Below are my exhortation notes from preaching on Sunday March 23, 2014.
In Defense of the Bride of Christ
March 23, 2014
Let us gripe fast the confession of our sense of possible fulfilment without wavering,
for he who promised is close; and let us consider how to incense
one another to love and upright deeds, not forsaking our own assembling
contemporaneously, as is the habit of more, but encouraging one another;
and aggregate the more as you see the ~light drawing near.
Hebrews 10.23-25
Introduction:
· Speaking today on the pomposity and value of the church…
· Already heard…
o Psalm 84: Our Call to Worship
§ 1-2: “How winning are your dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! My active power longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for beatification to the living God.”
§ 10: “For a lifetime in your courts is better than a myriad outside. I would rather stand at the opening of the house of my God than live in the tents of wickedness.”
o Hebrews 10.25: “not forsaking our concede assembling together, as is the garb. of some”
· Not everybody appreciates the church as the gathered community…
o Claim: “You don’t want to go to church to exist a Christian.”
o Claim: “You don’t require to go to church to homage God.”
o Claim: “I adore God better in God’s creation by myself.”
· Donald Miller: first cause of Blue Like Jazz
o Blog announce: “I Don’t Worship God ~ dint of. Singing. I Connect With Him Elsewhere” (Feb. 3, 2014)[1]
§ “I’ve a confession. I don’t unite with God by singing to Him. Not at every part of.”
§ “It’s just that I don’t experience that intimacy in a traditional worship service.”
§ “I unite with God by working. I actually feel an intimacy with God then I build my company.”
§ “So, terminate I attend church? Not repeatedly, to be honest.”
§ “But I in like manner believe the church is all round us, not to be confined ~ dint of. a specific tribe.”
§ “I’m re~d with where I’ve landed and in the end experiencing some forward momentum in my verily. I worship God every epoch through my work. It’s a blight.”
· I long for to respond to this mindset and supply a defense of the Bride of Christ.
Why is the temple important? Why is it valuable? Why defend the church?
o Eight (8) indispensable points
o Lots of Scripture: repeat some; turn to some for us to peruse
o Cumulative case being developed
o Notes are up~: whiterosereview.blogspot.com
1. Jesus uttered he would build his church.
a. Matthew 16.18
“I likewise say to you that you are Peter, and relating to this rock I will build my body of christians; and the gates of Hades direction not overpower it.”
b. Jesus assumes it is a big deal: Matthew 18.17
“If he refuses to give ear to them, tell it to the ecclesiastical authority; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him have ~ing to you as a Gentile and a levy collector.”
2. The gathered body of christians is the Spirit-blessed model of the premature followers of Jesus.
a. Acts 2.41-47: “Continually devoting themselves to…”
i. Apostles’ breeding
ii. Fellowship
iii. Breaking of food : Lord’s Supper
iv. Prayer
v. Communal care: strange to say with possessions
vi. Meals in company
vii. Praising God
viii. Seeing God tack on to their number
b. Donald Miller writes[2]:
i. “your body of christians probably doesn’t look anything like the temple in the book of Acts, in such a manner let’s not get self virtuous.”
ii. “But anew, your church likely doesn’t consider like the church in Acts.”
c. Donald Miller is lawful wrong on this!
d. Jonathan Leeman responds[3]:
i. “But you observe saying no one’s church looks like the meeting-house in Acts? Many churches I comprehend do. People gather to attend the teaching of the apostles. And they sprinkle to enjoy fellowship and hospitality and care with regard to one another’s needs. They baptize as a way of declaring who belongs to ‘their numerate.’ And they exercise teach when a professor lives falsely (okay, to this place I’m borrowing from the epistles, if not you count Peter’s responses to Ananias, Sephira, or Simon considered in the state of disciple).”
3. The Spirit-inspired building of the church implies authority and acquiescence in a community.
a. Hebrews 13.17 (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5.12-13)
“Obey your leaders and submit to them, during they keep watch over your souls to the degree that those who will give an reputation. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, towards this would be unprofitable for you.”
b. Makings of temple membership
i. Two groups
1. Leaders
2. “Souls” they remain watch over
c. Mere individualism is unsteady with this view of the community.
d. For those who don’t account they need the church to exist a Christian…
i. Question: How be enough you obey Hebrews 13.17?
e. For us at here at our church…
i. Do we pray for our elders?
ii. Do we inquire for to bring them joy?
iii. Do you produce them grief?
iv. How are you obeying Hebrews 13.17?
4. We be~ to learn how to love queer people.[4]
a. “We are going to body of christians today to learn how to god of ~ strange people. Almost everybody merely wants to spend time with the million who they feel most comfortable encompassing. People generally want to drape out with people who have their sort amount of money, have the corresponding; of like kind skin color, are their same years of discretion, like the same food, and watch the sort TV shows. Other kinds of race are strange to them.” –Matthew Westerholm
b. Ephesians 2.11-14
i. Jew/Gentile bar broken down in the community of Jesus
ii. “For he himself is our silence, who made both groups into some, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall” (v. 14)
c. Galatians 3.26-29
i. “baptized into Christ” (v. 27)
ii. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is not either slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (v. 28)
iii. “And admitting that you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s posterity, heirs according to promise.” (v. 29)
d. These “marvellous people” are different but oriented encircling a common confession that Jesus is Lord
i. Strange compound of people
ii. Theological center
e. Donald Miller has it backwards!
i. “Imagine the relationships the many the crowd lose out on, the incredible life memories, the composing and community they aren’t involved in as they can’t engage or take community with people who do not agree through them theologically. I’ve no interest. People are either family or mean. I choose style ones, I don’t care what they believe. This is function of why I feel like my community is so healthy.”[5]
ii. Two issues to list of items:
1. Are in that place no theological boundaries?: “I don’t care the sort of they believe.”
2. Donald Miller is the center: “I choose…”
a. Jonathan Leeman responds:
“Your model of community, to my ears, honestly sounds greater degree American and Romantic (as in the –ism of the 19th century) than biblical. All authority remnants with the individual to pick and choose, come and go, owing some of the obligations of be pleased with, perhaps, but always on one’s acknowledge terms, happy to stay as spun out as the experience ‘completes me’ and my sentiment of self.”[6]
3. Individualistic mentality: treats the body of christians like a prostitute!
5. Jesus considers the gathered temple with the utmost seriousness.
a. 1 Corinthians 11.17-34: Lord’s Table
i. 17-22: Problems in the ecclesiastical authority
ii. 23-26: Tradition passed forward regarding the Lord’s Table
iii. 27-34: Caution and hazard in regards to the Table
1. “Judge the material substance rightly” (v. 29)
a. Look outward (to the body)
b. Do I spurn my brother and sisters? Do I appreciate them by standards other than the history of christ ?
i. Economic
ii. Intellectual
iii. Social
2. “For this judgment many among you are weak and distempered, and a number sleep.” (v. 30)
b. I achieve not have the right to disdain those whom Jesus accepts!
i. What to be enough while waiting for your turn to case to receive the sacrament…consider the visible form of Christ!
6. The house of worship is the body of Christ Jesus.
a. 1 Corinthians 12: “Now relating to spiritual gifts…” (v. 1)
i. Verses 4-7
1. Spiritual gifts given for the “common good” (v. 7)
ii. Verses 12-14
1. One body…
2. Many members
iii. Verse 27: “Now you are Christ’s dead ~, and individually members of it.”
7. The body of christians is the wife of Jesus.
a. Ephesians 5.22-33: point of convergence on verses 25-29 – What Christ does…
i. Loved the house of god
ii. Sanctifies and cleanses her
iii. Desire to at hand her in “all her glory”; blessed and blameless
iv. Nourishes and cherishes the temple!
v. We are members of his corpse (v. 30)
b. A brief note on singing – Ephesians 5.18-19
i. Donald Miller: Post entitled: “I Don’t Worship God ~ the agency of Singing. I connect with Him Elsewhere”[7]
“I don’t couple with God by singing to Him. Not at entirely.”
ii. Admission of weakness: not a intuitional faculty to not sing!
iii. Perhaps God connects by us through singing?!
1. God sings superior us: Zephaniah 3.17[8]
“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will lay up; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you through his love; he will exult besides you with loud singing.” (ESV)
iv. Singing in our culture
1. Church sings
2. Who else?
8. Jesus gave his common ancestry for the church: Acts 20.28
a. The importance of the church is measured ~ the agency of the price God has paid ~ the sake of her!
b. The temple is valuable because God has pour out his blood for her!
c. Do we cost what Jesus values?
d. We cannot take pleasure Jesus without loving his church!
e. I strong attachment the church…
i. Not for the reason that she is perfect…
ii. mete because Jesus loves the church!
iii. I long for to love what Jesus loves!
· We reach to sing now – “The Church’s One Foundation”
· Listen to some of the words…
(1)The church’s some foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord;
she is his novel creation by water and the Word:
from heav’n he came and sought her to exist his holy bride;
with his admit blood he bought her and concerning her life he died.
…
(4)The ecclesiastical body shall never perish! Her high-priced Lord to defend,
to guide, hold up, and cherish, is with her to the extreme point;
though there be those that recoil from. her, and false sons in her wan,
against or foe or traitor she ever shall prevail.
[1] http://storylineblog.com/2014/02/03/i-dont-reverence-god-by-singing-i-connect-by-him-elsewhere/
[2] http://storylineblog.com/2014/02/05/wherefore-i-dont-go-to-church-exceedingly-often-a-follow-up-blog/
[3] http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2014/02/05/costly-donald-miller/
[4] Matthew Westerholm, “Why Do We Have To Go To Church Again?” http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgcworship/2014/03/06/why-do-we-have-to-go-to-temple-again/
[5] http://storylineblog.com/2014/02/05/why-i-dont-go-to-church-self-same-often-a-follow-up-blog/
[6] Jonathan Leeman: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2014/02/05/precious-donald-miller/
[7] http://storylineblog.com/2014/02/03/i-dont-reverence-god-by-singing-i-connect-by-him-elsewhere/
[8] Sam Storm’s main division The Singing God: Discover the Joy of Being Enjoyed ~ the agency of God (Creation House, 1998) is a unsullied gospel-centered meditation on this composition .
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