Beginnings

We are in our series, His Church.

I originally was supposed to bring this message today, but I believe that Pastor Justin has

the Word for us.

So, would you welcome Pastor Justin.

Thank you, brother.

Thank you, sir.

Stop it.

That works.

I'd like to be closer to the people just for the next time.

Before you get too comfortable and get your Bible and your pen and your notes and everything,

y'all go ahead and stand with me.

We're gonna read the scripture for this morning and you can get your Bible, your pen, your

pad, your notes out.

We can relax.

Is it on me again?

All right, here we go.

I never know if it's like if I'm doing it or if they're doing it, I'll start doing it.

Watch, here's what's gonna happen.

I'll start doing it halfway through.

I'll start preaching and forget and then they will take over.

This is exactly what's gonna happen.

For now, let's stand and read the Word together.

Here we go.

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and

of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded

you.

And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age."

Father, I thank you so much for your Word.

I thank you for the life that it brings.

"I ask that your anointing would be on me to speak clearly to your people, that you would

open our hearts to an encounter with you, that we would be changed more and more into

the image of your Son, Christ Jesus, through the power of the Holy Ghost."

It's in Christ's name I pray, amen and amen.

You guys can be seated.

So last week, Pastor Kevin shared a little bit about the vision concerning our church,

Springhouse Church, and what the Lord has specifically called us to do.

But how does that fit within the framework or the calling of the church at large?

So today, we're gonna dig a little bit deeper and we're gonna ask, what is God's idea for

the church?

Where did the church come from?

How did the church begin?

How did this all get started?

What we're doing here today is an outflowing or a result of something that started long,

long ago.

So for millennia, men have claimed to know what God means for the church.

We've all claimed to know what God means for the church.

This has led to divisions, infighting, tribalism, if you know what tribalism is, and sometimes

when somebody moves to a new area of town, they will post on Facebook their criteria

that they're looking for for their new church.

And if you've done that, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it.

It's the same thing as Vol fans don't wanna hang out with Gator fans.

We just don't.

Can I get an amen?

Right?

The only time is if we're sharing a ride to the SEC tournament, we'll go together and

then split ways.

It's tribalism.

We wanna hang with our tribe.

Same reason you unfriend people that you don't like on Facebook.

That's tribalism.

It's also led to different methods, dogmas, as well as religious sects and denominations.

If you're a friend of mine, you probably know this is how I read my Bible most days.

If I've called you or spoken to you within the last two weeks, you've probably been on

the receiving end of something that looks similar to this, right?

But I have, this is an example of a fan theory.

I have several fan theories when it comes to denominations.

Does everybody know what a fan theory is?

No?

Okay, I'm explaining what a fan theory is.

Okay?

I like superhero movies.

And sometimes when they make a superhero movie, there are undercurrents or themes that are

not overtly expressed in the movie.

And so fans will get together and try to decipher what they really meant by that.

Okay?

That's a fan theory.

And then they'll post them in blogs and online and they'll argue about them and defend their

point because this is what we believe the director really was trying to say even though

they didn't say that.

And I have two fan theories when it comes to denominations.

Like I said, I said that up front so that you don't say, "This is why we have denominations."

This is a fan theory of mine.

Okay?

The first one.

I believe we have different denominations in the church, Baptist, Church of Christ,

Pentecostal, non-denominational, although we think we get out of it.

That's an actual denomination.

We're a non-denominational church.

No, you just declared.

I think part of the reason why is to keep the enemy on his toes.

Because the same thing you get over here at the Church of Christ, you definitely don't

get over here at the non-denominational church and you definitely don't get over here at

the Methodist church or the Presbyterian church.

I think it's part of it is structured as a tactic so that the enemy doesn't necessarily

know what to do every Sunday morning when he comes to church.

So lesser, lesser, it's not so high on my fan theory scale, but it's up there.

The real reason I think we have so many denominations is we've all seen the last five minutes of

the movie, the Death, Burrow, and Resurrection, and we're trying to figure out what the first

95% of the movie meant.

And you go to different churches and they'll say, "Well, here's what the first 95% means,

and here's what this means, and here's what this means, and here's what this means."

Sin theories is actually what gets us in the weeds in the church.

We think we know what God really meant by the church, and so instead of us continuing

to build this guesswork and conjectured theology, let's look at the text and draw from it what

has actually been revealed to us instead of our idea of what the church is supposed to

look like.

So the people of God began with the creation of Adam and Eve in the garden.

They enjoyed fellowship and intimacy with God as image bearers.

Adam and Eve rebel against God's command, and they begin the journey towards restoration.

And this is what we're all trying to get back to.

We're trying to get back to that intimacy and fellowship we experienced, although we

didn't experience, mankind experienced intimacy with God.

And we're all trying to get back there.

Genesis 3 15, God promises a victory.

He promises a victory in spite of the rebellion with the announcement of the seed war.

This is the first rebellion.

He says, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her

offspring."

Now, he's talking to the serpent.

The serpent's offspring and the offspring of the woman will be at odds.

And he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

This is a messianic prophecy that we see at the very beginning.

But more importantly, I want us to look at two principles or two themes that have been

playing out in the church since the beginning.

Are you ready?

Here's the first one.

Eve was operating on secondhand information.

Eve was operating on secondhand information.

God told Adam, "Don't eat the fruit."

And Adam told Eve.

So when the enemy comes at her, he says, "Did God really say?"

And what does she, "Well, I don't know if he really said that."

I don't know.

I don't know.

Most of us come to church and we rely on Pastor Kevin and Pastor Barbie and Pastor Ronnie

to declare the Word of God and we never go fact check it or look at it and say, "God,

is this real in my life?"

You go and live your life based on something I said and you didn't want to get to heaven

and be like, "Well, Pastor Justin ruined my life because he told me this and I never looked

at it for myself."

Promise you when you get there, I'm going to have to answer for me.

You can't blame me for it.

You can blame me now, but when you get there, that's not going to work for you.

We rely too much on other people to distribute God's Word to us when it is available to us.

It was secondhand information.

Now I'm not saying Pastor Kevin can't be trusted.

We are responsible as leaders and teachers to discern the Word of God, to pray for wisdom,

to ask for God to use us.

I'm a nervous wreck back here about 30 seconds before I come out here.

Why?

Because I'm responsible to declare the Word of God in a right way because I do know there

are some of you that will never go look at it for yourself.

I'm going to tell you something and it's going to become gospel in your life and that scares

me because I'm responsible for handling the Word of God.

When Eve was operating on secondhand information, the serpent questioned if God really said

it, she didn't know because she didn't hear him say it.

This caused doubt to creep in and temptation to become God's soon followed with a, "Well,

Yahweh can't be trusted then.

Maybe he's holding out on me."

Do we really know what God says or are we completely reliant on our pastors and leaders?

The second thing that's still playing out in the church, the second thing that still,

I told you that was going to happen, look.

The second thing that happened is we make the story all about us.

We take what happened in Genesis and from here we follow this story arc that the Bible

is all about our redemption.

That because of the fall of man, now everything that happens is about me being reconciled

to God.

That is a plot line but newsflash, it's not all about us.

We are often ancillary characters and not the main point.

You know how I know that?

John 1 tells us, "In the beginning was the Word.

The Word was with God, the Word was God.

Then the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory."

Everything was made by Jesus, for Jesus, and through Jesus.

And if John 1 tells me that, then that means he's the main point.

And my redemption is a story line in the story of Jesus.

The story is God.

And part of that story includes our redemption but what we fail to do is we see the fall,

we see the rebellion, and then we make everything about us getting back to God.

And that's not necessarily the focus.

And that happened at the very beginning.

So we continue to follow this thread through the church, throughout the Old Testament,

from the patriarchs Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and to Exodus and the creation of the

nation of Israel.

And then we see that the people of God were eventually exiled from their lands and from

the temple where they brought atoning sacrifices was destroyed.

God promises to restore his people after their exile to Babylon in Jeremiah 25, 11 through

12.

And then he sends Ezra and Nehemiah to rebuild the walls and eventually the second temple.

And the Old Testament ends with another promise in Malachi, one who would come to redeem them.

Malachi chapter three verse one says, "Behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me."

God gives a promise and the people have to wait for 400 years.

400 years.

400 years.

It's like waiting 30 minutes at the grocery store 'cause I picked the wrong line.

'Cause I didn't wanna do self-check.

Abraham couldn't wait a decade on God's promise.

And the people of God are waiting for 400 years for this promised one who would deliver

them.

So it's no wonder that some people didn't recognize him when he came and others did.

Why did the ones recognize him when he came?

Because they had been telling their children and their children and their children's children.

It's been passed down generation to generation to generation.

Pastor Ronnie just shared about a heritage that was passed down.

And guess what that heritage has been passed down to who?

His children.

And I watched his grandchildren come and bring their dollar for those in need.

And they will teach to their children and their children so that 400 years from now,

they'll be carrying down principles that was taught to them by someone they never know.

There was an expectation that you tell about this promise, that you hold on to this promise.

I don't care how long it takes.

Are you still holding on to what God, are you stewarding the promise that God has given

you?

Not your specific, hey, this is what I got for you in your life.

A promise that he is going to make all things right.

Because if it's not all about me, then not every promise is for me.

But what are the promises that God has given you?

And are you stewarding them, church?

Four hundred years they waited.

And then we get to Jesus.

We often look at the book of Acts and we look at the expansion and the growth and the power

of the Holy Spirit.

We look at the missionary journeys and we think that's the church.

That's when the church, that's how I used to look at the book of Acts.

This is where the church was.

No, no, no.

The church begins and ends with Jesus Christ.

It begins and ends with Jesus Christ.

When Jesus comes on the scene, that's when the church actually begins.

The origin story of the church is found in the New Testament, primarily in the gospels.

So, to help us better understand what Jesus is about to do, I want to take a minute and

talk about the difference between the church, the church, and the church.

Okay?

So we're going to talk about the church, the church, and the church.

Okay.

The first one, you are the church.

That's us.

So when I say the church, could be you.

You are the church.

We are the body of Christ.

We are the church, the temple where the Holy Spirit resides in us.

We are the church.

That's the first one.

The second one, Springhouse.

This is our local church.

There are other local churches here.

There's a church right across the street.

Don't even know the name.

Forgot it just now.

I feel terrible because they're part of the big church.

Okay?

God forgive me.

Cornerstone.

That's a great name being on the corner right there, right?

Why are we Cornerstone Non-denominational Church, right?

Are they a Baptist church?

They are.

Look, I told you all from there, this is real life.

This is the local church.

Okay?

So this is our local church.

I call this Little C. Little C.

We are the Little C church.

So you're the church.

Springhouse is the Little C church.

Then you have the Big C church.

Okay?

All of the churches that are operating as an example of the kingdom of God here on earth.

Okay?

With a collective mission.

The church is supposed to have a collective mission and all of us Little C churches carry

out that mission and all of the individual churches work the mission of the little church.

Does everybody know the difference between the church, the church and the church?

We got that out of the way.

So when I say church, I'll say Little C, Big C or you.

Okay?

So when Jesus arrives on the scene, he's implementing a new system.

This is one where all believers, Jew and Gentile can have access to Yahweh.

And he would ultimately accomplish this on the cross when he reclaimed the authority.

Look at what he says in Matthew chapter four, verse 17.

From that time, this is after his baptism.

From that time, Jesus began to preach saying, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

In other words, he said, "Hey, right now."

It starts right now.

The church is beginning right now.

I have been baptized.

My mission is started.

I'm preaching.

The kingdom is now.

It's right now.

Then two verses later, he calls his first disciples.

And here he reveals to them the purpose for which he's calling disciples.

He said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men."

Now it's important to note they were actually fishing for fish.

And when Jesus calls him says, "If you come with me, you're gonna be fishing for people."

We got that, right?

But here's the problem I think that we have nowadays.

We think that only the important jobs and roles are those that are within the church.

And we look up to pastors and leaders and teachers and influencers now, right?

And then we go back to our little jobs at Publix and Home Depot and the law firm of

Smith Smith and Johnson or whatever it is you're doing and you think, "Well, here I

am in the secular world."

Let me tell you something, there are no secular jobs, okay?

There may be secular missions, but as kingdom people, our job is to infiltrate secular places

and bring the light to them.

Why?

'Cause you're the church.

And Jesus was saying, "Hey, I'm gonna change your focus here.

You're not gonna be so focused on doing the work.

Your focus is gonna be on people and your work will become a part of that."

Then in Matthew 5 through 7, he gives them expectations.

He gives them a modus operandi, a mode of operation.

He spends time with his disciples.

He taught them about the kingdom.

He casted out demonic spirits.

He performed miracles and he revealed his nature to them as well as the nature of the

father.

So he declares, "Hey, something new is happening right now.

I know you're actually fishing to provide for your family, but things are about to change

for you guys.

And I'm gonna show you what this is gonna look like on a day-to-day basis."

Jesus was building the church without telling everybody, "I'm building a church."

So when I say the church begins with Jesus, it literally began with him.

One of the most important revelations about the history of the church that Jesus gives

us is it's Caesarea Philippi.

If you got kids in here, I gotta kind of make this real.

I'll keep it PG-13, but you need to understand about Caesarea Philippi.

This is a bad place.

It's a real bad place.

Caesarea Philippi is at the base of Mount Hermon and Mount Hermon historically, you

can call it Mount Hermon, but I prefer Hermon.

It sounds a little bit affluent, right?

Don't judge me.

I told y'all how I read my Bible.

I'm like, these things right here.

Mount Hermon is off the charts with the amount of spiritual activity that is happening at

this place.

Historically, Caesarea Philippi is located at the base of Mount Hermon and Caesarea Philippi

is this cave here.

In this cave, the pagans thought was actually the gates to the underworld.

They believed that this was a portal of some sort, a gate or access point to the underworld.

And they would take and put little idols in those little cracks on the rocks.

You can see like little shelves and stuff.

They would take all of these idols and they would stuff them in all those rocks.

And then it gets wilder than that.

They would take and they would sacrifice their children.

They would do a cult and blood sacrifices.

They would perform sexual rituals right there at the mouth or opening of the cave in order

to entice the God Pan to come from the underworld and return into this world.

Now you can say, you can think what you want and you can think these people are crazy,

but historically in the Bible, you aren't sacrificing your children and putting babies

in a fire to a God that does not exist.

And I'm here to tell you that the Bible never says that there are no other gods.

It says Yahweh is supreme because people aren't passing down these traditions.

You're not cutting yourself.

You're not offering your baby.

You're not performing sexual rituals to a God that is not real to you.

And these people worship these false gods.

And when it says false gods, it doesn't mean that they're fictional or made up.

It means that they are not supreme.

Are you tracking?

So these people really believed that these other gods were going to come back through

this place.

Now I don't know how much truth there is to that, but these people were doing some bad

stuff.

Right here, they were literally knocking on the gates to the doors of hell.

Are you tracking?

Okay, it's a bad place.

Historically, they're doing a lot of bad stuff.

And Jesus takes his disciples to the red light district.

Okay.

I don't know what you want me to do.

I'm trying to V.G. it.

Okay.

I was going to be a kid in an early gathering.

I was like, "Ahh."

I'm going to be explaining, "Dad, what is this?"

See, I told you I was going to ruin somebody's life.

Now you got to go home and do your homework.

Okay.

So, so Jesus takes his disciples up from Galilee to Caesarea Philippi.

And the disciples, they all know what this place is.

This may be foreign to us, but they know that this is downtown, back alley.

This is not a good spot.

We don't need to be here.

They probably had their hands in their pockets.

Guarantee Peter had his hand on a sword.

Okay.

Again, it's in the text.

Not that part.

Listen, see, I'm...

Jesus takes his disciples to this place.

They all understand this is a pagan site of worship.

They all understand this is pagan worship.

These people are doing bad stuff.

And Jesus takes his whole crew up there and this is what happens.

They get there and it says in Matthew 16, "Now when Jesus came to the district of Caesarea

Philippi, he asked his disciples, 'Who do people say the Son of Man is?'"

Who do people say I am?

Who do people say I am?

And they said, "Well, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah

or one of the prophets, and he said to them, 'Who do you say that I am?'"

What do people say about me, but what do you say about me?

"And Simon Peter replied, 'You are 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 are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates

of hell shall not prevail against it.'"

This is actually where you see the origins of the papal line and Catholicism that Peter

was the first pope because the interpretation is that Jesus was saying, "Peter is the rock

that I'm going to build the church on."

So that's where that originates from.

But that's not what Jesus is doing right here.

Jesus is the rock.

He is the rock.

And he takes them to this rocky place of pagan worship, and the Father reveals that Jesus

is the Messiah to Peter, whose name means rock, and this revelation becomes the foundation

or cornerstone of faith for the church.

It's like meaning inside of meaning inside of meaning inside of meaning.

And Jesus is giving them, he's the king of giving them a visual representation of what

he's doing in the spirit.

There are things that happen that we think are invisible, they're actually imperceivable.

And Jesus sees all of it, and he's trying to give them a glimpse of how the kingdom

is about to work.

This foundation that Jesus is the Messiah is the cornerstone of our faith in the church.

This is where it all begins.

We can disagree on a million different things, but we can never disagree on Jesus' death,

burial and resurrection.

It's all we got that ties us together.

I don't care if you think clapping your hands is good or singing this way is great or if

we structure our service like this, if we have a pope, if we don't have a pope, the

death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of the faith of the Christian

church.

That's the one thing that brings us all together, that unites us all.

And one of my most favorite verses in the entire Bible, and this is free, this is not

in the notes.

Jesus, speaking of himself, says, "If any man falls on this rock, he will be broken.

But if this rock falls on any man, he will be crushed."

When you take your life and you fall on Jesus, you will be broken in a beautiful way that

allows him to put the pieces back together.

But if you hold out in your stubbornness and pride and the rock has to fall on you, it

will crush you.

I pray I never get to the place where I stop falling on Jesus, where I stop becoming broken

on him.

And I get so arrogant in my walk and I've got this, this is my bus stop, God, I know

where I'm at.

I've done this for five years, ten years.

I read the whole Bible one time.

Why do I gotta do it again?

The rock falls on you, you'll be crushed.

But if you fall on the rock, you'll be broken.

There's a big difference.

It's hard to put dust pieces back together.

God's capable of doing it, but I'd much rather take three or four and have him glue them

back together.

Now watch this.

Now watch this.

He said, "On this rock, this revelation that I'm the Christ, I'll build my church and the

gates of hell will not prevail against it."

Right?

For so long, I was reading this and I was like, hell's not gonna be able to come against

us.

That's not what he's saying.

What do gates do?

What do you, like if you, all right, James, you put up a real gate around your house.

What are you trying to do?

You're not trying to keep the Jansen boys inside, right?

They're wild.

I'm telling you.

That might be a dual purpose gate right there.

Look.

No, but it does.

No.

Okay.

All right.

So the boundaries or boundaries that God puts in our life are a bad thing, right?

When God, we look at things that are a boundary and we think God just saying, no, no, no.

Boundaries help us play the game the right way.

I was watching basketball last night.

Imagine they're up in the stands, just keep running around with the ball.

It's not a fair way to play the game, is it?

Can't just do whatever you want.

Boundaries are in our life for a reason so that we play within the parameters of the

game.

And what the gates are designed to do, keep things out.

And he says the gates of hell are not going to prevail against my church.

What he basically did was took the disciples to the gates of hell and said, hey, we're

not sitting back on our laurels.

We are about to attack and storm the gates of hell.

He took his disciples to the place they call the gates of hell and said, this is the church

and we are going to take and storm the kingdom of darkness.

But we're not going to do it the way you think we're going to do it.

They were looking for a king that was going to come and ride in and destroy and mount.

And when he comes back, he's coming that way.

But not this time.

He said, we're going into attack mode.

And the disciples are probably sitting there like me most of them go, how are we going

to do that?

And with what power?

How are we going to destroy the kingdom of darkness?

And with what power?

Quickly, I'm going to show you.

I'm going to give us two verses or passages that show us how Jesus wanted to do this.

He said, this is where I'm going to build my church.

This is how we're going to operate.

Here's the first.

Jesus came to them and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and

of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Now you can say Jesus is actually not talking to all believers here.

He's talking to his disciples.

He told his disciples to go make disciples.

Not all believers to go make disciples.

But here's the problem with that.

Being a believer is not a cop out to say that this is not for you.

The difference between believers and disciples is the difference between proximity to Jesus

and intimacy with Jesus.

There's a big difference.

You can be around somebody.

I don't know Michael Jordan.

I know about him.

I don't want that to be said of my relationship with the Lord.

I spent all my whole life learning things about God.

I came to church and they told me things about him and I never knew him.

Disciples making disciples.

The great commission was given to disciples and the call is to become disciples.

This is the mission of the big C church.

To make disciples who make disciples who make disciples.

How we walk that out is done in the little C.

Part of the way that we make disciples is our programming here.

The things that we do here.

That's our programming.

That's how we are making disciples that fit within the context of the big C church.

We have a thriving theater ministry.

Libby got baptized two weeks ago and we've been praying over her family ever since.

Raising money to support them.

That is disciples making disciples.

Do you think that the impact that the local church has had on her is going to transcend

all of the grief and hurt and struggle that they're going through in their life?

What did what did Elsie and Gary say up here?

She said, I have never been so convicted in my life as I have at Springhouse.

And I thought, which Sunday have I been up since they...

I'm trying to figure out if it's me or you, right?

You know what they said without saying it?

I have allowed the Lord to do whatever he wants to do in my life.

I showed up and God, there was some Sundays that cut me to death and I responded to it.

That's discipleship.

We're not just going to get people saved and send them back out in the world.

Can we baptize and we dedicate your babies here or we have a Thursday night midweek gathering

or Pastor Kevin's praying for this series a year before it happens.

Why?

So that the people of God can be equipped to go be the little sea church out there and

bring people into the big sea mission.

It's not just all just what do we want to do this Sunday?

It's been bathed in prayer and led by the Holy Ghost.

Why because it's a part of the mission that Jesus laid out.

This is where the church began.

This is how it began.

Equipping guys like me to do the Word.

Equipping guys like you to do the Word.

And then also how we're going to do it is Acts 1.8.

You will receive power, you will receive power, dynamic ability when the Holy Spirit has come

upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end

of the earth.

Now he did not say you're going to go do witnessing in all those places.

He said the Holy Spirit will actually transform you to become the witness so that wherever

you go, there you are.

Wherever you go, he's already transformed you and he's refining you and sharpening you

on this progressive walk called discipleship so that when you do get to Judea, Samaria

and the ends of the earth, you are equipped to do what?

All the things that Jesus did when he was here.

We make it so stinking difficult sometimes.

Well I say we, I mean me and maybe y'all.

We make it so stinking difficult.

We act like there's so much on our shoulders that we gotta do it all.

When Jesus has already done it all and then provided us a way to do it and all we gotta

do is show up and walk out our park.

We gave away our authority in the garden.

Even Adam gave it away and Jesus said, "That's fine, I'll go get it back."

He did and then the whole rest of the time we see the promises.

We see him moving and he goes and he gets the authority back and what did it say in

the other verse?

All authority, all of it, every bit of it in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

And here's what I'm gonna do, give it back to you.

You're not getting out of this.

You're going to finish what I started but this time I'm not only giving you your authority

back, I'm gonna send my spirit to transform you into what you need to be.

You're not just getting a mandate and a hall pass to go do it.

I'm giving you the power to walk it out, to be the little seed.

We're the church operating under our little mission which is a part of the big C mission

to make disciples of all nations.

That's one of the greatest acts of spiritual warfare.

We've got this some idea of what spiritual warfare is and what it actually is is baptizing

Elsie and Jerry and they have committed their life to Jesus.

They're plugged into the local church gaining discipleship and they are carrying that out

into their community to tell others about the joy and peace that they have found in

Jesus Christ again.

That's it, that's the church.

Go home, we're done for the rest of the year.

You know why we're not?

Because that's not all there is.

Jesus foretold in John 14, 26 the Holy Spirit would help us and bring to memory everything

he said.

Worship team, you can come out, we're gonna get ready to worship.

The history of the church is so very important.

In order to know where we're going, we gotta know where we've been as a people.

You realize that you are a part of the biblical story?

Your name may not be in here, but you are included in things like and the whosoever

believes in him, right?

He's got promises that are open-ended that transcend to us.

You're included in this story.

Why?

Because there were disciples that were made that kept making them and kept making them

and somewhere along the line you showed up to a local church.

Well you ran into James, well you ran into Dana and she started walking with your daughter

and discipling them and then the daughter gets baptized and she started doing.

It's not stopped.

If they kept bringing jars, would the oil still be flowing?

If they kept bringing jars, are you hearing me?

It's an interactive thing.

The history of a thing can help us understand what it was designed to do regardless of model

changes or adaptations.

Do you know there's probably a big difference between a model T Ford and a Tesla, right?

They were both designed to do the same thing.

And so although things have adapted and changed over the years, the history and the original

purpose of a thing tells us what it's supposed to mean now.

And we've gotten so far away from it.

It's become a spectacle at times.

It's become a thing we do to check a box.

But if I'm the church and you're the church and we're all coming here into this little

bitty church to grow together, to accomplish that mission of the big C, do I have to understand

that Jesus has given me the authority to do it and the power to walk it out?

Jesus created the church to proclaim his kingdom here on earth and to create disciples.

We are to face evil and injustice head on, to walk in his authority as image bearers

whose lives bring glory to his name through the power of the Holy Ghost.

So let's worship the King Church.

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