Got Mission?

Define Church: 

What do you think about when you think about church.  I want to ask you to be totally natural here.  Don’t give me the answers you want to me to hear.  Don’t give my your best theology about what church is.  Don’t say what you’ve always said. 

I want you to be observant for a moment and tell me what you see.  

Factually.  I’m asking what church is:  Not what it should be.

I have been struck by the vast difference in the last couple of years in how we define church,  how we do church, and how God says it should be done. 

Recently – it’s more important than ever that we get a really good grasp on what it means to be a church.  Why are we actually doing any of this at all?

I want to talk to you about the “Mission” of this church body. 

Describe for me what our MISSION is.

Describe for me what our MISSION should be. 

“Without Mission – The church is nothing more than a bunch of disobedient Christians hanging out with each other…”

MATTHEW 28:18-20

Then Jesus came near and said to them, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 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 everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

MARK 16:15

Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation.

ACTS 1:8

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

1 PETER 2:9-10

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,

a holy nation, a people for His possession,

so that you may proclaim the praises

of the One who called you out of darkness

into His marvelous light.

Once you were not a people,

but now you are God's people;

you had not received mercy,

but now you have received mercy.

The key to how we do church is discovered in how we define church. We can define church many ways.

·         We can define it by what we want to get by going to church.

·         We can define it by how we have always done church.

·         And we can define it by how it is done in our culture.

There is one a problem with defining church in any or all of these ways: it may not be how God wants us to be and do church.  WE are central to each of those definitions. 



The simplest way to define church is the way Jesus taught and modeled it. A question to ask in helping us arrive at a biblical definition of church is this: what are the minimum biblical essentials to be church? In the words of Jesus in Matthew 18:20, there are four ingredients that answer that question:

1.                   Two or three people: Jesus did not require a large group or a recognized leader to be church. There doesn’t have to be a building, and there doesn’t have to be a pastor. But there does have to be people, people who gather.

2.                   Gathered: To be gathered in His name is not just to attend a meeting. Church is not a meeting you attend or a building you meet in. Church is people who form a spiritual family. To gather is to be a community of friends who are dedicated to following Jesus. Just as Jesus gathered His disciples and invited them follow Him, the same thing is happening today, all over the world.

3.                   In His name: The focus of church is Jesus. The church is made up of those who seek to know Him and obey Him. The church exists first for God, not us. To be gathered in His name means we are committed to obeying His commands.

4.                   I am with you: Jesus promises to be in our midst when we obey him. Matthew 28:19-20 tells us that we are commanded to go, preach, baptize and make disciples, and that if we do those things he will be with us. Acts 5:32 says the Holy Spirit is given to them that obey him.

A Church is God’s family living for God’s glory.

Paul described a local church community:

·         As those who are being built together for a dwelling place of the Spirit

and those who are joined together.

·         He went on to say that this joining together of our lives causes growth of the body to edify itself in love.

·         Paul said to the Roman Christians: we are individually members of one another. (Ephesians 3:14-15, 2:20, 4:16 Romans 12)

“Jesus did not die to have a disconnected collection of individuals who are saved and going to heaven. He came to fashion a people who belong to Himself, a bride, a body, a family that are on point – on Mission”

What we don’t think about sometimes. 

• ·         Jesus modeled church with His disciples.
• ·         He came to die for the sins of the whole world –
• and to build His church into a loving family.
• ·         One without the other does not work.
• ·         He didn’t come to just die for the sins of the world.  He came to establish the Church as a body – a family – a bride.  One that is moving and working in the right direction.  One that is identified by Kingdom fruit. Not culture fruit. 
• 
  

Church is not an option for those who follow Jesus – it is who we are. We are the physical material that makes it up, literally, the "called together ones."

IF you follow Jesus you will belong to a band of brothers and sisters who are seeking to love each other and spread His love to others.