{"id":31708,"date":"2022-09-10T15:40:57","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/what-is-gods-goal-for-the-church\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T15:40:57","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:40:57","slug":"what-is-gods-goal-for-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/what-is-gods-goal-for-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is God’s Goal for the Church?"},"content":{"rendered":"
icon 0 photo – Pexels <\/p>\n

By Whitney Capps<\/em><\/p>\n

To live a life of we over me, we have to choose Jesus over ourselves\u2014over our own comfort, convenience, and preconceived ideas. Here\u2019s the hard truth: I will never choose others over myself if I won\u2019t choose Jesus over me.<\/p>\n

Churches may be handicapped by poor or ineffective leadership to be sure. But friend, churches may also be handicapped by immature, selfish members. <\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s why much of the New Testament, mainly the letters (Ephesians, Philippians, 1 Peter, etc.), deals with healthy church life, community-building, and the collective grace and holiness of God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n

God is specific about what the church is to believe and how it is to behave. Most of the time, God\u2019s list and my list don\u2019t exactly match up. This was so, so hard for me. Church is much more than I had believed.<\/p>\n

It reminds me of a girl who, when planning her wedding, was a bridezilla on steroids. Everything had to be just the way she wanted it to be. <\/p>\n

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She had been, and I quote, \u201cDreaming about this day her whole life. It deserved to be perfect.\u201d She made nearly everyone, including her future husband, miserable. <\/p>\n

It became clear that she was far more in love with the idea of a wedding than with the idea of a marriage.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t that kind of bride, but I\u2019ve been that kind of church member. I love the idea of church, but I had a really specific idea of what it should look like. My dream of the perfect church was making everybody miserable.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been doing church for all of my life. My dad is my pastor. When Chad and I got married, Chad said he felt called to help my dad start and build the church we are now a part of. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never been in a church that wasn\u2019t led by my dad. That means, in a manner of speaking, church is the family business.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been my life. I did all the Vacation Bible Schools, went to youth camp, and dined at many covered dish meals. My earliest memories of Sunday School were around a kidney shaped table. This church thing runs deep.<\/p>\n

There have been unbelievable highs and hard, hard lows. But over the last few years church has been super tough, like cried-my-pillow-soggy tough. <\/p>\n

I became discouraged by this whole idea of church life. I began to focus on how church made me bitter instead of how church made me better. I was ready to quit. <\/p>\n

After all, I could grow spiritually anywhere, even by myself. Why stay here to endure the hurt and frustration when I could experience community anywhere?<\/p>\n

Remember, this church thing is embedded deep in my spiritual DNA. So I decided to see if God was actually committed to this idea of local, visible, \u201cthey-know-me-too-well\u201d kind of church. Maybe I could make my peace with just being a part of the global, invisible church?<\/p>\n

Spoiler alert. It\u2019s the first. As it turns out, God cares deeply about the local, personal church. His goal for the church is so much greater than sweet Sunday services and polite fellowship. God\u2019s goal is that we would grow in Christlikeness\u2014so that each day we look a little more like Jesus and a little less like ourselves. <\/p>\n

WHITNEY CAPPS (@whitneycapps)<\/strong> is a national speaker for Proverbs 31 Ministries and a writer for the new Bible app <\/em>First 5, reaching more than 1,000,000 people daily. As a Bible study geek, Whitney\u2019s delight is to dig into God\u2019s Word for profound yet practical truth. She is the author of <\/em>Sick of Me and group Bible study <\/em>We Over Me, from which this is excerpted and adapted with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Dig Deeper at Lifeway.com<\/div>\n
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We Over Me: Letters of Hope From Revelation<\/h2>\n

Whitney Capps<\/p>\n

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See also  What Do Churchgoers Want to Change About Their Churches?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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FIND OUT MORE <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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What Do Pastors Believe About the End Times? What Do Pastors Believe About the Book of Revelation? 3 Ways to Reach Non-Religious People in Your Community <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

icon 0 photo – Pexels By Whitney Capps To live a life of we over me, we have to choose Jesus over ourselves\u2014over our own comfort, convenience, and preconceived ideas. Here\u2019s the hard truth: I will never choose others over myself if I won\u2019t choose Jesus over me. Churches may be handicapped by poor or … Continue reading “What Is God’s Goal for the Church?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}