The Everyday Bride of Jesus: How Christology Shapes a Local Church

0:00 Let me pray for us. Father in heaven, already full from a feast, and there's more to eat. Now we get to talk about Christology. And so, Father, would you be honest here in these few moments in the session? We want our churches to be truly healthy churches. we want our churches to love Jesus to be enthralled with your son as you yourself are and so would you bless us now in these few moments in Jesus name we pray amen indulge me if you would in a little Christological reading of Genesis chapter 2 the Lord God said it is not good that the Christ should be alone I will make him a helper fit for him so the Lord God caused a deep sleep death like sleep to fall upon the man and he pierced his side, took one of his ribs, closed up its place with flesh, and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into the church and brought her to the Christ.

1:22 Therefore, the Christ shall hold fast to his church and they shall become one flesh. And of course, that's not how Genesis 2 reads yet, But Paul does quote verse 24 in Ephesians chapter 5 As you know, this mystery is profound And I'm saying that it refers to Christ in the church So this mystery of marriage that remained an enigma For thousands of years Is now revealed In the coming of Jesus Why did God design the world like he did and us like he did male and female just so basic everywhere It is a losing fight to try to cover it up and pretend like it's not that way And now at the coming of Jesus and the making of his church, the cat's out of the bag.

2:24 The mystery's revealed. Temporal marriage is patterned on God's eternal plan to make a bride for his son, to bring her to him and make them one. elsewhere in the New Testament we have these images of Christ's body his flock, God's temple, branches of the vine and more but of all of them, none of them is more profound than bride so intimate, so profound Jesus is the paradigmatic groom and the church is his bride the church is the helper fit for him by the father's good design so that means the church compliments him the church corresponds to him like man and wife they share in human nature together and he leads and provides for and protects her and she in life-giving relationship with him gladly takes her cues from her groom.

3:36 So Christology leads to ecclesiology. And the study can go the other way. You can learn some fresh insights about Jesus from a study of the church, but my assignment from Nine Marks is the other way. How does Christology lead to ecclesiology? How might we make some on-the-ground differences in our church because we've rehearsed it and thought about it. I know there's going to be just a dump here of a lot of practical implications for your church. They're already so rich in just what Sam had to say. We've still got Kevin coming. So no pretense you're going to get all these and go home and do them. Just catch a few, whatever come your way, whatever meets you in your particular need in ministry right now and store some away for the future. Holy Spirit will bring them back to you. So first, we need a definition if we're going to do some Christology here. And we have a definition.

4:32 We got any Christology guys here? You know what the definition is, right? The capital D definition for Christology. We have one. Praise the Lord, we got one in 451. Thank you, Jesus. So let's start with the hard-fought, time-tested definition of Chalcedon from 451. And you'll see my focus here is going to be more on the person of Christ than the work. Leave that to Kevin. He's coming to talk about justification in a few minutes. It'll be the emphasis on the person that was the emphasis in 451. And we do really well today to rehearse this more often. I don't get the impression as I go around and talk to people that we're really sharp on our Christology in the 21st century and that we spend way too much time on this. I think we've assumed it, ignored it, and we do well to reacquaint ourselves with Chalcedon. so here's the statement here's our definition from Chalcedon we, following the Holy Fathers all with one consent teach people to confess one and the same Son our Lord Jesus Christ the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood truly God and truly man of a rational soul and body consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead and consubstantial with us according to the manhood in all things like us without sin.

6:02 Begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead and in these latter days for us and for our salvation born of the Virgin Mary, the mother of God, according to the manhood one and the same Christ, Son, Lord only begotten to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably, the distinction of the natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved and concurring in one person and one subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one in the same Son and the only begotten God, the word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning declared concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the Holy Fathers has handed down to us. So may we internalize this beautiful picture of fully God, fully man, in one spectacular person.

7:07 That's my summary of Christology. Fully God, fully man, one spectacular person. So if like streams, flow into a lake, Christology pours into the doctrine of the church and its practices, then how does Christology impact our churches? I got five Christological currents that shed light on our doctrine of the church. And with each of these, I'll try to give some practical counsel or ask some practical questions for self and church evaluation. Number one, plurality.

7:47 Healthy churches are led by teams. Healthy churches are led by teams. We begin here not because this is most important, but because I take it to be a room full of pastors, aspiring pastors, and this is just so fundamental to practical pastoral ministry. that you heard in Chalcedon, I hope, the emphasis on oneness over and over again, the oneness in Jesus, our Lord Jesus Christ to us, one in the same son, one person, one subsistence, one in the same son and only begotten God, word, Lord Jesus Christ. So the church has one Lord, one great shepherd of the sheep, one shepherd and overseers of our souls, one groom and the oneness in Jesus corresponds to plurality in local church leadership you got to follow the biblical text here you don't take Chalcedon and then just do logic you take Chalcedon and you see it as a fitting summary of biblical truth and then you take biblical revelation which we have about plurality in local churches there is nothing in the new testament about a singular pope in Rome, as you know, and this is more relevant in this room, there's nothing in the New Testament about a singular pope in your church.

9:11 Christ's final plan His plan for His church Is that He would flank His own singular leadership And headship of the church With plural leadership In local churches That's the correspondence In other words He calls His undershepherds to teamwork His apostles From the beginning were plural There was never one apostle. They were always plural. And so, too, the pastor elders are plural. And I would say, even in rural settings, where the idea of a team of pastors may just seem unrealistic to you, we still have this stubborn ideal in the New Testament. It's just what it is. I'm not saying you're in sin or wrong to be in a one church or a one pastor, a one elder situation, but I think it would be wrong to stay there happily and not dream something different, pray for something different, invest to try to have something different in the long term.

10:18 Practically, if you don't yet have a team, I'm not assuming you're in sin, but don't stay there. You can pray for more, invest for more, and if you do have a team, don't take it for granted. and I imagine somebody here in this room, you have a team. God has given you peers in pastoral ministry and maybe you came to the conference with them. Maybe you came by yourself and you're here hurting from relationships with them, lack of trust with them. I wanna encourage you, if you have a team, it is so precious to have a team. Take it as objectively given by God. If you have fellow brothers in ministry, receive it. It doesn't mean you'll always be in that situation. He may have a plan of exit, a plan of transition. God may do something surprising. You had no idea it was coming. But receive the team you have right now as his gift and his precious.

11:17 The times we need team the most are the times when team is least convenient to our flesh. So whether you already have a team or not, brothers, we all need to remember in our local churches, we are not the groom. We are first and foremost sheep. 10,000 times sheep. The little pastoral title, that can pass. Don't rejoice over your pastoral title. Don't rejoice over what you do in ministry. Rejoice your names are written in the book of life. That's the way Jesus says it in Luke 10, 20. and so we need fellow under shepherds in our just little modest office of pastor that we're serving in for just a little while just a vapor's breath and then eternity as sheep only so brothers let me encourage you let's seek to delight to have Jesus as our local church's hero not me not you let's delight to personally decrease in our little fiefdoms by adding peers let's plan and plan and pray and invest to raise up fellow leaders and work toward and sustain a healthy team a healthy team takes time it takes investment there may be times you feel like i'm not visiting that old lady the shut-in because i'm investing in the team i would say it is worth investing in your team those relationships are precious the more they are like friendships and not mere appointed peers, the better.

13:00 Jesus is the one person who had to work alone at his most important moment. The rest of us need a team at our most important moments. So that's Christological correspondence to practical ecclesiology. One Lord, we got a team. Number two, Catholicity. Healthy churches love other churches Healthy churches love other churches So not only is Jesus' person singular But he is the one and only Lord The one and only Christ The one and only divine son The one and only divine word There is no other name given among men By which you must be saved all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him which means not only is he a worldwide christ and worldwide lord and worldwide word but he is also so across time and through history a little glimpse of this in chalcedon we following the holy fathers through time all with one consent bishops gathered from all over and then at the end of the definition what the holy fathers from back in time has handed down to us gathered leaders from all over the world jesus has one bride the capital c church our local churches are precious tangible manifestations of the church and vital to the health of our little local churches is acknowledgement of and indeed joy that our church is not the only church not the only one in our area thank God it's not the only one in the world I doubt anybody's here from a place where there is not another healthy church

15:06 somewhere in your area I know area is a general term. You can expand it, expand it way out. You might be the only healthy church in your little town, but there's got to be some other town you can drive to in a few hours. That Jesus reigns with all authority in heaven and on earth, that he is worldwide, global, universal, means that we got to get over our little churches as if we've got it all figured out or we're the only one anybody can trust. there is God made in the human soul a kind of singular focus for worship and in our sin this can go wrong we can turn it elsewhere and it can be particularly wicked when we turn it from the groom to our own little church take that religious impulse turn it off your church turn it to the room.

16:06 a big sense of Christ and a big sense of our church don't go together. It's going to be one or the other. Your rising big sense of our church, our church, we're figuring it out, we're trustworthy, we're the only one in this area, that rising sense is rising as Jesus goes down in your church. And as your vision for Jesus rises, You're going to think less about us that we got it together. Your vision of your own church will be much more modest and humble with a big Jesus.

16:45 So, brother pastors, do you celebrate other churches? I'm not saying every church that uses the word church. But do you have that in your heart to celebrate other churches? Do you make friends with pastors of other churches? can you name other churches nearby that you love and that you root for and that you pray for maybe even in your service and that you'd happily send other people too doesn't feel like some loss and you lost these people to that church like that you would love them enough to rejoice in their gain and then another level would be can you imagine sending some of your best people overseas Can you imagine sending some of your best people to plant another church on the other side of town or in the next town?

17:41 It's another way to say and express our hearts that Jesus is far bigger than our little local church. Enjoy having a Jesus way bigger than your local church. That leads to number three. Number three is divinity. Healthy churches mature in godliness Healthy churches mature in godliness So Jesus is truly God Perfect in Godhead Says Chalcedon Coessential with the Father according to the Godhead Before the ages begotten of the Father as to the Godhead In the beginning was the Word And the Word was with God And the Word was God he's the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe by the word of his power in his glorious divine identity in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and so in Jesus our Lord who is divine we humans become partakers of the divine nature.

18:54 And that's the language in 2 Peter 1.4. We become sharers in the God-man. We become sharers joined to him in the divine nature without ceasing to be human. It's Peter's way of talking about sanctification. In fact, I'll say more about this in a minute. We become even more human as we become sharers in the divine nature, Just as humanity and divinity are not at odds in Jesus, they need not be at odds in us. But we wait on humanity for a few minutes. one aspect of Christian growth individually and corporately is becoming a greater sharer of God's nature in Christ. So brothers, is your church growing in godliness?

19:51 Not growth in human numbers necessarily, but growth in divine nature. Are people in your church and your church as a whole growing in likeness to Jesus. And let me tag on here between stream three on divinity and what's coming in stream four. You might want to guess what stream four is gonna be. Humanity. So this is a little excursus in between. There's that one mention of sin in Chalcedon. Jesus is like us in all things apart from sin.

20:31 We are sinners. Our churches are made up of sinners. Jesus is making us like himself, perfecting his church, and he's not done yet. Now we're pushing the other way. Before I was pushing, say, hey, are we growing? Are we coming more like God? And now pushing this way, going, hey, remember, we got sin here. This is the way we're different than him. This is correspondence between ecclesiology and Christology, owning right now that we are not yet perfect. We're not yet without sin. Indwelling Holy Spirit, thank God. Indwelling sin, got to remember that. So this leads, forgetting this about the church, that she still has sin, leads to this unnamed doctrine in ecclesiology, almost forgotten in some places, called the doctrine of realistic church expectations.

21:23 He's in Bavink. Jesus is perfecting his church And the church is not perfect yet She's still being made holy because she's not fully holy She's being beautified because at present she has warts And blemishes and spots and wrinkles What's that sound like? Sounds like Ephesians 5 25 to 27 Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish brothers that hasn't been fulfilled yet that's coming the day's coming of a spotless wrinkle-free church and that day's not here yet and wonder if any of you grew up singing the song as i did in my southern baptist church in south carolina he's still working on me to make me what i ought to be we can sing that about our church he's still working on her she would rhyme he's still working on the church globally universally and your church my church still working on her realistic expectations so brothers we do well to grant that our churches are not perfect we are sinful humans who are ever so slowly becoming partakers of the divine nature.

23:18 Church life is sanctifying life. Not just individually, because I'm joined with people in Jesus who are hard for me and I wouldn't have chosen otherwise. But also corporately. He's doing sanctifying work on us corporately. And so our calling as pastors is not for perfect churches, but the right direction. Not perfection, but direction with our churches. All right, number four, humanity. healthy churches embrace their own nature. Healthy churches embrace their own nature. I realized at the end of this process, of putting these thoughts together, that I could have just done the whole thing on humanity. But then that wouldn't have really lived up to the topic because the topic wasn't incarnation and the church. The topic was Christology and the church. So let me just try to say a little bit quick about humanity.

24:15 Because this whole thing could be about humanity. Because we are that, and yet somehow we're not very good at it often. It's part of being sinners, right? So not only is this one spectacular person truly God, he is also truly man.

24:35 Side note here. For Jesus' disciples, they knew he was truly man. In the boat with him, they ate with him, they followed him, they know he's man. And they're learning page by page, pericope by pericope about this divine identity. Could Yahweh himself be in the boat with us? We see them coming into that in the Gospels. For us, it's the other way. We start with Jesus is Lord. And then we're very slow to do business with his full humanity. We never saw him in the flesh. He's risen Lord on the throne of the universe. Forget he's human, glorified human. It wasn't a cameo in our humanity that he then shed, but he's glorified humanity. Our bodies will be changed to be like his glorious body. So his humanity is truly man in Chalcedon, perfect in manhood of rational soul and body, coessential with us according to the manhood, like us in all things, apart from sin.

25:36 the word became flesh in him dwells the whole fullness of deity bodily that's amazing Jesus' rational soul and body that is his fully human body and his fully human inner person with human emotions and a human mind and human will that tells us that both the human body and soul matter. Both the mind and the emotions matter. So we ask, how are our people treating their bodies,

26:26 cultivating their emotions, stimulating their minds, conditioning their wills? this is all sacred stuff that God himself took it in humanity. Are people growing in their ability to glorify God in their bodies?

26:49 Sleep, food, exercise. That's all I'll say about that. Are people growing in becoming more fully human in their emotions? Now, brothers, I mean, this is a particular need in the 21st century. This is huge in our day. Modern people are so misshapen in their emotions, and they're typically so blind to this. It's not just a church problem. We don't need to bellyache the emotions of the church. It's a society-wide problem, so we also have it in the church. Our people need to know that Jesus experienced not only human happiness, and when did he, but sorrow, anger, fear, and no sin. He had no sin and experienced that range of emotions.

27:48 Being humanly emotional like that is not sin. and so should we we should grow in our Christ likeness and experience not only joy we should experience joy but also holy sorrow holy anger holy fear holy guilt holy shame God himself has sanctified our human emotions by taking them himself in Jesus. Are people growing in the life of the mind? And this is especially under assault as well. not just in the practically oriented anti-cerebral vibe, but in the habitual use of the phones, scrolling ourselves to death, into almost mindless zombies.

28:40 And so we as pastors should lift up the life of the mind. Surprise your people. They're very rarely hearing out there, outside the church, that the human mind and cultivating the mind is important. There's some places, I know. But in mainstream society, they're not hearing it. That's not the gist they're getting and the vibe they're getting. So we should say some surprisingly high things about the mind. Christians care about the mind. That's the rational part, the rational soul and body of Jesus. We're not Apollinarians, but we value the human mind. And are people growing and forming and strengthening their human wills? are they more self-controlled can they say no to good things to get better things some people call this Christian hedonism which is just how Jesus taught your father who sees you in secret will reward you say no to the good the small good thing for the better thing for the greater reward c.s lewis talked about the unblushing promises of reward in the gospels given by jesus brothers appeal to your people like this help them see to go for the better have the christian hedonistic impulse to take jesus at his word live our lives in light of the better and say no to the good on the way to the better and we could go on and on about our dehumanizing age we live in a very dehumanizing age it relates to male and female manhood and womanhood and may god be pleased to make our churches places where people can come see real manhood and womanhood on display like they're not seeing anywhere else so as pastors we should ask what are the ways in which my people and our church in our local place at our specific time are tempted to become less human?

30:42 Where can your church grow in its humanity? And we start with ourselves. Pastor, how's your body? How's your emotions? How's your mind? How's your will? How's your self-control? which leads to the last one since we're making up doctrines here I'll coin a new term Hedonicity Or if you We're doing ITY If you want to say felicity You can do felicity here You do another term Talk to me at the break If we get another ITY here Hedonicity Healthy churches cherish Jesus Healthy churches cherish Jesus And here's where I'm getting to channel some of this good theology proper from Sam.

31:45 By cherish, I mean adore Jesus supremely. Worship him from the heart. He is the great shared treasure of the church. He is the focus of whole-souled worship. Healthy churches cherish Jesus. They adore him. They worship him. They treasure him. He's the tie that binds them, and it's not a tie that is indifferent to him. It's not a tie that's apathetic toward him. It is a tie that is one of supreme cherishing of Jesus. brothers if you want a pure church which is what we'd encourage as much as possible you can't have that 100 you try let's try it's better to try than not try a credible profession of faith in jesus is not mere assent to his saving work. It is not mere acceptance of his sovereign lordship.

32:55 but there is some sparkle of enjoyment in the person of Jesus. It's not full orbed necessarily. Nobody needs to be a Christian for decades and have their adoration and their delight all built out, but in a membership interview, I am looking for some sparkle of enjoyment in Jesus. Is there some seed of true faith that they enjoy the one we worship? That they're really bound together with us in this Christological tie? he's the surpassing value he's the pearl of great price he's the treasure hidden in the field he's the supreme delight and satisfaction of our souls in the church so what's most important in church life is not getting all your ecclesiological ducks in a row it's the glad worship of jesus the thrill of the soul in Jesus.

34:03 I love that language of enthrallment. It's getting at the same reality. Knowing and enjoying him is the surpassing value, not being the church. That's not the main value. That's not the final one. Brothers, you can get your ecclesiology almost right and get your Christianity almost entirely wrong if Jesus is not the beating heart at the center.

34:30 Jesus is the church's supreme treasure, and healthy churches say, we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. That's healthy churches at their best. Jars of clay. He's the treasure. We're prongs. He's the diamond. And wonder upon wonder, this groom loves his bride. He really loves her. So brothers, check your hedonicity. In our good, noble efforts to have healthy churches, does the groom thrill the hearts of you and of your church? And I'd venture to say that that's the single most important mark of a healthy church. Let me pray for us.

35:26 So Father in heaven, we are talking about such supernatural things here that we just can't generate in a moment. In our little human modest efforts, we seek to cultivate them. We seek to receive the grace of your Holy Spirit, who loves to lift up your son and make him the object of our worship. And I pray that you would do that miracle in our own souls. Would we, even here at this conference, would Jesus be a little bigger, a little sweeter? Would we be enthralled? Would our souls thrill a little bit more to know him? Be in relationship with him? Get to preach him? Be one of his under shepherds? And first and foremost, be one of his sheep? and then father would you be pleased through us as instruments who cherish jesus would you bring about churches who cherish him more