CHURCH Week 8

In the western culture we often think of the church as a building, an institution or a sort-of club to join.

David in Psalm 65.4 sung--
How blessed is the one in whom Thou does choose
and bring near to Thee,
to dwell in Thy courts;
we will be satisfied with the goodness of Thy house,
thy holy temple.

In Isaiah 56.7 God says--
for My house shall be a house of prayer.


In Ephesians 2.21 Paul calls the church--
a holy temple in the Lord.


These quotes bring the church from a courtyard to a house to a temple. The building is there but it is a house for a family, that is, God and His children. And more than that, it is a temple in which He is worshiped, a place of reverence and awe and spirit. When you stand there and inhale, more than air enters you; it is the spirit of divinity of which you are aware; it is as if you'd rather not touch anything but you adore the place as it glows within you.

The church has a beautiful strangeness. It is not like learning about someone's life, it is entering into someone's life, that of Jesus Christ. Just think what it would be like to enter into Christ when He heals a leper, or raises Lazarus from the dead or touches children or speaks to a woman caught in adultery. What would it be like to enter into Jesus when He speaks to His Father, sees His Father, is with His Father?

To hear those whisperings, to feel that surge of power, to see that horizon.

That would be a complicated environment, would it not? And yet, that is Christ. That is the church.

It is the place in which we experience healing, wholeness, forgiveness, blessing and love.

It is the place where the knot of sin is untied so that our souls can relax.

We can lay ourselves down, to rest in Him. We rest because we are in Him. Have you ever sat on the banks of a leisurely stream, the glowing reflection of a momentary sun off the network of trickling water, easing by? That is rest.

But it is also the place in which we learn who God is.

The blessed man delights in the Law, meditates on the Law day and night in the assembly of the righteous, Psalm 1 We have the eyes of our heart enlightened to know the hope of our calling, the riches of the glory of the inheritance in the saints, Eph. 1.18. John Donne called church the college of God. The church is the pillar of the truth.
We hear the Scriptures read and expounded in the church. We hear and obey the Scriptures in the church. When Jesus read the scroll from Isaiah, He said--Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing, Luke 4.21. It is in the church that proclaiming becomes hearing to be evangelizing.


Is there a NT church in which these things happened?
It may have been the church at Thessalonica. Paul uses the phrase in Ephesians 5.1--be imitators of God, as beloved children. But how do we do this?

In 1 Thessalonians 1. 3-10 Paul was always thanking God for the saints at Thessalonica because of the--word of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ...

He says they became--imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the Word in much tribulation and with the joy of the Holy Spirit.

He says they--became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

He says--the Word of the Lord sounded forth from you...in every place the word of your faith has gone forth.

That is the Word of God.


What did they have, to make all of that possible?
Paul says in 1 Thes. 5.11--encourage one another and build up one another, just as you are doing...appreciate those who diligently labor among you and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instructions, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work.

The second time Paul wrote to this church, he completed his instructions to them by saying--stand firm and hold to the tradition which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us, 1 Thes. 2.15. Now we can only imagine what letters or what sermon or teaching came to the Thessalonians, but they believed it. They believed it as a church, as a group of believers with one mind, spirit, soul, so that they became one church under God.