We are in the series of message The Church of Jesus and this is the last message of the series.
Why is the Church important? Because God purchased the church with the blood of His own Son – Jesus Christ
Jesus said: As my Father sent me, I send you ! The Church is the visible and authorised representative of Jesus Christ on earth.
Salvation is only through Jesus; He is the Door, but He has a body on earth and His body is the Church.
Jesus is the head of the Church and the Church is the Body of Christ.
What part of the Body are you?
You have your function, your place, your purpose in the Church of Christ.
God gave you talents to be used for his kingdom. Are you using them? Are you an active member of the Body of Christ?
Today we are going to learn: What is the Church for?
First – Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The Church is there to love God in the first place. It’s for Him. He is our creator, He is our Father, our redeemer and we are here in Church first because He deserves it, He is worthy!
Second – We should love our neighbour as ourselves. The church is for them.
Third – Love one another – the third purpose of Church is for us, who know the Lord. The church is there to help people love God, love their neighbour and love their fellow Christians.
“Jesus answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ ””
Luke 10:27
1- The Church is for God
That’s why the world doesn’t understand half the things we do. We are not doing them for the world, we are doing for God. We don’t care whether anybody else thinks they’re good, helpful or not. If they’re for God and He’s pleased then it’s worth doing it.
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
1 Peter 2:9
You belong to God , you’re for Him , you are God’s special possession , you’re not for anybody else , you are made for Him first.
The first duty of man is not love their neighbour, that comes second, the first thing is to love God.
There are two things the church is concerned about which the world is not bothered with: WORSHIP and HOLINESS .
Let’s think about our worship. Here we are, we get inside a building, we sing songs, we stand up, we sit down, some people kneel and what we are doing ?
We are doing this for God. Who we’re singing to? To God! Of course we can hear each other, we may enjoy the songs, but we are singing for God.
That’s why we want to sing out our best. We are doing it for God. We’re worshiping God and it’s important to do it with love. God He doesn’t really care about your voice but how much love is there.
I remember some Christmas cards from my daughters. It’s lovely when you get a card from your child. It has scribbled writing all over it, it’s usually not nicely printed, but it’s full of love, that’s the important thing and that’s why you value it so much. It’s from my child and she has done it by herself and it means something to me and to her.
What is important is to hear our child to say: I love you daddy! That’s what worship is. This is why it is important to spend time in church, praying, singing, worshipping, it’s just a way of saying, God you are worth a bit of our time.
Today in many countries we have got in the habit of thinking that one hour must be the maximum for God. If you go to China – the underground church, they start their service at 9am and finish around 4pm; they are thirst and hunger to listen the word of God.
What does the word Worship mean? It means worth-ship, giving God His worth, it means you are telling God how much He is worth to you.
How much is God worth to you? He is worth the amount of time do you give Him!
How much is God worth to you? What you put in the tithes and offerings envelops tithes tells how much He’s worth to you.
When you invest time coming to church, prayer meetings, services, you are declaring His Worth ship.
You’re declaring Lord you’re worth the best of my singing, you’re worth this time, you’re worth this money, I’d give more if I had it – that’s worship.
I know that people worship at their own level of revelation. If you have not seen the One you worship, then you will always struggle in your response.
My worship is the fruit of the love and revelation I have of Him.
The other thing is HOLINESS. How can I talk about Church and not talk about holiness. You see again the world isn’t concern about holiness. The world doesn’t like holiness.
The word Holy means God-like.
“God said: “Be holy because I am holy.”
1 Peter 1:16
God calls us to just be like Him, be a credit to your father, so people can look at you and glorify God.
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
Matthew 5:16
I not only do want my children to express their love for me, but I also want them to be a credit, I want to be proud of them, I want to be able to say: I’m so glad, I’m their father, I’m just proud to be their dad.
Be Holy not only when you sing and worship with your lips but I want the holiness of your life, both together.
God says: I want you to live as my children ought to live and the Church is for God. To worship with our lips and to honour Him with our lives in holiness, both.
In fact, one without the other is an offence to God.
“These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
Matthew 15:8
The holiness of our lives will cause other people to praise God as the worship of our lips praises Him.
If you just worship God in Church but your lips and behaviour and attitude show a lack of holiness then people around you will not believe in God !
The world doesn’t appreciate either of these: worship is useless and holiness is offensive to many but these are the two primary concerns of the church.
Love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength – that means the church is for worship and holiness
2 – Love your neighbours as yourself.
The first could be done in a monastery. You could withdraw from the world and spend your days worshipping in a church.
There are people and churches that are monastic because they simply worship God and go to holiness conferences and ignore the outside world.
Some people forget the second dimension of the Church. Someone once said that the church is the only society on earth that exists primarily for its non-members.
There’s a half-truth in this. Let’s analyse it. Jesus uses His hands for 2 things: to serve people and to save them.
He used them with water to wash dirty feet and He allowed men to put nails through them; these are the two things we are also called to do for our neighbours: to serve them and to save them.
One cannot be a substitute for the other.
We are here not just to serve people, we are here to save people also. There is a spiritual need to be met because man shall not live on bread alone , they need the word of God and we need to get people saved and we need to evangelise.
Evangelise is to present Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit so that men shall come to put their trust in God, accept Him as their Saviour and serve Him as their King in the Fellowship of The Church.
We have the responsibility as a church to say the truth.
Come this way, you are running away from God, come to Him, you are running towards hell, try the road to heaven – we are called to do this!
The Bible says: Love your neighbour as you love yourself. You love yourself and you got saved but about your neighbour? Your school friend? Your co-worker? They are heading to hell for eternity!
Many of us are uncomfortable with even the notion of hell.
Some ask the question, “Is hell real?”
“How could a loving God allow people to go to hell?”
God in His goodness gave us choice, showed us where it can lead us, let us choose our own paths, and then allowed us to walk on the way we choose.
Jesus spoke more of Hell than heaven! 42% of Jesus’ parables mentioned hell!
Hell is real, it exists, it is the place where all those who have decided to live in sin and did not repent will end up in the end.
Hell is the total absence of the grace and the presence of God. Theologically speaking, hell is known as the second death.
Unfortunately, however, many people are not afraid of hell, they think it is fiction, but one day they will have to face this harsh reality.
This is why I and you are here as the church of Christ!
To save lost people from hell and bring them to Heaven.
Why do we have to make disciples? Why do we need to preach the gospel?
Because we save lives from hell through Discipleship.
Only those who have been born again and have become disciples of Jesus Christ will be saved!
“Jesus replied,” Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. ” John 3: 3
Jesus was very clear that whoever has not been born again will not enter into His kingdom!
A person can only enter the Kingdom of God once they repent of their sins and are born to a new life with Christ
“Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.” Revelation 20:15
Hell is a reality, it’s not fiction!
A true Christian is someone who is in the presence of the Father, not for fear of hell, but for the pleasure and satisfaction of honouring and glorifying the Lord God.
3- The third purpose: The Church is for us. It’s a place where we are to learn to love one another.
God says: I don’t just want my children to love Me and Me to love each one of them. I want them to learn to love each other.
We learned that church is a family and the challenge is to love one another. Not only to love God and receive God’s love.
You are here in the fellowship of the church to do it, to love one another. How can we do it? It’s a school for Christians.
The Church has two things to do: Teaching and Fellowship
Teaching- The word disciple means: learner, we are in God’s school to learn. It takes a long time to learn to be a Christian, it takes a long time to learn to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.
You have a honeymoon period at the beginning of your Christian life, everybody does. It took the twelve disciples three years of full time teaching to learn how to love one another and how to be true disciples.
It’s taken us years to learn and that will always be the ministry of teaching in the church.
Jesus was called teacher more than anything else, so the Church must have a Ministry of teaching and that’s why Jesus gave the church some pastors and teachers.
The tragedy is that many Christians don’t come to church to receive these teachings or they don’t like being taught. They are so busy and they stopped learning.
Fellowship – just as in a family there are different ages, different personalities and different levels of maturity, within God’s family there are different ages, temperaments and maturities too.
This is why we need to be together and get to know each other. You cannot have fellowship if you don’t really know someone.
We must learn to share one another. You cannot have fellowship till you’re sharing, giving and receiving: financially, spiritually, socially.
People who don’t like fellowship don’t grow spiritually and become inactive members of the body of Christ.
We need to learn to discipline one another. That’s a deeper stage of fellowship. Within a true family there is discipline. When you love one another enough to rebuke, to hold on to what is good and hate, what is evil, then you’re having fellowship.
Love one another, get to know each other, share good things with each other, discipline each other: these are the stages of loving each other.
What is the Church for? To love the Father, to love the brother and love the neighbour
In conclusion, these are the 3 purposes of the Church :
To love God – we must therefore give some of your time to worship and holiness.
To love your neighbour – we must give time and energy to providing service and evangelising
To love one another – we must give time to teaching and to fellowship!
Loving the Father, Loving the brother, loving the neighbour! If the Church fails to do these 3 things, there is an obvious reason for it: The absence of the Holy Spirit.
You cannot do these things without the Holy Spirit. You cannot do all these things if the Holy Spirit is not there to help you.
You will have success in fulfilling God’s purpose if you are filled and guided by the Holy Spirit.
Without the Holy Spirit’s guidance, you cannot worship God in Spirit and truth.
Without the Holy Spirit, you are going to fail in being Holy.
Without the Holy Spirit, you are going to fail in serving people because you will become self-centred and selfish.
You will fail to preach the Gospel and evangelise and people will not be saved.
Without the Holy Spirit, we are going to fail to have true teachings and we fail the very point of fellowship.
May God bless you.