2023 Laborers' Conference- Session 7 The Church

Conference Welcome and Laborers Podcast Shout-Outs

We are live. Good morning. Welcome to the 2023. We had just talked about hiccups and here we are creating our own hiccups. I was not prepared and it's okay. We're not going to show them. We won't show the intro.

We won't show the intro. Happy Lord's Day, Claude. Happy Lord's Day, Rob. Praise the Lord for his life, death, and resurrection. We get to celebrate it every day. Every day. And we gather together on the Lord's Day to worship him.

Praise him together. And the Lord has allowed us to do that this weekend together with you guys who came from Tennessee, New York, South Carolina, Colorado Springs. It's been a blessing. It has been a great blessing.

It's amazing. I feel like I've known you all along. So it has been truly a blessing. It has been a blessing. And this is, like I said, this is a 2023 Laborers Conference born out of the Laborers Podcast, which we collaborate together on Thursday evenings at 830.

So please join us. And the Laborers Podcast comes from the Lord bringing other podcasters together. And I just want to give out a shout out to all the guys that are active in our group. Most of them have podcasts.

Jesse Gomez, aka the Chicano Knox. He has the Bible Theory Podcast. We would encourage you to go check him out. Brother Claude Ramsey. He has the Here I Stand Theology Podcast. Please go check him out.

Dan Self. He is with me on the Truth and Love Podcast. Deontay Walters. He can't make it to the podcast. He was on with us early, early on. Him and Jesse Bland. They were on with us early, early on at the beginning of all this.

Back around 2020 when our country was going through some rough spells, they joined us and helped us walk through some of those difficult times theologically.

That's awesome.

Yeah. They don't have podcasts. Deontay preaches at New Beginnings Church in California. So check him out. Jay Antello. He's new.

The Reformed Rican.

That's right.

He's a good dude.

That's right. Jeremy Hull. He doesn't have a podcast, but he's a pastor in Myrtle Beach area, South Carolina. Faith Reformed.

Yep.

Baptist Church. John Jones. Real Talk with Big John. Check him out. Jonathan Foster, who's the pastor here at Vertical Life Church in Newton, North Carolina. We are grateful.

Yes. By the way, we should most certainly give a shout out to every member that has so contributed, showing grace and kindness here to us because they have truly shown godly hospitality to us here. So thank the Lord for them.

Yes, they've been very gracious to us. Joshua Burns, he does not join us on the podcast. However, he is our official garb. Would you call it garb or wares?

1689design .com. That's 1689design .com. Go buy some Christian hats, shirts, cups, mugs, water bottles, whatever you can think of.

That's right. That's right. Matt Breeding.

Yes, our brother.

That's right. Matt Breeding. He's in Tennessee as well.

Yes, sir.

And he joins us when he can. He's a contributor to the Labors podcast, and we really appreciate him. And last, but certainly not least, Brother Tyler Noe.

Oh, yes. Tyler is the brains of our operation. No offense, Rob. Rob's the founder and the organizer, but Tyler is, in the very best sense of the word, he's the big head. He's the big, giant head of the Labors.

No, truly, he is a blessing. I mean, his knowledge, his humility, his grace. He really is a blessing.

That's right. You're right, and I take no offense to that. I wish I had a quarter of his brain.

He's 24 years old, and as the old saying goes, he knows more than we've forgotten. Is that how the saying goes?

He would remember. He would tell us. So, let me ask you this. I'm going to take us to a modern evangelical Bible study. So, Claude, the 2023 Labors Conference, how has that made you feel?

Well, yellow makes me feel sad. Well, to be honest, there are feelings involved in theology and in doctrine, in sound preaching and teaching. There are feelings involved in that, and it has made me feel secure in the faith.

It's made me assured of the love of God. It has renewed my confidence in brothers and sisters in Christ that are not necessarily in the same locale, right? Because there's faithful men and women of God in South Carolina, North Carolina, in New York, in Colorado, in South Carolina.

I said South Carolina, though, didn't I? Right? Knoxville. Jay is in Miami. Jay Antello is in Miami. Deontay and them is in California. I mean, they're all over the place.

And we hope the Lord will allow us to grow.

Yes, we do.

We're like-minded in the foundations, in the core tenets of the faith. But also, Claude, I think we're also similar in our demeanors, in our character and our attitude, because there's a compassion. There's a kindness toward one another, and not everybody carries that.

That's right.

And we want to example that. The best part of our core desire is to example that, because there's so much hostility, not just in the world, but in the Christian community online.

You're right.

And we want to example unity. There's differences, and there should be separations at some times. Scripture speaks about that. But there also, I mean, Jesus prayed for unity, that we would be one as He and the Father are one.

And in those ways, we want to be one, and we want to exalt Christ and glorify God in that.

Amen. Yeah.

I had something in mind that I wanted to say. I forgot to wear my phone. I mean, my phone, my watch. And so I need to keep track of time. My computer has a little clock down at the bottom.

Mine says 1022. What's your phone say?

1025.

1025, yeah. So let's go by the phones.

Okay, we got about five more minutes. Let's see. What was a highlight for the weekend for you?

I would say the highlight of the weekend for me, honestly, was the, and again, if you folks watch the show, you know, and I don't mean nothing by it, but I don't know. I don't know why that Tyler's teaching and preaching is so, that I'm so drawn to it, but he's just so straightforward, so eloquent, so plain.

So I would say for me, the highlight of the weekend would have been your sermon, the kickoff sermon, and Tyler's sermon and his breakout. That was for me. Those were the three.

Well, you know, during the question and answer session.

Yeah.

And he said it was on the fly because we had a very difficult question.

Yeah.

That was posed to us and we were trying to answer it with grace, but with truth. And Tyler was looking at the passage and he was examining the text and he laid out a word picture that the text itself brings out.

And it was just so beautifully brought out by Tyler.

Yeah.

And those word pictures helped me. Those people who are not as analytical, academic, those word pictures really help.

Exactly.

To visualize it, to understand what's going on.

Yeah.

And he brought that out and I thought it was helpful for me. It was wonderful.

And you, I think the opening sermon, this is, you know, I think at a conference, the first preacher, I'm going to refer, because I speak country, speakers, you can call them speakers, but I'm going to call them preachers, right?

You had the opening sermon of the conference, which is a challenge because really you set the tone, you set the pattern for the remainder of the conference. And the bottom line is this. If you were here, you got it.

Guess what? If you wasn't here, you missed it. But you can catch up online.

That's right.

So the podcast or all the sermons are going to be, they are recorded, transmitted, set up on YouTube right now and on the Truth and Love Network, correct?

In the process.

In the process, so they will be sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Yeah.

We'll give you probably a couple of weeks to recuperate.

Hopefully sooner than later. While it's fresh on everybody's mind, I wanted to get them out there and I'm glad you brought that up. I wanted to say this before we leave too. We did something unique. Like we're doing currently right now.

We were podcasting prior to the service and the intent was, and some of them did, they come back in here and they podcasted, if we can use that as a verb, after the service to kind of give you a warm up, a little conversation before, and then a recap after the service.

And touching on some of the highlights from the sermon. That was a fantastic idea. We had some hiccups, but I think it worked out really well. It was really unique to the conference setting.

Yep.

And I enjoyed it. I think it worked out well. And so what I'm doing, I'm cutting out the sermons and they will be posted individually. Some of them have already been posted and we're working on getting the rest of them.

But I would encourage you, if you have time, and even if you can just listen to it going down the road, check out the content prior to the service and after the service, because the guys come in here and faithfully gave some good conversation, some good content, reflecting on the conference and what's going on here and what was said.

So check out the individual sermons and also check out the entirety of the podcast.

Yep.

So Rob, to wrap us up here, what's happening today?

So what's happening today? This is session seven. Our final speaker is going to be Jesse Gomez, the Chicano Knox. He is going to be speaking on Jesus' authority over the church. The theme of the conference was all authority in heaven on earth, the supremacy of Christ, Jesus' authority over everything and how we live in light of that truth.

And so the final session, the final sermon is going to be on the church. And I'm looking forward so much to that. And we talked about how folks come in here after post service. We're not going to do that this morning because this morning part of the session is going to be Q &A session.

So we're going to remain out there with the guys to be included in the Q &A session. So if you have there'll be folks monitoring. If you have any if you have any questions, post them, you know, make a comment, post them online.

And so the folks out there can see them and they can be asked in the service. But there will be no post service podcast. We'll be out in the sanctuary. So this will be our goodbye.

Yeah.

It's going to be the the the first the Friday night Q &A was awesome. But today it's going to be a little bit intimidating because we're going to have a full church. So there will likely be some good questions.

So we look forward to that. But that puts us back in our element because what it was what it was like Friday night. And I'm certain what it'll be like tonight today in the Q &A is it'll be it's basically just the same thing as we do on Thursday nights.

But there'll be a lot more comments and questions coming at us.

So pray for us that the Holy Spirit will speak to us. He'll give us clarity of mind. Recall good, solid, biblical answers and continue to pray for us throughout the year. We're going to have a video and announcement about next year's conference.

Lord willing. And we'll we'll announce that at the very end. So that wraps up the 2023 Labor's Conference podcast portion. And Brother Claude, I love you. I was glad to meet you. And hopefully we have many, many more.

Amen. All right. Amen.

So enjoy the service. And we're thankful that you are worshiping with us today.

Church Hospitality, Conference Highlights, and the Weekend Recap

To see everybody this morning. Today is going to be a little bit of a different format. Just so you know, this weekend, if you haven't paid attention, we had the Labor's Conference this weekend. It went really well.

We were those of us that were able to persevere through that were very, very blessed and very thankful for all that the Lord allowed us to do. And so we're very thankful for many of you who volunteered snacks and kept coffee going and kept the green room going back there for the guys to hang out.

Just just a ton of volunteers. Garrett Carter gets the bronze star. He put a bunch of overtime in. OK, like behind the scenes earlier in the week and those kind of stuff. Maybe it's a gold star. Garrett Bronze is like we give you the gold star, buddy.

So but he did a ton of behind the scenes work helping us get our technology working and all those kind of stuff. And so if you weren't able to attend, we will have the sessions online. Content was excellent.

The guys did a tremendous job preaching the word and bringing truth. And so we're just very, very thankful for them today. If you are part of the laborers group, I'd like for you to stand right now, if that's OK.

All right.

Can you stand? We got so we got to do some real quick. We got Jesse right over here. Jesse's from Colorado, from Colorado Springs.

Right. Yep.

Colorado Springs, Colorado.

All right.

So make Jesse feel welcome.

All right.

Big John Jones. He is all the way from Lincoln to North Carolina.

All right.

Good. Tyler. No.

Tyler is from the eastern part of North Carolina. Claude Ramsey is from Knoxville, Tennessee. And Brother Robert.

Good night.

He is right about two blocks away from First Baptist or we call him from Lincoln to North Carolina, too.

Right. Good. All right.

Thank you. So today's order of service, like I said, is going to be a little bit different. We have our opening song. We have a few announcements here. We're going to take up our offering. So for Vertical Lifers, this is our normal offering.

We're going to do one more song. Then Jesse's going to preach. Then after he preaches, then we'll have a Q &A time. We're going to have the laborers come up, sit on the stage, and you can fire questions at them.

So I want you to, like, dig deep in the Bible, get the most obscure question you can possibly think of and ask them.

OK.

Especially Claude and Tyler.

OK.

They're like brainiacs.

All right.

So, no, in all seriousness, if there's been something that's been burning on your heart, you've been in your Bible reading. Here at Vertical Life, we've been going through the Bible plan. We've been doing the McShane Bible plan, and you're getting a lot of Old Testament and New Testament.

And if you've been reading and something's like there's a question on your heart, we're not going to say we have all the answers at all. But maybe we can help guide you. We can help think through some things together systematically.

And there is a lot of knowledge and a lot of years of experience when we're all together. And so we want to—our goal is to labor with the body of Christ to help encourage you and to equip you. And then, like I said, if we don't have an answer, what will we say, Claude?

I don't know. I don't know. Let's go research. You know, we'll get back to you on that one.

Right?

Make sense? And so it's going to be a little bit of a special time today. At the end of the service, we are going to take up a love offering. We want to bless these guys that's traveled from out of town.

And we did take care of their expenses with their place to stay and things like that. And so we are going to take up a love offering at the end. So this first offering will be just our normal tithing offering.

And at the end of the service, we're going to do a love offering for the laborer guys. I do have one other announcement that's just a little bit exciting. So Vertical Life, you know that we have been in search mode for property and some permanent facilities.

And just praying that God give us His vision, His direction. Our dream is like a ministry center, a community center where people come all the time. Where it's not just church activity, but it's community activity.

In the midst of that, we're making disciples and reaching people. We've got a pretty big dream.

Okay?

So this week, we had a $100 ,000 gift this week for God's vision. So it's getting real. It's getting real. And so that's a challenge to all of us. To pray to what God would have us do as families. To invest and to do what God has called us to do.

We want to reach this city. I want to remind you that of all cities in North Carolina, this is the 60th most lost city. And there are several hundred cities in the state of North Carolina. 66 of the population in Newton, North Carolina do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

66%. You start doing the math of the Newton Conover area, that's between 60 and 75 ,000 people. Population total. And then you deduct that down. We're talking a population of 40 to 50 ,000 people that do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

We've got a lot of work to do, church. And I just don't want us to miss that. I just don't want us to miss what God has called us to do. Not just us, but linking arm-in-arms with other gospel-centered churches around our region.

There are people that do not know the joy of the Lord today. They're entrapped. And God has told us, stay here, because I still got many more people in this city. Remember he told Paul, Paul wanted to leave and head out?

He told him, said, no, no, no, no, stay here. I got many more coming. But listen, we believe many more's coming, amen? And we want to have tools. We don't worship buildings. We don't worship facilities.

But they are good tools in our tool belt to reach this city and reach this nation. So it starts where you live, work, and play. We're not dismissing that right there in your neighborhood, right there where you go to work, where you go to the ball field on the weekends.

Wherever you're at where you live, work, and play, it starts right there. We're not dismissing that. And then we want to have tools that as we bring people in, we're reaching this city, this community, this region.

Amen?

Can you agree with me on that?

Amen.

Let's stand and let's pray together. John, would you come on up? And I'm just going to ask John, John did our session on evangelism, and I just want him to pray over our city, pray over Lincolnton, pray over where the Lord leads you that we'll reach that, and then just bless our offering.

Father, we come to you in Jesus' name. Lord, I ask you that you take this time and set aside in this day, and you teach us how to become better soul winners for you, how that we might be better equipped to see your kingdom expand on this earth.

God, I pray that you bless this place, that you bless these brothers and sisters, that you bless those that have to give and those that don't have to give, God. God, I pray that you move in their lives as individuals, that you might be able to move in their communities, that you might be able to move in their cities, move in their counties and their state.

Lord, until we see every new being and every tongue confess that you're Lord, we'll praise you because you're worthy. We'll love you because you loved us first. It's in Jesus' name we pray and all God's people said.

It is the name of Jesus. We praise your name this morning. We thank you for the power in your name, that at your name demons flee, that graves open and people walk. We are thankful that because of your work, we live.

Because of the finished work of Jesus, we have life. We have freedom of will. We are no longer condemned to death. We have life through Christ. We praise you and we thank you for that. God, I pray that we would not walk in fear in this life because of your name.

You go before us, you lead the way, and you surround us in and you cover our backside too because you are with us always. You are mighty and we praise you and thank you. For your goodness to us, for your mercy you've shown to us, your tremendous grace that you give us all.

We thank you for Jesus Christ. It's in his name that we pray. Church says.

You may be seated.

Jesse Gomez on Matthew 16:18 and Ecclesiology

I think this thing is on. It is? All right. All right. Greetings. How are you guys doing? I am Jesse. My name is Jesse. I come from the great state of Colorado. I'm holding it down. I'm holding it down.

I love North Carolina. You guys are very hospitable. Very green.

Very green.

I've never seen so much consistency of green lawns. I'm kind of jealous. But God has blessed the state, right? So, you know, I cover this one topic.

I cover this one topic, the church.

In theology, we call it ecclesiology. And it's the study of the church. And I've been studying the church since 2015. I've been obsessed with it. It's been my number one thought since 2015. And I felt like I was on, like, an epiphany where it was like, I was in your seat at my church.

And it was like, man, I wonder what God is doing around the world with other churches. So that's how it kind of started. And so I started, like, doing a podcast and, you know, from my basement, my room.

And all of a sudden, it's like in 38 countries, interviewing missionaries, theologians, book authors, people who are experts or have hands-on knowledge about the church. And I won't stop and I can't stop thinking about it.

So today I have the privilege of, you know, expounding on this one verse about the church. So take it as one little piece of a giant puzzle called the church. If you ever had the privilege to study in the church, I encourage you to.

Usually in theology, if you open up theological, systematic books, the church, ecclesiology, is usually one of the last things. And that's one of the things that I have, like, I'm bummed out about. I'm like, oh, man, it should be like one of the first, man.

Because the church is such a God idea. It's such a God idea that it is so big. So if you have your Bibles with me, with you, let's go ahead and open up to the gospel of the letter, the gospel of Matthew, chapter 16, verse 18.

I don't know if I'll go ahead. I'll try my best to get through it. But let's go ahead and see if we can get through it.

Jesus says this.

And I tell you, you are Peter. And on this rock I will build my church. And the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.

Amen.

So the grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of God endures forever. Let's go ahead and pray. Lord Jesus, thank you so much for your word that is true. It endures forever. Whether in Colorado or North Carolina, where the rain and seasons change, your word, Lord, stays the same.

And your word is changing things, changing worlds, changing hearts right now as we speak. So I pray that you would speak through me to speak your word, Father, to those people here who need to hear this message about the church.

And I pray this in your name, Jesus, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Amen.

Peter, the Rock, and the Roman Catholic Claim

So recorded here in Matthew 16, 18, you have several things. And hopefully I'll cover some of them. This is actually, you know, if you read the Puritans, this is actually one of the main verses that the Puritans use as they traverse the Atlantic Ocean.

And I don't think I'll have the privilege to go through.

Every single word here in this verse.

So I would like to focus most of my time in the first part.

Of this verse.

And if you read it, this first part of the verse, it's a confirmation of Peter. And the second half of this verse is a prophecy. So if you want to look at it from two parts, you've got the confirmation of Peter, then you've got the prophecy.

So let's quickly talk about this confirmation of Peter real quick because I think you really do have to look at Peter here. You can't just read this verse. One of the problems when we read the Bible, it's kind of like the same problem that people have when they eat steak or meat.

They don't chew their food. And I tell my son and my kids, make sure you chew your food because I don't want you to get a stomachache. And sometimes when you read the Bible and you open it up and read such passages like this one, we don't read it slowly enough.

We don't chew on it long enough. How about you chew on it for the next five years and see how it changes your life? Because I bet you it will. So this is how I think when we approach the Bible in hermeneutics.

How I was taught is slow down, slow down. So let's go ahead and slow down and look at this first part here. Peter, the confirmation of Peter. So let me ask you, have you ever thought about Peter,.

Like who he was and what he was?

He's a very interesting guy. And Peter, you know his name wasn't originally Peter, right? His real name was Simon, not Peter. And you know Jesus changed his name, right, later on in the text. And his real name in Aramaic is Kepa, Kepa.

And that means stone or little rock. So imagine your real name is Little Rock. Yeah, so imagine, you know, hey, how's your name? My name is Little Rock, Simon. So Peter, like many of you will probably relate, Peter was a fisherman.

So I know many of you were like, yeah. So he was a fisherman by trade, and guess what? He was also married. So I know the Bible doesn't speak much about that, but from biblical records and other texts, it hints that he was married.

In fact, some of the apostles were married. And guess what? One of the most famous things that we see on Peter's resume is that Peter denied Jesus three times, also recorded for us in the Gospel. So imagine having that in your testimony.

Hi, I'm Peter. I'm a fisherman.

I'm married.

And I denied Jesus three times.

Nice to meet you.

You're like, whoa, that's a pretty heavy load right there, right? But later on, we know that Jesus forgave him. Like, imagine the weight that he must have felt for Jesus to say, Peter, I forgive you.

I love you. I'm with you.

Imagine that forgiveness, that feeling. And we know something very interesting about Peter.

We know a lot.

There's books upon books about Peter. And here's one of the facts that I found out that I didn't know before about Peter. Peter was not a fast runner. He didn't run a 4 .3.

He was a slow runner.

And we know this detail because in the book of John, John says in chapter 20, verse 4, both were running and the other disciple, which was John, outran Peter and reached the tomb first. Like, I was like, okay, so it's like in heaven, you know, John gets to heaven and I can imagine Peter just waiting, you know, to see John with his arms crossed and saying, did you really have to write that in, that you outran me?

Like, was that really necessary? It's like, what?

Like, you ran slow.

Like, I could imagine that. But yes, Peter was a fisherman. He was married. Peter denied Jesus three times, but he was restored by Jesus, forgiven. And he also ran slow. And later on in church history, we get the record of St. Jerome, who also wrote a great deal about Peter.

He said in very great detail that Peter also died a martyr's death in Rome. So much so that he died upside down, was crucified upside down. In fact, he requested the Roman soldiers to crucify him upside down because he did not feel worthy to die in the same like image as his master, Jesus.

So imagine the Roman soldiers who do crucifixion from nine to five. And you get this strange request. Can I get crucified upside down while you're at it?

Oh, oh, wow.

Okay, let's go ahead.

We've never done that before.

So that's Peter. This is the same Peter that Jesus is talking to in this verse. Like, we got to slow down before we get to the exciting part of, I will build my church. Like, he's talking to a person here.

He's having a conversation. He's confirming the faith of Peter here. Those are some of the facts that I think we need to get to know this person,.

Peter.

Jesus confirms, in this verse, you see that Jesus confirms Peter to be part of the elect. And if you read the entire chapter, just verse four, how do we know that? He confesses Jesus to be the Christ.

That faith is connected to a confession. It's not just an abstract idea. Faith is not just an imaginary thing, like a shadow. It's based on, there's content, and there's meat inside these words. That's why Jesus says, you, Peter, you are with me, basically.

And what's going on here, at the same time, when you read this verse, it's not just a name change. It's not just a name change. It's like, hey, Peter, Little Rock, you're no longer Little Rock. You're Peter.

So it's not just that. Yes, there's a physical name change, so Peter probably had to get a new ID, but it's a status change. It's a status change. It's an identity change. It follows you forever. If you think about it, your name follows you forever.

Everybody called him Little Rock growing up. Now everybody has to call him Peter, so that's kind of weird. So imagine changing your name in the middle of your life. At 55 years old, everybody's like, hey, John, I'm not John no more.

I'm Josh.

What?

That's Peter. He had to remind everybody, hey, don't call me that. Call me Peter. I'm a new man. I'm a new creation. It's a new identity that Christ is essentially giving here. And if you look at the whole scope of Scripture, God does this only a number of times, like physical name changes.

So God is like in the business of changing your name, changing your identity, changing your person forever. And if you look at it, there's like a pattern here. You know, you look in the book of Genesis, God changed Abram, right, to Abraham, and then he changes his wife Sarai to Sarah.

Then he changes Jacob into Israel. And then here he changes Simon into Peter. It's kind of like a pattern. God is in the business of changing your soul, changing your name, changing who you are. And to one sense, Paul the Apostle kind of echoes this, doesn't he, in his testimony.

And his testimony used to be called, like his old name was Saul, right? And then Jesus changed him so much that he no longer refers to himself to a Saul. He's like, I don't go by that name. I don't go by that character of who I used to be.

I go by Paul. So ever since then, he refers to himself to a Paul. So here in this verse, you have to say that Jesus confirms Peter as a believer. It fits into a unique pattern of God's character, doesn't it?

God changes your identity. He changes your person. He changes who you were and changes you into something different. If you give yourself a new name, it will probably not be as great. You know, I met people who changed their names before because I used to work in financial places and change their names in their accounts.