4/13/2025 Sunday Morning "The Day the Church was Born: The Day of Pentecost" Jn. 14:20
In Colossians chapter one we have a long list of amazing unique things said about Jesus Christ. “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, He is the image of the invisible God. By Him, through Him, and for Him all things were created. In the middle of all this the inspired apostle writes, “And He is the head of the body, the church.” (1:18) What an amazing statement in the context of other such statements. The church is not a metaphor; it is actually and literally the body of Christ: “bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh.” (Eph.5:30)
Never underestimate the importance of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not that important to the world of unbelievers and that is our fault. But nothing is more important to God, and nothing should be more important to the Christian. The church is the best friend your family has, the best friend you have if you want to grow to be more Christlike and make it to heaven when you die.
“Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her,” says what the Lord thinks of His beloved bride, the church (Eph.5:25; Acts 20:28 says, “the church, which He purchased with His own blood). We want to think like Christ thinks. Wisdom does that. We want to love like Christ, love who He loves: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
Every couple celebrates their births and so should we. We remember and celebrate what happened in Acts 2. The birth of the church will be celebrated forever for the church will never die. Jesus said, “I will build My church, and the gates of death (Hades) will not prevail against her.” (Mt.16:18). The church is the only people who will live with God in the New Jerusalem. If He thought it was that important, so should we.
What is the church? This needs to be made clear because there is a lot of confusion about this. It is the Body of Christ, the House of God, the Temple (dwelling place) of the Holy Spirit. Paul wrote, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1Cor.3:16) The you in that verse is in the plural because he’s writing to the church at Corinth: “to the church of God which is at Corinth.” The church is the local church. Individual Christians are living stones placed individually into this temple by the Holy Spirit (1Pet.2:5; 1Cor.12:13). The church is a local body of people. It is not a building made with man’s hands. It is built by Christ (Mt.16:18; Acts 2:47) and His fellow-workers, which is us (1Cor.3:9). He uses us to build the greatest, most glorious, long-lasting building that will ever be built!
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