The Church of Jesus Christ: Mission

Intro: Everyone wants you to fill out a survey

How did you like your experience? Its possible, although this is speculation, that such surveys flow throughout our churches across this land. How was the worship? How was the lighting? How was the length of the sermon? How was the hospitality of our staff and members? While I am not against some self-reflection, let me propose a different survey. Let us see how the Spirit has revealed the church in the Scriptures and let us evaluate ourselves accordingly.

-Inception

-Organization

-Mission

6 Components of a Healthy Church

1. Preaching and Teaching of the Word of God

Acts 2:42 “42 They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching ….

Luke mentions this first and we might say that it was listed for the sake of priority. Not all of these items are ranked as order of importance but often with lists, the writes begins with the most important or priority of the list. We can say without apology that the greatest activity or mission of the church is the teaching and preaching ministry of the church. Luke states unequivocally that these early Christians were continually devoted to the word. This was a steadfastness to the word of God was their source of life and growth. The word to them was spiritual food as the OT and NT speaks.

Job 23:12 “12 “I have not departed from the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.”

2 Timothy 4:1–2“1 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.

There are many different ministries and activities that churches prioritize in an unhealthy way. I have been part of some that prioritize ministry to children and youth. Their philosophy was that if you reach the kids, you reach the parents and the church will grow. But this is simply numerical growth that lasts for just a time. It is not enduring growth because it oftentimes is not based on the work of the spirit. It is a growth simply rooted in popularity and circumstance. There is a popular saying that we should remember “what you when them with, you win them to.” Not sure who originally said such a thing but it is true.

Walter Kaiser writes,

Rediscovering Pastoral Ministry: Shaping Contemporary Ministry with Biblical Mandates The Highest Calling

It is no secret that Christ’s Church is not at all in good health in many places of the world. She has been languishing because she has been fed, as the current line has it, “junk food”; all kinds of artificial preservatives and all sorts of unnatural substitutes have been served up to her. As a result, theological and Biblical malnutrition has afflicted the very generation that has taken such giant steps to make sure its physical health is not damaged by using foods or products that are carcinogenic or otherwise harmful to their physical bodies.

Let me then state with full force and without apology: The centrality of the ministry of the church must be centered on the preaching and teaching of Christ and his word.

Now consider it is the word of God that saves you as you hear the proclaimed good news of Jesus Christ and God grants you faith to believe. Turn with me to 1 Peter 1

1 Peter 1:23–2:2 “23 for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For, “All flesh is like grass, And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, And the flower falls off, 25 But the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word which was preached to you.

You are born again by hearing the word of God not by seeing the works of God. You can have 10,000 good deeds done by fellow Christians that will only leave you dead in your trespasses and sins. I don’t want to speak ill of good deeds for they have their place with the saints, but they do not possess saving power to change hearts to Christ. The word of God preached and received contains the power to save the lost soul.

1 Peter 2:1–2 “1 Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, 2 like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation,”

It is the word of God that grows you into the holiness and likeness of Christ as you live daily in a world corrupted with sin. The word of God is said to be your souls nourishment and help in times of need. It is whereby we find discipline from the Lord, comfort in our sufferings, peace in our conflicts with others, hope in its promises. Our children, our teenagers, our parents, and our grandparents need its guidance.

Therefore, as preachers, we must be primarily be focused on the duty of preaching God’s word as it has been delivered to the saints. It is not the job of any faithful preacher to be persuasive or entertaining to those listeners. The role of the preacher is to help the listener understand the word of God more clearly. Paul dealt with this in Corinth with many orators dispersed in the community that sought to win people with elegant and sophisticated word buffets for them to feast upon. To combat such a culture pressured, Paul writes,

1 Corinthians 2:1–5 “1 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, 4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”

Jay Adams writes,

Rediscovering Pastoral Ministry: Shaping Contemporary Ministry with Biblical Mandates Preaching Must Have the Proper Foundation

preachers today have no authority for preaching their own notions and opinions; they must “preach the word”—the apostolic Word recorded in the Scriptures. Whenever preachers depart from the purpose and intent of a biblical portion, to that extent they lose their authority to preach. In short, the purpose of reading, explaining, and applying a portion of Scripture is to obey the command to “preach the Word.” In no other way may we expect to experience the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our preaching. He did not spend thousands of years producing the Old and New Testaments (in a sense, the Bible is peculiarly His Book) only to ignore it! What He “moved” men to write He now motivates us to preach. He has not promised to bless our word; that promise extends only to His own (

Now also notice with me v 43 that the preaching and teaching ministry has already been authenticated.

Acts 2:43 “43 Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.”

Now the temptation in the pulpit today is to somehow fabricate awe and wonder with some substitute. We read words like v 43 and the preacher wonders “how am I going to WOW the listener so that they leave with the same sense of awe as the early church.” This is a grave temptation because what follows is circus-related showmanship. Maybe you light a ring of fire and jump through its hoop as you preach. Maybe you drive a car up on stage to grab the audiences attention about Jesus taking the wheel. Maybe you turn down the lights and turn up the volume with some echo effects in the microphone. Its just silly.

The early church saw signs and wonders to authenticate the message of the apostles. Did they perform miracles YES and those miracles authenticated the words delivered to them by the Holy Spirit to give to the church. Did Jesus perform miracles? Yes to authenticate not only the spoken words but He himself as the living word come down from heaven. He and the apostles by inspiration of the Holy Spirit have authenticated all that needs authentication by God. It is stamped and approved….now we just have to deliver it to the people.

You, as the listener, can experience the AWE and WONDER in every circumstance that the word of God is shared if you are prepared to do so. You mind must be fixed on Christ and all that He has done for you if you are to be lead to the amazement of God and His word. This does not negate my job as a preacher to rightly divide the truth and deliver it accurately to the saints. But I will fail at this at times and yet the Lord can still bless you the listener with a sense of awe and wonder at the Word and works of your sovereign God.

Spurgeon writes,

“Let your soul lose itself in wonder, for wonder, dear friends, is in this way a very practical emotion. Holy wonder will lead you to grateful worship; being astonished at what God has done, you will pour out your soul with astonishment at the foot of the golden throne with the song, “Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be to Him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever”

2. Practicing the Ordinances

A. Believer’s Baptism

Acts 2:41 “41 So then, those who had received his word were baptized…

John Macarthur summaries the ordinances of the church like this-

Rediscovering Pastoral Ministry: Shaping Contemporary Ministry with Biblical Mandates 21: Observing Ordinances

Communion and baptism are the two ordinances instituted by Christ for observance by the church. Communion grew out of the last Passover of Christ with His disciples before His crucifixion. Later, Paul corrected the Corinthian church because they had perverted the commemoration through their selfish conduct. The purpose of Communion is to proclaim the death of Christ symbolically. It behooves each Christian to prepare himself carefully each time he celebrates the Lord’s Supper. Also, Christians should view the ordinance of baptism with the utmost seriousness. This means that no one who professes faith in Christ should remain unbaptized. Baptism portrays a believer’s identification with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus personally submitted to the baptism of John before beginning to baptize people Himself. While baptism plays no part in one’s personal salvation, it is a nonoptional act of obedience to Christ

It is not difficult to see from this passage that the early church practices the two ordinances of the New Covenant. First we see in v 38-41 of Acts 2 that Peter calls believers to be baptized.

Acts 2:38–41 “38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 “For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” 40 And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!” 41 So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls.”

Immediately, Peter calls those who trust in Christ to openly and publically display their surrender to Christ by being baptized. The verb “be baptized” is the GK “baptizo” was used both secularly and spiritually to speak of immersing something or cleansing something with water by immersing it. To clean vessels, the user would immerse them or baptize them in water, not sprinkle or spray or mist them. Similarly, the term was used spiritually for the act of baptism.

When Jesus was baptized in his early ministry, both Matthew and Mark’s account add the context that when Jesus was baptized, he immediately came up out of the water. This not only can be historically confirmed by the practice of baptism but also grammatically it affirms that baptism by immersion is the biblical practice of the NT church.

Also, baptism by immersion also must follow a person’s conversion to Christ. When we understand the nature of baptism, we understand that it represents the death, burial and resurrection of the spiritual act of a person’s life. Going under the water represents death to sin and coming up from the water represents new life. This baptism is dysfunctional if it occurs before conversion because it is not properly ordered. You might say that intimacy before marriage is another example of such an unbiblical disorder. The second action cannot and should no precede the first. The first leads to the second by its very nature and purpose.

Romans 6:3–4 “3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

Baptism is also connected to union with the body of Christ. Because baptism is a public act of your profession of faith, it is to be administered in the church and it is linked to your membership to a local body. We cannot and do not dissect baptism and membership to the local body. The person who is baptized by immersion represents the death/life picture of salvation and their union to the church of Christ. That elders of that local fellowship of believers who administered that baptism shepherd those members until they pass on to glory or join with another membership. Baptism is not administered again at a transfer of membership accountability but is accepted upon a transfer of membership from a like minded body of believers.

Therefore, baptism and church membership highlight the aspects of congregational accountability and responsibility that was taught in the previous sermon. Such regenerate church membership starts with baptism but also requires a maturity to handle the function required of its membership such as accountability to teh elders, maturity to serve with Spirit-given gifts, and govern the body.

John Hammett writes,

Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches: A Contemporary Ecclesiology Regenerate Church Membership and Congregational Church Government

The assumption is that, since all the members of the church are regenerate believer-priests, and thus indwelt by the Spirit, they all have both the ability and the responsibility to hear God’s voice and discern God’s will for the body. But this rests on the assumption that the church will be composed of those who are regenerate, and thus able to receive Christ’s guidance. As J. L. Reynolds noted in 1849, congregational government requires what he called “a Bible constituency.” He explained: “If churches are composed only of such as give credible evidence of having been taught by the Spirit of God, they may be safely entrusted with the management of their own interests.”41

 John S. Hammett, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches: A Contemporary Ecclesiology (Kregel Academic, 2005), 101.

B. The Lord’s Supper

Acts 2:42 “42 They were continually devoting themselves……to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

Lastly, we come to the second ordinance of the church mentioned here in these early days…the Lord’s Supper. This is signified in the term “breaking of bread.” This term originated in the gathering of the Jewish people around the table to share a meal together. As we can see from this text, the early church would gather in homes and as they gathered they shared all things in common. Part of their fellowship together was eating together for this is a healthy expression of mutuality and love. These meals were often referred to as “love feasts” because the church would eat a meal in community and include the observation of the Lord Supper.

Breaking of bread takes us back to the Passover meals that were observed and the promises that were given of God’s salvation for his people and the escape from bondage. Those promises were fulfilled when Jesus sat down with his disciples, at a Passover meal and pointed to each of the 4 cups of the Passover as being fulfilled in him. The unleavened bread, which represented the God faithful deliverance of Israel from bondage, was broken by Jesus to symbolize his body that would be broken upon the cross. Jesus said in Matthew 26:26

“26 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.””

The breaking of the bread was practical for it allowed the entirety of the loaf to be shared with the guests. One loaf divided for each to partake of the body. We may purchase our little wafers from Amazon and pull them individually from a box, but do not lose the parts of the whole symbolism that is pictured with the juice and the bread. That is one body which is holy, perfectly pure, 100 % divine and 100 % human of the Lord Jesus that was sacrificed and broken upon the cross. This occured so that we as individuals who believe in Him and have received Him can come together to share that gift together as one.

Similarly, Jesus took bread and gave it to his disciples as food. Bread is a dynamic item in Scripture used to feed God’s people. God promised Israel that he would rain down “bread from heaven” which was called manna. When Jesus comes into the world during his earthly ministry, he teaches the people

John 6:33–35 “33 “For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” 34 Then they said to Him, “Lord, always give us this bread.” 35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”

We take the element of bread to find spiritual nourishment in Him. His body represents the eternal life that we are given when we believe and trust in Him.

Secondly, the wine or fruit of the vine is the second of elements observed in the Lord’ Supper. Although wine is not mentioned in these passages in Acts, we can assume it was included in the practice of the Lord’s supper as it was demonstrated by the Lord Jesus to his disciples. Jesus again says in Matthew 26:27–28 “

27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; 28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.”

The shedding of the blood of Christ was necessary for the atonement of sin, the appeasement of the wrath of God against sin.

There is much to be said about the wine and the cup. We again miss some of this in the practical aspects of the administration today, but one cup. A cup of wine symbolizes the wrath throughout the OT.

Jeremiah 25:15 “15 For thus the Lord, the God of Israel, says to me, “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it.”

Revelation 14:10 “10 he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger;

Jesus took the cup for us, with the wine representing his blood that would be shed and his life that would endure the wrath of God on our behalf.

Also, Jesus said that the wine represented the “blood of the Covenant.” This means that his blood ratified the new covenant that was established through his death and resurrection. Animal sacrifices of the Old Testament often came as part of covenants made with God. The slain animal and its life blood pointed to the importance of covenant keeping between God and man. In the New Covenant, the blood not only represents the blood that was spilt for forgiveness but also the covenant that is made through Jesus for all who believe in His name.

Finally, the Lord’s Supper is a representative meal with God’s people in the presence of the Lord. It is an earthly shadow of a heavenly reality. To eat and drink in the presence of the Lord is something that Jesus accomplishes through redemption. Because of the fall of man, fellowship with God is broken and sin corrupts the world and man’s relationship with God. Yet there are glimpses in the Scriptures whereby men feast in the presence of God.

Wayne Grudem writes,

Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Bible Doctrine A. Background in the History of Redemption

From Genesis to Revelation, then, God’s aim has been to bring his people into fellowship with himself, and one of the great joys of experiencing that fellowship is the fact that we can eat and drink in the presence of the Lord. It would be healthy for the church today to recapture a more vivid sense of God’s presence at the table of the Lord.

When we gather to take the Lord’s supper, we come together as God’s people and although there are no plates or dinnerware, we are coming to the table to fellowship with God and with his people. The Lord’s table is the expression of a restored fellowship with God that will one day realized at the great Marriage Supper of the Lamb where God’s people will feast in the presence of Christ for all eternity. It is an eternal family reunion.

We now we practice these truths and come to the Lord’s table together….