This past Sunday we continued in our new teaching series, Nuts and Bolts. Last week we talked about what the church is. This week, we spent our time experiencing together what the church is for. I say experiencing because that’s more of what this service was. Below is the short message I gave at the beginning of the experience. For the rest of the experience and some powerful examples of what it looks like when we get the church right, watch the imbedded video of the service. When we get the church right, the work of Jesus is made possible. Check out some examples of what this looks like below.

Toward a Purpose

The church gets a lot of things wrong. Have you ever thought that? I have a pretty strong suspicion that even if you haven’t you know at least one person who thinks that. You may know a whole bunch of them. You may live with one—or more. Now, depending on how outspoken you happen to be about your own attachment to the church they may sit on those particular thoughts out of respect for you, but they’re there. Do you know why they think the church gets a whole bunch of things wrong? Because the church gets a whole bunch of things wrong. 

I mean just think through a general list. Perhaps the first and best exhibit is the Crusades. Now, I have more than one book in my library making a compelling (and historically sound) argument why from a geopolitical perspective the Crusades were not only not the unmitigated evil they are often portrayed as being, but were even necessary for the various nations of Europe to band together and fight. But for the church to be the one standing out front and calling for the violence? For the church to be the one actively recruiting soldiers by promising them greater rewards in Heaven for going to kill as many infidels as they possibly can? That’s a pretty tough pill to swallow. There are several other examples like this from out of church history.  

If you don’t want to dwell on the past, though, we can still find plenty of stories today of individual churches making huge messes because they have committed themselves to following the culture or their own sinful desires rather than pursuing the righteousness and justice of God in their communities. We could point to the abuse scandals of the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention. We could talk about the number of churches who have kicked people out or otherwise driven them off because they crossed a certain member or committee. Pastors have abused their power and position at the expense of the congregation and congregations have treated pastors and their families terribly. The church gets a lot of things wrong. 

But if the church is the people of Jesus called out to be His body on earth like we talked about last week, we have to conclude that all of these kinds of things are examples of when the church wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do. They have all been occasions when the church forgot what it was for. Thankfully, those times are the decided minority. When the church has gotten that right, however, profound good has been unleashed on the world time and time again. I’ll make that statement even stronger: Any time there has been an institution created or a movement started or an injustice overturned or a culture shift sparked that has made the world a better place, the church has been right at the center of that activity. Schools, hospitals, newspapers, social welfare systems, hospice care, efforts to oppose racism and slavery and human trafficking, and so on and so forth all came out of the church and nowhere else over the course of the last 2,000 years. 

That’s all big-picture stuff, though. It’s vitally important to know and understand, but it doesn’t tell us much about what the church is for down on our level. Well, let’s go back again this week to what Jesus said in His response to Peter’s confession in Matthew 16. If you have a copy of the Scriptures, come back with me to Matthew 16 and let’s look at this one more time. Remember, Jesus had taken the disciples on a retreat so that the lack of routine and familiarity could help them focus a bit more on who He was and what they were doing. 

“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist [who at this point in Jesus’ ministry had been beheaded by Herod]; others, Elijah; still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets’ ‘But you,’ he asked them, ‘who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus responded, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.’” 

So, like we said last week, what this means is that the church is the people of Jesus called out to be His body on earth. We are to be the body of Christ, doing and accomplishing the things Jesus would have been doing if He were still physically present in this world. The reality is that in us, He is still physically present. As for the kinds of things Jesus would have been doing, I just mentioned what some of those things are from a big picture perspective. But I want you to think back with me for a second to our journey through Acts. In Luke’s description of the explosive rise of the early church, he doesn’t actually spend a whole lot of time on the church doing these kinds of big picture things. Instead, he spends much of his time focused on their doing a lot of little things. These were little things that enabled the big things to happen. 

You see, while the church exists collectively as the body of Christ, it is individuals who are the ones doing any specific project to advance His kingdom. We don’t have the wherewithal to do that kind of thing on our own, though. We need to be equipped, encouraged, and empowered to do it. Much of what the church does as the body of Christ, then, is to do just that. We help make sure the people of Jesus are equipped and enabled to be the hands and feet of Jesus. And when we do that effectively and well, God’s kingdom is grown. When we get the church right, the work of Jesus is made possible.