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© 2004

The Purpose of Our Church

Matt.22:37—40 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.Love your neighbor as yourself All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

Matt.28:19—20 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.

1. Love the Lord with all your heart..
The word that describes this purpose is WORSHIP. The church exists to worship God. How do we love God with all our heart? By worshiping Him. [Matt4:l0] "Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only". NOTE; Worship comes before service. Sometimes we get so busy working for God, we don’t have time to express our love for him through worship. Psalm. 34:3 "0 magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together." We should not worship out of duty; we should worship because we want to.

2. Love your neighbour as yourself.
The word we use to describe this purpose is ministry. The church exists to minister to people. Ministry is demonstrating God’s love to others by meeting their needs and healing their hurts in the name of Jesus. Each time you reach out in love to others, you are ministering to them. Eph.4:12. The church is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry" In Matt. 10:42 Jesus said that even a cup of cold water given in his name would not go unrewarded. Very little time is spent in actual ministry.

3.Go and make disciples.
This purpose we call evangelism. The church exists to communicate God’s Word. We are ambassadors for Christ, and our mission is to evangelize the world. The word go in the Great Commission is a present participle in the Greek text. It should read "as you are going." It is every Christian's responsibility to share the Good News wherever we go. We are to tell the whole world of Christ’s coming, his death on the cross, his resurrection, and his promise to return. Evangelism is more than our responsibility, it is our great privilege. We are invited to be a part of bringing people into God’s eternal family. If you knew the cure for cancer, I’m sure you’d do everything you could to get the news out. It would save millions of lives. But you already know something better: You’ve been given the Gospel of eternal life to share, which is the greatest news of all. As long as there is one person in the world who does not know Christ, the church has a mandate to keep growing. Growth is not optional; Jesus commands we should not seek church growth for our own benefit, but because God wants people saved.

4.Baptizing them.
In the Greek text of the Great Commission there are three present participle verbs: going, baptizing, and teaching. Each of these is a part of the command to "make disciples". Going, baptizing, and teaching are the essential elements of the disciple making process. Why is baptism so important to warrant inclusion in Christ’s Great Commission? It is because it symbolizes one of the purposes of the church: fellowship—identification with the body of Christ. As Christians we are called to belong, not just to believe. We were not meant to live lone—ranger lives; instead, we are to belong to Christ’s family and be members of his body. Baptism is not only a symbol of salvation, it is a symbol of fellowship. It not only symbolizes our new life in Christ, it visualizes a person’s incorporation into the body of Christ. It says to the world, "This person is now one of us". Eph.2:19 [Living Bible] "You are members of God’s very own family and you belong in God’s household with every other Christian." The church exists to provide fellowship for believers.

5. Teaching them to obey.
The word we commonly use to refer to this purpose is discipleship. The church exists to edify, or educate, God’s people. Discipleship is the process of helping people become more like Christ in their thoughts, feelings, and actions. This process begins when a person is born again and continues throughout the rest of his life. Col. 1:28. "We continue to preach Christ to each person, using all wisdom to warn and to teach everyone, in order to bring each one into God’s presence." [ as a mature person in Christ. ] As a church we are called not only to reach people, but also to teach them. After someone has made a decision for Christ, he or she must be discipled. Eph.4:l2b.—13. Paul writes " ... that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. " Acts 2:1 —47. We see in the first church, they taught each other, they fellowshipped together, they worshiped, they ministered, and they evangelized. Today our purposes are unchanged. The church exists to edify, encourage, exalt, equip, and evangelize.