The Church: Mission Accomplished

Introduction: Good morning! I thought I would inform you from the beginning that today's message will be a little different than usual as we look forward to and are preparing for a special service next week! Next week we have the privilege of celebrating four years of ministry at The Chapel. And in the last four years, God has accomplished much. For example, just last week, God enabled us to share the gospel with and encourage first responders who serve our community daily. God has enabled us to partner with other ministries, such as the Gospel of Hope, which I heard from this week. They are experiencing a continual flow of visitors and are preparing to launch their "English As A Second Language" ministry this fall, where they will have countless opportunities to share the gospel. God is good! And He is using this church to reach people for Christ in Chapel Hill, Atlanta, and all around the world.

These realities are reminders of God's goodness and grace as we look forward to what God will do over the coming months. And so, in preparing for next week's service, Pastor Brandon, myself, and the deacons wanted to set aside this week as a historical reminder of what it means to be a united church family committed to Christ in a corrupt world. In other words, let's take a historical look at what it means to live a life of faith over fear.

In doing so, I'd like to look at several passages of Scripture as they unfold God's plan for believers to live a life of faith over fear. And as we look into Scripture this morning, we are looking for God to convince us of His model for church so that we can order our lives according to His desires and not the other way around. We will specifically focus on three main eras of history and how God related to His people during those times: from creation to the fall, from the fall to the temple, the establishing of the church.

Transition: First, let's consider the era from the creation to the fall.

From Creation to the Fall

From the very beginning of the Bible, God makes very clear what His intentions in creation were. We see through the first chapter of Genesis that God created light, the sky, dry land, plant life, heavenly bodies, sea life, life on land, and finally, mankind. And at the end of each day, when God looked out on what he had made, He declared it good. Everything that God made was good and to display His glory.

We see this is Psalm 8:

Psalm 8 NKJV

To the Chief Musician. On the Instrument of Gath. A Psalm of David. O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens! Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, Because of Your enemies, That You may silence the enemy and the avenger. When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, All sheep and oxen— Even the beasts of the field, The birds of the air, And the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

The purpose of creation is to declare how excellent the name of God is. From the sun, moon, and stars to nursing babies, God's ways are awesome and beyond our understanding. And although all of that is true, that's not all that Psalm 8 says, is it? Nestled within Psalm 8, David also notes that part of God's unique plan to display His glory was by placing man as the head of His creation.

Look again, starting in verse 5:

Psalm 8:5–9 NKJV

For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, All sheep and oxen— Even the beasts of the field, The birds of the air, And the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

And David was not just making this up out of thin air, we also see this back in Genesis 1:26-28

Genesis 1:26–28 NKJV

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

God made man to reflect His image by walking in His likeness and character. From the beginning, God wanted Adam to share in a special relationship with Him.

Example: The way parents relate to their kids vs the way a pet owner relates to their pet.

So we could say that God's perfect design for the garden is that it was a temple in which man had free access to commune with and emulate God.

Although we do not know how long this period of perfection lasted, we do know the sad reality of Genesis 3:6-7 which says:

Genesis 3:6–7 NKJV

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

And from that moment, man's relationship with God was broken. No longer would man walk with God and seek the welfare of others, but instead, man would walk according to his own authority and seek his own self-interests.

As a result, by Genesis 6, instead of walking with God and being faithful stewards of His creation, man followed their own rules to the extent that "every intent of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually.” And this is the beginning of what I want us to specifically consider this morning. Yes, our relationship with God was broken, but as a result our relationship with one another was broken as well. At this point, not only does man abandon God, but man’s capacity to care for one another also greatly diminishes as man’s focus turns away from being a good steward to a self-absorbed monster.

Transition: Thankfully, back in Genesis 3:15, God had already set in motion a plan to reverse the curse and bring man back into His presence by sending a Messiah who would succeed in every way Adam failed. But, to see that plan move forward, we must jump ahead several hundred years to Israel’s Exodus.

From the Fall to the Temple

Beginning in Genesis 12, God introduces the man through whom He will bless the world. Still, it is not until Exodus 1 that we see that Abraham’s descendants have truly become a great nation. They received such blessing from God that the most powerful man in the world, Pharoah, became afraid that they would one day overpower him, so he set out to destroy them.

The people cry out to God, and God sends His representative, Moses, to lead His people out of Egypt.

Once out of Egypt, God instructed His people to build a tabernacle so that God could live among His people because it was always God’s plan to relate to and commune with man. But it was not only so that God could commune with man but so that God would make his name great.

Deuteronomy 12:11a (NKJV)

then there will be the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide.

How could a group of people make God’s name great?

Deuteronomy 12:12 NKJV

And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates, since he has no portion nor inheritance with you.

However, the tabernacle was not the ultimate fulfillment of that plan. This becomes obvious in the book of Judges, where the hallmark phrase of the book becomes that “everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6).”

God had promised to reverse the curse and restore harmony in His creation, but the problem extended further than just having God living in a tent near them. God had to do a work that was much more drastic to bridge the broken relationships of sinful man. This brings us forward another few hundred years to the building of the temple.

Maybe, just maybe, the Jewish leaders thought, if God had a permanent house, we could do and be better.

Well, once the people of Israel came into the land and God firmly established the Davidic monarchy, He blessed Israel with immense wealth and enabled Solomon to build the temple. A permanent house where God would live among His people.

However, once again, we see that this does not solve man’s problem.

Habakkuk 1:3–4 NKJV

Why do You show me iniquity, And cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me; There is strife, and contention arises. Therefore the law is powerless, And justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore perverse judgment proceeds.

Man is still doing what is right in his own eyes and treating one another wickedly.

So, if God’s design for Israel is to glorify Himself by establishing a people that live in harmony with one another, how are things going so far?

Transition: Obviously not well! This means that we must, once again, skip ahead another few hundred years to the establishment of the new temple.

The Establishment of the New Temple

Unsurprisingly, it isn't until Jesus that things begin to change. Like Israel, Jesus begins his ministry in the wilderness. Unlike Israel, He is victorious over temptation, and everywhere He goes throughout His ministry, the signs of the curse and death seem to fall away. He heals the sick, the lame, and the blind and raises some from the dead. But ultimately, His mission is to lay down His life so sinners can return to God.

Jesus took on the punishment of death so that man could be given the gift of life.

After Jesus' resurrection, he tells his followers that since He has brought peace between God and man, it is now their responsibility to go and tell everyone the same good news, from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria, even to the end of the world. He also told them not to be afraid but that He would send His Spirit to guide them and transform their lives.

And so, after Jesus' ascension, they dedicated themselves to prayer as they waited for God's Spirit. And when Pentecost came, just like the tabernacle and the temple, God's presence appeared to them as tongues of fire over the believers. God no longer dwelt in a tent or a house but in His people.

And this is the moment that transformed history. Not only did Jesus bridge the gap between man and God, but now that man was right with God, it also brought back into harmony man's relationships with one another.

Acts 4:32–35 NKJV

Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles’ feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need.

Instead of every man doing what was right in His own eyes, God’s Spirit enabled His people to look after one another’s needs, and the sign of a truly transformed life became how believers treated one another.

This is what Jesus meant when he said: “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

However, as you can imagine, the Jewish elite did not like this very much. After all, their power was in the old religious system. How could they turn a profit by selling sacrificial lambs in the temple if Jesus was the once for all sacrifice? It did the Jewish elite absolutely no good if the old temple was obsolete and God resided in the hearts of His people, and so from the early days, the Jewish elites began to persecute the Christians.

They even made slanderous accusations of them, saying that they were cannibals who ate human blood and flesh because of communion. Or they were revolutionaries who rejected Caesar’s authority, so the Jews persecuted the early Christians from town to town, unknowingly forcing them to flee and continue spreading the gospel.

For a while, the Christians were actually protected by Rome as a subset of Judaism. That is until AD 64. By AD 64, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in Rome who hadn’t at least heard of the horror stories of the cult-like Christians who defied Rome and devoured human flesh. And so, when the great fire of Rome broke out, Nero used it as a political opportunity to rid Rome of these radical rebels. So, he blamed the Christians and authorized their capture and imprisonment.

From that point on, since Christians believed in one true God, they became the Roman scapegoat for any disaster, stating that the Roman gods were displeased with the monotheists. Tertullian is even quoted as saying, “If the Tiber reaches the walls, if the Nile does not rise to the fields, if the sky does not move or the earth does, if there is famine, if there is plague, they cry at once, “The Christians to the lions!”

As a result, Christians moved the church underground as they sought to escape the great persecution. Despite all this, two things never changed: the Christians’ love for Jesus and one another. So great was their love for Jesus, and so strong was their commitment to care for one another that despite all of the persecution, some Romans began to get saved. It seemed that nothing and no one could destroy their faith! Even in the Coliseum, their deaths were so compelling that people wondered, “What enables these Christians to face death so often and so readily.”

While all of Rome was divided, the Christians had an inexplicable and sweet unity in Christ, even in the face of death.

For the first time in human history, people of God had the power of God to love Him and one another as they should because the church's power is not in its location but its faithfulness to Christ and His body, the church.

Conclusion: Now you might be asking this question: why are you telling us all of this? Are you telling us all of this because we are about to move into a phase of ministry that will look a little bit different? Yes.

But I am also telling you because I am excited about what God has done here, is doing here, and will continue to do here. And when I say here, I do not mean in this building; I mean with this group of people.

I hope you are as excited as I am to hear from Pastor Brandon next week as he rolls out our ministry plans for the upcoming year with some new initiatives to help us better accomplish the mission of reaching our community for Christ.