Why Do We Need the Church? | Dr. John Ewart

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.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

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

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

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.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

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.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

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 [email protected]

as well as our app and find many other resources that will bless

you and your families. Thank you once again.