Sunday School Lesson

1. Psalm 146:1-10
His Faithfulness
July 30, 2017
First Baptist Church
Jackson, Mississippi
USA
What’s the number one thing?
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The Glory of God!
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1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV
31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
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2. July Memory Verse:
Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own
doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
First Baptist Church Jackson Mission:
Multiply Disciples to Live Like Jesus.
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First Groups
Bible Living
Isaiah 66:1-2 NASB
1 Thus says the Lord,
“Heaven is My throne and the Earth is My footstool.
Where then is a house you could build for Me?
And where is a place that I may rest?
2 “For My hand made all these things,
Thus all these things came into being,” declares the Lord.
“But to this one I will look,
To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at
My Word.
Micah 6:8 NASB
8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness (mercy),
And to walk humbly with your God?

3. Colossians 1:9-12 NASB
9 For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray
for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all
spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you will walk in a manner worthy
of the Lord, pleasing Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and
increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all power, according
to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously
12 giving thanks to the Father, Who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of
the saints in Light.
Ephesians 4:1-6 NASB
1 Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of
the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness,
with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, 3 being diligent to
preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one
Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one
faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all Who is over all and through all
and in all.
Psalm 146:1-10
His Faithfulness
Psalm 146:1-10 NASB
1 Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
2 I will praise the Lord while I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
3 Do not trust in princes,
In mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.
4 His spirit departs, he returns to the Earth;
In that very day his thoughts perish.
5 How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
Whose hope is in the Lord his God,
6 Who made Heaven and Earth,
The sea and all that is in them;
Who keeps faith forever;
7 Who executes justice for the oppressed;
Who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free.
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4. 8 The Lord opens the eyes of the blind;
The Lord raises up those who are bowed down;
The Lord loves the righteous;
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9 The Lord protects the strangers;
He supports the fatherless and the widow,
But He thwarts the way of the wicked.
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10 The Lord will reign forever,
Your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the Lord!
Psalm 146:1-10 NASB
Psalm 146:3-4 MSG
3 Don’t put your life in the hands of experts
who know nothing of life, of salvation life.
4 Mere humans don’t have what it takes;
when they die, their projects die with them.

5. Ray Stedman
1917-1992
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Authority among Christians is not derived from the same source as worldly
authority, nor is it to be exercised in the same manner.
Jesus carefully and clearly stated, “It shall not be so among you.”
Matthew 20:24-28 NASB
24 And hearing this, the ten became indignant with the two brothers (sons of
Zebedee – James and John). 25 But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You
know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men
exercise authority over them. 26 It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes
to become great among you shall be your servant, 27 and whoever wishes to be
first among you shall be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be
served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
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Christians are brothers and sisters, children of one Father and members of one
another in the body of Christ.
Jesus put it clearly in Matthew 23:8, “You have One Teacher, and you are all
brothers.”

6. Matthew 23:6-8 NASB
6 They (The scribes and the Pharisees) love the place of honor at banquets and
the chief seats in the synagogues, 7 and respectful greetings in the market
places, and being called Rabbi by men. 8 But do not be called Rabbi; for One is
your Teacher, and you are all brothers.
The church has repeatedly borrowed the authority structures of the world,
changed the names of executives from presidents to pastors and from middle
managers to deacons and gone merrily on its way, lording it over the laity and
destroying the model of servanthood that our Lord intended.
In most churches today, an unthinking acceptance has been given to the idea
that the pastor is the final voice of authority in both doctrine and practice, and
that he is the executive officer of the church with respect to administration.
But surely, if a pope over the whole church is bad, a pope in every church is no
better!
If the church is not to imitate the world in this matter, what is it to do?
Leadership must certainly be exercised within the church, and there must be
some form of authority.
The question is answered in Jesus’ words, “You have One Teacher.”
For much too long churches have behaved as if Jesus were far away in Heaven
having left it up to church leaders to make their own decisions.
But Jesus left the church with a far different vision of church leadership when He
assured the disciples in the Great Commission, “Lo, I am with you always, to the
close of the age.”
And in Matthew 18:20, He reiterated, “Where two or three are gathered in My
name, there am I in the midst of them.”
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7. Clearly this indicates that He is present not only in the church as a whole but in
every local church as well.
It is Jesus Himself, therefore, Who is the ultimate authority within every body of
Christians.
He is quite prepared to exercise His authority through the instrument He Himself
has ordained: the eldership.
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The task of the elders is not to run the church themselves but to determine how
the Lord in their midst wishes to run His church!
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8. Much of this He has already made known through the Scriptures that describe
the impartation and exercise of spiritual gifts and the availability of resurrection
power to exercise those gifts.
He has also made known through the Scriptures the responsibility of believers to
bear one another’s burdens, to confess their sins to one another, to teach, to
admonish, and to encourage one another, to hold one another accountable,
and to evangelize and serve the needs of a hurting world.
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The Mind of The Spirit:
In the day-to-day decisions that face every church, elders are to seek and find
the mind of the Lord through an uncoerced unanimity, reached after thorough
and Biblically related discussion.
Thus, ultimate authority – even in the practical, day-to-day operation of the
church – is vested in the Lord and in no one else.
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This is what the book of Acts reveals in its description of the actions of the Holy
Spirit Who planned, initiated, and ordered the amazingly effective evangelism
strategy of the early church (see Acts 8 and 13).

9. The elders of the early church sought the mind of the Spirit and when the Spirit
made His will clear to them, they acted with unity of thought and purpose, as we
see in Acts 15:28 – “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay
upon you no greater burden.”
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The authority, therefore, was not the authority of men but of God, expressed not
through men, acting as individuals, but through the collective agreement of men
whom the Spirit had led to eldership (see Acts 20:28).
Acts 20:28 NASB
28 Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit
has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased
with His own blood.
The point is simply this:
No one person is the sole expression of the mind of the Spirit; no individual has
authority form God to direct the affairs of the church.
Whenever a church gathers itself around the
unquestioned leadership of a single individual, it
ceases to be a church; it becomes a cult.
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10. A plurality of elders is necessary as a safeguard to the all-too-human tendency
to play God and lord one’s authority over other people.
Even when a plurality of elders is established, care must be taken that the
church’s leaders (who, Biblically, are to be seen as servants, not bosses)
exercise their authority with humility, not by dominating, controlling, and
intimidating others.
The influence of a servant-leader is not the power to give orders but the ability to
inspire enthusiasm and voluntary cooperation.
This is the nature of all authority among Christians – even the authority of the Lord
Himself!
He never forces our obedience, He attracts our devotion and our love – and He
does so by awakening in us our gratitude and our responsiveness to His love.
“We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
The true authority of elders and other leaders in the church is that of respect,
aroused by their own loving and godly example.
The measure of a church is not buildings, budgets and baptisms but by the
holiness of its members.
This is the force of two verses often cited by those who claim a unique authority
of pastors over church members.
The first is found in 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13.
1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 NASB
12 But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor
among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction,
13 and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live in
peace with one another.
The key phrase is “and have charge over you in the Lord,” and the Greek word
in question is prohistamenous.
Though this is translated “have charge over you” in the NASB, the word itself
contains no implication of being over another.
The New English Bible more properly renders it, “and in the Lord’s fellowship are
your leaders and counsellors.”

11. The thought in the word is that of “standing before” others, not of “ruling over”
them.
It is the common word for leadership.
In the body of Christ, leaders can lead only if they are able to persuade some to
follow.
The true mark of a leader is when he looks back over his shoulder, there are
followers back there.
Another verse used to support command authority is Hebrews 13:17, which the
NASB renders, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over
your souls as those who will give an account.”
The imperative translated “obey” is from the word peitho, to persuade.
In the middle voice, as used here, Thayer’s lexicon gives its meaning as “to
suffer one’s self to be persuaded.”
Again, there is no thought of a right to command someone against his will.
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But the clear thrust is that leaders are persuaders whose ability to persuade
arises not from a smooth tongue or a dominant personality but from a personal
walk with God that evokes respect.
Why change now?
At this point many may be tempted to say, “What difference does it make? After
all, the pattern of command authority is too widely established in our world to
alter now.”
“Besides, many churches seem to be doing all right as it is. Why try to change
now?”

12. In response, consider the following:
The Bible indicates that any deviation from the divine plan inevitably produces
weakness, division, strife, increasing fruitlessness, and, ultimately, death.
The present low state of many churches is testimony to the effects of ignoring,
over a long period of time, God’s pattern for the church.
A command structure of authority in the church deprives the world of any model
or demonstration of a different way of life than the one it already lives by.
The church is not meant to be a country club run under a corporate business
structure.
If unbelievers see no difference between the church and the world, why should
they change and believe in Jesus Christ?
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A command authority inevitably produces resentment, repression, exploitation
and, finally, rebellion.
Command authority is an expression of law, not grace.
The Scriptures assure us that law can never
redeem or restore us; by its very nature, the
law can only condemn and repress us.
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13. The Lord Jesus desires to use the church to show the world a wholly new form of
authority that is consistent with grace, not law.
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But this new form of authority is nullified by the top-down, command-style
structure that prevails in today’s church.
Our dying-to-live gospel is pronounced D.O.A. – dead on arrival – even before it
is proclaimed, because we deny its power with the way we conduct our lives
and our church business.
As a result, we attempt to rob God of His glory and His image is distorted before
the watching world.
Nothing could be more serious than this!
Note that each of the four support ministries (apostles, prophets, evangelists and
pastor/teachers) have to do with the Word of God.
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The first two - apostles and prophets – are concerned with originating and
expounding the Word, while the last two – evangelists and pastor/teachers – are
concerned with applying the Word to individual lives.
The evangelist deals with the beginning of Christian life while the teaching pastor
is involved with the development and growth of that life.

14. Evangelists are much like obstetricians, helping to bring new Christians into the
world.
Teaching pastors are like pediatricians, seeing that these Christians have a
healthy spiritual “diet”, that their “diseased states” receive proper attention, and
that they get plenty of spiritual “fresh air” and “exercise”.
If you look at the church as a construction project, the evangelist is the
quarryman who digs out the rock, cuts it loose from quarry stone, and hews it to
a rough approximation of a final size.
The pastor/teacher is the stone mason who shapes the rock, fitting it into the
building in its proper place according to the blueprint of the Great Architect.
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When we compare present-day churches to the original blueprint, it is strikingly
apparent that many deviations have been permitted that have been
detrimental to the life of the church.
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15. Through the centuries, the church gradually turned from the simple provisions
that made it such a powerful and compelling force in its early years then and
terrible distortions entered into the church that continue to weaken the church.
The early church met in member’s homes until popular thinking fastened onto
the church building – the physical stone-and-glass edifice – as the identifying
symbol of the church.
Emphasis was placed upon great imposing structures, massive ornate
cathedrals with stained glass windows and flying buttresses.
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In the beginning, “working in the church” meant to exercise a gift or perform a
ministry anywhere within the far-flung body of Christ – even in a home, out on a
mission field, or in a hospital.
Gradually however, “working in the church” came to mean performing some
religious act within a specific building called “the church”.
At the same time, there was a gradual transfer of ministry responsibility from the
people (whom we now call the laity) to the few pastor/teachers (whom we now
call the clergy, a term derived from Latin “clericus”, meaning “priest”).
The Scriptural concept that every believer is a priest before God was gradually
lost, and a special class of super-Christians emerged who were looked to for
practically everything, and who came to be called the “ministry”.
Somehow, the church lost sight of the concept,
so clearly stated in Ephesians 4, that all
Christians are “in the ministry”.
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believers.jpg

16. The proper task of the four support ministries we have examined is to train,
motivate, and strengthen the people – so called “ordinary laypeople” – to do
the work of the ministry.
When the ministry was left to the “professionals”, there was nothing left for the
people to do but come to Church, sit and listen.
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They were told that it was their responsibility to bring the world into the church
building to hear the pastor preach the Gospel and soon Christianity became
little more than a Sunday morning spectator sport, much like the definition of
football: twenty-two men down on the field, desperately in need of rest, and one
hundred and two thousand in the grandstands, desperately in need of exercise.
The unbiblical distortion has placed pastors under an unbearable burden.
They have proved completely unequal to the task of evangelizing the world,
counseling the wounded and brokenhearted, ministering to the poor and needy,
relieving the oppressed and afflicted, expounding the Scriptures, and
challenging the entrenched forces of evil in an increasingly darkened world.
Pastors were never, ever meant to do it all!
To even attempt it is to end up frustrated, exhausted, overwhelmed and
emotionally drained – which, of course, is exactly the state in which you find
many pastors today!

17. Further, this distortion has resulted in a sadly impoverished church that has made
little impact on the world and increasingly withdraws into weakness, irrelevance,
and isolation.
We desperately need to return to the dynamic of the early church.
We can no longer defend our ivy-clad traditions which leave no room for the
power- packed NT strategy.
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18. Church leadership must allow God to restore to the people the ministry that was
taken from them with the best of intentions.
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The work of the ministry belongs to the entire body of believers, who should be
equipped, guided, and encouraged by those who are gifted by God to
expound (evangelist) and apply (pastors/teachers) His Word with wisdom and
power.
The entire body has received gifts from the Spirit, and it is the task of those in the
pastoral ministry to encourage the entire body to discover and exercise those
gifts.
When we rediscover the pattern and strategy of Ephesians 4, when we have
given all Christians in the body their God-given role as ministers of God’s eternal
plan, then the entire body comes alive with the resurrection power.
Ephesians 4:11-16 NASB
11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as
evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints
for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13 until we all attain
to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to
the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. 14 As a result, we are
no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by
every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful
scheming; 15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him
Who is the head, even Christ, 16 from Whom the whole body, being fitted and held
together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each
individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
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19. Lives are changed!
Ministries explode!
Communities are touched and healed!
The church becomes healthy and vital and exciting again!
If we can recapture God’s original strategy for the church, then we will again
see churches that are modern extensions of the church of Acts.
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The trademarks of the true, living church of Jesus Christ are boldness, power,
transformation, and love, lived out in act after act of Christian service.
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There is no place in this world more exciting
to be than a church that operates as God
designed it to!
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fire.jpg

20. 1 Peter 5:1-11 NASB
Serve God Willingly
1 Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of
the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed,
2 shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under
compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain,
but with eagerness; 3 nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but
proving to be examples to the flock. 4 And when the Chief Shepherd appears,
you will receive the unfading crown of glory. 5 You younger men, likewise, be
subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one
another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt
you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for
you. 8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around
like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 But resist him, firm in your faith,
knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by
your brethren who are in the world. 10 After you have suffered for a little while, the
God of all grace, Who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself
perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. 11 To Him be dominion forever
and ever. Amen.
1 Peter 5:1-11 NASB
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21. Sunday
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Psalm 51:1-17
The Confession
August 6, 2017
First Baptist Church
Jackson, Mississippi
USA
The Plan of Hope & Salvation
John 3:16 NASB
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
John 14:6 NASB
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to
the Father but through me.”
Romans 3:23 NASB
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 6:23a NASB
23a For the wages of sin is death,
• Death in this life (the first death) is 100%.
• Even Jesus, the one who doesn’t deserve death, died in this life to pay the
penalty for our sins.
• The death referred to in Romans 6:23a is the second death explained in
Revelation 21:8.
Revelation 21:8 NASB
8 “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and
immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the
lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Romans 6:23b NASB
23b but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

22. Romans 5:8 NASB
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for
us.
Revelation 21:7 NASB
7 “He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be
My son.”
• Romans 10:9-10 explains to us how to be overcomers.
Romans 10:9-10 NASB
9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that
God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person
believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in
salvation.
Romans 10:13 NASB
13 for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
If you have questions or would like to know more, please, contact First Baptist
Church Jackson at 601-949-1900 or http://firstbaptistjackson.org/contact/