The importance of the Church

You have your Bibles, join me in Matthew 18, Matthew 16, and we're going to read verse 13 down to verse number 18.

Matthew 16, and in your Bibles, verse number 13 is where we're going to begin. It says, When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said, Some say thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Father, we come before you this morning. We are so thankful for all that you have done in our lives. We thank you for Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Thank you for the Gospel. God, I pray today if anyone among us doesn't know Jesus Christ, they don't know a hundred percent when their life's over, they'd be in heaven. God, I pray that you would draw them to you, that you would awaken their souls, that Christ would be revealed.

Show them your glory. And I pray as your church, God, that we would be a sanctified church, that we would be holy, Lord God, unto you, and that you would do your sanctifying work, that we would be a surrendered people, and that we would invest our life into what you gave your life for. God, we ask this in Jesus' name and God's people said, Amen.

You may be seated this morning. After a couple weeks of being light and easy on the men in the church, we are coming back to the book of Matthew, but I do want to say that I'm so thankful for the men of our church. You know there's a lot of churches that are made up of the majority of women, 70, 80, sometimes 90 percent of their church is women, and we're so thankful for godly women.

Man, what a blessing. But we need men to be men of God, and so thank you men for your faithfulness to the Lord. Thank you for the great godly men that God has brought to Lighthouse and those that are serving and you're such a blessing.

You're so needed in our culture and our society and in the church. But today we're coming into a text back into Matthew, and we're going to look at what Jesus says here, primarily in verse number 18. But just by way of context, Jesus here is now about two and a half years into his ministry.

He's about six months away from the cross, and he is up in Caesarea Philippi, that's the northern portion of Israel up around Dan. And he asked the disciples, Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they say, some say thou art John the Baptist, some Elias or Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Now what you find there is the answer from the people are all wrong. They misidentify Jesus.

That's a problem. You don't want to get it wrong with who Jesus is. And if they misidentified him then do you think people are misidentifying Jesus in our day? And then he directs the question specifically to the 12. And he says, But who do you say that I am?

And friend, that is the most important question of your life and eternity. Who do you say that Jesus Christ is? Who is this one they call Jesus Christ of Nazareth? And in response to that, Peter answers in verse 16 and says, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now the word Christ is the, from the Greek word Christos, and it's the equivalent to the Hebrew Messiah, where we get the English word Messiah from, and it means the anointed one. And it's saying that Jesus Christ is the anointed of God, identifying him as the Savior that would come into the world to deliver his people. Calls him the Christ, the Son of the living God. That statement, Son of the living God, is identifying Jesus as the Son of God, that he is one with God. And if you remember, Jesus is saying that in a region where they worship the God Pan, and Pan was one of the only gods in Greek mythology that died. And so they are saying that Jesus, you are the Son of the living God.

You're not like dead Pan. You are the living God. And so Jesus, in response to this, in verse 17, says, Blessed art thou Simon bar Jonah.

The word bar means Son of, Simon, Son of Jonah. He says, For flesh and blood. It wasn't physical people that revealed that to you. He says, But my Father, which is in heaven, revealed that. What's so essential for all of us to understand is this. For people to know who Christ is, God must reveal that to them. God reveals God. God opens the eyes of the blind.

I've said this in weeks past. If you want to know who God is, you must come to him humbly, not pridefully, not in an arrogant way, not looking down in judgment upon the word of God, but recognizing God is your judge. You're not his judge. And so there's two types of questions that you can ask when you come to God. There's questions that people ask that keep them from the truth, and there's questions they ask that bring them to the truth.

I ask you, which one are you? Do you ask questions so you don't have to come and understand the truth and it keeps you at a distance? Questions like, Why are there so many religions? But you're not really concerned why there's so many religions. You just use that as a veil to keep you from the truth. That's a foolish question. I've asked that question to find out why. I know what Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Kabbalah, I know what these other religions teach.

I know why they're wrong specifically. But other people ask those questions and they have no intention to ever find it out. They just ask it from a distance.

That's a foolish way to live. A wise way to live is to ask the question, Who is Jesus and really want to know, right? It's to find the question out. Why do 24 million people on Google search engine alone ask the question every month, so who is Jesus Christ? Name one person that has ever lived in existence that people are asking who lived 2,000 years ago who that person was by the count of 24,000 or 24 million people on one search engine every single month. Jesus Christ is the most influential person and there's nothing in your life more important than knowing that truth. Now, God desires you to know that truth and this morning He will reveal it to you if you come to Him humbly. In Matthew 11, 28, Jesus says, God hides these things from the wise and prudent and reveals them to babes.

God will reveal His truth to those who come in a humble way to Him. Now, this morning I want to key in on what Jesus says in response to Peter. It's such a monumental statement in verse 18. It's the first time the word church is used in the Bible. He says, Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. There may not be a more contentious verse in the Gospel of Matthew. And I'm going to dive into an exegetical study of verse 18, 19, 20 and so forth next week in the weeks to come and break down what is the rock here referring to, what are the gates of hell, what are the verse 19, the keys of the kingdom, what does it talk about, binding on earth shall be bound in heaven, what's that talking about in verse 19.

We're going to dive into a lot of that. But today I want to look at what the church is. What is the church? Jesus introduces us on the pages of Scripture for the first time to this, what Ephesians 3, 9 calls a mystery which was hidden from the foundation of the world, called the church. And I want to look at the importance of the church.

Is it important and why is it important? I want you to ask yourself this question today. Where would you be at if there was no church in America? If there was no church you'd say, well I'd probably still be in bed.

That's not the answer that I'm looking for. If you're still in bed at 11.30, you must be a teenager, right? If I was in bed at 11.30 I would be in ICU by the end of the day.

There'd be something wrong, I can't lay that long in a bed. But where would you be at today? Where would your family be? I know for me and my family growing up, our family was going down such a dark and bad way. God used the church to bring us the gospel, he changed our family, he has worked so mightily in our lives, and I think about where our lives would be. I don't believe I can overemphasize the impact the church has had on my life and family. Today we live in a world that seeks to minimize the church. They want to put down the church. They want to make the church obsolete.

It's not a big deal. And I even hear Christians doing that, trying to minimize the church at times, making light of the church. Listen, the world may minimize the church, there may be some misguided Christians who minimize the church, but I can tell you there is one who will never minimize the church and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ does not minimize the church. And I don't believe I can even preach strong enough on the importance of the church. I cannot overdo it.

That's how important this is. And I want to look at what the church is and why it is important today. Now the word church is used three times in the gospels, all of them in Matthew. Once here in Matthew 16, 18, twice in Matthew 18, verse 17. In Matthew 18, 17, he's talking about church discipline, dealing with sin in the church. He says, bring it before the church. If they don't hear it there, let that man be as a publican or a heathen.

See them as a need to be evangelized, in other words. Now the church comes from the Greek word ekklesia. It is a compound word, ekk, meaning out of. And I think all of us understand the Bible was not written originally in English, right? So it was written Old Testament in Hebrew, New Testament in Greek. There's a little bit of Aramaic in the Old Testament.

But the New Testament was written in Greek. And the Greek word from which we get the word church is the original Greek word ekklesia. So the English church is the Greek word ekklesia. So ekk, meaning out of, and kalesis, which is a derivative of the word kaleo, means the called. So the word ekklesia simply means the called out ones, that assemble. That they would be called out from their homes, they'd be called out from society in some sense, but they're assembling together. Now, the majority of times, the word church is used 118 times, ekklesia is used 118 times in the New Testament.

The vast majority of them speak about a local New Testament church. Sometimes the word ekklesia was generally used in the Greco-Roman culture to refer to as an assembly of people who gathered together. It's used like that in the book of Acts 19 when there was a group at Ephesus that assembled and the town clerk had to calm them down because they came and they were trying to basically kill Paul.

But he calls this assembly of pagan Ephesians who were crying out, great is the goddess Diana, he refers to them as an ekklesia. It was just a word that meant an assembly, people who came out from their homes in places of residence and they assembled together. It's also used of the assembly of Israel in the book of Acts 7 when they assembled together in the Old Testament. So ekklesia can be translated as church, it can be translated as assembly.

Both of that is a right way to translate it. You could call lighthouse assembly or lighthouse church, it's the same idea but it's the assembly of the saints together. The word church can be used a few times in the New Testament to refer to the entire body of Christ.

A few times it refers to the entire body of Christ. There is a universal church in theology, they call it in prospect, which means the church assembles together. The problem is the universal church can't assemble, right? Because there's believers in Honduras this morning that are preaching the gospel right now meeting but we can't assemble with them because we're not with them. But they assemble in local New Testament churches. But there is in a general sense a universal body of believers and one day we will assemble together before the throne of God. What a day that will be, amen?

And we will be there together. You see that in Revelation chapter number 5. The vast majority of the time the word ekklesia is used in the New Testament, in fact 85% of the time it's used, it is referring to the local church, like what lighthouse is here. It's a local church. Now let me say a couple things that the church is not so you understand what it is. First of all, the church is not a building. The church is not drywall, it is not ceiling tile, it is not carpet or whatever else.

Sometimes we say I've got to run up to the church. No, you're actually going up to where the assembly meets or the church meets but that's just the building. If the building were the church, you couldn't have a church without a building and that obviously is not the case. Secondly, a church is not a denomination. A denomination is a church organization that exercises some authority over these local churches that are part of that organization. Examples of denominations are like the Southern Baptist, Episcopalian, Wesleyan, Methodist, Presbyterians. I'm not saying all these churches that are part of a denomination are bad churches, there are some wonderful churches that are part of certain groups, but the word church does not refer to a denomination.

There are some who believe unless you're part of their denomination you're not even a Christian. That is totally rejected by Lighthouse. Somebody may ask, isn't Lighthouse a part of a denomination?

The answer is no. We are a non-denominational church. Lighthouse is not a denominational church. We're non-denominational.

The only reason we have Baptist on the name is a title that defines the doctrines that we align with scripturally. Some of those doctrines are things like this. We believe in the Bible as the sole authority for faith and practice. That differentiates us from the Catholics who believe the Pope who can speak extra cathedra when he speaks in the papal office that could be equal to scripture.

We reject that. We don't believe that church tradition holds equality with what the Bible teaches. That separates us from Orthodox churches, Catholic churches, and some other groups. We believe the Bible is the sole authority. When we ask a question we say, what sayeth the scripture? The Bible's our sole authority.

That is one key difference. That's why some of you went to maybe churches growing up and they didn't preach out of the Bible much. They didn't focus on the word of God much. We believe that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone through Christ alone. That separates us from some groups that believe differently. We also believe in the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, three co-equal, co-eternal persons.

We believe in the eternal security of the believer, that those who God saves he will keep. We believe in the priesthood of believers that you can pray directly to God through Christ that you don't have to come and confess your sins to me. I'm not your Holy Father. Don't call me Father or Holy Father.

There is one Holy Father and it is God the Father. Amen? I don't want to hear about your sin anyway. I've got enough problems in my own life.

I don't want to have to talk about yours. You can go directly to God and seek His grace in those things. We believe in two ordinances, baptism and Lord's Supper.

I could go on with other things. You could read our doctrinal teachings, but basically it's we believe in the Bible and we believe in the doctrines of Scripture. Now, I disagree with people.

You have to be very careful. If you're so hard-lined as a title of a name Baptist that you would say a church is wrong if they don't have Baptist on there, you have to be careful with that. I believe every church has a freedom to be a name what they want to be on there. I think the word church is good. A lot of places now don't even want to have identification with the word church.

You notice that? They just call it like some cool hip name because church is not attractive to the world. Now, they're trying to make themselves appealing to the world. The problem is when did the church become attractive to lost people?

We're not trying to make ourselves attractive to the lost. We're trying to make ourselves attractive to Christ. When He called us to church, and we're going to call ourselves what He calls us, right? If every Baptist around went down the drain, and there are some that are very bad churches, some that are solid churches, but if by and large we would change our name to like Lighthouse Bible Church or something, but Baptist just identifies us. You need to understand this is a local New Testament church, and we identify as Baptist, but that's not a denomination that we are affiliated with. Now, the church is not a building. It's not an adomination, so what is the church? Well, first of all, the local church is made up of people who have come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and unless you're saved, you will never see Jesus Christ in heaven.

You will never go to heaven. The Bible tells us that it's only through Christ can you be saved, and the body that assembles here is a body of those who have confessed Christ as their Lord and Savior. Acts 2 42, in the book of the church, was launched in Acts 2 at the day of Pentecost.

Holy Spirit came down, the church's birth. In Acts 2 47, it says they were praising God, having favor with all the people, and the Lord, who builds the church, the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved, or such as were being, you could translate that passage as well, such as should be or were being saved. So those who were saved were being added to that local body. So, also, not only are those who are part of the church those who are saved, but they're also baptized, and it assumes they were being baptized in verse 47 because everybody who got saved in verse 41 of Acts 2 were baptized.

Baptism does not save you, but if you're saved, you need to be baptized. Acts 2 41 says, Then they that gladly received his word, Paul's preaching, or Peter's preaching that day at Pentecost, they received the gospel, they received the message he preached of Christ, they were baptized, and the same day there were, notice, added unto them about 3,000 souls. What were they added to? They were added to the body of believers in Jerusalem, to that local assembly, that church, that ekklesia, the called out believers.

If you read Acts 1, they were assembling, they were assembling, and then they preached, and 3,000 joined that assembly, and that launches the church. And so, before they were added, notice, they were saved, and they were baptized. For you, if you have not been saved today, you need to trust in Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you stood before God and He said, Why should I let you into heaven?

What would you say? If you want to know the answer to that, at the end of service, I'll be down front, we have men and women down front, you need to come and say, Hey, I need to get that settled, I need to know Christ as my Savior, get that settled today. You don't want to leave here. We had a precious young lady who was part of our church, who, driving down 42 this last week, who got in a car accident and passed away.

What a heartbreaking situation there. You have no idea when your last day is going to be. Listen, life is so fleeting.

Life is so fleeting. Make sure you get that settled. But if you have been saved, you need to get baptized. And if you've not been baptized, you need to understand that is sinful to not get baptized.

It is wrong. And if you can stay unbaptized, it evidences that you're not a true believer. Because it's the first thing Jesus says to do. It's how you go public with your faith. We had somebody get baptized this morning, we had people get baptized Wednesday, we had several get baptized last Sunday. Listen, you need to get baptized. You say, I don't want to get up in front of people and read a long testimony. You don't have to read long testimony. Go to foundations and we'll walk through it, and you could have a testimony that's a paragraph long, I could read it, one of the guys can read it, and you could just stand there. But all it's saying is, people share their testimony, it's saying that, yes, I have trusted in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.

I have been born again. And we sit down and make sure people understand the gospel. They understand what they're doing getting baptized. And then after that, then you would share that truth that, hey, I came to know Jesus Christ and today I'm getting baptized because I want to live for Him. And when you get baptized, you become a member of Lighthouse through getting baptized. If you've already been baptized, you can join the church by statement of faith or by letter and you see that in the New Testament. When guys would leave one church and go to another, you know what Paul would send them with?

He sent them with a letter of recommendation. He would say, receive so and so because I, and that let that church know that that was a believer in good standing and they would go to the next church where they would begin to minister. And so if you're not a member, you need to plug in. You say, well, I don't believe in membership. Well, the Bible says you're members of the body. And there is no such thing as a universal church that meets together practically. When you, you should have been baptized somewhere and your membership is somewhere and you need to go public with your faith and you need to be a part of that church.

What membership is this? It's saying, I'm committing to this local body. I believe God has called me to be a part of that local church. There's many churches around this area. You plug into a local church and say, that's where I feel like God has called me to. I want to plug in.

I want to minister there with my time, talents, energies, all of those things. And you, you get plugged in and people say, well, I just want to float from church to church. What if I did that? You understand that's, that's not biblical. That's not right to do. Does anything, what if you did that with your family?

What have you done with your work? What if you did that with the sports team? Nothing exists with not with, with people that are not committed.

Is that true? So why would I not be committed to, to a group? And you know why most people want to do that?

Because they don't want accountability. They, they kind of want to float from place to place to place. And I don't know anybody right now doing that, but if maybe somebody's offended by what I'm saying, I can tell you this. Our family grew up doing that. Early on in my life, we jumped from this church and then ended up going to another church and you go to another church and you know what? Our spiritual life was reflected in our weak commitments. We weren't plugged in and we just float around. Our spiritual life was, was just waffling.

My parents ended up so close to getting a divorce. But when we got plugged into a church that preached the gospel, we got baptized, we joined that church, we were plugged in and God revolutionized my parents' lives. He revolutionized our life.

Nobody in our family ever was in the ministry. God called three of us, four boys into the ministry to preach the gospel. I would not be standing here today if my parents didn't get plugged into a church and get committed.

Absolutely revolutionized our home. Now I can tell you friend, if you are taking lightly a commitment to the church, you're taking lightly what Jesus Christ bled and died for. The church is a massive deal and you need to make it a bigger deal.

I can tell you, you'll leave here today, you will never hear anyone in society on the news. No one's going to talk about the importance of the church. Donald Trump and Biden are not going to talk about the importance of the church. They are both misguided by not elevating that importance. Now I feel like one's more misguided than the other. That's pretty concerning. Anybody watch that debate this last week? That's concerning.

I don't even think I need to go anywhere else with that. But we do need to pray for our leadership, don't we? It's one thing to say, hey, so and so, you can put people down, but we need to say, let's lift them up in prayer. Because they need the gospel, right? They need the gospel and we need to care for their souls and lift them up.

The Bible commands us actually to pray for our leaders, Romans chapter 13, and let's do that. And so going on, not only are they baptized, but they're organized with scriptural offices. The Bible tells us that churches would have pastors and deacons that would be in leadership in the church. After Paul and Barnabas launched many churches in the book of Acts, the Bible tells us they began to set up leadership in those churches. In Acts 14, 23, it says this, when they had ordained them elders in every church, they prayed with fasting, committed them to the Lord. So they would start a church and then they would find men that were faithful, that met the requirements of a pastor, an elder in the church, and they would ordain them. Titus 1.5 says this, Paul's writing to Titus, Titus is a young pastor.

He says, Titus, I left you in Crete that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting. I've had people say this, I don't believe in organized religion. Raise your hand if you ever had somebody say that to you. People say that and I'm like, so what do you believe in, unorganized religion? Let me ask, that's the same kind of mindset of somebody who doesn't want to commit to a church. And what they do is they want an uncommitted life to a church that Jesus was committed to. They want an unorganized religious system.

Basically they want to mold the church into what they want it to be instead of molding what, you know the Bible says, let everything be done decently and in order. 1 Corinthians 14, set in order the things that are lacking or wanting. The church should be orderly. What would you do if you came and everything was in disarray around here? You know, the chairs were flipped over, the bathrooms were a mess, half the doors were locked, all this place, half the lights didn't work. Wouldn't you look and be like, man this place is out of order. There's a problem, right? You would get this place straightened up and so what if the grass was not mowed, the lawn was not taken care of, everything was out of order? I think we need to obviously have things done decently and in order. And also the New Testament gives three titles to the office of pastor.

I know there's some teaching here but it's important for you to hear some of this. The word pastor comes from the Greek word poimane. It's where we get the word shepherd from. It's like, what does that word pastor mean?

It means a shepherd. I'm not the chief shepherd of the church, Jesus Christ is the chief shepherd according to 1 Peter 5 verse 4 and 5. But he sets up under shepherds, that's what pastors are.

Ephesians 4-11 says this, and he, talking about Christ, gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, and he gave them, it goes on to say, to the church to help build up the church. So the word pastor is one word to identify the office of the pastor. A second word is the word elder. The Greek word for elder is presbuturos, presbuturos I should say. It refers to an older, wiser or more spiritually mature person. Now you can be physically old and spiritually young, and you can be physically younger and spiritually older. And so 1 Timothy 4-12 it says, let no man despise thy youth, Timothy.

He's talking to young Timothy. So you can have a younger pastor. You know, when we started this church I was a ripe old age of 28. I felt old. You know, now 15 years later at 43, my hair is showing it, right? And I appreciate all the comments about that. It's so encouraging.

The laughter doesn't help anything. So the word elder. The third word is bishop. Bishop, 1 Timothy 3-1 says this is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth the good work. So it is an office held in the church. It is one, the word bishop is a Greek word episkopos, and it means overseer, one who oversees the church and oversees the work and what goes on there.

Now the question I want to ask is this. Pastor, elder and bishop, are these three different offices? Are they one office with three different functions? Like are they three different responsibilities? And I believe the Bible is very clear.

It's one office with three different responsibilities. And I believe there should be multiple pastors and elders that are part of a church as the Bible lays out. Now when Paul was traveling to Jerusalem, his ship was docked at a port of Miletus, and it's not far from Ephesus, and from there he called the elders to gather together in Acts 20 verse 17.

Look what it says. And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elder or elders. It's plural isn't it? Elders of the church. And so they come to him, and Paul's final words to the elders at Ephesus before he departed are in Acts 20 verse 28. He says, take heed therefore unto yourselves.

Take heed elders to yourself. And to all the flock, that's a shepherding term, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseer. That's the word for bishop. To feed the church of God. Again, that phrase, feed the church of God, is the verb form of poimane or shepherd.

Feed the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. So Paul identifies the elders as the bishops, as also the pastors. So it's one office in three different functions that they are to carry out. They are to oversee the work, they are to be an older, wiser, mature person, spiritually speaking, and they are to shepherd God's people. They are to care for them and care for the flock of God. They are to feed the church the word of God. They are also to protect the church from wolves. One of the jobs of a pastor is to warn the flock. That's why when you read the Bible, like it is constantly, I warn you in the last days these things will come, I warn you of false teachings, I warn you of this. And there are some people that think a pastor is mean if they say, hey, I warned you about that false teacher down in Houston, or I warned you about this situation over here. Beware of these false teachings. That is a loving pastor who warns you of wolves that dress up in sheep's clothing, the Bible says, but inwardly they're ravening wolves. Now, let me step into a realm that may offend somebody today.

I don't know who, but I don't want to be offensive, but I usually have to say something that could be offensive. Or I can't really get through a sermon, it seems. So, now, the qualifications of a pastor are in 1 Timothy 3, and flip over there for a moment with me. Flip over to 1 Timothy chapter number 3, and it's important to see this, because I don't know that I've ever taught on this very much through the years, but you just need to be aware of this because this has become a divisive issue, especially recently in the Southern Baptist churches. In 1 Timothy 3, verse 1 down to verse 7, it lays out the qualifications for a pastor. Notice what it says in verse 1, this is a true saying if a, what's the next word? If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth the good work. Verse 2, a bishop must, then must be blameless the what? The husband of one wife.

It doesn't say the wife of one husband. The office of a pastor is reserved for men who meet these qualifications. The Bible doesn't teach women are to be pastors in the church. Now, I want you to step back into chapter 2, look at verse 12. Right before Paul lays out these qualifications, look what he says in verse 12. He says, but I suffer not a woman, the word suffer could be translated I allow not, a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. I've had people through the years say, well that's just, that's cultural. How, how, well let me ask this, how far back does Paul take this in verse 13?

For who? Adam was, so he's taking it back to Genesis 3, right? Adam was first born, or first formed, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman he goes, goes through that. So, men are not better than women, not greater than women, but God has ordained that men would be in that leadership role. And so, and again, I don't think there's a woman in the church that are like, boy I wish I could have pastor's job.

You know, I don't think there's men in the church that feel that way either. And so, but you just need to understand, there are churches today that have women pastors, that's not a biblical teaching. And if you say, well it's just cultural here, then I would argue then what makes it any different when a person in the LGBT community and ABC, whatever else they have on there, when they say, well it's cultural when Paul says homosexuality is a sin.

You can say the same argument, that's just cultural. So why is it not cultural for the homosexual thing, but then you're saying it is cultural when it comes to the woman thing, because he takes it all the way back to Genesis 3, right? I just want you to understand this, our church would never be where it's at today if it weren't for the godly women in our church.

I know for me, the right hand in my life is the godly wife God's given to me, and women are so influential and central in the work of the church and the Bible. I mean, they were the brave ones, honestly, after the resurrection. They're the ones going around saying, Jesus has risen from the dead, and they're proclaiming that and all the guys are like cowering, right?

So we see that. But we just need to know that our church cannot be built on what we prefer or what we think. It's got to be based on what the Bible says. Is that a popular teaching in our culture? People say, oh, we don't believe at Lighthouse that women should be pastors. Oh, you guys are that chauvinistic. No, we're actually just a Bible church.

We want to lift up what Christ said. And listen, I know people who say, well, I know a church where a woman's a pastor and they're doing wonderful. Well, you could say the same thing about a woman who's leading and usurping the authority in her home.

Say, well, I think that home's doing well. But that's not a biblical model, right? The Bible says in Ephesians 5, 23, husbands are the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.

I didn't write that. Don't send me a letter, send it to God, right? Amen. If you want me to be a pastor, to preach the word of God, be at Lighthouse. If you want a pastor that doesn't preach the Bible, I can point you to some churches afterwards. But we believe what the Bible says. And I'm going to tell you what is not always even comfortable, but that's just what the Bible teaches and we honor that. And so going down the office of a pastor, then you have the office of a deacon. You have that laid out in the book of 1 Timothy 3 as well. And that role is also laid out in 1 Timothy 3 verse 8 down to verse number 13.

So those offices are defined in scripture. A church is made up with biblical leadership. Alex is a pastor at our church. Braden is a pastor. They were both ordained into the gospel ministry. I'm the lead pastor here, but those are also fellow pastors.

If I die, those guys will be stepping into that, fill that void, right? I don't plan on dying anytime soon, but... Now, another thing the church is made up of is they share a common faith. In the early church in Acts 2, you find them in Acts 2 42, it says, they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and breaking of bread and prayers. They continued in the word of God. They fellowshiped with one another.

They broke bread. I believe that's talking about taking the Lord's Supper. They continued in prayers, one with another. They held up those truths.

They observed doctrines. When we gather together as a church, we baptize. We partake in the Lord's Supper. On the next Sunday, we'll be observing the Lord's Supper. That's a massively important thing to remember Christ and what he did on the cross for us.

Prepare your hearts as you would go into that time as well. Also, the church is given the responsibility to carry out the Great Commission. The Great Commission was given to the church. That's why in the book of Acts, when did missions start?

In Acts 13, it says, Paul and Barnabas were ministering at the church at Antioch. The Holy Spirit calls them out of the church, and then they go around all over Asia Minor starting churches. He calls them out of the church to go plant churches. I've seen people through the years say, I'm going to start a church in their house or something. I'm like, well, who's your sending pastor? Who's your home church? Oh, you don't have a home church.

You're just going to wing it, right? Babies have mamas. If you have a baby church, you need to have a mama church somewhere.

You don't just plant yourself. There's got to be some accountability there. When Lighthouse, we were birthed out of the church in Chillicothe where my brother pastors, that church was birthed out of the church in Wilmington, Bible Baptist, Kelly McInerney. That church was birthed out of Dan Lamb's church in Hillsborough. That church was birthed also 50-some years ago. All these churches have churches that they came from. That is the biblical motto. Again, we have to always come back to the Bible. You say, well, I know a church.

They started up, and I'm just telling you. There's a biblical way to do things, and there's a man's way to do things. Sometimes God covers graciously when people don't do it the right way, but there is a right and wrong way to do that. Also, the church meets at regular times, Hebrews 10.25.

Look at what the Bible says here. Very important verse. It says, not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together. You assemble. You come together as the manner of some is.

They had people missing church back then, too. He says, but exhort one another. Encourage, edify one another to be a part of the body of Christ. Do that so much the more as you see the day approaching. Here the author of Hebrews gives an eschatological reason for attending church, or an end times reason.

Christ is coming back. Be serious about Christ's church. Be a part of that. Don't miss it.

Be in the assembly. The church meets on the first day of the week. You see that in the early church. They begin to meet on the first day of the week, Acts 20, verse 7, 1 Corinthians 16, 2. They brought their offerings on the first day of the week. The church is also the body of Christ where people serve and use their gifts, according to 1 Peter 4.

We'll talk about some of that later, in later times. But what about those who say, I don't have to go to church to have church. I can have church at home. I am the church. Well, when people say that, the ekklesia doesn't mean an individual. It means the assembly of the body of believers.

I mean, even the Roman Greco culture, ekklesia wasn't an individual at home. It was the people who came into the marketplace. They assembled together or in the town square. It was the assembling of the Jewish people before God. It was the coming together of the body of believers, 85% of the time local New Testament church.

It was them assembling together. You don't have church by yourself. You can worship God. You can sing praise. But the church is the assembly of the saints together.

I had a precious couple, older couple in the early service. They said, you know, we've been watching you online for quite a while since COVID. And they said this, we heard you say, you don't have church at home. We need to come to church and we're here.

And I'm like, praise God. So if you're watching online, I see you. You see me, I see you.

All right. This is usually when they tune me out. But you need to assemble. You need to be here. Who are you edifying when you're home by yourself?

Now, if you're sick and laid up and all that, that's the best option to do it. But if you can be here, you need to be here. You need to assemble with God's people. The church is the assembly of the saints. Ask the people who make such a claim this, who are the pastor and deacon of your home church? How many people have you seen saved and baptized at your home church? How have you actively carried out the great commission to the world? What missionaries are you sending out and supporting? What churches are you planting?

How do you carry out the observance of ordinances? Who do you give your tithes and offerings to? Those who make such statements reject the clear biblical teaching of the Word of God. In the New Testament, the people were always coming together. In Acts 1, they gathered together. Acts 2, they gathered together. Acts 2, 41, 3,000 were saved. They kept gathering together daily in the temple.

Acts 2, 46, Acts 3, 1, they went up to the temple together. The church was constantly together. Listen, I love being with the church.

I mean, I am so energized by the body of Christ. You are my family. You are a spiritual family that is honestly – when you come into a church body and you are part of the believers, that spiritual family will outlive your physical family because Pam is my sister in Christ and in a million years from now, she will still be my sister in Christ. So that relationship, that is why Jesus said, when they said, your mother and brother are outside waiting to talk to you, and he said, who are my mother and brother? He said, they that hear the Word of God and keep it. That is a more lasting relationship than even our biological – and I am so thankful for the biological family I have, but you need to understand the importance of that. Now, let me get to a second point.

I got at least to get to two. Now, why is the church important? Let me wrap this up somewhat quickly. So why is the church important? First of all, because the church is what Jesus is building. Notice what he said in Matthew 16, 18. He said, I will build my church.

I want you to ask this question. What else did Jesus ever say he was going to build? What other organization, institution did he ever say he is going to build? He did not say I came to build hospitals. I love hospitals. He did not say I am coming to build nursing homes.

I am so thankful for nursing homes, for orphanages. He did not say I came to build orphanages, government schools, military, any of that. He said I came to build my church. And if Jesus is busy building his church, I am going to tell you something. If you are going to be involved in what Jesus is involved in, guess what you are going to be involved in doing? Helping build the church. You are going to be a part of that at some level.

You have to be. You minister at work. You minister in society. You can minister in many different ways. But I am going to tell you, oh, that is just an extension of ministering through the body of Christ to a lost world, evangelizing, but also all of it should be connected to your local church. Jesus Christ came to build the church. I want to invest my life in what Jesus is building. I mean, if Jesus is, if physically, if you saw Jesus building a structure, you would be like, hey, I want to be part of physically doing that, right?

But this is a spiritual work that he is doing. Secondly, the church is important because it is the Lord's church. He did not say I am building Josh's church or I am building your church.

He said I am building my church. The church does not belong to me. It does not belong to the pastors. It does not belong to the people.

It belongs to Christ. You ever see the antique road show? I mean, it is like you watch it when your TV, like internet goes down and like everything breaks and it is like, oh, we have got one local channel.

It is channel 16. We have got the antique road show. And you start watching it and then you get intrigued, right? You are like, what is this painting going for? You know, what do you think this painting will go for?

And then you are captured and put your piece of chicken down and you watch that. And it is like this painting is, and they are like, this is worth, you know, $10,000. And you are like, there is no way that is worth $10,000.

I am going to go and be an artist. I could paint as good as that. And the artwork does not look like it is worth it. The reason it is worth that is not the beauty always of the painting, but it is about the signature at the bottom right hand of the painting. And I can tell you, friends, it is not the beauty of the church. It is the one who owns it.

That is what makes it so valuable. He has got to work with a mess sometimes, right? I mean, sanctification is a real thing. Like He is transforming us, sanctifying us, putting off the old man, putting on the new. He will continue to do that work till the day of Jesus Christ, Philippians 1 says. But He is, it is His church.

He owns it and that is why it is so valuable. Christ owns the church. And what is awesome in Acts 9, remember when He came to Paul and He says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting, why are you persecuting Me? And Saul was persecuting the church. Jesus so identified with the church, He said, when you are persecuting them, I feel it. That is the identification that Christ has with the church. How important is the church?

It is that important. Thirdly, the importance of the church is seen by the price Christ paid for it. In Acts 20 verse 28 it says this, take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseer. He said to feed the church of God, notice how He concludes it, which He or Jesus hath purchased with His own blood. The price tag of the church is the blood of Christ. Jesus bled and died to save sinners to build His church. Jesus died for the church and there are Christians today who take the church lightly. How can we take lightly what Christ bled and died for? I can't tell you, it has struck my soul before when I've had Christians say, you know, I just think people make too big a deal out of church, I don't think it's that big a deal and they just treat it casually. And I'm thinking, you must not know Christ in salvation, you're missing it.

How could you? He bled and died for the church and you're going to say it's not a big deal? You're going to take that with Jesus when He's crucified and blood's pouring from His body and He says, I bought her with My blood and you're going to say that's not a big deal? How can you know Him then?

How can you say you know Him and utter such things? Satan would say something like that. Satan would say the church isn't a big deal. Satan would try to get you out of church. Satan would say don't go this week. He would be the one pushing you away from church, away from being involved, away from giving, away from serving. He would try to get you away from what Christ gave His life for.

I can guarantee you that. I tell people through the years, just remain, just plug in and stay faithful. Seven days a week the world will try to pull you from this place and the question is who are you going to believe? And your body's going to say I'm tired, it's my only day off, if Jesus could rise from the dead surely I can get out of bed. If I can get up for money I can get up for my Savior and I can get up to worship with God's people and to love them and embrace them and encourage them and edify them and to feed the flock of God and encourage one another. You know in heaven the Bible says they're surrounding the throne of God worshiping Him for His death for them.

The importance of the church is also seen by His relationship to it. You know when Jesus says, I had a wedding yesterday, we have one next Saturday and we had one a week before, glad for Ray and Christian, these guys newly wedged two weeks into it, give them a hand this morning, excited for these guys. Look at all these newly weds around here, it's good stuff. So when Jesus was comparing like husbands, how should you treat your bride?

He says this is how. Husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. You know why? Because the church is His bride. The church is the bride of Christ. How would you feel if somebody verbally put your wife down? And when people put the church down they're putting down His bride.

And you know what? He says I'm going to prepare a place for you. That's marriage talk. That's what they did in Judaism. They would go into a betrothal period, the husband would go away and prepare his home and when it was ready he would come back and take his bride to his house. Jesus said I've gone to heaven, prepare a place for you and when I come back I'll receive you unto Myself that where I am there you may be also revelation. You get in the book of Revelation, what happens? You have the marriage supper of the Lamb. And the Bible says in the book of Luke Jesus will come forth and serve His bride.

This is going to be an incredible reality. The church is the bride of Christ. Number five, the importance of the church is seen by God's care for the church. Look with me to Revelation 1.

I just need to hit one last place. Revelation 1. So when you get into the Bible you have the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the four gospels that talk about the life of Christ. The book of Acts is the launch of the church. All that God was doing was through the avenue of the local church.

It's the vehicle that He was using. The book of Romans is like the constitution of Christianity. He lays out the doctrines of the church. You get into the next book is 1 Corinthians. He writes a letter to a church. Next book is 2 Corinthians, another letter to the church.

He writes a letter to the church at Ephesus, to Thyatira, or to Philadelphia, to Thessalonica, to Philadelphia. Then he starts writing letters to young pastors. First, second Timothy, that's a pastor he's writing to.

Titus was a young pastor. So you see the focus of Christ in His word is to the church. In Revelation, Jesus comes back and He's communicating to John, His apostle. Look at Revelation 1 verse 3. Well, we'll start in verse 1 actually. It says, the revelation of Jesus Christ which He gave unto Him to show unto His servants the things which must surely come to pass. He sinned and signified it by His angel unto His servant John. And He's saying, I bear record of the word of God, the testament of Jesus Christ. Now look at verse 3.

He said, blessed is, what's the next word in verse 3? He, that's one person, He that readeth, and what's the next word? They that hear. You know what they would do? They would write a letter to a church.

Somebody would get up and read it so that the they would be able to hear it. It's the church that gathered together. They would have public readings of the scripture. That's why we stand and read the word of God.

They did that in Nehemiah 8 as well. Now, if you go down to verse number 4, it says John, to the seven churches which are in Asia. He doesn't say to the church, not universal church, but seven local New Testament independent churches. There's seven different letters to seven different churches.

Local New Testament churches is what you find. Then you get to verse 11. It says, Jesus is starting to talk here.

He says, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and last. Let thou see us write in a book and send it unto the people that are sitting in their home watching TV or watching us to the, is that what he says? He says, write it to the seven ekklesias, the assembly of the saints that are in Ephesus. Write it to the assembly of the saints that are in Smyrna.

Write it to the assembly of the saints in Thyatira. These were local churches there. Then look at verse 13, and in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like the Son of Man, he saw Jesus standing in the middle of the seven candlesticks. He's like, what are the seven candlesticks? If you read verse 20, it says the seven golden candlesticks are the seven churches. Jesus is literally standing in the middle of his churches.

He comes back and he says, I want you to write seven letters to the seven churches. That's where Christ is concerned. That's what he's worried about.

That's what he's focused on. I want you to ask yourself this question. If it's that big a deal to Jesus, how big a deal should it be to us? So when you, when you through the week are like, I don't know if I'm going to go church Sunday. I can tell you growing up, we were the church hopping family.

We'd go, we'd usually go for two, three, four weeks and we felt like we earned a Sunday off. Don't raise your hand. Right?

Yes, sir. Oh, we've been gone now. Long day Saturday. We'd sleep in that day and it's like, yes. And then we had to go the next week cause we missed and the pastor might reach out.

But you know what happened? Our family would fall out of church through the years and you know what would happen? We would just compromise one Sunday.

It's incredible. We're like, you know, I don't think we're going to go this week. Then we'd go next week and then we're, you know, and then it was amazing. Sometimes it would just get us straight out of church for months.

We just get out. Once you begin to take lightly the things of God, I'm going to tell you, Jesus didn't put that on your heart. He didn't say take lightly what I told you to when he says don't, don't forsake the assembling. Is he going to come along and say, yeah, forsake it.

That doesn't mean you don't miss every once in a while because something comes up or you're sick or you have some obligation that you just can't get out of and that can happen. But I'm going to tell you, we live in a world that wants to non prioritize what God's doing here. Let me ask this question. Where else in Xenia is Jesus Christ being exalted this morning besides the churches? Is it at Walmart?

Is it at Target? It is nice that Target's made some adjustments on some things, but isn't it going to be in the churches? Where does the gospel going to be preached? Where are people going to be getting saved and baptized and discipled? The word of God is going to be taught.

It's here. We need to elevate what Christ elevates. We have multiple guys right now feeling like God's called them to preach and to start churches. And in the years to come, we've got cities we're beginning to pray about and identify to launch churches. We've already sent missionaries out to see churches planted overseas.

Listen, that work continues on and what you invest in here will have a ripple effect for eternity. I just know for my life, I want to pour my life into what Jesus poured his life out for. You will never regret being faithful to the things of God. I remember as growing up, we were bouncing around church hopping and once we finally got grounded in a church that preached the word of God, we began to go and it's like God set a fire in our family. We didn't go to Sunday school.

This is like a cuss word, isn't it? Sunday school is like the worst name in the world. Who wants to go to school on Sunday?

It's miserable. So we call it life groups here so it sounds a little better. So we started going to Sunday school. And man, I was like, man, I'm learning the Bible like crazy.

Me and my brothers and my family, we're starting to learn and grow. Then we're like, man, they have Sunday night service. These guys are crazy. And so we come out Sunday night and we're like, people actually came. So we started going on Sunday nights. Then we got so radical, they're like, they have it on Wednesday too?

We showed up on Wednesday. And I'm telling you, God began to set a fire and the more we came, the more we grew and the more we grew, the more we came, we started serving. We're like, hey, where can we serve? We can help vacuum the church and we can still clean some windows and we can help set up some classrooms and take out the trash. And we began to volunteer and serve. And I tell you, God set our family on fire. So I'm heal my parents' marriage.

No one in our home ever served in the ministry. Just a few months ago, I was reading my grandpa's diary. In his diary, he's since passed away many years ago. Very, very wonderful man. And at about 19 years old, 18, 19 years old, he says, I feel like God's called me to preach.

He says, but I can't do it because I got to work and take care of my parents. And then later on, he wrote in another place, I felt like God called me to preach, but I could never get to it. I felt like God called me to preach. And three times in that, I couldn't believe it.

He's never talked to us about that. And it's amazing that as you go down through the years that three of his grandsons are now preachers of the Word of God. I'm going to tell you something. It wasn't because of me. I would not be here if it weren't for the grace of Christ. But it was a grandpa, it was a grandma, it was mom and dad who were faithful to the things of God. And when my parents let us in faithfulness, faithfulness always produces fruitfulness. And as we begin to plug into what Christ was plugged into, and I'm telling you, everything in the world, sports, activities, was sucking our family out and we said, no, man, and we pulled away from that stuff.

And I'm telling you, you will never regret being focused and pouring your life into what Christ poured his life out for. If we as a people want to see God raise up a revival in our cities, it starts in the churches. He said, if my people, we read it today, right?

My people, which are called by my name, would humble themselves, seek my face, turn from their wicked ways, when will I hear from heaven? And it starts with the church. We have got to be people who are committed to the things of God. Listen, we're going to be talking about the church for a couple weeks and just, there are going to be some things that will be encouraging and helpful, maybe some teaching, some things, but make it a priority to be here. Make it a priority.

If you've never been on a Sunday night, come out, check it out. What I find too is this, and I got to be done, is the more you pour into things of God, the more time you have. It's crazy.

You would think, I don't have time for that. No, what happens is you begin to orchestrate your life right with God, and it's like, wow, I can't believe I have more time, more resources, more energy. All those things begin to work themselves out because you begin to live a life defined by what God says and not by what the culture says. It's an incredible thing. You won't believe me until you begin to do it, but I'm telling you, you begin to invest in the things of God. Be here Wednesdays as much as you can, and just plug in. Be faithful.