The Church of Mutual Blessing in Christ

A Couple Things to Consider About Why God Made the House of Peace

Good Morning,

This is the busy season for many in the church. Most, if not all, Protestant denominations have their annual meetings during May and June. I just returned from being a fraternal representative at the OPC GA and a delegate to the ARP Synod. Many others are on their way to their own assemblies. It’s a keen time then to think a little bit about a particular purpose of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ in today’s prayer and worship help. It is wise for us to remember that the organizational body we call the church is not an accident or a circumstance of pragmatism. It is and will always be until our Savior returns the visible testimony to the unity of the people of God in this present world. It is the main arena in which the grace of God is given to believers. It is the place where we are fed and protected. There is no possibility of life outside the church.

Yet there has never been a time since the ascension of Jesus where so many inside the church have felt less need for it. That isn’t just true of members, but ministers as well. Hency why it is good for us every now and then to think through the why’s of the bible as to why the church exists and what its calling is in the purposes and work of the kingdom of Christ. The word itself comes to us from the Greek Ekklesia, or “called out ones”. That picture, our being brought out of death and into the life of Jesus’s wonderful love is an image we see in both the Old and New Testaments. When we think of it in the OT we can think of the three particular examples: first there is Noah and his family, then Moses and the nation of Israel leaving Egypt and heading toward the Promised Land, and then the returning exiles from Babylon listed for us in Ezra.

Our being saved from darkness, the formless chaos of life outside the covenant, and being then given by grace alone an adoption into the family of God, where order and decency reign is one of the great pictures of the beauty of the gospel. The unfortunate reality of course is that the church in this age is full of sinners, and sometimes sinners sin. I fully realize that sometimes people do not have a good experience with the church. However, we should not cast out the church because some people make it difficult to enjoy it. We should recognize that the Lord knows the situation. It is no surprise to Him that the church can be full of crooked timbers, yet it is precisely due to this that our God has set up the body of Christ so that no local congregation is alone in itself. As Presbyterians we know that we are not alone. There is no sense in which Bethany ARP or Clover ARP or Hopewell ARP or 1^st Columbia ARP are independent contractors who loosely gather to do business a few times a year. It is important to remember that we ought to actually talk about our churches like “the ARP congregation in the Bethany community” or “the ARP church in the city of Clover”. Understanding that we are a part of something much bigger than ourselves is a great comfort, or at least it should be. It is also a reminder that there are watchers watching the watchers. No single individual is more crucial than any other. There is strength in the unity of the body. We see this not only in shared ministries, but most directly in the way we pray for one another in Christ. In light of what Jesus says in John 17 we are to love the church as He does.

The joy we are to have in the way our brothers and sisters in the Lord’s kingdom are united to us in the gospel of pure faith means that when one part of the body is hurting we all are. However, we have the promise in the Bible that it is precisely because of the existence of the church of Jesus Christ that we know that we are never alone in the midst of trial and tribulation. Almost treated as an aside towards the end of 1 Corinthians in chapter 16 we read this:

Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given orders to the churches of Galatia, so you must do also: On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come. And when I come, whomever you approve by your letters I will send to bear your gift to Jerusalem. – 1 Cor. 16:1-3

While one can (and should) read Presbyterianism in what you read here it is not necessary for our purpose today. The big picture here is to see how Paul encourages the people of God to think about the needs of folks a thousand miles away in Jerusalem, as if they were their own family. Reflect on what that means. Jesus says:

But He answered and said to the one who told Him, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”— Matthew 12:48-49

The Church of the Lord is a family born of grace and God’s design. We are to prefer those who are of the kingdom of Christ first because those are the ones for whom our Savior died on the cross and they are the ones who will be with us for eternity.

In closing, the will of God is that those who claim the name of Jesus would serve one another in love in the church. We are to seek that in all that we do in the Christian life that our hope alone is in the promise of the Lord, which includes the called out ones resting in the mutual blessing of the assurance of faith born of the new family Jehovah has made so that we would witness to the chaos of the world around us what it looks like to build one another up in hope and strength.

A last word:

https://www.challies.com/whats-the-purpose-of/whats-the-purpose-of-the-church/

Blessings in Christ,

Rev. Benjamin Glaser

Pastor, Bethany ARP Church