Church, Part 8 of What We Believe, Part 44

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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January 14, 2025

00:01: Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.
00:10: This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
00:19: Well welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I am your host, Andrew Rappaport, the executive director of Striving for Eternity Ministries and the
00:27: Christian podcast community, of which this podcast is a proud member. We got over 50 heavily vetted podcasts, and you're always going to find something there to listen to because we got a lot of different variety on there, so something to check out.
00:43: Also do always want to mention, you can check out Striving for Eternity. We are a discipling ministry.
00:49: We come to churches, do weekend seminars, help out the local church, and when I say that, I'm speaking of the small local church, not the big ones.
00:56: We try to target those that are, oh, anywhere under 100 people, 20 people's fine, five people actually is the smallest group
01:04: I've ever preached to, and that is fine with us because we want to help the local church.
01:09: That's our mission. So with that, we are talking about our continuing series that we've been doing, and this is on the series of What We Believe.
01:20: This is part number 43, and we've been doing this, and I know we've taken some breaks in between, and I have a new guest host.
01:30: Last guest host in this series we had was Wade Lentz, and he is of the
01:36: Patriot Pastors podcast. Well, now we have the other half of that podcast.
01:44: Harold Smith, it's good to have you here with us. If you could introduce yourself to folks who, if they haven't, well, okay, if they haven't listened to the
01:53: Patriot Pastors podcast, I don't know what's wrong with you people. You should have been listening. It's a really good podcast, great content.
02:00: But if they don't know your voice, how about you introduce yourself, let folks know a little bit about you, and you actually have two podcasts you do.
02:07: You do the one with Wade, and you got one on your own, so let folks know about it. That's right. So I serve as a church revitalization missionary in western
02:16: Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma. I go to churches that can't find a pastor, can't keep a pastor.
02:22: Some of them don't even want a pastor. I try to revitalize them, get them healthy, and then help find a pastor that will stay there and carry on the work.
02:30: In between that, in between these year to two year pastorates in these top churches,
02:38: I host two podcasts, the Patriot Pastor with Wade Lentz. I also do the
02:43: Backwoods Baptist podcast, and I also do a lot of itinerant preaching, and I operate a free
02:49: Christian bookstore where we evangelize people by giving away Bibles, tracts, and books.
02:56: And between those three things, I stay pretty busy. Thanks for having me on, Andrew. Yeah, well, thanks for coming on.
03:02: It's fascinating. You and I got to talk some many months ago, and it was kind of funny how we ended up realizing that we actually had known of each other years before we really connected.
03:15: But I think the work you're doing, and we're going to get into today's topic of the church and the purpose of the church.
03:23: That's today's topic, but I first think it's fascinating what you do with the revitalization.
03:30: Basically, your job is to put yourself out of a job over and over and over again.
03:37: Yeah. I pastored a church for 14 years, and the church was 13 years old, and I was their sixth pastor.
03:44: So that church couldn't keep preachers. And so the Lord used me and gifted me to that, and now
03:50: I took all the lessons I learned in those 14 years, and I apply them to churches in need.
03:55: And the Lord has provided everything I've needed for this ministry, and I thoroughly enjoy it.
04:02: And I hope I live another 20 years, and I hope I can do 10 to 20 churches during that time.
04:07: And to God be the glory. You know, it is a vital work that I don't think a lot of people would think of what you're doing, because, well, first off,
04:18: I think a lot of people don't understand what ministry is, what a pastor goes through.
04:25: But when churches are struggling like that, they've gone through pastor after pastor after pastor, which is hard sometimes.
04:31: Sometimes it's just you have a guy who's been there for 30, 40 years, and everyone's just used to the way he did things, and you kind of need to get a long break for people to kind of forget about the guy that's been there so long so that they can accept someone new, because when they don't do that, they go through people really quick.
04:48: Sometimes it's just the church themselves are just spitting up pastors and chewing them up and spitting them out.
04:55: And so you're going into the situations over and over again where sometimes it could be a bad situation.
05:01: There's a mess to clean up before it's in a state where a guy can come in and not be chewed up and spit out.
05:10: Talk just a little bit, so if people can know your heart a little bit about what you do, because I think it's fascinating, the ministry that God has put you in.
05:19: So most young guys want to pastor a church that already believes just like them and has everything in place, or they want to go plant one and build it exactly the way they want it to be.
05:31: And I'm kind of of the opinion, we have enough churches here in the South. Let's fix the ones we have.
05:37: And so if you were to describe my position as a doctor, let's say, I'm an ER doctor.
05:43: I go where there's been a traumatic event. I diagnose the situation.
05:48: I get things in place and I stop the bleeding, get them back to health. And then the pastor comes in to be the primary care doctor, to oversee the operation, the maintenance, the growth, the increase.
06:01: My job is to really look at what's threatening of life. And I'll just give you an example.
06:07: The last church I was at had eight people in it. It was a sanctuary that would seat over 200.
06:12: They were down to eight. And so when you get in that position, nobody wants to go pastor a church of eight.
06:20: Nobody wants to go to a church where they fought for years or, you know, where the pastor ran off with a secretary or, you know, any number of things that put churches in these situations.
06:30: And I just think the Lord's given me a heart to love these churches. And he's given me the knowledge and the wisdom to see what's wrong, to diagnose the problems, to address them, to bind up the wounds and make them, you know, a viable church again.
06:45: And it's a hard ministry. It's hard to tell people what I do. If I say, hey, look,
06:51: I'm going to Africa to dig water wells, they understand that. If I say I'm going to the church around the corner that nobody's joined in 20 years, they're like, why are you doing that?
07:01: Yeah, these are still the Lord's churches, Andrew. I mean, they're still open. There's still people there.
07:08: So I say if they've got a heartbeat, let's get them back to health or at least let's at least try.
07:14: I believe the Lord can and does close churches. Not all churches need to stay open. You know, some churches would be better off closed.
07:22: A lot of churches need the help I do. Very few want the help I do. And so that's kind of the hindrance in my ministry is finding a church that wants revitalization.
07:33: And I think a lot of churches, they say they want it, but they don't want to make the changes that are necessary for that.
07:40: It becomes a social club. Hey, we're happy with the way we are. We just want young people. We don't want to accept them.
07:47: We don't want any of the changes it would take. We don't want them to share their opinions. We want them to come in and be just like us, you know, and we're a bunch of older people that, you know, we want those young people coming in.
08:00: Please don't bring your kids and have them crying during service. Yeah, and that's the thing.
08:08: It's not like they fill out an application form and I check off all the boxes and then start the work.
08:14: I usually go there and preach for a month and they see and hear my heart.
08:20: They hear the messages I preach during that month. I usually have some very obvious things that need to be addressed.
08:27: And I'll sit down with the church and I'll say, look, if you guys just want somebody to preach until you find your next pastor, I'm not your guy.
08:34: But if you want someone to come in and make the changes, here's what the initial changes. And so I tell pastors, when you go to a new church, don't change a thing.
08:43: Just preach and love the people. But I'm an ER doctor. I'm doing a different kind of work and I make it known on the front end.
08:51: This is what we need to do. If you guys don't want to do that, no hard feelings. But this is what
08:56: God's gifted me to do. I've got a pretty good testimony, a pretty good witness of churches that will testify to my gifting in this particular area.
09:05: Yeah, no, you're right. I mean, this is where you and I have such a similar heart, because you think about this.
09:11: The average church size in America is 75. So when you start thinking about the John MacArthur's at 10 ,000 or the smiling pastor
09:19: Joelstein, you know, with what, 40 ,000, that means there's a lot of churches that are 20, 25 people or less, and nobody—you know, they're basically just, unfortunately, just withering away to die off.
09:36: I mean, it's just a matter of time, and I've been asked this by several pastors, at what point do you just realize it's time to close the doors?
09:47: And now there's one aspect for the pastor saying, well, I gotta feed my family, but the reality is that instead of everyone going, well, let's just plant a new church, there's tons of church planters, and I think it'd be better if we had people just doing like you're doing and saying, no, let's revitalize the church, let's disciple the church, let's get the church that's already established growing.
10:13: And let me say something about this. I could not do the work that I do if I were not supported by a number of individuals and churches on a monthly basis, because the kind of churches
10:25: I go to cannot pay me hardly anything. And even if they could,
10:31: I can't give them the kind of care they need and work a full -time job and just do that on Sundays.
10:37: You know, most of them need physical work done, and so that's the beauty of churches doing missions.
10:44: When a church realizes, hey, there's more to missions than just planting and new nation evangelism, we also have to care for these churches.
10:53: So if you were looking for a New Testament example of my work, Titus, Apollos, Timothy, these men were not apostles, but they were sent to places that needed help.
11:04: And when we talk about the health of a church, I don't think any pastor out there would sign up to Pastor Corinth.
11:11: Corinthians were a whore. But that's why Paul kept sending Titus and Timothy.
11:18: That's why he begged Apollos to come back, and Apollos said, I can't. I'm already in a church doing this work.
11:24: So when we look at that, in my mind, in North America, that's the missing ingredient in our churches, is a missionary to existing struggling churches to get them back on track.
11:36: But it's not something everybody—just like you said, Andrew, you have to have a heart for it. Not everybody's heart's to do what
11:43: I do or what you do, and so the Lord gives gifts to the church. I think we'll talk about that in an upcoming episode to do this kind of work.
11:52: Yeah, I mean, we couldn't do at Striving Fraternity what we do if it wasn't for our monthly supporters that help us go to churches that fly around the country and go into a place where they're not going to pay us anything.
12:06: A lot of times, you know, we don't cover our expenses. That's okay. That's what our monthly supporters help us do.
12:12: So let's get into, if you wouldn't mind, so folks, what we're doing is we're continuing this series on what we believe, and if you want to check it out and read along with us, if you are not driving, that is.
12:24: If you're driving and want to pull over, fine, pull over and read along with us, but don't do this while you're driving, please.
12:31: We are on the Striving Fraternity website, and we're going through the doctrinal statement. Now, if I was to say
12:39: I have no creed but the Bible, every one of the Presbyterians in the audience are going, that's a creed!
12:45: That's a creed! So if I say I don't believe in confessions and creeds, it means I don't hold to them as equal authority or to the
12:54: Bible, and every Presbyterian is going, well, we don't either. Yeah, sometimes.
13:01: Because a lot of times I find that people are, I mean, I've been in some of the churches where they are preaching through the
13:07: Westminster Confession, I go, okay, it's a good document, but it's not the Bible. Well, I honestly can say
13:14: I really don't hold to no creeds or confessions but the Bible because, well, what we're looking at is a doctrinal statement which is basically, well, a creed.
13:26: So we're not saying this is equal and authority of Scripture, but what this is is for Striving Fraternity, we're saying this is what we believe.
13:35: And if you go to strivingfraternity .org, the About section under there is what we believe. You can click on that and we're in the section on the
13:43: Church, and we're going to talk about the purpose of the Church. And so, this is for us to be able to get a better understanding of, as you hear us discuss this, we're going to read a short paragraph, well, actually,
13:59: Harold is, and we're all going to follow along. And the goal of this in the whole series, as I've said each time, is for you in the audience to realize what is behind a doctrinal statement.
14:12: You're going to go look for a new church. I hope on their website they have a doctrinal statement, and I hope that it is more than one page long.
14:23: You know, sometimes it's so short, it doesn't tell you anything. But a good detailed doctrinal statement tells you what they don't believe as much as it tells you what they do believe.
14:34: So, let's take a look at this. We're in a section that starts with the purpose of the Church, and Harold, if you wouldn't mind reading this section for us.
14:42: Sure. The purpose of the Church is to glorify God by building itself up in the faith, by instruction of the
14:49: Word, by fellowship, by keeping the ordinances, and by advancing and communicating the
14:58: Gospel to the entire world. The local Church is a God -centered, Bible -centered ministry that seeks eternal preparation by exalting, by exaltation of God, edification and equipping of believers and evangelization of the world, starting with the local community.
15:18: So, now, as we go through this, folks, especially, maybe not in this episode as much as the next couple that are coming up, we're going to get folks that are going to disagree.
15:29: With the position we take here at Striving for Eternity, and that's okay. We are not saying that you have to believe all of these things to be saved.
15:40: This is the position we take at Striving for Eternity. There are some things that you do have to believe to be saved, but I think this particular one, we're not going to get too many people, whether you're
15:51: Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, we're not going to get too much pushback on the purpose of the
15:59: Church. I think everyone would agree, first and foremost, that the purpose of the
16:04: Church, as we say here, is to glorify God, and if we don't start there, we have problems.
16:10: This is going to be a difference, Harold, I think you'll agree with me, this is going to be a difference between us and the
16:16: Catholics, right? Because the Catholics will say the Church and the Bible are equal in authority.
16:21: They have three authorities. They say the Bible, tradition, and the magisterium, the leaders of the
16:28: Church. And we had on my Apologetics Live podcast recently, we had a
16:34: Catholic come in, he's a, what is it? I probably mispronounced it, but a sedate vacantis, someone who doesn't believe that the current
16:42: Pope is Catholic. They don't believe in anything ever since Vatican II. They think the
16:48: Church has gone apostate and they want to revive it, but the difference is, when
16:54: I talked to him, I said, so you believe that the Bible and the Church are equal in authority?
16:59: He says, yes. I said, but can I interpret the Bible without the Church? He goes, no, you can't.
17:06: I said, well, if I can't do that, then doesn't it sound like the Church is a greater authority?
17:12: Because I need the Church to interpret the Bible. So then, it's really the purpose of the
17:20: Church is, is it God -centered or Church -centered?
17:27: Right? I mean, Harold, you and I would believe in, you know, when we look at the
17:33: Scripture, we would believe Scripture alone, right? Sola Scriptura. As the authority, yes.
17:39: As the authority. But see, in the Catholic Church, it would be, I argue, you know,
17:47: Sola Church. If you're in this Church alone, it would be, you know, the
17:52: Sola, you know, Ecclesia, because it's the Church that's their authority.
18:00: Can I just jump in here for a minute? You mentioned earlier the Westminster, and every
18:06: Presbyterian I know would affirm Sola Scriptura, but they would also make their arguments from the
18:13: Westminster Confession instead of Scripture alone. And so, it is kind of counterintuitive, but the
18:20: Church is not really. The good news is, Striving for Eternity would love to come to your church to spend two days with your folks, teaching them biblical hermeneutics.
18:33: That's right, the art and science of interpreting Scripture. The bad news is, somebody attending might be really upset to discover
18:40: Jeremiah 29 11 should not be their life verse. To learn more, go to strivingforeternity .org
18:46: to host a Bible interpretation made easy seminar in your area. It's the pillar and ground of truth.
18:55: It's kind of the billboard, the structure system that holds forth the gospel to the world. It's God's signpost to the world.
19:04: He didn't write it in the clouds. He wrote it out in the local church, and their submission and love to one another.
19:11: And that's how the world sees Christ, good or bad. That's how they see Christians. And I just look at that first statement, and I'm like, the
19:21: Church is here to glorify God, glorifying through evangelism. I mean, go down that whole paragraph.
19:26: All of those things are designed to primarily glorify Him. He has to be the center, right?
19:33: I mean, look, you're not wrong. We have it even with Baptists, where they'll turn, you ask them a question, they turn to 1689 as if that is the answer.
19:43: Those answers, whether either one of those documents are great, and they're to be a summarization of what
19:51: Scripture says, just like what I have here on our website. But if Harold, you were to ask me a question of what the
20:00: Bible teaches, and I keep turning to this document that I wrote, right?
20:07: It's like, dude, that's not the Bible. And that's, do I put citations to the
20:13: Scripture here? Yeah. But there's a difference with this, and I think people don't realize how easily we can just get off of a
20:25: God -centered Church to a man -centered. And we've seen that in our culture, haven't we?
20:32: Yes. But would you agree with this statement? The Church, this doctrinal statement doesn't tell us what we believe.
20:40: It tells others what we believe. It's just a general summary. It's just a way of saying, hey, here's a summary of what we hold true.
20:49: Now, if you want to know why, we're not going to take you to the document. We're going to take you to the text. Correct.
20:54: We're going to take you to the Scriptures. And that's what everyone should do. And so, as we look at the
21:03: Church, we have to start with the foundation. The foundation, we're saying the purpose of the Church is not for us.
21:09: This is something that a Joel Stein and a Rick Warren, they just don't understand, because with the whole seeker -sensitive movement, it was about how do we appeal to people to make them feel good about themselves so that they would come to Church?
21:27: Well, that's a motivational speaker. People are coming to the
21:34: Church building for the purpose of feeling better about themselves. So when we say the purpose of the
21:42: Church is to glorify God, and we're saying that first and foremost, the point of that is to say we are not about focusing as a
21:50: Church on making people feel better about themselves or their felt needs. The purpose of the
21:56: Church is to an audience of one, God. And as we go through this, there is a mindset and a purpose to every word here, the order of it, and that's why we're going through this the way we are in this series.
22:14: The foundation of the Church for a biblical Church is to glorify God, all the focus being to God.
22:19: So how does that impact your local Church? Well, what songs do you sing?
22:28: You ever think about that? Harold, I know you travel around from church to church.
22:34: I do that as well, although I don't stay and preach as long as you do. I kind of preach once and leave and come back next year.
22:41: But I go around the country, and you know what I find that most churches, what they're singing about?
22:48: Me. Most of the songs being sung in churches are not about God, but about me and my feelings, and if they do sing about God, it's what
22:58: God did for me, not what we should be doing for God and what He did for the world, right?
23:06: That is why this is so important, because if your mindset is that the Church is to glorify God, then we're not going to let some of the practices in that other churches might.
23:18: Yeah, very true. It seems like a mansion on a hilltop outshines
23:25: How Great a Salvation. You know, just to contrast the two, you know, we sing more about the streets of gold than we do the blood sometimes that made atonement for us.
23:37: And so I do travel around. I do preach a lot of revival meetings and conferences, and you can tell a lot about a church by what they sing.
23:46: You can tell a lot about a church by what's important to them. Is the most important thing that all the kids come up and put their birthday money in the little church house on the, you know, and they collect their little mission offering of 12 cents because they're 12 years old?
24:00: I've seen churches spend 30, 40 minutes of a worship service on man -centered things, recognizing the oldest grandmother, recognizing the newest mom, and that all has its place.
24:14: I'm not saying you can't do that, but at some point in time, you have to ask yourself, why are we sitting here in this pew?
24:21: What's the purpose of it? And if it's not to glorify the Father through the proclamation of the death, burial, and resurrection of the
24:29: Son under the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we're doing it wrong. That's right. Yeah, I mean, oh,
24:36: I'm going to get myself in trouble. You know what drives me nuts in a worship service is when they get up and sing happy birthday to someone.
24:44: I just don't want to scream, this is about God, not about us. But that's the whole—see, this is why we have this mindset.
24:53: It changes the way we're going to view what church is about, because we're saying the purpose of the church is to glorify
24:58: God. How do we do that? By having really good programs? Wait, no, that's not what we're saying.
25:04: By building itself up in the faith. How do we build ourselves up in the faith?
25:11: By the instruction of the Word. Well, how do we get that instruction?
25:18: By fellowship, which means we get together and we sit under the Word. How do we do that?
25:26: Well, by keeping the ordinances. Each one of these is purposeful. We're going to glorify
25:31: God in these different ways. We're going to glorify God by building up—by the church building itself in faith.
25:37: So, in other words, you have to have believers that are promoting the faith that is once for all given, that unites us.
25:47: I always find it interesting when people say, oh, doctrine, that's bad. Doctrine divides. Yeah, it does.
25:54: Truth from error. I mean, even if we have a Presbyterian brother here, we're going to disagree on, say, infant baptism.
26:03: They're going to say we're an error for not holding to it. We're going to say they're an error for holding to it.
26:08: But that doesn't mean we're not saved. But it does mean that the way we're going to worship, well, there's going to be certain areas where it's just, hey, we can go this far and no further in this area.
26:21: But you know what doctrine also does? It unites, because where we agree—you know,
26:27: Harold, you and I were talking, right? There's areas, as you read through the doctrinal statement, you're like, hey, we're going to be in a full agreement here.
26:34: Because that's what doctrine does. It unites us together. Yeah, and Andrew, even if I saw something in this statement that I didn't agree with,
26:45: I would lovingly just keep my mouth shut and let you talk, because secondary doctrines, apart from salvific doctrines, are not something that we should isolate someone as saying, you're not part of us, you're not a
26:59: Christian. Paul told them in Romans 16, mark those that cause division contrary to the doctrine which you've learned, and avoid such.
27:08: And so there needs to be a doctrinal clarity, a doctrinal unity in every local church.
27:17: And then there needs to be a protection of that doctrine being eroded away by outside influence.
27:26: And this doctrinal purity is not a bad thing. There's a reason why I don't just join the church nearest to my home.
27:33: We have serious disagreements. Just because a building has church on its sign doesn't mean that the
27:40: Lord's people are meeting on the inside. Doctrine's important. And it doesn't mean that everybody that's not doctrinally like us is not of us.
27:48: Just means we have disagreements on worship and how church should function. Yeah, and those are okay within certain realms.
27:56: Certain wouldn't be, right? If you have the church that you have the Jehovah Witnesses, totally different situation, right?
28:04: But you have a solid Presbyterian church and Baptist church, that's fine.
28:09: They can get together, but are we going to have, you know, baptism services together, right? I'll give an example.
28:16: We had a church that I planted during COVID, and we were looking to rent a
28:21: Church of Christ church, and we were looking to do a baptism, and so we wanted to, you know, if we rented this church, we were going to do a baptism.
28:32: And the pastor of that church was like, hey, we could do it together. And I'm like, yeah, no, we can't.
28:39: I said, we have a totally different view of what baptism is. You think it saves a person.
28:45: We see it as a sign. We cannot do a baptism together, because you're not saved, right?
28:51: And so, you know, we wouldn't do a worship service with them, but can
28:56: I get together with, as I've done with Presbyterian churches, and do a worship service together?
29:02: Yeah, could do that, because we agree on the essentials. So looking at this, we're saying the purpose of the church is to glorify
29:11: God, and this doctrinal statement is going to give us five different ways of doing that. First, we do it by building up the faith.
29:18: The purpose of the church is to get those in the pews and at the pulpit to be built up in the faith.
29:31: Now, I want you to notice what I just said there. It's not the pastor's job to build the faith of those in the pews.
29:39: It's all of our jobs. The pastor needs to have his faith built up as well, and seeing that as the purpose of glorifying
29:48: God. We glorify God when we become more mature, when we're more discipled, when we're more like Him, when we are built up in the faith and serving
29:58: Him. That is one way to glorify God as a church. The second way that we have here is by the instruction of the
30:05: Word. Now, why include that, Andrew? Isn't that so simple? Doesn't everyone know that?
30:11: Well, no, because there's a lot of churches that do dramas on a Sunday morning. They think that's how to do things because that'll entertain people and get people in.
30:20: Well, clearly, if the church's purpose is to glorify humans, then yes, do that.
30:27: Go entertain people. If the purpose is to glorify God, well, He's given us in 2 Timothy 2 .2
30:33: and 2 .15 and 3 .16 and 17, He's told us how to glorify
30:39: Him as a church. It is through the instruction of the Word. It's the preaching of the Word, and oh, that's not modern anymore.
30:47: That just doesn't fit. We don't get to make the rules. We see this.
30:53: It's not like a church is just one day they're preaching the gospel boldly and expositionally, and the next day it's a drama.
31:01: The erosion of the building up by the preaching and teaching of the Word usually starts with a lengthening of the singing service and a shortening of the preaching service.
31:13: We go from a pulpit that's designed to hold the Word and be a position of authority down to just a little stand or a coffee table and a couple of chairs to hold a cup of coffee while you talk.
31:26: All of that is really a reduction of the Word and an increase of either logic or worship style or entertainment, and it happens gradually over time, and that's how good sound churches end up weak and watered down later in life.
31:46: You know, you make a good point. A lot of people don't think about the—I want to say the pulpit, but I'm going to be more specific—the place of the reading of Scripture.
31:56: So you look at some of the old churches over in Europe, the place of the pulpit would be way high up, and everyone had to look up because that's where the
32:08: Word of God was read. You know, in the synagogues, and most may not know this, but in the synagogue you had three pulpits.
32:19: You had the pulpit in the center, and that is where you'd take the scrolls of Scripture and roll them out and read the
32:27: Scripture. You'd have a pulpit to the—if you're in the audience—to the left, and that's where the cantor would lead the singing.
32:37: So you have the singing being led, you have the Scripture that's in the center, and then on the right for the audience is where the rabbi would preach and teach.
32:49: So you had a pulpit in the center. Why? Because that was to symbolize that the Word of God was the center of everything that was going to be conducted there, and so the other two aspects are set apart differently.
33:06: One is for singing, one is for preaching, and so you're right that so many of the churches nowadays have just, oh, well, those little clear plastic pulpits that they can easily pick up and move, and then they get to no pulpit, where it's just the guy has got a little stool, and let's just have a conversation.
33:25: You see, what we're saying here is the purpose of the church is to glorify
33:30: God, and the way to do that is by proclaiming His Word and making that first and center, front and center.
33:37: So it's the instruction of the Word. It's also by fellowship. Now, I think that this one—obviously,
33:45: I did not put this in here because of COVID, because this doctrinal statement is about 25, 30 years old now, but this is important, and we found out during COVID how it is even more important.
34:00: The church cannot glorify God by not meeting, and there are many churches, some for over a year that didn't meet, some still, four years later, still are not meeting regularly.
34:17: Actually, I guess it's going to be five years soon, but they think, well, hey, church is just as, you know,
34:23: I could do it in my bathrobe at home. It's convenient, but the word for church, ecclesia, is a gathering together.
34:31: You cannot do church on your own. You cannot do church watching a screen.
34:38: You cannot do church just you and your Bible, and we've covered this in past episodes in this series.
34:46: Church requires the fellowship. It's actually in the Word for church.
34:53: Well, you know, I've had people say, okay, other than that passage about not neglecting the assembling of yourselves together in Hebrews 10, other than that, where are we commanded to go to church?
35:03: And I would answer there are 76 explicit commands in the New Testament. They all have the word one another in them.
35:11: Greet one another with a holy kiss. How do you do that? Comfort one another. Exhort one another.
35:16: Bear one another's burdens. Love one another. Care for one another. When you look at all the one another passages, there's absolutely no way to do those things apart from physical contact and being in a shared way.
35:31: You can't do that on Facebook Live. It has to be in person. That's right. And leading right into that, the very next one, which is we're saying by keeping the ordinances, because you can't keep the ordinance.
35:43: You cannot do the communion on your own with a little cup and a little wafer.
35:50: You can't do it. Why? Because the idea of communion is not only the self -reflection of your sin, but it is you take it together because you're one body, and you're not one body when you're doing it on your own and everyone else is now.
36:05: You say, well, what about the shut -ins? That's a big struggle with that. We've covered it in the past on here, and I really like—there's one church that I like what they've done is they send deacons out when they do the
36:16: Lord's Supper to all the shut -ins, and so they're sending the church and some people to the people who can't come to church so that they can be part of the church and they do it together then.
36:30: Okay. I think that's a little better, but you by yourself doing it, you're not keeping the ordinances, so the fellowship is necessary.
36:39: So, you don't glorify God and say you're the church when you're not doing the ordinances, having the fellowship.
36:48: It also requires having a leadership, pastors and deacons. You're not doing that by yourself. The Lord's Supper, the instruction in 1
36:55: Corinthians, I believe it's chapter 11. Yes. It's tarry for one another. It's waiting for the other person to get there.
37:03: It's not just eating it all up and let's get out of here. How do you tarry for one another if you're not with one another?
37:08: I mean, church requires fellowship, and I'll tell you what kills a church quicker than anything, in my opinion, is the lack of fellowship.
37:16: When it ceases to be a cohesive body where people love and care for each other, it ceases to function as a church.
37:23: When Christ said, all men will know that I've loved you if you have love for one another, that love for one another requires us to invest in one another.
37:33: When churches don't have love and fellowship, they're just cold dead orthodoxy, and they're on the verge of death.
37:40: See, and the flip side of that is another error. So you mentioned one guardrail.
37:46: The other guardrail is too much fellowship where you're not having the purpose of glorifying God through the fellowship.
37:52: See, if you're just having fellowship for fellowship's sake, you become a social club. Right. And so this is why when we're saying the purpose of the church and we're laying these five out, they're underneath the purpose of glorifying
38:05: God. Your fellowship should glorify God. It's not just hang out.
38:11: The keeping of the ordinances is not just something we do to check off, okay, we did it this month, right?
38:19: It's for the purpose of saying we want to glorify God. We just had the communion in our church this week, and it was good because the pastor just said, gives the instruction, says we do this for self -reflection.
38:31: And he said, let's take a time of self -reflection, what Christ did on the cross.
38:36: And it wasn't like, okay, one minute of silence because people can't handle silence, right?
38:44: No, there was a good five to 10 minutes where he let everyone sit there in silence.
38:50: And I'm sure there's some people that were going nuts in their head because they can't handle the silence of thinking.
38:56: And the reality is the purpose of that was so we would self -reflect. That's the purpose of the ordinances.
39:02: We would have a higher view of God and what he did for us. When we think about like, here's what,
39:08: I mean, this is what was going through my mind this past Sunday is just thinking what the cross was like. Jesus being whipped and beaten, the crown of thorns on his head, being nailed to that cross, being lifted up on the cross, having to push his body up to try to breathe and then letting go because his hands are hurting and the nails and thinking he did all of that because of my sin.
39:32: See, that makes me go, I don't want to sin. And then following that, a message where the pastor is saying like, you know, we got to work on our sanctification.
39:43: Well, yeah, and that's why he did the Lord's Supper or communion first so that we would be really ready for the preaching of God's word.
39:55: But we, you mentioned that we don't do dramas, we do, we preach, you know, we've talked about building up our faith and instruction of the word.
40:03: We have two sanctioned dramas in the church, if you want to think of it that way, the Lord's Supper and baptism.
40:09: They are outward demonstrations, not by actors, but real people reminding, we have real elements.
40:16: We know what this wine represents. We know what this bread represents. It's a physical reminder and a retelling of the story, just like you described,
40:26: Andrew. And we don't get that vivid reminder by just talking about it.
40:32: There's times in the life of a church where we need to see that. Same with baptism.
40:38: That's a reminder of who we were prior to Christ being resurrected in him, dying to self, becoming a new creature.
40:46: All of that is an outward display of an inward reality. And it's wonderful.
40:53: Yeah, I really did not know where you were going to go with that. I was a little nervous, but that is great. That really is a great way to think of it.
41:02: I like that. I wouldn't call it a drama, but it is an outward display. Yeah.
41:08: And I really believe that when the church started baptizing indoors, instead of going down to where everyone was gathered, fishing, swimming, washing clothes, we took away the public demonstration of what we as believers have in Christ.
41:22: A lot of people don't know why baptism is so important, but because we moved it inside where it's only the church and those we invite, maybe people invite their family.
41:32: But when you went outside and you're in a culture where you get baptized, identify yourself with Christ, you're cut off from your family, now all of a sudden baptism has serious ramifications when all of a sudden you're going to be—you're not going to have people that are going to come to your shop to shop with you because you're a
41:52: Christian and you're not Jewish anymore or not Muslim. Right? And so that's why baptism was so important.
41:59: You know, the fifth thing that we have here is—the fifth way of glorifying God as a church is by advancing and communicating the gospel to the entire world.
42:11: Oh, you know, Harold, this is so lacking in so many churches, isn't it? I know so many churches that think that their idea of evangelism is, hey, you want to come out to church?
42:24: And then they call the pastor and say, would you preach the gospel? I've got my neighbor coming out. Right? It's like inviting someone to church is not the gospel, and actually the church service, the purpose of it is not to share the gospel.
42:40: The purpose—as good as sharing the gospel is, the purpose of church is not to share the gospel within the church, although you should because there's still unbelievers in churches, but the purpose of the church is to glorify
42:58: God and the way we do it is to go outside the church to share the gospel, and then as they get saved, they come into the church.
43:07: Is that a crazy idea? That's biblical, equipping the saints for the work of ministry.
43:13: That's the purpose of the church. That's one of the ways that we glorify God is that we don't just have a preacher, a paid professional that does it.
43:21: We have an actual congregation of people committed to each other who are doing it in their day to day lives.
43:28: That's advancing it. Look, they're not only doing it here, they're supporting men in other parts of the world that are doing the same thing there.
43:37: That's why that world is in your confession. It's what's so great in this statement is sometimes churches, they just major on way off missions like we send all of our money to India, or we spend all of our money right here in our own county.
43:54: We need to have the Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, uttermost parts of the world mindset. And when you're saying that for folks who don't understand, that's based out of Acts in the beginning of Acts where they're told, hey, you're in right now, you're in Judea.
44:08: Well, you got to go from Judea to Samaria. You go a little bit further, a little bit further to the outer parts of the world.
44:14: And we're going to get to that in a little bit. That starts at home and then goes out. And there's a danger.
44:19: There's a reason that is listed in this doctrinal statement that way we're going to get to in a moment.
44:25: But, you know, one of the things that we have to recognize is the church should be about advancing the gospel.
44:36: Now, I understand some people are going to struggle because they say, but Andrew, I can't advance the gospel because I can't get up in the morning.
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44:58: Actually, I went to a conference, tasted their coffee and was like, oh, I like this. And they became my new brand of coffee.
45:04: And then I was like, how do we get you as a sponsor? So, we drink
45:09: Squirrelly Joe's. I know if you don't know Squirrelly Joe's, you're not going to get it. Right now, this morning,
45:15: I had a nice cup of Compassion, because that was the bag name that I had. In our house, we try to figure out, my wife will ask me if I need more
45:24: Compassion or I already have it. We're not quite sure. But it's always fun to try the different brands.
45:31: I think one of my favorites is probably Honor. But I get them all. And I just rotate around because I love all of them, except for that one called
45:39: Honesty, because that's the decaf. And I just don't do that. Why ruin good coffee by making it decaf?
45:46: So, if you guys want to get yourself a great cup of coffee and support a fellow
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46:17: That also, by continuing to go through the website from strivingforeternity .org slash coffee, lets them know that you heard about them from us, so that they will continue sponsoring us, which we appreciate because that's the way we can continue doing these shows for you.
46:32: So, and if you're saying, well, hey, the problem is, I don't have a problem getting up in the morning.
46:38: It's going to bed at night. I just can't get enough sleep to go out and share the gospel the next day. Well, we have a solution as well for you, and that is
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46:59: I have a very old mattress, and I got their mattress topper, and it was like getting a brand new mattress.
47:06: I love it. You can go to MyPillow .com, use the promo code again, SFE, for Striving Fraternity, and you'll get the heavy discounts that they offer there.
47:15: MyPillow has gone through, they said, their roughest year ever. They've been kind of shunned because of their support for Donald Trump, and they've been kind of removed from all the big box stores.
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48:12: And so now, let us get to the second part of this. We're now, Harold, in the local church.
48:19: We're local. We say here this next sentence, the local church is God -centered,
48:26: Bible -centered ministry that seeks eternal preparation by three things, and we're going to get those things in a moment.
48:36: Let's start with the local church being God -centered, Bible -centered. We're being really specific here for a reason.
48:43: Striving for Eternity is a Christ -centered ministry focused on equipping people for eternity, and they provide speakers and seminars that come to your church with expertise in theology, hermeneutics, world religions, creation science, evangelism, presuppositional apologetics, church history, and expertise in sexual abuse in the church.
49:03: For details on their seminars and to request a speaker for your church, go to StrivingForEternity .org.
49:09: Striving to make today an eternal day for the glory of God. We at Striving for Eternity believe that we've already expressed the purpose of the church, but the center of the church should start with God, be followed by the
49:25: Bible. That is going to have a drastic way of the effect of the church.
49:31: It's going to affect how the pastor is going to do counseling. Are you going to use the world's methods of counseling?
49:38: Are you going to – is the church going to look to social justice and means of social justice to try to help the world?
49:48: No, no, we're being really clear that the local church is supposed to be centered on God first and foremost, and how do we know about God from His word?
49:58: So we say a God -centered, Bible -centered ministry.
50:05: Ministry – now that we have the idea of social media, ministry has a different connotation.
50:14: So when I wrote this – I know some of you won't remember this time – I wrote this before there was a thing called
50:20: Facebook. Now I was on Facebook, Harold, so early that you had to have a university
50:29: ID, you had to have a university email to be able to join
50:35: Facebook. That's how far back I go with Facebook. And so the thing is, is people don't realize what most people call ministry today is nothing more than platform building.
50:50: It's nothing more than saying, I do ministry, but everyone look at what I'm doing, I'm out here on social media.
50:55: I had someone that asked me – I don't know if you've ever had this experience, Harold – I had someone ask me if I would financially support him in his ministry, and I said, okay, well, talk to me, what's the average week look like for you?
51:10: And he says, well, you know, I usually go to the local campus three days, two days, but sometimes three days a week.
51:19: I usually go on Monday and Wednesday, and sometimes I go on Fridays, you know, weather depending, and I go on campus for – you know, usually
51:26: I'm there for about two hours, sometimes three, sharing the gospel, or I just take my cross and I just walk around campus with my cross waiting for people to ask me questions.
51:38: He had a family of five kids, his wife didn't work, she homeschooled the kids and took care of the family, and he's like, you know, would you support me?
51:49: And I said, no. He's like, well, why not? I said, you know, because I know he spends a lot of time on social media, because when you look on social media, it looks like he's doing a lot, but now
52:01: I realized, dude, you're only working eight hours at what you call ministry.
52:07: Go get a job and support your family, because what you're doing is not ministry.
52:14: You're doing as little as you can so you can go on social media and get a following, because look at what
52:21: I did today, and here's the newest video, and here's this, and then you're asking for money. I said, that's not ministry.
52:29: That's laziness. You know, there's a word that we're using, and we haven't talked about it.
52:35: It's local church. I know a lot of people who do just exactly what you're talking about, and I'll say, who in the world is your pastor?
52:44: You're calling yourself a missionary. Who are you accountable to? What church are you submitting to? Who are your brothers and sisters in Christ?
52:52: And they'll give me some church. I'm in Arkansas. They'll give me some church in Ohio, and I'm like, when is the last time you set in a service there, and oh,
53:01: I haven't lived there in years. I'm like, this would solve the problem, because if you or I had a guy like that within our congregation, we would go to him and talk to him and say, look, this is not a photo op.
53:14: Everything's not a selfie opportunity, but I'm not saying this guy, I don't pretend to know him, but a lot of these kind of issues get taken care of if they are part of a local, visible congregation near them that holds them accountable, that they fellowship with.
53:32: I think that's a missing ingredient in a lot of that type of stuff we see online. You and I feel very strongly about evangelism, right?
53:40: And we've talked about a bunch, right? So I too, I travel around and I do open -air evangelism.
53:46: Fine. Not everyone wants to do that. Not a problem. Believe it or not, it's not the only way to evangelize, folks.
53:53: But I know guys that travel all around and they're doing open -air, what they'll call open -air evangelism, or they'll call it open -air preaching, and then they think they're a pastor because they're on the street corner preaching, and they'll actually work on sermons that way, and it's like, that's not what that is.
54:16: And the reality is, I think, this frustrates me as an evangelist, because I see these guys and I realize so many of them, they're doing that on the street, and a lot of them can be arrogant and rude and they really shouldn't be doing it, but the thing is, they're not doing it under the direction of a local church.
54:36: They're doing it because they can't get a church to approve them. And this is the thing.
54:43: Harold, you're not going to let anyone at your pulpit, would you? No. No. You're going to sit there and you're going to examine them.
54:51: But see, there's a bunch of people that they don't want that kind of accountability. They just want that. They just like to be heard, and they want people to look at them.
54:58: So if they go on the street, they can get that feeling without having to prove themselves, and that's why so many of these guys don't have a church.
55:06: You know, I see guys on the street, or even when I'm evangelizing, people go, I'm a Christian. My question usually is, so what church do you go to?
55:14: And sometimes they can give me the name. The funniest one was the guy that told me, the street on the corner.
55:21: I said, what's the name of it? He's like, the street on the corner. I don't know. I just go, I walk in there.
55:27: And so, but the question I usually will ask them is, what's your pastor's name? That's exactly what
55:33: I was going to say. The second question is, who's the pastor? Is he always like three pastors ago, like 20 years ago, he pastored there?
55:42: Yes. Oh, you've had that too. Yeah. Usually it's, if they could even remember a name, it's usually someone who's not there now.
55:51: Now, my third question is, when was the last time you were there? You know, we've not talked about that, but that is exactly what
56:01: I do when I encounter people like that. It's like, where do you go to church? Who's the pastor? When's the last time you were there?
56:06: Those three questions are standard. That's just beautiful. I thought
56:12: I was the only one doing that because it's just like, you know, they want to say they're
56:17: Christian. They're, you know, and it's like, you know, let me quickly, I know we're going to wrap this up, but I'll tell a quick story is what
56:24: I usually do is people tell me they're a Christian and I'll ask them this. I'll say, well, how many times a week or how many times a month are you reading the
56:35: Bible? So how many times a month do you read the Bible? The average I get is four. And I think what that is is four
56:41: Sundays in the month. That's my guess. And they're not really reading it. They're reading along with whosoever they just go to church.
56:48: And I always tell this, I give this story all the time. And I had one lady, I said to her,
56:54: I said, look, let me ask you a question. Let's just do a scenario. You get married. You go off on a honeymoon, have a great honeymoon.
57:02: And your new husband turns to you when you get back from the honeymoon and says, hey, dear, that was a great honeymoon. I'm going to go back to my place.
57:09: You know, maybe I'll give you a call, you know, four times a month. And she just looked at me and goes,
57:14: I'd kill the guy. I said, why? She goes, that's no relationship. I said, so how much are you hearing from God?
57:22: And she just went silent and realized what I was saying. Yeah, you don't have a relationship when you're just reading the
57:28: Bible four times a month. So we're saying the importance here is the local church.
57:35: And the reason is, is because there are many people who are not part of a local church. I have an issue with people.
57:42: So when we started out in the ministry, when I stepped down from being a pastor and I started traveling and speaking, I got to meet people who are names you all know, and they're traveling every week.
57:54: They're not part of a local church. You know, some of you are maybe thinking of a name, so I'll just name it.
58:00: Steve Lawson. Why did we have the issue that we have with him? Probably because he really wasn't an elder of the church.
58:07: He was a guest speaker of that church that he just came to when he didn't have a job. He didn't have somewhere else to speak, but he was out preaching every week somewhere else.
58:15: He didn't have a local body because he came and preached and then left. So even at that church, he was called a pastor.
58:21: He wasn't really part of the church. He just was a guest preacher who'd come in, preach and leave.
58:27: And there's a lot of guys like that. And I came back to my board and said, we can't do this. I have to be in a local church at least half the year.
58:34: I need to be in a body of believers who don't know me as some guy who's traveling and speaking.
58:39: They just know me as a guy that comes to church. In fact, in my church, my pastor's wife has started a thing where I am not referred to as Andrew.
58:55: I'm referred to as my wife's husband. I don't give my wife's name online, but I'm referred to as my wife's husband.
59:03: She's the one that's there every week, and I'm there at least half the year or more.
59:08: But the idea is that they know me not from what
59:16: I do outside of the church, but they know me for what I do inside the church, that I serve in the children's ministry.
59:23: I serve in helping the cleaning. My wife and I do the children's ministry. We clean the building.
59:29: So yeah, we go around and vacuum and clean toilets and things like that. That's what we do in our local church.
59:38: Do I preach there? Yes, I have. Do I teach? Yes, I have. But we also do the other things that I'm not going to go do when
59:46: I'm traveling and speaking. So the emphasis here is the local church because of a couple things. One, listener, let me ask you a question that may hurt.
59:56: Where does your money go? I ask that because most people, they're very easy to give money to missions around the world.
01:00:08: Someone, as you just said, Harold, you want to dig a well in some foreign country?
01:00:15: Oh, money will go to that really quickly. Go support a guy called your pastor.
01:00:24: You know, in doctrinal statements for churches and bylaws that I've been part of, one of the things
01:00:30: I always put in there in the churches where we do church plants is to say that you don't start supporting missionaries until your pastor is fully supported, when he doesn't need some side job.
01:00:42: Because there are tons of churches, they do plants, and all their money is going to pay other people to plant churches rather than the pastor who's preaching and serving and shepherding them.
01:00:55: That's why it starts at the local church. So we say the local church is God -centered, Bible -centered ministry.
01:01:01: Now, I say here, that seeks an eternal preparation in three ways.
01:01:09: And this is what I think, as I look at the way the church functions, what we see in Scripture is three spheres—God, believers, unbelievers.
01:01:20: And because I'm a pastor, a preacher, I have to alliterate, so we do that.
01:01:26: We exalt, we edify and equip, and we evangelize. You've got your four Es. I know,
01:01:32: Harold, I'm not a really good Baptist. It should have been just three, and it used to be.
01:01:37: It used to be exaltation, edify, evangelize, but that just didn't capture it enough.
01:01:43: So let's look at each of these. The first thing is to exalt God. Everything we do in the local church should be for the exaltation of God.
01:01:53: In fact, I would argue everything that you do in life should be for that. The ministry of striving for eternity.
01:01:59: We do podcasts, we do seminars, all these different things. The purpose is, first and foremost, to exalt
01:02:05: God. The secondary thing—so God is the number one—the secondary is the saints.
01:02:15: And what we do there is to edify and equip. We build them up, and we train them up. That is what we do with the saints.
01:02:23: And then we have the lost. Well, we evangelize them. Now, I want you to notice the purpose of the order, because this is purposeful.
01:02:33: There are churches that make the mistake of thinking evangelism is everything. They've got to reach the lost, and they start putting the lost in front of the saved.
01:02:44: And so what ends up happening is they're trying to do things to get the lost to feel comfortable in the church problem.
01:02:50: And so as we look at that, we're putting this in this hierarchy to say that the local church starts with God, but then the secondary one is the saints.
01:03:03: And this is what we'd see in Scripture with the offering of meat offered unto idols. I mean, that is an evangelism opportunity, is it not?
01:03:12: You have this lost person. You don't want to offend the person you want to evangelize, but what does
01:03:18: Paul say? No, no, no. Your brother comes first. In that situation, your new believing brother in Christ, who's immature because he doesn't know these things, he's your primary thing.
01:03:33: So you refrain. If that means you offend the unbeliever, offend the unbeliever for the sake of the saint.
01:03:45: And then the last thing we're saying here is that we do that. We evangelize the world, but where do we start?
01:03:53: We're saying, starting with the local church. Look, I'm going to speak to people that would be kind of in my camp, okay?
01:04:04: The evangelist. If you're not evangelizing as part of your church, then please don't be evangelizing without a church.
01:04:16: In other words, it's okay to go. I mean, look, I used to go to New York City and do open air almost every weekend for years.
01:04:24: Actually, like a decade, more than a decade I would go until New York got too expensive to go to.
01:04:30: I just couldn't afford it. And so the reality is I used to go regularly there. Where's my church?
01:04:36: It's not in New York, right? But I do outreach with my church.
01:04:42: We would do that on Friday nights to get people from the church to go out to our area to do evangelism, okay?
01:04:51: If you're not doing it as part of your local church, then maybe reconsider. Because maybe
01:04:58: God, if God gave you a desire to do evangelism, maybe that desire is for your local church.
01:05:03: We're going to get into in an episode, probably two episodes from now, we'll get into gifts and the fact that everyone's given a gift.
01:05:09: But if God has given you a gift, it's for your local church. So if God is giving you a desire to evangelize, use it first in your local church before you go outside of the church.
01:05:22: That would be my encouragement to you. So with this, wrapping this up, Harold, I'll give you last word.
01:05:29: Any things you want to wrap this up with? Well, you said it earlier, audience of one, if you take dead aim at exalting
01:05:39: God, you by its very nature equip saints. If you take dead aim at exalting
01:05:47: God, you by your very nature will evangelize sinners. Now, it won't appeal to everybody.
01:05:53: It won't be as popular as the pony rides and free hot dogs. But that's not the purpose.
01:05:59: The purpose is to exalt God. And so if you put out sheep food, sheep will eat it, you know, and sheep food is a proper preaching of God, his his his son, his word, an understanding of his spirit.
01:06:14: All of this, the triune God properly laid out through the word of God does everything you described at the end of that paragraph.
01:06:22: And it does it perfectly. And so I think it's spot on audience of one focus on God.
01:06:28: Everything else takes care of itself. And so, folks, we'll come back to this next week, discussing more of the church, and we'll have
01:06:37: Harold on. But go check out the Patriot Pastors podcast to hear more of his insight.
01:06:44: I love every one of those episodes. I've heard every one of those episodes, so I can recommend it without a problem.
01:06:50: But check them out. And folks, with that, that's a wrap. This podcast is part of the
01:06:57: Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.