A Glorious Church

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This is a message that was given on the Sunday in which we conducted our annual membership meeting and it was intended to serve as a sort of state of the church address.

Written Excerpts:

Eph. 5:27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

Introduction:

I want to begin today by very briefly commenting on the verse of scripture upon which the title of this message is based.

The context for v. 27 is vv. 25-26   Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, ²⁶  that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word

Christ loved the church so He gave Himself for the church.

Christ gave Himself for the church so He could sanctify and cleanse the church.

Christ sanctifies and cleanses the church so He could present to Himself a glorious church.

What is a glorious church? One that reflects the glory of God. It reflects all the magnificent and spectacular qualities of perfection found in the Triune God.

Is it completely spotless and without blemish now? No. Is it a finished product now? No. But it will be one of these days, and no, He isn’t waiting until we all get through this life to do all that He wants to do with the church. He is currently doing significant things with His church today. The cleansing may not be finished, but it is already happening.

As we have announced at the beginning of today’s service, we will be dismissing earlier than usual in order to allow time for our annual membership meeting.

Therefore, I wanted to use the sermon time this morning to do a type of “State of the Church” message, which will accomplish a couple of purposes.

1. It will shorten our Annual Mtg. a little, since this will replace a portion of my “Pastor’s Report” that I normally give.

2. It will allow me to share things with the whole church that usually only gets presented to a dozen or two people.

Going to pretty much read my message to conserve time.

First of all, let me reemphasize a foundational concept that we’ve talked about before, but probably needs to be repeatedly reviewed.

Church is not a building, and it is not programs, whether those programs be worship services, dinners, Sunday schools, youth meetings, etc., etc.

Church is not denominations or associations or organizations.

Church is not something we do on Sunday mornings for an hour and a half, so we can feel like we’ve done our duty to God, and now we can get on with the really important things and fun things in life that we really care about.

The Church is all people who have been saved from the wrath of God; washed in the blood of Jesus; forgiven for their self-willed transgressions against God; and filled with the Spirit to live out His purposes in all aspects of everyday life.

That is about the quickest way I know to define the word “church.”

In a previous mini series of messages a few years ago, I presented a three-fold mission of the church that I believe is taught in the Bible. What I want to do for a little while today is review those three aspects of our mission as a church and try to evaluate how I think we’re doing.

I. The Upward Mission – Glorify God

Ephesians 1:12 (NKJV) that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

1 Corinthians 10:31 (NKJV) Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

One of the ways that we try to bring glory to God is through our worship services.

Earlier I said that worship services do not = church, but worship is one of the things that the church does. I don’t know what you think, but I believe that we have a strong sense of worshiping God

most of the time when we gather on Sunday mornings (although there are obviously some exceptions, to the extent that any of us allow our minds to be distracted from our focus on God and we become focused on lesser things).

But this is only a part of our worship – i.e. corporate worship, which is vital, it is necessary and it is the norm for Christians in the NT. It is us realizing that He is the focus not us.

However, personal worship is also taught in scripture and is equally important. Since it is personal, there is no way I can accurately assess it, but I fear that there are those in our congregation who have fallen victim to the philosophy I expressed earlier, i.e., church (or worship) is what we do for 1 ½ hours on Sunday morning, so we can say we’ve fulfilled that obligation and now we can go about our own business the rest of the week.

You have to ask yourself the question, “How much do I worship God in my personal, daily life?”

One thing I know for sure is this: the more that people worship Him on a daily basis in their personal lives, the more vitality we will experience in our corporate worship.

I heard this thought expressed many times: “It’s wonderful that so many people take the time to come to a worship service to get their spiritual tanks refilled each week, but how much more wonderful it would be if those same people came to the worship service with their spiritual tanks already full with the presence of God, so that it just spills out all over when we all get together!”

I know that sometimes it’s normal and necessary for people to come to church hoping and expecting the service, or the pastor to give me something today that will lift me up and help get me through another week, and that’s okay, for we all experience those seasons.

But how glorious it would be if people came to the church worship service bubbling over with the joy of the Lord because of His nearness to them all week, and they’re not seeking for an uplift, they’re just seeking for a suitable way to vent their joy and gratitude for all God has done during this week.

What about our church life, personally and corporately, are we truly bringing glory to God, or are we exalting ourselves?

II. The Inward Mission – Building up One Another

This aspect of the church’s mission focuses on our responsibilities to each other in the body of Christ.

This includes:

·        Demonstrating love and tender compassion

·        Mutual support for all of life’s adversities

·        Prayer for one another and encouraging one another

·        Teaching, instruction and disciple-making

·        Getting together in groups or one-on-one to study, to pray, to bond in fellowship, etc.

How are we doing?

By my observations, I’d say we do a fairly good job of encouraging one another, supporting one another and praying for one another.

Many people have expressed their appreciation to me for how the church body has responded to them with cards, phone calls and prayers in their times of need.

I’m happy to say that this is normally the case even among the newer members of the congregation as well as those who’ve been a part of this body for years.

I have been especially pleased to know that there are a handful of individuals and couples who take the time to even visit those who are sick and in need (they obviously don’t think that the Pastor is the only one who can/should do it). However, I might add, most of these folks are in the retirement age bracket. I hope some of the younger folks will catch the vision for this kind of ministry as well.

There’s always room for improvement, but I think we make a great effort in mutually supporting and encouraging one another.

One area that I think we could use some improvement is in the area of teaching, instruction and disciple-making.

We have a great foundation and we are making some progress, but I think we’ve only scratched the surface.

Bob Corner, Dick Thompson and Marilyn Hollabaugh study hard and prepare SS lessons that dig into the Word of God. I hear frequent compliments of the adult class.

Kris and Heather are doing a splendid job with the junior church and they are teaching Bible knowledge to these kids that most of them aren’t getting anywhere else. Many of the children are not getting very much spiritual teaching at home.

I want to commend Becky Sterner for her passion for working with youth. She’s had help from time-to-time from Sara Giesler and from Chris Cochoff. Becky is doing a good job, and I hope that teaching ministry will blossom and develop.

We have recently seen the development of a ladies Bible study being held weekly, which seems to be generating some significant interest and enthusiasm among those who are attending. This is exciting and I hope it will continue.

In spite of all these things that are happening, I think there are a couple areas of need: (1) Men’s discipleship training; (2) Prayer meetings.

I am hoping that God will lay it on the heart of one or two men to start up a study/prayer/ accountability group for men and that it will catch fire among the men of our church. Men, God has given us the responsibility of spiritual leadership in our families, and it is absolutely impossible for us to give them something that we don’t have ourselves.

Prayer: Just about every year in our annual meeting I stress the fact that I’m disappointed with the low attendance in our weekly prayer meetings.

Maybe Wednesday evenings are not good for your schedule. If that’s true, then by all means get together with a small group some other time during the week to pray.

God’s Word tells us that our two strongest weapons in the spiritual warfare against Satan and the evil of the world are: His Word and prayer.

Prayer is not asking God to bless us and make things work out all nice and rosy for us, so that our life is easier. Prayer is doing spiritual battle with the enemy of our souls and the enemy of our Lord and the destroyer of our culture, and its seeking the power of heaven to overcome the power of this world. Prayer is the act of imploring God to let His Kingdom come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven; for His Kingdom of light to overrule the kingdom of darkness. 

III. The Outward Mission – Pre-evangelism; evangelism

This aspect of the church’s mission involves anything that is done for the purpose of reaching out to those who are outside the church, i.e. do not know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and are not attempting to order their lives according to His purposes.

This involves both local and international outreach. Once again I remind us this morning that being a disciple of Jesus and being a part of His church is not about us, but it’s all about Him and His agenda. And the Bible is very clear that God’s agenda is to save the lost, wherever they are. To the extent we lose that focus, is the extent that we have forsaken the plan and agenda of Jesus Christ.

One aspect of outreach I have referred to as pre-evangelism, because there are times when we must demonstrate compassion and concern for people before we can ever hope to interest them in a God they do not know and consequently do not trust. Sometimes we need to gain their trust before they will trust our God, whom they’ve never truly known.

Pre-evangelism takes different forms, but includes things like giving assistance with physical needs, responding to disasters, or any number of ways of showing compassion.

Evangelism, on the other hand, actually involves leading people to the point of surrender to Christ and giving Him the control over their lives after confessing and repenting of their sins, and seeking His forgiveness.

We do a fair job, I think, in trying to show people that we care about them by helping out in times of need and disaster. Yes, we could do better, but it’s always a challenge to know the difference between giving someone a hand up, versus perpetuating a situation that is self-defeating.

We need lots of help in the area of evangelizing the lost. I feel condemnation a lot myself for not leading more people to Christ.

I certainly want to do better, and I want to help you lead people to Christ, as well.

We are recently making an effort in one area, i.e. cooperation in Celebrate Recovery ministry, although I’ve been disappointed about the lack of response from our congregation to help out in this effort. I hope we will catch the vision.

We are also planning for some additional efforts to reach out to the youth, but the plans are still in “infancy” stage.

Conclusion:

In spite of the difficulties in accurately measuring spiritual life, I would like to say that I find reasons to be encouraged with our congregation. There seems to be a number of people within the church who show signs of seeking after more of God’s presence in their lives and who appear to be striving to obey the Lord in their conduct and attitudes.

However, as the pastor and the one who is charged with the responsibility of leading our church into a deeper understanding of biblical faith and practical godliness, I am always hoping and praying for even greater commitment to God and His priorities in our church and in our families. It will always be the devil’s purpose, and consequently a serious danger, for all of us to cool off spiritually and become complacent about the practice of righteousness and godliness in everyday life. Therefore, we must always seek to have God revive a fervent passion within us to be all He wants us to be.