WHY CHURCH? (THE BUILDING OF A NEW COMMUNITY)

You're here for a reason, and I and I believe that God has a word for us this morning.

I'm gonna get to this, but before before I jump into the the word, I want you to think about something.

I want you to think about something because what I realized is everybody in this room has a different journey when it comes to church.

We all have a different journey.

Um some of us we we grew up in church.

Um of us came to church later on in life.

Um we have some incredible memories about church.

And also there's some in there that has, you know, uh I would call it complicated relationships when it comes to church.

Amen.

But we all have you know our own journey.

And and for me, if you've been around here for a while, you you guys know, like I grew up in the church.

I talk about it all the time.

You know, my my grandparents made sure that that I was raised in a church.

Uh let me let me say it this way.

Um, I didn't have a choice.

I had to go to church.

You know, like I didn't have a choice.

I I know today it's a little different, you know.

Kids, they get choices, not in my house, but kids get choices about if they go, like, you know, there might be those Saturday evening um conversations of like, you know, what do you want to do tomorrow?

So for me, it wasn't what you want to do tomorrow.

When you wake up, make sure you dress, because we're gonna go to church.

That's how it was.

And you know, I've said this before, I it wasn't just going to church.

I had to sing in the choir.

I had to, I was on the usher board, I had to serve.

Um, you know, I was the president of our youth department.

I had to do all those things.

And and one of my fondest memories that I share from time to time is I'll never forget, you know, my grandmother after telling me I had to be in the choir, and I was like, cool, you know, I just sit in the back with my boys and it's kind of chill.

She said, Um, you want to lead a song.

I said, I don't want to lead a song.

See, you know I didn't say it like that.

I was like, Mama, I don't want to lead a song.

And she said, I didn't ask you what you wanted to do.

I said, You're gonna lead a song.

You're gonna go to Deacon Frazier, he was our choir director, and you're gonna let him know that you want to lead a song.

And I'm thinking to myself, I don't want to do this.

So I I remember, I'll never forget this Sunday.

I'm up there and and I'm nervous.

I still get nervous before I come.

I don't I don't like this, you guys.

So you can imagine this little kid.

I'm nervous, I'm sitting there, I'm mumbling through the words, sitting there, trying not to catch my grandmother's eye.

But I caught her eye, and she gave me that look.

You know that look.

That look that we're gonna have a conversation when we get home, type of look.

If you don't know, that means I was about to get my butt whooped, kind of look.

Yeah.

Yeah, we got whoopings back then.

So she gave me that look, and I was just like, man, you know, I don't want to do this.

But what I didn't understand then was she was putting something in me.

She was teaching me how to serve, she was pushing me outside of myself, outside of my comfort zone.

She was putting me in positions where I had to lead.

And at that time, I wasn't calling what she was doing leadership development.

I was thinking to myself, I can't wait till I get grown.

Because ain't nobody gonna make me go to church.

When I get grown, I'm gonna do my own thing.

And, you know, then I got grown.

And, you know, I was in college.

Didn't nobody tell me I had to go to church.

Nobody was making me do anything, but I still found a church.

Yeah, I still found myself, you know, going to church.

And trust me, when I'm telling you I was going to church, I it wasn't Pastor Tyrone going to church because I I wasn't Pastor Tyrone then.

We'll get to that a little bit later.

But there was something that kept drawing me back.

And eventually what started as something my grandparents made me do became something I knew I needed for my life.

You know, now my journey with the church has not been perfect.

I I've seen dysfunction in the church, I've seen I've experienced hurt in the church.

I've watched people hurt people in the church.

Now, you know, we we have that saying, we say church hurt.

I think we should get rid of that because it's not church hurt, it's people hurt.

Because there isn't a perfect church because there's no perfect people, but there is a perfect savior, amen.

And so all through every season of my life, I've known I need Jesus and I need it to be connected to his body.

So that's what I want us to wrestle with today.

Um the title of this message is Why Church?

Why church?

Why does church matter?

Why did Jesus create this community?

And why is being connected to the church such an important part of following him?

Because somewhere along the way, I think we've got comfortable with just going to church or, you know, just kind of showing up when we when we want to.

And I'm not saying, you know, it has to be how I was when I was a little kid at church every single Sunday from dust to die.

That's not what I'm saying.

But what I am saying is Jesus is calling us into something deeper.

He's calling us into something deeper, he's calling us to belong to the church.

And there's a difference between going somewhere and belonging to something.

Amen?

And so I want to I want to show you how Paul describes the church.

We're gonna be in 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

I'm not gonna read this whole section, but I wanna I'm gonna read enough so that I can paint this picture that Paul is giving us here.

So we're gonna start reading at verse 12.

So if you have your Bibles or your Bible, your Bible apps, or you can follow on the screen.

I'm gonna read at verse 12.

It reads, Just as a body, though one has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.

For we were all baptized by one spirit, so as to form one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free, and we were all given the one spirit to drink.

Even so, the body is not made up of one part, but of many.

Says, But in fact, God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.

Verse 21.

The eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you.

And then verse 25 says, So that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.

If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

And after all of that, Paul lands in verse 27, and it says, Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is part of it.

That's the church.

Let us pray.

Father God, I thank you for this day.

I thank you for another opportunity to be in your presence, Lord.

Use me, speak through me, Father.

Allow this message to touch the hearts of your people.

Allow everyone to grab hold of what they need from your word today.

We ask all these things in your mighty name we pray.

Amen.

That's the picture of the church, the picture of the church.

Um, one body, many parts, different functions, but every part connected.

Paul uses this picture because the church in Corinth needed some help understanding what it actually meant to be the church.

So I want to give some biblical background before I go a little bit further.

Um, we have to understand who Paul was writing to.

He was writing to this church that was gifted.

They were gifted.

Um, it was a diverse church, um, but there was a lot happening in this church.

Um, they were also divided.

They were divided, they were arguing over leadership, they were um immature in some areas, they were struggling with their spiritual gifts and worship and how to treat one another.

So Paul essentially was writing to them and says, Y'all love Jesus, right?

Like, y'all love Jesus.

He's talking to us, y'all love Jesus, right?

So he was saying, if y'all love Jesus, let's talk about what it actually means to be the church.

What it means to be the church.

I feel like sometimes we read the Bible and we imagine these churches were perfect.

They weren't.

They have they had issues just how we have issues today.

And Jesus still chose to build his church through people.

Throughout scripture, the church is described in different ways.

We read that the church is called the bride of Christ, um, it represents the kingdom of God.

But here, Paul is, uh, he wants to describe, he's describing the church as a body.

And that's where I want us to sit today.

So here's the question: What does it mean biblically to belong to the church?

What does it mean biblically to belong to the church?

Not just what does Midtown require, or how do I become a member here?

No.

What does it look like to move from simply attending church to belonging to the body?

Here's the big idea.

We are different on purpose, connected by spirit, and called to function together.

Amen.

I'm gonna say it a simpler way.

You belong, you matter, and we need each other.

So what does this look like?

Here's point number one if you're following along in your outline.

Loving deeply.

Loving deeply.

So we have in this passage one body, many parts, different functions, but every part connected.

Paul says that's the church.

There's different people, different backgrounds, different gifts, but one body.

I want you to hear me when I say this.

Unity doesn't mean sameness.

Unity doesn't mean sameness.

Sometimes we think unity means everybody has to um act alike or or has to look alike or serve alike or worship alike.

Unity is different people learning how to function together under Christ.

We are different on purpose.

We are different on purpose.

Our differences is not a problem that God needs to fix.

They are a part of how God designed the body, amen?

We are different on purpose.

Paul says, Jews and Gentiles, slave-free people who naturally may not come together.

If you look around here, we might not naturally just come and hang out together, but God has us here, amen.

See, there's something stronger that that brings us together, that separates us, and that thing that brings us together is the same spirit.

The same spirit.

What makes us one is not that we all come from the same place.

We all don't make the same amount of money.

We all are we all don't vote the same.

But what makes us one is Jesus.

What makes us one is Jesus.

So there should always be room in the church for people who are different from us.

Always.

Then Paul starts dealing with comparison.

He says, imagine the foot saying, because I'm not a hand, I don't belong.

Or the ear saying, because I'm not an eye, I don't belong.

Like that sounds ridiculous, right?

You know, when we're thinking about the human body, like what, this doesn't go?

But spiritually, we do that all the time.

We look at somebody else's, what, their gift, we look at their their platform, we look at their personality, and because we can't do what they do, we start thinking, what we do, does that even matter?

But Paul says, just because you're not them doesn't mean that you don't belong.

God never asked you to become somebody else in order to be useful to him.

See, comparison will have us overlooking what God has placed inside us because uh we get too busy looking at what he placed in somebody else.

Verse 18 says, God arranged the parts and the body just as he wanted them to be.

God arranged it just as he wanted to be.

That means that your placement is not random, your gifts are not random, what God brought you out or brought you through is not random.

God has developed something in you because somebody else is going to need what you have.

So before you decide you don't belong, remember who put you here.

Remember that.

Paul addresses something else, he addresses the other side of it.

Some people think they don't need me, others think I don't need them.

One is insecurity, the other is arrogance.

Paul says both are wrong.

There is no such thing as a self-sufficient Christian.

See, can can we pray by ourselves?

Yes.

Can we read the word?

Can we read our Bible by ourselves?

Absolutely.

Can we worship at home or in our car by ourselves?

Yes, we can, but Christianity was never designed to live alone.

That's not what it was.

The church needs what God put in you, and you need what God put in the church.

Amen?

Paul even says some of the parts that seem weaker are indispensable.

Think about your body.

There's parts that you appreciate all the time.

You might appreciate your sight, you know, your eyes and your hands, your legs.

And then there's parts you don't really talk about.

There's parts that we don't just naturally talk about.

There's one part in particular.

I'm not gonna get in trouble.

My wife said, You can't say that up there.

There's one part in particular that we don't talk about.

We don't wake up in the morning thinking, you know, thanking God for, I'm gonna call it God's exit strategy.

We don't, we don't, I'm just saying we don't wake up just thanking God for that part.

But I promise you, if that part of our body stops working, oh, we got a problem.

Because it's gonna be all kinds of stuff going on, and we're gonna be wondering, like, oh Lord.

God's exit strategy.

See?

That's the point Paul's trying to make here.

Don't confuse being unseen with being unnecessary.

Visibility and value are not the same thing.

We see the preacher, we see the worship team, we see the people on a microphone.

But do you know that there was somebody here early this morning praying over every seat and every square inch of this place before we arrived?

There was somebody who greeted a family who was on the verge of not even showing up.

There was people setting up the children's area.

There's things that happen, there's people serving that we don't ever see serving.

Some of the most important parts of the body are parts nobody sees.

And because every part matters, Paul says we should care for one another.

Church just can't be a place where we just come and sit in a room.

We're supposed to actually care about each other.

We're supposed to care about each other.

Church becomes family when what happens to you starts mattering to me.

You cannot love people deeply if you never get close enough to know them.

You know, I pray about our church all the time.

Like I pray that this church will grow.

But I don't pray for a crowded room.

I pray for a healthy body.

I pray for what God wants for this church, not what I want for this church.

Verse 26 says, if one part suffers, every part suffers with it.

If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.

You ever stub your little toe?

Before you stub that little toe, you weren't thinking about that little toe, but let that little toe hit the corner of your bed.

Next thing you know, your hands is gonna be reaching down to that little toe, and then your face is gonna be like, ooh, and then your eyes are gonna start watering up because that little toe, y'all know what I'm talking about, you're gonna start using language that's not holy language when you hit that little toe.

Like, can we be real this morning?

Because when one part hurts, the whole body feels it.

The whole body feels it.

And as funny as that picture, that illustration is, you know, this is not something I'm just just talking about or preaching this morning.

It's something that I live because over the last few weeks losing my sister.

Just last week, Raquel losing her grandfather.

Having people in our church pray for us and pray with us.

Having people come in to check in on us to provide a meal, people crying with us, people making us laugh when we didn't want to laugh, but we needed to laugh.

They couldn't fix what happened, but they made sure we weren't walking through it alone.

That's what the body does.

That's what the body does.

When you hurt, we hurt.

Paul says, if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

If one part is honored, every part rejoices with that man.

That means that your win is not a threat to me.

Your win is not a threat to me.

Your blessing doesn't take anything away from me.

If we are one body, we can celebrate you.

Amen.

That means we we can cry together and we can celebrate together.

Paul says, now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

So that means every believer has a place, every believer matters, every believer belongs, and everybody brings something to the body.

And if that is true, the next question is, what did God put in you?

Here's point number two living spiritually.

Living spiritually.

I want to back up a few verses because before Paul starts talking about the body in this chapter, he starts talking about the gifts that God placed inside of us.

In verse 4, it says, There are different kinds of gifts, but the same spirit distributes them.

There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.

There are different kinds of working, but in all of them, in every one, it is the same God at work.

Now to each one of the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.

Jump down to verse 11.

It says, All these are the work of the one in the same spirit, and he distributes them to each one just as he determines different gifts, different kinds of service, different assignments.

Paul keeps repeating the same spirit, same spirit, same spirit.

The same spirit who brings us into one body is the same spirit who puts the gifts inside of us.

God didn't just save you from something, He also saved you for something.

There's different gifts sitting in this room right now that some have not fully discovered just yet.

There's leadership, there's encouragement, there's teaching, there's hospitality, there's mercy, there's serving, there's giving, there's prayer, there's all these different kinds of gifts, but the list is not the point.

The list of the gifts is not the point.

The point is God put something in you for the benefit of somebody else.

For the benefit of someone else.

Gifts are given so we can serve.

Sometimes the church helps you see what God has put in you before you ever even see it.

Like, have you ever just had somebody come up to you like, you know what?

You're really good at it.

That.

Have you thought about serving over here?

Have y'all heard that before?

Yeah.

And then you you start serving, and God starts showing things about yourself that you didn't even know was there.

See, there's a reason why we ask people to serve.

And it's not just because we need volunteers, that's just a small part of it.

The real reason is serving can become part of your spiritual development.

See, you know, if I go back to the you know, Tyrone in the college days when I was, you know, doing my thing, promoting parties and and wilding out, you know, just a little bit.

You know, I wasn't too bad.

You know, I was I was I was doing my thing.

But there was something that kept pulling me towards the church.

You've heard me say this before, and some of you were there.

You know, you know when they say, let us come, you know, don't act like your mama never the mama the mama the mom the mama getting humble, mommy.

Your mama's come up some of them, like then we'll do the last couple and then and then the mummy like y'all wanna go to church.

They was like, weren't you just weren't you little weren't you?

Yeah, I was doing the mama.

I was in some more.

But you want to come to church, then I'll give you a ride.

Like, we go to church.

It was like, you was true.

Yeah.

I I didn't understand calling, I didn't understand spiritual gifts.

I just knew there was something in me that wanted to connect people to Jesus.

Even doing, you know, all of this, I wanted to make sure people were connected to Jesus.

Looking back now, I can see that God was already developing something that had already been placed inside of me.

That's why church matters.

Serving in the church can help you discover what God wants to do through you outside of the church.

See, if God is developing leadership in you in here, guess what?

Take it to work.

If God is developing compassion in you right here, take it to your neighborhood.

If God is giving you patience because you're serving in children or just have patience from working in here, take that to your home.

Take that to your home.

See, because whatever God develops in you through church, he wants to use to send you.

Amen.

See, we have to remember this is his church, not mine, not yours.

So our gifts is not about building our name, it is about building his body.

So vice versa.

So if he's doing some something in you out there, he's like, you know what, you might be able to use that in the church.

So the the real question isn't how impressive is my gift?

The question is, am I using what God has put in me for the way he attended it?

Amen.

So here's point number three: giving generously.

Now, before we talk about generosity, I want us to see two pictures of the early church.

And so in 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verse 1 and 2, it says, Now about the collection for the Lord's people, do what I told the Galatian churches to do.

1 Corinthians 16:1

On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up so that when I come, no collection will have to be made.

Let's jump to Acts chapter 4.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

Verse 32 says, All the believers were one in heart and mind.

No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had with great power.

The apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God's grace was so powerful at work in them all that they were no needy person among them.

For from time to time, those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

What both of these passages show us about generosity was it wasn't just that the early church talked about it, they lived it.

They lived it.

They understood that what God has placed in their hands wasn't for them.

And that's where generosity starts.

Recognizing that what we have ultimately belongs to God.

Then Paul he gets particular.

In chapter 16, he starts talking about the collection, basically saying, When I get there, don't let that be the first time y'all start talking about giving.

He said, set something aside.

Prepare.

Make generosity a part of your rhythm.

Because generosity is not something God wants to force out of us.

It is something that God wants to form in us.

I'm gonna say it again.

Generosity is not something that God wants to force out of us.

It is something that God wants to form in us.

Now I know when I start bringing up generosity, immediately you're thinking about money.

We're gonna get there, but I want you to stay with me because generosity is bigger than money.

And honestly, I learned this, um, you know, before I learned this before I even knew what generosity was.

Because growing up humble beginnings, like I didn't know that we were poor until I got older.

I'm like, oh, we didn't really have nothing.

I didn't know.

You know, but the one thing I remember about my grandparents' house is their door was always open.

Somebody needed um somewhere to stay, come on in.

Somebody needed food, we make room at the table.

There was a family in need, we're gonna figure it out.

Their door was always open.

There was always people coming to our house.

And growing up, I didn't realize that that was serving.

I just thought that was just what we do.

But as I got older and I started building my own relationship with Christ and realizing my grandparents weren't just good people.

They understood that what God had placed in their hands was meant to bless somebody else.

Their house belonged to God, their food belonged to God, their time belonged to God, their resources belonged to God.

And looking back, I realized they were forming something in me that shapes the way Raquel and I live today.

Generosity has to become a way of life.

That's where we see here in Acts chapter 4.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

It says, People open their hands so needs could be met.

That's family.

See, yes, that includes our money too.

That's not the question, is this God, what do you want to do with me when I open my hands?

Some of you may be wondering, where do I even start?

If I'm thinking about generosity and I'm thinking about giving, where do I start?

Well, a great place to start is the tithe.

Because throughout the Old Testament, God taught his people the practice of tithing and giving with the first 10% and honoring God with their first and their very best.

And I think that the tithe is a great training ground for generosity because what it really teaches us is this God gets first, not leftovers.

I'm gonna say it again.

God gets first, not leftovers.

But as followers of Jesus, generosity doesn't stop at a percent.

It doesn't because the more we understand that everything we have belongs to God, the more we begin to live with open hands.

And the way we use what God has placed in our hands is reveals what matters to us the most.

If you want to know what you value, look at what you do with God has placed in your hands.

If you really want to know what you value, just look at what you do with your resources.

You know, we spend on what we value all the time.

Generosity causes us to ask, does what we do with our resources reflect what we say matters to us?

Another thing generosity will do at times, it will stretch us.

You know, maybe it's in this season one less coffee, or maybe it's one less night out to eat, or one less thing for ourselves, so that we can participate in what God wants to do through his church and in somebody else's life.

Because generosity is not only about what God does through our gift, God is also doing something in us when we give because we are stewards, not owners.

Everything we have ultimately belongs to God: our money, our time, our gifts, our opportunities, our influence.

And when we give, we're reminded God is our source.

God is our source, amen.

See, see, we can help meet somebody else's need, we can strengthen the church, we can participate in work that we may not personally see.

Sometimes our generosity will reach places our feet never will.

And maybe generosity is showing us something even bigger.

Because if our money belongs to God, if our gifts belong to God, if our time belongs to God, then eventually we must come to this conclusion.

Our whole lives belong to God.

Our whole lives belong to God.

And maybe that's where this whole message has been taking us.

We've talked about what?

Loving deeply, loving spiritually, giving generously.

All three require the same thing.

Surrender.

Surrender.

Following Jesus means, Lord, my life belongs to you, my relationships, my gifts, my resources, my plans, my life belongs to you.

Ephesians 4 says, the body grows and becomes mature as each part does its work.

This was never just about going to church.

It was about belonging to the body.

Belonging to the body.

And belonging means I don't just ask, am I doing enough?

I ask, am I doing what God has asked me to do?

Amen?

Because what God is asking from you may look different from what he's asking from the person sitting next to you.

You know why?

Different gifts, different capacity, different seasons, different assignments.

Different assignments.

Not the same contribution, but the same surrender.

The same surrender.

So every one of us, we have to ask, God, what does my yes, God, what does my yes look like in this season?

What does my yes look like in this season?

And we're not surrendering to earn anything from Jesus.

We surrender because of what Jesus has already done for us.

That's why we surrender.

Jesus didn't give a portion of himself.

He gave himself.

Our surrender is a response to his sacrifice.

And that means everybody has a next step.

Everybody has a next step.

For somebody in this room, the next step may be, I'm ready to give my life to Christ.

Jesus, I'm ready to give you my yes.

For somebody else, the next step may be, I'm ready to be baptized.

I'm ready to share my faith publicly with everyone.

The next step may be membership.

The next step may be I'm ready to start serving.

Lord, yes, this is the season.

I've sat long enough.

You've healed me.

I'm ready.

The next step may be generosity.

Lord, this is an area that I've struggled in, but I'm ready to say yes.

This is an area where you know what, Lord, I'm gonna trust you to stretch me even more.

Maybe the next step is getting connected.

I see these people every day, but I don't know their names.

Maybe I ask somebody to go to coffee or go to lunch.

Maybe I say, you know, what's your story?

Why has God brought you here?

What is God doing here?

What's going on?

I want to, you're my family.

I want to get to know you.

For somebody, God has been developing something in you.

He's been developing something in you, and he's saying, use it to help somebody else follow me.

That's what this is all about.

That's why next Sunday matters.

Next Sunday, homecoming Sunday.

It's gonna be fun.

You're gonna represent your schools and your teams, all that kind of stuff.

We're gonna have the ministry fair.

But when we walk through this ministry fair, we're not walking through just to ask, where do they need help?

We're asking God, where is my part?

Where is my part?

And the thing is, we don't we we can't wait till next week to ask that question.

That is something we should be praying about all week long.

Lord, what is my part?

What are you doing?

We should be praying about that because sometimes when we say, Oh, I'll pray about it, it's sincere.

And we should be praying about everything.

But sometimes when we say, I'll pray about it, it becomes a spiritual delay to obedience.

Prayer should prepare us to obey and not become an excuse for avoiding what God has for you.

At some point, our pray about it has to become, here I am.

Here I am, Lord, use me.

Lord, use me.

Just know that your next step may go beyond a ministry table.

God may be calling you to serve in your community in a way that you never even believed.

God might be calling you to share your faith.

God may be calling somebody to repair a relationship.

He may be saying, I need you to become more generous.

He may be telling somebody, I need you to go disciple that young brother or that young sister.

I need you to invite somebody.

Do you know the power in the invite?

If if each and every one of us said, you know what, I'm gonna invite somebody I know to come and see what God is doing here, you know we wouldn't have enough space.

God is not asking you to do everything, but he's not calling you to do nothing.

The church doesn't grow stronger because a few people do everything.

The church grows stronger when everybody does the work, when everybody does their part because you belong and you matter, and guess what?

We need each other.

So the question I want to leave you with today is simple.

Does Jesus have your yes?

Does Jesus have your yes?

And if he has your yes, I need you and I want to encourage you, I want to challenge you to ask God.

Say, God, where is my heart?

And when he shows you, because he will, if you ask, he will reveal it to you, your response has to be yes.

That doesn't make sense to me, Lord, but I'm gonna say yes anyway.

I don't want to do that, but I'm gonna say yes anyway.

Here I am, Lord.

Whatever my part is, my answer is yes.