“I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” said the Lord Jesus in Matthew 16:18. The completion of the New Testament and 2,000 years of church history have served to confirm the power and accuracy of His words. Who but the Lord could have designed a strategy whereby the purpose of God could be carried out consistently over several centuries and in every culture, advancing successfully towards the Grand Climax of the ages?
In local assemblies today, we could fall prey to the mistaken notion that we are a failed social experiment. We might think our little fellowship does not amount to much. Or worse, we could think that only if we had this or that or the other person, program, or thing, then we could really make an impact!
The reality is, the Lord has equipped every local assembly with all the resources it needs to be a part of God’s grand strategy in building His church. Let’s think of some of these resources:
The Word of God. There is nothing like it. It is unique. It is comforting, instructive, persuasive, life-changing. It can bring about salvation. It draws us to worship. It keeps us from error. It shows up the world for what it really is, and keeps our thinking straight. It exposes sin and gives me the remedy.
It is a mystery then, why the Bible can be so neglected in personal and corporate assembly life. The Scriptures take a secondary place in a subtle way. Church growth strategists in the popular movements within evangelical churches tell us people cannot take even 45 minutes of Bible teaching or preaching. It seems (so they say) our high-tech, highly educated generation has trouble concentrating on lengthy messages.
Assemblies that limit time for sound Bible teaching and preaching are doomed to weakness and failure. Paul said it best to the elders at Ephesus in Acts 20:32, “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the Word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.” It is God’s incomparable resource. Let’s read it, study it, preach it, and live it.
The ministry of the Holy Spirit. One of the Spirit’s many ministries is to give gifts to the people of God. We read about these in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4. What a marvelous design by the Master Planner! He sovereignly distributes gifts for the purpose of building up each local church.
There should be diversity and unity and necessity. God has placed you in a local assembly with a gift to be exercised in ministry toward fellow believers. It may be a public gift, or it may be a private gift. God’s idea of a local assembly was not just for me to come and be ministered to, only. I am to come and minister to others.
It’s no use saying I don’t have a gift. Everybody does. The problem seems to be that we often don’t stir up our gift, as Paul exhorted Timothy. Gifts don’t come fully developed. We have to learn and grow and make mistakes. This is all part of the process.
Gift is discovered when we make ourselves available. This is the teaching of Romans 12. Are you available in your assembly? Are you there? If so, you might not see it in yourself, but the other saints are going to see your gift at work.
The Head of the Church. The church is not alone. It has a Head–the Lord Himself (see 1 Cor. 11; Eph. 1:22, 23; 4:15; Col. 2:19). As Head of the Church, He provides her with nourishment and equips her to grow. As I have fellowship with the Head, I will be able to effectively minister to others and help them in their growth, which in turn will encourage them to enjoy that same fellowship, which in turn will cause them to minister to others, and so on and so on…
He is Head of the church and has the infinite capacity to minister to every member who wishes to take Him at His Word, “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12).
We can be occupied with weakness and failure, and there is a time to confess it before God. But preoccupation with ourselves at the expense of neglecting the great resources He has provided is a danger we do well to avoid.