The Purpose of the Church 2: Equipping Believers

This month I am taking “Guitar Boot Camp,” a 1 hour per week intense series of lessons to become a better guitar player. Most things in life involve some training. We go to school which is mostly prep for college or a vocation, and college is prep hopefully to get a job, and then you train for a job or jobs! Some jobs require that our training be continually updated (ask a teacher or doctor).

Being a member of God’s Church is no different. One of the purposes God has for organizing the followers of Jesus into local churches is so that we can be trained to be productive, God-fearing, people loving, saints who walk, talk, and act like Jesus. !

1. God’s Goal for All Believers

Romans 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son

God has a goal for every believer. His decreed will for each of is to become like Jesus. “Likeness” here means representation. We are to be more and more like Christ all the time. When people look at us they should be able to see an ever clearer representation of the Savior.

God does not save people and then just leave them alone; He has a goal in mind for your life and it to become like His Son Jesus! The word Christian even means “little Christ” (although we all know we sometimes do not live up to that Name)!

2. How will God achieve this goal? Equipping

Ephesians 4:11-13 occurs in the same passage that is teaching about Christian Unity. Whatever other differences we have we must keep in mind we have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Spirit and one Father!

He then goes on to explain how our Father gave us people to equip us:

Ephesians 4:11-13 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, ¹² to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ¹³ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

“Prepare” or “Equip” means to mend or prepare for complete readiness.

This word has the idea that some things are not right or ready and need fixed or improved before we are fully done! Sometimes this word is even used in medical context.

God’s people need healing from sin and preparedness because according to:

Ephesians 2:8-10 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

God saved you to do the works He prepared for you to do! God did not save you to warm a pew or be in thorn in your sister’s backside. He saved you to perform good works that He prepared in advance for you to do, and He put you together with other believers and people to help equip you so that you can get those things done.

We have to get over the idea that being a Christian is solely about who we are (right beliefs). It is also about what we do (right actions)! Eph 2:8-10 tells us God changes who we are because He has things for us to do!! It says “created in Christ Jesus TO DO good works” – one reason for your salvation is your re-creation to do good things!!

This is particularly important in light of 1 Corinthians 12 where we are told each person is given spiritual gifts by the Holy Spirit to serve within the church. This means that within the church, everyone has an important role to play. In fact 1 Corinthians 12 is quite clear that there are no unimportant members of the body, but in fact we all need to be working together in order to be the church God wants us to be!

To make the best use of those gifts and fulfill our purposes for God, He has given the church certain people to help in this equipping process

3. Who will Equip us? V.11

For the guitar boot camp I have a guitar teacher. This person has to be someone who knows more than me AND can convey that knowledge in a way that I can understand. I will not be equipped to be a better player if the skills I need are not conveyed! Not just anyone can be a guitar teacher – they have to have the chops and the ability to help me get those chops J

There are 4 general categories of workers mentioned specifically for equipping us in the church:

Apostles – They were already mentioned in Epehsian 2:20 along with prophets as foundational people in the church. In this case these were the special sent ones who started the Church after Jesus ascension.

Prophets – those who proclaimed God’s will directly to the church in the New Testament. Again these are people who were foundational to the formation of the church.

In the sermon on the foundation of church we discussed the foundational nature of the Apostles and New Testament Prophets. What we have left of their ministry is the New Testament, which are the documents upon which we are to base all faith and practice for the church. The work of the next 2 are based upon that foundation.

Evangelists – these are the church starters or planters. They are people whose specific ministry is to win people to Christ and to start churches. You might think of Billy Graham or all the church starting missionaries, etc.

Now this is not to say you is not responsible for sharing your faith – you are (1 Pet 3:15), BUT some are clearly gifted and called to be full time sharers of their faith and we call those evangelists. I like the term church planters because God not only wants disciples, His plan is that those disciples be organized into churches!

Pastor / Teachers (“Pastor” and “teachers” is one compound item in Greek). These are people who minister the Word to people. They really have two primary functions.

Pastor is from poiman which means shepherd. The idea here is that the shepherd must feed, guide, and protect the flock.

Teacher is from didaskalos and indicates one who communicates truth. Pastor is word we use for the elder in charge of teaching, etc. We discussed this at some length when we talked about leadership, that pastors are just elders who specialize in teaching and shepherding.

2 Timothy 4:1-5 sums up the pastoral or elder role pretty well – we are to teach the Word, correct, encourage and help people gently get growing in Christ, and protect from false teachings

Now other people also do some of these functions in the church: We do not have the pastor teach everything because others also gifted for that. And more importantly there is a lot more that goes into being a fully functioning Body of Christ than just teaching!!

Every person is responsible before God to serve Him according to their giftedness. God does want to force square pegs into round holes – He does want all of His children to get busy with the works He has prepared for them which are according to their giftedness

And He wants His church to help people discover their giftedness and get equipped so they can get busy with those works! That is why God gave people to the church to “to prepare” or “to equip” God’s people…” for several specific goals. Ephesians 4:12-13 brings to light five reasons God wants us to be equipped:

4. What does Equipping Entail? V.12-13

1. Works of service – diakonia – same root we get deacon from – you get the idea by now I hope! There are works God wants you to do and we need to all get busy doing them.

2. Building the body – oikodome – this word is used for constructing something . There are 2 aspects to this: if you were building a house you would need to gather materials (and anyone who knows home projects always end up requiring multiple trips to the store to get things) AND you need to properly assemble those materials!

Similarly, our equipping results in building Body numerically – we can be equipped to help others come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior! AND it also is our internal building up (of believers). We need to be becoming more able as a church to serve and worship the Lord and carry out His purposes for our lives. In other words each year we need to be a little better of a church in God’s eyes than we were last year!

3. Unity – this involves putting aside my own desires and expectations and submitting to God’s plan and His way. Unity doesn’t mean we always agree but it does mean that we love each other despite that and we serve together despite disagreements on some things.

Christ is the focus of our unity. If we all are seeking to follow Him, other things should become very secondary. When I am seeking my own way then inevitably conflict comes. Remember it is not about us, it is about Him!

4. Knowledge of the Lord – knowledge plays an important role in the Christian’s life as we learning the Bible AND how to apply it. How can we worship in truth if we do not know the truth? How can we withstand the deceptions of the devil if we don’t know the truth

Did you know that they train treasury agents to find counterfeit money not by teaching them all the way you can fake money, but by teaching them to always recognize the real thing? That is our best defense against the devil and his schemes: to know the truth so well that the lies are obvious!

Finally all this will lead to…

5. Maturity – we are to be moving closer to the likeness of Jesus all the time. Maturity means I am exhibiting more Christlike attitudes and actions, and less of the self. Spiritual maturity is NOT I have been a Christian for a long time and I know a lot of Bible verses / theology and can pass judgment on you and argue you into the ground.

Maturity IS I am more like Jesus Christ this year than last, and more last year than the year before, and I am exhibiting more of the fruit of the Spirit and less of the self and my love of God and my neighbor is growing! Understanding the Bible and theology and all that is important, but only if it leads to growth in Christlikeness be because that is what the “whole measure of the fullness of Christ” entails.

Every Christian is destined by God to become like His Son Jesus Christ and the training ground for that is here in the local church were God has brought together His people under the leadership of His pastor/teachers and elders to be equipped for:

• works of service
• Building the body
• Unity
• Knowledge
• maturity

And for that to happen we all must work together to grow into the fullness of God’s Son and help one another see His purposes for this church and our lives bear fruit for His Kingdom sake!

Purpose of Church 1, Part 2: The Actions of Worship

In Nisswa, Minnesota, every year they hold the Nisswa Turtle Races. Every Wednesday evening in the summer, the people of Nisswa gather for the weekly races. It's big excitement and big business. The fans gather early, placing their chairs and blankets in the best viewing sites.

In one recent contest, 435 turtles raced in heats of fifteen over a six-foot-long course. The announcer, calls the turtles to their mark, gives them the "Go!" and the crowd goes wild. People stand, jump, and wave their hands in the air, imploring their turtles to be unturtle-like. The excitement grows and finally reaches a boiling point as the preliminary winners all gather for the championship race. Amid unrestrained shouts and cheers, the first turtle crosses the finish line, and the winning "trainer" receives 5 dollars!

Last week we examined the spheres the church operates in and its purposes. At the center is God, and our action toward Him is worship – there has never been nor will there ever be time when God does not desire and expect to receive worship from His people. Worship from the creation through eternity is central to the life of God’s children, and especially worshipping together! Jesus said,

John 4:24 God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

Spirit refers to our inner spirit – the heart of worship is found in a worshipful attitude! People can cheer and get all worked over sports or a concert or turtle races, but yet we often come to worship as if we hate being here.

Worship reflects our love for Christ back to him, and when we worship we are as close to eternity and heaven as we will get in this life. If we can cheer at a basket or enthusiastically clap at a concert, then we certainly can raise our voices and sing with all our might to the Lord in worship on a Sunday!

This week we want to focus in on the truth component. Last week was the attitude of worship, now we will look at some of the actions God has given us to worship Him.

Worship as Praise

The English word “praise” occurs 167 times in 135 verses in the Psalms alone. The Pslams were the hymn book of Israel AND of the early church!

Praise translates 3 words from Hebrew. Zamar means “ to praise in song.” Tehillah means “song of praise.”

But by far the most common is hallel. In fact there is one word for praising God same in every language. Hallelujah, which is the Hebrew Hallel (praise – literally to boast in) and Yah which means Lord (the first 2 letters of His Name in Hebrew).

Often the praising of God is tied in with giving Him thanks. A good example of this is Psalm 9.

In Psalm 9 notice that David thanks God for things God has done for him (his enemies defeated) and will do for him and others. He gives glory to God by declaring God’s deeds, and by proclaiming things that are true about God!

This is great example of what our praise should entail: thankfulness, glorifying God by proclaiming what He has done for us – in Christ, in our lives, in the world, and recounting things about who God is!

In fact writer of Hebrews encourages us to be constantly be praising God:

Heb 13:15-16 Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

Notice we are to “offer up a sacrifice of praise.” We no longer offer up a sacrifice of bulls and goats, but God’s true followers offer to Him a sacrifice of praise and giving thanks.

The word sacrifice is one that regularly comes up when the Bible discusses the issue of worship:

Worship as sacrifice

In the first 11 chapters of Romans Paul details God plan of salvation and how He worked through Israel all the way to Christ and has redeemed us and sent His Spirit to live in us and freed us from sin and given us new life! He then says: Romans 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

“Therefore…” because of all Paul has just said about all God done we are to offer ourselves as living sacrifices.

Sacrifice is a concept from the Old Testament. God prescribed numerous animal and grain and wine sacrifices in the Tabernacle and Temple worship for Israel. Those sacrifices pointed to the time when the ultimate sacrifice would be made – Jesus on the cross.

We no longer have to make those types of sacrifices because Christ is the once and for all sacrifice for sin made on our behalf:

Hebrews 7:26-27 For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; ²⁷ who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

So we no longer offer blood sacrifices, but we are now to be living sacrifices – our lives our meant to be lived as an act of worship toward God. And sacrifice means I give something to God that is not free!

We tend to not like the whole idea of sacrifice because it sounds like me giving up something, What we really need to see sacrifice as is giving to God! Look back at the Heb 13 passage again: one way we are living sacrifices is by doing good to others and sharing!

When you gave some change in the baby bottles to Alternatives – that was a sacrifice of worship. When you helped your neighbor shovel because you wanted to show love to your neighbor – an act of worship.

In fact, if we saw the stuff we do as being dedicated to God and acts of worship, we might derive a lot more joy and blessing from it! Some of you came and helped work around the building on our work day, but how many of you looked on that as an act of worship. Caring for the place God has blessed us with when you could have been doing something for yourself is a sacrificial act of worship!

The Christian classic The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence (a lay brother in a Carmelite monastery in 1600’s). He saw every act of cleaning, cooking and everything he did as worship and dedicated to God.

The final thing we want to look at is the idea of…

Worship as Remembering

One of the most prominent actions of worship in both testaments is remembering the things the Lord has done. Often the Psalmist will recount the deeds of God on behalf of Israel. For example in Psalm 78 he recounts the entire Exodus journey out of Egypt, through the wilderness and how God guided them to the land of Promise, all the way to the kingship of David! 70 verses of song recounting God working in Israel!

We have lots of great songs of remembrance we sing on Sunday mornings such as Lord I lift Your Name or Old Rugged Cross. But there is one particularly important and special remembrance that is distinctly part of the worship of the church alone:

Central to the worship of the early church was the Lord’s Table. They celebrated it every Sunday, which some churches still do to this day!

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; ²⁴ and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." ²⁵ In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." ²⁶ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.

Twice Jesus words point out that we take the bread and cup as a remembrance. We reenact part of that last fateful night in the upper room to remember that Jesus’ actual body and actual blood were the last and only necessary sacrifice that paid for our sins!

Some people see worship as optional or as something fun but without much value, or as something they can do when they feel like it. We learned last week that God desires us to have the attitude of worship – that our hearts are poured out in worship to Him and our desire is to glorify Him with all we are.

Today we can see there are numerous ways God has given us to worship Him: through praise and thanksgiving in word and song, through living our lives as an offering to God in all we do, and through remembering and recounting all He has done for us, and especially what He has done for us in Christ as we worship through the bread and cup!

God demands to be worshipped. He has created us, redeemed us and called us to serve Him and one type of service we offer is to live as acts of worship; praising, sacrificing, serving and remembering all He has done for us from now and even into eternity!

The Purposes of the Church: Worship

One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed that little Alex was staring up at the large plaque that hung in the foyer of the church. The 7-year-oldhad been staring at the plaque for some time, so the pastor walked up, stood beside the boy, and said quietly, "Good morning, Alex."

"Good morning, Pastor," replied the boy, focused on the plaque. "Pastor, what is this?" Alex asked.

"Well, son, these are all the people who have died in the service," he replied

Soberly they stood together, staring at the large plaque.

Little Alex's voice barely broke the silence when he asked quietly, "Which

one, the 9:00 or the 10:30 service?"

With regards to the church, have you ever asked, “Why?” Why did Jesus organize His followers into local churches? Why not just have a bunch of followers?

Well in answering this question it is helpful to look at the three spheres where the church operates and then overlay those spheres with what Pastor Rick Warren popularized as the 5 purposes of the church.

The 3 spheres refer to God (at the center), the church (those who already have a relationship with Jesus Christ), and the world (those who do not know Christ as of yet). We direct ourselves to God through worship. God’s work flows out from His being through us to the world. With regards to one another (believers) we are called to fellowship and to equipping (growing in Christ). As God works in us and through us, His power is shown to the world as we serve others and spread the good news of Jesus who died and rose again!

All of these are things every church should be doing. We will spend the next few weeks exploring these things, starting with worship.

The Nature of Worship

Our word worship come from an Old English word “worth-ship” and has to do with ascribing or proclaiming the worth of God for who He is and what He has done. In worship we come into God’s presence to praise him and adore him for Himself –because He alone is worthy of that honor.

Worship includes whatever we do to honor and express to God His amazing glory and power. Singing, the reading of the Word, even preaching are forms of worship. The offering time is a powerful form of adoring God by giving back. Even evangelism can be worship as we seek to honor God by proclaiming his praises to others.

True worship focuses everything we do as a church, and especially the corporate worship time, directly on Christ! The Church is foremost about Christ, not about meeting my needs or me! Everything else flows from that!

Now some people feel worship not all that important, so we need a few minutes to reflect on The Primacy of Worship.

You will note that the center of diagram is God. He is always the center! It is all about Him! Just as Christ is the cornerstone of the church, He is the focus of our worship! From the beginning of time worship has been both desired and required by God. It is built into fabric of creation – 6 days of work, one day focused on God!

The first murder was direct result of a dispute over worship! Abel’s sacrifice to God was accepted, Cain’s was not –instead of fixing the problem Cain killed his brother! And we think disagreements over music style are a big deal!!

The first 4 commandments all have to do with worshipping God properly: No other God’s means I can only worship the Lord. No idols or images means I cannot make a representation to worship. Not using His Name in vain (empty ways) tells me His Name is to be exalted and honored. And keeping the seventh day Holy to the Lord means Ineed to set aside time to honor Him.

The Old Testament has numerous chapters devoted to the exact ways to worship God. The Temple and its worship were the center of Israel’s spiritual life and God carefully regulated their worship.

By New Testament times we know the early church met every Sunday for worship in song, teaching and the sharing of the Lord’s Supper. In fact, this is the only thing the church does now that will continue on into eternity. In Revelation 4:8-11 and 5:11-14 we see God’s people praising and worshipping him – we don’t see any preachers preaching or anyone trying to win someone to Christ – but we will worship!

There is never a period in history past or future where God is not worshipped by His people! This is the central focus of God’s people:

Romans 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

Paul tells us in light of all Christ has done for us (focus of first 11 chapters of Romans) I am to offer myself, to present myself as a sacrifice to God, and that is an act of worship! Next week I want to come back to Romans 12 and talk about the actions of worship, because worship in the Bible is a word associated with another word we are not so comfortable with – sacrifice! But for now I want to spend more time talking about attitude:

Ephesians 5:15-19 Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, ¹⁶ making the most of your time, because the days are evil. ¹⁷ So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. ¹⁸ And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, ¹⁹ speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;

In the parallel passage to this in Colossians it says:

Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

In context of living wisely Paul tells us about the Lord’s will – part of that is to worship! Worship here involves singing and teaching and being taught! Now maybe you don’t like to sing, or don’t like your voice. Or maybe the music’s tempo or style. Maybe you find sermons boring or preachers boring (and admittedly sometimes we are!).

That leaves no excuses because worship is about our attitude toward God in those things – notice how we are to make music in our hearts – attitude precedes true worship! How we come to worship on Sunday AM has a lot to do with worship, that is why attitude is The Heart of Worship.

Jesus left one major instruction regarding worship in John 4:24 God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

Truth has to do with content ; we cannot worship any old God we want, we cannot worship any old way we want.

But spirit here has to do with what is inside us - it cannot be Holy Spirit because Jesus would say “in the Spirit” or “my Spirit.” In fact John MacArthur says it better than I can: The word "spirit" does not refer to the Holy Spirit but to the human spirit. Jesus’ point here is that a person must worship not simply by external conformity to religious rituals and places (outwardly) but inwardly with the proper heart attitude.^[1]

My favorite example of this comes from the Old Testament in 2 Samuel 6 (which you can get your Bible out and read!).

David has solidified his kingship, and taken Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it his capital. He acknowledges that the Lord has done this for Him and desires to bring the ark to Jerusalem both as an act of political power and of worship.

Ark has been in seclusion in Kiriath-Jearim since before Saul was king (1 Sam 6) after it was returned by the Philistines who had captured it but then been struck by God with plagues.

The first attempt to bring the ark to Jerusalem ends in failure because they did not follow the proper way for moving the ark according to God’s law. Numbers 4 & 7 make it clear that ark was to be carried on poles by Levites.

God cannot be worshipped just anyway we please – he is not interested in just any old worship or whatever way we want to worship, but must be worshipped in the ways He has given us.

The second attempt goes much better and they bring the ark to Jerusalem. David danced and worshipped: David is passionate about God – think of all God has done for him – he loves God and could care less what others think of his love for God – we might say he was a religious fanatic!

Does our worship of God really reflect our love for Him? Is it infectiously joyful like David’s? DO we really love God all that much?

After they get the ark back and David blesses his people, he returns home to his own house, full of joy and ready to bless it also. However, unbeknownst to him, his first wife Michal has been watching the festivities. Michal’s wrath is engendered because in her mind the king has acted like a fool – dancing around and singing and such.

David’s answer to her is profound – he basically tells her that in fact although she doesn’t like it he puts the Lord first, even to the point of humbling himself in front of all the people to worship God. And in fact others esteemed him for his heartfelt worship.

The big question is why wasn’t Michal at the festivities? Her responses to David’s worship and her lack of participation tells us something about the hearts of those who do not want to worship – her heart is cold to the things of God – maybe because God took the kingdom from her dad and gave it to David or maybe because she was somehow personally embarrassed, but she certainly was not interested in worship! The end result was that she received nothing from the Lord, not even children!

Do we have the desire to worship? Part of worshipping in spirit is that I desire to worship! I have to want to do it, even though I may have stress or have had a bad week or be tired or whatever the case, I still want to worship God and praise him and because of that I will not hold back.

We are so easily embarrassed by shows of emotion in church during worship, yet no one is embarrassed at the football game when their kid makes a touchdown! When Michigan comes to Iowa and plays the Hawks at Carver my dad and I (and Mikayla this year) get tickets and go. College sports are great because the crowd really gets into it – when Hawks score the crowd goes wild. When the call is bad the crowd boos…

If worship according to Paul is the best use of our time, and we really love God as much as we say we do, then why does our worship not always reflect that? We come in tired Sunday morning having not slept enough the night before to prepare for coming into God’s presence, and we get looks on our faces like it is pain to be worshipping and singing.

When we worship we are as close to eternity and heaven as we will get in this life – we should have some passion and emotion, and we shouldn’t care so much what others think – if we can cheer at a basket or enthusiastically clap at a concert, then we certainly can raise our voices and sing with all our might to the Lord in worship on a Sunday!

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^[1]MacArthur, J. J. (1997, c1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed.) (Jn 4:24). Nashville: Word Pub.