Pastor Marty Sloan | Aug. 20, 2023

What Makes a Church

Psalms 46:1-3 (NIV)
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

The Christian life is inseparable from God’s mission for the world.

The church is inseparable from God’s mission for the world.

The fulfillment of His mission is the divine purpose and design as a church.

Mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission–God’s mission.

God’s mission is that His creation will be reconciled through His son Jesus.

Galatians 1:3-5 (NIV)
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

What is the church?

Acts 17:22-28 (NIV)
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

Do you know the God you worship?

Resources used and/or suggested in this message:

  1. “Making Sense of the Church” by Wayne Grudem
  2. “The Essence of the Church” by Craig Ven Gelder
  3. “Everyday Church” by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis
  4. “Analog Church” by Jay Kim