In his sermon, Jeffrey D. Johnson argues that the local church is crucial for families and the Christian faith. He expresses concern for Christian families who isolate themselves from churches due to negative experiences with unhealthy congregations. Johnson emphasizes that while churches should not exert authority beyond Scripture, they play a vital role in holding Christians accountable. The church’s authority is derived from Scripture, and submission to church authority is ultimately submission to God. Johnson highlights the importance of communal growth, suggesting that Christians individually possess only partial gifts, and completeness is achieved through fellowship with others in the church. He warns that families who isolate themselves may hinder their own spiritual growth and that of their children. The speaker stresses the necessity of the church in providing a balanced, supportive environment for families, indicating that both parents and the church community are needed to fully nurture children spiritually.

The local church is essential to families. It's essential to Christianity. God knows what He's doing. I'm always amazed by Christians or even families that say, I don't need the church. I'm very discouraged by seemingly good Christian families that are raising their children and the nurture ammunition of the Lord, and they are setting all the boundaries around their children to protect them.

They want to hedge around their children in a good way because they love their kids. And when they've gone to many churches, and because there are so many churches that are unhealthy, they become so discouraged by the worldly influences that their kids are going to face in worldly churches, that it leads them to isolate themselves from the world and from churches. And they neglect the church, maybe even from good motives to protect their children and to protect themselves. But all the while, there may be a sense of pride in them, that they don't realize, a sense of unsubmissiveness to them, and not to realize that there are some real good churches and a good church is worthy to move to and put their family under accountability. Because one of the things that God has designed for the Christian to grow is to be able to submit to accountability, to be accountable to authoritative structure that God has established, not man.

And so churches don't have the authority of Scripture. That's abusiveness, that's a cult. The church doesn't have the authority of God. Only God rules the conscience, not the church. But the church has the authority to hold Christians accountable to what God has said.

And so the authority of the church is the Scriptures, and the Scriptures is what's given the church authority. And therefore, all Christians are under the authority of the church. And if a Christian is unwilling to submit themselves to the church, they're really in rebellion against Christ. They're rebellion against God, who told us not to forsake the local assembly of ourselves together and to submit ourselves to our elders. And it's because of this.

It's an amazing thing that if I'm a father and I am a father, I want to teach my kids, even as Christians, there's no perfect Christian besides Jesus Christ. If there was one believer that didn't need any other believers to be complete is Jesus Christ. He's perfect. He had all the gifts perfectly within himself. But the rest of us, we have our gifts in part, and we're strong in some areas and we're weak in other areas, And we're designed by God to be insufficient.

And we get our completion through the brothers and sisters in the Lord, where some have the gift of hospitality, others have the gift of prayer. Some are strong here, some are weak here, but it's when we're together that we are a complete man with Christ as our head. And so God's designed our own spiritual growth, the spiritual growth of our children, to be essential to be in the church. So what I'm saying, and what all fathers and mothers need to realize, you are a heavily instrument in God's hand to raise up your children, but you're not complete. A father's not complete without the mother.

A father without a mother is going to be lopsided. A mother without a father is going to be lopsided. A father and mother without the church will be lopsided too. You need the, the plurality of the church body to invest in your children, to see the gifts of God worked out in the church. It's a beautiful thing.

And so to isolate your children and yourself from the body is the eye saying to the hand, I don't need you. And you're going to not only hinder your own spiritual growth, you're going to hinder the spiritual growth of your children.