Latest / 4-Freedom Podcast / 139. Freedom In Finding A Church - Part 1 - What is a Church?

Transcript

139. Freedom In Finding A Church - Part 1 - What is a Church? · 4-Freedom Podcast

0:00
Hello, welcome back to the Four Freedom podcast.
0:03
Thank you for being with us today.
0:05
Great day to be back doing a little podcast and here with my
0:08
buddy James safer it. And so we are jumping into a
0:16
brand new season of the podcast. We've got a lot of good response
0:20
from our episode last week and we are excited.
0:26
I'm excited to be back recording again.
0:28
Like we had a busy summer, we needed the break.
0:32
We had a lot of stuff to do. But one thing that I really miss
0:35
was every week coming in here recording, because this is
0:39
something that I have just fell in love with doing, is being a
0:44
part of this podcast and recording with you, James every
0:46
week. I look forward to it and I'm
0:50
excited to be back in our new season.
0:54
Yeah, I think if you could find a word that is defines busy more
1:00
than busy. It's how I was this summer, man.
1:03
It was a busy, busy summer. A lot going on, a lot around the
1:08
family, around the church, around everything that we've
1:11
been going on. Just first summer at this
1:13
ministry trying to get things planned and organized.
1:17
It was a lot. It was busy, but it was good.
1:20
I would rather be busy than sit around and do nothing.
1:24
And so we had a great vacation Bible school.
1:26
We had 5055 sixty kids come, which was was huge and was
1:32
great. Had a great time with our serve
1:36
week. And then Brett here in just a
1:38
couple of days from when this recording comes out, about 5
1:42
days from this recording, will be on a jet plane heading to
1:46
Nicaragua together and heading down to minister there.
1:51
You know, leaving on a jet plane, I don't know.
1:55
I'll tell you what you're right about the being busy.
2:00
I'll tell you that, you know, I wanted to be full time ministry
2:04
for so long that I feel like I don't have the right to complain
2:09
when it's busy. This is like, this is what you
2:12
wanted. You got it.
2:13
That's right. But I would rather do this.
2:16
I'ma tell you something. I, I know that the Lord has
2:19
called me a pastor because I, I, I say all the time and this
2:24
isn't this, this isn't my honest, honestly what I would do
2:29
genuinely, if I won the lottery tomorrow and I won a billion
2:34
dollars and I never had to work another day in my life.
2:37
I would still come to work. I would still because I love
2:41
pastoring that much. It's what God called me to do.
2:46
I would still do my job. You know it.
2:48
I'm, I'm very thankful to be in the ministry and I am, like you
2:54
said, looking forward to going to Nicaragua.
2:57
We're going to be down there together.
2:59
I'm really looking forward to that.
3:01
Little nervous, not going to lie, you know, going out of the
3:04
country, you know, this is a little bit of nerves in there.
3:08
I have to be honest, I've never, I've been out of the country
3:11
before to Israel, but I've never been on a mission trip before
3:15
because I've been by vocational most of my ministry.
3:19
But I am looking forward to it and I can't wait to get down
3:21
there with you and Lee. And you know that Nicaragua was
3:25
not going to do not to know what to do with so many gingers.
3:29
Absolutely. So yeah, hope they're ready for
3:31
us. Me, you and Lee, we're all
3:32
gingers and man, we're fair skinned and it's great.
3:35
It's going to be awesome time and so can't wait for that.
3:39
That's coming up soon. We'll be heading down to the
3:43
Fort Ockethorpe. Did I say that right at that
3:46
time, close enough TUSA and heading down to our meet up.
3:52
It's going to be a great time. Our plan tentative leads are so
3:55
there. You know our listeners, we are
3:57
going to be doing ARFP crossover event.
4:01
We did this a couple years back leading up to the meet up.
4:04
And so we've reached out to the other podcasts and so we're
4:07
going to do an episode a week leading up to the pod, leading
4:11
up to the meet up with all the other podcasts, part of the RFP
4:15
network, just talking to them, getting their thoughts on where
4:19
they're at and how their podcast is doing.
4:21
And, and just be able to crossover a little bit,
4:24
reconnect the network leading up to the meet up.
4:28
And so we're, we're really excited about that, excited
4:31
about getting different voices on here and we were excited
4:35
about that as well. So, Brett, what else?
4:39
We have plans still to go to Israel.
4:43
Our Israel trip is coming up in March 2025.
4:48
As of right now, things are still a go.
4:51
We're going to keep you posted if if something changes on that
4:55
but as of right now our plans are to go to the Holy Land in
4:59
March of 2025 and I can't wait. I've been making some tik toks
5:04
and going back over my pictures and my videos for my Israel
5:08
trip. I cannot wait to to go back.
5:12
I look at these pictures on my wall in my office of our last
5:16
trip. Yeah.
5:17
And I see this picture up, this Titanic picture up here of me.
5:22
And you want to see a Galilee? And I just, you know, can't wait
5:24
to recreate that. But we are looking forward to
5:29
going back to Israel and cannot wait.
5:33
Absolutely love it, man. We are excited about that and
5:36
excited about what the future of the podcast holds and just some
5:40
some reinvigoration of some good things.
5:44
And we are excited about our topic today.
5:47
And so without further ado, let's roll our intro music.
5:52
Roll that. Beautiful bean footage.
5:55
I do not mean to be mean, I do mean to be mad those that
6:00
criticize this kind of preaching.
6:02
They don't like a thorn. If you ain't got the King James,
6:05
you ain't got, hey, you don't have a King James, you don't
6:09
have a Bible. I'll be surprised.
6:14
Son. Don't go to sleep while I'm
6:15
talking. Hey, hey, hey.
6:17
Don't, don't. Don't you lay your head.
6:18
I'm important. I'm somebody.
6:21
I love you. You know I love you.
6:22
And I convinced you I love you. Yeah.
6:25
You better. You better Nod your head.
6:26
Yes. Sorry.
6:27
Come on, put it up there. All right?
6:29
You stay awake and you listen to me.
6:33
I still believe if you're cold in hell.
6:35
Before I get my family for a moment.
6:37
I'm a preacher. When you got dressed today, you
6:50
dressed deity. This is the Four Freedom
6:57
Podcast, a podcast that is part of the RFP.
7:00
Network that seeks. To bring freedom in Christ from
7:03
the spiritual abuse of legalism. And so fundamentalism is
7:15
designed to unpack the idea of authority from Scripture.
7:18
The problem with that is that that's not the defining
7:21
principle in Scripture. It is a part of Scripture.
7:24
But the defining principle in Scripture is love.
7:53
I found my freedom. In you.
7:58
I found a toy I can't lose, and thank God it's true.
8:04
You wrapped your arms around me and heaven broke through.
8:09
From the moment she found me, I found my freedom in it.
8:15
Welcome to the Four Freedom podcast.
8:18
This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for
8:21
everyday Christians with everyday issues.
8:25
Now here are your hosts. James Seyfried and Brett Moore
8:32
All right, well, we hope you enjoy the mash up episode, the
8:35
mash up intro that we have there with our old and new intro
8:41
music. And it's been great to be able
8:43
to play around with that a little bit.
8:45
But Brett, today we, we talked about last week about starting
8:49
fresh, starting new, what that looks like to start over and the
8:53
hard part of that. And then even before that, we,
8:55
we did a whole season before the summer break on freedom of the
9:00
church and we went through different issues and topics that
9:03
got me and you thinking we did the issues and the topics of how
9:08
to find freedom of the church through abuse and music and
9:11
different things. But we really didn't go through
9:15
what it's what a healthy church should look like, what a church
9:19
should be, if you're looking for a new church, if you're starting
9:23
over, if you're starting fresh, if you're beginning anew.
9:26
And so we, we've dived through some different curriculum and
9:29
put together some notes of what a healthy church should look
9:33
like and what it should be like when you're looking around and
9:38
what a church is not. And so we're going to talk to
9:40
that today, but we're going to show, we're going to play a
9:43
clip, a video that went viral about 12 years ago, 13 years ago
9:48
or so, back in 2012. So 12 years ago and right now, I
9:55
think it's got 36 million views on YouTube.
9:59
Very, very popular video. And as I was even thinking about
10:02
this today as I was driving, I remember listening to this video
10:07
when it first came out. I don't know if you did, but
10:10
right around that time in 2020, it went viral.
10:13
I'm sorry, 2012, it went viral. And I remember listening to it
10:17
thinking, man, this is good stuff.
10:19
But I was seeing it and hearing it through the lens of the IFB
10:23
movement. And so like, I knew it was good,
10:28
but I didn't really fully understand all of it.
10:31
And so now as I've heard this again and been listening to it a
10:34
couple times, it begins to play even a different role in my life
10:40
because it's hitting me a little different right now.
10:44
And so what's your thought behind?
10:46
What did you ever see this video before?
10:47
We've got. I never saw it or heard it, but
10:52
even when you first listen to it, your knee jerk reaction is
10:56
to get offended. You know, that was me
10:59
personally. I was like, what's this?
11:01
What's this joker talking about? You know, what's he trying to,
11:04
you know, dump on church? And but the more you, you
11:08
actually listen to the words he's saying, he's 100%
11:13
absolutely right. Every, everything that he says,
11:18
the direction that he goes, I've never heard it before you sent
11:23
it to me. Or if I did, I can't remember.
11:27
But it really is so, so good. And more people really need to
11:31
take it to heart. Yeah, so the name of the video
11:35
is why I hate religion but love Jesus.
11:58
What if I told you Jesus came to abolish religion?
12:02
What if I told you voting Republican really wasn't his
12:04
mission? What if I told you Republican
12:07
doesn't automatically mean Christian and just because you
12:10
call some people blind doesn't automatically give you vision?
12:13
I mean, if religion is so great, why has it started so many wars?
12:16
Why does it build huge churches but fails to feed the poor till
12:20
single moms? God doesn't love them if they've
12:22
ever had a divorce. But in the Old Testament, God
12:24
actually calls religious people whores.
12:27
Religion might preach grace, but another thing they practice tend
12:30
to ridicule God's people. They did it to John the Baptist.
12:33
They can't fix their problems and so they just mask it, not
12:36
realizing religion's like spraying perfume on a casket.
12:40
See the problem with religion is it never gets to the core.
12:44
It's just behavior modification, like a long list of chores.
12:47
Like let's dress up the outside, make it look nice and neat.
12:50
But it's funny, that's what they used to do to mummies while the
12:52
corpse rots underneath. Now, I ain't judging.
12:55
I'm just saying quit putting on a fake look because there's a
12:57
problem if people only know that you're a Christian by your
12:59
Facebook. I mean, in every other aspect of
13:02
life, you know that logic's unworthy.
13:04
It's like saying you play for the Lakers just because you
13:07
bought a jersey. See, this was me too, but no one
13:10
seemed to be on to me acting like a church kid while addicted
13:13
to pornography. See, on Sunday I'd go to church,
13:16
but Saturday getting faded identify was simply created to
13:19
just have sex and get wasted. See, I spent my whole life
13:23
building this facade of neatness, but now that I know
13:26
Jesus, I boast in my weakness because of grace is water.
13:31
Then the church should be an ocean.
13:32
It's not a museum for good people, it's a hospital for the
13:35
broken. Which means I don't have to hide
13:37
my failure. I don't have to hide my sin
13:39
because it doesn't depend on me, it depends on Him, see because
13:43
when I was God's enemy and certainly not a fan, he looked
13:47
down and said I want that man. Which is why Jesus hated
13:51
religion and for it he called them fools.
13:53
Don't you see so much better than just following some rules.
13:56
Now let me clarify, I love the church, I love the Bible and yes
14:00
I believe in sin. But if Jesus came to your church
14:03
would they actually let him in? See remember he was called a
14:06
glutton and a drunkard by religious men, but the Son of
14:10
God never supports self righteousness, not now, not
14:12
then. Now back to the point.
14:14
One thing is vital to mention how Jesus and religion are on
14:18
opposite spectrums. See one's the work of God, but
14:21
one's a man made invention. See one is the cure, but the
14:25
other's the infection. See because religion says do,
14:29
Jesus says done, religion says slave, Jesus says son.
14:35
Religion puts you in bondage while Jesus sets you free.
14:39
Religion makes you blind, but Jesus makes you see.
14:42
And that's why religion and Jesus are two different clans.
14:45
Religion is man searching for God.
14:47
Christianity is God searching for man.
14:50
Which is why salvation is freely mine and forgiveness is my own,
14:54
not based on my merits. But Jesus has obedience alone
14:58
because he took the crown of thorns and the blood dripped
15:00
down his face. He took what we all deserve.
15:03
I guess that's why you call it grace.
15:05
And while being murdered, he yelled, Father, forgive them.
15:08
They know not what they do. Because when he was dangling on
15:10
that cross, he was thinking of you and he absorbed all your sin
15:15
and he buried it in the tomb. Which is why I'm kneeling at the
15:18
cross saying come on, there's room.
15:21
So for religion, No, I hate it. In fact, I literally resent it
15:25
because when Jesus said it is finished, I believe he meant it.
15:30
Brett, what's your initial actions to that?
15:34
Oh man, that's such good stuff. You know, it just reminds me
15:40
that, you know, when Jesus was on the earth, the greatest
15:43
battle that he fought was with the religious crowd.
15:48
Yeah. The the his war, his biggest
15:51
enemies were the fair Pharisaical priests and you
15:56
know, the scribes and the people that wanted to take the temple
16:02
and take the church and take religion and make it into their
16:05
own little club and it school that God wants us to help.
16:14
Another thing that it reminded me of is it reminded me of
16:16
Philippians chapter 3, verse nine that says not having
16:21
righteousness of my own derived from the law.
16:24
That which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which
16:28
comes from God on the basis of faith.
16:31
I can't produce my own righteousness by following the
16:36
deeds and letter of the law. I can only have righteousness
16:40
that comes from God through faith.
16:42
And that's what religion tries to do.
16:45
So religion says we have these laws, we have these rules and
16:50
you know, if we follow them, we can produce our own
16:52
righteousness. But, you know, that's that's not
16:56
at all what the gospel is. And so, yeah, this was really
17:00
great. I really enjoyed it.
17:02
Yeah, I think one of the there was three things that stood out
17:05
to me in that video that spoken words was called.
17:10
And the first was this behavior religion.
17:14
I'm sorry, Jesus is not behavior modification.
17:18
How often did we hear? I don't know if you heard this,
17:20
but I heard it all the time. Get them in the doors and Jesus
17:24
will cut the hair off, get them in the will make them look
17:29
right. And it was this thought of,
17:31
yeah, let's get them to church and then they'll start looking
17:34
the way we want them to look. And as long as they look the
17:37
part, well, then they're they're Christian.
17:39
They're they're good, they're fine.
17:41
And it was this behavior modification that was constantly
17:44
pushed. Another thing that stood out to
17:46
me was he one of the first statements.
17:48
He says it really quick. He said, just because you call
17:51
someone blind doesn't mean you have a vision.
17:55
And I thought, man, that's a powerful statement because how
17:57
often do we have this superseding look on other
18:03
people? And we say, well, they don't
18:05
know this, they don't know that. And so therefore I have vision.
18:07
They don't. And then the the big one that he
18:10
said there at the end was religion says, do religion says
18:15
you're a slave, Religion says you're bound and religion says
18:19
you're, you're blind. And he says, but having Jesus
18:24
means that it's done. It means that you're called a
18:27
son. It means that you have freedom
18:29
and it means that you have sight.
18:32
And I thought, man, that was so powerful to see the, the
18:35
contrast of what religion does for us.
18:39
It holds us down, it binds us, it it holds us back.
18:42
But when we get to the true relationship of what Jesus has
18:45
done for us, man, it gives us so much freedom.
18:48
It gives us so much ability to know that he's our father and
18:52
we're his son. And then it was just a powerful,
18:55
powerful thought as I as I went through that.
18:59
Amen. You know what?
19:02
Well back to what you said about behavior modification.
19:05
You know, in the churches we grew up in, discipleship was
19:08
just non existent. There was no discipleship
19:12
whatsoever. Your, your goal was just to get
19:16
as many people to pray as soon as prayer as possible, tricked
19:20
him into saying it, manipulate them into saying the words and
19:24
then dropping them. And if they did come to church,
19:27
the definition of discipleship was going to goodwill and buying
19:30
them a tie, getting them a haircut.
19:33
And that was the, that was the extent of the discipleship that
19:39
we grew up in. And it, it's more discipleship
19:44
is more than just behavior modification.
19:46
You know, it's, it's the Holy Spirit working out of you what
19:52
God has worked into you. It it's changed from the inside
19:56
out, not the outside in. And yeah, man loved it.
20:01
All right, so Brett, in a couple of weeks, we're going to a
20:04
couple days actually. We're going to be taking off on
20:07
a jet plane as we talked about, and you're going to be leaving
20:10
from Memphis and heading to Houston.
20:13
I'll be leaving from Charlotte, heading to Houston, and we're
20:15
going to meet up in Houston and then head down to a place called
20:18
Managua. Now imagine me and you get on
20:21
the plane to head to Managua and the pilot gets in and he takes
20:26
off and man, we're excited about going.
20:28
We get to cruising altitude and they take off the the seat belt
20:33
sign. And as they take the seat belt
20:35
sign off, one of the people come down through the aisle and says,
20:40
hey, just want to let you guys know.
20:42
They come over here come. The pilot is frantically looking
20:45
through the manual on how to land this plane.
20:48
Like we're excited, we're good. He got his pilot license, but he
20:53
just sort of skipped through a whole bunch of stuff to get the
20:56
pilot's license. He took the Cliff notes, but
20:58
he's actually never landed a plane before.
21:01
And all of a sudden, I would be pretty hysterical, I guess you
21:06
could say a little nervous, a little uneasy about what's about
21:11
to happen. And often times when we begin to
21:14
talk through this thought of church, we get really excited
21:18
about it. And then we skip over some
21:20
details. We skip over some things that
21:22
are very, very important when it comes to church.
21:25
Church has hurt us and so all churches are bad things are, and
21:29
we're just going to skip over the things that matter.
21:32
And so over the next couple of weeks, we want to look through
21:36
and consider some definitions. First off of what a church is
21:41
and what a church isn't. And so the way we're going to
21:44
start is the word church is used over 100 times in the New
21:48
Testament. So a good place to begin would
21:52
be the negation of a church, what a church is not and rule
21:56
out what a church is not. 113 times in the ESV it shows up the
22:03
word ecclesia, which is a called out assembly.
22:08
And so Brett, I'll give the first one here.
22:10
A church is not a building. We walk by a building and often
22:15
times we may say, well, that's a nice church.
22:17
That's a nice looking church, but that's not the idea in the
22:21
New Testament. Paul would not have walked by
22:24
the synagogue and said, well, that's a nice church right
22:26
there, man. Look at the the, the artwork.
22:29
Look at the embroidery. Look at what they've got.
22:31
They've got this nice, beautiful sign out front.
22:33
It's got a really funny church saying on it.
22:35
That's a good church. He would not have done that in
22:39
Romans 16. He greets the church that meet
22:43
in Priscilla and Aquila's house in Romans 16335.
22:47
The building, the house was not the church.
22:50
The people who met there were the church.
22:53
And the word church in the New Testament is that word ecclesia,
22:57
and it means a gathering or an assembly.
23:00
The church is fundamentally an assembly of people.
23:04
It's not a building. It's not a thing that we erect
23:08
here on earth and say that is the church.
23:11
It is a church building, but it is not the church.
23:14
The church is the people that meet together.
23:20
Now, if if you get a random group of Christian friends
23:23
together to watch a football game, does that make a church?
23:27
No, no, because the church is an assembly.
23:31
The church is also not simply just a random group of
23:35
Christians. It it's far more and excuse me
23:38
now there is, there is such a thing as the universal Church,
23:43
which is a way of talking about how all true Christians, you
23:47
know, come together from all times and all locations.
23:50
We can't see the universal church now, but but God can, you
23:56
know, and one day the Universal Church is going to be gathered
23:59
together in one place. The Book of Revelation talks
24:02
about, you know, every tribe, every tongue, every nation
24:07
coming together, worshipping God together.
24:10
That is of the universal church. And there are times in the New
24:15
Testament where this is how the word church is used in the
24:20
universal sense. Just to give you an example,
24:24
when Paul writes in Ephesians chapter one that Jesus is the
24:27
head of the church, he doesn't just mean the church in Ephesus.
24:32
He means the church universal. But most of the references of
24:36
the church in the New Testament do have the local church in
24:39
mind. You know, these different
24:41
churches like the church at Ephesus, Church of Corinth,
24:44
Colossae, Galatia, Cappadocia. So the church isn't a building.
24:50
It's, it's an assembly. But it's more than just an
24:54
assembly. So how do we how do we clarify
24:58
what a local church is then? Well, let let's just talk about
25:03
a helpful definition here. It works for.
25:05
That Brett, I want to say one thing because the moment that
25:09
and you've never been on a mission trip.
25:12
So this will be a awesome time for you to be able to experience
25:16
every tribe, nation and tongue because we're going to be down
25:19
there and we're going to preach and in Nicaragua and we're going
25:22
to have a translator and we're going to worship together and
25:25
they're going to be in one language and we're going to be
25:27
in another language. But in a couple years ago we
25:31
went to New York and I had the opportunity to go to the
25:33
Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. There were gym symbol is that I
25:36
got a worship on their Tuesday night prayer meeting and it was
25:39
something that revolutionized my thought of the church because we
25:43
got together and this church was a couple thousand people in this
25:47
building. They're singing, they're
25:50
worshipping. And we have this moment where we
25:52
all begin to pray. And they just said, just reach
25:54
out, grab your neighbor's hand, touch the person in front of you
25:57
and audibly pray in your own language, in your own tongue.
26:00
And you heard this auditorium of Indians and Americans and Jewish
26:08
people, I mean, people of all nation, tongue and tribe praying
26:12
together. And I begin just to sit there
26:15
and I just stopped for a moment and just listened.
26:17
And I thought, this is what's heaven's going to be like.
26:20
It's going to be all these nations, all these tribes, all
26:23
these tongues together. And it's going to be a beautiful
26:26
picture of what that is. And I think it's, it's good for
26:29
us to understand that on both sides of it, yes, this is the
26:32
church that God has called us to minister in and together in the
26:36
group of people. But there is a larger church out
26:39
there of the universal Church of those who believe in Christ.
26:42
And it's a great thing. So, Brett, what's a good
26:44
definition for us in understanding a good point for
26:48
us to understand what the Church is?
26:51
A good definition is a local church is a group of Christians
26:56
who regularly gather in Christ's name to officially affirm and
27:01
oversee one another's membership in Jesus Christ and his Kingdom
27:06
through the gospel, through gospel preaching and gospel
27:10
ordinance. Now we're we're going to unpack
27:13
this definition as we go through this in greater detail in coming
27:19
weeks. But you know, I do want to
27:22
highlight one aspect of it. It says Jesus Christ and his
27:26
Kingdom. Well, what does the Kingdom of
27:29
God have to do with the local church?
27:31
Well, when you think about it quite a lot, I mean, the Kingdom
27:35
of God is a major theme in the New Testament, particularly in
27:40
the Gospels. And when you read about the
27:42
Kingdom of God, one way to think about it is God's people in
27:47
God's place under God's rule. I mean, God's people in God's
27:53
place under God's rule is at the heart of the definition of the
27:57
church. Why?
27:59
Because it's another way of talking about worship.
28:02
And friends, the church exists to worship.
28:07
So how do we worship together in a local church?
28:10
Now, before we, before I let you answer that question, James, I
28:13
do want to say that, you know, I remember reading the story that
28:17
back in the old days, you know, when people were talking about a
28:21
church, they didn't say, oh, look, that's, that's, that's
28:23
Rocky Point Church over there and point at the church
28:26
building. They didn't say that back in the
28:28
old days. They would say that's the
28:31
building that houses Rocky Point Church because they knew that
28:37
the church is not the building. The church is the people.
28:42
We are the church. And another thing that we forget
28:46
a lot is we need to remember about the universal church that
28:50
they're, listen, they're going to be people in heaven that
28:52
aren't Baptist, OK? They're going to be people up
28:56
there that are from a different denomination.
28:59
There's going to be some charismatics up there.
29:02
You know, maybe they're going to be people up there that I
29:04
wouldn't necessarily build a church with here because we've
29:07
got some differences, but who are still my brothers and
29:10
sisters in Christ. Now here in our local area here,
29:14
we do a few activities a year with the Methodist, with Church
29:18
of God folks. You know, when as long as they
29:20
preach grace, salvation, not of works, I'll fellowship with them
29:24
because we're, we're all a part of that universal church.
29:28
And so, yes, we are a local assembly, but we don't need to
29:31
forget the broader ramifications of the Universal Church as well.
29:36
Absolutely. That's great.
29:37
And it's a good thing to also understand that that there is
29:41
fellowship with one another that we often forsake.
29:45
That's why I was telling the guy disciple every week.
29:49
I said I miss the together for the Gospel conferences.
29:53
I said I miss just getting together with like brothers and
29:55
sisters, pastors of different denominations that we can agree
29:59
on some things, come together and worship and learn from one
30:04
another and get a bunch of free books in the process.
30:07
It was one of my very first favorite conferences that I ever
30:11
attended. And I'm I'm sad that it's not
30:12
there anymore. If, if people from the RT 4G are
30:15
listening, bring it back. I want, I want the T4G back.
30:20
But as we think through this, the church the ultimately
30:23
displays the image of God. And so that is what we're going
30:27
to look at for the first part here is walking through from
30:30
Scripture what the image of God means.
30:33
And there are some people and Brett, you can sort of dice this
30:36
out on your own. We're not going to dissect it
30:39
here today. It may be another episode for
30:41
another day. But there are some people that
30:43
believe that the very first church happened in the Garden of
30:46
Eden, that God created a people in a place under God's rule.
30:52
And Adam and Eve were the very first church.
30:54
Now I'll let you just chew on that for a little bit, but the
30:59
thought when we begin to think of the image of God, the very
31:02
first mention of the image of God is in Genesis one.
31:05
And God creates plants and animals, each according to its
31:08
kind. And every apple in the pattern
31:11
under another apple, every zebra under the pattern of another
31:14
zebra. In verse 26, we read then God
31:17
said, let us make man in our image and after our likeness.
31:23
And so we are patterned after God and we, we, we uniquely
31:28
represent God through creation. And so this is the first time we
31:32
see an image of God created in his own image.
31:35
We are that image of him that are created to worship him.
31:39
And so in the garden, their primary purpose was to take care
31:43
of the garden and worship with God.
31:45
And so this is the, this is an idea of God throughout all of
31:50
eternity has always had a people.
31:53
He has always had a place for these people and he has always
31:56
had a people under his rule. And so we begin to walk through
31:59
this beginning part of creation and say creation is the very
32:04
first part of this. Brett, what's the second
32:06
thought? Or if you have any thoughts on
32:07
creation. You know, I'll go to the First
32:10
Baptist Church of the Garden of Eden with you, but you're going
32:13
to have to wear more than fig leaves, so.
32:16
Yes. So as we as we go into step two,
32:20
we have the fall in Genesis. Three people decide not to
32:24
represent God's rule. They work instead to represent
32:28
their own rule. Now we're guilty because we've
32:32
broken God's law and we're also corrupt.
32:35
That the mirror is bent, you might say.
32:38
So a false image of God is portrayed, you know, in the
32:43
garden. We fell.
32:44
We, we chose to be separate from God.
32:48
We chose to flip God off basically and say, no, we, we
32:53
want all the benefits, but we don't want you.
32:56
We want the garden. We want all the, all the good
32:59
things, but we don't want the God that gave it to us.
33:02
And so because of that corruption and because of that
33:05
sin, we, we fail. And when man fell, it marred the
33:11
image of God. The image still there, but the
33:13
image is now marred. It's bent, it's twisted it it's
33:17
not what God intended. We, we we corrupted it.
33:21
And so, yeah, so that's what happened to that image that God
33:26
gave us. Yeah, and then the the next
33:29
thing we see is Israel being brought into the picture, God in
33:33
his mercy. Brett, I'm studying through
33:36
Jonah. I'm preaching through the book
33:37
of Jonah right now, taking six weeks to go through Jonah and
33:42
man to give this deep dive look at Jonah, and to see the mercy
33:47
of God over and over and over in this story.
33:51
I'd never seen it quite like I'm seeing it right now as I'm
33:54
studying through it. And it just as a reminder that
33:57
God's mercy is greater than we can ever think or imagine.
34:00
And he and his mercy had a plan to go ahead.
34:04
Let me say one thing about Jonah that I just recently.
34:08
It's funny you mention it because I just had a thought
34:11
about Jonah the other day and that was about the gourd, how
34:16
God gave the gourd to Jonah and he took that plant away.
34:23
He gave him shade. He took the shade away.
34:25
Both of those things he did in love.
34:28
He gave Jonah the gourd in love. He took the gourd away in love.
34:34
Jonah couldn't see it. Jonah criticized him for taking
34:38
away the plant that gave him shade, that helped him, but what
34:42
he didn't realize is that the same love that gave it to him
34:46
took it away from him because God knew that it was best for
34:49
Jonah. He's trying to teach Jonah a
34:51
lesson. He was trying to reach out and
34:53
redeem Jonah till the very end. And that was a that was a
34:58
thought I had the other day about Jonah.
35:00
Man, that's good that's got. I may use that when I get to
35:03
Jonah chapter 4. But God in His mercy had a plan
35:07
to both save and use a group of people to accomplish His
35:11
original purpose for creation. Ultimately, it's this.
35:14
To display His glory in Exodus 4, He uses the nation of Israel
35:20
and He calls them this unique term.
35:23
He calls them His son. Why, why, why does He use the
35:27
term son? Because oftentimes and more
35:30
likely than not, a son looks like its father.
35:34
And so in this image, they are using the image of the Father as
35:39
their son. And so we begin to see this
35:43
picture that that this is the son of God.
35:45
This is the the sons of God, which is Israel.
35:48
And later we'll look at to the church and we'll begin to see
35:52
that this is where it's at. And the 10 commandments gives
35:55
the son that they're bound up into the image of their Father.
36:00
You should have no other gods before me.
36:02
You shall make no rule for yourself or any image of God.
36:06
You shall act in a way that reflects my character.
36:09
This is the the Son Israel. They were not to worship any
36:15
other images and they were to fail to display God's image.
36:20
He would be cast out of the land, which we know is exactly
36:25
what happened when they began to worship of their gods, when they
36:29
began to go astray. God took his blessing off of
36:32
Israel when this began to happen.
36:35
And so we begin to see this in a clear picture of Israel as the
36:39
Son and Israel as this image of what this church was supposed to
36:43
look like, what this this called out assembly, this called out
36:47
people were supposed to look like.
36:49
And then we get to the next part.
36:52
Step 4 is Christ. In Matthew chapter 3, Jesus is
36:56
baptized. And what does the Father say?
36:59
From heaven? You are my Son, whom I love with
37:03
you. I am well pleased.
37:05
Now at last we have the perfect Son, who perfectly pleases his
37:10
Father, who perfectly images his Father.
37:14
John 14, nine. Whoever has seen me has seen the
37:19
Father. We we've all heard the old
37:22
adage, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
37:26
My father like son, and that is embodied perfectly and the
37:31
person of Jesus Christ. So no wonder the authors of the
37:35
New Testament call him the image of the invisible God in
37:40
Colossians 115 and the exact representation of his being in
37:45
Hebrews 1/3. Here is a man who now perfectly
37:50
images God for all of us to see. When we have look at Jesus
37:56
Christ, when we look at His life, He is God.
38:01
We see Him. We see the Father.
38:04
Absolutely and and and Christ came to what established the
38:09
church He came to establish what we now call as the ecclesia or
38:13
the caught out assembly. Romans 829 For those he
38:17
foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his
38:21
Son. 1st Corinthians 1549 Just as we have been born the image
38:27
of man out of dust, we also shall bear the image of man, of
38:33
heaven, of the man in heaven. So our job as a Christian is to
38:37
display the character and likeness, the image and glory of
38:42
the Son and the Father in heaven.
38:44
And oftentimes I think this is where the church messes up
38:49
because our ultimate purpose is to reflect the image of God, is
38:53
to reflect the image of Christ. And when we don't reflect the
38:57
image of Christ, we distort. We go back to the garden and we
39:01
distort the image. We begin to bend the mirror of
39:04
the image of what Christ has created because we want to add
39:07
in our own legalism. We want to add in our own works.
39:10
We want to add in whatever we decide is true in religion.
39:13
And Christ says, no, no, no, Get your religion out of it.
39:17
Just become an image bearer of me.
39:19
Become what I have called you to be.
39:21
The Father is a peacemaker. And the Bible says in Matthew
39:25
that Christ says if you're going to be one of mine, you will be a
39:28
peacemaker. You will be someone who makes
39:31
peace in the world. The Bible says that the Father
39:34
loves his enemies. And if we are going to be
39:37
Christians, if we are going to be the church, we also will love
39:40
our enemies. Romans 12, love your enemies.
39:42
Do good to those who dishonor you, do good to those who
39:46
persecute you and and call you names and, and love them.
39:50
And like the Father and I are one.
39:53
So the church should be one with ourselves.
39:55
We should be united together with the church.
39:59
And so, as Brett just said, like Father.
40:02
Like son and like sons we are to be.
40:05
Like the Father we are to be like his Son we should be.
40:09
What the Bible says the Christian is, is a direct
40:12
representation of Christ or Christ likeness.
40:16
Now let's talk a little bit about glory first.
40:19
John chapter 3 verse two says, But we know when he appears, we
40:24
will be like him because we shall see him as he is.
40:29
One day God will remake creation into the new heavens and the new
40:33
earth. The city where God dwells with
40:36
man will descend from heaven and we will be perfect mirrors
40:41
reflecting his image. And you know, I did a revelation
40:43
study years ago and on that one thing that I remember that I
40:49
will never forget. One of my biggest takeaways of
40:52
that is that the New Jerusalem is the church, that in some way
40:58
that new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven is the church.
41:02
We are the bricks, we are the gates, we are the pillars, we
41:06
are the walls. We in some spiritual, physical
41:09
way that we make up the new Jerusalem.
41:13
He's coming back with us now. Here's a summary of the story.
41:18
God created humankind to display the Excellency of who he is,
41:24
Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve didn't do that
41:26
though, but neither did the people of Israel.
41:29
But Jesus did. He did it perfectly, lived a
41:33
perfect righteous life. Jesus came to reveal God, and
41:39
Jesus came to save. Now the church is called to
41:44
image the character and glory of the Father to all the universe.
41:49
It's called to testify in Word and action to His great wisdom
41:54
and work of salvation. We are the body of Christ.
41:59
We are His representative. So how we worship?
42:03
How do we respond to the excellence of who He is?
42:07
We image Him. Basically, we show off His
42:12
glory. Let's think about our definition
42:15
real quick. A local church is a group of
42:18
Christians who regularly gather in Christ's name to officially
42:23
affirm and oversee one another's membership in Jesus Christ and
42:28
His Kingdom through gospel preaching and gospel ordinances.
42:33
Now, if you read through the New Testament, you're going to see a
42:36
number of pictures used to describe the local church.
42:40
And you know, we could argue that those are two.
42:44
Those two are a part of the definition of the church.
42:47
For example, the church is described as a body In the New
42:51
Testament. The church is described as a
42:54
family, a flock of sheep, a house, a priesthood.
42:59
All of these pictures are used to describe the church.
43:04
Here's the point. As a local church lives
43:07
together, with Scripture and purpose laid out in the
43:11
definition, meeting together to oversee one another's membership
43:15
in Christ, they are set up to live together in such a way that
43:20
those images, the body, the family, the flock, they become a
43:24
reality. In other words, the church
43:27
increasingly reflects different aspects of the image of God.
43:32
And you know, one more thing before I hand it back over to
43:36
you is the New Testament calls us ambassadors for Christ.
43:41
We represent him to the world. We reflect who he is not only as
43:50
a church, but also individually. We reflect Christ when we go.
43:57
We're the church wherever we go. We represent Christ.
44:00
We represent the church. We are the body of Christ.
44:03
So individually and corporately, we represent him as his
44:09
ambassadors to the world. Yeah, I love that term.
44:14
Ambassador and Ambassador is an official envoy of a high-ranking
44:19
diplomat who represents the state and usually accredits to
44:23
another sovereign state to be an international organization or
44:26
recognizes many definitions put it that a ambassador has all the
44:32
authority of the ones that send him.
44:36
And if we're an ambassador, we have all the authority of the
44:40
one who sent us, which is Christ.
44:41
That's what Christ says. All authority has been given
44:44
under heaven and earth, so to the disciples to go out and to
44:47
preach the name of Jesus because all that he had, he is now
44:51
granted upon those that believe in Him through the Holy Spirit.
44:55
And that's a beautiful, beautiful term.
44:56
I love that out. And so as we think through this,
45:00
as we wrap up today and we're going to talk through the next
45:04
couple of weeks, what we're going to talk through over the
45:06
next couple of weeks is church membership, church discipline,
45:10
the ordinances of the church and the church gathered and how that
45:13
looks. And so as we begin to do this,
45:15
there's a couple of implications that we can draw, some lessons
45:19
that we can learn about the church.
45:20
The 1st is this. The local church is the focal
45:23
point of God's grand plan to display His glory to the
45:28
nations. And then we're going to
45:31
illustrate this for a moment through the book of Ephesians.
45:34
He begins in chapter one of Ephesians with a beautiful
45:36
description of our salvation. Our salvation is by grace alone
45:41
to the glory of Christ alone. Chapter 2 begins with the gospel
45:45
that saved us, and then midway through chapter 2, Paul launches
45:49
into the primary applicational point of the gospel, that the
45:53
Jews and the Gentiles are one in Christ.
45:57
Two groups who for ethnicity, theological, social, and
46:01
political reasons have been at enmity with one another are now
46:06
united. In fact, Paul begins to use two
46:09
committed bonds that we know, the bond of family and
46:13
ethnicity, to describe. The church United Bible says
46:16
that we are a new family of God. We are God's new humanity,
46:22
people with nothing in common, but Christ can live together as
46:27
if we have everything in common. So what is God's purpose for all
46:31
this? Ephesians 310 says so that
46:33
through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might be known to
46:38
the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.
46:42
We are literally put together. I'm pulling out the term that
46:45
Ralph's that literally we're put together.
46:48
We are the church put together so that people can we can be an
46:52
example to those that are in the world.
46:54
We can be an example to the rulers and the authorities and
46:57
don't miss this God will make known to the watching world his
47:02
manifest wisdom ultimately through one he did.
47:06
He did not say here, Brett, I'm going to use government.
47:10
I'm going to use religion. I'm going to use some king.
47:12
I'm going to use some some social media platform, some
47:16
billionaire out there. No, no, he said.
47:18
I'm going to use through the church.
47:21
I'm going to reveal the manifest wisdom of God.
47:25
I'm going to use this one singular thing, a called out
47:29
group of people in a supernatural work, not merely as
47:33
individuals, but as a collective church body that becomes this
47:37
platform for us to centralized God's plan for the entire world
47:43
to hear the good news of the gospel.
47:46
It would have been so easy for him to say, you know what, I'm
47:48
just going to to come down and and I'm going to miraculously
47:54
grant the wisdom of of what God is to all humanity.
47:57
God could have easily done that, but instead he said, you know,
48:01
I'm going to use a group of people that are going to be
48:03
called out, they're going to be redeemed to go out and tell the
48:06
world about me. That's God's grand plan because
48:10
we display the glory of who he is through the nations we
48:13
through our living, through our life, through our unity.
48:17
When, when the church sees people of all different nations,
48:20
tribes and tongues coming together, worshipping him under
48:23
one roof, under one home, under one church, it doesn't just
48:29
people ask questions. Why is that?
48:32
Why is that happening? Why?
48:33
Why are people doing that? And so which leads us into
48:37
implication #2 Brett, or anything you may want to say
48:40
there as well. I just love how I love, by the
48:43
way, how the church is so different, yet at the same time
48:48
we're all the same. We're different people with
48:51
different backgrounds, different temperaments, different
48:53
experiences, yet we all come together in Christ.
48:58
The gospel draws us together. We're different, but we're the
49:02
same. And you know that, that really,
49:05
I really love that about the church.
49:07
The 2nd, 2nd implication we're going to talk about is the
49:11
church is to be distinct from the world.
49:15
God's purpose for the church work when God, God's purposes
49:20
for the church work when believers are different from the
49:24
world. Not only does that mean
49:26
different types of people from different backgrounds learning
49:29
to live and love each other, it also means different in the
49:33
sense of holiness. In first Peter chapter one, we
49:37
read as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions
49:42
of your former ignorance. That is he who has called you as
49:45
holy. You also be holy in your
49:48
conduct, since it is written. You shall be holy, for I am
49:53
holy. Churches are only for sinners.
49:56
If you're not a Sinner, you're not welcome in my church.
50:00
And yet churches are only for repentance.
50:02
Sinners. If the church looks no different
50:05
from the world, what good is it? And I don't care what message it
50:09
message it preaches. A church that looks like the
50:12
world only defends that image. Now I do want to clarify that
50:18
for just a minute. You know, I've been on social
50:21
media and I've seen Facebook pics of, you know, you've got
50:27
these memes where you've got a contemporary church on one side,
50:30
you got a concert stage on the other.
50:32
And the caption says something to the effect of, can you tell
50:36
the difference between these two pictures?
50:38
Be separate from the world. Now, listen, I agree that the
50:42
church should separate from the world's sin.
50:45
Separation from the world doesn't mean that, you know, we
50:48
can't have stage lights on the stage.
50:51
We can't have purple lights. We can't, you know, have
50:54
contemporary music in our churches.
50:57
You know, that, that, that that's not what it means.
51:00
When when Paul criticized the church at Corinth, you know, he
51:05
condemned their sin. OK, He never says in in the book
51:11
of Corinthians, hey y'all, y'all stop dressing like the Romans.
51:15
He said, y'all stop breaking up into cliques under your favorite
51:19
teacher. He didn't say, hey, y'all, y'all
51:21
stop having services that look like Roman concerts.
51:25
No, he said, quit having adultery with your father's
51:29
wife. He would say things like stop
51:31
abusing your spiritual gifts. So, you know, yes, we are to be
51:36
separate from the world, but you know, we have to remember that
51:41
means separate from the world sin.
51:44
OK, not necessarily from, you know, the the the culture that
51:49
we used to reach them basically is what I'm trying to say.
51:51
Does that make sense? Yeah.
51:53
And I think a good way to put this is often times we think
51:58
that again, we we emulate the church as what they're doing as
52:05
far as what they look like. And so let me, let me show you
52:08
like this. If the church looks like a
52:10
concert and all we preach is be separate from the world, come
52:14
out from among them, don't look like the world, don't act like
52:16
the world, don't talk like the world.
52:18
Well then, yeah, a concert's going to look like this light
52:21
show out there. But what does Christ say?
52:23
Be holy. You shall be called holy, for I
52:26
am holy. And so he says, listen, yeah,
52:29
you can, you can redeem anything that's been done.
52:31
There's any type of way. Look at look at a couple of
52:35
different illustrations here. Paul is walking through the
52:39
educated people. This is where the educated
52:40
people went. Paul went to where they were at
52:43
and he's walking through all these different idols and he
52:45
sees the, the, the idol to the unknown God.
52:49
And he could have just continued old until, you know, I'm just
52:50
going to go and get away from these wicked people.
52:53
They're out here worshiping idols.
52:54
Let's just go and sit in our church and be where where we're
52:57
going to be at and be where we're going to be happy and, and
53:00
just sit down. No, no, he gets up and he says,
53:02
Hey, you guys are worshipping to the unknown God.
53:04
Let me tell you who that God is. I know this God, what you do.
53:09
And all of a sudden he begins to say, yeah, yeah, there's this
53:12
holy God out there that create all of us.
53:14
And these, all of these other gods you're praying to, they're
53:16
useless, They're worthless. There's nothing.
53:18
They're just stones of statues. But I have the one true God.
53:22
And so he uses what they're doing to redeem them.
53:27
And this is the the image of what we need to be is is, as
53:30
Paul says again in 1st Corinthians 1013, whatever you
53:34
eat or drink or whatever you do do alter the glory of God.
53:38
If you decide that you're the building that you're going to
53:41
worship in is going to have light to do it for the glory of
53:43
God. You want to have a smoke machine
53:45
up there and create a a holy fog on the on the stage.
53:49
Do it for the glory of God. Whatever you do, if you're going
53:52
to get up and sing hymns and just have a piano or an organ
53:56
play, do it for the glory of God.
53:58
Because when we do that, I love that last statement.
54:00
You said it doesn't matter the message that you preach.
54:05
If a church looks like the world and only the world, then it
54:09
defames the message. We've got to have Christ in the
54:12
center of all we do. And so the church is the image
54:16
of God. It should reflect God's
54:17
holiness. And So what are we doing that's
54:21
reflecting God's holiness in our lives?
54:24
And we need to strive to reflect the image of Christ, the image
54:28
of God in everything we think, say, and do, or we're just out
54:33
here doing absolutely nothing for the cause of Christ.
54:37
And so, Brett, that's our our first part of the church series
54:42
and what is a church and how we can understand what this is in
54:47
our life. Looking forward to the next
54:49
couple of weeks walking through this and walking through next
54:54
week church membership and what that looks like and how we can
54:57
begin to define this in our own terms and how we can begin to
55:01
look through this. We any closing thoughts, Brett?
55:06
I just want to say that I don't know where my life would be
55:10
without church. Even when there was a time in my
55:14
life when I ran away from God and I didn't want anything to do
55:20
with the ministry, I was done when I was out of church.
55:25
I didn't stay out long because I just yearned for that connection
55:31
to the family. I yearned for that spirit that
55:36
the church brings and the encouragement that you get from
55:40
the people and that when you're down, they're there to lift you
55:43
up and encourage you and to support you.
55:47
And I didn't stay out of church very long, you know, and you
55:51
know, I, I, I went back because I missed that.
55:55
I love church. I don't want know where my life
55:57
would be without church. And I'm so thankful that Jesus
56:04
gave us the gift of the local church.
56:09
Absolutely love it. Love it, love it.
56:12
Thank you guys for listening today.
56:14
I hope you've enjoyed this. If you ever need anything, feel
56:17
free to reach out to us. I've had several people reach
56:19
out to me over the last couple of weeks and it's been great to
56:22
be able to help. We hope you've enjoyed the last
56:25
couple of weeks of freedom to start over.
56:28
And now what is a church and what this begins to look like in
56:32
our life as we move forward. And so if you ever need
56:36
anything, let us know. And until next time to God.
56:40
Not the pastor. Be the glory.
56:44
Found my new name. Found that good grace, found
56:49
that healing. And the tears fell down my face
56:52
when I found my beginning. It has no ending.
56:55
I found that second chance. Found my best friend, found my
56:57
forgiveness, found my happiness. I've been singing ever since.
57:00
I found my feet on me. Thanks for listening to the Four
57:17
Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do
57:20
us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our
57:23
podcast on whichever podcast platform you use.
57:27
Be sure to join us next time for The Four Freedom Podcast.