21st July 2024

The Church: Christ’s Home on Earth

Passage: Mark 13:34-37, Revelation 2:1, 3:20, Ephesians 2, 4
Service Type:

The sermon explores the concept of the Church as Christ’s home and possession. It emphasises that Jesus considers the Church His dwelling place on earth, even as He resides in heaven. The speaker challenges common misconceptions about church ownership, stressing that neither pastors nor congregants own the Church—it belongs solely to Jesus. He highlights the importance of recognising Christ’s authority in building and directing His Church, and calls for a deeper, more personal relationship with Jesus within the context of church life. The message encourages listeners to view church attendance not as a mere ritual, but as an opportunity to encounter and fellowship with Christ Himself.

Automatically Generated Transcript
[00:00:00] My background family was one where Dad was in the Ministry and we moved from state to state. So I actually have an experience a bit like an onion. If I go to Adelaide I just take off a few of the outer layers and I find a layer of onion, that’s me, that is at home in Adelaide. I love the AFL, I play cricket at school, there’s lots of things about Adelaide that my Adelaide personality comes out when I go there or I could go back a bit further and we were in Sydney then a little bit further back we were in Perth. I was born in Perth and had my first 11 years there and really am at essence sand groper as a result and At all of these places, what was in common for me, was my home was in a college. Because my dad, working in a college, as principal of Bible colleges, eventually our Brisbane Baptist college, always home was a college. And today’s actually one of the things that was terrific for me,
[00:01:09] because the students came from everywhere. And they became my big brothers, where I did have one big brother. But I had all these students to mix with and play games with and throw acorns on their heads when they were doing the Friday afternoon, clean up the courtyard, I would clean up the gardens, I could get up to the tower that was in the college. You had to go through my dad’s office so no-one else ever did it. But I get up into the tower with a bunch of acorns and while they were doing the gardening, I’d…
[00:01:44] And then I’d duck down and someone get an acorn in his head and look around and see some other students. Ah, and they go and get acorns and pretty soon I can start a little acorn fight going on. And I love living in a college. It was…it’s my home. And there came one conference held at our college when it was at Brookfield. And the principal of a Sydney college said to me…
[00:02:11] he said, you know, I’ve brought up my kids in a college, and it’s been the very best thing for them because it became their home. And so my background is where I had bigger homes than just the nuclear family, although now I’m in more that scene, but now the grandchildren make the difference. And what about your home? Where do you make home? I don’t know whether you find, like I did, going from state to state, that there was some transition happen that I had to last six months in the new place before something inside said, oh, OK, I’ll recognize this as home. We have a capacity to be at home. It’s time when you settle down. Now, why I’m saying all of this, of course, is that Jesus gave a story, we’ve got it on the screen, about the fact that he’s going to go back to heaven, and then he’s going to return to earth. This is one of the passages in Jesus
[00:03:18] teaching about his own return to earth, the second coming. Christmas was the first advent. Advent means coming and his return to earth will be the second advent, the second coming. And Jesus gave this storyline to give us a picture about that he is going to come back again, but there’s something in the storyline that really captured me when I read it again. He says, it’s like a man going on a journey and when he leaves home and he puts his service he puts his service in charge each with his work and commands the door-keeper to stay awake. Therefore, stay awake is the general thing he’s wanting to teach the disciples. There will be a time when they’ll need to stay awake.
[00:04:07] But the way it’s actually worded in is if a man goes on a journey – I looked it up in the original language of the Greek New Testament and there’s two other words – ap Which means away from. The ex word is like our word domestic, away from where he’s domestic. And the story is about a man, who’s leaving where his home is, to go on a journey. That’s where the journey is. Some of you have taken journeys away and you know what it’s like to come back home…home, where your heart is.
[00:04:44] Anyway this raised a question in my mind. If Jesus told a story of his going back to heaven as being like a man leaving his home, the journey part is where it is. That word up on domestic or away from where you’re domestic. The next part, when he leaves home as he sort of walks out in the door, he’s left it all in order There were people to do what he needs to continue doing. The question that it raised in my mind was, does Jesus consider down here as being his home?
[00:05:29] We know about the Father, our one God in three persons. Don’t ever deny the three-ness of the persons. There is a fellowship they have. You don’t have fellowship with yourself very well. But the Father. Where to pray to him? Our Father. Who is in heaven? Is the Lord’s Prayer. The prayer that Jesus taught others to copy. So the Father is in heaven. But I’m asking the question about Jesus.
[00:05:59] Where does he consider his home? Clearly when he had his disciples, it was down here, he tells this story about… He’s gonna go back to heaven. It’s like a man taking a journey and leaving his home. Well, that was before Jesus died on the Cross for our sins and rose again. What about now? Where does Jesus consider as his home? Now, I’ve got a shock for you. Jesus went back to heaven and he is talking about it now another parallel passage to this says that he is going away but he says you know I’m going away to prepare a place for you
[00:06:46] And if I go to prepare a place for you I will come again and take you to myself That where I am you may be also and what is the good news? That is rather a shock I’ll tell you where is Jesus’ home It’s where we are, the ones for whom he died, the ones who’ve come to know the father through him, the ones who’ve come and received him as Jared was talking about when you come to know Christ. Something happens and you and Jesus become an item
[00:07:22] and you and the other people that know Jesus are together as brothers. Do you know where is Jesus’ home? is in the Church. By church I don’t mean the building. There’s nothing special about our building except we gonna put air conditioning in it. Praise be to God We don’t need it today. But when summer comes we will But it’s not the building, the church is the people. And Jesus considers the church His church!
[00:07:57] This raises a number of questions as to who owns the church because the trouble with church life often is around the question, who owns the church? It’s not the pastor. He serves the church, but he doesn’t own it. It’s not the people who put the money in the plate. Have you noticed we don’t pass the plate? Some people still would like to have the thing because we should teach our people how to give. That’s true enough.
[00:08:29] But I’m glad we don’t pass the plate because it does generate the idea in some people’s minds, maybe not many, but some people’s minds is the ones who own this place are those who pay the money for it. You had to do what we say. No, we don’t own the Church. tell you the person who owns the church is Jesus, and he considers it his home. And tells the story of a man going on a journey, and the wording is a man going away from where his domestic spot is. And the next little part, when he leaves home,
[00:09:12] everything’s put in his order, he’s actually got some doorkeepers, and the word, a bit lower down, says that he wants the doorkeeper. That word just means the man who controls the door and lets in people and keeps out the baddies. And God has appointed pastors in that role, but they don’t own the church, he’s just the doorkeeper. And the doorkeepers are to stay awake, to care for the home of the master. Can you feel how this passage really is a challenge to me? That I’m to be like a doorkeeper and care for what is his house. Who owns the church but Jesus?
[00:10:07] Yes, he’s in heaven but he sent his Spirit to represent him in the church. Something about the different denominations you may not have noticed but there are some denominations where the minister is in a house, what’s it called there? This house where they put the minister in the manse? That’s right. Now do we have a manse? No, cause I don’t own the church. And I don’t need a special house. I am just the doorkeeper of the Lord’s house. And so, if you went out to where we live and put Liline Mance I’d pull it down cause I work hard at getting all my neighbours
[00:10:56] to see me as a normal person. And some ministers they get some funny opinion of them Or if they find out what you do, they huk, eh. So I make headway on being a normal, trying to be a normal person and see my shoes. And and so because Jesus is the one who owns the house. And if there’s others who have a part to play, it is to do his bidding. We don’t own the Church, none of us.
[00:11:33] Well anyway, that’s an amazing thing to learn. I want you to move with me to another verse, I want you to go to the next one on our list, which is in the Book of Revelation. And in one of our Home Groups, the Wednesday night Home Group, they are going through the seven letters to the Churches. And this adds in to the fact that the Church does nothing to the fact that the churches belong to him. And there’s seven places in Asia Minor back then to which a letter was written. It was one of those letters that all seven went
[00:12:12] to all seven churches, and they, a serial letter sort of thing that was passed around. And John on the Isle of Patmos was asked by the Lord to write this letter to the churches. This is how it begins. To the angel of the church in Ephesus, that’s the first of the Seven. write the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand. Wear one of his stars. And back then there was Ephesus and the list of them of the churches. We belong to Jesus. And he holds us in his right hand
[00:12:54] walks amongst the seven golden lampstands. That’s the life of those seven churches. As Jared was talking in the introduction to our service, what’s going on here is we’ve come to Jesus’ home. We’ve come to reverence him, to be with him. And that’s Chapter 2, verse 1. But if you go to Chapter 3, in verse 20, it’s interesting that of the church this is the last of the seven, and on in our study this very last Wednesday, couple of Wednesday nights, we’ve been looking through on how these seven letters can be interpreted in three different ways of all, probably correct. And one way is that they represented the seven churches back then, which they did. Another one is they represent the seven different types of churches about at any given moment.
[00:13:53] You find a church like Laodicean church, which was the last of them. The third way is they represented- and this is something people could only suddenly realize when they looked back across history- that those seven experiences those churches were having tended to be just like the experience of the Christian church church at different ages. And the final one is this one on the book of Revelation chapter three which represents the church in our age but the feature of it is Jesus says behold
[00:14:25] I stand at the door and knock, it’s meant to be Jesus’ church. Why is He at the door knocking? Several explanations, reasons. One is that the age of the church that we’re now in is one that’s forgetting that it belongs to Christ. It’s one where Christ pictures himself as outside and having to not to get back into his own church. When you look back through history of the church
[00:14:57] you discover that’s happened time and time again. People take over the church, it’s our church, where are the people running it? Where are the special clergy? Or where are the this or where are the that? forget the Church belongs to Jesus. And in the final age, the feature of the church of our age is that Jesus is not in any position but that he’s at the door and he’s knocking. Interestingly the verse says, and this is a very favourite verse of mine, I apologise if you’ve heard me many times, you’re going to hear me anymore,
[00:15:37] if any person, any individual hears my voice and opens the door, I will come on in to that one, and fellowship with him or eat with him and he with me. I’m telling you that because it is Jesus’ Church, if there’s anybody sensitive enough to recognize that you haven’t really related to him personally, if you get up and open the door he will come and fellowship with you. That’s what Jarom was talking about. Knowing Jesus is the heart of Christianity. It’s not a way of life just, it’s not a lot of ethics only, the heart of what it
[00:16:22] And that is to be a Christian. It’s a relationship with Jesus and knowing him, welcoming him, walking with him, loving him. And you should go home and read that final letter to the church at La Adasea. In chapter 3, where Jesus says you’ve left or he says you’ve become lukewarm. It’s the 1st one he says you’ve left your first love. But the 7th one he says you’re lukewarm because you’re neither hot nor cold I feel like spitting you out of my mouth.
[00:17:03] Why he wants is a church which is a home and what’s it a home is love and fellowship. Why I used to like the colleges because there were students, they were older men and women, they looked after me as a little twerper at first. They prayed for me in Perth and I was healed of polio to students in Dad’s College, and in later colleges one student saw I used to have crooked teeth, and he had at the church where he was at, a man who was a dentist and he said,
[00:17:37] I know a young lad who’s got teeth. You could help. The next thing I knew, I got bands on my teeth. Those students, they were like big brothers to me. They taught me, taught me how to go out into the railway station of Adelaide and speak to strangers. I was terribly uptight, shy sort of person. But they found a way to get me into it. I had a home in those colleges. Actually, in my house, my big sister was always
[00:18:13] looking after the little Bubba, which was me. When I was in grade one at school, there was some older boy who thought I was very cute and he’d come and capture me at lunchtime and meet me to sit in the sandpit with him and be his friend. Wouldn’t let me escape. So at home, I told Jenny, my big sister, she turned up and dealt with him and I got to escape, his clutches every lunch time.
[00:18:43] But I had a home, a home where in was love. And Jesus sees the church, he may be sitting in heaven but by his spirit, we the body of Christ are his fellowship. I’ve got a number of verses that when I discovered, this is what I’m telling you this morning from this verse, I began to look in other places and the New Testament is screaming it. Let me just turn you to a few of them while we have time but in the scriptures, go to now please our third spot which is about his house, his home
[00:19:30] and the reason why Jesus says he owns it. Why does Jesus own the church? Why is it his? And it actually is quite wrong for us to make it like we own it. We can belong to it, but it doesn’t belong to us. Do you understand the difference? and one reason why the person that, the church belongs to Christ is because in Ephesians 2 it says about the church that it was built on the foundation of the apostles, the ones Jesus chose not modern day apostles who think they’re apostles and they’re not
[00:20:17] built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets The prophets are those who also wrote scriptures. Luke would be one of them we have from his pen the Book of Luke and the Book of Acts, built on the foundation, the idea of foundation back then was that you build a new building with a big block that you made the cornerstone and its angles were exactly orthogonal and they defined the walls that went off in right angle directions and made the church, the building, properly designed and built. Jesus is the foundation stone,
[00:20:54] and he sets it. Nobody else, and he set it with persons chosen once and for all, never to be repeated and if you ever read in some person’s saying it’s a new foundation and we’ve got new ideas and there’s new gifts that he gives, no, the ones that he gave at the start and Ephesians 4 is all about those gifts, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers,
[00:21:17] but the top two apostles and prophets are ones that are once and for all given to make the foundation of the church. You can have more evangelists and more pastors and more teachers, but you don’t get more apostles. Don’t believe the people who say they’re apostles or people who say, I am a prophet and you better steer the way I say. If I get to say that, don’t believe me. I want to tell you I’m a teacher
[00:21:40] of what is already written by the apostles and the prophets, which is why we’ve got the verses of the Bible put before you and why we have in our church a teaching of the Scriptures and that’s why people come with hungry hearts to our churches because there’s something in us that recognizes the reality of the church that Jesus founded. It’s his church. And once more, listen, it’s in his church you find him and in his Scriptures he speaks to you.
[00:22:12] The heart of Christianity is knowing Christ personally and learning to be obedient to His Word. I’m summing up. You want to know how to be a Christian? Get to know Christ personally. Know the forgiveness of sins that on the cross he brought for you. Let him be your Savior, your Lord, and then let him speak to you through his Word. You do that much, you’ve got a good way to know what it is to be a Christian. So the church is Jesus because it’s founded on him is the one who is the foundation stone. That’s why it’s his. His are second reasons because he’s the one who actually builds the church, and if you set about a purpose to say, I’m going to build a good church
[00:23:03] you’ve got a good church, I’ll do my scheme. I’ve got a good idea, it’ll make it work. You’ve just got to do things other people haven’t thought to do, but my church is going to take off. You are just being an idiot. You’re being a fool. There’s only one person who builds the church, it’s Jesus. He builds it on the foundation that’s already laid.
[00:23:26] When you let him, the bible says, unless the Lord builds the church, labor in vain, that built it. There’s many a person who set out to have a spiritual thing they’re going to do. And I remember being involved in having a newsletter and I met another man who had his own printing press and he thought that he would set up this Christian group and have a newsletter. He was sort of copying what happened with mine
[00:23:57] but we didn’t design it. It happened. But this bloke had himself a printing press and he was going to have this youth organization that he would use all the right principles to make work. And it just was a big fizz. Unless the Lord builds the church, they labor in vain that build it. It’s his church. He’s the foundation, and he’s the one that builds it.
[00:24:24] And he’s the one who decides whether he’ll put a person here or put a person there or whether he’ll use this person in a certain way another person in a different way, it is amazing all the varied gifts that God gives to his people but you don’t get anywhere if you see a nice gift that you think you’d like to have a go at, maybe you have the gift and that will be shown by what happens when you have a go, but sometimes people decide they’ll have a try and there’s been many a person who’s read one of those famous books. Like Edwin Orr when he went traveling around the world because the Lord told I told him to ride out of his Irish town on a bicycle and just keep riding.
[00:25:03] The Lord would tell him where to go. He became a preacher for revivals. He came to Australia and there are some people in our church whose grandmother got converted to listening to him has one of his moments of revival preaching, here in Queensland. Ebinore, around the world, but you know when he wrote his books, he wrote a book the first of this long list of books. So everywhere he staminaed, he wrote another book full
[00:25:26] of all sorts of dramatic things that God did, providing from his event, he called the first one, can God? Can God support someone that he has sent? The answer is yes. If God comes to you and sends you a part of the deal, what he sends you is that he picks up the bills. But as many a person that read Ebony’s first book, can God, and decided to have a go at traveling around.
[00:25:51] But they didn’t necessarily ride out of an Irish town on the bicycle, like Ebony did, but they tried going and doing something overseas, a very desperate thing, but they had to pay their own bills. God didn’t turn up, tt was He didn’t send them. One of the most important things about mission work is you don’t just go because it’s a wonderful way to spend your life. It is, that’s true,
[00:26:16] but the heart of being a missionary is the word M boards means I send and the missionary is someone sent by God and if he didn’t send you, Maybe you’re meant to be in the place you’re converted, in fact, the Bible actually says that everybody should keep the space or place or role that they have, when they first come to him. Until directed otherwise, you don’t go and send yourself off somewhere else, because you think it looks traumatic and wonderful. One of the things, because I worked in a college, I know this is the case, that you get people coming to college,
[00:26:48] because they’ve seen the wonder of serving the Lord, and they say, I’ll serve the Lord, and they drop their career, They go off to college and they study and usually it used to be given a church. I had students I’m now describing, some of whom came to your church here and were students in this church. And of those I know from watching them that some of them were sent to God. I only know that
[00:27:12] because you watch to see if God turns up. And when he does it’s very visible and there are others, I won’t use their names but they were very keen people who are very well-dressed and listened in class and chow down to the principal and did whatever is necessary to get on in the Baptist Union… But, when put in a church, nothing happens! Because God didn’t send them.
[00:27:37] It’s Christ church, and he’s the one not only who’s the foundation stone, he’s the one who decides what brick to put where. The thing about foundation stones is that they’re just hewn out of lots of rock, they are hewn to the dimensions of the man who’s doing it and then their carried to the right spot and put where it needs to be. When Jesus not only is a foundation stone but he’s the one who’s building the church and he puts these blocks where he wants them and it works
[00:28:11] it happens. Now it’s our task as a Christian is to discover where he wants us to be because it’s his church. You do that by prayer, you do that by listening to the advice of others, because if there’s something that you’re meant to be doing, then the evidence thereof comes out and the hand of Jesus is in it and somehow it gets to be known, by the Body of Christ who encourages you. And so it is that our Baptist Union used to. They don’t anymore, well I wish they did.
[00:28:43] When someone said they wanted to be involved in ministry, what they used to do, is have a committee that called them in and asked the question, How do you know that Jesus wants you to do this? and they’d have to tell their testimony and have to tell how they found out that this is the will of the Lord. They don’t do that anymore. They just ask the questions the Government wants them to ask and try and keep the gender stuff straight and they’re getting away from what the New Testament teaches
[00:29:10] about God calling people to do ministry things. Our denomination will go downhill unless we go back to the Bible and do things as the Bible says because Jesus is the only one who owns the church. Not a little committee, not someone who says they’ve been trained in this or that. It’s Jesus who owns the church. and our assemblies should be built on the idea of seeking to find the Mind of Christ. We do that the same at the local level and we have a members meeting and the purpose of a local level members meeting is not to give everybody a chance to have their say or to have people with their barrow to push
[00:29:57] or to get their friends to come along and vote to their thing against what other people might want. you that’s a scandal a scandal in that which belongs to Jesus he owns the church the purpose of the members meeting is to see whether or not through the members you get that strange happening but everybody says yes that’s how I feel led to and when we come to sense in our meeting what Jesus wants, that’s because we’re doing what’s consistent with Him owning the church. I praise God about the issue of air conditioning. I have my personal reasons for liking it despite the fact that I never feel too hot. I’m a skinny person that always needs more coats and others of you need to
[00:30:54] to have fans and I regret the fans because they take away, not put noise and then people don’t listen. When they sit under a nice fan, I sit there and don’t listen to the sermons and you can see why I don’t really like the whole idea of fans, but I think air-conditioning can be done quietly and more people will hear the Gospel. So I’m for it.
[00:31:15] But nonetheless it could have been an idea that was just human, but our church had a members meeting and voted unanimously, all those voting voted the same direction. Because we sensed it was in the hand of God and it came about because this treasurer could report that suddenly people were giving the funds and the money came in. When you do Jesus’ will, he picks up the bills. And that’s happening at church level here, praise God. And it’s a part of what it is to know that you’re in his church. But as Gerard was leading us this morning, that theme of knowing him, why you come here
[00:32:05] for worship is to glorify his name. We have some wonderful music that’s brought to us and some recent songs. I used to think there were two types of songs. There were hymns and they were old fashioned things and there were modern songs that were really with it. I’ve come to realise that that was a silly way of thinking of it, because these new ones we’ve got they’re looking like hymns, but I’ve never heard them before. And they’re all about Jesus and worship. And we are being led well that in what we do in the service, is not just for our enjoyment, but it is to praise him. And that’s why we’re here, because this is his church. And we are blessed by the fact that he
[00:33:01] likes to be involved in his church. That’s why he calls and says, Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any person hear my voice and will open the door, I will come on into that one and fellowship with him, he with me. And there is something happens in a home in which Jesus is, Sometimes you’ve come across Him, or you’re confronted by Him, or you feel the call to go deeper with Him. And one of the things that happens to people who really come to know Christ is that they loved the Church, they’re not its critic. They loved the Church. I remember down in Sydney, you hear a few illustrations about me in my Sydney Church. But in that particular church there was a whole lot
[00:33:56] of buildings and apartments that were near where it was. It was quite a very good spot for a church to be, and we’d get a sprinkling of people coming now and then, and as the pastor, if someone came, knew, I’d find out where they’re from and visit them in their unit, and I got a funny response. Some people liked the fact that I did that and it helped them to feel welcome, but there are others that when I visited them stayed away longer. I’ll come back a bit later and one actually let me know, don’t come
[00:34:28] visiting and I won’t come. They did not want to be captured. They wanted to be a visitor only when they needed it. But Jesus pictures himself as having an agenda. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any individual hears my voice, let’s begin. To his own church opens the door. I will come on in and up to that one and fellowship with him and he with me. There is an experience of going deeper with Christ though you’re already a Christian when you recognize you’re going to church to be where Jesus is and you’re going to spend time with him. There develops a habit that you have that you don’t want to miss out on every service that you can go to. I’ve had the joy sometimes overseas when I had lots of leisure time on Sundays. Saturdays I’d go to a Saturday night service,
[00:35:45] several Sunday morning services, a Sunday evening service, even if I had to go to different places. And the First Baptist Church of Dallas had three services which I try and go to all three. As well as add in some other Saturday night thing. Why did I do that? I remember sitting in the middle of the First Baptist Church, it was the second service I think in the morning, they had Sunday school in between, two morning services, and they had a beautiful orchestra somewhere, I forget the exact number now, 80, 90 pieces of music playing. They had choirs and they had over 5,000 people who would turn up to every worship service, and some of them would sit around the balconies. And every now and then all the choirs that could only take turns, were all dressed in white robes, and be down the bottom and up the top, the whole top taken by these white robes. You’d be forgiven for thinking the
[00:36:53] angels again and when they say it was like the rapture was happening and you in the middle of it such a beautiful church of worship I couldn’t stay away three times on a Sunday that’s a church in which Jesus is who it was suppose it still is that’s what our church is becoming and God is amongst us for as long as we understand it’s Jesus Church and we’re We’re here to know him. And we’re here to praise him and to worship him. And his spirit moves to make that so. Let’s join him. Let me finish in prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you… I thank you that when Jesus’s family came to visit him, when he was talking, and people came and gave him the word that his family was standing outside.
[00:38:11] And he chose the moment to make the point, who are my friends? Who are my friends? They are, and he pointed to his disciples. It’s he that does the will of the father is my friend. And, Father, by our surrender to your will we become the friends of Jesus May there be many of us who go deeper into that friendship and provide what is his heartthrob, a love for him and we for him and he for us as we find it in his church. We pray that in his name. Amen.

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