2020: A Year of Celebration!

The Church is Restored Image Bearers!

Key Verses:  Matthew 16:13-19

This new seven-sermon series is focusing on the PLAN of God through His Church!

This week, I listened to a podcast where a couple of big names in church missions said that churches in America are learning a lot about themselves right now. To save you an hour of your life and some unnecessary speaker-induced depression, their bottom-line message was that the church is more than a Sunday gathering and many churches are lost without that gathering. These mission experts are saying that many American churches are having an identity crisis because we don’t know who we are or what we are all about, other than meeting for church services.

Is that true of us, the people of First Baptist Church of New Castle, Indiana? How about you? Do you know who you are and what you’re all about?

Allow me to quote one of our church leaders who shared her thoughts with me about this point:

This is important. I think our church has been working very intentionally under the leading of the Spirit to stay connected. And I am hearing a lot of encouraging stories about how our congregation is doing this well! But the point here is well-taken: While we are commanded to gather as part of the abundant life Christ promised us, it is still arguably one of the more “selfish” things we do, for a lack of a better term. Sunday morning gatherings are largely for those who already belong to the body. And they are good! But they are rarely the thing about a church that has a direct impact on sharing Christ with the community. The church can equip us through Sunday morning service, Sunday school classes, small groups, and special programs, but without our own volition to BE the church outside of that building, our gatherings could really only be termed as “self-serving.” Our content is not self-serving. The music, testimonies, and messages point to Christ, but I’m referencing our own personal heart attitude here. If we are not willing to demonstrate and apply the good news we are sharing among ourselves on Sunday morning outside the four walls of the church, then our participation in worship is self-serving.

Great insights! I have been studying and praying about what it means to be the Church of Jesus Christ. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused us to have to think differently about a lot more than just how we handle our Sunday services. We have learned that while meeting together is a big part of what the church does, it is not what it means to be the Church!

Over the last month I have said multiple times, “you can close a church building, but you cannot close the Church, because WE ARE THE CHURCH!” Near the beginning of this time of social distancing and self-quarantining due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I read to you from Matthew 16:13-19. We are going to return to that scripture now as we start this new series of messages called, “Responding to the Plan of God!” Please turn with me to Matthew 16:13-19:

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it [italics added]. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Let’s look at the context of this passage. I am enlisting the support of a fellow Bible teacher, who provides material for Logos Bible Software. Dr. Heiser teaches of this passage,

The rock which Jesus referred to in this passage was neither Peter nor Himself; it was the rock on which they were standing—the foot of Mount Hermon, the demonic headquarters of the Old Testament and the Greek world. We often presume that the phrase “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” describes a Church taking on the onslaught of evil. But the word “against” is not present in the Greek. Translating the phrase without it gives it a completely different connotation: “the gates of hell will not withstand it.” It is the Church that Jesus sees as the aggressor. He was declaring war on evil and death. Jesus would build His Church atop the gates of hell—He would bury them [italics added].[1]

And that is the heartbeat of this whole sermon series: For you to fully know what it means that you have been redeemed by God, bought at the price of Jesus’ shed blood on the Cross of Calvary and restored into God’s plan—you are now on a mission from God! You are Plan A!

And if Jesus had to pay such a high cost for our salvation, then what cost is His body willing to pay to carry on the work of God in the world?

Personally and as a church: at what cost are we willing to carry on the work of God in the world and do we know what that work is and why we are to do it?

These are critical questions, always, but especially at a time when we are grappling with what it means to be the church apart from our ability to gather in a church building. This sermon series will culminate on May 31, which is Pentecost Sunday—the birth of the Church! The Church has been given God’s power and presence, not just to seal us for Heaven as individuals, but to empower us to fulfill God’s PLAN as His body! This is a call to action, to be a part of something—to align your life with what matters eternally. I am raising your view of the church to higher ground, the priority for which God intended it. You have been saved to be on mission!

So, before I call you to an action point today, let’s understand God’s Plan: As disciples of Jesus Christ, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, you are restored as God’s Image Bearers to join God’s plan to bless the peoples of all nations, to bring them Home to the Father. You have been blessed to be a blessing!

Saying that another way: We have been brought back into God’s family to help gather the rest of the family for the biggest family reunion Ever! God has made a way for people to come Home because God is a good Father and His love never lets go of His children!

I am going to take you through a quick overview of this topic that we are made by God, from the beginning, to be His representatives on earth, a.k.a. Image Bearers. I’ll start with a brief overview of the Old Testament that develops this idea from Adam and Eve, through the Flood, to the Call of Abram and then with the choosing of Israel. And then we will look at the New Testament, at how Jesus has restored us and called us to be conformed to His image, individually, but to also collectively, as restored Image Bearers of God to His Creation.

After I read through these scriptures, I am going to show you a five minute video to help you understand and then conclude with an application. Listen to the Old Testament foundations:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen 1:26-28).

This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth (Gen 5:1-3).

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it” (Gen 9:1-7).

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:1-3).

‘Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel (Ex 19:5-6).

And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments, and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised (Deut 26:18-19).

Listen to the New Testament foundations, after Jesus’ earthly ministry:

Have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all (Col 3:10-11).

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers (Rom 8:29).

Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph 4:22-24).

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18).

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Cor 5:17-20).

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (1 Pt 2:9-12).

To summarize all this scripture and help make our next steps very clear, please watch this video.

It is important for us to know who we are, as Jesus’ Church: We are restored to be the Image Bearers of God! We are sons and daughters, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s treasured possession! And to know what it is we are supposed to be all about: Blessing the people of all nations to bring them Home to the Father.[2] To be about our Father’s business!

Let’s close with application: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused us to think differently about a lot more than just how we handle our Sunday services. We have learned that while meeting together is a big part of what the church does, it is not what it means to be the Church!

Listen to Hebrews 10:24-25, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

Our gathering is not an end onto itself, it never was supposed to be! We are to gather together to: 1) encourage one another; and 2) stir one another up to love and good works.

The danger of not meeting is not that we are being disloyal to what it means to be the Church, but we are missing out on the opportunity to remind each other of what it means to really be the Church! This is our response to the Plan of God: being the Church is all about your life purpose as the representative of God on earth to all the people. You are a restored image bearer of God! You are an ambassador for Jesus Christ!

But, that can be misleading too. The church is not all about you! We are the Church! As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:27, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

WE are the BODY OF CHRIST—WE are HIS walking and talking IMAGE BEARER!

As disciples of Jesus Christ, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are restored as God’s Image Bearers to join God’s Plan to bless the peoples of all nations to bring them Home to the Father. God is planning a big old homecoming and wants all of His kids home!

That’s going to take a great rescue effort—an invading force that the gates of hell cannot withstand! Good thing Jesus started that effort and He commands us to respond in Mark 16:15, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”

It is my great hope that by the end of this 7-week sermon series that we are back to meeting together, but not to business as it once was, but that we will be gathering in ways that stir us up to love and good works. We will be meeting to encourage one another to get back out there and be the Church. I guess it is my biggest hope that over the time of this COVID-19 pandemic that we will learn the sacred both-and of the church: we do exist to gather and we should not forsake that, but the real reason for our gathering is to scatter us back into our everyday lives to bless all the people. We are blessed to be a blessing!

Listen to the Message here:

To watch the video click HERE

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Michael Heiser, “What did Jesus mean by ‘Gates of Hell’?” https://blog.logos.com/2018/04/jesus-mean-gates-hell/ [accessed April 15, 2020].

[2] One of my early readers wrote, “This might need expanded on in future messages. I didn’t understand the significance of “the nations” in scripture. I was only thinking of the geo-political entities, not the nations that were created at Babel – the nations that God intended to redeem from the day that he disowned them.”