Biblical Principles of Church (Part 2) - Pastor Steve Estes
Full Transcript:
When Jesus said, “I will build my church,” what all did he mean?
The New Testament uses the word “church” in two basic ways.
First, the New Testament uses the word “church” for all true Christians everywhere. It is represented by the circle on this slide. We read in Ephesians 5:25, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Does it mean only Christ loves the people at Brick Lane and gave himself up for them?
Oh heavens no! It means that, but it means far more than that. It means that Christ loved and gave himself up for Baptists and Independents and Episcopalians and Lutherans and Pentecostals and Presbyterians.
And therefore, Christians have come to call Christ’s church, as the Bible uses this term, his universal church.
The New Testament speaks about Christ’s church in this universal way. Take Ephesians 5 verse 23 which says, “Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the Savior.” Well, he is the Savior of all of these people we have been talking about, so they collectively are the church. He's not talking here about this Christian group, that Christian gathering. He is not talking, when the New Testament uses the term this way. of any one particular congregation. There are some commands that God gives us in the Bible that are impossible for us to obey, except as the universal church obeys them. Jesus said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel.”
You can't do that, even if you're a missionary. Even if you've gone on every missions trip this church has ever had since it was founded in 1977, you can't go into all of the world. But the collective universal church of Jesus Christ can. Here's how he puts it in Ephesians 3 verse 6: “Through the gospel, the Gentiles are heirs (H-E-I-R-S)… are heirs of salvation he’s talking about, through the gospel. The Gentiles are heirs together with Israel. The Jewish people who believe in one true God through Jesus Christ, they are members together of one body. And they are sharers together in the promise of Jesus Christ. And as you look at the slide (in case you can’t see it well enough, let’s get a close-up.) The close-up is that the Jesus in this slide is composed of people from all over the world: Christians.
Now technically this slide is not accurate because it shouldn't include the head because Jesus Christ himself is the head of the body, but you get the idea. We are his hands, we are his feet, we are his body on Earth, and we go out and do bodily what he as the head tells us and sends us and empowers us to do.
The Bible calls the universal church “his temple.” And it’s not just that we are individual temples, but together… Well here’s how Ephesians 2:21 puts it, speaking about the whole universal church, Paul says, “Together we rise to become a holy temple in the Lord.” It means - well you know what a temple is. A temple is a place where some deity comes and dwells and meets with people.
So, God says that the Christian church universally became the place where God and people meet. He dwells in the middle of us. The Bible calls the universal church “a dwelling in which God lives.” The Bible calls the universal Christian church “a spiritual house.” In summary then, the Bible uses the word church to describe his universal church - all Christians everywhere.
When Jesus says in our text, “I will build my church,” he means: “I will build my worldwide gathering, my worldwide assembly. And although they are never all together physically at the same time in the same place, they all gather around me in worship and in prayer all over the world, and I see them as in one gigantic worship service together through my eyes.” That’s what God says.
Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 1:1, “I’m writing to the church of God in Corinth.” Or 1st Thessalonians 1, Paul is writing to “the church of the Thessalonians.” Of all the times that the NT speaks of church, and that is to my count 79 times - the vast - and I underline the word vast - majority of those times, he is speaking about a local church, not the church universal.
So we can also call this circle “the local church: a group of Christians that meets regularly together under the same roof.” When Christ says, “I will build my church,” he means: “I will set up local churches all over the world. I want them to be within reach of my people, that they can drive to or walk to or take a boat to, or take a camel to. I want them so they can be able to gather regularly with other believers to worship me, to build up each other, and to reach their neighbors who don’t know me yet.” You get the idea then: the New Testament also uses the word “church” for a group of Christians who assemble together regularly.
These are the two primary ways the Bible talks, and they’re the two primary things that Jesus was talking about when he promised to build his church. Now, a principle that we gathered from this passage, but certainly from the collective New Testament as a whole is this: Christ intends his universal church to find expression in the local church. Think about that. You are a Christian, therefore you’re a member of the universal church. And you might say that’s my identity, and that’s my only identity. But it is impossible to obey many of the commands in the Bible just through the universal church.
* Interlude with Pastor Al Kimball.
Folks, did you catch that principle? The invisible universal church finds it’s expression in the visible local church. You cannot fulfill God’s call apart from the local church. Now Pastor Steve moves on to the next principle.
* Back to the sermon with Pastor Steve Estes
We read in 1st Corinthians 12:18, God has arranged the parts in the body, talking about his church, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. He’s talking about abilities that he gives the people to contribute to their church. People who were able to teach, people who can serve, people who can organize, people who can manage things, people who can take care of children, people who are good with helping the poor, this sort of thing.
God has arranged the parts in the body - and he’s talking about a local body - just as he wanted to. In other words, Christ’s body, here, and at High Point Baptist, and at a Lutheran church in Reading, and at an Episcopal church down the road (the Bible believing ones), Christ’s body in each of these churches is not missing an arm or a leg. We don’t call it: “Well it’s part of Christ’s body, it’s half of Christ’s body, it’s 3/4 of Christ’s body.” No, God has given to his body, local churches, the parts that they need in order to function as a church, as a local church.
And I would say finally, from this doctrine, here’s what I think we must conclude: Every person in a local church is commanded by Christ to entwine his life with that church. Not just to attend, but to entwine our lives.
Now there’s a number of ways we do that. One, you think about (I’m sorry, let’s say there are a number of ways that we get that command.) One is that the New Testament is full of what have been called (and many of you are familiar with it): the one another commands.
Love one another, forgive one another, encourage one another, teach one another…that sort of thing.
You cannot do that with people whom you hardly, if ever, see. You can only do that as you rub shoulders with people, talk with people, chat with people, spend a few minutes with people, get to know people. And as you do and hear about their lives, you will know whether they need to be forgiven, or to be encouraged, or to be taught, or to be brought a meal, or whatever it is that they need. That’s how we know that we’re commanded to not just attend - but entwine our lives with other people in the church.
One way that we know as I’ve said, is because of the one another commands. The other way is because of the teaching of the Bible very clearly about how often we attend church. Here’s what it says in Hebrews 10 verse 25: “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the day (that is the end of times, the great day at the end of time) and all the more as you see the day approaching”. Just think about that for a moment.
In other words, he doesn’t just ask us here to be in church - although that is a really good first step. But he doesn’t just say if I’m sitting in the pew, I’ve got this verse covered. What he says is, ”Let us not give up meeting together, but let us encourage one another.” You know what that means? It means something different for every person in this room. For you, it means encouraging by being a good listener and asking a lot of questions. For you, it means encouraging by seeing that somebody needs a pie or a meal baked and taken over to their house. For you, it means visiting somebody in the hospital who is sick and laid up and hasn’t been able to get out to church.
He’s asking us to do it. He asked me to do it. He’s asking you to do it. He’s asking you to write a letter to somebody who is rarely at church. He’s asking you maybe to find out who is rarely at church and give them a call sometime and talk with them. He’s asking you perhaps to go visit somebody. He’s asking you, even if you don’t even know anybody, maybe to call the church office or the deacons and say, “Who is it that could really use a card or a visit? Give me some guidance.” And we’d like to do something like this. And he’s asking us to do it not just with our minds, but practically, tangibly, with our bodies.
He says, “Let us not give up meeting together (attending) but let us encourage one another. That is entwine our lives with other people, outside of just this service. And he says let us do this all the more as you see the day (that is capital D, the end of the world, judgment day), let us do this all the more as you see the day approaching.”
Let me paraphrase that last little phrase. Let us do this all the more as you watch the news. World getting worse? You feel it getting worse? You wonder sometimes how long planet Earth has? He says that that ought to drive you and me to attend church more frequently, and to involve ourselves with the lives of other people. I’ll put it this way. To distance myself from church is to distance myself from Christ’s body. And to distance myself from Christ’s body is to distance myself from Christ.
* Epilogue with Pastor Al Kimball.
Steve has just given us several examples of being fully engaged in the local church, pointing to the next principle, that church is a living organism, and those in it are intimately connected. We’re there for one another, and as a living organism, we are using our gifts together in the local body.
So the two new principles introduced by Steve are:
The invisible universal church finds its expression in the visible local church.
(and)
The local church is a living organism. Those in it are intimately connected.
These sermon clips are taken from the sermon preached on October 3rd, 2021 titled “I Will Build My Church, Part B”.
If you missed sermons one and two, I again encourage you to make time to listen to them. They can be found on the church website, our YouTube channel, and mobile app. . These are foundational to upcoming sermons.