LOVE FOR THE CHURCH
Introduction:
1. Hopefully those of you who know me know that I love the church.
2. That’s what I want to talk to you about today, Learning to Love Christ Beautiful Church
3. Over the course of the last few months we have talked a great deal about what the Bible says about the Christian’s personal walk with God.
4. I think that is necessary because in times past many Christians identified their walk of faith purely in terms of corporate worship.
5. Many seemed to think that as long as the attended the services of the church it didn’t much matter what they did or how the lived the rest of the week.
1) Attend church on Sunday and sing Red and Yellow Black and White they are precious in his sight and then Monday morning go to school and extol the virtues of segregation.
2) People would sing More Holiness Give Me and then act like everyone else in the plant or the office.
3) J. B. Phillips called this the “God in a Box syndrome”
6. In recent weeks we have emphasized the personal aspect of our daily walk with Christ
1) The need for daily personal Bible study, Prayer and meditation.
2) The need to be constantly aware of the presence of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in our daily lives.
3) In difficult times it is important to remember that the Lord is MY shepherd, I shall not want.
4) In our corporate worship it is important to remember that we are not just one of many insignificant cogs in a giant wheel going through a cold routine and ritual of worship on autopilot.
5) Instead, I am there in the presence of God, bowing down before Creator God, the Mighty God the Eternal being of the universe, Jehovah jirah, el roy, el shadai, who created me and has a purpose for my life and is worthy of my unbridaled praise adoration and woraship.
7. But, with this realization can come a lessening of resepect for the importance of the church as a called out body of saints assembled to worship God collectively in a maner we cannot worhip him as individuals.
8. In the eyes of God the church is the most beautiful organization on the face of the earth
9. How do I know that you say?
10. I know it because.
DISCUSSION:
I. Of the price he paid to purchase it.
A. He purchased it with his own blood.
(Acts 20:28 NKJV) "Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.
II. It was part of his eternal purpose as the instrument through which he would save lost souls.
(Eph 3:10-11 NKJV) to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, {11} according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,
(Acts 2:41-42 NKJV) Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. {42} And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.
(Acts 2:47 NKJV) praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.
(Eph 5:23 NKJV) For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.
III. I know the church is beautiful because it is God’s family on earth.
A. Family is a beautiful thing when it works as God intended. It is the place where we are nurture, encourages matured and prepared to meet a challenging world.
(Eph 2:19-22 NKJV) Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, {20} having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone, {21} in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, {22} in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
B. Sing Family of God.
(Heb 10:23-25 NKJV) Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. {24} And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, {25} not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.
C. The closer to the Lord’s return we get the more we need each other.
D. Who prays for those who do not have a church family?
E. Sing The family of God
1.
We’re part of the family that’s been born again;
Part of the family whose love knows no end;
For Jesus has saved us, and made us His own,
Now we’re part of the family that’s on its way home.
2.
When a brother meets sorrow we all feel his grief;
When he’s passed through the valley we all feel relief;
Together in sunshine, together in rain,
Together in victory through His precious name.
3.
And though some go before us, we’ll all meet again;
Just inside the city as we enter in;
There’ll be no more parting, with Jesus we’ll be
Together forever, God’s family.
REFRAIN
And sometimes we laugh together, sometimes we cry;
Sometimes we share together, heartaches and sighs;
Sometimes we dream together of how it will be
When we all get to Heaven, God’s family.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1974 by Lanny Wolfe Music Company/ASCAP. All Rights
Reserved. Used By Permission of Pathway Press.
Key: "F", 1st Note: "A", Tempo: "46-50"
IV. His purpose was that the church be the instrument of his work
A. The church is the body of Christ an that means that is is the instrument through with he carries out his will (works).
(Eph 4:11-16 NKJV) And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, {12} for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, {13} till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; {14} that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, {15} but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head; Christ; {16} from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
V. I know the church is beautiful to Christ because it is his bride.
(2 Cor 11:2 NKJV) For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
(Eph 5:25-27 NKJV) Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, {26} that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, {27} that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
A. Have you every heard someone say what in the world does he see in her? Then a friend answers oh honey you don’t understand he’s in love and love is blind.”
B. Love does start that way but for a marriage to succeed we must reach the point that we are no longer blind. We see the real person and we love them any way.
C. Jesus looks at his bride the church he sees the real person and he loves us anyway. That My friend is true love.
