Redescovering Church Part 1

• Rediscovering Church
God’s Covenant Community
• Genesis 12:1-3
• Criticisms of the church ...
“Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people’s business.” – Jesse Ventura
• Criticisms of the church ...
“I’m not a vampire type, when some-body shows me the cross or some-thing like that. But organized religion gives me the creeps.” – Stephen King
• Criticisms of the church ...
• “I’m a spiritual person. I’m just not into church.”
• “The church is full of hypocrites.”
• The bride of Christ ...
• Ephesians 5:25 just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her ... that He might present her to Himself a glorious church ... holy and without blemish.
• Individualistic society ...
“Why do I need the church ?”
• Reading the Bible individualistically...
• Philippians 1:6 He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ ..
• 1 Cor 3:16-17 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
• God’s Desire for Community ...
• Genesis 12:2-3 "I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make you a great nation.. and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
• Titus 2:14 that He might redeem us .. and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
• Revelation 21:3 "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people.”
• Definition of “Church”...
• “Church” –
– Gr. kuriakon belonging to the Lord; ‘the Lord’s …” (1 Cor 11:20; Rev 1:10) later ‘house of worship’
– Gr. Ecclesia assembly, congregation, gathering (over 100 t in NT) the community of God’s people
• OT roots of the NT Church ...
• The church a NT institution ..Matt 16:18; Eph 1:22-23; 2:20-21; 5:25-33; 1 Tim 3:15
• The NT church is rooted in OT foundation of the community of God’s people …
• 1 Covenant blessed ...
• Genesis 9:9 I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you ..
• Genesis 12:2-3 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you ... and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
• Covenant ( Berith )...
• A legally binding agreement between two parties; root meaning “to cut a covenant”
• God’s Side of the Covenant (Gen 15) ..
• Genesis 15:5-18 "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars .. So shall your descendants be... when the sun went down .. behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. 18 On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram..to your descendants I have given this land..."
• Abraham’s side (Gen 17) ..
• Genesis 17:1-11 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless ... and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.
• The Mosaic Covenant (Exod 19-24) ..
• Exodus 19:5-6 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. 6 And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.‘.8 the people answered together, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do.”
• Based upon God’s faithfulness ..
• Deuteronomy 7:7-9 The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; 8 but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers..9 "Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments...
• 2 Reflecting God’s Character ..
• Leviticus 19:2 'You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy"
• Deuteronomy 14:1-2 "You are the children of the Lord your God 2 For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
3 Community responsibility..
• Exodus 22:21-27 "You shall neither mistreat a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 22 "You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. 23 If you afflict them in any way, and they cry at all to Me, I will surely hear their cry; 25 "If you lend money to any of My people who are poor among you, you shall not be like a moneylender to him; you shall not charge him interest. And it will be that when he cries to Me, I will hear, for I am gracious.
• 3 Community responsibility..
• Deuteronomy 10:12-18 "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good? ..17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. 18 He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger”
• A New Covenant ..
• Jeremiah 31:31-34 "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah — this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
• The blessing of God’s community ..
• “Church is a place of welcome and laughter, healing and hope, friends, family, and new life. It’s where you’ll find people learning to pray, coming to faith, struggling with temptation, finding new purpose, and new power to carry that purpose out. It’s where people discover, in getting together with others to worship the one true God, that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. No church is like this all the time. But a remarkable number of churches are partly like that for quite a lot of the time.” - N.T. Wright
• Rediscovering Church
God’s Covenant Community
• Genesis 12:1-3