CHURCH-PURPOSE
The
Word of God tells us that Christ’s church is glorious... (But) today the glory
of the church is thickly veiled. It is no exaggeration to assert that in the
main it presents a picture of advanced decadence and extreme feebleness... Let
it be said emphatically, the church is where the truth is. Sound doctrine
always has been, is today, and ever will be the foremost mark of the true
church. But who dares to assert that there is today in the churches a rising
tide of interest in doctrine? By and large people do not go to church to learn
about God from His infallible Word, but to be tranquilized. And that the glory
of God is both the beginning and the end of common worship does not seem to
occur to them.
The early
church was most useful when it preached the meaning of Christ through the lens
of the whole of Scripture. It was most powerful when it maintained integrity with
God and other human beings. It was most evangelistic when it understood that
adherents of other religions, whether Jewish or Greek or Roman, faced eternal
judgment without Christ.
Paul House
Who Will Be Saved? Edited
by: House, Paul and Thornbury, Gregory. Crossway, 2000, p. 229.
Reform is no answer for a culture like ours.
Redemption is what is needed, and that occurs at the individual, not
societal level. The church needs to get back to the real task to which we are
called: evangelizing the lost. Only when multitudes of individuals in our
society turn to Christ will society itself experience any significant
transformation.
John MacArthur
Successful Christian Parenting, 1998, p. 10.
The
basic task of the church is to teach sound doctrine. It is not to give one
pastor's opinion, to recite tear-jerking illustrations that play on emotions,
to raise funds, to present programs and entertainment, or to give weekly
devotionals. In Titus 2:1 Paul writes, "But as for you, speak the things
which are fitting for sound doctrine."
John MacArthur
The Master's Plan for
the Church, Moody, 1991, p. 84.
The church is
not a building made with stone. It is a building made with living flesh. We
believers are living stones in God’s temple (1 Pet. 2:5), and when we come
together we constitute a place of worship where God manifests Himself in ways
that He cannot manifest Himself when we are alone. Believers become the living
temple of God, offering to Him spiritual sacrifices not possible anywhere other
than in the assembly of the redeemed church.
The Ultimate Priority, Moody Press 1983, p.
103.
The typical
church is an activity trap. Having lost sight of the higher purposes for which
it was originated, it now attempts to make up for this loss by an increased
range of activities.
Quoted in: Dann Spader, Growing a Healthy Church, Moody, 1991, p. 9.
The purpose
of the church assembling together for the regular worship service is not for
evangelism. The church is a gathering or assembly of believers who do not need
to be evangelized. The purpose of the church meeting together is to edify the saints, equip them for service, and to bring them
to maturity (Eph.4:13-15). The early church met together and “continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship,
and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). They met together to
worship God, and to minister to one another, thus building up the Body of
Christ. When saints are taught and trained, then they will be brought to the
“fullness of Christ” (Eph.4:13).
J. Delany
The Purpose of the Church, Used by
Permission.
A church that
is busy ministering to itself, building itself up, edifying itself, and reaches
no farther than its own four walls is self-centered. Training, edification and
equipping of the saints is not an end itself, but is a means to an end. God's
goal is that the church be built up SO THAT it can effectively function in the
world and carry out Christ's will on earth.
J. Delany
The Purpose of the Church, Used by
Permission.
Oh, my
friends, we are loaded down with countless church activities, while the real
work of the church, that of evangelizing the world and
winning the lost, is almost entirely neglected.
Oswald Smith
The mission
of the church is missions.
Oswald Smith
These then
are the marks of the ideal Church – love, suffering, holiness, sound doctrine,
genuineness, evangelism and humility. They are what Christ desires to find in
His churches as He walks among them.
Basic Introduction to the New Testament,
Eerdmans, 1964, p. 163-164.
God's purpose
is to glorify himself through His church. He is glorified as the church is true
to Him and His Word, as the church mirrors His purity and holiness. Failure to
keep the church pure brings discredit to God on this earth and brings to His
name great shame in the failure of those who profess to know Him.
God is great,
and worship is our response to His greatness! The church’s primary purpose is
to insure that God receives the glory He desires and deserves. That is why the
saints gather together to corporately rehearse the greatness
of God through worship. The focus of the church should be the worth-ship of
God. Evangelism’s main goal is first and foremost to recruit worshippers for
God. When Christ is embraced as offered in the Gospel, the believer is brought
into a personal worshipping relationship with God the Father.
Mike Chastain
The Goal of Redemption, Tabletalk,
Feb. 2004, p. 55, Used by Permission.
Disturbers
are to be rebuked, the low spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be
supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled
taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed,
the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil borne
with, and all are to be loved!
We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that
will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.
G.K.
Chesterton
Issues and G.K.’s
Answers, Christianity Today,
07-01-02.
Missions
is not the “ministry
of choice” for a few hyperactive Christians in the church. Missions
is the purpose of the church.
Author Unknown
God reveals
His glorious majesty in the highest heavens, His fearful justice in the hell of
the damned; His wise and powerful providence is manifest throughout the whole
world; but His gracious love and mercy in, and unto His church here upon the
earth.
A Puritan Golden Treasury,
compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 119.
The Bible
knows nothing of solitary religion.
John Wesley
The Church of
God apart from the Person of Christ is a useless structure. However ornate it
may be in its organization, however perfect in all its arrangements, however
rich and increased with goods, if the Church is not revealing the Person,
lifting Him to the height where all men can see Him, then the Church becomes an
impertinence and a sham, a blasphemy and a fraud, and the sooner the world is
rid of it, the better.
G. Campbell Morgan
There is
nothing which my heart desires more than to see you, the members of this church,
distinguished for holiness. It is the Christian's crown and glory. An unholy
church! It is of no use to the world and of no esteem among men. Oh, it is an
abomination, hell's laughter, heaven's abhorrence. And the larger the church,
the more influential, the worse nuisance does it become when it becomes unholy.
The worst evils which have ever come upon the world have been brought upon her
by an unholy church.
C.H. Spurgeon
A church that
does not exist to reclaim heathenism, to fight evil, to destroy error, to put
down falsehood, a church that does not exist to take the side of the poor, to
denounce injustice and to hold up righteousness, is a church that has no right
to be. Not for yourself, O church, do you exist, any more than Christ existed
for Himself.
C.H. Spurgeon
Some go to
church to take a walk; some go there to laugh and talk.
Some go there
to meet a friend; some go there their time to spend.
Some go there
to meet a lover; some go there a fault to cover.
Some go there
for speculation; some go there for observation.
Some go there
to doze and nod; the wise go there to worship God.
C.H Spurgeon
From a heart
overflowing with gratitude, we will want to honor and glorify God by gratefully
offering back to Him the many good gifts He has bestowed on us. We will not go
to church to be entertained, to see "what we can get out of it" for
our own private gratification, but rather to praise and worship the triune God
of grace and glory
Author Unknown
The church is not a gallery for the
exhibition of eminent Christians, but a school for the education of imperfect
ones.
Henry Ward Beecher