What Makes the Church Unique?

This sermon can be watched or listened to at www.templebaptistchurch.ca!

What makes the Church unique? Is it because we exist for others and not for ourselves? I have heard it said many times that the Church exists for the good of others and not itself. However, I think many Not-For-Profits exist to serve others. Maybe the church is unique because we study the Bible? The Bible is extremely important, but those outside the Church will sometimes study the Bible maybe in their religion or literature classes. Maybe the church is unique because we uphold the truth like a pillar? Absolutely, according to 1 Timothy 3:14, the Church is called, “the pillar and support of the truth.” If you want to find the Truth, you should find it through God’s people! I don’t say this arrogantly, but humbly because we point people to Jesus who declares Himself the Truth (John 14:6). We live by the Truth, which is one of our core values here at Temple! We should be truthful because Jesus is! Not just so we can be trusted. This is why when the Church does cover things up, it is one of biggest turnoffs for people, because they inherently expect us to be truthful. On the other hand, when the church is proclaiming truth it makes a difference in society as this video will attest to! 

Upholding the truth is part of the uniqueness of the Church, but it does not convey the full answer. To find out the answer, we need to read a story found in Acts 20:1-12. This story is another example of Jesus and His Church’s mission to change the world. To call people into a new Kingdom! To have the Kingdom of God change you from the inside out through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is another distinguishing mark of the Church. The Church is indwelt by the Spirit and we follow His leading. This is why we are catching the Spirit. The Apostle Paul caught the Spirit and was on mission with Jesus and His Church. Let’s read not just Paul’s story, but our story. Let’s read about Paul and his encounter with a guy named Eutychus and find out why the church is so unique! Read Acts 20:1-12!

The Ruins of the Temple of the goddess Artemis in Ephesus

This story is the beginning of Paul’s third missionary journey. Things were getting more dangerous for him. He had been so faithful and fruitful on his previous missions that he was a wanted man. The context is found in Acts 19 where Paul was in the city of Ephesus. A wealthy Ephesian businessman named Demetrius, who made his money in making silver shrines for the goddess of Artemis, was starting to feel the pinch. Idol-manufacturing was downsizing. Why? The city of Ephesus were turning from following gods made by human hands to the God who made humans hands and their entire bodies – the one true Living God as revealed through Jesus Christ.  Demetrius decided to gather up what amounted to the silversmith trade union and gives this speech in Acts 19:25-27, “Men, you know that our prosperity depends upon this business. You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made with human hands are no gods at all. Not only is there danger that this trade of ours fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis be regarded as worthless and the world worship will even be dethroned from her magnificence.” Think about that speech for a moment. If you have to protect your god or goddess, is it really a god or goddess? Is it powerful enough to save you when you have save it? Instead, our God through Jesus Christ didn’t need saving. He has saved us. Nevertheless, there is a graveyard of organizations and businesses that make deadly choices based on trying to recoup market share instead of adapting to the times. If you want to adapt to the times and have a real future – an eternal future, then you need to follow Christ. We can see on the above picture what happened to the business of the Ephesian silversmiths and the Temple of Artemis – it lies in ruins.

Back to the story! The last part of Acts 19 records the riot that Demetrius started. However, Paul is able to leave Ephesus unscathed. We pick up what happened next in Acts 20:1-2, “After the uproar had ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and when he had exhorted them and taken his leave of them, he left to go to Macedonia. When he had gone through those districts and had given them much exhortation, he came to Greece.” Notice all the exhortations that Paul is giving. He is sensing this is his last time seeing these people. You tend to get exhortative and instructive when you know you won’t be seeing people for a while. This past Friday night, I sent our oldest child and daughter Jessie on a retreat with 30 other youth from our church. It was her real first time being away from us other than with her grandparents. I guess I am a little over-protective. Any other parents here who are a little over-protective? Do you think I just dropped her off without a word? Of course, not! I gave her exhortations not to stay up late at night. I have done my share of youth retreats. I know how to sleep with one eye open. And I know that if you stay up all Friday night, you come back grumpy or sick on Sunday. I talked about how some of the youth will push the boundaries and she needs not to be a part of that especially playing tricks on the leaders. My point is that one gets exhortative when you don’t see people for a while and Paul knew he needed to give some last-minute instructions to the various churches he started.

Maybe Paul was also a little exhortative because he couldn’t find his protégé Titus. John Stott explains, “For Paul had also expected to find Titus in Troas, whom he had recently sent on an important fact-finding mission to Corinth. But Titus was not there to meet him (and didn’t have cell-phone coverage) and so, because he had ‘no peace of mind’, instead of staying to evangelize Troas, Paul ‘went on to Macedonia.’”[1] We can find Paul’s frame of mind in 2 Corinthians 2:12-13, “Now when I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ and when a door was opened for me in the Lord, I had no rest for my spirit, not finding Titus my brother; but taking my leave of them, I went on to Macedonia.” “It was later probably in Philippi, that Paul’s longed-for rendez vous with Titus took place and his anxiety was transformed into joy.”[2] 2 Corinthians 7:5-6 gives us insight, “For even when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within. But God, (two of the greatest words paired together in the Scriptures), who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus.”

So we know that Paul was exhausted. He was afflicted from outsiders and supposed insiders. In Acts 20:3, the writer Luke summarizes the threats Paul faced, “And there he spent three months, and when a plot was formed against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia.” This evidences that the church is not unique because it is perfect or without trouble. You might come here and expect no trouble or discouragement. However, the church has always experienced trouble from without and from within. It can get depressing, but God, who comforts the depressed, the discouraged, and the drained brought people into Paul’s life. He will with you too, when you are ready to give up. When you are depressed, discourage and drained. We read in Acts 20:4 that God gave Paul “Sopater of Berea, the son of Pyrrhus, Aristarchus and Secundus of the Thessalonians, Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy and Tychicus and Trophimus of Asia.” “All nine men must have been the fruits of the mission and they helped carrying the offering needed for the poor church in Jerusalem which we read about 1 Corinthians 16:1-4, 2 Corinthians 8:9 and Romans 15:25-27.”[3] The people gave up their best and brightest for this mission. The world tries to retain its best and brightest, while the church gives them up for God’s Kingdom. However, this alone does not make the church unique.

We find out what made the church unique in what happens next. Paul and his companions arrive at Troas and verse 6 records that they stayed there seven days. Paul spends a week at Troas looking for Titus but also encouraging the believers at Troas. Most of the believers at Troas were like us. They were labourers who worked all day for other people. According to F.F. Bruce, “They met in the evening, a convenient time for many members of the Gentile churches, who were not their own masters and were not free in the day time.”[4] So notice that everybody is tired in this story and yet they gather together. Maybe you are tired? Maybe you dragged yourself here to church? We were talking in our Next Chapter class on parenting this past Wednesday led by Darryl and Cathy Brush about whether you should force your kids to go to church. I personally believe that church is not optional. It is what we do as a family on Sundays, even on vacation. It is not a habit or ritual as much as it is refueling and reminding us of how great God is. We want to be with other believers and worship Christ together, which is another reason why the church is unique. Nevertheless, all of us at times have dragged ourselves to church. Have you ever done that? And then God showed up in unexpected ways and you left comforted and recharged. This is what happens in this story.

Paul is preaching all evening long. The reason why is explained in verse 7, “he was intending to leave the next day” and they had one more opportunity to gather for His preaching and to break bread together. That term “breaking bread” together is not just having a meal together, though that might have occurred the last night of Paul’s visit to Troas. “Breaking bread” is the same term that is used in Acts 2:42, which the church devoted themselves to “the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to breaking of bread and prayer.” They broke bread because that is what Jesus did (Luke 24:30) and what He taught them. This last supper with Paul reminded the believers of Troas of the last supper of Jesus. Jesus commanded His Church to break bread together, “In remembrance of Me!” (1 Corinthians 11:24)

But before the Communion supper, Paul gives the believers some last-minute instructions. He had a lot to say. I have sat under some long sermons. In fact, I have even fallen asleep in church, so I’m sympathetic to you if you are a little sleepy this morning. Imagine though working all day long, and then you are listening to a sermon that is now approaching the midnight hour. No wonder, Eutychus falls asleep in the warmth under the lights. “Eutychus was between 8-14 years old”[5] at the time according to John Stott.  Even sitting by the window didn’t help. Eutychus falls out the third story window and dies. We know he dies because the one writing was Luke, a doctor, who was there and confirmed the boy’s death. It would have been unsettling to the church there. You might have been in church when somebody faints or falls. I have! The meeting stops! I have even had a person die in church while I was preaching. She was visiting her son-in-law getting baptized. It was a killer sermon! The family was glad that she had her stroke at church and not while at home alone.  Now, I don’t want that to happen to any of you today. As the late great preacher Charles Spurgeon once said, “Remember, if we go to sleep during the sermon and die, there are no apostles to restore us!”

In this story, Paul went down and like the Old Testament prophets Elisha and Elijah, he fell upon him and after embracing him according to verse 10, said, “Do not be afraid, for his life is in him.” (c.f. 1 Kings 17:21; 2 Kings 4:34) The boy was raised because of love. And now we are at the answer to our question. The Church is unique because it is the pillar of the truth, because it is indwelt with the Holy Spirit, because it preaches and worships Christ, but also because it is the only community that showcases the love and resurrection of Jesus Christ! We are a resurrected community filled with love and hope!

This story is a reminder through all the dangers, toils and snares that Jesus has risen from the grave. He has given us a new life. Paul in his sense of searching and loss of Titus was given the opportunity to proclaim and showcase the resurrection of Christ. As N.T. Wright states about this story, “This is a time of life, of restoration, of resurrection.”[6] This is why after the boy was raised from the dead, Paul goes back and they break bread together.

We are about to do that. I am going to invite all those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour to come up and break bread. By doing so, you are saying that you have received a new life from Christ. Your old life has died with Christ and you have a new life with Him. The old has gone and the new has come. Our church is experiencing resurrection.

We are going to sing and then I am going to serve our Elders and Deacons and their wives along with our worship leaders and musicians and then you come up. We have a gluten-free option on this table on the right of me. We take Communion to showcase the love and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He knew our weaknesses and yet He died and rose again for us.

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[1] John R. W. Stott, The Message of Acts (Downer’s Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1990), 316.

[2] Stott, 316.

[3] Stott, 318.

[4] F.F. Bruce, The Book of Acts – NICNT (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1974), 408.

[5] Stott, 320.

[6] N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 454.

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