Christ's Vision for Christ's Church

Texts: Jeremiah 23:1-6; 16-32; Matthew 28:16-20

WE CHRISTIANS HAVE OUR own language.

It's not just us, of course. So do doctors and computer programmers and football players. In the Church we have special theological words like "incarnation" and "resurrection" and "atonement." All Christians should learn them, because they say in one word what would take us preachers half a sermon to explain otherwise.

But this morning I thinking about something different, about the new and trendy words and phrases we come up with to try to keep ourselves relevant and cutting-edge. Phrases like "faith journey" and "worship experience" and "purpose-driven." Words like "missional" and "emergent" and "vision." All these terms have a kernel of meaning in them; maybe some more than others; what we must do as members of the body of Christ is make sure that those meanings match up with what the Holy Spirit has revealed to us about Christ and His Church in His written Word.

The word for today is "vision." Proverbs 29:18 says "Where there is no vision, the people perish." And it goes on to say, "but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." That tells us from the start that the true vision for God's people is always the one given by God. The Law of Moses was God's perfect picture of what life on earth would be like if His people would love Him with their whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and if they would love their neighbors as themselves. Where that godly vision is lost, people do what is right in their own eyes, the covenant between God and man breaks down, and the end result is death.

In Christ and through Christ, we are God's new covenant people. We are the new Israel, His body, His Church. The vision that keeps us from perishing and gives us eternal blessing Christ Jesus Himself and His perfect will. This is God's revelation for His Church in every time and place. It's not something we have to reinvent to match our particular circumstances; we can read it plainly in the everlasting words of the Holy Scriptures. Hear now the vision for the Church that our Lord Himself declared to His disciples in Galilee after He rose from the dead:

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Christ's vision for Christ's own church is that men and women of all nations should made members of His body, forgiven and saved by Him, following Him, being conformed to His image and obeying His commands. This vision is to be carried out in His authority and under His supervision, not in our power or according to our worldly ideas. Wherever the Scripture speaks of the purposes of Christ's church, it all fleshes out what it means for us to be His obedient baptised disciples, as Jesus Himself ordains here at the end of the Gospel of Matthew.
As this congregation embarks on your interim period, you will be called upon to define your vision for the church's future. I urge you to remain focussed on the vision Christ Himself has given. Make the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit your unwavering destination. From the very beginning of your interim process, I exhort you never to confuse methods and strategies with your ultimate goal, which must always be to glorify God as you add to your number and grow as faithful disciples of His Son Jesus Christ.

If you read very many Church Information Forms, you'd be shocked to see how few church vision or mission statements say anything about Jesus Christ at all. Our more liberal brethren in the PC(USA) tend to feel that the primary goal of the church is to carry out programs of social justice. But we evangelicals do Christ no honor by adopting the latest mega-church program for seeker-sensitive church growth. Or by demanding that our pastor come up with some unique new vision that somehow will work faster and better and-- you'll pardon the term-- sexier than Christ's own vision for His own church.

The trendy term for that is "vision-casting." The idea is that if the pastor is a really good vision-caster, the whole membership will get charged up with a glorious new vision of what the church should be and do, usually having to do with numbers, quantities, budgets, and so on. And that if the leadership can't or won't do this kind of "visioning," God can't or won't do anything with that church.

This process might be all right if it would leave the origin of the vision where it belongs: with God. It's no accident that the Hebrew word that Proverbs 29:18 that the King James Version translates as "vision" is rendered "revelation" in the New International Version. The vision or revelation that keeps us alive and makes us blessed is from God and not from ourselves. Making disciples by baptising and teaching people doesn't tend to conform to visionary thinking. It's plodding, ordinary, every day work. But it's the method of church growth that Jesus Himself has ordained.

But "vision-casting" by nature seems to try to go God one better. Frankly, the term itself gives me the willies. Maybe because it sounds so much like "spell-casting," which is witchcraft. Actually, "vision-casting" and "spell-casting" aren't so far different from one another, because both have to do with frail and fallen human beings trying to manipulate God's reality in spite of God's revealed will for their own profit and ends instead of for His glory.

False ministry and false visions were at the root of the disobedience that brought God's Old Testament people Israel to destruction and exile. "Woe," declares the Lord through the prophet Jeremiah, "woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!" Woe to the priests and Levites who refused to care for the people! These shepherds were to offer worthy sacrifices to make atonement for the sins of the people, yes. That was part of their work. But they were also to instruct the people in the truth of the law and build them up spiritually. As it says in Malachi 2:7, "The lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction—because he is the messenger of the LORD Almighty." But the priests and Levites of Jeremiah's time couldn't be bothered to teach the message of the Lord's will to the people. If some poor slob wanted to bring a lamb to the Temple to sacrifice it, yeah, okay, the priests'd get up and burn it on the altar, but they couldn't be bothered to instruct that Jew to make sure he understand how he'd sinned against the Lord. They didn't care whether ordinary Israelites knew what their sacrifices meant in terms of blood atonement and God forgiving them their sins. As long as the tasty animals kept coming, that was the thing. The priests and Levites by law got a portion of most sacrifices, and the ordinary people, the flock of God, represented a steady income for them, not pastoral responsibility. And so the Lord's sheep were scattered and driven away. Literally scattered, for the shepherds' neglect and the people's own disobedience brought the judgment of exile upon them, and they were taken captive by Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, and scattered among many nations in the greater Near East.

But Christ's vision for His church is that people should be made His disciples. How? First of all by baptising them. Unpopular as it may seem, it is important and essential that people be formally incorporated into His body by the sacrament of baptism. Baptism is the sign and seal of our dying to sin and rising to new life by the washing of Christ's blood, shed for us on the cross. No one can be Jesus' disciple who is unwilling to commit themselves and all they are to Him in holy baptism. For those who have been baptised previously, being His disciple in a local church involves reaffirming the covenant of baptism as we formally commit to join. Truly, there is no salvation outside the church-- for to belong to Christ is to belong to His body. And to belong to the Church Universal, we must physically join ourselves with a local congregation. This is Christ's vision for His church.

Why? Because the local congregation is where the godly teaching is done! It's where the sheep are cared for and fed. But many "seeker sensitive" or "new vision" pastors go the way of the scattering shepherds of Jeremiah's time. They say that church members should feed and pastor themselves, that all the leadership's effort should go towards attracting seekers and unbelievers. But why should a church want to attract new believers if not to instruct them in the ways of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

You may be thinking that Concord Church would never fall into that trap. I hope that's true. But there's another snare that trips up traditional churches, that's just as deadly. And that's confusing pastoral care with chaplaincy or social visiting. Yes, we pastors must be present with the people, both in times of crisis and ordinarily, house to house. But if we drink your coffee but never offer to pray with you, if we never inquire after your spiritual welfare, if we never instruct you one-on-one in the faith once delivered to the saints, if we never call you to repentance over offenses you're trying to hide, rebuke us and call us back to our Christ-given jobs! Teaching disciples to obey everything Jesus has commanded us certainly starts in the pulpit, but it doesn't end there!

But oh! said the false prophets of Jeremiah's day! Oh! say the false visionaries of our time! Don't ever talk to people about their sin! Tell them that God loves them just as they are! You'll never meet your membership objectives if you offend people!

Yes, it's true that when God loves you, He loves you just as you are. But He doesn't love you in and with and for your sins. He loves you because you are elect in Jesus Christ and when He looks at you, He sees not your sin, but the righteousness of His Son.

That's not what the false prophets ancient and modern mean, though. They mean that sin means nothing to God and He's willing to overlook it, Just Because. But the Lord Almighty says through Jeremiah,

"Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you;
they fill you with false hopes.
They speak visions from their own minds,
not from the mouth of the LORD.
They keep saying to those who despise me,
‘The LORD says: You will have peace.'
And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts
they say, ‘No harm will come to you.'"

Sound familiar? How many of you have been to the funeral of someone who spent his life despising Christ and His salvation, and the preacher inferred that the deceased was in heaven even now? I'm sure you never heard such a thing out of Harper Brady, but there are ministers those who think their pastoral office requires them to tell such lies, in order to grow the church!

The prophet or preacher who stands in the council of God will teach the people of God to hate their sin and to love the obedience of Jesus Christ their Lord. He or she will instruct the members of the church in the awesome greatness of God, who fills heaven and earth and sees everything, even the innermost secret places of our hearts and minds. The leader who fulfills Christ's vision for Christ's church will speak the word of the Lord faithfully, and let it do its work. Christ-centered, cross-focussed, law-and-gospel preaching is not as exciting as lights and sound systems and professional-quality praise bands. It's not as quick at gaining adherents as messages that promise instant prosperity and rapturous marriages and perfectly-behaved kids. It's not as "inspiring" as a five-year plan for three new campuses and a tenfold increase in church revenue. But it is effective in making disciples for Christ in His Church, for, declares the Lord, "Is not my word like fire, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?" That word of God kindles our cold hearts with love for Him and burns away in us all that is not holy and all that is not true. The word of His instruction breaks down our hard-heartedness and teaches us to hate our sin and turn to Him for forgiveness and peace.

"Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream," says the Lord through the prophet Jeremiah, "but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully." Jesus Christ has set forth His vision for His church in His Holy Word, and He commands this congregation and every other church that bears His name to search the Scriptures and find it written there for themselves. Why should we waste our time on dreams the Lord has not given and will not bless? "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me," says our Lord. He has the right to determine our vision for our churches, and this He has done. He has the power to make sure His revealed will will come to fruition in His Church, and this He will do.

And so, Concord Presbyterian Church, go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything our Lord Jesus Christ has commanded us. And surely He is with you always, to the very end of the age.

What God's Word Can Do

Texts: Isaiah 55:6-13; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 4:1-5

Good morning. It's day number 73 of the year of our Lord 2010. Do you know where your New Year's resolutions are?

Beginning of this year, I heard a lot about people resolving to read the Bible through by the end of next December. If you're one of them, I hope you're keeping to your plan.

There's one problem with Bible reading resolutions. It's how we can think of it as something meritorious we do-- or something guilt-inducing that we fail to do. Ever catch yourself falling into that trap? I have. That's the time to have a good laugh at ourselves. Boast about reading God's holy Word? We may as well brag about eating our dinners and enjoying them! God gave us food for the body to satisfy and nourish the physical man, and He gave us His God-breathed Scriptures to nourish and sustain our souls. They are His gift to us, and they come with virtue, strength, and power that proceed from His very throne. When we receive them with thanksgiving we see for ourselves what God's word can do.

Before anything else, He opens our hearts to receive the Scriptures as the Word of God. The sixteenth and seventeen verses of the third chapter of Paul's letter to Timothy read,

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The Greek word New International Version translates as "God-breathed" is theopneustos. Other translations render it as "God-inspired." In the latest issue of Modern Reformation there's an article by Michael Allen, who teaches systematic theology at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale. Prof. Allen writes,

The Greek word theopneustos has been studied up and down, left and right. The image is that of God breathing out, a notion surely informed by the creation account when God breathed life into the dust and made man (Gen. 2:7). Just as God created by his word in Genesis, so God brings about the new creation by the proclamation of the gospel. To that end, God inspires or breathes out life into and through the writings of the apostles. The picture is not of texts, already written, now receiving blessing; rather, the notion is of texts produced by God's very breath.1

Since this is the case-- since all Scripture has been produced by God by the power of His Holy Spirit, it has divine power. Power to convict us sinners of our sin; power to apply the saving blood of Jesus Christ to our soul; power to give us new hearts and new minds and set us in the paths of eternal life through that same Jesus Christ. And once we belong to Him, all that is written in this book has power to teach, to rebuke, to correct, and to train us in righteousness, so, as verse 17 reads, "the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

Does this term "man of God" refer only to the preacher? True, in the Old Testament God's designated prophet is often called "the man of God." But we live in New Testament times, and we are people of the New Covenant. God Almighty has called us all to be people of God, called by His Spirit and washed in His Son's precious blood.

Nor does verse 17 refer only to men. Greek has one word for a male person, another for a female person, and a third for a human being in general. Paul's word in this text is the third one. Are you in Christ? Then God's power in the Holy Scriptures is for you, working His grace so every Christian will be equipped to do what is wise and loving and holy as we serve our neighbor in His name.

Nevertheless, God by His church does set some individuals aside for special office, to be pastors and teachers, elders and deacons, missionaries and evangelists. It is their particular job to make sure that you who belong to Christ are equipped to do every good work He has foreordained for you to perform.

It's a solemn and weighty charge. See how Paul challenges Timothy in the first verse of chapter four: "In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus." Even now, our Triune God is here, watching over and monitoring everything I say to you. It's my responsibility to preach not myself or my ideas, but the very oracles of God. Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel of Christ and Him crucified! Woe to any consecrated and ordained Christian minister who fails to proclaim the living Word Jesus Christ as proclaimed in the written word of the Scriptures! Woe to us now, and woe to us when Christ shall sit and judge heaven and earth. Paul invokes the holy name of "Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead," reminding us that we will all stand before Him and give an account, and especially we pastors and elders and teachers who were charged with properly handling His word. Friends, the last thing I want on my tombstone is "Here lies an original theologian." I want to preach the faith once and for all delivered to the saints, and if I ever get out of that path, I want my brothers and sisters in Christ to put me back into it.

For as Paul writes to Timothy, Christ will someday appear in the clouds-- maybe sooner than we think!-- and His kingdom will come perfectly and God will be worshipped as Lord over all. Even now, His kingdom is coming in power as faithful ministers and teachers boldly proclaim the God-breathed message of His word, which brings His new creation to life in formerly lost and rebellious souls. Shall we be excused if our preaching tears down the kingdom instead of building it up? No! We must use the Word rightly, and show the church and the world what it can do.

And so, says Paul, "Preach the Word." Proclaim Christ the living Word made flesh, crucified and risen for us. Yes, this command is addressed especially to us in the pulpit ministry. But all of us who bear Jesus' name must be prepared to explain the hope He has put in us. God gives us what we need to do that as His gracious gift: He gives us the Scriptures themselves to read and study. Faithful preaching to hear and imbibe. Bible commentaries written by godly scholars. Wise men and women in the church who understand the Word and can help us to understand as well.

And so God's word prepares us to proclaim it in season or out of season. Now, this phrase doesn't mean we should interrupt school or business or random conversations to exhort people to repent. But whenever the Holy Spirit moves in our hearts to tell someone what Jesus did on the cross to take away their sins, the Word makes us ready to obey, whether or not it's comfortable for us; whether or not the other person will receive the Gospel as good news.

Even so, the Holy Spirit in verse 2 addresses pastors and teachers in particular. The God-breathed Scripture "is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness," and that is our special charge as we minister among you. The Word corrects. It moves the Christian who is carelessly going astray back into the right road. May Toby and I and every other pastor correct according to the Word, not from our own human judgement. The Word rebukes. It confronts Christians with their wilful sins. It puts the lie to false doctrine. It snatches the rebellious from the fires of Hell. May we pastors rebuke according to the Word, not out of our prejudices and fears. The Word encourages. It doesn't despise the day of small beginnings. It binds up the wounds of the brokenhearted and nourishes the weak and the young. May we pastors encourage according to the Word, with the power and grace of Jesus Christ, not with the sloppy sentimentalism of this sinful world.

When we pastors faithfully preach the Word in season and out of season, it infuses you, Christ's body, with power to stand strong against the lies of the world and the wiles of the devil. It gives you backbone and mettle and a sure sword hand against anything that would tear you away from your salvation in Jesus Christ. The Scriptures faithfully preached give you Jesus Christ Himself, living in you by the power of His Holy Spirit, fighting and winning the good fight of God, regardless of who or what comes against you.

We pastors must show you clearly what God's word can do, for the time is short. Paul writes in verse 3, "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine." I'm afraid this isn't just about the unbelievers Out There; it's also a warning about people inside the church.
We see it happening today, all around us. People aren't naturally interested in hearing the Word of God. The Scriptures hurt before they heal and kill before they make alive. The good news of Jesus Christ is not really good unless first we've heard and received the bad news of the Law. Sinful human hearts doesn't want to submit to that. We didn't want to submit to that, until the Word of God worked in our hearts to recreate us according to the image of Christ.

And so, in churches all over the world, men and women are flocking to preachers who will tell them what their itching ears want to hear. Pastor, give me a great "worship experience," but don't waste my time with preaching! Tell me how to get rich or how to have a better marriage, but don't say anything about the Cross! Convince me it's okay to say I'm a Zen Buddhist and a Christian at the same time, but don't claim that Jesus is the only way to God! Keep my church small and comfortable and family-like, but don't disrupt us with talk about the power of the gospel for the world! Tickle my ears with how I can feel good about myself by doing good deeds, but don't fence me in with your narrow-minded Christ-centered, cross-focussed, Law-and-Gospel doctrine!

In all these ways and more the people of our time turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. Any idea or belief that human beings make up to explain how things got the way they are and how they should be is a myth, and it's all a lie against the truth of the Word of God. And heaven help us, many formerly-faithful pastors are wavering in their convictions. Some of us are wondering if maybe it might be okay to let in a little-- just a little-- of these myths-- just to get people and their itching ears through the door-- and once they're comfortable in the pews, we'll hit them with the real Jesus. Don't we understand how false that is? Don't we realize that the only way to grow God's church is by laying the foundation of Jesus Christ dead and raised again according to the Scriptures? How can we be so weak as to doubt what God's word can do?

In our text you can feel Paul's concern to keep Timothy out of that trap. In 1 Timothy we learn of the false doctrines and false practices this young pastor was up against in his church in Ephesus. Both men and women were claiming all sorts of false things about Jesus Christ, or denying Him altogether. How easy simply to give in, to mix in a little of this and a little of that, just to keep the peace and attract more members. No, Timothy! No, Paul says to all of us pastors who hold to the reformed and evangelical Christian faith! "Keep your head in all situations!" The power of the word will keep us from being swayed by the temptations of the world. "Endure hardship!" Remaining faithful to Christ and His self-revelation in Scripture will bring us hardship, as pastors and as churches. Membership may well go down. People will call us bigots and fools, and some of those accusers will be fellow-members. "Do the work of an evangelist." There is to be no barricading ourselves behind the church doors and letting the world literally go to hell. Even against hardship and calamity God's Spirit strengthens us to go boldly into the world bearing the good news of Jesus Christ as witnessed in the Holy Scriptures! And finally, "discharge all the duties of your ministry." Every one of us has a ministry to our neighbor to carry out in Jesus' name. Everyone of us is responsible for feeding ourselves on the Scriptures and showing in the world what they can do.

We pastors have special duties, and the first of them is to open to you this book, the Bible, trusting that the Holy Spirit will work in your hearts and reveal to you God's power. If we fail to preach the Word, we have nothing to give you. Without God breathing His power into our lives through the Scriptures, we can bring only worldly hope and human wisdom.

But God has given us His holy Word, and as Isaiah the prophet says,

It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

To read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Scriptures is certainly our duty. A duty, the same way it's our duty to sit down and thoroughly enjoy a generous, appetizing, and nourishing meal spread out for us by the Father who loves us most. Sit and eat, Christian friends. Learn firsthand what this book can do in you. And so, by patience, and comfort of His holy Word, may you embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life. Amen.

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1. Allen, Michael: "Getting Inspiration from Inspiration," Modern Reformation, Vol. 19, No. 2, March/April 2010, p.19