Marcus Mecum - A World Without The Church
Genesis 28, I'mma read a bunch of verses, but I'll go really, really fast 'cause I got a lot I want to say. "Now, Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward out for Harran. So, he came to a certain place, and stayed there all night because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones from that place and he put his head on the stone and he laid down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed and behold a ladder was set up on the earth, its top reached to heaven, and there the angels of God were ascending and descending. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: 'I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. In the land which you lie, I will give to you and to your descendants. Also, your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth, you shall spread abroad to the west, to the east, to the north and to the south. And in you and in your seed, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I had spoken you'. Jacob awoke from his sleep, and said 'surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it'. He was afraid and said, 'how awesome is this place!'"
I almost entitled my message "How awesome is this place"? And then he says, "'this is none other than the house of God: this is the gate of heaven'. Jacob rose early in the morning, took the stone that he had put his head on and set it up as a pillar and poured oil, anointed that stone. And he called the name of that place Bethel," which means "The house of God". "The name of that city had previously been named Luz. And Jacob made a vow, saying, 'if God be with me and keep me in the way that I am going and give me bread to eat and clothing, so that I come back to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God. And this stone which I had set as a pillar shall be God's house, and of all that you give me I will surely give a tenth'".
I wanna talk to you about a world without the church. I want you to imagine a world without the church. What you're reading here is a world like that. The story is a world that existed before the church. And once upon a time, this was the world that we lived in. We need to know that God never intended the world to exist without the church no more than he wanted the world to be filled with sin, sickness, disease, death, loss, confusion, division, strife, all the heartbreaking things that we all experience. Of course, we would know that that was not God's intention. And so, it is that God never intended there to be a world without the church.
As a matter of fact, the only reason God created the universe was for the church. If God didn't want the church to exist, nothing you see would've ever been created. Now I'm not speaking about a building. We should know, if you don't know this, Jesus did not die for a building. Jesus did not die for us to attend a building. He did not die for us to participate in a program. He did not die for us to spectate at some event. The church is not an institution. It's not a place that I go. The church, in its truest definition, is a spiritual family that we belong to. And God created everything that we see for a family. God wanted a family.
Ephesians 1:4 says, "Even before he made the world, God loved us, chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure". In other words, when you think about the church, you should think "God's family". You should think, "This is the family of God". It's more than a building. When you look at the story that we just read, again, a world that had no church. Jacob, the previous backstory of this would've been he's on the run. He had just done some horrific things to his own family. He had deceived his family. He had lied to them. He was selfish.
As a result, chaos broke out in his family. Division broke out in his family. And Jacob is on the run because his brother, Esau, is seeking revenge and is trying to kill him. He has nowhere to go. He has no one to turn to. His dad has just died. His mom can't help him. Again, his brother is trying to kill him. He's lost his home. He's exhausted. He's collapsed in a place called, "Luz". Luz is a place of springs, and more specifically, it's a crooked and perverse place. If you look up the word "Luz," it means crooked and perverse. This would be the springbreak spot in Israel. This would be the place everyone would go and party for springbreak.
People from all over the world would come to this crooked and perverse place. This place of springs, to party every single year. This is also known as a major intersection. All highways that would be from north to south or from east to west, would all intersect at Luz. Would intersect at this place. And Jacob is at this place where everyone's celebrating, everyone's partying. Everyone's having the time of a lifetime. They're enjoying life. But in the midst of everyone else having all their fun, Jacob is weary, he's lonely, he's heartbroken, and as he looks around at this place and he falls asleep clueless about what to do, in a world without a church, he has a dream. And in this dream, he gets a vision of what God wanted to do by creating a family.
What a church family would mean, what a church family would accomplish, what a church family could bring, the value that it could add to your life. And so, when he woke up in this crooked and perverse place, he names it "Bethel" or "The house of God". And so, I wanna give you, real quick, these three thoughts about a church or a world without the church. Number one, without the church, we would see that there could be no heaven on earth. Jacob, when he called this place "Bethel," it says he saw a ladder, and angels were ascending and descending. The ladder didn't start on earth and ascend, it started in heaven, and it descended. In other words, heaven reached down to earth. The ladder is what gives us access to heaven. This is an Old Testament picture of Jesus.
We see this in John 1:51. Jesus tells Nathaniel that he is the ladder. He says, "I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway," or the ladder, "Between heaven and earth". In other words, Jesus said, "I'm the ladder that Jacob, thousands of years ago, dreamed about". If you want heaven in your life, Jesus said, "I am the way". Now, you may be saying, "Okay, I get it. Jesus, he's the way to heaven. But what does that have to do with the church"?
Notice, Jacob, in his dream, did not separate the ladder, the way to heaven, the way heaven accesses earth, from the place that he experienced it. From the place that he became aware of it. Jacob said, "Surely, the presence of God was in this place, and I did not know it". You may not know this, but if there's no church, again not building. God's family, there is no heaven on earth. You might be saying, "Well, it's hell on earth. Everywhere I look, it's hell. Everywhere I look, it's pain".
That's true, but you can also have heaven on earth in the midst of all of that. That's what Jacob had. It is not? He's in Luz. He's in a crooked, perverse, crazy, sin filled place. But yet, in that place, he found a way for heaven to access his earth. Jacob said, "Now, I get what I didn't understand before".
How many of you, at one point, did not get what you understand now? I can remember being 16 years of age. I drove by the church that I would get saved in a thousand times. I drove by that church drunk. I drove by that church high. The presence of the Lord was in that place, I just wasn't aware of it. But one night, it was a Saturday night, I found my way to that church, and they begin to preach the gospel. They begin to preach Jesus in a way that I had never heard or understood. It wasn't just religious, and it wasn't just a little, you know, kind of traditional thing, but it was, I mean, the real Jesus. The real cross. The real price that he paid.
And somehow, there, in that place, the presence of God showed up. I just wasn't aware of it before that moment. That ladder from heaven reached down to where I was at. That ladder reached down into my Luz, into my crookedness and my perverseness. And somehow, in that place, God become real to me. But before that, he wasn't. You see, what am I saying? God's house, God's family is where we become aware of the presence of God. But think of it this way, America has embassies all over the world.
In countries, almost every country in the world, you can find an American embassy. And what an American embassy is, is a little bit of America, a long way from home. It's where the law of America rules. It's considered sovereign territory. The embassies don't belong to the country they're located in, they belong to the country that they're from. So, this is why if you ever get in trouble in a foreign country, you just want to take off running as fast as you can, and get through gate of an American embassy, because once you get through the gate of that embassy, the laws of America prevail, not the laws of the country that you're in.
And so, God's embassy on the earth is his great church. The church is the place that brings the values of our homeland into foreign territory. This world is foreign territory. This world is not our home. And how, someway, God has chosen to set up shop in this world through what we know is the church. The church does not represent the country that it's in, it represents the country that it's from. The church represents heaven on earth. This is why Jesus taught us in his prayer, that we should pray. "Let it be on earth as it is in heaven". Throughout history, the way God has orchestrated from heaven, his will in the earth, is through his embassy, the church.
And this is where we are today. This is why we're here. We're learning to be God's family. We're learning how to access heaven. How to allow heaven to access us in a culture, in a foreign land that wants nothing to do with God. That is not aware of the purposes of God. We come to a church so we can someway, somehow find out how do we be the family that God's called us to be? Without it, there's no heaven on earth. The problem is, we would know, that most churches are just a religious entity. They sprinkle a little Jesus and a little Bible into their services, and the primary objective of the people is to attend, to show up, and to spectate. And we would know that this is not the church.
In the Old Testament, if you wanted to experience the presence of God, you would go to the temple. When you got to the temple, the presence of God was in the holy of holies where the Ark of the Covenant was. There was the shekinah glory. And if you wanted to experience the presence of God, you had to go to the temple. That's how you became aware of the presence of God. In 1 Corinthians 3:16, it says, "Do you not realize that all of you together", hit the person next to you and say, "He's talking about you". "Do you not realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you"?
In other words, when the world comes looking for who God is, when the world comes looking for the presence of God, all of you together are the temple. All of you, when we come together. Not when we're all individuals, but when we come together, we represent his presence in the earth. You say, "Well, what is the church supposed to look like"? Acts 2:41, would be a good place to start. It says this. "And those who believed", everybody circle the word, "Believed". "And were baptized", you can circle the word "Baptized," or you can say it. "And about three thousand in all. Then they joined", everybody say "Joined". Join, they join. They didn't attend, they joined.
This is your Bible, by the way. It's not my Bible, this is your Bible. "They joined with other believers in regular attendance". Some translations say, "They were committed to the apostle's teaching". So, everybody say "Teaching... sessions and communion services", everybody say, "Communion services... and prayer meetings", everybody say, "Prayer meetings". Oh-oh. "They worshipped," everybody say, "Worshipped...together regularly in the temple each day. They met in small groups". Everybody say, "Small groups... for communion, they shared meals with great joy and thankfulness".
So, let's look at the words believed, baptized, joined, committed, teaching, or discipleship, it says fellowship, we worshipped, small groups, and what am I trying to say? You are a part of a church that believes in what acts 2 talks about. That it's about more than attending. It's about believing. Being baptized, joined, committed, discipleship, fellowship, worship, small groups, communion, shared meals, without this, there's no heaven on earth. Without being joined and committed, there's no heaven on earth.
Number two, we would see that a world without the church would be a world where the gates of hell prevail. Genesis 28:17 says, "The house of God and this is the gate of heaven". So, Jesus, in Matthew 16, talked about the gates, plural, of hell. And here, Jacob talked about the gate, singular, of heaven. A gate in Bible times, was a place that people would dialogue. It was a place that you would go for direction. It was considered a place of decision making. Elders would gather, legislation would be decided at the gate. And so, when the Bible says "Heaven has a gate," and if you wanna know what that gate is, he said, "It's the church".
Be reminded that hell also has gates. That's what happens outside of this place. So, in here right now, there's a dialogue going on. And more than likely, what you're wrestling and fighting against as this dialogue goes on is the dialogue that you experience out there at hell's gates. And everything that hells gates says to you is doing its best, strategically, it's designed to get you to walk in here and be confused about heaven's gate. Everything that hell's gates is trying to do, is convince you that you don't need heaven's gate. The dialogue, the conversations, the decision making, the direction that you'll get in the world, is all designed to push you in a direction away from heaven's gate.
And this is what's going on with Jacob. Jacob, again, is in the worst season imaginable. And in that season, somehow, he finds his way to Bethel, or the house of God, which is the gate of heaven. And we see what begins to happen when you can just consistently get to church. Verse 15, "I am with you", this is what God said to Jacob. He's lost everything. God says, "I'm with you, I'll keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you". Exodus 25:22, in Moses' tabernacle, "There I will meet with you, and there I will talk to you".
When we come to church, it's a gate, where God can have a conversation with us and give us direction, and help us make decisions in life. Jacob is facing his dilemma of a lifetime, but yet, he comes to the gate of heaven. All kinds of decisions to make. All kinds of directions to choose to go in, but there, God begins to speak to him. He gets direction, he gets his focus, his faith is built. He's got problems. He's facing those problems. He's up against the most miserable things, but yet, at the gate of heaven, God begins to say, "It's not just about your current pain or your current circumstance. I am with you wherever you go. I'm with you in the loss, Jacob. I'm with you in your weakness. I'm with you in your pain. I'm with you in your heartbreak. I'm even with you in the failure that you are running from".
But God says to him, "I will keep my promise. I will fulfill what I have spoken". And Jacob did not hear that at the gates of hell. Jacob heard that at the gate of heaven. And whatever problem in life you are facing, you better make sure that you're in church so you can, in some way, hear God begin to talk to you about that problem. So you can get your focus off of the problem and on to the fact that in the problem, he is with you, he's gonna fulfill his promise, he will do what he has spoken. Can I get a big, "Amen"?
Ephesians 3:9 says, "My task is to bring out into the open and make plain what God, who created all of this in the first place, has been doing in secret, behind the scenes all along". Listen to what he's been doing. This what God's been doing in secret. You ready? "Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches," huh, "The extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and is talked about among the angels! All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus. We trust in him, we're free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go. So don't let my present trouble on your behalf get you down. Be proud"!
Paul is saying the same thing to the church of Ephesus as Jacob was announcing there at Luz, and it's real simple. In our main text, nothing would change about Jacob's situation. His dad's still gone. He's still estranged from his mom. His brother still has a death wish against him. He has no home. He's still weary. He's still tired. Yet, at the house of God, which is the gate of heaven, everything changed. Nothing changed externally, but Jacob was changed because he saw, God is at work in it all. His direction changed because he showed up at Bethel.
His decisions changed because he showed up at Bethel. He realized that God is faithful no matter what the outcome is because he showed up at Bethel. And this is how I see this working. Luz is also, again, a place of intersections. All the highways from the north to the south, the south to the north, the east to the west, west to the east. All of them met, right there at Luz. Wherever you're at in Israel, if you're travelling, you are gonna end up at the intersection there in Luz.
And so, at an intersection, of course, you have multiple choices you can make, decisions you can make, concerning the direction you should go. And when you come and you're just there, and it's just crooked, and it's just perversing others, all you have is the input of the world. More than likely, you'll make a wrong turn. Which means what? You'll end up at a wrong destination. Right? If you come to church, and you keep coming to church, and you stay faithful to church, even if you make a wrong turn, you know what happens?
The church is there to say, "Hey, this is not the right way for you". You get offended, you get bitter, unforgiveness sets in. Take a turn. The church is there, hopefully preaching on what? Forgiveness. Letting it go. It's not God's best for you. Turn around, go the other way. So, the church is here to warn you about wrong decision making. Wrong relationships. It's just here to say, "Hey, you gotta think about what's God's will for your life? What's God's way? What's God's word for your life? Not what do the gates of hell say"?
But you come to church because it's the gate of heaven, and here, God can begin to speak to you about, "Hey, you're moving in the wrong direction, Jacob. Jacob, I know you're a deceiver. I know you're a liar. I know you're self-centered. That's not the right way. I've got another direction for you. I've got another way you want to go". And so, then, you turn in the right direction, what's the church there to do? "Come on, keep on going. Don't stop, don't slow down, that's right. You're doing it right. This is right".
God's got better in front of you, if you just keep moving in the right direction. I don't understand, if the church is so great, why can I see so many churches and we still have so much weakness in the church? Because you're talking about the buildings that you see. But if you go inside of the building, many of them, including this building, by the way, on the inside, you have more people that are about each man for himself than they are about being the rock or the collection of believers that have come together to represent heaven on earth.