Week 12, what is a Reformed Baptist? The purpose of the church. Ephesians 3, 1-12, Paul says, For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you've heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly, When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that He has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through one faith in Him." I'll just mention something that in the Old Testament, the mystery is not the gospel, okay there is a progressive unfolding of the gospel in the Old Testament the mystery Paul says quite plainly the mystery verse 6 the mystery is what that the Gentiles are fellow heirs the mystery is that is revealed in the New Testament is that the church is going to be comprised of both Jews and Gentiles. In fact, it's not that Jews become Gentiles or Gentiles become Jews, neither one is true, but they are partaker of the one body, the body of Christ, of the church. This is what Paul is saying. And so this is week 12, and we're working on the Reformed Baptist understanding of the church, which I'm saying is the biblical understanding. We're working on a four-part outline. And so we talked about the principle of the church, the polity of the church, and tonight will be the purpose of the church, and then next week the practice of the church. So we covered principle, you know, polity. In fact, I'll put them in questions this afternoon when I was thinking through this. The questions that we're answering is this, number one, who is the church? Okay, that was the principle, the principle. Who is the church? Those born again, talked about the universal church and then local visible congregations. Second question, how is the church structured? So who is the church? Answered it. How is the church structured? That's what we covered last week, polity. regenerate church membership, congregational, elder led, deacon served, okay, polity. How is the church structured? That's it. Thirdly, and that's tonight, why does the church exist? Why? That's the question we're going for tonight. Why? Okay, that's purpose. And then next week, what does the church do? That's the practice. Okay, how does this show itself tangibly, practically, that's what we're going for. All right, so tonight, the purpose of the church. Why does the church exist? I'm glad you asked that question because if you wouldn't, we wouldn't have much to discuss tonight. So why does the church exist? Here's the glory of Christ. So that's really, it's going off number one right here. You already got it. Number one, why does the church exist? Number one, exaltation. The church exists for the exaltation of the triune God because of what He has accomplished in Christ to rescue His people from their sins. Now on this point, this is the only one like this really, but on this point, I do have two sub-points. Because by exaltation, I have a two-fold meaning. I mean, in essence, the very existence of the church brings glory to Christ, brings glory to God through Christ. and in function. All right, so let's break it down and I'll explain that. So first, in essence, and we're going to get to the text I just read, the essential nature of the church is one of exaltation. The very fact that the church exists exalts the glory of God. This is directly from our text. I'm not going to read it all again, but I'll read verse 8 through 11. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church You listen to verse 10? So that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now there's a discussion, what does Paul mean there in verse 10 about rulers and authorities in the heavenly places? Some people are tempted because Ephesians 6 uses the same language and it's clearly in that passage talking about demonic forces. And so some people say, well, the interpretation is that he's talking about demons here and that he is displaying his glory even before the demons. I don't think it has to be that. Maybe it is that, but I'm going to take a different angle and say that he's talking about the angels here. Either way you take it, The point remains, holy angels love the church, and fallen angels, that is, demons, hate the church, and it's all for the same reason. Why? Because the church displays the manifold wisdom of God. Satan hates the church for the same reason angels love the church. Because the very essence of the church brings glory to God in the face of Christ. The very existence of the church as the unfolding of God's plan from eternity past exalts His wisdom. That's what v. 10 says. Through the church, I'm reading v. 10, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. All you could get in the Old Testament was types and shadows and what is this really going to look like? And now it's here. Jesus has arrived. Jesus has conquered. Jesus is building his church and now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God is being declared to those, to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, which I think that we, I think it's talking about the angels. So one idea here is that part of what the church does, which you might not have thought about this before, is display God's wisdom before the angels. God gets glory from the angels in heaven as they marvel at His wisdom in the church. It's not that we're preaching to the angels, we don't talk to angels, I'm not talking like that, but as the angels see what God is doing in the church, uniting people from different ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic backgrounds, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, once enemies, now bringing them into one family, they marvel at and glory in the manifold wisdom of God. How could God create a people who were once enemies into a redeemed bride? And this is the wisdom of the cross. Jesus Christ who bore our wrath, Jesus Christ who cleansed us by His blood, that's the answer. By His resurrection, He justifies the ungodly from among the nations, and He is assembling them into one body which is visibly manifested in local churches throughout the world. Does this make sense? I hope it makes sense. Why does the church exist? Exaltation. William Hendrickson says, the church does not exist for itself. It exists for God, for His glory. When the angels in heaven behold the works and wisdom of God displayed in the church, their knowledge of the God whom they adore is increased, and they rejoice and glorify Him. Calvin puts it this way, the church composed both of Jews and Gentiles is a mirror in which angels behold the astonishing wisdom of God displayed in a manner unknown to them before. And let me stress again that this cannot be known, this cannot be understood apart from the church gathering and living together in unity. So let me just give an argument real quick. Someone says, I don't go to church, I am the church. The angels aren't beholding the manifold wisdom of God by seeing Sally, who is the church, go to Walmart on Sundays and buy her a box of cornbread, right? I mean, that's not amazing to them. What is amazing is when the church is being the church, which is gathering in worship and the other things we'll talk about tonight. They adore God all the more by seeing his wisdom displayed in the church. Does that make sense? point one A. The church exists for exaltation and I'm saying that's the very essence. That's in essence of the church is exaltation. But secondly, Why does the church exist? We're talking about exaltation, but the second point here is this is in function as well. Not just in essence, but in function. So why does the church exist? To functionally, not merely by its essence, but by its function to exalt the Lord. So let me give you an example. individuals so each individual is made and this is why we're one of the reasons that we are pro-life or pro-life because the very moment that a child is conceived in the womb that child is an image bearer of God that child by its very essence by its very essence brings glory to God because he or she is an image bearer of God does that make sense But we don't stop there. We don't want to just be image bearers that bring glory to God by being made in God's image. We also want to functionally bring glory to God with our lives. Following Him, trusting Him, trusting the Gospel, living a holy life. Okay, that's an example. I'm saying that is true with the church. The very fact, so the essence, the very fact that God has redeemed unworthy rebels, united them into one body with Jesus Christ as head, that fact in and of itself brings glory to God. But we don't stop there. It is the purpose of the church, listen, it is the purpose of the church to exalt, functionally exalt His name. And I'll actually argue this. In everything else that we talk about tonight, this is the one that takes priority. It flows through all the other points you're going to hear tonight. In all that we do, we are seeking to functionally, not just by the fact that we exist, but to actively and functionally exalt the name of Christ. Alright? So this has a lot of ramifications. Let me give you some examples. This is one reason for example, why our Sunday gatherings are not evangelistic rallies. Okay? They are appointed times for the church to gather and do what? Exalt the name of Christ. So 1 Peter 2.9 says this, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into marvelous light." There is a corporate proclamation of the excellencies of God that happens from the church. Again, I'm going to make this very, very tangible and practical for you. And maybe you wonder, why do we do things the way we do? Well, just hear me out. Sometimes churches wrongly will say things like this. Look, we don't want to make our services too deep. We don't want to make them too theological. Let's keep everything short, efficient. everything running smoothly, attractive, because we want to get people here. That's the goal. The goal is let's get as many people here as we can. We'll get them plugged in. And once they're here, once they're plugged in, well, if they want to, you know, we'll have small groups or something and they can go deeper there. I'm pushing against that, you already knew I'm against that, but we need to, and I'm showing you why, we need to understand that the church's function is not attractional, but here's a fun word, doxological. Meaning, doxology comes from two Greek words, we sing doxology at the end, it just means, it's doxa, glory, logos, word, so etymologically it just means a word of glory. But functionally, one definition is this, the church vocally exalting God in response to who He is and what He has done. So, I'm arguing that our goal is not attractional, but doxological. Meaning, when we gather on Sunday mornings, or Sundays, our goal is not to cast as big a net as we can, get as many people as we can here. We want that, of course, amen? Like, I want more people. It's not that we're against that. It's just that that's not our goal. Our goal is exaltation. Again, I'll say this. I don't want to be intentionally boring. Oh, you're doing a good job in your preaching. I don't want to intentionally be boring. But I do want to say this, so just hear me out. And this should make sense. I hope it makes sense to you. Unbelievers, in a sense, I hope that they would find our services a bit odd, a bit weird, a bit boring. Why? Because our services are designed to be otherworldly. Does it make sense? Because we're praying to God, we're reading scripture, we're teaching, we're singing robust theology loudly, we're preaching. This better, in fact, if not, we're not doing it right. The things that are happening here, an unbeliever should not be able to experience that anywhere else throughout the week. Does it make sense? Instead a lot of church do the opposite. Let's make Sunday as worldly as we can to make believe unbelievers feel comfortable here now again I'm not saying to be a jerk about it, but understand the position. I don't want unbelievers to be comfortable here I want them to feel welcome. Does that make sense? But I don't want them to sit through the service and be like well, that's just like out there in the world I want them to think we I've stepped into something that's different and Why? Because we are called to exalt the name of God. You understand? That's what we're doing. So we're doing this because one of the purposes of the church is exaltation. Okay, a lot more I could say. You want to make a comment or anything on that? We'll go to number two. Okay, we're talking about why does the church exist. Number one, exaltation, and that has two components. In essence, the very essence of the church exalts God because of the gospel and what Jesus Christ has done. And in function, we seek to actively exalt God. Okay, second, the church exists for edification. 1 Thessalonians 5.11, therefore, encourage one another and build one another up. just as you are doing. I'll give you a dictionary definition, Christian dictionary of edification. The building up and strengthening in the faith of believers and churches. Believers are strengthened by God and urged to, to build one another up. The church is edified through God's word, through the Holy Spirit and the proper use of spiritual gifts, through the church's appointed ministries and through the mutual love, support, encouragement of its members. Okay, so one of the reasons the church exists is for the edification of believers, to build one another up in the faith. Well, how is this done? There's multiple ways. It's done through fellowship and encouragement and these things, but the ordinary means of grace, we don't want to forget those, preaching, singing, praying, the ordinances, reciting scripture to one another. The corporate worship, I would point out again, if corporate worship is just left, is it if corporate, if every Sunday all it is is like this milk level teaching and preaching superficial, very shallow songs that is not going to be edifying to the Christian. Let me see. An analogy. OK, so Most of us as adults, now I can get in trouble, man, around Christmas time, y'all, y'all can too, I know. Most of us as adults, we understand that the constant eating of junk food is not good for you. And in fact, most of us, if we eat junk food, it may taste good, but most of us at an age where it's like, actually, I don't feel as good eating that stuff, you know? Okay. Well, the believer cannot survive on spiritual junk food. You're not edified by constantly feeding off spiritual junk food. And so this is one of the reasons that we ought to have robust corporate worship. There's so much more that we could talk about. Accountability with one another. We're not only edified during corporate worship. We ought to be edified in our fellowship together. Life together even church discipline. There's edification happening because we confront one another over sin We're leading one another in mercy and restoration and repentance Even if actually even if church discipline has to go to the end and you remove someone It still pushes toward the edification of the body as a whole So one of the reasons that the church exists is to edify to build believers up. That's why Someone who's not there's so many things we could say you know like do you have to come to church a certain amount of times you have to be involved in all the activities of church and all those things well i can say this the more plugged up you are in the church the more opportunities for edification you have and i don't know about you but i need that i need that and that's one of the reasons church exists edification thirdly exaltation edification thirdly why does the church exist what is the purpose of the church equipping I stayed with the E words. I could have used discipleship. That's what we're talking about. Matthew 28, 19 and 20. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. I'll say that again. Teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." So it is the responsibility of the church to teach, to train, to equip. This is done in a variety of ways. This is done in the way that we gather corporately, in our singing, in prayers, ordinances. All of this is instructional and teaching. By the way, we should love Doctrinally rich songs because we are teaching in our songs. Okay It's important. We're teaching. Of course. We have the the primacy of the preaching of the Word of God Preaching of the Word of God is meant to teach it is meant to Instruct it is meant to equip In Sunday school, we are teaching, we are equipping. On Wednesday nights, what's happening tonight, we are teaching, we are equipping. All of this is trying to be obedient to what the Lord Jesus has said and teaching one another all that Jesus has commanded us. And all of this is centered in the Gospel. Let me use a quote by Edmund Clowney. Actually, I don't know if they're on your sheet or not, but he says we're equipping believers, now here's his quote, to know the Lord, to do the Lord's will, and to be like the Lord. It's a pretty good summary. We're equipping the church to know the Lord, to do the Lord's will, and to be like the Lord. So I can do that on my own. I've got YouTube. I've got whatever. It's like, no, you can't do it. You can't do it like face to face. interaction that our Lord Jesus teaches us to have. So, we want to understand who God is, to know Him. in His divinity, His trinity, His attributes, and all that He is. We want to do what the Word of God says to do. We want to imitate Him. We want to follow Him. Like I said, it's all centered in the Gospel by what Christ has done. It's by the Gospel that we come to a saving knowledge of God and Christ by the Holy Spirit. It's by the Gospel that we're freed to Obey, equipped to obey. It is by the Gospel that we are being ever more conformed unto the likeness of Christ. Why does the church exist? One of the reasons is to equip the saints. Now let me talk about pastors for a minute. We talked about pastors last week. Pastors have a special role in this, an overseen role in this. Ephesians 4, 11 and 12, and He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers. to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. Or Peter says, 1 Peter 5, 1-3, So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. So what I'm saying here is that pastors play an important role in equipping the saints, in setting the parameters for sound doctrine, in laboring and preaching and teaching. All this is about equipping the saints. It's one of the purposes of the church. It's why, do you know the thing that sets a pastor apart? They are to be able to model godliness in their life. But that's not so much like, yes, they should be set apart in that way, yes. But Miss Virginia should be godly too, right? It's not like you look at a pastor and you're like, okay, in the church, they're supposed to be the godly ones, and then we just run around like hooligans, right? No. The whole church is supposed to be holy. The whole church is supposed to be godly. Now, the pastor should be able to be exemplary in that, so that's important. But I'm just saying godliness in and of itself is not what sets the pastor apart. You know what it is? What is the one qualification? He has to meet the other qualifications, yes. But what is the one qualification that other Christians do not have to meet? Yeah, he has to be apt to teach. He's called by God to teach. He has to be able to teach. OK, why? Because a pastor has a specific role in teaching and guarding sound doctrine. Right. So very, very important. However, It's not just pastors. It doesn't stop with pastors. I've got a good quote here from Derek Thomas. He says, "...the unique and distinguishable gifting of pastor-teachers is given in order to equip every member of the body of Christ to do the work of ministry. The view that spiritual ministry is the task of the clergy or some specially trained group, the rest perhaps given to prayer and making coffee, is an unbiblical elitist mentality. As James Boyce equips, unfortunately, many churches have it completely turned around. It is said that today the churches more than anything else resemble a football game played in a large stadium. There are 80,000 spectators in the stands who badly need some exercise and there are 22 men on the field who badly need a rest. So God has I know those numbers don't make sense to you Alex. You don't understand football, but you get the analogy, right? So God has designed the church under the leadership of its elders to equip one another in the faith. Does that make sense? So pastors have a special role. So it's the church's job to equip. And I'm arguing that pastors do have a special God-ordained role to oversee that, to be the main... I mean, again, I'm going to argue this later, but like, Discipleship should be flowing from the pulpit, amen. Like this is center, center of our discipleship here, the preaching of the word of God. So if someone says, well, what do y'all do for discipleship at Providence Baptist Church? Well, here's one answer. It's not the only answer. Well, here's one answer. Well, we have a high view of preaching, amen. But that's not it, but it doesn't stop there, okay? So this is a great quote. The book, The Trellis and the Vine came out years ago. I'll read it to you. Disciple-making refers to a massive range of relationships and conversations and activities. Everything from preaching a sermon, to teaching a Sunday school class, from chatting over the proverbial back fence with a non-Christian neighbor, to writing an encouraging note to a Christian friend, from inviting a family member to hear the gospel at a church event, to meeting one-on-one to study the Bible with a fellow Christian, from reading the Bible to your children, to making a Christian comment over morning tea, which you can tell it wasn't Americans who wrote that, at the office, right? Like, who has morning tea? Honestly, I think they're from New Zealand or something, I don't remember, actually. Australia, I don't know. Do they drink tea in Australia? So, the idea here, though, is equipping is not something only happening on Sundays. Okay, let me say this again. Sundays are an essential non-negotiable factor. And I'll say it again, even all disciple-making is flowing even from that. The pulpit is the chief disciple-making arm, I would argue, of the church. But it's like a stream. Think a stream you find in the woods or something. If you stop up the source of the stream, then you're going to have no stream, right? But if you have a healthy stream, you're going to have water flowing very well downstream. That happens. The pulpit is the source, if you will, and the water's moving downstream. It's even branching off, as it were, into various tributaries and such. That's just an analogy, but we can consider that that is the disciple-making of the church. And I'm going to just make a point that there are formal and informal times of equipping. Years ago I read a book, I don't know if the book, I can't remember if it's good or not, but I do remember the verse. It was called The Be With Factor, and the verse is Mark 3, 14, where it says, And he, that is Jesus, appointed the twelve, whom he also named apostles, so that they might, and here was the premise of the book, be with him, and he might send them out to preach. So the idea, which I do think this is a biblical idea, the idea is that Jesus didn't have like seminary classes, He did certainly have formal times of training. Amen. Teaching. We don't deny that. But He also had times where we might just say He lived life together with His disciples, and they learned by example the way He handled certain situations, the way He talked about certain things, the way that He handled being confronted. They saw Him. I'll give you an example. One time they asked Him, Lord, teach us to pray. That is because he didn't have a seminary class, per se, that said, okay, I'm going to have a lesson tonight on the doctrine of prayer. No, why were they piqued to understand what it really means to pray? Because they saw Him pray. And they heard Him pray. That's why they say, Lord, we want You to teach us to pray. So that's an example, I'm saying, of formal and informal. And I would argue it's not either-or. What do you care about at your church? No, it's both. That's the healthiest model. So you have the pulpit, the formal teaching times at church, and that flows downstream into the home. So now in family worship, you're talking about things you heard the preaching in your conversations with your co-worker you're like you know what we're going through right now we're going through the book of Acts and you know something I learned like this is it's it's echoing into your into your homes into your lives meetings over coffee maybe you're talking about a Christian book you're having family from church over for supper on and on and on okay Let me say this, then we'll move on. Whether we're talking about formal or informal times of equipping, one word to stress here, and it'll go into the next point too, intentionality. We have to think intentionally of equipping, of looking for opportunities to pour truth into one another, okay? Lastly, so exaltation, edification, equipping, And finally, because I don't put blanks, it's anti-climatic because you already know the word, but evangelism. Evangelism. Why does the church exist? Evangelism. Psalm 96.3. Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples. The church exists in part to grow. not just grow spiritually, but to actually grow in number through sinners coming to saving faith in Christ. We get scared about talking about numbers because we've seen it handled the wrong way. So we have on one ditch the church that cares only about numbers, and so they do all this weird stuff just to get numbers. Well, if you respond to that wrongly, you wind up in the other ditch where you say, we don't care about numbers at all. Well, that's wrong too. We should care about numbers to an extent. Why? Because numbers represent souls, people. Very good. That's right. So I would argue there's not as hard of a line between disciple making and evangelism as some make it. Some separate these out a whole lot. They're like, well, you got evangelism over there in that bucket, discipleship over there in that bucket. I would argue that There's not as much of a separation as that, although we keep them distinct, of course. I would say evangelism, in a sense, is an aspect of disciple making where we're intentionally seeking to see sinners born again through the heralding of the gospel. Go to Matthew 13 for just a second. And you know this parable. I mean, this parable is going to be so familiar to you. You probably already know just by the by the chapter I'm turning to. But Matthew 13. If I could just give you like the essence of evangelism, it's captured well in this parable, Matthew 13, 1 through 9. That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea and great crowds Gathered about him so that he got into a boat and sat down and the whole crowd stood on the beach And he told them many things in parables saying a sower went out to sow And as he sowed some seeds fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them other seeds fell on rocky ground Where they did not have much soil and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil But when the Sun rose they were scorched And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear." So if I just essence of evangelism, what is evangelism? I'm going to say it is sowing the seed of the gospel. That's evangelism. Sometimes that may be a full-orbed, robust gospel presentation concluding with a call to repent and believe. Other times it's still the gospel, but you're building off what someone else has taught. Or maybe you're introducing something that someone hasn't thought about, an aspect of the gospel perhaps. But to be clear, we're talking about the gospel. The gospel. which we define as the good news of what God has done by the work of Christ. Truly God, truly man is the Lord Jesus in His righteousness, keeping the law, in His fulfilling all the prophecies and promises of the Old Testament, in His bearing God's wrath on the cross against our sins, our propitiation on the cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied, His dying and being buried, and on the third day being raised again bodily from the dead for our justification. That's the Gospel. I know there's more I could say, but evangelism, shares that. That's what we sow. Like, not just Jesus loves you. Not just, hey, you know, I believe in God. Not just God bless America. Not just, hey, God bless your day or whatever. Those things have an element of truth. But we're talking about the Gospel. And in evangelism, it's not just sowing the seed of the Gospel, but also how you must respond. It's not a disimpassioned, you know, yeah, Jesus died. But Jesus died, and here's how you need to respond to that. He died and rose again. And there's only one right way. There's billions of ways to respond to that. There's only one right way to respond to it. Repent and believe the Gospel. Trust Christ alone as your only suitable and all-sufficient. Savior. Now, let me say some things about evangelism here. First, evangelism is happening every Sunday at Providence Baptist Church because we always include the gospel in our preaching. We always include a call to repent and believe it. Evangelism is something that pastors ought to do and to model, but You see how a lot of these, they overlap. I know we've kind of broken them all out here, talking about exaltation and edification and equipping and evangelism. We've kind of spaced them out to kind of really grasp why does the church exist? But you understand, it really doesn't work that way. It's not really great to carry these around and say, I'm doing this bucket, I'm doing that bucket, whatever. These all kind of flow together. I mean, because think about it. Evangelism is also exaltation, right? As you're proclaiming Christ, you're exalting God. So they all kind of go together. But it's helpful to bring them out to put some distinctions. Anyway, evangelism is something that pastors ought to do and they ought to model, but it also ought to be something congregants do. And like disciple-making, it ought to be about a culture. A culture. Providence Baptist Church, I would hope, If not already, at least one day, we'd be moving toward a culture of evangelism. So what do I mean by that? Well, we need to have intentional times of evangelism. Intentionality matters. If we're not intentional, we won't do it. and so we do some things for example this Saturday we're going to be intentional the the community's gathering together Liz has already put together um packets for us of candy with gospel tracks in them we're gonna we're gonna pass those out that's evangelist scattering seed I understand if you want to tell me about stats I get it if we pass out I think we've got like 250 if we pass out 250 gospel tracks there's a great chance that 249 of them are gonna be trashed. Okay, but I'm okay with that. We're trying to scatter seed. We're gonna do more than that. We're gonna engage in conversation as we can as we're walking. We're gonna do more than that. We're gonna preach. We're gonna proclaim Christ. Like, well, is that doing anything? Well, again, I go back to my friend Randall Easter. I can tell you if we don't preach, I can tell you what will happen. nothing right nothing but to proclaim christ and to be intentional in evangelism we're sowing seed we'll be intentional on december 22nd when we go out a crazy thing we do evangelistic christmas caroling and it is just what it sounds if you haven't been with us before we go to doors we knock on the door we sing a couple songs then we say hey we want to share the true meaning of christmas and bam we share the gospel so intentionality right but we also need to understand that evangelism ought to be more than just events. I hope, I carry tracts in my pocket, not because I'm better than you or anything, some of you do that too, I'm just saying, it should be about our life. We go, we pay for something, we say, hey, here's a tract, here's a gospel tract from our church. Will you read that? It's just a way of life. I got a text this week from someone in the church, who had a conversation with their co-worker because of something that I had said, they had a conversation with a co-worker, they shared the gospel with them. You want to talk about encouraging your pastors, that's one way. This is evangelism. This is a culture of evangelism. Inviting a family over, sharing the gospel with them, talking to your children about the gospel. Evangelism is more than just events. It's a culture. Okay, because this is our mission, what Psalm 96 says, to declare His glory among the nations. I need to make another note here, just very, very clear. Evangelism is not just doing nice things in the names of Jesus. That's what a lot of churches do, if you talk to them. I know this, I've been guilty of this before as well. So you do the angel tree, you get people food. Those are nice things. Those are even Christian things, okay? But don't confuse them with evangelism unless the gospel is specifically being shared. Specifically and explicitly being shared. We have a category in the modern church. It's not really a biblical category. I understand what people mean. Maybe I've used it. Maybe I'll use it in the future. But please understand there's a difference here. But there's a category that we call outreach. Now, I know what people mean by that, but often what we say is we're doing this thing for outreach. OK, but the gospel is not being shared. So we're going to be nice to this organization in town. We're going to have an outreach event. We're going to set up the bouncy. We're just going to let kids play. We're going to share the gospel. No, we're just we're just doing outreach. OK, but that's not actually That's not the job of the church. It's just not. We cannot just serve the community in that way. That's not the purpose of the church. We're not called to serve the community in a way that secular organizations would do that. You know, here's feeding, here's clothing. Oh, you can use our facility for a wedding shower, whatever the case may be. We're called to serve the community in this way, declaring the glory of Christ to her. Okay, one final thing on evangelism. Okay, I'll make this quick. We aren't just about evangelism, but in this category, also the fruit of evangelism, which involves local churches. So I'm lumping this in together. You're like, well, you didn't talk about missions. I'm putting this all together. Okay, we want those evangelized to be placed into healthy churches, or in some places, to be formed into new local churches, okay? So under this heading of evangelism, I am absolutely including the fact that the church exists, to invest in the health of existing churches and at times to plant new churches, okay? So again, I've separated this out, but it all goes together. Our church's statement on missions from our Ten Distinctives, it's there. You can read that, but that's what I'm arguing, that under evangelism, we want to invest in and plant churches. Okay, so why does the church exist? What is the purpose of the church? Exaltation, edification, equipping, evangelism. Broad overview, but I think we hit the high points. End on a quote, and then we'll close it down. This is from the Vine Project. This is why we want to make more and more disciples of Jesus Christ. Because God's goal for the whole world and the whole of human history is to glorify His beloved Son in the midst of the people He has rescued and transformed. This is the purpose of the church. Amen.