Belonging To The Church | Tyrone P Jones | We Believe

If you don't mind standing one more time, we're going to go to 1 Peter 2 9-10. Thank you, Philip. 1 Peter 2 9-10. And Peter's, the books of Peter, the books of Peter are toward the end of the New Testament, just a few blocks from Revelation, right toward the end there. 1 Peter 2 9, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. So far, the reading of the word. Can you say amen? Amen. You may be seated. Now, we're in week 13, actually, of this series, We Believe. And there's two more to go, one on forgiveness of sins and then one on resurrection and everlasting life. And then we're going to go into a series in June on the family and various aspects of family. This particular week, I think the creed will be posted there on the screen for you. Last week, we dealt with, I believe, in the Holy Spirit. Today, I believe the holy universal church, the holy universal church, the communion of the saints. And so we're going to talk about belonging to the church and what's understood or should be understood by every one of us that are in Christ Jesus, that we belong to a dynamic community. We belong to a community that actually spans generations. The church has been from the time that Christ came on earth and poured out his Holy Spirit. Ekklesia is actually the Greek word for church, and it doesn't define a building, it actually defines a group of people. It literally means those who are called out. So when we say that we are the church, we're saying we are the called out people of God, people that's been called out from the world, though we're still in the world, but are a community of faith, a visible gathering of people, people that represent Christ, represent Christ's presence in the world. So again, the church is not the steeple, it's the people, it's not where we meet or what we do, it's who we are.

We are the church. And so when believers gather together, we're recognizing that all of us are part of the same, that all of us are part of Messiah's family. We've been called out, we've been baptized, we've been sanctified. We're called out to be holy, we're spirit-filled people, people that love one another. And church is not something you do individually, church you do as a community. We are a community of people. Paul says it like this in 1 Corinthians 12, 27, all of you together are Christ's body. So someone that's in their home, you might be worshiping, you might have your wine, you might have your bread, and you get ready to take communion, you individually can't say, I am the church. What you are is about to get drunk, that's what you're about to do. But it's all of us together are Christ's body, each of you are a part of it. The reason the church has been standing and is the only institution that cannot and will not come to an end is because of the founder. It's not built upon a man, it's built upon God himself. Jesus is the founder. Listen in Matthew 16, 18, now I say to you that you are Peter, which means rock, and upon this rock, I will build my church and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. Jesus said this statement to Peter when they were in Caesarea Philippi, and Jesus asked the folks, who do people say that I am? And they came up with different answers, different ones. Then Jesus said, but who do you say that I am? And Peter said, you are the Christ, you are the son of the living God. When Peter said that, he said, upon this rock. Now, some, like the Roman Catholic Church, they believe what Jesus was saying is that the church would be... built on Peter. If the church was built on Peter and Peter is dead, that means the church is dead. No, what Jesus was saying is, upon this rock, talking about himself, throughout the Scripture, Christ was noted as the rock. But the fact that the foundation is that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus said, kudos, you got that right, Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church

and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. It cannot be conquered. Christ is the head of that church, according to Colossians 118, and still is. It's through the wisdom of God. The church, Ephesians 3.10 tells us, one of the character traits, one of the characteristics of the church, is that the wisdom of God will come through the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. 3.10 of Ephesians says, God's purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom and its rich variety to all the unseen rulers, authorities, and the heavenly places. So the Lord is saying, the wisdom of the world, the wisdom of God, sorry, to the world comes through the church. So whenever people say, and you hear it in the media all the time, and people in culture, they'll say things like, we don't want to hear what the church has to say. If you don't want to hear what the church has to say, then you don't want to hear the wisdom of God. Because the wisdom of God comes through the church. Now, can people in the church say silly stuff, wrong stuff, stuff that don't make no sense, ignorant stuff? People in the church can make complete fools of ourselves. We see it all the time. But that doesn't take away from what God is saying. If people want to know what is the wisdom, and every one of us, I wish I could hammer this out more, you should take this on. If the Holy Spirit is in you and you're a person of the word, what comes out of you should be things people want to hear because it's God's wisdom. You've got the Holy Spirit in you, which is the spirit of wisdom. You have the word in you, which is the word of wisdom. So what comes out of you ought to be wisdom. And that's one manner that God expresses that to the world. And the church collectively, according to Ephesians 5, 27, will be made to be a body of people without spot or without wrinkle or without blemish. And so when we enter in Christ, we enter a community of support and love and encouragement. So I want to give you just four marks of the church. There's probably one more mark I could have given, but I'll give you four marks of the church, four things that reveal who we are. The first one is this, the church is one. Now, we all know this. Church meets in many locations,

but we got one head, and we should have one set of doctrinal beliefs. There are many denominations, and those denominations may have practices and maybe even some positions on things that might be different than us, but it doesn't take away from them being the church. The church is still one. And because churches may have different denominations, that doesn't make us divided. One of the things we do in our elders' meetings every month, there's a position paper that's presented. What does the Bible teach on title? What does the Bible teach on the difference in men and women in ministry? What does the Bible teach about practice of spiritual gifts? The one we just done was done by one of our elders, Mark Tanner, on denominations. And we've always had this position, but even more so, feel even stronger about it, that denominations don't divide us. Again, there's different practices. You know, this is church for the city. You'll go to some churches, name is whatever, First Baptist and First Christian and First Assembly. Different denominations, different practices. Some churches do communion every Sunday. We do communion once a month, the first Sunday of the month, but that doesn't divide us. We're still one church. And Jesus' prayer is that we will remain one. John 17, 20 through 21 says, I'm praying not only for these disciples, but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will be one just as you and I are one, as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. And so the church is one. Thursday, we had our pastor's lunch, which we do every six weeks. It was probably 25 pastors plus there. Believe me, all from different denominations. But surprisingly, our conversation is about the same things. You got the same problems in whether it be in a Pentecostal church or the Baptist church or the Methodist church. You got the same things you want to talk about doctrine. You got the same purpose. Same mission, so commonality. So a statement, of course, is it's well known, and if maybe you haven't heard it

before, but here is where we land. In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity. Meaning this, everything that's essential to our faith, which we find in the Apostles' Creed, we are unified on that. There's some things that are non-essentials that we have liberty. We believe in speaking in tongues here. Some of those pastors that I gather with don't believe in it at all. But we have liberty. If you, you know, I don't tell them this, I'm telling you all this, don't tell them, but if they want to miss out on stuff, that's them. So, but we have liberty. And in all things charity, no matter what, it's love that we extend to one another. Can you all say amen to that? And so, Ephesians 4, 4 through 6 says this, for there is one body and one spirit, just as you've been called to one glorious hope for the future. Here it is. There was one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all. So, the church is one. Can you say amen? The church is also holy. And I know sometimes when you hear the word holy, you can probably have some different thoughts about it. Nobody likes the holier-than-thou person. We don't even want to be around them. The person who comes off holier than thou. At the same time, the thought of us being holy, for some of us,

can be intimidating, thinking, I can never be that. I can never be like that one. I can never be as holy as that. Both attitudes toward holiness is actually wrong. None of us should ever be... Well, first of all, none of us should ever come off as holier-than-thou because you ain't all that. You're just not. I'm just telling you. I don't know all y'all in here, but there ain't one of y'all that I ain't looking at, you ain't all that. I love you, but I'm your pastor, I'm going to tell you the truth. So, none of us should have that attitude, right, of being holier-than-thou. At the same time, none of us should be intimidated about us being called holy because the Lord called us holy. None of us should have plastered it on our back, by the way, in case you haven't noticed, I'm holy. No, the Lord has called us holy. Whenever Christ comes in our life, he's separated us, he's sanctified us, he's set us apart as holy. And he is beginning a work in us for our position of holy to become our condition of holy. Right now, we're all holy in position, not by my declaration, by the Lord's declaration. Who is Tyrone P. Jones to you, Lord? You are a holy man of God. Now, conditionally, that's a different story, but he's working on that. And here's what I know about that. If he's the one that's declared me holy, set me apart to be holy, then I ain't got to worry about whether he going to get me holy.

Can somebody say amen to that? He will do what he has determined that will be done. Paul says it like this in 1 Corinthians 1, 2, I'm writing to God's church in Corinth, to you who have been called by God and to be his own holy people. He made you holy by means of Christ Jesus, just as he did for all people everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord, and ours. So, we're made holy by means of Jesus Christ. I don't know how many of you have read the writings of C.S. Lewis in the book called Screwtape Letters. Screwtape Letters is one of my favorite. I don't know if the genre is called parody, but what C.S. Lewis does is he's writing from the perspective, if he was the devil, how would he get people to not come to Christ? And if they did, how would he get those Christians to become ineffective? It's actually good reading. You just got to get it into your head that you're listening to the words of a demon that's trying to get you, right? Once you get that settled in your head, you'll get it. But one of the things that he does, it's actually one of my favorite sections, is the young man that the little demon is trying to keep from coming to Christ, before he surrenders his life to Christ, he goes into a church and he goes in a little bit intimidated because he's thinking, I am not good enough to be with these people, but I feel like I should go to church. And so, he's thinking he's going to walk into a crowd of people. that are so holy that he feels like, man, this ain't the place for me, these people aren't for me. And he gets into the church and guess what he finds out? He finds out that it's just like CTC, that every one of us are the same, that there's no big I's, no little you's, there's nobody holier than thou. We all got our issues. Look at your neighbor and say, you got your issues. We all got them. We all got our issues.

And so, the whole thought, the whole idea that so many of us get thrown off is because we don't think holiness is something that we can arrive at. The truth of it is, you can't on your own. But he's already declared that you are, and now he's working to get you there. 1 Peter 2, 11 through 12 says, dear friends, I warn you as temporary residents and foreigners, to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then, even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior and they will give honor to God when he judges the world. So, he's saying, listen, I'm warning you, God's working on you, but don't live like the folks that you're among. Don't get yourself caught up in that. Be careful that you live in a manner that the Lord is working in you to do. So, the church is one, the church is holy, the church is universal. Now, depends on which rendering of the Apostles' Creed you read, and I think even when I first posted it, it uses the word the holy Catholic church. And many pastors' churches don't like to point people to the Apostles' Creed because of the word Catholic, as if it's defining us as a Catholic church. It was actually after the Reformation that the term Roman Catholic even became an issue. The word Catholic there is not intended to define a branch of the Christian church. The word Catholicos actually means universal. So, when it says that we are the holy Catholic church, it's simply saying we're the holy universal church, that the church is universal. We're a living organism and we're growing, but we don't change. We're the same everywhere. The message that we preach is valid everywhere. We're relevant in every age. If I was standing in a pulpit in the 1500s, what I'm preaching should have the same impact as it does in 2026. It shouldn't change, no matter how culture is changed. And sometimes people want to sometimes tell you that the Bible is a living document. It's got to change based on culture. No, no, no. It's not a living document. Culture doesn't change the message. As a matter of fact, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ works everywhere,

anytime, to any people, in any location. Because the same church, same gospel, same objective. And that church is moving about throughout the world. Colossians 1, 6 says, the same good news that came to you is going out all over the world. It's bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives. Just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God's wonderful grace. Paul wrote this probably, I don't know, 30 years maybe after Jesus' death. And this truth is still the same. The gospel is going out. It's going out all over the world. It's bearing fruit everywhere. It's changing lives because the church is universal. And finally, actually, the church is a fellowship. The church is a fellowship. And hence, it's also concluded in that phrase, a communion of the saints. This word fellowship here in the scripture is the word koinonia. It means sharing. And it could mean goods, of course, because we, as brothers and sisters, we want to look out for one another. And that's actually what was happening in the book of Acts. Some people take those verses in Acts Chapter 242 through 47 and try to imply that the church ought to be socialist. I actually just heard Tucker Carlson and some podcaster saying, based on Acts Chapter 2, the church ought to be socialist. Socialism ain't never worked. Communism has never worked. Don't worry. Don't get nervous. I'm not going on a political rant, but just hear me. Communism and socialism has never worked around the world and it never will work. That is nothing that the Bible is teaching at all. But what the Bible is teaching is that... We do have a heart because we're one people, brothers and sisters in Christ and the body of Christ. We share what we can that will help people through whatever crisis or situation that they're going through. But more particularly, it's talking about our sharing of love and service and agreement in Christ and accepting one another. Here's Acts 2, 42 and 46, which will be on the screen. All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to sharing meals, including the Lord's Supper, and to prayer.

They worshiped together at the temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity. And each day, the Lord were adding to their fellowship those who were being saved. It's a wonderful, wonderful truth of what the Christ is doing in us and how we are to work together in fellowship. Lyle Neely, and I don't know if Lyle's here today, but he sent me an article that was in Epoch Times. It was a writer that was writing about... Oh, there's Lyle right there. It was a writer that was writing about the third space. She was working off this academic paper, and something came to her in the process of working in that about the spaces that people live in. And define...I'm not sure if she defined it or the academia that was writing this defined it. We all have these pockets of life. Again, she called them space, the first space being home. That's where life goes on. That's family life. And then there's work, that workspace. And nowadays in our culture, we're becoming more and more people, even especially those who work from home. It's harder to separate those spaces. Your home is your workplace, your work is your home, et cetera. But what she was defining is, in this study, that neurologically, if that wasn't the right word, just accept it as the best education that I have. But neurologically, your brain actually does more for you health-wise when you have that space where you don't have to be put on the home hat or the work hat, and you can just be you. That space where you can just be around people that you can look in the eye with and just talk to, just have conversations with, smile with, laugh with. You may have conversations about different things, but it's not from the position of, you know, you got on the father hat, the husband hat, the leader of the home hat, or you don't have on the boss hat, or the employer hat. You just are able to be you. Fellowship is so good for that. And she didn't define it this way, but when I read the article, I thought what she's describing is church, where people can just come, look at one another in the eye, shake hands with people, maybe introduce yourself, maybe meet up

with folks you know. And you got no pressure except just to gather here and just enjoy whatever is happening. The music, the word, the people, there's nothing that you got to do but enjoy the fellowship and how much that does for you. And those times are special to me. Yesterday, I was golfing with some fellows from the church, and I didn't have to be the pastor. They don't listen to me anyway, Matt or Pat. They don't listen to me. I don't have to be the pastor. We get to laugh. We get to tell stories. We get to tell jokes. You know, sometimes I may tell a little something here with them that I didn't tell with you all. Now, they told more bad jokes than me. I'm just going to be honest. But it's fellowship. We just get to hang out and just be ourselves and enjoy the fact that I'm with fellow brothers in the faith with no pressure at all, except just to be who God has created us to be. Everybody understand what I'm saying? So, 1 Peter tells us this, 2, 9, but you are not like that for your chosen people, your royal priests, your holy nation, God's very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God for he called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Notice it says, his wonderful light, because this whole idea of reflecting us as saints of God is not dependent upon our goodness. It's what God has worked in us, what he's doing in us, that he's the one that's renewing us and regenerating us. And that's the light that shines. It's you know, the moon doesn't have a light. The moon is dark if you go to the moon Darkness, the reason the moon has light is because it's reflecting the light from the Sun That's the same with us. It ain't the light of us. It's the reflection of the light of Christ. That's within us That that light and so the Lord is is working Martin Luther He he termed it in Latin is simil justice at peccator and it means Christians are righteous and sinners at one and the same time I'm gonna say that again Christians are righteous. How will we righteous because we've been made righteous in Christ Jesus and yet all of us know We still have a propensity to sin The reason that we're getting better and becoming more righteous

Positionally a sorry conditionally is because of what God is doing in us and Sometimes God got to keep us under cover While he's doing his work just like a sculptor will do their their work No sculpture wants you to see what they're doing in the middle of it Because it just looks like a pile of junk you would condemn it you would judge it You would think I don't know what he thinks he's doing. He called himself doing a masterpiece I don't know what that junkies so they keep it under the cover until they finish it Then they pull a canvas off and now you see oh, ah, God is doing the same with some of us Sometimes we look at folks in the middle of what God is doing and condemn and Criticize and judge and call people junk and God said you I got him undercover. I'm renewing I'm regenerating I make them new you looking at what I'm trying to do But when it's all said and done the scripture says he presents us faultless faultless Can you imagine that? There's gonna be a day when Christ presents you to the father and he says here he is Lord He's Gabriel Gabriel who Gabriel the faultless one the holy one the righteous one None of us can take credit for that on our own as a matter of fact The scripture says any crown he gives us for even standing before we gonna take the crown off and put it at the feet of The Lord because we know that we're not holy on our own It's the work of the Lord Jesus Christ And that's what makes the church the most important institution on the planet with all of this confusion and all of this nonsense all of this corruption all of this Degeneration and all of this evil and all of this chaos that we got to live in but we're not of it Is because God is using his people to bring glory to God the father of what he's doing in our life So what does this mean to us? Three things I'll tell you in team you can come on. I'm bringing this thing to a close. The first one is this Be part of what you're in You're in the church if Christ is indeed your Lord and Savior You don't have an option

You can't say well, I'm in Jesus, but I'm not in the church. You can't do that It's the body of Christ You can't separate yourself from the body of Christ So since you're since you're in the church, then be part of the church Be part of it. Don't just don't just Take churches like us like a social club But you know, yeah, I may be a member but you know If I do if I go if I show up if pay my dues don't pay my dues Don't don't do that. Some of us treat Jesus like a Facebook friend We peek in on him every now and then We'll read a few news feeds about Jesus. We may even post a few things just so Jesus know that we still there But he just a Facebook friend No real relationship Got him on my list. I don't know how many Facebook friends I got I don't know, but if you're but not all of my friends just so y'all know Sorry, I ain't trying to offend nobody cuz I don't know you half of it, but but that's how we do Jesus sometime Let's just peek in See what's happening. We shouldn't do that to the body of Christ. We belong to him This this ain't this you know, you don't just come to church to get your Jesus fix This is not make Christianity This is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ dive in Attend regularly serve eagerly give faithfully just dive in you're part of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ and absolutely give yourself to it. The second thing is this do the one and other things. I Don't have time to go through them all but in the New Testament if you were to count the times times that it said for us to do this one to another, I think it's like 23 times. Do those one another things to one another, serve one another, encourage one another, build up one another, teach and admonish one another, exhort one another daily, pray for one another. Do those one another things. That's what we do one to another in the body of Christ. And the last thing is, just make a difference. Be distinct. Don't be ashamed of who you are.

Never be ashamed to be called a Christian. Listen, I get it. As Christians, to a lot of people, we're peculiar. We look odd. We do some strange stuff. We do weird things that's counter to the world. You think I don't hear the stuff people say about me around town? I hear it. I hear the stuff people say about me. You know, Tyrone, he's just a strange guy. He just wants to tell you about Jesus all the time, wants you to go to his church, want to tell you how to live life. He's just an odd guy. I don't care being odd like that. I want to be who I am. I want to be distinct. I want to stand out so that people know there is a distinction between those that are in the body of Christ, being true to our Christianity. Matthew 5, 13 through 15 says this, you're the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world, like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp, then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house. He's saying, listen, we can be the ones that make the difference. We can be the ones that bring some preservity to something. We can be the ones that bring some light and darkness. We can be the one. I shared this in first service with my brother-in-law, Juan Escobar here. He's got one of the worst golf swings I've ever seen in my life. It's horrible. It's hard to watch, man. It's hard to watch to see him swing, but he's thinking good. It's hard to watch him swing, and the ball ends up where it's supposed to go. And every now and then, he'll hit a ball. And just watching him swing, you think, oh, that's going to go all over the place. He does that swing. Next thing you know, that ball is heading right toward the green. And he'll stand there and watch the ball and say, be the ball. Be the one. Be the one that lands right on the green. Be the one. As ugly as that swing is, it's the one. Listen, be the one. No matter how bad people look at you, no matter how peculiar you are, be the one that makes a difference. Philippians 2.15 says, live clean, innocent lives as children of God,

shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. Be the one that makes the difference in this world. You can stand now. Our touchdown here for everyone is that they know God, that you find freedom, that you discover purpose, and you make a difference. Know God, find freedom, discover purpose, make a difference. Be the one. Be the one in the body of Christ that shines the light of the Lord and makes a difference in this world. With the elements in our hand, Father, I want to thank you now for this opportunity that we have to hear the word and also commune together in fellowship. I pray, Lord God, as we are one church, that we partake of the Lord's Supper together as one church, one fellowship, one body. We stand in thanksgiving of what you have done for us, bringing us together. And Lord, I pray that as we partake together, that we be reminded of who we are. We be renewed in the work that you're doing in us, that we be refreshed in our mission and our purpose, that all that we do will glorify you. In Christ's name, we pray. Let's eat together. Let's drink together. Can you shout hallelujah? God bless you. Have a great day.