Matthew 28:18-20

Speaker 1: Matthew, 20, you're there. Go ahead and stand out there. First, no. Eighteen, twenty eight or more eighteen. Bible says and Jesus came and speaking to them, saying all power is given under me in heaven and in Earth.

Speaker 4: Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations baptizing

Speaker 1: them in the name of the father and of the son of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever, I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you all the way, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we asked you to be with us tonight as we look into your word. But you gave me the words. You have me to say, you know, the folks that are here to listen and apply, to hear their lives for in Jesus name, I pray. Amen. You may be seated.

Speaker 4: Is he my hair like just for

Speaker 1: the fun of it, read like. Articles about church. And by. The irony, but I would expect that, like, I don't know, you go to websites that are just about how to run a church or church ministry.

Speaker 4: You know, the top 10

Speaker 1: ways to improve your senior adult ministry or the

Speaker 4: top five ways

Speaker 1: to reach the millennials in your neighborhood. And I do that kind of stuff. You don't do that. I do that. Well, weird stuff out there. You know, there's such thing as corporate sponsorships for churches these days, like you can apply for a corporate sponsorship sponsorship like, you know, you promise to only use Nike choir robes and they'll. Donate money. I'm just kidding, there's no such thing as a Nike choir up. Hey, there could be a niche market for that. You never know. If you got to where it might as well look good, what are you doing, I guess? Yeah. Corporate sponsorships. I mean, you know, you probably could guess some of the stuff that would be said in an article about how you should run your church. There's a lot about abandoning traditionalism for a more modern church style. There's there's a lot about, you know, making

Speaker 4: sure you preach on the right topics and being culturally

Speaker 1: sensitive and and that sort of thing. When I was a youth pastor, I read a lot about youth ministry and some of the ideas for what you could do with your youth group. They were way out there. There was this one youth pastor who wrote a book in the

Speaker 4: opening paragraph of his book is detailing how he got in trouble for

Speaker 1: taking a bunch of teenagers to an under twenty one club.

Speaker 4: And he didn't control for taking them to the club. He got in trouble because he was speeding, leaving the club.

Speaker 1: And so anyways, that was it was interesting. I mean, there's a lot of weird stuff out there and. You know, it's easy to kind of get distracted as to what are we really supposed to be doing here? What like as a church

Speaker 4: beyond just oh, well, let's have some meetings. What is our purpose? Why do why do we gather, why do we mean what, why do we exist as a body at all? And if you were to solely based the answer to that question on the articles, the blogs, the websites, the social media accounts that are out there, then you would probably end up with a very skewed answer. And so tonight I want to in our series refresher course, go over just a few basic thoughts on this topic of the purpose

Speaker 1: of the church.

Speaker 4: What are we supposed to be doing as a church body? Because a lot of us probably have some ideas as to what the church is supposed to be doing. We want to make sure that we go to God's word and get the

Speaker 1: answer as to what God says we should be doing. Don't you agree?

Speaker 4: OK, so the first question that I have to ask you is who gets to determine the purpose of the church? Is it the church gurus?

Speaker 1: We've got one

Speaker 4: right here in Oklahoma. Craig Rochelle says a lot of good things.

Speaker 1: I'm sure he's a very nice man. I've never met him. He's a

Speaker 4: church guru. A lot of people, if Greg Rochelle says it, they're going to do it. That's Craig Rochelle. Get to determine what the purpose

Speaker 1: of the church is now. He does.

Speaker 4: We're Americans, right?

Speaker 1: Wow, you guys are feeling patriotic, OK? Where we like the idea that Americans get a vote, a

Speaker 4: vote, a voice in the direction of the country.

Speaker 1: And so sometimes we allow

Speaker 4: that to dictate to us the same feelings we have about our church that sense as Americans, we basically tell our country what it's going to do. We should be able to tell the church as well. Well, do the people of the church get to determine the purpose of the church? Do the people of the church

Speaker 1: get to determine the purpose of the church?

Speaker 4: I mean, after all, they call it their church, don't we invite surmise that you should come to my church? Oh, we're driving my hey, that's our church. Does that mean I own it? So I get to determine the purpose of it now. Well, maybe you would say this, OK? Yeah, but we're the ones that pay the bills. I mean, it's my giving that keeps the lights on there. My giving pays the salaries of the staff, so I should be the one to direct the church. We're the ones who do all the work, and so we should decide the purpose

Speaker 1: of our church. Is that is that a good and right mindset to have?

Speaker 4: No, it's not.

Speaker 1: All right. Here's. Here it is. You ready for this? Here's a good one. The pastor. He gets to determine the purpose of the church. I mean, after all, the pastor

Speaker 4: went to school to do

Speaker 1: the job right. I know I put school in quotation marks, but. Some of you might know why, but school in quotation marks.

Speaker 4: I mean, he was trained to do it. The state even recognizes him as the president

Speaker 1: of the corporation. Shouldn't he get to decide

Speaker 4: the purpose and direction of the church he spends by far the most time at the church?

Speaker 1: Now, the answer is still no.

Speaker 4: See, no human can set the purpose of the church because no one of us, whether you in the pew, me in the pulpit, none of us own this church. Right. It's not ours. It is not ours to do with as we see fit. Somebody else already owns this. You ever found something on the side of the road, something that was somewhat valuable? I mean, not anything you'd pay money for, but because you found it on the side of the road like, Oh, well, okay, I'll take that. But then you find out it belongs to somebody else. Well, it's not yours. You got to give it back to the rightful owner. Who is the rightful owner of the church? Who? God, Jesus.

Speaker 1: How did Jesus come to own the church?

Speaker 4: Why does he get to say it's his? Well. How did you come to own your vehicle? You paid for it. You see, Jesus paid for the right to say, this church is my church, it is mine, I own it.

Speaker 1: This is clearly seen in X twenty twenty eight. You have to turn the I'll read to you.

Speaker 4: But when Paul refers to the flock of people that make up the church, he refers to them as being purchased by the blood of Jesus. Listen to this, he says. Take heed, therefore unto yourselves and all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost have made you overseers to feed the Church of God, which he has purchased with his own. What? Blood. He purchased the search. It's a perfectly logical assumption that if you pay for something, you ought to get to decide its purpose.

Speaker 1: Not only did he purchase the church,

Speaker 4: but if I could also submit to you, he built it. This fact is established in Matthew, 16 18 during a conversation between Jesus and his disciples. Jesus says this. I say also that thou art Peter, and upon this rock, I will build the church.

Speaker 1: Oh, you caught that you're not even looking at it. I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. It's another logical point of reasoning is that if you are the one

Speaker 4: who build something, you get to decide its purpose. Did you ever play with Legos when you were a kid? Maybe some of you were too old for that. Your play blocks when you were a kid. Oh, yeah, sure you did. Every kid at one time or another, you played with Legos or played with blocks or build some Lincoln logs. Tinker toys. Erector Set connects, I don't know whatever it was that you were building with you, built something, you designed it, you created it, you took it to your mom and you then said, Look what I built. And they're saying that is a nice thing. What is it? It's a spaceship. You as a

Speaker 1: parent are looking at that things that this thing doesn't look like a spaceship at

Speaker 4: all, what kind of spaceship is this? That kid built it, and they're mine. It is a spaceship. You build it, you get to define what it is. Jesus paid for the church, Jesus built the church, and so because of these two facts, if he built the church and he paid for the church, then when we go back to our texts and Matthew twenty eight verse number eighteen, we ought not be surprised when we read Jesus's words when he says this all power is

Speaker 1: given to me in heaven and in

Speaker 4: Earth. All power is given unto

Speaker 1: me, in heaven and in Earth.

Speaker 4: Now what power is he specifically referring to?

Speaker 1: Well, I mean, he is God, and he did say all, so I would just assume he means all. But I'm assuming that when Jesus claims all power, he is,

Speaker 4: including the power to govern the purpose of the church that he built

Speaker 1: and bought.

Speaker 4: See, none of us get to define what a church is. None of us get to determine or come up with our own ideas as to what the purpose of the church is. Jesus owns the church. Jesus built the church. So if we're going to discover what the purpose of a church is, we're going to have to get the answer from him. So what did Jesus establish as our purpose?

Speaker 1: Well, there's a reason why we're in Matthew twenty eight. This is the obviously the location of what many call the great

Speaker 4: commission, where Jesus lays out the the marching orders, the battle plan, the the grand design for what the church is supposed to be about. You say, well, how how could Jesus do that when there's no church yet? I mean, it's not Pentecost, right? Live, he is talking to the first church. You see, if he's only giving this command to the disciples, which is the way many present this, he's given a command of the disciples that this is what they're supposed to do. Well, if that's true, then what happens when the disciples are dead? Well, in the great commissions over. But if he's giving it to that first church, the organization

Speaker 1: organism, a lot of people would say,

Speaker 4: well, then

Speaker 1: that continues on as long as the church

Speaker 4: exists. We're here

Speaker 1: tonight at a local New Testament

Speaker 4: church, meaning Jesus words and magic. Twenty eight apply just as much to us as they did to the disciples. Two thousand years ago. And so for the answer of what is the purpose of the church, we continue

Speaker 1: reading in verse number one, our chapter twenty eight,

Speaker 4: where Jesus lays out for us

Speaker 1: the purpose for the church. The Bible says this. It says, Go ye, therefore, and

Speaker 4: teach all nations baptizing

Speaker 1: them in the name of the father and the son and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to

Speaker 4: observe all things whatsoever.

Speaker 1: I have commanded you lo. I am with you always, even under the end of the world.

Speaker 4: The first thing that we see here is that is is the command to go and teach all nations go and teach our nations another way. You can say this is to go and make disciples of all nations. The word teach here is deeper than what it might appear to be on the surface. Some of you might have had some very good teachers in your time in school. Some of you may have had some. Less than stellar teachers

Speaker 1: during your time in school,

Speaker 4: probably in college. But let me let me illustrate this way. A bad teacher has the attitude that their responsibility is to present the material. And that's it. If the audience or the students don't get it, well, then that's their fault. They should have been paying attention. A good teacher, however, is not just concerned with presenting the material, but with the understanding and acceptance of the material. And so a good teacher will take the extra time needed to ensure that as many of the students as possible grasp the material, the good teacher will not judge not only wait for the students to ask questions

Speaker 1: to determine whether or not they understand,

Speaker 4: but the good teacher will ask, imploring

Speaker 1: questions to see if the students are understanding.

Speaker 4: I've had both kinds, haven't you? There's been some teachers that I've sat under who obviously were very disinterested into whether I got the information into my head or not. But then there have been others who have gone the extra mile to try and ensure that I not only understood but accepted the material

Speaker 1: that I had been shared that had been shared with me.

Speaker 4: The good teacher is an example of what Jesus is saying in this world to teach all nations the word there is is very similar to the word that we would use for discipleship type relationship. And so when you see go and teach all nations, you don't think go and lecture to all nations, but rather go and disciple all nations.

Speaker 1: And so what Jesus is wanting is for the disciples to

Speaker 4: go, build relationships, train people in the gospel, get them to the point where they ready, then to accept the gospel and make a

Speaker 1: statement of faith.

Speaker 4: Not only are they trying to see

Speaker 1: conversions, not only they're trying to evangelize,

Speaker 4: but then we also see in verse number 19 that they are to then baptize those that receive the message of the gospel should identify themselves by means of baptism. Baptism is a public demonstration of what God has already done on the inside. I'm so glad we got to see a baptism on Sunday.

Speaker 1: It was very exciting and looking forward to more this coming Sunday, hopefully Lord willing. And so it's amazing how one person making that decision to step forward and baptism affects so many others who didn't say, You know what, I need to do that too. And so I'm excited for that. The baptism

Speaker 4: occurs after reception,

Speaker 1: the message and it says I have received

Speaker 4: and I am in agreement

Speaker 1: with the thing that I have been taught. So baptize them and then

Speaker 4: lastly, train them. We want to see them evangelized, baptized

Speaker 1: and then trained,

Speaker 4: I says, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever, I have commanded you. The disciples, the church are supposed to go out and after someone has gotten saved, after they've gotten baptized, there are to help them learn how to live their lives the way Jesus had taught his disciples to live their lives. I mean, the key words here, if you could sum up, Jesus is teaching his discipleship with the 11 would be to follow him. Follow him and whatever you were doing, follow Jesus.

Speaker 1: A lot of times they struggled with

Speaker 4: that, but remember, Jesus had taught them to live as citizens of his new kingdom, and this was a huge sticking point for the disciples. This idea of Jesus Kingdom and following him, you see, they thought his kingdom would be just like all the other kingdoms that had ever been established. They had a completely terrestrial view of what it meant to follow Jesus.

Speaker 1: Everything that they thought they knew was based on their prior experience.

Speaker 4: And so Jesus had to repeatedly get them to think beyond the things that they had already experienced before meeting him, for example, in the past, whenever they thought of a kingdom, a powerful earthly kingdom had soldiers. A powerful earthly kingdom had military might and wealth and influence and powerful allies. And so when Jesus refused to follow this pattern, the disciples were constant. It was the deal. I thought we were going to be a part of a kingdom. Where's the where's the revolution? Where where is the political power? What's going on? What they had to learn was that following Jesus often means abandoning a large majority of what many would consider to be common sense.

Speaker 1: I mean, let's think about it, and let's be honest with ourselves. A lot of the things that we do as Christians look pretty weird to the outside world.

Speaker 4: When I get up on Sunday morning to come here to the church, none of my neighbors are up. You know, nobody else is up and

Speaker 1: leaving their house going anywhere. Just the weird Christian guy. Think about this. How many of our neighbors, how many of our coworkers are giving, you know, a minimum of 10 percent to a charity? Every time they get paid. Not very many.

Speaker 4: Not very many at all. That's a weird things, people, you give how much to your church.

Speaker 1: Of course, we know we're not giving it to the church, we're giving it to God, right? You're not giving it to the pastor, you're not I'm not not paying to keep the lights on or paying the staff salaries. No, you're giving it to God. It looks weird to them. Even among some congregations, the fact that that we're seeing some

Speaker 4: of the songs that we do that seems weird to people. Congregational singing. Where else does that take place?

Speaker 1: I mean, I guess if you're at the ballpark and you're all singing, take me out to the ballgame.

Speaker 5: You know.

Speaker 4: Where else does that happen?

Speaker 1: You don't show up to the doctor's office and the secretary stands up and says, All

Speaker 4: right, before you come in for your for your appointment, let's all stand and sing three verses of I shall brush my teeth.

Speaker 1: It doesn't happen. Reading, reading a Bible or reading a book that was written, you know, at minimum two thousand years ago and thinking that it has some, some influence on your life, that's weird. Just look around the different ethnicities and social backgrounds, economic backgrounds, education backgrounds.

Speaker 4: The fact that we would all fellowship with one another, the fact that some of

Speaker 1: our younger

Speaker 4: adults would be here and would willingly talk to some of our older adults. What do you have in common?

Speaker 1: Nothing except Jesus.

Speaker 4: But that's weird. Is he following Jesus, we already know it's it doesn't follow common sense. But it's just helping people take the next steps

Speaker 1: in following Jesus. My point is this.

Speaker 4: You're already weird. What's a little more weird?

Speaker 1: Don't worry about it. It's no big thing. OK, so three three things.

Speaker 4: Evangelize. Just see them become disciples. Baptize public profession or public demonstration of identity with Christ.

Speaker 1: You think baptism is the last public identity with Christ that that we should make? Did you just

Speaker 4: say that clearly, I think I said that clearly. Do you think when you get baptized, that's the first

Speaker 1: and only time that you need to make a

Speaker 4: public declaration of your identity with Christ? OK, so it's just the first step. What do you do when one of what happens when when a kid gets baptized or an adult gets baptized?

Speaker 1: I remember when Titus got baptized and we called up our parents.

Speaker 4: Hey, I just got saved or actually was more like this, Hey, Titus is something to tell you. Otherwise, what do we do this still, this isn't this is a phone. So I just had something to tell you. You know. Nina, Papa, Granny, poor dad, I got saved. Only baptized on this day. You should come. Why does it stop there? Shouldn't it continue? All right, evangelized, baptize and then train training people to follow Jesus, to live by faith to to to not be afraid of setting worldly wisdom aside for godly wisdom. To to show them that that choosing to follow God is not saying, well, this is everything good and enjoyable in life, and I'm going to have to set all that aside so that I can

Speaker 1: suffer and follow Jesus. How, Pastor, he said that that we're supposed to take up the cross and follow him.

Speaker 4: Yes, but he also said that his

Speaker 1: is should have wrote down

Speaker 4: burden is easy, yoke is easy and my burden is light. Choosing to follow God is not saying well. Just going to have to be miserable for my

Speaker 1: whole life, but I guess it'll be worth it in the end when I get to heaven. Lineups, crowns in heaven, you know, suffering here.

Speaker 4: I don't think that's it. It's not I don't I don't think that's the the message we're supposed to be presenting to our children. I don't think that's the message that we're supposed to be presenting to our teenagers, serving God is this humdrum, boring, painful life, but there's heaven. These said, I am calm that they might have life and they might have it more.

Speaker 1: Abundantly.

Speaker 4: When we. Counsel, when we encourage people to repent of their sin, turn their back on their sin and follow him to as as as Matthew wrote it down to observe all things whatsoever, I have commanded you. It's it's trying to help people to live a better life. You don't seem convinced. Is it not a better life? It's not if you try to live with one foot in the world, no, then it's a very difficult, conflicted life. And maybe that's why we don't get as excited about it as we should. We have a purpose to do these three things. That's why I love baptism, it means, hey, we're doing our job, we're fulfilling our purpose. That's why level one is, you know, what's going on over there. Training them to observe all that he has commanded us. How do we accomplish this purpose? How do we accomplish this, this task of evangelizing, baptizing and training people? Well, there's one inescapable method you cannot get

Speaker 1: away from because it's biblical. And it's super self-serving for me because it's preaching. First Corinthians 121, the Bible says this after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew, not God.

Speaker 4: It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

Speaker 1: Foolishness of preaching.

Speaker 4: Now, lest you think I'm being

Speaker 1: too narrow in my definition of the word

Speaker 4: preaching, I know that preaching means to declare. And so yes, preaching is not always equal to delivering a sermon, but it is always equal to a declaration of truth by the spoken word.

Speaker 1: I let my wife do the preaching. That's not breach.

Speaker 4: Preaching is someone who declares someone who is a herald, someone who says, Hey, I have a message. It's opening your mouth and sharing the gospel with somebody, and no, you may never stand behind the pulpit or elected to a podium

Speaker 1: or whatever you want to call it and deliver a family.

Speaker 4: But you still have a responsibility as a Christian, as a member of a church to preach.

Speaker 1: Prejean must be a part of our ministry. It's an inclusion of

Speaker 4: verbal transfers of truth.

Speaker 1: It's a preaching is one way we fulfill our purpose.

Speaker 4: But there's another one in our text that I want you to look back in verse No. 19 for what is the first word, a verse of 19.

Speaker 1: Australian, what is the

Speaker 4: first word, inversely 19 go.

Speaker 1: Another way that we

Speaker 4: accomplish our purpose is by going this is that outward focus that we are trying to cultivate in our church. You see, we're not supposed to be an inward focused church because an inward focused church will lead to many issues internally focused. Churches are more focused on maintaining the internal culture of their congregation, then on evangelizing the external culture out in the community. An internal search oftentimes is one of the most critical churches of the culture in which we live in. They love to complain about it. They just don't want to do anything about it. Jesus did not tell the church stay either for and teach any.

Speaker 1: It's up on the screen, is that what it says? It says Go.

Speaker 4: If we're going to reach our community, we

Speaker 1: cannot afford to sit here and wait for them to come to us.

Speaker 4: You know, those articles I was telling you, sometimes they hit on some good stuff. One of the things that almost everybody is hitting on is this our culture is changing and attraction. Oil Ministry is not going to be as effective as it used to be. Used to be you could put up a banner in front of the church and say, VBS., everybody would flock to your VBS., you could put up a banner and say tent, meaning

Speaker 1: everybody would flock to your tent meaning. I didn't have anything else going on, so, you know, let's get out of the church, see what's happening. This is not the way things work. We don't live on a front porch society anymore.

Speaker 4: We can't sit here in our in our nice, cozy, climate controlled building and wait for the community to come in here and say, Would you please tell me how I can be saved?

Speaker 1: Mostly not going to happen. Occasionally, maybe. But we're not going to reach the world waiting for them to come to us.

Speaker 4: We have to go. We have to show them

Speaker 1: that we care enough about them to meet them where they are to try and reach them. We have to ask ourselves this question. Are we operating? At every level of ministry. In a way that will accomplish the purposes that Jesus has given us. Anybody ever been through an audit before? Don't raise your hand, just you're familiar with it. You know, that audit digs deep. Right. They don't they don't gloss over anything.

Speaker 4: They don't say it's no big deal. You don't have receipts for anything. No problem. No, they they get

Speaker 1: all up in your business. Sometimes we need to do an audit on what's happening here at this church. And look at the ministries. To see. Is it working? Is what we're doing fulfilling our purpose? You see, if something we're doing

Speaker 4: isn't fulfilling one of these three realms of purpose.

Speaker 1: And maybe we shouldn't be doing it anymore. See, we have limited time and resources I know about you. Maybe you've got infinite amounts of both, but I don't. That's also my the other day. Look, I've only got one life to live, I don't really want to waste it.

Speaker 4: Do you want to waste it?

Speaker 1: Some of you look at me and say, yeah, you're only thirty three. You got plenty of time. Really? There. Maybe I'm weird.

Speaker 4: I used to look at my life like when I turned twenty five, I thought, OK. Twenty five years average seventy five, I get to do this whole thing

Speaker 1: over again two more times.

Speaker 4: I'm thirty three.

Speaker 5: I.

Speaker 4: OK, so feel pretty confident. You know, I get to do this again at least once.

Speaker 1: One and a half more times. You know, and you get to like. Forty something, and then you definitely like, OK, well, you get to do this one more time. You have there in your sixties, you're like. I don't know how much time I got left.

Speaker 4: You passed 75, you're

Speaker 1: on borrowed time. You're taking time from somebody else and using it. We have a limited amount of time.

Speaker 5: On this Earth.

Speaker 4: You can either approach that and

Speaker 1: say, I'm going to do everything to make me happy and make me feel good in the time that I have. Or you can live in light of that future life that you hope to have in heaven. And hope you don't know. My hope is in my future life, I know it's come. Limited time, limited resources.

Speaker 4: We cannot afford to invest our limited availability into something that is not going to support the mission for

Speaker 1: which God has us on this Earth.

Speaker 4: So with that being said, there are some things that we will have to ex.

Speaker 1: Without, you know. Hesitating too long. Because the longer we wait. The more time is wasted. Some things we can access without too much examination. We'll talk about that for a second.

Speaker 4: Think about this when we cut something

Speaker 1: out because it's not

Speaker 4: fulfilling its purpose. It's not just that we're losing this thing, it's that we're making room for something else that is effective, right? Like desert. If I fill up on something that I don't really like eating. I'm not going to have enough room for the blue bell ice cream that's sitting in the freezer.

Speaker 1: Is no blue bell ice cream in my freezer right now, but

Speaker 4: if there was, I would want to make sure that I left room for it. Why?

Speaker 1: Because it's much more fulfilling. Same issue with ministry always filling up on things that are

Speaker 4: not fulfilling when

Speaker 1: we could be filling up on things that are fulfilling our purpose. If we're going to have this standard, then what do we know we can exclude?

Speaker 4: And what does it leave room for? Here's a few things that we can be free from in our church ministry, knowing that they do not fit with our purpose.

Speaker 1: A couple of things. Number one.

Speaker 4: If we keep our purpose, our mission in focus, then it will free us up from the pressure of meeting the expectations of a social club. If I keep my my mission as a Christian, as a member of this church, I keep my mission in focus that

Speaker 1: I am free from the pressures of trying to live up to the expectations

Speaker 4: of a social club. You see the people that give and support the Ministry of the Baptist Tabernacle are not paying their dues. And you give you're not. You're not paying your dues to some country club social institution. Because if you were then you would expect to receive what? Services perks.

Speaker 1: Pastor Jones, you know how much I give.

Speaker 4: I'm a gold level giver. I'm on the platinum plan. I expect, you know, everything in column a plus, everything in column B and C. Those millennials, they can't give very much there, so I can call them, I want all of them. This is a very unhealthy expectation, but it is a very prevalent expectation, even though most people

Speaker 1: won't admit it. Though I would hope. That you would find friends here at church.

Speaker 4: We should understand that we do not exist solely to provide people with a social outlet. The statement there's no one there, my age does not fly. We're just not at the same

Speaker 1: life stage as everybody else.

Speaker 4: If you're going to go join some social group

Speaker 1: out there, not a church

Speaker 4: you're going to look at, you're going to see, do we have same interests? Is there people there that are in a similar, you know, stage of life is me? You know, join with that. Why? Because that's the purpose. Interact with people that are in the same boat you are.

Speaker 1: But the church has a higher purpose.

Speaker 4: Its mission is not. Not on this level, it's on a higher plane.

Speaker 1: It's not a social club. We don't have dues, we don't do perks.

Speaker 4: That's free. That is freeing.

Speaker 1: Number two, we don't have to compare with an entertainment company.

Speaker 4: These are things we don't have to do because we have a mission. These things don't don't match our mission.

Speaker 1: We're not an entertainment company.

Speaker 4: Thank God, we're not called to be entertainers. Many churches, though, seem to be trying to answer the call anyways.

Speaker 1: That's pretty foolish endeavor, if you ask me. I know outside of our gatherings how bombarded I am by what I listen to watch and interact with. Don't judge me occasionally. I will play an Xbox. I know, I know. Those graphics, though, in. I remember playing like some games on my dad's Ms Dos computer, and that's when you guys go way that way beyond that. But, you know, using the directional keys in control and acts to jam, you know, I mean, and I've gone back and played those games since then, they are so.

Speaker 4: Lane.

Speaker 1: Compared to what they have now, you know, and I've worn one of those VR things, you know, I've done the Beat Saber game and so it looks like it's coming right at you.

Speaker 4: You watch VR Church is not

Speaker 1: too far away. You think he likes on on the couch and watching church on the TV, just wait, you can just put a headset on.

Speaker 4: And then the menu will come up and you just push the down arrow to pick your pew. You know. And there be like like when you're picking theater seats, some Senate seats are red

Speaker 1: because you know where the

Speaker 4: is already logged in, he logged in before you did. And he got his seat. So you have to sit somewhere else and you going to look around and there will be different people's avatars.

Speaker 1: You know,

Speaker 4: in church and

Speaker 1: you can like, send a message to somebody it'll pop up, you know, for their husband says, hi. But there has been will send a message back, and I'll say, I don't remember your name, but here's a nickname I made up for you.

Speaker 4: We can't we can't compete.

Speaker 1: With the the the production value of the entertainment industry. But our mission isn't dependent on us being able to wow you. And we're starting with an ancient book. How technologically advanced do you think the presentation is going to be? Do we want to do everything that we do to the best of our abilities, our effectiveness is not attached to our entertainment value.

Speaker 4: Her effectiveness as a church is not attached to how good of a show we put on. That's liberating.

Speaker 1: Though many would consider us a charity, we are not a humanitarian organization. We're not a social club, we're not an Iranian company. We're not a humanitarian organization. You don't have to go far to be convinced that there are people in this world who are in desperate need. We don't know what the future holds. It may get a lot worse before it gets any better.

Speaker 4: Do you realize if we fed every hungry kid, housed every homeless person, paid every doctor bill that couldn't be paid and every utility payment that was left outstanding, and that was it. We never went beyond just dealing with people's felt needs. We would have failed in our mission. Like all of the other things we've talked about before, there is a place for addressing these needs, the needs of the people around us. James, one twenty seven, tells us that pure religion requires us giving attention to the needs of the fatherless and the widows. But if we address the temporal needs and we ignore the internal needs and we are failing as a church.

Speaker 1: If we're not careful, these and other concerns can drown out our ability to accomplish our primary mission.

Speaker 4: Can you find social interaction at church? Yes. Is it helpful when there are other people your age and in your stage of life? Yes.

Speaker 1: Will you sometimes be entertained at church? I don't know, maybe. Should we try and help the poor and needy as we have ability? Absolutely. But these are not our primary mission. Real quickly, let me give you a few ideas on how we can be creative in achieving our mission. Number one, go get into our community. Collinsville needs to see the Baptist Tabernacle in everyday life. Look, how many people

Speaker 4: come to our church because they

Speaker 1: see our building while they're passing by. They've been shopping a tractor supply, they decide and they say, Hey,

Speaker 4: look, there's a church. I've been looking for a church. Maybe I'll visit there. Our building brings in a lot of guests. How many more people could we reach if they saw the members of the Baptist Tabernacle genuinely living the Christian life on a regular basis? If someone's willing to come in and visit this church based on the building, can you imagine what they would do and what they'd be willing to visit if they saw a genuine Christian at their workplace? They might interact with you and say, Hey, look, there's a Christian. I've been wondering what that life is all about and what it's like. Maybe I'll ask them.

Speaker 1: When I say go out into our community, I don't just mean put up a booth at community events. I don't just mean go door knocking. I don't mean just sponsor an

Speaker 4: ad at the school, so our logo shows up at the football game. I mean, that we as individuals need to be the church out in the community.

Speaker 1: And on social media. That's one way to get out into the community. Second, we

Speaker 4: use our facilities for outreach. The number one misused asset among churches in America is the church building. Many are used for four hours a week, and that's it.

Speaker 1: They have an open for services and they close them down. No one's allowed in the rest of the week. We want people in here on a regular basis. Much to the trustees chagrin, because the utility payments keep going up.

Speaker 4: Why are the bills more? Those were open more. So be a good thing.

Speaker 5: Right.

Speaker 1: We want people in here on a regular basis, three days a week.

Speaker 4: You know, we have 60 kids and their families here on the property for our preschool. It's a big deal. You know, the majority of those people don't come to our church.

Speaker 1: Last week we hosted an AA meeting, an entire neighborhood was invited here to our church for an annual Emmy. Multiple city and home school basketball teams practice in our gym. There are so many other things that take place that can't even go into all of it, but you realize

Speaker 4: every time we we have something like this. We are helping to tear down the barriers of someone coming and visiting our church. Not everyone will come for a church service right off the bat. But the more times there are in our building, the more we can tear down the fear that exists in their mind of the unknown.

Speaker 1: It's like, I don't know where to go. I don't know where anything is. I don't even know what it looks like in there, like, no, I've been there before. Also, I've told the story. I'll tell it again and again and again. You know, we have the we're able to have the pre-K and the kindergarten Christmas programs and graduation programs here from the FCC. And I remember

Speaker 4: kids coming in for one of the practices,

Speaker 1: and there was a little

Speaker 4: boy that came in and the first thing he said when he walked in the back doors of our church was this, he said, I know this place. I've been here before. And he was so excited. He doesn't go to church here, but he knew our church. And it was it was familiar to him. He got excited.

Speaker 1: Who knows what that boy's life is going to look like in a few years,

Speaker 4: maybe as a teenager?

Speaker 1: He's going to be looking for for some meaning and some purpose in his life.

Speaker 4: He's going to say, Hey, I've never been to church, but I've been inside the Baptist Tabernacle. Maybe I'll check that place out.

Speaker 1: And you do it. Better job of. Opening up our facilities going out into the community.

Speaker 5: You know.

Speaker 1: We have a mission to accomplish. It's not our mission, we didn't come up with it, we don't get to. Take the parts we like and set aside the parts we don't like. Jesus owns this church. Jesus built this church.

Speaker 4: Jesus gets to dictate the purpose

Speaker 1: and the vision and the mission of

Speaker 4: this church because it's his. That purpose is clearly

Speaker 1: spelled out in the New Testament very succinctly here in Matthew twenty eight.

Speaker 4: We had to reach the lost we were to baptize new believers. We're to train Christians to follow Jesus.

Speaker 1: I mean, corporately, personally, we need to perform regular

Speaker 4: audits to see if we are living up to our purpose. Things that don't help us fulfill our mission and need to be dropped.

Speaker 1: My dropping things that aren't working, we are free to focus our energy into the things that are. We have to do that as a church body. We should also be doing that personal.

Speaker 4: Are there things that we as a congregation need

Speaker 1: to adjust so that we can be more effective? Certainly. Are there things that you need to adjust in your personal life so that you can be more effective and fulfilling the mission that God has given you? You'll have to ask the Holy Spirit. Point those things out to you. Emily, Father, we thank for the state. Thank you for the time that we will spend together. Aw, thank you for. Taking a load off of us and. Not forcing us to try and figure out what we're supposed to do. Here at this church or you've already told us you've spelled it out, we've just got to follow you or we have to trust that your plan. They said earlier your plan is better than anything we could come up with. We would just be obedient to you and do what you've asked us to do or that you would bless us. You would you would help us to see fruit. Well, I ask that you would help us to do that as a church, also as individuals. Lord, we love you so much. Thank you for all you've done for us. It's in Jesus name. I pray. Amen.

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