The Church that Jesus Would Build – Aug. 6, 2017
Here is the recordings and notes from an overview of the church.
Not said in the recording is this is a counterpoint to all the various people out there negating the importance of the body of Christ.
Some people have said they want a personal relationship with God, but don’t see the importance of the body. Others go so far as to say it is not necessary in a Christian life.
The scriptures do not teach these or other ways of looking at things that minimize or negate the vital importance of a church led and empowered by the Lord by His Spirit.
Much more could be said, but the recording (in two parts) hits high spots.
May the Lord bless you!
Scripture notes
Corporate body
• An outpost of God on earth
• The closest thing to heaven on earth
• An embassy for the kingdom of God
• A hospital for the spiritually, emotionally, even physically sick.
• The only authorized body to do missions, outreach
• What God is most concerned with
• It is a bulwark against the works of Satan
• It stands against the enemy
• It works as co-laboring with God to push back darkness
• It is a house of light
• It is a witness in action, what they are, not just the creeds they say they abide by
On Christianity
• Christianity not a philosophy
• It is not a creed, or code of conduct
• It is not the Great commission – it is ALL God desires
• It is a restoration of a broken relationship that was broken in the Garden of Eden
• It is comprised men and women after God’s own heart.
• It comes about by God’s own life implanted
• God’s sheep have a new heart, living epistles.
• Humans are very vulnerable. God lets men do what they want. They will give an account for word and deed – or inaction.
• Men have subverted the mission, and intent and shape and purpose of God’s church.
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Why do we live? Top down hierarchy.
God’s will.
God’s will that order and obedience be restored.
God’s will – it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
VALID church – one God builds.
Ps. 127:1 –
Unless the Lord builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the Lord guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.
What the world calls church.
Denominations=Sin— SKIM ————
1 Cor 3 – And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; 3 for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? 4 For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal?
20 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will[e] believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
Ps 133 – Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! 2 It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; 3 As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.
1 Pet 2 – 2 Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, 2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,[a] 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
4 Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, 5 you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.
Eph 2:19 – 19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
Purpose of Gospel –
Restore order to God. Lawful ones, obedient ones. Not “lawless”
Each Christian a worker.
Consecration is of NEW creation – not OLD. “Missions” trip of zealous, sincere person with good work ethic. NOT what God is asking for.
Ps 78: 40 –
How often they provoked Him in the wilderness,
And grieved Him in the desert!
41 Yes, again and again they tempted God,
And limited the Holy One of Israel.
What is possible – unchanging God, unchanging purpose.
Do we see the Body as a reality?
It is an offshoot of Christ. It is “out of” Him.
Who are we in the body? –– Individualism vs. discipleship
Church relevant? “Organized religion?”
Mt 23 – 37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
Mt 16 – 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. 19 And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed[d] in heaven.”
He wants life. All of life was created “good.” Or “very good.”
Fixing what the disobedient spirits did.
Calling a people to Himself out of this mess.
Premise – church was attacked from beginning. Watered down, changed, subverted, perverted, doctrines of demons.
God is same. Same mission as ever.
What are YOU going to do about it.
Accept no substitutes – because they are many, and people may NOT hold you to account.
Accountability – YOU must get in the habit of holding YOURSELF to account!
Spirit given for this, but He may be quenched, grieved, shooed away. He is a gentleman, will not force you.
Nothing is “automatic.”
2 motives – 1) Law, what is your reasonable service obligation. 2) what would LOVE do? In love, they are one in the same.
John 14 – 15 “If you love Me, keep[d] My commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
2 Corinthians 3
3 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? 2 You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; 3 clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.
The Spirit, Not the Letter
4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit;[a] for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Glory of the New Covenant
Jer 2 – For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
OUR STANDARD
7 But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? 9 For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. 10 For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. 11 For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.
12 Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech— 13 unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. 14 But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. 15 But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. 16 Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
See also: Hebrews 8 –
7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. 8 Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds[b] I will remember no more.”[c]
13 In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
