy of honor and praise. So all through the Old Testament era, God was getting glory to himself through Israel and her foes.

And then an extension of this B would be through the law. God gave Israel the moral law summed up in the 10 commandments, and he gave Israel the ceremonial law. And in all of this law that God gave Israel, he illustrated his supremacy. The holiness of his very character comes out in his law. That's why we are a foolish and perverse generation to begin to change the standards of right and wrong, to begin to change what is moral and immoral as our country now is begin to call good evil and evil good.

Why? Because God gave these laws recorded in his word, and they are the very expressions of his holy character. And God does not change, so the truth cannot change.

So we are fools to redefine things to quote fit us, end of quote. So as Israel embraced these laws, and as Israel walked in these laws, these were laws God did not give to the Hittites, to the Canaanites, to the Amorites, to the Egyptians, to the Babylonians, you name it. So Israel, as they walked in these laws, they illustrated God as superior to all the other so-called gods of the lands. Therefore, they would look and see the moral ethical uprightness of Israel and say, their God we deem worthy of honor and praise. So that's the great glory. God was getting unto himself as he worked through Israel, as he worked through Israel's foes, and as he even gave them the law that they were to be about. Now we come to new material, which I call the greater glory.

Got to make sure I get to the right place here in my notes. Now the greater glory, of course, is Christ and his church. Everything God was doing through Israel and everything recorded in Moses and the prophets pointed to Jesus, and Jesus' work of saving, forming, building, and one day glorifying his church. That's what we are. Now at the very end of the age when Christ returns, all of those who are saved from all the ages will be gathered together and there'll be this one final glorification and unification of one universal church.

But we don't function that way now. That's why the New Testament records almost a hundred times the word church, ekklesia, called out ones is what it means, is a local body of believers to the churches of Galatia, to the church at Ephesus, to the church at Rome, over and over. It was a specific local body of baptized believers.

That's a church. And so this is the work God's doing now that even that's going to show forth God's even greater glory. You get in on being an instrument of God so that he might bring himself even greater glory than he brought himself through Israel and her foes and through the law.

Why? Because listen, defeat, the conquest, the victory of grace is much, much greater than the law. It's a greater work.

Now the first one was a great work, but it's a greater work. God building a church by grace. So getting back to Paul's exhortation to Timothy here, as he tells Timothy, I've written to you so you know how to function in the household of God. That is the local church because so much is riding on the church. It's the pillar in support of the truth. And it is the primary instrument God's ordained to bring great glory to himself, to cause people to look at this church. Now you listen to me church? It caused people to look at us and say their God is worthy of honor and praise.

So he said, you better be functioning right. You better be biblical in your structures, biblical in your functions, functioning by his power so that the world will look on you and say that's higher than anything we can be a part of. That's greater than anything we understand. Their God we deem worthy of honor and of praise. Now let's talk about here under this greater glory knowing that the great glory was Israel in the Old Testament. The greater glory is Christ and his church in the New Testament. Subpoint A, the biblical means of grace. The biblical means of grace. That is God has given some means whereby his churches are to function so that we are built up, so that we are matured, so that we are walking in his truths, so that we will best reflect him to the world.

Now listen to what I'm telling you. We have this especially in America and here's one thing you got to understand. The way Americans think is upside down from the way almost all people of all ages thought before us. That is and there's some good in this but there's a negative to it too. This rugged individualism, this rugged independence.

Now there's a strength in that but it's like every good thing it needs to be balanced. What we've lost when we grabbed hold of this concept of rugged individualism, we've lost the aspect of community and interdependency and the reciprocal relationships that a body or a group must have one for the other. And so when we come to the Bible, the Bible is written to a people who had no real concept outside of community.

They always thought about us, Israel, the Jews, the tribe of so-and-so, a group, a collectivity, not as an individual. So and I've seen preachers who are considered Bible preachers spend their whole ministries addressing people how they can as individuals live a good life by living by these truths and they almost completely miss the community aspect. They miss the church aspect. As if church is just a place you sit in with a lot of other people around you and hope you get something for you on that Sunday morning.

Well that's true but that's not near all the truth. If you miss the community, if you miss the body, if you miss the church, I think you could say it, you've missed everything. I mean, I mean, you know, sure there are individual things we'll apply to our individual rights, lives rather, but listen, all the individual exhortations of Scripture are to the end that not only is your life blessed and a witness for Christ and a witness for Christ, but that you're better for the body too.

Did you hear that? It helps you be a better church member. It helps you better live in concert and in cooperation and in that reciprocal relationship of the local church family. Now, so God's given us these means of grace, these ways that as a family we become a better assembly of called out ones.

Ekklesia, the church, that's what it means. Now through the years we understand these things from the Scriptures and they've been organized different ways by theologians and pastors through the ages. For example, traditionally they would say the means of grace are primarily the preaching of the Word, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. Grudem in his newer systematic theology expands out on this and he lists 11 means of grace from the New Testament. Teaching the Word, baptism, the Lord's Supper, prayer, worship, church discipline, giving, spiritual gifts, fellowship one with the other, evangelism, and I might even add missions onto that.

Now some of these you can lump together, but you know what I'm saying. In the Bible these activities, these are means whereby we grow together in the Lord, we mature together in the Lord, we strengthen one another in the Lord and in his Word, and become a better witness for Christ i.e. we're a better reflection of Christ to the world whereby the world would have to look at us and say their God is worthy of honor and praise.

Now, boy I'm having to skim over a lot of stuff, but let me go to subpoint B. So, if those are the means of grace, and here's where I think I've wrestled and struggled through the years because I would see churches so very poorly structured to achieve the means of grace. Very sloppily, very recklessly structured as if these means of grace are just going to happen in a disorganized system. But God not only has given us those individual means of grace, secondly he's given us structures from which or through which the means flow effectively or function effectively.

Structures of grace. Now, let me give you an example. Let's say you want to understand football and you say, okay I'm going to teach football and you say, okay I'm going to teach this person who doesn't know anything about football the game of football. Now, there's a coach, there's four downs on offense, a touchdown is six points, extra point is one point, a two-point conversion, two points, and there's blocking, tackling, running, passing. Now, go out there and play.

Well, you've told them truth. Those things are essential to football, but is there no structure? And so they're out there running and blocking and tackling trying to figure out what four downs is and what is a touchdown.

You've told them some stuff but there's no structure. But then if you say, now wait a minute you've got to organize on offense and the quarterback does this. He mainly takes the ball, hands it off, or throws it. The lineman block for the quarterback and the running back. So wide receivers primarily catch the ball though they do pass. And then you organize and say, oh now we see how it works because there's a structure by which we can function and play out that it would be those individual activities.

The defense does these things. Well, that's what the church needs so badly to go to the Word of God and say, what are the structures whereby we can live out the God-ordained means? I submit to you, God has given the church these structures, these structures of grace and they contain and they do effectively carry out the means of grace. Now, what I want to say here is, you've got to be very careful because there's so much being taught and proposed today for how to structure the church but there's almost no biblical foundation for it. It's things that I call extra-biblical. They may not be wrong but since you put energy into them, you don't have the energy left to do the things the Bible does give us to do.

Did you just hear that? Is that not the great challenge of the ages that you can give yourself the good stuff and it becomes evil because it crowds out your energy for the main thing? So, we want to find primarily speaking the structures that are needful because if you just take the means of grace by themselves, those individual level preaching the Word, the ordinances, fellowship, evangelism, church discipline, you just take all of those and say, okay, now do that. It's not going to function. You're not going to get it done unless you have adequate structures to function with.

I mean, if we are lax in organizing and utilizing these structures of grace, we will certainly be deficient in the use of the means of grace. So, over the years, I've played with this over and over again. We have a wheel diagram that I want you to look at. If you're in the morning conferences, you remember the wheel. Actually, it's not supposed to but it looks just like a steering wheel, doesn't it? It's supposed to be like a wheel on a car but it looks like a steering wheel. Now, from this wheel, I want to illustrate the structures that Scripture gives us to function as a local church. The center of the wheel, the hub of the wheel, would be congregational worship centered on the preaching of the Word and the power of the Spirit. Now, it's put in the middle as the hub because everything else depends upon it. Now, listen to what I'm telling you.

If this is not right, it doesn't matter what you do well because this informs everything else. You may say, yeah, but we have a killer youth program. I mean, it's massive.

It's gigantic and the kids love it. Yes, but if the Word's not informing how it's to function and what it's to teach and what is sound doctrine, then all you've got's a big event. Everything depends on that.

This informs everything. How do we do children's ministry? The Word of God centered in the preaching of the Word from the pulpit. And by the way, there is a supernatural work that God does when the Word is faithfully preached whereby his children in the local church grow in what we call here a gospel humility, a sweet, self-denying, self-depreciating gospel humility where our heart and our minds is primarily focused on pleasing Christ, glorifying Christ in his church and not on what we desire or we'd want as personal preference. Can you imagine a church of this many people where everybody got their top three or four personal preferences in the church? Total chaos, anarchy, factions, division. There's no way you can function unless God through his Spirit gives us, starting with Jeff Noblitt, a gospel humility so that we can function together. In other words, I need hours to preach on each one of these.

That can scare you just a little bit, but we're not going to do that. That's the hub of the wheel. That's the center. Everything else builds on that. Now, the first one we want to talk about, the first one that the first spoke in the wheel, our structure is every member ministry through small groups. Every member ministry through small groups. How are you going to function in the means of grace? Church discipline, fellowship, all the aspects of the means of grace if your people don't have a way to be organized so that they might learn one another, grow to love one another, trust each other by learning each other, be transparent to one another to help and sharpen each other, bond together with one another.

Are you listening to me? Church is not just an event you listen to once or twice a week from a pastor. That's essential, but it's to the end of that you might live out ministering together in small groups. How else is the world going to see you loving one another and therefore glorify your fathers in heaven? That's what the scripture says. They'll see your good works and glorify your father. How are they going to see it if you're not together to minister to each other, to get to know each other?

So we've worked really, really hard and we have not arrived, but you have been a good example. I continue to get testimonies from pastors who visit us that says, man, we need to learn how your people all seem to care for each other, serve each other, minister to one another. Well, not all of us do.

Some of you coast on me, but many of you do. And that's an essential component. Now there's a boatload of scripture to support this, but just suffice it to say a church that has not worked hard and works well at organizing its people in small groups so that every single church member can have some type of ministry. And it's a church that's not functioning in the structures of grace. It's not exercising properly the means of grace and God's honor is diminished in the world.

Fewer people are deeming God worthy of honor and praise because they're not seeing his wisdom lived out by the church. All right, the next spoke would be personalized strategic world missions. And of course, this one is greatly dependent upon small groups because in our small groups, we break down all of our missions work into smaller units so that in your small group, you can wrap your heart and arms around two or three or four or five people and learn of them, pray for them with understanding, support them, et cetera, et cetera. We have what, 60, 70, I don't know, it's over 60 church plants and missionaries we directly are responsible for now.

There's no way in the world we can just throw all of those out there and say, okay, y'all take care of them. No, but if we break them down to where every small group has a few, we can adequately encourage, adequately pray for, support and care for these missionaries. Personalized means that we don't just say that there's some institution off somewhere separate from the local church that's going to do missions for us.

We personally take ownership of the responsibility. And by the way, though we have some missionary families with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, we will always stand with them and support them, of course. But you know, we thought a denomination was turning corners and doing good and some good things did happen, did happen rather, but I'm just growing more and more frustrated with the broadness of what's called the Southern Baptist Convention of Churches.

There are some that we can agree with and we're one with, but there are many, many, many who believe things and practice things that are radically unbiblical. So we need to personally take ownership of missions, not just throw our mission monies at a board out there somewhere and say, well that's missions, because we will answer to God for those dollars. So this is something we've been working on for decades now, personalized strategic. When we say strategic, we mean biblically strategic. We look at what does the New Testament say missions is? How does the New Testament define what missions work is all about?

That's what we're going to do. We might do other things, but we're going to greatly major on the things the New Testament says qualifies what mission work really is. And when you look at the Apostle Paul, the great missionary of the New Testament, you only see two things. Preach the word, plant churches. Preach the word, plant churches.

And that's what we, we're strategic in making sure we make that the priority of all of our missions efforts. The third one we call family discipleship. We haven't really talked about this much through the years, and there's a couple of reasons for that. First of all, I think I failed there to not talk about it enough. Secondly, I see nothing in the New Testament especially about a structured, organized, formal time in the home for family training and discipleship.

I mean, think about it. You come to church, you have small groups, you have a worship service, you have Sunday night, you have Wednesday night, then the students and others have other formal times for study. What I think is wisest and best, it's not the only way, but what I think is wisest and best is in your homes, let it be more a part of your lifestyle.

Let it be real from the heart. I call it just be real at home. Let the verse you're memorizing and meditating on, speak of it at the dinner table. Talk to your sons and daughters when you're driving down the road about it. And here's one primary foundational thing that I think we've missed.

Oh my goodness, I think we've missed this. We do it some in my home and half through the years, not nearly enough, but I want to encourage this more as we go forward. Take what was preached from your pastor that last Sunday, get a note or two or thought or two in your mind and talk to your children about it that following week, or to your spouse, and talk about application and what those truths meant. And what this does, this teaches your children the importance of the preaching of the word and the importance of the church. There's been a lot done in family discipleship that started out really good and wise. Now you listen to me, but it's turned into a proud and independent spirited thing. The family starts to become their own church and they start drifting from the need to be under the pastor and the need to be guided by the elders and the need to be part of the larger community of the local church family.

Don't go there. Let this be the overflow of what you've been instructed in at church. Look, I know a lot of you know the Bible well.

You're good exposters in your teaching. I understand that and I praise God for that, but your children need to know that you need the man of God too. You're not the pastor of your children. Your children have a pastor. Now in a sense, you're the pastor of your home, but that's under your pastor at the church.

Don't grow a proud and independent spirit in the home. Let it be an extension of what's being taught at the church. What is it Deuteronomy 6 says to talk of these things? When you rise up in the morning, when you sit by the wayside, when you walk along the way, when you lie down at night. In other words, in your lifestyle, let these truths come out.

Here's what I'm saying. If a church is going to be powerful, if a church is going to be blessed of God, and if a church is going to be the kind of church that causes the world around it to say, oh, your God is worthy of honor and praise, then it has to be real at home too. You don't just cut it on when you come in the doors here and cut it off when you get home.

It's got to be real at home too. Now, you can have all of these structures with every eye dotted and T crossed. And by the way, you're looking at a man that can flat build something and run it. I can build things, strategize things, develop them, and I can run them. And you better get out of my way. That's just the way I'm geared.

But you know what? God's had to humble me through the years. And he's had to teach me that, yes, those are good gifts to strategize and structure and organize and lead something. But there's one foundational primary truth that you know, but you haven't been treasuring it and holding it in your heart like you need to. And that's that all of this is wholly dependent upon the power of the Holy Spirit. So when the Spirit empowers this from the preaching of the Word of the power of the Spirit, every member of ministry with spiritual power there, personalized strategic world missions, with spiritual power there, family discipleship, the Holy Spirit guiding you to make it real at home. When the Spirit's empowering this, then that wheel rolls along beautifully and causes the world around us to look at us and say, what you're doing and what you're about is greater than anything we've ever seen in the world. Your God is worthy of honor and praise.

Your God's worthy of glory. So we become, outside of that wheel, a God glorifying local church. That's what we want to be. And a church that God may use as a model, a pattern, and encouragement to others. And that's what we want to be. And I think of all the things I've played with through the years, that more accurately and fully represents what we're about. And I'm going to preach for a new partnership church in south Mississippi next Sunday.

That's where I will be. And he's been following us, I think, for seven years now, just like a famished man who's found a well. And he said, brother Jeff, we've got to, we've made a lot of changes, but I've got to get my people to see what does a bibbly structured church look like. And so I'll probably be doing some of this in my preaching for him next week. So God has indeed answered that prayer to allow us to be something of a pattern or model that can help others.

Now, when you look at that wheel, there may be dozens and dozens of other things we do, but they must flow out of these things and complement these primary structures. If in any way they compete or diminish these, then we get rid of them. I mean, they're gone. I don't care if we cancel the whole music program. I don't care if we never have a church picnic again. We're going to do these things. Now, we don't have to do that. I'm just saying that should be our heart. Amen? We might get, hey, we might come to a place of financial ruin in this country, an economy collapse and persecution come to where we can't do a thousand and one nice things that the Lord lets us do now, but we can still meet together and preach the word. We can still break up in school buses or homes or wherever and have our every member of ministry through small groups. We can still have personalized strategic world missions. We can still have God's spirit empowerment. We can still glorify God in the world and be a pattern God would use with model. You see, this doesn't depend on a lot of stuff.

That's why this works. Are you listening to your pastor this morning? I've taught this all over the world in remote tribal settings, in the most desperate dark areas of rural India. I've taught this everywhere and challenged them everywhere with this statement. If it's biblical, it's cross-cultural. There's not one church technique in India, another church technique in Africa, another church technique in Europe. No, this is God's plan for God's church wherever it is. Now, here's my challenge to anyone.

I do this all the time. Show me in scripture a better biblically supported structure and I'll change mine, gladly change it. I mean that. This ain't about my structure.

It's not mine. It's been around for 2,000 years. Show me a more biblical model and I'll gladly embrace it. But I can say this, we're on three decades now, actually more than that, but formally we're on three decades now this, and I believe God's blessing it.

As a matter of fact, I know he is. But here's my challenge to you this morning. Are you listening to me? So that we can facilitate the means of grace God's ordained, we need these structures of grace. By grace he gave us this in his Word.

To the end that people would look at God's church and say that God is worthy of honor and praise. My challenge to you, can you bind to this? Will you bind to this? Will you help us more over the next two or three decades however long God gives us together to see this better established and going forward so that we might be an instrument in God's hands to multiply this to the ends of the earth? All right, that's the wheel. Now I am presently discerning what to leave out before I close. Obviously as Paul exhorts Timothy here in our text, and this is surprising to me, it's just shocking to me almost, some people take parts of Timothy and teach them as if it's an instruction to an individual because it's Paul writing to Timothy. No, it's Paul writing to Timothy for the body of Christ which is the local church. Don't lose the church.

Don't lose the ekklesia, the called out ones together. Now look at that text again and we'll conclude this point and be real brief on our last roman numeral. Paul says to Timothy, I'm writing first Timothy 3 15, but in case I'm delayed I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself very practically in the household of God which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. Then he lays out of course Jesus is the one who is revealed verse 16. He is the one who's come and unveiled himself and it's through him and his work on the cross for us that the church can now be being formed and one day be glorified. C, my third subpoint here on this is let's get the glory flowing now.

Let's keep this going now. In John 15 8, my father is glorified by this that you bear fruit and so prove to be my disciples. Now he's not just talking about you as an individual bearing fruit that may be included but you as a group keep bearing fruit and adding to the group the local church keep reaching souls for Christ. John 13 35, by this all men will know that you're my disciples if you have love for one another. Well how in the world are people going to see our love for one another if we're not organized into small groups so that we can learn bond and really learn to love each other. If you don't have a functioning small group and if you aren't faithful in ministering your small group you're denying one of the primary reasons God saved you. To use you in your care for each other in small groups so that the world might see our love is different and better and superior to their love.

Let's get this flowing now. The church is the body of Christ and Christ should be seen in how we function and how we live out these means of grace in the local church family. Now if you want to know what I'm about not just talking not as your pastor right now but just to say y'all want to know this person I want to learn this person. If you know what a person is you've got to do more than just listen to their words and look at their head. If you really want to know what they are if you really don't want to know what they're about yeah you need to look at their head and listen to the words you need to do something else you'd also look at their hands what do they build or do they create do they make gestures with their hands good and bad you need to look at their feet where does their feet take them are their feet swift and sure are they slow and halting in other words look at what they do not just what they say if you want to really know them well if you want to really know who God is you do look at the head Jesus Christ but you look at his body the church where the hands and the feet and the legs and the ears to show the world Christ. So it is preaching proclaiming Christ of course but it is the treasuring of those truths preached embracing them and living them out together as a local church that really shows you what Christ is all about. A mature local church. I want you to hear this. Think with me this morning.

Don't go to sleep on me now. A mature local church is where theology goes from concept to creation. It goes from rhetoric to reality. A mature local church is theology incarnate. It's truth incarnate. 3rd John 1-4 John writes to the local church and says I have no greater joy than this than to hear that my children, the local church, walks in truth. They have a true structure, the wheel, and in that structure they're living out the biblical truths of what a church is to be doing.

That's what John is talking about. A local church, a local ekklesia is not like marbles in a bag but more we're more like chunks of chocolate in a double boiler. We just blend together with each other. So through the Word and the power of the Spirit it's truly miraculous that an otherwise very diverse people, and I look at you and you're very diverse people with all kinds of interests and backgrounds, socio-economic, you name it, and yet God has called us out. Ekklesia means it's called out ones through his gospel and by the power of his Spirit calls us out from other collectivities to say here's where you belong, here's your primary place of belonging in this family called a local church. And it gets so strong the Bible says, the love the Holy Spirit put in us in us for one another, and we are one another with all kinds of natural diversities.

But we have a spiritual one another but we have a spiritual oneness. So great can it become that the Bible says you become willing to lay down your lives for one another. And when the world sees that they say your God is a God worthy of honor and praise to have done this and your heart's like this. And he gets the glory. Matthew 5 16, let your light shine before others so that they will see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. See your good works as a church and give glory to God. That's the greater glory.

All the Old Testament was the preliminary. That was great glory but it pointed to Christ and his church, the greater glory. Now Roman 3, and I'll not be here long at all, Roman 3, God's greatest glory. There's coming a day when God's going to unveil things before all the universe, before every eye that's ever existed or been made, and he's going to unveil the height of his wondrous glory. Revelation 19 7, let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to him for the marriage of the lamb has come and the bride, the church, has made herself ready. Well she's not made herself ready so much as Jesus has got us ready. This is the picture of the final purified church being presented to Jesus at the end of time. Revelation 19 7 through 9, let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to him for the marriage of the lamb has come and the bride has made herself ready. And it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. And he said to me, write, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb.

And he said to me, these words are true words of God. Revelation 21 verse 2 and verse 9, speaking of the church, I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, that's a picture of the church, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me saying, come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb.

Up until this point, nobody's seen her in her completion. There was some of the bride on the earth still serving the Lord, there was some of the bride in heaven already with the Lord, but on this day they'll all be brought together. The dead in Christ will rise, they'll rise, be united with the spirits and souls that departed beforehand. Then all those who are alive and remain will be caught up together in the air, they will be purified. And then all of those in heaven will come with Jesus, and there'll be one mighty, massive bride church of the Lord Jesus Christ, finally for the first time ever, ever, ever, all together, all purified, all unified, all glorified with the glory of Jesus Christ. And that will be the greatest glorification. On that day, remember Christ is going to return from heaven on a white charger, on a white horse and all of his glory. He will be unveiled on that day.

And here it's as if I'm speaking anthropomorphically as if Jesus was a person, a human just like us. And it will be as if Jesus says, you ain't seen nothing yet, wait till what I'm about to show you. You just, I'm about to just hang on just a minute and see all the angels are over there going, it's coming, it's, it's coming.

I mean, it's just about that. We've waited forever for this. The angels, it's coming all of a sudden, boom, Jesus says, arise my love and the dead in Christ will rise. The alive with Christ will be transformed. Everybody will be together finally forever and ever and ever. The purification, the unification, the glorification of the great church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's going to be something. You ever been to a wedding? What do you do at a wedding?

Let's just say you're sitting on a pew. You know where the bride comes, she always comes, why is she always coming behind you? And all of you are going, that's what all the angels are doing right now. The bride's coming. The bride's coming.

Now here's the challenge for us now. You get, I don't know why in God's perfect purposes and sovereignty, He's calling you to get in on getting the bride ready for His own glory. How can you not give that your best? How can you not give that your best?

Your best gifts, your best energies, your best time. Moms and dads, can I say something to you? Raise your children with this thought. We want to be faithful to God's church because it's the centerpiece of God's purposes and God's glory. Because if the Holy Spirit, listen to me moms, if the Holy Spirit puts that in your kid's heart, they're stuck on Jesus forever.

You don't have to worry about them once they get hooked on Jesus. I used to tell you, get hooked on phonics. Phonics fails by the way. I gave up on phonics and you can tell it by my writing and my speech and my spelling. I learned phonics and then the next thing I learned for the next three years is all the exceptions to the rules they just taught me. Everything in this world fails.

But are you listening to me? Jesus never fails. He's going to perfect, bring us all together, and glorify us with the glory that He Himself has. That's the greatest glory in that day's coming.