The Role of The Church - Part 1: Worship
What Is Church? • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Introduction
Introduction
Last week we looked together at the question: What is Church?
The Called
The Called
The church is the called
ekklesia - the “called out”
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:
Those who have heard Jesus, the good shepherd, calling.
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.
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.”
Do you hear Jesus calling you?
The Body of Christ
The Body of Christ
The body of Christ - two ways
The way that we relate to one another - look at in the future
The way we relate to Jesus - we are united to Christ
Eph 5:22-33
We are the body and Christ is the head of the church, our saviour.
We submit to Christ
He has washed us clean so to speak
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.
Jesus nourishes and cherishes us
God-made not man-made
God-made not man-made
We should be reminded that the church is God-made, not man-made and that we look to our Bible to learn and understand what the church is, what we are to do, and how we are to behave towards one another and towards the world.
That’s what I wanted us to do the next few weeks - look at what God tells us the church is.
Who are we?
Why do we do what we do when we are assembled together? What about when we’re apart?
Today I’d like to look for some answers to the question: What is the role of the church? What’s our purpose? Why has God called us together, united in Christ?
Let’s pray...
What is the Role of the Church?
What is the Role of the Church?
What is the role of the church? What’s our purpose? Why has God called us together, united in Christ?
Many have gone before us and tried to define these things, so we might see this expressed in a number of different ways, but you should see that these expressions, if they are looking to answer the question biblically, they all answer it in the same way.
I’d like us to break it down in to three roles, or three “ministries” of the church.
“Ministry” in this context refers to the work of the church or the role of the church.
Ministry to God: Primary role is to worship God
The two that follow flow out of this
Ministry to believers: Edification (building one another up)
How do we take care of and treat one another?
Ministry to the World:
What is our role to those outside of the church?
This is just going to be an overview. We can spend several Sundays looking at each of these aspects of the church.
As you read through the NT, you might ask yourself: How does what I’m reading influence one of these aspects?
This morning I want us to look at the first and primary role of the church: Worship of God
Worship
Worship
The first question in the 1693 Baptist Catechism is:
Q1. Who is the first and best of beings?
A. God is the first and best of beings?
O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel
and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:
“I am the first and I am the last;
besides me there is no god.
Q2. What is the chief end of man?
Or, what is the main purpose of humankind?
Why did God create us and why has he called us to himself?
A. To glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
To glorify God: to live a life that points to Him - that is filled with worship of Him - and that leads others to see Him and worship Him.
To enjoy Him forever: A life that is filled with appreciation, love, and worship of God is a life that is filled with joy in the face of whatever comes before you.
One day, the church will all be with Him - forever
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Immeasurable riches poured out on us
and reflected back to him
and reflected onto the each other and the rest of the world
I will say to the north, Give up,
and to the south, Do not withhold;
bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the end of the earth,
everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.”
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
What is the great and first commandment?
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.
Joshua speaking to the Israelite tribes:
Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”
What is the role of the church? To worship God!
Why Do We Worship God?
Why Do We Worship God?
Why should we worship God? Look back at Eph 2:4-7
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Why do we worship God?
Because of the great love with which he loved us
Even when we were dead in our sin
Because he made us alive together with Christ
Because of his grace
Grace: “the free and unmerited favour of God”
Free, at not cost to you, but at great cost to Jesus who gave his life for you
unmerited: Unearned. We didn’t do anything to earn God’s favour. It’s not because there is something inherently good in you or I.
I’m not better than someone else and deserve God’s love more than someone else.
It was because of how awesome and beautiful and loving He is that he did anything for us.
It’s because of God’s grace, we can have a relationship with God despite our failure and our weakness.
Raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places
????
We will never fully understand, in this lifetime what Christ has done for us
Immeasurable riches - we can not measure it. We don’t have the means to measure it.
Why do we worship God? Because of who He is and because of what He’s done in Christ Jesus!
My grace is sufficient
My grace is sufficient
If God did nothing else for you in this life but provided a means to restore your relationship with Him and to bring you into new life - everlasting life with Him - it should be sufficient a reason for you to worship Him.
In 2nd Corinthians, the Apostle Paul was defending his Apostleship before the church as there were people in the church who were claiming to be “super-apostles” who were leading people astray with a false gospel. Paul was gently boasting of his Apostleship that they would believe that he spoke with authority to them so they wouldn’t be led astray.
But God, making sure that Paul would not be too boastful in his position of authority, placed a thorn in his side to keep him humble.
So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
May our hearts not be so fickle to only praise God when life is going good. When my health is good and I have money in the bank and I am surrounded by people who love me and care for me.
What did Job say when God had permitted Satan to destroy all of Job’s property and all of his children?
And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Even Job’s wife told him to curse God and die...
Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
As Christians, we must be careful not to view God as a bank-machine that endlessly spits out all our wishes in this life.
It is a false gospel to teach that if you just have enough faith you will be healed of all your health problems and you will get the job you want and you will live a great life full of everything you wanted.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Why do we worship God?
Because of who He is and because of what He’s done for us through Jesus Christ.
And we worship him despite our current circumstances.
We worship God because he has “made us alive together with Christ.”
How Do We Worship God?
How Do We Worship God?
So, if we’re answering the question: What is the role of the church? And the first answer to that question is that we are to worship God for who He is and what He’s done in Jesus Christ. Then the next question should be: How do we worship God?
As the body and bride of Christ, we look to God’s Word to know how God want’s us to worship Him. And the first answer begins with God’s Word.
Preach the gospel
Preach the gospel
The mark of a true church is a church that preaches the true gospel.
The mark of a church, that is truly God’s church, is a church that knows the gospel - the good news of Jesus Christ - and who declares it.
If you enter a church and you do not hear the gospel preached from the pulpit, then you are not in a real church. Leave it, and go find another church.
A true church preaches the gospel from the pulpit, yes - but more than that, it is lived in the hearts and lives of it’s members.
What is church if it’s people do not live in God’s word and live in the light of the gospel?
A Christian is someone who has come to recognize Jesus as their savior and puts all their faith in Him for the forgiveness for all their sins.
A group of people can get together and read their Bibles and sing songs and eat together. But if the gospel is not preached and lived out in the hearts of those in attendance, it is not a church as God sees it. It is empty and it is dead.
If Christ is not there, then how can it be a Christian church?!?
What was Jesus’ command to his disciples after he had risen from the dead?
And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
Paul tells the Timothy:
preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!
“So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.
Woe to the pastor who does not preach the true gospel of Jesus Christ...
And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
As a church, how do we worship God?
We preach the good news of Jesus Christ! And we do it in obedience to Jesus Christ!!
We live in the light of who God has made us through the blood of his son - and we remind ourselves daily. Preach the gospel to yourself every morning when you wake up. Remind yourself of what Christ has done - because that is how we live the gospel in our lives.
Forgive others as you have been forgiven.
Love others as Christ loved you.
Be patient with others just as Christ is patient with you.
Do not expect others to live under the weight of the law when you have been set free from it.
We worship God by preaching the good news that is found in His Word - our Bibles, from the pulpit in our church, and to ourselves and through how we live our lives.
There are other many other ways that we can explore how we as the church worship God. And, Lord willing, we’ll explore them in the weeks to come.
Declare The Gospel In Song
Declare The Gospel In Song
One way we worship God is by declaring the gospel in song.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Lets sing together!!!
