Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now, come along.
Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.
Here this morning, we're starting out the new year with somewhat
of a new sermon series, even though we're in the book of Romans.
So just pause.
In the book of Romans, we just finished Romans 8.
We're not going to Romans 9 yet.
We're going to go to Romans 9 in a little bit.
But here at the beginning of the year, we're going to have a small
sermon series entitled Church Culture.
We're going to talk about what that means.
And I want you to think about the word culture here this morning,
because it might mean different things to different people,
but when we talk about the word culture, it essentially means
a shared way of life, including our beliefs, our values,
our customs.
Essentially, we could say this way, a culture is a way a group of
people do things, how we do things.
In particular, we're talking about church culture.
How should the church live?
How should the church think?
How should the church respond?
How should the church treat one another?
How should the church treat our society around us?
And I think that the Bible speaks to that very clearly in the
book of Ephesians.
And so if you have your Bibles, I want us to look here in
Ephesians, Ephesians, chapter four.
Because if we're going to find what our culture should be, our church
culture, where should we look?
Well, we shouldn't look to the world.
We don't want to get our culture at church from the culture
that's around us, because obviously the world's culture is.
Is a much different culture.
It's a culture of fleshly living.
It's a culture of pleasure.
It's a culture of anger.
It's a culture of separation, of bitterness.
And we certainly don't want to put that inside our church culture
here, because we could take some things that the world thinks
is completely acceptable, but when we pull that into the church,
we see that there's going to be division.
We see that there's going to be pain.
Pain.
We see that there's going to be confusion.
And obviously we know that God is not the author of it.
So where do we get our culture?
Well, we.
We don't get our culture from any of the other belief systems out
There in the world today, as you know, there's a bunch of different
belief systems in this world that many people follow.
But if we try to go somewhere else to find our hope, our truth,
we're going to miss the boat.
We're going to miss what God has for us as a church and what's
happened over the years as.
As we've seen the church live and grow and shrink in some cases.
And when I'm talking about the church, I'm not just talking about
Middletown Baptist Church.
I'm talking about the church at large.
What we've seen is that many of the things that the world sees
as completely normal has come into the church, and the church has
seen as completely normal.
And we've had a church culture that's based in.
In materialism.
It's all about what we see.
It's all about what we have.
It's all about how much money we have.
Or.
Or we see a church culture filled with separation.
We see different groups within the church and different cliques
that happen, and a lot of separation.
And we've seen church culture based in gossip, right?
It's all about what we can say about somebody else or.
Or what we can share about someone else's private life.
And that's been a thing that we've seen within churches in America.
We've seen different aspects of control within the church, right?
A culture of control.
Well, there's one person at the top that makes all the rules
and makes sure that all the rules are enforced.
And there's that control.
There's.
There's a culture of concealment.
For.
For many churches, there's been things that need to be brought
to light, but churches have concealed it for whatever reason.
And so.
So we think about all these different elements of.
Of church culture.
Concealment, confusion, you could even say communication, gossip.
It's all these different currency.
Materialism could be all these things that a church bases its culture
off of.
But I would say, and I think many of you would also agree, that
the best place that we can find our culture, at least what the
church should be, is found in the word of God.
And there's a lot of passages of scripture that we could go to,
but one that I think will be a blessing for us as we study and hopefully
a challenge for us as we study is here In Ephesians, chapter 4.
In Ephesians, chapter 4, it says in.
In verse 1, I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord.
So Paul's recognition here is this.
I, I am a prisoner of the Lord.
I Am a servant to the Lord.
Nothing else has my heart and nothing else is controlling me.
What controls me is what God wants for me.
And I think that's a good place to start as a church.
Question should be this.
What does God want for us?
Not.
Not what does the.
The city around us want from us?
Not what the.
What people that are seeking different things want from us, but
what does God want from us?
If we all agreed to say we're all servants of God, He.
He's our master, he's the director, he's the one that's in
control.
And ultimately we're to obey Him.
The that.
That's enough right there to say that's a good place to start
with church culture, that God is the head, that Jesus Christ is
the head.
The Bible says that Jesus is the head of the body.
The Bible says that Jesus is the chief cornerstone of the building,
not the physical building, but the spiritual building.
And so what we can see here this morning is that where it starts
with church culture is it's a focus on the Lord, it's a focus on
his word, it's a focus on his will.
It's a focus on all the aspects that God wants for us to
be when it comes to being believers and children.
Jesus Christ.
So he says, I, therefore the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you,
beg you, plead with you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith
you're called, meaning this.
Walk the way you're supposed to walk, live the way that you're
supposed to live, interact with other Christians the way that
you're supposed to interact with other Christians.
Interact with the lost, the way that you're supposed to interact
with the lost, Interact with God the way that you're supposed
to interact with Him.
The Bible says that we're to walk a certain way, which tells us
this.
If there's a right way to walk, there is a wrong way to walk.
And a lot of times people think, well, you know what?
I'm in church, that's enough.
I'm not a Muslim or I'm not a Buddhist, so.
So that's enough.
No, the Bible says that church culture is so much more.
It's walking in the way that's worthy of the vocation or the job
or the purpose in which we are called.
And by the way, the Bible says that when we trust in God, when we
become children of God, we are called to a purpose.
We have a job to do.
We're going to talk more about what that job is later on in the
Sermon series.
But essentially, what we have to understand is that all of us are
called for a specific purpose, and that is to glorify God.
And he says to walk worthy of that.
This isn't legalism.
This isn't, hey, walk a certain way so that you can be a
Christian.
He says, you that are believers, walk a certain way because
you are Christians.
Church should look a certain way.
Church.
By the way, let me.
Let me just go back and not assume everyone knows what I mean
by church.
When I say church, I'm not talking about this building.
This is the church building where we meet.
But this building is not the church.
This property is not the church.
Even though I'm thankful for what God has blessed us with, with
materials here.
But the church, as the Bible tells us, is the body.
The body is made up of the believers.
You, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are the church.
We are here together as the assembly of believers to be the church.
The Greek word for that.
You don't need to remember this, but it's something that you
can think about is ecclesia, which means assembly.
We are the church.
So when I say the church, I'm not talking about the building.
I'm not talking about the programs, talking about the people.
So the church should have a culture.
The people should have a culture.
A culture itself means this.
We have to think a certain way collectively.
We have to believe a certain way collectively.
We have to respond a certain way collectively.
When I moved to Delaware, I had to get used to a culture.
You know, by the way, I'm.
Some of you might not know this.
I'm from Florida.
So Florida has a specific culture.
Not saying it's the best culture.
I'm not saying it's a better culture, but it's a different culture.
So when I moved here to Delaware, I had to realize that there
are certain things that were different.
For example, I got here.
The very first time I got here, someone said, you got to try
scrapple.
And I'm like, scrapple?
I don't know what that is.
And an apple.
They go, no, no, it's something else.
You got to try it.
So I tried it.
And at first time I tried it, I'm like, okay, that's something.
Don't necessarily like that, but it's become an acquired taste.
And I. I eat scrapple now.
Okay?
It's something that I enjoy.
It's come a long way with that culture.
So.
So leaving Florida, I'm gonna try to put this in a way that we
can all understand.
Leaving Florida.
It never gets cold in Florida.
Doesn't snow.
There's no ice.
And so, culturally speaking, I had to get used to that change.
It was a different thing.
And so it's a way that I think when I woke up in Florida, I didn't
have to check my phone.
Okay, is it going to be snowy?
Okay, I didn't have to check that.
Now I. I wake up and I, what was it a couple days ago?
I didn't even know it was supposed to snow.
I walk outside and it's snowing.
I'm like, wow, this is crazy.
That's.
That's, that's nice.
That's good.
So it's a different culture.
It's a different way of thinking.
When I was in Florida, specifically where I was at in Florida,
when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would win, it would be a celebration.
Everyone would be going around and celebrating.
Here, it's not that way.
I don't see anyone celebrating when my football team wins.
Okay?
It's the other way around.
Some people actually might root against my team if there's other
particular teams doing that.
So.
So you get the point that I'm trying to make here.
Culture is different in different areas.
And it's.
It's the way that we think.
It's what we know, it's what we expect.
And sometimes we just learn that culture.
And so sometimes in the church, we've learned a certain culture
that isn't necessarily the biblical culture of how a church
should be.
So we go back to verse number one.
He says, walk the right way.
Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.
So there's a right way to walk.
Church is not just, hey, come and be as you are and leave as you
are, and worship the way you want to worship and be the way that
you want to be.
That sounds good in our culture.
But the Bible says that it's not that we don't come and be the
way that we want to be.
We come and be the way that God wants us to be.
We leave changed.
We leave, we leap differently.
It doesn't mean that we're all going to leave perfectly.
There's.
It doesn't say walk perfectly because none of us can walk perfectly,
but all of us can strive to walk more and more like Christ.
To walk worthy, you might say, well, what does it mean to walk worthy?
What does it mean to walk like Christ?
Well, he goes on to say what it looks like.
He goes on to actually list certain character traits that should
be character traits that are reflected in A proper biblical church
culture.
And I'm going to tell you, they're all opposite of what the
world tells us.
Because what does the world tell us?
It's all about you, it's all about materials, it's all about pride,
it's all about lifting yourself up.
It's all about getting yours when you can.
What does it say in verse number two with all lowliness.
Okay, right there.
That strikes out that thinking, biblically speaking, church
culture, lowliness in the King James means humility.
Church culture should be characterized by humility.
All should be characterized by humility.
By the way that we talk, by the way that we serve, by the way
that we react to people.
Humility.
What's humility?
Well, it's putting someone before myself, it's putting their
needs before my needs.
It's not expecting to be lifted up.
The Bible actually says that those people who expect to be lifted
up are going to be ones that are torn down.
God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
I think all of us want to be characterized by God's grace and
to experience and to live and to rest in God's grace.
We must all realize the humility that Jesus had and reflect
that type of humility by the way that we live our lives.
So church culture is a humble culture.
Culture.
It's not about getting the attention, it's not about being in
the spotlight.
It's not about tearing other people down so that I can be lifted
up.
Now I'm going to be saying some tough things here this morning,
but because the word of God points us to this, the word of God
points to a spirit of humility, lowliness.
You might say, well I'm better than that.
You don't know who I am.
You don't know what I've accomplished.
You know what, if anyone accomplished anything, it was Jesus.
Philippians, chapter two, it says that he humbled himself, took
a form of a servant.
You know, in John 13 he washed the disciples feet, one of which
would betray him, one of which would deny him.
So that's the type of humility that we're called to have within
the church.
The church is all about this ministry is more important than this
ministry.
And this is my territory.
And this, that, that becomes an issue that we cannot walk in unity,
which we're going to talk about here in a few moments.
And so the, the first step of living that culture, obviously outside
of faith in Jesus Christ and walking worthy would be to walk with
that humbled spirit.
But then you see here, the next thing Is it says so.
So a lot of times what people would say is this, humility means
I'm weak.
I have to be weak.
I have to be walked all over.
I have to just take it.
No, because with humility comes meekness.
And meekness could be considered strength under control,
gentleness.
Some of the strongest people that I know are gentle.
The reality is that strength doesn't necessarily always equal
violence and anger and being boisterous.
Actually, true strength means I'm under control because true strength
is an individual who can say, yes, I have a temptation, but no,
I don't need to give into that temptation.
The world thinks that strength is, I do whatever I want to do.
If I want to go do that, I'm going to go do it.
That's strength and control.
But real strength, real control, real meekness is I have
the strength and the ability to do it, but I'm going to allow
my beliefs, my culture, my faith to dictate to me that I don't
have to do that.
I don't have to convince that.
Again, another example of meekness, Jesus on the cross.
Jesus wasn't hanging on the cross thinking, I wish I could take
all these people out.
He could have.
The Bible says he could have called a legion of angels and wiped
out everybody, but he didn't.
It was strength under control.
So within the church, there's this idea of gentleness, this idea
of meekness.
It means that, hey, I can be strong in my faith, I can be strong
in my opinion, I can be strong in what I stand for in Jesus Christ,
but at the same time, being gentle in how I deal with people.
So.
So one way that Paul worded it is this.
Speaking the truth in love.
We don't have to sacrifice truth.
And what we have is our strength is the truth of God.
We don't have to sacrifice our truth to be loving and kind and gentle.
We can be truthful and gentle at the same time.
And that's one aspect of a church culture, is that, hey, there's
going to be times that I need to stand up and be strong, but I
do it in a way that, that's kind and gentle to those that are
around.
It's not to tear somebody down.
Especially in a, in a context of a new Christian folks, we're gonna,
if we're a biblical growing church, we're gonna have new Christians
praise God for that.
But new Christians sometimes are not going to be as mature as
older Christians.
That's just the reality of it.
There, there's a, There are Babes in Christ.
Babes in Christ need to learn.
Babes in Christ are needy.
Babes in Christ are going to be confused in some places.
And we don't just beat them up for their confusion.
We say, hey, I'm going to take it upon my responsibility to disciple
and to love and to be gentle with someone who needs that learning.
And so we see here that there's lowliness, humility, there's
meekness, that's gentleness.
And with all of that, though, within the spirit of humility and
within the spirit of gentleness or meekness, we have something
here that the Bible says is called with long suffering or patience.
Church culture, Biblical church culture is a culture of patience.
While I like the word long suffering because it's very picturesque,
right?
Suffering means to allow or to endure suffering long.
I'm enduring a long time.
I have patience with others.
And that's what we talk about, specifically with new Christians.
There's.
There is a spirit of patience that we have to have.
It's okay.
It's okay if someone doesn't get it the first time.
How many of us.
Don't raise your hand because I don't want to embarrass you, but
how many of us got it the first time?
Probably none of us could raise our hand and say, I got it
all right the first time.
I was.
I'm.
I've been a perfect Christian from the start.
No.
All of us have had times in our life where we've stumbled.
All of us in our life have had times where we were confused, where
we made the wrong decision and.
And hopefully people were patient.
I've had so many people that have been patient with me at various
stages of my life, and I'm thankful for that.
And so the church culture should be a culture of patience.
It doesn't mean that we allow things to just keep going on without
addressing them.
It's not what that's talking about.
Because we know that God is patient.
He's long suffering, but he doesn't just let things go forever.
He doesn't just overlook sin.
And so again, patience doesn't mean overlooking sin.
Patience means dealing with it in a way that's enduring and having
a focus of, as it's going to say here at the very end of the verse,
for bearing one another in love.
The spirit of it would be the church culture is characterized by
love, biblical, sacrificial love.
And I like the way that Paul puts it here.
He says, forbearing one another in love.
And there's a lot that we could say about that word forbearing.
But basically what it means is to endure, to.
To endure with love.
Because there's going to be times in our Christian walk where
we're tempted to give up on people, where we're tempted not to
give them patience, grace, meekness, and love.
And I, and I think that's something to think about when it
comes to.
Even if you look at the Greek word, the.
The definition of the Greek word literally means to hold up.
So think about it this way.
The Bible tells us to hold one another up in love because my brother
or sister might be weak in a situation.
Maybe they're going through a hard time, and maybe they're responding
in a specific way that isn't as agreeable as I would want it to
be.
The Bible says to forbear them, to hold them up in love, because
I love them more than the offense that I just experience.
Now, there is a biblical way to deal with sin.
We're not talking about that yet.
What we're talking about is a personal slight or difficulty or
maybe just their.
Their struggle that they're going through.
We.
We forbear them in love.
And even with forbearance come forgiveness.
They're.
They're almost very, very similar words.
Forbearance has the idea that I'm offering up grace, I'm offering
up the gift of forgiveness.
And then forgiveness is that restoration process when that other
individual recognizes where they have gone wrong.
Then we get together and we have forgiveness and restoration.
The Bible speaks of that within church culture as well.
But when we're talking about this in, in this verse, he's.
He's talking here about holding one another up in love.
So if we take the Bible for what it says, the Bible says that,
hey, we're all servants of God.
That's church culture.
We are to walk worthy.
We're to walk a specific way.
What's that?
Way to walk with lowliness.
That's humility, meekness, that's gentleness, strength under
control, long suffering.
That's patience.
And then forbearing one another in love, essentially dealing
with other people with a loving, kind way that agape love,
we all know what agape love, it's sacrificial love.
It's not a love that, hey, I'll love that person if they love
me.
I'll give to that person if they give to me.
I'll be patient with that person if they're patient with me.
No, biblically speaking, if the church is a culture of love,
we're loving without accepting that love back.
And, and we know that.
Remember that guy that came to Jesus and he said, hey, Jesus, what's
the greatest commandment?
He says, well, to love God with everything and to love your
neighbor as yourself.
That, that's the way that we should respond within church.
It's called, it's called the Great Commandment.
The Great Commandment is to love God with everything that we
have, our heart, soul, mind and strength.
That's, that's, that's meaning this.
I have to have my relationship with God right, the vertical relationship
with God where I need it to be so that I can be the right type of
individual within the body of the believers.
Because if my walk with God is not right, my walk with other Christians
is not going to be right.
And the truth of the matter is, in this case is what Paul is
telling us is it has to be characterized by love.
That's what Jesus was telling us.
It has to be characterized by love, love for God.
Then our love for God, as we see in First John, will stem out
and it'll be displayed by how we love others.
So, Pastor, get practical.
What does that mean?
Well, loving others means doing good, brother.
Treating them as you would want to be treated.
It might mean giving gifts, it might mean teaching them.
It might mean in more difficult sense, it might mean calling
them out on something to help them out.
Now, again, there's a way that we can call out people.
That's not love, that's selfish, that's prideful, that's
not lowliness of mind, that's not meek.
And so the Bible says that love is essentially doing to others
what we would want them to do to us.
Caring for them, sacrificing for them.
And so biblically speaking, it might mean a lot of different things
for us as a church to show love for one another.
So then we're going to go a little bit further here.
So church culture so far has been walking with God, faith in God,
walking with God, walking with others with lowliness.
That's humility, meekness, long suffering, patience for bearing
one another, love.
And then here's the big one, verse three.
Endeavoring.
That's a strong word, endeavoring, pursuing.
If I'm going out on an endeavor, it's, it's, it's something
that I'm going after.
I'm, I'm pursuing after this.
This is not something that I'm casually doing.
It says endeavoring to keep what the unity of the spirit.
Church culture is unified doesn't mean that it's uniform, by
the way.
Uniform Means this uniform means everything looks the same,
everyone acts the same, everyone talks the certain way.
Everyone likes the same football teams, everyone likes the
same food.
That's not going to happen in the body of Christ.
Just not.
It's not realistic.
Especially a church that has different cultures, by the way.
I'm not degrading any other culture, by the way.
I. I love.
One of the things I love about Middletown Baptist Church is all
the different cultures from around the world have come together
here as the body of believers.
I like.
I like other cultures, food.
I like other cultures, different ways of doing things.
Like, I. I never give you an example of this.
Growing up, taking off my shoes in the house was like, not
even something we did.
We wore shoes in the house.
We.
Some of you say, I wear shoes in my house.
It's no big deal.
Well, you might not know, but there's some cultures that.
No shoes in the house.
That's like.
That's like, disgraceful.
I didn't know that.
And I can appreciate that culture.
And so it doesn't mean that one culture outside of the Bible
is better than the other.
What it's talking about is that there's a different type of
eternal kingdom culture that's happening within the church, that
people from different backgrounds, different skin colors,
different food groups, a different cultural climate, places
can come together and be unified.
And so he says, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit.
So it's not talking about uniformity.
Uniformity would mean this.
Everyone's going to walk into church looking exactly like Pastor
Josh.
You're not just not a good Christian.
And that's just not what the Bible is saying.
Uniformity would mean this.
Whatever Pastor Josh says goes, and there's no questioning
it.
That's uniformity.
But unity is this.
We all come together with one purpose, and we're not fighting against
each other.
It doesn't mean that there's going to be uniformity in all of
our opinions.
Right?
That's okay.
But the Bible says that as we move forward in, as it says here,
unity in the spirit.
Unity of the spirit.
We know that the unity can come from something bigger than our
opinions.
Unity doesn't come from our opinions.
It doesn't come from our circumstances.
It doesn't even come from our feelings.
What does unity come from?
It says it right here in verse three.
From the Spirit.
What are we talking about when we talk about the Spirit?
Well, all of you, if you don't know, I will tell you.
All of you, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, have the
Holy Spirit living within you.
And so the same Spirit that lives within me when I trust in Jesus
Christ is the same Spirit that's living within you if you've
trusted in Jesus Christ.
So what does that mean?
That means that if we're following the Spirit, if we're yielded
to the Spirit, if we trust in the Spirit's will for our lives,
then we're walking with that same focus.
And you might say, well, I think we should, you know, do it
this way.
And I say, I think we should do it this way.
Well, biblically speaking, what that looks like is coming together
and figuring out how the Spirit would want us to do it.
Because maybe I'm wrong, maybe you're wrong, maybe we're both wrong.
And the idea would be, is that unity is we're going to come together
and we're going to be humble, we're going to be meek, we're going
to be forbearing, we're going to be patient, and we're going to
see what God's plan is for us on the bigger picture.
And sometimes that means dying to my wants, dying to my preferences.
We all have preferences.
You know, I. I have preferences, but sometimes my preferences
have to die for the Spirit to work.
And that's a hard thing to talk about.
None of us want to talk about that because we want it our way.
But if we're truly thinking about the unity of God, we want a
God's way.
So he says, there's one body.
We're going to get to that here in a moment.
But there's one body.
It's the unity of the Spirit.
So, so what does that mean?
It means this.
God's desire for the church, and specifically within the church
culture, is that we're unified.
We're not all the same, but we're unified in our purpose.
And that is to follow God, to walk his way, to proclaim the gospel,
to see other people come to Christ, to do the work of the ministry.
So he says, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the
bond of peace, meaning this, the church should be characterized
by unity and peace, not chaos and comedy.
Doesn't mean that all churches are perfect.
That doesn't mean that all churches won't go through times of
chaos and conflict.
But that should not be what we're characterized by.
The biblical church is characterized by unity and peace.
If there is.
Let me say it, Let me say it clearly, and some of you might not
agree with me on this, but I think this is a strong biblical point.
If the church is walking in division and chaos and conflict,
we are not following this.
We are not.
We as a church are not following God.
If we are divided, because that's actually what Satan wants.
Satan wants to divide and conquer.
Satan doesn't care what we're fighting over.
He just wants us to be fighting.
He wants us to be divided.
And so what we do as a church is instead of just saying, well,
you know what?
We're going to be divided.
Now, there is a time and a place within the church to divide
and separate.
Okay, when we're talking about biblical teachings.
So let's say, for example, today we had someone come up and
they say, pastor Josh, we don't like what you're preaching.
We.
We think that there's another way to get to heaven.
We.
We think that if you just work really hard, you can get to heaven.
And we're going to take part of the church and we're going to
believe that.
Okay, that, that is not a time where we say, well, we can agree
with that and have unity with that type of teaching.
No, biblically speaking, if we're.
If.
If we're dealing with heresy and we're dealing with public rebellion
to God and sin, then we don't unify in that.
Okay, that.
That's a time where we separate.
And the Bible talks about how to deal with that Biblically.
We're not talking about that particularly.
What we're dealing with is things that aren't dealing with theology,
other things that can cause us to have division within the church.
You know, I use this as a silly analogy, but you guys get the
point.
What I'm trying to say, hopefully you get.
We have a potluck dinner and maybe someone you spend like hours
on, your favorite dish, let's call it potato salad.
You had your potato salad just right, seasoned just right.
And some other person walks by your potato salad and says, oh, I
can't stand that type of potato salad.
That's terrible.
I would never eat that.
Oh, my.
Now we've got a problem.
Now we've got division.
Now we've got anger.
Can you believe that someone said that about my dish?
And something that has nothing to do with theology or salvation
has now become a spirit of division within the church.
That's.
That's detrimental.
And so what we have to do within our church culture is we have
to say what matters to the gospel, and what do I have to extend
in patience, humility and grace and forbearance and say, okay,
at this point, I'm going to Err on the side of.
And by the way, lest you think that unity is not important to God,
if you look at Jesus's high priestly prayer in the book of John,
give you some time.
We don't have time now, but at some point, read John 17, Jesus's
prayer to the Father for his church, for his followers.
You know, one of the things that he prays for, praise for unity.
Now Jesus desire unity within the church.
I think it's something that we should endeavor, strive.
And so we move forward.
We move forward.
He says this is how you can have this type of unity in the spirit,
in the bond of peace.
This is why you can have it.
There is one body.
One body?
What are you talking about?
One body, One body of the church.
In the book of First Corinthians, the Bible tells us that
the church is a body made up of different parts.
Some are the ear, some are the eye, some are the.
The foot, but God is the head.
Not all of us can be the ear, because if all of us were the ear,
there'd be a problem with seeing.
Not all of us could be the eye because some of us couldn't hear.
And so the Bible tells us that all of us are part of the body.
It's one body, different parts, but one body, one spirit.
We've already talked about that.
We all have the same spirit.
Even as you're called in one hope of your calling, meaning all
of us are called with the same hope to glorify God and to walk with
him one day for eternity.
That's the type that's.
We all have the same hope.
If your hope is outside of that, you have the wrong hope and
we're going to have the vision.
If my hope is this, okay, I'm.
I'm just trying to have real talk with you guys today.
If my hope is that people are going to praise me at the end of
this year, at the end of 2026, I want everyone to come up to me
and tell me how great of a pastor that I am, and that's my hope.
And then your hope is, well, I hope that, you know, Pastor Josh
leaves the church.
Okay?
The problem's going to be that we have two different hopes and neither
one of them are going to be fulfilled.
And then there's the vision, right?
What if all of our hope is that one day we get to walk with
our Savior, Jesus Christ?
In the meantime, we serve him to the best of our ability, Then
we are going to be on the same page.
That's how we can have unity.
We have the same hope.
The same hope.
Where is our hope placed?
Well, my hope is placed.
I. I gotta make sure, Pastor.
I gotta make sure that, you know, my.
My affairs are all in order, that all of my money is where it
needs to be, where my.
My job is where it needs to be.
My health is where I need to be.
That's my hope.
Well, folks, that's all great hopes, but at the end of the day,
it's not necessarily promised to us that we're gonna have everything
that we want in our life.
And so what is our ultimate hope?
Our ultimate hope is in our calling.
Our calling in Jesus Christ.
He says, one Lord.
We all have the same Lord.
What does the Lord mean?
Lord mean master.
Who's your master?
Well, I don't have a master.
Well, you got a problem.
Because we need a master.
Some of us, we are our own master.
Some of us, it's like, well, I make all the shots.
I take all the shots.
I'm the one that makes all the calls.
But the Bible tells us that we are all called to.
What did Paul say in verse one?
To be a prisoner of the Lord.
He's our mess.
So the true question is this.
Who's our Lord?
I'm my own Lord.
Is.
Is my job, is my finances, is my health, is my whatever.
What's my Lord?
Well, it should be one Lord.
And as we see, one God, one faith, one baptism.
It's talking about the similarities that we have as believers.
One God and Father of all, who is above all and through all in you
all.
I think verse six summarizes it very well.
We have one God, Father of all.
He's our God.
And Father who he's above all.
He's not below anything else.
He's above all, through all.
He's with us.
He's working in our midst.
And in wall meaning dwells us in the Holy Spirit.
And so what we can see is this.
We have a God who is above us.
He's beyond our comprehension.
That's.
That's hard for us to understand.
He's not bound by space or time.
He.
He's not bound by any limitations with power or wisdom.
But at the same time, we have a God who's working in our mids.
Personal.
If you're honest, you would say, I can see God's hand working.
I can see God's hand working in this church.
I can see God's hand working in our.
But then he says even more.
He says, it's not just that he's working around us, but he's
working in through us as a church.
And so a church culture is a church culture that recognizes the
power of God, recognizes the plan of God and recognizes our purpose
in God's power and his plan for our lives.
I want you to think about to recognize the power of God to recognize
his purpose and then to recognize our plan, his plan through
us in that purpose as we live our lives out.
And when we do that as a church, we recognize that there is
more at stake than maybe what meets the eye because we live in
a world.
And in the battle next chapter, he's going to talk about
some things, about the family, instructions in marriage and things
like that.
But we know that In Ephesians chapter 6, Paul says that we're living
in a world that there's a bigger battle than what things happen.
It's not a battle of flesh and blood, it's a spiritual battle.
And so as a church, we have to understand what our purpose is and
the time that we have and the unity and the love and the peace
and all those things that we mentioned.
Humility, those are all factors that build into accomplishing
God's plan for us in the time that he has for us.
And so a church culture has to be something that we teach.
It has to be something that we expect, it has to be something that
we pray for.
It has to be something that we have to sacrifice for.
Because this type of culture will not happen naturally in the
flesh.
This type of culture that we've just described within the church
won't just happen by default.
We all, we all just don't come into church and go, that's just going
to happen without anything.
Takes, faith, takes, it takes purposing in our hearts.
It takes sacrifice, it takes, it takes humility.
Folks, I, I, I want to challenge us as a church this year
to think about building a culture here that's already been
built.
And so we're, we're, we're, we're just trying to hone our, our
culture here, hone our culture to a place where we would say, wow,
that's a, that's, this is a biblical culture.
This is a culture that's looking to lead people to Christ.
This is a culture that's looking for people to grow in Christ.
Folks.
If someone cannot grow within a church setting, that's a big issue.
I'm not saying that's where we're at, but I do know there's a
lot of churches in America that if a person went in there today
and tried to Grow.
It's not going to happen because there isn't a culture of
discipleship.
It's just a.
It's a cultural performance.
It's.
It's a culture maybe of action.
It's a culture of.
Of maybe morals.
But.
But just telling people what the morals are is not enough to teach
people how to live those morals out in their life.
Discipleship means do doing life together.
And what I want to do at Middletown Baptist Church, and ultimately
what I believe God wants us to do, is to create a church family
where that culture is the norm, where children know that they
can come to their families and their parents and their grandparents
and ask them hard biblical questions.
A place where people know that when they sin, they can find forgiveness
in Jesus Christ and find a group of members of the church who
will and as the Bible says, forbear them in love, hold them up
in love.
People can find a church where we can speak the truth in love.
I.
One.
One thing as.
As.
Because we're going to talk about this next week, is the roles
of leadership and the roles of everyone in the church, because everyone
has a role, but not everyone has the same.
But one of the things as a pastor that I want to give you my
word in and also give the Lord my word in is that one thing we never
want to sacrifice at Middletown Baptist Church is the
truth.
We can't sacrifice the truth to.
To basically let people know that we love them.
We can still love them and still give them the truth.
And that's the type of culture that we need to have in Middle Town.
And so that's just the start of it.
What's.
What's church culture, you might say?
What does that mean for me?
I'm visiting today?
Well, Lord willing, you keep coming back, and Lord willing, you
find this as your church family.
But if you're here and this is your church family, it's on us.
It's not about, hey, I want to let someone else change.
And once everyone else changes, I'll jump on that boat.
Let's get in now.
Let's see.
Inspect our own lives.
Let's see where we are in our personal walk so that we can get
to a place where we are part of that change that we can continuously
see within the church culture.
You know, if God tarries and my children are able to become adults,
and Lord willing they are in this church or another church, I
want them to be able to replicate and live out the type of
culture that we have in Middletown Baptist Church.
And what's happened is, is that people see church in many different
ways.
You know, if you're talking to someone in your community and you
go, I go to church.
That can mean a bunch of different things to a bunch.
So the best thing that we can do is we can say we're trying to
follow God's word and trying to live out as the family of God.
Because really, in verse seven, this will be a segue till
next week, says, but unto every one of us, not just the pastor,
not just deacons, not just the missionaries, but to every one of
us is giving grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Meaning every member of the body is given a gracious gift to
use for the purpose of the kingdom of God.
That's.
That's the point.
And the church cannot be.
The church cannot be a pyramid, meaning the pastor's at
the top and everyone else is underneath him and he does all the
work.
The truth is, is that's never a sustainable culture.
The sustainable culture is that.
That we're going to see that the pastor is just a facilitator
to equip the saints.
That's you, for the work of the ministry.
So we're all saints in the work.
And so what I'm saying this year is not I need you or not even
that God needs you, because God doesn't need any of us.
God can do the work that he wants to do outside of our human
limitations, but God wants you to be part of this church culture,
to find your place.
And maybe God has someone else moving on.
Maybe you say, well, Pastor, how do you know that it's my God's
plan for me to be a Middletown Baptist.
What if I'm called to move somewhere else?
Well, God calls you to move somewhere else, then he's called
you to be part of that family, part of that culture.
But all of us here at the church have a responsibility to be
a part of this church culture that God has ordained for us in the
scriptures.
And so what I'd like you to do coming into this new year, is to
pray first and foremost.
Number one, where am I at in my faith?
Because I can't be part of the body without faith, right?
One faith, one spirit.
You don't have faith if you don't have the spirit indwelling
you.
You can't be part of the body.
You can experience some of the blessings of the body.
You know, if we had a big potluck dinner, you came in here
today and you weren't a believer in Jesus Christ.
It's not like you wouldn't get the food.
You would still partake in the blessings of those people cooking
that food.
But at the same time, it's.
It's not something that is experiential for you because you
have not trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior.
So the first step that you have to take in coming into 2026
is this.
Have I trusted in Jesus Christ and Him alone for what he has done
on the cross, what he has done through his sacrifice for my sin,
and then also through the resurrection, through the resurrection
that died on the cross for our sins.
He conquered death, the resurrection, and gives us new life.
And when we trust in that, when we have faith in that, then
we are part of the family of God.
So that's the first step.
But then the second step would be, how am I walking?
Am I walking worthy of the vocation that God has called me to
walk?
Where's my walk?
Well, let me tell you, Pastor, it hasn't been great.
I've been really discouraged.
I've been really walking in a lot of sin.
The Bible says he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
All we have to do is confess.
All we have to do is come back to Him.
All we have to do is desire to walk with Him.
And the Bible says that he can renew our hearts.
David said, renew, give, give.
Renew in me the joy of my salvation.
Some of us have lost the joy of our salvation.
Maybe that's something that we need to ask the Lord to give us.
Give, Lord, give me the joy.
Give.
Give me the.
Give me the peace again.
I've been walking the wrong path and I need to get back on that
path.
But then let's say you're walking on that path.
You know, you're like, pastor, I'm trying my best to be trusting
in the Lord and all these things.
Then the next question would be, where does he have you in this
church culture?
Let's be a culture of change in our community.
Let's be a culture of change in our country.
Let's be a culture of change in our world.
Think about it.
Just, just think about the impact that we could have if we all
were just so passionate about the truth gospel of Jesus Christ.
I know that God has a plan for this church, and I'm looking forward
to, in a couple of weeks talking more about what the vision
is for this year and how I think that God has that given to
us.
But at the same time, and so what I'd like you to do now we're
going to have a time of invitation and I want you to respond
this year, any, anything.
What I want you to do is this, this not what I want you to do because
I can't force you.
My, my prayer, my desire, something that I'm going to do with
my family here this morning.
And, and I'm not, I'm not big on resolutions because I know resolutions
can fail.
But what I am big on is setting goals or trusting in the
Lord to walk in the Spirit.
So maybe what it is is this.
Even if any of those other things haven't spoken to you here
this morning, what I would challenge you to do is get either
with yourself, you're by yourself, or with spouse or with
family, commit 2026 to the Lord, commit it to him, committed
to his work, Give it over to him and say, lord, we want your will
for 2026.
If you've already done that, you don't have to performative do
that today.
If you haven't committed this year to the Lord and your life to
the Lord, hey, come, come and pray over your family.
It's totally acceptable to do that.
You can do that in the few.
What I would encourage you to do is think about how this year you
can follow that calling that God has for you to be part of this
church culture and to follow the word of God in that way.
Well, I'm going to ask if you're able to stand with me, every
head bound, every eye closed as the music plays here this morning.
If you want to respond to what we've talked about here in Ephesians,
the Lord's, the Lord's here, the Lord's everywhere.
We know that.
But here this morning, you have an opportunity to respond.
Number one, in faith, in salvation, but number two, in faith
and obedience.
Say, lord, I want to walk in humility.
I want to walk in this.
I want to walk in forbearing one another in love.
I want to walk with patience.
And all of those things that we just saw in Ephesians chapter
four committed to him this morning is powerful enough to give
you strength.
I want you to submit to him.
Remember, we're walking in one spirit, one call, one baptism, one
Lord.
So if you need something this morning, maybe you need salvation.
We've got some folks standing up here.
Come up here and share with them.
I need Jesus showing you the word of God, what it means to know
Jesus as you're seeing.
But if you want to just come up with your family or individually
and commit this year to Jesus commit this year but to the work
of the Lord in your life I would encourage you to do so next
moments.
Lord I pray in this time of invitation working hearts and lives
I pray that you can allow us to follow you or to be the church
that you called us to be.
Help us not to get our culture from somewhere else but your word.
So Lord I pray that you be in this time working hearts and lives
of Jesus.
May as a music play as follow as the Lord leads here today.
Foreign.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
Podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If you would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
or find us on Facebook or YouTube.
You can also email me directly at joshma sorrow@middletownbaptistchurch.com
if you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and follow
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Thank you so much.
God Bless.
Have a wonderful day.