Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: John 17 | Date: December 10, 2017 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Open your Bibles, if you will, to the Gospel of John, chapter 17. The title of the message this morning is “The Purpose of God and the Church’s Mission.” The Purpose of God and the Church’s Mission. We’ll begin here with John, chapter 17. You remember the context. This is the night before Jesus’ death. He is in the upper room with his disciples. He’s been teaching them, John 13–16. And then, now chapter 17, he offers this prayer to the Father.

“When he had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that the son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. I have manifested your name to the people whom you have given me out of the world. Yours they were, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I’m praying for them. I’m not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world. But they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost, except the son of destruction, that the scriptures might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you. And these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word. The world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes, I consecrate myself. They also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. They all may 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. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one. 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. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Oh, righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.'”

What a marvelous passage of scripture. Let’s bow for prayer.

Our Father, we ask that you will meet with us again by your Spirit today. Open our eyes, our minds, our hearts to hear, to understand your word. We pray that through it you will give us a greater appreciation for our saving God and what he has done and what he is doing and what he will do. In Christ’s name we ask. Amen.

I will come back to this passage in due time in this series and work through it in detail. Today we’re going to look at a few of the major themes of the passage and work it out in the bigger picture of the scriptures as well. As I mentioned, the purpose of God and the mission of the church. Last time, you remember, we looked at the theme of the scripture, which I tried at least to demonstrate that the theme of the scriptures is the glory of God in human redemption. Something like that—you may say it a different way—I think we have to come to something like that, that the theme of the scriptures is the glory of God in human redemption. That means necessarily then that the Bible is a book about Jesus Christ. It centers on him.

And as I tried to emphasize many times through this series, the Bible is not just a book about Jesus; it is a gospel-shaped book about Jesus. And it’s very important that we recognize that, that it doesn’t just tell us about him and his person, glorious as he is, but it zeroes in on the glory of this person as he has come to our rescue through his work, his death and resurrection. And so we saw the theme of the scripture then is the glory of God in human redemption, focusing on the person and the work of Jesus Christ. We might even back up a little bit further and say the purpose of God in revelation—the purpose of God in revealing himself—is the same. It’s a redemptive one.

If we back up all the way to the beginning of God’s revealing or revelatory activity, all the way back to Genesis chapter 3, we find that it’s going to direct us to the same thing. We learn in Eden—there are hints in Eden—that God was present with Adam; he was sort of his social environment in fellowship with Adam and Eve, and then of course that was disrupted by the fall. But God did not withdraw from humanity and leave humanity to itself, but rather he began immediately a series of interventions where he began to make himself known again in a redemptive way. And he took step after step after step throughout the Old Testament, revealing himself here and again and there and again in various kinds of ways, as Hebrews 1 reminds us—at various times in various ways—revealing himself again and again in speaking, sometimes revealing himself in a very personal way, like through the angel of the Lord, sometimes in vision, sometimes in dream, sometimes by a prophet, sometimes in promise and prediction that is made.

But God is revealing himself step by step. Following the fall of man into sin, God begins immediately to intervene and to reveal himself, and it is with this redemptive intent that God reveals himself here and again all throughout the Old Testament scriptures to reestablish fellowship with fallen humanity. We come to the New Testament, we have the supreme revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ, and the extension of that is the New Testament scriptures themselves, and all of it from beginning to end we find zeroing in on the person of Jesus Christ and the work that he accomplished in salvation. So God’s purpose in revelation is a redemptive one.

Now what I want to do this morning is, if you can imagine, back up a little bit more and see a bigger picture in terms of God’s historical purpose. What is his purpose in history, in redemptive history, the purpose in creating the world, the purpose in world history? What is God up to and how does that serve to shape the mission of the church and what we are supposed to be up to? And what we will see then is that God’s own gospel purpose—we will see God has a gospel purpose in this whole age—and that in turn shapes the purpose of the church as well. All of that is summarized for us very nicely here in John chapter 17 and verse 18.

You remember now the occasion. Jesus is the night before his death. He’s praying to the Father. He’s looking back to his almost completed mission now. In fact, he speaks of it early on in the chapter in the past tense: “the work that [he has] accomplished.” He is looking forward to tomorrow’s events and then Sunday’s resurrection. This is the work that I’ve come to do, I’ve accomplished it, and now he looks back to it all as having been accomplished, and then looks ahead to what is going to come from here on. He gives, in the midst of all of this, we should note, remarks about God’s eternal electing purpose with regard to those people whom Jesus has come to save.

Verse six: “I’ve manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” There’s a certain people that he came for. Here I think it’s speaking of the disciples. We’ll see how it expands from there. “Yours they were, you gave them to me. They have kept your word.” Verse 9: “I’m praying for them. I’m not praying for the world, but for those whom you’ve given me, for they are yours.” These are the people that you have given to me, that I have come to save. And then verses 11 and following, he prays for them, he prays for their protection, that in his personal absence God will keep them as he, Jesus, has kept them while he was there. And then verses 20 and following, the whole prayer expands to Jesus’ ultimate desires and his ultimate goal, that they all will experience the glory designed for them and behold Jesus’ ascended and resurrected glory together in his presence.

But in verse 18, he makes this fascinating, almost programmatic kind of statement: “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” And there we have this big look backwards and a big look forward. God sent, the Father sent me on this mission of rescue. And now I send them to extend this mission of rescue to the world. That, in a nutshell, is what we’re going to look at today. If you fall asleep, at least you got the big picture.

The Purpose Of God In The Incarnation

Now, when Jesus says in verse 18, “you sent me,” “just as you sent me,” we see there the purpose of God in the incarnation. Jesus came—this is what we celebrate at Christmas—God the Son becoming man. Jesus came with a purpose and it was a purpose that was shaped by a divine mission. God has sent him to do this. Now what would be a fascinating study on its own—and maybe we’ll do this sometime together, but I commend it to you for your own study—get a concordance and look through the Gospels, the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and also John as well, predominantly John, and look for those passages that speak of Jesus being “sent,” or Jesus “coming.” “I have come.” And then notice particularly the purpose clauses that follow. “I have come to do this,” or “I was sent to do this.” And then come to the cumulative recognition of all of those kinds of passages. It’s just a fascinating study in its own to see that Jesus coming into the world, that when he says, “the Father sent me,” it refers not only to his pre-existence and it’s reflective not only of the incarnation itself—that Jesus, the Son of God, existed before the birth of Jesus—but it is also reflective of Jesus’ own mission and his continuing mission in the earth today.

So as I say, you find those purpose clauses in the passages. We can’t track them all down now, but here are some samples. Jesus will say things like, “I came to fulfill the law and the prophets.” Or “God sent his son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” Or Jesus will say, “I came to preach.” “I came to preach the gospel to the poor.” “I came to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” “I came to call sinners to repentance.” “I came to seek and to save that which was lost.” “I came that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.” Many passages like this point to Jesus’ incarnation. The whole purpose of it is to carry out this saving mission of God. This is what defined his coming.

Now if you want to turn back a few pages, we’ll see an interesting passage, a very explicit passage in that regard, and that’s John chapter 6. John chapter 6, and I’ll begin reading at verse 37. “All that the Father gives me will come to me.” There’s the note of election again. The Father has given me a people. All of them will come to me. “And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.” And now he backs up and gives the bigger picture. “For I’ve come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks to the Son and believes on him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last day.” Again, we have one of those purpose statements. I was sent; I came for this reason: to do and to carry out a commission by the Father, and that mission is a saving one. That all of those whom he has given me will be saved, and none of them will be lost, and when we come to the last day of the resurrection of the righteous, all of them will be there. There will not be one empty chair. That’s why I’ve come—to do that work.

Move forward a little bit, we’ll see that some of these passages even speak in terms of the cross itself specifically. Chapter 12—well, first of all, let’s look at verses 46 and 47. Again, we have a passage like the other. John 12:46: “I’ve come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. Whoever hears my words and does not keep them, I did not judge them, for I did not come into the world to judge the world, but to save the world.” I have come here on a mission, and that mission is a saving one.

Now back up a few verses. John chapter 12, and in this passage, early on, we have a Gentile man who has come to see Jesus, and he’s inquired, “Can I see Jesus?” Philip is not too sure about that. This is a Gentile, after all. “Let me go talk to Jesus about that. We’ll have to see.” And Jesus speaks in terms of his being lifted up and drawing all men to himself. That is, not just within Israel, but all peoples to himself. But then he speaks, as you can tell, in terms of the cross in verse 32. “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all peoples to myself.” That this is the saving moment. When he is lifted up on the cross, dying in the place of his people, it is the act by which his people are rescued.

Now, looking forward to that, notice verse 27. “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’?” Remember, notice that little phrase, “this hour.” You’ve seen that several times in the Gospel of John. This hour, this hour, my hour, my hour has not yet come. And then finally, it’s “my hour has come.” It’s the hour of his death. This is the hour to which he was sent. So he says, “my soul is troubled looking forward to this hour. What shall I say, Father? ‘Save me from this hour’? But for this purpose, I have come to this hour.” Here is why I’ve come. I’ve come to go to a cross to secure the salvation of my people.

Well, Jesus speaks like this often. Familiar passages like Matthew 20 verse 28: “the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.” This is why he has come. His mission was carefully defined as a saving mission, a mission of rescue to be accomplished by his death in behalf of his people and in their place, bearing the penalty of their sin so that none of them would be lost. So it is a redemptive purpose that predates the incarnation. It’s a redemptive purpose that shapes the reason why he came in his first coming. We find other summary statements of that regard by the Apostles as well. Paul will tell us in 1 Timothy 1 and verse 15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” And there’s the whole purpose wrapped up in one statement. Or as John will tell us, “the Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world.”

The Purpose Of God In Sending The Spirit

Okay, so the purpose of Christ in his coming. But we’ll find that that’s not an isolated thought either. In turn, what we find is that the purpose of God in sending the Spirit has the same motive and the same goal in mind. Throughout the Old Testament, there’s this growing and big promise of the sending of the Spirit. The Spirit of God will come in great measure. God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh. Eventually, it’s going to bring about a redeemed world. We get to the New Testament and we find John the Baptist then introducing Jesus with those kinds of words: “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” And we find reflective of that Jesus himself promising his disciples that “I will send the Spirit, the Father will send the Spirit in my name, and so on, and he will bear witness of me.”

We get to Jesus’ death, resurrection, and just before his ascension he tells his disciples, “wait here in Jerusalem for the promise until the Spirit comes,” and of course all of that climaxes at Pentecost, with the great descent of the Spirit on the church. And the purpose of that is—well, if you’d like just one passage to see, look at John 15, since we are here, verses 26 and 27. John 15:26 and 27: “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness because you’ve been with me from the beginning.” So here Jesus is saying again the night before his death, “here’s what you’re going to be doing now. You’re going to be bearing witness of me. But a particular enablement for that mission will come from the Spirit of God himself. He will come and what you will find is you are not the only ones bearing witness of me. He will bear witness of me, and that in turn will make your witness effective and fruitful.”

We find the same in just a few verses later in chapter 16 verses 8 and following. When he comes he will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. He has to come in order to bring people to see and to feel their sinfulness before God so that they will turn to Christ in faith. And the Spirit of God has come for exactly that purpose. And of course that comes then to a clear statement in Acts chapter 1 in verse 8 where the disciples are told, the apostles are told, “You will receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

So the purpose of the incarnation is a saving mission. The purpose of the sending of the Spirit is to continue that saving mission as well. And we might say then that, specially recognizing that we’ve seen in all of this God’s own eternal purpose in choosing a people whom he will save and giving them to the Son, that this evangelistic mission is a mission of the triune God. We might as well just say it that way, that God is an evangelistic God. He has sent his Son for that purpose, to secure the salvation of his people. He has sent his Spirit to bring about the culmination of that in history. In fact, we saw this last month in our doctrines class that God did not set out, first of all, to reveal himself as triune. He has revealed himself as triune: Father, Son, and Spirit. But what he did first was set out to reveal his saving purpose. He had promised salvation, and in the outworking of the salvation that he had promised, we learn that God is Father, Son, and Spirit, and that to accomplish the saving purpose that he had promised, the Father sends the Son, and the Father and the Son send the Spirit to accomplish his eternal purpose of redemption.

The Purpose Of This Age

So we have then the purpose of the incarnation, the purpose of the sending of the Spirit, and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. Let’s just continue with the big picture for a while. What is the purpose of Christianity? Why is Christianity here? Why was it established? Well, you can see, I think, how it has come about that God has promised us a redemption. He has sent his Son to accomplish it. He has sent his apostles with the gospel to give to the world in the power of the Spirit, and now the very purpose of Christianity is a redemptive one. B.B. Warfield of old Princeton used to like to say that Christianity means redemption. That’s what it is. It’s a redemptive religion. Why is it here? It is here to give this message of the gospel to the world.

And that in turn—let’s just keep with the big picture for a while—that in turn answers the question, what is the purpose of this age? And again, the purpose of this age is a gospel purpose. You remember last week we saw in Luke chapter 24, Jesus now risen from the dead meets with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and he says all of these things had to happen because the scripture said they would, and now they’ve come about, and it’s all with this purpose that this gospel of forgiveness will be preached to all the nations. In his Olivet Discourse in Matthew chapter 24, Jesus gives an outline of this age and what will come, and then an outline of the end times and all of that. You remember an interesting statement he says in this regard, Matthew 24, I believe it’s verse 14: “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout all the world as witness to all the nations and then the end will come.” There you go. That’s why this age—that’s the purpose of this age: for the gospel to spread to all the nations so that God will carry out his purpose of redeeming the world.

And so we have then the flow of biblical history, redemptive history. We have the fall. We have the promise. We have the expansion of the promise. Finally, we have the fulfillment of the promise in Jesus. And now the proclamation of that message goes out to the world, to the accomplishing of God’s purpose to save the world. The purpose of the book of Acts, then, is to record the spread of the gospel in the infant church. It starts out in a fascinating way in the first two verses of the book of Acts where Luke says, in effect, “I already wrote you the Gospel of Luke to tell you what Jesus began to do and to teach. And now I’m writing this second volume to tell you what Jesus is continuing to do and to teach through the work of the Holy Spirit.”

And then he charts out for us the progress of the gospel historically in the first century. And Acts chapter 1 and verse 8, as I’ve already mentioned, is a programmatic kind of verse in the book of Acts, and really in all of redemptive history. He says to the disciples, “you will be witnesses to me. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the world,” carrying out God’s gospel purpose. You find that in the book of Acts going over and again reminding us of it. You have sample reminders of it like in Acts chapter 13 where the church at Antioch is suffering persecution for the gospel and so to spare their lives they’re scattering everywhere and Luke makes the comment, “they went everywhere preaching the gospel.” And then you have little reminders through the book of Acts: “And the word of God grew and was multiplied.” “And the word of God grew and was multiplied.” “And the word of God grew and was multiplied.” And that language, you remember, actually reaches all the way back to Genesis. Remember the creation mandate? Be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, carry out God’s reign through the earth. Miserably failed. And God has picked up on that purpose, and that language is picked up again now, and the word of God grew and was multiplied, and the word of God grew and was multiplied, and the word of God grew and was multiplied. God carrying out his redemptive purpose to establish his kingdom.

Important moments in the book of Acts, like Acts chapter 16, where Paul finally reaches Europe. Most of us are of European descent. That’s where it came to us. And then you find the very last word of the book of Acts continues the story. Paul is under house arrest and the very last word of the book tells us he was “preaching the gospel of the kingdom without hindrance.” God continuing to carry out his mission of taking the gospel to the world. In fact, the goal of divine providence then is to restore the world through the gospel. The Apostle Paul reflects this, I think, in an interesting way in Philippians chapter 1. Paul’s writing to the church at Philippi who has supported him and shown their love for him and partnered with him in the gospel. He’s writing back to report to them his own experiences and how he’s been arrested and he’s been in prison. But being in prison, the gospel has worked its way to Caesar’s household, you remember? And he accounts for that. And Paul then makes that big picture remark that “what has happened to me has happened for the advance of the gospel.” And there he seems to be recognizing the fact that he has been caught up into something much bigger than himself. That God has a purpose to take the gospel to the world, and God is controlling all of the events in every corner of the kingdom, even his apostle in prison, for that purpose, to take the gospel to the world. In this case, even to Caesar’s household.

The book of Acts is fascinating in that regard because it seems to pull the curtain back and allow us to see from God’s perspective the outworking of his saving purpose. Jesus has come, he’s died for sinners, he’s been raised from the dead, he ascends to heaven, he sends his Spirit and the gospel goes out to the world from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the uttermost parts of the world. Of course, we have to see in all of this how the election theme ties into it all, that God had promised eternal life before the world was. Jesus himself said, speaking to Jews, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold, them also I must bring.” There’s always this outward focus, the outworking of God’s eternal purpose, to bring God’s chosen people the world over to himself in salvation. And that purpose continues to work through the enablement of the Spirit as we sing, “till all the chosen race with one heart and song and voice sing his redeeming grace.”

The Purpose Of The Apostles

Well, all of that is big picture. That in turn shapes the purpose of the apostles. Why were the apostles chosen? We saw that in John 17 and verse 18: “You have sent me into the world. I have sent them into the world.” I’ve sent the Spirit to equip them, they are taking the gospel, giving it to the world, and from there it goes global. If you’d like a specific example of that, in terms of the purpose of the apostles, look at Acts chapter 26. Acts 26, verses 16 through 18. Here Paul is giving a recount of his conversion experience on the road to Damascus. And Jesus appears to him in verse 16. Jesus says, “rise and stand on your feet for I’ve appeared to you for this purpose.” What? “To appoint you as servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you for what purpose? To open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”

So the apostolic mission is an evangelistic one. It is to take the gospel to the world. They will park at times, as you remember throughout the book of Acts; Paul will park for a while in a given locality, train up the people of God, go out in the synagogues and other places, see people come to Christ, stay there with them, train them in the things of God, so that they in turn go out to others.

The Purpose Of The Church

And that in turn then gives us the purpose of the church. Why is it that having saved us, God doesn’t just take us to heaven? What does he have for us here? There’s one fascinating, I think, wonderful reflection of that in 1 Thessalonians 1: “The word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia.” Paul writes to the Thessalonians and says, “here’s the great thing I know about you, is that from you, the gospel sounded forth in that whole region.” Again, we find it illustrated—the purpose of the church—even in the example of the church in the book of Acts. They’re commissioned to bear witness of Christ. They do that faithfully, and they encounter persecution, considerable heat from the authorities for it. They’re called into account, Acts chapters 4 and 5. Acts chapter 4, Acts chapter 5 again, they’re called into account, threatened, finally beaten. They’re charged, “you will not speak anymore in the name of Jesus.” And they said, “well, whether you think this right or wrong is up to you to judge, but we’ve given orders from a higher king, and we just can’t shut up.” And then they meet together and pray, and their prayer is, “Sovereign Lord who rules over everything, keep us faithful.” It’s hard not to see in all of that that the church is the instrument of God to extend and advance the kingdom, to advance the gospel. We are caught up in a big program—God’s own purpose in this age, God’s own purpose in history—using the church to accomplish that and take the gospel everywhere.

In that regard, one of the fascinating things about the church from which we should learn in the book of Acts is that they are marked by this supreme confidence in the power of the gospel. They are convinced that this is the means, this is the instrument through which God saves people. And so they go faithfully announcing the gospel everywhere they go, even under persecution, seeing men and women one by one brought by the enabling power of the Spirit into fellowship with Christ. Now when the church meets together, the gathered assembly, as we see with Paul so often, you find that they meet together to continue in the apostles’ word and doctrine. And you find then a bit of a distinction in the New Testament between the purpose of the church scattered and the purpose of the church gathered. And the purpose of the church gathered is to equip the church for the church scattered. And so he teaches the whole counsel of God, and he teaches the whole counsel of God, of course, understood in terms of its own focus. But there’s this emphasis on the purpose of the church gathered to train the people for the work of the ministry, so that they learn it, and in turn, the church scattered takes the gospel everywhere.

As a matter of fact, though—and this is interesting, it’s important for us to note this, you’ve probably heard me say it before—that this same gospel that claims men and women for Christ is the same gospel by which God transforms and continues to transform his people. The same gospel. Let’s take time and look at one indication of that. You find several of them in the New Testament, but I want you to see this one in Titus chapter 3. Titus chapter 3. Paul speaks, beginning at verse 1, about the responsibilities to be obedient and good people, et cetera, to live in a way that reflects the gospel, don’t speak evil of anyone, and those kinds of things. Verse three, he speaks of what life was before the gospel. “We ourselves were foolish, disobedient, led astray.” But, verse four: “when the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior, appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” So this grand transformation, this conversion from what I was to what I am now, in the gospel of grace—a gospel in which the Spirit’s work is dominant, bringing us to new life, and we turn in faith to Christ and are justified freely by his grace. Wonderful gospel summary here, right?

Now verse 8: “This saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things…”—that is, this gospel preaching. “Insist on these things so that people will come to faith and be saved.” It’s not what it says, is it? Notice, it’s fascinating. “You insist on these gospel preachings so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.” That is, the preaching of the gospel to believers has a sanctifying effect. Well, I would love to park there for a long time, but you see the point. God has a redemptive purpose carried out by the extension of the gospel to the world from Jesus, through the Spirit, through the apostles, to the church, and then to the world.

The Mission Of The Church

So what then is the mission of the church? Well, at the very least, we have to say that the mission of the church is a verbal one. We have a message. That’s really all we have. We are people who have been entrusted with the gospel. That’s why Paul can characterize the church as the pillar and ground of the truth. We have a message to proclaim. The priority is a message that must be preached.

Ian Brown has asked us recently to help devise a mission statement for the music team, which is a wonderful idea to help focus on what they are about doing. And he’s asked us, the elders, in terms of can we make a little more noise about the mission of the church and what it is we’re about. I think it’s a great idea. And I think you’ll be hearing more about that. And of course, anytime you hammer out a mission statement, it’s going to reflect somehow the Great Commission. It’s going to reflect somehow maybe Paul’s statement in Colossians 1 that he has come to render every man mature before Christ and so on. And so you end up with a mission statement that says something like, “to make as many people as possible fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ.” Or “to glorify the triune God by making as many people as possible fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ,” or “to glorify the triune God by making as many people as possible fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ through the gospel,” or something like that is where you’re going to end up. We’ll work on that and we’ll try to bring that to you when we do better.

But that has massive implications in a local church-shaping kind of way. It’s what gives us a whole sense of purpose and what we are about doing. Let me put it this way. You walk up to the building here in Franconia, what we call our church. You walk up or you walk into visiting another church, and what is it that impresses you? Well, you have nice facilities, you have a nice building, you have a nice nursery, you have classroom space, you have comfortable chairs. Well, not as much classroom space as we’d like. Comfortable chairs, you have a nice piano, guitars and drums, sometimes a mandolin, and lots of other things that Jeremy does. You got all of these things—this is what church is.

Now let’s take it all away. Let’s take away all the things that Jeremy does. Let’s take away the drums and the guitars and the piano, take away the comfortable chairs, take away the building. All we have is a group of people with a book. Do you have enough to have church? You bet we do. Or the language today, do you have enough to “do church”? You bet we do. All right, now, we can put the building back and we can put the classrooms back and the chairs; we put all of it back, but let’s only put it back insofar as it serves that purpose. That’s what we’re about.

Now, I have several areas of application that I’d like to specify in that regard for us. I can’t expand on them because it’s gotten late. Let me mention them at least quickly, maybe three. Specific areas of application then: if this is what God is about in this age, if this is what the church then is about within God’s purpose in this age, then how does that shape who we are at Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia?

Number one: the worship services. There are a lot more applications I can make than this, but here’s one: worship services. I think it probably seems a little bit odd to the world that we come together all the time to hear somebody talk. And it’s even odd to the world, I think, to see that we come together to sing to each other. Where else in the world do you do that? You have professionals singing, but where do you have people sing to each other all the time? And you come to church, and there’s preaching, and there’s teaching, and there’s singing, and that’s what we do. We read the word, we preach the word, teach the word, we sing the word. We even visualize the word in the ordinances. We’re not big on drama here, but we have two dramas that Jesus gave us: Baptism and the Lord’s Table, meant to illustrate the same gospel that we preach, that we pray, that we sing, that we read—and that’s what we do. We come to church, we read the word, we preach the word, we pray the word, teach the word, we sing the word, and we see the word. That’s what we do. That’s all we’re about. And we take time for it. And we think it’s important enough to do.

In the preaching and teaching, there is this marked, Christ-centered, gospel-shaped focus. Because there is this marked, Christ-centered, gospel-shaped focus in the book. And so we try to reflect that in our teaching, in our preaching. By the way, it should be the same in your own devotional reading. I mentioned that last week. Look to see: how is this strengthening you in Christ? Is it looking forward to him? Is it explaining him? Is it reflecting back on his coming or forward? How does it tell us about Christ and his work? It even works out in hymn selection. We’ve got a wonderful repertoire of hymns and all kinds of themes. Some of them very glorious and some of them not so glorious, like lament songs and things like that are important to be singing as well. But there is a center, there is a focus, and a predominating emphasis in it all. What marks us off as not just worshipers of God, but as Christians, is that we recognize our worship is enabled through, and only through, the person and work of Jesus Christ and what he’s done for us. It was the gripe we had through the ’80s, through the contemporary Christian music craze and all of the words. It was the gripe that we had about so much of the contemporary Christian music—that it was so Christless and so crossless that you sing all the time. Any Jewish person could come in and sing those songs all day with you and not feel bad at all. What marks us as Christians is that we’ve been redeemed through Christ to worship God. And that’s a predominating emphasis in all that we do and all that we are.

The same, secondly, with regard to target ministries that we have in the church: children ministries, youth ministries. The focus still is the same word, the same gospel. We have all kinds of activities and fun things and we want to do that for them as well, but our objective through all of it is to further this gospel in the lives of our children. The last thing we want is to have our children grow up to be 18, leave off for school, and not know Christ. And what drives us in all of it is: let’s make sure they understand this gospel. Sunday school lessons, sermons that we preach—we go through the Old Testament, the New Testament, we see these marvelous, fascinating stories about God’s intervention through it all, through it all, through it all. We see it’s not just an exciting story of what God did there, an exciting story of what God did there. But all of this is in preparation for, or as a result of, or looking toward, or looking back, or looking ahead to what Jesus Christ has done in saving us and bringing us to God.

And third, I just have to say this—it wouldn’t be right at all not to apply it in this way—and that is: all of this says something very definitely about personal evangelism, personal outreach. Brothers and sisters, we have to recognize—we must recognize—that inherent to the gospel is an outward orientation. Inherent to the gospel is an outward orientation. We’ve been caught up into something really big. God’s own purpose in history, God’s purpose in redemption, is to redeem this world to himself. And over here in this little corner of Franconia, Pennsylvania, he’s established this witness to carry out that purpose in this corner of his kingdom, to advance the gospel in the fulfilling of his saving mission. And so we must be in our collective services when we meet together—yes, definitely. Yes. And also when we are scattered on our own, we must always be alert and diligent to see an opportunity for the gospel and speak of Jesus to others. It would be very helpful for us sometime to just unpack that in terms of practical suggestions. How can we do better about that at RBC? But all of this gives us then a sense of our identity and our purpose. The church gathered, the church scattered. We are here to advance God’s saving mission. Invite people to church and they ask, “What do you do at your church? What’s your church about?” The answer should be easy. “Oh, we’re about Jesus.” It’s the answer you always get. What do you do at your church? What we do at our church: we read the word of God, we preach the word of God, teach the word of God, and we’re really serious about it. We sing the word of God. We love it. We rejoice together when we do it. This is what we’re about. And this is what God has commissioned us to do. Amen.

Let’s pray.

Our Father, what a marvelous mission you have taken upon yourself to save sinners, to bring them to yourself, to glorify your own name in their redemption. We are so grateful that you have included us in your saving work. We pray that you would make us here at Reformed Baptist Church increasingly a more effective witness inside these walls and outside, to enhance, to advance the gospel, and in turn to glorify our great redeeming God. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.