139. Freedom In Finding A Church - Part 1 - What is a Church?

Hello, welcome back to the For Freedom podcast. Thank you for being with us today. Great day to be back doing a little podcast and here with my buddy James Saferit. And so we are jumping into a brand new season of the podcast. We've got a lot of good response from our episode last week. And we are excited. I'm excited to be back recording again. Like we had a busy summer. We needed the break. We had a lot of stuff to do. But one thing that I really miss was every week coming in here recording because this is something that I have just fell in love with doing is being a part of this podcast and recording with you, James, every week. I look forward to it and I'm excited to be back in our new season. Yeah, I think if you could find a word that defines busy more than busy, it's how I was this summer. Man, it was a busy, busy summer. A lot going on. A lot around the family, around the church, around everything that we've been going on. Just first summer at this ministry, trying to get things planned and organized. It was a lot. It was busy. But it was good. I would rather be busy than sit around and do nothing. And so we had a great vacation Bible school. We had 50, 55, 60 kids come, which was huge and was great. We had a great time with our serve week. And then Brett, here in just a couple of days from when this recording comes out, about five days from this recording, we'll be on a jet plane heading to Nicaragua together and heading down to Minnesota there. Leaving on a jet plane. I don't know. I'll tell you what, you're right about the being busy. I'll tell you that, you know, I wanted to be full time ministry for so long that I feel like I don't have the right to complain when it's busy. It's like, this is what you wanted. You got it. But I would rather do this. I'm going to tell you something. I know that the Lord has called me to pastor because I say all the time. And this isn't this. This is my honest, honestly, what I would do genuinely if I won the lottery tomorrow and I won a billion dollars and I never had to work another day in my life. I would still come to work. I would still because I love pastoring that much. It's what God called me to do. I would still do my job. You know, I'm very thankful to be in the ministry. And I am, like you said, looking forward to going to Nicaragua. We're going to be down there together. I'm really looking forward to that. A little nervous, not going to lie. You know, going out of the country. You know, there's a little bit of nerves in there. To be honest, I've never I've been out of the country before to Israel, but I've never been on a mission trip before because I've been by vocational most of my ministry. But I am looking forward to it. And I can't wait to get down there with you and Lee. And, you know, that Nicaragua was not going to do not to know what to do with so many gingers. Absolutely. Yeah. Hope they're ready for us. Me, you and Lee. We're all gingers and man, we're fair skinned and it's great. It's going to be an awesome time. And so can't wait for that. That's coming up soon. We'll be heading down to the Fort Ocathorpe. Did I say that right at that time? I'd be close enough. And heading down to our meetup. It's going to be a great time. Our plan tentatively, just so that you know, our listeners, we are going to be doing a RFP crossover event. We did this a couple of years back leading up to the meetup. And so we've reached out to the other podcasts. And so we're going to do an episode a week leading up to the podcast, leading up to the meetup with all the other podcasts, part of the RFP network. Just talking to them, getting their thoughts on where they're at and how their podcast is doing. And just be able to cross over a little bit, reconnect the network leading up to the meetup. And so we're really excited about that. Excited about getting different voices on here. And we were excited about that as well. So, Brett, what else? We have plans still to go to Israel. Our Israel trip is coming up in March of 2025. As of right now, things are still a go. We're going to keep you posted if something changes on that. But as of right now, our plans are to go to the Holy Land in March of 2025. And I can't wait. I've been making some TikToks and going back over my pictures and my videos for my Israel trip. I cannot wait to go back. I look at these pictures on my wall in my office of our last trip. Yeah. And I see this picture up, this Titanic picture up here of me and me on the Sea of Galilee. And I just can't wait to recreate that. Absolutely. But we are looking forward to going back to Israel. And cannot wait. Absolutely. Love it. Man, we are excited about that and excited about what the future of the podcast holds and just some reinvigoration of some good things. And we are excited about our topic today. And so, without further ado, let's roll our intro music. Roll that beautiful bean footage. I do not mean to be mean. I do mean to be mad. Those that criticize this kind of preaching, they don't like authority. If you ain't got the King James, you ain't got, hey, if you don't have a King James, you don't have a Bible. And it'd be surprised. Son, don't go to sleep while I'm talking. Hey, hey, hey. Don't, don't, don't you lay your head back. I'm, I'm important. I'm somebody. I love you. You know I love you. Have I convinced you I love you? Yeah. You better, you better nod your head yes, are you? Come on, put it out there. All right. You stay awake and you listen to me. I still believe if you have cold day and healthy, probably get my balance on a woman. I'm a preacher. When you got dressed today, you dressed deity. This is the For Freedom podcast. A podcast that is part of the RFP network that seeks to bring freedom in Christ from the spiritual abuse of legalism. And so fundamentalism is designed to unpack the idea of authority from scripture. The problem with that is that that's not the defining principle in scripture. It is a part of the scripture. But the defining principle in scripture is love. I found my freedom in you. I found my freedom in you I found a joy I can't lose And thank God it's true You wrapped your arms around me And heaven broke through From the moment you found me I found my freedom in you Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James Safer and Brad Martin. All right, well we hope you enjoy the mashup episode, the mashup intro that we have there with our old and new intro music. And it's been great to be able to play around with that a little bit. But Brett, today we talked about last week about starting fresh, starting new, what that looks like to start over and the hard part of that. And then even before that, we did a whole season before the summer break on Freedom in the Church. And we went through different issues and topics. They got me and you thinking, we did the issues and the topics of how to find freedom in the church through abuse and music and different things. But we really didn't go through what a healthy church should look like. What a church should be if you're looking for a new church. If you're starting over. If you're starting fresh. If you're beginning anew. And so we've dived through some different curriculum and put together some notes of what a healthy church should look like and what it should be like when you're looking around and what a church is not. And so we're going to talk through that today. But we're going to show, we're going to play a clip, a video that went viral about 12 years ago, 13 years ago or so, back in 2012. So 12 years ago. And right now, I think it's got 36 million views on YouTube. A very, very popular video. And as I was even thinking about this today as I was driving, I remember listening to this video when it first came out. I don't know if you did, but right around that time in 2020, it went viral. I'm sorry, 2012, it went viral. And I remember listening to it thinking, man, this is good stuff. But I was seeing it and hearing it through the lens of the IFB movement. And so, like, I knew it was good, but I didn't really fully understand all of it. And so now, as I've heard this again and been listening to it a couple of times, it begins to play even a different role in my life because it's hitting me a little different right now. And so, what's your thought behind, did you ever see this video before we've gotten to that? I never saw it or heard it, but even when you first listen to it, your knee-jerk reaction is to get offended. You know, that was me, personally. I was like, what's this joker talking about? You know, was he trying to, you know, dump on church? But the more you, you actually listen to the words he's saying, he's 100% absolutely right. Everything that he says, the direction that he goes, I'd never heard it before you sent it to me. Or if I did, I can't remember. But it really is so, so good and more people really need to take it to heart. Yeah. So, the name of the video is Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus. What if I told you, Jesus came to abolish religion? What if I told you, voting Republican really wasn't his mission? What if I told you, Republican doesn't automatically mean Christian, and just because you call some people blind doesn't automatically give you vision? I mean, if religion is so great, why has it started so many wars? Why does it build huge churches, but fails to feed the poor? Tell single moms God doesn't love them if they've ever had a divorce, but in the Old Testament, God actually calls religious people whores. Religion might preach grace, but another thing they practice, tend to ridicule God's people, they did it to John the Baptist. They can't fix their problems, and so they just mask it, not realizing religion is like spraying perfume on a casket. See, the problem with religion is it never gets to the core. It's just behavior modification, like a long list of chores. Like, let's dress up the outside, make it look nice and neat, but it's funny, that's what they used to do to mummies while the corpse rots underneath. Now I ain't judging, I'm just saying, quit putting on a fake look, because there's a problem if people only know that you're a Christian by your Facebook. I mean, in every other aspect of life, you know that logic's unworthy. It's like saying you play for the Lakers just because you bought a jersey. See, this was me too, but no one seemed to be onto me, acting like a church kid while addicted to pornography. See, on Sunday I'd go to church, but Saturday getting faded acted if I was simply created to just have sex and get wasted. See, I spent my whole life building this facade of neatness, but now that I know Jesus, I boast in my weakness. Because if grace is water, then the church should be an ocean. It's not a museum for good people, it's a hospital for the broken, which means I don't have to hide my failure, I don't have to hide my sin, because it doesn't depend on me, it depends on Him. See, because when I was God's enemy, and certainly not a fan, He looked down and said, I want that man. Which is why Jesus hated religion, and for it He called them fools. Don't you see so much better than just following some rules? Now let me clarify. I love the church, I love the Bible, and yes, I believe in sin. But if Jesus came to your church, would they actually let Him in? See, remember He was called a glutton and a drunkard by religious men, but the Son of God never supports self-righteousness, not now, not then. Now back to the point, one thing is vital to mention, how Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrums. See, one's the work of God, but one's a man-made invention. See, one is the cure, but the other's the infection. See, because religion says do, Jesus says done. Religion says slave, Jesus says son. Religion puts you in bondage, while Jesus sets you free. Religion makes you blind, but Jesus makes you see. And that's why religion and Jesus are two different clans. Religion is man searching for God. Christianity is God searching for man, which is why salvation is freely mine, and forgiveness is my own, not based on my merits, but Jesus' obedience alone. Because He took the crown of thorns and the blood dripped down His face. He took what we all deserve. I guess that's why you call it grace. And while being murdered, He yelled, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Because when He was dangling on that cross, He was thinking of you. And He absorbed all your sin, and He buried it in the tomb, which is why I'm kneeling at the cross, saying, come on, there's room. So for religion, no, I hate it. In fact, I literally resent it. Because when Jesus said, it is finished, I believe He meant it. Brett, what's your initial thoughts, reactions to that? Oh, man, that's such good stuff. You know, it just reminds me that, you know, when Jesus was on the earth, the greatest battle that He fought was with the religious crowd. Yeah. His biggest enemies were the pharisaical priests and, you know, the scribes and the people that wanted to take the temple and take the church and take religion and make it into their own little club and explain that God wants us to help. Another thing that it reminded me of is it reminded me of Philippians 3, verse 9 that says, I can't produce my own righteousness by following the deeds and letter of the law. I can only have righteousness that comes from God through faith. And that's what religion tries to do. Religion says we have these laws, we have these rules. And, you know, if we follow them, we can produce our own righteousness. But, you know, that's not at all what the gospel is. And so, yeah, this was really great. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I think one of the, there was three things that stood out to me in that video, that spoken word is what it's called. And the first was this behavior, religion, I'm sorry, Jesus is not behavior modification. How often did we hear, I don't know if you heard this, but I heard it all the time, get them in the doors and Jesus will cut their hair off. Get them in the doors and Jesus will make them look right. And it was this thought of, yeah, let's get them to church and then they'll start looking the way we want them to look. And as long as they look the part, well, then they're Christian. They're good. They're fine. And it was this behavior modification that was constantly pushed. Another thing that stood out to me was one of the first statements. He says it really quick. He said, just because you call someone blind doesn't mean you have vision. And I thought, man, that's a powerful statement because how often do we have this superseding look on other people and we say, well, they don't know this, they don't know that. And so therefore, I have vision, and they don't. And then the big one that he said there at the end was religion says do. Religion says you're a slave. Religion says you're bound. And religion says you're blind. And he says, but having Jesus means that it's done. It means that you're called a son. It means that you have freedom. And it means that you have sight. And I thought, man, that was so powerful to see the contrast of what religion does for us. It holds us down. It binds us. It holds us back. But when we get to the true relationship of what Jesus has done for us, man, it gives us so much freedom. It gives us so much ability to know that he's our father and we're his son. And man, it was just a powerful, powerful thought as I went through that. Amen. You know, back to what you said about behavior modification. You know, in the churches we grew up in, discipleship was just non-existent. There was no discipleship whatsoever. Your goal was just to get as many people to pray their sinner's prayer as possible, trick them into saying it, manipulate them into saying the words and then dropping them. And if they did come to church, the definition of discipleship was going to Goodwill and buying them a tie, getting them a haircut. And that was the, that was the extent of the discipleship that we grew up in. And it's more, discipleship is more than just behavior modification. You know, it's, it's the Holy Spirit working out of you, what God has worked into you. It's changed from the inside out, not the outside in. And, yeah, man, loved it. All right. So Brett, in a couple of weeks, we're going to, a couple of days, actually, we're going to be taking off on a jet plane as we talked about. And you're going to be leaving from Memphis and heading to Houston. I'll be leaving from Charlotte, heading to Houston. And we're going to meet up in Houston and then head down to a place called Managua. Now imagine me and you get on the plane to head to Managua and the pilot gets in and he takes off and man, we're excited about going. We get to cruising altitude and they take off the seatbelt sign. And as they take the seatbelt sign off, one of the people come down through the aisle and says, hey, just want to let you guys know to come over here and come. The pilot is frantically looking through the manual on how to land this plane. Like, we're excited. We're good. He got his pilot, license, but he just sort of skipped through a whole bunch of stuff to get the pilot's license. He took the cliff notes, but he's actually never landed a plane before. And all of a sudden, I would be pretty hysterical, I guess you could say. A little nervous, a little uneasy about what's about to happen. And oftentimes, when we begin to talk through this thought of church, we get really excited about it and then we skip over some details. We skip over some things that are very, very important when it comes to church. Church has hurt us and so all churches are bad. Things are, and we're just going to skip over the things that matter. And so, over the next couple weeks, we want to look through and consider some definitions, first off, of what a church is and what a church isn't. And so, the way we're going to start is the word church is used over 100 times in the New Testament. So, a good place to begin would be the negation of a church, what a church is not. And rule out what a church is not. A hundred and thirteen times in the ESV, it shows up the word ecclesia, which is a called out assembly. And so, Brad, I'll give the first one here. A church is not a building. We walk by a building and oftentimes we may say, well, that's a nice church. That's a nice looking church. But that's not the idea in the New Testament. Paul would not have walked by the synagogue and said, well, that's a nice church right there. Man, look at the artwork. Look at the embroidery. Look at what they've got. They've got this nice, beautiful sign out front. It's got a really funny church saying on it. That's a good church. He would not have done that. In Romans 16, he greets the church that meet in Priscilla and Aquila's house in Romans 16, three through five. The building, the house was not the church. The people who met there were the church. And the word church in the New Testament is that word ecclesia and it means a gathering or an assembly. The church is fundamentally an assembly of people. It's not a building. It's not a thing that we erect here on earth and say that is the church. It is a church building, but it is not the church. The church is the people that meet together. Now, if you get a random group of Christian friends together to watch a football game, does that make a church? No, no, because the church is an assembly. The church is also not simply just a random group of Christians. It's far more. excuse me. Now, there is such a thing as the universal church, which is a way of talking about how all true Christians come together from all times and all locations. We can't see the universal church now, but God can. And one day, the universal church is going to be gathered together in one place. The book of Revelation talks about every tribe, every tongue, every nation, coming together, worshiping God together. That is the universal church. And there are times in the New Testament where this is how the word church is used in the universal sense. Just to give you an example, when Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 1 that Jesus is the head of the church, he doesn't just mean the church in Ephesus. Right. He means the church universal. But most of the references of the church in the New Testament do have the local church in mind. You know, these different churches like the church at Ephesus, the church at Corinth, Colossae, Galatia, Cappadocia. So, the church isn't a building. It's an assembly, but it's more than just an assembly. So, how do we clarify what a local church is then? Well, let's talk about a helpful definition here. Right before that, Brett, I want to say one thing because the moment that, and you've never been on a mission trip, so this will be an awesome time for you to be able to experience every tribe, nation, and tongue because we're going to be down there and we're going to preach in Nicaragua and we're going to have a translator and we're going to worship together and they're going to be in one language and we're going to be in another language. But in, a couple years ago, we went to New York and I had the opportunity to go to the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. There were Jim Simblizette. I got to worship on their Tuesday night prayer meeting and it was something that revolutionized my thought of the church because we got together and this church was a couple thousand people in this building. They're singing, they're worshiping, and we had this moment where we all began to pray and they just said just reach out, grab your neighbor's hand, touch the person in front of you, and audibly pray in your own language, in your own tongue. And you heard this auditorium of Indians and Americans and Jewish people, I mean, people of all nation, tongue, and tribe praying together and I began just to sit there and I just stopped for a moment and just listened and I thought, this is what heaven's going to be like. it's going to be all these nations, all these tribes, all these tongues together and it's going to be a beautiful picture of what that is and I think it's good for us to understand that on both sides of it. Yes, this is the church that God has called us to minister in and together in the group of people but there is a larger church out there of the universal church of those who believe in Christ and it's a great thing. So Brett, what's a good definition for us in understanding a good point for us to understand what the church is? A good definition is a local church is a group of Christians who regularly gather in Christ's name to officially affirm and oversee one another's membership in Jesus Christ and his kingdom through the gospel, through gospel preaching and gospel ordinance. Now, we're going to unpack this definition as we go through this in greater detail in coming weeks but, you know, I do want to highlight one aspect of it. It says, Jesus Christ and his kingdom. Well, what does the kingdom of God have to do with the local church? Well, when you think about it, quite a lot. I mean, the kingdom of God is a major theme in the New Testament particularly in the gospels. Now, when you read about the kingdom of God, one way to think about it is God's people in God's place under God's rule. I mean, God's people in God's place under God's rule is at the heart of the definition of the church. Why? Because it's another way of talking about worship. And friends, the church exists to worship. So, how do we worship together in a local church? Now, before I let you answer that question, James, I do want to say that, you know, I remember reading this story that back in the old days, you know, when people were talking about a church, they didn't say, oh, look, that's Rocky Point Church over there and point at the church building. They didn't say that back in the old days. They would say that's the building that houses Rocky Point Church because they knew that the church is not the building. The church is the people. We are the church. And another thing that we forget a lot is we need to remember about the universal church that they're, listen, there are going to be people in heaven that aren't Baptist, okay? There are going to be people up there that are from a different denomination. There's going to be some charismatics up there. You know, maybe there are going to be people up there that I wouldn't necessarily build a church with here because we've got some differences but who are still my brothers and sisters in Christ. Now, here in our local area here we do a few activities a year with the Methodists, the Church of God folks, you know, and as long as they preach grace, salvation, not of works, I'll fellowship with them because we're all a part of that universal church. And so, yes, we are a local assembly but we don't need to forget the broader ramifications of the universal churches. as well. Absolutely. That's great. And it's a good thing to also understand that there is fellowship with one another that we often forsake. That's why I was telling a guy I disciple every week, I said, I miss the Together for the Gospel conferences. I said, I miss just getting together with like brothers and sisters, pastors of different denominations that we can agree on some things, come together and worship and learn from one another and get a bunch of free books in the process. It was one of my very first favorite conferences that I ever attended and I'm sad that it's not there anymore. If people from T4G are listening, bring it back. I want the T4G back. But, as we think through this, the church ultimately displays the image of God. And so, that is what we're going to look at for the first part here is walking through from scripture what the image of God means. And there are some people, and Brett, you can sort of dice this out on your own. We're not going to dissect it here today. It may be another episode for another day. But there are some people that believe that the very first church happened in the Garden of Eden. That God created a people in a place under God's rule and Adam and Eve were the very first church. Now, I'll let you just chew on that for a little bit. But the first thought when we begin to think of the image of God, the very first mention of the image of God is in Genesis 1. And God creates plants and animals, each according to its kind. And every apple in the pattern under another apple, every zebra under the pattern of another zebra. In verse 26, we read, Then God said, Let us make man in our image and after our likeness. And so, we are patterned after God and we uniquely represent God through creation. And so, this is the first time we see an image of God created in his own image. We are that image of him that are created to worship him. And so, in the garden, their primary purpose was to take care of the garden and worship with God. And so, this is an idea of God throughout all of eternity has always had a people, he has always had a place for these people, and he has always had a people under his rule. And so, we begin to walk through this beginning part of creation and say, creation is the very first part of this. Brett, what's the second thought or if you have any thoughts on creation? You know, I'll go to the First Baptist Church of the Garden of Eden with you, but you're going to have to wear more than fig leaves. Yes. So, as we go into step two, we have the fall, Genesis 3. People decide not to represent God's rule. They work instead to represent their own rule. Now, we're guilty because we've broken God's law and we're all so corrupt. The mirror is bent, you might say, so a false image of God is portrayed. You know, in the garden, we fail. We chose to be separate from God. We chose to flip God off, basically, and say, no, we want all the benefits, but we don't want you. We want the garden. We want all the good things, but we don't want the God that gave it to us. And so, because of that corruption and because of that sin, we fail. And when man fell, it marred the image of God. The image's still there, but the image is now marred. It's bent. It's twisted. It's not what God intended. We corrupted it. And so, yeah, so that's what happened to that image that God gave us. Yeah. And then the next thing we see is Israel being brought into the picture. God and his mercy. Brett, I'm studying through Jonah. I'm preaching through the book of Jonah right now, taking six weeks to go through Jonah. And man, to give this deep dive, look at Jonah and to see the mercy of God over and over and over in this story, I'd never seen it quite like I'm seeing it right now as I'm studying through it. And it just is a reminder that God's mercy is greater than we can ever think or imagine. And in his mercy, he had a plan to, go ahead. Let me say one thing about Jonah that I just recently, it's funny you mention it because I just had a thought about Jonah the other day and that was about the gourd, how God gave the gourd to Jonah and he took that plant away. He gave him shade. He took the shade away. Both of those things he did in love. He gave Jonah the gourd in love. He took the gourd away in love. Jonah couldn't see it. Jonah criticized him for taking away the plant that gave him shade that helped him. But what he didn't realize is that the same love that gave it to him took it away from him because God knew that it was best for Jonah. He was trying to teach Jonah a lesson. He was trying to reach out and redeem Jonah until the very end. And that was a thought I had the other day about Jonah. Man, that's good. I may use that when I get to Jonah chapter 4. But God in his mercy had a plan to both save and use a group of people to accomplish his original purpose for creation. Ultimately, it's this, to display his glory. In Exodus 4, he uses the nation of Israel and he calls them this unique term. He calls them his son. Why does he use the term son? Because oftentimes, and more likely than not, a son looks like its father. And so, in this image, they are using the image of the father as their son. And so, we begin to see this picture that this is the son of God. This is the sons of God, which is Israel. And later, we'll look at to the church and we'll begin to see that this is where it's at. And the Ten Commandments gives the son that they're bound up into the image of their father. You should have no other gods before me. You shall make no rule for yourself or any image of God. You shall act in a way that reflects my character. character. This is the son Israel. They were not to worship any other images and they were to fail to display God's image. He would be cast out of the land, which we know is exactly what happened when they began to worship other gods, when they began to go astray. God took his blessing off of Israel when this began to happen. And so, we begin to see this in a clear picture of Israel as the son, and Israel as this image of what this church was supposed to look like, what this called out assembly, this called out people were supposed to look like, and then we get to the next part. Step four is Christ. In Matthew chapter three, Jesus is baptized. And what does the Father say from heaven? You are my son whom I love. With you I am well pleased. Now, at last, we have the perfect son who perfectly pleases his father, who perfectly images his father. John 14, 9, whoever has seen me has seen the father. We've all heard the old adage, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, like father, like son, and that is embodied perfectly in the person of Jesus Christ. So, no wonder the authors of the New Testament call him the image of the invisible God in Colossians 1, 15, and the exact representation of his being in Hebrews 1, 3. Here is a man who now perfectly images God for all of us to see. When we look at Jesus Christ, when we look at his life, he is God. We see him, we see the father. Absolutely. And Christ came to what established the church. He came to establish what we now call as the ecclesia or the called out assembly. Romans 8, 29, for those he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. 1 Corinthians 15, 49, just as we have been born the image of man out of dust, we also shall bear the image of man of heaven, of the man in heaven. So our job as a Christian is to display the character and likeness, the image and glory of the son and the father in heaven. And oftentimes I think this is where the church messes up because our ultimate purpose is to reflect the image of God, is to reflect the image of Christ. And when we don't reflect the image of Christ, we distort, we go back to the garden and we distort the image. We begin to bend the mirror of the image of what Christ has created because we want to add in our own legalism. We want to add in our own works. We want to add in whatever we decide is true in religion. And Christ says, no, no, no, get your religion out of it. Just become an image bearer of me. Become what I have called you to be. The father is a peacemaker. And the Bible says in Matthew that Christ says, if you're going to be one of mine, you will be a peacemaker. You will be someone who makes peace in the world. The Bible says that the father loves his enemies. And if we are going to be Christians, if we are going to be the church, we also will love our enemies. Romans 12, love your enemies. Do good to those who dishonor you. Do good to those who persecute you and call you names and love them. And like the father and I are one, so the church should be one with ourselves. We should be united together with the church. And so as Brett just said, like father, like son, and like sons. We are to be like the father. We are to be like his son. We should be what the Bible says the Christian is a direct representation of Christ or Christ likeness. Now let's talk a little bit about glory. 1 John chapter 3 verse 2 says, but we know when he appears we will be like him because we shall see him as he is. One day God will remake creation into the new heavens and the new earth. The city where God dwells with man will descend from heaven and we will be perfect mirrors reflecting his image. And you know, I did a revelation study years ago and on that one thing that I remember that I will never forget, one of my biggest takeaways of that is that the new Jerusalem is the church. That in some way that new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven is the church. We are the bricks. We are the gates. We are the pillars. We are the walls. In some spiritual, physical way that we make up the new Jerusalem. He's coming back with us. Now here's a summary of the story. God created humankind to display the excellency of who he is. Adam and Eve didn't do that though, but neither did the people of Israel. But Jesus did. He did it perfectly. Lived a perfect, righteous life. Jesus came to reveal God and Jesus came to save. Now the church is called to image the character and glory of the Father to all the universe. It's called to testify in word and action to his great wisdom and work of salvation. We are the body of Christ. We are his representative. So how do we worship? How do we respond to the excellence of who he is? We image him. Basically, we show off his glory. Let's think about our definition real quick. A local church is a group of Christians who regularly gather in Christ's name to officially affirm and oversee one another's membership in Jesus Christ and his kingdom through gospel preaching and gospel ordinances. Now if you read through the New Testament, you're going to see a number of pictures used to describe the local church. We could argue that those two are a part of the definition of the church. For example, the church is described as a body. In the New Testament, the church is described as a family, a flock of sheep, a house, a priesthood. All of these pictures are used to describe the church. Here's the point. As a local church lives together with scripture and purpose laid out in the definition, meeting together to oversee one another's membership in Christ, they are set up to live together in such a way that those images, the body, the family, the flock, they become a reality. In other words, the church increasingly reflects different aspects of the image of God. One more thing before I hand it back over to you is the New Testament calls us ambassadors for Christ. We represent him to the world. We reflect who he is, not only as a church, but also individually we reflect Christ. When we go, we're the church wherever we go. We represent Christ, we represent the church, we are the body of Christ. So individually and corporately, we represent him as his ambassadors to the world. ambassador. Yeah. I love that term ambassador. An ambassador is an official envoy of a high-ranking diplomat who represents the state and usually accredits to another sovereign state to be an international organization or recognizes. Many definitions put it that a ambassador has all the authority of the ones that send him. And if we're an ambassador, we have all the authority of the one who sent us, which is Christ. That's why Christ says all authority has been given under heaven and earth so to the disciples to go out and to preach the name of Jesus because all that he had, he has now granted upon those that believe in him through the Holy Spirit. And that's a beautiful, beautiful term. I love that. Amen. And so as we think through this, as we wrap up today, and we're going to talk through the next couple of weeks, what we're going to talk through over the next couple of weeks is church membership, church discipline, the ordinances of the church and the church gathered and how that looks. And so as we begin to do this, there's a couple of implications that we can draw, some lessons that we can learn about the church. The first is this, the local church is the focal point of God's grand plan to display his glory to the nations. And we're going to illustrate this for a moment through the book of Ephesians. It begins in chapter one of Ephesians with a beautiful description of our salvation. Our salvation is by grace alone to the glory of Christ alone. Chapter two begins with the gospel that saved us. And then midway through chapter two, Paul launches into the primary applicational point of the gospel that the Jews and the Gentiles are one in Christ. Two groups who for ethnicity, theological, social, and political reasons have been at enmity with one another are now united. In fact, Paul begins to use two committed bonds that we know, the bond of family and ethnicity to describe the church united. The Bible says that we are a new family of God. We are God's new humanity. People with nothing in common but Christ can live together as if we have everything in common. So what is God's purpose for all this? Ephesians 3.10 says so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might be known to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. We are literally put together. I'm pulling out the term that Ralph said. Literally we're put together. We are the church put together so that people can, we can be an example to those that are in the world. We can be an example to the rulers and the authorities. And don't miss this. God will make known to the watching world his manifest wisdom. Ultimately through one, he did not say here Brett, I'm going to use government, I'm going to use religion, I'm going to use some king, I'm going to use some social media platform, some billionaire out there. No, no. He said I'm going to use through the church, I'm going to reveal the manifest wisdom of God. I'm going to use this one singular thing, a called out group of people in a supernatural work, not merely as individuals, but as a collective church body that becomes this platform for us to centralize God's plan for the entire world to hear the good news of the gospel. It would have been so easy for him to say, you know what, I'm just going to come down and I'm going to miraculously grant the wisdom of what God is to all humanity. God could have easily done that, but instead he said, you know, I'm going to use a group of people that are going to be called out, they're going to be redeemed to go out and tell the world about me. That's God's grand plan because we display the glory of who he is through the nations. We, through our living, through our life, through our unity, when the church sees people of all different nations, tribes, and tongues coming together, worshiping him under one roof, under one home, under one church. It doesn't just, people ask questions. Why is that? Why is that happening? Why are people doing that? And so, which leads us into implication number two, Brett, or anything you may want to say there as well. I just love how, I love, by the way, how the church is so different, yet at the same time, we're all the same. We're different people with different backgrounds, different temperaments, different experiences, yet we all come together in Christ. The gospel draws us together. We're different, but we're the same. And, you know, that really, I really love that about the church. The second, second implication we're going to talk about is the church is to be distinct from the world. God's purpose for the church work when God's purposes for the church work when believers are different from the world. Not only does that mean different types of people from different backgrounds, learning to live and love each other, it also means different in the sense of holiness. In 1 Peter chapter 1, we read, Churches are only for sinners. If you're not a sinner, you're not welcome in my church. And yet, churches are only for repentant sinners. If the church looks no different from the world, what good is it? And I don't care what message it preaches. A church that looks like the world only defeats that image. Now, I do want to clarify that for just a minute. You know, I've been on social media and I've seen Facebook pics of, you know, you've got these memes where you've got a contemporary church on one side, you've got a concert stage on the other, and the caption says something to the effect of, can you tell the difference between these two pictures? Be separate from the world. Now, listen, I agree that the church should separate from the world's sin. Separation from the world doesn't mean that, you know, we can't have stage lights on the stage, we can't have purple lights, we can't, you know, have contemporary music in our churches. You know, that's not what it means. When Paul criticized the church at Corinth, you know, he condemned their sin, okay? He never says in the book of Corinthians, hey, y'all stop dressing like the Romans. He said, y'all stop breaking up into cliques under your favorite teacher. He didn't say, hey, y'all stop having services that look like Roman concerts. No, he said, quit having adultery with your father's wife. He would say things like, stop abusing your spiritual gifts. you know, yes, we are to be separate from the world, but, you know, we have to remember that means separate from the world's sin, okay? Not necessarily from, you know, the culture that we use to reach them, basically is what I'm trying to say. Does that make sense? Yeah, and I think a good way to put this is, oftentimes, we think that, again, we emulate the church as what they're doing as far as what they look like, and so, let me just go like this, if the church looks like a concert, and all we preach is be separate from the world, come out from among them, don't look like the world, don't act like the world, don't talk like the world, well then, yeah, a concert's going to look like this light show out there, but what does Christ say? Be holy, you shall be called holy, for I am holy, and so he says, listen, yeah, you can redeem anything that's been done, there's any type of way, look at a couple of different illustrations here, Paul is walking through the educated people, this is where the educated people went, and Paul went to where they were at, and he's walking through all these different idols, and he sees the idol to the unknown God, and he could have just continued old and said, you know, I'm just going to go and get away from these wicked people, they're out here worshiping idols, let's just go and sit in our church and be where we're going to be at and be where we're going to be happy at and just sit down, no, no, he gets up and he says, hey, you guys are worshiping to the unknown God, let me tell you who that God is, I know this God, you do? And all of a sudden he begins to say, yeah, yeah, there's this holy God out there that created all of us, and all of these other gods you're praying to, they're useless, they're worthless, there's nothing, they're just what they're doing to redeem them. And this is the image of what we need to be, is as Paul says again in 1 Corinthians 10, 13, whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. If you decide that your building that you're going to worship in is going to have light, do it for the glory of God. You want to have a smoke machine up there and create a holy fog on the stage, do it for the glory of God. Whatever you do, if you're going to get up and sing hymns, and just have a piano or an organ play, do it for the glory of God. Because when we do that, I love that last statement that you said, it doesn't matter the message that you preach. If a church looks like the world and only the world, then it defames the message. We've got to have Christ in the center of all we do. And so the church is the image of God. It should reflect God's holiness. And so what are we doing that's reflecting God's holiness in our lives? And we need to strive to reflect the image of Christ, the image of God in everything we think, say, and do, or we're just out here doing absolutely nothing for the cause of Christ. And so, Brett, that's our first part of the church series, and what is a church, and how we can understand what this is in our life. looking forward to the next couple of weeks walking through this and walking through next week church membership and what that looks like and how we can begin to define this in our own terms and how we can begin to look through this. Any closing thoughts, Brett? I just want to say that I don't know where my life would be without church. Even when there was a time in my life when I ran away from God and I didn't want anything to do with the ministry, I was done. When I was at a church, I didn't stay out long because I just yearned for that connection to the family. I yearned for that spirit that the church brings and the encouragement that you get from the people and that when you're down, they're there to lift you up and encourage you. and to support you. I didn't stay out of church very long. I went back because I missed that. I love church. I don't know where my life would be without church. I'm so thankful that Jesus gave us the gift of the local church. Absolutely. Love it. Love it. Love it. Thank you guys for listening today. I hope you've enjoyed this. If you ever need anything, feel free to reach out to us. I've had several people reach out to me!! I'm! I'm!! When I found my beginning that has no ending, found that second chance, found my best friend, found my forgiveness, found my happiness. I've been singing ever since I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. 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