It is important that the church stays within its boundaries set by God.
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Sermons: Campbell Road Church of Christ
Churches that Remember Their Mission
Many modern, modernistic, postmodern churches of cross have become such in their practice and their work that they're hardly recognizable by the old primitive gospel. When we talk about the primitive gospel, we're talking about going back to the original text. We're talking about being New Testament kind of churches. And there are many that are part of the fellowship of those congregations that ask questions why they'd understand. They'll understand why leadership leads and allows the things that they see that are contradictory or they're missing in New Testament examples in New Testament churches. Those modernistic, more liberal churches of Christ, many of which have introduced instrument of music as a part of their worship. And one congregation that fits that, they didn't feel like they could do it all Sunday morning. So they created a time of Saturday night for all who wanted to come to worship this music and also will Saturday night per take of the Lord's Supper. So Lord's Supper, no longer has the place only on the first day of the week. And doesn't stop there. Women have become very active in leadership positions. Women elders, women preachers, women Bible class teachers over men, women taking leadership positions. Again, leaves me scratching their head asking why? Because those things seem to be clearly a violation of sound decree from the Word of God. It's like what is needed today is we need a mother's day out. We need a marriage counseling. We need a divorce counseling. We need financial counseling. And we need counseling in every area of our lives. Furthermore, there's an openness of fellowship. So that fellowship into local church is not based upon obedience to the gospel. Baptism is even denied as being essential. And so it doesn't matter whether you are saved in baptized or even baptized at all. You can be accepted because you love Jesus. For the more there is very little teaching on things of worldiness like dancing, modesty, social drinking. Even issues like marriage, divorce and remarriage are frankly, if ever heard. It seems the question that's missing in all is, where is the Word of God that would lead and guide and direct us to do these things? In fact, in 2024, the religious world likes something like this. We want it to be fun. We want to be positive. We want a preacher who tells funny stories and preaches 18 and a half minutes. We want convenient parking. We want no mention of money being given. And we want to be important and want to be recognized but no commitment and no pressure and no expectations. It's kind of like devotion by convenience. Whenever it's convenient, you can find yourself. It's just convenient, no pressure, no commitment. We want to be noticed in wrecking that. I'm not over drawing that. I'm not illustrating that. That's exactly what's taking place in the religious world and even among many what I would call postmodern churches of Christ, even a day. So when we look at the New Testament, we see something quite different. When we look at the New Testament, we see the church involved in edification, the preaching of the gospel to build up the saved. We see the saved going out and teaching others doing evangelism. And with the under limited circumstances, under limited circumstances, we see thanks having their need relieved. But we see the absence of an image of those things previously stated. I will affirm this is not a perfect congregation because the people who comprise her are not perfect. But from the standpoint of organization, a standpoint of work that we've talked about, we strive to be a congregation following that primitive gospel. Can we make mistakes? Yes. Can the leaders be in fault? Yes. Can individual members be in fault? Yes. Can we fail as individual members to have the kind of love, the kind of long suffering, the kind of kindness that we ought to have for one another and therefore miss the kind of character New Testament Christians ought to have? Yes. But it seems there's one thing that brings us together. One purpose, one heart, one soul, and one mind. That we all have collected ourselves together with one purpose, heart, soul, and mind to follow as much as we humanly can God's word and try to please him, build each other up and serve one another. There's always room for improvement. First morning I want to talk to you finally about the four things that I think are essential that churches need to remember in their mission. The first thing I want to talk to you about is churches that remember the mission, but it comes to the idea that the church cannot be all things to all people. First Timothy 516 is where I've asked you to turn. First Timothy 5 verse 16 says, "If any believing matter woman has widows let them relieve them and do not let the church be burdened. That may relieve those who are really widows." Notice the attention drawn here. The attention drawn to the fact that it's not the church's responsibility for the congregation collectively to take care of my dad. It's my responsibility to take care of my dad. The church cannot do all things for all people. However, if you spend any time around this building during the week or you answer the phone even on the Lord's Day, it's not unusual for us to get the call of someone needing help, someone needing a bill paid, someone needing a rent paid, someone needing food. On many frequent occasions we have people walking the doors in between services and say, "We need help." But it's not the church's responsibility to care for them. The majority of the time, when they are deemed to be legitimate needs, those people walk out the door having their need met because our two benevolent deacons are two deacons charged with the work of benevolence. They are benevolent deacons. But two deacons charged with the work of benevolence have come around to many of you and say, "Can you help?" and you dig in your pocket and you pull out money and you help those people. I know one occasion particularly with less than 10 minutes, $2,000 was raised for a dean that would occur by people walking in the door deemed to be legitimate. But things also that if sector education is a ride, then the church need to be involved in sector education. If others need a mother's day out, then the church needs to provide that mother's day out. Any of the children are a little bit rowdy and auditorium. They would need to find a separate place for the children to have their children's church. And the church provides that. Well, I say the church can't do all things to all people. Those are the kind of things that the church can't do. Turn me to Acts chapter 2 just a moment. Acts chapter 2. Don't you observe something in Acts chapter 2 taking place? Oh, to begin in verse 40, Acts chapter 2. If being words, many other words, he testified to exhort them saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation." Do those who glad to receive this were webentized? That day about 3,000 souls were added to them. They continued to steadfastly in the Apostles teaching fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers. Then fear came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were done through the Apostles. What do we not see there? We don't see any of those things. I have just elucidated. What we see is these saints that have come together, steadfastly, earnestly, a sense of urgency about it as far as they're concerned. And they continue with the Apostles teaching. And they continue being partners, one with another. And the word pierces their heart at fear came upon many. We see these new saints being taught and edified. That's what we see taking place. The Church of Jerusalem, however, was soon overshadowed by the Church of Antioch. When you turn to Acts chapter 13, Acts chapter 12, leading into the chapter 13, Barnabas in verse 25 of Acts chapter 12, "Barpus' soul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their ministry, and they took with him also John Mart, this is the first missionary journey. Now the Church of the Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers, a listened number of them, and said, "As the minister of the Lord had fasted the Holy Spirit, said, 'Now separate me the Barnabas, and fall for the work I've called them.' Then having fasted and prayed that their hands then lay sent them away, so being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down. And what did they do when they were sent?" It says they preached the gospel. The Church of Antioch sent these men out to preach the gospel, and there were many men in Antioch that stayed whole and preached the gospel. Churches cannot fail in their mission by preaching the gospel to build up saints and to care for one another. Second of all, I want you to see the Church cannot use carnal means to attract spiritual members. The Church can't use carnal means to attract spiritual members. In John chapter 6, you have this momentuous event that takes place with Christ. He's been teaching all day long, and now it comes time almost dusk if not night, and the most of the people there have come to be found, have come to hear him, and now they need to be fed. He asked the disciples, testing them, it says, in John 6, 'Hey, Ricky's translation. You got enough money to buy these people happy meals?' And they said, 'We only have enough money to buy us all happy meals.' And so they go away. And when they come back, Andrew has been out looking around the people, Ricky's translation, he fires a little boy with a sack of lunch. Everything's in, brings a little boy to the Lord and sack of lunch. And the disciples come back and the Lord takes that sack of lunch and tells the people to reign themselves in certain rows and feeds 5,000 men it's said. Women and children not numbered, so you could multiply that exponentially with women and children. And then Jesus walks away and goes to the other side of the sea because he knows now what they want to do is they want to make him the bread tea. They just tasted the best bread, the best fish they've ever tasted, the aftertaste is still their mouth, and they're thinking to themselves, 'We have found utopia here.' If we just all stay here together, he can do that with a sack of lunch and badge it what he can do with a rock. He can take a rock and he can turn that into shekels of gold. And we can all be prosperous here. But the Lord has walked away from him because he knew what they were going to do. He knew they did not appreciate the miracle that confirmed, the miracle that confirmed him to be the son of God. They missed the message that he's the son of God and focused on the bread they ate, focused on their carnal appetite. And Jesus said, 'That's not why I did that.' Yes, I did that to feed you, but it's not why I did that. In fact, here's the deal. If you really want to eat, then you have to eat my flesh. I really want to drink you out and drink my blood. And they left repulse thinking he's talking about cannibalism. Even his own disciples are confused about this. And they come to Jesus and he says, 'Will you also leave me?' And finally Peter speaks and says, 'To whom else shall we go?' What did we learn? Yes, Jesus provided for names that were there. That cannot be denied. The miracle was a simple number five for the knees though. The miracle was to confirm something. And that's the only miracle stated in all four gospels by the way. What we learned was the people were attracted not to Jesus and the words of Jesus. They were attracted to the bread and the fish that Jesus provided for them. And we faced with the ultimate trick about who was the bread of life and the blood that was there they turned and walked away. Just the Lord had walted, uncommitted, apathetic, uncharing, people who do not resemble anything that has to do with being a disciple, he could have accomplished that. He had the words. He wasn't ignorant of that. But he did not say it. What I want you to do is I want you to track the people with a carnal and to get there, switch the bait and now feed them the word. You see, I don't want a bait and switch here. I want you to draw all men to me, all men will be drawn to me because they shall be taught of God, not because their stomachs are filled, are not because every life need is met. As to Jesus saying, "I will build my church." He should have said something like this, "I will not super structure multipurpose full oriented man facility for everybody to vibrate every need of man." But wait a minute. If we look at the church in the Testament and the local church, the church isn't about us. The church isn't about us. Yes, we come and we edify one another. Yes, we come and we emosh one another. But the church isn't about us. The church is saved people. The church is for us. It's not about us. Salvation and saved people are for the Lord, not for one another. And so when the appeal is for fun and no commitment, that simply makes it about us. What am I receiving out of this? Now, yes, we all receive something, but the tension is not on me. The attention is on the Lord and the Lord is our audience. The Lord is present and it's him that we seek to worship and him that we seek to honor in teaching his word. We need to remember when we come, that we come together for a purpose, but the purpose is not about feeling our self needs. The purpose is about the Lord providing for our spiritual needs as we come together to honor and to praise him. The church can't use carnal means to affect spiritual ends. The third thing I want you to see is the church also cannot misappropriate funds. The church also cannot misappropriate funds. About the only resource that I'm aware of today, the things that have an endless flow of funds that cannot reach an end to where they can never be spent is the United States Treasury. Because if they don't get enough, they'll print more. And so it doesn't matter what the budget is, if they need more, they'll just print more. But those clean jobs was about as rich a man as there was while he was alive. But even seen jobs had a limit to the resources. Seen jobs could have spent every penny he had, might have been a very large, long spending trip. I realized that, but he could have spent everything he had and eventually he would have met the end of his resources. We think about what the Lord provides for us and what our contributions to him mean for the cheering out of his work. He has given us a particular purpose in doing so. You can't take my checkbook and write checks for anything you want to write a check for. Number one, that's mine. Number two, the misappropriation of funds that I have put in place to provide certain things. What's the big deal? It's just about money. Yes, it's about money. It's not love that makes the world go round, folks. We all know it's money that makes the world go round. It takes money to preach the gospel. It takes money to provide for the preaching of the gospel. It takes money to care for needy saints. Yes, it's about money, but it's about the money the Lord possesses that is to be used the way he wants the money to be used. Turn back with me to ask chapter two just a moment. Turn back to ask chapter two. I just want to illustrate this with one simple thing that continues in this text here. You can ask chapter two. So it says in verse 44, the all who believed had all things in common. If you come back to verse 40 and come down, the all who believed are all who heard the word and all who were baptized. All things you come in, sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had me. So it continued daily with one accord in the temple, breaking bread from house to house that ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart. Here you have these saints that have it either come to Jerusalem to keep the feast and now some three thousand have obeyed the gospel and they stayed. There's a need that arose. How did the church in Jerusalem satisfy that need? They pulled their resources together to provide for the needs of those saints. Here you have saints that had a need that would destitute we might say they were without and the church provided for that. Turn back to chapter four and you see much the same thing when you come to verse 32. Now the most two of those who believed were one heart, one soul. Neither anyone said the things he possessed was his own, but then all things in common and with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord and great grace was upon them all. Nor was anyone among them who liked for all the possessors of land or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold and laid them at the apostles feet and it is good for them to anyone who had me. Now if they had taken those funds and provided anything the apostles wanted that would have been a misappropriation of the funds they gathered. Those funds were gathered for a particular reason to provide for the needs of these saints. It was not to provide for the needs of all the people in Jerusalem. The church was not prolific enough financially to do that and the Lord doesn't charge them with that. You say what's the big deal about that? Well the big deal is this. One day we're going to be given an account to account for how we were stewards of that which belonged to the Lord. And you'll ask did you, did you as a congregation, did you use the money that we're collected? Did you use those to preach the gospel to say the laws and to edify the saints? Did you use for that? Did you use those money to provide for saints who were among you who had a need? Did you use them for that? Or did you take it upon yourself to use them for anything you thought that was worthy of the usual? You see the big deal is we're going to give an answer for this. The church chemists appropriate the funds that were collected the purpose for which they were collected. And then finally the church can't displease God. I mentioned the word ago we come with one purpose, one heart, one soul, and man. I think John 829 for me is that it? Christ is all things always to please the Father. And that should be our collected man. We do all things always that please the Father. The first and last question is this. What does the word of God say? What does the word of God permit? What does the word of God forbid? Where is the word of God silent that we have no right to tremolo? Christ is Lord. Christ is ahead. Christ directs. What does Christ say? That's first and last the question was asked. But you know in every age it's no different than this age. There's always been those who say I thought. Yeah King Saul then thought it was okay if he'd go to Gilgal and offer the sacrifice not waiting on Samuel. Now that the heart with it doesn't work. Dr. Feeze and Third John thought it was okay to resist people and it was his church. He could let people in and he'd keep people out. He fought. We always have the thinking of all wings. But the question comes down again to this. If we're going to try to stay true to the taskman example and primitive gospel where do we find the work that we do the work we provide for support and maintain as a collective from what Christ has said? That's the ultimate question. We've been on a journey looking at this primitive gospel. We looked at the encroachment of the religious world on that. We looked at how postmodernism has redefined themes. Looked at how people lay aside the word of God to bring in instruments of music again. And we've looked at what the church must do to maintain our mission. What will we as a congregation have as our heart, our soul, our mind, and our purpose? Will we continue to have a love for a respect for the primitive gospel and follow Christ our Lord? You've been so patient with me to work through this. I know this has been long material. I know it's been waiting at times, but I want to tell you it is extremely essential for us to think about. Because there are some of this audience who've never heard anything like that having grown up even here. We need to pay attention to that primitive word of God. That same Lord said he that believed in his baptized shall be saved. That same Lord invites all sinners unto him. Everyone invites you to come. So if you have any of the encouragement and need of prayer, then not elders would like to meet you in the for you. They'd like to talk to you about that and pray with you for that. But if you need Christ in your life as a matter of salvation to be saved from your sins, then we ask you to come while we stand and while we sing. Thank you for connecting with us this morning. We're so thankful that you were able to do that. If you have questions, we'd love to have the opportunity to talk to you. You can contact us at www.thebibeway.com or questions@thebibeway.com. Questions@thebibeway.com. We'd love to have you in person, come if you can. So thank you for connecting with us.