The Church: What, Why, and How?

This week, we are continuing on in our series, “Back to the Basics,” where we getting strengthened in the fundamentals of following Jesus.

And throughout the summer, we’ve heard EXCELLENT sermons from a lot of different preachers about different foundational, essential doctrines of the Christian life...

For the first 8 weeks, we examined the work Jesus wants to do in our individual hearts…

Our personal response to the gospel… our personal relationship with Jesus...

And a lot of people think that’s all there is to the Christian life… just “me and Jesus.”

“Don’t talk to me about how I follow Jesus… that’s between me and God.”

But a faithful reading of the Bible just doesn’t allow for that idea.

Following Jesus is a team sport.

I’ve heard a few different people say it this way before: “Our walk with Jesus is personal, but it is definitely not private.”

You see, Jesus transforms our relationships with everyone around us.

David did a great job last week showing how following Jesus transforms our family life and work life.

And today we are going to talk about another sphere of relationships that Jesus transforms: our relationships within the church.

God saves individuals… but he intends for us to live out our salvation as part of a people called THE CHURCH.

That’s the basic fundamental of discipleship we want to explore today: the CHURCH.

So I want to get you thinking about this question: What makes a “church” a church? [write down a few thoughts for yourself there in your notes]

Is it that people have gathered in a certain location called a church??? (like the building?)

Is it that you have just SHOWN UP here today or a number of Sundays in a row and therefore you are part of this church?

Must a church be connected to a certain historical denomination like the Catholic Church or Lutheran Church? (some people would think so)...

Or how about this new phenomenon that has crept up in recent years (and even more-so in the last year): “online church”. Is that even really possible to be or do?

Is “church” simply singing some songs and listening to a preacher?

Is a church a church simply because they CALL themselves a church?

I mean, the Mormons meet as "The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints," and yet deny that Jesus is the eternal God.

You also have the Unitarian Universalist Church and the Church of Satan who deny the centrality of Christ altogether.

So do we consider those “churches” just because they use the name?

Is Oak Hill (for that matter) a “church” just because we use the name?

Here’s another related question that is commonly asked: Can I be part of the Church universal or invisible if I never commit myself to a local expression of the church?

What makes a church a church? Not as easy to answer as it first seems, is it?

And yet, if we start with God’s word FIRST, we can find clarity that will GREATLY inform these practical questions.

The Title of today’s sermon is “The Church: What, Why and How?”

I don’t have one big idea sentence for you today, but instead I have three questions that will guide us:

First, “What is a church?” Second, “Why does the church exist?”

And then, based on those questions, we are going to ask, “How can we embrace that calling?”

And we are going to answer those questions particularly from 1 Tim. 3:14-16…

Just to give you some context, we are reading a personal letter from the Apostle Paul to his disciple and child in the faith, Timothy...

Timothy was a member of Paul’s missionary team, but at the writing of this letter, they are far apart from one another...

Paul is in Macedonia sometime AFTER his first Roman imprisonment in Acts 28 strengthening the churches he had planted there earlier in his ministry…

And he had dispatched Timothy to Ephesus to do the same.

He plans to come to Timothy soon, but he is writing this letter just in case he is delayed because he wants to make sure Timothy implements some specific practices in the church to ensure its long-term health...

Really, these verses that we are studying today contain the purpose statement for the whole book, and some would argue, all of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus.

Read with me in 1 Tim. 3:14-16 to understand Paul’s concern in writing this letter… [Read the whole]

This is a RICH, dense, and often overlooked passage… but here Paul succinctly and beautifully captures the “why, what and how” of Christ’s church...

And so let’s start here today:

1) What is a Church? The obediently assembled household of God (v. 14-15a)

Now, in this definition, I’m talking specifically about the local church because that’s what Paul is writing about in this letter: he is addressing specific BEHAVIORS that only make sense when believers are relating to one another in a defined, local church.

That’s where I’m getting that word, “obediently.” From the word BEHAVE.

Notice what he says: “I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to BEHAVE in the household of God, which is the church of the living God...” (1 Timothy 3:14–15, ESV)

According to this letter, the church is to behave in a certain way together… the word implies that they are to change their actions from what they would naturally do.

This way of behaving as a church was not about Paul coming up with the most pragmatic ideas to draw people in and make people happy.

This way of behaving wasn’t even natural to their fleshly desires.

Instead Paul is instructing them in purposeful acts of OBEDIENCE to God’s commands for his church.

So what are “these things” that Paul mentions that they are to obey? If you read along in our reading plan this past week, you have seen some themes addressed in the book:

They are to silence false teachers and proclaim the true gospel.

They are to have a certain shape and content their corporate worship gatherings...

They are to order themselves under the leadership of qualified elders who are assisted by qualified deacons.

They are to make sure they care for certain vulnerable people in the church…

And they are to use their physical wealth to advance God’s Kingdom purposes.

That’s a summary… but I want you to understand: None of those "behaviors” would make sense if Paul was talking about some “invisible, universal church.”

You can’t have elders of an invisible church… you can’t have worship gatherings with a universal church. You can’t have men lead out lifting holy hands in prayer in an “online church.”

It is clear throughout the New Testament… and in this letter particularly... that following Jesus is to be normally carried out in committed relationship to others in the context of a tangible local church.

Authors Clint Clifton and Mike McKinly say this, “Asking if a Christian is required to go to church is a bit like asking if a husband and wife must live together in order to be married. Obviously they don’t have to, but it’s difficult to imagine a married couple living separately and having a good marriage.” (McKinly paraphrased in Clifton’s Church Planting Thresholds, pg 112)

We are called to follow Jesus… with other believers as part of the obediently assembled household of God, the local church.

That’s where we get the word “obediently” in our definition… We’ll get to that word “assembled” in a minute, but Paul uses this phrase “Household of God” first...

I am writing these things to you so that... you may know how one ought to BEHAVE in the household of God

This word for household… in both the original Greek and the English... carries both the idea of a "house" (like a home… a place where someone lives) AND the family who lives in that house…

So “household” rightly captures both concepts that are there in the Greek as well).

And that’s important… because we are both God’s family and his dwelling place...

Pastor Nate preached about how we are ADOPTED as God’s sons and daughters… which makes us brothers and sisters in Christ.

The church isn’t just LIKE a family… it IS… literally… a family.

And God doesn’t dwell in a physical building… he dwells in his people.

[show picture] In the secular culture of Ephesus where Timothy was serving, they had the great Temple of Artemis where they believed they could meet with that particular goddess… she lived in her temple…

But the temple of OUR God… his dwelling place... is not a building: it’s a family… in whom and among whom God dwells.

[That’s so important, by the way, as we continue searching for a building where Oak Hill Fellowship CHURCH can meet…

We never want our ministry to be about the building… if your commitment to one another is based on a building style or a convenient location, you have the wrong concept of church...

Wherever we go, WE are Oak Hill Fellowship Church: NOT the building.

It’s the assembly of people… And that’s what is emphasized in the second word Paul uses: the CHURCH… or “assembly” of the living God.

Now, I don’t normally pull out Greek on you because I want you to know that you can read your Bible without knowing Greek and understand what it means...

But I’m going to do it now because “church” (like we said at the beginning) is so often overused and misunderstood...

The word translated “church” in our Bibles is the Greek word ekklesia… at it’s most basic level, it means “the assembly.”

It has the sense of a group of people who have been called out, gathered together, and set apart for a specific purpose.

We will talk about that specific purpose in the second point.

But that’s why I chose the word “assembled”… we are the “obediently assembled household of God”

Assembled implies purpose… order... definition…

The church is not "the casual hang out of God." We are not the "informal acquaintances who all happen to know the same God."

We are the ASSEMBLY of the Living God: those who are called out and ordered together for his purposes.

That is not to say that we stop being the church when we are not gathered...

But it DOES mean that God particularly demonstrates his presence with local churches through their TOGETHERNESS…

Through their commitment to one another and their common submission to him…

And when we DO gather, something SPECIAL and IMPORTANT is happening.

Here’s what I love about the local church: when we are assembled and ordered according to God's design, God himself dwells in our midst...

We get to be HIS HOUSEHOLD. He is the LIVING GOD who is ACTIVE among us.

But sometimes, we just go through the motions and forget that fact, don’t we?

When I was a kid, we used to have family friends who had three kids… and the oldest of them was a girl… which meant that we ended up playing a lot of “house.”

And I remember having to be this girl’s husband and the other kids dad…

And we would imagine all sorts of adventures in the backyard playing… usually I figured out ways to make it a little more masculine by turning us into a family of knights or the Swiss Family Robinson or something...

But it was all fun and games… and no matter how much we called ourselves a family, we were just pretending…

Going through the motions of playing “house” didn’t make us a “household.”

Eventually we all just went home and forgot all about the little game.

And going through the motions of playing “church” doesn’t make us a church.

It doesn’t matter what words are written on the sign in front of the building where you meet…

It doesn’t matter if you have Sunday morning services and sing songs someone speaks for a while...

If a church stops obeying God’s design for the church and he stops dwelling in their midst… they stop being a church.

And there are many who are content to dress up and play church, but are not actually BEING the household of God.

What makes us a church is that we are obediently assembled to glorify God… and that he is dwelling in our midst.

Let’s not settle for playing church when God has given us the privilege of being his household.

OH May we NEVER lose the wonder of what it means to BE God's assembled household.

May we NEVER lose the wonder of what is happening as we devote ourselves to God's purposes among us...

NEVER lose sight of the fact that God has called us to be a family and that he is really among us when we gather.

Make this practical: When you are getting ready to gather with God’s people, remind yourself: God is going to be with us too… we are HIS household…

Remind yourself regularly when you are singing on Sunday mornings that God is there listening to you… delighting in the praises of his people.

Remember this during your prayer times at Gospel Community: God’s presence in that living room is as real as the person sitting next to you. This is your spiritual family sitting here together.

Even when we are scattered throughout the week, you can remember that the living God has created a special bond between you and the other believers in our church…

Their spiritual health affects your spiritual health and vis versa…

They are supporting your witness for Jesus in the world and you are supporting theirs.

Pray for them… hold them accountable… find ways to connect with them and encourage them in gospel truth throughout the week.

We are a family… a household… we have a vested interest in one another.

The church is the obediently assembled household of God.

That’s WHAT it is… But WHY is it that way? Why has God chosen to assemble his people in this way?

Why has he called us to behave in a certain way together?

A lot of people think they can improve upon God’s design for the church… they think the church is broken... ineffective... inefficient...

They think the truth of God’s revelation is outdated and irrelevant.

They think God’s design for the church was culturally bound and not very close to his heart… so they can think they can tweak it in order to reach more people.

But God has a purpose for the church that we see in v. 15.

Paul says, “I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.” (1 Timothy 3:14–15, ESV)

2) Why does the Church exist? To uphold the gospel truth (v. 15)

Now, when I say, “Uphold,” I mean that in the most complete sense of that word: make sure the gospel truth is held up high for all to see… and that it does not get knocked over in the winds of other doctrines...

Paul uses two structural terms here to illustrate this… “the Pillar” and “buttress”… but remember, he’s not talking about a building… he’s talking about a PEOPLE… an ordered, assembled people.

So first, this assembled people is a PILLAR in the sense that it DISPLAYS the truth.

Pillar - The Church Holds the Truth Up High

[show Temple of Artemis Picture again] Like I said before, Timothy, living in Ephesus, would have regularly passed by the Temple of Artemis with it’s many pillars…

This temple is now considered one of the wonders of the world because of its sheer size and the difficulty in building it.

And what’s the first thing you notice when you look at it? The pillars.

The pillars created an impressive spectacle, making sure the temple was the highest, most visible structure in Ephesus.

Not only that, each pillar had intricate carvings on them and they held up beautiful artwork displaying the stories of Artemis.

That’s what the church is for the gospel… we make sure that the beauty of the gospel story is the most visible thing that people around us can see.

We hold the truth up high for believers and non-believers alike.

We do that through both our transformed lives and our transformed speech...

We do it in the way we love one another as God’s family.

The church is called to make sure that God’s work in the gospel is seen as impressive as it truly is.

But tall pillars, on their own, are not enough… they need to have a strong support system.

THAT’S what is captured in the next word Paul uses...

Buttress - (or foundation or support) The Church Preserves the Integrity of the Truth

That’s not a common word… and it’s used only here in the NT… but it refers to the engineering that ensures the structural integrity of the whole building. [show temple of Artemis again]

A bulwark or buttress is the thing that makes sure the whole thing doesn’t fall over when the storms blow.

For the temple of Artemis, the structural integrity was a real concern because it was built on a swamp… and so they put a lot of time thinking through how to make sure it wouldn’t fall over.

(https://www.wonders-of-the-world.net/Seven/Construction-of-the-temple-of-Artemis.php)

And the church is to provide that same kind of structural support for the gospel truth.

Multiple times in this letter to Timothy, Paul warns about false doctrines and wrong ways of thinking that could undermine the gospel message and lead the church astray.

And the church as a whole… as they study the scriptures together and hold one another accountable and hold fast to the sound words passed down from the apostles… the CHURCH preserves the integrity of the truth.

Believer… there are a multitude of ways that people try to redefine the gospel and the Christian life.

You hear them from authors… from media… from false churches… for some of you, you even hear it from your own friends and family.

And we must come together as the church to both preserve the integrity of the gospel… and then to hold it up for all to see.

If we see a brother or sister believing a false version of the gospel, we need to warn them!

And if we personally start seeing stuff in the scriptures that no one else has ever seen before… we need to ask others to check us.

The more we come up with our own ideas about the gospel and the church, The lower we will be as a pillar... and the weaker we will be as a buttress.

Believer, the church is a massively important part of your walk and witness as a follower of Jesus. We help one another uphold the gospel truth.

This is a high and holy calling. And it’s a calling that should leave us wondering, “HOW CAN WE POSSIBLY DO THIS?!?!”

SO many so-called churches have stopped displaying the gospel...

SO many churches throughout the centuries have stopped living out God’s design for the church and given into false doctrine...

HOW can we BE and DO what God wants his church to be and do?

Paul recognizes this is a mystery… but it is a mystery he is eager to reveal:

“Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.” (1 Timothy 3:16, ESV)

3) How does the Church embrace this calling? By conforming to Christ (v. 15a, 16)

The gospel that we are called to uphold is the same gospel that enables us to uphold it.

Remember back to v. 15 - Paul is concerned that they would know how to BEHAVE in the household of God… God cares about our activity as a church.

And this idea is picked up again in the word “godliness.”

This word for “godliness” could be translated "piety" or “religious practice”...

It’s the way we act toward God with respect and awe… it’s how we HONOR God with our behavior.

And Paul says that there is a certain sense of “mystery” to godliness…

It doesn’t take very long of trying to live out God’s design for our lives and our church for us to say, “How can I POSSIBLY do this?!?! How could I POSSIBLY live up to God’s standards?!?!

How can we POSSIBLY be the household of a holy God when we are just a bunch of sinners stuck together with little in common outside of Christ?

And Paul admits: It’s a mystery... a GREAT mystery: it’s something that was once hidden... ...but now the mystery has been revealed.

Listen: A church can only be a church THROUGH the mystery of godliness.

Notice how Paul describes this “mystery of godliness..."

It's not a tip for wise living... it's not "four steps for doing better.”

The mystery of godliness is not a "WHAT" but a "WHO.”

Look at verse 16 again: Great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness: [colon] HE was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

We behave as the household of God... we live godly lives... by abiding in the One whom we confess... by conforming to the image of Christ...

That’s what this whole series has been pointing back to, right?

Like Mike Boos preached, we were dead in our sins… incapable of living for God… and God made us alive together in Christ and prepared good works for us to walk in.

Like Nick Frede preached, for that to happen, we must undergo a heart transformation through the power of the Holy Spirit…

And like Alden Bowman preached, we need to truly repent and trust Christ… then and only then can we live out God’s plan for us.

Like David Parker preached, “apart from JESUS we can do NOTHING.” We must abide in the vine… remain attached to Jesus through constant prayer, receiving his word, if we are to honor God.

Our lives… our church… must conform to Christ.

The mystery of godliness is not a “what” but a “who.”

We live as God’s obediently assembled household by conforming our lives to Christ.

Now it’s interesting what Paul chose to record about Jesus here in describing him as the “mystery of godliness”…

He is likely quoting part of a hymn… fragments of a hymn... that would have been sung in early church gatherings…

and it seems that he is cherry-picking specific lines from that hymn because the structure is hard to pick out.

So that should cause us to ask, “Why did he include these truths about Christ in his definition of the mystery of godliness, and not other truths?”

Because there is a lot you can say about Jesus… but Paul chooses 5 specific phrases to describe him as the mystery of godliness.

In other words, we should ask, “What about this description of Jesus enables... empowers.. produces our godly behavior as his church?”

So let’s look briefly at each phrase and remember the gospel together and see how Christ produces godliness in us…

First, HE was manifested in the flesh.

This is the wonder of the incarnation.

This is what David Parker preached in week one of this series: God so loved the world that he GAVE his only begotten Son.

The eternal son of God added humanity to his divinity and took on human flesh.

He walked among us.

And this means that we have an example to follow.

Christ became the “image of the invisible God” so that we would have a picture to reflect.

Over our vacation this year, we put this jigsaw puzzle together…

If you think of all the Old Testament as a jigsaw puzzle that is revealing who God is so that we can reflect his image, JESUS is the cover of the box that demonstrates the perfect completion of that image.

He is the example… in the flesh… of what God wants to reflect in our lives.

But Jesus didn’t just give us an example to follow, he gave us the ability to follow him.

He gave us his own righteousness. Paul said he was VINDICATED by the Spirit.

Vindicated means “to prove righteous.” It could also be translated “justified,” not in the sense that Jesus was made righteous, but that he was proven righteous.

In week 2 of this series, David Parker showed us that the law of God could be summed up like this: love God and love others.

That law is perfect righteousness. It’s that completed jigsaw puzzle.

And in our sin, we have no concept of what that truly looks like… we can barely put two pieces of that puzzle together.

We FAIL to perfectly love God… and to perfectly love others… we are UNRIGHTEOUS to the core of our being.

So Jesus came in the flesh to do what we could not... to live the perfectly righteous life and fulfill the law of God on our behalf.

His whole life was one of perfect righteousness… and YET he died as a criminal.

So how do we know he is truly righteous before God?

The scriptures again and again answer: because he died and rose again.

Paul wrote in Romans 1:4, “[He] was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,” (Romans 1:4, ESV)

The Spirit of God is the means by which Jesus rose from the dead… and that was God’s declaration he was the righteous Son of God.

I’d sure call THAT “vindication”…

And here’s how that produces godliness in us: Because he didn't die for his own unrighteousness... he died for OUR unrighteousness...

And the Bible says that if we put our faith in him, God counts the righteousness of Christ to us.

We call that positional righteousness...

It’s as if God lays the whole completed puzzle of Jesus down and sees that instead of seeing our jumbled up sinful mess.

But that truth also motivates practical righteousness in our lives.

God not only gives us Christ’s righteousness… he produces Christ’s righteousness by the Spirit.

When we put our faith in Jesus, he FREES us from the power of sin and gives us… none other than... the same Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead.

That’s what John Cheek was preaching about from Galatians 5 when he taught about walking by the Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit…

It’s as if the Spirit of God is taking the pieces of our life and laying them over-top each matching piece in Christ’s life, so that we look more and more like Christ.

God actually transforms us THROUGH our faith in the gospel.

And that work of God makes even the ANGELS stand in AWE at God’s wisdom. Paul says next that he was “SEEN by Angels.”

This is such an interesting phrase for Paul to use… it sort of comes out of nowhere, especially when we are thinking about the gospel… we don’t typically think about Angels, right? But it’s REALLY important.

Angels played a big role in Jesus’ ministry from beginning to end… and their primary role is witnesses.

They announced his coming… they told the women at the tomb that he had risen… they told the disciples where to go after he ascended.

And not only that, Paul says that they witness God’s glory in the church. They see God’s wisdom in transforming sinful enemies into a redeemed people.

Paul says ““so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 3:10, ESV)

That’s angels and demons.

Peter says that “the things that have now been announced to you [are the] things into which angels long to look.” (1 Peter 1:12, ESV)

So why is that important to our godliness?

Because it reminds us reminds us that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not about us…

We have a glorious and wise plan to display.

It’s about HIS glory that extends far beyond us, even to the heavenly places.

And our godliness… our transformation of heart and action… ESPECIALLY as it plays out in the church… is PROOF to the heavenly powers that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the powerful wisdom of God.

Do you see how much is happening here in this thing we call the church?

And not only is the glory of the Jesus seen by angels through the church… it’s seen by PEOPLE to the very ends of the earth! Paul says he was “proclaimed among the nations and believed on in the world.”

Again… our salvation is part of something SO MUCH bigger than just “me and Jesus”…

The message of the gospel is so powerful that it spread through the whole world.

And HOW did it spread?

The book of Acts is clear: the message was preached, people believed, they gathered into obediently assembled CHURCHES, those churches sent out WITNESSES, and the whole process started over.

Jesus was proclaimed and believed through the ministry of the CHURCH working together.

We, sitting here today, can only behave as God’s household because someone brought the gospel to the nations and we are part of those who believed.

An Apostle told someone who told someone who told someone who told someone about Jesus… and all those people throughout history believed… and that’s why you are able to gather with these people today and worship Jesus together.

That’s the only reason.

And that’s every reason to keep gathering… and keep proclaiming… and keep equipping… and keep sending… so that more and more people come to know Jesus and MORE churches are planted and new places are reached with the truth of the gospel.

We have a life-changing message to carry.

We are the PILLAR and BUTTRESS of the truth of the gospel...

And our lives are not conformed to Christ until we UPHOLD his gospel among the nations… starting from where we are… and then taking him to new places where he is not known or worshiped… resulting in new churches everywhere his name is believed in the world.

And we do that… because right now, our King is reigning over us… he “was taken up in glory.”

When you truly believe that your resurrected King Jesus is right now ruling and reigning in glory, it changes how you live.

You no longer see your life... or your church experience... with you at the center.

It’s not about your preferences and your feelings and who offended you and who didn’t pat you on the back enough.

It’s about the glory of the King who is the head of his household.

You say, “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20–21, ESV)

We have a King to serve and a Kingdom to advance.

So let me ask you: is that your confession? It’s the truth about Jesus… but is it the truth you confess?

And not just with your words... is your life conformed to Christ?

Is your time shaped by what you believe about him?

Is your everyday speech filled with Jesus?

Is your own sense of identity wrapped up in the fact Jesus has made you a member of the household of God?

If not, I urge you: forsake all else for this Jesus! That’s what it means to follow him!

The mystery of godliness is not a “what,” it’s a who.

We SO diminish godliness and we so diminish his plan for us if we make it about “trying hard to be a good person and sometimes go to a few church services.”

The mystery of godliness is “believing that the ONLY truly godly One gave his life so that you could live as a member of his household.”

Jesus alone is the way to honor God with your life...

And he has said that he wants you to honor him by connecting your life to a local expression of his church.

What is the church? It is the obediently assembled household of God.

Why does the church exist? To uphold the gospel truth.

How, Oak Hill, do we embrace this calling? By conforming to Christ.