Why Are You Here?

God Centered Theology

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It is indeed a joy to be with you this morning. I encourage you to turn in your

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Bibles to Matthew chapter 28. A hog and a hen.

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Yes, that's right. I'm using an illustration about a hog and a hen. A hog and a hen sharing the same barnyard heard about a church's program to feed the hungry.

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The hog and the hen discussed how they could help. The hen said,

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I've got it. We'll provide bacon and eggs for the church to feed the hungry.

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Well, the hog thought about this for a time and thought about the suggestion and said, you know, hen, there's one problem with your bacon and egg solution.

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For you, it only requires a contribution. But from me, it will mean total commitment.

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My friends for the hog, that is indeed the cost of true discipleship, is it not?

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So this may be the first time you've ever been asked this question from this pulpit and I trust that it will not scare you and make you go running out the back door.

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But my friends, are you a hog or a hen? Are you here to make a contribution?

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Or are you here because you are totally committed to Jesus Christ?

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The good news about preaching this particular message about the church is it is an encouragement to us to understand why we are here and what we should be doing.

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But sadly, and for what I've observed since I've been here, this seems to be a very loving church, a very happy church.

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I see good fellowship. I've been under good teaching. So I have no doubt that as I'm here longer and longer, more of those good things will come to light.

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But in case you are not aware, that's not the case in every American church. I do a lot of speaking and a lot of writing about this subject and there are many

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American churches out there that are dying, that are not doing the right things.

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Pastor John MacArthur, who's one of my favorite teachers, stated the following about the state of the American church.

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He said, it seems obvious that some Christians think little about their mission in this world except in regard to their own personal needs.

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They attend services and meetings when it is convenient. Take what they feel like taking and have little concern for anything else.

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They are involved in the church only to the extent that it serves their own desires.

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It escapes both their understanding and their concern that the Lord has given his church a supreme mission, and then he calls every believer to be an instrument in fulfilling that mission.

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My friends, we are co -laborers together.

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We all have different roles. We all have different gifts. We all have been

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Christians for different periods of time, but scripture knows nothing of spectators in the

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Christian life. We are all to co -labor together. The question this morning is, why are you here?

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Why do you participate in church? One thing you'll learn about me for certain, and I have no doubt that Pastor Andy is the same way, whenever we preach a message, whenever we ask questions in a message like these questions, we've asked them of ourselves far long before it's ever presented in a manner like this.

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This is not a question just for a congregation, but is a question for pastors, is a question for deacons, is a question for Sunday school teachers, is a question for everybody.

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Why are we here? Why am I here?

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What are my goals? What are your goals, your motives, your desires? Is it to fulfill and complete the mission and directive that has been commanded of us by our

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Lord Jesus Christ? Are you here like the hen to make a contribution or are you here because you are committed to the work of the church?

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It is always good to take time every so often and pause in our study and in our prayer and consider these things.

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Why am I a Christian? Why do I go to church? What are my motives? What, what, what things am

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I looking to accomplish? Well, this morning, I want to look at an overview, if you will, three areas of why the church exists and why we are here, and then we need to ask ourselves, are we committed to it?

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The first thing I will look at with you this morning is the purpose, the purpose of the church.

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And in Matthew 28, we have our great commission beginning in verse 18, it says, and Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

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This word translated authority in our English Bibles is a Greek word, meaning the freedom and right to speak as one pleases.

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No hindrances, nothing that would keep Jesus from having to decide one way or the other, but with complete freedom and autonomy and authority to act and speak as he desires.

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And notice the scope of his authority, everything in heaven, everything on earth.

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There is not one atom or molecule in this universe that is outside the realm of Christ's authority.

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Now, it may seem as we live and go by second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour in time, that things happen like what we've seen in Texas and other places that seem, you know, why would such a thing happen?

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And all I can tell you that his scripture speaks of a God that is sovereign and in control.

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And what that means for this world is that there is zero purposeless suffering.

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Now, we may not be given answers in this life, there's a lot of things I have questions about. I have no doubt that you do as well, but there is zero purposeless suffering.

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The scariest thought in the world would be to live in a universe that God is not in control over. This authority of Christ is the manner in which he speaks here.

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You see, when we are saved, when someone repents of their sin and comes to full faith in Jesus Christ, we become citizens of his kingdom and members of his family.

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I can preach a whole sermon on the doctrine of what we call adoption. We are adopted into the family of God.

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You don't have to turn there with me, but I want to read some verses for you from chapter seven in light of the understanding of Christ's authority in Daniel chapter seven and verse 13, he says,

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I kept looking in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming.

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And he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him. Notice this, it says into him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom.

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That all the people's nations and men of every language might serve him, his dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

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Nothing that is created can stop, change or upset the will of God, nothing that is created, no king, no country, no president, no human being, no one, no thing can change the fact that Jesus Christ is king and ruler over all things in heaven and in the earth.

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Try as he may, man cannot change this fact, because even if man amasses a great amount of authority in this world, he is still subject to the fact that he had to be created.

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That is the thing that I love preaching in Isaiah about idol worship, and when you go through it somewhere around chapter 44, 46, somewhere in there where it talks about how they go and get the wood and carve it and cut it and make these wood idols and fall down before them and worship them.

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I'm thinking you're worshiping something of which you had to rely on a non -created being, an eternal being to create the materials for you to then take his materials that he created to fashion idols that you created to worship.

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You're relying on God for every bit of it. You can't even worship idols that you create without relying on a creator to make materials that you can make your idols out of.

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That's why they talk about the folly of idolatry. It's ignorant. It's stupid. It's insanity.

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Christians, we must watch ourselves that we do not engage in the same folly. It is so easy to create idols in our life.

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Trust me, pastors know we have the same temptations.

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Pastors are no special to anyone else. We're all need the same Savior. We have a role to teach.

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We have a role to oversee. But we are no different. In fact, if anything, the temptations come harder.

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We all know what spiritual attacks are like as Christians, as family members of Jesus Christ in the family of God.

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We have to be on guard. In fact, John warns us about this at the end of his epistle in 1

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John, he says, be on guard, guard yourself from idols. His kingdom cannot be destroyed, notice in verse 18 of Daniel 7, but the saints of the highest one will receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever for all ages to come.

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In verse 27 of the same chapter, then the sovereignty, the dominion and the greatness notice of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the highest one.

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His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom and all the dominions will serve and obey him.

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I'm not God, I have no way of understanding what this feels like or what all I can do is attempt to try to understand in some capacity, but I cannot imagine.

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Being a president or a king or whatever title you would carry in whatever country and thinking that you are the head honcho.

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Every single president, every single king, every single leader, every single human being will either bow the knee to Christ in this life or in the next.

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The choice is yours. I pray that it's in this one. And not in judgment, because the judge of all the earth will only judge rightly and he will judge because it's his kingdom, it's his authority, and it's based on this authority that the purpose of the church.

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Now, Jesus says, go, therefore. This Greek word translated, go, therefore, it's an imperative, it's a command, it's also present tense and the meaning that it's ongoing action, it's not something that you do one time and stop.

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You're meant to constantly, continually go. Therefore, you could translate this, go, therefore, having gone.

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It's an assumption. Jesus saying, because I am in authority, I'm assuming and knowing you're going to go out or you could put it in a present tense sense of as you go.

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So you can be saying, go, therefore, be saying as you go into the world. Make disciples, it's a command, but it's also assumed that the believer, because every single person that has been changed by the spirit of God has been saved, will produce fruit.

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And they will love their savior and want to obey their savior. And this is not a suggestion, it's a command.

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The true purpose of the church is the obedience to Christ and his number one command to us is to go, therefore, and make disciples.

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And what's interesting is you'll hear me if you're ever around me long enough, I'm constantly saying the purpose of the church, the purpose of Christians is to make disciples and be discipled, make disciples, be discipled.

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I'm constantly repeating it because I want it to sink into everyone's heads like it has in the mind, make disciples, be discipled.

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Why? Because we usually leave out one or the other. Usually we'll be so focused on making disciples that we'll forget that as a

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Christian, there's never a point in this life where I can say I've arrived. I don't need to be discipled anymore.

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I've got I've got it all. Yeah, I've studied it all. You know, I'm sure there's nothing else for me to learn.

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That's a very dangerous spot to be in. Some humility would be in order. So we need to make sure that as Christians and as a church, we're always in balance because this word translated disciple means both things to make disciples and to be discipled.

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One thing I always suggest is that if you don't have at least one person in your life that is pouring into you, that is currently discipling you, you need to find someone that can do that for you.

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It's very important as pastors that we find other pastors to disciple us, that we can disciple.

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And typically this is we're not going to get this would be a whole sermon for another day, how to look for that person, how to know that they would be good for that role to either disciple you or for you to disciple them.

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But we need to make sure we're doing this. Then notice we go and make disciples of all the nations.

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Why? Because Christ is ruler of all the nations. Christ is the ruler of Russia, he's the ruler of Ukraine, he's the ruler of the

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United States of America, he's the ruler of your house, he's the ruler of your heart.

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And there's no better king to serve baptizing them in the name of the father and the son of the

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Holy Spirit, we see a picture of the Trinity here, one eternal being, three distinct persons.

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And teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, we are spiritually united with Christ and salvation,

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Romans six is a beautiful picture of this. Some people mistakenly look at Romans six and it is in a sense talking about the actual act of baptism because it is a picture of the spiritual union that we have with Christ.

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But Romans six is primarily talking about our spiritual baptism and how we are united with Christ and salvation to where his death becomes our death, his burial becomes our burial and his resurrection becomes our resurrection.

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We're united with him, we identify with Christ in baptism, it is that great picture and public statement to the world that I've been saved.

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And we progressively become more Christ -like through teaching, being taught and growing obedience to Christ.

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And that is our purpose, that is the purpose of the church, that is ultimately why we are here and why we do what we do.

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Secondly, I want you to notice the power. How do we accomplish this?

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Is it by our power? Is it by the power within us?

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Well, we couldn't even save ourselves, could we? Turn with me to Matthew chapter 16,

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Matthew chapter 16. In Matthew chapter 16, starting in verse 13, it says, now, when

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Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he was asked by his disciples, why do you, why do you, or who do people say that the son of man is?

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And they said, some say John the Baptist and others, Elijah, but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.

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He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, you are the

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Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus said to him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father who was in heaven.

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I also say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

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Notice here, Jesus Christ says, I will build my church.

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The power to carry out our mission, the power to carry out our purpose as Christians and as a church and keep in mind, friends, when we say church, we don't mean a building, we don't mean physical things.

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The Greek word that is translated church here in Matthew 16, just simply means called out ones.

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It's the gathering. It was used of common civic gatherings. It's used of common or used of religious gatherings.

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It simply means a called out people. God's saints,

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God's holy ones. The gathering of the local body of believers. And so Jesus Christ says,

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I will build my church. That same power that builds the church.

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Is the power of Christ. Notice the ownership and the power.

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Jesus Christ doesn't say it's my church and this other person's church or this other group's church that to me, and I have seen this so many times and I pray that it will never happen to us as a local body of believers.

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But when you study the subject of dying churches, churches that have lost their way, churches that are not living out their purpose, you'll see every single time, this one consistent characteristic.

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At some point along the way, Jesus Christ stopped being the owner, the ruler, and the king of their local body.

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Every single time you can look at all these different symptoms and things that happen, and you can try to trace, well, did it go back to this event or that thing every single time at some point along the way,

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Jesus was no longer king for that local body because Christ is not going to honor or bless any work that is in competition with his own.

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He just won't do it. He'll move on and begin his work somewhere else.

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I pray that that would never happen to us, that we can continue as I've learned about the history of this church and where it's been and where we're at and think about where we could go with this supreme mission and supreme purpose that we have, but we have to do with the understanding that there is only one king and there's only one power by which we will accomplish anything.

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And that is through the power of Jesus Christ, because I will build my church. And my friends,

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I can guarantee you that if Jesus Christ promises something, it's going to happen.

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Jesus Christ says, I'm going to build my church. So, you know what's going to happen? The church is going to be built and we get to be a part of that.

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That's the good part about it. We get to be part of what he's doing, but remember, we don't build it.

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God does. And I'm telling you, I talk about being God centered all the time.

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The biggest difference between a Christian and a church that is man centered versus God centered is when they always start with the fundamental understanding that no matter what

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I do, no matter what I engage in or try to accomplish, it's all under the sovereignty of God.

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It's based on my submission to Jesus Christ, because it is his power that enables us to do anything for him to begin with.

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Jesus Christ says we are his workmanship, not our own. But my friends, that's a good place to be, because think about this as Christians and as a church, specifically here for us as Calvary Baptist Church in Roanoke Rapids.

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We have the very power that created the universe at our disposal.

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Wrap your head around that one. You know what that means? There is nothing, nothing that we can't do if Jesus Christ is empowering us to do it.

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And if you're anything like me, you look around and you say, there's that block, there's that barrier.

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We come up with all of our reasons why we can't do it, right? Well, we can't do it because of this, can't do it because of that, can't do it because we don't have this reason.

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That's, that's me. I'm sure some of you are like that too. And I have to be like,

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Andy, why are you doing that? There are no barriers to Jesus Christ. He has all authority in heaven and on earth.

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If he wants you to do it, do it. Obey him.

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Notice he says the gates of hell will not overpower. I'm sure many of you have heard this said before, but just in case you haven't, the church is always on offense.

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There is no defense. We're always on the field, on offense, looking to score and advance the kingdom.

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There's no defense, none. That means as pastor

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Andy preaches very often, we are not to sit back and wait for unbelievers to just happen to come to Christ and just happen to want to come join us here at church.

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We're to go to them. Take the message of the gospel to them, proclaim it in our sphere of influence, whether it's at work, at home, at the local

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Walmart, food line, no matter where you go. Back when we talked about the purpose, when he said, go, therefore, that means anywhere you go.

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If you're on vacation somewhere, take the message of the gospel with you. You can take it with you anywhere you go.

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But my friends, it's active. It's present tense verb in the original ongoing action, continual action, consistent action.

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We are to go to them, tell them you need a savior. You're a sinner. You need to have faith in Christ.

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You need to then be part of a local body and be discipled and make disciples. Oh, and here's the good news.

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The same power that saves you, the same power that's going to help you become more sanctified in Christ. Set apart, growing in maturity, and it doesn't matter how big the mission is or how small the mission is in your eyes.

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The power that empowers you to carry it out. There is not one single steel bar on the gates of hell that can stop the savior you serve.

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So don't even consider them. Don't even consider them.

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You say, well, there's that gate. Hell, Hades, hellfire,

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Satan himself wants to stop what we're doing. So. Does Satan have any power over Jesus Christ?

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No. Does Satan do anything without God's permission? No. Study Job.

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He had to go ask for permission just to touch Job's body. My friends, nothing can stop

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Calvary Baptist Church from fulfilling its mission, but not because of who we are, not because of how long a building's been here or any of those things that sometimes we look at in the physical and the man -centered realm.

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Nothing can stop the church, specifically our church, from fulfilling its mission because of the savior we serve, because of his power.

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So we've looked at the purpose, we've looked at the power, and lastly this morning with you, I want to look at the pattern. You could call this the plan, the pattern.

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I'm not one of those preachers that usually has three points, but they all start with the same letter. I promise you, it just happened to work out this way this time.

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I promise. Usually I'm the guy that's going through whatever text is in front of me and I don't, sometimes I don't even have points.

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I just teach what's there, but it just happened. It worked out so beautifully. I had to do it. And I know my wife's going to be like, oh no, please tell me you're not one of those people.

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I'm like, it just happened to work out. I promise. Purpose, power, plan, pattern. See, it's wonderful.

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I love it when a plan comes together. See what I did there? For the plan, the pattern, whatever you want to call it, we're going to Ephesians chapter four this morning,

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Ephesians chapter four, beginning in verse 11. So we know our purpose. We know the power to do it.

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Well, what is it exactly? What does that look like in the church? What is it that we are to be doing now?

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We could have sermons upon sermons diving into this. That's not the point for what we were looking to take a summary view here, sort of a bird's eye view.

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So with the time that we have left to get to this point, we're going to be able to I want to just kind of walk through this, but Ephesians four chapter 11, it says that he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers.

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Now we don't have time to dive into this very deeply, but I trust that as a

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Baptist church, you're probably going to be in full agreement with me, but we would believe that the office of apostles and prophets were foundational for the church.

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They were in a lot of ways, a great foundation that was laid, obviously Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone and they have passed off the scene.

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That office has ceased. We still have with us today. Now in the local church, there is the office of elder.

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They're interchangeable terms, elder, pastor, bishop. It's all interchangeable terms for the same office.

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We have the role of deacon, but there are still in a lot of ways, people operating as evangelists in our day.

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And what these people are, are biblically qualified men who are particularly gifted in the area of evangelism, being able to present the gospel.

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And you'll see this a lot in maybe revival meetings or in evangelistic services, things like that.

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But the primary focus that we have before us today in the local church is the one of pastors, teachers. Now, when it says pastors and teachers, this not talking about two different offices here.

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The big thing to remember about pastors is all pastors are required to have the gift of teaching.

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Now, not all Christians will have the gift of teaching, but all pastors are required to have the gift of teaching.

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Now, not all pastors will be equally gifted and how they teach, but they're all required to have that gift.

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That's why it says pastors, teachers. It's synonymous, shepherds, teachers, pastors.

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You'll see these terms constantly interchanged throughout the new Testament, Paul may use bishop here, shepherd here, pastor there.

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That's the big thing to take away from here. And so God's pattern and plan for the church. We notice here, he says he gave these notice in verse 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ.

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It is the pastor elders role to oversee and to teach and to equip saints.

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Now, this word translated equip was often used as a medical term that meant setting bones in place.

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And we translate it with the English word equipping, but it was often used in the understanding of setting bones in place.

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Well, why would you need to set a bone in place? Well, you think about it. If you're in an accident or something happens and you know, you break a bone or you'd say something's out of joint, out of place, that setting back to where it should be is synonymous with the equipping of the saints.

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You say, why would that be needed? Well, when we're born, we're all under Adam, aren't we? We're sinners, rebel sinners, none who seek

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God, none who do righteousness, none who done good. When we are saved, now we are to be taught what is right, how to live, how to serve

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God, equipping, setting us in place, taking the word of God and expounding it and saying, this is how we should live.

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This is what we should be doing. This is what it looks like. Set it in place, equip so that we will all know.

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And when it says for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ, this word building up is just simply a word that means like building a house.

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Christ being the foundation, but there's walls, there's a roof. Paul uses the terminology of a body, a body of believers.

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Christ is the head, but we're all hands, feet, legs, arms. We're all the pieces.

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And so God's pattern and plan is to have a plurality of biblically called and qualified men to oversee and teach his saints to equip them for the work of ministry, because ministry is not a one man job.

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It's not a one man job. The pastor doesn't do everything. The deacons don't do everything. The song leaders don't do everything.

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The people that sit in pews to attend a worship service can't do everything. You know, fill in whatever job you want to say.

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The cleanup crew, whatever it is, whoever that person is or that group is, they can't do everything. We are co -laborers together.

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Translation, we need each other. My friends, if you ever look to one of your brothers and sisters and say, we don't need them, please repent and go to them and repent and ask their forgiveness and love them.

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I have no doubt that if you've lived long enough as a Christian, you may have been on both sides of the equation.

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People may have looked at you and thought you weren't worthy or not necessary. You may have looked at someone and thought that about them.

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I don't know if that happens here. I haven't been here long enough. Nobody's told me I'm in the dark about so much. I'm just up there in a sound booth.

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I have no way of knowing. But if it does happen, if it's ever happened, my friends, what a better day than today than to make it right.

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We're all one family and trust me, as someone personally that has had to rely on the help of other

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Christians so many times in my life, we need each other.

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No brother or sister of Christ is ever unnecessary. In fact, it's those that we would deem unnecessary, that Christ looks to use the most to change you, to change me.

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John MacArthur said the great need of the church has always been spiritual maturity, but we don't need more committees.

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We don't need more programs. We don't necessarily need more of this or that. You know, you'll hear and you'll ask people, what was church need?

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Well, we need this. It's very simple. We just need spiritual maturity. We need to follow the pattern.

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We need to be teaching the word of God, making disciples, being disciple, none of that looks and sounds differently if you're dealing with children, youth, adults, there's obviously different groups we have, and it may look different depending on where you go within our church, but it's all under the same goal of making disciples and then notice as we close here, skip down to verse 14 here, it says as a result, so as a result of following the pattern of knowing our purpose and doing it under the power of Christ, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, verse 15, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even

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Christ, the discipleship of the church, both pastors teaching congregations, but then you teaching each other.

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And then also pastors being discipled all the way, all, all forms that we find it is comprehensive.

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There's no place in here. You say, well, I don't need that book or I don't need that part of it. It's comprehensive.

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It's all encompassing. It's all aspects. Lastly, verse 16, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, that's you.

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That's me. Notice it says by what every joint supplies, every single one of you has a key role in this local body to make sure that we are fulfilling our purpose by the power of Christ, using the pattern plan and the directives that God gave us to make disciples and be discipled.

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You play a part of that. There may be some roles like a pastor or a song leader or something that may be in front of people, but we are no more important just because we're on a stage.

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Every joint, every person that does something for Christ as a part of this local body, we're all equally important.

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We can't do the work of Christ without you. You can't do it without me.

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We can't do it without pastor Andy and we can't do it. We can name every single person in this room. We can't do it without you and you and you and you and you, every joint, according to the proper working of each individual part, every part doing their role does what causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself and love.

36:31

Calvary Baptist church can't grow into spiritual maturity and it certainly won't grow numerically.

36:40

That's certainly something we'd all like to see, but our goal is spiritual maturity and it will never happen unless we all are involved.

36:52

So why are you here? Why am I here? Are you here to be a hen and just simply make a contribution or are you like the hog and ready to make a total commitment?

37:12

Discipleship requires everything that you have and everything that you are. Because everything that we have and everything that you are is by the grace of God.