Thoughts on the Church for 2025

Providence Baptist Church iconProvidence Baptist Church

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Here's some more Christmas break pontifications from the preacher and today
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I want to talk about the church Gonna issue a warning here Some of the language I use later in this video may not be suitable for children of a certain age maybe even younger teenagers, so parental discretion is
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Encouraged so you might want to listen to this without the young kids in the room. So I want to talk about the church today
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We'll get to that more in just a minute. But first I want to talk about with the church Maybe primarily pastors, although actually parishioners
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They have this mentality too but the first thing is as we enter into a new year as we think about 2025 as we think about what
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God is doing in the world today, by the way, this is what's happening in the world today
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Eschatologically, this is what's happening Soteriologically, this is what's happening
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Theologically, this is what's happening. Christ is building his church the temple of God the household of God first Timothy 3 15 the kingdom of God This is what's going on in the world today.
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The church is being built and she is being built through the faithful proclamation of the gospel as hearts are changed as lives are transformed as people are brought from spiritual death the spiritual life to the heralding of the gospel and as they are covenanting with and Submitting to local churches under godly leadership biblically qualified men known as elders and churches are seeking to align themselves with all that the scripture teaches and and and Mission evangelism all these things.
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That's what's God's doing in the world today He's building his church the further you move away from the local church.
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The less interested I am in In the things that are going on now That's not to say other things aren't important and that we or that we shouldn't be involved in other things it's just simply to say that the focal point of what
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God is doing in the world today is The building of his church nations come and go kingdoms rise and fall
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But God's church is going to endure and this is made manifest in visible local congregations
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Okay, remember the language warning that'll come up here in just a couple of minutes So the first I want to say back to kind of my original thought
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Stop treating the church so professional and Like I said that has to do with pastors, but I think also with parishioners and here's what
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I mean by that I see so many treat the church as as a
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Corporation like a secular corporation and you've got everything just kind of neatly
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Cut out and you've got all these times that you're supposed to go to these events and and you show up and you do the event really well or And and and then it's over and and that's how you see church.
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It's it's the idea of of making everything neat and tidy and and putting it in the calendar and and thinking through programs and and really professionalization of the church now, it's not to say that all that is
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Wrong or bad, but the entire mindset as a whole It absolutely is stop treating church like an event that you go to Church is not a carved -out event that you go to The church is so much more a local church is so much more than just I show up at the event
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For pastors, you've got to care about souls. You've got to care about the status of people's lives
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You've got to care about their children and and their and their and their family and what they have going on You've got to pray for them.
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You've got to take them before this is why Biblical I Bible reading and prayer
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Or or I feel like neglected too often by pastors because no one else can see that No one else can see how much time you're praying and how much time you're in the
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Bible, but they can see the professionalization That's happening. And so we're so worried about the programs and the events and coming up with it and Marking things down like we're gonna put this age over here and that age over here and we're gonna have this kind of theme
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Going on and and and it's just it's just a hyper professionalization. It's just a professionalization of the church.
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That's not intended You've got to care about the souls of people and this is why I say Parishioners are guilty too because you treat the church sometimes by a parishioner
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I mean, you know someone that goes to church or whatever you you treat the church like you treat your child's sports lessons, you know, you pay for these lessons and you take your child to the lessons and you drop them off and That's how you treat church sometimes, you know
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You've paid for the lessons you go and and and and for some of you you drop your children off at their at the little program the or their age segregation part of the church that they're supposed to go to and and the responsibility of the
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Of the people that you pay is to is to train your children Just like you're paying the baseball guy or the football guy or whatever to train your children
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And that's the kind of mindset that you have about the church So you show up and you go to the event and you've checked it off One time
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I thought here's an extreme example One time I talked to this man and he said that he wished
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Church was at 6 a .m. On Sundays so they could have the rest of this Sunday to himself He could just go get it over it check it off the box
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At our church a few years ago there was a there was a guy always like to make coffee and there were some people in our church
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Which it's since been Corrected and all that but there's some people in a church that were like you can't go without coffee for an hour
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The mentality was that's how they saw church. It's an hour. It's it's you come and you give your hour
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To God. This is not how we're to see the church. This is so stop seeing the church as So professional it's about life together
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Does this mean that we don't want to worship well in our main meeting?
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No, of course not. Yeah, we we spend time making sure our music is well Our preaching is is polished and in all these things but but the point of the matter is that this this this gathering is not a
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Professionalization we've got to stop my words are are not great this morning. We've got to stop the professionalization of these the professionalization mentality that the
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CEO Mentality the church is treated like a corporation something that I belong to like I have my club
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Membership or my gym membership or whatever. So that's one thing the second thing and again here again the language warning
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So stop treating the church so professional number two
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Stop treating the church like a prostitute Now I hate to even say this guy's name because he's apostatized.
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He's abandoned the faith But years ago, I read this little book looks like 2010
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I read this little book called stop dating the church by a man by the name of Joshua Harris now again,
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Joshua Harris Wicked has apostatized abandoned the faith and I pray that the
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Lord would get a hold of him before it's too late But he was right in his book Particularly the title you can get the idea
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That a lot of people are treating the church like a girlfriend that you won't commit to That you won't marry and I'm actually using stronger language here.
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A lot of people are treating the church like a prostitute You go to the prostitute and you get what you want and then you leave and you don't care that it hurts her
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You know, you know, you don't care about her at all. You're just focused on your wants your desires your needs a lot of people who profess to be
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Christians treat the church this way I'll go if it's convenient And again, we're just the service is part of it, but I'll be involved in the lives of people
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Hey, but by the way, can I say it again church is not merely going our main gatherings are absolutely essential
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You can't be the church without gathering with the church So if you're neglecting gathering with the church, you're in sin and you need to repent but here's the other aspect of it
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You can go to church Regularly and still be forsaking the assembling because you're not thinking about the hearts of the people you're going for just what you
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Can get out of you're going to make yourself feel better You're going because you like how the music makes you feel but it's not about life together.
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You don't care You're not you're not involved in each other's lives. You never have to deal with sin You're not calling a brother or sister to repent.
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You're not praying for them. You're not weeping with them. You're not Evangelizing together with them linking arm -in -arm and going and sharing the gospel.
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You're not involved in their lives You're treating the church like a prostitute just something that you can some something that you can some object that you can get gratification from but you don't have to concern yourself with her well -being
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And this is terrible. Now. Both of these things are terrible. We are going to have to get an account
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We'll have to give an account before God Almighty about how we've treated the church
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Pastors you've got to treat the church better as we're going into a new year We need to think about how we are treating the bride of Christ Remember what
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I said at the beginning of the video. This is what God is doing in the world today What is
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God doing? Some of you are too focused on the Middle East or you're worried about the economy or you're or you're worried about war or you're worried
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Drones now, I'm not saying all that. You should just check out. That's not what I'm saying You don't just unplug like the
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Amish or whatever and and check out But I am saying this you need to have more focus more thought more concern about what
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God is doing in local churches You need to go all in with your local church.
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If your local churches is not a faithful local church You need to consider can you help reform the church?
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Or do you need to maybe go to a more solid church or church more in line with the scriptures?
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You need to consider these things as we enter into a new year because these things are important to the heart of God The first Timothy 3 15 again.
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The church is the household of God. There's no individuals. We're the temple of the Holy Spirit Well in a sense, that's true.
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It is true in a sense But there's nothing that manifests the presence of God more
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There's nothing that where the presence of God is more manifest in a world today. Yes, he's everywhere But there's nowhere else that the presence of God is more special more beautiful more present more manifest than when the local church is
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Assembled and we have to care about these things about the leadership of the church about the worship of the church
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About the ordinance of the church about the evangelism and mission of the church All of this matters and you need to think more biblically more clearly about these things and may
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God give you grace as you pursue this Endeavor in the new year Christ is worthy of healthy churches solely