As most of you know, I played a lot of baseball growing up. In my sophomore year, though I practiced, I never played on a team. The main reason is because the school I attended for that year, didn’t have any formal sports. In my junior year, I changed schools, and one of the reasons I chose to go to the school I did, was because not only did they have a team, but they had won their league the previous year. To top it off, they were only losing one player to graduation, and only one player was a entering his senior year. That meant that the core of the team was my age, and we would have two more years to win. I was excited to play at that school.
However, I quickly learned that wasn’t the case. See, the year the school won, there were a lot of factors that I didn’t know about. First, the league was trash. Some schools were in a building phase, others were too small to really field a good team. Those issues had been worked through, and in my junior year, the other teams had grown. Secondly, our coach wasn’t a baseball coach, he was a guy who liked baseball. Liking a sport and being able to coach a sport are two different things. There are a lot of Monday quarterbacks, but only a few who are out on the field. The talent on the team was never coach to development, they won their league on their own raw talent and drive to win. But as other teams grew, they were outpaced. Without a coach who could cultivate their talents, the team just floundered. It’s one of the reasons that when I went to college I was so poor at batting. In the two years I was with that team, I had batting practice maybe three times. The coach’s philosophy was that those at the top of the batting lineup should get the most practice. Being a pitcher, I was always put ninth, and so rarely got to practice my hitting.
Thirdly, most of the guys on the team thought they were good enough. They believed they didn’t need to get better because they had won in the past. So when I got there, they didn’t feel like they needed to put the effort into the game to improve themselves.
Due to these three factors, our team took third both years I was there. The team wasn’t willing or able to prepare for the task they took the field to accomplish. Therefore we lost to those schools that took their playing seriously.
This idea of taking our task seriously is what leads us back into our sermon series, where we’re talking about the three missions every Christian should be engaging in. In our first week we looked at the foundation for these three missions, the Missio Dei, or God’s mission. In that we saw how God’s mission contains three milestones: His creation and the fall of humanity into sin, his work in bringing about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and then his bringing all those who trust in him as Savior into his presence, which starts now and goes into the new creation. And we saw how God’s mission is to restore his creation’s access to his presence, where we find fulfillment.
From God’s mission, we get a little more narrow, as we talk about Jesus’ mission for his Church. This is the Missio Ekklésia, or the mission of Christ’s gathered people. Now, in the mission of the Church, and the mission of the individual disciple there’s overlap, because the disciple is a piece of the gathered Church. But there are three aspects that the Church in general has as it’s mission that is supposed to be done in the midst of the gathering. So let’s take a look at the three aspects of the Church’s mission.
The first aspect is that the Church is a testimony to the work of God in front of the world. Jesus’ final words in the book of Acts chapters 1, verses 7-8, are a response to his disciples’ question about the restoration of the kingdom. Jesus says this to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” In Jesus’ words, we learn that, as a Church, our job is not to concern ourselves with the time of Jesus’ return, instead we are to be witnesses to the work of Christ throughout the whole of the world. Too often we get bogged down in future predictions or signs of the return of Christ, and in doing so miss the need to be witnesses. Should we desire Christ’s return? Yes! Should we be prepared and know the signs of the return? Yes! But not at the expense of being his witnesses. Because, as a Church, we are to bare witness to our great and glorious God, who will return in his timing.
By conducting ourselves as witnesses, we are actually participating in the return of our King. In Jesus’ final sermon in the Gospel of Matthew, we get this statement by Jesus in chapter 24, verse 14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” The testimony that is proclaimed about the Gospel to the ends of the earth is the catalyst to the return of Jesus. The Church’s witness is vital to this. No individual believer can accomplish the work of proclaiming the Gospel throughout the world. Many of our brothers and sisters have lived and died in the steady march of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. As we walk as the Church today, we are to make sure that we are doing our part in moving the Gospel to places that have not yet heard it. We must be joining together with whatever arm of the Church God has connected us with to bring about the testimony to all peoples. That’s why I don’t care if you’re Alliance, Baptist, Pentecostal, Methodist, Anglican, Reformed, Calvinist, Armenian, Free will. I care that those who hold to the core of the Gospel bear witness as a gathered people of God to proclaim the Good News of Jesus. The Church’s focus should be holding to the core teachings of Scripture, being a witness to the work of the Lord, until the day he returns.
This witness leads us into the second aspect of the Church’s mission which is that the Church has to be unified. In Jesus’ final public prayer before the cruxifixction, he stated this in John 17:20-23, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”
Too often we get hung up on doctrines that have no bearing on salvation. Is Christ, the only way of salvation? Yes! Is he coming pre, mid, or post tribulation? Who knows! What we do know is he’s coming back. So why do we divide on things where grace should abound? I do not have to like certain musical style, certain worship service formats called liturgies, nor do I have to agree with every sub-point of theology, but what I do have to love are my brothers and sisters in Christ. I have to love them with all their quirks and deficiencies. And they have to love me with all my quirks and deficiencies too. It’s easy to divide, it doesn’t take a strong person to divide, division is weakness, unity on the core, setting aside those small infractions, of the Christian faith is hard, and it takes strong mature believers to do it.
Paul would tell the Ephesian Church, “15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (4:15-16)” I would rather see love from the people of God, who by grace accept each other’s differences over non-salvific issues, and are being built up in Christ, than a congregation who knows a lot of Scripture, yet has no love for each other. The loving congregation will always see God’s blessing, while the other, as Paul states, will be a clanging gong (1 Cor. 13:1), clanging along wondering why God hasn’t moved in their midst.
The final aspect is Jesus’ words, that we know as the Great Commission from Matthew 28:19-20, “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.” The Church as a whole are to make disciples of nations. On Wednesday nights I teach our apologetics class. As of right now there are three courses in that class. Course one is Basic Beliefs of Christianity, number two is World Religions. Right now we’re going through course three which is Counter Arguments. Several times throughout the years, when I have taught the Basic Beliefs course, people have come up and said, “I didn’t know about some of the doctrines we’re talking about.” Now I have put more challenging discussions within the course to help the class grow in seeing the bigger picture when it comes to the discussion between the theological sides, but there are basic things that I have been surprised to see many people do not know.
This is an issue of discipleship. If we have been in the faith for a decade or longer, we should have a clear grasp on basic theology. We should be clear in what it means that God is Triune, and the difference between faith alone for salvation and living out good works after the point of justification. And know what those words I just said mean. We should be able to clearly share our testimony of what Christ has done for us. We should have a decent grasp over where to find core teachings within the Bible, on things such as worry, prayer, and love. And, we should be implementing those things in our lives. Last week we looked at Colossians 1:25-26 to see God’s mission, but Paul continues as to make another point as well. Starting in verse 25 of Colossians 1 we read, “of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (v.25-29)”
We are to be discipled, trained up in the faith that we are saved to live out, and we are to train up others to be disciples as well. It’s the Church as a whole. There are no non-disciples within the Body of Christ. Everyone is a disciple, who calls on the name of Jesus for salvation, and everyone is to participate in both their own discipleship making process and the making of disciples. This is how the witness of the Church to the the Gospel is seen in the world, and how love and unity is built within the Church to show that Jesus is the Savior.
The mission of the Church is the mission of individuals being built together by Jesus himself to grow into his people. We are to be a reflection of our Savior in purpose and love. When the world sees that reflection, they see a witness to the great work of God in the world.
As individuals, we must see ourselves as a part of the Church. Paul states it like this in 1st Corinthians 12, “… But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (v. 24b-27)” Individuals who make up the body, who are so interconnected with each other that they suffer as one, and are honored as one. This is why it’s important to meet together, to share with each other, to grow alongside each other. As disciples of Jesus, there is no lone ranger. We cannot hope to be where God wants us, unless we are also alongside other believers being built as Christ’s Church.
So my challenge then for you this week is to take each of these three aspects of the Church’s mission: witness, unity, and discipleship, and ask, “How am I doing in my witness of what Christ has done? Have you loved Jesus’ Church the way he does? Are you being discipled, and are you discipling others? For each of us it may look a little different. If you’re a traveler, snowbird, winter visitor, RTR, or Rv’er, it’s going to look different than if you live in one place full time. If you’re traveling, I want to challenge you to experience a denomination that isn’t one you’ve experienced before. As long as they hold to the core of the Gospel, visit their congregation, you will meet different people who you will one day worship alongside of in heaven. Build that witness, build that love and unity. For your own discipleship, read through a basic theology book. Make sure you’re clear on the faith that you hold. One book that I might suggest is Charles C. Ryrie’s Basic Theology. It’s bite size, but goes over a large amount of theology every Christian should know. And then, disciple someone else. Discipleship always begins with prayer, then encouragement, and maybe mentorship. Being a disciple-maker is living your life with someone else. It’s not classroom, or sermon teaching, it’s living your faith out with a less mature believer.
God is calling us to be an important part of his Church as he builds her up for his glorious return. Let us then participate fully in that building process that we might bring honor and glory to our great Architect. Amen.
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