Last week I started the series of messages called: “The Church of Christ” and today we are going to have our second message: Church a place to belong.
Let’s firstly go over some points of the last message.
18 “ I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
19 And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.””
Matthew 16:18-19
Jesus said “I will build my Church”, the Church doesn’t belong to any leader or pastor, the church belongs to Jesus Christ.
Salvation is only through Jesus; He is the Door, but He has a body on earth and His body is the Church.
Jesus is the head of the Church and the Church is the Body of Christ.
The Church is the personal representative and agent of Jesus on earth
Jesus said: He who receives you receives Me (Matthew 10:40)
The Church is not an event I attend, it’s a spiritual family that I belong to.
Ephesians 1:22-23
“And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”
Ephesians 1:22-23
God put all things under Jesus feet: that includes satan, principalities, power, diseases; everything is under Jesus’ feet and one day the world will clearly see it!
Now everything is put under his feet to the Church.
God the father placed Jesus over everything for the Church. God made Him the head over all things to the Church.
Let’s read the NLT version (New Living Translation)
And God has put all things under the authority of Christ and He gave Him this authority for the benefit of the Church
Ephesians 1:22 (NLT)
The reason why Jesus is Lord of all is because His father made Him Lord of all for the benefit of the Church.
Are we using this benefit though? Are you part of the local church or are you visitor in your church?
“The Church which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”
Ephesians 1:23
The Church is Jesus’ body, it is the fullness of Him! You will only find the fullness of Jesus in the Church (I’m not talking about the building/concrete, because the church refers to committed members of a local church)
The fullness of the power, the fullness of the glory , the fullness of healing, the fullness of grace , the fullness of provision and the fullness of wisdom is found only in the Church.
The fullness of Christ that fills all in all! The church is not a building, the church is you and I! You are not in church one day and living the other 6 days for the world.
Some people think that the church is to help you succeed in the world. No, no!
Whatever career you have, if you are teacher, a banker, a factory worker or cleaner, that is all spiritual in the eyes of God. Whatever you do is spiritual.
There is a special call to be a full time pastor, full time evangelist, full time missionary, and the Bible calls it a ‘higher call’ and that is a special gift given by the Lord Jesus.
But everything we do in our life is spiritual. If we are the body of Christ, if we do everything for the benefit of the Church, you are flowing in the plans and purpose of God.
35 “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. 36 But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few. 38 Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest.”
Matthew 9:35-38
Jesus was teaching and preaching and healing people and this is what the Church of Jesus should do. Some churches just preach and teach but don’t heal and don’t deliver people.
We as a church believe that people need the power of God in their lives. They also need miracles, because the power of God can solve their problems.
The church needs the power of the Holy Spirit: power to save the lost, power that heals the sick, power that drives out demons, power that delivers people from sexual addiction, drug addiction, it needs power that heals people physically, emotionally and spiritually. We need power to set people free and power to live a Godly life.
Jesus wasn’t only someone that taught the gospel but He lived the gospel.
The bible tells us Jesus preached, He taught, and He healed diseases and sickness among people, and we as church have to be a place of power. However; verse 36 also says: when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because people don’t just need power, people also need pastor.
People don’t need miracles only, they also need the message and the Bible here said Jesus was preaching the gospel and teaching.
He was healing but also preaching and teaching. Preaching is when you scream and teaching is when you’re quiet. 🙂
And we need to have both. We need preaching and teachings. When you come in here and it’s very loud, it’s because there is a preaching on. When you come in and there are “many points” being pointed out, there is teaching on.
Jesus healed, preached and taught. People don’t just need power, people also need a pastor.
The meaning of pastor:
They need preaching – something that fires you up
And they need teaching- something that feeds you.
Preaching fires you up but teaching feeds you and you need both: teaching and preaching.
In the church people need power and and people need pastor. We need miracles but also we need the message.
When Jesus saw the multitude He was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered like sheep without a shepherd.
These people had power and they already had a pasture but no pastors. They already had miracles and they had a message. But no mentors.
The bible says He looked at this crowd, who were being healed, who received teaching and preaching and He didn’t look at them with joy: I preached a great sermon, people were healed, but He still looked at them with pity.
He felt bad and He said they were like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus didn’t say they were goats or pigs, they were sheep.
These were the people who already believed in Him, these were the people who already had pasture, and they had experienced miracles, they had experienced power. But Jesus looks at them and says: there is something else they all need.
They are sheep without a shepherd ! How could Jesus The Shepherd say that? He was The Shepherd!
There are many sheep there are receiving messages on the internet or sometimes they are even coming to church, but they are still sheep without a shepherd, they have no pastor! Don’t fool yourself thinking that there are online pastors or online churches in the Kingdom of God.
You cannot be a personal Shepherd to thousand people. You cannot be a father of thousands children. You can maybe lead a company with thousands of employee but you cannot mentor thousands of people.
Jesus knew that, that’s why He said: they are fed, they received preaching, teaching, they receive healing but they are weary and scattered.
Jesus didn’t say they are sick or hungry spiritually, they had food, they got miracles but they are lacking direction and they are lacking personal inspiration to live a life with a point and purpose.
They don’t have shepherds!
There are many people they come to church, they receive food, they receive miracles, they receive teachings but they are weary and scattered because they don’t have shepherd.
People need power, people need pasture and people need pastors.
You may say: I go to a church, I have a pastor. I’m not talking about that! I’m talking about somebody who knows you. I’m talking about somebody you know, somebody who notices when you don’t come to church , somebody who invites you to a Cell Group, somebody who knows what’s happening with your life.
Well I have pastor Marcio ! The problem is: the moment the church reaches more than 20 people Pastor Marcio cannot do all that.
Even Jesus couldn’t do that because He had compassion on them! He said : I can heal, I can preach , I can teach thousand people with one sermon but I cannot mentor them all because it requires a personal relationship and we cannot get truly personal with thousands of people.
Therefore they found themselves weary and scattered! Maybe your Christian life looks like that, you come to church but feel weary; You might feel like you don’t have a sense of direction in your life , because you need not only miracles, not only message, but we need mentors in our life and one day you can be a mentor to someone else.
You need to be ministered because this pastoring is a spiritual protection over your life.
Maybe you are going to say: I’m okay, I’m not sick , I’m not hungry; But some are weary and scattered because that are not under this spiritual protection.
Has your life a sense of direction, why do you exist as a Christian? Why are you here in this town?
The Church is not a religious organisation, church is the living Body of Christ on Earth and the local church (your church) has pastors and leaders to help you not get scattered and weary.
That’s why this local church – Shalom C. F. has the process of discipleship, where we take care of each one of you personally. That’s why this church has Cell Meetings and leaders to shepherd the sheep.
Jesus didn’t tell us to make church member, but He said: go and make disciples!
In this process of discipleship you go from believed to belonging, from belonging to becoming. Becoming what? Not famous, not known but you become who God wants you to become.
Fishermen of souls, the winner of souls and maker of disciples. God wants us to take that process. Our goal in church is not to make church members or a church of volunteers.
It is to be a Church of disciples and eventually a church of workers in His harvest field.
Let’s read again …..
36 But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few. 38 Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest.”
Matthew 9:35-38
Jesus didn’t say: pray for more leaders, He says: pray for more labourers. Because we have leaders, we need labourers.
What Jesus’ church really needs is people who labor, and intentionally and purposely give their life for someone else, reach out to someone else , and help somebody grow in Christ and create an environment in their home where other people come in.
Church is not a religious organisation, the church is God’s family! And we need to became mature and help feed the spiritual babies that are coming. We need to have spiritual children and this is to be disciple makers! Disciples have spiritual children.
Disciples produce disciple and we need to have a heart of a labourer because to produce disciples we need to invest our time, money and labour.
I really believe you are either a missionary or in a mission field. If you’re not winning the lost, you’re lost. You may be serving the Lord but you weary and scattered.
We as church are here with one simple purpose: to reach our community for Christ. We are not in Africa, we are not in Brasil and we are not in Russia, we are in Ireland, this is our community and the vision of our church is to have services and meetings in English for the people of this land.
We need to prepare a climate to receive the people of our community, the Irish people.
We need to create a place where people can belong even if they don’t believe. Many people need to belong before they can believe, and everyone who believes needs to belong so that they can become.
There are two ways we treat our first-time guest in church: we attract them or we attack them.
Maybe you are going to say: no we don’t attack new people!
The way we attack new people in church is by indifference.
Did you remember when the prodigal son came back home? How did the older son attack the young son? By indifference, he didn’t want to come to receive his brother.
The father was welcoming, the older son was indifferent. The way you attack people is not by physically attacking them, it’s by ignoring them.
When someone walks for the first time in church, if you ignore them, you’re attacking them. They may feel anxious not knowing anybody, and you just ignore them and just talk to your friends and family member.
When I get invited to your house for the first time and I knock at the door, you don’t scream from inside: hey it’s open. I’m your guest and you are probably going to quickly run to the door and open.
You don’t usually say: the fridge is there, there is tea, the sofa is there, feel at home because I’m busy here.
Nobody would do that! If first-time guests come to your house you are going to stop what are you doing and you are going to spend time with them.
If you call this Church your church, every person that walks into that door whom you have not seen is your guest.
It’s insulting to have people come to your house and treat them indifferently. We don’t have visitors in church, we only have guests.
If this is your house, the people sitting behind you , the person sitting in front of you and the people beside you are the people you have to invite over to your Cell Meeting, ask them their name, find out how they heard about the church.
Do like the father, he ran to meet his son and made him very welcome! Do the same, show affect and show interest.
Some people will not believe until they belong. Jesus invited disciples to follow before they believed (Matthew 4:19).
Christ did not invite His disciples to believe in Him, He invited them to belong first.
Jesus didn’t say: Come and believe me! He said: come and be with me. In the first years they didn’t believe and Jesus rebuked them for their lack of belief.
Jesus first made room for them to belong before they believed.
Some people will never became christians if they don’t belong to the family.
People are not looking for a friendly church, they are looking for friends in the church!
Don’t just say hi, bye, how are you? Don’t meet up with 10 different people, meet one person for 10 minutes! Don’t meet many, meet one! Take time out for a new person instead saying hi to every single person.
Church is a family, don’t be indifferent but show attention and show the love of Christ.