Latest / 4-Freedom Podcast / 145. Freedom In Finding A Church - Part 5 - Church Gathered

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145. Freedom In Finding A Church - Part 5 - Church Gathered · 4-Freedom Podcast

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I do not mean to be mean. I do mean to be mad.
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Those that criticize this kind of preaching, they don't like
0:08
authority. If you ain't got the King James,
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you ain't got hey, You don't have a King James.
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You don't have a Bible. Be surprised, son.
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Don't go to sleep while I'm talking.
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Hey, hey, hey. Don't, don't.
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Don't you lay your head back. I'm.
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I'm important. I'm somebody.
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I love you. You know I love you as I
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convinced you. I love you.
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Yeah. You better say.
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You better nod your head. Yes.
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Sorry. Come on, put it up there.
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All right? You stay awake and you listen to
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me. I still believe if you're cold
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in hell before I get my family for a woman, I'm a preacher.
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When you got dressed today, you dressed deity.
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This is the Four Freedom Podcast, a podcast that is part
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of the RFP Network that seeks to bring freedom in Christ from the
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spiritual abuse of legalism. And so fundamentalism is
1:20
designed to unpack the idea of authority from Scripture.
1:24
The problem with that is that that's not the defining
1:27
principle in Scripture. It is a part of description.
1:29
But the defining principle in Scripture is love.
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I found my freedom in you. I found a toy I can't lose, and
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thank God it's true. You wrapped your arms around me
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and heaven broke through from the moment she found me.
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I found my freedom in you. Welcome to the Four Freedom
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Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the
2:25
freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with
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everyday issues. Now here are your host, James
2:32
Seyfried and Brett Moore. Welcome back to the Four Freedom
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Podcast. What a blessing it is to be back
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with you, Brett. It is good to be back in the hot
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seat, back talking and back talking through our series of
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Freedom in the Church. What to look for when you're
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looking for a church. This will be our last
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installment #5 of this series. And it's been a great time just
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talking through. It's been a great time learning
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a little bit and had some good feedback, had some great things
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that we've been a part of and we've been able to talk through.
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And I know last week was a different episode talking about
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some things that have happened here in the Western North
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Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina area with the storm got
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another storm brewing off of the South there by Florida Milton
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and it's getting everybody worried down there.
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But man, up here we are still in the thick of it.
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And I appreciate everyone that's gave everyone that's helped
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everyone that's donated a lot of good efforts that are going on
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right now. Still in some hard situations,
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man, still in some situations where things are just supply
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lines, roads, things that that we operate our life by are not
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there in this area. Everything for me and where I'm
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at, everything's going great. But it's just, I mean, literally
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30-40 minutes away, it's just like in a bomb went off.
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And so talk to officers daily, talking to people that are on
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the ground. We're going to be there tomorrow
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serving some meals at the fire department, just helping out,
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being a part of the place where we're going to be at.
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And so if you can continue to help and pray, give, go if you
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can here in the future, great ways to be able to help.
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But Brett, we've got a couple things coming up here in the
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future. We've got.
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How are you doing, man? What's what's going on in your
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life? Man, we're going good.
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Things are going well at the church and busy season of of
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life. I'll tell you that I was
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recently made the evangelism director for our county.
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And so we've got a crusade that we have to plan.
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And so I've been talking to pastors throughout the county
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trying to get, Oh yeah, I've locked him down.
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He's guaranteed my apostleship. And so we are going to get a
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crusade together for next year and working on that.
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We're going down to the Mississippi State Fair this
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coming Sunday. They have the Mississippi
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Baptist Convention board. They have a tent, a gospel tent.
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And they give away a side by side every year.
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And if you stop and listen to a gospel presentation, you know
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whether you get saved or not, you will get into a drawing for
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side by side. And I had one church that went
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down there. They've already been down there
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in the county and they talk to like 800 people, I think.
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I think the whole tent has talked to like 800 people so
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far. And they've had 200 confessions
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of faith and so really good ministry.
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I'm interested in going down there and helping that.
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But I'll tell will tell you, you're talking about Milton,
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this Milton coming in. It's, it's, it's so powerful
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that scientists are saying that it's pushing the limit of what
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our atmosphere will allow. Like there's talk of an extra
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category of a category 6. You know, Pete, the mayor of
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Tampa said if you stay, you will die.
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Now there are some people up in high rise apartment buildings
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that are saying they're not going anywhere.
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Other people say they can't afford to leave.
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They should at least get to a shelter.
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But you know, it's going to be a pretty serious, I mean, you
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don't survive a 16 foot storm surge.
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It's it's unsurvivable. And not to mention that the
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debris is still in the streets from Helene.
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So we're talking about, you know, projectiles being tossed
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about, you know, and so it's a pretty serious situation.
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And like I said, we've barely had time to lick our rooms from
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Helene. There's still people, like you
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said, North Carolina, that are suffering.
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So man, there's some people going through it right now with
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the weather and they just definitely need our prayer.
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Absolutely. I agree with you 100%.
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And things that we can look for and just open up, which we've
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got available, even the, you know, when a storm does come
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through, there's that residual rainfall and winds that that we
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experienced that because we are close to the coast and you guys
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as well, that we'll be able to, we'll experience some of those
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things. And so those are areas where we
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can be praying for and be thinking about how we can help.
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But yeah, these are awesome, awesome opportunities for the
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gospel. I love what you got going on
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down there with the Mississippi. And you mentioned how you are
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now the evangelism coordinator. Somehow they wrote me into being
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the vice chairman of the vice moderator of our association.
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So I told them that I didn't want to serve my first year on
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the association director board of anything.
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And so literally like right at my one year, they're like, all
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right, hey, you ready to serve because.
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You know what being vice moderator means?
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It means next time I'll be moderator, right?
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Yeah, I mean, next time you get to be the moderator.
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Yeah, yeah. But our moderator is a
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three-year term, so at least it's three years out.
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But the moderator, he's an older guy who's been in the area for a
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long time. So I'm excited about serving
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under them and being able to be a part of our association that
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way. And Brett, I got an e-mail
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yesterday, I think it was Monday, Tuesday.
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I can't remember when it was that I've been selected to be on
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the board of directors for the North Carolina Baptist.
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And so I will be helping out and as long as I get voted in in
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November, then I'll be part of the board of directors for
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Region 7. And so I'm excited about that.
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It'd be great time and great time to be able to help and help
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out in our association, our convention as a whole.
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I think it entails like 3 or 4 meetings a year at a Convention
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Center, and so it's just a bunch of pastors and lay people
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getting together and talking about the gospel and what we can
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do and what we're doing. So I'm looking forward to that.
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I've been wanting to serve on the board of directors or in the
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state convention just in any capacity just to help know more
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what's going on. I'm doing it more so just to
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understand what convention work is, What are we given to?
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Why are we given to it? How does this work together and
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just to increase my knowledge of it and if it means sacrificing 8
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days out of my year to go to a meeting and stay in a hotel room
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and hang out with some guys and build relationships and network,
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then, then I'm OK with that. So looking forward to that and
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looking forward to what we got going on coming up here real
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soon. We've got our Brett, you've got
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the Baptist Convention for the associate for your Mississippi
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the week before the meet up. Mine is the week after the meet
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up. And then right in the middle of
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that is our For the Sake of the Gospel Conference, our RFP meet
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up. And we're excited about having
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that and doing that and being together.
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And I've been telling several people, I was talking to a lady
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yesterday messaged her, she messaged me on Facebook about
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the podcast and I said, hey, come join us.
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Come, come. She has a podcast as well.
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I said, come, you'll be able to meet some great people, some
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good people with great stories that you can share.
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And so looking forward to that coming up, Brett, what are you
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looking forward to most at the for the Second Gospel
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Conference? I'm looking forward to getting
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into JC's new church and telling them how we decorated it wrong
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and how he needs to change some things and, you know,
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complaining about the parking situation.
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So I don't know if you know this, but JC had his first
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service this past Sunday in his church.
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And then I was excited for him. And then I get on there and get
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to read in the comments and there was there was people
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complaining about the parking and I saw that didn't stay there
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because the parking was an issue.
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And, well, it's just like you, you know, go ahead.
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I'm really confused and JC may be listening.
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Maybe he can answer this for us. All of his logo is HC Hope
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church. I I don't know why it just
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doesn't change it to JCJCS church and just drop him to
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church and just be JC church you know?
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JC Church. A little bit, yeah.
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Yeah. So I think that would be a.
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Better thing, but it's like all that and then people can
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complain about the parking. You know, I think that's a good
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problem to have. You know, my philosophy is
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there's not a problem with the parking until there's a problem
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with the parking. So I'm, I'm really, really
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pleased with him, you know, getting his new church.
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So I'm, I'm looking forward to being his new sanctuary and
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seeing how his church is going and just getting together with
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the RFP family, the people that we message on, on the, the RFP
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fam, a Facebook page. I'm a moderator on that page.
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And so I see a lot of the comments and know a lot of the
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people and just to put faces with a Facebook profile picture
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is really cool and just getting to see people and being a part
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of it. And, you know, I think it's, I,
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I think it's one of the best conferences around.
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You know, I would put it up there against any of these
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conferences, you know, and so I, you know, better than Mark
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Driscoll's conference. But the, but I, you know, I, I
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do love it and I look forward to it every year.
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Love it. Well, I'm looking forward to as
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well, still up in the air with everything with Israel still on
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the on the books right now. But with everything that's going
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on, we, we just don't know. And so we'll, I should be
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meeting with our, with Pari here in a couple weeks.
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He was at the convention last year in North Carolina.
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So if she's there, I'll meet with her and we'll have a face
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to face and talk through some stuff and give some more update
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as we get closer to that. But Brett, today we are going to
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be talking about the Church Gathered and what this looks
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like our last installment of the Church Gathered and want to play
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a clip, an IFP clip from Jim Jorgensen.
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I've tried to find the classic Lee Robertson 3 to thrive, but I
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couldn't. And So what I was able to find
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was a clip here by Jim Jorgensen, who plays his
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rendition of Lee Robertson and what he said.
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And so we're going to dissect this a little bit, talk through
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it, and then jump to our notes that we have because he says,
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and me and you said this before the show, about 90% of what he
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said I disagree with, but there are about 10%.
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That's OK. I understand where he's coming
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from. I understand the philosophy
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behind it. And so the the 10 percents,
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good. We'll throw out the other 9%.
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We'll dissect that a little bit. And so here is the great Jim
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Jorgensen speaking on how he was raised.
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God bless. My heart is fixed on my King
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James Bible. My heart is fixed on door to
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door soul winning. My heart is fixed on old
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fashioned preaching. My heart is fixed on a bus
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ministry and reaching poor people.
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My heart is fixed on a local church.
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Jesus said in Matthew 1618 on this rock, I will build my
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church. I believe in the local church.
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I think you ought to. I mean, you all are here on a
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Sunday night, but I think you ought to build your life around
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the schedule of the local church.
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I mean, I, I decided back when I was a student at Tennessee
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Temple under Doctor Lee Robertson, he used Teach 3 to
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thrive. Sunday morning, Sunday night,
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Wednesday night, This is it. That's right.
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Straight down the line. Never very.
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I thought you might be a good reason, good rule for my life.
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He used to say, I've never known anybody to seriously backslide.
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That was in church Sunday morning, Sunday night and
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Wednesday night. Now, since then, I think I've
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found a few examples of people that have, but not many.
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Most everybody that seriously backslides, you know, you say,
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well, I can think of and the reason you can think of two or
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three is because they're unusual.
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Most people at backside, they quit coming to church Sunday
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night. They quit coming Wednesday
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night. They start missing every other
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Sunday morning. I mean, I just decided I'm going
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to build my life around the local church Sunday morning,
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Sunday night, Wednesday night. I think you ought to come to
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church faithfully again. You're obviously here tonight.
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You're probably 3 to thrive type people and one of the best
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decisions you'll ever make. I think you know, you say, but
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Johnson, what about when I'm on vacation?
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You ought to go to church and I found some weird churches
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sometimes and travel and pulling off back in the day, pulling off
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the highway 1/2 hour early, looking in the phone book and
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finding one. No phone books anymore.
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But but the house said to me, you know, Brother Jorgensen, I
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was telling him about one of those.
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He said, you know Brother Jorgensen, some of our better
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members plan their vacation so they can be in good churches on
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Sunday. I thought, Ouch.
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I thought, you know, that's right.
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And so now when we go on vacation or something, I mean,
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I, I plan, we're going to church, we're going to a.
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Brett, tell me your thoughts. King James Bible door to door
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bust ministry bless God. Let me tell you something that
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the the three to thrive. It's such a a golden calf in the
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IFB like, you know, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday
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night. And really it's 4 to thrive.
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We said this before got a first Sunday school in there and
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listen that that's the the Bible doesn't prescribe a recipe.
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They were in church in the in the in the book of Acts.
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They were meeting together on the first day of the week
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throughout the New Testament. That's when they met together
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and then they met in people's homes throughout the week.
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But there was no prescribed 3 to thrive.
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Now like you said, 90% disagree with 10% agree with.
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The 10% that I as a pastor I did agree with was this build your
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life around the schedule of the local church.
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Now I don't see anything wrong with that.
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We're commanded to go to church. And that doesn't mean every
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church has to have the same schedule that they have to have
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the three to Thrive format. But we do need to make church a
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priority in our lives because it's important.
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I mean, I, we got parents out here that travel ball takes them
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out of the church 3 or 4 months out of the year.
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You know, they've got Christian Christian ball organizations
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that call themselves Christian organizations and they're taking
17:33
kids out of church on Sunday. So, Oh, well, you know, we, we,
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we give them a devotion and oh, come on now, you know, you're,
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you're, you're piece mealing them out a little bit of
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scripture when they need to be in their local church learning
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the doctrine of the Bible. So listen, I'm, you know, I'm,
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I'm not for this, you know, the travel ball, taking the kids out
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of, out of out of church for months at a time.
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They, you know, especially these Christian organizations.
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So I believe, you know, I, I, I kind of can see that, but the
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whole 3 to thrive mentality that you have to do this because it's
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the way we've always done it. That's man made tradition that's
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not prescribed in the Bible, you know, So, and then of course,
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then there was the part about, and I'll say this and give it
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and then you can tell me what you think about it.
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But the seriously backslidden part, I've known many people who
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did go to Church 3 to Thrive Sunday morning, Sunday night,
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Wednesday night who were tremendously backslidden.
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And so that definitely is an issue.
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So I'm going to send it back to you.
18:38
Yeah, Brett, I, I agree, I think.
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Brett, let me ask you this, though.
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Are you saying that you should be in church 52 weeks out of the
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year every single Sunday? Interesting question.
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I as a pastor, I'm always here and I think it's edifying for me
18:59
just to sit in church as well. I think conferences are part of
19:03
that and sitting in a preaching. And so is there a number that we
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have to be in church? No, there's not a 52 weeks out
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of the year 4837 sixty, whatever, but there needs to be
19:17
a regularly attended service that you're part of that people
19:21
know you're a part of. If I ran into you and I've got
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your pastor beside me and I say, hey, what church you go to and
19:28
you tell me, oh, Beale, the Baptist Church down the road,
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and I said, what's your pastor's name?
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And you don't even recognize your pastor standing beside me,
19:35
then you probably got a problem because you're not regularly
19:37
attending the church and you don't even know who your pastor
19:39
is. It's those are the problems that
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I have a couple of times with this clip specifically, you
19:47
know, I'm not endorsing the Preacher doors Preacher boys
19:51
podcast, but I mean, how many church members, laypeople,
19:55
deacons, pastors, wives, pastors that he has mentioned on that
20:01
podcast? That was faithful Sunday
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morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night soul winning Thursday
20:08
night Bible study, Saturday morning devotional, Friday night
20:14
prayer medium. They were there all the time.
20:17
They taught in the Christian School when they were there all
20:19
five days out of the week, and then they were there on Saturday
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and they were there on Sunday. And then they did these horrible
20:25
acts to people. Yeah, these are people that were
20:28
there 3 to thrive. And you're going to say that
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these people aren't backslidden. You're deceiving yourself.
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One guy who commented underneath this video, he and I don't know
20:39
if this is an actual quote from Lee Robertson, but he said three
20:43
to thrive, 2 to survive and one to backslide, Pastor Lee
20:47
Robertson. And so it may been something he
20:49
said later on, but I mean, hey, it's it's his way of saying
20:53
you're only going one time. You're going to backslide.
20:55
And I think the prescription of the church is to meet when the
20:58
church meets. And we'll talk through that.
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I do want to read one thing. I saw this on the Internet the
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other day and I hadn't even shared with you, Brett.
21:05
And you may have seen it went around Facebook a little bit,
21:07
but it said that grandpa attends church faithfully every single
21:11
Sunday. The dad attends church as an
21:15
option. The son attends church and it's
21:20
attends church and says it's unnecessary.
21:23
And the grandson, so you're looking at the 4th generation
21:25
down says who is Jesus? And I think that's a
21:29
prescription to say, you know, if there's not a priority of
21:32
church, if there's not a priority of regularly meeting
21:36
with the body of Christ, then you're not going to know who the
21:39
head of the church is. You're not going to know who the
21:40
head of your life is and you're going to say who is Jesus.
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Dad said the church is unnecessary and grandpa said
21:46
that it was optional. And I know grandpa went every
21:50
great grandpa, he went every single week and, and he was
21:53
there. And I think there there is a
21:56
falling away of seeing the church as important when
22:00
churches began to allow. I mean, I, I've got a friend of
22:04
mine whose pastor's wife rarely attends because she is more
22:09
worried about her son and daughter in travel sports.
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And she's there every week with her son and daughter at a tribal
22:18
sports game instead of being at church.
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And so she's setting the model for the church and those women
22:23
in the Church of church isn't important.
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And so we, we got to get back to this point where church is
22:30
important. What does that look like?
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And, and why is it important? And so let's walk through some
22:34
things here, unless you've had some other things to say about
22:38
that. But I think there's a, there's a
22:40
point where in our life we have to stimulate some things that
22:43
are going to cause growth and heartache.
22:46
I've been doing a little bit of a study right now of just
22:49
reaping and sowing and, and understanding that in order to
22:53
plant something, you've got to tear the ground up, which is
22:57
painful to the ground. If the ground had feelings, all
22:59
right. And then you've got to take a
23:01
seed and you've got to literally put that seed to death in order
23:05
for life to come out of that seed.
23:07
You've got to kill the seed for life to come out of it.
23:10
The same thing goes for us in our spiritual journey.
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We have to have the same type of stimulation.
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We have to have the same type of tearing up of our heart.
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One of the things that I'm going to mention this Sunday is for
23:24
the Lord to sometimes turn our heart from a heart of stone to a
23:27
heart of flesh and tearing that up in our life a little bit.
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And so we gathered ultimately because the Bible tells us to.
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Hebrews 10/24 says let us not let us consider how to stir up
23:41
one another to love and good works, not neglecting the
23:44
meeting together as it is the habit of some, but encouraging
23:48
one another and all the more you do as you see the day drawing
23:52
near. And so the closer we get to
23:54
Christ, the more we should be wanting to be around the people
23:57
of Christ. I think also this is a good
23:59
thing of why is our churches mostly elder people, older
24:04
people, because they see the day of Christ coming and they are
24:07
getting concerned and they're seeing the end of their life
24:10
coming and they're seeing the day coming and they're wanting
24:13
one another to encourage one another.
24:15
So we can get encouragement everywhere.
24:17
But it's something different about being encouraged by the
24:19
brothers and sisters of Christ. And so as important as a faith
24:23
filled blind obedience may be, we also understand we gather
24:27
together because it can help us to do better.
24:30
And so we have to ask ourselves this question, what is the
24:33
purpose of our weekly gatherings at church?
24:36
Why do we gather? What's the purpose of this?
24:38
Brett? What's the purpose of this?
24:42
Well, you know, that's, that's that's the question and that's
24:45
what we're going to look at. And well, one of the purposes is
24:49
the church guards the what and The Who of the gospel.
24:55
You know, we talked about in Matthew 16 that, you know, the
24:58
charter of the local church is given by Jesus is to guard the
25:02
what and The Who of the gospel. Well, the what seems pretty
25:06
clear. You know, Paul writes in second
25:08
Timothy 22 what you have heard from me in trust of faithful men
25:14
who will be able to teach others also The Who at at first is it a
25:20
bit unclear as Jesus entrust the keys of the kingdoms of the
25:24
apostles. But then in Matthew 18, he
25:27
passes those keys along to the congregation of each local
25:32
church. And what the keys actually turn
25:34
out to be is the ability to declare who is Christian and who
25:39
is not a Christian. Now don't get us wrong that
25:42
we're not saying that the church can make someone a Christian or
25:46
unmake someone a Christian, but the church does have the
25:50
authority to declare who fits that description.
25:54
Now the primary. What's very different is this
25:58
view is the primary purpose of the church is from so many other
26:02
purpose statements we might write for it.
26:04
The church's main purpose is not the great commandment.
26:09
Be sure the gospel life that emerges from a church that
26:13
guards what and who the gospel will look like.
26:16
The great commandment to love one another's neighbor.
26:19
But love is not the primary purpose.
26:22
Neither is the church's main purpose the Great Commission of
26:25
Matthew 28. By guarding the what and The Who
26:29
of the gospel, the church becomes God's representatives on
26:33
earth. The community of the church is a
26:36
display of God's glory, and we want the whole earth to see that
26:41
glory. But to quote John Piper,
26:44
missions exist because worship doesn't.
26:47
Worship is seeing and responding to who God is.
26:51
That's primary because God is primary.
26:54
The ultimate purpose statement of any church is to be a display
26:58
of God's glory by guarding the what and The Who of the gospel.
27:03
That means things like we've previously seen as of, you know,
27:07
marginal importance like the baptism, like baptism in the
27:10
Lord's Supper or church membership or or church
27:13
discipline. Those things become huge
27:16
importance because that's how the church protects The Who of
27:20
the gospel by these things. That's why men willingly gave
27:25
themselves to be burned alive during the Protestant
27:28
Reformation over issues like the ordinances, because they saw how
27:32
critical those things are to being a church.
27:36
Did you have something you wanted to say about that?
27:38
Yeah, absolutely. As Christians, Brett, we need
27:41
the local church not letting not mainly as a place to hear the
27:44
gospel or to hear teaching, not not as a place to go on Sunday
27:49
morning so we can check off, hey, I need to need to be there
27:52
'cause grandma said I got to go. And it's not mainly a source of
27:56
encouragement. It is all that and all those
27:59
things are related to its purpose.
28:00
But we need the church in order to cling to the gospel.
28:05
We need the church to remind us what the gospel is, to affirm
28:10
that we continue as people of the gospel, that our lives match
28:15
that profession. But as we follow this strand of
28:18
thought throughout the New Testament, we get an interesting
28:20
twist. If the purpose of the local
28:22
church is mainly about guarding the what in The Who of the
28:25
gospel, you might think that the first.
28:28
You might think at first that the gatherings of these regular
28:31
meetings aren't important after all.
28:34
All what matters is that the believers and those that we
28:38
believe together will look and live out what we believe.
28:42
And So what we care about Maine is the teaching and the
28:44
relationships, right? And if we start in Matthew 16
28:48
and we construct this from scratch, what local church is,
28:51
then we would maybe come with something like the Baja, like
28:56
weekly gatherings that don't matter much.
28:59
But people are very interested in relationships and serving and
29:02
teaching. And that's not we see in the New
29:04
Testament. What we see is the regularly
29:08
assembling of the believers of the local church is super
29:10
important. A regular assembly quickly
29:14
became a weekly on the first day of the week as celebrating of
29:18
Jesus's resurrection. It's important because in those
29:21
meetings we hear God's word so we can continue to remember and
29:25
recognize the true gospel. And in those meetings we
29:28
formally reaffirm our citizenship in heaven through
29:32
the ordinances. Now, understanding the primary
29:35
purpose of the church is crucial to understand why we gather.
29:39
So for the rest of our time, we're going to talk through
29:41
three implications that we're going to look at for the local
29:44
church and the purpose statements for our weekly
29:47
gatherings. The first one is this.
29:49
Our gatherings are designed by God.
29:53
Man did not design this. Brett did not design this.
29:56
Some forefather in the ministry did not design this.
30:00
God designed this. We we we understand that the
30:04
Christian needs the local church and each of us is absolutely
30:08
vitally in need of the local church.
30:12
And that's what's going to guard the what in The Who of the
30:14
gospel. But not just a thing called the
30:17
church do we do. Some may call it a weekly hike
30:20
in the woods, a church because they assemble to commune with
30:23
God in nature. That's not the church that Jesus
30:26
is talking about in Matthew 16. Why not?
30:30
Because God told us very specifically what the church
30:34
should do and walking in the woods doesn't make that list.
30:39
And so it's like this, but I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll say this one
30:42
statement. I'll send it over to you.
30:44
But it's like if your doctor told you that you need a gene
30:46
replacement therapy, what's your next question?
30:50
Who do you recommend for the gene replacement therapy?
30:53
Because you don't want to settle for anything with that name.
30:56
You just want what the intense for you to have.
30:59
What do you think you what he thinks you need.
31:02
This is what happened when we were on vacation in Tennessee
31:05
just a couple of months ago. Brody had an incident and he was
31:09
waking up at 4:00 in the morning and had pain in his side.
31:12
We took him to the hospital. We took him to the Nashville
31:15
Children's Hospital or, I'm sorry, Knoxville Children's
31:17
Hospital. And the guy came in and he said,
31:20
this is what's wrong and this is who you need to contact.
31:23
These are the best people in the world.
31:28
And one of them was in North Carolina.
31:31
And I could have been like, I don't want to call him, get a
31:35
hold of him because he's so busy.
31:37
People literally fly in from all over the world for him to do
31:39
surgery because he's the best. He is the guy that was trained
31:42
by the guy that invented the surgery.
31:45
And so he was the best. And so I called him on the hunch
31:48
and he accepted my son and we had the surgery and he's
31:51
completely fine now. And it's the same regulative
31:54
principle that we want to ask ourself is if the if the God of
31:59
the universe has declared what we need, how can we answer this
32:03
with Scripture? This this regulative principle
32:06
that we can be more biblical by saying, what has God told the
32:10
church to be in the local church?
32:13
And we want to follow that prescription per to say.
32:15
And so this is the prescription in the New Testament.
32:18
We see the commands in the new church, in the New Testament
32:21
church to do this, to pray, to read Scripture publicly, to
32:25
listen to the preaching and teaching, to baptize believers,
32:30
to share the Lord's Supper, to encourage one another and to
32:33
praise God in song, to give their finances.
32:37
And it's clear that every one of these things that we do together
32:40
must be done for the strength of the church ultimately to edify
32:46
one another. Want to quote with Lick Duncan
32:48
by saying the warrant for a church to do something in its
32:52
main weekly service can come in the form of explicit distinct
32:56
directives, implicit requirements, the general
33:00
principles of Scripture, positive commands, examples, and
33:04
things derived from the good and necessary consequence.
33:07
In summary, we pray the Bible, we read the Bible, we preach the
33:11
Bible, we sing the Bible, and we see the Bible in the form of the
33:17
ordinances. Brett, what do you think on
33:20
that? You know, I've always said that
33:24
church was not man's idea. Church is God's idea.
33:29
You know, we didn't come up with the idea of church.
33:33
God was the one who came up with it.
33:35
That was a great list that you just gave.
33:38
But if something doesn't make that list, it's not a part of
33:43
God's plan for our time together.
33:45
You know, a hike in the woods may be a wonderfully God
33:49
glorifying way to spend time. It may lead you to worship, but
33:54
it's not what you should do when the local church gathers.
33:57
I said the other day that, you know, you can't have church out
34:01
in a deer stand, you know, and, and somebody said, well, you
34:05
know, I've gotten real close to God out in a deer stand before.
34:09
And I said, well, well, hold on a SEC.
34:12
I didn't say you couldn't have a spiritual experience in the
34:15
woods. I'm not saying you can't go out
34:18
in the woods and sit on a deer stand and get your Bible and
34:21
pray and get close to God. I'm saying you can't have church
34:25
out on a deer stand. Yeah.
34:27
OK, Now to explore this idea more, let's give you 3 reasons
34:32
why we should follow this regulative principle in our
34:36
church gatherings. And Brett number, we say that
34:39
right before you say that. I drive a lot.
34:41
It's part of my job is is on the road and I'm driving from
34:45
people's house to people's house to hospital.
34:48
I put a lot of miles on my vehicle.
34:51
Part of those miles are listening to podcast, listening
34:54
to preaching and growing closer to the Lord.
34:56
Now I'm not in church in my car. God is there with me and I'm
35:01
worshiping God. Sometimes it's through song,
35:03
sometimes it's just through the scripture reading to me through
35:06
my speakers, but the the gathering together is what makes
35:11
it the church. And so go ahead.
35:12
I just want to say that because it came to my mind in your in
35:14
your process of talking. So #1 we do not, we do not have
35:19
warrant to bind a Christian's conscience in ways Scripture
35:23
doesn't. Because Christians are commanded
35:26
to be at church regularly, such as Hebrews 1025, we need to be
35:31
careful what we do in that setting in ways we don't in
35:34
other areas. We might have an optional church
35:38
picnic where we play volleyball, but shifting volleyball into our
35:43
Sunday morning gathering suddenly shifts it from
35:46
something someone may participate in to something they
35:49
must participate in, and we have no right to do that.
35:52
Just like as much as you may think that it is wise to abstain
35:56
from alcohol, you wouldn't put that in our church covenant
35:59
because they're you're commanding someone to do
36:04
something that Scripture doesn't.
36:07
OK #2 God knows how to worship Him better than we do.
36:13
When you begin to understand the regulative principle, you begin
36:17
to get a sense for the conceit of not operating that way.
36:21
Who's to say that we know how to worship God better than He does
36:26
himself? That's the whole point behind
36:29
the second command in the 10 commandments.
36:31
Do not make a graven image. I might think that making an
36:36
image of God would help me worship him.
36:39
Oh no, God says that's not how I want to be worshipped.
36:43
Did the Israelites mean well when they cast an image of their
36:47
God in the form of a calf? Perhaps.
36:50
I mean, they they said this is the God that delivered us out of
36:54
out of Egypt. Perhaps they wanted to make him
36:57
more concrete so they could worship him better.
37:01
Did that work out well? No, it did not.
37:05
Did Nahab and a Bayou have good intentions when they offered
37:08
unauthorized fire or, like the King James Bible said, strange
37:12
fire before the Lord in Leviticus 10?
37:16
Perhaps they did, but their instant annihilation is a
37:20
sobering reminder that God's commands are not to be trifled
37:25
with. The number three, the the Holy
37:27
Spirit has good reasons for designing our gatherings as He
37:32
had. Why limit ourselves to the
37:34
elements that we mentioned before?
37:36
Prayer, reading scripture, preaching ordinances, singing
37:40
and giving? Well, I don't know, but He sure
37:43
has things to, you know, He sure has a way of figuring things out
37:47
better than I do. You know, I think we need to
37:50
trust Him on this one, that He knows the best way to worship
37:53
him. He knows the best way church
37:56
should run. And as you can see in a
37:59
diversity of worship styles at different faithful churches,
38:02
those elements are not terribly restrictive.
38:06
A Christian can sometimes disagree on what is prescribed
38:09
in Scripture and what is not. But even when we disagree, at
38:14
least we can know we're using the same framework and the same
38:17
goal to embrace only those elements in our weekly
38:21
gatherings that are prescribed force in Scripture.
38:25
James, why don't you continue? Yeah, absolutely.
38:27
I think it's good to understand that.
38:29
It's good to know that you may look different, but the
38:32
prescription, what's prescribed is there.
38:35
And as long as the prescription is there, it's great to
38:37
understand that I may not go to a church that has multiple
38:41
services or I may never have a church with multiple services.
38:44
But as long as what I'm doing is prescribed in Scripture and it's
38:48
prescriptive, not so descriptive, but prescriptive,
38:52
then I'm doing what God has called us to do.
38:54
And if you're planning to begin looking for a church, these are
38:57
some practical things that you can look for some framework, if
39:02
we could, of how to look for things, look for a church that
39:05
takes seriously their responsibility to follow God's
39:09
prescription for the main weekly gathering.
39:11
These these thoughts that we just laid out the the framework
39:14
of preaching and praying and Scripture reading and ordinances
39:19
and singing and giving. These are the things that you
39:22
should be looking for. If a church has these things,
39:25
then they're at least starting on that side of it and you've
39:27
got the the foundation right. It should then reiterate how we
39:32
evaluate our own service and what we're doing.
39:34
Instead of simply thinking, how did I feel when I came out of
39:37
this service or what did I get out of the sermon?
39:40
It can be a little more God focused.
39:42
Did what happened this morning please him?
39:44
When you walk out of church, say, did I please God this
39:48
morning by my worship? Did I please God this morning by
39:50
how the preacher preached and I accomplished his purposes for
39:54
gathering together and then recognize that the Holy Spirit
39:57
gives us these elements because we all need these elements.
40:01
Did you find that you love sermons, but you don't really
40:04
appreciate the prayer? Or do you just all about the
40:07
singing, but you don't have any patience for the reading?
40:10
We can grow in our application for these elements and the
40:13
church services, those scriptures that give to us.
40:17
In time, which would be a great thing for us to do.
40:19
Maybe right now we don't have time right now, but but begin
40:22
asking yourself what are the different aspects of the church
40:25
services that in your years since your conversion, have you
40:29
enjoyed the most and what maybe you didn't enjoy and why didn't
40:33
you enjoy them? Did you just not enjoy when a
40:36
man got up and just read passages of Scripture?
40:39
That's biblical. That's things we should do since
40:41
our churches should be doing. And often times our focus is so
40:45
narrow in our worship corporately that a Sunday
40:48
morning church activity begins to be so narrow minded.
40:52
And so we we get this sense that we have to ask ourselves what is
40:56
so special about corporate worship?
40:58
And that's the question we can answer with our second.
41:03
Our second implication from the church existed to guard The Who
41:07
and the what to that God has a special purpose for corporate
41:11
worship. So as we get into implication #2
41:16
which is God has special purposes for corporate worship.
41:20
You know, to really get at this, we need to begin by defining
41:24
what worship is. We like David Peterson's
41:28
definition. Worship is engaging with God on
41:31
the terms that he proposes and in the way that he alone makes
41:35
possible. It is response to It is response
41:40
to who He is. It is the working out of Jesus's
41:43
words in John 1614. The Spirit will bring glory to
41:48
me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.
41:53
It's important to recognize these three characteristics in
41:57
worship. It is a response to God Himself.
42:01
Worship is right and natural amazement at the glory of who
42:06
God is. Next.
42:08
It encompasses our entire lives, our daily activity can be
42:12
worshipped, and as much as it is our response to who He is, it
42:17
can lead us into worship by teaching us the glory of who God
42:20
is. So at work I might find in being
42:24
a good boss and a bit a bit of taste of how much God loves
42:28
using His authority for our good.
42:31
That can lead me into worship as it helps me appreciate in a way
42:34
that I never did before how amazing and delightful God is,
42:39
and then as a response to such a good God by trying to represent
42:43
his authority well as a boss. Then my job becomes worship then
42:48
#3 it's a delight in the beauty of God in Christ.
42:53
The word worship too often connotates nothing more than the
42:59
emotions we experience when we sing about God.
43:05
But we may be more caught up in the experience than in God.
43:10
Instead of worship being a delight in an experience in a,
43:13
you know, a delight in experience, it needs to be a
43:16
delight in God. OK, but while all of life can be
43:20
worship and all of life can lead us into worship, we're talking
43:24
about something much narrower than that when we look at
43:27
corporate worship, by which I mean the main weekly gathering
43:32
of the local church that all believers are commanded to be a
43:36
part of. All right, So what's so special
43:39
about corporate worship? What happens there that doesn't
43:43
happen when you pray, sing, read and listen to a sermon at home?
43:50
We're going to give you this answer in three pieces.
43:53
All right, Number one, Number one, we hear a trustworthy
43:57
message in a sense, at least over the long haul.
44:01
The message that the church proclaims in its preaching, its
44:05
songs, its prayers, its readings is only as good as the lives in
44:10
that church. Gospel transform lives will
44:13
cherish gospel transform preaching.
44:16
So when you get to know the people in a church, you can have
44:19
much greater confidence in the fidelity of their message.
44:23
This is The Who and what of the gospel working together.
44:28
Yeah, I want, I want to say something on that point right
44:30
there, Brett, because I think that's a, as a pastor, this is
44:34
the point that I begin to see. I've just celebrated a year as a
44:38
pastor here. And man, the Lord's been so
44:40
faithful and blessed in what we've been able to do while
44:43
we've been here. But the longer I'm here over
44:46
this last year, the more people get to know who I am.
44:49
And, and I'm sure you've experienced this over the the
44:51
two years you've been at Rocky Point.
44:53
And the longer you have that relationship with people, the
44:57
more likely they are to trust what you have to say because
45:00
they know who you are. At first it was who's this young
45:02
guy coming in telling us how to change things or what to do.
45:06
But once they begin to know your heart, once they begin to know
45:09
who you are and what you're there for, they begin to
45:13
appreciate your vision and your value and what you're trying to
45:16
accomplish. They begin to see that there is
45:19
a love and a care here. The same thing goes for the
45:22
people, the church. When you are gathering together,
45:25
you begin to see their heart as a whole.
45:27
You begin to know that, hey, they do care about me.
45:30
They do write me a letter when I'm sick.
45:32
They they text, send me a text on when I'm not there.
45:35
They they begin to have that building up of one another.
45:39
And you begin to see that in a corporate setting that you don't
45:42
just see if you're just listening to a sermon online and
45:45
you're just participating in worship online.
45:48
We, you know, when we, you're at a church for a long period of
45:52
time, you for like you said, when you first get there, you
45:54
know, you don't have a lot of change in your pocket.
45:57
You know that I heard a preacher say that one time and I kind of
45:59
stuck with me, you know, but after you're there for a while,
46:02
you get a little change in your pocket.
46:04
Then you can, you can make changes and you can start to
46:08
tweak things because people do begin to trust you.
46:11
It takes time to build that kind of a relationship takes time to
46:16
build that kind of trust. It's not something that happens
46:20
overnight and it's impossible to do that.
46:23
You know, watching a service online and having church at your
46:27
house by yourself. We were not created to be on an
46:31
island alone by ourselves. Which brings us into #2 we
46:37
worship together. That means that corporate
46:40
worship is a show of unity. Think of all the hundreds of
46:44
sacrifices that need to be made for this to happen, sacrificing
46:48
preferences and musical style and service time and service
46:52
length and caring for children and the unity that those
46:56
sacrifices produce. How pleasing that must be to
47:00
God. And that's a big one too, 'cause
47:03
you know, when you come to church, everybody's got their
47:06
own opinion on how things should be run.
47:09
Yeah, we should have the nursery during this time.
47:11
We shouldn't have the nursery during this time.
47:14
I want to sing this type of music.
47:16
No, I want to sing this song. No, so and so wrote that song.
47:20
I don't think we should sing that song because so and so
47:22
wrote it and then we're over here.
47:24
Oh, it's the words of the song that matters, not who wrote the
47:26
song, but when you can, when we as a people can lay all of that
47:31
down and sacrifice ourselves on the author of God and say, you
47:37
know what? I'm just here to worship the
47:39
Lord with my brother. And if he disagrees with me on
47:42
some minor thing, then then that's OK because we are here to
47:47
worship together. We're going to leave all that
47:49
preference stuff and all that unbiblical stuff.
47:52
We're just going to leave it at the door and we're going to
47:54
worship God together. We're not going to lure our
47:56
liberty in front of a brother because we want to worship
48:00
together. Absolutely, I agree 100%.
48:03
And that is such a a great way to put that of self sacrificing
48:08
for the good of another brother. And oftentimes we have to do
48:11
that on both sides. Maybe you're a hymns only person
48:15
and you go into a church and one Sunday they're singing hymns,
48:17
but the next Sunday they're singing maybe some contemporary
48:19
songs. Well, the brother that wanted
48:22
contemporary songs was sacrificing the week before for
48:25
you to have hymns. And so we also need to sacrifice
48:31
for them to have the style of worship that they won't.
48:33
And so sometimes it's a give and take and there's got to be a
48:36
balance. And I understand that.
48:38
But when when you're demanding things, you are being unbiblical
48:42
because you're not worshiping together.
48:44
Third thing we'll say is the ordinances.
48:46
Remember how we told you just a couple of weeks ago, the
48:48
ordinances are more important than we often get credit for?
48:52
Well, they're the structure around which the gospel
48:54
community forms. We don't have a relational work
48:57
of a community in a service per SE.
48:59
After all, we don't gather on a 10:30 or 11:00 just to chat for
49:03
two hours. But the community is showcased
49:05
in the ordinances. The ordinances form the boundary
49:09
conditions that true gospel community needs to form.
49:13
God is exalted as His true gospel is proclaimed.
49:16
God is exalted as unity, and diverse community congregations
49:20
is seen as they assemble together.
49:22
God is exalted as his gospel. People in His Word was created
49:28
and revealed through the baptism and the Lord's Supper.
49:31
Compare that to singing songs to God on your commute to work or
49:34
so and so on. One side of a dimension.
49:37
Corporate worship is special because of how both the what and
49:41
The Who of the gospel have come together to create this
49:44
beautiful tapestry of worship that is so much more profound
49:48
than the complexity of anything that we could ever do by
49:52
ourselves. I mean, it's hard enough to get
49:55
a, a board meeting together of people who agree in a like mind.
49:58
Imagine people from all different walks of life, from
50:01
different categories of life, from different categories of
50:04
wealth. They're coming together to
50:07
worship the one true God in unity.
50:10
And that is what the gospel is doing.
50:12
And so this is what the corporate worship does.
50:14
It guards The Who and the what of the gospel in order to
50:17
showcase the glory of the Almighty God in their life.
50:21
And in doing so, we are able to sound a note of worship far more
50:26
profound than any of us can accomplish on our own.
50:29
And that's what the second implication is saying here.
50:33
That is what the gospel is about.
50:35
Brett, I made this statement just the other day when I was
50:37
doing Chapel. And we'll walk into the
50:40
implication #3 but I said often times we are not worshiping the
50:46
way the Lord wants us to worship.
50:48
And so the seas and the animals and the rocks are having to
50:52
worship the Almighty God who created them because we are not
50:55
worshiping God the way we should.
50:57
And that isn't a corporate gathering.
50:59
We must be worshiping God with all of our heart, soul, mind,
51:03
and strength so that the God of the universe doesn't have to
51:07
call in the rocks to worship Him.
51:08
The intimate inanimate objects have to worship Him.
51:12
Exactly so. Implication #3 the church
51:15
gathers for edification. First Corinthians 1426 is an
51:20
interesting and unexpected verse about our corporate gatherings.
51:23
Let's listen to what Paul writes.
51:26
What then, brothers, when you come to gather, each one has a
51:30
hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation.
51:36
Let all things be done for building up.
51:40
You know, it's easy to think that church should just be about
51:42
God. The church services should be
51:45
just about praising God. But if the purpose of the church
51:48
is to guard the what and The Who of the gospel, then that view is
51:54
too limiting, which is what Paul is getting to here in First
51:59
Corinthians. As he sees it.
52:01
Edification is a key reason why we gather together each week.
52:06
And and that means we gather not merely on a vertical dimension
52:11
speaking to God, but also on a horizontal dimension speaking to
52:17
each other. Paul writes in Ephesians, Speak
52:20
to one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs
52:24
singing. Make music in your heart to the
52:27
Lord now. That's why we have hymns that
52:29
are addressed to ourselves and not just to God.
52:32
That's why we read scripture aloud.
52:35
That's why we have some churches have responsive readings and and
52:40
readings where we read to each other.
52:42
That's why we keep the lights on instead of dimming them down, as
52:45
if the only thing important is what you say in your heart to
52:50
each other. Brett that's why I think that's
52:53
so often that in some of these newer buildings that you're
52:56
seeing built newer worship spaces, they're designed in a
53:00
semicircle so that it's not just straight rows.
53:03
We're able to worship with one another, sort of get a glance of
53:07
a of a brother and sister just worshiping the Lord with their
53:10
hands raised with in a corporate gathering because that can
53:13
encourage you, that can edify you.
53:16
You know, the their traditional churches are rose back-to-back
53:19
to back and you don't really see what's going on with your
53:21
neighbor unless you're behind them.
53:23
But these new modern spaces are seeing each other and they're
53:27
growing together because they're able to look at each other in a
53:29
semicircle format. There's acoustical things that
53:32
are there for it, but it's designed in a way that when we
53:35
gather together, we're encouraging one another that
53:38
ultimately, as we gather in terms of our attitude, what we
53:41
do when we gather, the, let's put it like this in the
53:44
question, and this will be our question for you to think on.
53:47
What are some of the implications of this idea that
53:50
we gather in part and speak of to each other?
53:54
Think about how the truths that we sing, we hear, we read and
53:58
apply to both yourselves and the others.
54:01
Not to necessarily be a distraction to sing loud so we
54:04
can hear each other, but to strive to blend in and maybe
54:07
listen to each other. Often times when we come
54:09
together on a Sunday morning, this is the beautiful thing,
54:12
Brett. We get a glimpse of the glory of
54:15
God's final congregation in heaven.
54:18
We get a glimpse of what God's going to show us in heaven one
54:21
day. We get to.
54:22
For many of us, this is what heaven feels most real.
54:26
When we gather together and we hear brothers and sisters sing,
54:29
we hear the word lifted up and God esteems this so high because
54:34
we need to have a weekly, daily, as often as we meet.
54:38
That's why there was not a prescription of how often we
54:41
meet. As often as we meet coming
54:44
together and see in the picture of heaven, we need to see this
54:47
because of the broken world around us.
54:49
We are not built for this world, We are built for heaven.
54:52
We are built for a weekly, daily reminder of an eternal destiny
54:57
that God has created our souls to be in.
55:00
And when we add these together, when we begin to add what all
55:04
this looks like, we get to come together with brothers and
55:06
sisters who believe in like mind, who can agree on the
55:10
gospel and can see God's Word lifted high through song,
55:14
through hymns, through reading, through preaching, through
55:18
fellowshipping together. And I believe it begins to be
55:22
give us a greater picture of what heaven's going to look
55:24
like. I've always said, and I'll close
55:28
with this, I've always said that heaven, it like like church is
55:34
the closest on earth we'll ever get to heaven.
55:38
It's like the closest we'll ever know on this planet what heaven
55:43
is going to be like is in the local church with our brothers
55:47
and our sisters in Christ. It's our family.
55:51
We're coming here to gather to worship the God of heaven.
55:55
We're not here to try to manipulate people, make false
55:59
confessions, trick people down the aisle.
56:02
We are here to preach Christ crucified, to preach the gospel,
56:09
to worship God. We are protecting The Who and
56:12
the what of the gospel. That's what we're here to do.
56:16
And I love church. And I think that, you know, we,
56:20
we, we were built for church because we were built for
56:23
heaven. Amen.
56:24
I agree 100%. Thank you guys for listening
56:27
today. Hope you've enjoyed this series.
56:29
Looking forward to what we have coming up with our crossover
56:32
episodes and with our meet up in just a couple of weeks.
56:36
And then we'll be jumping through our our final topic of
56:40
study for the little the remainder of this year.
56:43
Thank you guys for listening. If, as always, if there's ever
56:45
something that we say that you agree with or disagree with,
56:48
feel free to reach out to us, leave a rating or review.
56:51
It would be a a personal thank you for me if you did that to
56:55
help our exposure of our podcast.
56:57
Until next time, to God, not the pastor, be the glory.
57:03
Found my new name. Found that good grace, found
57:08
that healing and the tears fell down my face when I found my
57:13
beginning and has no ending. I found my second chance.
57:15
Found my best friend, found my forgiveness, found my happiness.
57:17
I've been singing ever since. I found my feet on me.
57:34
Thanks for listening to the Four Freedom Podcast.
57:37
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