When you think of a church, what comes to mind? What makes a good church? What is the church? As we start our new series, Ecclesia: A People Not a Place, JP teaches us that when we think about the church, a lot of us think something that Jesus never meant.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
-It’s easy to take a new convert to Christianity and tell them what the Christian life is all about. It’s very, very difficult to take someone who has been “in the church” for a long time and teach them a different way.
-The biggest problem in Waco, in the Bible Belt, is cultural Christianity.
-Cultural Christianity is when you think Christianity is for and about you. It’s about your preferences and making sure you are comfortable and like how things are.
-Jesus is the one who started the church, and because of that, He gets to determine what the church is, not us.
-When Jesus first talked about and used the word “church,” he would’ve been using it more like an army...the idea of “calling out His people;” assembling His people.
-The church is: People who belong to Jesus.
-You can’t go to church and you can’t watch church. “Going to” or “watching church” would be like watching AT&T Stadium play the Philadelphia Eagles...it’s a categorical mistake.
-When the disciples heard Jesus talk about the church they would’ve thought about the equivalent of Seal Team 6, not potlucks and Sunday school.
-To “bind” on earth means to forbid and to “loose” on earth means to allow.
-Again, the greatest evil in Waco is cultural Christianity. It doesn’t care about the things of God.
-The church cares about what God cares about.
-The very first spiritual force to oppose the church happened immediately after Jesus talks about the church for the first time: selfishness (or said differently, personal preferences).
-Do not let your preferences rob you of paradise.
-Holding the line for Christianity is no longer good enough. If you aren’t up for a battle, just fold. The church does win and it will prevail, but not in America based on the direction our country has been going.
-The church is always marked by people making sacrifices.
-What does it look like for you to give your life...your entire life, every single area of it...to Jesus?
-We gather so that we can go.
-Being enlisted in the military is extremely similar to how it should be in the church: “Here I am. How can I be deployed? How can I be of service?”
-The solution to all the problems in our land is the very thing Jesus started on a hillside 2,000 years ago.
-There is a war going on and we, Christians, are the soldiers Christ assembled to fight it with Him.
MENTIONED OR RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
-Suggested Scripture Study: Matthew 16:13-26; Romans 12:1-2
-Sermon Series: Fresh Start