Sermon Cloud

FROM LAST WEEK:

END goal of Ephesians 4:1-11:  Called to oneness
o    of faith and
o    the knowledge of the Son of God.

NECESSARY MEANS to that end:  Spiritual leadership and authority.
•    ASK, “How do you view + respond to spiritual authority?”
•    Most likely with apprehension.  We fear loss of freedom, fulfillment, opportunity.
Here’s why: 
•    Because the premise of most:  authority is incompatible with freedom. 
•    Any authority, ESPECIALLY spiritual authority hinders personal freedom.
•    Where does this doubt come from?  Is it a legitimate doubt?  Doubt your doubts and ask whether it’s a possible deception.
•    Account of the Fall seems to confirm this.


The Historical Root of Humanity’s Common Skepticism:  Adam and Eve

Freest ever:  Even with just ONE ‘shall-not’ they rebelled. 
Deceived by the Serpent’s language: implication → God was holding out on them;
a freedom they were missing out on. 
Attempting to reach absolute freedom, they chose rebellion + disobedience. 
o    Result:  they lost their freedom. 
•    Consequently: No more Eden, labor for food, pain in childbearing.
•    World full of rules ←  A+E’s unwillingness to submit to God’s authority.

Just as a Goldfish is designed for water’s resistance, man is designed to live under God’s authority.
•    As Andly Stanley notes, Maximum freedom is found under God’s authority.
•    Transition: The New Society has a transformed view of and response to authority.

CONCERNING SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

A.  INSTITUTION:
Vs.11, “And HE gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers…”

WHAT IT IS:  Spiritual Authorities are instituted by God.
o    YG teachers, pastors, evangelists...Should I always obey?

Additionally, ALL Authorities are instituted by God
Romans 13:1-2  Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.  2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.



B.  FUNCTION OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY:

1.  Spiritual authorities equip the saints.
o    Equip not coherce.  As God saves from sin into new life purpose, this new life purpose is the restored call that we understand as the cultural mandate.
The Cultural Mandate  
•    Understand the Structure of the World and the Direction of the World in order to understand what it means to redeem the World.
•    Sex is a structural good that God has built into his creation, outside of marriage is an ethical misuse of the good.
•    The storytelling ability of movies is a structural good that’s part of God’s created order (God Himself is a storyteller).  But the illicit sex, perverse humor and shallow story lines found in many movies represent an ethical misuse of that created good.
•    While God loves the structure of the world (Creation), he hats its sinful direction (the Fall).

2.  Spiritual Authorities ‘reveal’ Other Authorities
14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes
Above implies helplessness and inability to recognize truth: 
o    The question is not whether you are under authority, RATHER, whose authority you are under.  Some authorities in our lives are present but not perceived.
o    Motion with no perception: earth is spinning at a speed of over 1000 MPH at this very moment.  Simultaneously, the earth is rotating around the sun @ 66,000 MPH.  Do you feel anything?  Yet we have no sensation of motion.  The earth is moving at an incredible speed but we do not perceive it. Einstein made this point by striking two consecutive blows with his fist and saying, "Between those two strokes, we traveled thirty miles." 

Question:  What ultimate authority are you drawing from, is influencing and informing your choices and decisions?
Always boils down to two:  SCRIPTURE OR THE WORLD?
  Reliable, yes but Relevant?

• Infallibility: absolutely sure and safe guide from God in all matters of life.
• Inerrancy:  entirely true and free from any mistakes.
• 16th century 5

Wisdom of the world
It steps in like a tide rather than crashing in like a tidal-wave.

• … a sleepiness of the soul in which status, pleasures, comforts and cares of the world appear solid, stunning, and affecting while the truths of Scripture becomes abstractions-unable to grip the heart or guide our everyday activities. 

• Iain Murray, “… a man-centered way of thinking… it judges the importance of things by the present and material results.  It weighs success by numbers.  It covets human esteem, and it wants no unpopularity.  It knows no truth for which it is worth suffering.  It declines to be a fool for Christs’ sake.”

GOSPEL OF AUTHORITY

What gives us the freedom to submit?  We may ask, “Jesus, how can I find the power to submit to you?”
1.    Acknowledge you are always under AN authority,
2.    Read Ephesians 2 concerning the humility of Christ who “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but… (read on)”

On the cross, Jesus reversed Genesis 3.  Although Adam and Eve grasped the fruit in an attempt to have equality with God, Jesus, who was God Himself, full of authority, did not!.  He submitted and became a servant even dying on the cross.
•    On the cross we see three things:
•    The horror and brutality and punishment that the rebellion against of God deserved.
•    The love, romance, passion God has for His people.
•    The submission of one who IS authority in order to free us from the penalty of rebellion.
o    That’s how we can trust God in His Scriptures.  The Gospel.