Hey, Look Who's Starting a Church!-Part B

Here's the truth. While pastors in America do ask their congregations to invite people and almost seem to have to beg people to come, boy, not in Africa, not in China, not in India. In fact, did you know that some African pastors are asking their congregation not to come every Sunday, but every second or third Sunday to make room for other people who may want to hear the message? Because there's so many of them. Most people usually only hear about a church when there's a scandal, a split, or a controversy. For others, the only time they may see the inside of a church is during Christmas or Easter. However, there's much more to a church than the scandals and the holidays. And on today's broadcast of Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, Skip talks about why it was started.

But before we get to that, we have a great new offer for you this month from the Connect with Skip Resource Center. The beating heart of Bible prophecy is the land of Israel and the Middle East. Joel Rosenberg has his finger on the pulse of the world shaking changes happening right now. And he unveils them in his new nonfiction book, Enemies and Allies. This is the first book of its kind that takes you inside the Oval Office, inside the palaces of the kings and crown princes, the presidents and the prime ministers in Israel and in the Arab world. As we ask them, what do you think about religious freedom, about making peace with Israel, about the threat from Iran, about U.S.-Arab relations, U.S.-Israel relations? Enemies and Allies from multiple New York Times bestselling author Joel Rosenberg takes you on an unforgettable journey inside the turbulent Middle East. You'll go behind closed doors to hear from the very kings and crown princes, presidents and prime ministers who are leading the charge. Enemies and Allies includes exclusive never before published quotes, insights and analysis from the author's conversations with some of the world's most controversial leaders. Your hardcover copy of Enemies and Allies is our thanks for your generous gift of $35 or more today. To give, call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskipp.com. Our current series is Church Who Needs It?

We're in Matthew 16 again today, so open your Bibles. Let's join Skipp Heitzig. I know Peter means rock, but it might not be the kind of rock you're thinking of, not some massive boulder, but some nugget. So if you're thinking of it in entertainment terms when he said you are Peter, rock man, don't think of Rocky Balboa. I want you to think of pebbles from the Flintstones and you will have a better idea of what the language originally means. Now, let me explain that to you.

Let me paint the picture. Jesus with his disciples travels 25 miles to the north from the hot plains of the Sea of Galilee to Caesarea Philippi. It was a landmark where they went. It was the base of a huge 10,000 foot mountain in the Middle East, Mount Hermon or Hermon. Out of a huge rock, massive rock flowed water that was the mouth of the Jordan River. The Jews called it the living water.

It gushed forth and it fed and refreshed the nation. In that place also were 14 other religious temples built. Once it was the worship of Baal in that area, at another time it was the worship of Paneas, the Greek god Pan, they said was born in a nearby cave.

Even Herod the Great built a temple to Caesar Augustus because they deified Caesar and worshiped him as a god. So it's as if in contrast to those faulty foundational belief systems, Jesus takes them to this rock where the water is coming out and says, blessed are you Simon son of Jonah, flesh and blood didn't reveal us, but my father in heaven. You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church. So allow me to give it to you in the Greek language. Listen to the translation. You are Petros, a pebble and upon this Petra, this massive rock, I will build my church.

You see it's a play on words in the original language. The church is not built on pebble Peter, it's built on Mount Messiah. It was the confession that Peter made, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. That's what I'm going to build my church on, that confession that I am the Messiah. Not on Peter, but on what Peter said, that's the massive rock of truth. That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3, for no one can lay any other foundation than the one we already have which is Jesus Christ.

Now there's a great truth here that emerges. You want to be able to survive church? Now I ask it in that way because I meet people all the time who go, I've been so burned by churches.

I've been so disappointed by churches. You want to be able to survive? Get your eyes off people, get your eyes off Peter, get your eyes off Apollos or Cephas, get your eyes on Jesus. He is the rock, not the people. Now let's take it a step further. More than just surviving, are you thriving?

Are you thriving? Because what the church is built on is this great confession of truth, and Jesus builds his church by giving them truth on a consistent basis, especially truth about him, that builds them up. So you can go to church and you can sing at church and you can get married at church, you can get buried at church, but if you can't say with deep conviction like Peter, you are the son of the living God, then you're not a part of the church.

That's what it's built on, that solid rock foundation. No wonder Paul said to young Timothy, who was just starting in the ministry, he talked about people who have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof, or as the New Living Translation puts it, they will act as if they are religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Those are people who go and sing and do things and are social, but they never abide by the solid truths that transform. That's what he builds upon, those great stones of truth for transformation. So, once again, the church is a group of people that is called out separately from the rest of the community who assemble regularly, who confess with deep conviction that Jesus Christ is their Lord. That's what it is, that's what it is. So he names it, he builds it, because of that he owns it. I should have noticed one single pronoun.

That's what we want to camp on. You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. I just want to zero in on that ownership for just a moment, my church.

Notice to whom it belongs. It is not the property of a pastor, it is not the property of a board of directors, or of a committee, or of a group of bishops, or of a pope, or of a denomination. Jesus said it is my church. Jesus doesn't have to clear his decisions with Rome, or London, or Springfield, or Minneapolis, or Costa Mesa.

He's Jesus. He can do what he wants, because he thought of it. This is his idea, and he has the playbook for the church.

Not only that, not only did he think of it, he paid for it. He bought us with his blood. That's what the church is.

Blood bought believers. Paul says to the Ephesian elders in the 20th chapter of Acts, Be sure that you feed and shepherd God's church, purchased with his blood, over whom the Holy Spirit has made you elders. Now we have become so used to an anthropocentric church, a man-centered church. What kind of church do I want? What kind of church am I looking for?

What kind of activities do they have for my family? That's how we have done church in this country. We're anthropocentric. We're so used to evaluating songs, and worship leaders, and sermons, that we have forgotten who's evaluating us. As D. James Kennedy, who's now in heaven, once said, Most people think of the church as a drama, with the minister as the chief actor, God as the prompter, and the congregation as the critic. What is actually the case is the congregation is the chief actor, the minister is the prompter, and God is the critic. He's the one that's evaluating each one of our lives.

That's the opinion that matters most. Every pastor and every church board member should remember this, whose church it is. It would sure take a load off.

People who feel so burdened, I've got to produce, I've got to do this, I've got to build the church. I remember coming here when we were building this addition, and knowing what it was costing. I'd get all nervous. And as I'd stand there getting nervous, the Lord would remind me, it's my church.

And I'd go, whew. Good thing, Lord, because now you've got to pay the bills. When I see people come every week almost, and sometimes crowds of them and wonder where are we going to put more of them, and how are we going to do this and disciple them, I'm reminded it's His church. Acts chapter 2, the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. And I certainly wish more Christians, more church members, could remember this truth as well. That the other people that are around you in this church and in this community who are Christians belong to Him. They belong to Him. That means something special if you belong to Christ.

Hear me. 1 Thessalonians opens up by saying, From Paul, Silas, and Timothy, to the church in Thessalonica, you who belong to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Titus chapter 2 verse 14, He has come to purify for Himself a people that are His very own. Just for a moment, look around. Don't look at me. Look around at people in this room. Whoever your eye falls upon, if you're reasonably certain they're a believer, you are looking at blood-bought believers that belong, sorry for all the B's, to Jesus Christ. They belong to Him. In fact, isn't it safe to say that you couldn't get some of us together apart from Christ?

With all of our differences and all of our backgrounds, there's no other way. And so just remember, if you're ever inclined to speak against a fellow brother or sisters, please, I pray the Holy Spirit will remind you of this truth tonight. You're speaking against someone that belongs to Him. And last time I checked, He takes it really personally. Like Saul of Tarsus, who was beaten up on Christians, and Jesus said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?

He took it very, very personally. Think twice. Hesitate long before you speak out against another church or another believer. They're God's kids. And there's room for us all.

There's a little quip in Moody Monthly trying to show that the church is varied and there's room for all different kinds, and it said there's a lot of different kinds of nuts in the Lord's fruitcake. Aren't you glad for that? He names it. He builds it. He owns it. Perhaps part of the best news, He keeps it.

He keeps it. Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of hell, or hear the word Hades, shall not prevail against it. I'm so glad to hear that because so many voices out there are predicting the death and the demise of the church from Bultmann to Barna. Not going to last. It's going away from Dennett to Dawkins.

It's not going to last, they say. Sam Harris, who wrote a book called The End of Faith, said, quote, All churches are equally demented in their belief. And he predicts the demise of it. Brent Staples, who wrote for the New York Times, in the New York Times wrote, Visit a church at random next Sunday and you'll probably encounter a few dozen people sprinkled over a sanctuary that was built to accommodate hundreds or even thousands.

When I read that, all I could think about is, Staples, you are in the wrong neighborhood. You need to get out more and visit a lot of other churches, not only in America, but especially around the world. Because here's the truth. While pastors in America do ask their congregations to invite people and almost seem to have to beg people to come, boy, not in Africa, like we mentioned last week, not in China, not in India. In fact, did you know that some African pastors are asking their congregation not to come every Sunday, but every second or third Sunday to make room for other people who may want to hear the message? Because there's so many of them. In the last few years, in one province in China alone, 37,000 new churches have been planted.

I know those are just statistics, but just imagine 37,000 new congregations, people of faith in one province alone in the last few years. Wow. Love it. The gates of hell. Gates speak of authority, entrance. The gates of hell.

It speaks of the authority of Satan, the organized power of Satan. In other words, open up all the windows and all the doors of hell and unleash every foul attack on the church. You can persecute it. You can kill its members or its leaders. You can torture them.

You can burn their buildings like they're doing still in India. And the church is not going away. It's not going away. They've tried that already for the last 2,000 years from the very beginning, but it wasn't going away. Back in 1776, David Hume, the skeptic, made a prediction. He said, I see the twilight of Christianity. Hmm, 1776, I see the twilight of Christianity.

The old boy couldn't tell the difference between a sunset and a sunrise. It was just underway, and it spread. If you were to have asked people who were there at the cross of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago and watched Jesus die, if you were to interview them and ask them about the future of this movement, of people who follow him, what do you think they'd tell you, the day on the cross he died? I bet they'd say, it's over.

Their founder is dead or dying. It's over. It's not going to happen.

It's dissolved. It's just the beginning. I'm encouraged by this verse of Scripture. I'm encouraged by all the nuances and all the promises and especially encouraged by this one. We'll keep it.

The gates of hell will not prevail against it. I remember, I still get it, people who were around in the 60s and the 70s talk about the Jesus movement or here in the 80s. They go, you remember the Jesus movement, man?

Wasn't that great? You know, last time I checked, Jesus is still moving. He hasn't stopped. It's not like he moved a little bit.

Now he's just sort of hanging out. The way I see it from my perspective, I see him moving in hearts and lives all over the place in our own community. I see it week by week.

I'm encouraged month by month. I can't think of anything better to be a part of than the enterprise that Jesus came to start, build, and maintain called the church. I can't think of any other endeavor worthy of my time, talent, and treasure than this. It seems to me that every other project that we engage ourselves in will one day end up in a pile of rubble.

If there's one cause that we should get involved in, it's this one. Now think back to that 43-year-old or 41-year-old pastor still in bed. He was apathetic toward the church. I don't want you to answer it out loud because we'd have a variety of answers, but I want you to consider honestly what your attitude is toward church. Strip away whose church or what it's called or where they meet or how they sing or all of that. Think of his church, his church. What is your attitude toward his church?

And as you're contemplating that, you may want to throw this in as part of it. If everyone in my church was just like me, what kind of a church would it be? That's a good place to start is with our own inward meditation because while we're complaining or wishing, just start with ourselves. If everyone in my church were just like me, what kind of church would it be? Wonderful, joyful, grumpy, sporadic?

There are a variety of ways to answer that. Finally, as we close tonight, I am thrilled, honestly, week by week to do what I do, to prepare messages and speak. I still do. I still pinch myself. I can't think of anything better. Of those that get burned out, yeah, I've had low times, but I'm certainly far from that.

I don't want you to think, oh, he must have shared that up front because he's really burned, and I'll no doubt get an email. You look kind of cross-eyed at me tonight, so I think you must be really weirded out or something. None of that is true. I love what I do. God does refresh me.

You refresh me. But if you come to church, but you haven't come to Christ yet, then I am deeply concerned for you. I don't want you to just come to church. I want you to come to him. I want you to come into his group, be a part of his family. You know, some people think they need to only go to church at Christmas and Easter, but if you really want to experience what it's all about, it doesn't matter when or where you go, but who you go to. Would you like to talk with someone about what it means to come to Christ? If so, we'd love to talk with you. Just call 1-800-922-1888. And we're almost out of time for today, but first, here's Skip and Lenya with a closing thought.

Lenya? Today you finished a teaching about who started the church and why. That's curious, going all the way back to the beginning. But so often we mistakenly make the church man-centered. How can we develop a Christ-centered view of church? Yeah, you hit on a very important point.

That is true. It becomes a man-centered experience going to church. So I'll answer that by, first of all, saying to church leaders, if any are listening, that you treat God's glory like a hot potato.

You can't hold onto it. You have to, or praise or adulation, or that was a good sermon, or that was great music, that you throw it upward. You're in the business of pointing people upward to God and giving people God's resources.

And then number two, I'll answer it to congregants, to people who come to church. It's not about you. It's not about, well, I'll grade this sermon on a scale of one to 10.

I'll give it a seven. Or it met my needs. Because we're to be about God, first of all, but also God's people. If you walk into a church building and you look for somebody who is needy or somebody who needs to be prayed for, instead of just thinking about, where's my seat?

What am I going to do? It would change the way you go to church and what you get from it. Absolutely. You are the church, but you collectively are the church. So when you get there, you become this one thing. And so we need to treat each other with that kind of respect when you get there.

That's right. And I think that your satisfaction in fellowship, that's the old buzzword. It's now community, but the old word, biblical word, is fellowship.

Koinonia. Koinonia, that you share something in common. It doesn't just mean we eat donuts together and drink coffee. It means we share holy things in common together. And when we do it, if I do it in such a way that I want to help you, I want to reach into your life, and that's why we're so big on our connect groups, home groups, is that your own personal satisfaction goes up when you give yourself away to somebody.

You know, it's beautiful. This week I ran into a friend who joined what we called kinship groups. They're now connect groups. And she was sitting with a friend who had been in a kinship group for 22 years. They remember their kids growing up together and they are so connected with this community. And so really, you are coming to church to be with others and to make their lives better and to be the hands and feet and mouth and eyes of Christ. Well, thanks a lot, Lenya and Skip, and it's so important that we have the right perspective when it comes to the church. And before we go today, if you want a copy of today's teaching, Hey, Look Who's Starting a Church, it's available for just $6 plus shipping when you call us at 1-800-922-1888 or online at connectwithskip.com. So what kind of a church would Jesus go to?

We'll see if we can answer that question on our next study. So be sure to join us here in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection, a connection, a connection. Connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.