The Mission of the Church Part 3

The Purpose of the Church

In the first two parts of this series, I discussed how the “Great Commission” is not the mission of the church. I also considered that the concept of mission is not a Biblical expression and that a mission statement tends to narrow the focus of an organization. Finally, I stated that the purpose of the church is so much grander than the word mission conveys. I hope to shed further light on this idea here.

In my previous post, I recommended you read the Apostle Paul’s letters to the Ephesians and Colossians, along with the Apostle Peter’s first letter. I hope you had the opportunity to experience the letters in a full and uninterrupted way. In these three short epistles, there is so much richness, beauty, and mystery. Also, there is continuity in what God has for the church, now and in the future. A couple of things stand out to me regarding the purpose of the church.

First, the church is for God. Everything was created by and for Jesus Christ. We are God’s possession; He chose us in Christ before the world existed. We have been redeemed or purchased by Jesus through His death on the cross and His resurrection. He set us apart and cleansed us, to present us to Himself holy and blameless, to the praise of His glory. We are members of Christ’s body, joined to Him as a bride to her husband. What a beautiful and mysterious image!

Second, the church’s purpose is for the church. Individually, we are the temple of His Spirit, and together we also are built into a holy temple. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (Ephesians 2:10, NASB®).” We are given special spiritual gifts to build each other up. We admonish and teach each other so that we can reach maturity, to the fullness of Christ. We serve each other, encourage each other, and, above all, love each other. We are a royal priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus. “Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased (Hebrews 13:15-16, NASB®).”

A purpose explains what we do, but it also speaks to why we do it. Why does the church exist? We exist to glorify God. God subjected angels, authorities, and powers to Himself in Christ. Through the church, His wisdom is made known to these rulers and authorities. The Father fulfilled all things in Jesus, “And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:22-23, NASB®).”

Interestingly, there is no mention of making disciples in any of these letters. The general theme regarding the world is that the people who don’t believe in Jesus will malign us for the good works we do. In fact, a verse in First Peter that is often used to support personal evangelism is presented in the context of responding to intimidation and reviling by unbelievers:

Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. (1 Peter 3:13-16, NASB®)

I am not saying that we shouldn’t care for the world, that is, the people of the world. I am not saying that we shouldn’t love everyone and desire for them to receive God’s salvation, this is something God also desires. “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9, NASB®).” But even this verse is in the context of people mocking our hope by saying everything in life is the same as its always been, so where is the promise of Christ’s coming again?

What I am saying is that the purpose of the church is not for the world. The purpose of the church is for Christ, our Lord, and other Christians. When we love God and love other believers, the world sees Jesus. When we do what is right, all the good works that God prepared for us, they can be attractional or repellent. We should welcome people with open arms who desire to learn more about Jesus and our hope in Him. Some people will be drawn to God by our love and good works; some will mock and persecute us for them. Either way, we bring glory to God.

Another telling attribute of the letters mentioned above is the way they are organized. They start by detailing God’s plans and purpose through Christ and for His people. They also show our identity in Jesus. Then the apostles go into how who we are, affects the way we live. This organization is particularly evident in Ephesians; the first half of the letter speaks to all God has done, and Paul prays twice that we would grow in our understanding and knowledge of the Lord and His great love for us. We are already blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ, we just need to know it. Paul says the amen after his second prayer and then moves to what we do with all God has given us.

Sadly, in my experience, the church wants a mission; we want some task that we can focus on. This task may be evangelism or social justice or something else. However noble the work, this is not the purpose of the church. We don’t have one particular task that should drive us. We have it all. We are Jesus’ body, “the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” Everything we do is our purpose because we do it with Him. We live the life that God wanted for us from the beginning, and it is because of what Jesus has done for us through His life, death, and resurrection. We are complete in Christ:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; (1 Peter 2:9, NASB®)

I fear we have lost the beauty of being the church. We have become a means instead of an end. We invite people “to church,” and then urge them to invite more people to church, and so on, and so on. In our Sunday services, we tell people to “go and be the church,” but we give little help so they may understand the fullness of being the church. Instead, we give people a mission and send them on their way, too often with some weak facsimile of what it means to be a Christian. My hope and prayer are that the church will rediscover and refocus on who we are in Christ. That we will live in the love of Jesus and each other, so the world will know that the Father sent Him into the world.

I believe in Jesus and what He has done in us and what He wants for us. I got so caught up in the thoughts about our purpose that I didn’t get to all the things I promised in my previous post. I am sorry. I will continue the discussion in the next post.