Lay Out a Thorough, Comprehensive Thought of God
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Does anybody in this room know of anybody in this room, that’s doing a whole lot of what I’m talking about? A thorough, comprehensive explanation of the counsel of God on a particular theme, subject or passage. Is anybody doing that, day in and day out that you’re aware of, as an organic way of life? I don’t think so. I get around some. I’m not seeing or hearing about it from recipients or givers. I’m not saying people don’t care. I’m not saying people don’t love each other. I’m not saying people are unfamiliar with the counsel of God and the Scriptures -- I know they are. I’m not saying any of that. I’m just saying we need to share a little bit more. We need to give some thought in how to share. Consider how you might spur one another on to love and good works. I think we need to reevaluate how we approach this idea of truth.
Paul spoke to the Ephesians in Chapter 3. He said, “It’s not my fault. God’s making me do this. It’s become my goal to lay out clearly for all of God’s people the mysteries of the unsearchable riches of Christ and how those things practically affect people’s lives, and so I have to lay all these things out to you.” That was an expression of Paul’s felt commission to go and teach. He was saying I know what I need to do. I need to communicate these two primary thoughts to you. He spent his whole life doing that and he did it aggressively. He did not do it passively just as it came up. He did it aggressively. That’s what I want to encourage you all to do.
I don’t want God’s people to perish in a famine of the word simply because we thought the priesthood of believers meant that it was okay for everyone to run around the house in diapers and feed themselves out of the cupboards. That’s not what a priesthood of believers means. We really do need to see that these things that Jesus entrusted to us, He called us to go and teach, lay it out. Lay out a thorough, patient, comprehensive thought of God just like the ship, plank on plank, built and tarred together with our hearts, our compassion, our love for God’s people and God’s plan and purposes.
The bursts of wind of His exhortation and His prophetic insight will come along as they always have. But let’s take care of some people around us that you see. Perhaps there’s a famine, there’s a little bit of malnutrition. Maybe they’ve been exhorted this way and exhorted that way, been admonished this way and admonished that way, but you sense the substance isn’t there underneath it. Well, take the time to build the substance underneath it. Can you picture anyone in your mind that might fit that description? I can. Maybe it’s not their fault. Maybe we’ve been puffing into the sails, but the ship’s not been built as thoroughly as it should’ve been.
Let’s take the time to lay it all out for them. Take the time to build in what the Hebrews writer referred to as the fundamentals, the first principles. The Hebrews writer referred to these things as the first principles. He said, you ought to be teachers, but instead we need to lay again the first things, the foundational, fundamental, primary things. Apparently, Paul felt like because they still weren’t mature, to give them the deeper things or the richer things possibly wasn’t going to be all that effective. Maybe we ought to start at an earlier place and lay again the fundamentals and the first principles. What do these things mean?
If you roamed around and grabbed somebody in the church here or off the street and asked them to explain as best they could the meaning of some particular first principle, how well would they do? Again, I’m not speaking of something academic, but something that’s been built into their existence, their heart, their life, that everything else is being built upon.
