The Jesus Gathering
Matthew 16:13-20
INTRO: The church. That can mean a lot of different things today. It can mean the building in which we come to on Sunday mornings. It can mean the institution of the church. It can speak of a denomination. The Methodist Church, the Baptist Church, the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church and so on and so on.
In actuality when most people today think of the church the thought that comes to their mind, the picture that comes to their mind is that of a building. After all that is what it has been portrayed as by Christian’s so for long now.
I’m as guilty of that as anyone else. When someone calls and asked directions to come here I often say, “Go to TA Truck Stop and follow the outer road about 1 mile to McVey St. turn left and you can’t miss the “church” on the right side of the road, the “church” is right by the little red house.”
When you got up this morning and you were getting ready to come here, you were getting ready to come to church. Your thoughts could have been I’m going to 1460 McVey St. to church. They could have been I’m going to go and be involved in a worship service with other believers. I’m going to go sing some songs, take communion, give to the offering, hear some preaching, say amen to a prayer and then go home. And once you’ve done all of that, you’ve been to church.
Church is so often thought of as a building or a service that is attended or a destination.
Let me ask a question this morning. Is that what Jesus intended when He was speaking to his disciples in Mathew chapter 16?
Read Text Mt. 16:13-20
The verse that I want to key in on this morning is verse 18, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates Hades will not overcome it.” Mt. 16:18
Peter just confessed that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God and then He says that it is on the rock of Peter’s confession that Jesus will build His church.
The church has always intrigued me and what I mean by that is it has always sparked deep thinking into what the church is supposed to do, what it is supposed to be, and who is the church for?
ILLUS; I remember my first exposure to any sort of church leadership. It was a Richmond Christian Chapel, the church that I’ve told you about, have asked you to pray for in the past. It was when I was in Bible College back in 1987. I had never been part of setting up and doing a church service. My first thoughts of doing a church service was that it was like putting on a show.
You had to make sure all the programs were done correctly, that they instructed or guided the people what the next event or scene would be. You had to make sure the everything was in the right place, so at the right time, the right people would have what they needed to preform the next scene. You had to make sure the sound was right, the lights were right. When you got up to speak you had to make sure you spoke loudly enough so the person on the back row with bad hearing to could hear you. (I’ve never understood that by the way, why did the person with bad hear sit on the back row, though it seems to be common practice.)
I remember commenting to the preaching and his wife, it’s like we are putting on a show. They said, yes that is what it is like. It was weird to me then because I never thought of church that way.
But attend almost any church service today and that is what you get, a show, a performance, everything in its right place so at the right time the right person can put on the next scene.
And I have to ask. Is the church in which we see and are a part of today, the church that Jesus intended when He said I will build my church?
I can’t help but say, no, I don’t think so.
Did you know that Mt. 16:18 is the first time the word “church” is recording in the Bible? Did you know that the word Jesus used was not “church”. Now you could say, well of course not, when He said it wasn’t in English. Well did you know that the word Jesus used did not have the same meaning as the word “church”?
Words and meanings make a difference. Church to us and the world today has the mean of a building or a service as I have noted. But the word Jesus used ekklēsia means “gathering.” And the word was not was not a religious term. The word was used to gather people together for civic purposes.
It was used to refer to soldiers called out to gather for military purposes, it was used to gather others together for specific purposes. Ekklēsia never referred to a specific place; only a specific gathering. So when Jesus said, I will build my church, my ekklēsia He was saying, “I’m going to build my own assembly of people and the foundation for this new assembly will be ME!”
So the foundation of the church was and is, Jesus. And with Jesus being the foundation of the church we need to think about Jesus when we think about what the church is supposed to do, what it is supposed to be, and who is the church for. We need to think about what Jesus did, we need to think about what Jesus meant to the people around Him, and we need to think about why He did the things He did.
Think about Jesus. Someone who didn’t have a place to lay His head, someone who was on the move all of the time, someone who roamed the earth seeking out those with no hope, talking with sinners, eating and drinking with tax collectors and pagans. Being among those who were in need of help. Having compassion on the blind, the lame, the deaf, the hungry.
I said before, “I can’t help but say no, I don’t think so.” when I asked the question, “Is the church in which we see and are a part of today, the church that Jesus intended when He said I will build my church?”
Jesus loved and cared for all kinds of people, not matter what they’ve done, no matter what they look like, no matter what they talk like. However, today in so many churches across America people who go to church are expected to look at certain way, talk a certain way, and have no appearance or after effects of the sins in their lives.
I can’t help but think that if we had a man come into this church building today and join us who was stinky, with tattered and torn clothes, who had dirty feet and dirty long hair with a dirty long beard. Possibly he is very skinny because he hasn’t eaten in a while that many of us would look at that man and we would shy way from him.
Or that when we went to shake his hand we would rush to get some anti-bactiria soap and we would talk about how he looked and smelled. Some of us would think the man was on drugs. We might fold our arms and ask, “what is that man doing here in our church.”
But that man and others like him is why the church exist. Jesus is building His church so those kind of people and all kinds of people without Christ will have a avenue on earth in which all kinds of people can come to Him.
I unfortunately heard of someone who did a similar thing to a non-Christian who came to this church. Who stood back a made judgmental comments about they way this non-Christian looked and dressed and that’s very, very disturbing to me and I can’t help but think that I have failed you in some way for this type of thing to take place.
When Jesus was here he loved people like that and scorned the religious types, those who thought they were better than others, those who said, I’m glad I’m not like that person, I’m glad I’m better than him or her. He said woe to you hypocrites, you who think you are better than everyone else, woe to you sit in class studying the scriptures over and over and over again, but never putting it into practice. Woe to you who read the scriptures and when it talks about sin you apply it to others and not to ourselves.
Is the church today the ekklēsia that Jesus intended to build? No, I don’t think it is. We’ve hijacked it and made it into what we want. We’ve made into a place were Christians like us are comfortable and those without Christ would not want to be a part of.
We’ve made it into a place where we make smart Christians, Christians who know the scriptures backwards and forwards, but where Christians stay immature because we don’t put the scriptures to work out in the real world.
We are comfortable here in our “church” where we can be served then go home and go about our worldly lives on one end of the spectrum or our high and pious lives on the other end.
ILLUS: We’ve become too much like the life saving station (church) that John Coldwell describes in his book Top Priority. Read pg. 13-14.
I’m not saying this morning that we are all doing these things, I’m not saying that Mt. Vernon Christian Church is like this and no other church in the world is like this, but I’m saying we’ve got a problem and the problem needs to be fixed. Not only here, but across much of Christendom in America.
We have to realize that “church” is not meant to be a service to serve other Christians. Church is us, it’s a Jesus gathering where Christians come to lick their wounds from a week of sharing the Good News and being rejected by some if not everyone they’ve told.
Church is a Jesus gathering where Christians come together to talk about their lives, their relationship with Jesus, their relationship with other Christians and their relationships with their non-Christian friends.
Church is a Jesus gathering where we come together to remember Jesus Christ and what He did for us on the cross, where we get the opportunity to give a percentage of what we’ve made so that we can collectively pool that money together so we can help the poor when they have physical needs so we can ultimately help then spiritually and so we can help those who give their full lives to the spread of the Good News.
Church is a Jesus gathering where we get to be refreshed by written Word that the Apostles and others gave us through the inspiration of God.
Church is a Jesus gathering in which we can invite our non-Christian friends to, a place they will feel comfortable and loved, not scorned and ridiculed.
Church is a Jesus gathering where grace and truth rule the day and through that grace and truth people will know they can be forgiven and saved through the blood of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.
When I think of the church, the ekklēsia, the Jesus gathering that Jesus intended that is what I think of, at least that is what I think Jesus intended it to be.
Us, Jesus’ gathering was never meant to be a stationary gathering where we say come to our building if you want to hear the Good News about Jesus. Jesus started a MOVEMENT and He said I will build those up who gather together in my name to spread His name throughout the world, to every tribe, to every nation, and to every tongue.
He said as you GO to baptize, to make disciples (others who would do the same), to teach everything I commanded you to DO and to obey those commands.
But we’ve become stationary with multi-million dollar buildings that have utility bills in the thousands every month and maintenance cost sometimes in the tens of thousands every year and most of the money we gather, the percentage of our income that is given each week gets soaked up in those cost rather than in helping the poor and the propagation of the Good News to our lost and dying world.
As I said before, we’ve hijacked the church, Jesus’ gathering of people and put them on a course that is many times our agenda rather than His.
We have to remember what Jesus said. He said,
I
Jesus - not evangelist, preachers, teachers, elders or deacons - Jesus promised He would build.
Jesus never told us to build His church. His vision was and is much too big for us. He told to make disciples, one at a time. When we obey that command, He uses those disciples to expand His church, His Jesus gathering. And the Father is glorified!
He said,
Will
Not may or might or hope to. He will. He gave His absolute promise.
He said,
Build
This word is active. It is forward-looking. It shouts, “Progress! Process! Develop! Advance!” Jesus could have quickly created the church, as He did when creating the universe. But He said He would build it, which is a process that takes time.
This building process has depth - people growing into spiritual maturity through the study of His Word and through putting it into practice. And it has breadth - more people trusting Christ and coming into the gathering.
He said,
My
Jesus owns the church. He bought it with His blood! It is not the preacher’s church or the church of the elders or deacons. The church belongs to Jesus. Jesus is the leader, Jesus is in control. As much as some Christians want to be in control we have to realize that Jesus owns the church, His gathering and it is He that leads and controls.
He said,
Church, ekklēsia
The focus of Jesus was to build His church. The church is not a building, it was never intended to be. It is the people called and chosen by God. He did not say He would build His denomination, seminary, bookstore, radio station or mission organization. All of those are good, but they are to serve Christ’s church. The church is God’s method for completing the Great Commission.
CONCLUSION:
And we are His church, we are His gathering for a specific purpose and the foundation for that purpose in Jesus Christ. And we have to do more obeying of His commands and less keeping us busy doing the same things over and over again serving each other.
I have often wondered how many times do we have to teach the same thing before people will obey what is being taught. I wonder how many times some of us have been taught the gospels but have not done the what the gospels have told us to do.
Sure most of us have confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior, have repented of your sins, have been through the watery grave of baptism and the people sang, “now I belong to Jesus.”
But how many of us who belong to Jesus have actually shared the gospel with others, how many who belong to Jesus have brought someone else to Christ. How many of us who belong to Jesus have made a real effort to outreach to the community of Mt. Vernon with something, anything, that could make a real physical and spiritual difference in the life of someone who doesn’t know Christ.
The writer of Hebrews said, “In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!” Hebrews 5:12
There may be some who will not like to hear this but I’ve come to believe that for some, coming to church to sit in on another class and being taught the scriptures is counter productive to your Christian maturity. For some have been taught the scriptures so much that you know it forward and backwards, you are very smart Christians, but are very ineffective Christians.
As I eluded to earlier, we need to do less of what we have been doing and do more of what we have not been doing. And when we do that we will learn lessons that we could have never learned sitting is a classroom or a pew in a building.
I hope to implement some of that this summer. Part of that implementation will be in the small group that I’m starting tonight. A group that is focused on learning from the Word and learning from serving out in the real world.
Another part of that implementation will take place on Wednesday nights this summer for whoever wishes to get outside the building and make a difference in our community and area.
I know that some of the things I’ve spoken about today, everyone will not agree with. And that I may have stereotyped the whole church because of the actions of only some.
But my point with this message is that we are a long way from where Jesus intended and that we’ve got a lot of work to do if we as the gathering of Jesus are to be built up as Jesus intended in order to complete the work that Jesus has given us.
Paul was able to say that he was free of the blood of all men, that he had a clear conscience. Are we able to do the same? I’m not, not yet, though I hope one day I can say that and that those under my care will be able to say that too.
Let’s pray.
