Sunday sermon, Dec. 13, 2009: What We Do–and Why

This past Sunday, we continued looking at God’s special creation, the church. We tried to answer 3 questions: What kind of activities is the church to be involved in? What is our motivation? What can we learn from God’s creative work in nature?

I hope it’s a blessing to you. Download the sermon by clicking here. (The sermon notes are under the player.)

Or you can listen online by clicking the “Play” arrow below:

What we do—and why we do it (Eph. 2:7)

God doesn’t do anything accidentally! He has a purpose, a reason, for everything He does. As God’s people, we should live our lives with purpose. The things we do as a church should be done for a reason.

Today, we’re going to look again at three things: what we do as a church, why we do those things, and how we can do them in ways that please the God who loves us so much.

1. What we do
6 main activities of church: Evangelism—worship—teaching /discipleship—prayer—service—fellowship (Acts 2:40, 42-47)
**Following Jesus changed everything: what they valued, how they treated others, how they spent time & money
2 Cor. 3:18 Phil. 3:12

**Our goal as church: Help as many people as possible become mature, growing followers of Jesus Christ.
**completely committed Christians/fully-formed followers (it’s the goal of Jesus also)
Eph. 5:25-27

Everything in Acts 2 got them closer to that goal
**worship: remembering God’s greatness
**teaching/discipleship: learning to apply God’s word to life **prayer: acknowledging our dependence on God
**service: showing God’s love & care for mankind
**fellowship: encouraging, bearing each other’s burdens
**evangelism: sharing the good news of salvation

Everything we do needs to get people closer to the goal of being completely committed to Christ

2. Why we do it
The original intent of creation was to show how great God is
Ps. 19:1 Ps. 50:6 Ps. 89:5 Rom. 1:20

Church should do the same—show how great God is

How does God reveal Himself in His creation?
1. Clearly: we should make God’s message understandable to everyone (Eph. 3:8-9 Mt. 5:16)
**The 1 Cor. 14:24-25 principle: what goes on when we get together should be understandable to everyone there
2. With variety/creativity
**look at the variety in creation—God is a God of creativity
**we need to be creative as well & use different ways to reach & teach people
3. No wasted parts
**our bodies are made perfectly with nothing wasted
**The church has no unnecessary people—all have a purpose

Application thoughts
1. Creation happened through God’s power. So will anything we do for Him.
2. God doesn’t need us. It’s a privilege to be used by God in His work.
3. God sacrificed to save us—Christian life means sacrifice. But the reward of following Christ wherever He leads us is worth it.

Let’s commit ourselves to 3 things: 1. helping each other grow, 2. making sure that everyone understands God’s message, 3. relying on God’s wisdom to lead us where He wants us to be.

**We are here for a purpose: Let’s move forward together toward the goal that He has called us to.