890 What Did Jesus Say About the Church Pt.1
What Did Jesus Have To Say About... • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 7 viewsNotes
Transcript
- In the early centuries of the Christian church she suffered much persecution from the Roman Empire
- The Emperors felt threatened by the emergence of this new religion that proclaimed a new king & that refused to worship both the Caesars & the Roman gods
- Then comes a moment in the early 4thC. that changed history
- A Roman Emperor adopted Christianity
Before the battle against his last rival, Constantine, the son of Constantine Chlorus, had a dream. He saw a cross with the words: “In this sign, conquer.” Constantine replaced the Roman eagle with crosses, carried as standards and painted on his soldiers’ shields. On October 27, 312, at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, just outside Rome, Constantine did conquer under the sign of the cross, and the new Emperor gave the credit to the Christian God. In January of the new year, he issued the Edict of Milan, which proclaimed that subjects of Rome could follow any religion they chose. - Dr. Gene Edward Veith1
- However, since the Emperor endorsed Christianity the government started to favour Christianity
- As time went on, the church began to take on the form of the government & the government, the church
- The 2 were becoming one
---------------------
The state gave its wealth to the pagan temples, so now government money flowed to the church, with all of the temptations and complacency and materialism that great wealth can bring. Christian priests replaced pagan priests as official advisors and prognosticators, sanctioning the imperial court with prayers and ceremonies as the pagan priests did with their sacrifices. The church also became politicized, with the emperor exerting his will in matters of church government. - Dr. Gene Edward Veith2
- There are some questions that can come out from knowing this
Q. Can the church be a political body? Is that what Christ made us to be?
Q. Are we to identify the church with the kingdom of God?
- So that in this age, the church can & should rule the world?
1. The Church Is the “Remnant” of Israel
1. The Church Is the “Remnant” of Israel
18 “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
Q. What did Jesus mean by this? Who or what is His church?
- When we speak of church, we speak of a gathering or a congregation of God’s people - Was this not Israel?
- In fact, isn’t Israel suppose to be the people of God
----------------
- But of course, Israel was unfaithful to God
- Time after time, God rebuked them for their idolatrous worship of other gods & eventually He started to make strong statements against them
20 Now in that day the remnant of Israel, and those of the house of Jacob who have escaped, will never again rely on the one who struck them, but will truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. 21 A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. 22 For though your people, O Israel, may be like the sand of the sea, Only a remnant within them will return; A destruction is determined, overflowing with righteousness.
- God sent judgement upon the unfaithful Israelites
- The Assyrians conquered the northern 10 tribes of Israel & according to their policy removed the people of the Israel from their land & scattered them to all the nations
- But God is faithful to His promise to Israel & a remnant was spared
---------------------
- When Jesus started His ministry & sent His disciples out, He sent them specifically to Israel
5 These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: “Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; 6 but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
- When Jesus was approached by the Canaanite woman whose daughter was possessed by a demon, he ignored her but she kept shouting to get their attention
- His disciples were so frustrated by her they called on Jesus to send her away
24 But He answered and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, “Lord, help me!” 26 And He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 27 But she said, “Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus said to her, “O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed at once.
-------------------
- Did something change, since Jesus ends up going beyond only Israel?
- It seems to have been nothing but the same remnant policy that God adopted
- Many Israelites turned their back on Jesus & rejected both Him & His message about the Kingdom
- But the ones who accepted it, we could call a remnant - a remnant through faith
- Even though Jesus didn’t use that word, there is a group that He gathered to Himself – a group that included more than just Israelites
----------------------
- They are the faithful ones – the ones who accept what God was doing in & through Jesus
- All those who received His message became the true Israel of God
- But of the Israelites who would not listen to God
12 but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
-----------------------
- Those that came to Jesus became known as His little flock
32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.
---------------------
- It was a unique relationship
- The usual relationship of a disciple to his Rabbi was one where the disciple bound himself not to the Rabbi, but to the Law of God – the law they call Torah
- But it was different as a disciple of Jesus – the disciple of Jesus didn’t bind himself or herself to the law – to Torah - they bound themselves to a person, the Person of Jesus
- This relationship it is said to utterly unique & has no parallels in Judaism
--------------------
- In today’s passage, Peter is identified as the rock & through His confession of Jesus, Jesus will build His church
- Remember, Jesus chose 12 disciples He named as apostles
- The figure of 12 is reminiscent of the 12 tribes of Israel & so what we have here is the true Israel of God
- The apostles represent, as in the OT, a remnant of those who are faithful to God
- They recognise that Jesus is from God & they have placed their lives in His hands
------------------
- There is no hint in the context of an ongoing leadership that Peter can pass on to his successors – in other words, there is nothing here to suggest that Peter was the first pope & that he could pass on this mantle to others
- In fact, as much as Peter is said to be a rock foundation, he readily could become the rock of stumbling, as the next verses show
- After Jesus told him He was going to a cross, Peter replied “Never Lord, this shall never happen to You”
23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”
2. The Church Is Not the Kingdom
2. The Church Is Not the Kingdom
- When the church started to tie itself up with the Roman Empire & in ruling alongside the government, it was easy to think that the church was the kingdom of God
- After all, it seemed that God was ruling the world through the church
- In Rev. the 12 apostles are seen as the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem which is coming down out of heaven to earth
14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
- Last week’s reading where the Lord talked about going away to receive a kingdom & while gone, He gave minas (some of money) to His slaves to invest so that when He returns, He will receive a return
- The ones who made a return were given rule over a certain number of cities
- Now this is talking about after Jesus’ return, but it still became easy to read into it the authority to rule in a political way
-------------------
- Of course, when the church started ruling with the state, it opened itself up to so much corruption
- The world is fallen – it cannot be redeemed
- In fact, it’s judgement has already been spelled out by the apostle Peter
11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
But not only did the church begin to influence the culture; the culture began to influence the church. Under Diocletian, there were no nominal believers, no one who joined the church except out of the deepest conviction, since confessing Christ was punishable by death. But once Christianity became politically-correct and culturally-fashionable—indeed, a means of advancing in the Emperor’s favor—joining the church lost its edge. People embraced Christianity without necessarily understanding its teachings or having true faith in Christ, bringing with them into the church their pagan worldviews. - Dr. Gene Edward Veith3
- If the church is the kingdom then it is a sorry kingdom indeed
------------------
- But the church is not the kingdom
- The 12 apostles are representatives of the church – Jesus’ little flock
- They represent all those who accept the present offer by Jesus of salvation from sin & everlasting life
- Jesus raised a new congregation to displace the nation that was rejecting His message
- The ruling function spoken of in Revelation is a future rule in the new heavens and new earth, not now in the present age of sinfulness, corruption, death & decay
-------------------------
- As I was saying last week, the kingdom is the rule of God & that rule is spacial, not territorial
- God’s rule is over those who receive Jesus Christ as Lord & Saviour
- The church is the gathered people of God who receive Jesus & who receive Him as their King
- The church are the people of God who willingly sit under His rule
----------------------
- When the missionaries went out, they didn’t preach a church or a denomination, they preached the kingdom of God
- God’s dynamic rule had come – He indwells those who receive the cleaning of Jesus & His rule in their lives
- This rule, as you all know, is not tyrannical or coercive
- It is a rule we have requested
- Remember, when we received Jesus, it was on the basis of His terms & conditions – crudely put I know, but true, none-the-less
23 And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. 24 “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.
- As much as we are His little flock, we also acknowledge Him as the good shepherd – He guides & protects His flock
- He calls His disciples, friends, but He also outlines the relationship in parables
- In that parable last week, He addresses His people as doulos slaves
- The Jews cry out in that parable: “We will not have this man rule over us”
- Here is the essence of the kingdom – those who bend the knee to Jesus enter the sphere of God’s kingdom rule & they will also inherit it
- Those who reject Jesus, reject the kingdom
17 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
- In other word, respond to the message of the kingdom
- He demonstrated God’s rule over all the facets of life, did He not!
- Sickness, disease, over demons, Satan, over the forces of nature & even over death
28 “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
- I hope you can see that the church is not to be understood as the kingdom
----------------------
- The church is actually created by the kingdom
- As God’s rule has come upon the earth in a spacial way, the kingdom rule of God brings out from the world, people who willingly live under that rule
- The people of Jesus are these people
- It is the kingdom that has created the church
-----------------------
- Matt. 13 has a number of kingdom parables
- The head parable in this series & the tail parable in this series are alike
- One is on the wheat & the tares & the other is on the dragnet where the fisherman catch all kinds of fish
-------------------
- Both parables talk about the end – when the day of salvation & judgement arrives – let’s look at the last one in this series
47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, and gathering fish of every kind; 48 and when it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down and gathered the good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away. 49 “So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, 50 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
- The world is filled with those who believe in Christ & who live for Him & who obey Him - but also those who ignore Him or outright work against Him
- The kingdom of heaven is like this big catch-all net
- The offer is made to the whole world & a number of people accept the offer, but there may be those who end up saying “Lord, Lord” why am I excluded - the answer will be “you are lawless & uninterested in the Father’s will”
- As in various stages of church history, some people in the church may not have been there because of Jesus
-------------------
- The world is filled with these 2 different kinds of “fish”
- The church is a place where we welcome those who have come to Christ but we are aware that, like the world, there can be bad fish or tares even in the church
- God does the sorting for either salvation or for judgement at the end of the age
----------------------
- But what happens when like, the early Roman Empire that was ruled by church & government alike, becomes corrupt?
- Did Jesus give a means by which the world was to be kept out of the church?
--------------------
- There is a standard to be kept in the church & the church is responsible to ensure that we all live in consistency with Jesus’ kingdom principles
- We can only go by what the Lord tells us in His word
- When the ways of the world come into the church, there is a process we call church discipline which is to help those in Christ to stay on track with Him
If, in the end, a person insists on behaving like the bad fish, then Jesus says
17 “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
- Gentiles & tax collectors were shunned in Israel – they were considered outsiders
- Jesus is saying that if a person refuses to live under the kingdom rule of God’s word, then they are inn serious risk of the judgement of God & should not be part of the community of God’s people - for 2 reasons:
1. It will bring further corruption into the church if not checked
2. It will be disastrous for the person who has refused repentance
------------------
- This does not mean that the situation is hopeless
- The isolation & separation from the saved community is meant to bring that person to a shock realisation that they are flushing their relationship with God down the toilet & that they need to humble themselves & be responsive to God’s correction
-----------------
- Paul dealt with a situation in Corinth where a man was in an illicit relationship with his father’s wife – I.e. his step-mother
- Paul told them to hand the man over to Satan – that is, put him out into Satan’s territory – out of the church & into the world
- The ultimate aim is two-fold: 1. his fleshly nature (his sin) will be destroyed (he will repent), & 2. as a result, his spirit (as with every other Christian) would be saved on the day of judgement
- The whole process is aimed at the good of this fellow
6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.
- If he will not repent, the guy is shot – he’s doomed to face a negative judgement
Q. How do we know this? A Christian who knows the word, knows this to be true
- The Scriptures are plain that a man in a relationship that offends God like that one will not inherit the kingdom – repentance & change is needed
-----------------------
Q. Who are the ones who truly love him? Does the church care? Does the church act in faith for the good of this fellow, or would they take the path of least resistance so that they don’t look bad to the world – that’s what usually happens
- So these people are left in their sin & the ultimate judgement that awaits them – now who are the ones who truly love – think about that!
- Things are not always as they seem!
-----------------
- Someone might say, “Who are we to judge”? We are Jesus’ representatives & are a people who live under His commands, not the commands & dictates of the world
--------------------
- Ultimately, in the end, God will have the final say
- The kingdom of God, is God’s rule, the church is a people who submit to His rule
God’s kingdom has come in Jesus the king,
He died and He rose, redemption to bring;
Yet still we await the glorious day
When Satan and sin no longer hold sway. —D. De Haan
1Dr. Gene Edward Veith, Tabletalk Magazine, August 2004: A Defining Era: The History of the Church in the Fourth Century (2004)
2Dr. Gene Edward Veith, Tabletalk Magazine, August 2004: A Defining Era: The History of the Church in the Fourth Century (2004)
3Dr. Gene Edward Veith, Tabletalk Magazine, August 2004: A Defining Era: The History of the Church in the Fourth Century (2004)
Q.