Trinity Baptist Church

The Anatomy of the Church

The Muscles

 

This morning we are continuing our study of “The Anatomy of the Church”.  And once again, I want to thank those of you who have taken the time to compliment this series and what it has meant to you.  Many are complimentary every Sunday with just general comments, but I am specifically referencing those who take talked to me in particulars about how God has been at work in your life.

 

I rejoice in that because I see the work of God in you and nothing encourages me more than seeing God at work in you.  But that is also the reason for sermons and studies like this.  We never want to take it for granted. 

 

And I guess my fear is that, as the church grows there is the potential for getting more involved in the activities and programs and give less attention to the fundamentals.  And I never want us to wake up one day and be thinking about the days when God used to bless us and used to use us and we begin to decline rather than grow. 

 

It is simply my objective to keep us on course and on target regarding the things that really matter and to call us to a greater commitment to them than ever before.

 

So to that end, we've been looking at the anatomy of the church.  First of all, a church has to have a skeleton. That gives it form and ultimately decides what it will look like and how it will function. 

That means there are some non-negotiable, bottom-line, foundational truths that form the church. 

 

We must have

 

Then we moved on to the internal systems. Those are the life systems. That's what gives it life and capability to act and react. And in the church, these are nothing other than spiritual attitudes; having the mind of Christ. 

 

And I gave you a whole list of those. Let me just remind you briefly of them: obedience, humility, love, unity, service, joy, peace, thankfulness, generosity, forgiveness, self-control, dependence, flexibility, growth, faithfulness, and hope.

 

These are the attitudes that we must cultivate internally so that we might act and respond like Christ. 

 

So now we have the skeleton and internal systems in place, but we still don’t have a body up and functioning.  There is more that is required for the church to exist. 

 

That body has to have a way to move and put all those attitudes into practice.  That means we need some muscles, and that’s where I want to focus our attention today. 

 

The muscles are what allow the body to function and be active.  Now in order to understand the muscles, you can ask a simple question:  What is our ministry?  What is the church’s responsibility in the world? 

 

Now at this point, if someone were to ask, "What is the church supposed to do?", we’d have to answer,

 

“Well, we have a right relationship with God.  We understand the authority of Scripture.  We are committed to doctrinal purity and personal holiness and we love and respect our leaders just like the Bible instructs us to do.

 

And beyond that, we are obedient, loving, humble and united.  We want to serve and we are full of joy, peace and thankfulness.  We are learning to be generous, forgiving, under control and dependent on God.  And we are flexible, growing, faithful and full of hope.”

 

But what is the church supposed to do?  You see, we may convince ourselves that we are like Christ, but until we take all those attitudes outside the wall of this building and get them functioning in the world, we’ve missed the point.  In fact, one of the great failures of the church is that we gather on Sundays and talk to each other about how to be like Christ rather than impacting a lost world by being like Christ.   

 

The church has some muscles that have to be flexed in order to really be what God intends the church to be.  There are four of them that I want to mention. 

 

The church may “do” a lot of things and be involved in a lot of ministries, but if they don’t fall under one of these four primary areas, it is most likely wasted energy. 

 

The first one is

 

1. Proclamation

 

As I see it, the primary function of the church is proclaiming the truth of God’s Word.  The church is the recipient of the revelation of God, therefore, the church must be the dispenser of the revelation of God.

 

If God has revealed Himself to us so that we can understand Him and know Him, then it is incumbent upon us that we be proclaimers of that information to others.

 

And I am committed to that as an absolute priority in the church. That is a function of the church. We must be about proclaiming the Word of God. That’s why when you come here, you will hear the Word of God. When you go to a class, you will hear the Word of God. When you go to Sunday School, you will discuss and study the Word of God.  That is because the church is to be a place where the Word of God is proclaimed. 

 

Now, there are two primary ways that is done.  The first one is through preaching. 

 

Look with me for a moment at what Paul wrote to young Timothy in 1 Timothy.  Now both 1^st and 2^nd Timothy were written to help us understand the ministry.

There is good advice both to the minister as well as the congregation. 

 

Notice 1 Timothy 3:15

 

Here we find direct instruction of how we are to behave in the church, how we are to function in the church, how we are to operate in the church.

 

1 Timothy 3:16

 

Now that's just an incredible thing. No one's going to argue that that is a great truth.  That God was manifest in the flesh. That's the heart, the core, the substance of our Christian faith.  We don't have anything if God didn't manifest Himself in the flesh of Jesus Christ. 

 

But did you notice that tucked right into the middle of that great verse is a reference to God “being preached unto the nations”?

 

Now when I put that together, I find that in the context of how the church is to conduct itself this direct instruction to preach the truth of God to the nations. 

 

There must be proclamation of the message. Now preaching, in that sense, is unique to Christianity and it's the one marvelous thing that the church does that nothing in the world can match.

 

The world can produce movies and write books and do charitable deeds and build hospitals and educate children.  The world can develop lots of different ways of communicating. 

 

But preaching is something that is unique to the church because God has uniquely gifted His men with that ability.  Therefore, at the heart of the church is proclamation of the Word of God that specifically centers on the coming of Jesus to the

world. 

 

But there is another aspect of proclamation that allows the church to flex this muscle and that is teaching. 

 

Notice 1Timothy 4:6

 

Paul says, Timothy you are to be a teacher and as such you must “instruct the brethren”.

 

And whatever you've received from God's Spirit, you give it out and let the church be the place where things are taught. The truth of God is taught. You know how marvelous that is in a world where people are groping for truth.

 

Do you realize what a blessing it is to have a place where you are taught the Word of God?  You understand that? Do you realize how wonderful it is to know the truth? 

 

We know the truth. Jesus said in John 17 to the Father, "Your Word is truth." And that's what we must teach. 

 

That’s our function.  That’s our job.  It is not our responsibility to talk about the Bible, but to teach the Bible. 

 

Notice verse 11

 

Further in verses 13-16

 

That's our function.  And proclaiming the word of God so that the lost can be saved and the converted be disciple is foundational to everything else we do.   

 

That is what sets everything else in motion. We have to know what the Bible says about a certain thing before we can carry it out.  We can't know how to worship unless we know what the Bible says. We can't know how to pray unless we know what the Bible says. We can't know how to evangelize. We can't know how to disciple or shepherd. We can't know how to train people. We can't know how to help people and their families. We can't do anything unless we understand what God says. So we preach, and we teach.

 

There is no substitute for proclamation.

 

A second muscle is

 

2.  Ministry

 

In regard to ministry, I want to use three terms to help us get a handle on this very comprehensive subject. 

 

The first one is evangelism.  Evangelism deals primarily with personal soul-winning.  “Missions” expands that to larger, corporate projects and “in-reach” is taking care of our own. 

 

 

 

 

And what that means is we are not just going to take care of our own when there is a tragedy or crisis, but we are committed to sharing the gospel, whether that means those closest to us or on the other side of the world. 

 

You see, the ultimate goal of all ministry is that we would reach someone for Christ and help them to develop into the disciple that God desires them to be. 

 

Therefore, we must be involved in evangelism.  Every child of God is a direct product of somebody’s evangelism. 

 

Now there are two primary ways to do evangelism.

 

First of all, we do by life example.  Every evangelism effort always begins here.  It is our life that makes our spoken testimony either believable or unbelievable. It's what you are out there in the world that either confirms or denies your words about Christ. 

 

And Satan’s primary defense against effective evangelism is the life of a Christian that undermines the integrity of the message of the church.

 

Satan doesn't have to worry about eliminating churches if he can be effective in corrupting them enough to cause the world to question the validity of the faith. 

 

Take a look at Matthew 5:13

 

 

You're the salt of the earth. We are out there in the world as a preservative. Therefore we are to be distinctive. We are to have different flavor about us. 

 

That's why we are called to be separated.  That’s why we talked about the bone of personal purity.   We are the salt.

 

And then in verse 14, you're the light of the world.

 

The hiding of the light is no doubt a reference to sin clouding our testimony. 

 

But if you're out there and you're shining bright and you're salt that's really salty, you're gonna have an impact on the world; and it's by what you are before it is what you say.

 

I'm amazed sometimes by the way people act when they see the preacher coming.  I can't tell you how many people have tried to swallow a cigarette when they saw me. It's really funny in some ways. 

 

I love to see someone who claims to be Christian having a drink out in public.  I like to go up and talk with them and see them squirm and fidget and try to hide it. 

 

Here’s the irony of that: 

 

People are put in an awkward place because they see the preacher when they are involved in certain behaviors.  And many are embarrassed by it. 

 

But they never give any though at all to the fact that some unbeliever is seeing them do something that is not like Christ. 

Hey listen, I can handle it.  But it ought to really burden your heart that some lost person is trying to figure out if God is real or not, and they are looking for answers to the questions of their life and they know you are a Christian and you an’t survive without a cigarette or you see nothing wrong with drinking the devil’s alcohol so they come away with the conclusion that your faith is really not that big a deal. 

 

We have a foundation of credibility to lay with our lives, and it's so very important that we do it well. 

 

That’s why Jesus says, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who's in Heaven."

 

The world has a right to look you and me over and find Christ there.  They ought to be able to say, “Only God could make a life like that. Only God could do that to somebody."

 

And then, beyond that, we need to talk. We need to speak. We need to proclaim the message. I mean we need to be ready to speak, to give an answer for the hope that is in us, to proclaim Jesus Christ. We need to have our lips unsealed.

 

Someone once said that most Christians are like the Arctic River, frozen over at the mouth; and it's unfortunate that, in many cases, we are so resistant to speak.

 

If only we could learn to speak for the Lord as easily as we gripe about the church, and the preacher and the programs we don’t like.

 

We ought to be as eager to speak about the Lord as we are to speak about some or the other mundane, unimportant things we waste our time on.

 

We are to be active and busy in evangelism.  It’s a part of our ministry.  

 

And then we are committed to missions. Missions are where we get to expand that spirit of evangelism to the whole world. 

 

It’s amazing to me how we get to reach way beyond here to whatever God will allow us to do across the globe.

 

Our team just recently returned from Africa.  Some of the workers on that team became our partners because of mission work in Arizona.  Next Sunday a team will be leaving for Mexico.  Some of the Liston family who we worked with in Idaho will be going with our team to Acapulco. 

 

Others are getting ready for Bible school in Oklahoma City.  Soon the plans will begin to come together for a partnership in Colorado.  I am so proud of what God is doing at Rawhide and soon we will be finished with the building so we can meet there together and worship with them and let you rejoice in that work!

 

I spoke with a woman this week in Minnesota.  She had been researching the Jewish Feasts and came across a study I had done here that is posted on our website. 

 

 

She called to ask some questions about the Day of Atonement.  And from that conversation, she shared some prayer requests about her family and some burdens she has, and you were there in that conversation as your ministry keeps that website available. 

 

Almost weekly, someone comments to me about our radio broadcast on Sunday mornings and how much they appreciate it.

 

The County Fair is coming up and once again we will be there sharing the gospel with those who pass through.  All of that is Missions.

 

Beyond our own projects here, we get to be a part of the Cooperative Program of Southern Baptists where every week, 52 weeks a year your offerings go beyond this church to do ministry all over the world.

 

Missions is one of the ways we flex the Ministry muscle of the church.  

 

And thirdly we have to take care of the family.  It’s a shame that sometimes we get so busy trying to reach new people that we overlook the needs of our own.  But it is important that we, as we learned recently from Galatians, bear one another’s burdens and help those who are a part of the church to be cared for. 

 

It’s not just when tragedies and crisis come, but it is the love of God shared through us to one another. 

 

Evangelism, Mission and In-reach. 

 

There's a third of these muscles that help us do what we are supposed to and that is

 

3.  Worship

 

And again, that’s a broad subject so let me put a couple of handles on it to help us. 

 

We need to be a worshipping people on a personal level. 

 

Now, we will worship best when we obey most. We worship best when we respond to God in willing obedience.  A lot of people never realize that worship is commanded. 

 

But the most basic definition of worship you will ever find is obedience.

 

We obediently bring our praise and worship to a God who deserves it.  We obediently do what He says and by so doing we bring the sacrifice fo praise. 

 

In fact, in many ways, obedience and worship are synonymous.  So much so that as we are obedient, worship then becomes a way of life rather than just an exercise on Sunday.

 

Let me show you what I mean.  Turn to James 4:8

 

When was the last time you just allowed yourself to be drawn to God in an unrushed, unhurried way? Do you ever just take the time to let your heart and mind ascend into the presence of God?  Maybe through the words of a song or the words of Scripture or in times of deep devotion and prayer?

 

I’ll tell you this:  If you will take the time to live in worship personally, you’ll be amazed at how much more you look forward to and enjoy corporate worship. 

 

I wonder sometimes how many people really worship on Sundays?  You may say, “Well preacher, that’s easy.  We have about 200 on any given Sunday.”

 

I didn’t ask now many attend worship services.  I asked about how many really worship. 

 

How many hearts are really lifted up to God? How many hearts are filled with praise and adoration? And how many are thinking about when it's going to be over or what they're going to do when they are released. 

 

And I wonder how many never get the clutter of the world out of their minds. We see images of pictures in our minds, and we hear jingles of commercials, and we're blasted by the things that we continually see passing before our eyes. And to try to sit down and get the clutter out of there and get focused on the things of God is very difficult. 

 

Worship takes some time and energy.  It is a challenge to really think of the songs we're singing, and to hear the Scripture when it's read and calls us to worship, and to meditate on the things of God that come through the teaching and the preaching.  But we need to cultivate that.

 

It’s a part of the muscles that allow us to do what we are to do.  We are to worship.

 

 

Then there’s one last muscle that I want to mention and it is

 

4.  Prayer

 

Prayer is the hardest spiritual exercise we engage in for two reasons.

 

#1 It's Hard Work Because It Is Selfless

 

True prayer is really not about you at all.  It’s all about the Kingdom of God. It’s about God’s name being hallowed and God’s will being done and God’s ministry being extended. 

 

It thinks about others first and their needs and real prayer is very unselfish and because of that we resist it.  It is contrary to our thinking and our desires. 

 

It’s what Paul was talking about in Ephesians 6:18 when he calls us to, "Praying always for all saints, with all prayer and supplication".  He is calling us to the kind of prayer that turns our attention outward from ourselves to embrace God's purposes and the needs of God's people.

 

And it's just hard work because it selfless, and so it's limited to selfless people. Do you want an illustration of that? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Think about how easy it is to pray when life knocks us around. When we’re the ones with the injury or sickness of we lose a loved one our it’s our child that has strayed away from the Lord or when our kids are making decisions about who they're going to marry, or about when some tragedy comes in, or we're caught in some dishonest deed, or some immoral act; and, immediately, because we are at stake, we find ourselves rather easily drawn to prayer on our own behalf.

 

But that doesn't demonstrate the strength of prayer. That demonstrates the weakness of prayer.

 

And when it’s somebody else’s request and problem, it is much more difficult to have the same passion and energy and time to pray. 

 

The strength of prayer is to abandon my life in unceasing prayer on behalf of the extension and glory of God in His eternal Kingdom, and the needs of His redeemed people beyond myself.

 

And that's why it's so hard.

 

Want another illustration?  Think about how well-attended everything at the church is except for the prayer meetings. 

 

Have a fellowship and everyone shows up.  Have gospel music and you can draw a good crowd.  But have a prayer meeting and the crowd will fit in a closet. 

 

Why is that?  I think it is because prayer is so selfless. It’s not about how much I like ice cream or music. 

It is the elevating of things other than ourselves in its purest, truest sense.

 

And it’s just hard work because of that. 

 

The second reason that prayer is difficult is not only because it's selfless, but because it's so private.

 

Primarily, when you pray, you pray all by yourself and no one knows.  Therefore, you've got to have the self-discipline and the strength to do it without peer pressure or approval.

 

Now let’s just be honest:  There are a lot of things we do because we know people will know we did them.  It can happen with almost any Christian discipline.  We can attend Sunday School and church because we want to the reputation of being “church-goers”. 

 

We can study just so we can show off our knowledge and people will say, “My, what a student of the Bible!”  And we can just hardly wait for someone to ask us a question so we can show off.  And if they don’t ask, we will bring it up.  “Have you ever thought about thus and so?  Well, I was reading the other day. . .”

 

But prayer, when it’s done right, is done secretly.  I know we have prayer meetings and public prayer and all that, and I suppose there is a place for it, but notice what Jesus said in

 

Matthew 6:5-6

 

 

Now I would suggest prayer is very difficult because in this setting, there is no public appreciation.   Nobody sees you perform, and let’s face it, we perform much better when we know people are watching us.

 

I know what I’m talking about.  I really prepare for sermons.  Why?  Because I know I will have an audience three times a week, and I don’t want you to waste your time by coming here and listening to me stumble and mumble around.  I believe you deserve to get something when you come. 

 

Therefore, I work hard at being prepared.  I research and make sure I’ve got the words interpreted correctly.  I try to find just the right illustration to make the point.  After all, I’ve got people listening. 

 

But I will tell you I find it much more difficult to pray.  I am convicted by Acts 6:4 where I discover that the Apostles gave themselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the Word because I find it much easier to give myself to the ministry of the Word than to prayer because I don’t have a whole lot of choice about eh ministry fo the Word. 

 

Sunday’s coming and there will be a crowd and I have to be ready. But I can ignore the prayer requirement and no one will know. Oh I guess eventually you’d know, but you wouldn't know right away.  And that's why prayer is such hard work.

 

It’s so selfless and it is so private.  God help us to be faithful in our prayers.

 

 

Prayer is the muscle that moves the power and the hand and the omnipotence of God.  I don't understand how it works. I just know God hears and answers prayer, and "the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much.  May God help us to be those righteous who pray.

 

So let me leave you with 0one final thought about prayer.  It is found in 1 Thessalonians 5:17

 

“Pray without ceasing”

 

"What does that mean?"  Well, it simply means that you pray all the time.  That means we can live in God-consciousness.  That means you don’t have to develop a prayer life.  It means your life is prayer.  It means that at every moment, you are aware of the presence and power of God .  Therefore, all the time, with every thought, with every action, with every response, with every word, you are aware that God is there. 

 

That means that with everything you do, the thought behind it is, “Lord is this alright to do?  Is this alright to way? To think?  To respond? In other words, you interpret life as if you were looking through the very mind and heart of God.

 

You don’t have to go around with eyes closed and hands folded mumbling to pray without ceasing. 

Prayer is just the way of living in the conscious presence of God, so that everything is offered to Him. Everything is communed with Him. You hear His voice. You feel the leading of the Spirit of God. You offer Him your petitions and your thoughts and your joys and your problems and live your life in an awareness of God.

Have you ever seen those guys that just like to show off?  That’s why I never take my shirt off in public!  I don’t want to be accused of showing off like that.  I mean they have muscles where I don’t even have places. 

 

For instance, look at this guy. .

And this one’s even worse!

 

Some of you are old enough to remember "The Merv Griffin Show."  One time he had for a guest on the show a body builder. During the interview, Merv asked "Why do you develop those particular muscles?"

 

The body builder simply stepped forward and flexed a series of well-defined muscles from chest to calf. The audience applauded. "What do you use all those muscles for?" Merv asked. Again, the muscular specimen flexed, and biceps and triceps sprouted to impressive proportions.

 

"But what do you USE those muscles for?" Merv persisted. The body builder was bewildered. He didn't have an answer other than to display his well-developed frame.

 

Listen:  God did not provide the church with muscles just so we can show off and be on display.  They are foundational to every function of the church.  They’re meant to provide the very means by which we do what we do as a church.  We are to preach and teach and evangelize and do missions and ministry.  We are to worship and pray.  May God forgive us for the times we are merely putting on a show.

 

Let's pray together.