Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

How many times have you heard someone say, “I don’t need to go to church to be a Christian”?

I know that I have heard many people say this expression in order to rationalize or defend the fact that they no longer attend a church.

Typically what follows this statement is someone saying that they “worship God their own way on their own”.

Can this be done?

You bet it can!

We do this day in and day out, do we not?

We study our Bible daily and we spend time with God in prayer.

We talk about God with our family/spouse and we try to reflect the love of Jesus in the way that we live our lives.

Most certainly the Christian faith is a private faith between us and God… However, our faith is also certainly a public faith that we share with other people!

I mentioned that there is a vertical and horizontal spiritual axis that exists.

We have a relationship with God (vertically) but we also have a horizontal relationship with others.

This part is vital to being a Christian and we are called to walk in the light with one another!

Our message tonight will look at the importance of “going to church” in addition to what the Church (globally) is supposed to look like and act like to the world around us! I pray that this message motivates us to action this week as we read what the BFM and Scripture has to say about the importance of the church.

The BFM writes: “A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes.

In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord.

Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons.

While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.

The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.”

Matthew 1

There are several things that stand out as we read this article.

Tonight we are going to focus on 3 of these items: 1st, what the church is.

2nd, how the church operates.

And 3rd, some differences between a “Baptist” church and other denominations.

What the Church is

The word “church” comes from the Greek word “ekklesia” which means the universal church.

Not just a local group of Believers but rather all believers around the world.

This word is a great word as it breaks down barriers that humans like to put up (rich/poor, black/white, American/non-American) and illustrates the church as a singular assembly of Christians united in Christ.

That is what the church is supposed to be, correct?

A group of everyday people from all walks of life that gather to worship the King in spirit and truth because He is what brings us together.

In our day and age the “church” has unfortunately stumbled in this regard and we put these barriers up more times than not.

We divide ourselves often in denominations (which is not entirely a bad thing, as we will talk about later) and as “charter”/lifelong members versus new members or guests.

The church (worldwide) has suffered from division and we have lost our identity in some ways because we can be so focused on ourselves rather than the God that brings us together in the first place!

The church is not a social club where Believers gather to gossip and talk about what is going on in our lives - we do those things, but that CANNOT be the primary reason we gather.

The church is not a place where we focus on our wants and needs - although we can do that, once again, it cannot be our primary focus when we gather!

The church is a place where we humbly bow and worship the King with one another.

Where we lift up our burdens in prayer and we lift one another up in encouragement as a body of Christ.

The church is a place where we seek first the Kingdom of God.

The church is to be a place where we come together and minister to the lost.

It is interesting to see that the BFM states that the church is a “local congregation of baptized believers.”

Baptism is important because it gives an outward testimony of your inner change!

It gives believers encouragement and seems to be a “spark” in the life of the Church as a whole as this is certainly an exciting time.

The church is not a place for people to play the political game of showing up, making relationships to boost ones business and then hoping to eventually end up on the “good side” of eternity.

Millions of people treat church like that, however.

Our church is a local congregation of baptized believers.

We gather with one another to worship.

We pursue a Christ-like lifestyle.

We encourage one other along the way.

We give towards missions and hopefully we pursue missions as well!

We don’t expect non-Chrisitans to do some of these things because they are not baptized believers.

But for those of us who are, these things are not only expected of us but commanded of us.

The Christian is supposed to be missional (not only mission minded but live a life on mission).

We are supposed to give our time and resources.

We are to encourage one another and we are to worship together!

Therefore, the Church is supposed to do all of these things as well!

The Church is not a place where we should come to feel comfortable but a place where we feel conviction and experience hope in what Christ has done for us.

Praise God for the church and what the church represents (the kingdom of God on earth).

How the Church operates

Every church operates a little bit differently than the church down the road.

Whether it be urban or rural, a 10,000 person church or a church with 10 members, each church will operate differently.

What we see in Scripture and in the BFM, though, is that there are clearly some things that the church must do.

The church must be set up so that all things that are done reflect Christ.

We cannot have ministries that do not point people closer to Christ.

If we do then we are simply doing things for the sake of doing things.

Now, I will counter this point by stating that there are certainly areas that our church can do more things to point people towards Christ.

Whether that be a mission trip or simply a men’s prayer breakfast once a month, there is ALWAYS more that we can do, however everything that we do must be done in an effort to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with those around us!

There are 4 examples of this in the BFM

The BFM shows that the church belongs to Jesus Christ

The BFM states that the church is governed by His laws

The BFM states that each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ

The BFM states that each member is accountable to Jesus

It’s all about Jesus!

You cannot claim to love Jesus and divorce yourself from His bride.

If you truly love Jesus, you’ll love His church and love to worship with the church!

We see throughout the New Testament that there are leadership positions.

We know that today we have deacons and pastors.

The basis for these positions is straight out of the New Testament!

1 Timothy shows us what the expectations of deacons are supposed to be and we see that the word “deacon” in Greek literally means servant.

1 timothy 3:

1 Timothy shows us

We also know that churches have pastors.

This word was not around in Biblical times, so whenever you read your Bible and see the word elder realize that this is where we get the word pastor from.

Pastors are responsible for feeding and protecting their flock.

They are called to preach the Word boldly and to make sure that sheep are taken care of.

talked about the expectations and responsibilities of the pastor in this position.

These positions are straight out of Scripture and these positions help the church operate.

The pastor preaches and helps the flock grow and stay protected and the deacons are Godly helpers in this process!

They help serve the church and praise God that our church has servant minded deacons because not every church has that - trust me.

We also see other important roles in the church throughout the New Testament.

We see that the church in Jerusalem had servant leaders ().

We see that the church in Antioch called Paul and Barnabas to be missionaries and to share the Word ().

We see that there are also correct ways to go about teaching correct doctrine () and disciplining church members (, ).

These are things that our church does as well!

We have wonderful leaders who serve in various capacities in the church and we do things to help our missionaries around the world through giving to the Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon offerings.

These are great things, and we do a great job of faithfully giving to them (and exceeding our goals), however I pray that 2019-2020 is the most year that Morgan Baptist gives the most to missions both in our offerings and in the way that we live mission minded lives outside of the walls of the church.

If the Lord wills, I also pray that next year will be a time where we travel to the front lines and help our brothers and sisters who are in the trenches day in and day out because that is one of the responsibilities of the church.

Differences in Churches

We see that some denominations are led from a single place (Rome - Catholics) and others have their “hub” be a single place (Springfield, MO - Assembly of God).

However, Baptists are different in that while we do have a “convention” and a mission board, our churches are autonomous (we do not take orders from a higher authority on who we have to hire or what we must preach about).