I love my church. Period.
I could literally end the post right there.
But I won't.
I love what Jesus is doing with my church.
I love the people in my church.
I love what Jesus has done in my life because of my church.
I love that we just want to be about what Jesus is about.
I love that we ask the question: "Jesus, what do You want do do with us?"
I love that I get to post awesome truth that the Holy Spirit is bringing out in our church.
That is what this is. Since May, we have been talking about God's design for the church--both global and local. We just finished these talks up on Sunday, and one of our elders, Chet Boyd, basically summed it all up beautifully in under 10 minutes.
As I sat and listened, I was literally blown away. This was not Chet speaking. It was directly from God through the Holy Spirit. And it was blowing up my heart! So I want to share it. Not because I think we're the best church or have it all figured out (we will be the first to tell you that we're still broken and still need to look much more like Jesus), but because I believe this is the design of God, the truth of Jesus, and what the Holy Spirit is trying to work in our churches.
I have done my best to transcribe the talk with minor edits along the way to help the written version flow like it should. If you want to listen to the talk, you can download it from our website: http://www.onehopeathens.com/2011/10/the-cchurch/.
My prayer is that our churches and our church leaders search the scriptures and diligently beg for God to conform our churches, and our lives, to His design.
I love what Jesus is doing with my church.
I love the people in my church.
I love what Jesus has done in my life because of my church.
I love that we just want to be about what Jesus is about.
I love that we ask the question: "Jesus, what do You want do do with us?"
I love that I get to post awesome truth that the Holy Spirit is bringing out in our church.
That is what this is. Since May, we have been talking about God's design for the church--both global and local. We just finished these talks up on Sunday, and one of our elders, Chet Boyd, basically summed it all up beautifully in under 10 minutes.
As I sat and listened, I was literally blown away. This was not Chet speaking. It was directly from God through the Holy Spirit. And it was blowing up my heart! So I want to share it. Not because I think we're the best church or have it all figured out (we will be the first to tell you that we're still broken and still need to look much more like Jesus), but because I believe this is the design of God, the truth of Jesus, and what the Holy Spirit is trying to work in our churches.
I have done my best to transcribe the talk with minor edits along the way to help the written version flow like it should. If you want to listen to the talk, you can download it from our website: http://www.onehopeathens.com/2011/10/the-cchurch/.
My prayer is that our churches and our church leaders search the scriptures and diligently beg for God to conform our churches, and our lives, to His design.
Without further ado, here is the transcript:
"The church universal—we call it the big C church—is all true believers in Christ from the time of Pentecost up to today, until Jesus returns. It is all sorts of people from all sorts of places. It’s a very diverse group. It’s a very large group, a huge group, who, by God’s grace have been saved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, have believed in Him, and in Him alone—that He died for their sins and rose from the dead. So that is to be part of the Church. One key question for every person is: “Are you part of the Church? Are you part of the universal Church—all those who are part of God’s family?” And then we talked about how we are all part of one large Church, but God places and puts us in local churches, in individual churches. Local churches are vital in so many ways, because they are God’s way and method of spreading the good news of Jesus Christ throughout all the world. They are God’s way of developing those who come to know Jesus, that we grow as a family together, that we develop our spiritual gifts, that we encourage, that we edify one another, and are built up in love so that we can be effective to make change and a difference in the world. We come together primarily to remember Jesus and to worship Him. By doing that—by worshipping Jesus, by coming together remembering Him—we keep our focus on what our focus should be on: Jesus Christ Himself. So, there is a problem among any church, or among any group of people who are claiming to follow the Lord, if Jesus is not the head of the church, is not the focus of the church, if Jesus is not the priority of the church, the purpose of the church, and it is Him and His message that we desire to spread to the world. That has to be the case. It all comes back to Jesus.
"That sounds very simple and very obvious, but so often, we can get distracted—churches can get distracted—off of the main point and the main focus. So we come together to worship Jesus, and the leadership of the church starts with Jesus. We believe in a plurality in our leadership. The Scripture calls those elders—also, same word: bishops, overseers. In the local church, they are to direct, to help keep that focus, and to watch over the rest of the folks. But every person in the church needs accountability. Every elder needs to be under the authority of the other elders. We all need authority in our lives. We all need people to speak truth into our lives. We all need people who can direct us. If, at any point in your life, you find yourself without people who have—whom you’ve given—the ability and the right to correct you and to let you know when there is something wrong in your life—if you don’t have that—then you are outside of the covering of protection and you are easy prey, an easy target for the enemy. So don’t be an easy target. In any sort of warfare—and this is a spiritual warfare—you want to band together and stay closely knit together for your own protection. So the role of the church in the world is to worship Jesus, to keep Jesus the focus of the church and of our lives, to teach what Jesus taught.
"One of the key roles of the church is to teach what Jesus taught, to love as Jesus loved—and that’s a sacrificial love, a love that puts the whole as more important than our individual selves. Do we believe that? When you look at everyone in this room tonight, do you believe that the whole is more important than you are? We have to have the focus off of ourselves. When we become mature in Christ—when we grow up in Jesus—we learn that He is the focus, He is to be number one. And others are to be in front of us, and then ourselves.
"So we want to live out the teachings of Jesus. That includes sharing the gospel, helping the poor, setting an example of what is right, speaking out against and working to stop what is wrong. It’s interesting: I saw on Facebook, a friend of mine had posted, there’s this debate about whether we should just preach the gospel, or help people. I’m like, “Are we having a debate really? Should there even be a debate?” Isn’t the better question, “How do we most effectively share the gospel with more people, and how do we help more people to be free from injustice?” Isn’t that the better question? We might debate the methods of doing that best, but there’s no question that we need to share the good news of Jesus Christ, because there is only life—and life-eternal—found in Him. So we have the share the good news. And, if we’re going to be consistent with the life and teachings of Jesus, we have to help people when we can. We have an obligation to stand up for the poor and oppressed. So, in this local church, we try to put those things together as best we can. And a lot of times we’ll even use an issue of social justice to open doors wider for the gospel. That’s the whole thing behind the little pieces of chocolate we’ve been handing out. We’re doing that to help those people, to show that we care about the things that God cares about, and, of huge importance, to open up an opportunity to share with people: “Here’s who Jesus is. And you need Him.” Because the bottom line of our faith, for every last one of us, and every last person on this earth, is: “You are not good enough. You’re a sinner. You failed. You have not met God’s standards. And you are in desperate need of help, because you are also helpless. You cannot save yourself. You have to have Jesus.” And so that is of tremendous importance, and, as a church, we have to get that right.
"But whenever people just start doing good and take the gospel out of it, they strip it of it’s power and it’s eternal good. And whenever people just say, “Well hey. We’ll just tell people about Jesus and not worry about anything else,” that’s a betrayal of the gospel itself. We have to have those things intimately linked. And the Scripture does that, the life of Jesus does that, and we have an example for us.
"And the church has to keep us focused on the eternal—the things which are everlasting. Ultimately, it comes down to God is eternal, His word is eternal, and people are eternal. But stuff is not. And, unfortunately, many churches are acting like they are going to take up permanent residency on this earth. “We’re going to build it, and we’re going to build it to last for a thousand years.” Well, why? Why? Really, a lot of times those things can distract us. So, as a church, we have to be careful about that. In our own lives as well. The Lord knows that you need clothes; the Lord knows that you need food. Right? The Lord knows you need these things. He knows you need shelter. Yet, so often, we end up putting ourselves in positions where we become slaves to things, and we have to continuously have to put more and more time towards stuff and obtaining stuff and maintaining stuff. We need to be careful about that, because, when it takes our time away, takes our focus away from the eternal things, we’re making the wrong choices. But again, do you have people in your life? Are you willing to have somebody say into your life, “Hey, you could be making a wrong choice here. You could be doing something here that is going to harm you or make you a slave financially.” Do we have people who can speak that truth into our lives?
"Philippians 3:17-20 says, “Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame—who set their minds on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.” So what do we have here? Some people are going to end up really messing up what God has given them because they are going to get distracted by things that don’t last, that aren’t eternal. They’re going to have the wrong perspective, the wrong cares; their affections are going to go to the wrong things. But he says, “Don’t let that be you!” Don’t let that be us! We want to understand in that our citizenship is in heaven, that our eternal life is with Jesus. How long is eternity? We can’t even begin to fathom it. Eternity! How long are we here? Most of us, maybe a hundred years? So in the scheme of eternity, a hundred years isn’t long. It’s just a drop in the bucket—a drop in the ocean, really. It’s so small. Yet, many times we find ourselves consumed with the things that are here and now. But God’s people are told, “You are foreigners. You are strangers. This is not your home. With Jesus is—eternity is—but live as a pilgrim.” Does that mean you shouldn’t ever own a house? I’m not saying that. But here’s a question: if Jesus asks you to sell it today, are you going to sell it? If He says, “Sell it and rent an apartment,” are you going to do it? Those are the questions that it comes to. Everything in our lives, we need to hold with open hands before God—it’s a hundred percent Yours. And whatever You want to do with it is fine by me, because You know what’s best. But the problem for so many is that we’re willing to trust Jesus for all of eternity—yes, You died for my sins; yes Jesus, You were born of a virgin; yes Jesus, You are God in the flesh; yes Jesus, You died on the cross for my sins and my sins were actually placed on You, and You paid for them; yes Jesus, You rose from the dead; yes Jesus, it’s been about two thousand years, but You will return; yes Jesus—and Jesus says, “Trust Me with your short time on this earth.” And we go, “Wait just a second. Jesus—don’t You know that I know better? Wiser? Smarter?” Really? You see: no! That’s not how it is. If we’re going to trust Him with the whole, huge eternity, let’s trust Him with the small bit of this life.
"So, as a church we have to trust Him. We have to trust that Jesus’ plans for us are good. And we need to look to Him and pray and discern: ok Jesus, what do You want this little church of Yours to do? And we’re a little church by pretty much all standards. But let’s also be real in terms of the scope or the universal Church—all God’s people—every church is a little church. We can all be humble before Jesus, regardless of the size of the church and say, “Jesus, it’s Yours. What do You want to do with it?”"
"The church universal—we call it the big C church—is all true believers in Christ from the time of Pentecost up to today, until Jesus returns. It is all sorts of people from all sorts of places. It’s a very diverse group. It’s a very large group, a huge group, who, by God’s grace have been saved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, have believed in Him, and in Him alone—that He died for their sins and rose from the dead. So that is to be part of the Church. One key question for every person is: “Are you part of the Church? Are you part of the universal Church—all those who are part of God’s family?” And then we talked about how we are all part of one large Church, but God places and puts us in local churches, in individual churches. Local churches are vital in so many ways, because they are God’s way and method of spreading the good news of Jesus Christ throughout all the world. They are God’s way of developing those who come to know Jesus, that we grow as a family together, that we develop our spiritual gifts, that we encourage, that we edify one another, and are built up in love so that we can be effective to make change and a difference in the world. We come together primarily to remember Jesus and to worship Him. By doing that—by worshipping Jesus, by coming together remembering Him—we keep our focus on what our focus should be on: Jesus Christ Himself. So, there is a problem among any church, or among any group of people who are claiming to follow the Lord, if Jesus is not the head of the church, is not the focus of the church, if Jesus is not the priority of the church, the purpose of the church, and it is Him and His message that we desire to spread to the world. That has to be the case. It all comes back to Jesus.
"That sounds very simple and very obvious, but so often, we can get distracted—churches can get distracted—off of the main point and the main focus. So we come together to worship Jesus, and the leadership of the church starts with Jesus. We believe in a plurality in our leadership. The Scripture calls those elders—also, same word: bishops, overseers. In the local church, they are to direct, to help keep that focus, and to watch over the rest of the folks. But every person in the church needs accountability. Every elder needs to be under the authority of the other elders. We all need authority in our lives. We all need people to speak truth into our lives. We all need people who can direct us. If, at any point in your life, you find yourself without people who have—whom you’ve given—the ability and the right to correct you and to let you know when there is something wrong in your life—if you don’t have that—then you are outside of the covering of protection and you are easy prey, an easy target for the enemy. So don’t be an easy target. In any sort of warfare—and this is a spiritual warfare—you want to band together and stay closely knit together for your own protection. So the role of the church in the world is to worship Jesus, to keep Jesus the focus of the church and of our lives, to teach what Jesus taught.
"One of the key roles of the church is to teach what Jesus taught, to love as Jesus loved—and that’s a sacrificial love, a love that puts the whole as more important than our individual selves. Do we believe that? When you look at everyone in this room tonight, do you believe that the whole is more important than you are? We have to have the focus off of ourselves. When we become mature in Christ—when we grow up in Jesus—we learn that He is the focus, He is to be number one. And others are to be in front of us, and then ourselves.
"So we want to live out the teachings of Jesus. That includes sharing the gospel, helping the poor, setting an example of what is right, speaking out against and working to stop what is wrong. It’s interesting: I saw on Facebook, a friend of mine had posted, there’s this debate about whether we should just preach the gospel, or help people. I’m like, “Are we having a debate really? Should there even be a debate?” Isn’t the better question, “How do we most effectively share the gospel with more people, and how do we help more people to be free from injustice?” Isn’t that the better question? We might debate the methods of doing that best, but there’s no question that we need to share the good news of Jesus Christ, because there is only life—and life-eternal—found in Him. So we have the share the good news. And, if we’re going to be consistent with the life and teachings of Jesus, we have to help people when we can. We have an obligation to stand up for the poor and oppressed. So, in this local church, we try to put those things together as best we can. And a lot of times we’ll even use an issue of social justice to open doors wider for the gospel. That’s the whole thing behind the little pieces of chocolate we’ve been handing out. We’re doing that to help those people, to show that we care about the things that God cares about, and, of huge importance, to open up an opportunity to share with people: “Here’s who Jesus is. And you need Him.” Because the bottom line of our faith, for every last one of us, and every last person on this earth, is: “You are not good enough. You’re a sinner. You failed. You have not met God’s standards. And you are in desperate need of help, because you are also helpless. You cannot save yourself. You have to have Jesus.” And so that is of tremendous importance, and, as a church, we have to get that right.
"But whenever people just start doing good and take the gospel out of it, they strip it of it’s power and it’s eternal good. And whenever people just say, “Well hey. We’ll just tell people about Jesus and not worry about anything else,” that’s a betrayal of the gospel itself. We have to have those things intimately linked. And the Scripture does that, the life of Jesus does that, and we have an example for us.
"And the church has to keep us focused on the eternal—the things which are everlasting. Ultimately, it comes down to God is eternal, His word is eternal, and people are eternal. But stuff is not. And, unfortunately, many churches are acting like they are going to take up permanent residency on this earth. “We’re going to build it, and we’re going to build it to last for a thousand years.” Well, why? Why? Really, a lot of times those things can distract us. So, as a church, we have to be careful about that. In our own lives as well. The Lord knows that you need clothes; the Lord knows that you need food. Right? The Lord knows you need these things. He knows you need shelter. Yet, so often, we end up putting ourselves in positions where we become slaves to things, and we have to continuously have to put more and more time towards stuff and obtaining stuff and maintaining stuff. We need to be careful about that, because, when it takes our time away, takes our focus away from the eternal things, we’re making the wrong choices. But again, do you have people in your life? Are you willing to have somebody say into your life, “Hey, you could be making a wrong choice here. You could be doing something here that is going to harm you or make you a slave financially.” Do we have people who can speak that truth into our lives?
"Philippians 3:17-20 says, “Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame—who set their minds on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.” So what do we have here? Some people are going to end up really messing up what God has given them because they are going to get distracted by things that don’t last, that aren’t eternal. They’re going to have the wrong perspective, the wrong cares; their affections are going to go to the wrong things. But he says, “Don’t let that be you!” Don’t let that be us! We want to understand in that our citizenship is in heaven, that our eternal life is with Jesus. How long is eternity? We can’t even begin to fathom it. Eternity! How long are we here? Most of us, maybe a hundred years? So in the scheme of eternity, a hundred years isn’t long. It’s just a drop in the bucket—a drop in the ocean, really. It’s so small. Yet, many times we find ourselves consumed with the things that are here and now. But God’s people are told, “You are foreigners. You are strangers. This is not your home. With Jesus is—eternity is—but live as a pilgrim.” Does that mean you shouldn’t ever own a house? I’m not saying that. But here’s a question: if Jesus asks you to sell it today, are you going to sell it? If He says, “Sell it and rent an apartment,” are you going to do it? Those are the questions that it comes to. Everything in our lives, we need to hold with open hands before God—it’s a hundred percent Yours. And whatever You want to do with it is fine by me, because You know what’s best. But the problem for so many is that we’re willing to trust Jesus for all of eternity—yes, You died for my sins; yes Jesus, You were born of a virgin; yes Jesus, You are God in the flesh; yes Jesus, You died on the cross for my sins and my sins were actually placed on You, and You paid for them; yes Jesus, You rose from the dead; yes Jesus, it’s been about two thousand years, but You will return; yes Jesus—and Jesus says, “Trust Me with your short time on this earth.” And we go, “Wait just a second. Jesus—don’t You know that I know better? Wiser? Smarter?” Really? You see: no! That’s not how it is. If we’re going to trust Him with the whole, huge eternity, let’s trust Him with the small bit of this life.
"So, as a church we have to trust Him. We have to trust that Jesus’ plans for us are good. And we need to look to Him and pray and discern: ok Jesus, what do You want this little church of Yours to do? And we’re a little church by pretty much all standards. But let’s also be real in terms of the scope or the universal Church—all God’s people—every church is a little church. We can all be humble before Jesus, regardless of the size of the church and say, “Jesus, it’s Yours. What do You want to do with it?”"
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