The Local Church Is The Hope Of The World Series

* This is a picture of the church like Jesus builds. It is a group of people totally focused on God, His word, His plan, power, purpose, and pattern. This is the church that stands against the forces of hell.

* Yet, consider that local church after church is not standing against the forces of hell, but are faltering and falling against the frailty of humankind. Depending on who you read, between 70%-90% of American churches are plateaued or declining. If God planned for us to “turn the world upside down” what has happened? With such a great start what happened? Something broke.

* I find a similarity today between the average modern day church and Apollo 13. While many young people today think this is only a movie, I remember the 1970 flight. Also, Fred Haise was born and raised in Biloxi, MS. (Watch)

* While the most familiar phrase in that clip is “Houston, We Have a Problem” the last words, “We do have that much time” strikes home with me. But there are several similarities we can apply. First, the course was charted, planned, and began. Then the problem came. Did you notice the confusion? Everyone was trying to figure it out. But only one thing mattered; let’s get the crew back safely. With that simple purpose, they did it.

* Perhaps the truth is that we have become too complicated and too program oriented in the modern day church. The church which Jesus built was one dimensional; “Make Disciples” were His final words to us. This means as we ‘go’, we ‘show’; as we ‘show’, we ‘tell’; as we ‘tell’, we ‘bring’; as we ‘bring’, we ‘baptize’; as we ‘baptize’, we ‘grow’; and as we ‘grow’, we ‘go.’

II. A Design for this Church – The design determines whether anything is effective or not. Today the local church, with so much promise and expectation, is seemingly in trouble. So what Biblical truths can help us turn the corner & make an impact on this World? We find the answer for this in the first sentence of our quote from Bill Hybels, “There is nothing like the local church when its “working right.” When a church is working right it is indeed the hope of the world and when it’s not working right, it brings hopelessness to the world. Jesus gives 3 needs or requirements;

A. The Right Foundation – Jesus says, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church.” There is much debate about these words. For year, the Roman Catholic Church has interpreted this as Jesus building His church on Peter. So they view Peter as the first Pope and things progressed from him till today. On the other hand, Protestants believe the Greek language to be indicative of Christ’s meaning. Jesus said, “You are Peter (the little rock)” and pointing to Himself Jesus continued, “And on THIS rock (a boulder) I will build my church.” While people today be confused and/or debate this meaning, Peter was not confused at all. In his first Epistle he wrote, “The stone which the builder rejected is the Chief cornerstone and has been laid in Zion.” Paul knew that Jesus was the foundation.