Knowing the Church Series Part 22
Three men were asked to enter a dark room, feel what was there, and report their findings. The first said a fire hose, the second found a tree, and the last man said there was a giant air balloon. In reality, there was an elephant in the room. From their perspective, each with an empaired vision felt what was correct to them.
The Church Properly Defined
To know the truth about the Church, regenerate believers must lay aside all personal bias contrary to scripture, feelings that overrule the Bible, and reliance on denominational teachings that halt Biblical study.
Christians do not go to Church; the Church gathers when regenerated souls join together for prayer and fellowship or interaction with one another that can include encouragement, confession, the ministry of the Word, and the worship of Christ through the breaking of bread.
The Church Properly Defined is not a Building.
The Church must be understood for what it is not: a building, a corporation, or a sending agency. Christians don't go to Church because they can't go to what they already are. "And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ" (Acts 5:42). They went to the temple to share Christ with the lost.
They met from house to house, not because the house was important, but because they were a family. "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name's sake will receive many times as much and will inherit eternal life. (Matthew 19:29).
The Church Properly Defined is not a Corporation.
The Church is not incorporated because it is the total of its living members. A Church can have a name like The Metropolitan Tabernacle and exist for 250 years. However, after the members pass on to glory or hell, all that carries over is the name. The Church is always and only people: what they believe, how they glorify God, and how they interact with one another. For this reason, the New Testament Churches are always referred to as a Church in a place - certainly not by sect or even a leader.
Jesus Christ will not judge churches in total but individual members if they are all members, which only God decides. "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad (empty)" (2 Corinthians 5:10; emphasis added).
The Church Properly Defined is not a Sending Agency.
"Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead)" (Galatians 1:1). The Apostle Paul did not clearly declare his calling from God because he was different from everyone else. Neither did he do so to elevate himself above that of those Apostles who came before him. He did so because those in the Galatian Church "...are deserting Him, who called them into the grace of Christ for another Gospel. (Galatians 1:6).
When the Roman Church decided to incorporate (during the 4th Century) the transition from a family to a hierarchy and separate members from the minister due to the special call of some, in considerable measure, the beginning of the end had arrived. The Church is not properly defined when the members of Christ or perhaps those who only think they are members elevate themselves over the head of the Church who is Christ.
The Church Properly Defined Members Gather at the Cross.
Unfortunately, much boasting goes on today in the Church in the West. How many members attend a building, how intellectual the pastors are, how many activities occur, etc. However, how many hours do members spend on their knees together or alone? How much fasting takes place? How much do Church members die to self-centeredness, worldliness, and pride?
Paul said, "But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14). A Church is never properly defined by how great it is, but how great Jesus Christ is to its members. Materialism, career, particular beliefs that separate Churches, elevated callings, numerics, and in many other ways, the Church can be worldly. Worldliness is the absence of transformation and sanctification, and where they are absent, the Church is not properly defined.
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