SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure if you're aware of the fact or if you've given much thought to it, but pretty much every organization exists by the permission of the state.
SPEAKER_00: From universities to soccer clubs, trade unions, charitable organizations, all simply because the state allows them to exist.
SPEAKER_00: Don't believe me, just think about Iran and what the state is able to take away.
SPEAKER_00: But then we have a higher question, an important question.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what about the church?
SPEAKER_00: Does the church exist because of the will of the state?
SPEAKER_00: Now, most of the time in our secular culture, we view the church.
SPEAKER_00: The church gets lumped into the same category as a soccer club.
SPEAKER_00: Or sometimes the church is seen as a service provider, like a gas station, where you go and fill up your spiritual tank.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible-believing Christian understands the truth that the local church does not exist by permission of the state.
SPEAKER_00: The church exists by the express authority of God Almighty, of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The state actually exists by permission of Jesus, not the other way around.
SPEAKER_00: As Jesus expressed a couple weeks ago, we looked at this scripture passage in Matthew chapter 16.
SPEAKER_00: After Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ, that he was the long-awaited king, the Messiah, Jesus replies to him and says, Upon this truth, Peter, upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overpower it.
SPEAKER_00: See, the church is not a club, it's not a voluntary organization.
SPEAKER_00: The church, as we saw last week, is a new people that have been sanctioned by God Almighty.
SPEAKER_00: And that church, the truth of the gospel, will form a church, and that will go to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And no power on earth, no even power in heaven, can stop it.
SPEAKER_00: It has been ordained and given authority by God.
SPEAKER_00: So when we ask the question, last week, uh I'm building a basis and I'm answering the question, who are we as a church?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Tonight I want to I want to give us two additional pictures as we think about who we are.
SPEAKER_00: So if you ask the question, well, wait a second, if Jesus is a king, then where is his kingdom?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the truth of the matter is, is the church makes the invisible kingdom visible.
SPEAKER_00: To use an analogy, the church is like an embassy.
SPEAKER_00: Does everyone know what an embassy is?
SPEAKER_00: So the United States has embassies all around the world.
SPEAKER_00: And when you are at that embassy, you are on US soil.
SPEAKER_00: And the embassy functions as an institution.
SPEAKER_00: It represents one nation inside another nation.
SPEAKER_00: And it always declares the interest of the home nation.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, the one that it represents.
SPEAKER_00: So the United States Embassy, that's in, let's say, London, England, represents the United States, even though it is in England.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and it is always protecting the home nation.
SPEAKER_00: So catch this: Jesus' kingdom is in heaven, and it is coming in the future, and he has left us as ambassadors of his kingdom to represent his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And he has established that his kingdom authority, the embassy, he has given to the local church.
SPEAKER_00: Now think about that again, because the local church, right, is the people of God gathered.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a fancy building.
SPEAKER_00: All right?
SPEAKER_00: It can be as small as a pocket of three or four people that are gathered in the name of Jesus because of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: They might meet in homes.
SPEAKER_00: They don't even have to meet in homes.
SPEAKER_00: They might meet out under an oak tree, as some of our partners in India do.
SPEAKER_00: But that is the church, the embassy of the invisible kingdom of Christ made visible on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Or to put it another way, the church is the gospel made visible.
SPEAKER_00: How do you know what this king is like?
SPEAKER_00: How do you know what his reign brings about?
SPEAKER_00: The local church is the expression of that.
SPEAKER_00: And the local church, the gospel, pulls together all that is separated within community.
SPEAKER_00: Remember last week, all the dividing walls that separate us, whether it be race or culture, socioeconomic, education, and on and on and all the dividing walls, the gospel of Jesus Christ unites in this one new people, the body of Christ, the gospel made visible on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: So when we read scriptures like Ephesians one, okay, and it says that we as a church are the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Christ made visible in local representation so that the whole world can see who our king is and what his reign looks like.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have time to go into it, but First Corinthians chapter twelve is a chapter that teaches extensively about the body of Christ and all the giftings, that we that there is one spirit and we are one body.
SPEAKER_00: United together, there is this huge emphasis on unity because everyone's body is united.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And so because of that, no member is insignificant.
SPEAKER_00: No member is insignificant.
SPEAKER_00: On your body, is there any body part that you would wish to do without?
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Even that little pinky toe that screams when you accidentally kick it on the bedpost, the whole body aches and it takes all your attention.
SPEAKER_00: Even consider the way that your body operates.
SPEAKER_00: I've used this before, but when my left elbow itches, it does not create its own sensation of vibration and takes care of the itch.
SPEAKER_00: What does it do?
SPEAKER_00: It sends signal all the way up to the brain.
SPEAKER_00: The brain runs signal to the other arm that says, Hey, your brother over there is itching, why don't you go scratch him?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's how the body works.
SPEAKER_00: No part is insignificant.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, for you to think that you are insignificant or that anyone else is insignificant would be in theological error.
SPEAKER_00: I know that we highlight the most visible gifts, but the reality is, is I am nothing but a glorified stomach that digests and spreads nutrients to the entire body.
SPEAKER_00: Furthermore, no uh every uh as a Christian matures, he or she begins to understand that dependence upon the local church, the necessity and the importance of the local church becomes more and more.
SPEAKER_00: As you mature, you understand the beauty and the magnificence and the need for the local church.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, how often I hear in our culture, I'm a Christian, but I don't need a church.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just fine, I can feed myself at home, I don't need that.
SPEAKER_00: And even in today, with technology and watching church online and all of those nice resources, but that disconnect you from the body.
SPEAKER_00: As you mature, you understand the beauty and the need and the dependence, the mutual care, the shared suffering, the shared joy of the body of Christ, the local church.
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, as you comb through 1 Corinthians chapter 12, uh, 1 Corinthians chapter 12 lends into the next chapter 13, and that is the need for love.
SPEAKER_00: What binds the body.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, there is a love, there's a unification, there's unity in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There's a humility that says, I am solely here because of the grace of Jesus, and that connects me to you.
SPEAKER_00: And you are my sister, and you are my brother, and we need one another because God has gifted you in ways that He hasn't gifted me.
SPEAKER_00: I see God in you.
SPEAKER_00: You are an expression of God that is unlike any other expression of God that I see, and I need to see it, and there's a beauty to it.
SPEAKER_00: You are not self-sufficient, you are dependent.
SPEAKER_00: We are the visible representation of the gospel, of the kingdom, the invisible kingdom, the embassy on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: That is who we are.
SPEAKER_00: Will you pray with me, Heavenly Father?
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for your magnificent plan.
SPEAKER_00: It is too wonderful for us to comprehend.
SPEAKER_00: We certainly wouldn't have come up with it, but the fact that you call us your body, you call us your own, your spirit is inside of us, and we are knit together.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray for our church, our local church, God, that we would continue to grow into a body unified with a deep understanding of our need for one another.
SPEAKER_00: And Father, we pray that you are pleased, King Jesus, as you look at your body.
SPEAKER_00: Um, may you be pleased and glorified in us.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.