Sunday Morning, January 20, 2019 AM

The Church’s Purpose Is to Proclaim Christ

We're not here because we're good at this, we're here because you've brought us here. You have made us in your image. You have given us your son to redeem us and your spirit to renew us. Father, I pray that you would help us today as we look at your word.

I pray that you would bless us with the hearing of your word and that you would grant us understanding, that you would make us to be learners of Christ, all for your glory and for our good. We pray these things, looking only to Jesus Christ, for it is him, it is with him that you are well-pleased.

And I pray these things for his sake, amen. Well, if you would open your Bibles and turn with me to Colossians 1, Colossians 1. Be reading verses three through eight in a moment. We've been talking about the purpose of Sunnyside Baptist Church, and really what we're talking about is the purpose of any local church.

What is it that Christ would have his church look like? What is it that he would have us to do? We began by thinking of the designer of the church, trying to deal with the basics, the basic ideas, the assumptions that we're making when we're thinking about this together.

And clearly, as we saw from passages like Matthew 16, Matthew 24, Ephesians 4, that Jesus Christ not only constructs the church, but he also directs and supplies the church. And that's where we've gotta begin.

We've gotta start there with the designer of the church before we can get to the design. And last week, we talked about the Father's purpose. As we read through Colossians 1, verses three through 20, time and again, Paul thanks God, the Father, for what he's doing in the lives of the Colossian church.

And then points to the result of what God is doing in their lives, expressed in the latter half of verse 18, so that Christ himself will come to have the first place in everything, that Christ will have preeminence, that he will be the most important person in our lives.

He is, objectively, without dispute, the most important person in all of the history of the world. Eternity will bear that out. The Father's purpose, his aim for us in the church, is that he would be the first, most important person in our lives, in our community, in our perspective, in our goals.

As the Father exalts the Son incarnate by the Spirit's proclamation of Christ through our church, we are then renewed into the image of God, and we manifest his glory. That's what we talked about last week.

This week, we're going to talk about the Son's proclamation, how central it is to the Father's purpose, how central it is to a local church that Christ be preached and taught and talked about and made central to our relationships, our fellowship, our community.

If you would please stand with me, and I'm going to read for us from Colossians chapter one, verses three through eight. Let us hear the word of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you, just as in all the world, it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God and truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bondservant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, and he also informed us of your love in the spirit.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Central to the Father's purpose for the church, what he wants to happen as the very centerpiece of what we do is the proclamation of Christ. As we're going to talk about, that doesn't only look like one thing or sound like just one thing.

It's not just the preaching of sermons or even just the teaching of Sunday school classes, but that in all things in the life of the local church that Christ be proclaimed. What the Son said of himself must be said.

What the Father has said about the Son must be said. What the Spirit has said about the Son must be said by all of us to all of us. Christ must be proclaimed. The person and work of Jesus Christ must be proclaimed.

There are three words I want us to focus on in this passage. We've seen something of the whole scope of the passage, and I want us to look at three words here. The first one is hearing. The first one is hearing in verse five.

Paul is giving thanks to God the Father because of all of the fruit that's in their lives ever since they heard of the gospel. He gives thanks to God for their faith. He gives thanks to God for their love.

He gives thanks to God for their hope. And the reason why they have faith, love, and hope is because they heard the gospel. They heard the word of truth. You see that at the end of verse five. They heard the word of truth, the gospel.

Verse six says they heard of it and understood the grace of God and truth. Hearing, hearing. There is a massive emphasis in the Bible on hearing. There is a massive emphasis in our culture on seeing. Seeing is believing.

There is a massive emphasis in the Bible on hearing. There is a massive emphasis in our culture on experiencing. I felt. But the thrust of the Bible is on hearing. God could have done anything to make the world.

He spoke a word. God could have done anything to reveal himself to his special creature, mankind. He spoke a word. He could have done anything to save us and do so righteously. And he sent his word in human flesh.

He could have told us to do anything in the name and for the glory of Christ. And he tells us to speak a word. There is a massive emphasis in the Bible on hearing. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

In former times, God spoke through the prophets. In these last days, he has spoken through his son. It's about hearing. What are we supposed to hear? What did the Colossians hear? They heard about the person and the work of Jesus Christ.

Already we have all the clues there in the verses. We could read the whole book of Colossians to see just all the things that they heard about Jesus. But just here in the first few verses, we give thanks to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Oh, he is God the son. He is, his name is Jesus. The Lord saves. He's our savior. He is the Christ, which means he's the Messiah, which means he's the anointed one. And everybody who got anointed in the Old Testament, prophet, priest, king, wise man, that's who Jesus is.

The great prophet, the great high priest, the king of kings, the one in whom there is all wisdom, wonderful counselor, this is who Christ is. We find that the Colossians have a hope laid up for them in heaven.

They have a hope that is stored up for them who is present in heaven. New is this, but the crucified, risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ who will soon come again for them. They have a hope of everlasting life because there's ascended, resurrected, returning Lord Jesus Christ.

And this message that comes to them is described as the grace of God. This is the grace of God. This is what God gives because of who he is, not because of who we are. And this message is described as the truth, the word of Christ, the truth.

In this, it's so definitive. There's lots of things that are true. Are there not two plus two equals four? We know that's true. Most of us know that's true. There's all sorts of things that are true. Why is it said of the message of Jesus Christ that that is the truth?

Truth. Why is there only one truth? It's the one truth that gives the right accounting of all the other truth. It's the one truth, the only truth that can make sense of everything else. And so this is the message that came to the Colossians and it came by a word.

It came in a way that they could hear it, that they could receive it and think about it. And hearing. In the design of the church, God desires that Christ be proclaimed, that the person and work of Jesus Christ be proclaimed, who he is and what he has done, who he is as God of very God, man of very man, the righteous lamb of God, what he has done in his perfect life, in his death upon the cross, as he suffered in our place for our sake, satisfying the justice of God, the wrath of God that we deserve.

And that he was raised the third day and that he is ascended to the right hand of the father as king of kings and Lord of lords with a name that is above every name and that he is soon to come again. This message, this is the message that must be proclaimed.

This is the mandate. Epaphras is actually the person who preached the gospel to the Colossians. Paul hadn't met most of the Colossians. Paul traveled a lot. He went to a lot of places preaching the gospel and starting churches all over the known world, but he had not made it to Colossi.

It was Epaphras, somebody who also knew the gospel and he had preached it to the Colossians and many of them had become Christians and they had their church. And Paul is now writing to them and rejoicing that the gospel had been proclaimed that they had heard, that they had believed and that the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the fruit of Christ was present in their midst.

But why did Epaphras have to proclaim the gospel? Why is that essential? Well, for that, we need to go over to Romans chapter 10. I want us to think a little bit about the mandate to preach the message, to speak with our mouths the truth of Jesus Christ, his person and his work.

Romans chapter 10 for the mandate. Paul says, brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them, meaning for his fellow Israelites, is for their salvation. So I want them to be saved. For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.

Listen to this. Paul is burdened about somebody's salvation. A whole lot of people, his fellow countrymen, people who grew up like him and talk like him, who look like him, have all the same customs as he does.

They're familiar to him. He's burdened for them. He's burdened for their salvation. Now notice, these people who need to be saved, who need to be delivered from the damnation of hell, have a zeal for God.

We find anybody with a little bit of zeal for God in our day and we say, oh, we'll see you up there later on. Give you a pass. You got a zeal for God, you're good to go. Israel had a zeal for God like no other nation on the planet.

They needed deliverance from hell because they did not know Christ. Says they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. Verse three, for not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own.

They did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. So there's a standard of God and the Israelites in the zeal for God try to live up to their standard they thought would be good with God. I'm zealous for God, I wanna live for God.

God's about these things, I'll do these things. God's happy with me, I go to heaven. The only problem is that's our standard. And that varies from person to person, from culture to culture, what we think God cares about and what he thinks we ought to do.

And they did not live according to, they did not know, they did not think about God's righteousness, just their own. But they needed God's righteousness. You see, the only way to be accepted by God is to be acceptable by God, his standards.

His standard, not ours. Verse four, for Christ is the end, the goal, the fulfillment, the talos of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. So every little last dotting of the I and crossing of the T of the law of God, his standard, Christ fulfills.

He's done it all. He's done it all, not only in letter, but also in spirit. Not only in word, but down to the very core of his being, he was the perfect human being in our place and for our sakes. And he's the end of the law for righteousness to those who believe, who trust in Christ.

God the Father is satisfied with Christ the Son. He said so at Christ's baptism. This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. Are we well pleased with Christ? Am I satisfied with, am I hanging everything on Christ alone for my salvation?

The Israelites were still trying to live up to their standards, but Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. This is good news. Now verse five, for Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on law shall live by that righteousness.

In other words, if you look at the law of God, you say, well, I'm going to do good things and my good will outweigh my bad. You're never going to win that struggle. The bad always outweighs the good. So if you live by that standard, you will be condemned and judged by that standard.

But for six, the righteousness based on faith that is out of faith, that is from faith speaks as follows. Do not say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven? That's a hard thing to do. That is to bring Christ down or who will descend into the abyss?

Very hard to do. That is to bring Christ up from the dead. It's like the word, the gospel is not, I've got to make my way all the way up to heaven to do something amazing. And it's not, I've got to go down deep as I can and be as humble and as sorrowful and as groveling as I possibly can.

No, you don't have to go up high to heaven. You don't have to go down to the hell itself. What does it say? The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith, which we are preaching.

Listen, that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. The gospel of who Jesus is and what he has done in your place and for your sake.

That's not sequestered away up into heaven and you have to work your way up there. And it's not lassoed down in the depths of the earth that you have to go digging all the way down there. No, no, no, it's very close by.

It has been proclaimed in all the world that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord, this is who he is, the right hand of God, king of kings. And believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, your savior, not in the grave, but alive interceding for you at the right hand, you will be saved.

For with the heart, a person believes resulting in righteousness and with the mouth he confesses resulting in salvation. For the scripture says, whoever believes in him will not be disappointed. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek for the same Lord is Lord over all, abounding in riches for all who call on him, whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

It's not about your status and where you come from, what you've done or haven't done. It's whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Now, the mandate. That's the message that the Colossians heard.

Okay, now the mandate to preach it. Verse 14, how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? Whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How are they gonna call on him in whom they have not believed?

How will they believe in him whom they have not, what's the word? Heard. And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things.

Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. This is the mandate. Okay. The word, the message has to be proclaimed. It has to be spoken. It has to be relayed from those who know it to those who need to hear it.

And when the word of Christ is preached by the grace of God, sinners like you and I believe and are you brought in union with Jesus Christ and his perfect work, his perfect person, and they are saved, acceptable to God as his own son is.

This is what we are to preach. Consider, if you will, think about some of the stories in the book of Acts. Just dogged persistence and doing the same thing over and over again. Peter and John. Philip, Peter on his own.

Paul, again and again. What are they doing? Time and time again, they are simply preaching Christ to the Gentiles in the marketplace or outside their temples or preaching to the Jews in their synagogues and in their homes.

Wherever they could, they just preach Christ and look how poorly it works. And look how well it works. You know, when you're preaching in the temple, a message which says everything you're doing,.

Stop, stop the sacrifices.

The lamb of God has been slain. We don't have to do this anymore. And you get arrested, you get beaten. You get the authorities of your land pointing their finger at you and saying, you're doing the wrong thing and you need to stop.

And then you go right back out and do it again. Would we do that? Would we be persistent? Or would we look at the people in authority frowning at us and say, oh, we wanna have a better testimony with them.

Or would we obey God? Would we be persistent? Would we just keep preaching the gospel? We have to preach the gospel knowing that this is the way that God has ordained for sinners like you and I to be saved.

When Christ is preached, God grants faith and repentance and people come to Christ. They call upon the name of the Lord and they're saved. But how do we preach? 1 Thessalonians 2 .4, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts.

I think sometimes we get tired of doing the same thing and we distrust doing the same thing over and over again. It can't work. It's not enough. There's gotta be something else. We've got to do something different than just preach the gospel.

We have to do something different with the message because it doesn't sound like it's going to work. We get tired. We're like Moses up on the hill with the staff of God. You know, that's interesting for a little bit, but after a little while, you get bored.

Your arms get tired. But Moses, when he brings the staff down, the battle doesn't go well for the Israelites, does it? And even though Joshua's leading the troops valiantly, the Amalekites are winning, so up goes the staff again, but your arms get tired and it's tedious.

And so Aaron and Hur hold up Moses' arms. It was the one thing that worked. It's the one thing God said to do. It's the one way that they were going to win, and there's only one way for sinners to be saved and for saints to be sanctified, and it is a proclamation of Christ.

It is the preaching of Christ. How will they believe unless they hear? And how will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent? You are sent. Christ sends you. Christ sends you.

Brothers and sisters, members of Sunnyside Baptist Church, we send you to preach the gospel, to proclaim Christ, not as what men want to hear, but as what God wants to be said. Words are necessary. To say that we don't have to preach the gospel with words is to say that God didn't create the world with words, or that Christ is not the word.

We have to use words. That's what the scripture says. We must use words. We must speak them. We must write them down. We must give them. Words are necessity. This is the methods of what we're doing as a church.

Now, let none of these be absent. Prayer, scripture, truth, and grace. Let none of those be absent. We have a mandate to preach the gospel. How we go about it means we have to use words, and let none of these be absent.

Prayer, scripture, truth, and grace. Meaning, don't preach the gospel without praying. This is not a fleshly work. That which is of the flesh is flesh, but that which is of the spirit is of the spirit, so don't do it in your own flesh.

Pray, and use the scripture. It's not my words that are powerful to save. It's not my words that are living and enduring, active like a sharp sword piercing down to the soul. It's not my words, it's the scriptures.

These are living and active. These are powerful. These are God-breathed. Not my words, use the scripture, and speak the truth. Many can use the Bible to speak lies. We must speak the truth, the honest to goodness truth of who Christ is and what he came to do, and to speak it with grace.

Many people can prayerfully with the scripture speak the truth and be uncaring and loving. And ungracious. So don't leave any of these out. Prayer, scripture, truth, and grace. And whatever it is that we do, use words.

Write a letter, have a conversation, make a statement. But in all that we do, be personal. Be personal. Listen, when you talk with somebody else about their eternity, what are you talking about? What are you sharing with them?

You are saying this. This is the thread upon which I hang my eternal soul. This is the thread that I would hang the souls of my children. This is what I. So how can we not be personal? Hearing. Hearing is essential for the church.

Hearing is essential for those who would become part of the church, that they would hear the gospel preached. Notice also the second word is understanding. Understanding. In verse six, Paul is giving thanks to God the Father who has brought the gospel to them and all sorts of fruits being born in their lives ever since they heard of the gospel and understood the grace of God and truth.

So there is a difference between hearing and believing. There is a difference between the truths of the gospel, the words of the gospel being spoken and a person hearing those things and then them actually understanding it, believing it.

The word in use here has the idea of real experiential knowledge. This isn't a knowing about, this is a knowing personally. Paul's giving thanks to God that the Colossians really do understand the gospel, that they know it personally, that it's real in them.

He gives thanks to God because this is God's grace. This is God's grace that they understand, a grace that is manifested in repentance and faith. They're turning away from themselves. They make a pile of all of their bad deeds and they make a pile of all of their good deeds and they run from them both for Christ and Christ alone.

They understand by God's grace and they understand the gospel of God, the good news that God has sent to us. This is not a non-gospel. This is not a partial gospel. This is not a false gospel. This is, they actually understand the truths about who Jesus is and what he came to do and they believe it.

This is what Paul is thankful for. We never find Paul giving thanks to God for those who receive no gospel or giving thanks to God for those who receive half a gospel. Or for those who receive a false gospel as if these people are in a great situation.

He is thankful for those who receive the gospel of Jesus Christ because there's, well, you know, Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through me.

One savior, one gospel, one salvation. It's exclusive. For our own good it's exclusive. Notice God's guarantee in the text as well. Verse six, the gospel has come to you just as in all the world it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing even as it had been doing in you since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God and truth.

That the gospel has come to them, that they believed it and that the fruit of being united with Christ, the fruit of having the Holy Spirit live in them, that that fruit has been evident and increasing ever since the day they were born again, ever since the day they were converted.

That's God's guarantee. That the work he has begun in us he will see fit to complete up until the day of Christ Jesus. You see, our hope is in our union with Christ. That's where our hope lies. It's not the kind of understanding about facts.

It's not the kind of understanding about how to do things. It's the understanding of Christ himself that we know Christ personally, relationally, really know Christ. That's where our hope is. Our hope cannot be in the mastery of facts.

I have information or the mastery of acts. I can do things, but in Christ. Third word is learning in verse seven. Paul says, just as you learned it from Epaphras. They learned the gospel from Epaphras.

The word learning is the root word for the noun disciple. Learner, disciple, it's the same idea. They were disciples, they were learning. You see, they heard the gospel, they understood the gospel and they continued to learn the gospel.

They didn't leave it behind. In the autobiography of a Christian, we don't in chapter three have a paragraph and a footnote about how we got converted with the gospel and then the rest of our story proceeds without reference to it.

No, it's the whole thing. We don't leave the gospel behind. We never outgrow it. We never get beyond it. We just, it grows more and more in us. You know, Jesus' question to his disciples echoes here. Who do people say that I am?

If we're disciples, if we're learners, what are we learning? What are we learning? Who are we learning? You see, learners keep hearing. Learners of Christ keep hearing Christ. We need to learn the Savior through the scriptures by his servants.

That's where the continuing growth is. Not only as a church should we be proclaiming the gospel that those need to hear, but we also need to hear and we need to be learning Christ, the Savior. Notice in the text, Paul's saying, I give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Praying always for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, their trust, their faith, their belief is in Christ Jesus. By verse 10, he's praying that they will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, in a manner worthy of Jesus Christ.

We are learning Christ, who he is. We're learning Christ, how to live worthy of him. We are not to preach ourselves. Let's turn over to 2 Corinthians for a moment. 2 Corinthians in chapter three. Remember, we must proclaim Christ from all the scripture.

We must proclaim Christ from all the scripture until his spirit renews all God's people into his image. That's the main idea of what we're talking about the last two weeks and this week. We must proclaim Christ from all the scripture until his spirit renews all God's people into his image.

That means those who need to be saved and those who are saved who need to be sanctified. Those who need to grow up into the full measure of Christ himself. But we have to preach Christ from all the scriptures in order to be renewed into his image.

2 Corinthians three, beginning in verse 12. Paul says, therefore having such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech and are not like Moses who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away.

But their minds were hardened for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains unlifted because it is removed in Christ. But to this day, whenever Moses has read a veil lies over their heart.

But whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. And the Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as from the Lord, the spirit.

Christ has been revealed in all the scriptures, even the old covenant, just because some can't see it means that they have a veil over their eyes, but he's there. And when the veil is lifted, we behold Christ in the scriptures as in a mirror and there is our glorious savior Christ.

And as we look at him and as we behold him, we become like him. We look more like him. That's what it's all about. To see Christ in the scriptures so that we become more like Christ. We must learn Christ from the word if we will become more like him.

There's no other way to do it. The savior, we have to learn the savior. We have to learn Christ. We must not preach ourselves, but Christ. The image of God is only renewed by our spirit transforming view of the image of God, Christ himself in the scriptures.

We are to learn Christ. We have to be careful that we do not preach ourselves and we don't listen to those who preach themselves. Every righteous cause is subservient to the cause of all righteousness.

Someone out there is preaching their cause and they want you to learn them and their cause. Just remember, we're not learners of men. We are learners of Christ. We learn the savior through the scriptures.

Paul talks about when Moses is read. You know, when Moses was read, God in his grace would lift the veil. He did so for a young man named Timothy who had nothing but the Old Testament read to him by his grandmother and mother, faithful women who brought up their son and grandson in the fear and the admonition of the Lord.

In 2 Timothy 3 in verse 15, Paul says that from childhood, you have known the sacred writings, which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. How's the Old Testament?

How was the Bible? That was the scriptures. How did he come to faith in Jesus Christ? Through the Bible, through the Old Testament even. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

Why? Because these are the same scriptures which lead us to Christ. That's why they're profitable. That's why they're authoritative because they lead us to our authority who is Christ through the scriptures we learn.

Now, we are to take up the scriptures and as faithful servants of Christ, we are to help one another learn Christ. It's not the job of the preacher by himself. It's not the job of the elders by themselves.

It's not the job of the Sunday school teachers by themselves. It's the job of every single Christian to help every other Christian. And in our context, every member of Sunnyside Baptist Church help every other member of Sunnyside Baptist Church learn Christ.

Even as it is all our responsibility to speak Christ to those in need of him, those who are lost and without him. So also with prayer and the scriptures in truth and grace, we're to help one another learn Christ.

We're to help one another learn Christ. We are to have generous communication with one another. We are to in conversation point one another according to the scriptures to Christ, who he is, what he has done.

How are we to understand this particular problem or this particular issue? How are we to understand what this is all about unless we're thinking together about what the scriptures say of Christ? By conversation and in letters that we write to one another and any other kind of email, text and whatever, are we making the centerpiece of our conversation Christ revealed in the scriptures?

The hymns that we sing are to uplift one another and build each other up in Christ. Are we singing for the good of those around us and not just for the warmth of our own heart? Are we sharing with one another books that faithfully reveal Christ from the scriptures?