The Local Church: What Is It and Why Should I Care About It?

April 21, 2010

The Local Church

What Is It and Why Should I Care About It?
Selected Scriptures
Wednesday Night
April 21, 2010
Wesley Foundation
Rob Wilkerson

 When Jesus gave the Great Commission, the disciples carried it out by
planting churches.

o Matthew 28:18-20. “All authority is given to Me in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and
make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe everything I’ve commanded you, and
baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Truly I’m with you always, even
to the end of the age.”

o Mark 16:15-16. “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever
believes and is baptized is saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

o Luke 24:46-49. “It is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the
dead, and that repentance and forgiveness should be preached in His name to all nations,
beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And look! I am sending the
promise of my Father on you. Make sure you stay in the city until you are clothed with power
from heaven.”

o Acts 1:8. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my
witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

All of these statements and restatements of THE mission every Christian is to be on, were executed
and carried out by those who listened by doing several things.

o First, they went out to the nations and won people to Jesus.
o Second, they baptized people in the Holy Spirit.
o Third, they gathered those who were won to Jesus into a community.
o Fourth, they fostered a devotion in that community to the teaching of the apostles, koinonia,
prayer, and communion.
o Fifth, they released many of their own out into other parts of the region to carry the same
message and do the same thing.

Do you know what this community was called in each city? A church! The church at Corinth…the
church at Galatia…the church in Ephesus…the church in Philippi, the church in Thessalonica, etc.

The Wesley Foundation Rob Wilkerson

 The Local Church: What Is It and Why Should I Care About It? April 21, 2010

 Everything written down in the NT was written by a church planter or leader,

and to a local church community or local church leader, and was generally
understood as a letter to be circulated to other local churches also.
o This means that every passage we love to read and study in the NT, including our favorite Bible
verses, were written to local churches or local church leaders.

o Even letters written to individuals in the NT (Philemon, Titus, Timothy) were written to church
leaders about matters that affect the church.

o The audience and context of each NT letter or writing should show us that whatever it tells us to
do, whatever it tells us to become, or wherever it tells us to go cannot be done successfully
outside that context. Since the context of each letter is local church, we cannot allow ourselves
to think that we can do what’s in that letter if we’re not in the context of a local church.

 Here’s How the Bible Describes a Church

o A Building, Household, Structure, Dwelling Place, Holy Temple, Body, Bride, Nation,
Race, Priesthood, Saints

Corinth

“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…” (1
Corinthians 1:2, ESV).

“To the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia…” (2
Corinthians 1:2, ESV).

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though
many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body –
Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and were all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not
consist of one member but of many…Now you are the body of Christ and individually members
of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:12, 13, 14, 27, ESV).

Galatia

“To the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ…” (Galatians 1:2-3).

Ephesus

“To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:1-2, ESV).

The Wesley Foundation Rob Wilkerson

 The Local Church: What Is It and Why Should I Care About It? April 21, 2010

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and
members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ
Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together grows
into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for
God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19-22, ESV).

Philippi

“To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: Grace to
you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:1-2, ESV).

Colossae

“To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our
Father” (Colossians 1:2, ESV).

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation…And he is the head of the
body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might
be preeminent” (Colossians 1:15, 18, ESV).

“Let no one disqualify you..puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast
to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and
ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God” (Colossians 2:18, 19, ESV).

Thessalonica

“To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you
and peace” (1 Thessalonians 1:1, ESV).

“To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you
and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:1, 2, ESV).

Timothy, Pastor in Ephesus

“I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may
know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a
pillar and buttress of truth” (1 Timothy 3:14-15, ESV).

“As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious,
you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood…
you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that
you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous
light” (1 Peter 2:4-5, 9-10, ESV).

Peter, Pastor of Saints Scattered Because of Persecution

The Wesley Foundation Rob Wilkerson

 The Local Church: What Is It and Why Should I Care About It? April 21, 2010

“There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your
call – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all
in and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-5, ESV).

Now, in all of these descriptions there is clearly reflected the idea of incorporation. That is, a group of
individuals are incorporated into a single entity.

 Stones are built into one building.

 Members are joined together into one body.
 Citizens are gathered together into one nation.
 Priests are grouped together into one priesthood.
 Saints are called together to be one church.
 All believers are joined together as the single bride of Christ.

The focus then, in the concept of church, is not on me or my skills, or my gifts, or my abilities or talents.
Rather the focus in all of these concepts and passages is the one organism and organization called the
church. My personal identity is absorbed into the one identity of Jesus Christ.

What this means is that even though I am an individual with gifts and skills and needs, I am inseparably
part of something bigger – something defined by God and not by me. And when we get this into our
DNA, we begin to look at a local church in a completely different way…in a way that acknowledges, “I
don’t own the church…the church actually owns me!” There are three basic concepts built together
here in this statement then.

1. The Church belongs to King Jesus.

2. The Church is the body of Jesus Christ.
3. Therefore, ChristiansBelong to the Church and Not the Other Way Around.

If you try to have a local church without the understanding that it belongs to King Jesus, then people try
to control it and simply use Jesus as a rallying point. If you try to have a local church that doesn’t
recognize that it is the body of Christ, then they basically leave all the ministry stuff in church to the
pastor or leaders. And if you have a local church where people think that it belongs to them, then you
simply have a religious charity organization, where people can come and do what they want with their
little club and get a tax deduction for their charitable donations. Most churches end up in one of these
three categories, but not many have all three strands in their DNA.

Applications
 FIRST: One of the hardest things to overcome as an American Christian is independence and
individualism. These are the exact opposite of a church. A church is based entirely on dependence
on God and a single identity which is Jesus Christ.

You’re young, talented, and gifted and there are many churches that will try to recruit you to serve.
And when you acknowledge that the church belongs to King Jesus, and that you belong to King
Jesus, and that therefore you belong to the church, then two things will happen to you.

(1) You will joyfully submit to the local church God directs you to become a part of.

The Wesley Foundation Rob Wilkerson

 The Local Church: What Is It and Why Should I Care About It? April 21, 2010

(2) You will stay put, commit to it, put down roots, and blossom where you’re planted.

Hopping around from church to church doesn’t reflect a submission to God’s concept of the church
in the Bible. It reflects that you still view the church as something you get to pick and own and do
with as you please.

Real joy and beauty as a Christian, however, comes in acknowledgement and submission to the
truth that you are simply one of many believers Jesus died for, and you are under HIS direction. And
you will determine and demonstrate that by a voluntary and purposeful commitment to a local
church where He can use you. When you’re not committed to a local church, God has to discipline
you before He uses you. When you’re committed and submitted, then He can just g ahead and use
you.

 SECOND: If you’re having trouble obeying God in areas of your life – trouble obeying Scripture,
understanding Scripture, etc. – it may be because you’re not committed and submitted to a local
church.

All the stuff God write to you in the Bible was written in the context of a local church. This is
because it took then and still takes now a community around you to help you, and encourage you,
and hold you accountable to do it.

Without a community around you, you will always fail and get perpetually stuck in your sin. So if
you want success in your obedience to God and in your Christian life, commit and submit to a local
church.

 THIRD: Finally, if you have a heart for the lost and want to win people to Christ and disciple them,
you must understand that this task was originally given to the church and can only be carried out
with biblical success by the local church. This is because the biblical goal f evangelism and
discipleship is not just to help you be more godly. Rather, it’s to incorporate and assimilate you into
the body of Jesus Christ.

So if the local church is left out f the effort or equation when it comes to evangelization and
discipleship, we aren’t really making genuine disciples at all, as the Bible describes them. Biblical
disciples all work together in a local community, committed and submitted to each other.

Conclusion
Undoubtedly there are many things that need to be dealt with in all our lives, but I sense God wants to
deal with just a couple of things here tonight.

First, I sense He wants to set us free from our culture. Christians too often become enraptured and
captured by our culture rather than conquerors of it for Jesus. Our culture weaves independence and
personal identity into our DNA. If you’re a Christian, you’ve got new DNA, and it isn’t yours. It’s the
Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ. And the Spirit serves to lift up and honor Jesus. And Jesus lives to lead
worshipers to the Father. So if we’re filled with the Spirit, we’ll follow Jesus and worship the Father. All
of this clearly implies dependence and not independence. It all points to an identity different from our

The Wesley Foundation Rob Wilkerson

 The Local Church: What Is It and Why Should I Care About It? April 21, 2010

own. And so God would want to set us free tonight from independence and this infatuation we have
with our personal identity. He wants you to get lost in Him, His Son, His Kingdom.

Second, God wants to set us free from rebellion. Rebellion comes in two forms: defiance and disorder.
We defy when we outwardly and often publicly proclaim what we disagree with God or the Bible about
and which we we’re gonna go instead. Disorder, however, is often quiet, secretive, and subtle. It
usually goes unnoticed. It happens deep down in our thinking where we come up with a whole list of
rationalized thoughts as to why we can’t submit to God. And we’re so good at coming up with biblical or
holy sounding reasons to disobey God. But that’s just as much rebellion as giving God the middle finger
and doing your own thing. Some of you struggle with this quiet, inward rebellion, and God wants to set
you free from that too so that you can enter into His rest and enjoy His kingdom.

These are two of the biggest reflections people have with committing and submitting to a local church.
And when God delivers you from them, you will find a peace and joy within that you’ve never
experienced before as you pursue HIS kingdom and HIS righteousness first, instead of your own.

Amen.

The Wesley Foundation Rob Wilkerson