WHY WE NEED CHURCH
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on May 21, 2023 under 2023 |
Bethany Bible Church Mother’s Day Sunday Sermon Message; May 21, 2023 from Ephesians 4:14-16
Theme: We need a healthy church body for things that are essential for a worthy walk in Christ.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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Many years ago, a dear ol’ retired preacher named Rev. Walter Dingfield would periodically come and minister to us from God’s word. He’s with the Lord Jesus now; but he always expressed to us how blessed he felt to be with us. And the feeling was very much mutual.
I remember a particular story he told us. As he was growing older, he had to spend time in the hospital. And on one visit to the hospital on a Sunday morning, he ended up chatting with the nurse that was attending to him. He was missing his church, and he told her so. He asked her, “Do you attend a church in the area?” And she said that she didn’t; and she added that she didn’t particularly care all that much for church.
“Oh, not me”, Rev. Walter said. “I miss my church family. I need to be in a church.” I can almost hear that kindly, well-worn voice of his as he said it, too. And I’ve always appreciated what he said; because it wasn’t reproachful to the nurse. It respected the fact that—for whatever reason—she didn’t care for church. But what he said was also very affirming. It recognized that his church family was an absolute essential to him.
I especially love that he humbly admitted, “I need to be in a church.”
That’s a great picture of what a healthy church ought to mean to a sincere follower of Jesus. It’s something essential—something that we just can’t do without. I know of course—and it’s sad to have to say—that not all churches are healthy places to be. Many churches have lost their focus. Many have abandoned their integrity to God’s word; or have become harsh and critical in their message; or have even become advocates for sinful practices. It’s a great loss whenever that happens. But whenever someone finds a truly good, healthy, sincere, God-worshiping, Jesus-honoring, Spirit-filled, Bible-teaching, holy, loving, witnessing church family, I believe that—if they can—they ought to stay committed to it all their days. Even if it has a few imperfections—and of course all churches do—it’s still worth traveling all the way across town for. It’s so essential to spiritual life that a sincere follower of Jesus simply can’t do without it.
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And that’s something that the apostle Paul wrote about in the portion of the Book of Ephesians that we’ve been studying lately. In Ephesians 4, he had been writing about what it meant to have a ‘walk’—a daily conduct of behavior—that’s worthy of our calling in Christ. And he made it very clear, in what he wrote, that life in a healthy church family is essential to that worthy walk.
As we’ve seen so far, he described the theological realities that make the church a blessing. He wrote about how God the Father has established a fundamental unity to the church family through Jesus Christ; saying in verses 4-6;
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Ephesians 4:4-6).
And he then went on to talk about the gifts that the Lord Jesus gave to His unified church—gifts that He bestowed upon it to equip it for its growth. He wrote in verses 11-13;
And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (vv. 11-13).
And that last verse describes the end goal of it all. It’s that we all—as His redeemed church—will be brought by God to a state of perfection; that is, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Himself. That goal seems far away at times. But it will surely be achieved because it’s God Himself who will bring it about for us through His Son Jesus. It will be fully accomplished when we, as His redeemed people, are all glorified together in Him on the day of Jesus’ return.
But what about right now? There are lots of things that need to happen in us during the time between His gracious provision and our future glorification. A lot of growing needs to be done. And that’s where our passage this morning comes in. In verses 14-16, Paul wrote that our Lord equips His church for growth in the ‘here-and-now’;
that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love (vv. 14-16).
The “body” being spoken of is, of course, the church … of which Jesus Himself is the Head. And in these three verses, we’re told what it is that the church family—the body of Christ—gives to each one of its members to help them grow in a daily walk with Jesus. These verses describe to us three things that are essential to ‘a worthy walk’ in Christ while on this earth. They are things that can only come to us through being connected to a good, loving healthy church family.
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Dear brothers and sisters; I hope that you and I will never think that we can do without what only the church family can give us. Sadly, many today do so. The crisis of the past couple of years has thrown many professing Christians off the track in their regular participation in church; and now, many of them think that they can get along just fine in their Christian life without it. But the Bible clearly warns us against that idea. It urges us to be even more committed to being in church;
not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching (Hebrews 10:25).
As dear ol’ Walter would have put it, we need to be in a church! So then; to encourage ourselves to grow in our commitment to our church family, let’s look at what Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:14-16 tell us about what only a healthy church family can provide for us.
First, we see that we need a healthy church body …
1. IN ORDER TO BE STABLE IN THE TRUTH.
This is especially true today. And it’s particularly true in light of the coming Day of the Lord. There has perhaps never been a time in human history when truth has been more rejected—and lies and deceptions have been more embraced—than the one in which we’re living today. We see it happening all around us; and it appears to be growing worse. Left on our own, we would easily become caught up in the deception of it all. But in verse 14, Paul wrote that God gives us a good, loving, healthy church family and unites us together, “that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting …”
You know; there was a time, many years ago—very early in my Christian life—when I almost became caught up in a very deceitful cult. I had only been a Christian for a few years; and I began attending an art school in Seattle. (As you might expect, an art school would be a pretty easy place to encounter a cult!) A fellow student had heard that I had recently become a Christian, and began to meet with me and pass literature and books on to me. This person seemed very nice. And—just as many cults do—they were making promises of newer insight and increased spiritual power for life. They said that I could know more—and be further advanced—than the average Christian. It sounded very persuasive to me … and that was because I was still quite young in the faith.
But as it happened, I was also attending a good, loving, Bible-teaching church. And the thing that tipped me off to this cult was how it began to make its appealing promises by saying, “Forget everything you’ve ever heard before about the Christian life …” Well; I certainly didn’t want to ‘forget everything’ I’d heard! I knew the people in my church family. I loved my Christian friends. I greatly respected my pastor and church leaders. I was growing to love the things my church was teaching me from the Bible. Something about the whole idea of ‘forgetting it all’ smelled very fishy to me. And because of my secure place in my church family, and because of the things I had been learning there, I began to recognize the false beliefs that this cult promoted about Jesus and about the nature of the Trinity. I would say that, at that crucial period in my life, being in a good church family protected me from falling into error.
Paul said that “we should no longer be children”. A ‘child’ is—by nature—unstable and easily influenced. A child is naive and easily deceived. And it may sound insulting to say; but the fact is that, when we start out in the faith, that’s what we all are. We are, as Paul said, like a little boat in the midst of the storm. We’re easily tossed “to and fro”. We’re like a leaf in the breeze. We’re easily “carried about by every wind of doctrine”—easily drawn away by new theological fads and false spiritual promises.
In Hebrews 5, the writer of Hebrews wanted to share some important spiritual truth with his readers; but he didn’t feel he could. He was frustrated, and wrote;
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil (Hebrews 5:12-14).
It’s a bad thing to remain a child in the faith—to remain a babe that doesn’t yet know how to digest solid food. And that’s what I had been. Very early in my Christian life, I was almost blown off course. And as a spiritual ‘baby’, what I also didn’t know was that there are some very evil people out in this world who are intentionally and aggressively deceitful. They’re the instruments of the devil; and the devil is the greatest deceiver of them all. He’s like a roaring lion that prowls around, seeking whom he may devour—and so also are his false teachers. The apostle Paul once warned a group of pastors;
For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves (Acts 20:29-30).
So; Paul warns that we must not be swayed away “by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting …” That’s what almost happened to me. But I’m glad I was anchored to a good church family!
Think of what the apostle Paul tells us about the church in 1 Timothy 3;
These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly; but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:14-15).
What a great description of what the church is! It’s not the source of the truth. Rather, it’s ‘the pillar and ground of the truth’. A pillar is that which holds something up high. And the grounding is that which provides a solid foundation for it. And the church is ‘the pillar and ground of the truth’ in this world. The church holds it up so the truth can be seen and heard, and provides the foundation on which the truth can be trusted and proclaimed and put into action by us. God hasn’t given us anything else on this earth to serve that role; only the church! And so; that’s one reason why you and I need a good, healthy church family. In the midst of a world filled with lies, we need it in order to remain strong and stable in the truth.
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Now; another reason Paul gave us for why we need a good, healthy church is found in verse 15. We’re told that it’s that we may no longer be children; “but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ …” It’s not enough to stay away from error. We must also grow, more and more, to be like Him who is ‘the Truth’.
And so, we need the church …
2. IN ORDER TO GROW INTO MATURITY IN CHRIST.
Now; it’s true—dear redeemed brothers and sisters—that we are already destined by God to be fully conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. That was God the Father’s sovereign plan for us from the very beginning. As it says in Romans 8:29;
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29).
That is absolutely going to happen. And it all will be by God’s doing. That’s our future expectation in Christ our Savior. When He appears, we will be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. But as the Bible also tells us, this future expectation places a present responsibility upon you and me. As it says in 1 John 3:3;
And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure (1 John 3:3).
That was something that Paul desired very earnestly for his brothers and sisters in Christ. If you’ll look back just a little way in Ephesians, you’ll find how he described his prayer for his readers in Ephesians 3:16-19;
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:16-19).
It was Paul’s desire for his readers—and it’s God the Father’s will for us—that we grow up, in all things, into Christ. It’s that the life and character of the Lord Jesus be manifested in every area of our lives—that we would be like Him in the way that we think, and the way that we speak, and in the way that we work, and in the way that we act—characterized by Jesus’ own devotion to the Father’s will, His love and compassion for others, His holiness in our inner attitudes and outward actions, His priorities in what we pursue in life, and His fruit exhibited in our daily lives. It’s that we would take up our cross daily and follow Him in all things.
And how is this to be done? Look at how Paul began verse 15. He wrote that we’re to be “speaking the truth in love” The single word that Paul uses, in the original language, is one that means something much broader than simply ‘speaking’. It actually means something more along the lines of “doing truth” or “practicing truth” or “living truth”. The great old Bible teacher Dr. Harry Ironside translated it this way: “truthing in love”. It’s the very broad idea of having fellowship with one another in full, personal integrity to the truth in an atmosphere of love.
This is a necessary condition of our growth in Christ. The context in our growth in being more like Jesus is that we would be increasingly, ongoingly “truthing in love” toward one another. And it would be absolutely impossible to live out “truth in love” apart from participation in the church body. It’s something like what Paul will go on to say in verse 25;
Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another (v. 25).
We’re members of the same body. I need your help in growing to be more like Jesus; and you need my help, too. I need to admit my faults to you; and you also need to admit your faults to me. We need to be honest and real with one another, and to pray for one another, and to learn from one another, and to support one another in genuine, sincere, practical love. It’s how we grow into maturity—in all things—into Christ who is our Head.
In fact, our growth in Jesus is so connected to the church family that to sever ourselves from the body would be the same thing as severing ourselves from the Head! As Paul wrote in Colossians 2:18-19;
Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God (Colossians 2:18-19).
The church is where we grow together in all things into Christ. We can’t do without it. We need to be in a church!
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And that leads us, very naturally, to one more reason Paul gives us for why we need a good, healthy church. It’s …
3. IN ORDER TO OBTAIN WHAT WE NEED FROM ONE ANOTHER.
In verse 16, the apostle Paul wrote about Christ—the Head of His body; “from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”
Think of the details. Jesus is our Head, and so we draw all our life and growth from Him. We are connected together in Him in such a way as to be “joined” and “knitted” (or “fitted”) together by design. We are bound together through (literally) “every joint of the supply”. A joint is a point of contact between two individual parts, through which they are enabled to operate in cooperation with one another. And with each part doing its share in this way—at the relational points of contact that are “the joints of the supply”—we are then made to work together for the building up of the whole body in love.
I don’t believe we couldn’t find a better commentary on all of this than what Paul himself wrote in 1 Corinthians 12. Allow me to read; and just listen to these words! He said;
For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it (1 Corinthians 12:12-26).
I honestly can’t think of a more glorious description of a healthy church in action than that! And so; how then could you or I ever think that we could do without it? We need it!
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Dear beloved brothers and sisters; I praise God and thank Him for this precious church family. I need our fellowship together. And so do you. It gives us stability in the truth. It helps us to grow into maturity in Christ. It’s the place where we obtain what we need from one another. So; let’s keep devoted to God’s word, be real with each other, and work together in love!
When it comes to walking worthy of our calling in Christ, we simply can’t do without each other.
AE
