What is the mission of Church?

Sermon transcript

Please remain standing for the reading of God’s word. I know I read this earlier in the service, but I’m going to read it again. It is my sermon text for today from the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter 28, verses 16 through 20. You can follow along if you’d like to read along with that on page 993 in your Pew Bibles. Dear friends, this is the word of God. Hear it with reverence and awe. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God’s blessing upon the preaching of his word. Our Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you that you have revealed yourself to us. You are not a distant or uninvolved deity, but you are a God who has revealed yourself in your mighty works in history and through your word, and supremely in the Lord Jesus Christ, the living word, who is revealed to us in the written word. We would ask Heavenly Father that you would this day open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word, and we would ask that your Holy Spirit would illuminate us and apply these truths to our hearts.

May the seed of your word take deep root in our hearts, and may much spiritual fruit be born through the implanting of your word in our souls. Grant unto me your unworthy servant the grace to declare and speak forth your word with clarity and power by your spirit. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said. Amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this morning is What is the Mission of the Church? And if you’re following along in your sermon outline, and there are sermon outlines in the foyer in the back, I’d encourage the children to listen in for a number of these key words. Words such as mission, disciple, covenant, means, word, sacrament, presence, faith, and obedience. Well my dear friends, once again, what is the mission of the church?

Well, there actually seems to be quite a lot of difference of opinion and even confusion among professing Christians today on how to answer that question. And just to give you an example, it seems that some folks think that the church’s central mission is to promote morality and to preserve the moral order of society. Now friends, I do not doubt that when the church is at its best it does make and it has made a moral impact upon the broader culture and society. But is that really the central mission of Christ’s church? Others seem to think that the church’s primary mission is to promote so-called social justice or to be an institution devoted to bringing about political and social change in our society and in the nation. Still others seem to view the church as a social club with social fellowship and community building being its main mission.

Or perhaps as a religious program or entertainment center, tasked with the therapeutic mission of helping people to live their lives to the fullest or to find greater personal happiness and self-fulfillment. Or perhaps just to have fun in the name of Jesus. Dear ones, in the attempt to discover or to clarify the church’s mission, it seems that many church leaders today following the strategies that are recommended by professional church growth experts will turn to things such as demographic surveys of their target communities or to the felt needs of local religious consumers or perhaps to the priorities and desires of those whom they desire to reach. They look to such things in order to shape their vision and understanding of the church’s mission and to make strategies for how to carry out that mission. And just to give you an illustration of this, it’s my understanding that the once famous megachurch pastor, Pastor Bill Hybels, some of you may be familiar with Pastor Hybels, it’s my understanding that several decades ago he began his huge Willow Creek community church empire by basically doing door-to-door surveys among the folks in his community.

And he would knock on doors and if folks were willing to talk to him, if he would ask them, you know, do you go to church? If they say, yeah, we go to church at such and such a place, then he would say thank you for your time. But if he happened to come across a home where the folks did not go to church or whether or perhaps had left the church, he would ask them, well, could you tell me what turned you off about the church or what would it take to bring you out to church? And he used the information that he gleaned from those surveys to design the mission and strategy of Willow Creek Church. And from a marketing perspective, that marketing approach to the church ended up being a smashing success at least in terms of attendance.

I mean, it’s a huge campus that they have there. But dear ones, and again, it’s certainly nothing wrong with trying to get to know your neighbors and get to know where they’re at in their spiritual journey, but dear ones, may I suggest to you that instead of consulting demographic surveys, instead of looking to the so-called felt needs or priorities of the unchurched or the under-churched, instead of consulting contemporary cultural trends in order to discover the mission of the church, may I suggest to you, brothers and sisters, that we as the church should first and foremost consult the greatest expert of all on the subject of the church’s mission, namely the master himself, our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. After all, believe it or not, Jesus does have something to say about the mission of his church.

The mission of the church is defined by the one who is himself the divine king and head and founder of the church. Well, in our passage for this Lord’s Day morning, a passage which has come to be known as the so-called great commission, our resurrected Lord Jesus Christ gives us and gives all who are willing to hear him a clear understanding of the mission of his church. Now, let’s consider this passage in its context. Obviously, this is the closing section of the Gospel of Matthew, and in the context of this passage, we see that Jesus has risen from the dead, the tomb is empty, Christ has been raised from the dead, and yet Christ has not yet ascended into heaven. So the context here is post-resurrection, but pre-ascension, after Christ’s resurrection, but before his ascension.

Look at verse 16. It says, now the 11 disciples, you may scratch your head and say, wait a minute, weren’t there 12? Well, yes, there were 12. One of them was Judas Iscariot, and after betraying Christ and being struck with a guilty conscience, sadly he went and he hung himself. So that’s why the 11 disciples are mentioned here. The 11 disciples went to Galilee, the region of Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. There’s actually some significance to the mountain reference here that I’ll get back to later, but here the 11 disciples, after Jesus rose from the dead, they go to meet him to a particular unnamed mountain or elevated region in Galilee. Verse 17, Verse 16, why do they go to Galilee? Why don’t they stick around Jerusalem? Well, they go to Galilee because the angel at our Lord’s empty tomb had told the women to instruct the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee.

Look back at verse 7 of chapter 28. It says, then go quickly, here’s the angel speaking to the women at the tomb, then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead and behold, that means pay attention, behold, he is going before you to Galilee, there you will see him. See, I have told you. That’s why in verse 16 we read of the 11 disciples encountering the resurrected Jesus in Galilee. And then in verse 17, it says, when they saw him, how did they react? When they saw their risen Lord standing before them, how do these 11 disciples react? Well, they react with worship. It says they worshiped him, but then Matthew adds an interesting kind of passing comment here. He says, but some doubted. Some of these 11 disciples, these apostles that Christ had appointed, doubted, even encountering the resurrected Lord Jesus, even some of them had doubts enter their mind.

Perhaps they doubted at first because they weren’t close enough to see him clearly, or perhaps this refers to the kind of natural doubt that arises when you see something that you are totally not expecting to see. Have you ever had a situation like that where you encounter or you witness something that is totally shocking, totally surprising, something you completely did not expect to see, and you kind of rub your eyes and say, I can’t believe I’m seeing this. Well, perhaps that’s the kind of doubt that these few disciples experienced at this time. But in any case, what I find significant about this, my friends, is that this detail helps to support our confidence in the historical trustworthiness of this gospel account. After all, think about it. If Matthew’s gospel was merely a work of pure religious propaganda with no interest in reporting accurate historical facts, then Matthew would certainly not have included this detail about some of Jesus’s disciples doubting even when face to face with their resurrected Lord.

But in any case, we learn that they encounter Jesus, they see him in his resurrected body, and they worship him, though some have doubted. And then what does Jesus say to them? Look at verse 18. It says, and Jesus came and said to them, all authority. Let me just pause there. How much authority? All authority. All authority where? All authority where? In heaven and on earth, which is kind of a biblical way of saying, all authority in the entire universe has been given to me. What an audacious claim that all authority has been given to our resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. All authority has been given to him in the entire universe of all of the multiple galaxies and stars throughout this vast, unimaginably vast universe. Jesus says, I have authority over all of it. You see, my friends, in his post-resurrection state, there are no longer any limitations upon our Lord’s exercise of his universal divine authority.

Though Jesus as the divine Son of God is indeed equal with the Father with respect to his deity, yet as the God-Man, as the eternal Son of God, who took upon himself a human nature in the person of Jesus, as the God-Man, Jesus in a sense submitted to his Father. He is equal with his Father with respect to his deity, yet as the God-Man, he submits to the Father, and in a sense, he is therefore given his authority as the God-Man by God his Father. So he claims universal divine authority over heaven and earth, and that is the authority that backs up the commission that he is about to give to his disciples. That brings us to the main points I want us to consider for today. Let’s look at verse 19. Jesus says, go therefore, therefore meaning in light of my universal divine authority, I’m calling you to do this, go therefore and do what?

Make disciples, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, teaching them, and so forth. We learn here brothers and sisters from this passage that the central mission of the church is to make disciples of all people groups. What is the church’s mission in this world with respect to those outside the church especially? The mission is to proclaim the gospel in order to make disciples for Jesus. Dr. William Hendrickson points out that literally the original says having gone therefore make disciples. The imperative here is to make disciples, and that is the central focus of the mission that the risen Lord Jesus Christ assigns to his church. The other participles in this passage, the going, the baptizing, the teaching describe different aspects in the process of disciple making. But that raises the question, what is a disciple?

If the church’s mission is to make disciples, well what’s a disciple? Well children, you know what a disciple is? A disciple is basically a student. I know some of you are students, you’re on summer break, but you’re students. And there is a real sense in which when little JP was baptized today, he was enrolled as a disciple, as a student, a pupil in the school of Christ. So a disciple is a learner, a pupil, a student, and we are called as followers of Jesus to learn from him. Not just so we can stuff our heads full of knowledge, but so that we can live for him. Disciples are those who seek to learn from Jesus in order that they might live for Jesus by the grace of God. And that is the central mission and purpose of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are many subsidiary purposes and secondary purposes that are attached to and connected to that, but disciples are to be made. And among whom are disciples to be made? Jesus says go therefore and make disciples of whom? Of the Jews? Of Americans? Of Europeans? No. Go and make disciples of ta ethne in the Greek. All nations. That word in the Greek ethne I believe is the word from which we derive our word ethnic or ethnicity. And so Jesus is not thinking primarily in political categories. He’s not thinking of political nations as such. He’s thinking of ethnic groups, people groups. In other words, Gentiles as well as Jews. And this is very significant, especially in Matthew’s gospel that Matthew would record this. After all, if you’ve studied Matthew’s gospel, especially in connection and relationship to the other gospel accounts, Matthew’s gospel is arguably the most Jewish of all the gospels.

It appears that Matthew wrote his gospel with a Jewish audience in mind. A Jewish Christian audience in mind. Because Matthew spends a great deal of time and space within his gospel showing how Jesus is the promised Messiah. How Jesus fulfills Old Testament messianic prophecy. But not only does Matthew present the Lord Jesus as the one who fulfills specific Old Testament messianic prophecies. There certainly is plenty of that in Matthew’s gospel. But deeper than that, Matthew’s gospel shows us how Jesus Christ fulfills the story of Israel. The Old Testament ends with a cliffhanger anticipating a time when the Messiah would come. Jesus Christ fulfills that. He is the ultimate conclusion to that story of Israel. That historical revelation of God given to Israel and through Israel. And this, my friends, is in fulfillment to the entire focus of Scripture.

Gentiles as well as Jews were to be discipled in fulfillment of God’s covenant promises given all the way back in the days of Abraham. Just very briefly, look with me if you would at Genesis chapter 12 verse 3. Where God calls the patriarch Abraham, who later is known as Abraham. He calls Abraham to go to a place where the Lord would lead him. And notice this covenant promise that God makes to Abraham at Abraham’s call. In Genesis 12 verse 3, God says to Abraham, I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse and in you, catch this, in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. The ultimate goal of the Abrahamic covenant was not just the nation of Israel. The ultimate goal of God’s covenant with Abraham was to bless all of the families of the earth.

All of the nations of humanity through the gospel. And then if you turn to Genesis 17 verse 5, where God again reaffirms his covenant promise to Abraham and gives Abraham the covenant of circumcision. It says this, it says no longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, father of a multitude in other words. For I have made you the father of what? The Jewish nation? No, I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. Not just the Jews but Gentiles as well were to be brought into the covenant mercies of God in the new covenant messianic age. My friends with the resurrection of Christ and his ascension into heaven to reign at the right hand of God the father, God’s covenant promise to Abraham that all nations would be blessed in him would begin to be fulfilled in earnest.

You see the narrowing of God’s saving grace and covenant mercies in Old Testament times when grace was mostly limited to the physical descendants of Abraham the Jews. That temporary narrowing of God’s covenant mercies was ultimately to be in service to the eventual expansion of the covenant to all the nations with the coming of Jesus the Messiah and with the call to the church to take the gospel to all the nations. And that’s what Jesus has in mind as he calls his church by speaking these words of command to his disciples as apostles who served to represent the church. He says go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. The gospel of Jesus is for the nations of humanity it’s not just for a particular ethnic group or people group it’s for all peoples who would come by grace to believe in him.

No longer was the Savior’s mission to be limited to the lost sheep of the house of Israel as it had been during our Lord’s earthly ministry. Remember Jesus at one point in the gospels he says I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. During his time with us on earth the Lord Jesus focused most of his attention in ministry to ministering to his fellow Jews. There was an occasional Gentile who came into contact with Jesus and whom Jesus would heal and instruct and so forth but the bulk of his earthly ministry was focused on the lost sheep of the house of Israel but now with his resurrection now with his resurrection the Gentiles too were to hear the glad tidings of great joy the good news of salvation through Christ. And that is basically the significance of that very familiar well-known Bible verse which summarizes the gospel so well.

John 316 what does that passage say I know some of you could recite it from memory for God so loved whom the world God so loved the Jews no the world in other words Jews and Gentiles God so loved the world that he did something what did he do he gave his one and only son that what that whoever believes in him not just so that the Jews who believe in him but whoever believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life. This is what the church is to be about proclaiming that good news and gaining not only converts but making disciples who not only believe that gospel but seek to live out the implications of that gospel in their lives. So the central mission of the church is to make disciples of all people groups Jew and Gentile alike but how does the church do that how is the church to go about doing that we learn next of the appointed means for carrying out the mission of making disciples and those appointed means are word and sacrament ministry the appointed means for carrying out the mission of the church of making disciples is word and sacrament ministry Jesus says this go therefore and do what make disciples of all nations how baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

Disciples are made by means of two basic things first of all baptism and secondly teaching you might say well what about the Lord’s Supper well the Lord’s Supper had already been instituted by our Lord on the night when he was betrayed so that’s why Jesus doesn’t mention the Lord’s Supper it’s clear from the rest of the New Testament that the church continued to observe and celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper but here as Jesus is about to ascend back to his father he gives the commission to baptize. Baptism as we saw earlier in the service is the covenant sign of initiation into the covenant of grace. Trinitarian baptism is a sign and a seal of being brought under the authority and the gracious Lordship of the triune God Father Son and Holy Spirit. And so we have the preaching and teaching of God’s word and the administration of the sacraments these are the basic means by which the church is to carry out its mission and many folks today upon hearing that would scratch their heads and say that’s kind of boring that’s kind of ordinary I mean where’s the flashiness where’s the kind of the Steven Spielberg effects in some churches you go to today you’ll see not just the word in the sacrament ministry but you’ll see basically a rock band stage lighting a fog machine as if the Holy Spirit needs those kinds of things and again I’m not here to critique different worship styles but to focus on the fact that you know we can trust God to bless the means that he has appointed friends yes the ministry of word and sacrament these are rather simple ordinary things however under God’s blessing they are sufficient to bring us to faith and to nurture disciples in that faith when blessed by the Holy Spirit God’s word and God’s covenant signs the sacraments are enough to feed to nourish and to nurture Christ’s disciples and so we have word and sacrament ministry that’s what he calls his apostles and thus his church too and this is how we are to go about the business of making disciples but that raises the question what is it that the church is to teach in the name of Jesus well Jesus makes that clear in verse 20 he says teaching them to observe what all that I have commanded you here our Lord speaks I believe as the new and final Moses that seems to be a common theme here in Matthew’s gospel and again as I mentioned earlier Matthew’s is arguably the most Jewish of the gospels it’s written with a Jewish Christian audience in mind you see just as the first Moses received the law of God on Mount Sinai and conveyed and mediated that law to the covenant people of Israel so here our Lord Jesus Christ issues forth his great commission commands his apostles to teach all that he has commanded where does he give this instruction from he gives this instruction from this mountain this undesignated mountain in Galilee I don’t believe that that is just merely a sort of a secondary detail I believe Matthew here is is pointing this out this mountain has redemptive historical significance the eleven disciples were instructed to meet the Lord Jesus in Galilee where he did much of his earthly ministry and to meet on this unnamed mountain and it is from this mountain that Jesus gives the commission to his church and he does so as the mediator of a new and better covenant Moses was the mediator of the old covenant but Jesus as we learn in the book of Hebrews is the mediator of a new and better covenant because a covenant that is built on better promises my friends the church is to teach the people of Israel to teach disciples of Jesus all that he has commanded it is to teach both law and gospel it is to teach what God requires of us that’s his law and also what God has done for our salvation through Christ that’s the good news the gospel and the goal of discipleship is not just making converts for Christ but the practical obedience that springs forth from faith in Christ in summary my friends the mission of Christ church is to make disciples of Jesus who in the words of that that wonderful him will trust and obey dear listener by God’s amazing grace do you trust Jesus for your salvation and having trusted him for your salvation do you seek to show your gratitude for the gift of salvation you have received by seeking to live in grateful obedience to him the Lord Jesus commands all people everywhere to repent through his gospel Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin he rose from the dead so that whoever believes in him might not perish but have life everlasting and as the word of God says believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved so trust in Jesus come to him today his arms are open wide to all who would come to him embrace him receive him rest upon him alone for your salvation and then by the grace of God having received his gift of forgiveness and eternal life show your gratitude by seeking to walk after a new obedience so the church is called to make disciples of all people groups and the appointed means for doing so is the ordinary means of the word in sacrament ministry of the church but this is a tall order isn’t it Jesus says make disciples of all nations that’s a tall order how can we as the church with our limitations and our sin and our imperfections how can we possibly carry out this divine commission well that leads to my final point based on verse 20 let us consider finally the power to carry out the church’s mission that power is the abiding presence of Christ the power to carry out the church’s mission is the abiding presence of Christ Jesus says and behold children what does behold mean it means pay attention this is important behold I am what with you always but with you always now some might say well wait a minute Jesus is about to ascend into heaven he’s about to depart from his disciples so how can he say I will be with you always even to the end of the age well Jesus is with us by the Holy Spirit you see after Pentecost Christ is personally present with his church by means of the Holy Spirit you know at the beginning of this gospel account Matthew explains that the virgin birth and incarnation of Christ means that Jesus is Immanuel which means as Matthew 1 23 tells us God with us the Old Testament temple symbolized God’s gracious covenantal royal presence dwelling in the midst of his people but Jesus is the living temple he is the word made flesh the living divine word who became flesh and tabernacle made his dwelling in our midst but when Jesus with respect to his physical presence ascended into heaven that doesn’t mean that he left the church alone no he poured out his Holy Spirit upon the church and he abides with his church by his spirit throughout this age of course again as I mentioned this is all made possible by the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and friends this promise here should comfort us it should encourage us it should bless us it should strengthen us as we seek as the church today to be faithful to our commission you know sometimes you hear people say well what would your church do if Jesus was there what if Jesus showed up to church and I’m here to tell you brothers and sisters Jesus shows up to this church every week he shows up wherever his people are gathered in his name because he is present by the Holy Spirit and he promises to be with us always to the end of the age dear ones let us look to the Lord Jesus Christ and his abiding presence with us as we seek to be faithful to the mission to which our Savior has called us so let us by the grace of God go and make disciples baptizing and teaching them and resting in the continued presence the abiding presence of our Savior by his spirit to accomplish this task amen let us pray Heavenly Father we thank and praise and bless you Lord for your grace and your goodness to us in Christ we would pray Heavenly Father that you would help us to take these truths to heart and put them into practice in our lives give us the grace Lord to trust and obey and we thank you once again for Jesus our wonderful resurrected ascended reigning Lord and Savior may we be faithful unto him and may he be present with us as he is promised to be even to the end of the age in Jesus name we pray in all of God’s people said amen dear friends let’s close our time of worship today by singing number 404 the church’s one foundation 404

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