The Anatomy of the Church: The Muscles and the Flesh, Part 1

Selected Scriptures

     This morning we're going to be discussing our theme of the last five weeks on "The Anatomy of a Church."  The Lord has led us, I believe, into a discussion of what it is that He desires to be characteristic of His church.  God has so blessed us here.  God has built here, I believe, a church that desires, in the heart of its people, to be all that He would have it be.  Certainly that is true in the leaders' hearts, and I know in your hearts as well.  God has blessed us in unique and wonderful, wonderful ways. 

     We are as rich in spiritual things as any church could be; and it's important for us, while we enjoy these things, to understand the foundations, to understand the...the causes, if you will, that bring about God's blessing, that allow us to receive from Him the best that He has to give; and so we're doing, as I've termed it, a little spiritual archeology and digging back up our foundations to see what it is that we're committed to.  God has given us so many new folks; and we praise Him and bless His name for them, for all of them; and many of you who have come in the past few years maybe have not had an opportunity to understand what is Grace Church, what's it really all about, what makes it different, what are we committed to.  And so we've been going back and just sort of touching base with some things we know very well. 

     We're not trying to say new things.  We're just trying to emphasize things that are foundational for us to give us a perspective of what our church is really all about; and I think that, when we're finished, and, hopefully, we'll finish next Sunday, we'll have a nice little package of tapes that we can give to folks when they come to our church, and they say, "What's this church all about?  What makes this church what it is?  What are the emphases of this church?"  And we'll be able to say, "Here, here are the things to which we are committed."

     Now, lemme say, as we begin today, that I rejoice in the Lord, because I see the work of God in you; and when I speak like this to you, it isn't that I'm rebuking you because I don't see these things.  It's because I see these things and wanna see them continue and see them more.  As Paul, when he wrote and said, "I know that nobody needs to teach you to love, because God has taught you Himself how to love; but let your love abound more and more," he says.  And it's in that kind of perspective that I come to you, not to say these do not exist, but that they do, and they need more and more to exist. 

     I guess my fear is that, as the church grows and we get further and further away from the foundational things that God used to bless us and upon which His Spirit has built, we lose touch with those things; and then we begin to decline rather than ascend in terms of His usefulness and His blessing.  But I do see in the ministries of this church and the hearts and lives of you, His people, these virtues and graces and things that the Spirit of God has accomplished.  I only wanna call you to a greater commitment to them than ever before.

     And just in...in terms of letting you know how you're seen by others, I have three letters in my hand from pastors who came for our Shepherd's Conference; and they're reacting to what they saw here; and you might be interested in their reaction. 

     This letter was written to Dick Mayhue.  "I wanna take the time to thank you for your many hours of work put into arranging all of the details to bring about such a successful Shepherd's Conference.  This was my third conference, and each time I have gained more insight and help in the ministry.  Thank you for your faithfulness and your servant's heart that made this possible.  Also, I would commend Grace Community Church and its people for their continued demonstration of a serving people to those of us who attended.  One of the most singularly amazing things about Grace Church is the very spirit which permeates from the highest level of staff involvement to the people working in the kitchen.  Please let those good folks know how much we appreciate the work done.  Our church board has made a committee to see to it that each one of our members attend the Shepherd's Conference; and so we will be seeing you in the future.  Thanks again for letting the Spirit of God lead, for extending an open door to men throughout the nation and around the world to learn more about how to apply scriptural principles in the atmosphere of the local church.  May God continue to minister to you and through you."

     One of the goals we have when we have a Shepherd's Conference or a radio conference is just to expose people to you, and so we encourage you to have 'em for dinner, to take 'em to your home, to keep them, to get to know them.  We want them to know that there are things happening in your lives that honor the Lord Jesus Christ.  We have nothing to hide. 

     I head the other day that, since we're gonna have the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984, there was a movement afoot in the city of Los Angeles to pick up all the bums in Los Angeles and relocate them in Newhall during the Olympics...The idea being that nobody on the outside would know we had these kind of people in our city, unless they happened to visit Newhall, which is highly unlikely...

     Well, when we have 250 pastors here, our idea is not to pick up all of the people in our church that we're concerned about and put them over somewhere else.  We really believe that God is at work in the lives of our people; and that these who come to look at our church and find out if it really is what it is said to be and find out if the things that we advocate really do see life-changing results, we want them exposed to the people, so that those things can be verified; and this pastor who wrote that letter from Washington state was encouraged to see in the hearts of the people the realization of the things we were teaching.

     I have another letter that comes from a young pastor in Mississippi.  He writes, "Just a line to say thank you for all that you've allowed God to do to me through this week.  I'm learning more about God's grace, His work, and so forth through the ministries here at Grace.  This week at the Shepherd's Conference has totally and forever reinforced in my spirit the commitment, joy, and desire to know my Lord through His Word, and to make Him known by His Word.  Thank you a million times... Preachers sometimes exaggerate...For your hospitality and graciousness this week.  You have all truly lived out your life's message."  What a wonderful thought.  "You have all truly lived out your life's message.  In precept and example you have showed the heart of a servant, and we have come to love you all deeply."  Boy, that's so encouraging.  To hear someone on the outside come to Grace Church, meet our people, be here for a week, and say, "You're living out your message," the greatest commendation.

     And then this from a pastor in Michigan.  "While I realize you must receive many letters such as this one after each Shepherd's Conference, I still feel impressed to write and express my deep appreciation for you and the ministry at Grace.  I have heard of your church since my days at Bible College, and have been eager to see your ministry.  When my senior pastor agreed to send me to the conference, I immediately began to sense that the Lord was going to bless me in a very special way.  He had already been working in my heart about leaving our ministry here and assuming the pastorate of my own church, yet He had not opened any doors of opportunity.  Now I know why.  Our teen ministry here had been viewed as very successful.  Many kids have been saved, and my teaching on Sunday mornings has always been practical and need-oriented. 

     "However, after three-and-a-half years, my wife and I shared a discouragement based on a feeling that somehow we were missing the boat as far as true Biblical ministry was concerned.  Being with you and your staff showed me the basic problem.  We had built tremendous relationships with our kids; and they had a real sense of excitement and commitment to our department and the church; but they didn't have a commitment to the Word of God personally or in a practical way.  We had missed the basis of the ministry.  The sad fact is that I don't really think we had ever been exposed to a church that, in fact, had this goal.  Of course, the real root of the problem was that we ourselves were not in the Word as we should've been.  Let me share with you how the Lord revealed this to us. 

     "During the conference, my wife and I were staying with friends.  We had been asked to teach the college ministry at their church on Sunday morning; so I planned on missing your Sunday morning service; but all week I kept hearing how important it was to share in the worship; so, finally, on Saturday afternoon, I relented and told my friend that I'd be going back up to Grace Church on Sunday morning.  The next morning, my wife and I entered the worship center, not really knowing what to expect.  You need to understand that we both tend to be somewhat skeptical toward new ideas.  By the time we left the service, we both realized that we just experienced something totally foreign to our idea of the ministry.  My wife summed it up best when she commented that in our churches people come to church gasping, just barely making it through the week, and anticipating another fix to take them to the next service.  But it seems that with your people, they came already full, because they have been led to be in the Word for themselves.  When they came, they do so to get...when they come, they do so to get more; but more particularly, to worship.  I'm dismayed to say that we had never seen that before. 

     "I'm thankful to say that, since that morning, our lives have been different.  Daily, we have been in the Word, and when I teach or preach, I've done so verse by verse.  I never knew there could be so much joy and satisfaction in the ministry.  I've learned so much in such a short time.  Folks have come up and asked what happened in our lives in California.  It all sounds so easy; and I've heard it all my life.  Unfortunately, I'd never seen it before.  We're now trusting the Lord He'll soon provide a place in which we can institute some of the principles the Lord has revealed to us in a full way.  Thank you so much for the revolutionary impact your ministry has had on our ministry."

     And I received a letter from that young man just a month or so ago saying that he now is the pastor of his own church, and he was writing to see if we'd load him up with some things that he could use to get started. 

     What is so wonderful about that is that what they are responding to, those men, is the total life of the church.  They're not writing saying, "Oh, it was a great seminar.  It was a great class," or "You had a profound thing to say about this or that."  But there is a whole ministry to them by virtue of this church.  Wednesday night, Moishe Rosen was with us, and I was in the hall talking to him before he came to speak; and he said, "I just got back from London."  He's the head of Jews for Jesus, and he said, "I was in London, and I went to several places, and, at each place, there was a person who came to me and said, 'You're from California.  Do you know of Grace Community Church?'  And in each case I said, 'I know of it,' and they said, 'Well, could you tell us about it?'" 

     He said, "I'm amazed how the reputation of your people has extended to everywhere I go.  In fact," he says, "I'm envious that you have such a people."  Well, that's a wonderful thing, and I...I said to him, "I...I pinch myself all the time and say, 'Are you sure you got the right guy here, Lord?' in this wonderful God-blessed ministry."

     We have a great, great responsibility to these who look to us, to see in us that which they maybe have not seen somewhere else; and I believe there are reasons why God has blessed.  I...I believe there are...there are principles that place us in the... in the position of maximum blessing; and it isn't just that we're large.  It's the attitude that people catch.  It's the commitments that they catch.  It's...it's those things that exist in us as committed believers that they see, that they don't always see in others who name the name of Christ. 

     So we've been going back in our series and saying, "Well, what is it then that makes a church all that a church can be.  I mean what is it that we should have?  Many of you are new in our church, and you may wonder the same thing.  You may wanna be able to sort of line up and say, "Well, here are the things...here are the things that we need to be committed to.  Here's what we need to work on.  Here are the things that we wanna teach and...and proclaim and disciple in others."  And so we're going back over these things.  They're very basic things.

     In fact, I feel like this is sort of a large fundamentals of the faith class.  That...that I'm talking about very familiar territory; and I keep saying to my wife after each Sunday, "You know, it all seems so basic.  It seems so basic.  I...I...I hope it's...it's the right thing to do."  And she assures me by saying, "Well, there are a lotta folks to whom it's not as basic as it is to you."  And I need that from my wife now and then, just a little encouragement that I'm on the right track; because it seems so very, very basic.  And, yet, we have to keep going back and putting that foundation down again, don't we?

     I'm reminded of Peter's words that I wanna put you in remembrance of these things.  Not that you don't know them.  You already know them, but I want you to be sure you remember 'em.  You have to keep on track.  You know, you start down the track; and, all of a sudden, you go one way or you start to go another way, you just keep laying that same track down again, so we know where we're going. 

     And so we've been looking, then, at the church; and we've used the analogy of a body.  We said that, first of all, a church, to be what God wants it to be, has to have a skeleton.  In other words, foundation, which gives it form.  And, basically, we've said that there are some non-negotiable, bottom-line, foundational truths; and we suggested five of them:  a high view of God, the absolutely priority of Scripture, doctrinal clarity, personal holiness, and spiritual authority; and we tied those all together; and that was sort of our skeleton.

     Now, moving on from that into the second dimension of our analogy, we said that a body has to have internal systems flowing through it.  Those are the life systems.  That's what gives it it's life and capability to act and react.  And in the church, we have to have internal systems; and those, I believe, are right spiritual attitudes.  What is flowing through the lives of the people behind the scenes is the issue. 

     We tell pastors all the time who come and look at our church, "Don't just take what you see on the surface and try to incorporate it.  Behind that, behind that flesh, if you will, there's a...there's a flowing through of certain internal attitudes that have to be built into peoples' hearts before ministry can be what God wants it to be."

     And I gave you a whole list of those.  Let me just remind you briefly of them:  obedience, humility, love, unity, service, joy, peace, thankfulness, self-discipline, forgiveness, dependence, flexibility, accountability, growth, faithfulness, and hope.  I don't expect you to write all that down.  You've already gotten that.  But just to kinda refresh your mind.  Those are the attitudes that I believe we must cultivate among ourselves by our preaching and teaching and discipling, and all that we do to build into ourselves those strong kinds of attitudes, spiritual attitude.

     Now, when the skeleton is right and the right kind of attitudes are flowing through, we're ready to move to dimension No. 3; and we're gonna do that today.  And that is function, or the muscles in the body.  The body now has form and it has life; and now what is it to do?  What is its function?  What...what is the church's responsibility in the world?  What are we to be about?  Or, in simple terms, what's our ministry?

     If somebody said to you, "What is the church supposed to do?"  You've got a church that's committed to the worship of God, the authority of Scripture, doctrine, sound doctrine, peoples' lives are right.  They're concerned with personal holiness.  They're under spiritual authority of those that God has placed over them in the Lord.  They've got cultivated in their hearts the right attitudes.  They got all this power going, all this flow-through of life.  What are they to do? 

     If you were to mandate the church as to its responsibility, what would it be?  That's what we wanna look at now; and I call these the muscles.  This is function.  This makes us move...And I wanna spend today and next time on this, and then we'll just wrap up with the flesh very briefly next time also.  I think we can do it in two weeks; but for this morning I wanna give you four things that I believe are priority functions; and they're so basic that you know them well.  But lemme just refresh you, so you'll understand, maybe in fresh way, the things we're committed to. 

     The first one is preaching and teaching; and I combine those two, because they both have to do with the proclamation of Biblical truth.  Preaching and teaching.  That, as I see it, is the primary function of the church.  The church is the receiver of the revelation of God; and, therefore, the church must be the dispenser of the revelation of God.  If God has revealed Himself to us, it is in order that we might understand Him.  We are then to be the hearers of the Word and the proclaimers of the Word; and so, when you come here, you will hear the Word of God.  When you go to a class, you will hear the Word of God.  When you go to a Bible study, you will discuss and study the Word of God; because, primarily, the church is to be a place where the Word of God is preached and taught...

     Now, I am committed to that as an absolute priority in the church.  That is a function of the church.  We must be about proclaiming the Word of God.  I...I kinda grieve in my heart over the...a lot of sermonizing that goes on; and some of it is helpful.  Some of it is good.  A lot of sort of, I call it counseling from the pulpit that goes on.  There are a lotta sort of ethical issues that are dealt with in the church.  There are a lot of little classes that meet together where everybody pools their ignorance, because nobody knows anything.  They just sorta guess what the Bible means.

     But the church has, as a priority function, the clear... understandable, direct, authoritative proclamation of the Word of God; and so Grace Church will always be committed to a strong emphasis on preaching and teaching.  A strong emphasis on preaching and teaching. 

     Now, look...look with me for a moment at two epistles written by Paul to Timothy.  Now, these epistles were written, I think, to help us understand the ministry, both from the viewpoint of the minister and his congregation.  In fact...it even tells us in 1 Timothy 3:15 that this epistle was written to teach us how to behave in the house of God, which is the church.  So here is an epistle that is to tell us how we are to behave in the church, how we are to function in the church, how we are to operate in the church...

     And I believe the emphasis of both 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy is that we are to operate primarily in the area of proclaiming sound doctrine, preaching the Word of God.  That same chapter, 1 Timothy 3 verse 16 is an interesting verse; and it sums up the wonder of the incarnation of Jesus Christ.  It says that, without controversy, that is, without any debate or argument, it's an incontrovertible fact that the mystery godliness is a great thing.  And what is the mystery of godliness?  That God was manifest in the flesh.  That's just an incredible thing.  No one's gonna argue that that is a great truth, right?  That God was manifest in the flesh.  That's the heart, the core, that's the substance of our Christian faith, isn't it?  We don't have anything if God didn't manifest Himself in the flesh of Jesus Christ, right?  Die and rise again.

     So that is at the very heart of our faith.  Without any argument, that is a great, great revealed truth.  But notice what it says.  "He was manifest in the flesh.  He was justified in the Spirit.  He was seen of angels.  He was believed on in the world.  He was received up into glory," and then tucked in the middle, "preached unto the nations."  And if I look at that 16th verse of 1 Timothy 3, I see some essential things in the incarnation; and one of them is preaching.  Preaching is an essential element in God manifesting Himself in the flesh.  What happened must be preached.  That's what he's saying.  There must be proclamation of the message.  Preaching is unique to Christianity; and it's the one marvelous thing that the church does, that holy men of God do, that nothing in the world can match.  I mean the world can have its movies, and they can have their...their books, and the world can have lots of different means to communicate; but preaching, it seems to me, is something so very unique as men of God who are given gifts of the Spirit and the knowledge of the Word proclaim its truth; and I believe, therefore, at the heart of the church is the incarnation; and at the heart of the incarnation is the proclamation of that incarnation.  And so preaching finds a central place in the life of the church. 

     Now, it follows, then, that Paul is going to emphasize to young Timothy as he moves out in his ministry that he, indeed, should be faithful to the preaching; and you'll notice in verse 6 of chapter 4 that, right away, Paul says, "If you put the brethren in remembrance of these things," and he's just talked to them...to him about some things; and he says, "Your job is to put your people in remembrance of these things.  You're, first of all, a teacher, Timothy.  You're a teacher.  Whatever you've received from God's Spirit, you give it out; and let the church be the place where things are taught.  The truth of God is taught.  You know how marvelous that is in a world where people are groping for truth.  You understand that?  You know how wonderful it is in a place where people have just about given up on anything that can be guaranteed as being true?  Where it's morality by majority?  Where it's everybody for himself and whatever opinion you want?  Where truth is elusive?  Where men are left with their own inane philosophy to try to figure out meaning in life?  We can stand up and say, 'This is truth.'"

     I mean even Pilate, the ultimate cynic of the New Testament said, "What is truth?  What is truth?"  We know the truth.  We know the truth.  Jesus said in John 17 to the Father, "Thy Word is truth."  Oh, what a legacy; and that's what we must impart.  That's what we must impart; and God has blessed this church, I believe, because its primary function has always been, in part, to proclaim the truth, the Word of God.  Not to talk about the Bible, but to talk from the Bible; and I can't tell you how many hundreds, even thousands of people through the years have spoken to us or written to us and said they come to Grace Church because they're fed the Word of God.  It's always what we hear...

     And that's our commitment.  That's our function, and it isn't just my job.  It's everybody's job.  We're all to be those who proclaim and preach and teach the Word.  Some gifted, of course, uniquely.  Verse 11, following up the same thought of chapter 4 verse 6, he says, "You are a minister who is a good minister, if you, yourself, are nourished up in the...the Words of the faith and...and the sound doctrine."  In other words, if you've got the truth in, and you're giving it to your people, he says in verse 11, "Command them and teach them."  In other words, teach with authority.  Teach with authority.

     I remember I was doing the commencement at the Police Academy one time; and the fellow that I was sitting next to was talking to me about the various graduates who were graduating from the Los Angeles Police Academy; and he said, "We had to flunk one fella out because of his voice."  I said, "That's interesting."  He said, "Yeah, you just can't go up behind a robber and say, 'Stick 'em up.  You're under arrest...Halt in the name of the law.'"  I mean it just leaves something out, doesn't it?  And I said, "Well, that's interesting."  "Yeah," he said, "there had to be a certain authority in his voice." 

     And I began to think about the fact that his authority, basically, was the law, right?  The law was his authority; and if I sound like I speak with authority, I do, because the authority's the Word of God.  I will not speak authoritatively on my opinion, but I'll speak authoritatively on the Word of God; and that's what he's saying here in 1 Timothy 4:11.  "You...you don't just teach it.  You command it."  In other words, you call people to a...to a mandate of responsibility...

     And so verse 16, he says, or verse 13, rather, he says, "Until I come, give your attention to reading, exhortation, and doctrine."  Then he tells him how to do it.  "Read the text.  Explain the text, and apply the text."  Reading, that's just read it to 'em.  Exhortation, that's apply it.  Doctrine, that's give 'em the doctrine or the teaching.  So he says, "You get the text open.  You read it to 'em.  You explain to 'em.  That's doctrine, and you exhort 'em to behave; and don't neglect...in verse 14 says...don't neglect it.  Meditate on it...verse 15 says...Take heed to it...verse 16 says...and you continue in it."  In other words, we are all called to obey the Word and proclaim the Word.  Preaching, teaching, proclaiming, instructing.  What a thrilling responsibility.

     Now, in chapter 5 verse 17, he comes to another dimension.  "Let the elders that rule well...be counted worthy of double timae...double pay, double respect, probably embraces all those things...but ones who...who do well should be doubly honored, especially those who work hard in preaching and teaching."  Again, the focus of leadership in the church is on the preaching and the teaching role.  That's our function.  That's our function.  That's our function. 

     We're here to proclaim God's Word.  I've heard people criticize Grace Church and say, "Well, Grace Church is...is over balanced in the area of teaching.  There's too much preaching, too much teaching, and not enough of this or that or the other thing."  You...you...I don't see that you could ever have too much of that.  I mean unless you have mastered all of God's revelation, and that's a...an utter impossibility.  There can't be too much.  It could be out of balance if we didn't obey the teaching; but the reason we dominate our lives with teaching is because teaching is what sets everything else in motion.  We have to know what the Bible says about a certain thing before we can carry it out; and so teaching is...is the sine quo non of everything. 

     We have to know what to do.  We...we can't know how to worship unless we know what the Bible says.  We can't know how to pray unless we know what the Bible says.  We can't know how to evangelize.  We can't know how to disciple or shepherd.  We can't know how to train people.  We...we can't know how to help people and their families.  We can't do anything unless we understand what God says.  So we preach, we teach, we preach, we teach.

     The end of chapter 6, Paul says to Timothy, "Keep that which is committed."  In other words, I think he's referring to the... the deposit of truth, the revelation of God, the faith, if you will, the content of true doctrine.  Keep it and stay away from the garbage of the world, the philosophies and the errant theologies and the supposed knowledge of men who really don't know anything at all.  Hang in there with the right stuff.  We don't wanna get deviated away from it.  We don't wanna get pushed away into the thoughts of men that are afar from God.

     Second Timothy deserves a brief look, verse 15 of chapter 2...He says, "Be diligent to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."  In other words, you've got the Word.  You're committed to it.  Now handle it correctly.

     Back in verse 13 of chapter 1, he says, "Hold fast the form of sound words."  So the first thing you do is you hold onto it, and then you rightly dispense it.  You hang onto the truth, and you dish it out as it ought to be, so that you may be approved of God; and again he says in 16 and following, "Stay away from the garbage of the world.  Stay away from their errors and heresies and philosophies, and stick to the truth of God."

     Down in verse 24 of chapter 2, he says, "Anyone who leads in the church, who's a servant of the Lord, should be skilled in his teaching.  Skilled in his teaching."  And, of course, that great passage in chapter 3 where it says that, "All Scripture is inspired, that we may be perfected."  So you can see, then, as Paul instructs Timothy regarding the church, this tremendous emphasis is made on preaching and teaching. 

     Now go to chapter 4, and we'll draw it all together.  Chapter 4 of 2 Timothy verse 1, and here is a...here is a mandate given to Timothy, one of the really great ones in the New Testament.  "I charge thee,