Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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Change: The Centrality of Christ

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Opening

Good morning, how are you? Good. I’m not so good. I’m here. So when I’m weak, I’m strong, amen.

Reviewing the Wheel

We’re going to look at a number of scriptures today. One of the things I wanted to do this morning is to kind of review some of the things we’ve been learning lately as we talk about about the wheel. Is the wheel there? Oh, we have the inside of my brain. Oh, no, there’s the wheel. My son, Ethan, and I had this debate the other day about this. There’s a saying, you can’t see the forest for the trees. You know that saying? Is that how it goes? What did you see? What did I see? We have this, you, what was the other, what? What was the other way we said it? You missed the forest for the trees? Okay, whatever. You all get the point, right? In other words, you get so focused on the particulars you can’t see the big picture. And I think in the Christian life we can do the same thing. And we’ve been talking for weeks about the first two spokes on the wheel, and I wanted to review a little bit about those spokes and then tell you where we’re going in this series. We’ve talked about the word and the importance of the word. Amen. And the word, of course, is foundational to everything in the Christian life. We talked about the need to read the word,

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in these basic, what are called the basic disciplines of the Christian life. And so we talked about the word, we talked about approaching the word with the right attitude, we had to come to the word in humility, we have to come to the word in faith, believing, and we have to come to the word with a willing heart to obey what the word tells us to do. Amen.

And then we talked about worship, which included prayer, not just praise, but prayer. We talked about the different aspects of prayer. We talked about adoration, supplication, contrition. And we talked about the need to balance our prayer life so we’re not always just asking God for things. And that’s, I think, one of the ruts we fall into. become simply supplication. Ask, ask, ask, rather than praise, confession, waiting on God to have him instruct us in our time with him. We talked about worship, worship in spirit, worship in truth. We talked about praise. So we’ve talked about a lot, lot of things. That’s just the first two spokes. And then we’re going to talk a little bit about work, which in the old wheel is called fellowship. But I think the word fellowship has been so overused that we don’t use it correctly anymore according to scripture. And so the word work here means fellowship, which is actually work, believe it or not.

It’s not fun, it’s work. And ministry, and the focus of this spoke is the church, really, and community, ministering to one another, building up the body of Christ. And then the last spoke is witnessing our ministry and our focus outside of the body.

It’s all good stuff. I believe these four disciplines are foundational. If you are not in the Word, if you are not in prayer, in worship, if you are not serving and using your gifts, if you are not witnessing for Jesus Christ, you are not rolling along the Christian life. You are in a rut. You are off the road. You are not rolling. These are elementary. I mean, there are many other things we could talk about, but these are elementary. And so my heart in this matter has been for us, many of us who’ve known the Lord for a number of years, to kind of pause and reflect on how we’re doing, if you will, because I think, as I said when I began this series, that it’s easy to drift away from the foundational things. And so if you’re a seasoned Christian, you’ll hear a sermon about the importance of the Bible, and you’ll nod your head, but then you’ll go home and you won’t read your Bible any more than you did before. And in spite of everything that some of you have heard, it hasn’t affected how you’ve lived. That’s a problem. Okay? Receiving the word. That’s not hearing the word. nodding at the word, but it’s not hearing the word. And so I love to write a book some day called Connecting the Dots because we have goals and aspirations in the Christian life but we often don’t connect the dots or doing or not in the present which effect whether or not we achieve those aspirations.

Connecting the Dots

And so if I were to ask you, do you want to grow as a Christian, say, yeah, I want to grow. Do you want a power in your life? Yeah, I want power. Do you want victory over sin? I want victory over sin. Rah, rah, right? We could have a big, we could have a big, get the pom-poms out and have a big, you know, big rally, big victory rally. But in reality, if we are not practicing the fundamental disciplines, there will be no victory.

It won’t happen. It just doesn’t happen that way. And there is a danger in the way we think about the Christian life to detach the practical from the spiritual. And I say, well, I wanna grow. I wanna… By the way, that’s not a word. It’s kind of a slang for two words. I want to. But we say, I wanna grow. I wanna have victory. I wanna, you know, I wanna be like Paul. I wanna… Well, really? How much did you read your Bible this week? Well… How many hours did you pray this week? Well…but I wanna… so don’t I get a good grade for wanna? When I was in grade school we could ease for effort. Well he tried. He flunked but he tried. He tried. So, you know, the reality is that the things that we say we want in the Christian life and the things the Scripture holds out as attainable, and this is the thing we have to understand, the kind of Christian life that’s attainable according to the Bible is obtainable, but it’s not obtainable by simply one-a. It’s obtainable by means that God has designed. And so that’s why, if you read various books, we’ll talk about the word being a means of grace, or prayer or worship, a means of grace. These are means by which we grow in grace. And apart from them, we do not grow. We just won’t. You know, I want to be like, buff and have a six pack, you know? Well, not really. Because if I wanted it, then I’d do something about it. And that’s the truth. And so I used to say things like, I want this and I want that, but I quit saying it because I realized it was not true. Because the things that I really wanted in life, and I put my mind to achieve them, I’ve achieved. And anybody can achieve various things. they really put their mind to doing. Some of you want to lose weight. Guess what? You can do that if you really want to. But no more Hostess cupcakes, no more Twinkies, no more donuts, because that’s not want to.

It’s not going to work that way. You’ve got to connect the dots. Your behavior affects various outcomes. Yes, actions have consequences. Actions have consequences, right? So if we neglect the word and we neglect prayer, if we neglect fellowship, if we don’t witness, if we’re not doing the basic things of the Christian life, there’ll be no growth, there’ll be no maturity. It’s really pretty simple. But we get in the habit of knowing way more than we practice. We know more than we actually apply. And that’s, I think, inevitable to degree, but the danger is to be okay with that. We shouldn’t be okay with that. We should be striving to live what we know and apply what we know. So all that to say this, that

Christ Is the Hub

Before I go on to the next two spokes, I want us to pause, not just to review, but to remind you that in the Christian life, the important thing, the ultimately important thing is not the spokes. This is where we can lose the forest for the trees, because we can take seriously the various aspects of the Christian life, whether it’s the word or prayer or witness or whatever, And then those things, those activities, those disciplines, then become the focus.

They are not the focus. The, focus of the Christian life is not prayer. The focus isn’t the word. The focus isn’t worship. The focus isn’t evangelism. The focus of the Christian life is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. And that’s why in the illustration of the wheel, the most important thing on the wheel are not the spokes. The most important part of the wheel is the hub, which is Jesus Christ. He is the center. And this is what we must remember. Because although I’ve been encouraging you to be in the word, for example, and to memorize the word and study the word, the goal isn’t to come coming back to church next week and say, I’ve memorized three verses. . That’s not the goal. The goal is that through the written word, you would know more deeply the living word. The goal in worship and prayer is to have a religious experience. The goal is that through the process of worship, you might come into a deeper knowledge of Jesus Christ. I can say the same about the church. I can say the same about witnessing. It is all linked to Jesus Christ because the Scripture says that He is the author and He is the perfecter of our faith. He is the Alpha and He is the Omega. He’s the beginning and He is the end. He is the goal. He’s the foundation. He is what the Christian life is really about. You know, as a pastor I get a lot of annoying questions. You want to hear one? Just being honest, you want to hear one? And some of you, we have a few guests today, so don’t be offended, but you know, people will come to church and they’ll visit and they’ll want to grab me the homily. Tell me, Pastor, your vision for the church. You know what I mean? The vision. I actually have the audacity to say something as stupid as, I want people to know Jesus better. No, what’s the vision? You know what I mean? The vision. It’s gotta be big. It’s gotta be grand. It’s gotta be awesome. It’s gotta have numbers. It’s gotta have buildings. It’s gotta have, you know, a vision. You know, a vision. My vision is irrelevant.

The vision of God, what the Bible says is important. That’s what’s important. So when it comes to priorities, when it comes to what’s really important in the Christian life, or what’s really important for any I mean, if you strip a lot of the other stuff away, and I’m not saying a lot of the other stuff isn’t valuable, but if you strip it all away, and you had to come up with one of those mission statements, you know, vision, what do you strip away and what do you leave? I think that when you read your Bible, you get a very simple message, and that is that Jesus Christ is the foundation and the goal of the church.

And, and for a lot of Christians, sadly, they will get excited about that because they want a vision. See, Jesus isn’t like part of the Christian life. He’s not really even part of the wheel. The Christian life isn’t about many things plus Jesus, it is about Jesus. The message of the gospel is about the person and the work of Jesus Christ. And this is what makes Christianity so different than any other world religion is because in those religions you really can’t take the founder of the religion out of the religion and still have the basic teaching. In Christianity, you cannot remove Jesus. If you remove Jesus, you only have anity. Or should I say inanity, if you look at that word out. Jesus is inseparable from his church and he is inseparable from the message that the church is preaching. inseparable from the life that the church should be living. Christ is the foundation of the church because apart from Him there is no church. During the Reformation there was a phrase, I won’t quote it in Latin, but basically, the church stands or falls on the doctrine of justification by faith. And for many years I’m not sure if I agree with that. But the more you ponder, the more you realize the point is, is that if we do not have people saved by faith, then we don’t have a church. There is no church, because the church is the gathering of the saved ones. And if you preach, if false gospel is preached, then people will not be saved. You’ll have a gathering, but you won’t have a real church, because they won’t be saved. Because we’re saved by grace through faith, through Christ alone. And so, you can have a religious assembly without Jesus, but you can’t have the true church the way it’s defined in the Bible. So in the church, Jesus Christ is really all in all. He’s all in all. And unfortunately for some of us, that’s too simple, and that’s actually too boring. And that’s kind of troublesome to me. That’s not big enough. You know what I mean? But I want you to look at a few scriptures with me. And we could begin almost anywhere in the New Testament. Just go to Ephesians 1. look at a few scriptures and I want you to see the priority of Jesus Christ in the church.

Scripture

What did I say of Ephesians 1? Excuse me, I’m finding a bronchial thing. Ephesians 1, after Paul prays in beginning of verse 15, for He talks about in verse 19 that we might know what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, He seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet and gave Him — He’s talking about Jesus — and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of him who fills all and all. Chapter 2, verse 10, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Look at Philippians, chapter 3. And there are many, many, many scriptures. We’re only going to look at a few. Paul is recounting his testimony here in the book of Philippians, and he’s warning the Philippians against the false teachers who boasted in their credentials. He says in verse 4, he says, Though I also might have confidence in the flesh, meaning I’ve got credentials too, if anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I am Orcel. He says, okay, you want to hear some of my credentials? Here they are. circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews concerning the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church, concerning righteousness, which is in the law blameless. So for a typical Jewish audience, this is pretty impressive. Not only a devout Jew, but a Pharisee. But then he says in verse 7, And but, with things were gained to me, these I counted loss for Christ.

Yet indeed I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him not having my own righteousness which which is through the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death. Wow. Paul had, in his society, all the trappings of success. He had prestige, he had recognition amongst his peers, and he was willing to throw all of that away, and not only throw it away, but as he looked at it in comparison to Jesus, he said, that’s rubbish, or as you know in the original dung. Colossians chapter 1 verse 15, it says, he is the image, the he here is Jesus Christ.

He is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. That He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. I love that. For all the fullness, meaning all the fullness of God, was pleased to dwell in Him.

What Paul is saying here that Jesus, this Jesus whom we worship, is the exact representation of God, God’s image, if you will, meaning not that he’s simply a reflection or a representative, but in order to image God, he had to be God, but because God in his essence is invisible, Jesus becoming incarnate was the visible representation of the invisible God. And he’s the first born overall creation. The first born here doesn’t mean he was actually born. First born is a technical word for having all the rights of a first born son. Meaning he has supremacy. He is the heir, if you will. and he holds all things together. He’s not only sovereign over all of the natural creation, but he’s sovereign over the church here. He said he’s the head of the church, the first from the dead, that in all things he may have preeminence. Now that’s a vision statement for you. To to ponder this, to understand this, to be able to to truly see with the eyes of faith who this Jesus is. Now that’s a vision statement for you.

1 Timothy 3. One might come back to Colossians, we’ll see. 1 Timothy 3. We’ll start on verse 14. He says, These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly, but if I’m delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth. And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh, or some versions say, who was manifested in the flesh? Justified in the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up into glory. So the great mystery of godliness is Christ. He is the mystery. Hebrews chapter 1, Hebrews, verse 1, it says, God, who at various times and in various ways, spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, who He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds, who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on having become so much better than the angels as he has obtained a more excellent name than they. Wow. He is the express image of the Father. So if we want to see God and know God, we must look at the Son. Right? The Son, the one who made the world, or God made the world through Him, He upholds all things. Remember in Colossians it says, all things hold together by Him, meaning not only He created all things, but He is preserving all things in their current course. He’s… it’s just an astounding thought, what Jesus is doing right now.

When you think of the vastness of not just nature on our planet, but the universe. He’s saying, this Jesus is the one who’s holding this whole thing together. Wow. He’s the one who purges our sins. Look at Romans 1, if you will. A couple more verses. Is that okay? You like the Bible? If you like the Bible, say yes. Yes. All right, I’m going to read you the Bible. Romans 1. It says, Paul, 1-1, Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God. So, 1st verse is telling the Romans, here’s what I’m going to talk about in this letter. I’m going to expound to you you the gospel. Which he promised before through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord. The gospel concerns Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The gospel is about Jesus Christ. And they’re like, well, I know that. Really? Really? Because you know what? A lot of times when people preach the gospel, they talk about, well, they should talk about sin. even today’s gospel, we don’t want to talk about sin. We talk about God loves you, and he’s got a great plan for your life. We know you made mistakes, but God loves you anyway, and Jesus is to carry your mistakes, so come on in. That’s kind of the gospel, right? But you might get a better gospel when people actually talk about sin. But so often the gospel becomes, and this is, I want you to hear my heart in this because this is where I think we need to be careful. The gospel and so much of our God talk becomes about concepts. Okay, we’re talking about concepts. Now I believe firmly in the importance of sound doctrine, firmly. I think that we need to study the Bible and we need to study its doctrinal concept, a construct, we need to know the Word, but we must be careful in our approach to God and to Christ that we don’t depersonalize Him. Anybody hear me? And it’s easy to do and not realize you’re doing it. I do it. I find myself doing it all the time. I have to stop myself and say stop doing it. And so, So you can think about, you know, we spent over a year studying the attributes of God as a church. And we can think about God and we have ideas about God or we have ideas about Jesus.

And then what happens is Jesus or God becomes a point of reference or a point in the system or an abstract concept when the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is a person.

A Living Person

Okay, he’s a person. And that sounds so elementary, I hope I don’t offend you by saying it, but I think we need to remember this because we fall into this, this tendency to talk about the gospel and talk about Jesus and talk about God things as if they’re removed in a way from the fact that we’re talking about a person here. Now Jesus Christ is a real person and He wasn’t, notice I didn’t say He was a real person. He is a real person. Because at the heart of the gospel is not only that Jesus died on the cross, but that Jesus rose from the dead. So that means that Jesus is not only a person, Jesus is a living person. Now let me ask you this, have you ever asked yourself the question, what’s Jesus doing right now? Have you ever asked yourself that question? What’s Jesus doing right now? Watching ballgame? What’s Jesus doing right now? Is it hunting? What’s Jesus doing? Doing something because he’s alive. Well, maybe he’s just chilling on the throne, you know? Getting some worship. The Gospel is concerning his Son, verse 3, our Lord, who was born of the seed of David, according to the flesh and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of Holiness by the resurrection from the dead. Jesus Christ who is the hub of the wheel is not just a word on a piece of paper. He’s not just a construct that we have in our theological system. Jesus Christ is a living person. Jesus Christ is alive today.

Today, Jesus Christ is alive right now. Right now. The same man who walked on the earth, the same man who died on the cross for your sins, the same man who was buried, now glorified and transfigured and ascended and exalted and seated at the right hand of the Father, that same man, that same God-man is alive today. And you, as a Christian, are called to know that living God-man.

And he has a personality. And he walks with you, and he talks with you. And you can know him as well as you know your spouse, as well as you know your children. I would say you could know him better. Because he’s not simply near you, the Word of God says that he is in you if you have of His Spirit in you. Just saying. It’s bring it all down, right? Bring it all down to where it’s really important. Bring it all down. Because the gospel, the good news, is about Jesus Christ. And it’s not just what Jesus did 2,000 years ago. It’s that because of what he did 2,000 years ago, this day, this day, this day, you can know the living God through Him. I mean know him not know about him know him and Some of us And God bless some of you some of you are much much better people than I’ll ever be but some of you are chasing rabbits They’re just chasing freaking rabbits And you’re spending a lot of time and doing things that are just not important and Some of you are even doing good things that are not important Because when it comes to the most important thing which is knowing God through Christ, knowing Jesus Christ, who is the revelation of the Father, it’s the one thing you don’t seem to have time for. And you can do a lot of good, but neglect the best. If anything is the enemy, it’s that. Because we all know we shouldn’t do this sin and that sin. We can get entangled in so many good things, we’re not doing the best thing. And of course that was the problem. That’s why I think we even have the story of Martha and Mary recorded. Because Martha loved Jesus. She loved him. And she loved him so much she wanted to serve him. She wanted to honor him. She wanted to wait on him. And. And she did all those things. And Jesus commended her for that. But he said regarding Mary, who wasn’t all frantic about all these things, He said, Martha, you’re doing a good thing here, but Mary is doing a better thing because she’s sitting with me and having fellowship with me. The heart of the gospel, my friend, is not we can be happy. It’s not that we can be successful. It’s not that your marriage can be saved, although all of that’s true. That’s all true. I mean, Jesus changes lives. He really does. But Jesus does it. The living Jesus does it. Not the idea of Jesus. Not the system of Jesus. Jesus does it. He changes lives. But the goal isn’t our success. When the goal isn’t our happiness, the goal is we might know Him. Because that is eternal life. That’s what He said, to know Him. And so as we talk about the disciplines, and as we move forward in our study of the disciplines, my goal today is simply to remind you of why we are doing this. Why we must be in the word, why we must be in prayer and worship, why we must be in community, why we must be witnessing for Jesus, bcause it’s all about Him. all about Him. It’s not about us. It’s not about the church. It’s all about Him. He is to have preeminence in all things. Amen. Let’s stand and pray. Lord, that very word Lord, how we often use the word Lord And not even think what it means

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Closing Prayer

I thank you, Lord, that you have made a way for every one of us through your work on the cross and through your resurrection. You have made a way for every one of us to know you and to know your Father, truly know you. And I ask, Lord, that each one of us would purpose in our hearts, like Paul, to count everything else as loss, to see that you truly have preeminence in our lives, not just a place, but that you have first place.

I thank you that your spirit dwells in us. I pray Lord that He would have His way in our hearts, because we know that His ministry is to reveal you, to glorify you. So we yield to Him now. What a precious gift that you would do all in our hearts. Lord Jesus we love you and we want our lives to glorify and honor you above all things. We pray in your name, Amen.