Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION

A Christian without a Church is a Christian in trouble.

And yet, in our culture, especially since the 2020 pandemic, there has become growing divide between those who identify as Christians and those who belong to and participate in a local church family.

This divide wasn’t CAUSED by the COVID pandemic but it was accelerated.

Before COVID the number of engaged members in any local church was shrinking year after year.

Millions had already silently decided that the local church was no longer really important to their spiritual health and development.

This mindset has grown in recent years.

Even in our own church, the number of people who profess membership compared with those who actually participate in the life of the church grows and grow.

On paper it says they’re committed but their practice proves that they not.

It’d be one thing if they moved their membership and plugged into a different community.

But for most, it’s a total disengagement from church life all together.

So my goal over the next several weeks is to try and convince you why having a church family MATTERS.

It matters.

Because a Christian without a church is a Christian trouble.

It’s not how God designed our Christian life to be lived.

What Is A Church?

Before you get mad and stop listening all together, the first thing we need to do is define what a church even IS.

What IS a church?

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word church?

(Building?

Program?

A group of people?)

Fundamentally the church is not a place and it’s not a building.

The Church is a people.

Buildings don’t make a church but they do HOUSE them.

The Church is a gathering of people who gather IN A PLACE.

The Greek word for church is the work “ekklesia.”

Its used 114 times in the New Testament and the VAST MAJORITY (93) of those instances refer to the visible gathering of saints in a local congregation.

(Corinth, Rome, Ephesus)

Last week we looked at the BFM2K definition for church.

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.

Why Does It Matter?

So what I want to do this morning is answer the question WHY the Church matters.

And by Church I mean BOTH the universal body of Christ AND the visible expressions of that community through local churches like ours.

Typically in our church we preach through books of the Bible and so today is going to be much different in that it’s more topical in it’s approach.

But I hope you’ll walk away with a biblical theology for WHY the Church matters to God and why it should matter to you too.

Context to Ephesians

I want to offer up three reasons why the church matters and three things that really matter in the church.

Before we do that, though, let’s read our text.

All of those thing fall under one large umbrella and that’s our preaching text for this morning.

The book of Ephesians more than any other book offers a blueprint of God’s design for the local church.

It’s maybe my favorite NT book.

In chapter 1 Paul lays out the glory of the Gospel and its vertical implications for our walk with God.

(Eph 1:15-19)

In chapter 2 Paul shifts to the horizontal implications of the Gospel, how it reconciles us with one another and creates a supernatural new covenant community called the Church.

(Eph 2:18-19)

Finally in chapter 3 you have this doxology and prayer exalting the glory of Christ, God’s purpose in the Church and Paul’s prayer that the Church in Ephesus grow in their knowledge of both.

(Eph 3:14-20)

Not A Normal Gathering

Sandwiched between those things is a little section wherein Paul explains and God’s reason for establishing the church in the first place.

Ephesians 3:8–11 (CSB)

8 This grace was given to me—the least of all the saints—to proclaim to the Gentiles the incalculable riches of Christ, 9 and to shed light for all about the administration of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.

10 This is so that God’s multi-faceted wisdom may now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavens.

11 This is according to his eternal purpose accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Why does the Church matter?

The Church matters because it’s God’s PLAN A for finishing his redemptive purposes in Christ.

The Church was in the eternal plan of God.

Before time even began!

Before God even created this world he envisioned using the redeemed of the world - people like us and churches like ours - to proclaim God’s Gospel and display God’s eternal wisdom.

God was going to supernaturally save a group of people, unite them around the person and work of His Son and display to people, angels and demons his great power and wisdom.

That means the church is not just any gathering.

It’s a supernatural divinely inspired gathering.

It’s not a homogenous club like a country club or college fraternity.

It’s a supernatural fellowship where people from all different backgrounds and ethnicities come together in a common bond and fellowship in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The church is a big Big BIG deal to God.

The question is, is it a big deal to YOU? Sadly, I think for so many people the answer is NO.

The Local Church Matters

With the time we have left this morning I want to offer up a few reasons WHY the local church matters and how God accomplishes his redemptive purposes through the church today.

There are obviously MORE than three reasons why the local church matters but it’s at least these three reasons if not more.

Purchased By Christ’s Blood

The first reason the Church matters is because Jesus PURCHASED the church by His blood.

It’s interesting in the book of Acts Paul is speaking with a group of pastors from the Church in Ephesus and he describes their church (and the universal church in general) that precious bride that was bought with the blood of Christ.

Acts 20:28 (CSB)

28 Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood.

Paul tells the local church at Corinth to be careful how they use their physical bodies because “they were bought with a price.

So glorify God with your body.”

(1 Corinthians 6:20)

Peter expressed to the persecuted Christians scattered throughout Asia

1 Peter 1:18–19 (CSB)

18 For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb.

Churches matter because Jesus was willing to lay down his life for the Church.

They were purchased by his blood!

New Covenant, New Community

These references to blood are not just references to the fact that Jesus died on the cross.

There was theological significance to the death of Jesus on the cross.

He was completing the requirements of the Old Covenant and establishing something new.

In the Old Covenant, remaining in right relationship with God required an atoning sacrifice.

The blood bulls and goats and unblemished lambs reminded God’s people that the wages of their sin was death and separation from God and that a life must be given as a substitute to satisfy the God’s justice and righteousness.

Jesus lived a sinless unblemished life of love and obedience before God the Father so that when he willingly laid down his life on the cross he was becoming OUR substitute and paying OUR sin debt.

But unlike the blood of bulls and goats this atoning sacrifice was done once and for all because it was God himself paying the price and mediating a new covenant in the process.

This new covenant was predicted in the OT (Jeremiah 31:31-34) and mediated by Christ himself through his death and resurrection.

(Hebrews 8:6-13)

Hebrews 9:15 (CSB)

15 Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance, because a death has taken place for redemption from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.

The Church is the community of that New Covenant.