F4F | Individual Churches Should Not Have Unique Distinctives

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

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This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God.

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Now, a little bit of an exotic topic, if you would, indulge me, if you will.

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So have you been to any of these big box seeker driven or attractional mega churches that have vision casting leaders?

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You sit there and go, yeah, that sounds familiar. Yeah, there's one of those down the street or whatever. Okay. So aside from the fact that the

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Bible nowhere talks about vision casting leaders, no, nowhere. The whole assumption behind these big box churches is that the vision casting leader has received a unique vision from God.

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And this is why these churches are the way they are. They don't look like anything historical biblical

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Christianity has ever done in the entire history of the Christian faith on earth.

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And they will talk about, well, we have a vision from God to be unique in this particular way.

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And we're going to be going to Audacious Church in Manchester in the United Kingdom to get an example of a congregation that believes this lie.

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And the reality is, is that churches, no churches are called to be different. All churches are called to be the same and to preach the same, to preach the same message.

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So we all have the same mission and vision statement and no vision casting leader gets to receive a unique mission and vision statement from God.

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Christ has already done that, given us, well, given the whole church a mission and vision statement that stands until he returns.

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So stay with me, you'll see, you'll see what I'm saying. So let me whirl up the desktop.

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There's St. Paul's and that's the Millennium Bridge. And let's whirl up the web browser.

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And the name of this is Audacious Life starts with a thought from Sunday, 11th of September 2022 at Audacious Church in Manchester in the

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UK. The fellow delivering the message is a fellow by the name of Paul Reed. About four or five years ago when we were 10, kind of in our 11th year, we spent some time trying to refresh or remind ourselves or really make sure that we were doing what it was that God asked us to do in the first place.

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Wait a second, what? So on their 10th anniversary in their 11th year, they needed to refresh their memory to make sure they were doing the thing that God asked them to do in the first place.

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Where in the Bible does it say that an individual congregation is going to receive a unique thing that God wants them to accomplish?

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It ain't in scripture. So in fact, let's take a look at the scriptures, okay? So a good place to start would be that thing we call the

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Great Commission. Great Commission in Matthew chapter 28, Jesus right before his ascension says, all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me.

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All right, who's in charge? Jesus. So here's what we're to do.

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Go therefore make disciples of all nations. Now, important bit here, the go. A lot of people think that that's the imperative.

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No, the going isn't the imperative. Instead, the imperative is to make disciples.

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In fact, a good way to translate the Greek here is as you are going, okay?

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As you are going, make disciples. That's your imperative. Of whom? All nations.

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Doing what? Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the

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Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

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And behold, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. Now, which generation of Christians gets out of this teaching all that Christ has commanded?

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No generation. All Christians of all ages, regardless of where they are on planet earth, they are obligated under this grand mission and vision statement that there's no deviation.

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We're all under the same orders. Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that Christ has commanded. Behold, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.

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Okay? There's a similar text, Luke chapter 24. Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures and he said to them, thus it is written that the

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Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

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Okay? So, if you kind of put it together, mission and vision statement, make disciples of all nations, teaching all that Christ has commanded, baptizing, teaching, and proclaiming repentance for the forgiveness of sins to all nations.

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This is what the church is set about to do. And I would throw into the mix here Ephesians chapter 4.

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Note the universality of the faith. Here's what Paul says.

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Therefore, I, a prisoner for the Lord, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called with all humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the

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Spirit and the bond of peace. There is one body. There is one

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Spirit. Just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one

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Lord, one faith, one baptism, one

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God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. Think of it this way.

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We have one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We have one great commission that Christ has given to the whole church.

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Nobody gets an opt -out and nobody gets a unique, different one. And then historically here,

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I think this will be helpful. If you read Irenaeus, if you remember a while back in my

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Andy Stanley video, we took a look at what was called the rule of faith in his book,

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Contra Heresies, where Irenaeus lays out kind of the basic tenets of the

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Christian faith. And right after he gives the rule of faith, which is really kind of like a rough draft version of the

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Nicene Creed, Irenaeus then writes, As I have already observed, the church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it.

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She also believes these points of doctrine just as if she had but one soul and one in the same heart, and she proclaims them and teaches them and hands them down with perfect harmony.

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If only that were still the case today, that's not true today. We're in the great apostasy now. As if she possessed only one mouth, for although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same.

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For the churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the

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East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those who have been established in the central regions of the world.

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But as the Son, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shines everywhere and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth.

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Nor will any one of the rulers of the churches, however highly gifted he may be in point of eloquence, teach doctrines different from these.

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For no one is greater than the Master. Nor, on the other hand, will he who is deficient in power of expression inflict injury on the tradition.

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For the faith being ever one and the same, neither does one who is able to add great length to discourse regarding it make any addition to it, nor does one who can say but little diminish it."

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So you get a note here. We have a historical reference from a document from a book written against heretics talking about the unity of the faith, the unity of its mission, the unity of its doctrine.

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And so we've got a big problem here. And the problem over there is that Paul Reed in Manchester at Audacious Church is under the delusional belief that Audacious Church has a unique thing that God has called it to do that it hasn't called anybody else to do.

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Refresh or remind ourselves or really make sure that we were doing what it was that God asked us to do in the first place.

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Well, what God has asked the church to do is laid out in scripture. All churches, all

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Christians are to be about that business. And so we spent time discussing who we were and who we felt

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God wanted us to be. And who we felt God wanted us to be what? We preached a series of messages called

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This Audacious Life. This Audacious Life. Give me a wave if you remember that back in 2018.

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Doesn't the word audacious have kind of like a hint of foolishness to it?

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Just saying. Did our best to articulate exactly who God was calling us to be so that we could

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A, remind ourselves and make sure that we were doing that and B. You need to remind yourself of what

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God is and you didn't check the Bible. What did you check? Introduce that to all the people that have joined since we started.

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And so actually every year or two for the last five years, around this time of year, we've been doing exactly the same thing.

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Reminding, refreshing, and introducing exactly who

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God has called Audacious Church to be. Now by church,

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I don't mean this building. God has called all Christians in his church to preach and to do the same thing.

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What are you talking about? Though that can help emphasize who we're supposed to be.

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I don't mean the program, although we program with that in mind. I'm talking about you and me.

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We are the church. And they are a unique church that God has called to do a unique thing.

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Despite the fact there's one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all. So this audacious life, if you are part of our church, is your life.

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And so for the next four to six weeks, we're going to be reminding, refreshing, and introducing you to kind of our four cultural distinctives.

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How about that? No church is called to have a cultural distinctive unless you're talking about a cultural distinctive that distinguishes it from the world.

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Isn't this interesting? What? This guy is so far off, and yet this is a core belief of vision -casting leaders and churches that follow this so -called ecclesiastical model.

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You're impressed. We're definitely doing GCSE English language by that sentence that I just made.

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We're going to be talking about how we're fiercely determined. Really?

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So where in Scripture... Oh, that's right. Nowhere in Scripture is the church called to be fiercely determined, but audacious church is.

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Wildly authentic. Really, uh -huh, right, uh -huh. Seriously fun and fearlessly devoted.

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You're going to hear those... I love the adverbs. So you're going to note here, this is a problem.

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It's a huge problem. And that if you are attending a church that has to have on a regular basis, recast the

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Vision Sunday, Vision Sundays and things like this, and we need to talk about our unique things that God has called us to do uniquely, run.

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Because the one thing that church isn't doing is, well, really holding fast to the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

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They are not teaching the full counsel of the Word of God. They are rejecting the

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Bible's form of ecclesiology. And they have insisted on their own and they are under the delusional belief that they're special, they're unique, they get to be different.

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And you sit there and go, why do you guys not read the Bible in your church services, huh?

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How come you don't teach the full counsel of the Word of God? Well, our church is called to do something different.

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We have four unique cultural distinctives and we are accountable only to the vision that God gave us.

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If God gave your church a different vision, then well, then you can do that. But we're going to do the thing that God uniquely called our church to do.

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One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Christ makes it clear. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Him.

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The church is to be about the business of doing what? Making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of Father, Son, and the

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Holy Spirit, teaching all that Christ has commanded. And He'll be with us always, even to the end of the age.

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So, if you know anyone who attends this church or churches like it that believe delusionally that they have a unique vision from God, they don't.

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God didn't give them this vision. They are in rebellion to the very clear orders of Christ.

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So, hopefully you found this helpful. A little shorter video today. If so, all the information on how you can share the video is down below.

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Until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ. It is vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.