The Primacy of the Church

Why should you bother with the church? With all of the challenges, faults, sins and shortcomings within the church doesn’t it seem reasonable that God would have moved on and is now using something else to reach the world with His salvation?

With all of the mess that you see in and have experienced with churches why should you invest any of your time, let alone hard earned money into supporting one? Especially, if the churches you know don’t seem to be about nor interested in pursuing the gospel ministry?
In light of the present disarray of the church it does seem reasonable, prudent and desirable to look for other ways to get on with the work of ministry.

In fact there are many who believe that God has left or divorced the church and is no longer working through her to accomplish His plan of redemption that includes evangelism and discipleship. Some are even saying that you don’t really need to be apart of any local church and that you’re probably better off pursuing your own walk with God that doesn’t involve a church.

Is that how you feel this morning or have at times felt in the past?

Despite all the issues the church faces in carrying out the commission our Lord has given us and even in spite of all our many and ongoing failures the church is still the building, body, bride and flock of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are still God’s chosen people, the object of His eternal affection in Christ, His one new people, the manifestation of His wisdom and the vehicle through which He gets glory in Jesus Christ. The church is the protector and promoter of God’s truth, His light and witness to a dark world and His army charged with combating the forces of Satan.

So why should you be an active member of a local expression of God’s one church?

The book of Ephesians gives us many some of which I’ll go over briefly.

You should be apart of the church because you’ve been chosen in Christ to participate in biblical worship.
God chose a people for Himself before the creation of the world, Eph. 1:4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him
The basis of God’s choice was His own good pleasure so that His choice highlights His glorious grace. The scope of God’s choice includes people from every ethnicity on the earth. The goal of God’s choice is that His people might be able to stand before Him in perfect holiness and eternal, communal worship.

Biblical worship is communal worship. That’s why we celebrate communion together as an act of worship. At communion we stress the sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus Christ and the reality that we are His one people.

You should be apart of a church because by faith in Christ you’re already a member of His body. Eph. 1:22,23 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
We are vitally connected to each other. Think about how many things have to happen in your body just so you can write an email. We’ve been uniquely placed in the body just where the Lord wants us so we can do the most good to build the body up in love, 1Cor. 12:18 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
Comparing God’s people to a physical body reminds us that God has not only saved us from our sins, but is pleased to use us to help, build up, enrich and encourage His people. He ministers to us through each other.

Therefore you should be an active part of a local church because we need your gifts. We need those gifted to preach God’s word, those gifted in the ministry of serving and hospitality, those gifted to teach, those gifted to counsel, those gifted to give and those gifted to lead.

You should be apart of a church because we are the place where God lives by His Spirit through Jesus Christ, Eph. 2:21,22. in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
Paul stated that the local churches he wrote to were each being built into a dwelling where of God in the Spirit.
Each part is being fitted together, consequently we will have a problem if a part is missing.
The local church is the place where people within the community can come and see God worshiped.
God does indeed have a dwelling place. But it’s not just in your heart or your house. The Scriptures speak of God being uniquely present among His people as we gather for worship in a way that He’s not present with us as individuals.

You should be apart of a local church because together we’re the vehicle through which He gets glory in Jesus Christ, Eph. 3:20-21 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
Our entire salvation in Christ is the most magnificent and supreme display of God’s glory, power, sovereignty, holiness, love, justice, mercy, grace and wisdom the universe has ever witnessed. Moreover, God has put us on display so that together we might show the world and the forces of God’s enemy.
God manifested His wisdom and displayed His glory in us by saving us from a lifestyle of sin that had earned His certain judgment. God manifested His wisdom and displayed His glory by giving us a new Christ like nature and calling us to a lifestyle of doing good for a lifetime. God manifested His wisdom and displayed His glory by breaking apart the animosity and hostility that held us apart from each other and making us into one new race in Christ Jesus, Eph. 2:14-16 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
To put it another way, in Christ God has made us family.

In all these ways and more we work, serve, love and worship together as a visible manifestation of God’s wisdom and display of His glory in Jesus Christ.
Is there a local expression of God’s family that He’s called you to love, work with and display His glory with?

You must belong to a church because it’s the only way to live up to the calling you’ve received to be apart of God’s eternal family, Eph. 4:1-7 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5  one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6  one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all
Notice how the very language of this passage speaks toward the unity of the church. You can see how the qualities Paul calls for must be practiced within a local church setting.

Humility - the quality of looking out for the needs of others and searching for ways to serve them.
Gentleness - the quality of dealing with others with tenderness, consideration and care for their feelings. Gentleness refuses to treat others harshly.
Patience- the quality of waiting for the Lord to change someone and believing that they’ve committed to change that God will work within them.
Forbearance - the quality of tolerating the shortcomings, immaturity, personality quirks and faults of others as together we grow in our holiness.
Eager to maintain unity - doing all you can to maintain active, positive relationships within the church. Not being easily offended nor being one who refuses to seek reconciliation.

You obviously cannot do these if you’re always off on your own and never committed to a local expression of God’s church. You can’t practice these virtues on the worldwide, universal church. Additionally, these virtues testify to the truth that you may be in a local church that has some folks that aren’t like you.

You should be apart of a local church because that’s how God has organized His people, Eph. 4:11-12 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12  to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
You submit to God by submitting to godly, ordained leadership. Notice I didn’t say perfect, have it altogether and know everything leadership. Nor am I saying that you are to submit to leaders who are immoral, ungodly and who constantly disobey God’s standards for biblical leadership.
Each of these church offices has something to do with speaking forth God’s word. Specifically, the pastor/teacher is charged with the regular, systematic teaching of God’s word when His people are gathered together for worship. This is the primary way the church is equipped to do ministry.
Since all biblical teaching comes with authority you cannot just obtain your instruction through the radio, tapes, cd’s or the internet. For there must be some way that you can be held accountable to practice the teaching you’re receiving. In that way it’s something like the difference between auditing a few classes and matriculating into a course of study.

You should be apart of a local church because the church is the bride of Christ and He will never leave her, divorce her or abandon her to love and work through something else, Eph. 5:29-32 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.   "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
Christ is committed to an eternal loving relationship with His people. One that is so intimate and so valued that it actually provides the basis for human marriage. Christ left His Father so that He could obtain His bride by dying for her sins thus showing the extent of His love and commitment to her.
Because of that it is absurd and ridiculous to believe that Christ has now left the church and is calling people to abandon it for some new, privatized kind of spirituality.

The Scriptures teach the primacy of the church for mission, ministry, worship, accountability and individual sanctification. It is therefore God’s will for His own glory and the spiritual growth and development of each believer to become an active part of a local church.

To Him Who Loves Us…
Pastor Lance