Recharge | The Church: Jesus at the Center

The church doesn’t begin with programs, buildings, or even good intentions—it begins with Jesus. When Christ is placed at the center, everything else finds its proper place.

This sermon explores how the church naturally emerges when people truly know Jesus and love His mission.

Key Takeaways:

• The church is the result of people following Jesus, not the means to Him
• Christ alone is the cornerstone and head of the church
• When Jesus is central, the church becomes a living, growing body
• Believers are called to lead people directly to Christ, not replace Him

Scripture:
Ephesians 2:19–22; Colossians 1:16–20

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Transcript

Prayers For Travelers And Iran

SPEAKER_01 0:00

For those of you that don't know me, I'm Chad. I'm the missions pastor here, First Baptist, and I think I know most of you, and it's so nice to see you all tonight. Uh, you probably are aware that Jason and Daniel are uh out of town. They're in Israel. They're uh they got there a few days before the rest of the team. The rest of the team flies out tomorrow morning from Austin. There's 27 of them total, so be in prayer for them over these next few days as they travel. Um if you have been watching your emails or your text messages, you probably got this note from Jason uh about Iran. And you've probably, if you were here last week, you heard him talk about it, something that's been heavy on his heart. And uh, for those of you who are aware of what's happening around the world, that's been heavy on all of our hearts. Um last week, about actually about two weeks ago, we were able to give some of our disaster relief funds, and uh it went to help an organization that we partner with uh that is working alongside some people who are moving in and out of that country fairly regularly. And one of them sent us back a note the other day, and I want you to see this. It's captioned and you can't see its face on purpose. Um, so it might take a little bit to keep keep up with it, but take a look at this video. This is from one of our partners who is in Iran, and he's just saying thank you for the gift that we sent. It's uh it's a remarkable privilege uh as a missions pastor to get to be a part of organizing events like this where we get to stand in the gap for some people who are suffering unbelievable uh things that we wouldn't imagine or dream. And uh so I would encourage you to continue to pray for them. You probably saw again in that text and email that we're gonna have for the month of February uh an opportunity to give directly to that need, and we'll continue to send through that same organization. And uh so even um men and women who are serving in this way will receive some aid, some help from us uh uh over the next month. So please do continue to pray for that and uh and pray for our team that will be traveling in that region. Uh they're gonna be uh in Israel starting the day for us Thursday morning. So be praying for them uh while they spend their time there. You know, as we as we consider what what we're gonna talk about for a few minutes tonight, Jason gave me a list, and what we're gonna talk about for the next couple weeks is really this idea, the foundation of the church. And uh to separate the foundation of the church from Christ, the cornerstone is impossible. Right? It starts with Christ, it ends with Christ, and everything in between is about him, right? It's all about Jesus. And I created this little diagram for you that I want to just put up here because sometimes I think we get a little confused about where the church is in this process. Sometimes we think that if we bring people to the church, then the church's job is to introduce them to Christ, and then somewhere down the line we can introduce them to Christ's mission. But really, Christ is at the center of the whole thing. If people come to the church and they don't find Jesus, they might think the church is Jesus. And that can be problematic. People can actually build an idol around the religion formed around the church and never know Jesus in the midst of it. What a shame would that be. But maybe you've been a part of a religious context in your history or in your background where you've seen people who are very devoted to their religion, but they don't exhibit the characteristics of Christ. What a difficult thing. And so I want you to see where people interact with Jesus and when they come to know his mission, the church emerges. The church is the result of a people who know Jesus and love his mission, and then the church immediately comes about. So in these places you hear me talk about the unreached places on the planet. The goal is not to go and build a church among them, the goal is to introduce them to Jesus. And as they fall in love with Jesus and he becomes their cornerstone, they begin to care about the things that Jesus cared about. And the automatic, the absolute result of people who love Jesus is a body of believers that emerges and the church becomes evident. Do you see that? Do you understand the church is the result of people following Jesus? And because of that, as those followers love each other, they begin to have an avenue and an access to the community around them, and the church begins to grow, but it starts by leading people to Christ. One of my friends wrote a book, and he was talking about in the book that sometimes we're like, we're like really excited. Um he said, uh, what's the guy that's in charge? The groom, the groomsman. Who's the head groomsman? What do you call him? The best man. We're like the best man trying to lead the bride to the groom, but we're all so excited about the groom that we're in the way. But what does the bride need? The bride needs to see the groom, right? And the groom wants to see the bride. And if the best man's like, let me tell you, she's looking great. I'm gonna take it, he's gonna be awesome. You're gonna have to get out of the way and let him lead them to Jesus. Right? It's this beautiful picture. We have these scriptures that just say this so well. If you turn with me in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 2, 19 through 22, it says this is consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people, and also members of his household. I love this picture. Right? We were all once far from God, and yet here we are in the picture with him. Verse 20 says, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together, and it rises to become a holy temple of the Lord. And in him, look at these luxury words, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit. So here's the beautiful thing is that the body of Christ, the church as we know it, is built on his foundation. But the most remarkable thing is that you and I, as messy and broken and failed as we are, we're part of it. He includes us in the structure. And so I may be the worst brick of the whole bunch, but he puts me in the wall. Right? He gives us an opportunity to be a part, but he's the chief cornerstone, he's the one that we all stand on, he's the one that we want to glorify and send people to. Gosh, he is the one that we want to study and know with all of our hearts. I want you to look also at Colossians chapter 1, 16 through 20. Again, you get this picture of the majesty and power of Jesus. It says, For in him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Look at 18. He is the head of the body, the church. He's the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself. You guys probably have heard that word reconcile in other places, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Again, we get this clear picture that Jesus himself is the full, he's the full embodiment of the Godhead. Um, in other places and other times I've said that he is the he's the ultimate son of Abraham, right? He's the ultimate Jew. He's the ultimate reconciled Gentile. Jesus Himself is the perfect example of what a God follower looks like. We get examples of God followers all through the Old Testament, we get some in the New Testament, but none of them live up to the example that Jesus gave for us. All of them are just a little bit below. They're a little bit flawed, a little bit fallible, we say. But he is the full picture. He lacks nothing. I love it here. You see that the fullness of God in every way. And you see that same concept of the supremacy. And he is the one reconciling. What is that word reconcile? It's making right, right? Things that are broken. He's the one pulling it together and making it right. And so we can't, we cannot overestimate the power of Jesus in the life of every believer, of every non-believer. It's all about giving people a clear picture of who he is, caring about the things he cared about and walking towards the things that he walked towards. It's about seeing people the way he saw them. And it's a difficult thing for us today. You know, as I was thinking about this, I was I was marveling at how challenging this task is for us today, just the same way it was for the ancient Israelites. You know, there's this moment in uh in 1 Samuel where Samuel is talking to the people of God and they're saying that they want a king. The other nations have kings, but we don't have a king. And if you remember, there's this dialogue that goes back and forth between God and Samuel, where Samuel's like, I don't know what to do, and uh he's frustrated because God says he wants to be their God. He's the God that is with them, he's near to them, cloud of pillar, you know, pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. But the people are so intimidated. It's like being close to God is a scary thing. Have you guys ever thought about that? If God is who he says he is, you know, the powerful God that create and uncreate things, do you really want to hang out with him all the time? Like the Jews got to a point where they were scared of him and they wanted a mediator, so they're begging for a king that could stand between them and God. And God said to Samuel, it's not you they rejected Samuel, it's me that they've rejected. And then you see over and over from that point on, you have kings that stand in between them, you have prophets that stand between them, you have those judges early on that stand between them. And what you see is people so often would rather have a mediator than be close to God themselves. And I wonder how often we do that today. And we actually put the church or we put the pastor, we put somebody between us and God so that we don't have that responsibility. Have you ever seen that? Have you ever seen that God is powerful and that just makes it scary? You know, we we do a lot of missions work and we interact with Catholic and Orthodox uh traditions around the world, and I'm not gonna tell you, but even in some Baptist traditions you feel this that we we would rather have a pastor be that mediator than have to confront God Himself. And so you find out in all these other Christian traditions that we have sometimes layers and layers and layers of things that you go to. Like you would rather in some places would pray to Mary because she's close to God, and maybe she can speak highly on me on my behalf because it's too dangerous for me to go to God directly. Have you heard these kind of things? Well, guys, this is the challenge we have that we want to say no, we want you to be, we want you to know Jesus directly. This is why you have that Protestant faith that says that we are priesthood of all believers. We represent the people to God, and we represent God to the people, but the goal is not that they would go to God through us, it's that we would connect them directly to Him. And so, guys, the whole point, really, a foundational core of Protestant Baptist faith is that we lead people to Jesus. And as they know him and they do the things that he does, and they care about things that he cares about, then the church emerges among us, and we get to be a family that loves God together, that spur one another to love and good deeds. We press and push one another to higher leaps of faith and higher things that God can do, as we as a body of Christ love him in the same way, but he is at the center. We are not. We are not. So as you finish today, as we we finish our moment, I just want you guys to know seek him. Seek him fully. Continue to draw near to him in every way that you can and see if he won't draw near to you. You know, these last few days uh since uh Daniel and Jason have been gone, it's been a busy week, if you know any of the church staff. It's been wild. The only thing that makes you feel good is that we know that God is in control, that he is at the helmet. And there's nothing that we can do to change what's happening around us, but we can remain faithful to him and trust him in the middle of all of it. So if you know that there's difficult things, pray for the families in our church that are going through hardship. Pray for those who have lost loved ones, pray for those who have a hard medical diagnosis that they're working through. And pray that God would help all of us to draw near to him because he is the God that draws near to us. What a remarkable and amazing thing that the God that made this whole place says he loves you and he wants to be your friend. What an amazing and beautiful thing. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. And we thank you that you are the God that draws near. And we pray that people would find you, God, they would seek you, and that God, you would show yourself faithful to them. God, we pray for our family, our church family. We pray that you would be with all those who are having a hard, hard week, a tough year even. We pray, God, that you would draw near to them. God, we pray that you would reveal yourself to the lost in our community. God, some who've never even heard your name. We pray that, Father, they would hear about how great you are, and that Father, they would find Jesus, that they would find your Son and all that He is the perfect representation of you. Father, be with us,