“Nothing Can Stop the Church of Jesus” by Pastor Joakim Lundqvist

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

Gateway Family.

So great to be back home.

Oh, praise God.

Oh, we've been missing you so much.

Praise God.

Look at this.

Thank you so much.

We love you.

Gateway, we love you.

Thank you.

You know, we Maria and I have been missing y'all.

We've been praying for y'all.

We learned to say y'all here.

And more than anything, we have we love the new day that God has given to this church.

The new direction, the new chapter.

Love Pastor Daniel and Tammy and everything that God is doing.

Praise God.

We're so excited.

We're your biggest Swedish cheerleaders at a distance.

But I'm never gonna be a guest speaker in this house.

Can I say I'm home?

I just did, so I guess I can.

We're so excited.

You know, this place will always have such a big chunk of our hearts because something happens to your heart when you're in the trenches together.

Something happens in your heart when you walk through a difficult season and come out on the other side.

And speaking of coming out on the other side, that is my message title for this morning.

Nothing can stop the church of Jesus.

Nothing can stop the church of Jesus.

Now, as we approach such a theme, we first of all have to define what is the church.

Now we could talk for ages about that, and if you ask random people around your block, they all come up with different replies, right?

Some will say it's a building, some will say it's an organization, some will say the church is that place down the street.

Sorry, Texas, that place down every street.

Some people might say it's a thing happening on Sunday morning, but let's go to the OG version.

Let's read what Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 1 from verse 18 about what the church really is more than anything.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Paul writes, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

The power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come.

And God placed all things under his feet, praise God, and appointed him, Christ, to be the head over everything for the church, which is his body, which is his body, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

Paul echoes this lennon in Colossians chapter 1, verse 18, and he is the head of the body, the church.

Colossians 1:18

One of God's greatest inventions, which is his body.

Now, some Christians I hear say things like, Well, I love Jesus, but I don't really care much for the church.

Honestly, you can't really say that.

You can't love the head and not the body, you can't embrace the head and not the body.

They're they're one person, right?

Just let me give you an example.

Maria, my beautiful wife and I, we actually celebrated our 39th anniversary yesterday.

And and I so married up, by the way.

I so married up, and and by the way, girl, I love you so much.

I love you so much.

And and sometimes it's weird because I I'm here in the spotlight and you're not.

But if people could only know that I couldn't have done a fraction of what I'm doing without your support, your prayers, your love.

I love you so much, girl.

Love you so much.

However, when I proposed back then, if I would have said, Maria, I want to marry you, but can I just marry your head?

Because I love your head, but I don't really care about the rest of you, that would not have gone down well, I tell you.

That there would have been no anniversary because there wouldn't have been a wedding.

All there would have been is a broken nose and a concussion.

That's it.

Because you can't separate the head and the body, it's all one person.

The body of Christ is part of Christ Himself.

Now, obviously, there's a strong individual perspective to Christianity.

Obviously, you are a child of God in your own right.

For example, the verse in the New Testament that speaks about how we obtain salvation, Romans chapter 10, verse 9, is one of the most individualistic verses in the New Testament.

Romans 10:9

It says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

It's you, your, your, you.

Meaning you can only be saved as an individual.

There's no such thing as collective salvation.

We don't get saved as a group, as a church, or because we happen to be born into a certain family.

Sooner or later you have to make up your own mind and make your own decision.

But the thing is that as you do, the Holy Spirit will take you kind of out of your me perspective and give you a new beautiful we perspective.

Because when Jesus taught us how to pray, he didn't teach us to pray, my father who art in heaven, but our father.

Why?

Because now we're part of a we, part of a body that we belong to together, and that is one of the most beautiful things in the world.

And this is why I really hate, sorry, church.

I really dislike a certain phrase that some people use.

You you say things like, Where do you go to church?

Where do you go to church?

And you say, I go to Gateway, or I go to the first Baptist of the Second Methodist, third, I don't know, somewhere.

Honestly, friends, you don't go to church, you go to restaurants, you go to see a movie, you can go to stinking Disney World, but you don't go to church, you belong to a church, you're part of a church, the church is you.

You can't go to yourself, and this is the perspective that we need to understand.

We are the body of Christ together.

So, what is the body of Christ?

What is our common calling?

I'm glad you asked, because I was just getting there.

One thing that we're called to be and to do is the church is the feet of Jesus, the feet of Jesus, because the feet are on the body, so we are called to be the feet of Jesus and go out into all the world and share the good news about Jesus.

Let's read Matthew chapter 16 and verse 18.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

This is a very special verse because it's the very first time that Jesus explains and reveals this incredible capital C church vision, the body of Christ, uh, to his disciples.

Now, Peter has just confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and Jesus responds, Matthew 16, verse 18, and I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, on what you just said, on the rock of the revelation that Jesus is the Lord and He and the Son of God, on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades, the gates of hell will not overcome it.

Matthew 16:18

Can we say amen in this house?

I still remember Gateway when I was brand new in Christ.

I gave my heart to Jesus when I was 16, and I started reading the Bible, and I read the Swedish equivalent of your King James, and I really struggled with the language.

I thought, does God really speak this way?

But I realized that in order for me to get to know God, I need to get through this.

And I still remember the first time I read these verses, like Matthew 16, and the gates of hell will not overcome it.

And for some weird reason, my understanding of it was that oh, this is great.

This means that when the gates of hell attacks us, attacks the church, then we will prevail, we will be able to survive.

But then later on, way later, I realized it's a big foundational Swedish revelation right here.

Gates don't really run around, do they?

Gates don't really attack people, do they?

You see, my mindset was that the gates were playing offense and the church was playing defense.

So when hell attacked us, we would be able to prevail.

They would not be able to overcome us.

But I realized, hey, gates are pretty much fixed.

That means that the church is the moving part in this equation.

Which means that the whole mindset really is that the church is playing offense and the gates are playing defense, and not only that, their defense is falling apart, it's breaking up.

As long as the church are the feet of Jesus, as long as the church will keep expanding and marching and winning new territory, the gates of hell will never be able to overcome the attacks of the church.

Can we make some noise in the house of the Lord?

And you heard me go into a little bit of sports lingo here, offense and defense.

You know, spending more time in the US now.

I have been introduced in these past four years to your favorite sport, and I love it.

I think it's a great sport.

I think it's a great game.

I just have one little concern the name of the game.

Because you call it football, and and I'm sure you're aware that that in Europe we have a game that we refer to as football, and you refer to as soccer, but let me tell you why.

Let me tell you why, Gaveway.

We call it football because it makes sense.

Whereas American football, on the other hand, oh how can I put this?

Okay, let me put it this way: the word football is a combination of two words.

Foot and ball.

Neither of which really relates very much to your sport because you play like 90% of it by your with your hands, and it's not even a ball, is it?

It's like a lemon-shaped object.

Your sport should be called American hand lemon.

That that's that would be the perfect name.

But anyway, so I've been here uh a whole lot.

I've seen games of American hand lemon, I've learned the rules of American hand lemon, and I really love American hand lemon.

But let me tell you one thing, one thing that dawned on me quite late is that I realized that, oh, in American Hand Lemon, there is one team that's doing the offense and a completely different set of set of dudes doing defense.

I didn't know that because I come from a soccer mentality with the same 11 guys doing the whole thing.

And so, oh, they changed the team.

So you got professional offense and professional defense, and that got me thinking, because I think that the church had been playing professional defense for a bit too long.

The Capital C church have taken a position of professional defense, and because we have done for a long time, we have developed a defense mentality and eventually even a defense identity.

And when you develop a defense identity, you feel that everyone's attacking you and everyone's after you, and your only sole goal is survival.

Oh, the devil is after us again, and here comes the principalities and the powers, and look what the media is writing, and look at the secularization of society.

Oh, we better hold on to ourselves so we won't get killed.

And then we withdraw, and and all we do is like post weird apocalyptic conspiracy theories on Facebook and and complain about the sinfulness of the world, complain, point out how sinful the world is.

They already know that.

And we attack our brothers and sisters, and all of a sudden we go so far away from our initial calling of being the feet of Jesus.

But you know what I've seen all over the world right now?

I see the church of Jesus rising up again like never before.

I see the church of Jesus starting to roar because the Lion of Judah lives inside of her.

And I've seen the Church of Jesus rising up to receive the second coming of Jesus Christ.

That is the church that you and I are part of.

And we're never so healthy and we're never so inspired as when we are the feet of Jesus.

I remember many decades ago now, we were coming to the end of the Soviet Union.

I don't know how much you know about this, but the Soviet Union was a communistic experiment of trying to seal off this incredible big, huge landmass, basically a continent, and try to erase God inside of it.

They blew up churches, they they um they they made it took an end to Christmas.

You were not allowed to celebrate Christmas.

They banned the Bible, basically trying to get Jesus out of the scope of these people living inside of it.

For 70 years, this experiment went on and on and on.

But then, four years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, God gave our church in Sweden a prophetic word saying the Soviet Union will open up for the gospel in four years.

And we started giving, we started training missionaries, our young people started learning Russian, and we started recording Bible teaching on videotape.

Anyone old enough to remember videotape?

We we subtitled it to Russian, and we just got prepared because we dared to trust God that in four years' time the Soviet Union will collapse.

And then, sure enough, four years later, bam, the Soviet Union cracked open, and all of a sudden we were ready and and able to go.

And I never forget how we flooded that area of land with all our young people, and how we just preached the gospel to everything that moved, and we encountered this incredible hunger in the Soviet people because you can try to get God out of the picture, but you can't get the God-shaped whole of the human heart away.

And as a result of us running into the Soviet Union and being the feet of Jesus, right now, today we have over 400 world of life churches in former Soviet Union.

And I still remember the process brought so much health to our church because we're never as healthy as when we are truly the feet of Jesus.

And let me tell you this, Gateway.

When we are the feet of Jesus, when we reach people for the gospel, when we're doing what we're supposed to do, then God will pay our bills.

God will pay our bills.

I don't know what God is up to here, what He will speak to this church to do in the future, but let me just be a voice of encouragement.

Whatever God calls you to do, as long as we keep moving, as long as we're playing offense, as long as we're the feet of Jesus, God will pay the bills.

Amen.

A few years ago, maybe seven, eight years ago, we had an incredible like influx of refugees, Muslim refugees into Sweden.

The terror of the ISIS, if you remember, the were horrible, and so many people escaped the Middle East, and many of them arrived in Sweden.

And we were like completely caught off guard as a nation because we just had one or two weeks' notice, and all of a sudden, this just this wave of tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants flooded our nation.

And God specifically told us as a church to act in fear, sorry, act in faith rather than fear.

And we started ministering to these Muslims, and we started giving them food and medical care and help in any way we can, but more than anything, we told them that God so loved the world that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

And during the course of one and a half years, we actually prayed in our local church alone with 900 Muslims who accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

The only problem, and I rarely tell this side of the story, was that again we had like so little warning, so little time to prepare.

We basically just had to let go of everything and just run into this open door for the gospel.

But we didn't have this in our budget, and our money was quickly running out.

And obviously, me being in charge of the whole thing, I got all these departments asking us, uh, money is running out.

But we just dare to believe that if we are the feet of Jesus, if we're playing offense in in our nation, in our city, God will pay the bills and God opened up for supernatural provision time and time again.

One of the most funny uh ways he did was that one day um I got a call from a guy from from the UK, from England, and I've never met this guy, I didn't know who he was.

But he said, Hey, um, I'm following you on Instagram and I've seen your posts on how you reach out to the Muslims.

And obviously, you being a Christian and you being a Christian church, I I didn't really see that coming.

Why would you even intervene, interfere with the whole Muslim situation?

And I said, Well, actually, we don't see them primarily as Muslims, but as fellow human beings in need right now, so we just want to be the feet of Jesus.

And he said, Hmm, that's interesting.

Can I come over to Sweden, fly in and have lunch with you on Thursday, talk some more about this?

And I said, Yeah, yeah, sure.

So while we were on the phone, I was Googling flights.

I said, There's a 945 from London Heathrow.

I can drive down to the airport, pick you up.

It's just 20 minutes from the church, and we can have lunch.

And he said, Uh no, I'll just think I'll use my private jet.

Still had no idea how this who this guy was.

So I said, Oh, okay, I'll I'll just pick you up with my private car, I guess.

So I so I picked him up, we had lunch, we talked for an hour and a half, and then he then he went home.

No promises made, but sure enough, next week he sent a domination for 1.5 million US dollars.

Because God will pay for the bills when we are the feet of Jesus and when we are playing offense in our societies.

Secondly, the church is also the hands of Jesus.

The church is the hands of Jesus, and what did Jesus do with these hands?

Matthew 8 is one of many examples.

When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him.

A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.

Jesus reached out of his hand and touched the man, reached out his hand and touched the man.

I am willing, he said.

Be clean.

And immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy.

Now the hands are on the body, but the hand still needs to be stretched out, reached out and put even on On the untouchables of society.

This man was a leper.

Nobody in their right mind will touch him, but Jesus did.

And now we are the body of Christ.

And we are supposed to lay our hands on this society, on our neighborhoods, on our cities, and distribute the love and also the power of Jesus Christ.

A few years ago, I was teaching in one of our Bible schools, the Word of Life Bible schools.

This one is in Kolkata, India.

And I was teaching for several hundred young people that were studying the Bible.

And I heard a story from their Bible school.

I was unaware of this.

But you see, our Bible school in Kolkata is situated in an area with huge rice fields.

So the vast majority of people living there are working, harvesting rice from the fields.

Now doing that is a very dangerous job because there are poisonous snakes in the fields.

And if you get bitten by one of these snakes, you're gonna be dead in less than an hour, and the nearest hospital is two hours away.

So basically, being bitten by one of these snakes is a death sentence.

So one of these days, a guy who was working in one of the fields started screaming and yelling.

He had been bitten by a snake.

And he screamed out in pain, but also in anguish, knowing that he would be dead within an hour.

But then now we had Bible school students in the fields, and they ran up to him and they laid their hands on him just like Jesus laid his hand on the sick.

And this Hindu man was immediately healed and he lived.

And after that happened, the rumor spread across the fields that there are Christians around and they have the power in the name of Jesus to heal diseases.

So now whenever somebody was bitten by a snake in the rice fields, they didn't even aim for the hospital, they aimed for the Bible school.

So the Bible school now has a little bell, and whenever it rings, the sessions stop, and everybody runs out and prays for whoever is brought to the Bible school.

And they had a clear count of exactly all the people they've been praying praying for who instead of died were completely healed and lived.

And to date, when I was there, they had prayed for 147 people who have been miraculously healed from this snake bites.

And I thought to myself, what can be more Christian than this?

Our calling is to be the hands of Jesus and go out there and neutralize the poison of the serpent.

Can we say amen in the house of the Lord?

But you know what?

It doesn't have to be the other side of the world, it doesn't have to be as dramatic and as praying for snake-bitten people.

It can just be the ordinary things.

We use our hands to minister to our to our fellow man, to minister to society.

And actually, when I look back at my time with you, Gateway, one of my my memories that is so clear and I love it so much was when I was doing a food distribution at the Grand Prairie campus.

It was like six, seven months ago, I guess.

And and I went there and and like cars came in, and we were just loading food on these into these cars, and I ended up on the potato station.

15-pound bags outside in Texas, and I was wearing jeans for some reason.

The first hundred bags were okay, but it was hard work.

Also, you guys have trucks, so it's not like putting something in the back seat.

You have to get the sack up and like hurl it into the truck bed.

You don't you don't understand in Sweden when we see a truck, we go, oh look, there's a truck.

And then we come to Texas and it's like, oh look, Maria, there's not a truck over there, it's an actual sedan.

Wow.

But my point is this: even though it was hard work and even though it was super hot, I stayed for hours and hours and hours because I loved every second.

Why?

Because I got to be part of being the hands of Jesus, distributing food to needy people, and you never feel more alive than when you are part of the church, the capital C church, and its local expression, ministering to regular people because we are the hands of Jesus.

Amen.

Finally, I want to close with this one.

We are the feet of Jesus being the church.

We are the hands of Jesus, but we're also the heart of Jesus.

The church is the heart of Jesus.

And what is the heart of Jesus all about?

We see it repeatedly in the life of Jesus.

Matthew 9, verse 36.

Matthew 9:36

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

Matthew 14, verse 14, when Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

Matthew 14:14

Matthew 20, verse 34, Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes.

Matthew 20:34

Immediately they received their sight and followed him.

So Jesus did not just walk out to meet the needs of needy people, he did it from a heart full of compassion.

And if there's anything that should be found in the church of Jesus, the body of Christ, it's the heart of Jesus, the attitude of compassion.

Friends, this world doesn't need another pointing finger at them, they don't need more judgment.

They have an awareness on the inside that they're not doing well, but they need that compassion that urges us to be the feet and be the hands of Jesus.

And I just want to share one story with you from history.

I mean, how could I not share a story with you from history as we come to the close of this message and before I pray for you?

I came across a story a few years ago and I love it so much.

A story is about a girl called Mary Slesser.

Now, Mary Slesser was born in 1848 in a Scottish city of Dundee.

She was born in the slum.

Her father was a shoemaker, but because of his alcohol addiction, he lost his job and eventually passed away as a result of his addiction.

So from the age 11, Mary, who was the oldest child, had to start working in a mill, 14-hour shifts.

And when she was a teenager, she was the sole breadwinner of her entire family, supporting her mother and all of her siblings.

Now Mary could easily have identified as an outcast, as a victim, having been dealt the most horrible hand possible in her life.

But Mary came to Jesus in her late teenage years, and she started to read the Bible and go to church, and she realized that even though she was bad off, there are people who are even worse off because there are people around who haven't even heard the gospel of Jesus.

So in her mid-20s, Mary boarded a ship and went to Nigeria as a missionary.

This little girl from the slums of Dundee, Scotland, is now stepping out to be the feet of Jesus.

And she comes to a certain area of Nigeria called Okolong.

And as she arrived in Okolong, she didn't do like most missionaries did at the time, try to learn, like for the local people to learn English.

She learned their language.

She stayed among them, she lived with them, she loved them, and her heart was touched by the compassion of Jesus Christ.

So she learned their language and also she learned their ways and their traditions.

And one of the things that happened that concerned her was that in the tradition of this local group of people, if you had twins, that was a sign that these babies are cursed.

So that you know, you should have one baby.

If you have two, there's something wrong.

So whenever a woman had two twin babies, she would go out in the jungle and leave the babies in the jungle for them to perish.

And so Mary started walking around in the jungle every single day for hours and hours and hours, finding the abandoned twin babies and bringing them home, and she adopted them as her children.

Eventually, she became the mother of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of children.

And the people in of the area in Nigeria saw this and they responded to her because they saw her love and her compassion.

And they started to open up and they eventually gave her more and more influence, and finally they crowned her the queen of Okoyom.

Can you imagine this little girl, fatherless girl who worked 14-hour shifts as a child, all of a sudden is now considered a queen in Nigeria?

And she uses this influence to abolish slavery, to fight for the rights of women, to rescue children, to found schools and to preach Jesus all over this area.

I got an actual picture of her right here.

That's her in the middle with some of her babies, some of her children.

And you might say, Oh, she she looks a bit worn out.

But here's where we shouldn't confuse the church with Hollywood, friends.

Because in Hollywood, it's just about surface, it's just about looking good.

But in the kingdom of God, it's all about serving, and it's about being good to others, and that's all that matters.

And I love this story because you maybe you're here today, you can identify with it, regardless of where you come from, how many failures you have in your past, what kind of deck of cards this world gave you as you came in.

You don't have to identify as a victim.

You can actually be restored and you can be a source of blessing.

You can be the feet of Jesus, you can be the hands of Jesus, and you can be the heart of Jesus.

And friends, if you come to Scotland today and you look at their 10-pound bills, the equivalent of a$10 bill here in the US, on it is not the face of a president or a king.

You'll see the face of Mary Slesser right on that bill.

You see, behind her head, there is an image of her as a child, as a girl working in the mill.

And even if we turn the bill around and look at the back of it, there's a map of all the cities, the towns, and the villages that she influenced for Jesus that turned to Jesus Christ because of her, and also her with all the children that she adopted.

And I was I would just love for this story to be an inspiration for you.

As we leave this church today, let's leave inspired about being part of the Capital C church and with a new commitment that we will be the feet of Jesus, the hands of Jesus, and the compassionate heart of Jesus.

Would you just sit in the presence of God for just a moment and allow me to pray for you?

Would you just close your eyes, open your hearts and hold your hands out, ready to receive the Holy Spirit's encouragement into your life?

Right now, Father, I pray for this beautiful church that Maria and I call home, one of our homes.

And I thank you, Father, that today through your word, you're reminding us to be your body, to be your church, to be the feet that will go where no one else will go, to be your hands reached out to touch and to heal and to bring hope and inspiration everywhere we go, and to be your heart, Father, that constantly beats with the compassion of Jesus Christ Himself.

And Father, just as Marius Lesser lifted up all these babies, I also pray specifically that this church will always lift up the next generation, care for the next generation, be a home not only for the present church, but for their children and their grandchildren.

I pray for the upcoming YouthCon, Lord, because I feel in my heart that you're about to pour out your spirit upon the next generation of this house in a very, very special way.

May it happen, Lord, and may we never ever forget that we are your body, the feet of Jesus, the hands of Jesus, and the heart of Jesus.

In Jesus' mighty name.

Amen.

Amen.

Can we make some noise for Jesus?

Thank you so much, Gatesway.

We love you.

Thank you.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you'd like to connect with us, text Connect to 71010 or visit gatewaypeople.com.

We hope you have a great week.