The Local Church

Introduction: And a brief prayer, an old Anglican prayer:

‘Father, what we know not, teach us. What we have not, give us. What we are not, make us. For your Son’s sake. Amen’.

Time to fight for the Local Church!

The following was mainly taken from https://www.challies.com/articles/why-the-local-church-really-matters/

Introduction: As we prepare to worship God tomorrow, it may do us good to pause for just a few moments to consider the local church. What is the church? Why has God called us into these little communities? Does the local church really matter? It does!

In their book Church in Hard Places, Mez McConnell and Mike McKinley offer 6 reasons that the local church matters.

1. The local church is the way God intends to accomplish his mission in the world.

“It is primarily through the local church that God wants to make himself known.”

• Of all the evangelism strategies in the world, of all the ministries in the world, none is more central than the local church.
• It’s interesting to note that Paul considered his ministry in an area fulfilled not when every person was reached, but when churches had been planted (see Romans 15:19-20).
• “Paul knew that the churches there were how the gospel would spread into all of the individual neighborhoods.
•  Local churches do local evangelism.” The church is God’s plan, it is God’s mission.

1. The local church should matter to us because it matters to God.

The church is Jesus’ body on earth (see Ephesians 1:22-23) and it is made up of all kinds of people from all walks of life.

“Together we represent Christ here on earth through our local body of believers.

• Therefore, the church is central to the purposes of God and is of benefit to the world around us—even today in our increasingly hostile culture.”
• The church exists for God’s glory and showcases it in a unique way.
• “The church is built for Jesus, by Jesus, and on Jesus. It is simply unthinkable then to separate Jesus from the local church.

Application: If the gospel is the diamond in the great salvific plan of God, then the church is the clasp that supports it, holds it up, and shows it in its greatest light for the world to see.” If it matters so much to God, it needs to matter to us just as much.

Transition:

3. The local church is where the believer grows.

* It is primarily in the local church that Christians learn doctrine, receive reproof, and train in righteousness (see Ephesians 4:11-13).

* The local church provides opportunities for growth that are available nowhere else.

McConnell says, “In a scheme [a neighborhood] like Niddrie, people need the concerted time and effort that only a local church can provide. Very often people will turn up on our doorstep having heard the gospel through some parachurch ministry. Yet they almost always have large gaps in their biblical knowledge and Christian behavior.

• Without a local church committed to patiently teaching and training them, these people will flounder indefinitely.”
• We all need a local church if we are to become like Christ.

Transition:

1. The local church is the place where believers must submit themselves to spiritual authority.
   
   
2. Many people from many walks of life struggle with issues of authority, though this problem is especially prevalent in the schemes of Scotland.

Application: Mez says, “They will not accept criticism or input from anybody they regard as an authority figure.”

This attitude needs to be dealt with immediately.

• God calls Christians to submit to spiritual authority within the local church (see Hebrews 13:17).

All believers are called by God to put themselves under the care and oversight of elders.

BOOM: “A culture that despises any kind of authority needs to see healthy models of leadership and submission. And the place for people to see this modeled is in the local church.”

• The local church is the best place for spiritual accountability.

Application: We have probably all encountered people who believed they were called to ministry or who even carried out some kind of ministry even though their lives were a mess.

• This happens where people do not have proper spiritual accountability.

‘All Christians need the spiritual accountability and discipline that being a member of the local church brings’.

• It stops us from drifting.
• It offers a context for encouragement and rebuke.
• It provides a community to stir one another on to love and good deeds.”

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Transition/Question: That stated, what are some of the greatest challenges facing today’s local church (especially in So. Cal)?

Pastor Mike’s simplistic/non-empirical list?

1. Divided Loyalties
2. Busy Schedules / Time
3. Apathy
4. Compromise

Transition: Let me list a much better and more informed diagnosis written in Lifeway Voices written by Trevin Wax in January 2019:

4 Big Challenges Facing the Church in the West Today

‘The church is in crisis, as it always is. Such could be said of the church in the early centuries, during the middle ages, in the tumultuous time of the Reformation, and in our modern era. From the days when Christians were getting drunk at the table in Corinth to the brutal extermination of Christians today at the hands of Islamic terrorists, crises have been constant. Heresies strike from inside, persecutions from outside. The church is in crisis.

Wax cites four cultural challenges:

#1. We live in a society enthralled by ‘expressive individualism’.

Yuval Levin in The Fractured Republic describes “expressive individualism” this way:

‘. . . a desire to pursue one’s own path . . . [and] a yearning for fulfillment through the definition and articulation of one’s own identity.’

“Be You” and “Be True to Yourself” are society’s favorite slogans—the first and greatest commandments for this way of life.

• Expressive individualism poses a challenge for the church because God’s Word challenges the “Me” with the “Us” and then sets the “Us” under God.
  
  
• The human tendency is to look inward when God’s Word says to look upward. We resist the upward look because it implies that someone or something is above us, and that Someone might have authority.
  
  
• And, formed by Western assumptions about freedom and happiness, we chafe against claims of moral authority over us or institutions that ask something from us.

We resist anything that might stifle our self-defined freedom!

Wax boldly states that ‘The chief end of religion is to glorify man so he can enjoy himself forever.’

#2. We have a pragmatic view of religion in our society that relegates our faith to the private sphere of personal values.

• In today’s world, people tend to see science as the arbiter of public truth and facts.
   
• Religion is an influence regarding values, but these values aren’t absolute or transcendent. Religion is relegated to the private and personal, something to be kept away from the public square. Its importance is connected only to the sense of meaning or identity it gives to its adherents.

BOOM: The challenge here is that many Christians now see their faith only in terms of its effect on their lives, not its overall truthfulness.

BOOM: Christianity’s moral demands are applicable only if they bring the kind of happiness we’ve already decided must be the goal of life.

#3: An increasing number of people see Christian morality as not only old-fashioned but also extreme or dangerous.

#4. People are increasingly isolated, fragmented, and polarized.

The challenge for the church in this era is to resist the transformation of our gatherings into places where everyone merely seeks mutual fulfillment.

For far too many today, we go to church because it helps us self-actualize, not because it makes us good, or because we seek to glorify God, or we want to do good to our neighbors.

BOOM: We go to church like we go anywhere else, to be affirmed.

Conclusion: Things worth fighting for:

1. Message of the Cross
2. Importance / Significance of Local Church
3. Care and Concern for One Another

Next Week

• The Necessity of Righteousness and Personal Holiness