Who Rules the Church

Good morning again Church.

This morning. We're going to start a series of leading the church fall word. And specifically this morning. We're going to be looking at who rules the church now if you were. Raised in the church, you know the Sunday School answer has to be Jesus and we'll get there we'll get there but there's important stuff. We need to get to along the way to understand why that is so important. So let me read a text for us this morning from Colossians 1:16 through 19 and then I'll pray for us and then we'll we'll get into this whole Topic in and discuss why it is we're even going here at this point. So I only read the text Colossians 1 16 through 19. For by him all things were created in heaven and on Earth visible and invisible whether Thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him and he is before all things in him all things hold together and he is the head of the body the church. He is the beginning the firstborn from the dead that in everything. He might be pre-eminent for in him. All the fullness of God was pleased to dwell take a moment to pray.

Ortiz's, I thank you for this morning and a chance to just lift you up Lord. We as your people your church gathered here this morning love the fact that we call you Lord. And so we pray that you would be lifted up during this time both in our hearts and in the words that I speak that I would be faithful to your your your word to us. And as we go through the series Lord, we would find ourselves increasingly loving being lead by you to your word. Or do we ask these things because we want to have the most Effectiveness we can as a people for you and your purposes in the world. So we pray this in your name. Amen.

If you are learning your social etiquette, you'll be told that there are two things that you should not discuss in polite company.

Religion and politics and tell her we're going to do for the next six or seven weeks here is talk about both of them. And so you may immediately upon hearing that given our current civil political environment around us immediately. Go Oh, no, the pastor is going to touch on politics. This is going to divide the church will all be closed in 6 months. No because what we're going after over the next six or seven weeks is a a study of how God wants his church to be Ron rather than how we want our civil government to be run. Now the great thing about it is I believe that as we look through what God has to say in his word about the church and what he desires for the church that we will be so much more appreciative of God's ways of working in his church when we compare it to the world around us. A lot of people they just think when they hear the word politics they think of civil government and it is true politics does include that but by definition politics is just the activities associated with the governance of a country or some other area definition, right? So all politics is is the activities associated with how things are governed. Now we've gotten into all sorts of things that qualify as politics and things that are political. But the reality of it is the church. Is governed in some way so the church is by nature a political it is not Democratic. It is not Republican. It does not have a blue or red color to it. The church is governed differently than our country and that's a good thing because the church doesn't just flourish in the United States the church flourishes around the world. And for the governance of the church has to be something that can happen regardless of the civil government environment in which it finds itself now it would be nice to be able to say, okay. Well, we know certain forms of government. We remember civics class. You've got monarchies you got oligarchies you've got democracies which one's the church An answer that question is yes. The Church of the mixed government the church is ruled by one and that sent the monarchy King Jesus. It is also led by what you could call an oligarchy a smaller group of people, but then it's also ultimately accountable in a Baptist context at least and many other churches are like this as well to the congregation of the whole you have a massive role to play in what the church does how its government and so really it's a little bit of all three of those things it's off a little democracy a little bit oligarchy and a whole lot monarchy. And we're going to look at why that's important and how we as a church can do better at moving forward when we understand why it's good that we are led the way we are. So you'll hear me use the term polity a bit. He recognizes connected to politics. Somehow polity is a form or a process of government self the different qualities a church can be under the different ways a church can be governed or constituted and there's lots of different ways that churches have found that function well for them, what we're going to be looking at is how does the bible seem to speak of these things? And then what does it look like in the church context to have a particular form of government? Within the church now.

First as we start out on this we probably should Define what a church is cuz we don't understand what a church is. It won't make any sense how it's supposed to be let your sitting here or sitting at home watching this and you probably think why do at a church is it said building that people Gather in know if you look in the definition in the dictionary, you will find a church is usually defined as a building where worship stuff happens religious activity might even mention like Christians or something like that cuz of mosques and temples and other things that other religions use for buildings of worship. But in reality that is so small a part of what defines a church I think the pandemic has done us a favor in this because we started to realize even this morning as many of our congregation is still connected to us remotely and not in the building physically, but it's not just all about the building. It's all about something else in the building exist to help us do the mission that we have been given better. So what the Church of Jonathan Leeman admits this is a fairly clunky definition, but he defines it this way. He says a local church is a group of Christians who regularly Gathering Christ name to officially a firm and oversee one of those membership in Jesus Christ and his kingdom through gospel preaching and gospel ordinances who that's a mouthful in it. Couple things did to focus on here. First of all, the church is a group of Christians. Now does that mean if you're not a Christian here this morning, you're not part of the church. Well, yes, and no and you're here with her gather, but like a members meeting a business meeting this afternoon who gets to vote at that. It's those that are actually members of the church Christians who have proof covenanted together. So the church is not just for Christians. It's for the world. But its members are defined as those who are Christians and regularly gather together. Now, the regular Gathering has become a unique thing now write me not only do we have the social pressures long before covid-19 along that said, hey soccer practice happens today on Sunday. So, you know, your kid can't make church and well, we got this activity in that activity and end in church is being pushed and pushed and pushed out of the idea of regular attendance for quite some time. Maybe even you yourself have found yourself a periods of time struggling with actually being in attendance when the church gathers hard-coded has just made it harder cuz it now well I can gather when everybody else does or I can just tune in later on in the afternoon, or I can just skip it this week and come in next week and and and I give Gathering really starts to to get lost and so our goal as a church then would be to figure out how regularly Can We Gather and how can I be a part of that and just figuring out what that looks like in any given season for you is going to be really important to figure out for you and for your family. So I got a group of Christians regular the Gathering. Those are two things that are important and then Christ comes into this not only in that we're Christians, but we're regularly Gathering because of him. We don't just gather because we're Social Club who likes to get together and have a common interest in Jesus. We Gather because of Christ and because of our Union in him, so the church went when Jonathan Lehman defines it as a firming and overseeing one another's membership in Jesus Christ and his kingdom what he's getting at there is that idea that you and I When We Gather at the church we are saying to each other hey You and I are on the same team here. We are connected to each other because we're both connected to Jesus. My promise to you is I'm going to encourage you and exhort you and help you to continue to show that reality in your life. And then your promise to me is and I'll do that for you to brother. Will make sure that we are able to say of one another. Hey, we're still together in this we still are bonded together in Christ. Jesus wear United to him and therefore United to each other.

Why? Why do we do all that one is worship We Gather for the purpose of corporate worship. Is it something glorious that we get to do? But even corporate worship is not the end in and of itself.

Living with social distancing we still have room here in this building. We all still know people who could join online and be part of what's going on in the church.

to the true purpose of us getting together is to be able to represent Christ better to the world.

We Gather in his name and We Gather for his purposes Methodist is something that maybe is a little harder for us as a culture than it is for some other cultures cuz we tend to be fairly individualistic. Many of you when you think of what it means to be a Christian think almost solely in individual terms. I have faith in Jesus Christ that saves me and my job is to live for Jesus and I experienced its and we just all the language we used to talk is very person base just me.

The Bible clearly points us to the fact that all things are not about us. All things are for and through Christ. And so we come together and we do things not for ourselves primarily, but for the kingdom as a whole that's why when let's say you have a job here and in Milwaukee and you're working and and I'll send your job leaves and it goes somewhere else in the country and you move to go with it. You don't keep your membership here in the local church when you move but you also don't get to a new place and go away. I guess I'll just never be part of a church again instead. You can you take your membership at accountability of how you're doing for Christ and his kingdom and you take that from here and you put it in a new local Gathering. Your membership moves from here to there why cuz they can help hold you accountable for your walk with Christ and Minister side by side with you to get the gospel everybody else. Why it's okay that there's more than one church around for people to gather in his local churches can be more effective in their local communities than they could on a global scale by themselves. Then what do we do when we get together to help equip ourselves for this preaching that's a large part of it and we spend a large majority of the corporate worship time together in preaching. some people today, especially look at and go that's pretty weird and can't you have like a 10-minute talk and we can do I'll just sit around have coffee and chat with each other we could But there's been something about preaching Through the Bible where somebody has taken time to go through and study something particular and then bring it to help equip the rest of the Saints win, so they have to put in those hours at doing it, but they can benefit from it and be able to apply it to their lies and use it to minister in Kingdom context. So heralding or preaching God's word is always been Central. And then there's what we call the ordinances baptism Lord's Supper ways. We show each other by declaration and baptism. Yes. I have you been United with Christ and I've been United with him in his death burial and resurrection. And so we actually visually show that when you get baptized you make that declaration to the church into the world I am in Christ. And then we get together as a body every other month on the 1st Sunday right now is how we do it here other churches do it every week some do it every month some do it. Every quarter we get together. We observe the Lord's Supper. It's not just about drinking some grape juice and eating a cracker. Stop declaring together that Christ has died for our sins. And we're in him. We're to remember what he's done for us until he comes again.

That's what a church is the people who are Christians who come together in Christ name to to hold each other up in this walk of Faith to be able to be effective for Christ and his purposes in the world.

So understanding qualities of form of government and that's what churches than church polity is the way in which we govern ourselves to best reach out to the neighborhood in the nation's. At this point some of you may be going why is this important?

It really matter aren't there other things we should focus on as a church. There are always things we can focus on is a church. But I think it's good for us at times and in the history of our church to to really focus on some key areas cuz they can get neglected if we never talked about him. We just keep doing stuff the way we've been doing if that's the way we do.

It's important because the church is God's plan A B C etcetera. God's plan for reaching the world with the gospel is not just individuals and it is not just parachurch organization's God's plan to reach the world with the gospel is the church. And so understanding how God wants his plan a to be governed is very very important cuz we get it wrong. We might not be able to effectively get the gospel to people. See when things aren't governed well. Chaos and confusion tend to rain. And at least things run poorly when they're not governed think of a car engine for a moment. Have you ever been in a car that was not well, too. Maybe in the old days you would be working with the the carburetor to make sure the fuel-air mixture is Right nowadays. It could be some computer problem that's causing stuff not to work correctly and the car just runs horribly all over the place making horrible noise. What's the problem? All the pieces were not coming together in the engine in the right way at the right time for it to do what it's supposed to do.

We've all been part of things that are poorly LED. We've all seen the effects of it. Maybe even right now in your job. You look around and go. Yeah. I know what poorly LED looks like I experience it every day at my job. Okay. Use that example. But then look at it in light of the church.

Cuz here is no reality. If your job is poorly managed your company might not make much money and you might have a horrible time at your job. What is the church is poorly LED and poorly managed? Eternal lives are at stake not just finances. And so we have to realize that as much importance as we would put on on how things are governed in the world as a whole. It should make that much more difference to us in the church because what the church is doing has such significance eternally for the lives of people that are engaged or not engaged.

So by following God's plan for governing his church. We can protect and proclaim the gospel to our neighborhood and Nations for generations to come. If we get it, right we do it better. Into the degree that you get it wrong. I'll do it worse. There are some that have gotten it so wrong that the church itself actually ends up dying off. Until we want to be careful in how we go about this over the next few weeks. We're going to lifting up from scripture God's plan for leaving the church. Which of the sediments the political turmoil is going on should help us even more thankful for how God leads his church. Is we don't have to have the same sort of squabble and acrimony and fighting and everything that goes on in the politics of the world within the politics of the church. We can look at how God wants things to be structured and be able to enjoy fully encourage one another in that process.

Mouse morning, I want us to focus in on that texting Colossians and another one that's in Ephesians to look specifically affect the top of the food chain. So to speak with in the leadership of the church every Organization for the most part has some sort of top leadership. Can you look at the the government here? We have a president. Can we have a Congress? And we have a supreme court of the three main branches that are at the top of their actual on of things and we've got other layers that go down underneath. So who's at the top of the church? Who rules the church the answer is Jesus now, it seems like an obvious answer.

But we need to understand why it's important. It's all read Ephesians 1 22 and 23 plays off the the same writing called in Colossians 1 NIV Ephesians 1 he says and he meaning dog put all things under his meaning Christ feet and gave him Christ as head over all things to the church, which is his body the fullness of him who fills all in all

So who plays Jesus in charge do we vote Jesus in do we get to vote? Jesus out? No God the Father placed Jesus as the head of the church.

This is one of those places where democracy does not apply. God gets the saying that and we don't. And praise the lord we don't cuz if we did we probably screw it up pretty quick. Jesus has never made a mistake and so he asleep perfect person to lead the church.

Testing this text and in the one in Colossians, he's given, is that the head? That's easy to understand head body connections glad scripture uses things that are real practical examples for us a body can't function. Well without a head just doesn't work. the church cannot function without Jesus Christ. It is not that the church won't function as well. If Jesus is in present the church ceases to function it ceases to exist. The moment Christ is not its head.

And so if Christ is the non-negotiable head of the church, we as a church always must submit to his leadership. Oh, you just said the submit word that's really hard for us to me. Like we have to do everything. He tells us to do like who put him in our way. May God put him in charge. Okay, so we really do have to do everything he says. Yep. That's the non-negotiable. Whatever Jesus says his church should be his church should be and whatever Jesus says his church should not be his church should not be now the great thing for us in scripture as we're going to see over the next group of weeks is He's not overly precise in the cultural ways in which church gets done which is why we can sit here and do church one way and a church in China can do something different and a church in Ethiopia can do something different that is culturally connected to who they are and what they're about and still be honoring Christ as their head the entire time.

What is clear on some things and we want to make sure we as a church are clear on what we're supposed to be doing. Think one place. We honestly wouldn't go to look for this would be his Great Commission in Matthew 28. Go into all the world and Make Disciples of all men baptized in the name of the father Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to obey everything. I have commanded you and I will be with you always Till the End of the Age was right that the Great Commission concept is pretty clear to a lot of us. Disciple making is the the key component of what God wants his people to do we go and bring the word about Jesus to each other and to those who don't know. I'm going to go throughout the scriptures and look for lots of other places where Jesus is going to tell us things. We should do and things we shouldn't do as a church. And that just highlights one of the key things we need to understand when it comes to how do we submit to the leadership of Jesus as a church? We do that by understanding and applying his word. We will just make things up in our mind about what we think Jesus wants. We actually go to his word and then we read through scripture and we find it and then we figure out once we find it. What are we supposed to do with that? So why is preaching Central in the life in the church? Because it's the exposition of God's War which helps us understand what we're supposed to be doing.

We cannot function as a body without her head regularly giving us commands as to what we're supposed to do. And Jesus clearly calls us to things in his word. So we must as a church be word based people. You don't have a relationship with Jesus simply because Jesus magically appeared to you and said follow me least. I don't think many of you do. Almost everyone in this room the way we came to know Christ with somebody who knew his words and knew him because they had learned of him in his words came to us and told us what they knew about him. And then we encountered him and said wow, that's real. She's real and I'm going to follow him and then we start to have a relationship that was backed up by all these things that God had told us about himself in his word. Yes at its core our relationship with Christ is what makes us Christians, but the way we developed and develop on an ongoing basis that relationship is through his work. We learn of him and we learn what to do in light of him through the scriptures. If we ever lose our focus on Jesus. We cease to be a church.

Scary thought and encouraging thought cuz there really is one thing that you need to keep in mind all the times the church Jesus. Then get your focus right there. All the other things will hopefully fall into place as we continue to pursue him and drop closer to him.

If Jesus ever not welcome here. He will not be avoiding Northwest Baptist Church will be avoiding whatever it is that it's become that's a no longer in church.

This is not new. This is something that's been a struggle since the church started. I think I can book of Revelation for a moment. There's a section the beginning where John and counters cheeses and meats him and learns about all these things that are going to go to going on and then Jesus starts to tell him about the seven churches that are represented by the seven lampstands that are there. When he comes to One Church in particular the church at Ephesus, you may be familiar with the church in Ephesus because of the book of Ephesians which Paul wrote to them to encourage them in their walk with God. And this is what John just decades later is writing to the church at Ephesus.

He says Jesus told him this about the church at Ephesus Revelation 2 4 and 5. But I have this against you that you've abandoned the love you had it first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen repent and do the works. You did it first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.

How many of you know much about the Church of Ephesus? But I'll tell you this they don't have a lampstand anymore. Physically city of Ephesus is now an archaeological dig in Turkey. It's not a thriving City right now. But spiritually it has died as well. modern-day turkey where it's located is currently less than .2% Christian lesson 2 out of every thousand people in Turkey would call themselves Christians.

The witness of the church at Ephesus has been lost. I'll praise God the witness of his church of the whole has continued right? It's not like he took the lampstand from Ephesus away in the whole church. I know he is still going about his purpose but they are not functioning in the role that they could have had had they truly repented and gone back to the love. They had it first.

The fact that we are here right now as a church is because God has seen to it that we are still holding on to Christ.

And to the degree that we find ourselves not holding on to him. We should be warned by the church at Ephesus and repent and turn back to Christ and follow him and him alone.

Why? Cuz there's nothing more important for the church than Jesus.

People often ask certain Christians who who tend to talk about their faith in Christ all the time. Why do you do that? Why you always talk about Jesus? The answer if you're one of those people that you can give back is this there's nothing better for me to talk about. list other interesting things to talk about for sure a lot of us have great hobbies and things and and jobs that are unique and relationships and places we visited and how's the weather today and all sorts of stuff we can talk about there's nothing more important.

And we could talk about than Jesus.

So who rules the church Jesus rules the church, he is ultimately in charge all of us answer to him and some of you may be sitting there going list is not sound all that earth-shattering. Come on like yeah. Jesus is in charge. We all knew that didn't we? If you don't think that that statement is controversial that Jesus is Lord of the church, praise God because there's a lot of churches entire denominations that have been struggling with this very thing.

Their churches that have abandoned God's word for whatever they think will work best for them. Their denominations whoso reimagined Jesus into whatever image they like him to be for them that he is unrecognizable in Scripture. And probably would be unwanted if he ever showed up at one of their gatherings.

Be able to truly acknowledge as a church that Jesus is the lord of the church. Is a testimony to God's faithful provision for his people? If you can say it and mean it. praise the Lord for that

but also keep in mind. We're not immune.

Churches do not fall off the deep end usually in one Sunday. It's usually a gradual slide over time where yeah, well we used to do stuff like that. And yeah, we used to sing about Jesus more but now, you know, there's other things they really mad. And eventually a generation or two down the road. They find like Jesus is over there and they're over there and the two never meet.

Bruce Lowe gradual

We are not immune from that. We need to be diligent in making sure that we are committed as a people to Christ continuing to be Lord of this Gathering. Secondly, there are lots of good bible-believing churches out there who view individual Church governance differently. I'm really look at some of these in the weeks to come but the reason this shouldn't be all that earth-shattering that Jesus is Lord is cause for most bible-believing churches. This is the one thing we all can agree on. You may call your guy this or your person that or this type of leadership here that thing there this person can do this. This person can't in our church. We've always different qualifications. But for any church that serious about the Bible, we all can agree. Jesus is the one in charge and so it shouldn't be earth-shattering to our ears because we should know that's just a mark of the church in general what defines the church we are Christians. We are followers of Christ who Gather in Christ's name and so he have to be Central to the whole thing.

Where do we go from here? On the weeks to come we're going to look at areas in the Bible where the early church God established and what types of things they did to have their churches lead. Well, Some of the things we're going to be reading about are what we call descriptive they describe what was going on in the life of the early church. It doesn't necessarily mean it has to be the same way for us. I'll give you an example says in the book of Acts that they met in Temple courts and house-to-house. Now that does not mean that we need to go find a temple with a large Court outside to meet in for our big services and then meet and everybody's house on a weekly basis. It's descriptive of what was happening for them, but we don't have to do it that way. We don't meet in Temple courts. We meet Sundays here in the building and we need online currently.

And yes, we do have small group that sometimes made in people's homes. And sometimes they met here at the church and all of those things are okay because that the passage in scripture was descriptive of what was going on. But there are other passages in Scripture that a werewolf called we would call prescript if they tell us they prescribed to us what the church should do throughout history regardless of its cultural context. And those are the ones we want to make sure that we're listening to and say hey how we doing on that? And then there's going to be some that we're going to have to really Russell through and say is this descriptive vs. Prescriptive. This is describing something that was going on or is this telling us something we should be doing? If we waste through some of those texts. We might not all come to perfect agreement on whether or not this is something we have to do or something we could do. Will be fascinating I think for us to look through the word and really study what it has to say on the matter. And all the while as we discuss the different leadership ways the church can be run. We'll always have in mind today. Fact that Jesus rules his church and won't lose sight of that in the midst of the other discussions we have is we go through the texts. That's my prayer for you. By the time we get towards that the Christmas season we go to start Advent we leave this series with an understanding of what Christ is calling us to and A Renewed desire to see us as a church lead in such a way that we are maximally effective for Christ in it. So if we go to prayer, what should you be praying about? 1 pray for our church that we would never lose our Focus On Christ. Let's not take that for granted. Let's not just assume. Oh, yeah, we're all going to always love Jesus. No way about that as a people board. Will you continue to show yourself as king here in our hearts as individuals and in our church as a whole and to I think it would be helpful for us as we're praying about the Lord ruling the church Lord.

What is that look like for me? What does it look like as a Christian Gathering other believers that as I'm talking with them as I'm encouraging them as I'm studying the word with them as I'm singing with them if I'm praying for them and with them, what is it look like for me to acknowledge not just passively say yeah. Yeah, Jesus really look like for me to have ubicentral and all those things that we're doing is a church.

And different ones but it's kind of different ideas so I can come out at prayer because God has gifted each of us differently until the way we help each other keep christ-centered is as diverse as the people are in the room. If we go before him and say what's my role and that and you will find that you have something to bring something to offer to your brothers and sisters that draws them closer to Jesus and what better things. Could you have for them? Cisco before the Lord and seek his help on this and in a couple minutes, I will close us and then we will sing our parting song.