On the Church | Behold Your God Podcast

Welcome to another episode of the Behold Your God podcast. I'm Matthew Robinson, director of Media Gratiae, and on this special edition of the podcast, I'm joined by my friend from Conway, Arkansas, pastor and author Jeffrey Johnson.

Hey, Jeff.

Thanks for coming all the way down to New Albany.

Oh, it's been great. Thanks for having me.

Now, you're the pastor for preaching and teaching at Grace Bible Church of Conway, Arkansas, where you've been for how long?

I've been there for 18 years.

So tell us about the church.

Yeah, the church started, actually, in my living room as a Bible study. And this is when I was just recently graduated college and had a Bible study, wasn't looking to start a church. And we've had my brother, his wife, we had some college students.

And then this family called me that I didn't know, and they heard about the Bible study. And they started coming. And we were looking for a church. And after two years of church searching and being a part of a church and looking for churches, after two years, this is right around 1998, 99, around 2000, end of 2000, we decided to form a church with some help of other churches.

And that one family's still with us, and we're still going strong, and the Lord's really blessed.

Yeah, that's awesome. And now it has gone well beyond a Bible study in your living room at this point.

Yeah, we have five elders now, which we're really thankful for. And the Lord's brought a lot of people to us. We're pastoring and ministering, too. The ministry's grown, and it's a lot of work. But it's just been wonderful.

Right there in the middle of the Conway, Arkansas, and so we were able to reach a lot of people and thankful for that.

Which. I can't imagine that there are people out there that don't know this, but Conway, Arkansas is right in the geographic center of the state of Arkansas, 30 minutes north of Little Rock, right?

Yeah, we're right in the middle. I mean, if you want to know where we're at, just find the geographical center of the state and put your dart right there, and you'll hit us.

Now, the church also there oversees a seminary, Grace Bible Theological Seminary, where you're the academic dean. So tell us about that.

Yeah, about four years ago, we started to have an influx of college students that felt called to the ministry, and we began to teach a class for these students. And it would be Sunday night. I teach two, three classes every month.

Then it went to every week, and more and more students would hear about this, and that class kept on growing. It wasn't something kind of like the church. We weren't seeking out to start a church, but it kind of like God thrusted upon us.

And God began to bring in all these ministers, our potential ministers, and I felt a moral obligation to invest in these young men. As Paul told Timothy, you know, take what I've taught you and to train faithful men.

And God has brought these men to us, and we felt obligated to train them. And about two years ago, we decided rather than just have this Bible study for these men to start a formal training program, and we're in the process of being accredited by arts.

And so that's exciting. Early next year, we're gonna open up our own campus facility. Our new, we have a new building that we're moving into, which we're really excited about. It's gonna have a lecture hall that'll seat 100 people.

We'll have other smaller classrooms, a wonderful library, two-story library in the facility. So we're excited about that. And so we're gonna have a seminary right in the state of Arkansas to help train men for the ministry.

And the beautiful thing about our seminary is not only we're training people in the state of Arkansas, we're having interaction with Cuba and Ecuador, and we're able to go and teach, send our teachers.

And I, for one, I'm headed into Cuba in February of next year to teach in a seminary there that we're associated with and connected with. And there's 45 students there. We have 65 students in Ecuador, and a possibility of other countries in Latin America as well.

Yeah, no, I've seen where you guys have guest lecturers come in and put together modules for your students. I've seen Dr. Beeke has come down and taught there at the seminary, Steve Lawson and others.

So it's certainly not just a Bible study at this point. And what I'm really encouraged by is, you guys aren't just selling diplomas down there. I mean, you really seem to be interested and dedicated to training men for the ministry.

You intend to send people into the local church.

Right, right. Well, one, we don't wanna skip out on the academic side of the training program. And any of our classes can be transferred to Southern or masters. We wanna have a program that is recognized by the other programs.

And so we're bringing in top professors around the country to come and teach in our seminary. But the beauty of our seminary is it's a local church base. And so you have the academics classroom side of things, but also we're taking these young men and putting them into the hospitals and the nursing homes and bringing them in and walking side by side with them to give them pastoral training.

So that way when they graduate, and it's not just some young man who's got a mind full of knowledge that he's ready to teach others. He's got a heart that's been shaped and molded. And so we want pastors, we wanna train pastors and ultimately plant churches and to build the kingdom of God with godly men who fear God, who love the scriptures and that will preach the truth faithfully.

That's really encouraging. Also by way of introduction, you have a Christian publishing house called Free Grace Press that where you publish books and well, it's books, right?

Yeah.

Well, like everything in my life, I didn't intend to start a publishing company either, but it was kind of thrusted upon me as well. I wrote a book several years ago and self-published it. But rather than self-publishing, I put a logo and just come up with a name.

Free Grace Press. And I'm thankful I did because that was seven years ago and now we're about to publish our 23rd book. And then in 2019, we're scheduled to put out six books, which is more than we've ever done in one year.

So we're excited about that. We have our last book that we published was by Dr. Tom Nettles. It's a wonderful book on preaching, on the history of preaching from Jonathan Edwards all the way down to the present.

And then we have a book coming out by Michael Hankin on the Trinity, which is a wonderful little book. It'll be a great introduction to the doctrine of the Trinity and the Nicene Creed. So I'm excited about that.

We have other books after that we're gonna schedule to release. So it's just exciting about these things that's coming about.

Yeah, the last time I was in Louisville, I was with my friend, Jeff Robinson, who's the editorial director of the Gospel Coalition and he's a seminary. Well, he's, what is his position at Southern? He's the, he's over, he has something to do with the history department.

Anyway, he's a honcho, he's a hoss, he's a good dude. But he was, he was, he's also a pastor there in Louisville and he was going on and on about how great that Nettles book is.

Really, yeah, it is a great book. I've had a lot of correspondence with people who've bought the book. And of course I went through it two or three times in the process of publishing it and I can't recommend it high enough.

Well, in our later, in our supporters appreciation podcast, we're gonna talk a little bit more about several of those books. How many books did you say that has been out?

23.

Yeah, we're gonna talk about some of those in our, in our supporter appreciation podcast in just a little while. But the last book that you authored was just published by Dr. Beeke at Reformation Heritage Books called The Pursuit of Glory, Finding Satisfaction in Christ Alone.

Now, I like that title. Tell us about it.

Well, over the years, I've done counseling with people who are depressed, full of anxiety. And I was looking for the perfect little book to hand them. And it's, if you're depressed, there's a lot of books on depression that are good.

If you've got marriage problems, there's a lot of been treatment on that. But I wanted something you could give the high school student or the college student or the housewife who's just struggling with where's my place in this world?

What am I supposed to do? You know, I'm not this great missionary or I'm not this pastor. And I feel like my life is, doesn't have anything wonderful. And I feel empty. And I've really put a book together to help people to realize that no matter what your walk in life is, that you can have meaning and purpose and not just feel good about yourself, but feel good about God in yourself.

In the sense, it's not about a self-focused book, but really it's a book about glory being found in God and knowing God and better yet, it's a book about God knowing you. And I mean, I'm proud to be your friend.

I said, man, I'm Matt's friend. But that's one thing to be Matt's friend. But now if I can say, I know God and better yet, God knows me. There's nothing that compares to that. And then that gives life meaning that I, I don't just know him, I work for him.

I'm an employee of the living God. And though I may be a housewife or though I may be a janitor or maybe I'm a doctor or maybe I'm a school teacher and I'm wondering if I really count for anything, then it brings purpose to the little things in life.

Absolutely, it's perspective.

It's perspective. And so I can do all that I do in a day's work and I can do it for a higher purpose and it brings meaning. And without God, there's no meaning.

After all, what is the chief end of man?

Yeah, it's to glorify God and enjoy him.

Forever.

So what no one knows until now, this is kind of our announcement for it, is that you're also working on a study for Media Grantia on the doctrine of the church, which is actually an adaptation of an excellent book.

That you wrote.

It's been endorsed by MacArthur and Beakey and Dever and so many other guys. Anthony Metheny, one of our good friends and a board member for Media Grantia, recommends it more than he recommends any other book, he says, on the church.

So the name of the book is what?

The Church, Why Bother.

The Church, Why Bother. So that was a book that you wrote several years back?

Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting book because about seven or eight years ago when our church were getting started, I wanted a little bitty track to give visitors to let them know what we're about, maybe a membership class material.

And I wrote it and I put it in a staple bound and some visitor came and says, this needs to be in a book. I'm like, well, I haven't thought about it that way. So I added a couple chapters and published it and it's gone through four editions and so right now it's currently where we've been sold out of it for about six months to a year.

And so I'm very thankful about reworking it again, adding some new material to it and revising it and improving it and working with you with them.

Yeah, so our goal with Media Grantia, just so the listeners know, this is the first time we've mentioned it, but in 2019, in early 2019, we'll be releasing this book reworked as a 12-week multimedia study.

So there'll be the book itself will be sort of reworked into a book slash workbook hybrid and then there'll be a video discussion part with you and with some special guests that we won't name yet because we haven't actually filmed them, but that will be coming out in the early part of 2019 and I am very excited about having a study on the church in the Media Grantia study series.

So that dovetails into the subject of our podcast today. A little while back, we got a message from one of our listeners, Daniel, and Daniel said, perhaps during a future podcast, you could talk about the importance of the local church, the relationship between the local church and the universal church, the relationship between the believer and the local church and possibly talk about why we've devalued the church so much in our culture and how does that affect and what does that say about our understanding.

About the gospel?

So while we had you in town today, we thought we would rope you into doing a podcast where we can talk about some of this stuff. So you up for it?

Yeah, sounds great.

Well, so tell us about the relationship between the local church and the universal church.

Yeah, I mean a lot of people over the years have either denied one or the other. They're either only local church, only guys, it's like there's no such thing as universal church. In fact, the Catholic Church undermines universal church.

Roman Catholic Church.

Roman Catholic Church because everything's local. I mean, not local, everything's visible. They don't believe in a, if you would, an invisible entity of it. The church is universal as its connection of all the bishops all the way up to the Pope.

And so some...

So before you go on with that illustration, I think it might be helpful for our listeners if we define what we mean by visible church and invisible church.

That's right. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, so I believe there's two sides to the church. There's one church, there's not two churches, but there's two aspects to the one church and you need both sides. And if you say there's no invisible side of it, you're undermining the universal nature of it.

If you say there's no external or visible side, you're undermining the local church aspect of it. And people are prone to do one or the other and you need both. And the way I look at it is I'm two parts.

I have a soul and I have a body and I believe my soul lives without the body. If my body dies, my soul goes on to be with the Lord and the body decays and the body be resurrected. So the soul can live without the body and I believe Christians can exist independent of the local church, but it's not natural.

It's not natural for your soul to be without a body. The soul is longing to have an outward expression. And so your body is vital for the soul. It's vital to live in this world. And so there is a invisible and that invisible part of the church is universal.

It includes all true Christians. So a basic definition of the church is what is the church? It's God's people. It's all of God's people. And we think of that, that's a universal collection of everyone who's been redeemed.

And you may could even include all those who will one day be redeemed.

Yeah, so it's not just limited to every believer on planet earth in this year. I mean, we're talking about all for whom Christ has died.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. From the beginning all the way to the very end, it's everyone who's been united into the person of Jesus Christ. And the reason we believe it's invisible is because those who are born again, they've been united by faith into a living personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

And Christ is their head and they are been baptized into or engrafted into the person of Christ and Christ lives in them. And in one way they live in Christ. It's this mystical union that exists, but you can't see it.

But it's truly a real union. It's a real living personal connection between Christ and his people. And so we know that's an invisible union. It's not a visible, tangible thing. And so when I'm baptized into Christ, all that belongs to Christ is righteousness, his inheritance, the full inheritance.

I become joint heirs. But not only do I become a joint heirs with Christ, that connects me with all the rest of the people who are in Christ, which would be you and all the saints of God. I'm a joint heir.

I'm a co-heir with Christ. And the way I like to look at it is, it's not like Christ has all these wonderful gifts and he gives me a little bit and he gives you a little bit and he gives another Christian over there a little bit and eventually he's depleting himself of his resources.

He continues to stay enriched and all things are in him and belong to him. So he doesn't give out portions of it. It's that we become united to him and when we're engrafted in him, all that belongs to him, all of it becomes mine.

Now, where are you getting this language about, you know, being in Christ, being baptized into Christ, being engrafted into Christ? Well, clearly there is so much in Romans 6 that Paul teaches us the reality of the church here and he does it in the context of those who might say, well, if Christ is our federal head and we're in him, well, then we can just do whatever we want to do.

We can sin as much as we want to and he says, well, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? And so there's a statement, you've died to sin.

When did we die to sin? Or do you not know, Paul says, that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death and he goes on to say, we were buried with him through baptism into death.

We were raised with him. When he was raised by the glory of the father, we were raised and he goes on in that way. Now, baptized there, is this a dry baptism or a wet baptism here in this passage?

Well, this is, your wet baptism definitely symbolizes and points to this spiritual reality.

Yeah, I would agree with you there.

And so here we have, we have, you know, so when Romans talks about we've been baptized, I think it's including our physical baptism, but if that's all we had, it's not a full understanding of what it means to be baptized into Christ.

And I don't believe that in baptism regeneration that we're brought into a union with Christ through our outward baptism. We're bought into union with Christ by faith and our baptism is a picture of that.

It communicates that. And so here we have both realities in one word, being baptized into Christ.

So I guess what I'm aiming at is I want to make sure that people understand that as you were saying, when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, when we're born again and we get those twin gifts of faith and repentance, that is the spirit of God baptizing us into Christ.

We're being joined to Christ universally, invisibly. And we've become a member of the universal church.

We've become united to him. I mean, look at the word baptism as the, I would look at it as the word immerse or to be planted into, to be submerged into. And so here you have Christ. And if you could look at them as a container or a cup and you need to be inside the cup and everyone on the outside is in danger.

They're in their own sins and they need protection. The only safety is inside of him and basically to be hidden in Christ. So we need to be in him. And the most important word in the book of Ephesians is this preposition and it's the Greek word.

If you transliterate it, it comes to the exact same word as English, in, in. And it's talking about, you know, all blessings in heavenly places have been given to us and the key phrase is in him, in him.

And all these blessings, if it'd be from election to forgiveness, to repentance, all these things that we receive at salvation comes to us in the person of Christ. And so that's an invisible union, a personal union, but it's invisible.

And by that union, we, though we sit here in Mississippi, we're also at the same time seated with Christ in him in heavenly places because Christ is the right hand of God. I too, because I'm in him, I'm also there seated with Christ.

And so, well, I don't see that. Well, just because I can't see it doesn't mean it's not real.

That's right. I don't remember being raised with Christ. I don't remember being, that my old man was crucified with him in a physical sense.

Right.

But here the scriptures tell me this because I'm now in Christ by faith, what's true of Christ has now become true of me, which would be a blasphemous statement if it weren't true, if it weren't right here in the scriptures.

And so, you know, it's this wonderful doctrine of union with Christ. And that leads us, I think, really well to, okay, so here we now have the universal church. We have a new believer. He has believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's been, by the spirit of God, he's been placed in Christ. His identity is now a man in Christ. But what, and so he's in the universal church. But what is the relationship between the universal church and the local church?

Yeah, if I'm in Christ, it doesn't just unite me to the person of Christ by virtue of being united to Christ, which is my head. He unites me to all those who are also in union with Christ. So all of a sudden I have a real relationship.

It's a spiritual relationship, a spiritual union with all Christians. And that's why the Bible tells us to seek, to endeavor, to do what we can to maintain. And not to build it, not to get it, but to maintain the unity of the faith.

So our job is not to mess up what God has established. And so that union is already established. I mean, all Christians, if you're truly born again, there's something that unites us. We're family, we're brothers and sisters.

Yeah, and who among us has not experienced that? Where you go, you meet a person, you never knew them, and then you feel like, this is my brother. I've known this person, this is my sister. I've known them my whole life.

That's right. It's wonderful. It's a family, being part of the family of God. And so that is something true of the universal church. It's invisible and it's universal. But because of that reality, it wants to express itself.

It wants to come out in a visible, tangible way. And we live in earthly bodies and our bodies localize us. We're not omniscient. We're not omnipresent. We're not where we can be every place at all times.

So we're a local physical body. And therefore, we cannot help but seek out local communion and fellowship with our brothers and sisters. It's just part of our DNA. So the local church is a natural expression of the universal church.

That's why the universal church is the foundation. The local church comes out of it. So you don't become a member of the universal church by joining a local church. You can be baptized, you get your names in the book, and you can walk the aisle and say, I want to join this church, but you can still be lost, unconverted, and headed to hell and outside of relationship with Christ.

It's only through Christ that you truly belong to the church. But once you do belong to Christ, and you belong to the body of Christ, that will be made evident by your intuitive desire, this innate desire to join God's people in a visible, tangible way.

Yeah.

Yeah, how do we know that we've come to know Him?

You cannot know unless you love the brethren. If you don't love the brethren, and someone say, hey, I'll love the church when I get to heaven. It's easy to say that, you know, when no one's imperfect, and there's no hypocrites in the church, I'll love that assembly.

But God hasn't called us to love the glorified church, which we will. It'll be easy to do. But He's called us to love the imperfect church that's still progressing, that's got an imperfect pastor, imperfect elders, imperfect deacons, imperfect membership.

There's going to be hypocrisy. There's going to be all kinds of flaws, and we're called to love this body, and therefore we're called to have the fruits of the Spirit, long-suffering, patience, forgiveness, all these things that are necessary to utilize in this context.

When we get to heaven, we won't need long-suffering, and forgiveness, and patience. We need that now, because we're dealing with an imperfect church. We're imperfect members, and we're called to love the church that God has established, and be a part of that, and express our own Christian life.

And I also believe firmly that if we don't love the local church, it's evidence that we don't love Christ. We don't love His body. And so, the idea that I just want Christ, I don't want organized religion is definitely not a good sign of a real work of grace in your heart.

Yeah, by no means. So, we've established the universal church as the believer who has been united to Christ, and now that believer, by force of internal compulsion, wants to then find outward expression to what has become inwardly true of them by joining themselves to a visible local church.

Yeah, that's the pattern we see in Acts, is it not? It's like those who repented, God gave the gift of repentance. And so, the Lord added to the church daily as that which should be saved. It's like, and this adding wasn't just that context.

It's not necessarily speaking of the universal church, which is true. Once you're born again, you're immediately a part of the body of Christ. But it was added to the church of Jerusalem. And the reason we know that is because right after that, there in Acts chapter 4, they begin to meet in people's homes day to day, and they broke bread together.

And so, they know exactly how many people were converted, and they know that they were converted because they were baptized. And when they were baptized, they joined the local church. And so, this is the natural process of salvation, is that God expects church membership as expression of your own conversion.

And I think baptism, among many other things that baptism does, baptism is a evidence that not only that you're a follower of Christ, but the church recognizes you as a follower of Christ. And I'm convinced that to be a member of the universal church is just faith alone, and God can see it.

But the visible body, other Christians can't see faith. They can only see the fruits of faith. That's why James says, you say you have faith, that's good. Show me your faith. I want to see the faith. Give me evidence of your faith.

And that's why John the Baptist would tell some of the Pharisees that wanted to be baptized, wait, wait, I'm not just going to baptize you because you're in line. You have to show works that's incongruent with your profession.

That's right. And so, the church is there to verify, and we may not like that. It's like, I don't need verification that I'm a Christian. Yes, you do. We all need the church body to say, look, this brother loves the Lord, and I can vouch for him that he's a believer.

He understands the gospel. His life's been changed. He's got love in his heart for the saints. Who can say, let's not baptize him? He's a Christian. So, the local church needs that outward verification, and we need that accountability.

That's why we believe in church discipline as well.

Well, we'll get to church discipline in just a minute. You know, Jonathan Lehman uses some verbiage like this, that the local church exists to give affirmation and oversight to our profession of being Christians.

And I think that's really helpful. So, here's this person. They've, the internal reality, you know, they have heard the gospel, they have believed on the name of the Lord, and they've been saved. And now they come to this, they're a part of the universal church.

Now they come to this local church where the gospel is preached, where Christians gather, where the Lord is worshiped, hopefully the way that he has commanded that he would be, and they present to them, hey, I'm a Christian, I'm one of you.

And so, hopefully the elders would say, that's wonderful, let's get to know each other. And so, you know, what would that process look like in Conway?

Well, right, I wouldn't trust a church that you can just go up without them knowing you and baptize you. And that happens across America, where just get in line and they're gonna baptize you with little to no questions.

Maybe they'll ask you if you believe in Jesus, and you can say, sure, I do. And then they'll just go ahead and baptize you. Now, we don't wanna make the process too hard where you have to pass some theological exam before you can express your desire to follow the Lord in baptism.

But it does need to know that, hey, this person truly does know the gospel, which is essential to be a Christian. He understands the gospel. He has a testimony that he's trusting the Lord. And he's got a life, even though it may be the most immature Christian, a new Christian, he's got the signs of life that he's breathing.

He's been born again.

We're not looking for maturity, we're looking for birth.

That's right. Just a love for Christ, a love for his word, a love for his people. And so there's just an interview process. It's not hard. It's not a magical questions you have to answer. Just basic knowledge of the gospel and a basic expression of love for Christ and his people.

And that's what it would look like at our church. And so the Bible speaks about baptism as answering to a good conscience. And it's an act of obedience, among other things. I believe it's a means of grace.

And there's other things that we can say about baptism. It's very important about it. But one thing it is, it is an act of obedience. And this is the reason why Baptists throughout history says, listen, we want to see you baptized before we're willing to give you communion because if you're not willing to follow the Lord in the first step of obedience, why would you want to say I belong to Christ and his people?

Why would I want to take communion if you're not willing to first identify with these people through baptism?

Sure.

Yeah.

So again, I agree with you that there is a lot that we could say about baptism. So it's certainly not limited to these functions. But one of the ways that the sacraments function in the church is the front door into the church is a profession of faith that's followed up by baptism, physical baptism.

And so that allows the church as a body to say to the watching world, this is a Christian.

That's right.

This person is marked as you can trust that this person represents Jesus Christ. And then the Lord's Supper is an ongoing way as the church gives oversight and affirmation continually to this person because we fellowship, we know one another, we are in one another's lives.

And then in the ongoing taking of the Lord's Supper, the church continues to say this is someone who is a Christian. I think we have established this difference between the universal church and the local church, the foundation being the universal church, then the local expression being the visible local church and the importance that all who are in the universal church give expression to that membership of the universal church by joining themselves to a biblical local visible church.

Talk to us a little bit about why it's so important for that to happen.

Yeah, I mean, there's many reasons why it's important to join a local church. I would even say mandatory upon the Christian. This is not something that's optional. God's commanded. But the one reason it's important, in fact, even vital to the Christian life is because God's made Christians, me and you, all Christians deficient on purpose.

He's made us to have spiritual gifts and strengths, but He's also with our strengths, He's put into us weaknesses. So we're not a complete man. Christ is the only complete man lacking nothing. But He's the head and we're the body.

And so He's given all of His people different spiritual gifts. We're independent upon one another. So we need one another. So I can't live the Christian life alone and get my full potential out of myself.

Now, I need to grow. I need to have my own personal devotional life. I need to read scriptures. I need to grow. In fact, my growth is not just for my own spiritual benefit. I'm to grow spiritually and my own personal devotional life on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I do in the closet, if you would.

It's not for my own benefit. It's for my benefit, but it's also for the benefit of the church. So God's made me where the church needs me and He's made the church where I need the church. And so where I may have a strength and I can help others have weaknesses in that area, they'll have strengths that I need.

And only together do we get the full potential out of any one of us. And that's why the Bible describes us as a body with different body parts that function together. And just because I'm good at seeing doesn't mean I'm complete.

I need ears. I need hands. I need other body parts. And that's why God's made us to work together. And it's not just working together in this invisible mystical sense. It's in the visible local church that this functions out in everyday life.

So let's talk in closing a little bit about why do you think culturally we've devalued the church so much? And what does that say about our understanding of the gospel?

Yeah, it's a very good question. I think mainly the world devalues the church because the church has devalued itself and the church has put something ahead of every other objective. I'm talking about the mainstream American churches nowadays.

It's growth, whatever it takes to grow. We want to grow. Maybe we have a building project. We need to fund the building project, the building projects to get more people in. But now that we got this building project, we need to pay for it.