Being the Church and our Responsibilities to the Church
- You are designed and created by God to carry out His plan, and it's His plan for us to execute it together. Jesus is the head of the Church, we're His body and He wants us to pray, to fast, to give, to raise up the next generation, and husbands are instructed to love their wives just as Jesus loves the Church.
- Even though the Church is not a building, the building is important for the people of God to gather together. We need to live as a body together. However, this is going to be challenged all the more as times get harder. Looking back, people respected the Pastors, gave then honor, but today things are changing even to the extent that some pastors are hesitant to say they're pastors. Some mock us because we go to Church, something that is seen as archaic. But no matter what people outside may say, we should proudly say that we belong to a local church, bound together. We have joy and we care for one another in difficult times. It has become popular today to say that we have a relationship with Christ but not with a local church. I believe that this is a deception. There is a spiritual malevolent force which tries to blind us into living together as a local body. As a Pastor, I delight in getting to know the people of the local body where I serve, learn, worship and care for the local body. That's where it all begins, right here in the local body.
- God commands us to love Him first and then our neighbors as ourselves. We cannot do this if we don't get to know them. That can only be done as members of a local body. If we say we love Jesus, but not the local church it's like saying I'm connected to the head but not the body - which is odd. This trend is becoming more and more fashionable, especially after Covid. This causes a disconnection and Jesus would say how can you love Me and not My church?
- In the sixties and seventies, at the time of the Jesus revolution, we would go out and bring hippies to church. That was a great time of revival in America, but it will soon come to the whole world in a fresh new way. By committing to the local church, it makes our light shine brighter and brighter, and people come to that bright steady light. We need each other, not believing what we want to believe. Our responsibility is to care for others in the church.
- Ever since Covid, people surf church channels to choose what they want to watch. Jesus wants more than just a cyber church. We cannot live in Greece and say that our pastor lives in Atlanta. He doesn't know you and you don't really know him. If we don't belong to a local church, we'll begin to neglect things like baptism, the Lord's supper, worshipping and serving the Lord together. If we walk in the light, we have fellowship, one with another an Jesus' blood cleanses us especially when we are together, become aware of where we need cleansing.
- 1) We need to be obedient and serve Him together; 2) Worship together (Hebrews 10); Going to church mustn't be boring, we need to stimulate each other. Fellowship is all about what you give and not what you get; 3) It's an Authority issue - we need to listen and obey people we trust and not just anybody on TV; 4) It's an Identity issue - Paul uses "In Christ" 160 times in the New Testament - we know Christ and so we are in Christ together - inseparable. We should all know Gal 2: 20, Christ lives in me, I'm co-crucified with Him; 5) It's about Loyalty - We have been given gifts to serve the local church with. We're not to be alone. 6) It's a Ministry issue - a fellowship of serving. 7) It's about Truth - to help one another to find the truth; 8) It's Evangelism - above all Jesus loved us, His friends, that He gave His life for us. Everyone will know you belong to Christ because of our love for one another. We must be faithful to one another - to His Body.
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Be responsible