Ekklesia

[Music] well hey there everyone watching so glad you've tuned in if you're a part of empower church we're super stoked that you're with us maybe you're a part of um maybe just streaming in online and we want to welcome you want to say hi if you want more information about what we're doing and who we are you can just head to empowerchurch.com and all of the details are there today is exciting because we are starting a new series and um i've had it in my heart to bring this series for a number of months now in fact before we started the church the lord started speaking to me and unlocking revelation inside of me around this topic that we're going to be talking about drumroll please we're going to start a series that's going to go for four or five teaching sessions on the church and so there's possibly um not been a more prophetic series that we've done in empower church that i've taught um than this one this one's powerful this one's like a trip to the spiritual chiropractor to bring alignment into the core of who we are so that we can function um and so that we can be in mission and so that we can ensure that our identity is right and and good and sound and in line with god's word and so over the next couple of weeks we're gonna really be talking about some pretty uh controversial if you like some challenging more than anything things not controversy for the sake of controversy but um more around this whole idea of challenging our thinking how do we get to the place that we are and what is god's plan moving forward we've all always spoken about this idea of a new wine skin around how we want to allow the lord to lead us and guide us into this new season of church life and we really want to partner with him and i suppose we're ultimately asking the question as we walk out this kind of new wine skin question is we're saying lord is there something you're speaking to us about as your body the church around how we're called to who we're called to be number one and how we're called to minister and be effective in this day and age at the end of the day church history tells us that there's been a lot of cataclysmic pivot points in the life of the church there's a 15th century reformation there's um this there's just so many things over the years 100 years ago azusa street revival which really birthed the pentecostal church uh took it back to the ancient way of the church being fueled and filled with the power of holy spirit and there's been so many different watershed moments for the history and the life of the church and i suppose we had empowered church certainly what's in my heart is this question this deep cry this hunger to say lord are you doing something new in our time and so in this series on the church um we're going to go ground grass level um today we're going to go right to the the basics we're going to have a bit of a history lesson um in the next few sessions i want to talk about churchianity versus christianity i want to talk to you about what it means now this identity as we understand it to be the church what it means what this whole new wine skin thing is and i want to be really open and transparent from the top this is a journey that we're walking out i've uh this is this certainly we haven't arrived we don't certainly don't have all the detail and the how and this and that worked out and i think that's the beauty about this journey a big part of the beauty of this journey is like we've been declaring since the start of the year our vision for this year and for our lives really is to look at the face of jesus and to hold his hand and allow him to guide us and as as we trust him at a deeper level look at his face and hold his hand we want to just behold him we just want to look at him and so that's what this journey is about this journey is about allowing the wine that fills the wine skin to bring shape to the wine skin rather than the wine skin be predetermined and define what the wine can do and so here we are just simply humbling ourselves saying lord would you do something afresh in us why not because the old is necessarily bad but because we want to continue to pursue god to be the most effective version the most impactful version of who he's called the church to be in this day and age so come on let's pray and let's get into this father i want to i want to commit this time to you i want to ask that your anointing would just come so strongly i pray that it would be clear it would be articulate it would be to the point i pray father that it would just impact so many i pray holy spirit that you would come upon us in a new way that the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of revelations ephesians chapter 1 would just be in the room today would be in our heart god break out in miracles break out in signs and wonders lord let us see your church added to on a daily basis god shake up the ground shake up the ground of our tradition break up the fallow ground of our hearts lord change us from the inside out we want to be your vessels and we make ourselves available so today in the mighty name of jesus i thank you your anointing is upon me your enabling power is on me it's in me so speak to our hearts change our lives and let your spirit be made manifest in this time in jesus name a amen amen well i want to start and we're going to start at the very first time that jesus mentions or the bible the new testament uses the word that is translated as church and it's found in matthew chapter 16 and we're going to read this text in just a moment matthew chapter 16 and we're going to be reading from verse number 13. but before we get to that let me ask you these questions what what is the church this is what this message uh seeks to answer today what is the church how do we define it what is its identity what is its function what is the church's mission we take and um we have a whole lot of language cues don't we that come out as a result of what we believe and so for example um we we would we would say things like this about the church where do you go to church we might say what church do you attend do you want to come to my church i want to invite you to church i left my last church because dot dot dot i gave to the building fund to help our church build its church and all of this language points to the fact that we believe that the word church is primarily a place a building or perhaps something that we go to is the church the people or is the church the steeple is it the building or is it the people so the question is are we co-laboring with jesus to build what he said he would build is our message the same or are we on a trajec trajectory that's just slightly off or are we completely off this isn't something for me to answer that question is for the holy spirit to illuminate you to answer let's read matthew chapter 16. verses number 13 to 20 it's on the screen for your convenience today when jesus came to the region of caesarea philippi he asked his disciples who do people say the son of man is they replied some say john the baptist others say elijah and still others jeremiah or one of the prophets i don't have time today today to unpack the significance of those prophets that he has mentioned maybe we'll do that another time verse number 15 but what about you jesus says red letters he asked who do you say that i am simon peter answered you are the messiah the son of the living god blessed are you simon son of jonah for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood but by my father in heaven there's like a breakthrough a download of spiritual light of revelation that comes in the pit on verse 18 says and i tell you peter that um that you i i tell you peter upon this revelation let me read it out of here because i've deleted something of my ipad um i uh blessed are you simon barjona for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my father who is in heaven and i will also say to you that you are peter and on this rock i will build my church and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it and i will give you i'm reading from the new king james version some of your translations might say the gates of hell i'm choosing intentionally to read the gates of hades will not prevail against it and i will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven put that in the chat the keys i'll give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven then he commanded his disciples that they should tell no one that he was jesus the christ and upon this rock i will build my church is the word i will build my church i'm going to build my church that's what i'm going to build i'm going to build my church that word church there just so that you know it's the first time it's been used possibly ever possibly ever but certainly in the new testament to connect um it's the first time this word which is the word ekklesia in the greek ecclesia it's the first time this word has been used to talk about the assembly of god's people um which is translated as the word church but i want to give you a bit of history on on where maybe uh to enlighten us what jesus meant but also to how we got to the place that where we're at right now with our understanding of the church of the church and so we're gonna you know the past is serious when he gets the whiteboard out and so i hope that you can see this but we'll just check let's do this the word church so where did we get this word church this is important for us to to really answer this question answer this question let's look at this the the the word church is is an important thing right and i want to i'll just write down a few things while you're listening to me kirikon right now it's important that you understand the history of these words etymologically where they came from in order for you to actually understand how we arrived at our definition of the word church and so we're going to go on a bit of a history lesson for the next 15 to 20 minutes to help us understand this whole thing let's do this right here we go clay seer the this word kiriakon um because in our bibles the our bibles translate the word ekklesia as the word church as the word church this word church let's have a look at this it is because these two words mean the same thing they just come from different places kiriakon kiriakon is actually means that kiriakon actually means the lord the lord and doma dome is where we get that word from means house all right and so kiriakondama literally means the lord's house that's my little picture of a house to help us understand this this is important for us to understand because we translate the word church we really where we get our true definition of the word church is this idea kiriakon doma the lord's house and that's okay but is that what jesus was meaning whereas we come across here to the word ecclesia and this literally means the cold out ones stick with me called out once and this isn't about um one person being called out this is referring to an assembly of multiple people so in one breath there are times where we would say that i am the church you are the church and in essence it's correct but it's it it's not entirely correct because it's not i am the church it's actually we are the church is the better definition of describing it and i want to be really clear this whole sermon series on the church this whole this whole series of teachings and messages isn't a hate against the mega church not at all we are very much like all of the church all of those sorts of churches this is about the dna of who god's called us to be as believers as the church the ecclesia which we'll talk about in just a moment and so it's important that we we put down our hate of what exists and realize that god god doesn't necessarily hate it that's not what this series is about this is about us opening up our heart and coming back to maybe the way that jesus originally defined us to be and then in putting the dna of the ecclesia into our local churches the cold out ones now listen to this this is this is all about timing all right this is all about timing i should have got my whiteboard rubber but i didn't timing so this word ekklesia uh this word kiriakondama right the lord's house it actually came into existence right we first hear about this word in 300 a.d did you hear that 300 a.d so if we come down here and this becomes our little scale right you've got this says jc you've got bc you've got a.d so you've got before jesus i know it doesn't stand for that you've got after jesus and you've got jc here in the middle the the the word kiriakondama which we etymologically get our word church came in around 300 a.d okay jesus is here the new testament was written i hope you can see this the new testament was written anywhere between 60 and 100 a.d depending on what authority you listen to around that 60 to 80. the word kiriakondama wasn't even didn't even exist until 300 a.d now we come over to a cli ecclesia and we see that the word ecclesia was actually the first time we see it in history come up in the in the record books was 580 bc so we got bc so 580 years before jesus so let's do this again this is time we got jc here and we got bc before we got ad after we got 300 ad for the word kiriakon and way back here in 580 bc we've got the word ecclesia and so where did ecclesia where did this concept of ecclesia actually come from good question because this is going to help us interpret through jesus lens the timing that was here what the word church means heavy teaching today okay uh less shouty preachy matt ghana today but i want you to stick with me because this is an important foundation that you and i get the word ekklesia originated from athens greek greece it's a political or governmental term ekklesia is actually a type of government and so greece i want you to imagine greece greece was made up of a whole lot of whole bunch of city um cities city-states almost and they called them um they were called policies and much like they're much like our states in australia today they were under the government of the greece rule or rome and but they were they were independent they exercised their own authority and their own rule over those areas just like we're finding today in our in our cities and states that's why one country um can one state sorry can be in lockdown and the other not et cetera et cetera because they're under different governmental rule although they're a part of the the government of australia and these states were governed by arist aristo aristotocracy right and that's the word aristos and kratos and it literally just simply means the rule of the best and often this happened through bloodlines and that's why we have a king has a son who has a son and they all end up being king because this is how rule came and that's why there was a massive difference between the rich and the poor the powerful and the non-powerful the educated and the non-educated because it was passed down from generation to generation and each state had their own aristocracy aristocracy and their leaders and some most of the time it was bloodline wars will fight fought over these sorts of things and often each state had their own aristocracy and different leaders over different areas and often what would happen is there'd be an impasse there'd be disagreement there would be some sort of stalemate as a result of them not agreeing on something and so they would elect a leader for a short season of rule to sort out specific problems and this leader would be um would bring ideas this idea would bring people together get resources but they were empowered with authority to make a decision to bring rule and to break a stalemate and to um make a decision that they thought was best this person was called a tyrant believe it or not and it has a bad connotation now but back in those days a tyrant was just the title of this person that was the delegated authority of the governing body or the gov the governor or the aristocracy of that time and the tyrant the tyrant would then take on their authority right one tyrant um this got bad because sometimes tyrants and this is why you know we we hear it in a bad connotation now because a tyrant at times wouldn't give back the power and they'd rule and they'd keep they'd stay in their season of power for longer than they should have and one tyrant back in about 580 bc one tyrant back in about 580 bc he did something different instead of giving his power back to the aristocracy he gave it back to the people he gave it to the people i should say and this is the first time we see in history democracy or democracy it's where the word demos and kratos kratos we know means rule demos means people so now we have the rule of the people and this is what would happen the this is what would happen and this this group of people were called the ecclesia the ecclesia would gather they would have like imagine imagine we meet in the preston town hall in our north community but imagine the town halls were the hubs of society and up to or 6 000 people were a part of this ekklesia this group of people that would delegated the power and they would meet they would meet 40 to 60 times a year there had to be a quorum of 6 000 people to vote to make decisions they would decide about war or peace do we do this or do we do that uh they'd make economic financial decisions all those sorts of things and these people were called the ecclesia they were an assembly of people that had delegated authority to bring about government and rule and to bring about change in their area are you starting to see the picture we are going deep into this today i hope you're with me hope you're with me so so now we see now we see that where we get the word kirikon kirikon doma really speaks about the lord's house right that came way after jesus was speaking about what we call in matthew chapter 16 is it's interpreted into our english bibles as the word church and unfortunately it does a disservice to us as believers in jesus and his mission because we think about the lord's house rather than we think about the cold out ones i don't want to preach too soon but man i'm fired up this morning about this and i feel the power i feel the anointing i feel the holy ghost on this wanting to wanting to bring transformation and do something inside of you today see part of the thing with the complication with this whole dilemma is that you and i then end up if you look at the cold out ones it's an apostolic the the nature of who the church is called to be is apostolic to be sent that's what the apostolic is the the apollos was the leading boat that of the fleet of ships that would go out to pioneer and break through new ground and that's how jesus calls you to be he calls you to be the sent ones not the holy huddle in the lord's house let's keep moving let's move back to matthew chapter 16 now and give this a bit of context why did jesus and why did jesus reveal the church the ecclesia in this moment jesus takes the the disciples on this long journey and they start walking they start going to the region of caesar caesarea philippi and it was the most northern region ever traveled by jesus it was name its name um it was named by caesar and philippi and these were two deified gods of that day it's about two days walk to the bottom and sits at the bottom of mount hermon remember the disciples are probably in their early twenties late teens early twenties you you we know this from a few few ways number one uh uh uh you were never older than your rabbi and we know that jesus was was 30 years old when he started his ministry so they were there was somewhere between their late teens and their early 20s most people agree that they were in their late teens early 20s rather than late 20s for example another thing that they point to is that peter jesus peter was potentially the oldest disciple they argued because he was asked to give taxes but you only paid taxes when you're 22 years or older and these guys jesus is is taking them on this journey and not only does jesus take them to see caesarea philippi he takes another two day journey to the gates of hades now watch this this is important this was the most paganistic place in the hellenistic world it was the most demonic realm of jesus time i want you to think of the most demonic sinful city that you can ever think of that's hard in your imagination to see it redeemed i want you to think of the toughest place and this was the place that jesus was maybe add a few degrees of craziness it was extremely demonic pan was worshipped there the god of pan was worshiped there as well of at least 14 other gods pan was half man he was half god he was sorry half man half goat he was he was a lust-filled sex god and so you can only begin to imagine that the gates of hell what the gates of haiti sorry was the gateway to the underworld spiritually and physically it was the darkest most most demonic oppressive occultic unredeemable place of that time especially to a jew to a young good jewish boy like the disciples it was the opposite to them in their thinking than jerusalem was if people were hanging around that place long enough they would have seen the most perverse demonic acts they would have seen child sacrifice they would have seen seen sex acts with animals they would have they would have seen prostitution they would have seen a whole lot of crazy stuff that was worshipped to these foreign gods it was believed that baal and the demonic spirits entered through this portal the gates and the cave itself even physically looks like a yawning mouth on a on a plain stone and so it was thought that this place was the great abyss it was thought that it was actually that's why it's interpreted as the gates of hell it was the portal into the underworld into the demonic realm the gateway and hades the gates of hades remember and hades was the god of the underworld and his name means ruler of the dead and so here's the context here's the context jesus takes the disciples to the darkest place he can find to the most occultic place the most demonic place the the place that seems the most unredeemable he takes them to that region and he gives them two of the greatest new testament revelations in that dark place he doesn't choose to to reveal them and give them these revelations in for example in in jerusalem he takes them to the darkest deepest place and the preacher in me wants to stand up today and begin to encourage you today that you may feel like you're in a dark place you may feel like you're in the very gates of hell the gates of hades themselves but friend i want you to know that god the anointing the spirit of god is not afraid he is not um he he is not controlled the demonic realm has no authority on the revelation that he can bring even in the darkest of times and so you may not be in a physically dark place come on somebody put this in the chat say amen you might not be in a physically dark place today maybe you're in a in a mentally and emotionally in a relationally dark demonic place but friend the light of god can press through that can bring change to you can do something supernatural in your world today darkness does not have control over light in fact john chapter 1 tells us that the light shone in the darkness and the darkness could not comprehend it could not overcome that like this is the power of our jesus he doesn't do it in jerusalem he does it in a dark place to reveal that he is the son of god that he is the messiah and also second that we are the ecclesia we're the ecclesia and the greatest question that mankind can ever answer and will ever have to answer is the question that jesus asked in matthew 16. i know that's what they say but this is what he says who do you personally say that i am and if i could do anything today jesus is asking you right now i know what man say i know what the media say i know what religion says but who do you say that jesus is it's the pivot uh it's the it's the most uh life-defining question that you could ever answer who do you say that jesus is who do you say that he is man could you imagine being in this moment when jesus takes you to the darkest place and the holy spirit the spirit of revelation breaks out and you realize your function your identity and your mission you are the ecclesia and the gates of hades will not prevail against it so come on let's let's dig a little bit deeper into this word ecclesia because i want you to go home go away with a whole lot of stuff today ecclesia so in the book of acts what happens is is the church is birth the fire of god the holy spirit comes down and the church is birthed that day and as a result of this cities are one for christ as a result of this culture is being transformed as a result of this revival is breaking out god is moving powerfully through the ecclesia if jesus would have used the word church peter would have had no idea what he was talking about jesus didn't um jesus chose not to use the word temple he chose not to use the word synagogue which are both religious terms he chose to use the word ekklesia which is a political slash governmental term people peter would have been wondering i don't know what you mean by church when you say church and so jesus says you are the ecclesia the church as soon as its birth is under persecution it is under crazy persecution people are being martyred for their faith people are laying down their lives all but one of the disciples were um you know we want to move in the power and we want to move in the anointing and the realm of miracles and signs and wonders that they did but friend they believe that at a whole nother level than we do we get mad because we go into a lockdown and because that limits our faith but we've just really got no idea what the disciples actually went through uh they were of the of the um 12 disciples in the book of acts uh 11 of them were martyred only one of them died of old age and that was john and and friend this is the whole this is this is the craziest the craziest thing is they needed god in a different way than we did they were under persecution for hundreds of years but yet still the church thrived and friend i want to tell you today that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church what does that mean that means a global pandemic cannot stop the church of jesus christ that means that means um abusive political powers that means um let's use that word tyrants and and evil governments that are all about control and power i'm not talking about australia right now we don't know how good we've got it i'm talking about other countries they cannot stop the church of god look at what happened in china when the church was shut down the government tried to shut it down try to close it down but god just keeps moving revival breaks out look at what's happening in iran and iraq right now is the church is growing there faster than it is anywhere because the gates of hell will not prevail against the ecclesia and they were under great persecution but in 325 a.d constantine constantine le he's this crazy encounter with god he wins this battle and he legalizes christianity he legalizes christianity fast forward a little while later and in 380 a.d christianity becomes the national religion it becomes the national religion and um for over a thousand years only the wealthy from this moment from about 325 a.d only the wealthy only the the rich only the educated had access really to the the word of god they only had access to the scriptures because uh but simply because they the only the wealthy were educated in that way and it became about the the scriptures and the and the bible and all the rest of it which is super important but it became about that rather than a relationship with jesus through the spirit it's the father the son and the spirit okay not the father the son and the holy scriptures though i'm not underplaying how important the word is i'm just trying to help you to see the that happens here in about three um it's i'll say this as well it's argued that at that point in time when christianity was made legal and it became the national religion of the time it's argued that at that day that's the time that christianity began to die began to die it's a bold statement but i want you to i want you to just chew on that think about it don't email me just think about it it was in about 350 a.d when we see the church built church buildings being built 350 a.d okay so remember the word three the the word kiriakon doma comes in to play about 300 i think 50 years later and church buildings start getting built and church church church buildings start getting built at the time at that time the word church took over the word ecclesia people stopped using the word ecclesia and they started using the word church okay that's important infinite joy this is a history lesson i hope you're writing this down in 1525 i told you we're going to teach today tyndale translates the bible for the first time into english and he's doing it for the purpose of the people he wants to give a bible to the people and he translates the word as christ's con he translates the word at clasia as the words in in his bible as the word christ congregation and in doing so he's moving the power from the institutionalized church the roman catholic church at that time and he's he's trying to shift it to the people in 1536 you know so tinder is trying to rebirth this idea of ecclesia and move away from kiriakon domain right this thousand years later remember and now in 1536 they tried to have tyndale change matthew 16 verse 18 the word church from the word congregation to the word church they wanted him to change it from jesus's congregation meaning the people to the word church and he refused man i like this guy what a revivalist what a man of god he refuses and as a result he was beaten and he was burnt at the stake king henry viii then rises up and he has a massive fallout with the church at this time the roman catholic church because he wants an annulment on his current marriage in order so that he can marry someone else and the only way that that could happen is through the church so henry viii he starts his own church the church of england right and the church of the church of england he he then is allowed to divorce have an annulment on his marriage and move and this war in the 15th century this war and this reformation martin luther is is nailing his thesis on grace on the doors of the roman catholic church they're talking about how how we need to um we don't need to pay the church anymore for the forgiveness of our sins we just need to go to jesus and a lot is going on in church history in the 1500s all over this one word the word ecclesia in 1604 stick with me 1604 king james the first becomes king and he wants all the power now and so he goes and writes his own translation and he gets all these translators in the most educated smart people to translate the bible this is how we get the king james version of the bible and he gets a whole lot of translators together but he gives them 15 kind of principles 15 rules by which they must adhere to in translating the bible a lot of them are really good principles but let me read article three of him of of what he said um as one of his rules in translating because remember he wants power he says the old e-class ecclesiastical church words to be kept the word church not to be translated congregation why did he do this so he's literally saying you can do translate it the way you want but you cannot translate the word ecclesia as the word congregation you must translate it as the word kiriakon doma you must translate it as the word church why because power would have gone to the people and not the institution power would have gone to to um to a select few rather than to the many and it's all about power and control we're coming in for a landing come on stick with me right now when we understand the word ecclesia over church we start measuring our lives and who god's called us to be our identity different when we understand eckless eclecia as opposed to church we stop entertaining churchianity and we start actually expressing christianity more about that in following weeks see ecclesia turns turns dining tables into pulpits it turns it turns cafes into cathedrals this is what the ecclesia does the ecclesia are not bound by a building the ecclesia are released to go and bring salt light yeast into the world the the the influences of culture and society of business and family this is the ecclesia but when we measure it the other way and we zoom in and we take on the identity of kiriakondoma or the church translated in that way then we start measuring different things see church growth in the new testament happened not in the temple church growth in the new testament happened in the home it didn't happen the miracles didn't happen in the temple the miracle happened on the way to the temple home it happened in their home home was their place of business home was their place of family home was the epicenter of their worlds and that's where the church grew some people have asked me about why don't you do salvation altar calls every week well number one because they were invented about two to three hundred years ago number number two we don't see altar calls like that in the bible not saying they're bad let's have vehicles and levers that we can help people engage and say yes to jesus absolutely but friend if you're wondering why we're not doing a salvation altar call and put your hand up and pray the prayer every single week is because we're not trying to measure the stat of how many people we can get to pray a prayer we want to be measuring influence over hands raised or attendance it's super important it's super important that we understand the new testament church didn't grow in that way it grew through you personally one-on-one saying i'm going to own my street i'm going to own my place of work i am the i am the called out one i am the leader i am the one that is going to bring about change i'm the ecclesia in my world and my street might be the gates of hades but even that is not gonna stop me from being who god's called me to be our problem is that when we think of church over ecclesia we shift our identity write these words down put them in the chat identity we shift our function and we shift our mission the church kiriakondama has a identity it has a function and it has a mission and it's different to the ecclesia different it could be possible that because of the centuries of us understanding the word church through the wrong paradigm that we've confused our identity we've confused our function as the ecclesia and we've confused our mission as the ecclesia see when we look at church versus ecclesia we stop being apostolic in nature and we tend to primarily be pastoral and there's nothing wrong with being pastoral but there is something wrong with not being apostolic we cease being apostolic we primarily become pastoral and we measure church ministry success largely by attendance and not influence we try to get as many people in the church building instead of sending them instead of equipping them instead of preparing them and releasing them into ministry and we want to be measuring who we're sending not who's attending this is why we're on this wild journey as a new church that started in in a global pandemic that's probably had more weeks at home just about online like this than we have in a physical building but it won't stop us being the church or being apostolic or being the called out ones being the sent ones because we exist not to fill buildings we exist to influence the world we try to get as many people in the building but come on i want to be i want to be known for how many people we are sending this is why we're doing the east this is why we're going to do the west and we're going to do the south and this is why these apostolic hubs that we're pioneering are then going to pioneer other locations other communities that we we send and pioneer and start and plan the gospel in those areas in doreen and in cragyburn and in croydon and then packing them and officer and enrichment and all over the place because we are the ecclesia the church exists to be a good godly place for church people but the ecclesia ecclesia exists to be a hub to empower and to take the revelation of jesus into the very gates of hades i'm now again the ecclesia is not religious it's governmental jesus could have used the word temple or synagogue both religious terms but instead he used he used a political governmental one the church is to bring the government of god to earth the church bring the government to the church the ecclesia have expansive authority in determining the affairs of the city or territories are you seeing what you and i are called to be as the church as the called out ones as the ecclesia it functioned as a legal ruling assembly of a city that would meet 40 to 50 times a year i've said this but i want you to hear this and they would they would lead and they would govern the ecclesias were regularly summoned to actively participate in legislation to declare war to make peace to negotiate treaties to make alliances to elect officials to to make financial decisions and so much more this is the ecclesia in other words the secular ecclesia they had an expansive authority determining the affairs of their cities and territories and now the spiritual ecclesia has the same so what does christ's ecclesia look like it's no coincidence that jesus released the name and the function and the identity of his divine agency on the earth the church the ecclesia at the gates of hades he said i will build my ekklesia whose church is it it's jesus church it's not matt's church it's not any person's church it's jesus church and what does this mean it means that jesus chose the ecclesia to be and function as his spiritual government legislating heaven on earth that's why matthew 6 jesus prayed your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven he was actively through his prayer demonstrating his alleged legitimate legislative authority and his mandate as the ecclesia to bring heaven to earth our king has given us the keys of the kingdom our king jesus has given us the keys of the kingdom to every to access every dark and demonic gate to access every and have authority over every demonic realm the gates exist to keep things out but jesus has given us the keys and it's the wrong and the right of the ecclesia all authority has been given to you they've been given to jesus and jesus gave it to us to go and bring freedom to people to set them free from the kingdom of darkness and ushered them into the kingdom of life the bible tells us that when jesus first when he died he went through the gates of hades himself and plundered it he left it powerless he left it broken he left it without any authority and he took those keys of hades and death and gave it to his ecclesia revelations 1 18 ephesians 4 9-10 colossians 2 15 matthew 6 19 this means for you the church the ecclesia this means that christ ecclesia has the key and the devil does not the ecclesia is commissioned to use those keys and to see the kingdom of heaven flooded i pray i've gone along lots of detail today but i pray that you begin to realize that we're not just called to gather in a building that's a big that's an important part it's a biblical part of what of how how of the rhythm and the cycle of the church of the inhale and the exhale of church life so i'm not trying to i'm not demoting sunday church attendance it's a huge important part but what i'm saying is that's not what you were born for you were born to be the ecclesia you were born and you've been anointed and called to be the government of god to be the his ex the expression of his heart and will and that's why we pray for the sick and believe them to recover that's why we believe that you can be set free from drug addictions and and addictions to pornography and addictions to to bad thinking that's why you can be set free from depression that's why jesus can change you and the reason why he can change you is because the gates of hell don't possess the authority anymore and jesus does and he gave it to you and to me as his church the bride so come on friend rise up in that authority rise up in that power and be the ecclesia stop being someone that attends the church the kiriak dharma and be the ecclesia be the person that god called you to be the devil has been trying to shut down that word of that word ecclesia and replace it with church for centuries for years and for years and for years but friend i want to tell you today there is a rising of the ecclesia there is a rising of those that are going to possess the gates of hades again and i believe that we're going to see the greatest influence of the kingdom of god on the earth in the next years to come the greatest days are ahead not because of bigger buildings they might come not because of more money that might come not because of how the world matters influence that might come but simply because the church whoever you are wherever you are whether you're on the very gates of hades themselves realize that they are the ecclesia they are the called out ones and you were called out of darkness into light to bring his rule and to bring heaven to earth the church let's pray father let us catch this revelation please lord in our hearts let us catch it in our hearts that's what we want and lord that is what we need so i'm asking you would speak this word beyond our intellect and write into our spirit we want to be conformed to your word lord help us to understand this help us to lead like this help us to live this out and be your kingdom in this world in jesus name amen hey thanks for tuning in today can connect with us at empowerchurch.com we've got a live zoom if you're watching this live happening for everyone god bless you so much we're praying for you and your family remember you've got authority because jesus gave it to you as his ecclesia god bless you we love [Music] you

Channel: Empower Church

Views: 351

Rating: 4.7894735 out of 5

Keywords: empower church, empower, furtick, hillsong, church, matt garner, matty garner, preaching, preach, melbourne, jesus, bible, prayer, The church, Ekklesia, Christianity

Id: waJX3DYA9Pg

Length: 56min 27sec (3387 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 24 2021