The Mission of the Church

Robbie Jones

Church by the Book • Sermon • Submitted 5 years ago

Discipleship

Great Commission

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Introduction

So just a review of what we have been looking at over the past couple months.

We began thinking about the church by looking at the

As we talked about the vision over the last several weeks one of the main things that we talked about was making disciples.

Certainty of the church

Owner of the church

Identity of the church

Foundation of the church

Invincibility of the church

Authority of the church

Then we considered the marks of a true church

The right preaching of the gospel

The right administration of the ordinances

Then we considered marks of a healthy church

Godly leadership

Covenant membership where we come together to live out Biblical commitments with one another

And we talked about the greatest of this commitments which is a commitment to love one another as the Lord has called us to love one another.

In the final weeks together I want us to think Biblically about the mission of the church.

It is an amazing thing, when I asked Landon to preach for me last week, I asked him some months back and I told him that he could preach on whatever the Lord laid on His heart.

I didn’t tell Landon anything about the sermons that would follow his sermon from last week but Landon’s sermon was really a perfect introduction to these final weeks in this series.

Last week Landon read and looked at

We looked at

18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in

heaven and on earth has been given to me.

19 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."

( ESV)

As he pointed out making disciples is modified by Matthew, he fills out this idea of discipleship using two adverbial participles in this passage.

The first is baptizing (expound upon that)

The second is teaching (expound upon that)

Today I want to talk more about discipleship and get a little more practical about how all of this will work out for us going into the future.

To help us do this I want to ask four questions for my points today.

I have borrowed his outline for some of my points today.

I. What is a disciple?

A disciple of Jesus Christ is a Christ follower. A disciple is one one has accepted the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, someone who is trusting in Him as Lord and Savior.

So the first fundamental part of being a disciple is one who has repented of their sins and trusted in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and the hope of eternal life. A disciple is one who has publicly identified with Jesus by publicly proclaiming their faith in Christ through baptism.

Somehow in Baptist churches we have come to believe that someone publicly announces their faith in Christ by walking up front at the end of a service, but that has not been the biblical pattern that we find in the New Testament. Someone publicly announces their faith in Christ through baptism.

Baptism is a way to announce to everyone who is in attendance that you have died with Christ and that you have risen to new life in Chirst Jesus and now the life that you live you live by faith in Jesus Christ trusting in His redeeming work for your salvation and following Him as your Lord.

So you see discipleship and following Jesus does not begin with something that we have done but it begins with what Jesus has done for us and His invitation for us to come to Him for salvation and to follow Him.

45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." ( ESV)

11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ( ESV)

You see even though man was created good he feel into sin and is in need of a Savior. The Bible teaches us that Jesus is the only Savior for man.

And what is Jesus' invitation?

24 Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? ( ESV)

Listen if you are here today and want to know about being a disciple of Jesus Christ, the first part of discipleship is turning from you sin, turning from living for yourself and to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and to entrust your life to Him, that is to submit to His Lordship seeking to follow Him.

To be a Christian is to be a disciple. One cannot seperate Christianity from discipleship. One cannot say, I am a Christian but I am not a disciple of Jesus Christ, the New Testament knows nothing of such a creature.

Being a disciple begins by trusting in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, publicly professing faith in Him through baptism and then living a life of following Jesus.

What I mean by following Jesus is by learning more of what His will is for your life and growing in obedience to the Lord's will for your life.

So a disciple is a Christ follower.

2. What is discipling?

Did you know that everyone alive is a disciple of someone or something. What i mean by that is that everyone alive is following someone or something.

They are following a teacher, a hero, an idol, an idea, or the list can go on and on.

We could simplify this biblically and say this, everyone is either following Jesus or satan. Anything that keeps you from following Jesus Christ is ultimately of satan.

Either you are living for the kingdom of this world or you are living for the Kingdom of Christ. One of the two.

Jesus teaches us this again and again in the New Testament.

Think of the parable of the man building his house upon the sand and the man building his house upon the rock in the gospel of Luke.

47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like:

48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.

49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great."

( ESV)

Now we can go a step further and say this, not only are you either following Jesus or following satan but we can also say that either you are teaching and influencing others around you to either follow Jesus or to follow satan.

Whether you realize it or not you are a powerful influence in the lives of people around you.

Your spouse, children, grandchildren, friends, siblings, co-workers, church members.

Let me ask you this, Are you showing people and teaching people what it looks like to be a Christ follower?

Let me say this, if you are a Christian, if you are a Christ follower, then Jesus calls you to be intentionally involved in the lives of others for their spiritual good. That is you are to be intentionally involved in the lives of others to help them become or grow in being Christ followers.

You may ask, well specifically who am I to help in growing in being a Christ follower? That moves us to our third point.

3. Where should we disciple?

What are your thoughts?

The local church.

Did you know that when you join a local church you are agreeing that it is with that group of people that you are going to live the Christian life. That you are agreeing to disciple and be discipled in that body of believers.

Membership in a local church is an agreement to the greatest discipleship program ever invented and that is the body of Christ. If you are a member of this church then you ought to be involved in discipleship relationships with other people within this body.

Again let me clarify this, if you are a member of this body you ought to be intentionally involved in the lives of others members in this body for their spiritual good. You are to use the gifts that the Lord has given you for their spiritual good.

You say well how does that work? How to I get in such relationships?

Small groups like Sunday School is a good place to begin building relationships like this. Relationships where the Lord can use you for the spiritual good of others. The Lord can use you to speak truth into the lives of others. The Lord can use you to encourage, admonish, teach, rebuke others in loving helping them to grow in being a follower of Chirst.

The local church is where we can practice all the one anothers of the New Testament.

Every member of this body is a minister and they are to seek to minister to the other members of the body.

Sometimes people believe that the pastor is the minister and he is suppose to be doing all of the ministering but as we have seen in actually my job is to equip and encourage you in the ministry and you are to minister to one another.

This is why church membership is such a big deal. Church membership lets us know who has agreed to be apart of the discipleship of this body and who has not.

What I mean by that is simply this brothers and sisters church membership lets us know who we are responsible for and who we are not responsible for.

This is one of the reasons why we have looked at the membership role and removed a lot of inactive members that we could not get in touch with and have had no contact with for years.

Brothers and sisters when we understand covenant membership rightly then we will understand that becoming a member of Tabernacle Baptist Church is a commitment to one another.

It is a commitment to be here when we gather together on the Lord’s Day, it is a commitment to investing into relationships

We cannot disciple people and be discipled by people that we never see and we do not know.

Listen to the church covenant that we have. We have had this covenant from the beginning of our time as a church.

This church covenant lays out for us our biblical agreement to be involved in one anothers life for spiritual good.

You were given another copy of the church covenant here recently.

“Having been led, as we believe, by the Spirit of God, to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior and, on the profession of faith, having been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we do now, in the presence of God, and this assembly, most solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant with one body in Christ.

“We engage, therefore, by the aid of the Holy Spirit (this was Landon’s point last week, the Lord has promised to be with us to help us, to strengthen us for the task that He has called us to), to walk together in Christian love; to strive for the advancement of this Church, in knowledge, holiness, comfort; to promote its prosperity and spirituality; to sustain its worship, ordinances, discipline, and doctrines; to contribute cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry, the expenses of the church, the relief of the poor, and the spread of the Gospel through all nations.

“We also engage to maintain family and secret devotions; to religiously educate our children; to seek the salvation of our kindred and acquaintances; to walk circumspectly in the world; to be just in our dealings, faithful in our engagements, and exemplary in our deportment; to avoid all tattling, backbiting, and excessive anger; to be zealous in our efforts to advance the kingdom of our Savior.

“We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love; to remember one another in prayer; to aid one another in sickness and distress; to cultivate Christian sympathy in feeling and Christian courtesy in speech; to be slow to take offense, but always ready for reconciliation and mindful of the rules of our Savior to secure it without delay.

“We moreover engage that, when we remove from this place, we will, as soon as possible, unite with some other church where we can carry out the spirit of this covenant and the principles of God’s Word.”

In this covenant we have agreed to strive for the advancment of the members of this church in knowledge, holiness, gospel and gospel comfort. To strive to promote gospel prosperity and genuine spirituality among the members of this body.

You know it would be a good idea for us in the future to begin to think through our membership and get everyone who still desires to be a member of Tabernacle Baptist church to sign a copy of this church covenant.

This could be a clear way for us to move forward proclaiming that membership at Tabernacle Baptist church matters. That if you are a member of Tabernacle Baptist Church you have agreed to be discipled and to be discipling and you are expected to live in that way.

You see the New Testament teaches us and historically baptist have believed that it is in the context of the local church that discipleship happens.

Let me say that another way, it is in the context of the local church that we know who is in and who is out so that we can be involved in one anothers life for spiritual good, that we can be involved in one anothers life to help one another follow Christ.

We have one more question before we finish up.

4. How should we disciple?

When we talk about discipling and discipleship it can be overwhelming.

So how do we get started? As i mentioned earlier, it is easier to think through this in smaller group settings. One of the ways we seek to do that at Tabernacle is through Sunday School. Sunday School is a smaller group where you can build relationships with others so that you can be more involved in their life for their spiritual good.

The first thing you can do to start is simply to pick someone or a group of people from your Sunday School class. Pick someone that you can have an intentionally spiriutal relationship with so that you can be encouraged and strengthened and so that you can encourage and strengthen them.

So one you have to have a person and it has to be intentional. It will not just happen.

Second you have to sacrifice time. So you have to have a person and you have to have time.

Third you have to have a plan. You ask well what are we going to do when we get together?

I have a few suggestions.

You could take notes over the Sunday morning sermon and review the sermon and discuss application with one another

You can take a book of the Bible and read through it together. You say i will never be able to do that. Yes you can. If you have the Holy Spirit and a notebook and a pen you can think through Scripture and discuss it with another believer. You can use a faithful commentary to help you think through the passage if you want. I would love to help you think through good commentaries to use.

You can take a good Christian book that has been written and read through it together and discuss it so that you are encouraged and strengthened in your walk with the Lord.

And you can pray for one another.

I would say brothers and sisters that as we become a healthy church this will be happening all the time within the membership of this body.

People will be meeting together all through the week for each others spiritual good. People will be meeting all through the week to encouraged one another in following Christ.

Oh one of the signs of a healthy church is a church where there is a culture of discipleship. What i mean by that is a church where it is hard to be a member and not be discipled.

How long have you been a member of Tabernacle and really not been involved in discipleship. You say, well i have gone to sunday school regularly or i have been a sunday school teacher regularly.

Well that is good but as i have mentioned before making disciples is not just about teaching sunday school but being involved in the lives of others so that you are not just teaching them the commandments of the Lord and teaching them the Word of God, but teaching them to observe these things.

Taking them and saying this is what God's Word says now lets think how we should live differently in light of these things and let me walk with you and help you in following Christ.

Conclusion

But you know what, the first how in discipleship is being a disciple and being a commited member of the body, a covenant member agreeing to disciple and be discipled.

Share the gospel for unbelievers and invite them to become a disciple of Jesus Christ

Extend invitation for people to join the church and become a covenant member of TBC.

As we come to the Lord's table we come confessing our unity confessing that we have one Lord and that we have one hope, that our only hope is the broken body and the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now the table is for anyone who has repented of their sin and is trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and has been baptized as a believer and is in good standing with their local church. But as we come to the Lord's table I want us members of Tabernacle Baptist Church to read the Church covenant together in unison together proclaiming what our God hs done for us and commiting to live together for the spiritual good of one another.

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