What Is Church?
What Is Church? • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 8 viewsNotes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
What is church?
A building?
Is church the group of people that gather within this building on a Sunday?
What makes us different from any other group of people gathering together?
Lions club, the JW up the hill, the Rotary Club, quilters, crochet club?
What is church?
Why are there so many denominations? Are we all basically the same? If not, what are the differences?
Why are we different?
This and the next few Sundays we’re going to look together to answer the question: What is church?
Where we find the answer to this question is in the pages of our Bible. God’s Word is the source of all spiritual understanding and Godly wisdom.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
What does God’s word tell us church is?
What is church for?
Why do we do what we do at church?
Maybe, why do some churches do things differently than we do?
Seeking wisdom and understanding from God, let’s pray....
What is church, or rather who is the church?
What is church, or rather who is the church?
Building?
We might refer to this building as the church. We might say, “I’ll meet you at the church for prayer group on Wednesday.”
NT never refers to the church as a brick and mortar building.
Not to say the church building is not important
Where we meet
A physical representation of the church
When people drive by they say, “There is the Baptist Church”
The building and how we take care of it represents the people inside
It represents who we are in the community
If the Bible does not use the word church for a building, how does it use the word?
NT Greek word is ekklesia
Where we get our word ecclesiastic or ecclesiastical from
of or relating to the church
Protestants don’t use this word much bc it typically describes a formal structure or hierarchy
ekklesia:
ek - out, kaleo - call. “The called out ones”. In Greece, the ekklesia was the assembly of the called out citizens, who came together to conduct the business of the city.
Ekklesia used in NT 114 times. Three times it refers to secular assemblies; two refer to OT people of God; 109 refer to the NT church.
Rather than a building, it refers to a group of people, an “assembly” of people
Paul uses kletos (called) several times to refer to Christians:
including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,
To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
1 Cor 1:2
Church of God that is in Corinth
Those who belong to God in the city of Corinth
Not the church of St Paul, the church of England, the church of God
Specifically in Corinth
Those sanctified in Christ Jesus
The people who are set apart, cleaned, washed by Jesus
Jesus has taken our sin upon himself
Given us his goodness
I don’t appear clean to you, but to God I have been washed clean by Jesus’ sacrifice
I cannot add to Jesus’ cleaning, he must do it, I just smudge it around
called
Jesus has called us to himself
I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
Jesus is the good shepherd and his sheep hear his voice
Jesus is calling out to you. Do you hear his voice?
Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”
including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,
saints
Saint Paul, Saint Francis
Refers to all Christians
hagios - holy; “Holy ones” set apart “consecrated” to a Holy God by the work of Jesus through his life, death and resurrection
“When the saints go marching in”
together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
Together - not just individuals but all Christians that are gathered together
Not Man-made
Not Man-made
Something important we should understand as the called - who belong to God.
The church is not man-made but God-made
We are called together - brought together by God
The church is a God-made institution, not something that we all got together and decided it would be a good idea to create
God has given us instructions on how a church is to operate, or what we are to do
We don’t just make it up as we go along
The NT letters are written to the church to guide us and direct us
How to behave towards one another / care for one another
How to structure the church - pastors, elders, deacons
What do we do when we meet together?
United By The Gospel
United By The Gospel
Everyone is welcome in this building. If you join us regularly, we’re very happy to call you part of the Calvary family. But in the eyes of God, the church are those who have heard and listened the voice of the good shepherd and called on him as their saviour. We are a community of people who have been transformed by the gospel. The church is the “gospelized”.
Gospel: good news
The good news follows the bad news:
Because of sin, we are separated from God and our nature is to be sinful
as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
God, in his loving kindness has made a way for us back to him and to restore us
The way to God is provided through his Son Jesus Christ who gave his life for us
We must respond - In order for us to take part in the blessing that God gives to us through Jesus, we must put our faith in Him
Jesus is calling - do you hear his voice??
So rather than ask, what is church? Maybe we want to ask who is church?
The church is all those who have been transformed by the gospel. All of the saints who have put their hope and trust in Jesus and washed clean before God.
Universal, Regional, Local
Universal, Regional, Local
The Bible talks about the church in three ways:
Universal church: all believers who came before us, all of those who are with us, and all of those who will come after us
catholic church (not Roman Catholic)
Regional church: all the believers in Judea, Galilee or Samaria, the churches in Rome or in Asia
All the believers in Northern Ontario
We might not all go to the same church
Local church: This church, CBCE, or our sister church Lansing Baptist or, Northern Life Church
We are Calvary Baptist Church, part of the church of Espanola, part of the church of Ontario, part of the church of Canada, part of the universal church.
One day we’ll all be together, worshipping God singing: Rev 5:13
And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying,
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
The Body of Christ - Christ as the Head
The Body of Christ - Christ as the Head
God uses a number of analogies or images to help us understand what the church is or how it should behave.
A family - God the Father, the church are his adopted children
The temple - we are the temple of God in which his Spirit dwells
A vine - Christ is the vine, we are the branches
A flock
The bride of Christ
The body of Christ
The Body of Christ - Paul uses this image in two ways
Romans and 1 Corinthians: the body is the local church and it refers to how we relate to one another
Ephesians and Colossians: use the image to refer to the universal church
We should see ourselves as the body of Christ and he is the head
And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
Ever so deeply in Eph 5 we are to see ourselves as the body and Christ as the head
Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
The Bride of Christ - God has made a covenant with His church that we are his bride - he is devoted to us
Conclusion
Conclusion
What is church?
We are the called? Those who hear the voice of Jesus who is calling out to.
We are the gospelized - those who have been transformed by the gospel
We are the Body of Christ with Christ as the head. He is our authority, he “nourishes and cherishes” us.
We are the bride of Christ that Jesus has sacrificed himself for that we would be sanctified, set apart, washed clean. He is jealous over us when we turn to worship idols and false gods.
He has done everything to display his love for you.
So in the next few weeks I’d like to explore a little more deeply who we are and why we do what do. What does God command of his church?
