Being the Church

Introduction

Good morning and welcome back!

And for all those online watching this morning, welcome!

Hopefully you will find today’s message both a challenge and a blessing.

This morning we are going to really continue the theme that we’ve been discussing over the past several weeks, but we are going to be moving away from the Scripture form last week.

However, we are going to continue looking at Matthew, first chapter 22 and then over in chapter 28.

And what I want us to think about this morning is the following questions:

What is our purpose?

What are we supposed to be doing?

And those are important questions to answer because they align with our overall all mission to “be the Church,” to “love our neighbor as ourselves.”

And I feel that over the last several weeks we have been laying the foundation and the groundwork for this in our emphasis and focus on our relationship with God and the demonstration of that relationship with our interactions towards others.

However, the problem is the “Church” as a whole is not doing a very good job fulfilling the role we have been called to fulfill.

And the reason I can say that is because research shows that each year about 17 million people die and go into eternity without ever hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which equals to about 46,575 people per day or 1,940 people per hour, or 32 people every single minute—about 1 person every 2 seconds.

And when we break it down that way, it is clear that we are in an emergency situation!

That we are losing people, lots of people every single day.

But let’s break it down a bit further . . .

The world’s population is roughly around 7.6 billion people.

Of that 7.6 billion people, there are about 3.14 billion who are unreached by the church.

That is about 41% of our world population is living outside and apart from Christ—who have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

But we here in North America lose sight of this, particularly in the United States, and even more particularly here in the Southern United States.

The Church is so evident here that you would be hard pressed to drive 5 miles and not run into a church of some sort.

In many places there are churches right across the street from one another.

So we lose sight that there are places in this world that have not had the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ—which is, by the way, why we support Global Missions.

However, when we bring it back home even in our small community and surrounding communities that are surrounded my multitudes of Churches, there are people here who have #1 never sat foot into a Church and #2 have no idea what the Gospel of Jesus Christ even says.

Right here in small town Stanford Kentucky, we have people who are just as lost as those in the jungles of Africa or Asia or the Middle East, when it comes to hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And frankly, there is no real valid excuse for it.

We are constantly hearing how horrible it is that they “took prayer out of school,” or the multiple attacks of groups like the ACLU on Christian organizations and the first thing we want to to do is take up arms and “fight for our rights.”

But I’m going to tell you, it’s our fault that it has come to what it has come to.

The Church in the United States has gotten soft.

The Church in the United States has gotten complacent.

And the Church in the United States has gotten lazy.

And we are truly reaping what we have FAILED to sow.

We have failed to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and do what we are called to do and thus this is the result.

And the answer is not lawsuits and bitter arguments “fighting for our rights” as we like to say.

The answer is actually being the Church.

Fulfilling the Mission of the Church.

Multiplying the Harvest if you will.

Which is what we are going to be talking about this morning.

But in order to do that, we have to understand and realize #1 who we are called to be and #2 what we are called to do.

Which is where Matthew 22 and Matthew 28 come into play.

So, if you have a Bible and would like to follow along or you can read it on the screen, starting in Matthew 22:36, we find this interaction between Jesus and the Pharisees.

And they ask Jesus . . .

Scripture Focus

Matthew 22:36–40 NIV - Anglicised

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Now, skip down to Matthew 28,verse 19 and we will find our purpose . . .

Matthew 28:19–20 NIV - Anglicised

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Who Are We?

Now, I know that most here absolutley know the verses I just read from Matthew 22.

It is our Mission statement for this Church.

It is what defines us as a people—or at least it is what should define us as a people.

But again, just setting the story up here is what we have going on, starting in verse 34 . . .

Matthew 22:34–36 NIV - Anglicised

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

And their purpose here was not to really learn anything from Jesus, but really it was try and trap Jesus and get him to violate one of the 10 commandments by saying something that wasn’t so.

They want Jesus to rank the commandments in order of importance.

Just like we try to rank our sin.

We think that we have “small sins” and “big sins.”

For instance, telling a lie is not as big a deal as stealing.

But actually in God’s eye, sin is sin because sin is a revelation of the condition of the heart.

And they wanted Jesus to tell them which commandment of God was more important and less important.

And of course Jesus doesn’t fall for the trap, but in reality shuts them up.

He tells them . . .

Matthew 22:37–38 NIV - Anglicised

Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the reason Jesus is telling them this and says that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind-all our being, if you will, is because that is the evidence of a transformed heart.

If our heart is transformed and being continuously transformed by the Holy Spirit, it doesn't matter if there are 10 or 10,000 commandments, we will not violate them for the sake of violating them.

Because the commands are just guidelines of how we are supposed to live and they are a gauge of the life we live if our heart has been transformed by God.

Now, does that mean we will not make mistakes and will not give in to the flesh as sin?

No—but it means our heart is purified by God and when we do sin and fall under conviction, we will do what we need to do.

We will repent and turn from that sin and try to do better.

Living a Godly life is not following a bunch of rules, regulations, and traditions, it is having a transformed heart given over to God and allowing God to continuously work in our lives.

And if we do that, then the rest will follow suit.

But Jesus isn’t done with them here though.

He goes on to the next part, which is how the love for God is to be demonstrated.

How do we love God with all our being?

He tells them this . . .

Matthew 22:39–40 NIV - Anglicised

And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Love your neighbor as yourself—demonstrate your love for God by loving your neighbor as yourself.

And this is who we are supposed to be.

This is what should define us and inform others that we are Christians and should be a demonstration of what it means to be a Christian.

What Are We Supposed to Do?

However, that begs the next question though—if this is who we are supposed to be, what do we do with it?

How do we love our neighbor as ourselves?

How do we demonstrate our love for God by loving others?

That is where our mission comes into play.

And we see our mission and challenge given to us in Matthew 28, which tells us . . .

Matthew 28:18–20 NIV - Anglicised

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

And again, we are very, very familiar with these verses.

Jesus appears to his disciples prior to his ascension and he gives them their mission—and our mission by extension.

The first thing he tells them to do is to go and to do something, which is very important.

The Church is not meant to be an organization in which we sit and people come to us.

For many years that may have worked but those days are long gone.

That approach no longer works.

We have sat for so long that people have forgotten who we are and what we are supposed to be all about.

Our sitting around has made us complacent and lazy and we have lost relevance to the people in the world.

Now let me be very clear—the gospel of Jesus Christ has not lost relevance in any way—the complacent and lazy Church has lost relevance in the world.

People don’t see the point because for so long we have refused to go and refused to do anything.

We have rested on 100 year old rules and traditions that have not kept up with the times.

We have rested on 100 year old methods that are from a time past.

This was more than evident when COVID-19 hit and Church buildings were shut down.

We were forced to move into the Online world and forced to think differently about how we “do Church.”

And some don’t like it but I thank God for it.

Because if we were not forced to do it, we would never have done any of it.

This church and others are reaching far more people now with the Gospel than we ever had---but we were forced to do it and it was and continues to be painful in many areas.

And there is still lots of work to be done.

But it’s not just “Online Church” either.

It is how we are supposed to be interacting with others.

It is how we are supposed to be going and doing something.

And what are we supposed to be going and doing?

Matthew 28:19 NIV - Anglicised

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Making disciples is simply sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And how do we do that?

By what we say.

By how we live.

By how we interact.

By how we love our neighbors as ourselves.

Not by how full we can fill the Church building or all the programs and strategies built around building a larger congregation.

These schemes that are shallow, inwardly focused, ways to fill the Church up, that have nothing to really do with sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ by word or deed.

We have relied for years on things like special studies, special programs and the like to “sell our brand.”

And this is going to hurt but we’ve also relied too heavily on revival services and church singings to also “sell our brand.”

And those last two there are nothing wrong with them at all—but we forgot what “revival” actually means.

Revival is meant TO REVIVE the dead and dying people in the Church so they can go out and be the Church.

But we’ve turned it into solely an event to where we can drag people into the Church building and hope they receive Jesus Christ.

Okay—what do we do with them after that?—Most of the time nothing.

And the Church singing is just really supposed to be a good time in the Lord where we can fellowship and enjoy some good singing, but we try to turn it into some type of evangelistic outreach event.

And why?

Because we have gotten complacent and lazy.

We have got to change.

First we have change our paradigm, meaning we have to change our thinking and recognize things for what they really are.

We have to stop hiding in our 1960s-1980s Church world and catch up with the 21st Century in how be Be The Church.

And once we do that we also have to actually take action.

Altar Call/Challenge

But the real question is though, can we do that?

Will we do that?

Can we be uncomfortable enough to actually change?

Because unless we are willing to change then these are just words.

And we are letting 1 person every 2 seconds die and go to hell because we are too unwilling to be who God has called us to be and do what God has called us to do.

Are we willing to do that?

It is up to you—because you are The Church.