Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Our dear Heavenly Father in Jesus Christ, you started something new and beautiful in the world.
[00:00:13] You created the Church.
[00:00:16] You call us the Body of Christ.
[00:00:19] You call us the Bride of Christ.
[00:00:23] And I pray that we can.
[00:00:32] Redefine for ourselves what it means to be a member of the Church, what it means to be part of the Body of Christ.
[00:00:45] It means to have a unity with other Christians that allows us to accomplish things in the world that we could not do by ourselves.
[00:00:59] So I call upon your name in Christ's name. Amen.
[00:01:07] What makes the Church different than other organizations in the world?
[00:01:15] There are a lot of organizations that are committed to doing good.
[00:01:22] Rotary Club does good. All over the world.
[00:01:26] There are many organizations that are committed to doing good, but they're not the Church.
[00:01:34] There's something different and unique about the church, so that no other organization in the world can accomplish what God has given to the Church to accomplish.
[00:01:52] And all of this begins on the day of Pentecost.
[00:02:00] In Acts, chapter 2, beginning at verse 14, Luke wrote, Peter stood up with the 11 and lifted up his voice and addressed a huge crowd of people.
[00:02:14] Men of Judah, men of Judea, all who dwell in Jerusalem.
[00:02:20] Let it be known to you and give ear to my words, for these people are not drunk as you suppose, since it's only the third hour of the day.
[00:02:34] Ah, if you read the earlier part of the chapter.
[00:02:41] The Holy Spirit came upon the 120 people who were gathered in the upper room.
[00:02:52] This is how Luke described it.
[00:02:55] When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.
[00:03:01] And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind.
[00:03:08] And it filled the entire house where they were sitting and divided tongues of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.
[00:03:18] And they were filled with the Holy Spirit. And they began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance.
[00:03:29] Pentecost means flesh. 50 Pentecost happened 50 days after.
[00:03:40] The Passover.
[00:03:42] So in the Old Testament, there were three national festivals that if you were a healthy person, you were committed to going to. The first one was the Passover, and it celebrated the freedom from Egyptian slavery.
[00:04:05] The second one was Pentecost, and it happened 50 days after the Passover, and it celebrated the wheat harvest.
[00:04:17] So in those 50 days or those seven weeks, the wheat harvest came in and they harvested wheat.
[00:04:25] And your offering at Pentecost in the temple was a loaf of bread made from the wheat crop that you had just harvested.
[00:04:37] So Jerusalem is packed with people from all over the Mediterranean world for the day of Pentecost.
[00:04:47] And the Holy Spirit descends on the church and it's a mighty rushing wind and it draws this huge crowd and Peter stands up to speak to them.
[00:04:59] Ah, You probably have heard that the Holy Spirit wasn't in the world before Pentecost. And in the Old Testament that's not true.
[00:05:16] The Holy Spirit has been at work in the world since the day of creation.
[00:05:22] That what happened on Pentecost was God moved the ministry of the Holy Spirit from working in the Old Testament church, in the temple, through the priesthood and all those rituals. And he moved the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the New Testament church.
[00:05:42] Ah, in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit worked primarily through the nation of Israel.
[00:05:49] In the New Testament, if you read Acts chapter 2, the Holy Spirit comes and it is universal. From Spain to Iraq, from Istanbul to Egypt, people of all classes and cultures are invited into the church and become partners with God in doing the work he wants to do in the world.
[00:06:22] And Peter wanted to explain this to the crowd.
[00:06:27] And so this is what he said.
[00:06:34] Ah, but this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel.
[00:06:40] In the last days it shall be God declares that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.
[00:06:50] And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.
[00:07:00] And on every male servant and female servant in those days I will pour out my spirit and they will prophesy.
[00:07:10] Ah, Peter is saying God is starting something new and powerful in the world.
[00:07:20] And it is a fulfillment of a prophecy that Joel made.
[00:07:27] The prophet Joel probably lived about 835 years before Christ.
[00:07:34] He was a contemporary of the prophet Elisha.
[00:07:42] And if you want to read about it, you can read about it in Kings and Chronicles.
[00:07:52] The There had been a coup and a queen had thought she murdered all the king's sons.
[00:08:03] But one of them was saved. His name was Joash and he was rescued. And when he was seven years old, they deposed the queen and they made him king.
[00:08:18] And all this is happening while Joel is a prophet.
[00:08:23] Now, now let's look at, let's look at the prophecy.
[00:08:29] In the last days it shall be declares God declares. Okay, what does he mean by the last days?
[00:08:39] Ah, the last days of the Old Testament church and the Old Testament Expect when the Old Testament church is coming to an end in the, in the last days of that Old Testament church, God is going to do something special and he's going to pour out his Spirit on all believers.
[00:09:04] Ah, I, I would like, I'd like some of you who have been poorly instructed about what women can and cannot do in the church.
[00:09:19] I would like you to look at what this says.
[00:09:23] It says, I'm going to. God is going to pour out the Holy Spirit on the church and your sons and your daughters will prophesy.
[00:09:35] Prophesy comes from two words, pro fame. And it literally means to say, to speak in front of people.
[00:09:45] All right, so I've had people rush up to me and quote me. The women have to be silent in church passage. But nobody rushes up to me and quotes this passage where it says God is going to pour out his spirit on all flesh and men and women. And they both will preach in the Old Testament. Women couldn't serve as priests.
[00:10:12] In the Old Testament, women couldn't serve in the temple.
[00:10:16] And this is part of the big change in the church. Not only is it universal in, in for all people of all races, universal for men and women.
[00:10:34] Ah.
[00:10:35] Ah.
[00:10:36] And then he says, you young men shall see visions.
[00:10:43] I read this as God does an incredible thing in the church.
[00:10:50] He raises up young leaders and he gives them a vision of what the church can be in their lifetime.
[00:11:00] I was once a 28 year old boy, believe it or not.
[00:11:06] And, and I had a.
[00:11:13] I had divine ideas from God about a church that could be in the world if I followed God and if I did what he was asking me to do. I had a vision of a church that could be in the world. And guess what?
[00:11:30] You're living in that vision today.
[00:11:39] In every generation, God is raising up young leaders.
[00:11:44] He's filling them with thoughts and ambition to make churches that make a difference in the world.
[00:11:52] And Joel said, that's an important part of what makes the church great.
[00:11:59] Ah.
[00:12:00] So I had my young man a vision and now I fall into the next category.
[00:12:06] And your old men will dream dreams.
[00:12:10] Often in the Old Testament, dreaming was connected with coming to understand God in a different and better way. God revealed himself to people in dreams. So I'm translating this. Your young men will have visions of ministry.
[00:12:30] Your young men and women will have visions ministry. And old men will think deeper thoughts about God.
[00:12:38] Do you hear this?
[00:12:41] If you're my age, it's time for you to get serious about thinking deeper thoughts about God.
[00:12:51] Can you hear this?
[00:12:53] And our church offers all kinds of classes and seminars to help you do that.
[00:13:01] And then he repeats it again.
[00:13:04] In those days, I will pour out my spirit and on my male servants and my female servants, and they will preach.
[00:13:17] The church is primarily a teaching and learning organization.
[00:13:23] Ah, ah.
[00:13:26] Ah, ah.
[00:13:28] God teaches through the church things that he's not going to teach anywhere else in the world.
[00:13:35] I believe you need to be in a healthy church and you need to be a regular attender, because this is where you're going to learn the things that God thinks are important, and nothing takes the place of that.
[00:13:53] The.
[00:13:54] The church is a teaching and learning organization, but it's also an organization that draws its strength not from itself, but from the Holy Spirit.
[00:14:05] From the very beginning, the Holy Spirit empowered the church. And the power to do what God wants done in the world is not you and I.
[00:14:16] It's the Holy Spirit at work in us and through us.
[00:14:22] Ah.
[00:14:26] Now, Peter quotes the passage in Joel, and the type of language changes.
[00:14:33] And Joel uses what's called apocalyptic imagery.
[00:14:41] I'm sure you've heard the word apocalypse.
[00:14:45] It means to uncover.
[00:14:49] And in the Old Testament, these prophets would use this real graphic imagery to tell us things about God.
[00:15:02] We don't read this literally. We read it as imagery. All right? And so this is what Joel said.
[00:15:13] And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below.
[00:15:21] Blood and fire, vapor and smoke.
[00:15:25] And the sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. All right, now, if you read this literally, you're going to misunderstand how this connects to Pentecost at all.
[00:15:47] But if we look behind the imagery and say, what does this imagery represent?
[00:15:53] Then we can get at the heart of what's happening at Pentecost.
[00:15:58] Apocalyptic language uses stunning words and pictures to represent ideas.
[00:16:06] When you went to school and took English, did you ever hear the word hyperbole?
[00:16:12] Hyperbole means to overstate something.
[00:16:18] Ah, it's here's hyperbole.
[00:16:23] That book looked like. That book looks to me like it weighs a ton. All right? Nobody takes literally that the book weighs a ton. It is an exaggerated way of drawing attention to how big a book is. Okay, well, that's what apocalyptic language does in a dramatic way. It draws attention.
[00:16:42] Ah.
[00:16:43] So the first statement is, I will show wonders in the heavens above.
[00:16:50] What does that have to do with Pentecost?
[00:16:53] The beginning of the church and the empowering of the Holy Spirit is a wonder even in heaven.
[00:17:04] I've showed you on several occasions that angels look at what we're doing and try to figure out what is God doing with those people.
[00:17:16] It is a wonder to them.
[00:17:18] Even angels wonder about the work of God in the church.
[00:17:23] And then he says there'll be signs on the earth Below.
[00:17:29] Ah.
[00:17:30] Ah.
[00:17:31] The apostolic age. It was not uncommon for the apostles to do miracles just like Jesus did.
[00:17:39] You can read in the Book of Acts, there's a lame man and. And Peter takes him by the hand and. And. And he has a divine healing. And. And Paul would lay his hands on people and, and they would be healed.
[00:17:54] They were the signs that the Holy Spirit was empowering these Christians.
[00:18:01] Ah.
[00:18:02] This signs on the earth below could also be connected to. Ah.
[00:18:09] Ah.
[00:18:10] About 35 years after Peter preached the sermon, the Roman army conquered Jerusalem.
[00:18:19] They burned everything they could burn, and what they couldn't burn, they pried over with pry bars. They ruined the city. It was a sign that God was done with the Old Testament church and all those things weren't needed anymore.
[00:18:38] Ah.
[00:18:39] And then we get blood and fire, vapor of smoke.
[00:18:47] All right, if you take that literally, then you have to start looking around for blood and fire, vapor and smoke, and you're not going to find it because it's meant to represent a time of extreme violence. It's meant to represent a time of extreme difficulty.
[00:19:13] So Joel is saying, and Peter quoted it, when the church begins, when the church originates, it's going to be a wonder in heaven and it's going to be accompanied by drastic happenings on earth.
[00:19:34] And then he says, ah, and the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood.
[00:19:45] Ah.
[00:19:46] I don't take this literally in either the sun is darkened, all life dies on the earth. We know that. Right?
[00:19:54] All right, so it is, it's a. It's a prophetic imagery and it's connected to. In Revelation, there's another image, and it says a great sign appeared in heaven. A woman clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars.
[00:20:18] Ah, that represents the nation of Israel.
[00:20:23] And it clearly, that's clear in the book of Revelation. All right, so the. When it says the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, it's saying that the, the powers and the authorities that ruled in Israel and the Old Testament Church, their time is coming to an end and they won't have the influence that they've had in the past because the church is taking over the. The ministry.
[00:20:54] Ah, this apocalypse, this apocalyptic imagery might also be connected to Christian persecution.
[00:21:07] This is, this is the annals of Tacitus.
[00:21:11] Tacitus wrote in the first century and he was a Roman historian, and he's not a Christian, he's a pagan Roman. But in his, in his annals, he talks about what happened to Christians during the reign of Nero.
[00:21:33] Would you like me to read you a little bit of it?
[00:21:44] In 64, Nero burned Rome. Everybody remember that he burned Rome, and he wanted to build himself this big palace.
[00:21:54] So after he burned Rome, everybody was angry and Nero was looking for somebody to blame it on. All right, so that's where. That's where this history begins.
[00:22:03] Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.
[00:22:17] Now, this is a guy who doesn't know understand Christianity at all, but he says the Roman culture commonly hated Christians.
[00:22:30] They were called Christians because the name comes from Christ, who suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate.
[00:22:49] A most vicious superstition, thus checked for a moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome.
[00:23:01] Listen to this. Where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular.
[00:23:13] Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty. Then, upon their information, an immense multitude were convicted, not so much for the crime of burning the city as of hatred for all mankind.
[00:23:34] Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths.
[00:23:38] Covered in skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished by being nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt to serve as a nightly illumination when daylight had expired.
[00:23:56] And then he goes on to say that it got so bad that even.
[00:24:02] Even the people of Rome recognized Nero was doing this because he was a sadist and it didn't really have anything to do with the Christians at all. All right, I'm telling you this because the prophecy that he quotes here says when the church is beginning its ministry in the world, there'll be conflict with the culture around it.
[00:24:31] And that conflict will lead actually to Christians being martyred. And here Tacitus, who's not even a Christian, is telling the history of how that was fulfilled.
[00:24:44] Are we good with that?
[00:24:48] Ah, so God is changing how he works in the world, and he's creating a church. And this church is countercultural. And it's challenging the world to think differently about God and to think differently about his values. That challenge leads to a conflict with the culture. All right, so what is the nature of the church?
[00:25:20] What constitutes a church?
[00:25:22] Can you just hang a sign out on the driveway and call yourself a church? Does that make you a church? No.
[00:25:30] To be a church, we have to have certain characteristics, and I wanna share those with you. First of all, the distinguishing characteristic of the church is people who gather there, profess their faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:25:47] I don't care what you call yourself.
[00:25:50] If you deny that Jesus is the Christ, if you deny that he is the Son of God, if you deny that he died on the cross to forgive our sins, you're not a Christian and it's not a church.
[00:26:04] Do you hear this?
[00:26:05] Ah.
[00:26:07] If I.
[00:26:09] I don't know. I don't know how this stuff happens.
[00:26:12] I. There are. There are whole denominations that call themselves Christian and they don't believe in the deity of Christ.
[00:26:21] All right?
[00:26:23] The second thing that makes us a church is the preaching of the gospel.
[00:26:28] If the gospel is not being preached, we're not a church.
[00:26:33] The third thing is the serving of the sacraments, baptism in the Lord's Supper.
[00:26:39] The fourth thing is biblical officers. The church can't invent its own structure.
[00:26:49] The structure of the church is given to us in the Bible. And that means to be a church, we have to have pastors, elders and deacons. If we don't have pastors, elders and deacons, we're not a church.
[00:27:03] And then finally, to be a church, we have to use our spiritual gift in serving Christ.
[00:27:10] One of the things that make us a church is you have a spiritual gift. The Holy Spirit anoints you just like he anointed them on the day of Pentecost. And we use our spiritual gifts together to do ministry.
[00:27:33] All right, I'm going to drag you through this church.
[00:27:38] I'm not winning right now, but I'm not giving up yet.
[00:27:43] And then, then the prophecy of Joel says, and it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
[00:27:54] The message of the church is the message of the saving faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:28:02] We have a message that we are obligated to share, and that is to tell people that Christ came into the world to save sinners.
[00:28:10] We have a message that we share publicly. We have a message that we share personally. And that message is, there is no other name given among men whereby you must be saved. We believe we are saved by faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:28:29] Romans 10:8.
[00:28:32] But what does it say?
[00:28:35] The Word is near in your mouth and in your heart.
[00:28:40] That is the word of faith that we proclaim.
[00:28:43] Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.
[00:28:52] For with the heart one believes and is justified, and. And with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
[00:28:59] For the scriptures say everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.
[00:29:05] The message of the Church is the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
[00:29:10] We confess our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:29:15] In fact, the Church very early on produced a confession.
[00:29:23] Many of you learned it as a child. It's called the Apostles Creed.
[00:29:28] For probably.
[00:29:29] It was probably written in the early three hundreds. It was probably written down and it was memorized before that. All right.
[00:29:39] Could I remind you of the Apostles Creed, Please.
[00:29:44] I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of the heaven and earth.
[00:29:51] I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day, he rose again. He ascended into heaven. He's seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
[00:30:19] I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.
[00:30:33] Christians have been confessing this for a thousand seven hundred years, probably longer than that. All right, here's my point.
[00:30:43] In the Church, the Holy Spirit comes and teaches us.
[00:30:48] We confess Christ and we're not allowed to recreate a theology that suits us and suits our generation.
[00:30:59] This business of anybody can believe anything they want and call themselves a Christian. It's not true.
[00:31:06] We cannot.
[00:31:08] We cannot throw out what the Church has believed for 2000 years and call ourselves Christians.
[00:31:16] We can't throw out the Apostles Creed and act like everything's going to be fine.
[00:31:24] We have to. We have to maintain correct theology that the Church has believed from the beginning.
[00:31:36] All right, Now I want to ask you two questions.
[00:31:45] Are you a Christian?
[00:31:50] What makes a person a Christian?
[00:31:54] You're not a Christian because your parents took you to church when you were a kid.
[00:31:59] You're not a Christian because you got baptized when you were a baby.
[00:32:05] You're not a Christian for these external ritual things.
[00:32:11] One thing makes you a Christian. A personal faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:32:17] Your personal faith in Jesus Christ leads to the Holy Spirit coming and abiding in you the very same way the Holy Spirit came on the Church on the day of Pentecost.
[00:32:31] We are Christians because we confess our faith in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit comes to abide with us. All right, if we can, if we confess him with our mouth and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. That's what Paul taught us. All right, if you're not a Christian if you have not put your faith in Christ. He's just a prayer away.
[00:33:01] Can you hear me? He is just a prayer away.
[00:33:06] It doesn't take.
[00:33:08] It doesn't take anything dynamic.
[00:33:17] It takes a moment of inner soul quietness where you say to Christ, I'm sorry for my sins and I'm asking Christ to forgive me and make me a child of God.
[00:33:30] Can you hear this?
[00:33:33] I know. I want to ask you one more question.
[00:33:36] Ah.
[00:33:38] What does the church mean to you?
[00:33:44] What does the church mean to you?
[00:33:50] You. You have families, you have jobs, you have. You have hobbies, you got a million things that compete for your time and your energy.
[00:34:01] What does the church mean to you?
[00:34:04] Okay, not asking you what should it mean to you.
[00:34:09] I'm asking you to be honest with yourself in this moment and say, ah.
[00:34:15] This is what the church means to me.
[00:34:19] Does the church mean to you what the Bible says it should mean to you?
[00:34:34] Do you have. Do you have a richer spiritual life because of your relationship to the church?
[00:34:41] Do you have a sense that you're growing and becoming a more healthy soul because of your relationship to the church?
[00:34:53] Or do you have a history with the church?
[00:35:00] Ah.
[00:35:02] Ah.
[00:35:04] And when you think about the church, you think about a time in your life when you got your feelings hurt or somebody didn't treat you the way you thought you should be treated, or somebody was judgmental with you.
[00:35:19] Ah.
[00:35:21] Ah.
[00:35:23] And the church has become a bit.
[00:35:34] Hard to trust.
[00:35:41] Some of you are sitting in those chairs and you remember a time when you was much more active in the church. You volunteered, you served, it meant something to you, and something came along and you got upset.
[00:36:03] And now you have two feelings about the church.
[00:36:09] One is the feeling that you think you should have, you're supposed to have. And the other one is the feeling that you really have.
[00:36:17] Are you listening to me, Church?
[00:36:20] If we're going to be the church that the New Testament says we should be, then there has to be a. There has to be a spirit of love and unity in the church.
[00:36:32] The Holy Spirit is the one who unites us together in love for each other and in love for the church.
[00:36:45] Before you, before you judge the church too harshly, could I remind you that Jesus loved the church and gave himself for it.
[00:36:57] Jesus knows more bad stuff about the church than you'll ever know.
[00:37:03] And guess what? He loved the church and gave himself for it anyway.
[00:37:10] Being a Christian means I am a follower of Jesus Christ.
[00:37:14] And I hope over these next couple of weeks to talk about the church in the kind of way that you develop a new zeal to live out your faith in a healthy way in the Church.
[00:37:27] Our dear Heavenly Father, I ask you in Jesus name that you will whisper to our hearts.
[00:37:35] I pray that you would do that work in our souls that only you can do.
[00:37:46] I pray that we would have a sense fresh love for Jesus Christ.
[00:37:55] And I pray that because we love Christ, we would love his church and we would be more.
[00:38:01] We would be more committed to being a strength and encouragement, a. An inspiration, a servant of Jesus Christ.
[00:38:12] And I pray that our church can thrive and glorify you and accomplish the purpose for which you created the Church. In Christ's name. Amen.
