Defining the Church
Notes
Transcript
Handout
This is a series on what the church is. A fancy word for this is our ecclesiology.
What I want to do at the beginning of the year is look at what the church is and what we are called to do.
What we will see throughout this series and today is
The church exists to live the incredible hope and share the incredible hope found in Christ. We make that hope visible and possible.
The church exists to live the incredible hope and share the incredible hope found in Christ. We make that hope visible and possible.
I vs We
What you will hear through this series is not as much of an “I” or “you” but a “we”
This is a necessary distinction. I’m not diminishing the fact that we are individuals but I am highlighting the fact that the church is not the place we come to, it is the people we are.
10 Different definitions
So let’s begin with some definitions. Let’s define the church. I know, it seems redundant seeing we are in a church but what I always find interesting is how many definitions the church has. Meaning if we were to poll 10 people here this morning and asked them what the purpose of the church is, we would likely get 10 different answers. Not that there would be right and wrong answers but there would likely be 10 different perspectives on the church.
As an example, what do you see?
A rabbit or a duck? Well it kind of depends on what you are thinking about, what you saw first, what you like more, etc.
your perspective shapes how you see this picture. And so we have to look at what the church is and see both the rabbit and the duck and be able to first define it.
Stanley Hauerwas said that “first social task of the church is to be the church”
Stanley Hauerwas said that “first social task of the church is to be the church”
Now, as much as that doesn’t really make sense I still really like it as a starting point. Because the church can end up looking like a lot of things, a social club, a business, a social justice organization, a community organization. It can look like a lot of different things the world offers. But that is not it’s purpose. The church is a unique organization, unlike anything else in the world.
We have a calling in our lives, unlike anything else in the world, and while we are social, and we care about the community and we are just and kind in the world, We are called to care for the needs of others, we are called to do that in a peculiar way.
We start by remembering that the task of the church is to look like a church and nothing less.
So let’s offer some definitions of the church.
A Working definition of the church
The center of the church is the Gospel. It is Jesus Christ. If it is anything else then it ceases to be the church.
the community of faith in which God's relationship with man in Christ attains its full visibility. - Thomas Marsh
the community of faith in which God's relationship with man in Christ attains its full visibility. - Thomas Marsh
Bohnhoeffer would agree with that idea, in which Jesus takes the central role, where Christ’s form is proclaimed and acted upon.
If Christ is in the center then everything we do as a collected community forms around that.
We see this community defined in the Scriptures. We will look at a couple of them this morning.
We are a gathered group of people, diverse in our experiences, ages, and personalities, all collected together with Jesus in the center. Our role is to make visible our relationship with Christ in the world for others.
The church needs four different perspectives. We are a people who are storied, who are centered around God, we are for others, and we are on mission.
over the next few weeks we will be looking at what the church is, that we are a community of people who are centered around Christ and who display the reality of Him in the world.
There is no other organization like that, one who lives out Gods redemptive purposes and invites others to live those purposes out.
but “why” the church?
We can define it and answer what church is but why? Why is church?
Why are any of us here?
Here’s the brief track I want us to run on
desire
We all live with this desire for something more. Specifically we as humans created in Gods image desire two big picture things
1. We do everything we can to fill that desire. We are working toward a picture of the flourishing life
2. We all live with a desire to be connected to someone else.
Often in our attempts to fill that desire and to be connected to others miss the mark on doing that well and we end up breaking more relationships than when we started
The church, more directly the head of the church, Jesus, answers those desires and His plan on the earth, the church, responds to being connected to others. The church is the most human and most divine institution on the planet.
God has made Himself known, He has condescended to us. God has shown us what relationships look like and has called us to live lives of reconciliation
Why church? We get to demonstrate what freedom in God looks like and what relationships with one another looks like.
God responds to the human condition and meets us there to free us from sin and allows us to live better lives on the earth.
He calls us to live within Him and that is what a flourishing life looks like
what the church leads us to
The church makes active and visible God’s will and desire for the world. And God’s desire is the only sufficient answer for peace and meaning in our lives
Let’s look at the four perspectives of the church
In story
In story
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
We are a storied people. Meaning that the way that we understand meaning and the way that we make meaning is through story.
The church has a story. Our story is found in the Scriptures, our trust is found in the Bible. If we are going to know what it means to be the church we have to understand where we find our story.
We find our story in the Scriptures. A church community must be formed on conviction of the story of Christ.
Stanley Hauerwas defines the church as the place “where the stories of Israel and Jesus are told, enacted, and heard.”
Stanley Hauerwas defines the church as the place “where the stories of Israel and Jesus are told, enacted, and heard.”
Stories matter because that is how we understand what it looks like to live. What it looks like to change and be formed.
This is why movies are so impactful
And books
and TV
There is a reason these media have endured and why we keep going back to them
There are a number of studies being done in the area of empathy and virtual reality. If you’ve ever used vr then you know that your body responds to the images it sees in the device. If the image you are seeing is up in the air, or overlooking a canyon or a skyscraper or something, your heart rate will pick up and you will become nervous. Even though you are in the safety of your living room your mind still believes the story you are seeing.
Even though flying or peering over a canyon in your living room isn’t reality, it still tells us something about how we work. We are changed and influenced by the stories we hear.
And the church is called to tell the stories of God in the Scriptures and then retell them through our lives.
application and that we are shaped by stories
That’s why we are going through the Bible in our Faith Foundations and that is why we are serving others. We hear the story of God and then work to reenact and retell it in our world.
We pay attention to story because the story we pay attention to becomes how we live in the world.
With God
With God
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
there are a number of metaphors the Bible uses to help us visualize the church.
We are called the body:
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
We are called the bride of Christ
Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.”
We are called the family of God
and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”
the church is a building
you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
The incomplete metaphor of the church
The point in this short survey is to see that each metaphor that the Bible uses to describe the church is incomplete.
It is beautifully incomplete.
The body needs a head
The bride needs a groom
the family needs a parent
the building needs an occupant.
Christ in the middle
The church lives with God in it’s center. We are a community with a core to it. Our mission is to live in such a way that God is in the center and to live in such a way that it looks like God is in the center.
The church lives with God in it’s center. We are a community with a core to it. Our mission is to live in such a way that God is in the center and to live in such a way that it looks like God is in the center.
Let’s look again at that passage in 1 cor.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
No matter where we have come from or what we are like. No matter our socioeconomic status, our race, our politics, our gender, no matter our opinion or age or town we live in, we have been baptized into the body and belong to Christ through the Spirit.
God in the center helps us to get the order right. If He is in the middle then He is the One we respond to, He is the one we submit all those things I just mentioned above to.
All the things that make up who we are are important. They are necessary to who we are and how we operate. But they are submitted to God who is in our center.
He is our authority
He is our source
Why?
He has solved the problem of humanity
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight
He is greater, bigger and more wise than we could ever know. He has brought salvation through his resurrection and has demonstrated love through His sacrifice on the cross.
We are saved by Him
We learn from Him
We follow Him
He has to remain in a place where He is always visible, where all people can see Him. He remains at the center. We are on the margins.
When we live with Christ in the middle, Christ as Lord, it changes how we live toward others.
Whoever or whatever is in the middle of our community or lives will determine what kind of life we lead.
With Christ in the middle, we lead a different kind of life. We lead a life of new creation. Christ does not just insert Himself into the world we live in. He shows us an entire new world.
The church is able to show the world Christ by the lives we lead.
The church is able to show the world Christ by the lives we lead.
For others
For others
And all who believed were together and had all things in common.
and
praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
commitment to the other
There is a commitment to the other in our Christian lives, in our church.
We are called to love one another, called to outdo one another in showing honor. According to this passage the church is “together and had all things in common.”
That doesn’t mean we are in complete agreement on every little thing, it means we are in complete agreement about who is in the center.
Because of that we all choose to live differently. To live for the other.
The passage also states the church had favor with all the people, and people were trusting Christ with their lives.
a caveat of offense
A brief caveat, this does not mean that we think that everyone will like the church. The Gospel is offensive by nature, it does force a choice eventually.
However we often use that as an excuse to be belligerent to others.
We need to allow the Cross of Christ do what it needs to do but we can justify getting in the way of His work.
For the other like Christ is for the other
Our commitment, like the early church, is to be for the other.
That is for us together in the church and for us together as we live in the world
We are to be for our neighbor and our co-worker. We are to be for our families and siblings.
To do less is to lose Christ form the center.
If the One we live by, are freed by and we pattern our life by gave His life for the other,
then the church is called to do the same
this is why we give 10% of our operating costs to worldwide missions. We are for the other.
This is why we actively look for and work with community organizations that are loving our city well like Abundant Hope
We are for the other.
This is why we volunteer with food and friends,
We are for the other
On mission
On mission
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
- We begin with Christ in the middle but never graduate from that.
That said, He sends us out into our world to show people the goodness of Christ.
Being in the world is hard and necessary work. Showing hope is possible.
We recognize the hard work of living in this world. We recognize the darkness and the brokeness and the sin.
Because of that we are sent in to show what life in Christ is like.
That hope is possible
Forgiveness is a reality
Second chances are true
We can have healthy relationships.
This is the role of the church. We aren’t just called to be the church in these walls. We are called to be the church within the city.
When Hauerwas says that the role of the church is to be the church we are called to do so in the city and in the world.
That is why we are going to Guinea next year
That’s why we have the wall back there
That’s why we engage with different places in the city like the parks and others in order to be the church in the city
We do that because we believe that God is worthwhile worshiping but that He does incredible things in the lives of His people.
Application and close
The church is meant to live incredible hope and share incredible hope with the world.
That is what we want to unpack over the next few weeks.
And we want you to be a part, not just of the series, but of the church.
You will see our values played out over the next month, Welcome connect serve lead next. to be a part of the church is to participate in her practices, to live with Christ at the center.
ADVERTISEMENT