The Church: Its Meaning - The Priority of the People of God, Part 3

We are engaged in an enormous study on the church. It's an exciting study, but it's an enormous study For a few of us ever stop to think about the church and how it is God has designed the church to be a vehicle by which he is able to communicate himself to a lost world and So on the screen behind me you understand that we have been looking at the meaning of the church the whole series is the meaning mission and ministry of the church and Looking at the meaning that tells us that the church is the plan of the Son of God the possession of the Living God the pillar of the truth of God the picture of the love of God the product of the grace of God and the priority of the people of God And we've taken a brief moment to pause right here on the priority the people of God because so many times we just want to Blow off Church as if it doesn't mean that much Not understanding that we are the church and the gathering together of the local assembly is of great importance So much so that we look last week at a verse in the book of Jonah Jonah chapter 2 verse number 8 which says When you regard vain idols or Empty vanities Then you will forsake your faithfulness In other words if there's something that becomes a priority to you that's empty and useless and vain You will forsake your faithfulness Jonah understood that So that's why he talks about it in the belly of a fish as he begins to cry out to his God And we told you last week that when you choose to do something on the Lord's Day Other than worship the Lord What you choose to do becomes the Lord you worship We're not talking about people in the military who are engaged in protecting our country or our nurses and doctors who are engaged in Giving people health care.

We're not talking about people that are involved in police work or Firefighting kind of work those kind of jobs that take you out to protect and watch over and care for People's lives not talking about those kinds of things. We're talking about the things you choose to do because if you regard a vain idol something that you choose to do on The Lord's Day other than worship the Lord as a priority Then that which you choose to do becomes your priority over the Lord That's why you would forsake your faithfulness on the Lord's Day.

So let me illustrate that for you through the life of Israel Turn with me in your Bible of Jeremiah chapter 2 Jeremiah chapter 2 is an illustration of Jonah 2 verse number 8 and Jeremiah is prophesying right before the Babylonian captivity and so he's warning the people Talking to them about the condition of their lives what has taken place what has transpired in their lives and so in verse number 16 of chapter 1 The Lord says I will pronounce my judgments on them.

That is Israel concerning all their wickedness Whereby they have forsaken me and Have offered sacrifices to other gods and worship the works of their own hands. In other words, they have gone after vain idols They've gone after empty vanities and They have forsaken me he says down in verse number 4 Hear the word of the Lord Oh house of Jacob and all the families of the house of Israel thus says the Lord what injustice did your father's find in me that they went far from me and Walked after emptiness and became empty.

What is it about me? That would cause Israel to turn away from me walk after empty things vain things futile things and Then only end up being Emptier than they've ever been What would cause them to do that It says in verse number 8 at the end. They walked after things that did not profit They pursued that that would not be a benefit to them But what would cause someone to turn away from the Living God and pursue something that would not be beneficial to them? That's because everything outside of God is temporal Everything with God is eternal.

So in verse number 11 Has a nation changed God's? when they were not God's What a marvelous statement that is He says can you can you name? name one Canaanite That would forsake their pagan God at all And of course their pagan gods were Ashtaroth and Baal But the Canaanites they have false gods, but yet they don't forsake their false gods Or how about the Babylonians? they have False gods that really aren't gods They have Bell and and Marduk But can you name one Babylonian that would forsake their false God?

answer No But my people have changed their glory For that which does not profit What a statement God says there isn't one Pagan who worships a false God who's unfaithful to their false God But I can name you My people who have the true God the only God that matters the Living God yet They have forsaken me they have turned their back on me And so God says be appalled Oh heavens at this and shudder Be very desolate declares the Lord he's like talking to the the heavenly hosts And saying can you can you can you believe this?

Can you understand can you wrap? your angelic mind As he speaks to the angelic hosts can you wrap your angelic mind around the fact that my people have forsaken me? the true God and Gone up to things that did not profit this is this My people have committed two evils If I was to ask you The Lord says there's something evil. What would you say? Well you said? drunkenness Adultery Fornication Homosexuality Transgenderism But you didn't mention any of that because there's a deeper evil than that so somebody says My people have committed two evils they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters and Hewed for themselves Cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no water Here are the two evils that my people have committed They have forsaken me.

I am the living God who provides living water and They have turned their back on me, and you know what they did They dug for themselves cisterns broken cisterns That hold absolutely no water. There's no profit. There is no life There is nothing that will give them an advantage, but that's what they have done God says that when you seek joy when you seek satisfaction When you seek pleasure outside of me You will forsake me and you will only dig for yourself a Cistern that's broken and can hold no water in other words.

You will get no profit You will obtain no advantage you will be Absolutely worse off than you've ever been before the Lord says It's simple When you delight in that which is temporal You will turn away from that which is eternal and that's what Israel did So the Lord says in verse 17 Have you not done this to yourself? By your forsaking the Lord your God when he led you in the way He takes them all the way back to how he led them out of Egyptian bondage How he provided for them all throughout the wilderness how he took care of them, but you did this to yourself I?

Didn't do this to you Nobody else did this to you you did it to yourself You chose to forsake me the well of living water, and you would regard Vain idols as more important to me therefore you have forsaken your faithfulness you have forsaken your God you have turned your back on Me that's what happens when someone places Someone or something else as a priority over the true and living God, but why would they do that? Why would anybody do that What would cause someone to move that direct if they did it to themselves why and how Well good news The Lord tells us He tells us verse number 19 Your own wickedness will correct you and your apostasy will reprove you Know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter For you to forsake the Lord your God Why and The dread of me is Not in you declares the Lord God That's why The dread of me the fear of me is not in you That's why you have forsaken me a hundred years earlier Before the writer Jeremiah there was Isaiah the prophet, you know what Isaiah said As he was prophesying Isaiah chapter 8 Verse number 13 it is the Lord of hosts whom you shall regard as holy and He shall be your fear and he shall be your dread So a hundred years earlier Isaiah is prophesying and saying listen, you're gonna regard God as holy You can't regard vain idols You got to regard the Lord God as holy and you shall be your fear he shall be your dread If not, you will forsake your faithfulness.

He says verse 14 then he should become a sanctuary a Resting place a place of safety If God is the one you fear He becomes your safe haven If God is the one you dread He becomes your refuge your security your protection but to both the house of Israel a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over hundreds of years before that Moses Would say these words in Deuteronomy chapter 5. Oh That they had such a heart in them verse 29 that they would fear me and keep all my commandments always That it may be well with them with their sons Forever Moses says oh that they would fear God it says In verse chapter 6 verse number 1 of Deuteronomy now This is the commandment the statutes of the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you That you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it Say you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord This is what you got to do.

You got a few below. He goes on and says in verse number 10 Then it should come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land in which he swore to your father as Abraham Isaac And Jacob to give you great splendid cities, which you do not build houses full of good things which you do not fill and Hewn cisterns which you do not dig vineyards and all the trees which you did not plant and you eat and are satisfied Then watch yourself That you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery you shall fear only the Lord your God and You shall worship him and swear by his name Then at verse number 24 So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes to fear the Lord our God For our good always and for our Survival Chapter 8 verse 6 therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God to walk in his ways and to fear him chapter 13 verse number 4 You shall follow the Lord your God and fear him and you shall keep his commandments.

Listen to his voice serve him clean to him and then Over in chapter 30 verse number 9 so Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests the sons of Levi who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord to all the elders of Israel then Moses commended them saying at the end of every seven years at the time of the year of permission of remission of debts at the Feast of Booths when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place which he will Choose you shall read the law in front of all Israel in all their hearing Assemble the people the men and the women and children and the alien who's in your in your town so they may hear and learn and fear the Lord Your God and be careful to observe all the words of this law their children who have not known will hear and Learn to fear the Lord your God as Long as you live on the land, which you are about to cross the Jordan to possess So hundreds of years before Isaiah the prophet and before Jeremiah the prophet Moses told them you're going into the land As you go into the land you need to keep the commandments of God You just fear only Him He warns and be careful You're gonna live in homes.

He did not build you're gonna draw water from cisterns that you did not dig and You're gonna you're gonna eat and you're gonna be satisfied, but you be very very careful That you do not forget the Lord your God That you fear only him And he reiterates it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again Again and again, so when you come to the prophet Isaiah The prophet Jeremiah he tells him The Lord God should be your fear He should be your dread. You should regard him as holy and the reason you don't regard him as holy as separate as Great as he is is because you don't fear him.

You don't live in the dread of who he is You treat him as If he's just another one of the pagan gods You really don't care so Jeremiah says Do the Lord as the Lord speaks be appalled oh heaven And you believe what my people have done I warned them I Told them they have forsaken me the well of living water And they dug for themselves broken cisterns that hold No water Can you believe Yeah, they went off into captivity And suffered the consequences of their disobedience And Jonah from the belly of the fish Understanding the history of all that's taken place Realizes that if I if I regard vain idols empty vanities Temporal things as more pleasurable than my God.

I will forsake my faithfulness The church is the priority of the people of God Those who love the Lord love his church Love the assembly of the redeemed Can't wait to be with them Can't wait to minister with them can't wait to worship with them Can't wait to be encouraged by them Can't wait to be a part of that which says God inhabits the praises of his people and so we told you Lastly the reason the church is the priority of the people of God That's because of the person that we exalt Psalm 34 Oh magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together and Then Because of the ridicule and the repercussions The retribution that we endure because of that first Peter 4 Says that friends used to hang around with malign you John 15 Christ said If they persecute me, they will persecute you and then number three was because of the instruction Instruction that we We as a church truly do embrace We can't wait to hear what God has to say We gather together to embrace that instruction as a family Knowing that God has spoken And we want to believe all that he says That's where we left off last week So let me finish our outline this morning to help you understand why the church is the priority of the people of God And that is the letter O and that is the orthopraxy that we Encourage you see what?

The orthopraxy put it on the board for me. Will you please don the orthopraxy? What's orthodoxy? right doctrine What's orthopraxy? right practice We encourage the right practice Why do we gather together as a party because of the orthopraxy that we encourage We want to encourage you Hebrews 10, you know the verse verse number 24 The writer of Hebrews said this way Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds not forsaking our own assembly together as is the habit of some But encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near There is this constant encouragement that we're involved in There is this constant desire to motivate to stimulate and to encourage you the practice that we engage in Let's do what Paul says over in in first Thessalonians chapter 2 He says this in verse number 9 He says for you recall brethren our labor and hardship how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you we proclaim to you the gospel of God your witnesses and So is God how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behave toward you believers Just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children Said you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory We gathered you together we implored you we encourage you as a father with his own children That you would walk worthy of the Lord who's called you into his glorious kingdom.

That's what we do That's what happens when you gather together as a church We implore we encourage we motivate we stimulate one another to love and good deeds That's the practice that we encourage Over in Ephesians chapter 4 Paul says therefore I the prisoner verse 1 of the Lord implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling With which you have been called with all humility and gentleness and patience showing Tolerance for one another in love being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace In other words you are to do all you can to preserve that which God has given to us a unified body We don't we don't pray for unity We already have unity.

We're one in Christ. He goes on to say this He says there is one body one spirit just as you also were called in one Hope of your calling one Lord one faith one baptism One God and father of all who is over all and through all and in all we are one We are one with Christ. We are all unified as one body So we don't need to pray for unity need to preserve unity Need to preserve that which God has given to us. So how do we do that? through the orthopraxy that we encourage The practice that we encourage to motivate and stimulate one another to love and good deeds, that's what we do That's why we gather together on the Lord's Day To worship him to honor him and so doing we're gathering together to move people on toward maturity in Christ next Not only the orthopraxy That we encourage but the righteousness that we embrace The righteousness that we embrace Do you know?

As we gather together We are a visible manifestation of our invisible master We are the visible manifestation of our invisible Master Why because he who knew no sin Became sin for us That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him Listen to what Peter says 1st Peter 2 verse number 24 He himself bore our sins in his own body on the cross Said we might die to sin And live to Righteousness There is a righteousness that we embrace that we embody excuse me and that is we are declared righteous in fact Isaiah 61 says that we have the garments of God the garments of God are as Isaiah 61 10 says the robes of righteousness We are clothed in these robes Robes of of righteousness That God himself has given us that clock says a quarter to eight We're gonna be here a long time Cuz that clocks not moving.

I Got no place else to go But anyway, all that to say is that that that the Lord has clothed us with these robes of righteousness We all have this in common we are people of light precious faith So when we get together and encourage one another to practice the things of God We are practicing The righteousness that we have in Christ We have been declared righteous before him. We have a positional righteousness, but there needs to be a Practical righteousness that's lived out every single day And so because as as people of light precious faith we gather together because we all are are clothed With the same robe.

We all had the same clothes on I know that you're all dressed differently today But spiritually speaking we all had the same robe. It's called the robe of righteousness and We embody that as a church As we gather together to minister to one another and to give glory to God we make visible the invisible God we serve to all who are around us So that when we leave this place we leave Committed to living a righteous life Paul says these words in in the book of Romans Romans chapter 6 He says in verse 16.

Do not do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience? You are slaves the one whom you obey either sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin You became obedient from the heart that form of teaching to which you were committed And I've been freed from sin you became slaves of righteousness I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh for just as you presented your members and slaves to impurity and to lawlessness Resulting in further lawlessness.

So now present your members of slaves to righteousness resulting in sanctification Listen, the way you used to be is that you just kept presenting your members as slaves to unrighteousness because that's all you can do Because you are a slave to the one you obey And you're in the kingdom of darkness so all you could do is commit darkness deeds But now that you've been saved by the grace of Almighty God, you're now slaves of the one who was righteous So now you obey him and you follow him because you want to live a sanctified holy life So we gather together That righteousness that is ours positionally That we body as a as a church Now we are motivated and stimulated to live out in practice Because we see others and their righteous life and their commitment to Christ and their desire to honor Christ and that's what we want And it moves us and motivates us to live that way so the church is the priority of the people of God Because the person we exalt Christ the Lord He's the king The rejection we endure because we exalt Christ above All else because he is our king Because the instruction we embrace the orthopraxy we encourage the righteousness we embody and next Because of the intimacy we enjoy the intimacy That we enjoy there is something unique about the body of Christ We are members of one body We have one father We are members of one temple we have One priest we are members of one bride We have one bridegroom and there's an intimacy that we enjoy That cannot be duplicated anywhere else Because we have been brought together Into the body of Christ and we are his possession he owns us We are his over in 1st Corinthians chapter 12 Paul says for verse 12 for even as the body is one And yet as many members than all the members of the body though.

They are many are one body so also is Christ For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body whether Jews or Greeks whether slaves are free And we were all made to drink of one spirit verse 18 But now God has placed the members each one of them in the body just as he desired God has placed us in the body because that was his desire and Then it says down in verse 27. Now you are Christ's body and individually members of that body That's why It's so important that we deal with sin why Because sin Destroys intimacy sin divides The body sin Disrupts Unity and sin Dismantles Our testimony and so Before the Lord ever birthed the church he gave us Instructions for the church Matthew chapter 16 He tells us it was a plan of the Son of God She's me In Matthew 18 he talks to us about the purity of the church And how to deal with sin in the church when a member sins And when a member decides to live Not in the way that God would have them live.

And so you go to that brother and you confront that brother Why Because we all are the members of the same body if you engage in sin Unrepentant sin Not just any sin but unrepentant sin on a continual basis What that does is destroy Destroys our intimacy Divides us as a body dismantles our testimony and disrupts all That God has for us. That's why in Acts chapter 5 When Ananias and Sapphira were killed in church because they lied to the Holy Spirit God made sure that the tone was set early on in the church When you sin against me it costs And I can't have an impure church trying to reach an impure world I need to have a pure church a sanctified church a holy church trying to reach an unsanctified unholy impure world So the Lord set the tone very early on in the book of Acts After the birth of the church To deal with sin in the church Why?

Because We are an intimate unit It's like sinning your family, right? at home When when someone your family sins you just say It's okay. Go right ahead Live any way you want. It's okay. No big deal No, it's a big deal Why? Because it it disrupts the the entire unity of your family And begins to destroy the intimacy of your family how many times do do do we see in in in in the life of our earthly families what's happening with with sin between husbands and wives or between children and their parents or between children and children That caused so much disruption You have to deal with it as a father same is true in the church for if you don't deal with it one sinner Ecclesiastes 9 18 destroys much Good just one One sin The reason the church is a priority is because of the intimacy that we enjoy We enjoy the oneness.

We enjoy the unity We enjoy the stimulation. We enjoy the motivation. We enjoy the praise. We enjoy being together We just enjoy each other. So we say well, I'm not so sure. I enjoy everybody in this assembly Listen you're gonna live forever with each other in eternity And I know you're gonna have a glorified body and there's gonna be perfect there But you know what you need to get used to living with each other Because there's an intimacy that we enjoy as a family next There's the truth we evidence the truth we evidence That's why the church is a priority the people of God The truth that we evidence Christ says a new commandment I give to you John 13 a New commandment they got a new commandment another one We have 613 of them.

We don't need any more and those isn't enough a new commandment. I give to you Okay, and the new commandment says Not that you love one another as you love yourself That doesn't work You have to love yourself as I have loved you thus proving yourself was to be my disciples How do you approve your disciple of Christ you love one another as Christ has loved you That's the standard. He's the standard He's the one and only standard And so we follow him because of that There's a truth that we evidence When Christ says all men will know that you are my disciples because you love one another as I have loved you There's a testimony.

That's at stake here And we evidence that truth one toward another on a daily basis Why because as Proverbs 23 23 says we buy truth and never sell it That is we do all we can to obtain the truth and never compromise it never set it aside Because truth is what matters And we want to evidence the truth of God Christ is the truth. The Holy Spirit is a spirit of truth. God is the God of truth and So therefore we want to evidence that truth in evidencing that truth. We evidence our God Our Lord, so we teach the truth We tell the truth we translate the truth We tremble at the truth We make sure that we never tamper with the truth Because we want to transfer the truth from generation to generation to generation Because the church is the pillar and foundation of the truth and lastly not least The reason the church is the priority of the people of God is because of the yearning that we exhibit the yearning that we exhibit as a believer in Christ There is at the depths of our heart This great yearning to be in the presence of our God We cannot wait for him to return He is the bridegroom We are the bride If you are a part of the bride you're living in anticipation of the bridegroom If you're not living in anticipation of the bridegroom you have to ask yourself, am I really a part of the bride of Christ?

I've yet to meet a bride Who isn't living in anticipation Of a bridegroom to live with him for the rest of her life So Paul says in Philippians 3 verse number 20 Our citizenship is in heaven Not here on earth. It's in heaven From which also we eagerly wait for a Savior the Lord Jesus Christ if your citizenship is in heaven You can't wait to be there Because that's where your home is And so you're eagerly waiting the Lord Jesus Christ Who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory?

By the exertion of the power that he has even to subject all things to him So imagine that Can you imagine that he's gonna take this lowly body? He's gonna transform it Into the image of his glory who can't wait for that You get the more you want that to happen believe me, but the bottom line is this there's this yearning there's this desire There's this anticipation that every one of us have so when we gather together, that's why Paul says the right people says that he was 10 24 25 that we don't forsake the assembly of ourselves together as we see What the day drawing near what day?

the day of the return of Christ The closer we get to the return of Christ we can't afford to forsake the assembly of ourselves together because as we gather together we We get from one another that great desire and yearning to be in glory with Christ as his bride For we as body he is the head so the church The church truly is the priority of the people of God and I wonder today, can you actually honestly say it is your Priority the Church of Jesus Christ Is your priority And to gather together with the people of God on the first day of the week.

It's called the Lord's Day for a reason It's the Lord's Day and I will assume that because you're here That is your desire Because you are present with us this morning, this is your priority That's why you're here Because if you weren't here there would be something else that was your priority, right But you're here because it's your priority And as you gather together with people who got together with the bride Have you ever been to a wedding and you know, I've been to many of them I do tons of them right and I stand right here with the bridegroom And the doors are shut right And the doors swing open And the mother of bride she stands and everybody stands to look at the glorious bride as she walks down the aisle and For the bridegroom, maybe it's the first time he has seen her.

I don't know It's the first time that the rest of us are seeing her. Maybe it's the first time he has seen her And can you imagine that as she walks down the aisle and all of her beauty?

I've never met an ugly bride and they won't done all their beauty, but just just just Think with me for a moment the door swing open And there she stands and her hair is all disheveled and a mess And she has dirt all over her her wedding dress Spilled all down it Cuts on her arm one Slipper on one slipper off And she comes limping down the aisle we'd also back to what is going on What on earth happened? to her Before she got here, you see the bride of Christ is to be presented Blameless and spotless before the throne of God and we will be because of God Because of Christ But in the meantime We do all we can to beautify the bride We do all we can to make sure the bride is clean We do all we can to make sure the bride is is is set in in perfection for the bridegroom when he comes Because we live in anticipation and we want to be ready when he arrives So we repent of our sin we confess our sin We're right one with another We love one another we encourage one another we stimulate one another we motivate one another We testify to the name of Christ for the glory of Christ Because we know Jesus is coming and so we go out we tell others Because we want them to be a part of the bride see it motivates us So they can be a part of what you experience all the time Because the church is a priority of the people of God, let's pray Father we thank you for today and the opportunity to give us a study your word Truly you are great and great to be praised Thank you father for what you teach us Thank you Lord that we are here today Thank you Lord for moving us motivating us to live for you As you leave this place we pray that we leave in a way that would bring glory to your name As you live this week may we live to the glory of your name And anticipate the gathering once again Next Lord's Day on the first day of the week To worship the person We cannot wait to exalt once again in Jesus name Amen