Sunday Sep 27, 2026 - Who Is the Church

Um I uh I have five kids.

I've told some of you that before, 22 to 3, and uh one of them is a prodigal right now.

Uh my three-year-old Peterson doesn't want to go to church.

And uh I'm fighting him literally every Sunday, and he's like, I don't want to go to church, I don't like church.

I'm like, yes, you do, you do like church, because I feel like I can gaslight him because he's three, but he is really like he's really he really is stubborn.

He's stubborn, just like his mom.

And I'm like, Peterson, you you you look so Hannah and I are having this conversation right now about how you convince a three-year-old to go to church.

And so, you know, you I mean, we're thinking through, it's one thing to talk to an adult, this is what church is, it's another thing to talk to a teenager, but this three-year-old, you know, we're laying out the tenets of the faith.

We're talking about the doctrine of the body of Christ and communion and baptism, and and it usually comes out like this they're gonna have some really good snacks.

And so, so Peterson, my prodigal, he's uh we're we're we're gonna get him there.

We're gonna keep bringing him no matter what.

He's coming to the house of God and he's gonna be ministered to.

But I don't know why why you came today.

There is a there is almost as many reasons why you are in the room as there are people.

Hundreds of reasons why you could have shown up.

Maybe you're here today because you were raised in church and this is the only thing you've ever known.

You're like, we go to church on Sundays.

I'm a cradle Pentecostal.

We go to church on Sundays.

We used to go to church every day of the week, it felt like, but now we go to church on Sundays, and this is what we do.

Maybe you're here because you um you came with someone who goes to church and you want to be with that person.

You're like, well, I'll I'll I'll wherever you are, I'm gonna go, but I'm mostly here because of you.

Maybe you're here this morning because you're scared not to come to church.

If you grew up again in the late 1900s, like Tommy said that I did back with the thief in the night, and Jesus could come back at any moment.

In fact, a couple times in my life he did.

I felt like he came back, but my mom was still here, so I knew we were okay.

Uh, and so, but like you're scared not to go to church.

Like, if I don't go to church, what's gonna happen?

What's happening if I'm fishing out on the bayou and Jesus comes back?

Like, what's gonna happen?

So maybe you're here because you're scared.

Maybe you're here because you love church and you love worship and you love the preaching, you love the people, like this is your place, this is your family, this is your, this is your this is your people.

Maybe you're here this morning because you're looking for hope.

Like there's something going on in this season of your life that has caused confusion or unsettledness or even despair, and you showed up here this morning and you said, God, I I've got to hear from you today.

Maybe today you're here because you're searching for like what do you actually believe?

Starting to wonder about this stuff, and you go, Man, I what is it that I believe?

There could be there could be so many reasons why you're here, but today what I want to do for the next 20 minutes, I don't want to talk about what.

I want to talk to you about who, who you are, who is the church.

Scripture calls her the body of Christ.

Other times we see the bride of Christ, sometimes the house of God or the temple of God.

But the truth is in a that the pervasive sentiment in American Christianity is simply this.

We that's it's this under, it's this subconscious thought.

And we would say, I don't think any of us would say out loud, but the pervasive sentiment of the American, of Americans is this it's necessary to believe in God, but only helpful to go to church.

We believe that my private life of faith is a work of the Spirit, but the church is simply man's work to support my private faith.

We believe that church is negotiable to my maturation and Christlieness.

But today, what I want to declare to you is this the church is not man's response to God's action.

The church is the action of God.

If you want to know what Jesus is doing in the world today, he's doing the church.

This is his body, this is his bride, this is the action of God.

And you don't enact the action of God, you get swept up in it.

The church is something that God is doing, and he's doing it today.

We don't enact it, we don't begin it, we don't sustain it, we don't complete it, we don't create it, we don't animate it, we don't preserve it, we don't initiate it.

The church of Jesus Christ is a description, it's a glimpse of only what God has done and is doing.

This is Jesus' church.

And Jesus Christ, according to Ephesians chapter 1, is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that is invoked, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

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

When we gather together on a Sunday morning, this gathering of the saints, it's not a concert, it's not a TED talk, it's not a self-improvement class, it's not a networking event, it's not a social club, it's not a political movement, it's not a casual, weekly commodity.

This is the body of the risen Christ, filled by Jesus with his own presence, who fills her with everything and every way.

This is Jesus' body, and the church is unlike anything, holy, unlike anything else that exists on the planet.

This is the church.

In the 300s, the church, the global church, was trying to understand actually who is the church.

And uh they gave us something called the Nicene Creed, and inside the Nicene Creed, the church gathered around globally said, This is who we are, this is what it means to be the church.

And so today, for just the next few minutes, I want to just describe how we have talked about the church for 1700 years.

And they gave us in the creed, it says the church is one holy Catholic apostolic.

Now, don't be scared of one of those.

We're gonna talk about one of those good, but today I want to declare to you not just who Jesus Christ is, but who his body is.

If you look with me in Ephesians chapter 2, Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus and he says, Because of who Jesus is in chapter 1, this is who his church is in chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

It says this in 2, verses 19 through 22.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and the members of the household of God.

Built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.

Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Four quick thoughts.

Point number one is this is that the church is one.

The church of Jesus Christ is one.

Verses 19 and 21 say, members of the household of God in whom the whole structure is being joined together.

There's this idea that when we go looking for a church, that we've got to get everything right.

In fact, sometimes we even call it church shopping, which is quite possibly one of the worst things that we could ever talk about, one of the worst ways we could talk about the church.

The church isn't a commodity that we shop.

So we go looking for a church, and what we're looking for is a church that believes the way that I believe, and that worships the way that I worship, and that thinks the way that I think, has a theology, the way that I have a theology.

And I want to tell you, I think you've noticed this, and it's this you will never find that church.

That church doesn't exist.

There is no church, there is no, there is no homogeneity of church where we gather together and everyone thinks the same way and worships the same way and has the same theology and the same doctrine and the same practices.

Those churches don't exist.

And that's why we do communion.

Because somehow, supernaturally and cosmically and mystically, when we come to the table together and we gather around with people that don't look like us and people that don't live in our houses, and people that don't think like us, and we all gather together, all different, all, all both genders, all types of people, all types of ethnicities, all types of political faults, all types of jobs, and uh like all ages, we gather together, and what scripture says is happening at this place.

I love that today we're doing baptism and we're doing communion because baptism is what brings you into the community of God, and communion is what makes you the body, it's what makes you one.

And we take communion gathered around with people that aren't like us, and God somehow makes us one.

It's the only place on the planet that this can happen.

Because it's not a work of, it's not a unity, it's not a work that we can do.

Unity is a work of the spirit, and only God can do that.

We can try to do a work of uniformity, but Jesus does a work of unity.

You might be looking around the room right now and you you look across the aisle and you see somebody and you go, that guy, that that woman right there.

I love doing life with them.

I love that.

I want to do, I want to praise with them, I want to pray with them, I want to worship with them, I love that they're part of this church, and I I just it gives me pride to know that I get to walk into a church on a Sunday morning, on a Wednesday night, and I get to be with this person.

And then you look across the aisle the other way, and you go, that guy right there, I think it's time for him to go find another church.

I'm not so sure that I like going to church with that guy.

Is that reprobate heathen even saved?

What is like is Jesus ever gonna fix him?

Is Jesus ever gonna do something in him?

Paul tells us literally in every single book of the Bible that he writes, every epistle.

I'm gonna give you the Jeremy paraphrase, but it goes something like this church is messy, deal with it.

That's scripture.

Church is messy, deal with it.

Because what God is doing is something that only God can do.

God is bringing us together from all walks of life and all tribes and all nations and all people groups, both genders, all ages.

He's bringing us together and somehow making us one.

John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

Jesus prays this prayer and he says this it is the most audacious prayer in all of Scripture.

And he says, This God, Jesus, is praying to God.

And God prays to God and says, Father, make them one as you and I are one.

Jesus prays a prayer where he says, in the same way that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are in relationship with one another, I pray that you will make them one in the same way.

It is the most audacious prayer there is.

And every prayer that Jesus prays is answered from the Father with a yes.

Which means that in this moment, in this room, in this church, you are being made one.

Secondly, the church is holy.

Verses 21 and 22 say, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Holy means set apart, it means that we're different.

It means that the way that we do things are just going to be different.

We're going to live our lives differently than the world is.

We're going to work differently, we're going to have relationships differently.

We're going to have marriage that are different.

We're going to talk differently.

Our morals and our ethics and our character is going to look different.

And it's going to look so different that Jesus says they're going to hate you.

They're going to hate you because of it.

This is not an indictment on this church, but I do want to speak to the I do want to speak to the American church.

If the American church is ever hated, it's usually for the wrong reasons.

It's about time we started being hated because we had radical forgiveness and radical love.

It's because we were so radical about the way that we serve and we submit and the way that we don't try to achieve and we don't try to head up into the right, but instead we're willing to take the lowest.

Jesus would say to us, if you want to be first, it's time that you started being last.

If you want to gain your life, you've got to lose your life.

And you start doing something like that, and you get hated.

And Jesus said, they'll hate you because they hated me first.

And holy means that we're going to look different.

Peter will call us strangers and aliens.

It's just not going to fit here very well.

We're going to serve in places that people don't understand.

Why are we serving?

We're going to forgive in ways that people say, I don't understand why you would forgive.

You should be seeking revenge and vengeance.

And the church says, God figures out revenge and vengeance.

I serve and I forgive.

Or holy.

Thirdly, is the church is Catholic.

Verse 19, it says, no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with all of the saints.

Catholic is from two Greek words.

It means kata halos, which means according to the whole.

To be Catholic, now you're you could be thinking Roman Catholic.

I'm not saying Roman Catholic.

They are brothers and sisters.

I'm saying Catholic, which means part of the entire body of Christ around the world.

What that means is this morning there are hundreds of millions of people that have gathered together and they are worshiping just like you.

They are worshiping in beautiful buildings with beautiful stages and beautiful music all over the world.

But we also have hundreds of millions of men and women who are gathered around tables and gathered in living rooms.

Some we even have in maybe underground China who are gathering around this morning in secret because it's so dangerous for them to gather that they have they can't tell anybody what they're doing.

They'll pass around a paper this morning.

You and I were able to sing with Nathan and Brittany and the team.

We were able to sing at the top of our lungs and worship Jesus.

We were able to say, Jesus be the name and sing with beautiful music.

And there are places in underground China right now where men and women will pass around a piece of paper that has a worship song on it, and they will read it in their mind because it is too dangerous for them to sing it out loud.

And they'll pass it around a table.

And when we say we're Catholic, what we're saying is that when we worship and when we gather together, we don't just do it with the men and women in this room, but we do it with the hundreds of millions of people around the earth who declare that Jesus is Lord.

It also means that we don't start anything.

We didn't come in here and start worship.

We joined our voices with all of the Christians around the world in a worship that is always happening every minute of every day.

And all of the Christians around the world, they don't start worship either.

They join their voices to angels who have been crying for eternity.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, and the whole earth is filled with his glory.

To be Catholic means that we understand that I'm part of not just this body, I'm part of the body.

The body of Christ.

In South Alabama many years ago, 25 years ago.

And um one night we were um we were doing something that we used to do.

I don't know if we do this anymore, but we were doing something.

We used to do specials.

You guys remember specials?

Specials were where somebody who probably shouldn't be singing gets to sing a special song, and that person was relegated to Sunday night.

Sunday morning, usually you you should be singing.

Sunday night it was like, all right, let's give Bobby a chance.

We know he can't sing, but he's got a good heart.

And so Bobby would get to sing while we passed around the offering plate.

So one night Frankie was singing on a Sunday night.

Frankie was a good singer, he wasn't a great singer, but what Frankie always got right was he got the song right.

He always knew the right song to sing.

And one night Frankie was singing, maybe you will remember this.

He was singing, The anchor holds.

The anchor holds, though the ship is tattered, the anchor holds.

And you could just feel in the room that night that there was an energy and a life, and as Frankie began to belt out that final note or get close to that final note, as he was belting it out, you could just feel the energy and the and the life in the room, and people began to stand on their feet and they began to clap.

And I that night I was playing piano and I was standing next to my friend Jimmy, who was playing the bass.

And Jimmy uh sang with his sister and a friend and a Southern Gospel trio.

Do you guys know what Southern Gospel is?

That's just holy country music.

And so he was uh he was singing in this Southern Gospel trio, and they were, they were, they were singing.

I mean, uh Frankie was um Frankie was belting out that last note, and Jimmy just got caught up in the energy of the moment, and I started hearing him.

Do you do you know this phrase?

He started hooping and hollering.

Y'all know that?

So Jimmy's hooping and hollering, and the place is filled with just a just a frothy energy.

And you can hear it, and Jimmy goes, woo, woo, and he's back there on the bass, just jamming it out, just and then I'm just kind of ringing it out right here.

And Jimmy looks at me dead in the eye, and he says, Jeremy, I mean, just the room's roaring, it's hooping and hollering.

And he says, Jimmy, that right there is where we're gonna sing in heaven.

And this smart aleck 20-something year old thought, wait a minute, what did he just say?

And I said, Jim, Jimmy, what are we what did you just say?

He said, and just remember, the room just erupting with just praise and the anchor is holding and we're just screaming and hooping and hollering.

And Jimmy goes, We're gonna sing that in heaven.

And I said, Southern gospel?

We're gonna sing southern gospel.

And he says, Absolutely, and I don't know this smart like 20-something year old says, Jimmy, are you telling me that when we get to heaven, we're gonna make all of the Africans and the Hispanics and the Asians and the Russians and all of the ethnicities and people of the world, we're gonna tell them you leave your voices behind.

We're gonna sing Southern gospel.

And Jimmy says, What else would we sing?

Amen.

Good, thank you, Jesus.

Sometimes we forget that this isn't the only church, but you're part of a global church, not just a church that exists around the world, but a church that has existed for 2,000 years.

That have been singing and worshiping, and to be Catholic means you're part of that.

But secondly, it means this it means that this church, this local body of believers, is the full expression of the body of Christ.

Everything that you need to be shaped into maturity and Christ-likeness is right here in this church.

You don't need to go looking somewhere else, you don't need more YouTube videos, you don't need to go to another church on another night.

You need to make your home and your family in this place right here, and let Jesus shape you over the long course of your life into Christ-likeness.

That's also what Catholic means.

It means you're part of the global body for thousands of years, and if Jesus tarries for thousands more, but it also means this right here is the full expression of the body of Christ.

And lastly, finally, Pastor Nathan.

Point number four says that the church is apostolic.

Verse 20 built on the foundations of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.

What that means is that we don't get to reinvent this stuff every Tuesday.

But you have a faith, a deep faith, a rooted faith, a faith that has been fought for, that men and women have died for, they've given their lives for, and it's been handed down to you.

Jesus says in Matthew chapter 28, go into all the world, preach the gospel to every nation, baptizing them in my name and teaching them to obey.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

And because men and women have given their lives to do that, you and I are sitting here today, being taught to obey, being baptized in his name, and then in return going into all the world and continuing to pass down this rooted deep faith anchored in the character and nature and person of Jesus Christ, and we continue to pass it down.

It means that this right here that was passed to us from the prophets and the apostles, this is unlike any other book.

This isn't Harry Potter, this isn't Lee Child, this is the written word of God that has been inspired by the Holy Spirit, and it means that when I read it, the author himself, the Holy Spirit, makes it come alive to me.

It's been passed to me.

These words were inspired by the same spirit that said, Let there be light, let there be life.

And when you open this book that's been passed down to you because you are an apostolic church, that same spirit says, Let there be life.

Come alive today.

This is the church of Jesus Christ.

This is his body, this is his bride.

This isn't something that we just get to do.

This is something that you've been invited into that is eternal, the only institution that is eternal, not even your marriage is eternal.

This is eternal, the body of Christ is eternal.

Jesus is knitting you together as one and drawing you out to be holy and pulling you into the global body for thousands of years and passing down this faith to you.

Today I'd like to invite you to stand.

And if you close your eyes.

If that's you this morning, would you lift your hand?

You say, Jeremy, I'm struggling.

Struggling sometimes, but I want to move into that space.

If that's you this morning, will you raise your hand?

I want to pray for you.

Yeah.

And then the second person is this.

You say, Jeremy, I too often Sunday morning kind of stands on its own in my life.

It's its own moment, it's its own event, but it hasn't made its way into my everyday life.

It hasn't made its way into my family, it hasn't made its way into the way that I work, hasn't made its way in the way that I carry myself.

But today, with God's help, I want Sunday morning.

I want me being part of the body of Christ to change everything in my life.

We hope you enjoyed today's sermon.

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