Have you ever had questions about the Church? Questions like, why do we gather every week, or are we doing what God wants us to do? 

Welcome to the ABCs of Church. Over the next five days, we’re going to focus on the fundamentals of the church and work to deeply understand three simple ideas that will help us answer the questions: 

• What is a church?
• What should a church be doing?  

Understanding who we are as the Church and what our mission is on earth is crucial for every believer in Jesus. As we start our track, we pray that you will come to see yourself and the church you belong to in the unfolding redemption story of God. 

The Church belongs to Jesus. There are assemblies all over the world for all manner of reasons: some celebrate celebrities and some wonder at the works of men and women, but the Church is assembled to worship and glorify one name: Jesus. It’s so important in our culture today to realize that no matter where you go to church, if it worships Jesus, it belongs to Him. 

Look at how the Apostle Paul wrote it in his letter to the Colossians: 

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Colossians 1:16-20

Jesus created all things, and all things were created through Him, and that includes the Church. We were created and later bought with blood, for and by Jesus. 

The Church is The Assembly of Jesus.

As you look through the Scriptures, there are three dominant metaphors used to describe the Church in relation to Jesus:

• The Church is His building. 

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Ephesians 2:19-22

Jesus Christ is building His church, starting with Himself as the cornerstone, the most important and first-placed piece. Then followed the Apostles and the prophets. Now each of us is being placed intentionally and specifically as a brick in the Holy temple of the Lord. You are not accidental today. You are a stone in the amazing construction of the church Jesus is building. 

• The Church is His Body

23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Ephesians 5:23-24

Look at this beautiful illustration. Here Paul wants us to think about the Church as the body, and Jesus as the head. Where the head leads, the body follows. The head provides direction, vision, nourishment, and energy. Jesus cares for the Church, desiring to give us the things we need to flourish and to lead us to the places he wants us to go. He is the head of the Church, and we are His body. 

• The Church is His Bride

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. 

Ephesians 5:23-30

Jesus loves His church the way a husband loves his wife. What a stunning relationship and life-changing thought. This isn’t a relationship that you can compare to the marriages around you; this is the perfect embodiment of sacrificial love. Jesus isn’t waiting for you to be perfect (Romans 5:8 says that He died for us ‘while we were yet sinners’) or for you to get your act together and earn your way to God, the truth is there is no amount of work that could have earned you that right. This is why Jesus chose to go to the Cross, to purchase for you the beauty and radiance you could have never earned no matter how hard you tried. Jesus paid with his blood so that we, his body and bride, could be presented to God without wrinkle or blemish. Thanks be to God!

Remember what Paul wrote in his letter to the Colossians: 

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Colossians 1:16-20

The one who created everything wants a relationship with you, and wants to elevate you to what you were always meant to be. 

We are His building, His body, His bride, and we belong to Him, the Assembly of Jesus. 

you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:5

This friend, is good news. This is what separates the Church from a building that could weather, crack, and crumble with age. The Church of Jesus is not a building but a people. All over the world, we gather in classrooms and cathedrals,  houses and renovated Home Depots, under rooftops, and in the rain. We are each of us, a living stone added to the noble fabric of Christ’s Church, our spiritual house. And we are both the temple and the priests. Notice why peter says we are being built into a spiritual house:

 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:5

If you are a follower of Jesus, you are intentionally placed in the spiritual House of God in order to offer the gifts God has given you back to him in sacrifice. All of us will have different abilities and offerings (don’t make the mistake of envying someone else’s) that God desires for us to bring to His house. This is a beautiful thing. This is the church. All of us bringing what we can offer on behalf of the whole. 

The Church is universal, and the church is local. It’s global and local. There’s one Church, but it’s expressed all over the globe. Why is this encouraging to us? Because we want to be part of a cause, and here the cause of Christ is racing around the globe.

Let that fact settle on you for a moment. Odds are that with the race and pace of life you have been hoodwinked into a small idea of God’s Church. Whether you are new to the faith, or sometimes, especially if you have been in church your whole life, the enemy has a way of narrowing our focus so tightly on what is directly in front of us that we can forget the expansive nature of the Church of Jesus. 

Reflect on this truth: at every moment, of every day, somewhere on our planet is a group of people gathered to worship in the name of Jesus. Somewhere unbeknownst to you, someone is praising God for a newly born child, while elsewhere family members are praising God as they commit a loved one who has passed away to His presence. Somewhere on this Earth, fervent songs of worship have broken out as a revival is springing up, while somewhere else the quiet but faithful prayers of a grandparent are being poured out from their bedside. 

You are not alone. No, in fact, you have been grafted into a global and local family, and you have brothers and sisters everywhere. 

This remarkable thought encourages us towards compassion and not comparison. It should lead us to pray for each other, even for those members of our global family that we will never meet. 

Our hope for you is that in being planted into a local church, an expression of the assembly of Jesus, your church can become a community where you worship and open the Word of God alongside, and who you gather with to celebrate and mourn. Each local expression can be beautiful and unique, and part of the global Church of Jesus called to encourage and exhort one another, not to pick each other apart in the spirit of competition.

We, the Church, are simultaneously gathered and scattered, the children of God carrying His very Spirit. Praise be to God that He would use us, as He did in the time of Acts, to carry His message to the ends of the Earth. 

This section of Matthew chapter 16 is incredible. Look again at the text and the way that Jesus firstly states that death itself will not stand against His church, and secondly, that the time had come for Him to pass through those gates. At first glance, this could seem bewildering, how could you then have hope in Jesus if even you are going to be mocked, beaten, and killed? 

Christian, our confidence comes from the continuation: 

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer man things at the hands of the elders, the chief preists and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Matthew 16:21

Don’t let it pass you by today, no matter how many times you have heard it before, that death itself could not hold Jesus, and because it could not, it cannot hold those of us in Christ either. 

Why should this encourage us? Because we are a part of something larger than ourselves, a movement of God built of Jesus and continuing His work. We are witnesses to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, ambassadors of reconciliation in a world in search of destiny. We are the Church, and we must continue the work. Where the head (Jesus) goes, we must follow. 

Will there be opposition on you today? Yes. Does it have the power to snuff out the light in you and, therefore, one by one extinguish us as the Church? No. 

Take heart, brother, take heart sister; press on. Do not be quick to discouragement. We are people who will stumble and fall. Do not pass judgment in haste, for we are imperfect yet knitted together with the perfect one. Do not fear, the grace of God covers you today, lifting you up, dusting you off, and moving you forward.