The Village Church
Three Things to Remember About the Church - Audio
I guess, preach it this morning. He's a good friend of mine from Birmingham, Alabama and he's a mentor and he has given me a lot of advice and wisdom since I've been here in Huntsville. So, I'd like to welcome Michael Jones from Harvish Community Church. I think it's worth it. Well, good morning. I want to thank Alex for the opportunity to come and speak to you this morning. I really enjoyed the worship service, the praise team. I almost got caught up and forgot where I was. If we sing "You're the Air", I breathe. Normally, I'd go like this to my wife who's on the piano and the drummer over there and we just ride that thing out. And I'd start giving the congregation a word over it. Maybe it's testimony time and anything but all the Presbyterians so we better move on. [Laughter] Let the church say "Man". Do Presbyterians say "Man"? If you want to welcome me today, you need to say "Man". It is a pleasure being with you. We are a PCA Church in Birmingham, Harvish Community Church. We started as a core group about 16 years ago and this year we celebrated our 15th Church anniversary. It's been a wonderful ride. I remember these days we met as a church in a little storefront for about six years before we became a particular church. And Alex, I'll give you some of the advice a preacher gave me. He said as I was bemoaning the fact that we didn't have elders yet and it was about five or six years. He said "Brother, enjoy these days". [Laughter] But it has been a wonderful, wonderful ride. My beautiful wife is involved more today. We have a dear friend that we've known for years and years and years whose mother died so I took her to the airport yesterday. But I look back during the worship service I was trying to find my daughters. They're probably back with the donuts someplace. Where are they? Okay, there they are. Two out of the four. My oldest daughter is in Indianapolis working with a ministry called IMPACT. She sings with a group called Level 316. So pray for them. They are using the hip-hop culture to reach people with the gospel. And so she's in full-time Christian work. And then my second daughter, Temperance, is at Bellhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi. She's in her third year and let's just put it this way. Each semester I have to make a phone call that says Temperance, are you passing? And she says, "Yes, Daddy, I have a 2.0 and then I tell her, honey, I've never been so happy about a 2.0 in all my life." Well, if you do want to make me feel at home, grab your Bible, open it up to Matthew Chapter 16 and stand up and let's read God's Word together. And I want to talk just for a few minutes on the subject. Three things I want to remind you about the church. Three things I want to remind you about the church. Starting at verse 13. When Jesus came into a region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." And I want you to pay close attention to verse 18. And I also say to you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. Father God, we pray that you would speak to us through your Word today in Matthew Chapter 16. In Jesus' name, let each person say, "Man, you may be seated." The church. I want to talk to you a little bit about the church because I think that we in America are so common about the church that we have forgotten that God has given us prescriptions about what the church is, invisible, the church visible. I read a wonderful article a couple of years ago by a man named John Piper, and the title of the article was Minimum Versus Maximum Church. And he says that there is a minimum requirement for the church. There are seven requirements. One is that there has to be a regular gathering of people. The second is that these gathering of people have to be believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's essential for it to be an authentic church. That in addition to this gathering and that they are believers, that they must gather for worship, the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ. The third is that at this gathering there must be the preached word. There has to be, or else it's not a church. The fifth mark of an authentic church, he says, or minimum church, he says, is that there has to be the sacrament of baptism that is practiced. That when individuals enter into this covenant community, or if you are part of a covenant family, that infants are baptized, that individuals who confess Jesus Christ are baptized, that sacrament must be a part of a church. Well, the sixth is that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper must be practiced, that on a regular basis that you are worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ through holy communion. Well, the seventh mark of an authentic church is why we are here today. Dr. Piper says that in order for it to be authentic, in order for it to be a real church, a minimum church, is that you have to have duly elected officers, you have to have elders and deacons, you have to have a preacher or a pastor, and they have to be qualified men who are elected by the congregation, and so that is why we are here. But as we come, I want to remind you three things that I believe the text brings out with regard to the church. Three things that almost all of us already know, I dare say all of us know. But I think that in a day like this, we need to remind ourselves. You know the context, Jesus has been preaching, Jesus has been teaching, Jesus has been hanging out with his twelve disciples. As a matter of fact, at this point in Matthew, he has stopped preaching to the multitudes, he has stopped ministering to the masses, and he has shrunk back and spent most of his time with his twelve men, preparing them for when he will leave. He encounters and enters a place called Caesarea Philippi, and it's almost as if Jesus says, "Well, let me give these disciples a quiz. Let me test them about what they understand about this gospel and who I am." And so he turns around to them and he says, "Who do men say that the I, the Son of Man am?" And they reply and say, "Well, some say that you're John the Baptist, others say that you're one of the prophets." And they go through a list of what has been talked about in the marketplace, about Jesus. So he narrows down his quiz to the next question, "Well, I know that's what they say out there, but who do you say that I am?" Notice in the text that he says that he directs this to all of the disciples, not just Peter. It's to all of them. He wants a response from all of them. And it is Peter who serves as a representative in answering the question. And so Peter says, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus commends his answer by saying, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed that to you, but my Father in Heaven has revealed that to you." And then we come to verse 18, and Jesus says, "And another thing, upon this rock, I'll build my church, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Three things that we need to remember about the church. Upon this rock, I will build my church. Point number one. Alex, elders, deacons, even members. Remember, this is not your church. It's clear in the text. Upon this rock, I will build my church. We live in a day and age where we take possession of all kinds of things, and some of us are old enough to remember what the church looked like in the 60s and the 70s when I was growing up. And if you were to get back then, young people, we had albums, not CDs, you'd see a gospel album that was produced by a church, and you'd see either a picture of a dove flying, or you'd see a picture of a cross, or you'd see a picture of a church, or a flowing meadow. There was a change in the late 70s and early 80s. There weren't pictures of churches anymore on gospel CDs. Almost all the time in our day and age you'd see a picture of an individual, because this gospel is mine. It's about me. We live in this me generation, and it can even come over into the church. Many of our American churches are so personality driven that if you were to drive by a big billboard, you wouldn't see a picture of the church. You'd see a picture of the pastor and his wife. Am I right about it? Jesus says it's my church. It's mine. I didn't shed my blood for the church. We have celebrated 15 years at our church, and we've got some old members. I love Brother Currie. He's 76 years old, same age as my dad. If my dad was living, and he's a deacon in our church, and he came up with me and said, "Brother, Pastor, we're just real excited about celebrating your anniversary." And I said, "Brother Currie, it's not my anniversary. We don't celebrate pastors' anniversary." Because I didn't pay for this church. Jesus shed his blood for the church. The text says, "I will build my church." Let me say one other thing about that. It will help you, Alex, elders' deacons, to remember that it is his church. Because when it comes to sensitive decisions that you will have to make as a church, it is not one elder's opinion over another elder's opinion. Because it is the Lord Jesus' church, we as elders, we as officers, have to seek the very mind of Christ. In Acts chapter 15, the church met for a very important conference. They were trying to decide whether or not Gentiles had to become Jews before they become Christians. So they met together. They had their general assembly. The elders started working out this whole idea of whether or not the church should decide one way or another, and I love right in the middle of the chapter. After they made the decision, no, Gentiles don't have to become Jews and be circumcised to become Christians. It is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. Right in the middle of the chapter, it says, as Luke writes and records it, it's seen good to the Holy Spirit and to us that we should make this decision. So as you meet as a church body, because it's his church, any decision, at first, first, it's got to seem good to him. And if it's good to him, it's going to be good for you. A man or old me, a man. Point number two, look at the text, verse 18, it says, "Upon this rock I will build my church." That phrase, "I will build," is a wonderful phrase. Point number one, just as a reminder, is, "It's not your church." Point number two is, "He builds it, not you." "I will build my church." Probably one of the great joys of my life is to serve as a board member of this ministry in Birmingham called Grace House Ministries. It's a home for girls, at-risk girls. And Mama Lois Coleman started it, and we've been friends for 27 years since I've been in Birmingham. And she has invited me on a regular basis. I go once, twice, three times a month, to go and do devotion for her staff. Well, I went to do devotion this particular Wednesday, and she wasn't there, and she had just hired some bookkeepers and accountants, and they were getting ready to prepare for this huge audit the next day. And so I waited in the conference room for them to come for us to do devotion, and nobody came. So I walked back to the office where they were working, and they said, "Well, Pastor Mike, we know that you're here. Could you give us 15 or 20 minutes before we have devotion? We're working on this audit. We're about to pull our hair out. We're trying to get this done. It's a real serious thing." I said, "Okay, I'll wait for you." Well, I had planned on doing a devotion about something in one of the Gospels to point their direction to the Lord Jesus Christ. But as soon as I heard and discerned the situation, I went right to Psalm 127. Unless the Lord builds the house. They labor in vain, who build it. Unless the Lord watches the city. The Watchmen guards in vain. So you could stay up all night trying to prepare. You can stay up all night trying to strategize your plan for ministry to build this church. You can do all that you can do. And let me say this, churches are built in the flesh, or else there'd be no reason why the cults flourish. Churches can be built in the flesh, but there's no joy. There's no presence of the Holy Spirit and the living God in that church. He is the one that built it. He is the one whose spirit moves through it. And when he's moving through it, it flourishes. I agree with Henry Blackaby years ago who wrote a Bible study entitled Experiencing God. And the whole premise of the Bible study was that God is already working. We don't come to him with our plans and say, "Lord, here they are. You bless them. Rubber stamp them." No, he's already working, and the key to ministry is to find out where he is working and then join him in his work. We have been praying for years about how we could minister to Irwin High School in our community, how we can get an end. We tried multiple times to get an end, and this year they had a new principle who had been there just a few years, and we approached him, and he wouldn't return our calls. I met with him last spring and said, "Listen, we don't want to just be a ministerial council that oversees your school and is just there. We want to be personally involved. Well, how do you want to be involved, Pastor?" Well, what we want to do is if it's okay with you, if it will help you, we would like to serve as chaplains for all of your athletic teams. We would like, if you have a project that we would be the first ones that you call so that we could come and help you with this, free labor, no cost, a joyous thing. He never called me back. The last week of August, he calls and says, "Preacher, do you still want to work with the teams?" I said, "Certainly. There's a young man in our church who would love to do devotion for your football team." We have gone to center point high school every week. We've had fifth quarter at our church. It has been the easiest thing, even when we made mistakes, the Lord blessed it, because he was in it. I went with 75 chicken sandwiches from McDonald's and 75 chips and drinks, and we were there, and the football team had already gone to Talladega. So I called the principal on the phone, and I said, "Well, the team is not there." And he said, "Well, Pastor, I'm sorry we forgot to call you, but it's race weekend and we needed to leave early." And I said, "Well, Pastor, I've got this food. What would you like me to do with it?" He said, "Well, the band hadn't left yet. We make a beeline over to the band room. We give them. We have all kinds of ends with the band now." Even when we made mistakes, the Lord said, "I'm in this thing." Upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell went out for a veil against it. Point number one was simply, "It's not your church." Point number two is simply, "He's the one building it." But point number three, I think is most important, and I'll close with this. The text says, "Blessed are you, Simon Bargeona, flesh and blood if not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven." And upon this rock, I will build my church. Well, there's been a difference of opinion on upon this rock. You know, our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters believe that upon this rock is referring to Peter. Protestants traditionally have said, "Well, no, it's not referring to Peter. It's referring to the confession that Peter has made." Many have looked at the two words that are used in the Greek, one is Petros and one is Petra. One is a word that is sometimes used for little stones. The other is for a big stone. And so we have concluded that, "Yes, you're a rock, Peter, but you're a little stone." And upon this rock, the big stone, your confession, I'll build my church. Well, I would like to give you a third way of looking at this. And the third is that he is talking about Peter and the confession. That that is how he is going to build his church. Do you remember when I first started? I said that Peter was the representative for the whole group. Amen. Amen lights. Here Peter is and he says, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." The church of Jesus Christ is built on individuals, this is point number three, individuals who make the confession about who Jesus is. Because I think in Jesus's mind's eye and his infinite wisdom and knowledge, he knew that Peter would be the first preacher that he would preach the first gospel sermon in Acts chapter two. And if you were to read that sermon, it is all about the person and work of Jesus Christ. Upon this rock, I'll build my church. You'll notice that that rock is thou art the Christ, thou art the anointed one. You've been anointed prophet, you give us the word, you've been anointed priest, you're the intercessor for us, and you are the king. Upon this rock, I'll build my church. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. It is who you are. It is not based upon how slick I can be. It's not based upon how knowledgeable I can be. It is not based, the church is not based on how much resources you have and money you have or the facilities that you have or what kind of marketing you can do. The church is built on the Lord Jesus Christ, the sufficiency of him and his work on the cross. If you were to read the gospel of Matthew, you would know that it's all about the king and it's all about the kingdom. It's all about this word Messiah that he is the chosen one. Matthew is the most Jewish gospel out of all four. It is a gospel written by a Jew about a Jew to the Jews. It is a gospel manifesto to the Jewish community. And it is all about him being king. It even starts out with a genealogy and goes back to King David because he is trying to help these Jews see that Jesus is your long awaited king. And the church is built on that fact. It's built on Jesus being the king. I'll close with this. Sometimes I've got to remind myself that he's king. And I've got a date book which I have things that are real important to me, stapled and taped at the end of my date book. One of them is a message by a man named Dr. SM Lockridge. Dr. Lockridge is one of my preaching heroes. Dr. Lockridge has since deceased. He's been gone. I believe he preached in San Diego for years, gifted man. And he said this and this is how I'll close. My king was born king. The Bible says he was a seven way king. He's the king of the Jews. That's a national king. He's the king of Israel. That's a king of the Jews, a racial king, the king of Israel, a national king. He's the king of righteousness. He's the king of the ages. He's the king of heaven. He's the king of glory. He's the king of kings. And he's the lord of lords. Don't try to mislead me. Do you know my king? David said that the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his Andy work. My king is the only one in whom there are no means of measure that can define his limitless love. No far seen telescope can bring into visibility the coastline of his shoreless supply. No barriers can hinder him from pouring out his blessing. Well, he's enduringly strong. He's entirely sincere. He's eternally steadfast. He's immortally graceful. He's impurely powerful. He's impartially merciful. That's my king. He's God's son. Somebody ought to help me. He's a sinner's savior. He's the centerpiece of civilization. He stands alone in himself. He's honest. He's unique. He's unparalleled. He's unprecedented. He's supreme. He's preeminent. Well, he's the grandest idea in literature. He's the highest personality in philosophy. He's the supreme problem in higher criticism. He's the fundamental doctrine of pure theology. He's the cardinal necessity of spiritual religion. That's my king. He's the miracle of the age. He's the superlative of everything good that you choose to call him. Well, he's the only one able to supply all our needs simultaneously. He supplies strength for the weak. He's available for the tempted and the tried. He sympathizes and he saves. He's a strong God and he guides. He heals the sick. He cleanses the lepers. He forgives sinners. He discharges debtors. He delivers the captives. He defends the feeble. He blesses the young. He serves the unfortunate. He regards the aged. He rewards the diligent and he beautifies the meek. That's my king. Well, he's the king of knowledge. He's the wellspring of wisdom. He's the pathway of peace. He's the highway of holiness. He's the master of the mighty. He's the head of the heroes. He's the overseer of the overcomers. He's the prince of princes. He's the king of kings. And he's the lord of lords. Yeah, that's my king. His office is manifold. His promise is sure. His mercy is everlasting. His love never changes. His word is enough. His grace is sufficient. His rain is righteous. His yoke is easy. And his burden is light. Well, I wish I could describe him for you. But he's indescribable. He's indescribable. Yes, he's incomprehensible. He's invincible. He's irresistible. I'm coming to tell you that the heavens of heaven cannot contain him. Let alone a man explain him. You can't get him off of your mind. You can't get him off of your hands. You can't outlive him and you can't live without him. Well, the Pharisees couldn't stand him, but they found out they couldn't stop him. Pilot couldn't find any fault in him. The witnesses couldn't get their testimonies to agree. Herod couldn't kill him. Death couldn't handle him. And the grave couldn't hold him. That's my king. He always has been. And he always will be. I'm talking about he had no predecessor, and he'll have no successor. There's nobody before him, and there'll be nobody after him. You can't impeach him, and he's not going to resign. That's my king. Dine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. All power belongs to my king. We're around here talking about black power, and white power, and green power, but it's God's power. His is the power, and the glory. We try and get prestige and honor and glory for ourselves, but the glory is all His. Yes, dine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and how long is that? And ever, and then after all of the forevers, then amen.