I am excited to be here this morning. Thank you
so much for having me come and be your teacher.
It means a lot to me that when you all sat down
and planned your summer 2026 gospel meeting,
you thought of me, you asked me to come, and
you give me another opportunity to stand before
you like this, to teach, and to share the Word
of God with you. Thank you for being here. I'm
looking forward to and I hope you are as well
to all the events and all the activities that
we have planned throughout the course of this
gospel meeting. I'm very, very excited to come
to you this time and share a topic with you that
I think is very, very important, a topic that
is important to me, that I get excited about.
I hope to inspire you to be excited about this
topic as well and see the importance of it. And
that is the topic of restoring New Testament
Christianity. You might be sitting there and
wondering, well, what in the world is restoring
New Testament Christianity? What does that even
mean? Well, I hope by the end of this lesson,
through our study of the Scriptures together,
that you will have a good idea and a good understanding
of what it means to restore New Testament Christianity.
When we boil it down to its most basic elements,
restoring New Testament Christianity is just
going back to the Bible. We're going back to
the Bible to find our faith, to find our doctrine,
and to find our practice. So this morning I want
to talk about our mission in churches of Christ.
We as the people of God should be about a mission,
the mission of the Lord. And we should have a
mindset of that mission. We should keep that
mission in the forefront of our minds. We should
keep it on the tip of our tongues. It should
be evident in the way we live. We walk and we
talk. and our mission mindset as Christians should
be the restoration of the New Testament Church.
And we're going to dive into this topic and try
to understand it better by starting with this
fact. And this is a fact that we know just by
simple observation. We look around us today,
we survey the religious landscape around us,
and we see that many different churches today
exist for many different reasons. It's obvious
to us that some churches today exist to advance
some kind of social political agenda. And we
know that by going by church and seeing the rainbow
flags that it's proudly flying out front. When
we see that, we understand that church exists
to advance a social political agenda. We also
look at the way a lot of churches worship God
and we see the grand productions that they put
on as part of their worship, concert, like experiences
in the way they worship God. And it's obvious
to us that some churches today exist just to
entertain the masses. And people flock in masses
to attend churches that worship God in these
very entertaining ways. We also look around us
and see that some churches exist to prop up and
exalt some kind of popular preacher. And you
know, The popularity of preachers, it's always
changing. Sometimes a preacher becomes very popular
and his popularity declines and then another
preacher pops up and he's more popular than the
last. And it's an endless cycle of ups and downs
concerning the religious world and the popularity
of preachers in the religious world. And some
churches today, that's why they exist. They exist
to popularize and hold up some popular preacher,
whoever that might be. You know, it's easy for
us to look around and see our religious neighbors
and understand why they exist. But before we
go any further, you know what we ought to do?
We ought to think about ourselves. And let's
do that for a moment. Let's turn our focus inward.
And let's ask the question, why do we exist?
Why do we exist in churches of Christ? What is
our purpose? What is our mission? I think it's
so very, very important that we be able to answer
that question. Parents, grandparents, it's so
very important that you teach your children and
your grandchildren how to answer that question.
Because if we lose sight of our purpose and we
lose focus of our mission in churches of Christ,
we run the risk of going astray as many churches
already have. What is the reason for our existence
in churches of Christ? I believe our mission
needs to be this. Our mission is to be the same
church that Jesus Christ built. Brother Daniel
put it so well in his introduction this morning
that we exist as a church to be the one and the
same church that Jesus built many, many years
ago in Jerusalem on Pentecost Day in Acts chapter
2 as you can read right there in your Bible.
That needs to be our purpose. That needs to be
our mission in churches of Christ. Now what I
want to do is I want to go through some scriptures
this morning and maybe it's a review for you,
a refresher, or maybe it's new information altogether
for you. Regardless, I want to help you discover
or rediscover, if you will, the church that Jesus
built or the church that your New Testament teaches.
And to do that we're going to go back into the
book of Matthew. I appreciate the reading this
morning from Matthew chapter 16. As we read,
Jesus is in a place called Caesarea Philippi.
He calls his disciples together. And he says,
who do men say that I am? And there were a lot
of different ideas and theories about the identity
of Jesus. Some people said he was John the Baptist.
Others said he was Jeremiah. Others said he was
one of the prophets. And then Jesus asked his
disciples the question. He said, but who do you
say I am? And you remember that's when Peter
spoke up, and he said, well, you're the Christ,
the Son of the living God, and Peter was right.
He gave the right answer. And you'll remember
that's when Jesus pronounced a blessing upon
Peter and made a promise. to Peter and the disciples.
In Matthew 16 verse 18, Jesus said to Peter,
thou art Peter and upon this rock, and that rock
was Peter's confession that he just made that
Jesus was the Christ. Upon the rock of that truth,
that confession, Jesus said, I will build my
church and the gates of hell or Hades shall not
prevail against it. Here Jesus makes a promise.
He says, Peter, I will build my church. We learned
some very important things about the church from
this teaching. Number one, Jesus says, I will
build my church. He's pointing into the future.
He hadn't built his church yet at this point
in his earthly ministry, but he would soon do
it. He would soon do it. Jesus said when he built
his church, it would be his church. He takes
ownership or possession of that church by saying,
it's my church. It wasn't going to be Peter's
church. It wasn't going to be John's church.
It wasn't going to be Brother James's church.
Jesus says, when I build the church, it's going
to be my church. It is going to belong to Christ.
And another important thing that Jesus teaches
us here is the only promise to build one church.
Jesus didn't say, I'm going to build many different
churches. He said, I will build one church and
it will be my church and I will soon do it. Jesus
made the promise. Listen, when Jesus makes a
promise, you better believe that He's going to
keep it. And he made this promise to his disciples
that he would build his church. And in connection
with that statement, the very next verse, he
says something else about the establishment of
the church. He tells Peter, I will give to thee
the keys of the kingdom. He told Peter, I'll
give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Did
Jesus literally take keys out of his pocket and
give them to Peter? Is he talking about literal
keys here? No. Keys, of course, are symbolic.
What is a key symbolic of? A key is symbolic
really of authority. If I gave you the keys to
my car, what am I giving you? I'm giving you
the authority and the privilege to jump in my
car, turn on the radio, take it for a spin if
you like. If I give you the keys to my home,
what am I giving you? Essentially, I'm giving
you privilege and authority to go in and out
of my home as you please. And so the keys here
symbolize the authority. to open and to grant
access to something. And Jesus tells Peter, I'm
going to give you these kings. I'm going to give
you the authority and the power to make available
to open and to extend access to this kingdom
that I'm soon going to establish in the form
of the church. Jesus gave Peter the keys of the
kingdom. That's very important because not long
after this, after Jesus died, after he was buried,
and after he rose from the dead, it would...
Come time for Peter to use those keys, if you
will, and unlock or open the gates or the doors
of the kingdom so that people could come into
it. So if we keep reading in the Gospels, of
course, we're going to read about the death of
Jesus, his terrible, traumatic death. We're going
to read about his burial. We're going to read
about his glorious resurrection. And after the
resurrection of Jesus, the Bible tells us this
in Acts chapter one, verse three. We're getting
closer and closer. Now to Jesus's promise to
establish His church. Before He did that though,
the Bible tells us in Acts 1 and 3 that He spent
about 40 days with His disciples teaching them
things pertaining to the kingdom of God. You
know why that was? Because the kingdom was oh
so very close. It was oh so very close to coming
in Acts chapter 1. He spent those last 40 days
before He went back to the Father teaching them
things about this coming kingdom. And then that
takes us into Acts chapter 2. And as I mentioned
earlier, Acts chapter 2, in that chapter we find
the time, we find the place, we find the occasion
upon which Jesus fulfilled that promise that
He made in Matthew 16 to build His church. This
is the day, this is the time, this is the place
when Jesus built His church. I'm not going to
read all of Acts 2. I'd encourage you to go home
and read that entire chapter, all 47 verses.
It's packed with a lot of exciting information
in the story about how all this came to be. But
I'll just summarize it briefly for you. In Acts
chapter two, verse one to four, the first thing
that we read is that God sent the Holy Spirit
upon the twelve apostles. They were baptized
with the Holy Spirit. And being baptized with
the Holy Spirit gave the apostles power and ability
to speak foreign languages that they had never
spoken before. And they spoke the languages of
all those Jews. who were gathered at Jerusalem
for Pentecost from the far reaches of the Roman
Empire. God gave the ability for those apostles
to speak the languages of those Jews by way of
the Holy Spirit in verses 1 to 4. In verses 5
to 7, Peter and the apostles stand up and they
start teaching and preaching the people. They
start speaking by way of the Spirit and they
start telling them about Jesus and the gospel.
And you know, all the Jews that were gathered
together for Pentecost, they saw this, they witnessed
this. And they tried to assess what was going
on and they were confused. The Bible says many
of them were confounded. They didn't understand.
You know, some of the Jews even pointed to him
and said, don't worry about them. They're drunk.
They're full of new wine. These are just drunk
men. But that's when Peter stands up in Acts
2 verse 14 to 36 and he says, men and brethren,
we're not drunk. He says it's just the third
hour of the day. It's just nine o 'clock. And
he told him, he said, what you're witnessing
is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy through
the prophet Joel that God would someday pour
out his spirit on his servants and they would
prophesy. And then Peter takes advantage of that
opportunity and he goes on to preach the gospel
to those Jews. He preaches the death of Jesus.
He preaches the burial of Jesus and he preaches
the resurrection. Now he doesn't, if you go in
and read Acts 2, 14 to 36, you'll notice something.
He doesn't spend a whole lot of time dwelling
on the death of Jesus. You know why? because
the death of Jesus was indisputable. Just fifty
days prior to this, many of these Jews were first
-hand witnesses to the death of Jesus. They walked
outside the city walls and saw Him hanging on
the cross. They were witness to His phony trial
and His conviction. The death of Jesus was not
a fact that was disputed. The Jews knew it. It
was the talk of the town. Peter doesn't spend
a lot of time on the burial of Jesus because
it almost goes without saying, what do we do
with dead people? We bury them. And that's what
they did with Jesus. After he died, he was buried
in a tomb. But you know, Peter does spend a lot
of time in this sermon focusing on the resurrection
of Jesus. And he goes back to Old Testament prophecy
to prove that yes, Jesus died and was buried,
but God had raised him from the dead. And that's
the gospel that Peter preached to those Jews
in Jerusalem on Pentecost Day. When we get down
to verse 37, we find the effect of the preaching
of the gospel. The Bible says that those Jews
were convicted. They were pricked in their hearts.
And they cried out to Peter and the apostles,
Men and brethren, what shall we do? You know,
that's what the preaching of the gospel does.
It pricks our heart. It's a wonderful message.
The message of Jesus. and His sacrificial death
for you and for me. Jesus didn't deserve to hang
on that cross. We deserve to hang on that cross
because of our sins, because of our transgressions.
But Jesus, the perfect sinless Son of God, willingly
took that punishment we deserved on Himself.
That's why He went to that cross, to save us,
to deliver us from condemnation and punishment
for our sin. He took our place. It's a touching
story. It's a beautiful story. It shows us how
much God loves us. It shows us the abundance
of His mercy and His grace. And that He was willing
to give His only Son. Would you give your only
Son for the sins of the whole world? I'd have
a hard time doing that. But God did it nonetheless.
It's a wonderful, beautiful story when you open
your heart to it. When you look inside and see
your sin, And understand how terrible it is and
when you see the love of God demonstrated through
the sacrifice of Jesus. It's hard not to be touched
and convicted by the preaching of the gospel.
And that's what happened in Acts 2. Those Jews
were pricked in their heart. They said, what
are we going to do? And then in Acts 2 .38, Peter
told them what they needed to do to get right
with God. He said, first thing you need to do
is repent. Repent of your sin. He said, you need
to be baptized. He said, every one of you. He
said, it's... in the name of Jesus Christ or
by the authority of Jesus Christ and it's for
the remission or an order that you might receive
the forgiveness of your sins. And he told them
if they would do that there was an associated
promise with that. He said you'll receive the
gift of the Holy Ghost. He told them what they
needed to do to get right with God, to repent
of that sin and have it washed away in the waters
of baptism. And the Bible goes on to tell us
what happened next in Acts chapter 2 verse 41.
In Acts 2 .41 it says this, they that gladly
received his word, those who gladly received
Peter's preaching of the gospel, the death, burial,
and resurrection of Jesus. What did they do?
The Bible says they were baptized. Those who
gladly received his word were baptized, and the
same day, immediately, same day, they were added
unto them about 3 ,000 souls. Isn't that wonderful?
3 ,000 people that day heard the gospel. 3 ,000
people that day believed the gospel. And 3 ,000
people that day obeyed the gospel in baptism.
And you know, when these 3 ,000 heard, believed
and obeyed the gospel, the Bible says the Lord
added them to something. You notice the word
added there in verse 41. The Lord added them
to something. What did He add them to? We skip
down to the last verse of the chapter verse 47
and it tells us what the Lord added them to When
they were baptized and saved from their sins
These three thousand people were praising God
and they were having favor with all the people
and the Lord added to the church daily Such as
should be saved every day People continued to
hear believe and obey the gospel and baptism
and at that very moment God saved them from their
sins He washed them clean by the blood of Jesus
and He simultaneously added them to His church.
This is when it all started, right here. This
is when the first Christians came into the body
of Christ through baptism. This is the day, this
is the time, this is the place and occasion upon
which Jesus built His church all the way back
in Jerusalem in Acts 2 on Pentecost day. We have
it recorded for us and left to us in the Scriptures.
Now here's some things we need to understand
about Jesus building his church Paul would later
go on to talk to the elders of the church at
Ephesus and he told them to take heed therefore
unto themselves and to all the flock over which
the Holy Ghost had made them overseers or elders
and he tells those men in Acts 20 28 to feed
the church of God To feed the church of God and
he makes a comment about the church here which
he that's Jesus have purchased with his own blood
Jesus paid a high price to purchase the church.
The price that was paid was his own shed blood.
He died and shed his blood to purchase, to take
possession or ownership of the church that he
built. Now a lot of people today, they don't
think about the church as being essential or
important or necessary. A lot of people today
focus solely on just having a relationship with
Jesus. It's all about having a relationship with
Jesus and we don't need religion and we don't
need the church. All we need is Jesus. Well,
I'm here to tell you we do need Jesus. We do
need a personal relationship with Jesus. But
to have a personal relationship with Jesus means
that we are going to value the things that He
valued. What did Jesus value? What did he give
up his life for? What did he die for? The Bible
says Jesus died to purchase the church. If the
church was that important to Jesus, shouldn't
the church be that important to us if we're following
Christ? This idea of give me Jesus, but I don't
need the church. I don't think Christ respects
that idea or that attitude. I don't think he
accepts it. Because to follow Jesus is to happily
and thankfully be a part of the church that he
built and that he purchased with his own blood.
A high price was paid to purchase the church.
And because Jesus is the one who died to purchase
the church, He is the one who rules and reigns
supreme over His church. He's the head of the
body of the church. That's Colossians 1 and 18.
He's the head. No man, no council, no board of
directors, no organization, no priest, no pope,
no preacher is the head of the church. Jesus
Christ and Him alone, He rules and reigns supreme
over His body, which is the church that He built.
Now, those are some scriptures which help us
discover or rediscover the church that Jesus
built. I want to continue forward in history.
I want to talk a little bit about the past. I
want to talk about history this morning. I think
it's important that we understand some basic
history about the church. Because it's really
hard for us to see the need and the importance
of restoring New Testament Christianity if we
don't understand the history of Christianity.
If we don't understand how we got here today,
it's hard to see the importance of restoring
the New Testament church. We're going to continue
forward in the first century. In the first century,
the church enjoyed rapid and booming growth.
The church was growing rapidly throughout the
Roman Empire. It was being persecuted at times,
yes, but it was still growing rapidly into the
far reaches of the Roman Empire. Many, many people
come to know Christ. Many, many people come to
hear the gospel and be baptized. But at the same
time the church was growing and booming in the
first century, the apostles were also predicting
an apostasy. You can think about apostasy as
a falling away or a departure from the faith.
And I want to show you two of these prophecies.
The first one is in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2.
In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, Paul writes to
the church at Thessalonica. And it's really verses
1 to 12. We're not going to read 1 to 12. I'm
going to focus in on here on verse 3. This is
where Paul tells the Thessalonians. He says,
let no man deceive you. So we don't want to be
deceived about this. We want to understand the
truth. Let no man deceive you by any means for
that day shall not come and the day that's under
consideration There is the day of Christ return
if you look at the context That's what they're
talking about the day of the Lord's return that
day will not come except there come a falling
away first Paul tells the Thessalonians Lord's
coming back and he is coming back He says but
before the Lord comes back There's going to be
a falling away First, Paul predicted that, an
apostasy, a falling away of the church. You know,
it's very similar to the language that he wrote
to Timothy. He wrote to Timothy, I believe, about
the same thing. In 1 Timothy chapter 4, verses
1 to 3, listen to what he says. Now, the Spirit
speaketh expressly, clearly. The Spirit speaks
clearly about this, so we need to understand
this clearly. That in the latter times, Paul
says, some, not all, but some shall depart from
the faith. Wow, that must have been something
for Timothy to hear. You know, he's seeing many,
many people come to know Christ. He's seeing
the church grow. But Paul tells him there's going
to come a time when some are going to depart
from the faith. He's telling the Thessalonians
that there's going to be a falling away. These
are prophecies pointing forward to some events
that did happen and did unfold, just like Paul
predicted and prophesied in the course of church
history. Now, if you study church history, there
are some things that will become evident to you.
These are the undisputed facts of church history,
okay? Regardless of what faith you have, what
denomination you're a part of, we can study church
history and scholars across the board can agree
on the facts of church history that I'm about
to share with you. And I'm going to share the
good, the bad, and the ugly concerning church
history. We have to do that. We have to be honest.
And I want to tell you honestly and sincerely,
this falling away, this departure from the faith
that Paul predicted, it did happen over the course
of church history. It didn't happen all in one
day. It didn't happen all in one year. It didn't
even happen all in one century. But this falling
away, this departure from the faith happened
slowly over the course of about 1 ,400 years,
and it corresponded to the rise of what we know
today as the Roman Catholic Church. I want to
talk to you a little bit this morning about the
Roman Catholic Church. And when I do that, I
want you to understand something. When I mention
the Roman Catholic Church, please don't misunderstand
me. I'm not trying to attack individuals personally
who might be a part of the Roman Catholic Church.
You might have friends and family members who
are part of this church. I do. And this is not
an indictment on them personally or questioning
their faith or their sincerity. But we're going
to talk about some things concerning the Roman
Catholic Church. It would be hard for us to tell
the story of church history without talking about
the names of some of the churches that have been
involved. But slowly over a period of 1400 years,
what we see happening with the rise of the Roman
Catholic Church, some of the things that Paul
mentioned in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, they
come true. If you go back and read 2 Thessalonians
2, 1 -12, Paul talks about a man of sin being
revealed, the son of perdition who exalts himself
or lifts himself up above God or everything that
is called God so that he as God setteth in the
temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
A man rises up and takes the place and says,
I am God. And we see that prophecy fulfilled
in the rise of the office of the Pope. The Roman
Catholic Church teaches that the Pope is Christ's
representation on earth. He is God on earth.
He is the vicar of Christ, the representation
of God on earth in the form of the papal office,
the office of the Pope. Paul also said that they
will teach doctrines of devils. The Greek word
there for devils is demons. And the idea here
is that a doctrine would prevail that would teach
people to worship and venerate the dead. just
as many saints are venerated today. Many saints
that have died hundreds of years ago, centuries
ago are venerated and worshiped as part of the
Roman Catholic Church. He says that it's going
to get really bad and people's conscience is
going to be seared. They're going to get involved
in error and sin to the point that they're blinded
to their sin. They're blinded to their error.
Their conscience is seared with a hot iron. They
cannot see with a... with a clear mind. They
cannot feel with a good conscience that they
are disobeying God and doing things contrary
to His will. He said they would also forbid to
marry. You know, we see that today. That's been
practiced for hundreds of years in the Roman
Catholic Church that its leaders, its priests,
its bishops, its cardinals, and its pope aren't
allowed to marry. They're forbidden to marry
if they want to be in that office to serve God.
The doctrine is called the celibacy of the priesthood.
You know, Paul predicted that during this departure
from the faith, during this falling away, that
these things would come into Christianity, that
these doctrines would be a part of many people's
faith. He goes on to say that they would teach
people to abstain from meats, that at certain
times and on certain times of the year and certain
days of the week, you couldn't eat certain meats.
That's also a teaching today of the Roman Catholic
Church. And Paul goes on to say that because
of this, God would send many people a strong
delusion that they would believe a lie, he says,
because they didn't have a love of the truth.
I encourage you to go back and read 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2, verse 1 to 12, and see these things
for yourself. And unfortunately, it's come true.
Many people have believed a strong delusion.
And God's allowed them to believe a lot of the
religious lies that are propagated in religion
today. All these things happened and they corresponded
to the rise of the Roman Catholic Church. During
this period of time, the Roman Catholic Church,
which really had the market on most of Christianity,
over this period of time they became doctrinally
corrupt. Many false doctrines came into the church
slowly over this time. The idea of worshipping
or venerating Mary, the idea, as I mentioned,
of the celibacy of the priesthood, that church
leaders can't marry, The idea that you should
pray to the saints instead of praying to God.
The idea of infant baptism. And the list goes
on and on. Many, many other doctrines came into
the church that we have no scriptural authority
for, that we don't find taught in the Bible.
Over this period of time, most of Christianity
became organizationally corrupt. A hierarchy
developed within the Roman Catholic Church that
is foreign to Scripture. We don't find anything
in the New Testament, in the Bible, about one
priest being over one congregation, and then
a bishop being over a number of priests, and
then an archbishop being over a number of bishops,
and then a cardinal being over maybe all the
churches in a nation, and then the idea of a
pope being over the whole church. spread out
throughout the earth. These are offices that
aren't taught in the Bible. This is man -made
religion. And this is a hierarchy that man slowly
established and evolved over a period of time
that we have no authority for in the scripture.
Jesus, in fact, gave us a pattern for church
organization. If you're able to come back Friday
night and you're interested in that topic, we're
going to talk more about that, about God's plan
for the organization of the church. And it was
not this. But yet this is the hierarchy that
developed within the church over this 1400 year
period. You know, most of the church also became
morally corrupt during this time. Morally corrupt.
For hundreds and hundreds of years the Roman
Catholic Church forged a worldwide empire. The
Roman Empire at first, then the Holy Roman Empire
through the Middle Ages. They forged a worldwide
empire that dominated most of Europe. North Africa,
even parts of Asia. And, you know, as part of
this one world empire, one world government,
they raised up a giant army. Roman Catholic Church
raised up a giant army to go and to slaughter
people by the thousands over a period of time
by the millions. In the crosshairs were what
they called heretics. A heretic was anyone who
disagreed with the Roman Catholic Church and
what it taught. If you disagreed with the Roman
Catholic Church, you were a heretic and you were
subject to the penalty of death. And they had
a giant army to go find you and hunt you down
and kill you. You know, they also raised up armies
to make crusades into the Middle East and to
slaughter by the millions of people living in
the land of Palestine as part of a crusade or
an effort to regain the territory of the Holy
Land. Millions and millions of people were murdered.
Over the course of history by the swords of the
Roman Catholic Church and the army that it raised
up now we can see that Jesus never Taught this
Jesus never advocated for this Jesus never commanded
anything like this It's evidence of it's one
of the evidences of how the church became morally
corrupt over this 1400 year period of history
I Told you I was gonna give you a good bad and
ugly and I realized a lot of that was ugly This
is the truth. These are the undisputed facts
of church history. If you're interested in this,
if I piqued your interest, you go do your own
research and you're going to find that this is
the history of the church. It's a dark history.
But you know there was a light that began to
shine around the year 1500. Some things began
to change. Around the year 1500, men actually
started to rise up and protest against the errors
of the Roman Catholic Church. And this began
a reformation movement. It's called the Protestant
Reformation. These men were protesting the errors
of the Roman Catholic Church. That's why it's
called Protestant. They were protesting and they
were demanding reforms. That's why it's called
a Reformation, Protestant Reformation. Men like
Martin Luther, who was a priest in the Catholic
Church, published his 95 Theses, which was a
list of objections that he had against the teaching
of the Catholic Church, 95 points at which he
saw the church was not teaching scriptural doctrine.
And he published that in Wittenberg, Germany
in 1517. He publicly published his dispute of
the Catholic Church on these 95 points. And,
you know, he was one of many at that time who
rose up to protest the errors of the Catholic
Church. And, you know, their rallying cry, their
plea was very simple. These men said, you know,
our authority needs to be found in the Bible
and the Bible alone. We need to go back to the
Bible. And our faith, our doctrine, our practice
needs to line up with the Scripture. Not hundreds
and hundreds of years of manmade doctrines and
traditions. And that was their... That was their
protest and that was their cry. Now, I want to
tell you something about the Protestant Reformation.
It was a very noble effort. A very noble effort
and I'm thankful for the men who stood up and
some of them lost their lives. They risked their
lives to stand up and say, no, we need to get
back to the Bible and do things God's way. It
was a very noble effort. However, I'm here to
tell you this morning in my estimation, Protestant
Reformation, as noble as it was, was unsuccessful.
And one of the reasons why I say it was unsuccessful
is that it led to the rise of all the religious
division that we see around us today. The different
parts of the Protestant Reformation eventually
fragmented, and from that fragmentation of that
movement, many of the denominational churches
that we see around us today were established.
So before the Reformation, we had one church,
and it had a lot of problems. Okay? After the
Reformation, we've got dozens of different churches.
all divided against each other, and they still
have not all the same problems, but a lot of
the same problems that they had in the beginning.
So that's why I say the Protestant Reformation
was a noble effort, but it really just led to
the rise of religious division that we see today.
Another movement came after that. From about
the year 1780, continuing on into the present
day, in the late 1700s, men began to look around
and see the religious division around them. And
all these different churches and denominations
said, hey, we all say we're Christians and serving
God, yet we're all divided against each other.
And a group of men tried to come together and
put aside all denominational differences to just
come around the Word of God and just practice
New Testament Christianity as it's revealed in
the Scriptures. They saw the need to do that
because they realized that many man -made doctrines
had been carried over from the Roman Catholic
Church into their denominational churches. So
they saw a need to go even further than they
already had in getting back to just practicing
the Bible. Also many unbiblical practices had
been carried over from the Catholic Church into
denominational churches. And these men saw the
need to continue to press on, to try to get back
to being the one in the same church that Jesus
built. Now I want you to notice something. We
call this movement the Restoration Movement.
And that's different than the Protestant Reformation.
There's a difference between Reformation and
a difference in Restoration. And I'll have more
to say about that in just a few moments. But
notice this was not an effort to reform. They'd
already tried to reform the church, already tried
to change it. They said, you know what, instead
of trying to reform the church, we just need
to go back to the very beginning. Instead of
trying to change it one piece at a time, a little
bit here and a little bit there, we just need
to start all over. And we just need to make up
our minds. We're going to be the church Jesus
built. And our faith, our practice, our doctrine,
if we can't find it clearly authorized in the
New Testament, we're not going to be a part of
it. So they just wanted to wipe the slate clean
completely and start all over in restoring the
church that Jesus built. Now, I believe that's
a noble effort. I agree with a lot of the underlying
principles of that effort and that movement.
And that effort is still ongoing today. That
effort and this movement lives on in the minds
and the hearts of people who still feel compelled
to be working as we go along trying to reach
a clear and a perfect understanding and putting
into practice of the New Testament. And I think
that's a noble effort. I want to be about that
effort today. I'd encourage you to be about the
effort also of restoring the New Testament Church.
So that's some history. Thank you for your patience
and let me lay out that history. That explains
kind of how we've got to where we are today and
I hope through explaining this history you can
see that we do have a great need for religious
restoration. We do have a need to restore the
New Testament Church Jesus built. I've thrown
out this word restoration. Before we go any further,
I want you to understand what that word means.
Restoration, the root word, is the word restore.
And we understand that when we restore something,
we want to take that thing and bring it back
to its former, original condition. You take this
old car. It don't look too good. It's seen better
days, hadn't it? If you had a mind to and the
money to, you could buy that car. If you had
the skill, the talent, the ability. and access
to all the parts, what could you do? You could
restore that car. You could return it back to
its former original condition. And that's what
we're talking about when we talk about restoration.
We're not wanting to restore a car or a piece
of antique furniture. We're talking about restoring
the church that Jesus built. We're talking about
restoring it back, taking it back to the very
beginning. and returning it to its former original
condition as it's revealed to us in the New Testament.
We have a desperate need for religious restoration
today for these reasons. One, man -made doctrine
still abound in Christianity today. There's still
many things taught in churches today for which
there's no scriptural authority, for which there's
not a book, chapter, and verse to back it up.
and to show that it's truly from God. There are
many man -made doctrines and traditions in religion
today and because of that we still have a need
for religious restoration. Many practices in
religion today are unauthorized. No scripture.
No scriptural authority. Scriptural authority
is so very important. If we want to be the church
Jesus built we have to question the authority
of everything. We teach, preach, and practice.
But yet many churches today don't... look to
the authority of Scripture as important. They
do what feels right. They do what the people
want instead of doing what the Bible tells us
to do and is authorized in the Scriptures. And
I'll tell you something else. This is another
reason why we need religious restoration today.
Religious division abounds. And you know, I'm
afraid that we just become desensitized to it.
Desensitized to it. And I'm guilty of this very
same thing. You know, back home to travel from
our home to New Harmony Church of Christ where
we worship on Sunday morning, I think I passed
like seven or eight different churches. I passed
seven or eight different churches to get to the
place where me and my family worship. And those
churches all have different names. They teach
different doctrines. They worship in different
ways. They preach different Gospels. One has
a preacher. One has a priest. One has a minister.
And you know what, and I'm just being honest,
to me I'm almost desensitized to it. But we should
really never be desensitized to the religious
division we see around us because I'm here to
tell you, we're going to teach on it multiple
times this week, religious division is not the
will of God. Jesus prayed that we would all be
one. And let me tell you something, we are not
all one. We are not all one in Christianity today.
We are divided tremendously. And for that reason,
We need to come together around the Word of God
and restore the one in the same church that Jesus
built. So I've introduced the idea of religious
restoration this morning. You say, Brother James,
is it even scriptural? Is the idea of religious
restoration even scriptural? Yes, it is. I'm
going to give you three examples from the Bible
to show you that religious restoration is scriptural.
The first example will come from the Old Testament.
You remember in 2 Kings chapter 22? In the days
of King Josiah, the book of the law of the Lord
had been lost for many years and it was rediscovered
in the temple. And you remember the priest, the
high priest gave the book to a scribe. The scribe
went and read it to King Josiah. And you remember
what Josiah's response was when he heard the
Word of God straight from the book for the first
time in probably his life? Josiah said this in
2 Kings 22 -13. He says, Great is the wrath of
the Lord that is kindled against us, because
our fathers haven't hearkened, they haven't listened
under the words of this book. Josiah recognizes
and realizes that he and his people had strayed
far, far away from the will of God. They hadn't
been following God's word for many, many years.
And when Josiah realized that, what did Josiah
do? You go read 2 Kings 23. If you allow me to
just paraphrase it and put it to you in straight
and simple terms, Josiah cleaned house. Josiah
cleaned house. He immediately looked at the ways
the Jews were worshipping God. And if it wasn't
a part of the law, if it wasn't part of God's
Word, he got rid of it. And the things that they
had long forgotten, that God told them to do
as part of their service to him, he brought those
things back into their faith and practice. Josiah
restored the religion of the Jews. He returned
it back to its former original condition because
it had been long lost and forgotten. And because
Josiah restored the religion of the Jews, I want
you to look at how he was remembered in the Word
of God. 2 Kings 23 -25, Like unto him, Josiah,
was there no king before him that turned to the
Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, with
all his might, according to all the law of Moses?
Neither after him arose there any like him. He
was like no other. Like no other. Why? Because
when he read the Word of God and saw how far
he was from the truth, he immediately made up
his mind, I'm going to change to get back in
line with God's truth. And that's what restoration
is about. Second example of restoration in the
Bible is the fact that Paul had to restore the
doctrine of the gospel for the churches of Galatia.
There were false teachers, Judaizing teachers
that went throughout Galatia, teaching if you
wanted to be saved, you had to believe in Jesus,
but you also had to be circumcised. And that
was a false gospel. Being circumcised is not
part of the gospel. They're the plan of salvation.
But that's the gospel that was taught in Galatia,
and that's the doctrine that they began to believe.
So Paul wrote Galatians to correct that false
doctrine. He said in Galatians 1 .6, I marveled
that you're so soon removed from Him. You see,
they'd moved away from something. They'd moved
away from Christ and His truth. They strayed
away. Removed from Him that called you into the
grace of Christ, you've been removed unto another
gospel. He says, which is not another. It's not
really a gospel. It's a false gospel. But there
be some that trouble you and would pervert, twist,
change, alter the gospel of Christ. He says,
but though we are an angel from heaven, preach
any other gospel unto you than that which we
have preached, let him be accursed. Paul found
it necessary to write to the Galatians to restore
the true doctrine of the gospel because they
had believed a false gospel. And you read the
rest of Galatians, he goes to great detail and
painstaking detail, if you will, to help them
see the problem of their error. The third example
of religious restoration, Paul had to write to
the Corinthians to restore their practice of
the Lord's Supper or communion. As Brother Jared
mentioned this morning from the table, the Corinthians
had lost track. They had turned the Lord's Supper
into a common meal. The Lord never intended it
to be a common meal for the satisfaction of the
flesh, for filling of the belly, if you will.
They had turned it into something the Lord never
intended for it to be. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians
to them to correct them and to restore the true
practice of communion in their congregation.
In 1 Corinthians 11, 17 -34, we're just going
to look at 20 and 21. Paul said this, when you
come together therefore into one place, this
is not to eat the Lord's Supper. That's his way
of saying, look, you're coming together and you're
doing something and you're calling it the Lord's
Supper, but what you're doing is not the Lord's
Supper, it's something different. You've turned
it into something else that it was not supposed
to be. He says, For in eating, everyone taketh
before other his own supper. One is hungry and
another is drunken. You've turned this into a
common meal. Paul wrote to them the rest of that
chapter to correct them and to explain what a
true and proper observance of the Lord's Supper
should look like. That had to be restored. It
had been lost. That practice had been lost. Paul
wrote to them to restore. the truth in their
observance of the Lord's Supper. Now, I've explained
to you this morning what restoration is. I've
given you three Bible examples of religious restoration.
Is religious restoration even possible today?
Some people hear these things and they say, yeah,
it sounds good in theory, but in practice it's
just too hard. In practice it's just too hard.
Would it really be that hard for us as hard as
we might think to restore New Testament Christianity
today? I don't believe it would be that hard
if we'd have the right mind and have the right
heart and To illustrate that I want to use an
example some of you may have heard before maybe
the first time you're hearing it But I want to
use the illustration the example of restoring
the game of baseball To show you how easy it
would be to restore the church that Jesus built
every single time a major league baseball team
gets together to play baseball they follow a
rule book this is 2026 official rules of major
league baseball every time they play they follow
this rule book and you know this rule book tells
you everything you need to know to play major
league baseball it tells you three strikes is
an out we all know that tells you four balls
is a walk tells you there's six outs per inning
three three outs at the top of the inning three
outs at the bottom of the inning tells you you
play nine innings in a game It says you need
to put all the players on the field, and it says
the field needs to have a diamond -shaped pattern,
and there needs to be so many feet between home
plate and first base, and first base and second
base, and there's a pitcher's mound in the middle
of that diamond, and it's so many feet away from
home plate. All the details are laid out in the
rule book of Major League Baseball. And because
they have a rule book when they play baseball,
guess what? They can go anywhere on the face
of the planet. And they can play Major League
Baseball the same way in Japan that they do in
America. They could take this rule book to the
North Pole and they could play baseball at the
North Pole the same way they play it here in
Tennessee. Because the rule book ensures consistency.
If you want to play baseball, it's simple. You
can play it anywhere you want. All you got to
do is follow the rule book. Now what if we took
this rule book of Major League Baseball and we
put it in a time capsule and we buried it? and
we stop playing baseball altogether, what would
happen? A few generations would go by and we'd
forget about baseball pretty quickly. We'd move
on to other things. We'd move on to other sports,
right? Our grandkids might go to a museum and
see the bat and the ball and say, hey, grandma
and grandpa used to play that game. A few more
generations would go by and baseball would be
forgotten. Suppose a thousand years went by.
Thousand years from today, 3026. Suppose our
great, great, great, great, great, great, great,
great, great, great grandkids unearth that time
capsule. And they pulled out this book and it
says, Official Rules of Major League Baseball,
2026. Suppose they read it. Could they play Major
League Baseball a thousand years from today?
Without any prior knowledge of it whatsoever.
Could they play major league baseball? Well,
sure they could All they need to do is read the
rule book. They'd say, you know, it's three strikes
isn't out It's four balls in a walk says right
here in the rule book It's six outs per inning
three at the top of the inning three at the bottom
of the inning It says we need to play nine innings
and it says we need to go out on a field and
make a diamond -shaped pattern and put first
base there and second base there and third base
there and There's so many feet from home plate.
We need a pitchers mound Could they play Major
League Baseball? Sure they could. It's simple.
Why? Just follow the rule book. Just follow the
rule book and you know what they could do. They
could go anywhere on the face of the planet.
I don't know what nations would even exist. They
could go anywhere on the face of the planet and
they could play baseball the same way everywhere
they went because just like the rule book ensures
consistency for us today in baseball, it would
provide the same consistency a thousand years
from now. They could all play baseball alike.
It wouldn't be hard for us to restore the New
Testament church. We have a rule book, if you
will. We have a pattern, a plan. It's the New
Testament scriptures. And even though they were
written 2 ,000 years ago, they're still available
to us. If our descendants could play baseball
without any prior knowledge a thousand years
from today by following the rule book, we can
do the same with the New Testament. We can read
it, we can understand it, and we can... be successful
in restoring and being the church that Jesus
built. All we got to do is follow the rule book.
Our rule book, of course, are the Scriptures.
We could do it. I believe we should be about
doing it. But to do it, to be successful in this
restoration we're talking about this morning,
we got to go back to the Bible. We got to push
everything else aside. I'm going to talk more
about that this afternoon. I hope you'll come
back. and hear more what I have to say about
this topic this afternoon. Hey, I hope you'll
come back every single assembly, every single
service of this meeting. This is a series of
meetings, right? You know how it works with a
movie series or a sitcom series? Once you hear
the first one, you want to hear the rest in the
series, right? You don't want to miss an episode
in the series. Please come back and please set
your heart and your mind and your will to learn
more about these things. I'm going to talk more
about it this afternoon, but here's what we've
got to do. We've got to push aside our preferences,
our opinions, our tradition, our culture. We've
got to push everything aside to go back and find
the truth revealed in Scripture. We must go back
to the Bible to find our faith, to find our doctrine,
to find our practice. Only then can we truly
say that we are about the work of restoring the
church that Jesus built. This is a schedule of
services and topics that we're going to have
throughout the week. wrap it up pretty quick
here. I know that might be hard for you to see,
but I'd encourage you all, we'll leave this up
in between services, after services. These are
a list of topics that we're going to cover. If
some of these topics are interesting to you,
please make it a priority to be here and hear
what the Bible says about these topics. We're
going to talk about restoring the church in several
different ways, from several different angles.
And so I encourage you again to come back and
be a part of this meeting as we study these topics
together. As you come to this meeting, I want
to please ask you to come with an open mind.
Come with an open mind. Because I'm just going
to be upfront and honest with you. As we go through
this series, we're going to investigate and we're
going to give some honest self -examination to
things pertaining to doctrine. And if we don't
come with an open mind, the likelihood that we
learn something is very low. But if we'll come
with an open mind, we might learn something.
And I hope that you do. I hope that you learn
something through the course of this meeting.
I'm gonna ask you to come with an open heart.
Come with an open heart. Again, we're gonna scrutinize
and we're gonna challenge some commonly accepted
beliefs and practices. Things that religious
people do today. Even some of the things that
we do. We're gonna respectfully and lovingly
challenge and scrutinize some of those practices.
And it's not in an effort to condemn people and
put people down and damn people to hell. It's
in an effort for us to clearly see the difference
between truth and error. We clearly need to understand
the truth and stay away from error. Come with
an open mind, come with an open heart, and please
come with an open Bible. Follow along in the
scriptures. Pay close attention to the scriptures.
We're going to do our very best to validate everything
we teach with a book, a chapter, and a verse
from God's Word. And I hope you'll hold me accountable
to that. I'm going to try to show everything
we teach you, show it to you clearly from the
Bible. We're going to follow a simple four -step
approach. as we go through analyzing some of
these topics, some of these doctrines and practices
through the course of this meeting. Here's how
this simple four -step approach is going to work.
It might be confusing to you this morning, but
once we get into it, you're going to get the
hang of it. It's very simple. First thing we're
going to do concerning our doctrines and our
practices is we're going to go to the New Testament
pattern. We're going to see the original pattern
that was revealed in the New Testament for us.
We're going to see how things were in the beginning.
That's where we're going to start. And from there,
we're going to move to step two. We're going
to look down through the centuries of church
history to try to understand and analyze how
error slowly evolved and how people went away
from that original pattern as it was delivered.
So we want to understand God's original pattern
for something in the beginning, but then we need
to ask the question, well, what went wrong? What
went wrong over the course of church history?
Third thing we're going to do is it's going to
bring us forward to carefully observing and understanding
our modern -day practices, our modern -day doctrines
and traditions. What's the state of Christianity
today? What is our standing? That's the third
thing that we're going to look at and we're going
to analyze and then the fourth thing we're going
to do is we're going to talk about the ways that
we need to restore the original pattern as it
was given. We're going to talk about how we can
make it right. Though it was right in the beginning
and though we went astray and we can clearly
see that as part of our standing today, we're
going to talk about the steps that we can take
to rectify and resolve error and get back to
being the church that the Lord wants us to be.
So it's a cycle, it's a process, it involves
these four steps. I just want to introduce it
this morning. It'll become more apparent I think
as we get into further into the series. As I
wrap it up this morning, here's some things I
want you to take away from this lesson. I want
you to know for a certainty that Jesus did build
a church. It's His church. It belongs to Him.
He's the founder and builder of His church. Satan
has been working over the last 2 ,000 years to
corrupt that church, to derail it, to defeat
it. He's still working to do that today. And
we see evidence of that as we study church history,
the history I've shared with you this morning.
We have a desperate need to restore the church
that Jesus built. I hope my lesson this morning
has helped you to see that need. With God's help,
I believe we can. I believe we can be the church
that Jesus built. With the Lord's help, we can
do that. So let's let that be our focus. Let's
let that be in our mind and in our heart this
week as we go through this series of lessons
on restoring New Testament Christianity.