invincible church 2-16-25

Invincible Church Sermon Notes
02/16/2025
Holy Faith pt 2 – Ephesians 4:11-16
Holy faith starts at salvation from sin! This can only happen when a person freely decides to submit to Jesus as their Lord and Savior, thereby receiving from Him the forgiveness of sins—past, present, and future—once and for all. The decision has to be made by each person!
The Bible says that this is a “one-time” event and is marked by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit into each person’s heart. From that point forward, we belong to Jesus! Our identity is in Him alone. He paid for our sin with His blood through His life, death, burial, and resurrection.
Once we are in a true salvation relationship with Jesus, the enemy can’t take us away from Him, and the Holy Spirit will not allow us to walk away from Him. If a professing Christian says they have changed their mind and don’t want any part of Jesus and holy faith anymore, then they were never indwelled by the Holy Spirit in the first place.
After a person is saved by faith alone in Jesus alone, the process of following Him to become like Him begins. The Bible calls this the sanctification process or the discipleship process, and it is where all true followers of Jesus start working to live a life of holy faith and accomplish the work of Jesus that God designed us to do while we are here on earth. So, let’s look at…
Ephesians 4:11-16 NIV- 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Jesus teaches us that the two greatest commandments both include love!
The first one is: "Love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength."
The second one is like it: "Love our neighbor the same way we love ourselves."
The Bible describes God’s holy love in 1 Corinthians 13 (no slide), and it tells us that God’s love never fails and never ends. This is part of the reason why the Bible says love is greater than even faith and hope. Think about it—faith and hope primarily benefit the person who possesses them, but God’s holy love benefits everybody!
So, God’s holy love is the core of His character and essential to the life of a true follower of Jesus. It can be said that to love God and love others is the law of Christ. This means God’s holy love permeates everything He does, so it should permeate everything we do as well!
Jesus commanded us to love one another the way He loves us so that everyone will know we are His disciples. God is relational, so love always requires another person. This means love doesn’t just stay within itself! That’s part of what makes love the greatest gift.
However, we also know that the Bible says, "It’s impossible to please God without faith." This leads people to ask, "So which is it—love or faith?" The answer is yes! And it’s not contradictory.
There’s far more to God’s holy love than just pleasing somebody. As the old song says, sometimes love hurts! And if it’s truly God’s love, then the pain isn’t from tearing people down—it’s the pain that sometimes comes with truth and building people up!
God’s holy love is the foundation of holy faith!
His love is grounded in:
• Truth
• Discipline
• Obedience
• Grace
• Mercy
These are principles and standards of His love, not conditions of His love—which is why God’s holy love is absolutely unconditional!
For anyone to say that God’s love is all about:
• Personal preference
• Tolerance
• Feelings
• Exemption from consequences
…is the opposite of God’s holy love! Instead, they are describing a carnal, pagan, and hedonistic love. That’s why someone falsely preaching that "God’s love is tolerant of sin" is leading people into horrific delusion.
It makes people think that if they just talk about love and how God loves everybody, then everyone will be saved because God is merciful. But there’s a difference between tolerance and mercy.
• Tolerance is acceptance.
• Mercy is compassion.
Tolerance affirms sin! It refuses to help people overcome their sin. Sometimes, those who tolerate sin even go as far as helping someone hide it—even if they claim they don’t agree with the sin. That is operating in the dark, and true followers of Jesus only operate in the light!
To accommodate tolerance, many so-called churches have redefined the meaning of God’s holy love—whether out of:
• Ignorance
• Selfish pride
• Selfish motives
• Weak faith
• Or a combination of all these worldly excuses
At the beginning of Revelation 2, Jesus commends the church at Ephesus for:
1. Working hard and persevering
2. Not tolerating wicked people
3. Exposing false prophets
4. Enduring persecution for His name’s sake
However, at the same time, He rebukes them for abandoning their first love!
The intensity and fire that the church at Ephesus once had for Jesus became:
• Sterile
• Cold
• Ritualistic
They had replaced true, holy love for Jesus with:
• Orthodox customs
• Judgmental moral standards
• Obligation-driven service
But the Bible tells us that a true follower of Jesus is most like Him when they are diligently seeking God’s holy love and the purity of His church!
There are many churches in America today that are not pursuing holy faith because they don’t truly understand the holiness of God and aren’t consistently preaching about the disastrous consequences of sin against God!
Along with that…
• They are not calling sinners to repent!
• Repentance means to turn away from sin or change your thinking about a particular sin so that you see it for the wickedness that it is!
• True repentance leads to a change in:
◦ Attitude
◦ Emotion
◦ Actions
It’s a biblical process!
If a true follower of Jesus knows about a fellow believer’s sin and does not:
1. Lead them to repent
2. Encourage them to confess to anyone impacted by their sin
3. Urge them to ask for forgiveness from God and others that are affected by their sin
4. Help them change their course of action to align with God
…then that believer is operating in sin as well! They are dishonoring God and cannot be blessed.
That is the biblical process found in Matthew 18—which we discussed in detail last week!
The Bible says if a true follower of Jesus knows the right thing to do and doesn’t do it, then it’s a sin!
Sometimes, loving God enough to do the right thing is the hardest thing a person can ever imagine doing! But Jesus never hesitated when it came time for him to do the right thing! We can’t even imagine how hard it was for him! It shows that God’s holy love isn’t always going to be pleasant, but it’s always going to be right! It’s a process!
Failing to follow the process that eliminates sin hinders us from advancing God’s kingdom! There’s no room for tolerance in the process! So, churches need to be emphasizing the holiness of God, the danger of sin, and how important it is to worship God through holy faith!
Quick Review
Three Elements for Dealing with Sin in the Church
1. The Ministry of the Word - The Word is God’s instrument of holiness! God’s Word is a purifier! The more we know God’s Word, the better we understand it! The better we understand it, the better we truly know God! The better we truly know God, the more pure we become!
2. The Ministry of the Holy Spirit - He is the only power who can defeat the enemy! Every true follower of Jesus has access to the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, which is critical and essential for advancing the holiness of the church. So we have no excuse for not dealing with sin and pursuing purity!
3. The Ministry of the People - Every true follower of Jesus is supposed to be serving him out of love and obedience with the abilities and talents he has given us! It includes discerning the spontaneous opportunities that come up and carrying out the specific assignments he has designed for us!
Last week, we pointed out that to pursue holy faith, we have to be intentional about dealing with sin! Our goal is purity. The process to get there is living a life of obedience to the commands and instructions of Jesus and keeping the right perspective of the holiness of God!
Revelation 1 tells us that Jesus is spiritually moving in his church, looking for followers who are diligently working to do his work. Matthew 18 gives us the instructions from Jesus for getting it done in the physical realm! So, Revelation 1 links to Matthew 18!
Which leads us back to our passage today. First, we’re going to look at what the concept of the fivefold ministry in verse 11 means when it says: 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and teachers.
The purpose of the fivefold ministry is in verse 12: 12 to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up. And since the body of Christ is definitely not built up to unity in the holy faith and hasn’t attained the whole measure of the fullness of Christ, it stands to reason that the ministry of apostles and prophets must still be in effect!
Now, Jesus Christ is most definitely active in the church today, and his role as the cornerstone of the church was completed with his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension!
The apostles and prophets of that day did the work for the foundation to be complete! Part of their mission from God was to give us his holy inspired Word! So, the Holy Bible is the completed revelation of God’s Word!
The Bible contains everything the church needs to know, grow, thrive, and fulfill God's mission plan for us. The foundation of the church is long since complete, but the ongoing work of the church is manifested in the Holy Spirit speaking through and teaching us God's word so we can know Him better.
In that sense, the fivefold ministry of the church is still active. The church has gone through ups and downs with this all throughout history. In the 1700s, a pastor named Jonathan Edwards led a revival in the church [big 'C'], which later became known as the Great Awakening.
It got started when a handful of faithful pastors consistently preached the powerful biblical principle of God's holiness, and the church returned to intentionally dealing with the continual moral failures in society caused by the sin of man. Since then, every revival throughout most of church history, from biblical times all the way through today, has been characterized by strong, consistent, and widespread preaching of God's holiness and the church intentionally dealing with the sinful moral failures of man.
There are many powerful testimonies from that time of people crying and begging for Jonathan Edwards to stop preaching because they were literally overwhelmed with conviction about their sin, helping them start to understand how it defiled the holiness of God.
One result of all this was that church congregations started getting smaller because sinners didn't like hearing about their sin. As a result, many pastors began incorporating tolerant, sentimental love into most, if not all, of their sermons.
Churches started describing God as a kind and generous grandfather and Jesus as a gentle, winsome Savior who shouldn't have had to die for the sins of the world. Sermons were always pleasant, and worship was always entertaining. Lo and behold, congregations grew.
Because many professing Christians do not intentionally pursue knowing God better through their own prayer, study, and service in the ministry of the Word and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, they do not realize that they are never being taught the truth about the holiness of the one and only true, sovereign, almighty God of the universe.
It is a big part of why the church [big 'C'] has failed to keep our nation in full alignment with God's plan. Also, when people are not taught that plagues, famines, wars, disease, and death can be used by God as instruments to punish sin, because He is trying to get mankind to understand their need for repentance and forgiveness of sin, then many skeptical lost people who already have an idolatrous image of God as a benevolent, tolerant, and sentimental loving Creator have a hard time believing He is who He says He is.
Let alone fear and worship Him the way both the Old and New Testaments tell us to! When professing Christians only have a tolerant and sentimental view of love, it will never revive the church because it never really causes people to face their sin. And that is why...
As true followers of Jesus, we have to proclaim a holy God who has a holy hatred of sin so that people can understand all the bad stuff! Unless the church gets back to messages about the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man, it will never be revived, and its evangelism will be shallow and ineffective.
In other words-
True revival isn’t people saying, “We’ve arrived spiritually.” It’s people being broken over the sense that they haven’t arrived spiritually. A genuine revival is when people have an overwhelming sense of the holiness of God and a true understanding of the depth and danger of sin.
Jesus wants sin to be faced, exposed, and dealt with. He said throughout the Gospels, “I didn’t come to do my will, but the will of him who sent me—the will of my Father.” This can be reduced to one statement:
1 Peter 1:15 NIV– 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;
God wants his people holy! That’s the message! It’s why Jesus is moving in his church with searching eyes, with a holy presence, and with judgment ready to purge sin and purify people.
Isaiah 35:8 NIV– 8 And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it.
Also, remember where it says in:
James 4:8-10 NIV – 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
God is always calling for the purging of sin and the purifying of sinners! God’s will is for his people to be holy! It’s the work of Jesus Christ in the church! He does it through the Word, the Holy Spirit, and the work of the people.
The Word will do its part when it is proclaimed, taught, and understood. Our part is to be the hands and feet of Jesus in his church. A church that doesn’t practice Matthew 18 discipline is not committed to God’s Word and the instructions of Jesus.
A true church doesn’t pick and choose scriptures to submit to, proclaim, and apply, then ignore others. That dishonors God! All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable in every way to make the believer perfect and complete.
It’s the real litmus test of holy faith! The fidelity test of every true follower of Jesus’s holy faith is: Are we willing to do what Jesus tells us to do as his church? If we’re not willing to do that, then we’re disregarding all aspects of God’s plan, and our faith isn’t holy.
Also, it will never really revive the church because it will never inspire and teach people the holiness of God, the danger of sin, and how to truly worship God in holy faith! What verses 15-16 are saying is:
When a church obediently follows the principles, makes decisions, and bases judgments on the entirety of God’s Word—the inerrant Holy Bible—then it can be confident that it is operating in holy faith to accomplish God’s will and plan.
The church doesn’t make the principles! God has already given us his principles in his Word! The church is just declaring the judgment of heaven solely based on God’s biblical principles. So, when a church pursues holiness by faithfully following the principles in God’s Word, then they can be assured that they’re in alignment with God’s sovereign plan.
When a church discerns that an unrepentant person is bound in sin, the church is saying exactly what God says about that person. When the church discerns that a repentant person has been loosed or set free from that sin, then God agrees with the church’s decision because everything has been done according to the biblical principles in his holy Word.
However, when a professing Christian, church, government, or any organization only focuses on supplying people with physical needs for sustaining life here on earth and only shows them tolerant or sentimental love while failing to speak the truth about Jesus, eternity, heaven, and hell, then it is no different than keeping a hospice patient comfortable and as pain-free as possible when they are about to die a physical death on earth.
This is why the ministry of the people for the gospel of Jesus Christ calls for every true follower to carry out his commands and instructions with intentional, concentrated, and obedient effort!
This means pastors, preachers, and teachers in churches are to consistently preach the powerful biblical principle of God’s holiness, whether gifted as the current New Testament biblical version of apostles, prophets, and evangelists, or pastors and teachers!
Also, the church, which is all true followers of Jesus, has to get back to intentionally, obediently, and diligently dealing with the continual moral failures in society that are all caused by the sin of man!