A Pathway of Hope
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INTRO:
Good morning. It’s great to finally be back in the pulpit this morning. Now, most of you know that I have a firm conviction that the primary diet of a church should be the expositional preaching of the Word of God. However, from time to time it can be wise to address particular topics that the church is dealing with in a particular season. So we're going to step aside from what we normally would do to cover something that I believe is vital to our understanding of our mission as a church. To do this we are going to walk along what I’m going to refer to as our discipleship pathway. It’s familiar to many of you. It’s the 3 G’s. Gather together, grow deeper, and go wider.
We are currently in a season where we are experiencing some growth. As this happens, it's a good opportunity to talk about our mission as a church and what things we value as we minister in the Dixon community. I want to begin by giving an overview of the mission of our church. The mission of our church is found in a passage referred to as The Great Commission.
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Under the authority of Jesus:
1. Going
2. Making
3. Baptizing
4. Teaching
Know that Jesus will be with us always.
So we don't need a catchy mission because we already have a mission. What we have needed is to zero in more on how we apply that mission to Dixon. We apply it through three short phrases that we call, Gather, Grow, Go.
We actually take those and zero in more by adding a second word to each.
Gather Together
Grow Deeper
Go Wider
(Show diagram with arrows)
Over the next several weeks our Sunday morning messages will be focused around what it looks like for us to Gather, to Grow, and to Go with the gospel.
Take note at the centrality of the gospel in this diagram. Nothing happens without a solid grounding and as an outgrowth of our focus and the centrality of the gospel.
But first I want to take us back to a very basic definition. If we want to be a church that is biblically faithful to what a church is supposed to be and do, then we had better make sure we are all on the same page with knowing what a church really is.
For example:
Imagine you book tickets to your dream vacation of Ireland. You're all packed and get to O'Hare Airport early. You board the plane and are waiting for takeoff when the pilot finally gets the go-ahead from the tower and you race down the runway and lift into the air. You're finally on your way. You decide you'll take a nap. Now, how would you feel if you knew that as soon as you reached cruising height and you napped, the pilot was in the cockpit frantically scanning the manual for the plane to figure out how to land this thing when you get to Ireland?
Sometimes, we can be so excited to start doing something that we skip over some key details that just feel like they will get in the way or slow us down. Definitions are some of those details. But they're important. Words are important because they have meanings. So before we take off on this journey through our discipleship process and how our mission is worked out here, we need to define what we mean when we call ourselves a church.
For citation purposes, some of the information I'll be walking through was found in the Core Seminars Material from Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C.
I. What is a church?
I. What is a church?
Church - shows up over 100 times in the NT
What a church is not:
- A building. This building is not Hope. This is steel and drywall. If this building burns down overnight, we will still be Hope and we will still meet to worship the Holy God. The church is a people, not a place. Where can we see this in scripture? Take a look at Romans 16.
Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus,
who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well.
Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia.
Note that the building was not the church. The house was not the church. The church was the people who met there in that place. The word “church” in the New Testament is from the Greek word ‘ekklesia’. This means a gathering or an assembly. At a basic and straight up fundamental level, the church is an assembly of people.
Wait a minute pastor, does that mean if I get a bunch of my Christians buddies together and we go play golf, that makes it a church? My answer is: NO. The church is far more than a random group of Christians.
There is a universal church and a local church.
Universal Church - all true Christians from all times and in all places. Can’t see it now but one day will all be gathered in one place worshipping God together. Sometimes in the NT that the word church is used in this universal sense.
And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,
which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Jesus is the head of the church universal.
Most of the references in the NT to church are meant toward the local church in places like Ephesus, Corinth, Colossae, Pontus, Galatia, and Cappadocia.
Now, I said the church is not a building. It’s a gathering or assembly of people but it’s also more than just a gathering. What is the LOCAL church?
Jonathan Leeman offers a helpful definition in his short book on Church Membership. He writes,
“A local church is a group of Christians who regularly gather in Christ’s name to officially affirm and oversee one another’s membership in Jesus Christ and his kingdom through gospel preaching and gospel ordinances.” - Jonathan Leeman
Look at that phrase: Jesus Christ and His kingdom…
The kingdom of God is a major theme in the NT. It’s all over the gospels. So when you see the kingdom of God come up, one way you can think about it is: God’s people, in God’s place, under God’s rule. This is at the very center of who the church is! It’s another way of talking about worship. The church is God’s people gathered for the purpose of worshipping God. It’s not a club. It’s not a game. It’s about gathering together with others who worship Jesus to make much of Him, celebrate Him, hear His word proclaimed, and obey Him together.
II. What does a church do?
II. What does a church do?
1. The Church displays the image of God.
2. Biblical pictures of the local church.
· A body (1 Corinthians 12:12-27)
· A family (1 Timothy 5:1-2)
· A flock of sheep (1 Peter 5:2)
· A house (1 Peter 2:5)
· A priesthood (1 Peter 2:9)
IMPLICATIONS:
Implication 1: The local church is the focal point of God’s grand plan to display his glory to the nations.
There is no plan B.
We must gather together.
Implication 2: The local church is to be distinct from the world.
We must grow deeper.
We serve a king that the world doesn’t serve.
Implication 3: Your relationship with God is personal but it’s not private.
We grow deeper when we gather together.
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.
And all who believed were together and had all things in common.
And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,
praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
The church gathers together.
The church grows deep.
The church goes wide.
The Church's Sure Future
The Church's Sure Future
The church is not man-made.
Jesus builds His church.
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.
(For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.)
Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later,
but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.
The future of the church of Jesus Christ is bright!
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
That will get the juices flowing! That is the sure hope we have in Jesus Christ. So church, because we have a sure foundation on the cross of Christ and we have the future glory to look forward to, we MUST get to work obeying Christ here and now on MISSION together. We must gather, grow, and go because Jesus is worth it.
Next week we will talk about why we gather and what happens when we gather. I hope you will join us.
