What on Earth Is the Church For?

Automatically transcribed — lightly cleaned for readability. Wording is the preacher’s own.

Hello, good morning friends, how are you this morning? Good, how are you? Good, my name is Cameron. I am one of the pastors here at Conduit. For the last couple of weeks, we have been in a sermon series on our doctrinal statement or our statement of faith, and I've created these pamphlets for you. There was some in the pews last week, there may be some still there. We have some in the back on the shelves and out in the foyer at the coffee bar. This is of course on our app and on our website as well. But I've been walking through what we've included here in our statements of faith is generally what the church, and not just Conduit, but the church as a whole, the Big C church has considered to be kind of primary theological topics or issues that are important to have a good basis and foundational understanding of. And we've been kind of taking them two at a time and trying to get through them. And it's been not working well to get through two in a week. As you might understand.

So today we're talking about the church in particular. And we're gonna talk about the first point of what we believe about the church this morning, which here is listed simply as the church on the back of the little booklet. And then the mission of the church actually is connected to what we've been talking about this morning. But if you, I preached a sermon on the mission of the church back on January 11th. So like just a little over a month ago. And so we're gonna focus this morning on what we believe about the church in particular. And if you're interested to know either what we believe or to hear a sermon on the mission of the church, I would encourage you to go back to our YouTube channel or our podcast and listen to that sermon from January 11th. I was recently a part of a conversation

With a handful of young pastors, which is an interesting dichotomy because I always considered myself a young pastor.

And like for the first 20 years of my ministry, I would make jokes in rooms of older pastors about being the younger pastor. And now I'm like, actually I still kind of am a young pastor, but there are pastors that are younger than me. And I was part of a conversation with a group of young pastors. I can confidently say they were young. And they were, as pastors do from time to time, debating the question of what was really more important in the life of a believer. And I think specifically they were looking to answer the question, what would be more important in the life of a new believer, someone who had just come to faith in Jesus?

And they were debating two kind of like generalized things. The first that they were debating is like, well, is it important, like what's more important? Is it more important that they have, that they are like discipled in really good, strong, like foundational theology, similar to what we're doing in this series? Or is it more important that they just find a place within the community that they can belong?

What was more important? They were going back and forth and they were kind of each giving their own little thoughts on this. Now, the premise of some of the arguments that were being talked about there was that, well, throughout time, you could make the argument that the church has maybe overemphasized small theological distinctives, and it has created maybe some unnecessary division within the church as a whole over time. The more important thing one of them proposed was that the church be a place where someone could belong. A place, a group for them to be in, a fellowship for them to belong, a place of community where they could get rooted. Theology or what was believed in that community was less important, according to this one pastor. Now, listen, let's be curious and charitable in our opinions of others, especially when they're trying to work out what it is that could be more important in ministry. There are a lot of valuable insights that we can learn about a conversation like this and just kind of like our own understanding of what it means to be the church, to be a community, to be a fellowship, and whether or not that's a theological belief

Or whether that's a sociological belief. Has the church sometimes let non-essential matters of doctrine cause fracture and division? Certainly, absolutely, okay? And this is not a new phenomena. This is as old as Christian theology is. Is it important that the church be a place where people can and do belong? A place where they can discover their purpose. They can step into the life that God designed for them. They can get rooted in community. Yes, absolutely, but, but, but.

We must be really careful about trying to kind of like slice and dice and dissect out nuances

So much so that it kind of destroys the foundation that is our own foundation for understanding the church as a theological, from a theological level. Here's my point, it's kind of what I'm getting to. You can't, I believe, and this is what I told these guys, I believe that you cannot, you actually can't say that belonging is more important than belief or theology when it comes to the life of the follower of Jesus. Because, listen, the nature of our belonging to the church is a deep theological truth that we must hold to, believe in, and fight for. It's not that belonging isn't important. Belonging is important. But listen, understand this, not all belonging is created equal.

Not all belonging is created equal. For example, I'll give you this example. You belong to conduit, right? You attend regularly, you serve regularly, you give regularly, you have friends, you've created family. You get, there are things here that you get really excited about and want to take part in. You belong here. This is your community, this is your fellowship. You may also belong to Planet Fitness.

We know Troy does. There's fruit to prove that. You may also belong to Planet Fitness, right? And all of the things about your belonging to Planet Fitness look a lot like you're belonging to conduit.

You attend regularly, right? You might clean up after yourself, after you use a machine, you see people that you know, you become friends with, you get to know a little bit about their life, you talk with them, you give Planet Fitness money regularly, right? You become an exercise apologist, right? You belong to Planet Fitness and you belong to conduit.

I think maybe the key or critical question there is what is the difference in the way that you belong to the church and in the way that you belong to Planet Fitness? What is the difference there? Belonging indeed is important, but not all belonging is created equal. The church is considered more than just a place, listen, I want you to hear this. The church is more than just a place to belong, like you belong to Planet Fitness. We do not casually belong to this place as a measure of some kind of like, club or sociological experiment.

So what I wanna do this morning is just to give you, hopefully open up the word a little bit, to show you the richness and the depth and the theological basis for what the church is. Because if we don't have a deep theological and biblical foundation for what the church is, we may be tempted to think that it's just another version of Planet Fitness. Just a place to casually belong, just a group of people that we see once a week, some place to keep us warm and morally or ethically well fed on a Sunday morning. And that could not be further from the truth. I don't say that with any level of judgment, I say that with a level of invitation to step into the richness of what it is that God has to offer you in being a part of what the scripture calls his body, the bride, the temple or dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, his household, the pillar and foundation of truth.

The primary word for church that you see in the New Testament, when you pick up your Bible and you see anywhere the word church, it is generally this Greek word. The word is ecclesia. It comes from two root words, one meaning act, which is out and called out from. And the definition there of the word ecclesia is those called out.

So whenever you're reading your Bible and you say church, oh, they must mean 120 Delaware Avenue.

This is not the intention of the biblical writers. They were referring rather than a place to a people, people who were called out. It was meant to describe the nature of those who were redeemed by the blood of Jesus. This was the first way in which it was used. It was used to describe a group of people that were now definitively different than the rest of the crowd because they were professing that Jesus Christ was their Lord, their savior, their Messiah, and that they had been redeemed by his blood.

It answered the question essentially in the ancient Near East, how do we understand this new group of people who have gone all in with Jesus? They're a little weird. They talk about eating his body and drinking his blood, and they care nothing for the Roman Empire, but now they say Jesus, this guy who died and we can't find anymore, is their Lord and their savior? How do we even process how to refer to these people?

And the word that was used was like, well, they're the ecclesia, they have been called out. They are like, there is a separateness, a distinctiveness, a difference, they have been called out from the rest of culture for something specific. Listen, ecclesia was never to denote a specific place or location. You've heard this before, I'm sure. And although maybe cliche, it's very true, even theologically speaking, we, those who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, who have trusted in him for our salvation, who consider him Lord, we don't go to the church. We are, we are the church, because the word for church was a word that defined identity more than it defined location. It was meant to describe the people who follow Jesus, rather than the place that those people met, okay? There was a deep theological significance to the people who said, Jesus Christ is Lord.

And this is what the biblical writers were trying to get, trying to capture in this word. We are the called out ones, those who have been called out from the world, from the kingdom of darkness, to be a specific type of people in the world.

Peter says this in his first letter, verse Peter chapter two, verses nine and 10. He says this to the church, to those who are called out, but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare, listen, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness and into his wonderful light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Peter, arguably the disciple that was closest to Jesus in his ministry, as he is now moving on in his apostolic ministry, stands hard on this truth. We are a people who have been called out from the kingdom of darkness and into the wonderful light of Christ. At one point, we were not a people. At one point, this room, this people did not exist, but now it does exist. Now you are the people of God. Once you have not, you did not receive mercy, now you have received mercy. Your identity has been changed.

You have been made new. Now, if you look throughout the New Testament, you'll see that it has many metaphors for the called out ones or the ecclesia, the church. There's many ways that it refers to it.

We're gonna talk about four, kind of four of the most well-known ones this morning. Paul, the Apostle Paul, and no fewer than four of his letters to various churches around the ancient Near East, around the Mediterranean, refers to the church as the body of Christ. Now, there are some parts of his letters that he talks about this a little bit more significantly than others. Probably the most significant is in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, where he essentially dedicates a whole chapter to this idea, to this metaphor of those who have been called out, the church, the ecclesia, being the body of Christ. I'm gonna go through a couple of references here in 1 Corinthians 12. I don't have all of them on the screen for you. But note 1 Corinthians 12 in your notes, and I've spent some time reading it to kind of fill out your understanding here of what Paul's saying. Now, Paul understands better than anyone the incredible diversity and variety of people who have come to know Jesus in the Roman-controlled Greek-speaking world. And he, especially in his travels all around the Mediterranean, got to see kind of every single flavor of what it meant for a person to follow Jesus out of a life that they were previously living,

Once not knowing mercy, but now knowing mercy. And so when Paul approaches this issue, he both highlights, he highlights the diversity that is very clear in the body of Christ, but how the body, all of it, is useful for one another.

There are no parts that are unnecessary to a person's body. For instance, he says this, he begins to say this in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 13, "For we were all baptized by one spirit into one body." He wants to have a coalescing type of feature to the body of Christ. Is that, listen, we were all baptized into one body by one spirit. No matter where we may have come from before, it is the one spirit who has brought us into and made us one body. He goes on to say, "Now, the body is made up "not of one part, but of many. "And God has arranged the parts in the body, "every one of them, just as he wanted to be. "If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. "If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it." And then he says this at the end of this little section here, in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 27, he says, "Just to drive the point home." He says, "Now, you are the body of Christ "and each one of you has a part in it."

What's, I think, significant about what Paul says here is he tells the believers in the city of Corinth, those who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, who have come to faith in Christ, he tells them this. He says, "Now, you are the body of Christ "and each one of you has a part in it." He did not say, "You do body of Christ things."

He said, "You are the body of Christ. "It is a switch, not merely in just the things "that they do in the life that they live. "It is a change of their very identity, "of whom they identify with. "Who am I a part of now? "I am now a part of the body of Christ. "It has changed my identity. "It has changed the locus of my life now. "The center point upon which everything revolves "is my identity that is found as being part of Christ."

Later in 1 Corinthians, Paul explains how this body functions using a variety of gifts and personalities to build the kingdom, to bless the world, to be the hands and feet of Christ as his body.

Now, the Corinthians are not the only people that understand this metaphor because Paul uses it also in other letters, in his letter to the Romans, Romans chapter 12 verses four and five. He uses the same thing and he says, "Just as each one of us, "just as each of us has one body with many members, "hands, feet, arms, legs, eyes, ears, all that, "and these members do not all have the same function, "so in Christ, we who are many, "form one body and each member belongs to the others."

Do you know that you have a responsibility of belonging to one another in the body of Christ?

You do not just belong to yourself. You have a responsibility of belonging to one another. Tell me the church is just as good as belonging to Planet Fitness.

But if the body, if we're talking about, if we are all parts of the body of Christ, we, where does Jesus himself fit into this analogy or this metaphor? We understand the parts of the body. They each have their own different parts and some are strong and some are weak, some hold certain functions and some hold other functions, but where is Jesus? Paul doesn't leave that for any guessing as well. He says in Ephesians chapter one verses 22 and 23, "And God placed all things under his feet "and appointed him to be head over everything "for the church, which is his body." The fullness of him who feels everything in every way. In Colossians chapter one verse 18, Paul says that he, referring to Christ, he is the head of the body, the church, that Jesus remains Lord, that we may have women and men who lead this place faithfully, who work in ministry, who teach kids, who serve on the food truck, who lead the youth group, who work in conduit light, who are serving in coffee in the parking lot and every which way and a million different ways, make no mistake about it.

Whether there's one guy or two guys or whoever up here preaching, Jesus is the head of the church. Jesus is the head of his body. And when we reduce the church to merely a place to belong, we very, very eagerly and willingly release control of the church to men and women.

Oh, he's in charge. Oh, she's in charge. Oh, they're the leader, false. Christ runs this place. Jesus runs this place. This is his body. He is the head. We are the parts. The church is more than just a place to belong. The church is the hands and feet of Jesus Christ himself, living, loving, and serving like him, with him, and for him.

Number two, there is one person, there is one person that I love more than every other person. Like, sorry, I love you all very much. But there is one person that I love more than every other person. She's home this morning, taking care of some sick kids that we have. That's my wife, Sherry. She's my bride. We've been married for, it'll be 22 years this coming summer. We were junior high sweethearts. She's the only woman I've ever loved. She's the only woman I ever will love.

And remembering her as my bride, or as the bride, I still remember her walking down the aisle 22 years ago. I still remember my face hurting at the end of our wedding day from smiling so much. I was tired.

Now, the scripture also uses the analogy of the called out ones, or the church, as the bride of Christ.

The beloved of Christ. Now, the point here should be inescapable for all of us. The New Testament affirms and consistently communicates the deep love, commitment, and desire that Jesus has for us.

His bride. Consistently over and over again. He is committed to the church. Like he is committed to his own body. Like he is committed in covenant relationship to the bride Jesus loves passionately and deeply with commitment and covenant that cannot be broken. And he desires in a passionate way for our good. Jesus has not given up on the church, his bride.

Because Jesus will never give up on his bride. The Apostle Paul talks about the relationship between husband and wife in a couple different of his letters. But in his letter to the Ephesians he makes a comparison between the love that Jesus has for the church, and the love that a husband should have for their wife. And he essentially says, hey listen, like the love and the depth and the sacrifice and the pursuit of purity and holiness that a husband should have in pursuit of his wife is mirrored off of the love, the holiness, and the pursuit of affection that Jesus has for us. The church. He says this, Ephesians 5, 25 through 27. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church

And gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or blemish, but holy and blameless.

That Christ, Jesus takes seriously the love that he has for his bride, the church, and desires that same love overflow from that example into our world as husbands and wives in the way that in particular in this passage of scripture husbands loved their wives.

John, the writer of the vision and revelation talks about how when Jesus returns, John chapter 19, about how when Jesus returns, when he comes back in triumphant victory and proclamation of ultimate victory over death and say in that he is coming not just in victory, but he is returning among other things for his bride.

I'm coming back from my bride. I'm coming back for the one that I love. I'm coming back for the one that I have committed my heart to.

Listen, the church is more than just a place to belong. The church, listen, the church is the object of God's love and passion, and he is faithfully committed to it.

God is faithfully committed to the church. It is the object of his love and passion.

Now, we have more. Not just the bride, an object of God's love and passion, but listen, the scripture communicates the church is God's family or household.

That God's family is the object of his care, is the object of his protection, is the object of his provision and of his discipline.

That God, that we are God's family, his household. In Ephesians chapter two, he says, Paul says this, consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household. Built on the foundation of apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. He writes later to Timothy in first Timothy chapter three. If I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. Listen, through faith in Jesus Christ, you have been adopted into God's family.

You have been given a future you did not have before, a name that is new and a father that cares.

Many of you know my story and my family's story, we have adopted five kids. And when those kids came into our home, right, coming from a situation where they had no parents to care for them and to bring them into the future blessing of their life, they received a new name when we adopted them. They received a new future. And listen, their adoptions, my kids' adoptions are sealed in New York State Court. Like if you ever wanted to find out, if you ever wanted to find evidence that my kids were at one point not mine, you would not be able to.

Those records no longer exist. They are not there. And one of the things I remember very specifically about one specific adoption case, the judge looked at Sherry and I and he said this, he's like, I want you to clearly understand this. Once I sign these papers and this adoption is final, it will be as if you gave birth to these kids on your own. No one will ever know anything different. And he said something like this, everything that a child bore naturally to you would be due by being your child. These children will be due as well. Do you understand this? Yes, I do. And this is the exact, listen, we have been adopted by the father, we have been brought into his family and everything that is due by inheritance of God's children is ours by adoption and faith. Everything that is God's is now due you because he has said that is my daughter, that is my son, they are a part of my household. They are now, they now belong to me. They come under my care, my protection, my provision, my discipline and they come under also the flow of my blessing into the future.

We are part of God's family, his household. The church is more than just a place to belong. It is a place of identity. It is a place of safety. It is a place to grow up into your fullest and most mature self as a daughter and son of God.

So we aren't just the hands and feet of God, the body. We aren't just the object of God's love and passion, the bride, or the object of God's care, protection, provision and discipline as his household. We are also, listen, the very place that God has promised to indwell his spirit.

It is in the church that God's spirit, God himself, not like lesser third tier God, but like the spirit of God himself takes up residence and lives in worship here. The presence of the spirit of God in the world is through the church.

Paul says in Ephesians chapter two verse 19, consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit.

First Corinthians chapter three, Paul says something very similar. Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's spirit lives in you?

If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is sacred and you are that temple. Now we often, listen,

We often take these in a very individualistic sense. But I want you to be aware of something and see something. When Paul is writing to these churches, he's writing not to an individual person in a specific church being like, "Hey, God's spirit's going to live, "you're the temple of God's spirit."

He's writing to the whole community of faith. He's writing to the whole of the church. He's writing to those who have been called out and redeemed by his blood. He's saying, Paul is making the argument not that the Holy Spirit just indwells every little individual person or that the gift of the spirit is just for the individual person. But no, he's saying that the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit comes to the church.

It is we, we are being built up to become a holy temple in which God dwells by his spirit, Paul says.

It is the spirit of God filling us as a community of people, as one body, as one bride, as one family

That makes the sound of our worship pleasing to him. The church is more than just a place to belong. The church is the very vessel of God's spirit on earth. It is the glory of his presence. It is the comfort of his love. It is the peace of his closeness.

The church is more than just a place to belong. Is my prayer that all of these examples, and listen, there are more. This is a very small sampling. There are more should help us move from a place of mere belonging in the planet fitness sense and into a deeper revelation of God's great purpose, love, passion, and care for the church, for those that he has called out of darkness and into his wonderful light. We are not a people to quietly sink into the recesses of the world, to slink away in corners of darkness, burying our heads in the sand. We are a called out people, a people who have received mercy, who once lived in judgment. We are called to be salt. We are called to be light. We are called out to bring witness and reflection to the hope that is found in Jesus Christ through our communal witness as the spirit lives and moves and has his being amongst us.

Now, part of this is like, part of all of this series has kind of a greater, a greater meaning of it to it. I mentioned this in the beginning, but this is a pamphlet that holds kind of our statement of faith, our core doctrinal principles. We believe more than this, but this is what we believe to be core doctrinal positions, and we have titled it Here We Stand.

Why would that be important? Here we stand. Listen, if we don't stand on, I don't like cliches, but sometimes they're true. If we don't stand for something, we fall for everything, right? If we don't believe something, we end up believing everything.

And what the world needs from the church right now is a stance. Is a place where they can set their feet down on something that's true.

In a world that says, hey, everything is true, that you want to be true, should be the first indicator that is like, yeah, I don't think you have any understanding of what it is to stand on truth then.

What the world needs from the church right now is a stance that is approached with grace, but is firm with truth.

And this whole series is where we start. It's kind of like the point, one of the points of it. It is true that most issues I think in the culture right now are not necessarily about the Trinity or the nature of the Holy Spirit or some of these doctrinal principles that we are talking about. But listen, everything really is built from the foundation and place of our core theology.

We must take a stand on a foundation that we believe to be true. Because listen, it is a part of who we are as the body, as the bride, as the family, as the dwelling place of God's spirit. It is a core principle of our identity as a church to stand on and be a pillar and foundation of truth in a world and in a culture that doesn't know what it believes. And actively has an enemy that is seeking to deceive people with false truth about their identity, about their purpose, and about their future.

Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter three verse, 1 Timothy chapter three verse 15, he says this, this is what we're gonna end with. If I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

The church exists as the pillar and the foundation of the truth that seeks to proclaim in a voice of grace through the power of the Holy Spirit that God has said what is true. And in it, we carry it within our identity. Let that be our prayer this morning and this week and every day and every morning after it, that God would continue to refine and sanctify our belief and apprehension of his truth. That we may be the pillar and foundation of godliness that the world so desperately needs.

Maybe this morning you're here and you're like, yeah, you know, I never really considered that my belonging here is different than my belonging in the Lions Club or the Kiwanis Club or Planet Fitness or the PTA or whatever it is. And like I said, there's no judgment behind that. It's everything this morning is an invitation for you to step into and believe and to receive and believe the depth and richness to what it means to be redeemed by his blood and called out of the world

And to be part of the body, the bride, the family. The temple of God's spirit.

Maybe you can ask yourself this question this week or maybe you hear the Lord asking it already in your spirit, where do I hear God challenging my understanding of what it means to belong to the church? Maybe in one of these analogies, you heard the Holy Spirit speaking to you like, yeah, I'm speaking directly to you right now. This is what it means to belong. My prayer for you is that God would take that truth and drive it like down to the deepest recesses of your soul, that it would take root and that it would build upon a foundation of truth. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for the gift of your word. We thank you, Father, for the gift of your church. Oh my gosh, Lord, we stand in a place now that we call the church and Lord, change our understanding so that we come to believe even more that this building that we are in right now is simply a gift that you have given to your church. Lord, and it is our desire and our heart to use this resource and to use this gift to be your body in a world that needs the hands and feet of Jesus. To be a bride, preparing ourselves in holiness, to be received by the group, to be the family,

Graciously and humbly receiving everything that is due of us as children of the Father,

To live as people who are indwelt with your spirit. Lord, I pray now as we go into worship, Lord, that we would sing as people who are not just liking a song, but that we Lord would sing as a people who are filled with your spirit and are responding to the move of your spirit in this place.

Lord, confirm in us your truth that we may be for the world a pillar and foundation of your truth, in Jesus name, amen.