HARVEST BAPTIST CHURCH ON MISSION

Introduction

-There was a news story about a grocery store owner in England who came to a decision that he would have to ban customers from actually coming into his store. He said that he was forced to take such drastic action because of people’s bad manners.

It all began when first he banned smoking, then he banned crude language, then he banned baby strollers, then he banned pets, and finally, in exasperation for what he thought were bad manners, he banned the customers themselves.

What ended up happening was that shoppers would now have to look through the window of his shop, spot the items they want, and then ring a bell to be served through a small hatch in the door.

The owner admitted, “I have lost business, but I cannot say how much. But I am a man of principles, and I stand by my decision!”

-Now, that may be one of the silliest things you ever heard of in your life—but what we see in this story is that the store forgot the reason it was in existence to begin with. It lost its mission.

-And I dare say that there are many churches just like that store—not that they knowingly ban people—but churches have forgotten why they exist to begin with----churches have lost sight of their mission

-I’ve had to do some soul-searching and questioning about this for us as a church. Last week you marked the one-year anniversary of calling me as your pastor, and I am grateful for the recognition. But it brings up some questions.

Why did you call me? Why am I here (at the church, not a deep metaphysical question)?

Why are you here? Why do we come together as a church? Why do we do what we do?

What does God expect of us? What has He called us to do?

-I’m not trying to get all philosophical on you, but what happens is that a church gets to running like a well-oiled machine, and eventually everything becomes about keeping that machine running rather than the machine fulfilling why it exists to begin with.

-You start all these programs within a church, and then eventually the reason for the programs gets stuck in the background, and the programs begin to run for their own sake. The programs which at first were a means to an end, then become the ends themselves.

-The old adage is that THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY IS DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN BUT EXPECTING DIFFERENT RESULTS----so as a church do we keep doing the same things expecting things to change on their own, or do we make purposeful change

-So, I think it is good for a church to take a time-out, assess itself, remember why it exists to begin with, find its mission, and get back on track with that mission.

-I believe that there are several verses of Scripture that may not be exhaustive, but give us an overall picture about what our mission is:

Matthew 22:35–40 ESV

35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Matthew 28:18–20 ESV

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 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, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

-First, we notice in these passages that there is a message to be shared—we are to go into the world, proclaim the gospel to all people, giving testimony about Jesus Christ, His death, and His resurrection.

-Jesus Christ, God the Son, became a man, walked the earth, died on the cross, and rose again the third day—all of these are historical facts.

-The spiritual significance is that by His death Jesus paid our ransom for sin, took upon Himself the wrath of God, and proved He defeated death by coming alive again.

-Therefore, once we share the message, those who have believed by faith and repentance will be saved from the consequences of sin, but those who do not believe will be eternally condemned.

-Believing that eternal hell is very real, we share this message that alone will keep people from going there. This good news is not to be kept a secret, but freely given throughout the earth just as we have freely received that message.

-Second, we notice in these verses that there is a growth toward conformity to Christ that is expected. Jesus tells us that we are to disciple people, which means to teach them to obey everything He has commanded and help form them and shape them into the likeness of Christ.

-In one sense, this is a lifelong process of growth that nobody ever truly finishes in this life. Yet, in another aspect, this growth means moving on from spiritual infancy to become someone who then multiplies themselves and teaches others to do the same thing.

-Just like in physical life, you are always growing—you are either growing up or you’re growing old, but you are growing. But there comes a time when you are not only growing, but you are helping somebody else grow as well. You grow up to a point where you reproduce yourself in children, and then you spend time helping them learn and grow and grow up, and then they will reproduce themselves with kids of their own….

-We can think of spiritual growth in these terms. I become born again in Christ, and I am at first a spiritual infant. But I grow up and I learn and become more like Christ—but then I come to a point where I am still growing, but it’s time to reproduce myself. So I lead someone to Christ, and then I help them grow, so that eventually they will reproduce themselves….

-And then finally, someone with whom you share the message, and then help grow to conform them to Christ’s image, you and they both then love God even more and share that love with other people through service and ministry.

-The more you are like Christ, the more you love, because Christ is love—and He told us the greatest commandments were to love God and to love people.

-These two are mutually dependent on one another. You cannot love people rightly (in a selfless, sacrificial manner) if you don’t love God rightly; and the Bible makes it abundantly clear that you can’t say you love God if you don’t love people as well.

-And as the old DC TALK song said, love is a verb—it is not an emotion. Love is giving of yourself for someone else. So we love God by giving ourselves over to His calling and commands, and we love others by giving of ourselves in service and ministry.

-Having said all this, these verses then give us to foundation for our mission.

-So over the past several months, based on Scripture, I had to ask myself the hard questions about the church: Who are we? What do we do? Why do we do it? How do we do it?

-There are people a lot smarter than me that can make better distinctions between mission statements, vision statements, and purpose statements than I can. You can call it what you like, but these statements I felt led to verbalize are based on Scripture and they answer important questions for us as a church.

<In bulletin insert…>

Church Identity Statement (Who we are):

Harvest Baptist Church is a family of Christian believers who have placed themselves under the authority of Scripture and the lordship of Christ to lovingly and prayerfully share the gospel, make disciples, and minister to others in Jesus’ name.

<PAUSE TO EMPHASIZE>

Church Vision Statement (What we do):

Harvest Baptist Church seeks to go out into every field of witness (local, state, nation, world) to share with people the good news of the gospel and to help them grow in Christ-likeness so that they might bear the spiritual fruit of loving God and others in thought, word, and deed.

<PAUSE TO EMPHASIZE>

Church Purpose Statement (Why we do it):

To fulfill both the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 1:8) and the Great Commandments (Matthew 22:37-39).

-We are commanded by God, and since we are under His authority, we do it

Church Mission Statement (How we do it)

Share the Good News… Grow in Christ-likeness…Love God and Others

<Easy to remember: SHARE…GROW…LOVE----you may not remember any of the other answers to the questions, but when you try to explain to people what we are all about, you tell them we SHARE, we GROW, we LOVE>

-If this is our mission (our purpose for existing), then everything we do ought to fall under this umbrella----the days of doing things just because we’ve always done it have to be done away with

-On back of that insert is a non-exhaustive list of examples of how ministries fit into our mission, and gives an example of how we need to think about current and future ministries

<LOOK AT BACK INSERT>

-This is us as a church moving into the future—this is us as a church fulfilling our mission

-And each and every one of you has a part in this. The days of sitting in the pew every once-in-a-while and still calling yourself a card-carrying member of the church is over. If you are a member, then you help fulfill the mission.

-But before I call for your commitment to this, there are just a couple of things that I think need to be said.

-First, I don’t have all of the answers. I would love to say I have everything down pat, but I don’t. But under the power of the Holy Spirit I see these statements (these answers to questions) as guides for what we do.

-But second, I want to get real about the church. Every church has a history and every church has problems. There may be some sitting out there hurt or wounded by something or someone in the past. As a shepherd, I want to help in healing the wounds.

-That being said, we cannot allow the wounds of the past to prevent us from moving into the future. It’s not a matter of pretending the past didn’t happen, but it is a matter of not letting the past prevent you from doing what you need to do in the here and now, and then on into the future.

-We can learn from the past, but we cannot live in the past----as the cliché goes: BITTERNESS IS LIKE DRINKING POISON AND THEN EXPECTING THE OTHER PERSON TO DIE

--God has called us to forgiveness, not bitterness

-I guess a third thing I just want to mention is that we need to be above average church members, committed more to Christ and the cause then to ourselves

-With that comes a call to turn away from selfishness and self-seeking----we are here to serve and minister and be a hospital for sinners----we are here to fulfill mission, not personal wants and desires

-I mean, yes we have legitimate needs that the church can and ought to help with, but we have strayed when we think the church ought to fulfill my every wish and desire

-And related to that I think comes the exhortation that we all need to be big boys and girls—we need to put our big-boy and big-girl pants on and act like the adults we are

-We can’t expect everything in the church to be about us

-And we as adults, much less as Christians, need to grow thicker skin----the days of being a church member with paper-thin skin who gets offended at every little thing has to go==that ship has sailed

-IT’S NOT ABOUT US—IT’S ABOUT CHRIST, HIS MESSAGE, AND HIS MISSION

Conclusion

-That being said, it is now time for you to commit. ----If you have never trusted in Jesus Christ, commit yourself to believing in Him today.

-If you have been wavering back and forth about becoming a member of a church, today is the day to stop wavering and commit to joining the church family.

-And for those who are members, it is time for you to commit to fulfilling mission through this church body—I am asking you to come and pray for the church to fulfill its mission, but I am also asking you to commit to doing something about it. No one is too old or young.