Sermon: “To know Christ and to Make Christ Known”

“To know Christ and to Make Christ Known”

Sometime last fall I found myself in a leadership class thinking about our church. Our task that evening was to develop a ‘vision’ statement for a church. As we worked in our groups I couldn’t stop thinking about our church. What are we here for? What are we going to be about? What is a vision that will help unify us and help us focus? I remember praying for God to give me a vision for our church…

Before I go any further, I know the idea of vision statements is new to the church…but in reality they can find their roots in scripture…examples Gen 12:1-3, 2 Samuel 7:16

Why do we need a vision?

Vision is more than a statement of words…it is recognizing and committing to something bigger than you…A vision is not some abstract idea of ‘church growth’, but instead, helps us focus on what is important for us as a church…it gives us something to focus on…

Why Vision Needs to Matter…

A vision should matter…it carry with it a sense of conviction…Andy Stanley says this about vision, “There is always a moral element to vision. Vision carries with it a sense of conviction. Anyone with a vision will tell you this is not merely something that could be done…This is something that should be done. This is something that must happen. It is this element that catapults men and women out of the realm of passive concern and into action. It is the moral element that gives vision a sense of urgency...

Vision has a verity of meaning in the Old and New Testaments. Vision comes from faith and allows a church to be or to do something beyond its current abilities to impact the Kingdom.

We ask our kids vision question: “what do you want to be when you grow up?” We encourage them to have a picture of the future. We hope that our children will have a great “picture’ that will begin to influence the order of their lives.

Vision is God guiding his people to perform specific task within the context of their situation, and in Scripture God continually made clear what he desired his people to accomplish. When God entered the affairs of man, he did so to guide them not only in the present but to establish the direction they were to focus upon the future.

Three Verses…

As I thought further on the vision for our church three verses keep coming to my mind…the first was

Luke 4:18-19
18"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

The Second…

Matthew 22:37-39
37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

Lastly…

Matthew 28:19-20
19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

In Luke 4 we see Christ proclaiming his mission to the world…he came to preach the “good news’, to set the captives free, to give sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, but most of all he came to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor…Jesus was declaring the year of Jubilee, where all debts where cancelled, slaves where set free, property returned to it original owner…
Only this time Jesus was proclaiming he came to cancel the sin debt of man, he had come to bring the good news to the poor, he came to free us from the slavery of sin, to open our blind eyes…to mend a broken relationship…

God would make us alive with Christ…forgiving us of all our sin…having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us, he took it away, nailing it to the cross…Colossians 2:13-14

In Matthew 22 Jesus tells us we are to “Love the Lord our God with all our hearts, all of our souls and all of our minds…and we are to love our neighbor as your self”…We are to love the Lord with all we have…

In Christ the fullness of deity dwells…in Christ we see the Word made Flesh…in Christ we see “God with us”…It is through Christ God has reconciled us from sin…Christ alone is worthy of all our praise…We are to give Christ all our heart, all of our soul and all of our minds…if we do that…as I said last week…if we put Christ first in our lives…Christ’s love for us will fill us and spill over into all our other relationships…we can then truly love our neighbor…

Lastly Christ commands us to Go…to Go into the world and make disciples and baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit…teaching them to obey all that Christ command…the key word is “GO”…we need to GO..

“To Know Christ and to Make Christ Know”

I wrote these words on a piece of paper and knew it was from God…I was so excited I showed to all who would look at it…It was answer to my prayer…

I soon found out my ‘original idea” had and is being used by other churches…but it didn’t matter…this was our vision “unique” vision.

How can it be explained…We seek to know Christ deeper through worship, through discipleship and

through service…as we grow in deeper relationship with Christ…our desire should be to
make Christ known to our families, our friends, neighbors, co-workers, the community and the world around us.

As a church it gives us a clear vision for what we are about…everything we do will have two elements to it…does it help us to know Christ and does it make Christ known…if we can’t answer these questions we’ll have to reconsider or change what we are planning.

In worship we want to bring you closer to Christ through music and song, through the reading of Scripture, prayer and proclaiming Christ in preaching...In discipleship we want to help you learn to walk daily with Christ, being rooted and built up and established in Christ…in service we want help you exercise the Gifts the Lord has given you for the purpose of building up the body…

We want you to be excited about sharing Christ with others…excited about “Making Christ Known” and it all starts with a vision…

Closing…

So what have we talked about today…what is the point I want you to carry home this week. First Baptist Church of Rocklin has a vision… Christ…

First Baptist Church of Rocklin has a God size vision…a vision that will unify us and captivate us….a vision to help us understand where we are going as a church…a vision that sees the need of the community around us…a vision that convicts our hearts as something that should be done…

Our vision is “To Know Christ and to make Christ known”

If someone is to ask you what is your church all about…you can tell them….

-ps