• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
Pursuing the Integrity of the Gospel
 
November 1, 2009
Church in the Boro Rob Wilkerson
Page 1
Pursuing the Integrity of the Gospel
Selected Scriptures
Sunday MorningNovember 1, 2009Church in the BoroRob Wilkerson
Introduction
One of my greatest concerns in local church ministry is this prevalent attitude among many thatfaithfulness is to be way more preferred over fruitfulness.
For these folks it’s almost as if they’ve
automatically stereotyped fruitfulness with unbiblical methodologies for growing a church. To be sure,their justifiable complaint and concern is that when a church is more concerned with growing in
quantity above growing in quality, then that church is definitely “out of balance.”
However, it is also easy to be grasping at straws in using this philosophy when you have a small church
and you just can’t figure out why it won’t grow. And this is just what I did for years, defending the size
of my church by my faithfulness to God above and beyond any pursuit of the evils of fruitfulness.The truth of the matter is that we are to pursue being faithful, and we are to expect be fruitful. Both aretrue, as long as both are driven by Scripture, of course. When Jesus told the story of the owner whodoled out the bars of silver to his three employees before leaving town, the two who had invested the
silver and made money for the owner were met with the words, “well done, good and faithful servants.”
Clearly the emphasis there is on being faithful. But what happened when they were faithful?
They wereFRUITFUL!
They made lots and lots of money in interest and dividends for the owner. Faithfulness ledto fruitfulness. They expected that if they were faithful that the returns would be fruitful. In fact, it isfairly obvious that the owner said they were faithful
because
they were fruitful. Fruitfulness was their
mission with the owner’s money to begin with, and this earned the title
 faithful 
from the owner.But only if it was this easy in everything. You see, t
here’s this doctrine that’s so foundational to everysingle thing we do in life, big and little. It’s called the sovereignty of God. And behind the scenes God isfreely working all things out according to the counsel of His own will, not ours…for His ow
n purposes,
not ours. And though one may be faithful, there’s just no way to absolutely, certainly, without any
doubts, guarantee fruitfulness
to the degree that we desire to see it 
. There will be fruit. There always is.There MUST be fruitfulness when there is faithfulness. The issue, however, is whether WE will be theones to
see
that fruit in our lifetime. Stories abound of missionary and pastoral labors all around theworld throughout the centuries where some labored faithfully to the grave seeing little fruitfulness fromtheir efforts.
Yet the one thing I don’t want you to miss today is that the
norm
is fruitfulness.Fruitfulness always follows faithfulness at one point in time or another, whether immediately or in thedistant future. And it is the experience of most, as well as the testimony of Scripture I believe, thatfaithfulness normally leads to fruitfulness within our lifetime. Fruit by nature is progressive. It mustgrow. But it
does
grow and ripen. And it is harvested, normally within an expected season.
 
Pursuing the Integrity of the Gospel
 
November 1, 2009
Church in the Boro Rob Wilkerson
Page 2
Although the regeneration and salvation of souls is a sovereign work of God alone, the planting,fertilizing, and harvest is a work of man. Jesus gave His disciples the task of being the laborers to enterthe fields ready for harvest. That task has now been passed on down to those who follow Jesus today.There are fields ready for harvest, some ready for planting, and some ready for fertilizing. But there will
be fruit. And I’ll say it again: I believe the Bible points our att
ention toward the expectation of 
some
fruitfulness within our lifetime when we are committed to faithfulness.It is with this in mind that I believe that for Church in the Boro to hold with integrity to the gospel of Jesus Christ, we must ensure that our gospel is one of integrity first and foremost. I believe that agospel of integrity is
both
a faithful gospel
and 
a fruitful gospel. It is about quality
and 
quantity. In fact,the very nature of its message
 –
the faithfulness of God
 –
is promised by that faithful God to yieldfruitfulness.
1.
 
To Be a Gospel of Integrity it Must be Faithful
: It’s a Gospel Focused onQuality…Conforming a Person to the Image of Jesus Christ in Every Way.
 
a.
 
A Gospel of Integrity Must Be Faithful to the Scriptures.
 i.
“according to the Scriptures”
(1 Cor. 15:3-4).ii.
“holding fast to sound doctrine” (1 Tim. 1:10
-11; 6:3; Titus 1:9; 2:1)b.
 
A Gospel of Integrity Must Proceed in
True
Charity.
 
It will Always Result in ResilientRelationships.i.
 
A Gospel of Integrity is Faithful to Love One Another in Forgiveness (Eph. 4:32).ii. A Gospel of Integrity is Faithful to Love One Another in Forbearance (Eph. 4:3).
c.
 
A Gospel of Integrity Must Progress Toward
True
Unity
i.
 
A Gospel of Integrity is Faithful by Including All Those Who Jesus Died For.ii. A Gospel of Integrity is Faithful by Excluding Everything That
Biblically 
Divides
 
False Teaching: True unity is built upon sound doctrine. False doctrine divides andtherefore must be excluded by a church in order to be faithful to the gospel.
 
False Living: True unity is maintained by sound living. Unrepentant sins like divisiveness,unruliness, slander, gossip, immorality, etc. must be excluded by a church in order to befaithful to the gospel.
d.
 
A Gospel of Integrity Must Point Toward
True
Liberty.
i.
 
A Gospel of Integrity is Faithful by Leading Others to Liberty from Legalism.ii. A Gospel of Integrity is Faithful by Leading Others Away From a License to Sin.
e.
 
A Gospel of Integrity Must Produce Countercultural and NOT Subcultural Christians
i.
 
A Gospel of Integrity is Faithful by Being Countercultural in its Influence.ii. A Gospel of Integrity is NOT Faithful by Being Subcultural in its Impression.Transition Illustration: pour water in bottle spilling over into a cup, spilling over into a small bowl,spilling over into a large bowl, spilling over into a larger bowl, etc., emphasizing necessity of it filling usfirst and then filling those around us. A gospel of integrity that is faithful to the Scriptures, to forgive,
 
Pursuing the Integrity of the Gospel
 
November 1, 2009
Church in the Boro Rob Wilkerson
Page 3
forbear, and be transformed, and be countercultural will be a gospel that bears fruit among people andin the nations. God will pour it
into
us until it overflows
out 
of us.Conversely, a gospel of integrity must be concerned with fruitfulness because the very nature of our
mission is to offer up to King Jesus a harvest of souls whom we’ve gathered into the local church. A
church concerned with only faithfulness is marked by little if any numerical growth by new conversions.Churches like this console themselves that the reason new believers are not coming to faith in Christ
through their ministries is because they rely on God’s sovereignty in the work of evangelism. They claim
that they are being faithful to just preach the Word and not dirty themselves with the business of churchgrowth. In reality, however, they have simply grown lazy and have become subcultural with a narrowview of the gospel that has left them almost completely ineffective in their communities and among thenations.The bottom line is that a biblical theology of the church is about faithfulness
and 
fruitfulness. The very
purpose of the church’s existence right now on earth is to expand outward and make new worshipers of 
King Jesus. In this kind of theology, a mission of fruitfulness
is
faithfulness to the mission. In otherwords, if you never started out on the mission with the expectation and anticipation of fruitfulness, then
you didn’t start out with a faithful view of the mission. To be faithful to the mission is to pursue
fruitfulness in the mission. Quantity creates quality, in one sense.
2.
 
To Be a Gospel of Integrity it Must be Fruitful:
It’s a Gospel Focused onQuantity…
Expanding and Saving Souls in Every Way.
a.
 
A Gospel of Integrity Pursues the Great Commission as a Mission About Fruitfulness(Quantity) Based on Faithfulness (Quality).
For starters, look at the Great Commission. Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 28 to go into all theworld and make disciples. Did you see that? The object of the Great Commission
is disciples…plural.
Quantity is involved here. Fruitfulness IS the mission here. And the issue of faithfulness follows the
issue fruitfulness when Jesus further explains what it looks like to make disciples: “teaching them all
things I have commanded y
ou, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” I see
these two elements here bound up inseparably together. Fruitfulness is the mission. But fruitfulnessdepends on faithfulness to
way 
in which the mission is to be carried out. Fruitfulness is the touchdown,and faithfulness is the way the game is played.THIS my beloved friends is what makes a ministry unfaithful: when it pursue a philosophy of fruitfulnessthat is not faithful to the mission. It is not unfaithful when it pursues fruitfulness. It is unfaithful when itexalts quantity at the expense of quality. Conversely, a ministry is also unfaithful when it does NOT
pursue fruitfulness. The point of the mission is quantity. So if you don’t pursue that, then you’re no
treally being faithful!How about the Great Commission as stated in Luke 24? There Jesus told His disciples that they were togo into all the world and preach forgiveness and repentance of sins to all the nations. Why do you thinkthey were supposed to preach to all the nations? Because they were supposed to gather as many intothe fold as possible. But what was supposed to drive the mission of fruitfulness here? In short, it wasthe faithfulness of the message: forgiveness and repentance of sins. If you
don’t 
preach that message,
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...