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Learning about God's Word, and for the rest of us, we're actually beginning a new sermon series today. Been a joy to spend the summer working our way through 1st Peter, and so we, with the fall beginning, are beginning a eight-week sermon series that I have entitled, Simple Church, Volume 2, Back to Basics.
Now, if you're wondering, why is it called Volume 2? Well, back in January, we did a sermon series called Simple Church, where we looked at the concept of the means of grace, or what some call the ordinary means of grace.
These simple things that God gives us from His Word to strengthen our faith as God's people and to bolster our worship as we come together. So we did that back in January, and so here we are now, it's the fall, and we are kind of doing a second part to that series, as it were, as we take a few weeks to really ask the question, when the Bible talks about the church, and when it talks about our involvement in the church, what does that mean?
Now, my hope with this series is multi... what's the word I'm looking for? I can't find words today. I have multi... thank you, multifaceted, someone said that. Perfect. Thanks, Tiffany. For one thing, I think it's always good for us to never assume that we know what the church is all about.
I think assumptions are a very dangerous thing, especially when it comes to the spiritual life. I'm in the camp of Peter, who says in his second letter that I don't consider it a light thing to stir up your minds by way of reminder.
I think it's always good to be reminded of some basic things, and so that's one reason. A secondary reason is some of you have asked me about becoming members, which is wonderful. Great, we believe in membership here.
Well, consider this a mass membership class, if you will. So for those of you who took the membership class a while ago, a lot of this is going to sound like reminder, which is good. I will... I've actually added a couple of messages for the last time I taught the membership class, so there'll be some new stuff as well.
And I hope for those of you who are considering membership, the next eight messages will give you some categories really for asking the question, is this church in particular a place I could see myself calling home?
I am not big on strong-arming people into making decisions, especially when it comes to something as serious as where you go to church. So for the next eight weeks, consider this a... consider this an opportunity, really, to think through some biblical categories and to ask ourselves, okay, not just what is a church, but is this church meeting that standard?
I think a third reason I want to do this is, I think for many of us, the last two years and the events of the last two years have unconsciously brought about a dent in our understanding of and our commitment to the church.
We've all felt it on some level. I remember telling a fellow pastor early on when we started to reopen back in 2020 that if we think that basically shutting down the church around the world for weeks on end wasn't going to affect the body of Christ, I'm sorry, you have to be kidding me.
And I think it did, in a lot of ways. I'll get into that as we start the sermon. And so my hope with this series, really, is to, again, encourage us to think through the idea of the church, to think through why the church, why be a part of it, what does a healthy church look like.
And so today, we're going to spend, like I said, eight weeks thinking about a number of questions related to the church. Now, I know that a lot of what I'm going to say is going to raise questions. And so for a while now, I've been thinking about this, just in general with our preaching.
I know I can become somewhat long-winded sometimes. I readily own that. And so I realized that, okay, I say a lot, I say a lot quickly, and that means at times people may have questions and not know where to go with those questions.
Now, some of you do message me regularly with the questions you have. Thank you, greatly appreciate it. Helps me know that, one, you're listening, and two, you want to understand. That's great. But I recognize that people will have questions and not always remember or have the time or have you to engage those questions.
And so I took a leave from a few friends of mine, various pastors who do this, and something that we're starting, and I say we because it's going to be myself and Brother Eddie, we're starting something we've called the Cutting Room Floor.
Essentially, what I want to do is, for a few minutes every week, along with Eddie, kind of talk about the stuff that I had to leave out the sermon. You may think, you leave stuff out of your sermon? Yes, I actually leave a lot out of my sermons.
And so the stuff that didn't make it into the sermon I want to talk about, but I also want to take your questions. And so up on screen now should be an email address, cuttingroomfloor .org. I invite you to each week as you're hearing this series, and we'll see how it goes with this series.
If it's helpful, we might just keep doing it after this. But the aim of this really is to take your questions about this. Those of you who've been in my membership classes, you know I like to make them very interactive.
I like people to ask questions, to bring up concerns, anything. Well, consider this a means of doing that. Another means by which we hope to be able to have some good discussions about some of this is, we're starting our growth groups this week.
And so my hope is that in the growth groups that we have, we've got one in Medford, one in Central Point. Again, we're kind of doing it on a geographical basis, so those who live closer to Medford, we meet on Wednesdays at seven at our place.
Those who live in Central Point, that'll be Thursday night at seven at the Thomas'. Let me make sure I get that right, because I got it wrong in the email yesterday. But my hope is that in the growth groups, we can have further discussion and encourage and challenge each other along these lines.
So that's kind of my opening pitch for this sermon series. But let's get to the sermon itself. If you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, take them and turn with me to Matthew chapter 16. Matthew and chapter 16.
In your bulletin there, there should be a study guide that'll help you to kind of follow along as we work this afternoon. Matthew chapter 16 and reading verses 13 to 20. If you grabbed one of the red hardback Bibles in the back, that's our gift to you by the way, that should be page 871.
Matthew chapter 16 verses 13 through 20, page 871 in the Bibles we give away. And it's our custom here at Redeemer that as we read God's Word, we stand in reverence for it. So if I can invite you to stand one last time with me.
Matthew chapter 16, reading from verse 13 through to verse 20. Matthew chapter 16 from verse 13 through to verse 20. Brothers and sisters, once again, these are God's words. When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is?
They replied, some say John the Baptist. Others, Elijah. Still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. But you, he asked them, who do you say that I am? Jesus responded, oh excuse me, Simon Peter answered, you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
Jesus responded, blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but my Father in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. Then he gave the disciples orders to tell no one that he was the Messiah.
The gospel is a flower phase, but this Word of God will abide forever. Join with me as I pray, ask for the Spirit's help, and then we kick off this series called Simple Church Volume 2. Let's pray together.
Father of mercies and God of all comfort, we thank you for another opportunity to gather as your people and to hear you speak to us through the preaching and the teaching of your Word. Pray that as we begin this sermon series that you would, as I pray every week, open eyes and enlighten hearts.
Allow us to see the glory of this beautiful living organism you've created called the church. Father, teach us, encourage us, challenge and convict us, and ultimately build us up as your people. Father, as I pray this, I pray for our friends at Redeemer Bible Church in Gilbert, Arizona.
It was a year today that I met with them, and they made their gracious offer to give us oversight and help. We thank you for them. Thank you for all that you are doing in that body. Thank you for what a blessing they've been to us and continue to be.
We continue to pray as we think through, and we kind of hit the homestretch of organizing, coming under their leadership and their help. Father, I pray personally for Pastor John, who's in the hospital right now with kidney stones, was unable to preach this morning because of the pain.
Pray for him that you would speed his recovery, that he would be made whole and be restored back to his family, to his congregation. We pray above all that your glory would be seen in that local body as the gospel is made visible through them.
And Father, may the gospel be made visible through us, beginning even with this sermon. We ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Amen. Please be seated. I've titled this opening message simply a question, what is the church?
What is the church? As a millennial, as the title goes, if there's one thing I love doing, it's watching tutorials on YouTube. I don't know about you, but I have learned a ton of things through simply asking how to, followed by what I need from YouTube.
And in a lot of ways, at times I'll watch some tutorials, but yep, this is way beyond me. This is talking to people who are experts. But I've noticed that the best tutorials don't assume a knowledge of the basics.
They have no problem in telling you even the most basic things. The most helpful tutorials start from step one, or step zero as the case may be, and bring you up to speed. The reality is, though, there are lots of people for whom those tutorials are kind of frustrating, because in their minds, well, of course I know it.
I know the basics. I don't need the basics. I have a specific task I need done, and I need that task done now. But it's always a dangerous thing to assume we know the basics, don't we? Because the reality is that in any field, if you don't know the basics, you can't do the more, quote unquote, advanced stuff.
So for example, I like to cook. The reality is, if you don't know how to use a knife, you're going to have a really hard time cooking anything that doesn't come out of a microwave. If you don't know the difference between various kinds of wrenches, like me, chances are you're not going to get very far trying to fix parts on your car.
There are certain fundamental things you need to know before you can do anything. Well, as somebody who's been a Christian worker for many years, I'm astounded by how that simple concept seems to often be lost on Christians.
The reality that if you don't know the basics, you can't go any higher or go any deeper. And in the last few years, I've grown increasingly conscious of the fact that there is no area where that reality, the reality that you need to know the basics before you can do anything else, there's no area that I think this reality has become more conscious for me than when it comes to this idea of the church.
I'll be honest with you and say until about five years ago, I kind of assumed a lot of things about the church. Sure, I had heard messages on the church, I have taught lessons on the church in the past, but I kind of assumed a bunch of things in that time.
I mean, after all, if you've been a Christian for any length of time, you've been in church, you've been around church people, you've been in church buildings, so surely you know something about the church, right?
But allow me to push back on that just a little bit, and I'm going to do it in the most objective way possible. I'm going to give you some statistics. A study conducted by Lifeway Research and Evangelism Explosion just this past summer noted the following, that among Christians, we're not talking about the world at large now, among professing Christians, church attendance has declined from 64 in 2019, the year before the pandemic, to 57 this year.
The study noted that while more churches are open in 2022 than are still closed, attendance is expected to plummet further and further. Now some would say, well, people are still nervous about the pandemic and what have you.
Well, the latest Gallup study that was done just this past June says that almost four in five Americans, 79%, say that their lives are at least somewhat, if not completely, back to a pre-pandemic normal.
As a pastor, I look at all of that information, and I have to concur with Aaron Earls, who wrote the article that I read from Lifeway Research, who said, quote, for the vast majority of still missing churchgoers, their absence is not so much an intentional decision, but the unintended creation of a new habit.
What's the new habit that he says? The new habit is the practice of spirituality independent from local church communities. The practice of spirituality independent of local church communities. Well, I'm just going to be honest and, like, put my cards on the table.
I don't believe that is God's will for the Christian. I don't believe that it's God's will for you to practice your Christian life by yourself in isolation from a healthy New Testament local church. I believe that God wants you to be part of a gospel preaching, Bible teaching, Christ exalting church.
But the reality is, you can't be part of something that you can't identify. If you don't know what you're looking for, you know, what's the saying? If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time? Well, that's kind of true when it comes to the church.
If you don't know what you're looking for, guess what? You won't find anything, and you won't find anything every single time. And so, like I said, for the next eight weeks, we're going to ask eight fundamental questions.
Eight questions which should hopefully help you in finding out what a healthy church is. If you want to know what the questions are, on our welcome table at the back, there is a bookmark with all eight sermon titles.
I encourage you to grab that. If I may be so forward, I hope that this will help you to identify for those of you who come here, is this a healthy church? And I hope that if this isn't your church, or if the Lord wills it, you go somewhere else.
I hope to give you some categories at least, so that when you look at other churches, you can ask, is this a church that I can see myself plugged into and a part of, or not? As I said, a number of you have approached me about membership, which makes me very glad.
And so for you, I invite you to listen to these messages closely, and don't just listen to these messages, compare me with the scriptures. Check me out. A number of you are members, which makes me glad.
For you too, again, listen to these messages and compare me with the scriptures. Check me out and see if, as the book of Acts says, these things are so. And I'm not naive to think that statistically speaking, there's somebody sitting in this room who has no thoughts about the church one way or another.
Or worse, you've got some bad thoughts about the church, and you just don't know it. Well, I hope that the next eight weeks will birth a passion in you for the local church as Jesus describes it, and as the Word of God describes it.
Now, I need to say something about how this series is going to work, because it's going to sound, and at times look, very different to series that we've done in the past. For one thing, at times this is going to sound more like a lecture than a sermon.
By that, I mean I'm going to be aiming more in this time to inform than to inspire, if that makes sense. Now, I hope that inspiration happens as a result, but really, I'm just going to go to the Bible, and we're just going to look at the Bible.
Consider these Bible studies versus typical sermons. And I say that to kind of set expectations a little bit. I told myself when I was writing this message, Kofi, you're not going to get as animated as you do in your sermons.
I can't guarantee that. I'm not going to lie to myself. But I do want to teach this in the kind of way where I can be as clear as possible. And so at times, the format will feel like a lecture. Sometimes it may feel more like a sermon, and in the words of one of my favorite people, Abner Chow, this may sound like a lermon, not part, lermon, you know, you've heard that phrase before, not part, not quite lecture, not quite sermon, it's somewhere in the middle.
It will kind of feel like that at points. And that means at times I won't be as quick to make applications as I usually would in my preaching, but I'm hoping that now that we have these growth groups, as well as the cutting room floor that we're starting, that with these platforms and opportunities, that we'll be able to have some more of those applicational conversations in groups, Lord willing.
Well, this afternoon, like I said, we're starting at the very beginning, and we're really just asking the question, what is a church? What is a church? Here's my basic definition I want you to work with for not just this message, but the rest of our series.
It's my big idea for today. What is a church? Well, when we read the Bible, the Bible makes it clear that a church is the body of people called out by God's grace through faith in Christ to glorify him together by serving him in the world.
Let me say that again. The church is the body of people called out by God's grace through faith in Christ to glorify him together by serving him in this world. That's what the church is. For the rest of our message, I want to demonstrate that from the pages of scripture and from the pages of church history.
So for the rest of our time, I've got three sets of truths I want us to consider, three sets of truths that will help us to properly and biblically define what the church is. I'm going to kind of start from degree of most importance and kind of work my way out that way.
So three sets of truths. The first set I'd like you to consider real briefly with me this afternoon, look at these biblical pictures of the church, the biblical pictures of the church. One of the ways in which God teaches us as his people is that he often uses pictures.
He uses sets of words that communicate something in terms we can understand. Jesus was fond of doing this. So for example, he would refer to himself as the true vine to his audience. They saw vines all over the place.
He knew what a vine was. He calls himself the good shepherd, or the door, or a rock. He calls himself so many different things. Why? Because these are pictures that your mind can, as it were, sink its teeth into and understand.
Well with the church, it's no different. When we look at the bible teaching about the church, the bible uses a variety of pictures to talk about the church. For the purpose of our study this afternoon, I want to focus on three of those pictures, because I think they're the most critical ones to understanding what the church is.
Consider with me, first of all, what we'll call the assembly. The bible refers to the church as the assembly, really just this communicates this idea of the church as gathered people. The church as gathered people.
I try not to use too much Greek in sermons, but I will need to use one Greek word just to make sense of what I'm saying here when I talk about the church as gathered people. The new testament word for church is the word ekklesia.
E-double-k-l-e-s-i-a. Ekklesia. And it carries this idea of people who are gathered together. Now some of you, if you've gone to church, you've heard people say it's the called out people. It's true to an extent, but it's not just called out in general.
It's called out for the purpose of assembly, of gathering together. So when you read the new testament, it's funny, the word for church is used in contexts that have nothing to do with the Christian church.
So in Acts chapter 7 and verse 38, Stephen, and remember we read this in our scripture reads a few months ago, Stephen talks about the church in the wilderness, some translations have, or the gathering in the wilderness, referring to the children of Israel, it's the same word.
In Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 12, quoting from the Psalms, the word that's translated in the assembly of your people, assembly is the same word. Church. Ekklesia. In fact, in Acts chapter 19, the word appears three times.
If you're taking notes, Acts 19, 32, 39, and 41. Three times that word is used for a group of people coming together, and in one case, it's talking about a riot, but it's the same word. A gathering. And when it's applied to the Christian church, there are two kinds of uses you need to think about.
Those of you who are somewhat read in theology, you know what I'm about to say next, is what we call the invisible church, and what we call the visible church. The invisible church and the visible church.
Let's start with the invisible church. When we say that there is such a thing as an invisible church, we simply mean the assembly of all the people of God everywhere and throughout the ages. The assembly, or the gathering together, of all the people of God everywhere and throughout the ages.
So maybe I can illustrate this in a way that would be helpful. We can talk about the church in Medford, and when we simply, when we say that, most of you understand that I'm not talking about one specific local church in Medford.
I'm talking about all of the believers in Medford who together make up the church. I could talk about the church in the state of Oregon, and you would generally understand what I mean, even though I just butchered how you pronounce the word Oregon.
If I say the church in the US, we generally don't mean, okay, there's a state church in the US. No, we just mean all the believers in the US, and so on and so forth. We understand that that word can have a broad meaning, just referring to God's people.
This is the church, if you will, as God sees it. All of the people that the Father chose, that Christ died for, and that in time the Spirit brings to saving faith. I think we can see a biblical example of this.
Turn with me to Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians chapter 3. Because of time, I wanted to read verses 1 through 10, but I'm going to skip down to verse 8. Paul is talking about this mystery, this knowledge that was once hidden but now is made known.
The Gentiles are co-heirs, verse 6, members of the same body, and partners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Jump down to verse 8. He says, this grace, the grace to proclaim this message, was given to me, the least of all the saints, to proclaim to the Gentiles the incalculable riches of Christ, and to shed light for all about the administration of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things.
Verse 10 is where I want to draw your attention. Why does God do this? Verse 10. This is so that God's multifaceted wisdom may now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavens.
We'll talk about this next week when we talk about the purpose of the church, but Paul says that right now the church, the gathering of all of God's people, exists to put the wisdom of God on display.
As one of my favorite authors on the subject of the church, Dr. Mark Dever, puts it, the church is the gospel made visible. That's the church as God sees it. This universal body through which his glorious wisdom is being put on display.
It's interesting he says that this is to the rulers and authorities in heaven. I wish I had time, I think in a future message I'll get there, but Paul says that the theater is, the church excuse me, is the theater in which the glory of God is being put on cosmic display, and when he says this, he's not just talking about the church in Ephesus.
It's very clear he's speaking about something that supersedes just that one local expression of the body of Christ. Even in the text that we read to begin, Matthew chapter 16, remember verse 18, Jesus says, I will build my church.
Again, he's talking about something bigger than just one local assembly. Jesus tells Peter in that text that upon the confession of faith in Christ, which by the way that's what I think the rock is, I don't think the rock is Peter, but that's a debate for another time.
For now, he says on the basis of that confession, he would build his church. Maybe a good visual way to think about this is to say church with a big C. So we're not thinking local churches, we're now thinking church with a big C, but actually that usage for the word church is pretty rare.
The vast majority of uses in the New Testament for this word church, they're talking about what we can call the visible church. We're talking about the body of believers. Let me put it this way. I heard this years ago, and it was helpful to me.
A way of thinking about the relationship between the invisible church, the church as God sees it, and the visible church, what we see. The visible church is when the invisible church makes its imprint in time and space.
So there is the spiritual reality we call the invisible church, all the people of God, but in time and space, the way you know that there is an invisible church is because there are visible local churches, that there are visible expressions of Christ's body.
And when you read the New Testament, that's the majority of the way the church is discussed. In fact, this word for church appears 114 times. 109 of the uses. So think about this, 109 over 114, that's in the high 90s.
109 uses refer to local churches or groups of local churches. You see, we might never know who fully makes up the invisible church in this life, but we see churches in time and space, and through that we know that the invisible church exists.
That's how we can talk about the church being the gathering of all God's people through the ages. Why? Every time you've seen the people of God visibly, we know, okay, there is this spiritual reality called an invisible church.
Now, of course, that's not saying that everybody who comes to a gathering of the church is indeed a member of the invisible church. Of course, we don't mean that people come who are visitors, who maybe don't know.
We're not saying that just because somebody's in the building, they're automatically a part of the church. Of course not. In fact, when we talk about church membership in week three, we'll talk about that in more detail, but the reality is that this invisible church that exists, we know it exists because there are local gatherings of God's people, and for me, that leads to two important implications before we move on.
First of all, while all Christians are part of the invisible church, the Bible knows, and this may be a strong statement, but I think I can back it up. While all Christians are part of the invisible church, the Bible knows nothing of a Christian who isn't connected to a single local body of believers.
I'm wrestling as to whether I want to say more about that or not, and I think I might for just a second. One of the most popular objections to what I've just said is people say, well, I'm part of the church, so I don't feel like I need to be constrained to one body.
Okay. Here's the problem with that. The majority of the time when, we just said it, 109 out of 114 times, when the Bible talks about the church, it's talking about local bodies. As we will see in two weeks when we think about church membership, there are a number of functions the church is supposed to have.
That implies that you have a body of believers who are known, who can be accounted for, that there is, as my pastor back in London used to say, that there is an in and an out, that there are people who are in this local body and there are people who aren't.
And so, in the biblical understanding, all Christians, again, we understand that there are unique circumstances where that may not be the case, where you may not be able to gather with God's people, but there should be, normatively speaking, some sort of connection to a single local body of believers that we can say, this is my church.
If I can get even more controversial, number two, second implication, I think, I might offend a few people with this, but here it goes. I'm sorry, there's no such thing as a church that doesn't meet. I'll put it to you, the last two years, I love computers, the last two years introduced a bug into the collective thinking of so many Christians.
I feel, I'll be honest, I feel trapped to it. The thinking was, well, we're not meeting together, we are not gathering, but we're still functioning as the church. We'll have a whole message in this series devoted to life in the church.
I'll put it to you that the vast majority of what the church requires can't be done if we don't gather together. I wish I could hear that more, but we got to move. There's the church, the assembly, the church as a gathered people, but secondly, there's the body.
That's the second word picture I want us to think about for a moment, the body, and that's the church as an organism, not an organization. What do I mean when I say that? What do I mean when I say the church is an organism?
I mean that the church is a living being with Christ as its head. We're not just talking about an external cold organization that exists. No, we're talking about a, maybe if I explain the distinction, this might help, an organization is made up of people, but the organization has no organic unity.
How many of you have ever changed jobs before? Okay, you changed, you had a job, and you changed for another one. You're not a part at one point of that organization, and then you left, and you went to another one.
Did the organization stop existing? No. In most cases, they just carry on like nothing ever happened. You can join and leave as you please from an organization. The reality is the organization doesn't have to have any unity.
You might want to do one thing, but the reality is the organization wants to do something completely different, and guess what? They win and you don't. That's not how the Bible talks about the New Testament church.
You know how the Bible talks about the church? As a body. So for a moment, let's think about your human body, my human body. Your body is not an organization. It's an organic union made up of many members.
We would be very concerned if one part of the body started acting independently from the rest of it. If you started to lose self-control of your bodily functions, we usually know something is wrong, and we need to get you looked at immediately.
Why? Because that's not how your body is designed to function. Your body is designed to function as a organic unity, and this is how Paul discusses this. That means Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12.
Romans chapter 12, verses 3 through 5. I think Romans chapter 12 is one of the most underrated chapters when it comes to life in the church, and in verses 3 through 5, Paul says this. Romans chapter 12, verses 3 through 5.
Paul says, For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one.
Now we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function. In the same way, we who are many are one body in Christ, and individually members of it, or members, excuse me, of one another.
Paul says the way the church works is it works just like a body. Your body has many parts. The parts don't all have the same function, and yet it's one body. In the same way, the church, the body of Christ, has many people who make it up, and we are individual members of one another.
Paul points out two realities in this text that I think are worth considering. First of all, that the church has an indivisible unity. So look at the end of verse 5. He says, In the same way, we who are many are one body in Christ.
If you're the underlining or marking type in your Bible, circle those two words, in Christ, for me. That language there of being in Christ is important. The church's unity doesn't exist because of its mission.
The church's unity doesn't exist because we all come from the same socioeconomic class. The church's unity doesn't exist because we all had the same shared experience growing up. No, the church's unity is found in a person, and that person's name is Jesus.
So the church has an indivisible unity. Secondly, the church has a functional diversity. So verse 4, he says, Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function. Again, if you're the underlying type, circle that word, function, for me.
Your body has many parts, and that's just not for show. The various parts of your body all have differing functions. You need all of them for your function, your body, excuse me, to function as a whole.
In the same way, the church is one body with a diversity of members, and the church basically lives in this dual existence of unity and diversity at the same time, and that's how God has designed the body to be.
The church is an assembly, it's gathered people, it's a body. But the third picture that the Bible uses is that of the fellowship, the fellowship. You can say that this is the church as shared participation in Christ, the church as shared participation in Christ.
If you've been coming to Redeemer for any length of time, you know that I am waging a war against churchy words. I've been saying it for three years, and I'm probably going to say it for another 30 if the Lord wills.
There are just certain words we use that I don't dislike the words, I just wish we'd actually define them properly, and I put it to you that fellowship is one of those words. Think about it, if I say the word fellowship, what comes to mind?
Don't, I'm asking you to say it out loud, just to yourself, think about this. If I say the word fellowship, what comes to mind? One of my favorite preachers, Dr. Roger Scappell, passes Berean Bible Baptist Church in Atlanta.
He summarized it well in a Bible study I heard him give once, I thought it was amazing. He, bear in mind, he's in Atlanta, so that's the south. He says, he was joking with his church members and said, listen, when we talk about fellowship in the south, we mean food, friends, and if it's really good fellowship, both of those at the same time.
No, I like food. I like being with my friends when time allows. But can I put it to you that biblical fellowship is a little bit deeper than food and hanging out with your friends? I think one of the great things is we define that word fellowship basically as, well, we're hanging out, and since we're Christians, it's not just hanging out, because that doesn't sound very spiritual.
So it's fellowship. Actually, when you read the Bible, the word for fellowship carries this idea of a shared participation in Christ. So in, in fact, let me look at some text for a moment. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 9, these should be in your study guide already.
Paul says, God is faithful, you are called by him into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Philippians chapter 2 verses 1 and 2, if then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, interesting, fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection of mercy, make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
1 John chapter 1 verse 3, he says, what we have seen and heard, we also declare to you, so that you may also have fellowship with us. Okay, that's great, but look where he also says, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
Verse 6 of the same chapter, he says, if we say we have fellowship with him, with the Father, and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
I think you look at those texts, and this is a sampling of the text that uses word for fellowship, and you put them all together, and I will put it to you that here's what true biblical fellowship is.
Fellowship is the reality that, like Paul says in Ephesians 1, we, and I emphasize we, not just you, but we, God's people, have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ, and as God's people, the Spirit ensures that we participate in that reality.
In a verbal sense, fellowship, first and foremost, is a spiritual reality that works itself out, I'm gonna sound like a broken record, but I'm gonna say this again, it works itself out in our gathering together.
So you can have Christians come together, and it not necessarily be fellowship, but it's when we come together to participate in the spiritual blessings that we have been so graciously given by God, when that takes place, then true fellowship is happening.
I mean, if that's true, then can I put it to you that gathering together as God's people is one of the most important things we do, because after all, that's where we're giving expression to, let me use a word that maybe isn't quite so churchy, the partnership.
Same word, same general idea. When we gather together, we are giving expression to the partnership, the shared ownership, the shared participation we have in Christ. I appreciate that, I probably just dumped a two-ton elephant in the middle of the room.
Allow me to address the elephant for a moment. Confucius, I don't always feel that when I come to church. I've lost track of the last few years, how many people have told me, I would, I was talking to somebody recently trying to convince them to go back to church, and they're like, I would, but I just realized that I go to church and I don't feel any fellowship when I go.
But what do you mean by that? Well, it's hard for me to put into words. Okay, can you at least try? And eventually it just boiled down to, you know, I just feel like when we get together, we don't talk about the things that I think are important.
And so I'll just listen to my friend kind of go on and on and finally they were done. I was like, I'll call him boss. I was like, boss, have you noticed how many times in this conversation you've told me the word feel?
I feel like, I feel like, I feel like, you've not said anything about, and I know you know your Bible well, but you've not said anything about what scripture tells you to be true. You see, as Christians, we live by divine revelation.
Not that our feelings don't have a place, but our feelings are a response to what we know to be true. I know you're not supposed to say that in 2022. After all, if I feel like something is true for, and unfortunately we as Christians, because we live in this culture, sometimes we unconsciously take some of that in.
If I feel like something is true, it must be true. And so for me to even just say that just because you feel that doesn't make it true, that sounds like a bigoted statement in 2022, doesn't it? Well, first of all, those of you who come regularly, when have you ever known me to abide by social convention?
So there's that. But more importantly, what I feel, what you feel, what the church might feel, what people might feel, what society might feel, really isn't relevant in the grand scheme of things. What's relevant in the grand scheme of things is that the triune God rules over his people by his word.
When my feelings don't line up with this, the discipline of my life ought to be that I bring my feelings in line with the word, not because I feel like x is true, now I start editing the Bible to fit how I feel.
Can I also say that on a more practical note, here's one of the things I've learned about life in church. I was born and raised in church primarily, and I've learned more often than not that the times when I feel less like doing something are the times when I need to basically tell myself, listen, we are doing this today.
I mean, you know that in your own personal spiritual life, don't you? I don't feel like reading my Bible today. That's the exact time you should want to read your Bible. I don't feel like praying today.
Probably the time you should spend time in prayer. I don't feel like fellowship. Well, that's probably the time you need it the most. Hopefully that's faking it. Fair dues. But can I put it to you that maybe that's not faking it.
Maybe it's just living like the truth is the truth, even when I'm not entirely there. If you need a biblical text for that, Isaiah 15 verse 10, who among you fears the Lord and listens to his servant?
Who among you walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord. Let him lean on his God. Even if I don't feel on it, if I don't feel it, excuse me, even if I don't feel it, I still walk by faith.
So yes, you may not feel like you're getting anything out of gathering together, but I trust God's word that says in so many places that actually when we gather together, we are receiving something as a result.
Why would I make this point here? Why would I take time to make this point here of all places? And I'm vastly out of time, so I need to get moving. I made this point because I think the reality is sometimes we forget the importance of what God has done for us in Christ.
We forget, and I forget too, that we have the same Jesus who lived the perfect life for us, who went to Calvary bearing his cross, who died for our sins and died for sins that he had never committed a day in his life.
He was buried and he rose for our benefit. The same Jesus gives us the forgiveness of sins. He's the reason that we're adopted into the family of God. The same Jesus is the reason we're indwell by the spirit.
If all of that is true, and it is, I've got to be honest, if that's not enough to motivate you to pursue true fellowship, true participation together in our shared spiritual life, if that doesn't do it, if the glory is of Christ and the gospel can't motivate you, I've got to be honest, I'm not a magician.
I can't do anything else. And yet someone will say, well, Kofi, I've experienced incredible hurt because of the church. Don't deny it. It's real. But can I put it to you that though, even if we've experienced genuine hurt because of the church, we have way too much in common as God's people to let that keep us from genuine fellowship with God's people.
I've got to keep going. We're going to be here for two hours and none of us want that. We've had the biblical pictures of the church, but quickly, can I talk to you secondly about the historical attributes of the church?
The historical attributes of the church? Yes, we are a Bible church here at Redeemer Bible Fellowship, but that doesn't mean that as God's people, we're disconnected from 2 ,000 years of faithful thinking about the scriptures.
And when we read the scriptures and the people of God have read them together, when the people of God have read the scriptures, they've given voice to what it is that we believe as God's people. We call those things creeds and confessions.
They are not equal to scripture. They are not authorities on the level of scripture, but nonetheless, they are helpful in their insight as to how God's people have always understood what scripture teaches.
One such expression of this is what we call the Apostle's Creed. Like I said last month in our corporate confession of faith, we read it. And in the Apostle's Creed, there's a statement about the church, this basic summary of Christian doctrine.
The Apostle's Creed says, I believe in one holy Catholic, Catholic with a small c just means universal. I believe in one holy, we can swap out the word Catholic for universal, and apostolic church. Now, we've talked about the oneness of the church already, and we've talked about the universality of it, the fact that there is a universal church, but the other two I want to focus on real quickly, just to fill in some gaps.
Here, I do promise to move very quickly. First of all, when we say the church is holy, what do we mean? Well, when we say the church is holy, we just mean that the church is set apart, that it is sacred to God for a particular purpose.
So those of you who were here when we did first Peter, remember first Peter 2 .9? But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Holiness there is not the moral quality of holiness, it's the position of being set apart. So when we say the church is holy, it's that the church is set apart, but then we also say the church is apostolic, and there's some confusion about this in Christianity.
There's a wrong way to view this, almost as though there is this, you've heard, some of you have heard the phrase apostolic succession, the idea that there is this, the best way I can explain, I don't mean to be flippant when I say this, there's the leader of this church.
The leader of this church was made a leader by this person. Who was made a leader by this person? Who was made a leader by this person? And you kind of multiply that a couple thousand rungs back, and we can trace it all the way back to an apostle who made somebody a leader.
That's the wrong way to think about that, I think. I would argue that the way the New Testament helps us to understand the church being apostolic is that the church is built on the foundation of the apostle's gospel, and the authoritative teachings of the apostles and prophets as we find them in the scriptures.
So again, I don't have time to open up all these verses, perhaps in the growth groups it can be a bigger discussion. Acts chapter 2 verse 42 says that the early church devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.
In Ephesians chapter 2 verses 19 through 22, in fact Ephesians 2 20 is where I want to focus, it says that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.
Paul writes to the Philippians in Philippians 3 17 and say, join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us. Finally, Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1 13, hold on to the pattern of sound teaching that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
Beloved, a church isn't apostolic because some person with an inflated ego says that he is an apostle, or because some person claims a dude laid hands on them. Who laid hands on them? Who laid hands on them?
Or go back to Peter, Paul, or some other apostle. A church is apostolic because it follows the apostolic framework for ministry and submits to the words of the apostles in the scriptures. That's what makes the church apostolic.
Okay, Kofi, this is all well and good. Biblical pictures, and we've done a little church history, reading the Apostles Creed and stuff. Okay, that's great. That's wonderful. I thought this was a back to basics series though.
Where's the practical? Okay, I'm glad you asked. I've spent almost an hour so far laying that foundation. This probably won't take me more than five minutes because it's really going to be the rest of our series.
Since we've talked about the biblical pictures of the church, and we've filled in some extra details from the church's extended reflection upon the scriptures, let's finally bring this down to earth as, thirdly, we consider the faithful practice of the church.
The faithful practice of the church. When a church understands its biblical identity, and when that same church understands that it is part of the communion of saints down through the ages, and when that church shares the same marks as faithful churches down through the ages, that church is going to do and focus on particular things.
So we talked about the early church with the Apostles Creed. Let's fly down the highway of church history for a few hundred years and come to the Reformation. When our fathers in the faith looked at all the biblical data about the church, they said the church did three things.
Up on your screen should be a little chart, but it's hard to fill this thing out. They said that a biblical church did three things. Not always perfectly, not without room for improvement, but they did three things, and this was kind of the baseline.
First of all, they said that a true church had the right preaching of God's Word. The right preaching of God's Word. In lots of ways, this is the cornerstone of the church's life. It's not a church, it's not all, excuse me, that a church does, but if a church gets this wrong, you can almost guarantee they've got things wrong in so many other areas.
Now, I don't disagree with the Reformers. They were 100 right, but allow me to throw a curveball. You see, for that to be true, you're presupposing some things. I want to say that word presupposing a lot in the next couple minutes.
You're presupposing some things. You're taking some things to be for granted, and I want to say let's not presuppose, and let's just state them explicitly. First of all, you're assuming that the gospel is clearly understood and believed.
So, you're assuming that the gospel is clearly understood. That the good news of full and free salvation found in Jesus is preached, and not just preached, but understood, and not just understood, but cherished.
But you're also assuming that not only is the gospel understood, but there is robust biblical doctrine, biblical theology that flows out of that understanding of the gospel. So, it's not just, okay, I know the gospel, but I know all the, or there is at least an attempt to know all of the truth that comes from God's word.
And since there is both gospel and doctrine, gospel and theology, that demands proclamation. So, then there is preaching, and a particular kind of preaching. Not just that, of course. Not just expositional preaching.
I'm not doing exposition right now, so that would make me a hypocrite. I'm not saying that every sermon must be expository, but again, Mark Devil, who's been a massive influence on me, said it best. He said, preach, he says one, I think one is kind of harsh, but essentially he says, preach one topical sermon a year and repent.
I don't feel quite so strongly about that, obviously, so I'm not going to repent, but I get what he means. That's the, I always have to remember my UK versus US expressions. Meat and potatoes, that, that's an expression over here, right?
Okay, good. Thanks, Zoe, appreciate it. Yes, meat and potatoes, the staple diet, ought to be the careful, gospel-centered, Christ-glorifying exposition of the scriptures. You put those three together, you've got the right preaching of the word.
Not just how we do it, but what we say when we're doing it. But again, preaching is not the sum total of what a church is. So secondly, there's the, what the reformers called the proper function of discipline.
Now, church discipline is a touchy and emotional subject, and of course, it is not one we should be cavalier about, but I've got a second curveball in the back of my pocket, I'm going to throw that right now.
We hear church discipline, and what do we hear? Typically, we're kicking somebody out of the church, but what if discipline started long before that? So, let's break this down some more. What if faithful discipling and discipline began with faithful leaders who were tasked with the protective discipline of the body?
So, okay, for us to be a true church, we need proper discipline. Well, that starts with faithful leadership, so there needs to be a biblical understanding of church leadership. But what if that wasn't just the leadership's problem?
What if you, as a church member, had a role to play in the discipleship and the growth of other believers? What if there was then a healthy emphasis on discipleship and disciple-making? And what if, when faithful shepherding and deep discipleship are not pursued and it's apparent, then and only then do we deal with unrepentant sin in line with Matthew 18?
Corrective church discipline. So again, we can't just say, okay, the church has a proper function of discipline. That works itself out in certain ways. The right preaching of the word, the proper function of discipline, but even then, you've got one missing piece.
The Reformers said that you also have the right practice of the ordinances, or the sacraments, if you choose to use that term. Now, we hear that, and again, we think baptism in the Lord's Supper, and rightly so.
These two precious gifts that God gives to us, we're going to partake of the table in just a moment. And in baptism, we have a visible sign of the union we have with Christ and his death, burial, and resurrection.
In the Lord's Table, we are given a visible sign of the body that was broken for us, the blood that was shed for us, and the nourishment that we receive by faith. But even behind baptism in the Lord's Supper, you're, again, presupposing a few things.
So my third curveball, so in Matthew chapter 28, Jesus says that we are to go and to make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I've commanded you.
And remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Well, if these ordinances of baptism in the Lord's Supper are reserved for God's people, and since not all people are—no, not all men and women, boys and girls, are part of God's people, then doesn't the church need to be active in calling men and women, boys and girls, to receive that gospel, to receive that—so that means evangelism then becomes important, doesn't it?
Because you can't have people baptized who are not believers. But what if we took it a step further, even from there? Because not only do we have to think about the preaching of the gospel, we have to have to—we have to rightly understand, as it were, what happens when someone believes the gospel.
So then that church needs to have an accurate understanding of conversion, don't they? Evangelism, conversion, and then once we've preached the gospel, and once they have become converted, they become part of the church.
So we have to talk about church membership. Can you see how, once you put all those pieces together, you now have a full-orbed view of what the church is and what the church does? I'm pretty much done.
Thank you for your patience. If that felt like a whirlwind, like I literally just turned on the fire hose and just fired at you, well, rest assured, the rest of this series, the next seven weeks, I'm going to take my time and actually explain a bunch of that slowly and carefully.
And my hope is that as we engage in this series for the next eight weeks, that the Spirit of God would use what we see in the Word to do really two things. Number one, give us a love for the church like never before.
That's been my prayer for the last few weeks as I've been preparing and planning this series. And that's my prayer even now, that we would not just view the church as a part of our lives. And when I say just not this church, I mean just the church in general, the people of God, that we would not just view the church as, okay, well, it's part of my life, but I have other things that at times may be more important.
But we would view this with the importance that the Bible gives it. And not only would we view this with the importance that the Bible gives it, but that we would come to love the church. That's really my aim in this series.
And my hope is that as we walk through these next seven studies together, we'll make some headway in that direction. And Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the church. We thank you so much for this glorious entity that you have created, precious Savior.
We would ask that as we thought about what your church is, that even with this sort of introductory message, we would begin to know what the church is, to love the church, to be passionate about the church, and that above all, we would grow in our love for Jesus, who is both head and Savior of the church.
I ask these things in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen.
