What is the Church?

So I'll direct your Bibles to one Corinthians chapter one through nine, and then we will be jumping to the same chapter verses twenty-six through thirty-one. That was one Corinthians chapter one verses one through nine. Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge.

Even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful.

Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.

These are the words of God. This morning we're gonna be looking at this passage and one particular verse in particular from one Corinthians. I would encourage you, unless you've memorised the whole Bible, have it open in front of you so we can have a look and refer to different parts of it as we go through. Before we do that, let's just pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have spoken to us.

Thank you that you have given us the living word, the Lord Jesus Christ, and your written word, by which you continue to speak to us today. We pray, Lord, that by the work of your Holy Spirit, you would open up our ears, our minds, and our hearts this morning, that you would show us again the glory of the gospel found in Christ, and you would show us the wonder of the salvation that you have given us, that we might live for you and for your glory. We ask this for Jesus's sake. Amen. Now I wonder whether you've ever been asked the question by somebody, what is your church like?

Maybe you're talking to someone, you haven't mentioned that you go to church. You might have met a Christian from another church, and inevitably the question comes up: so what's your church like? I don't know about you, but I find that a very, very difficult question to answer because there are lots of different ways that you can go. We might answer that question by what we're not. Well, we're not a Catholic church. We're not a Pentecostal church.

We're not an overly traditional church. You could go that way. You could go by denomination. We're a Reformed church. I think you only make that mistake once in your life because then the next question comes up: what's a Reformed church?

What are you guys reformed from? Maybe we answer it by the vibe of the place, what it feels like to attend, and we might talk about our Sunday worship together. And often then we're talking about the preaching or the music, or maybe we answer that question by the ministries that we have, the different things that go on for different age groups and the groups that meet throughout the week. I don't know about you, but I find that a very tough question to answer. Well, this morning we're gonna spend a little bit of time not really thinking about what the church is like, but what the church actually is.

We gotta spend a little bit of time thinking about what this church, the Open House Christian Reformed Church, actually is. And not particularly though how it's different from other churches, but what is actually true of every church that belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're gonna do that by looking at just one of the verses here from one Corinthians one, and that's verse two, where Paul gives us this wonderful definition of what a church is. Now when you read a letter from the New Testament, all of Paul's letters have this very same similar introduction, don't they? There are three parts to it.

In the first part, and that's verse one here, we know who the writer of the letter is. In this case, we know that it's Paul, the apostle, and he writes it alongside another man called Sosthenes, which we don't know a lot about. The third part of that introduction is a blessing that's there in verse three. It's a blessing from God, from Paul, from God to the people. And then in verse two, the second part of that introduction, we get to learn who the recipients of the letter are.

Now it seems quite interesting that this is one of the longest introductions to a letter in the New Testament, and we actually have more detail about the church that he is writing to in this introduction than any other. And that's actually quite helpful for us because it actually helps us to understand what a church is. Now if you know the book of one Corinthians at all, you know that Paul is actually writing quite a difficult letter. And he's writing a letter to a church that is in a fair bit of trouble, going through a pretty hard time. And in some sense, that shouldn't surprise us because all churches actually go through troubled times and hard times.

We don't read a single letter in the New Testament that's addressed to a church that has it all together and it's all going wonderfully and smoothly. And talking to Tony and others, maybe you feel like maybe our church is going through a little bit of a troubled time at the moment. We might ask questions like, when's it gonna end? How's it gonna end? What will our church look like in twelve months time and in five years time?

Well, I don't know the answers to some of those questions or any of those questions. None of us do. Only God knows. But this morning He's gonna encourage us. Gonna encourage us not by giving a clear picture of what the next twelve, eighteen, twenty-four months look like, but by reminding us who we are to Him.

That as a church, we occupy a unique and privileged position in the eyes of God and in the plans and purposes of God. Three things we're gonna notice that Paul says about who we are, who the church is. And the first one is just in the first few words. If you've got those two open, or we could put it up behind us here, where it says, to the church of God that is in Corinth. I wanna focus on two words there: the words "of God."

You notice that? This is not the church that belongs to the Corinthians. It's not the church that belongs to Paul. It's not the church that belongs to its elders, its leaders, or even its members. It's a church that belongs to God.

That's the first thing we want to notice about what a church is. The church is actually the possession of God Himself. Now why does the church, and why does the church belong to God? Well, there are probably a couple of reasons. The first one is, in a sense, it belongs to God because everything belongs to God, doesn't it?

We learn in the Bible that through the Son, by the Son, and for the Son, everything comes into being. God owns everything that there is, and that includes the church. But it's even deeper than that, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who, through His death, burial, and resurrection, brought the church into existence. It's His body.

The Holy Spirit poured out in the day of Pentecost, working in the hearts of people, drawing them to God, brought the church together. The church belongs to the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But there's another reason in here as well, and it's kind of related. We'll have a look a little bit further on in verse two. Look at what it says.

It says, church of God in Corinth, that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints. You want to notice that little word there: "called." It kind of maybe seems a little bit innocent, a little bit innocuous, but it's actually a really loaded word. That's why we read from further on in this chapter, because Paul goes on to talk about this calling a lot more. If you jump down to verse nine, if you have that in your Bible there, it says, God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Jump across the page to verse twenty-four. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Verse twenty-six: for consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Then there's another word that's really related to the word "called," and that's the word "chosen."

Verse twenty-seven: but God chose what is foolish. God chose what is weak. Verse twenty-eight: God chose what is low. And there's one more. I can't see it right now.

We belong to Him because the church is full of people who have been chosen and called by God to belong to Him and to belong to each other. No church is just a random collection of people who happen to have a similar theology and like similar music and who live in a similar area. That's not how it works. The church belongs to God. He chooses the people who are gonna belong to it, and He calls them not only to Himself, but He calls them to each other as a church.

Actually, the English word that we have, "church," comes from a Greek word not used here, but another Greek word called "kuriake," which actually translated means "belonging to the Lord." Now I want to suggest that there's a great challenge in this, but also a great encouragement. We'll start with the challenge. This is a challenge then to the way that we think about and particularly we treat the church. Because it's not ours to do with as we wish.

It's God's church. It belongs to Him. If it was simply ours to do what we wanted with, we could kind of treat it however we wanted to. It was a sort of human club or an organisation where you could kind of hold it at arm's length a little bit, I don't want too much to do with it. You could kind of use it for your own ends, or I could get my way here.

If we didn't like what was going on, we could simply decide to move on somewhere else. If it was our church, we could treat it like this, but we can't, can we? Because it's God's church, and it's precious in His eyes, precious in His sight. And so we treat the church and the people of the church as though they belong to God because they do.

There's also a tremendous encouragement, isn't it? Because the church belongs to God, He's the one who cares for it and loves it and looks after it. There's no better hands for the church of God to be in than God's Himself. As I said before, I came here, I came here yesterday on the plane. I drove straight from our church camp.

And as a church, we're really blessed. Just to have a bunch of little kids at the moment, from sort of really toddlers to sort of preschoolers and primary schoolers. And a church camp is awesome, isn't it? You get all these kids just running amok. And so you stand on the kind of balcony, you know, everybody's sort of having a coffee, and you look out the bush and the oval, and there's just kids running around and sort of doing whatever that looks like they want to do.

And you think, is anybody looking after these kids that kind of gone a little wild? And then you notice that you see all these parents. My kids are a bit older now, so I don't know where they are half the time. Church camp. But you sort of look, you look around, and you see all these parents having a coffee and a chat.

And one eye is on a conversation and the other eye is out on the oval. They know the kids that belong to them, and that's where their eyes are because they love their kids and they're gonna protect them whatever way they can. In a much greater way, our God doesn't just have one eye on His church. He has both of them. He knows those who are His own, and He loves them dearly.

And He has all the power of heaven and earth at His disposal to care for and protect that which belongs to Him, His church. Alright, let's move on. We've only covered four words of the text so far, so we'll keep moving. Second thing I want to notice about this church and any other church, gonna be, gonna have to concentrate. I hate to have to tell you to do this, but concentrate for just one minute.

This is a church, but it also belongs to the Church. Let me say that again. This is a church, but it also belongs to the Church. I wonder if you pick this up as we're reading verse two. Have a look again.

It says, to the church of God that is in Corinth. So this is a church in Corinth. It's the location where it is. People gathered together from that city to worship together and to be together under the leadership of the church. The church of God that is in Corinth.

To those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints. Now listen to this bit. Together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours. It's a wonderful comparison going on here, isn't it? This is true of every church.

It's a church in a particular location, but it's also part of the Church that exists across the world, actually across heaven and earth and all time. And in many ways, this reflects the two main ways that the Greek word "ekklesia," the word that we translate as "church," is actually used in the New Testament. Mostly it's used of a local body of believers. It's its primary use. The Open House Christian Reformed Church, that sort of sense.

Might be churches that met in a building. There might be churches that met in a home, but they were a local body of believers who met together, who were in community together. But the second way that it's used is of that Church of the Lord Jesus spread across the world, spread across time, Old Testament and New Testament, until Jesus comes again, both that exists on earth and also exists in glory. It's the overall collection of all of God's people, all those who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now when it comes to you and I, we have this wonderful privilege that we belong to both. We belong to a local church, a local body of believers, and we belong to the universal Church, all those that God has called. Now we don't wanna play off one against the other because they're both important. They're both very important. But I do wanna also note something very significant.

The way that you belong to the universal Church is by belonging to the local church. The New Testament knows nothing of people who only belong to the universal Church but don't have a connection, a relationship with a local body of believers. Now sadly, it's become quite a trend in the Western world in particular for people to identify as members of the universal Church, but I don't want anything to do with the local church.

The Barna Institute, it's a research group amongst Christians in the US. This is US, so Australia will be slightly different, but their research suggests that one in three practising Christians in the US who call themselves Christians, who believe in the Lord Jesus, have nothing to do with a local church, and that is something that the Bible knows absolutely nothing about. If you're connected to Christ, you are connected to His people. You're part of His body. You're part of the universal Church, but the way that's expressed is locally through a local church.

Now we all know the reality, you know? Sometimes we move towns, don't we? And so there's a period of time that we're disconnected from a local body. We're checking out churches. We're kind of figuring out which one we're gonna go to.

Sometimes churches go through theological error. They depart from the Scriptures, and we might then need to leave that church and look for another one. And there might be times where the fit just isn't right, you know, we go looking somewhere else. Now these things happen. They shouldn't be the norm, but they do happen.

But also that in-between phase shouldn't last very long. God has designed us to be connected to a local church, a body of believers. That's why in the Christian Reformed churches in particular, we actually take membership in the local church very seriously. Now in one sense, your piece of paper, although we don't actually give a piece of paper anymore, but when we used to, your piece of paper or your name on the roll, it doesn't necessarily mean very much.

But in another sense, it means a lot. It's actually saying this is the local body that God Himself has made me part of. This is the local church that I am called to love and serve, and this is the local body of believers that's called to love and serve me. And that's important. That's significant.

Alright, thirdly and finally, last thing we want to notice: we've seen that the church belongs to God. It's part of the Church. It's a church and part of the Church. Final thing I notice is that the church is made up of people who are holy to God in Christ. Let's have a look how the rest of the verse goes.

The church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints. Now first thing I want to notice here is that the church is made up of people. Now in a sense that makes sense, doesn't it? But it's important to notice. We in our language maybe can casually let this idea slip.

I do this and I've got to catch myself. We say like, I go to that church, and we talk about a building. Or we talk about our church in terms of what happens on a Sunday. I went to church on Sunday. Well, churches do meet, and churches usually meet in a building, but those two things are not what the church is.

The church is actually people. People who are gathered together, who do gather together in a building to worship God, but it's people. To say we belong to a church actually means to say we belong to a community of people. Not a club, not an organisation, not a building, but to a community of people. To say that we love the church or we are to love the church is to say that we love people, a community of people.

Yeah, we might love the singing. We might love the preaching. We might love the ministries. That's wonderful. But first and foremost, to love the church is to love people.

Second thing I wanna notice here is who those people are. Paul describes them as sanctified and saints. Now you might be thinking, I look around this building. I'm not sure I see too many saints. Well, let's have a think about what he's actually saying there.

Sanctified really means to be made holy. People who are right with God through the Lord Jesus. It's people who, like us, have come to see our sin, see our rebellion from God, heard the good news of the gospel, and been able to respond to it in repentance and faith. What a wonderful thing that the community that we're called to be a part of and to love is people who, like us, are knowing the Lord Jesus and His disciples, growing in Him.

But also how tragic is it that the community of people that we're called to be a part of is people who, like us, are still learning to be disciples of the Lord Jesus? You say we're sanctified, but we're not yet made perfect, are we? That's gonna bring about some challenges in belonging to a local church and loving people. It's not gonna come easily. It's actually gonna involve effort and patience and forgiveness of people who are not yet perfect, right with God through Christ, but still being made holy through their lives.

Second way he describes them there is also as saints. It's actually a very difficult word for the New Testament to translate. It's a Greek word, "hagioi," and it really has this idea of holy ones. And in the Old Testament, holy ones or holy things were things that were both kind of purified, but also had been set apart for holy uses, for God's uses and God's purposes. And describing us as saints here, Paul is beginning to describe what not just what the church is, but what it is for.

It is set apart, made holy for God's purposes. To honour Him, to bring Him glory, to love one another, to grow in Christ together, to encourage one another, to grow in Christ together, and to declare the goodness of God and the goodness of the gospel to the world around us. It's not just a club who exists to make people feel safe and comfortable. It should do that, but it's a community of people who exists for the plans and the purposes of God.

So we begin to realise, don't we, why the church is so precious, so special, so unique in the eyes of God. It is His one and only instrument for declaring how good He is, how great He is, and how good the gospel is to a needy world. I used to serve in the same church that Tony did before he retired, in a church called Willoughton in WA. And I served alongside another pastor there, and he had a folder on his shelf, and on the side of it was written the words "Plan B."

And it was actually like our superannuation company at the time, but it looked kind of funny. This is pastor. If this church thing doesn't work out, I've got Plan B in a folder up there. God has no Plan B when it comes to the spread of the gospel. He could have got angels to do it. It's not His plan.

His plan is His church. He loves it. He protects it. He cares for it. He feeds it.

He nurtures it. He watches over it so that it might declare how wonderful and good the Lord Jesus Christ is. Let's pray together, shall we? Lord God, we thank you for this incredible privilege that we have of belonging to Your church. And look, God, we acknowledge that we too quickly take it for granted.

We too easily treat it like it's our own. Lord, we too easily hold it at arm's length. But thank you, Lord, for the reminder from Your word this morning of how wonderful and precious Your church is. And Lord God, we pray that we might know of that love, that protection, that tenderness, that concern. We might pray, Lord, that it might feed us and encourage us to love and care for one another.

And, Lord, we pray that You might use this church for Your glory, for Your name's sake, for the spread of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.