Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood
Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.
Thank you so much for tuning in to our podcast.
You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word
about important issues facing your life that can guide you
according to the Bible. Well, good morning Inglewood.
Take your Bibles turn to Matthew chapter 16.
I will catch up to you momentarily.
Good to see everybody here. Good to have guests with us.
Thank you worship team, appreciate James and Tracy
sharing with us. They're off to a connect group,
I believe to share. So appreciate that so much.
Listen, I hope you'll be back on Wednesday nights.
We're having a good time, good sized crowd coming on Wednesday
nights to to study in our core training series.
If you if you want to try to understand and to deal with this
post postmodern pre Christian culture that we live in
apologetically, as well as to nail down what you believe.
These next couple of Wednesday nights going to be crucial
because we're going to talk this Wednesday night about why do I
believe what I believe about the Bible and why does that matter?
And to be able to articulate that to people who don't
necessarily believe the Bible or appreciate its authority in
their life, to be able to articulate and, and what you
believe about this word is going to be crucial.
Then a week from Wednesday, we're going to do the same thing
about Jesus. What do I believe about Jesus?
Why does that matter? How do I share that with a world
that doesn't necessarily believe the same thing that I do?
So come back on Wednesday nights, Look forward to that.
Also appreciate so much. Those of you who are in Connect
groups, you're going to be needing to select a Connect
group. If you're a church member,
you've got about two weeks to find your Connect group, or I'm
going to find one for you. So hop in there.
I'm smiling, but I ain't joking, so figure that out.
What percentage of participation do I want?
That's it. So thank you so much.
I appreciate your willingness and your spirit about that.
I appreciate the testimonies, people running up to me.
So join a connect group this week.
Join a connect group this week so that you make my heart warm.
So thanks for doing that. Listen, I hope that you are as
we were hearing in our testimony earlier, I hope that you're
ready to move out. It's time.
So I hope you get on board. You know, it's easy to keep the
train on the track when it's not moving, but it just didn't go
very far. And so we got to start putting
some distance. I've shared with you maybe the
first time we were ever together, notes Swahili proverb
someone shared with me when I was in East Africa.
But you probably know this statement.
You may not know it's Swahili, But if you want to go far or if
you want to go fast, let me get this right because you know it's
in English now, maybe Oklahoma ESL student.
So if you want to go fast, go alone.
But if you want to go far, go together.
And so it's time for us to join together to move forward.
And, and in this new sermon series that I've just started,
I'm asking a series of foundational questions about the
church and about discipleship. It's really a precursor.
It's an intro to the next sermon series where we're going to lay
out what we call the seven essentials of discipleship that
really are going to map out our mission and vision and kind of
the whole future of our church. But right now we're in a series
to help us define our true identity.
And I invite you to come be the King's bride.
Last week I began with a very vital question.
Might seem basic, but you might want to go back if you weren't
here and listen to last week. And I asked the question of why.
Why do I need to be saved? And it was an important
question, But, but, but then the part of that last week was I
talked about the assurance of salvation in a way that maybe
you've not heard before. But today I need to ask a
different question. It may seem basic, but it's not.
Why do we need the church? Why do we need this?
Why do we need this odd little creature, right?
So we're going to dive deeply into God's word.
I pray this morning, I hope you'll listen along and pay
attention. I'll try to move us through
this. There was a a country church
Deacon who was talking to his pastor right before the worship
service. He said, preacher, leave the
cooking in the kitchen, just bring out the meat.
So I hope this morning we can chew on some pretty good stuff
here out of God's word, because our future really does depend
upon us taking this seriously. And over the next few months, I
am going to be talking about what true discipleship is, what
personal growth is, but also how do we apply biblical belief into
a practical action into our lives, What the stuff we learn?
How do we apply this as we're dealing with this culture that
doesn't necessarily believe this anymore or has never heard it,
frankly, whether it's here or overseas or someone else.
So invite others to be here. This is all very, very
important. So this morning, let's talk
about this, this interesting, weird little family called The
Church. There are a lot of opinions
about what we think we want or need from 1:00 and we need to
kind of see what the Bible says. We've studied 2 of them already.
Whether you understood that's what we were doing in that Acts
series. We studied the church in
Jerusalem. We studied the church in Antioch
and, and we might think we understand why and what 1 is or
should be, but we, we may have have seen or experienced such a
variety and many of them are extremely unhealthy that it
might be hard for us to know for sure.
Some of you, if you're not a guest, you know that I have a
background in church consulting and church background where I've
worked with hundreds and hundreds of churches and
thousands of church leaders both here in the United States and
around the world. So I've seen a whole bunch of
these things, a lot of variety of them.
Most of the ones I worked with were unhealthy because of the
nature of what people wanted for for me to do.
In fact, this week I'm teaching a doctoral seminar on church
revitalization to help others do the same thing.
But one of the things we recognize out of about 400,000
churches in the United States of America, about 360,000 of them
would be unhealthy. And so Gallup has told us that
back in the 1940s, about 80% of Americans said that they were
members of a church or a mosque or a synagogue or a temple.
Today, that number would be about 40 to 45%.
Now, that's not attending. That's just membership.
And so we recognize that in America today, this has changed
dramatically. And we need to talk about then
what's what's the standard? What's the definition?
What's the Plumb line is if you want to quote blackity, what,
what, what is the standard to which we can compare ourselves?
How do we know if we're healthy? How do we know what we need to
become? How do we know who we need to
be? So we need a standard to talk
about. We're going to try to define
that some of this morning. Mark Dever once wrote Pastor
Doctor Dever said many Christians in the West, and he
means the United States of America today, tend to view
their Christianity as a personal relationship with God and not
much else. I'm concerned that many
Christians don't realize how this most important relationship
with God necessitates a number of secondary personal
relationships. The relationship that Christ
establishes between US and his body, the church.
God doesn't mean for these to be relationships that we pick and
choose at our whim. Among the many Christians out
there, He means to establish us in relationship with an actual
blood and flesh, step on your toes body of people.
We're to be a family. So let's talk about this for a
minute. So the first thing, let's just
ask very simply, why is a biblical church?
Why is 1. Why does the church exist?
So we can never forget. In Latin it's called Missy O
day. But we can never forget the
mission of God very simply, very simply.
Don't make that hard. God is seeking to bring himself
great glory. That's it.
And so our ultimate goal in life, our ultimate goal for the
church is to bring God great glory.
So the way we do things, why we do things, our heart, our
motive, our thought process, not just our methodology, It's not
just the pragmatic stuff, but why are we doing stuff?
It all matters. We need to do stuff with
integrity, we need to do it with authenticity.
We need to do it with transparency, we need to do it
with an honest heart seeking to bring Him glory.
Now, one way that God brings Himself glory and we are able to
join in that is to be intentionally used by Him in His
disciple making redeeming work. And that's part of what we want
to do here. We want to make true disciples.
We're going to spend several weeks talking about what we
think that is what we believe the Bible teaches an authentic
disciple of Jesus. Who are they?
What do we need to know to be 1? What do we need to be doing to
to be 1? And, and, and what is should our
state of being even be? Who should we be as a disciple?
What are some of the characteristics that ought to
mark our lives? So it's very, very important.
And God then has designed the church to be the instrumental
institution to fulfill his Great Commission and his work.
So this church is really important.
The church. A friend of mine who passed away
a while back, Doctor Aubrey Malfours, who was an incredible
professor at Dallas Theological Seminary for years and has
written about 150 books, probably he and I have the
privilege of serving on a board or two together.
And listen to this definition that Doctor Malfours presents.
A local church is an indispensable, don't miss that
word, indispensable gathering of professing believers in Christ
who under leadership are organized to pursue its mission
through its functions to accomplish its purpose.
Now, the point being here is the church is indispensable.
It's the only institution that can do what it must.
And it's very important to note this.
It's God's organized, purposeful body to fulfill his mission, to
bring in glory, and to fulfill the Great Commission, etcetera.
And so the church is not just any group of people.
It's not just any group of Christians.
It exists for specific purposes, not to simply please or appease
us, but to please him first. I know this would shock you.
I'm, I, I, I'm glad you're sitting down.
But there are actually people who think the church is all
about them. Did I hear a gasp?
Was there a gasp? There are people who actually
think that the church ought to do what they want to want it to
do exactly the way they wanted to do it all the time and it,
and if the church doesn't do that, the church somehow has
failed and and and and and needs to be corrected.
It's amazing. The church is not about us only
the church is about pleasing him.
And by doing that we ought to be encouraging one another.
So we discussed a lot of these purposes back in our ACT study.
I promise you in our seven essential study, we're going to
bring them right back out because we're not just another
social club. We're not just some humanitarian
agency. We must understand why we are
and why that matters. And then we also need to
understand who we are and why that matters.
So who is a biblical church? So Matthew chapter 16, I told
you I'd finally get there an hour and a half later.
Here we are. Now when Jesus came into the
district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do
people say that the Son of Man is?
Now I'll be talking about this in a couple of weeks on
Wednesday night. And they said, some say John the
Baptist, others say Elijah, another is Jeremiah or one of
the prophets. And he said to them, the bigger
question, but who do you say that I am?
And Simon Peter replied, because Simon Peter always replied,
You're the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus answered him, blessed are you Simon Barjona, for flesh
and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in
heaven, and I tell you, you're Peter.
And on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell
should not prevail against it. Now, we know theologically and
even linguistically that the church isn't just built on
Peter. The idea here is Jesus called a
group of men to follow him and to learn from him.
We call him the disciples. And these original followers
become a human, earthly foundation for the church.
I mean, on a very practical level, but we also recognize
that the true foundation of the church, the spiritual foundation
of the church, is the truth about who Jesus is, the fact
that he really is the Son of the living God.
He is the Messiah. He is God Incarnate, and that's
a that's the foundation of the church.
In fact, Paul writes about it to a troubled church in Corinth.
He says in First Corinthians chapter 3, for no one can lay a
foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, I will build. Whose church?
Yeah, my church, see, doesn't belong to us.
Now this, I've said this to you before.
I'll say it to you again because it's a big issue in the churches
that I've helped. This is a huge issue.
The confusion between ownership and stewardship is massive.
This is not ours. But gang, this is not ours
either. Your breath is not yours.
Your heartbeat is not yours. You couldn't create life if you
had to. That's not how it works.
And the church isn't ours. We're stewards of it, which
means we take great care. We want to.
We want to make sure it's used for His glory.
We want to. We want to respect what we've
been given. But this is not your church.
Now, I know we say that that's my church.
Englewood's my church, right? And that's fine.
There's nothing wrong with it. It's a term of endearment.
It's a term of that means you care about it.
You love that. You love the church that you
attend, right? So there's nothing wrong with
that language, but we recognize that in the end, this is his,
this is his body, this is his church.
He's the chief cornerstone upon which all strength, upon which
all stability depends. In fact, Paul also wrote to the
church at Ephesus and kind of brought this home.
Listen to this. So then you are no longer
strangers and aliens, but your fellow citizens with the Saints
and members of the household of God built on the foundation of
the apostles and prophets. Or is that human, practical part
of it? But Christ Jesus himself being
the cornerstone, everything hinges upon him.
So the church then is made-up of those about to whom about the
truth of Jesus that the gospel has been revealed, and those who
confess and believe the gospel. And the biblical church began
when people believed and responded to Peter's a sermon at
the day of Pentecost. And it continues all the way to
today, still, still churches being planted, churches being
planted overseas that we've heard about.
We sent Jonathan out to Tarboro to plant a church there.
We're going to try to send out a church planter or people
overseas at least once every three years and see if we can
how many churches we can plant. So the church comes into being
in a response to this divine call of God to salvation.
Now, let me get technical for a minute.
Hang in there with me, all right, Grip tight.
Hang in there. That's what one of the reasons
why you see this word that you all already know.
There's a few Greek words I know most of you know, and one of
them is this Greek word ekklesia.
So the word ekklesia is important because when you break
it down, ECH means out, kaleo means to call.
So this is the called out assembly.
A lot of you already knew that it's actually a word used in
Greek culture, but it became the most common word for the church
for a reason. Now, they translated the Old
Testament from Hebrew to Greek in a thing called the
Septuagint. And when they translated words
in Hebrew into Greek, they would use some of these same words.
And so there's a word in Hebrew that means somebody who's called
out by they've heard the calling of God and they're following him
spiritually. OK, that's kahal.
Don't worry about that word. But in other words, I've heard
God's calling. I'm following him.
There was a different word that was used when the people of
Israel were physically gathered together.
EDA ecclesia is always used for Cajal, never used for EDA.
Here's why I'm saying all that. Wake up.
Here's why I'm saying all that. This isn't the church.
You are the Church, right? And so the church are the people
who are called out by God. And the Bible emphasizes this
over and over and over again. The people who hear the calling
of God and are called out by him to serve him.
It's made-up of those people. In fact, Paul even uses another
word, cletos, which is a word for called in his opening to
Romans and Corinthians to emphasize I'm writing to those
who are called out by God. So if this building cease to
exist, Englewood Baptist Church still exists because it's us.
So we know it's not this physical thing.
So a friend of mine and a former colleague when I was full time
at the seminary, Jon Hammett, one of my opinion, probably the
best Baptist theologian still riding and alive today.
He makes sure we understand that the word Hogyoy, so the word for
holy hagias hagi or the people, these are the Saints or the holy
ones. It's used more than 60 times to
describe members of the church. We are called out ones.
That's who the church is. So this isn't just some Country
Club. It's not just some social
gathering. It's something very different.
So when we're truly saved, you need to listen to last week.
If you missed it and we're adopted into God's family, we're
called out to become part of the family of God as well.
And we're called into fellowship with God and with one another.
So we don't simply get to say, now this is where you, you get
back to what you need to pay attention to.
We don't simply get to say, I don't need the rest of you.
It doesn't Christianity, it doesn't work that way.
Listen to what he wrote in Corinthians, he says.
But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of
them as He chose. If all were a single member were
would the body be as it is? There are many parts, yet one
body, the I cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor
again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.
We need one another in this thing called Christianity, in
this thing called discipleship through this thing called the
Church. Mark Dever again says this.
He says the New Testament just does not conceive of the
Christian existing on a prolonged basis outside the
fellowship of the church. The church is not really a
place. It's a people, God's people in
Christ. So if you hear people, or maybe
you're here today, somebody dragged you in here and thanks
for coming. Thanks for dragging them too.
Whoever dragged, whoever the dragger is, thank you.
Whoever the draggy is, thank you.
And you say I really don't need the church.
I don't need, I don't need to go to church in order to be a
Christian. Now, if you're talking about
salvation, I understand what you mean.
If you're talking about being a disciple, you're wrong.
It doesn't work that way. The entire Bible, New Testament,
the epistles, everything is written to the local church.
Everything is written about how I use my giftedness and my
spirit of skill for the local church.
So you've got to be very careful about your frankly selfish
claims. So then the third thing we need
to see is what then is a biblical church?
See, the problem is, is we need this clear, biblically objective
definition or we're never going to know if we're meeting it or
not. But the problem is there's not a
verse in the Bible that says thus shall be the church.
And so we have to look at various churches, various
characteristics, various images, various actions to help us
really put together what. The image of the true biblical
churches. Now throughout history there
have been statements of description to declare.
For example, the Charleston Baptist Association in the South
Carolina had a strong one that was quoted by many.
But I'm going to move on to what we call the Baptist faith in
message just for a moment because that's the one that
Inglewood constitutionally says. This describes our belief the
Baptist faith in message 2000. It was put together by Southern
Baptists to describe to the outside world.
Here's what most Southern Baptists believe, and here's
what it says about the church. It says a New Testament Church
of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of
baptized believers associated by covenant in the faith and
fellowship of the gospel, observing the two ordinances of
Christ governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights,
and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to
extend the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ, the
democratic processes. In such congregation each member
is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord.
Now these are helpful, but we need to examine in Scripture the
whole council of God and begin to look to define true biblical
ecclesiology. What?
What is the church? Our Acts study helped us as we
saw these examples, but the New Testament also identifies
certain elements, certain characteristics, certain actions
that that make up a legitimate, practical and biblical local
church. So let's look at a few of these
that we find in Scripture. The first image we would look at
is the body of Christ. And so as the owner, builder,
foundation, and cornerstone, Jesus is also the head of his
body. Colossians chapter 1 says this.
And he is the head of the body of the church.
He is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in
everything he might be preeminent.
So everything is joined together by him.
And this image points to our unity and illustrates how the
church may be one while its members are still quite diverse.
We're not all the same. We come from all kinds of
backgrounds. We have different spiritual
gifts. We have, as the book of Exodus
says, different spirits of skill.
We have different experiences in life.
But and so we're diverse and yet we can come together.
So it reflects how the members of the church need to show this
mutuality of love and care and cooperation and coordination
with one another. You need to be in the church to
do this. In fact, he writes to that
church in Corinth again in chapter 12.
But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to
the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the
body, but that the members may have the same care for one
another. If one member suffers, all
suffer together. If one member is honored, all
rejoice together. Now it says that he composed
your translation may say he combined.
It means to mix or to mingle this.
So literally, God is putting together a recipe of the church
where he puts us together in a special way to fulfill his
mission and purpose. We're not all the same, nor
should we be, but that's part of the beauty of the recipe.
So I believe with all of my heart and the sovereignty of
God, I believe that he has mixed together Englewood Baptist
Church for this moment at this place with you people, for this
time, for purpose. So you're not here by accident.
You're not even visiting here by accident.
God's brought you here. And you need to be part of the
mix. You need to be part of this
special recipe that makes up what is called Englewood so that
we can impact the Rocky Mount area, so that we can impact the
United States of America, so that we continue to send
missionaries around the world. And there's a special thing
about that. In fact, CS Lewis wrote about
this. Listen to Lewis, he said the New
Testament does not envision solitary religion.
Some kind of regular assembly for worship and instruction is
everywhere taken for granted in the epistles.
So we must be regularly practicing members of the
church. For the Church is not a human
Society of people united by their natural infant affinities,
but the body of Christ, in which all members, however different,
and he rejoices in their differences and by no means
wishes to iron them out. They must share.
We share life, complementing and helping one another precisely by
our differences. So Christ, as the head of the
body, is the ultimate authority for the Church, but he also
creates our unity. He creates our ability to serve
with one another even when we're part of such a crazy family.
And so all the members make up the body parts and, and all the
members contribute to the growth and all the members contribute
to the unity. And if you're not a part of
that, then we're missing something.
You're missing something because every one of us is designed to
perform that specific part of the ministry.
What percentage of participation am I looking for?
Ephesians Chapter 4 says it this way.
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every
way into Him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole
body joined and held together by every joint with which it is
equipped, when each part, when each part is properly working,
makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Every part needs to work right. We need you, We need everyone of
you. We need everyone of you to be
involved. We need everyone of you in the
Connect group. We need everyone of you at
midweek. We need everyone of you in
service. We need you to be a part of
this, for this to work the way God wants it to work.
He's created a recipe, but it's not going to turn out right if
we're all not part of it. He wants us to be a part of it.
And if we refuse, He'll move on and He'll find somebody else to
be a part of it. So I hope that you'll be there.
But some people, I'm telling you, it's amazing how they think
that somehow that this is for me and that I that, that.
And they're more concerned about what, what room they meet in or
they're more consumed about what seat they sit in, or they're
more consumed about this or that.
And I'm thankful that that's not the spirit of Inglewood.
I'm thankful that you all have been so willing to get on board
and so willing, so excited, so happy.
Thanks for being happy. I was the interim pastor at a
church up in Boone, Mount Vernon Baptist.
I always kid everybody that was Franklin Graham's pastor for a
while. Even though I never saw
Franklin, but I saw his family. He was always on the road, but I
used to always give them a hard time because they were nice.
They were nice, nice people, nice.
Mount Vernon's nice. Someone starts saying that about
Inglewood. They finally burned that in
wood. I've got a Mount Vernon Baptist
Church were nice, nice. Let me give you another image.
I'll focus. Thanks a little ADD there,
sorry. So let's look at the second one,
the bride of Christ. Revelation 19 seven says this.
Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory, for the
marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself
ready. Are we the image of the pure
bride? You know, the relationship of
marriage and the church go together.
It may not seem like that makes sense, but it always has been
that way. Marriage is a symbol of many
things, and it's a symbol of the relationship between Christ and
the Church. Listen to Ephesians 5.
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast
to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
So we see this Genesis covenant type passage that we often quote
in a marriage ceremony. And he says the mystery is
profound. And I'm saying that it refers to
Christ and the church. I'll talk more about church
membership in two weeks, specifically about why should we
join the church and be a member. But this level of love and
relationship are vital parts of it.
Earthly marriage is a symbol. It's a symbol of something that
God has already done in the hearts of two people.
And it shows us that the relationship of the church must
be like that to Jesus. We must be one with him and one
another. Hard to do that when you
separate yourself, hard to do that when you keep a distance,
Hard to do that when you're on your own and not officially
apart. And, you know, I've met people
over the years and they'll say, you know, I love Jesus, but I
don't love the church. And you've got to understand
that that's incongruent. I understand that some churches
are not very lovable, but it's incongruent.
I mean, that's like coming to me and saying, John, I want to be
your best friend, but I can't stand your wife, Teresa.
And if you can't stand my wife, Teresa, you got a problem.
Amen. Amen.
Thank you. I needed some points, so I
appreciate it, but you understand what I'm saying.
I mean, it makes no sense. In fact, I was leading AI was
leading the retreat for all of our association of leaders a
couple years ago here in North Carolina.
And we were talking about this and I was talking about how
sometimes we joke about the church.
That's kind of the way the church is, you know, And I was
just sharing with those guys. It's about how that breaks my
heart. When I was saved, I did have we
hadn't, I had no church background.
And so the church literally became my family, precious to
me. And I told those guys, I said,
how would you feel if somebody was mocking your wife or mocking
your daughter? I said, how do we make Jesus
feel when we mock the church? You know, And one of the guys
was praying at a break later and he was just weeping as he prayed
because he just couldn't get past that.
And he says, Lord, I would hate it if somebody was making fun of
my wife or making fun of my daughter and he was confessing.
He goes, I'm sorry for the way we must make you feel at times.
The third image is the people of God.
It kind of ties us to the Old Testament.
First Peter 2 says, but you are a chosen race, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession,
that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called
you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.
Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
So this imagery connects the the the church to the Old Testament
and God's great purpose of calling to himself a people.
It underscores the nature of the church as called, called out by
God to be his. And so the church is, is a
people. It's not just a collection of
isolated individuals. One person cannot be a church.
That's not the way it works. The church is God's people, not
a human institution. And it and the church is one of
the ways that God is going to use us to fulfill his mission.
And then finally, let me show you this one.
Let me talk about the representatives of God's Kingdom
because I want to compare what Jesus said to what the epistles
say. It's interesting because Jesus
talked far more about the Kingdom of God than the church.
Now you got to understand historically, he was at a time
before the church, so he was talking about what the Kingdom
was, and then the church came later.
But the New Testament epistles were just the opposite.
For example, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus only mentions the
church twice, but he mentions the Kingdom of God 49 times.
But then Paul will mention the church 43 times and the Kingdom
only 14 times, and so it gets reversed.
So Jesus is emphasizing the Kingdom and it leads to the
establishment of the church. But the two are not opposites of
one another. The church is the fulfillment,
the extension of Christ's teaching.
So following his declaration about building his church and
held inability to defeat the church back in Matthew chapter
16 that we saw earlier, Jesus continues in that passage in
Matthew 16/19. He says, I will give you the
keys of the Kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth
shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven. Now this is an amazing promise
of purpose and power for the disciples.
But later I want you to listen to the second time Jesus
mentions the church in the Gospel of Matthew in Matthew
chapter 18, beginning in verse 15.
If your brother sins against you and and, go and tell him his
fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have
gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take
one or two others along with you, that every charge may be
established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if he
refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a
Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, now notice
the parallel. Whatever you bind on earth shall
be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if 2 of you
agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for
them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are
gathered in My name, there am I among them.
Now the context of this passage and in Matthew 18 is church
discipline, which is often an unheard of concept in the modern
day church. But note the parallel Kingdom
promise with that of chapter 16. The apostles and the local
church were given Kingdom authority for declaring who was
a true Kingdom citizen and for guarding true discipleship.
Now that's a huge responsibility to be able to to determine when
a person is saved and how a person is spiritually growing.
So spiritual accountability was a significant issue and purpose
of the church, even though often today it's not thought of like
that because there's a corporate nature to this promise.
Again, verse 19 says, again, I say to you, if 2 of you agree on
earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my
Father in heaven. For where two or three are
gathered in my name, there am I among them.
Now people often use these verses out of context.
We often use these verses and only teach them in terms of
prayer and prayers being answered about how when we pray
together, God listens and he answers our prayer and we forget
the whole passage. So the church provides corporate
agreement, the church provides corporate affirmation, the
church provides corporate accountability, again, which is
often not thought of today. So those outside faithful church
membership and participation often don't want to hear these
kinds of things in their lives because they want to avoid that
accountability. They want to be able to justify
and excuse themselves. One of the things that we're
going to be working on is to make sure that we don't have any
inactive church members. We want everybody here.
We want to love them and disciple them back into true
fellowship with us, right? And so they that often people
prize their self defined individual freedom and
preferences over the God designed plan for us to be part
of his body, part of his fellowship and part of his
family. Now listen to this.
Some of you aren't going to like it.
Guy named Jonathan Lehman wrote a book about church.
Let's know this line. He says a local church is a
group of Christians who regularly gather in Christ's
name to officially affirm and oversee one another's membership
in Jesus Christ and his Kingdom through gospel preaching and
gospel ordinances. Is it too much to think about
the church having some role and actually overseeing your
spiritual walk and discipleship? See, that kind of flies in the
face of the American luxury of judging, shopping and hopping
church to church seeking, seeking out the best one that
perhaps tickles your fancy, the best show in town for that
season until a better show comes along.
So we need to commit. We need to decide who we're
going to be, who we're going to be, and how we're going to grow,
because I want Inglewood to make true disciples who multiply, who
reproduce, disciples who make disciples who make disciples.
Amen. Now I'm going to quote somebody
you love, somebody you'd never argue with, somebody you'd just
embrace Billy Graham. Billy once said, I'm afraid that
we in the church are making a mistake by trying to make
Christianity popular and pleasant.
We've taken the cross away and we've substituted cushions.
That's because at times, my friends, we have dumbed down the
value and seriousness of being an active part of the church and
what our true biblical purposes are.
Listen, I know some churches that are very unhealthy.
In fact, I know some churches that are flat out lousy.
And that's not an opinion. That's based on research and
work that I've done with them. I know churches that are
unbiblical. They stopped being churches a
long time ago. They have a sign and they have a
building and they have meetings, but they're not fulfilling any
biblical purpose. They stopped doing that a long
time ago. Gang, I've been there and I've
had to turn the key. They couldn't do it.
They stood in the parking lot and wept while I turned the key
and locked the door for the last time.
Dozens of churches close their doors every week in the United
States of America. It used to be over 70 a week.
It's probably higher than that now.
And some of them merged and some of them try, but they stopped
being a church because they forgot why they exist and they
forgot who they're supposed to be, and they forgot what they're
supposed to be about. And I know there's some lousy
church leaders out there, too. I'm writing a book about them,
writing a book about toxic leadership, because I've spent
the last 12 years of my life studying and working around and
through and after many of them. I know that.
So I want Inglewood to be different.
I want us to be the church that loves God and brings him great
glory. And over the next few weeks, I'm
going to be sharing about opportunities for us to grow.
Next week I'm going to ask the question, why should you be
baptized? We got to talk about our
ordinances. We got to lay this foundation.
Then we're going to get into this heavy specific discipleship
series, but I want us over the next few weeks to hear about
opportunities to grow, to learn how to fit into true Kingdom
work. I need 100% of you in worship.
I need 100% of you in Connect groups.
I need 100% of you at midweek, and I need 100% of you to serve.
In fact, after this service, there are tables in the lobby
right now for those of you who are church members.
They're signing up volunteers for children in preschool
ministry because they're growing and they need more help and you
need to take a turn if you can. So you talk to him at those
tables before you leave. Embrace these opportunities
wholeheartedly. Submit to this rule of Christ in
your life as the head, the great theologian Mark Twain.
Go from Billy Graham to Mark Twain, there's a shift, He said.
There's The most important days in a person's life are the day
that they're born and the day they find out why.
And then he also said the secret of getting ahead is getting
started. We're getting started.
It's time, it's coming. These room changes,
repositioning our children's ministries, getting ready with
reach. We have a huge connect group
leader meeting today. It's starting.
So get ready and just focus on this.
John 15 five. I'm the vine, you're the
branches. Whoever abides in me and I in
him, He, he, it is that bears much fruit.
For apart from me, you can do what?
What? We either believe that or we
don't. And I pray today that you do, or
I pray today that you seek Him, that you seek that abiding
connection with the Master Builder.
That we avoid pride, we avoid any sense of our own selfish
powers and ability, but that we depend upon Him because you need
Him. You also need His church.
That's His plan. So join him then join her.
That's the way it's supposed to work, Father.
I thank you for your word. I thank you for the truth,
Father. Sometimes it's not always
comfortable or convenient, Father, because we recognize
that we don't get to do whatever we want to do the way we want to
do it, Father. We're actually supposed to do
what you want us to do. And Father, the joy of that is,
is if we will, it will be the best thing for us that Father,
it will bring us more joy, more purpose, more hope, more peace,
more abundance, Father, to live life the way you want us to.
Now for some here this morning, that means salvation.
There are some here today. And they just have to admit,
John, I've never trusted Christ as my Lord and Savior.
I don't know what's going to happen to me when I die.
I don't. I don't even know why I'm here.
Well, I know why you're here. The Holy Spirit's brought you to
this moment. And I pray the Holy Spirit will
just Pierce their hearts, Father, and that Lord, you'll
draw them to you and that they'll understand the truth of
the gospel, that Jesus died on the cross for them and rose
again. He's the only one who can save
us. Others here recognize that they
need to join the church. They need to become an official
part. They've been visiting, they've
been spectating, they've been watching, learning, praying.
But Father, I pray that it it's time to close that door and to
move forward and to join. Maybe somebody here needs to be
baptized. Maybe somebody here just needs
prayer. So, Father, in a moment I pray
that people would come, that they'd take a pastor by the
hand, or they'd go to our Next steps room and share with one of
those decision counselors their father.
Or maybe they just need to come and pray.
The Lord just lead us. Help us to submit to you.
Help us to be your people, your bride, your body, your church.
Thank you, Father in Christ's name, Amen.
We're going to sing in just a moment.
Some of our pastors will be standing up here and you can
come talk to us or you can just come and kneel and pray here.
But we also have a Next steps room right there where we have
people who are trained and they just want to pray with you and
love you. Be a discreet, private place for
you to go to. Have a good conversation about
what it is the Lord's laying on your heart.
Some of you may want to go there.
You don't have to come here first.
Just go straight there. They would welcome you and love
to have you join them there just to talk to you, just to share
with you, just to love you. So let's stand together.
Worship team is going to lead us.
We'll be here, you come. Thank you so much for listening
today. And I also hope that you'll go
to ourwebsite@englewoodbaptist.com
as well as our app and find many other resources that will bless
you and your families. Thank you once again.