Life in the Church

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Bonus: Panel Discussion on Discipleship and The Local Church

This was recorded during the annual TGC (The Gospel Coalition) for 2023. The audio podcast is also available.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/tgc-podcast/church-essential-discipleship/

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Word Study: Church

ekklésia

an assembly, a (religious) congregation

Original Word: ἐκκλησία, ας, ἡ
Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine
Transliteration: ekklésia
Phonetic Spelling: (ek-klay-see’-ah)
Definition: an assembly, a (religious) congregation
Usage: an assembly, congregation, church; the Church, the whole body of Christian believers.

source: https://biblehub.com/greek/1577.htm

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“Church” (Gk. ekklēsia) is used only here and in Matt. 18:17 in the Gospels.

Jesus points ahead to the time when his disciples, his family of faith (12:48–50), will be called “my church.” Jesus will build his church, and though it is founded on the apostles and the prophets, “Christ Jesus himself [is] the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20).

Some scholars object that Jesus could not have foreseen the later emergence of the “church” at this time, but the use of Greek ekklēsia to refer to God’s “called out” people has substantial background in the Septuagint (e.g., Deut. 9:10; 31:30; 1 Sam. 17:47; 1 Kings 8:14).

Jesus is predicting that he will build a community of believers who follow him. This “called out” community would soon become known as “the church,” a separate community of believers, as described in the book of Acts.

source: ESV Study Bible Notes

Resources

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While every individual needs to obey Jesus’s call to follow, we cannot follow Jesus as individuals. The proper context for every disciple maker is the church.

It is impossible to make disciples aside from the church of Jesus Christ.
It’s impossible to follow Jesus alone.

We can’t claim to follow Jesus if we neglect the church He created, the church He died for, the church He entrusted His mission to.

As disciple makers, we will join together with other believers, help them overcome the sin that holds them back, and challenge them to grow into more effective disciple makers.

Committing Your Life to the Church

If you are not connected with other Christians, serving and being served, challenging and being challenged, then you are not living as He desires, and the church is not functioning as He intended.

God intends for every follower of Jesus to be a part of such a gathering under the servant leadership of pastors who shepherd the church for the glory of God.

Despite the clear priority that the Bible puts on believers being part of a local church, many followers of Christ try to live the Christian life apart from serious, personal commitment to a local church.

Some ‘Lone Ranger’ Excuses

• Self-reliant & self-sufficient
• Fear of submission and accountability
• Indecisive church ‘hoppers’
• Church hurt
• Unimportant

God has commanded us to gather together in local assemblies where we preach God’s Word, celebrate the Lord’s Supper, baptize new believers, and pray for and encourage one another (Acts 2:42; Heb. 10:24–25).

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, [25] not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Hebrews 10:24-25 ESV

Bearing One Another’s Burdens

A pastor’s job is not to do all of the ministry in a church, but to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12).

God calls us to help other people.

Do you know people who are carrying burdens? If so, then your first steps toward ministry are easy: help them.

We don’t like getting involved in other people’s problems. Our own problems are messy enough—why complicate things by taking on other people’s junk?

But the reason is simple: God calls us to help other people.

Getting Beneath the Surface

It’s not that Christians are uncaring. Very often, we really do want to help the people around us however we can, but we get so focused on finding a quick solution to the external behavior that we overlook the real problem.

But changing the external situation doesn’t change his heart. In reality, his anger is rooted in his heart, and that anger will find a way to express itself even if his circumstances change.

And he said to them, "Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, [19] since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?" ( Thus he declared all foods clean.) [20] And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him. [21] For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, [22] coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. [23] All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

Mark 7:18-23 ESV

if we are trying to address these problems by regulating a person’s circumstances or behavior, then we are wasting our time. These things come “out of the heart of man.” Whatever help we can offer people who are struggling with sin has to be aimed at transforming hearts, not behavior.

Transformed by the Gospel

…we are powerless to change a person’s heart.

The gospel is not merely about “getting us saved,” as if we simply pray a prayer and are immediately transported into heaven.

This is a cataclysmic event. “Getting saved” is not about praying a prayer and then continuing to live our lives as though nothing happened. No, when God enters our lives, we are changed from the inside out.

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. [27] And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Ezekiel 36:26-27 ESV

The power to transform hearts and change lives comes from

• The Holy Spirit (John 6:63),
• through the Word of God (2 Tim. 3:16–17),
• and through prayer (James 5:16–20).

As we use the Scriptures to give counsel to others, there is power (Heb. 4:12). As we pray passionately for their hearts to change, there is power.

God intends for His church to be a united body, not a cluster of isolated individuals.

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, [2] with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, [3] eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 

[4] There is one body and one Spirit-just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call- [5] one Lord, one faith, one baptism, [6] one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:1-6 ESV

Every Member Doing Its Part

God placed you in your unique situation because He wants you to minister to and with the other Christians He has placed around you.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, [16] from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Ephesians 4:15-16 ESV

God made you to be exactly who you are, and His Spirit has empowered you with unique spiritual abilities, or “gifts.”

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. [14] I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. [15] My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. [16] Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Psalm 139:13-16 ESV


For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [9] not a result of works, so that no one may boast. [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2:8-10 ESV

When we step outside of ourselves and begin bearing the burdens of the people around us, it is time-consuming, messy, and often confusing. But it is necessary.

Helping people change is what discipleship is all about.

Francis Chan

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