Good Monday to you! Hey, it’s Thanksgiving week, and we have the glorious gospel to give thanks for as well as the truth that the good news of the kingdom births and builds Jesus’ church.
We wrapped up our series on the church yesterday, and I wanted to give you some final thoughts to put a nice “bow” on the series.
When we began the sermon series on the church I was excited to unpack the glorious truths of God’s word about the church of Jesus and the indicators of what makes a New Testament church.
As usual, I feel like we gave it a good go AND left a lot of good stuff out there that still needs unpacking. Of course it does! We can never do in one sermons series what centuries of great scholarship still strives to do in speaking to the glories of the Body of Christ…the church that puts on display the manifold wisdom of God. We just can’t do it all in one series. But, we can keep choppin’ that wood and doing all we can to be faithful to God’s word, be obedient to his word, and be his church on mission.
I want to come back and be able to talk about the Holy Spirit’s gifting of Jesus’ body to be on mission. I want to teach about the 5-fold gifting of Jesus in Ephesians 4:1-16 of himself in his being as apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd and teacher to his church. This one in particular is MASSIVE. I can’t overstate how vital it is to see these 5 gifts of the Lord Jesus of himself to the church as the very core of our gifting to be on mission.
The model we grew up with placed the shepherd/teacher at the apex of church polity and as a result we have lost the tip of the spear of being on mission in our cities and our world for a well fed and knowledge heavy sedentary church life. Ephesians 2:20 reminds us that the church is built with Jesus as the cornerstone on the apostolic and the prophetic. That means something, and we need to get it and obey it.
We need to unlearn the poor use of the gifting of apostle and relearn it as the Scriptures define it. Yes, there is more there than “eye witness” of the resurrection. Are you intrigued? Great! Then go read the Manual, wrestle through what it says, fight to understand it’s meaning, and strive to make application.
Below you’ll find links to some of the sermons from this series. Take advantage of those resources.
Have a great Monday and Thanksgiving week!
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/06/28/church-characteristics-of-the-local-church/
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/07/05/the-church-what-is-the-mission-of-the-church/
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/07/05/the-church-what-is-the-mission-of-the-church/
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/07/26/the-church-9-marks-of-a-nt-church-preaching/
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/08/02/church-9-marks-of-a-new-testament-church-biblical-theology/
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/08/09/church-9-marks-of-a-new-testament-church-gospel/
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/08/16/church-9-marks-of-a-new-testament-church-transformation/
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/08/23/church-9-marks-of-a-new-testament-church-evangelism/
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/09/27/church-evangelism-make-disciples/
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/10/04/church-evangelism-good-news-and-presenting-the-good-news/
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/10/11/church-9-marks-membership/
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/10/18/church-9-marks-baptism-and-lords-supper/
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/10/25/the-church-9-marks-of-a-nt-church-discipline-accountability/
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/11/15/the-church-9-marks-of-a-nt-church-discipleship/
https://mitchjolly.com/2020/11/22/church-9-marks-of-a-new-testament-church-leadership-elders/
Theology in the Dirt 