Why Church Matters - 2nd Session

Intro

Yesterday, we talked about what the church is, what it’s main function is:

To glorify God and make much of Jesus Christ, right?

And we do that through the preaching of the Word, fellowship with one another, baptism, The Lord’s Table, and by carrying out the G.C.

And remember, we ended yesterday with talking about 1 reason why the church matters

To show that you love God

Remember? That by loving each other, we show each other and the world, that we love God

Our relationships with each other inside the church body is proof of our relationship with our God

And if we hate people, if we purposely ignore, if we choose just to sleep in because it’s just easier and our bed is warm and........hmm....where’s your love? Where’s your focus? Where’s your heart?

Well, today, we want to look at two more reasons why church matters, and the first reasons is this:

You need the church in order to grow

says this:

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, (so…church leadership)12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 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, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 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

Wow, some powerful verses right there

What do wee see right off the bat here? That the church exists, and the church should matter to you for this reason:

But I want to start with an illustration

It is through the church that you grow…look at verse 13

Sally (bring someone up from the crowd and have them sit in the chair), now Sally, she’s just become a new believer, and she’s excited…but she’s not really sure what to do.

“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,”

God made the church so that you would have a way to grow in your faith, did you know that?

See, she got saved at this evangelism crusade that she just stumbled upon, and she doesn’t really know any other Christians, but she’s just excited to be one

You know when that pastor gets up and preaches, or that Sunday school teacher teaches, or your youth pastor delivers a message to you…it’s for one reason:

So she’s home one Sunday, and she knows she should go to church…but she’s never set foot in a church, so she’s definitely not gonna do that yet

So that you will grow in your faith!!!!

Which happens through the laying down of our sinful tendencies

And the picking up of Spirit driven habits

That’s literally why the church exists!

Potlucks…(com’on baptists!) are nice right? Fun youth events are a blast. Singing songs we love are enjoyable to us....true

But if you are attending church for any reason other than growing in your faith in order to glorify God and make much of Christ....you’re missing the point!

That’s why the church exists......in order that you will grow in your faith!

Which happens through the teaching from God’s Word, through fellowship and encouragement with other believers, through praising Him in song and testimony, through baptism, through the Lord’s Table....it all promotes and grows us to become more like Christ

So that we can glorify God and make much of Christ in our own lives, and as a church body.

But yeah, Pastor Derek, I can grow on my own can’t I?…I mean, I can read my Bible, I can figure this stuff out…I don’t need the church....I’ve got google.

Well, yes, don’t hear me wrong here, a personal walk is good and healthy and right and necessary..you need to have one, and if you don’t, I’d encourage you to spend time with God in His Word each day, spend time with Him in prayer…that’s vital to your personal walk.

, “but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”

Jesus himself modeled individual time in the Word - , “But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.”

So, personal walk = vital and necessary

But let’s try to illustrate this, I need a volunteer

So let’s say (insert name), they’re a believer, and you know, they’ve really just kind of grown to not really want to go to church anymore....raise your hand if you’ve been there before…DON’T RAISE YOUR HAND YOUR PASTOR/LEADER IS IN THE ROOM!

And so, they just stop going..they figure you know what…I can do this on my own, so they just start doing “church” at home

And it’s going great, they’re reading through the book of Colossians, because, well, it’s where they opened to. They read, write down what they think it means (I mean, that’s what pastors do), and then apply it to themselves

And so they’re doing their own Bible study, things are going great, and they come to verse 15: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”

And so (insert name) writes down: “Jesus was the picture of God”

And then they write down: “Jesus was the first thing created”

You think about it, you come to the conclusion that God is pretty amazing to create Jesus in His image so that He could come and save us, and you wrap up church on your that day

And then the next week, you’ve found your way to (yes, still doing the open and point method) and you read this: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”

And you’re sitting there, thinking, “I wonder what the Word is?”

So you keep reading....and you come to verse 14

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”

And so the wheels are really starting to turn, smokes coming out your ears…so the Word must be Jesus.

So you go back and read the beginning again, you read verse 3 again, “In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Jesus, and without Jesus was not anything made that was made.”

But, that means that all things were created through Jesus.

But last week, you determined that God created Jesus, but now it’s saying Jesus created all things, and He can’t create himself

And before you know it, you’re so lost and confused

And so you head to google.com, and you start researching and you find pastors who are saying all different kinds of things and just like that you’re even more lost than before the ol’ google came into play

And before you know it…you’re literally drowning in views and you don’t know where to turn

And it’s not helping you grow, in fact…you’re just gettin frustrated

And these were fairly easy passages, imagine the OT!

See guys, Ephesians here told us that God gave us apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers for a specific reason....

Look at verse 14: “so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by ever wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”

When left to ourselves, we will err.

I’ve got 3 kids, my youngest, Karington, is 4. Now, let’s say I leave her at home one day by herself

Which I wouldn’t, just to clarify, don’t go turn me in to the police or anything

But, if I did, for an entire day, how many of you think that a 4 year old would do everything right while on her own?

I can guarantee you that within an hour, she would have pulled a chair to the kitchen, opened up the pantry, and gone to town on snacks and things that she knows she shouldn’t be doing

She’d probably color on the walls

And who knows what else

But why? Because…she was left to her own thinking....we weren’t there to guide her

It’s the same for all of us…we need the church, specifically....

A God-glorifying, Christ exalting, Bible believing church who teaches His Word faithfully.

We need it in order to grow in our faith and understand what God is teaching us in His Word

Can you study on your own and understand?

Sure…you’ve got the Holy Spirit, and 1 Corinthians tells us that the Holy Spirit allows you to understand God’s Word

But…we need other believers, we need the teaching in the church to keep us grounded and guide us…it’s how we grow correctly

And that’s what Paul says in verse 15, “that we speak the truth in love, so that we will grow up in every way to be more like Christ!”

And then Paul goes on and paints a picture of a body

“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.”

Bring up a student (who has shoes with laces on them)

Have the student untie, and then re-tie his shoe

Then have the student untie and re-tie his shoe with one arm behind his back

Here is what Paul is pointing out to us guys.

The church is the body of Christ, the church is how we grow to become more like Christ.

And it is through the church that we function as the body of Christ

And Paul points out that when every part is present and working properly, that then the body grows up in love (loving God, loving others)

But what happens when you take an arm away from a body, and ask it to do what it was intended to do?

It suffers right? (Insert name) here, he’s still trying to tie his shoe…he’s suffering through it, and it’s extremely difficult

So don’t miss this, we, believers, are the church…remember we talked about that yesterday. And if we are the church, and we’re not committed to the church, we don’t go to church, we don’t prioritize the church, not only do we suffer in our own personal growth, but the church suffers too. Because we are meant to grow together in Christ, to “mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” so that we can have “unity of faith”

Do you see what I’m saying.

Church matters for your growth and for the growth of others

Kevin DeYoung says this: “The man who attempts Christianity without the church shoots himself in the foot, shoots his children in the leg, and shoots his grandchildren in the heart.”

“The man who attempts Christianity without the church shoots himself in the foot, shoots his children in the leg, and shoots his grandchildren in the heart.” (DeYoung, Kevin

When we come together, sitting under teaching of God’s Word, fellowshipping together, worshiping together, learning together, challenging each other to live for Him, confessing sins....

All these things promote growth in the body of Christ

And the church is the primary means by which that happens

The church helps you grow

You Need the Church to Persevere

Let me tell you about what happened to me one summer, I think it was my 7th grade summer

I grew up in a family of 6, and I had 3 sisters....yikes right?

But up until the 7th grade, I was the shortest one in my family…my one sister, was 16 months younger than me, was taller than me at this point.....it was kind of embarrassing to be honest

And I would sometimes just hope that I would grow, that I’d get taller, but not too tall you know, I wanted to be a perfect 5’ 10”......obviously I overshot the mark

But that 7th grade summer, I’ll never forget it, but I grew like 6 inches

Like someone had fed me miracle grow and watered me and BAM....instant growth

But do you want to know why I’ve never forgotten it…because it was the most painful summer I had until the summer of 2016…but maybe we’ll tell that story later

Every night though…just pain. My shins hurt, my muscles hurt, my quads hurt, my achilles tendon was super painful, everything just hurt and ached every night

Why? Because I was growing too quickly…my body just took off

And those requests to get taller…all of the sudden I kind of regretted them because I just wanted it to stop

And I think I was 5’10” for like an hour.....and then just kept on going…and by the end of that summer i went from the shortest to the tallest in my family!

But here’s the reason I tell you that story....as you grow in your faith....it’s going to be tough, it’s going to hurt, it’s going to be painful at times

Sometimes due to your worldly flesh wanting to pull you back down, sometimes due to persecution that comes with living for Jesus, sometimes just due to sin nature and the reality of living in a broken world.....

And when those painful times come, the church needs to be your beacon of hope.....why?

Because the church helps you persevere

2 - “ 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Heb 10:22–25). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

See…life will get tough, Jesus promises us that....and that’s why Paul says here in this text that we need to:

“Hold fast to the confession of our hope”....we need to hold tight to our faith, to our salvation through those tough times

Why?

Because He is faithful....and most of you would agree with me on that point…..if I would ask you if God is faithful, you would respond how? YES!

But you know what, when times get tough....it’s really easy to want to forget that, or to question that....and that’s another reason why church matters…

What does Paul go on to say?

“And let us (the church) consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another”

See that?

The church is there to encourage you

To encourage you to:

Press on

To love

To do good works in Christ

But, notice what Paul says, don’t miss this, because it’s vital:

“Not neglecting to meet together”

See guys, Paul understood that the greatest way for us to persevere in our faith through the tough times through the challenges that living in a fallen world bring, through those periods in our lives where we just don’t want to put the effort in....

He understood that the church was the answer.

You guys have been in this weekend as well....

- “And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship”

Devoted - they were fully committed

The very first church understood the importance of it…not as a religious act, but as essential to their spiritual walk

Closing

See guys…too many of us have a wrong view of church. Church is not something to do, it’s something we are.

We literally are the church

And it is in the local church where we grow, and it is in the local church where we find the strength and the camaraderie to persevere

And by growing, and by persevering, we are able to accomplish what the church’s main goal is:

Which is what?

To glorify God and make much of Christ in our own personal walks, in our relationships with each other in the church, and then as we go out into the world....encouraged, fed from the Word, full of hope, we impact the world for Christ

Tomorrow....we’re going to talk about just that

The world needs to see a group of believers who are in love with the church, and point continually to Christ.