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What is the Purpose of the Church?
Well good morning everyone and welcome to Burr Oak.
For those visiting for the first time or viewing this online I am Pastor Ben and it is my humbled joy to be able to share God’s word with you today.
Well last week we took a break from our current series to celebrate communion together and I so greatly appreciate the message that Pastor Dick brought regarding discipleship.
He brought up a great point on the cost to discipleship.
A point that maybe many of us who have been part of the church for a long time have simply forgotten or maybe even purposefully overlook.
The fact that the cost of discipleship is extremely steep costing you everything you have.
And once you have given that, you can then also expect to go through persecution and suffering.
We discussed that topic a little at our Sunday night group meeting.
We know that the Scriptures talk about suffering and persecution but what should be the Christian’s perspective to it?
Should we simply embrace it when it comes, which in turns correlates to doing everything we can to prevent it from coming.
Or should we embrace it as a reality and therefore find reason to rejoice and be embolden to spread the Gospel message?
As we grow in our faith in Christ this is one of the many questions we need to ask ourselves.
And this is why it is important for us to know our Bibles and know the purpose of the church.
Which we are going to pick back up today with.
But before we go any further let us have our minds brought to attention with our focus verse.
Please pray with me.
Father, we thank you for this day.
For the ability to gather together as your people, to grow and learn about your love for us and what you have called us to do.
Lord may you bless this message and our gathering here today.
In Jesus name we pray, amen.
Well if you remember two weeks ago we began to lay the foundation for the second purpose of the church.
Which what are the three purposes?
To exalt God, to edify the saints, and to evangelize the lost.
We are now looking to the second purpose, the edification of the saints.
Over the next few weeks we are going to be digging down into this purpose, but two weeks ago we laid a foundation by establishing a couple things.
First we established a definition for edification.
We defined edification as that which inspires and equips the believer to continue in their walk with Jesus.
Edification - The process of being inspired and equipped to continue in one’s walk with Jesus.
We also established that edification happens really within the context of the corporate meeting by each of us coming together with the gifts each of us have been given by the Spirit.
That there is not to be any division in classes.
That while there are spiritual offices given by Christ, that those who fill those offices are not at some advanced spiritual level over everyone else.
No it is in unity as a whole that we edify each other.
Which corresponded directly with the purpose for corporate worship; to grow in oneness.
The final thing that we established is that edification helps us to grow in discernment.
This serves to keep us from getting tossed to and fro by the waves, or swayed by any wind of doctrine that may come about.
Which leads us into our message for today.
The title for our message today is The Diligence of Self Study: The Path to Personal Edification and we are looking to Acts chapter 17 verse 10-15.
If you brought your own Bible or want to follow along on your device please turn there now.
If you are using the blue Pew Bible it is on page 1026.
Or you can follow along on the screen.
Let us hear the word of the Lord.
May the Lord bless the reading of his word.
Many of us are familiar with the term or phrase, “Be a Berean.”
It is the idea that we are to study the Scriptures for ourselves to see if what we have been told holds true to the counsel of the word of God.
As Alastair Roberts comments,
“Many of us grew up being exhorted to be “Berean Christians,” meaning we were encouraged to go back home and study our personal Bibles to see if our pastors’ teaching was accurate.
While there is doubtless merit in this practice, it’s exceedingly unlikely that this is what the Bereans were doing.”
Alastair Roberts The Gospel Coalition Reading Scripture ‘Like a Berean’ May Look Different Than You Think
So how do we understand this term Berean and how does it relate to personal edification?
As we approach our passage for today we are going to see three biblical truths presented regarding edification.
These will be seen through The Character of the Bereans, The Conduct of the Bereans, and The Care for Paul.
The Character of the Bereans
As we approach this section we need to see that it is directly related to the passage before it.
In verses 1-9 we are told of Paul’s time in Thessalonica.
Paul and Silas spent about a month in Thessalonica where they had gone into the Synagogue for three Sabbaths to reason with the Jews there.
While there were some that came to faith, the welcoming was not very warm.
Paul and his crew were snuck out under the cover of night, because a mob had broke out in the city, rioting trying to find them.
Instead of finding Paul and crew, a man name Jason was drug from his home and ordered to pay a fine before being released.
With this in mind let’s look to the first two verse of our passage for today.
As we begin this section we need to understand that there is a significance to them being sent to Berea.
Up to this point in Paul’s mission trip, he had been stopping in the cities located along the Egnatian Way.
This was the major east to west roadway through the First Century European world.
Paul had not strayed from this path.
Berea was not located on the Egnatian Way.
It was located approximately 60 miles south of Thessalonica and while Berea had a decent population, it was more or less in the middle of nowhere.
Now this group that Paul is leading was traveling light and by foot.
The trek from Thessalonica to Berea would have taken about 3 days time.
I want you to consider that for a moment.
Consider having to travel so light because at any moments notice you are having to pack up and leave under threat of life.
You are probably hungry, thirsty, leaving at night means you are probably not well rested, and you are going to go walk for the next three days, covering 60 miles.
Now for some of us that may be even to grand for us to imagine.
I have a good friend who is getting ready to leave on an adventure of a life time.
In the next couple weeks he will begin a thru hike of the Appalachian Trail.
Total distance will be roughly 2200 miles and he plans for it to take him 6 months.
Now my friend is a seasoned hiker who averages 20-22 miles a day while hiking.
Now me, I am about wiped out if I do much more than 8 miles at Chain of Lakes.
Now while this was a normal way of life in the first century, to have to start by traveling at night and the under the threat of death would have added stress to Paul and his companions.
But what do they do?
As they had always done, they went to the local synagogue and presented their teaching.
And this is where we become introduced to the Bereans.
Our passage says that they were more noble than the Jews in Thessalonica.
To understand the significance of this we need to look back and see how the Jews in Thessalonica were described.
It is back just a few verses.
When we look at this verse and we consider the word jealousy what we are pointed towards is that this type of jealousy is that of a negative kind.
In fact another Bible story that is used to help us understand this word is that of Joseph being sold in to slavery by his brothers in Genesis.
If you remember the selling into slavery was the compromise.
The initial reaction to the jealous feeling was to murder him.
See there is one type of positive jealousy that seeks to protect.
Then there is this kind where it seeks to destroy, where it seeks to kill.
The Jews in Thessalonica had a murderous jealousy.
The type that turned their city upside down.
But why?
Why did this jealousy exist?
Marshal states,
Paul’s successful drawing away of the Gentiles roused the envy of the Jews.
The Gentiles were potential converts to Judaism, but Paul had proved more effective than the synagogue in persuading them to take the step of full commitment.
Many Gentiles who were attracted by the more spiritual aspects of Judaism were unwilling to take the step of circumcision and were content to remain as God-fearers.
See the Christ based message did away with the separation of Jews and Greek.
There was no longer a distinction between the two.
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