Biblical Principles of Church (Part 1) - Pastor Steve Estes
Full Transcript:
Now when a person first comes into a Christian church, their idea of what they might experience is liable to be this big - but the Bible reaches out to us to say if you ever really grasp what a church is all about - what Jesus had in mind when he founded it - what his plan for whatever church you're in, and you in it is, you would not be able to stretch your arms full enough for the greatness of it.
And so we are again today in Matthew chapter 16, when Jesus talks about the founding of his church. And because it has been two weeks since we started in this passage to talk about the church, we’ll review a little bit. We’re just going to read the two verses from Matthew 16 beginning with verse 18.
Speaking to the apostle Peter, Jesus says “And I tell you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church. And the gates of Hades will not overcome it, and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Two weeks ago we mentioned how when Jesus said this word to Peter, he was at what most people would have seen as the bottom of his ministry. The Pharisees have put so much pressure on him and demanded signs from heaven. The people had misunderstood him, his disciples were rather few. And many of his disciples that had followed him had drifted away. And some of those that still tagged along really did not understand who he was. And so Peter said, “but I do know who you are, you are the Messiah, the son of God.” And Jesus said, “Peter, your name ‘Peter’ means rock and on this rock I will build my church.”
We noticed how when Jesus seemed to be the most of a failure, he announced a great triumph, “I will build my church,” that he was going to found his group of people, and even the gates of Hades, the gates of death, will not prevail against it. The ‘gates of death’ was used often in the Old Testament and often in secular literature to mean ‘death itself.’ Probably what Jesus is saying, it seems to me (there are several ways of interpreting it) is that even if my people in my church are put to death, it will not stop my church.
And as each generation of people in my church die, it will not stop. Another generation will rise; there will always be a church.
So the first great principal we learned two weeks ago from this passage is that:
Nothing will ever stop Jesus Christ’s church, and you as a part of it.
Secondly we asked, why did Jesus call it his church? And we said that the word ‘church= - we don't like to use the foreign terms, but the word church in Greek is ekklesia. It means a gathering, an assembly.
Whether it's a secular gathering or whether it's a religious one. And so, because it means a gathering of people, an assembly of people (and we fleshed that out quite a bit), we came to the second great principle, and that is that:
The very word “church,” which means “assembly,” disallows the idea of a lone Christian by him or her self going through life.
God did not intend it that way.
The second reason why Jesus called his group of people “a church” is because God had called his Old Testament people his church. The Israelites, the Jewish nation, was called his church. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament (which is called the Septuagint as many of you know) the word ekklesia, church assembly, is used some hundred times. Most often, for God’s people, Israel.
So for instance, in the book of Joshua, chapter 8 verse 35, Joshua read “to the whole assembly” (that's the word) of Israel, including the women and children and the aliens who lived among them.
And you may recall from Acts chapter 7 that when Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was giving his sermon after which he was stoned to death, he talked about "the church in the wilderness,” referring to Israel gathered around God at Mount Sinai. Now of course there are some differences from the Old Testament church to the new.
The Old Testament church had one race, the Jewish people. Now God has flung the doors open to all peoples.
The Old Testament church had a physical temple that they worshiped in. Now Jesus says we worship anywhere because we worship from a spiritual temple. The Old Testament church had sacrifices to offer of animals. Now, the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ has been offered, we do not need to offer animals at all.
But Jesus built his church on the Old Testament.
There were 12 tribes of Israel. It was no accident that Jesus picked 12 disciples. There was a Passover meal which was the main ritual of the entire year, so the Lord’s Supper has become the ritual of the Christian church.
They had priests in the Old Testament church. We are now all called “priests” by God, things like that. So the third great principle that we talked about is:
The New Testament church stands on the shoulders of the Old Testament church, and it draws some principles from it, as we will see.
Next we read about how Jesus said “I will build my church.” He did not say I will build a church, or the church, it's my church he's building. He owns it. In Acts 20-28 Paul calls it, “the church of God which he bought with his own blood”. The idea then is that a church was not a human idea, however noble. It is not a voluntary society, it's not like a group of people getting together and forming a soccer league, or even a charitable organization. No. Jesus Christ himself founded and established the church and thus, he is the one who determines what it will look like, what it’s to accomplish, what are it’s goals.
Jesus is the one who determines what a church does when it gets together, how it is organized, who gets in, who does not be in. He is, as Ephesians 5:23 says, “the head of the church”. And he shows what he wants his church to be throughout all the Old Testament and New Testament.
So the fourth great principle the we came to is that:
Jesus alone decides how his church will function.
Now then we looked at how Jesus said that he would found his church and that he would oversee his church through the apostles. He says, “You are Peter (the very name means rock) and upon this rock I will build my church.” And we talked about ways that that passage has been strongly misinterpreted, and you might want to hear that in the past sermon. If you did not hear it two weeks ago, I would recommend that you view it, not because I preached it, but because it's foundational for what we're doing today and what we’re doing in the next two sermons about this.
He said, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” The rock, we suggested, is Peter, as he represents all the other apostles, and as he teaches accurately about Jesus Christ. And so Jesus gives to Peter, and the apostles in Matthew 18, the same thing as he does to Peter in Matthew 16: the keys to the kingdom, the ability to bind and loose (whatever those terms mean. We did not touch them. We will touch them in a future week.)
And so we came to the fifth great principle, that since he says he would build his church on Peter, and as we proposed, on Peter and the other leaders, that
In building his church, Jesus uses human leaders starting with the apostles (which the book of Ephesians called the foundation of the church.)
* End of Pastor Steve Sermon, begin epilogue by Pastor Al Kimball.
This sermon clip is taken from the sermon preached on October 3, 2021 entitled “I Will Build My Church, Part B.”
In summary then:
Nothing will ever stop Jesus Christ’s church and you as a part of it.
The very word “church” disallows the idea of a lone Christian.
The New Testament church stands on the shoulders of the Old Testament church, and draws some of its principles from it.
Christ himself, not humans, established his church. Jesus alone decides how his church will function, and
In building his church, Jesus uses human leaders.
If you missed sermons one and two, I encourage you to make time to listen to them. They are foundational to the upcoming sermons. Sermons one and two can be found on the church website, our YouTube channel, and our mobile app.