The Focus of the Church
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This morning continue in our series together on “You are the Church” and this morning we are going to be talking about “The Function of the Church” which has to do with evangelism.
I do not believe that a church can justify its existence if it does not have as one of its priorities the priority of evangelism.
In fact to me, the number one priority of the church has to be the priority of evangelism.
When Jesus was about to go back to heaven, ascend back to the Father, He made this very clear.
In Acts 1 you and I will see that Jesus made evangelism a clear and lasting task that He said to the church.
We have talked about the importance of fellowship, the importance of discipleship, the importance of ministry.
We have talked about the importance of the founder of the church which is our Lord Jesus Christ, the importance of the foundation of the church which is the Word of God.
But now we need now to talk about the importance of reaching the lost and growing the church.
The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen,
to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me;
for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.
And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel,
who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”
As we look at these verses we see that Jesus gave them some important instructions about what they were to do until He came. That is until He returns.
We are going see three important things that He told them to do.
This is a continuation of the ministry of Jesus through His body the church.
I. AN UNFINISHED TASK
I. AN UNFINISHED TASK
Now the first thing we see in this passage is that Jesus left us an unfinished task.
When Jesus came, He came to seek and to save that which is lost.
However, He made it evident that He only began the task of seeking and saving the lost. When He went back to heaven, He made it clear that the task was not completed.
In Acts 1:8 he said,
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
That is the one that we just read.
Jesus said according to Mark 16:15-16,
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
In Luke 24:46-48,
Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day,
and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
And you are witnesses of these things.
John 20:21 says,
So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
Matthew 28:19-20 says,
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
Christ started the Work of Evangelism and before He ascended to Heaven He commissioned His disciples the Body of Christ to complete the task that He started. This today is an unfinished task. It is more unfinished today than it has ever been.
We have more people being born today than we are winning to Christ, far more.
We are getting more and more behind in the unfinished task than we have at any other period of time in history because the world has experienced such a population explosion.
More people are being born, far more than we are winning to faith in Jesus Christ. So we can see what an unfinished task we have.
Now as we think about this unfinished task, we notice here that God has given us some parameters, and God has given us a pattern.
First of all you have to see the lost through the eyes of Jesus.
In Matthew 9:36 the Bible says, "But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd."
Do you see the multitudes without Christ? Many times we only see people for who they are in society, for what they do in their jobs. We don't ask the questions are they bound for heaven or are they bound for hell, are they saved or are they lost, are they a Christ follower or are they a follower of this world?
The first things we ought to think about when we see a person is are they bound for heaven or are they not.
Do they know Christ or do they not?
Secondly, we must be separate from the world in our walk.
Paul quotes Isa 52:11 when he addresses the Church at Corinth in 2 Cor. 6:17 and says "come out from among and be separate saith the Lord."
Meaning that must separate ourselves from the world in our walk and talk. We can only be an effective witness in the way that we live.
And you have to live the Christian life before you can speak the Christian life.
Gandhi said “I would have become a Christian had it not been for Christians.”
That excuse would not keep a person out of hell for one second but we don't want to give them an excuse for not coming to Christ.
We don't want to be the person that they use as an excuse for not coming to church or for not coming to hear the Word of God.
So we need to live a life that is different than the life of a lost person.
Thirdly we need to season our lives with love.
Have you ever heard the saying, “People don't care how much you know until you they know how much you care.”
Jesus truly had love for others, He loves the lost and wants all to come to repentance. Jesus said, He came to seek and to save that which is lost.
People all around us are perishing. People are dying everyday without Christ as their Savior. Do you know what that means? Do we really love others just as Christ Jesus loves them? We must.
And that means to love one another as well. It is said of the early church that when the world looked on the early church, they said "my how they love one another."
Paul said let brotherly love continue. Jesus said “by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, they will know you are my witnesses if you love one another."
The greatest wrong that the church has done through centuries of time to a lost world is to fuss and fight with one another.
More people have gone to hell because of church fusses than have ever gone to hell because of strip joints, pornography, and alcohol all combined.
That is the truth.
When they see churches not loving one another, that does more to turn them off to Jesus Christ than all the sinful people in the world.
So we have to season our lives with love.
And understand that what we do and say in our Small Group and Bible study groups, what we do in our fellowships speaks volumes to the people that are listening to us.
So we have to be careful because we have an unfinished task. The task is to be a true loving witness for Christ so the lost may know be saved though the powerful message of the gospel.
II. AN UNCHANGING MESSAGE
II. AN UNCHANGING MESSAGE
Now number two, He has given us an unchanging message.
What did he say in verse 8?
He said you are witnesses unto me; you are witnesses of these things.
What are we to be witnesses to? The message of Christ. There is a message that is unchanging. There is a message that is always relevant. It is always fresh.
III. AN UNLIMITED POWER
III. AN UNLIMITED POWER
Now He has given us an unlimited power. What is that power? It is the power of the Holy Spirit. He said, "you will receive power, after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you." 2 Questions.
1. How do you receive that power?
2. Power to do what exactly?
How do you receive that power? That happens to us at salvation but they weren't just baptized by the Spirit, they were filled with the Spirit. And now believers are commanded to be filled with the Spirit.
Power to do what exactly?
After they were filled with the Spirit, they boldly went out in the streets and began to witness for Christ. And three thousand were saved on the day of Pentecost.
They even went before the Magistrate and he beat them and said don't tell or mention this name Jesus any more! And it says that they said to him, we must obey God rather than man. And they gave them another beating and said don't witness for Him any more. And they rejoiced that they had been counted worthy to suffer for His sake.
The difference was the filling of the Holy Spirit. He gives you not only a boldness but He also gives you the power to serve faithfully in whatever ministry God has given you. We have all been called to be witnesses.
He gives you power to suffer victoriously. All of us are called to suffer from time to time, in different ways.
Sometimes it is through persecution for living for Christ.
Sometimes we are called to suffer physically.
Peter talked about the believers in his time and he encouraged them and he said that if you are called to suffer for Christ it will only be for a little time. But it will yield glory to Jesus.
Paul talked about those who were called on to suffer for Christ and he said God will give you a special crown at the appearing of Jesus.
But you can suffer victoriously when God calls on you to suffer. And that victorious suffering will bring honor and glory to Jesus.
That is one of the ways that He uses our witness. He uses our witness when He calls on us to suffer many times. When people see us suffering not complaining, not giving up, not cursing God, not saying God take me from this life but glorifying God in the midst of our suffering that is one of the most powerful witnesses we can ever give.
Many people have been saved in the hospital from being around Christian people who were suffering for Christ victoriously.