Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Local Church: A Sense of Community*

*August 29, 2004*            *          Topical*

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*Scripture Reading: *Responsive Reading #646, The Church

 

*Introduction:*

 

/Our youngest daughter and her family moved to the Toledo, OH, area about 3 years ago.

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/Life wasn’t easy, jobs came hard and were hard, personal problems seemed to take hold.

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/But she began to take example from her life with us here and in this church.

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/She found blessing in being a part of our church community.

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/We advised her to find a good church there – to become a part of a church community of faith that would help to ease some of life’s struggles and where she could contribute her gifts as well.

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/She began to search and eventually landed in a good local church.

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/The kids joined Awana.

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/She joined the choir and began to sing special numbers in worship services.

They sought and obtained counseling.

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/Their lives began to stabilize.

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/Her husband was given a secular job through someone in the church.

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/The church faithfully brought meals when she got sick./

/ And now, this weekend, God is blessing them with a move out of the inner city to a nearby suburb in the apartment building where Miguel does maintenance.

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/They are getting a reduced rent on the apartment.

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/She will be able to quit work and raise the children and reduce her stress.

Her son will be able to start kindergarten in a much better school.

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/She wondered just how they would be able to move all their belongings.

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/My wife was planning to go help watch the children while they borrowed money from us to rent a truck and do it themselves.

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/We told her to let her need be known to the church.

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/We prayed about it.

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/She called this last Thursday to say that the people of the church were coming with several trucks and all the help they need as long as she provides the meals.

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/My wife wouldn’t even need to be there after all, and she is here this morning.

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/Our daughter called yesterday to say that the move went extremely well./

/And I tell you all this to show how we are blessed when we get our priorities right.

They put God first in their lives.

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/They sought to serve him and seek his help in time of need.

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/They found a local community of faith committed to ministering Christ where they are and they will remain faithful and loyal to that church community.

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/They will not forget where their help came from./

The nature of life in this world we live in requires that we consider priorities.

Priorities are necessary because so many things compete for our attention.

The nature of life holds many troubles and responsibilities.

We can get confused by the barrage.

*The general teaching of the church over the ages gives us the very practical approach of God first, family second, and job third.*

But the truth that we must clearly see is that God’s church spans them all.

The church is where we worship God in community and find his help in time of need as God works through that community.

The church is the container and teacher of the divine truth in which we nurture and raise our families in hope that their faith will even surpass our own someday.

And, of course, your job fits in here as the physical means by which you take of your family.

But the church is the spiritual means by which you take care of your family.

And your job is also a physical means by which you take care of the church by your offerings, even while remembering the church will far outlast your job.

Third on the list of priorities, we must keep our secular jobs in perspective.

The place of the church in it all seems too easily forgotten by many.

The church is Christ’s present kingdom on earth where we are hatched, matched and dispatched.

It is where we celebrate birth, marriage and even death.

It spans all of life because all of life belongs to God.

This all seems fairly straight forward: God is sovereign and he gave us our families according to his plan to care for, but it is the concept of the church and our care for it that I want to talk about this morning.

Most of you have a fairly good concept of God and family, but you may need to better understand the concept of the local church and where it fits in your life.

This is a good time to learn about this as we head into the renewed thrust of our church into the fall ministry schedule.

*Big Question:*

 

/So just what is this organization, the church, of which we are a part?

What does the Bible have to say about it?

And just what are we to understand about how and where it fits into our lives?

/

 

The Greek word for church (/ecclesia/) in the NT simply means “an assembly” without any original connection to a place of meeting.

That connection was later developed by the apostles as they spoke of “the church in such-and-such a city” like Ephesus or Laodicea, for instance.

The particular nature of the assembly finds several different senses in the NT.

 

1.

The secular (socio-political sense) -

“If there is anything further you want to bring up, it must be settled in a legal */assembly/*.

As it is, we are in danger of being charged with rioting because of today’s events.

In that case we would not be able to account for this commotion, since there is no reason for it."

After he had said this, he dismissed the assembly.”

(Ac 19:39-41 NivUS)

 

2.

The singular (a few Christians gathered together as in a house church -

“Greet also the */church/* that meets at their house.

Greet my dear friend Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia.” (Ro 16:5 NivUS)

 

 “Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the */church/* in her house.”

(Col 4:15 NivUS)

 

3.

The multiple (the collective church in an area like a city) -

“In the */church/* at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.” (Ac 13:1 NivUS)

 

 “To the */church/* of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ— their Lord and ours:” (1Co 1:2 NivUS)

 

 “And Saul was there, giving approval to his death.

On that day a great persecution broke out against the */church/* at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.”

(Ac 8:1 NivUS)

 

4.

The universal (the visible church; the whole body of professing Christians throughout the world) -

 “For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the */church/* of God and tried to destroy it.”

(Ga 1:13 NivUS)

 

“For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord.

He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every */church/*.”

(1Co 4:17 NivUS)

 

 “And in the */church/* God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.”

(1Co 12:28 NivUS)

 

5.

The spiritual (the invisible church; the whole body of the redeemed) -

“And he is the head of the body, the */church/*; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.”

(Col 1:18 NivUS)

 

 “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God.

You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the */church/* of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven.

You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect,” (Heb 12:22-23 NivUS)

 

The church visible are all those in the world professing true religion by faith in Jesus – visible because its members are known and its assemblies are public.

Herein are chaff as well as wheat, a mixture of saints and sinners.

God has commanded us to give visibility to his kingdom in public places of worship for the proclamation of the gospel and the gathering of all the elect.

Each one of these distinct organized communities faithful to the Great King is an integral part of the visible church, and all together constitute the universal invisible church.

This is the Kingdom of Heaven.

All true individual believers past, present and future is the church invisible gathered into one under Christ, the Head.

This is a pure society, the church in which Christ dwells.

It is called invisible because the greater part of it are those already in heaven or yet unborn, and also because its present members on earth cannot certainly all be distinguished.

The qualifications for membership in it are first of all internal and therefore possibly hidden.

But they are not unseen by “Him who searches the heart”.

“Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: "*/The Lord knows those who are his/*," and, "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness."” (2Ti 2:19 NivUS)