Part two of the Summer Series "The Shelter"
I’d like to start out with a couple simple thoughts before I jump into Scripture. The Church is more then a building. I remember I was having a conversation with a friend and we were talking about the Church, what my local one was doing and I was giving what I think God calls all Churches to be in the world, missions and evangelism centered. When I typed a lower case “church” they responded back by capitalizing it. I never put much thought into this, but God spoke too me through that. I always knew the church was more then a building, but it really came full circle when you think about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has been granted too all Christians upon Salvation, it’s a piece of God inside everyone of us. Here’s the thought I’ve had:
Is not the Church a gathering together of not only God’s People, but also of God’s Spirit?
For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” Matthew 18:20
EDIT 12/8/11: Before I get put on the heretic train I am not making ourselves to be God, or be anything put people who have been granted God's Spirit. God in us is our only Power, and only Authoity, which Christ gave to us.
Jesus gave a promise that where His people gather, He will be there, though the Holy Spirit! Jesus promises to be with us, as a church, no matter how good the preaching is, or how powerful the worship is, or how much money we have coming in, God will pour down His blessings and be with any group who gather together IN HIS NAME. God knows the hearts of everyone, and He knows weather you gather for Him or for some other purpose. I don’t know why you get up early on Sundays or give up a night you could use for fellowship to come to church if it wasn’t for God. But I digress.
Paul loved The Church, as a whole body, not as individual parts, He got excited, just like me, when He sees Churches doing awesome things in the Name of Jesus! He could share the sentiment that we are an Ordinary People, who serve and Extrodinary God. We’ll start this service off in Philippians and then we’ll move back into that Genesis passage we were in last week.
Philippians 1:3-6
3 I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Paul obviously cared and loved and saw God sized potential in the church at Phillipi. He had joy, the passage says, when he prayed, because of there partnership with the Gospel.
The Gospel has to be the foundation of the church.
And in almost every case, it is. The Gospel brings the people inside the building to a saving and repentant faith in Jesus Christ. But overtime, sometimes even decades, that dedication to the Gospel, can begin to wither and the church will fall under. But Paul gives every church a winning formula in this passage. He calls for a present tense confidence in the groundwork the Gospel laid in the Church. And He will carry the Church onto completion of it’s work, until the day of Jesus.
Now we have a couple questions to ask ourselves.
1) Do we have a foundation built on the Gospel?
2) Is our confidence in that same Gospel still in the present tense?
3) What is the work of the church?
Really the last two questions are the ones I intend to spend my time on. The foundation of this ministry is built on reaching people with the Gospel, you can just look at the posts, discipleship is also important, but it’s all for the purpose of reaching the world with the gospel of Jesus. You be the judge on what your local church is built on.
Now onto question number 2. This is where we will go back to Genesis to learn about “present tense confidence.”
Let’s journey into Genesis 7.
Now, to set this up, Noah and his family have been told god is going to flood the earth due to it’s wickedness and start again, with two of each kind. God has given him the instructions to build his ark and hold on.
Now in chapter 7, which I will sum up but I do encourage you too read it. God gave Noah commands about the food to bring. Noah followed his command word for word. Noah, at the ripe age of 600 years old, and it was literally sink or swim for him because in verse 16 it says, they shut him in. Noah, his family and all the animals had all there trust in what God had given them, through earth twenty feet of water. Noah had to trust his shelter. I don’t know this 100% but the Scripture makes it seem is that Noah had no second thoughts or doubts about what God had told him. And God’s Word says:
23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. 24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days. Genesis 7:23-24
This is present tense confidence.
Noah had trust in God’s Promises that had laid the foundation for his shelter, in this passage, the ark. This challenges all of us, do you have the confidence in your Church for when the waters get twenty feet a high, and everything seems to be dieing, and when everything is growing and fruitful. Are baptisms exciting? Good. Are new and powerful songs of worship exciting for you? Good. But, is your trust in your church based on what is brought in, or what is already there? Just like Noah, a foundation made of God’s Promises will continue any shelter onto it’s location, even through twenty foot waters.
Genesis 8:1 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded
“But God REMEMBERED!” What a powerful statement. God remembered one man because of his trust in Him, how much more must He remember a church that trusts in His Word as well! Because due to Noahs trust, God came through. Why? Because God is faithful even when we are faithless. A foundation built on God’s Gospel, His ultimate promise to humanity, will still stand even through twenty foot waters. Because the Church is not a building, but a movement of God’s Spirit through use, which is only made perfect in our weaknesses the Bible says.
God’s ultimate promise that through repentance and faith in His son, we may have everlasting life. The ultimate that even wretch like me can receive amazing grace, and one day stand before God. The promise that faith in Jesus, which breeds repentance alone, is what saves. Not always what the world is willing to except, but we as the Church, God’s People, have the power too complete God’s ultimate work, reaching the world. Luke 19:10 says Jesus came to seek the lost, so shouldnt that be the mission of a church built on Jesus?
Don’t think we can do it? Where is your faith in the foundation, the Gospel, that grace to ultimately available to a world that runs away from it. Because through that foundation, God PROMISES He will complete this work He has begun in the people of God. Know where we came from, keep our confidence in the present, and stay unwavering in our passion for the lost, and I have faith we can touch the whole world with the Grace of Jesus. Do you?
God Bless!
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