Being part of a great church is essential for a believer to be blessed by God. Why is it important to be part of a church family? When you are part of a church family, God’s blessing increases in your life. When you are part of a church family, you build relationships that will encourage you. When you are part of a church family, you will receive biblical teaching that will help you grow spiritually. And I could go on and on.
Just any church won’t do. As a believer, you really don’t have a phone book full of churches to choose from. God calls every believer to a particular church family. When you’re in the church family God has called you to, you’re not free to just up and leave because you’ve had a tiff with somebody else. God has planted you in that church family so that you can grow and be blessed.
In the Old Testament, Nehemiah led the people of Israel, which are a type of the church, to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. As those people had a wall to build, so every church, including Life Church, has tasks from God to accomplish. To accomplish those tasks, God has brought specific people into our church family to resource and complete those tasks or ministries. My ministry, as pastor is to equip you to fulfill your ministry and so bring great blessing into your life. Here’s my calling from God to perform.
2 Timothy 4:2 (NIV) Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage–with great patience and careful instruction.
Notice that there are three things my preaching should do: correct, rebuke and encourage. Now everybody likes to be encouraged. But what happens when I have to correct or rebuke? Those aspects of preaching are very important, because if you respond to them, your life will change for the better. All too often, people get upset or even drop out of church if they hear something they don’t like.
2 Timothy 4:3 (NIV) For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
If you only hear what you want to hear in a church, guess what? It’s not a great church and you won’t be blessed. People want God to change their circumstances, but not their lives. God doesn’t work that way. We all need to be corrected, rebuked and encouraged in order to receive everything God has for us.
By the end of the book of Nehemiah, the people of Israel had basically fallen away from their close relationship with God. Nehemiah had gone back to Babylon and the people had grown lax in their serving the Lord. When he returned, Nehemiah was appalled with the people and challenged them in three areas that have application to all of us today.
Listen to my August 23, 2009 message “Love That Challenges” based on Nehemiah 13 (message notes).