On The Road - Episode 4 - God Centered Church: Who He Is & Who We Are

God Centered Theology

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Hello and welcome back on the road. This is Andy Cain and it is September 4th 2024 and this is the podcast that takes you from carpool to work

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Talking about all things related to the church so that we can be a God -centered Church Tried to do one of these yesterday and I found out that the particular app that I was using to record

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Not Necessarily the best I got done and started to listen back checking for quality issues

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And let's just say the quality was not so good So we are back and better than ever and this should be good to go here

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Today, I want to talk about the fact that Now that we know who the owner and the king of the church is that's

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Jesus Christ We need to know who he is and who we are

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Who he is and who we are well He is

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Jesus Christ. He is the suffering servant of Isaiah He is the coming

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Messiah. He's the one that Abraham looked forward to his day but before Abraham was

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Jesus already was he is the eternal creator The second person of the

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Trinity. He is the eternal God He is the maker the heaven of heavens and earth

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He is the one through which whom all things were made he is the Savior of the earth

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He is the Savior of his people He's the one who guides us. He's our Shepherd He is the

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Great Shepherd the door the light of the universe the light of the world He's all these things.

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He is the only Acceptable sacrifice for sin He's the perfect sacrifice for sin, he's the perfect Savior Jesus Christ is the answer to every question regarding our salvation

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Jesus Christ is The head of the church. He is the director the one who decides

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Which way it should go how it should operate we are the body So we are the ones that perform actions that the head directs us to perform

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Jesus Christ is a friend that sticks closer than a brother does. He is the one that never forsakes us the

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God Almighty the God eternal And without this understanding of the deity of Christ There's no understanding of to what true atonement is because true atonement is found in the person of Jesus Christ well, that's who he is and Here's the reason why he and he alone gets to Direct the church.

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He transformed us from the domain of darkness or transferred us from the domain of darkness into his marvelous light

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He's the only one that can lay claim to being perfect righteousness

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Since we are none of these things We can't make that claim We can't stand up and say well you ought

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You should We are in no position to do so Christ Jesus himself

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Can tell us we should we ought in fact We are told in the Great Commission for the church to teach all the disciples that come from all the nations after we baptize them in the name of the

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Father Son and Spirit we are to teach them all That Christ is commanded

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He commands we don't he instructs we don't he alone decides

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Who should be running his church Who should be making decisions? who should

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Be a part of his church He's decided that it's all those that have been saved by grace and mercy through faith

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Because of the atoning work sacrifice that Christ made on the cross and since he's all those things

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That means we're not He is uniquely qualified to be the head of the church.

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We are not We are part of his church. We are members of his church.

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We are called into Relationship with him right relationship with him and become part of his church when we are

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Adopted into his family one of the cliches you hear a lot is, you know, we're all children of God You know, we're all just children of God well

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According to Scripture, that's not true There are children of God and there are children of the devil children of righteousness children of sin

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You have to be adopted into the family of God and Just like when we may do adoptions, you know here as people we go out and find the the children

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We want to adopt and choose them and then adopt him. He chooses us and adopts us into his family

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We are the sheep of his pasture We need his direction. We need his instruction.

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We need him to teach us every Position in the church, which there's basically three primary positions

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There's well all people are part of our congregants. Even pastors are part of the congregation.

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They're part of the Shit the sheep that are the part of his pasture but whether you are elder deacon

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Congregant we all are to be submitted to Christ Submitted to his

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Word even the elders slash pastors and those are interchangeable terms for the same office they are commanded to conduct oversight and They're commanded to do that in a certain way not lording it over people because it's not their oversight

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It's not their church and every good pastor would do good to be reminded that it's not their sheep

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It's Christ sheep Christ died for him. Not you Yes, we are commanded to conduct oversight

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We're not commanded to be employees or work for the deacons or work for the congregation We're there to work for God just like the deacons are there to work for God the congregants of their work for God We're all there to work for God.

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We're all playing a role It's just and we'll talk about this another day. It's just when that's you know Americanized version of the

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Constitutional Republic form of church where we think the pastors the employee and since we pay him that gives us

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Authority over him, which is utterly sinful Except when you don't do when you do that, you know

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We're in a proper God -centered church. The elders are perfectly or not perfectly, but they are

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Intentional about being submitted to the Word of God and not lording it over the people The deacons are there to assist the elders and they primarily care for the physical needs of the church

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They are the ones that primarily do the visiting now if someone is sick and calls on the elders they can go and pray with them but is the primary duty of the deacons to care for the physical needs of the church and So they are submitted to God and submitted to Christ and submitted to his

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Word The car gets are there to discover their gifts develop their gifts use them to edify the body build them up Do the work of ministry learn under proper instruction

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Love one another be tender -hearted towards one another help each other in all sorts and ways

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But they are to be submitted to Christ there. They are Submitted in the sense to elders and that they place themselves under rank under them recognizing what they've been called to do

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But ultimately their submission is to Christ they will Put themselves in submission to proper biblical leadership

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Not because that leadership deserves it But because it's their submission to Christ that they do that because Christ has commanded them to do so just like the elders

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Will conduct of course, we're talking about biblically qualified ones mature ones

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Which is why this will be a whole episode for another day making sure your elders are properly prepared before you put them in charge but your

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Elders and your deacons and your congregants are all submitted to Christ and if they do any type of oversight any type of decision -making

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It's never coming from them But what they feel Christ would have them to do and that's something that is the key difference between a

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God -centered church and a man -centered church man -centered church worries first and foremost about what he thinks and what he feels what he wants to do a

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God -centered church. The primary concern is gonna be what has God said? What would God have us to do and if we don't feel a clear indication?

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Either from a clear command of Scripture or from what the Spirit is prompting us to do through prayer We don't do anything because we don't want to get ahead of God.

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And so That's who Jesus is. That's who we are We have our proper places our proper roles all of us that are church members are part of the body

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It means we might be a hand or a foot or an arm or we may have different roles and different things

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None of us are the head Christ alone has that role and so I just want to make sure we

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Emphasize that more than anything else that the God -centered church has its proper submission to Christ Who is that loving

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Savior that loving Shepherd the loving God who saved us? adopted in his family made us a part of his church and Is the one who leads his church and it's building his kingdom and reigning

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And he will reign until all his enemies have been put under his feet and he will usher in the eternal state and we will

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Live forever with him. Amen. Well, thank you for joining me on this episode of on the road I have reached work

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So that means this episode is over because otherwise I'd be a hypocrite or liar When I tell you this at this podcast about taking you from carpool to work.

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Well, I started at carpool We're now at work. So it's over. Have a great day my friends