Why Church?
Psalm 122:1
We are living in a time of change. With busy schedules filled with activities demanding our time and the ever expanding array of social media many feel that church has become irrelevant and insignificant. The comment is often heard, “I can be just as good a Christian without the church.” John Stott in his book “The Living Church: Convictions of a Lifelong Pastor,” refers to an unchurched Christian as a grotesque anomaly. He goes on to say, “The New Testament knows nothing of such a person for the church lies at the very center of the eternal purpose of God.” Why church? To answer that question we need to have an understanding of what the church is, how Christ sees the church, Christ’s expectation for the church as community, and the benefits of being actively involved in the local church.
I. The Church Defined.
A. The word "church" in the NT never refers to a building or a place. It always refers to people. The word "church" as used in the New Testament comes from the Greek term ecclesia which is formed from two Greek words meaning "an assembly" and "to call out" or "called out ones."
B. The New Testament church is a body of believers who have been called out from the world by God and have been assembled or united together to worship God; to live and serve Him as His body or people under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
C. Ephesians 1:22-23 “And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”
D. God sees the Church as a living organism and not as a building or place.
E. 1 Corinthians 12:12-14 “ For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many.”
F. “The church is a community of regenerated believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord. In obedience to Scripture they organize under qualified leadership, gather regularly for preaching and worship, observe the biblical ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, are unified by the Spirit, are disciplined for holiness, and seek to reach out to fulfill the great commandment and the great commission as missionaries to the world for God’s glory and their joy” (adapted from Vintage Church by Mark Driscoll and Dr. Gerry Breshears).
II. Christ saw the Church as being vital for every believer..
A. He is both the Church’s Foundation and Head
1. Ephesians 5:23 states that Christ is head of the church; Acts 4:11 calls Him the church’s Chief Cornerstone; and 1 Corinthians 3:11 declares Him to be the only foundation upon which the church is built.
2. The Church's one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died. - Rev. Samuel John Stone
B. He loves the church with a jealous and passionate love
1. Ephesians 5:25 “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her”
2. The Song of Solomon is an metaphorical picture of Christ and His bride the redeemed. It describes the mutual love of Christ and the Church.
a. Song of Solomon 7:10 “I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.
b. Song of Solomon 8:12 (LEB) “My own “vineyard” belongs to me…
3. We usually think of jealousy in a negative sense. You might have heard stories of a woman killed by a jealous husband, or something similar. But jealousy is not always bad. It means to “vigilantly guard your possessions.” In other words, jealousy is the desire to hold on to what is yours for your own personal use. In Greek, “jealousy” comes from the word zelos, which means jealousy, or zeal. Christ vigilantly guards you as His prized possession.
4. Exodus 34:14 “For you shall worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God”
5. Charles Haddon Spurgeon warned believers, “The Lord Jesus Christ, of whom I now speak, is very jealous of your love, O believer. Did he not choose you? He cannot bear that you should choose another. Did he not buy you with his own blood? He cannot endure that you should think you are your own, or that you belong to this world. He loved you with such a love that he could not stop in heaven without you; he would sooner die than that you should perish; he stripped himself to nakedness that he might clothe you with beauty; he bowed his face to shame and spitting that he might lift you up to honor and glory, and he cannot endure that you should love the world, and the things of the world. His love is strong as death towards you, and therefore will be cruel as the grave. He will be as a cruel one towards you if you do not love him with a perfect heart. He will take away that husband; he will smite that child; he will bring you from riches to poverty, from health to sickness, even to the gates of the grave, because he loves you so much that he cannot endure that anything should stand between your heart’s love and him. Be careful, Christians, you that are married to Christ; remember, you are married to a jealous husband."
6. Someone has said “"The Jealousy of Christ will not allow His bride to enjoy anything apart from Him."
III. Christ expects the entire church to meet regularly in community.
A. Hebrews 10:24-25 “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
(HCSB) “And let us think about how to stir one another up to love and good works, not staying away from our worship meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”
B. Both Christ and Paul set the example by making a habit of faithfully attending corporate worship weekly.
1. Luke 4:16 “So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.”
2. Acts 17:2 tells us that when Paul went to Thessalonica, “...as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures
C. Christ expects Christians to assemble together on a regular basis to worship Him and to exhort one another.
D. The Lord wants you as a believer to be INVOLVED in a local Bible-believing church as the early church was involved. Television, radio and internet religious programs may have some good to offer, but this isn't a church. A church is a called-out group of believers in Jesus Christ.
E. In Acts 2, we see Peter delivering the gospel on the day of Pentecost. At the end of his message, some three thousand people give their lives to Christ, and immediately demonstrate their obedience to the mind and heart of God as these new Christians follow Christ in baptism and immediately get involvement in their new faith and in the lives of their new brothers and sisters. They completely sacrifice self; they spend time together; they contribute; and they build each other up. That is the way Christ meant the church to be!
F. Acts 2:42-47 (ESV) “And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
IV. Three benefits of being actively involved in the church.
A. Worship and Praise that is pleasing to God
1. Augustine wrote that “A Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot.”
2. Praise is the appropriate response to God’s goodness. But what about when sometimes we don’t feel like praising?
3. God wants our praise whether we feel like it or not. Faithful attendance in corporate worship will discipline us to praise God at all times.
4. Psalm 95:1-2 “Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.”
5. Psalm 147:1 “Praise ye the LORD: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely.”
6. Psalm 149:1 “Hallelujah! Sing to the LORD a new song, His praise in the assembly of the godly.”
7. G.K Chesterton once penned, “When we cease to worship God, we do not worship nothing, we worship anything”
B. Discovery, Development and Exercise of your spiritual gifts
1. 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4 tell us that Christ has given to each of us at least one spiritual gift.
2. Ephesians 4:15-16 “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
3. Discovering and exercising your God-given spiritual gifts allows you to experience maximum fulfillment of God’s calling and direction in your Christian life.
4. You can’t fully live the Christian life and experience all that God wants you to experience without staying connected to both Jesus and others. Realize also that when you don’t participate in the Church, you are not just hurting yourself, you are also hurting others.
5. If you don’t use it – you lose it.
C. The Conversion of the Lost.
1. We have a charge to both proclaim and embody the gospel so that others can see, hear, and feel God’s love in tangible ways.”
2. Matthew 28:19-20 “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
3. Every believer should be involved in sharing Christ with the lost.
4. Luke 14:23 “And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.”
5. At a meeting in a city of Nankin a Chinaman rose and began to cry for mercy with groans and tears. When at length he found utterance he prayed, "O God, forgive me; I have been a dummy Christian. When I was converted the devil came to me and said, 'There are preachers to do the preaching; you need not bother about it.' I listened to the devil's lie, and all those years I have been a dummy Christian, living in ease while souls have been lost."—Selected
6. Soul winning is all of our jobs!
7. When the church was doing what it is supposed to do notice what Acts 2:47.
8. Acts 2:47 “…"And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved."
