Why the church?

In the old days, we used to hear sermons that began by asking, Brethren, why are we here?

It’s a good question – we do need to stop sometimes and think about what we are doing. Why are we gathered here today? Sure, God wants us to have salvation and eternal life, but why does he want us to gather each week in the church? Yes, why the church?

You see, the Bible does not have very many commands that we are supposed to have church every week. For the most part, the New Testament simply assumes that we do – that there is a body of believers, that we meet together on a regular basis, that we have interactions with one another, that we work together and worship together. In fact, the verse that does command us to attend church actually assumes that we already do. That’s in Hebrews 10:25 – Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. It assumes that we are already meeting together, and it just commands us to not quit.

But the church has a far larger purpose than merely to allow us to obey this particular command. That’s because the command itself is not just a pointless rule that we have to keep for its own sake. Rather, the command to meet together serves a much larger purpose, and that’s what we want to talk about today.

In fact, many of you already have a good idea of the purpose of the church, of why the church exists, of the reason we come together as a group instead of staying at home. What do you think – can you suggest some purposes for the church?

1. We have work to do

Rick Warren suggested five main purposes of the church in his best-selling book The Purpose-Driven Church: worship, discipleship, fellowship, ministry, and evangelism. And those are five basic purposes of the church. The church exists to worship God, to teach us more about God, to help us be more like God, to love one another and serve one another, and to help us share the good news of salvation with other people, so more people can become like God. As one old saying goes, the church is the one organization on earth that exists not so much for its own members, as for those who are not yet members. And there is truth in that, even though it isn’t the whole story.

If we turn to 1 Peter 2:9, we’ll see a brief description of the work set out before us. “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

We were chosen by God, so that we might declare his praises. In other words, we were chosen for worship. That is our job; we have work to do.

But I would like to call attention to the phrase in here that says we are a royal priesthood. This is actually a quote from Exodus 19:6 – ancient Israel was given the opportunity to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” They were supposed to be God’s representatives on earth, to let other people know about God.

But as we know, ancient Israel failed to live up to this role (not even the best people on earth could do it), and it was never mentioned again for them; it is not mentioned again until it appears here in 1 Peter, where it is applied to the church. The job that Israel failed to do, has been given to the church. We are a royal priesthood, and we are supposed to be God’s representatives on earth, to let other people know about God. That is what a priest is – someone who worships not for his own sake, but for the sake of other people. He represents other people to God, and he represents God to other people. He is an intermediary, a go-between, and that is a function of the church today.

You see, when Peter says that we have been called to declare the praises of God, it does not mean that we are supposed to remind God of how good he is. Rather, we are declaring him to other people – we are telling other people about him. The one who called us out of darkness and into light can also call other people out of darkness and into light, and he does it by using us, if we are willing to declare his praises to other people, if we are willing to serve as a royal priesthood, as priests and representatives of God’s kingdom.

So, although this verse at first looks like it is talking about worship, it’s actually talking about evangelism. We have been called to declare God’s praises to other people – to the whole world, in fact, as God’s program grows larger and larger. We are to fulfill what ancient Israel failed to fulfill.

So there is work for us to do. Evangelism is just one purpose of the church; there are other purposes, too, and worship is one of them.

Now, as an illustration of that, we might consider some of the images the New Testament uses for the church – some of the metaphors that the Bible uses to describe the church. For example, it says that we are the temple of God, and a temple is a place for worship. We were designed for worship, and God wants us to be a temple, a place of worship.

Another metaphor the Bible uses for the church is the family of God, and that word “family” reminds us that the church is supposed to be a place of fellowship, where we love one another, care for one another, have responsibilities for one another. At certain times in our lives we receive help, and at other times we give help; we work together to help one another.

The church is also called the body of Christ, where the members of the body work together—and a body as a whole exists to do the work of the head. We are the body of Christ on earth, and he does his work through us. That’s a purpose of the church, and that’s a reason why we gather, to work together to do the work of Christ.

2. God works in us, by means of our work

Well, now, there has to be more to the story than that. After all, we are rather defective workers, aren’t we? We often fall down on the job. We often mess up the plans, and if God really wanted the work to be done, he could do it himself a whole lot easier than messing around with us.

It’s like this birdhouse that Steven made at a Home Depot kid’s clinic many years ago. Home Depot provided the kit, with all the pieces already cut to the right size, and Steven just nailed it together. Or rather, Steven held the hammer and I guided it and moved it, and it really would have been easier if I had just done it myself. So why did I get Steven involved at all? Because it was helping Steven learn. If the main goal was to build a birdhouse, then I would have just done it myself. But there was more to the story than that, and the process was supposed to help Steven learn something, not just to build a birdhouse.

And the same thing is happening on our mission trip this summer. We are taking a bunch of teenagers into another area to help fix up some houses. Now, if the primary goal was to fix those houses, the most efficient way to do it would be to hire a few guys to do it. All that money we will spend on transportation and tools and stuff could be used more efficiently to hire somebody who already lives in the area.

Ah, but efficiency is not the main goal, and repairing houses is not the main goal. The main goal is spiritual growth for the kids, and the experience is designed to facilitate that, to provide an environment in which spiritual growth can happen.

Now, God is doing the same thing with us. He is working through us, even though he could do the work a whole lot faster and a whole lot better by himself. But he chooses to work with us despite our imperfections – or I should say that he chooses to work through us precisely because we do have imperfections, and the work that we do is actually addressing those imperfections, and that’s what God really wants – he is working on our imperfections, and the work of the church is the means by which he is doing it.

And this, I believe, is actually the more important work that is going on in the church, and I believe that it is the more important reason for the existence of the church. God is giving us work projects to help us grow.

You see, God’s main purpose is not to create slaves who do his work for him and sing praises while they do it. No, he could create robots to do that, if that is what he really wanted. Just like if my main goal was a bird house, then I’d do it myself. But God doesn’t do it all himself, because he has work to do in our lives, in our hearts. You see, God doesn’t need out work – he wants our hearts. But the work reflects the heart, so he wants both. His overall goal is to transform us to be like Christ, and the work he assigns us to do, is designed to help in that transformation.

He is preparing us for eternal life, and there’s a lot more to eternity than just the 20 or 30 years we might be involved in the work of the church. In the world to come, a lot of the work that the church does now, will not be needed. God doesn’t need any evangelists in heaven – he does not ask us to share the gospel because he needs a few good evangelists. Rather, he asks us to share the gospel because that process is good for us, as well as for the people we share with. Now, fortunately, even if we mess us, God will get his work done, but the point is that he wants us to be involved in it to help shape us.

Now consider, as another example, how God uses worship to help shape our hearts. If all he wanted was praise, then he could create tape recorders that have nonstop praise. But that’s not his main goal – what he wants is heart-felt praise, for us to willingly feel that God is worthy of praise. So when God tells us to praise him, it is not to boost his own ego – it is to help us learn something. When we sing praises, we are reminding each other of how good and reliable God is, and that helps us. It reinforces our faith and prepares us for times of trouble.

And when God tells us to read the Bible, it’s not because he just needs people to read his book. And it’s not just a chore that he invented to see if we’d be good little boys and girls who did what he wanted. No, he tells us to read the book because he is convinced that it will help us.

And he doesn’t tell us to love one another and serve one another because those are horrible burdens that really test our patience and sort out the dedicated followers from the fair-weather worshippers. No, the job isn’t invented just to do the job – the work is designed to help us.

You see, God doesn’t save us by grace and then give us jobs just to test us. The work he asks us to do has a far more important function in his overall plan, and that is to help us become more like Christ. Now, we may not always see how the work we do actually helps us grow spiritually, but God can see the bigger picture, and he knows what he is doing. He’s got an integrated plan, in which the minor work and the major work go hand in hand.

Now, sometimes, if we are not careful, we can get so caught up the work that we start to view it as a legalistic task. I think that’s just some people’s personality. People who have the spiritual gift of service tend to work, and they tend to enjoy work – up to a point. The problem is, that if all we do is work, work, work, we end up in legalism, doing the work for its own sake, and forgetting the larger picture. If we do lots of work but never read the Bible, then we can get burned out. If we do lots of work but never listen to the sermons about grace, we are missing out on some of the spiritual transformation that God wants to achieve in our lives.

We could even be good at bringing other people into the church, and yet miss the point ourselves. Or we could be good at worship, but just turn it into a polished performance that we don’t really believe. It’s just memorized wordse – we might as well be singing an opera in another language. We are so busy doing the work that we fail to let God work in us. We fail to have any spiritual disciplines that open our hearts to God. So we need balance in the things that we do.

If all we do is work, then our focus is on ourselves, and we will turn into robotic slaves. We will not be learning to love, to give grace, and to adore God. On the other hand, if we just listen to sermons and never do any work, we are also missing out on God’s training program.

Now you – I’m talking to you – and I’m talking to me. Some of us have a problem with too much work and not enough spiritual nourishment. Others of us have a problem with too much nourishment and not enough work. Where do you fit on the spectrum? Where do I need improvement? Am I good at singing the songs but not very good at thinking about what they mean? Am I good at hearing the message of grace, but not very good about giving grace to other people? Am I trying to transform myself under my own power? Do I spend so much time thinking about doing good that I never actually get around to doing any good?

So, the work that God assigns the church to do is not the main goal, but it is important because it is the means by which God is achieving the main goal. If we don’t work, we don’t grow. So the work is important, and the spiritual growth is even more important. We need both.

So that’s why God works through us even though we have imperfections – if God wanted perfect workers, then he would have angels do the work. Rather, God works in us precisely because we have imperfections, because the work is helping us fix those imperfections. The different jobs assigned to the church are the means by which God is shaping our hearts to be more like Christ, to have a heart more like Christ in terms of love, and grace, and gratitude, and humility.

So to recap, point one is that the church exists to work. There are five major functions of the church: worship, discipleship, fellowship, ministry, and evangelism.

And point two is that all this work serves a larger purpose, and that is to train us. While we are doing the work of God, he is doing his work in us, and he does his work precisely by us doing the work he assigns. But it’s important to do it all in balance – to not get too focused on the work, as if God needed our help, and not to get so focused on the training that we never do any work.

3. We benefit from the work

And my last point is that this work is really good for us. God isn’t inventing busy-work just to keep us out of trouble. He isn’t inventing hurdles for us to jump over. He isn’t inventing excuses to disqualify us and discourage us. No, the sacrifice of Jesus shows that God will bend over backwards to help us make it. If he assigns some work for us to do, we can be pretty certain that he is doing it for our benefit, not his own. He doesn’t need our work, but apparently we do. We need to do this for our own good.

Like I said, we need to worship, not for God to get his thrills, but for us to be reminded of how great he is, how much he loves us, how faithful he will be toward us, what a great reward he has in store for us. The point is that we need to hear it more than God does. We need to do it.

And we need discipleship not to earn some sort of merit badge with God – and it’s not just training for the work we do – we need it for our own benefit. And it’s not just facts that we need – God could give us facts, if that’s what we needed – but at least part of the value of studying the Bible is simply in admitting that we are not self-sufficient and we look to God to teach us. There’s a bigger lesson going on, than just the subject we happen to be studying.

And fellowship – that’s not a chore we have to grit our teeth to perform – although it doesn’t come naturally to some of us, it is actually good for us in the long run. And serving others is also good for us, since we learn when we serve, we are transformed to be more like Christ when we serve others, and we end up receiving when we give to others, just like the proverb says, we will receive with the same measure that we give.

If we give generously, we will also receive a lot. It may not be money, or it may not be time, but Jesus assures us that it is better for us to give than to receive, and the generous person will be rewarded. I’m not talking about money here – I’m talking about time and service. The value that we get out of church will be proportional to the amount we put in, in our time and talents and treasures. We get out, what we put in.

Some people ask, What does the church do? And other people ask, What does the church do for me? And others ask, What can I do to help the church? And I am saying here that we can also ask, How does it benefit me when I help?

Why the church? What do we get out of church? We get a message of salvation, a message that we are loved, a message that we are of eternal value. And we need to hear that message again and again. In church, we get reminders that someone more powerful than we are is in control of life, and we can trust ourselves to him, and we don’t need to fret and worry.

And in the church, we get an environment in which we learn about love, and learn to love other people not in a perfect environment, but one that is a bit safer than the world at large, an environment in which we are encouraged to be forgiving of one another’s mistakes, an environment in which we can grow and are encouraged to grow, and reminded that life has a purpose, an incredibly important and wonderfully good purpose. And we help create that environment for other people. We have reason to live, and resources to live. And we get jobs assigned to us to help us grow, little birdhouses to put together as God holds our hands and helps us with the work.

You see, we have work to do, and God is using that work as an excuse to do his work in us, and the end result is always good for us.

You know, I am convinced that God’s instructions are good for us. I look back in my life and I see that when I have ignored God’s instructions, I have been hurt. I could have avoided that pain if I had trusted in God’s wisdom, if I just believed that he knew what he was talking about, and that he wanted the best for me. His instructions are not designed to prevent us from enjoying something good – they are designed to help us avoid something bad, they are warnings that this or that kind of behavior is going to hurt somebody. God tells us these things because we can’t always figure them out for ourselves. He is telling us how to avoid pain.

Now, I have also experienced God’s forgiveness, and that’s a good thing, too. The times that I have messed up, do not cut me off from his love. He continues to love me, and he continues to help me, and I can continue to trust that his instructions are for my good. He wants me to make it, not to fail, and he wants to help me along the way to make it in the best possible way.

God knows what he is doing, and that’s why the church exists. It is to help prepare us for eternity. The more that I learn to love right now, the more of me will be left when all the rubbish is stripped away. The more I learn to trust in God right now, the more of me will be left in the world to come. The eternal things will last forever; the temporary things will be washed away, so I need to be focusing on the eternal things.

Now, sometimes I don’t feel like I have very much in me that’s worth saving, but I trust in God that he will make the most of it, and I am convinced that I’ll be better off, both now and in eternity, the more I get with his program. The jobs he gives me are sometimes difficult, and sometimes I feel like I have totally failed in them, but I trust that God knows what he’s doing in my life and will fix the birdhouse even if I mess it up.

So, why does God have a church? Why do we have a church? What purpose does it serve in God’s plan for us? I have three points: First, that God wants the church to do some work, and each of us need to be involved in that work. Second, that God is working in each of us, and he does his work by means of assigning work to us. He is changing our hearts through the assignments he has given us. And third, all this

is done for our benefit, and the better we get with the program, the better it is for us.

So I encourage you, and I encourage myself, to see where we are falling short in this picture. Some of us need to do more work. Some of us need to receive more spiritual nourishment. But whatever our lack is, we need to submit to God’s training program, because it is for our good. He knows what he is doing, and his plans for us are the best. The amount we get is proportional to the amount we give, so let’s follow the instructions, and stick with the training program that God has designed for us.