Thank you, Trio. Let's open the Word of God together to three texts this morning that tell us something about the heart of the Lord. The first is in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 22 and 23. And the Father put all things in subjection under Christ's feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him. His body, the fullness of him, who fills all in all. And then in chapter 5, in verse 25, Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.
These were words written by the Apostle Paul to a body of people in the city of Ephesus. Three or four years after writing these words, he penned another letter to the pastor of the church at Ephesus, whose name was Timothy. I invite you to look in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and to notice what the Apostle says regarding the church as he writes to the pastor of this local church in Ephesus.
In 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 14, he says, I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long, but in case I am delayed, I write so that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. Which is a way of saying that the church is to uphold the truth of God in the world as a witness. A few decades passed, Paul was executed not long after he wrote to Timothy.
But one apostle remained until almost the end of the first century. His name was John. John, in around 91-92 AD, received the revelation of Jesus Christ, which is the last book of our New Testament. In that book, Jesus dictates seven letters to real, existing, historic churches. One of those churches was the church at Ephesus. In Revelation chapter 2, beginning in verse 1, we read these words from Jesus to the church, the local church at Ephesus.
To the angel of the church in Ephesus write, The one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this, I know your deeds, and your toil, and perseverance, and that you cannot endure evil men. And you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not. And you found them to be false. And you have perseverance and have endured for my name's sake, and have not grown weary.
But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first. Or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent. The church is the heart and the hub of God's doings in the world in this age. That does not mean one local church is the heart and the hub, but the church in a universal sense. As all of those who have believed in Jesus Christ in the world.
And yet the church with a capital C cannot be divorced from the local church. An assembly of confessing and baptized believers in Jesus Christ who meet together in a defined geographical setting. For certain purposes. Ephesus was an example of a local church. And of course there were many others in the first century. The local church which worships Jesus Christ and proclaims the word of God is where the action is as far as God is concerned.
And he keeps abreast, you will notice, of what's happening in each local church. He is the one who walked among the seven golden lampstands, each one of them representing one of the seven churches mentioned in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation. And the reason that he walked among them was that he might examine them. The church, the local church, is the heart of what God is doing in the world today. And Jesus is vitally concerned with each local church that exists.
He wants its testimony to burn brightly and he warns. Unless it does, he may come and remove the testimony of that church. Jim Detmer, who is now on the staff at Willow Creek Church in Chicago, says that there are three paradigms or models. Of a local church which need to function simultaneously in each local church. He says the local church is community, corporation, and cause. And each of those paradigms needs to reflect something of each local church.
The local church is a community, that is, it is a place where relationships are built in Jesus Christ. A local church is a corporation, that is, it is characterized by order and by organization. And the local church is cause, that is, it is distinguished by a sense of purpose, mission, or cause in the world. It is particularly this last theme that I am seeking to address here in the month of February. The cause of Grace Church Roseville, its mission, its purpose in the world.
You'll find in your worship folder again today a statement of the mission of our church. It's in the very middle of the bulletin. And it says, Grace Church Roseville is a community of believers whose purpose is to worship the Lord Jesus Christ and prepare itself through biblical instruction, service, and fellowship in order to evangelize the world. That is a philosophic statement of our reason for being.
But a theoretical or ideological statement is only so much ink on paper until it is understood and owned by those who are a part of that organization. The mission of any organization, whether it be a corporation or a hospital or a church, must be personalized and adhered to by those who are members of it, if it is to be successfully undertaken. I read a statement recently that was given to me that said, outstanding people have one thing in common, an absolute sense of mission.
Outstanding people have one thing in common, an absolute sense of mission. I suppose that you, like me, have been attracted this last week to the Olympics in Alborville, France. We have thrilled to see athletes that have skills finely honed and prepared for the Olympic Games. I enjoyed watching Paul Wiley last night as he won his silver medal. It's been a joy to see Bonnie Blair this week as she has won two gold medals, and thrilled us all with her athletic ability.
I tell you the people at the athletic games in France have a sense of mission. And for the last several years, that sense of mission to be at this Olympic game has consumed their lives. And they are there, they are outstanding as athletes because they have had this absolute sense of mission, I want to be in the Olympics, and they are there. Whether for good or for evil, whether for altruistic aims or for selfish purposes, mission is important.
Whether it be George Washington or Adolf Hitler, Iacocca or Marx, Mother Teresa or Yasser Arafat, it is a sense of mission that enables one to be outstanding. I don't mean necessarily good or evil, but outstanding in what he does. He makes a difference in the world. It is a sense of mission. Mission is enhanced and strengthened when it can be somehow depicted. When we can visualize it, an idea becomes real to us. Someone has said a picture is worth a thousand words.
If a thought is to become a reality, it helps to have a picture of it. This morning an architect in our church was interviewed before the service. He is a man who does exactly this. He takes an idea that someone has. He takes a mission, he takes a philosophy, he takes all kinds of information into his mind, and he envisions in his mind what this building needs to look like. He puts it down on paper. You and I need to have some kind of a picture of what this mission statement means.
I believe that an effective picture is that of a mission station. A mission station, a mission center in the world. Thus you notice that it says below that mission statement, we see ourselves as a mission center. Of course there are a number of biblical pictures that might be used. The Bible says that the church is a temple, it's a body, it's a bride, it's a city. And each of these captures some significant idea about the church.
But the depiction that I think captures our mission statement is the picture of a mission center. And so I want to suggest to you that we see ourselves as a mission center. And that a mission center is the vision of what God wants us to be and to do in the world. Now mission center admittedly is not a biblical term, but it is a description of a biblical concept. I believe that's the kind of a church Ephesus was.
Paul went to that key city in Asia Minor and then from that city people went out to plant churches in cities around there. Paul had never been to Colossi when he wrote the letter to the Colossians. How did they hear the gospel? People from Ephesus had traveled that hundred miles, won people to Christ there in that city and established that church. Obviously the people in Ephesus saw themselves as something like a mission center. We could talk about the church in the city of Thessalonica.
Paul says, from you has sounded out the word of God so that we don't even need to come into the region around Thessalonica and preach in the other cities because you've already done that. The church in Thessalonica saw itself as a mission center. And that's the way I'd like for us to see ourselves, a mission center. A mission center is a base of operations. A base of operations. And it implies the presence of missionaries, its very name does.
I believe that is exactly what God intends for us to be. He has commissioned us as a people to live in an alien and foreign culture to be his witnesses. And frankly our culture has never been more alien to the gospel than it is today. One analysis of the church in our day is Kennan Callahan. He says, the day of the churched culture is over. The day of the mission field has come. What he is saying is that as in generations past, the American culture was a churched culture.
But it is not so any longer. He says today, American culture is a mission field. And I think he's right in his analysis. We are missionaries on a mission field. The problem that some missionaries have is that they grow affectionate for the godless culture around us. Indeed all of us are tempted to see this culture as our home. We are tempted to accommodate to the culture, to settle down and be comfortable. Rather we ought to be like Abraham.
We ought to see ourselves as aliens and strangers in this culture in which most of us have been born and reared. For we have been called out of this kingdom to be a part of the kingdom of the king of kings and the lord of lords whom we've worshipped this morning. This world is not our home. We need to see ourselves as missionaries. Of Abraham it says, by faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise.
As in a foreign land, looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. Later in Hebrews 11 it says that he along with the other faithful and godly before him, confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. The writer says, those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. They desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared a city for them.
This world is not our home. We are on our way home. We are pilgrims here who are called by God to be missionaries. And our local church is our mission center. Ephesus practiced this in its early years. But 30 or perhaps 40 years after its founding things were different in Ephesus. Oh there were still good things happening. They were still searching out false teachers and proving them to be false and they were busy in good works and they were enduring. But something was missing in the church.
There was a drive, a motivation that was lacking after 30 or 40 years. And Jesus says, you've left your first love. He says to them, remember and get back there. Or even though you're doing good things, I'm going to come and remove your testimony as a church. It is important that we not merely do good things, but that our motives be pure and right. That our love for Jesus Christ be the heart of our motives. When we say that we are a mission center, we are confessing something about our culture.
And we are confessing something about ourselves. When we call ourselves missionaries, we are saying that we know to whom we belong. And we know where home really is. And therefore we're going to make our decisions accordingly in this alien world. We are a mission center. It implies that we're missionaries. And when we say that, we need to understand that a mission center is where missionaries meet or live together.
A mission compound historically has been the grounds or the area of residence and work for missionaries in a foreign culture. The mission compound has in the past often been protected. And it provided a place of solitude and escape for missionaries from the demands and the pressures of the native people with whom they worked. Now some people say the mission compound was a good idea, others say it was a bad idea, that's debated.
But the point is this, that that mission compound was a common place. It was a base of operations for the missionaries. It was a place where some important things happened in their lives. So that then after they had had those things happen, they could get out into their work, their real work. That was the purpose of the mission compound. We're something like that as a local church when we call ourselves a mission center. Because we come together for certain purposes.
So that then we can go out to the real work God has called us to. That's the point. What would we think of a missionary who sent us a prayer letter and said to the effect, We have built a wonderful mission compound. You ought to see the homes we have here. We have worked day and night to construct these homes. We have walls around this compound to protect us from the dangers that are very real in our culture. And the gardens, you ought to see them, they're beautiful here in the mission compound.
You would say, wait a minute. Are we supporting that missionary to go over there and build a mission compound? Or to win people to Jesus Christ and establish the church? And we'd have a right asking that question because a missionary is not sent merely to build up the compound. I want to say to you that we are not sent into this world merely to build up the church either. As important as it is. We are here for more than just to build a comfortable place for us to come together and to worship.
We are here so that we can come together in the mission center and do some things that must be done here. But our purpose is not in here. Our purpose is out there where God has sent us to be missionaries. So we see ourselves as a mission center. Our local church is where we meet together so that then we can go out into the world. That brings me to my final point, which is that a mission center is where missionaries choose to leave so they can fulfill their mission.
There's something very comfortable about being with God's people. We're all alike, about 90 percent. Sometimes the other 10 percent gives us problems. But for the most part we think alike, we believe alike, we tend to look alike. We use the same kinds of language. It's comfortable being in the mission center. But we are missionaries and we must choose. We must force ourselves beyond the walls of the mission center. We have to get ourselves beyond the comfort zone.
We have to get ourselves beyond the comfort zone of the mission center, into the culture, so that we can do the work God has called us to do. The mission center is important. It's strategic. It's vital. But the real work of the missionary is outside the mission center. That is the work of making disciples. That is, winning people to Jesus Christ, baptizing them, and teaching them what he's commanded.
The result, by the way, of their doing that, going through that process, being one and baptized and discipled, is that they then themselves become missionaries. I want us to see ourselves not merely as church members, but as missionaries of God. Not merely as maintenance workers of God's kingdom, but as people who have a mission to accomplish. I want us to see our church as a mission center. Please, I want to underscore that what we do in the mission center is important.
What do we do in the mission center? Well, if you notice the diagram that is in the worship folder, there are three things that we do inside that circle. A church, if it's going to be a church, must do those three things. We are going to worship Jesus Christ together. We are going to worship Jesus Christ together. Inside the mission center, we're going to prepare ourselves through biblical instruction and service and fellowship.
We're going to be equipped, we're going to be built up as people and as missionaries. And inside the mission center, there's going to be some evangelism. People are going to be one to Jesus Christ in the programs within the mission center itself. That's appropriate. Those things are important. But the mission center itself and what happens in there is not the end. It's the means to the end.
And you notice there are arrows that go out of the mission center to relational evangelism, to cultural keys, to branch churches. Those kinds of things describe what the end is for us. What happens inside the circle is the means to the end outside. In their book entitled Revitalizing the 20th Century Church, Lloyd Perry and Norman Shawchuck write this way, Visions hold one thing in common with wishes and dreams, in that they are images of a desired condition.
A vision, however, differs from wishes and dreams in certain important respects. A wish is an image of something a person would like to see happen, but it is believed to be beyond his ability to accomplish. A dream is also like an image of something a person would like to see happen. It differs from a wish in that it carries with it a significant emotional experience. A person will feel the dream much more keenly and will spend a great deal of time pondering upon it than a mere wish.
But a vision, a vision goes beyond either a wish or a dream to capture the person. A person may have a wish or a dream. A vision, however, has the person. Having come under the control of the vision, a person will pay any price to the point of death to bring the vision into full reality. When we say that we are a mission center, we are saying that that is the vision of our church. If it is only a wish, if it is only a dream, it will never be. It must be a vision.
And not merely the vision of the pastor, or the pastoral staff, or the elders, or the leaders of the church. It must be the vision of every person who is a part of the church. 35 years ago a letter came to light which was written by a young man who had originally planned to enter the Christian ministry. I don't know what happened. I don't know what caused his life to take such a drastic turn. But the young man became a communist. And this is the letter that he wrote to a friend.
What seems of first importance to you is to me neither, either not desirable or impossible of realization. But there is one thing about which I am in dead earnest. That is the communist cause. It is my life, my business, my religion, my hobby, my sweetheart, my wife and mistress, my bread and meat. I work at it in the daytime and dream of it at night. Its hold on me grows, not lessens, as time goes on. I'll be in it the rest of my life.
When you think of me it is necessary to think of communism as well because I am inseparably bound to it. Therefore I can't carry on a friendship, a love affair or even a conversation without relation to this force which both drives and guides my life. I evaluate people, books, ideas, actions according to how they affect the communist cause and by their attitude toward it. I have already been in jail because of my ideas and if necessary I am ready to go before a firing squad.
Now what does this mean for us communists in a personal way? Well it means this, we are in the forefront of the working class in its titanic struggle with the capitalist class. We take the heaviest and most direct blows. We have a high casualty rate. We are the ones who get stoned and hanged and lynched, tarred and feathered, jailed and slandered and ridiculed, fired from our jobs and in every way made as uncomfortable as possible. A certain percentage of us get killed or imprisoned.
Even those who escape these harsher ends of life, it's not a bed of roses. A genuine communist lives in virtual poverty. He turns back to the communist party every penny he makes above what is absolutely necessary to keep him alive. We constantly look for places where the class struggle is the sharpest and exploit the situation to the limit of its possibilities.
We have strikes, we organize demonstrations, we speak on street corners, we fight police, we go through trying experiences many times each year, which the ordinary worker has to face only once or twice in a lifetime. When we are not doing the more exciting things, all our spare time is taken up with the dull routine chores, the endless legwork, the errands which are inescapably connected with running a live organization.
Communists don't have time or money for many movies or concerts or T-bone steaks or decent homes and new cars. We have been described as fanatics. We are. Our lives are dominated by one great overshadowing factor, the struggle for communism. I don't know about you, but that kind of commitment shames me. As I compare the commitment that I have to the cause of Jesus Christ to this. And now 35 or 40 years later, his cause has crumbled in the world.
But you and I are part of a kingdom that cannot be shaken. We are part of the Church of the Living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth of God. We are a mission center. And God has called us to be missionaries. Yes, to do our thing in the mission center, but more than that, to go beyond the mission center into the world that needs us. And there to be his missionaries. Outstanding people have one thing in common, an absolute sense of mission. Let's bow together.
How do you see your mission, my friend? Is this one that depicts Grace Church close to yours? I hope it is. God has called us to be his people in the world, that we might proclaim the excellencies of him who's called us. And that mission is worth our all. Father, forgive us for our half-heartedness, our lukewarmness, for leaving our first love. Many good things are happening in our church. And you know that because you examine our candlestick as well.
But we need a rekindling of a sense of mission in our hearts. We need a renewal of our devotion, Lord Jesus, to your person and to your cause. I pray that as we come face to face with this, over these weeks as we talk about it, that we'll be able to honestly answer you and say, Lord, it's all for you. Not part for me and part for you, but it's all for you, my Jesus. Amen. I thank you.