What is the Mission of HBC?
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What Is the Mission of HBC
Matthew 28, we're going to look at today and talk about what the mission of the church is, kind of in the light of being back. And before we jump back into Thessalonica. Going into 2 Thessalonians. In fact, the break between what commentators, scholars believe was between those two letters potentially could be about the amount of time we spent away from 1st Thess and now going to second. So, um, I don't know if that'll make a ton of difference in our lives, actually, but I thought it was neat and I could be wrong about it. But anyways, we'll be there next week. But this week I wanted to take a little time, seeing as the Lord has added to our number with with all these California expats fleeing to the New Jerusalem of Hickory. Uh, you know, some of you are ending up on our shores and we're happy to have you. And being new to our church, just wanted to make sure we spend some time talking about, um, the mission of Hickory Bible Church. And it really is the mission of every church. It's the mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ to the glory of God. That's our mission statement. Um, and it comes right out of Matthew 28:19 to 20. So it's not as if we have, um, come up with anything that is profound when you read your New Testament, particularly the Gospels, and try to say, what is it that Jesus was leaving for his disciples to do to carry out until he says, I'll be with you till the end of the age I am coming back. Um, but he didn't leave his disciples, nor any who would come after them, guessing as to what they should be doing while they're still here. And we are thankful that it is the same for us today. And so we will read Matthew 28:19 to 20. And I think for the believer, for those of you who are members here, it will be a good refresher. Good reminder for us to all be moving in the same direction as we want to be like minded and right hearted and mission driven and what we're doing here. And if you're new here, you'll know what we're about pretty quickly after today. And if you're not a believer, if you're not in Christ today, I think this is a wonderful opportunity for you to hear some, uh, foundational passages in the Bible of what Christianity is all about. If you're a skeptic to the faith, if it's, uh, not quite clear to you what are Christians all about? I would hope after today that God would use it to open your eyes to see that it is all about the magnification of Jesus Christ. And we'll look at that today. So let's start first in reading Matthew 28:19-20, and then we'll go from talking about our mission to what our values are. So follow with me as I read. I'll start in verse 18.
"Jesus came up and spoke to them, the disciples saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
Father, your word is truth. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word endures forever, and your promises, Christ, are true. So open our eyes to see the wonderful promises we have before us today. Amen.
Well, there it is, right there in Matthew 28:19 to 22 a phrase, great commission, that if you've been around the church long enough, you know, that's kind of a a summary statement for the the call that Christ put on those disciples to not just stand around and wait for his return to not twiddle their thumbs and say, what are we supposed to do now that our our leader is gone? He gives them a commission, and it really is comprised of four great words. It's a great commission because there's four great words here four action verbs...going, making, baptizing and teaching. Those are the four verbs you see in verses 19 and 20, and you could underline them if you are new to this, and maybe you hear that phrase great commission and you're not familiar with it.
And I don't want to assume anything. In fact, just this past week, I was googling, you know, what is the Great Commission to see if I could figure it out? Just kidding. I'm just always looking for fodder. And I found a Barna study back in 2018 that asked professing believers, church goers what the Great Commission is...and the results were as follows 50% of them didn't know. That's like regular church going people. And I get we you know, surveys aren't always the most reliable, but it is pretty eye opening to think in people that would say, yes, I'm a follower of Jesus. And yes, I go to church, know half of them, one out of every two didn't know what the Great Commission was. Which, when you think about that and what I just said about having a mission statement, something driving you, something directing you as a Christian, if you don't know what that is, how are you supposed to fulfill it? And then you had 25% said, oh yeah, I know it. Okay. What is it? Um, yeah. I'm not sure. It's great. And it's a commission. Great. Thank you. You just told me what I just said to you. Um, sometimes that's like when you ask people, you know, around here, you know, some just skip right past the whole idea of, you're a Christian, you know, because we're in the Bible Belt and everybody is to where do you go to church? And you're like, oh, yeah, I go to church. Where do you go to church? Well, it's that one place. And I'm like, brother, like we are in a town of 40,000 people. You go to church and you don't know what church you go to. Just tell me you don't go to church. Let's just cut past that and get right down to it. So this is discouraging. If it is true that when asked, only 17% would say yes, I know the Great Commission and here it is. So Barno, the kind people that they are, then said, okay, how about if I give you five verses and you can tell me the one you think is the Great Commission? So that was the next question they asked. And so they gave five different verses in the Bible and said, pick one. You know, because multiple choice is the best of ways to give tests. And a third got it right. And then the rest, you know that second one love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, mind and strength. I could see where some might think, well, that's a pretty great command. In fact, some call that the Great Commandment, the Great Commission is going and making disciples, baptizing and teaching. And we even have said around here that the mission of HBC is to make disciples in the fulfillment of the Great Commission in the force of the Great Commandment. So that's not too bad. But you know, when a third of them say, I'm not sure of any of these passage are the Great Commission is discouraging. And then they broke down the survey by generations, which for more than anything, maybe if there's anything to glean from that, is that maybe the prior generations, it was taught to a greater degree because the elders and boomers are coming through. They're also more honest because they will just at the last piece say, I don't know it, where if you notice those millennials, 41% say, yeah, I've heard of it, but I actually don't know it. Well, what good does that do millennials. So it's that classic like yeah I'm totally down with that. Yeah I'll be there. Like where'd you go bro. Ghosted me. So they're ghosting the Great Commission. They've said they've heard of it but they don't really know it. Um, what I found fascinating just on this page. And you might be able to see it at the bottom where it says those with higher levels of New Testament knowledge are more likely than those with less knowledge to say they know the Great Commission. Wow. So people that are familiar with the Bible have a greater chance of knowing what the Great Commission is, and vice versa.
And I share all that just to kind of paint the context when we say, hey, we have a mission statement here and we're we're driven by it. We're holding to it. Uh, we just don't do that because we feel like we got to join the crowd of churches that have mission statements to put on their websites to try to attract...no, like we really actually want to have it so we as leadership and members know exactly who we are and what we're about. Because when you know who you are and what you're about, especially in and it's true in life in all categories.
But I would just say particularly in the church, then you are not prone to the passing trends and whatever it might be that comes along. And if you're just looking at it in plain sight, you would just say, well, whatever. Churches are growing the fastest with the most people, ask them what they're doing and just copy it. And that's pragmatism. They could be doing a lot of stupid things or unbiblical things or whatever you might. But if they're just building a crowd, if that's what you want, then you really don't know who you are or you're just following whatever it is that makes sense to you for growth. But to know who you are and what you're about protects you against that. It's not to say you can't continually wanting to be improving. I mean, when we say at HBC, we know who we are as followers of Jesus Christ and what we're about. We're about making disciples of Jesus Christ to the glory of God. That doesn't mean we're not still trying to improve just because we know the who and the what doesn't mean we don't care about the how, which is how are we doing that? And we can always get better at that. I'm asked from time to time by friends, I think their friends, uh, who say like, you know, Adam, are you trying to get better as a preacher? Um. What is. Yes, yes, I am. And then, you know, even. How do you do that? And so that's really a question of, hey, are you continually trying to excel still more? And I totally receive it. I think as a church we always can ask the how, how are we doing at this and can we do it better? Uh, because we want to give our best to God, but we're never coming back to the drawing board going like, what are we? What are we trying to do here again, as a church? We're doing what Matthew 28:19 and 20 makes very clear. Going therefore making disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son, and the spirit teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded.
Now within that you have those four verbs, and the one is the main verb...making disciples, and the other three going and baptizing and teaching. Fill it out. And that's just how the Greek language works. The main verb is the driver of the action. It calls your attention to it. And then those other verbs are actually participles, which in grammar speak is verbal adjectives, meaning they are verbs describing that main action. So just picture Jesus saying, look guys, making disciples, followers of me, those who will believe in me, those who will trust in me, those who will go out for me, abide in me. That's what this is about and the way in which that's going to be accomplished would be going, as in your life is continually committed to this. It's your head's always on a swivel. You're always looking around. You're always at the ready to to look for the need around you, spiritually speaking, and to meet it. And then when you meet somebody, as you're looking around your life, baptizing them in the name of the father, son and spirit is meaning they are in Christ. They've come to Christ. You've shared the gospel with them. They've believed on it. And being baptized is the evident fruit of that, that they are taking their faith public. They're making it known. And then that last piece, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, that's that they are now living under the lordship of Jesus Christ, that what he says goes. And that's part and parcel of becoming a follower of Jesus.
So that's the Great Commission. That's that's what it's all about. And that's what we're all about. Now to check us and to say, like, how do we know we're doing that? We have taken that verse, that idea of making disciples of Jesus and saying, how do we break that down into what priorities to pursue, what values? And that's where we have core values of our church. And that'll be the outline for today. Is that Hickory Bible Church, in seeking to make disciples of Jesus to the glory of God, is a Christ exalting, word centered, disciple making, mission driven church. And really, those flow in four directions. We go up. I mean, that's the start of it. We're looking up. We're looking to Jesus Christ, to exalt him, to magnify him. And then we're looking down to his word because we're anchored in it. And then we're looking in within the body of Christ here, ensuring that before we care about the quantity of disciple, we want to care about the quality of it. And then as we strengthen disciples here, our mission goes out. So you can think of up, down, in, out if you need directions to go with it.
And so let's start with the most important one out of them all. If we're going to make disciples of Jesus to the glory of God, it's important we really understand who Jesus is and what our lives should be about. And that's we are. Christ exalts us. Go to Colossians 1:28. It says, "We proclaim Him", Jesus Christ, "admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ." That that is the high point of of our mission statement. It's Jesus, because he alone is worthy of our praise. What motivates us and moves us is that Christ alone is supreme. Christ is all. Christ is everything. He's Lord of universe. We saw that the last few weeks studying in Matthew 14:22-30, the greatness and goodness of our Lord. And you see it in example in the Gospels. But then you have in the epistles, writers explaining his greatness. Listen to why Paul could say in verse 28 of Colossians one...why should we proclaim Christ? How about just listen to the supremacy of Christ in Colossians 1:13-20? And that'll answer the question of why is Christ supreme? Why should we exalt him? You can follow along or close your eyes and just listen to how wonderful and glorious...He is without equal...Christ. Here's why. Here's his resume.
"He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in the heavens and on earth, invisible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."
Amen. Amen. Your life is held together right now by the supremacy of Jesus Christ. The breath you just took, your ability to comprehend...understand...it's because he holds all things together. Furthermore, for the church, "He is the head of the body, the church, and he's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself will have come to have first place in everything. It was the father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him and through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross, through him I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven." So ask yourself, how could you as a Christian, or we as a church, not be about the exaltation of Jesus Christ? What else could we give our lives to? Who else could we live our lives for other than Christ? And this is just one passage, a few verses amongst the entirety of the Bible that all point to the same message.
He's the hero of the whole story of redemption. So you take the 66 books of the Bible written by 40 different authors over a time period of 1500 years across different cultures and three different languages. And you put those all together and only in the miraculous wisdom of God, He could do that. And they all point to Christ as supreme. There's nothing like that. There's no other story that comes together like that that explains why you exist and who you exist for. And so left without the exaltation of Jesus Christ, man is stumbling around in that domain of darkness looking for an answer. And it's everywhere. When you see the world through the glory of Jesus Christ, when it illuminates everything around you. As C.S. Lewis says, I believe not because I stare into the sun, but because I bask in the glow of the sun and it lights up everything else. And you see the world correctly when you see Christ. It came to my mind just watching the, uh, the beginning, the ceremony of the Olympic Games. And as the commentators were trying to make something as, you know, invigorating as sporting and athletics profound. They were talking about whenever the lady was with the guy on the piano, floating down the river and singing John Lennon's Imagine, you know, because the world would be better if there was no God. We'd all just get along really well, if man is the measure of all things. And they said, you know, imagine that's the song that has been chosen over the last few decades is as the song of the Olympics, because it embodies how we really are good people and we all can just get along. Really? I mean, if you don't pay attention to anything else going on in the world and say, yes, um, if life is as trivial as throwing a shot put and doing 15 spins in the air...props to Simone, then. Yeah, we could say, man, is the measure of all things, if that's all that matters. Sure, we can get along. Except the irony is, like right after they were pontificating, they cut to commercial. And it's the Nike commercial that says winning isn't for everyone. Why? Survival of the fittest. These people don't come here to lose. They want to win. And we watch the competition and as united as we are, we're cheering for a country we support as if that person's victory does anything for our everyday life. But that's it. If you have no God in the equation, if Christ isn't supreme over your life and Lord of your life, what are you left to make sense of?...what you see day to day. And that's what it means to be a Christ exalter. There's no one else that comes close to give your life to and live your life for than Christ.
So Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:5, we don't preach ourselves as Lord. What a joke. We preach Christ as Lord, who just is following in the footsteps of John the Baptist when he was told by his disciples, they're all going to Christ. And he says, of course they are. You want to hear the voice of the bridegroom, don't you? Yes. He has to increase. I'm decreasing. A man can't say anything unless he can say it from heaven. And only he has the words of life. So that's it. That's where we start today. When we say, what's our mission as a church? We're here to make disciples of Jesus. Why? What's my motivation? Christ is all. He's your motivation. He alone is worthy to be praised and give everything in your life, for...so have you? If you're in Christ, it's just being able to find more to give to him. His Kingdom is all, his mission is all, and his call on our lives is to give all of who we are, because he gave all for us.
If you're not in Christ today, just go back to that first verse I read in verse 13. He rescued us from the domain of darkness. Is that where you still are? You say, I'm in a very bright room. My life's actually pretty good. What domain of darkness am I in? No. You're blind actually. You couldn't tell if you were in the darkness or not. You're blind to the light of Jesus Christ, and the domain of darkness you're in is sin, and it's on the inside of you. So I don't have to know anything going on outside of you if you're not in Christ. I can't speak into your life and know what you're going through. Some of it probably is really hard, but you trying to find your way out of that on your own is going to get you nowhere. You'll get further away the harder you try. But when you realize that Jesus Christ can rescue you from that domain of darkness, well, how does he do that? You say, well, verse 14, he dies in the place of a sinner on the cross and offers forgiveness of sins. He takes your sin away and he gives you his righteous life. God is just and that if you're not in Christ, you'll be punished and perish forever away from him. But he's also the justifier and not wanting any to perish, but all to come to eternal life sent his very own son to die in your place. So for you to recognize that and call on him to save you, call on him as Savior and call on him as Lord. What else is he? He's. He's everything, we just saw...all things from him and to him and through him. He's Lord. And so you give your life to him. You hold nothing back. You trust him for everything. That's what it means to exalt Christ with your life.
And that's what we want to do as a church. We want to be a church of Christ. Exalt us. Not to us, not to us, but to your name be the glory is what we live for. How do we check ourselves in that? Well, that's our second value. It could be easy to say it, but is there a way for us to test it? And that's where we go from looking up to looking down to the word. We're a word centered church. Because it's not uncommon for churches to put like a slogan about Jesus on their website. I just kind of perused the internet this week, just looking around churches in in our area, the 8 to 8, and found slogans like beholding and becoming like Jesus, representing Jesus, Jesus is our message. So I don't think that you come to our website and see making disciples of Jesus to the glory of God, that if people are comparing just by landing page alone, well, you know, you know, HBC is really in its own category. I'm not going to say that. But you know what? You can test our profession by...where do we look when we need to know what it means to exalt Christ? Who's the guide, who's the guard...the Spirit...the word. We're just not making it up as we go along. That's what differentiates between churches beyond mere words. And if we want our exaltation of Jesus Christ to rise higher, then we need to plant our lives deeper in His Word. That's where the life is. That's where the tree that produces the good fruit in Psalm 1 finds its nourishment going down deep to the Word of God. That's where life is found. So when life is hard, the leaf does not wither, and in everything you do, you prosper spiritually even when you're not prospering physically. That's what means to be a word centered church. We get that out of 2 Timothy 3:16-17, where Paul writes, "All Scripture is inspired by God." So there's a perfect word why would we be so committed to being word centered? Because it's a perfect word. It's it's breathed out. That's what the word inspired by God means. He breathed it out. So it's without any error, completely perfect in every word, every last letter. It's inspired by God. It's not just a perfect word, but it's a profitable word. I would call it. It's perfect. And it's powerful because look at everything it can do in teaching it. It can reprove us when we need it in our sin. It corrects us when we're not seeing things correctly. It trains us in righteousness to stay on the right path so that we can be adequate. All that he has designed us to be equipped for every good work...every good work out there to do. If it's good, if it's for God, the Word of God can instruct you how to do it. It's a sufficient word. There's no lack in it. And that conviction in me can get tested all the time as a preacher, when it could be easy for me to think. Is there is there something more to say besides beyond the word? And I sometimes sit up there and think, Adam, if you didn't have anything to say from the Word of God today, what would you talk about? And then I chuckle because I imagine you all leaving within 30 seconds when I'm like, well, guys, let me tell you my views on...fill in the blank, and you're like, peace. You're no expert in that. Why would I want to learn that from you? But to come to the Word of God that has the power within, it's perfect from him. Of course we want to listen because it's not about the person preaching it. It's about the perfect word that's being preached. And you come to it humbly and you say, teach me, Lord. So it's a powerful word. It's a perfecting word. It gets tested when I come up here to preach. It gets tested in all our lives when people question us. You really think the Word of God is sufficient? I had somebody challenged me on that this week as I was telling him about why, in our church, we are committed to raising up Biblical counselors here. People that are able to take the Word of God and do what it says in 2 Timothy 3:17. Equip equipped for every good work to help people. And so. Oh, really? So they asked the question. It was sincere. Um, as I explained, like what our efforts are to to invest the Word of God into people's lives and raise them up. And it's not the exclusive job of the teacher of the preacher here. And he asked me the question, why would you reinvent the wheel? As, as as in, hey, there's professional counselors out there to do that. Why? Why would you guys why are you reinventing the wheel? Um. There was a lot of things I wanted or could could have said, but. But what really strikes me as is, is just that picture. Why reinvent the wheel and say, listen, friend, us wanting to equip you with the Word of God so you can use it isn't reinventing the wheel, it's using the wheel. We're not reinventing anything. It's it's here's the wheel. Like go. The thing moves down the road when you actually know, like the tire, it's sufficient. It's going to roll. We're not reinventing anything coming up with anything new.
But the beauty of it is when you understand it and you grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ, you can use it. But you have to believe in its power. And that's sometimes what my burden is when somebody has that kind of like view of, oh, the word is sufficient, A, and then they, you know, throw down the gauntlet for you to answer. Sometimes, you know, in, in petty things like, oh, the word sufficient. Um, where does it tell you in the Bible how to change your oil in your car? Checkmate. It doesn't. But as all things pertaining to life and godliness, 2 Peter 1:3, meaning all things necessary for salvation and sanctification. That's much more important than me knowing how to change the oil of my car. In fact, the Bible gives me the wisdom to know I have no idea how to do that. I ask Mark Ikerd to help me. I know to call Casey Dippel if stuff breaks on my lawnmower. You know what the Bible tells me? There's people wiser than me so that I can then say, hey, I've got a sufficient word for all the spiritual stuff, but all the other stuff out there at least, says Adam. Humble yourself. Find help. It's sufficient enough to do that for me, that I don't go through life thinking that I can just operate according to Adam's world and know how to do everything. And you know, you can know how to do everything else. But if you don't know to go back to this for your sufficiency, you don't know anything.
So that's it means to be word centered, because we believe in its perfection and its power. So my question to you, new here or been a while, is the word central in your life? As John Piper calls it. Are you tethered to the text? You know, the game tetherball just always, no matter how fast and far that ball swings around the pole, it's always tethered to it. And that's what he says. The preacher always must be in the person of God, must be tethered to the Word of God, never drifting away.
Now, if the word is central in our lives, it may bring up the question, well, hey, you love God and you love His Word, but you may not love people. You know that straw man argument that you know, there's just a bunch of people who love studying the Word of God, but there are no earthly good. Well, sometimes stereotypes can exist for a reason, as in, if we aren't equipping you, the saints for the work of the ministry to the building up of the Body of Christ. If you're just getting big heads, but you're not having active hearts and bodies to be used for other people to grow in Christ, then we're not a disciple making church.
So go to Ephesians 4:11-16. Our third value, being a disciple making church, is that we don't just learn it for our own good, but we follow the script of Scripture that says in Ephesians 4 that the gifts that Christ won and gave in the spirit, the gifts of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers weren't just for those people to be exalted over all. It's actually look at verse 12, the gift of teaching, taking the Word of God, explaining it to someone else, helping them understand it and apply it is what we call equipping the saints for the work of service. And here's the end of it...to the building up of the body of Christ. That's being a disciple making church, meaning it doesn't terminate on you. It's always you're taking it, you're learning it, you're growing from it. And you're saying, who is it that I can strengthen now? Because as I get stronger as a follower of Jesus Christ, disciples made stronger then to be a disciple means I'm a true disciple is I'm turning it around and pouring into someone else. I mean, that's just how this whole thing works. We have to continue to pass it on. Otherwise, we're not fulfilling the call of the Christian to tell others about Christ to lead others to tell others about Christ. Lead others to Christ and help them grow in Christ. I mean, discipleship is you following Jesus Christ. Discipling is you helping others follow Jesus Christ. Are you doing that? Otherwise, you know, we we might say we're a disciple, but if we're not discipling other people, we're not a disciple because inherent in the name is you're doing it.
I was thinking about that as, um, my family went to the YMCA this week, and, uh, I was just watching how many people seemed to be inspired right now to swim laps. Thanks, Katie Ledecky. I mention her because, I mean, she's flying through the water, but at least it seems attainable. Whereas, you know, those who can write the 50 meter. And it made me think about what we call ourselves versus what we really are. Many of us could be watching those swimmers and be like, I'm a swimmer. No you're not. But I'm a swimmer. Just different in degree. I jumped into that 50 meter pool at the Y and I was like, goggles on Challenged my 11 year old son to a race. He even gave him a head start. And, um, I was a swimmer...a slow 50 meter swimmer, a struggling. Some might call me a Shamu. I mean, just just plowing through the water. And as I got to the finish, my goal was actually just to swim it and not touch the bottom. And that enough was a victory for me. So I get done and I'm gasping for breath, and then the worst thing happens. My son says, hey, do you see some people from our church over there? Oh. Yeah. But it made me think about calling myself a swimmer. I. I at least jumped in and tried it. I'm not a good one. But to say you're a disciple of Jesus Christ and never make a disciple, you know you're watching it on TV. You're inspired by the people, even, but you're not a swimmer unless you just get in there and do it. And so it is in discipleship. You got to be doing it. I'm not saying you got to be whoever it is we admire and uphold his great disciple makers. But like who are you at least jumping in and trying with? That's what it means to be a learner of Christ and a follower of Christ is to take it. And as he said, teaching others to observe all he commanded. Just try it. Just go for it. Opportunities abound everywhere we are, and that's the whole idea of going. We're just looking around all the time. Where's the opportunity around me? It doesn't matter how old you are or young you are. You can tell somebody about Christ, you can share a Bible verse you know, you can of course progress in that. And like I mentioned before, Biblical counseling, but you got to be doing it. And throw aside this idea. Well, Adam, that's because there's Christians and then there's disciples. That's that's nothing. That's not that doesn't exist. If you are a Christian, you are a disciple. It's just, what kind are you? An obedient one that's doing it in your own life and others or not?
And then last but not least is we strengthen our church. We want to make an impact on the world around us, and that means for us to be a mission driven church. Acts 1:8, a very simple text, but one that's a good guide for us. Just when we see the simplicity of the words of Christ. When he told his disciples, standing there as he was about to leave, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria, and to the remotest part of the earth." So last but not least, as we as disciples of Jesus get stronger we want to see the mission go farther and praise God that someone these disciples to start and then throughout history didn't keep the gospel just in Jerusalem. Are you thankful for that? It made it to our nation, and then it made it to our nation, and it made it to our fair state of North Carolina and somehow made it to your street, made it to some person who shared the gospel with you. But it's because the mission is always moving forward. It's never standing still. It's never staying put unless we're not doing it. And, um, even at HBC, when we define how we do missions, whether local or global, um, we locate it in its relation to the local church. That we're never just trying to kind of run lone ranger missions, but it's always to say, hey, no matter who we are, where we are, what we're doing, are we connecting these people, not just trying to get a decision from them? No, we want to make a disciple of them. And a disciple is going to be connected to a local church. So we define our missions here in three ways. The missions we're going to get in with or we're going to join up with are either starting, strengthening or supporting churches. That's how we decide where to go and what to do. I mean, it's evident even in the three trips we took this summer. Starting churches...the mission we took to Romania. I mean, you've got some new churches there in Budapest and Kirchen...George and Christi. And so when we go there, our desire in trying to support and strengthen is really because we see the need for more churches to be started amongst the gypsy people. And so that'll keep driving us to do that mission. And then who knows where it'll go from there. And so we could see it in the Romania team. Or then we think about Team Mexico that went there. It was a smaller team, and their particular focus was to strengthen that church by investing in the leadership there to build up deacons and elders. And I know it doesn't always get the pictures of hordes of kids and VBS and all that wonderful stuff, and it doesn't always show the immediate results of we built something and painted it, but the effort that the people made to get down there and for hours, open up the Word of God together and say, hey, Capps, you've been here for a couple decades, and after you're gone, we want this thing to keep going. So we got to get this leadership thing built up. It was worth the time. And then the team that went to Uganda supporting, as in it wasn't starting anything new there. Shannon Hurley's ministry S.O.S. Blessed by the the work of Shannon and teams have gone there over decades. You have a healthy, strong church and even connected to that is now a Christian school. And so we were really supporting that school, working with the students there. That was what?...part of that local church.
So whether it supports or strengthens or starts, it's down the line. The mission of it's always going to be about making disciples to the glory of God. And we see the most effective way to do that is connected to the church. So whether those trips have different focuses, it all comes back to our mission statement. Are we engaging our world, evangelizing the lost and equipping the saints? When you think about going, baptizing, and teaching, all pointing back to making disciples, think of those three E's. The going idea is just engaging everywhere you are all the time. And we have people far from Christ here, just like people have, far from Christ in Romania, Mexico, Uganda. We don't necessarily have to go there. We desire to partner up. But like Eric was talking about in the ministry, he has, you know, that there's people from 60 different countries coming to the church they have. So they get built and strengthened. They go back to their home countries. And now you have disciples there. Instead of trying to go to all 60. I mean, I think of the ministry that some of our young people here have at Lenoir-Rhyne University to the international students, I've seen them sitting right there in that row when the semester comes along. You know, what's awesome about that is some of those students that have come to Christ while here have gone back to their countries.
Now they're a missionary. Now they're taking the good news. Why we're excited for Erin Cox. Why she's proven herself. Why can we think that she's going to do an effective job overseas? Because she's been doing it here. She was mission driven here the last five years I've been here. And before that, she was the one inviting international students to come and hear the gospel and then discipling them. So when she came a couple of years ago about being sent out, we said, yeah, that's the thing we want to export because you've been importing the right thing. I mean, why would anybody think they're going to go and be effective somewhere else in the world, and they're not already doing it right here, right now? I mean, it doesn't make sense. It's not a switch you just flip on. It's a passion inside you. to say, I'm going to share the gospel with people. I want lost people to come to know Christ. So if you're a college student, a young adult here, and you're thinking missions, one day. You got people from all over the world in this community, particularly on those college campuses. Are you reaching them? Are you inviting them here? That's just who you are. That's why you do it. But that's true for all of us in here. Our neighbors on the street. I mean, I joke about people moving here, but that's happening. So will the first person they meet when they move into town be you, the Christian making disciples, inviting them to church, welcoming them, bringing them something. Hey, I saw you just moved in in the neighborhood here. I just wanted to come over and meet you. It means taking some risk, maybe some rejection. But as Hudson Taylor said, unless there's an element of risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith, right? I mean, that should hit us in our mission driven minds. Unless there's a little bit of risk in the exploits we make for God, why do we need faith. If there's not something at stake, something to gain, or be lost or gain is there eternal soul lost might be we get some persecution. We get some rejection. In the bigger scheme of things, those don't compare.
So when we think about up, down, in, out mission of our church, we're accomplishing all those things. And really all of them are driven by our affections. We want to exalt Christ because we love Christ. We stay centered in the word because we love His Word as Psalm 119 says. We make stronger disciples because the world's going to know us by how we love one another and invest in each other. And we're mission driven because we love the lost. We may disagree with lost people on a number of things, but that doesn't deter us. That doesn't stop us. We don't turn the mission field into our enemy. We reach them because they need Christ. We pray you would join us with join with us in that. Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for your grace to us in Jesus Christ this morning, and that we would take all this in just a simple look at the mission of this church that you have been gracious to over the years, over the decades, your faithfulness to HBC far outdistances our faithfulness to you, and we praise you for that. Thank you for keeping this church through all all the ups and downs and Lord, we just stand back and we're thankful. And out of that gratitude, we live our lives. We get back to the foundations of what we're about here, who we are as your followers of Christ, your supremacy, your lordship, your worthiness, your glory. And it motivates our hearts. And so now, as we turn our attention to the Lord's table, we get to the heart of why we're thankful what he did for us on the cross. And so may this time of communion be just that our communion with you, Christ, would be closer. Knowing we are united to you, wholly bound to you...forever yours. That this, this time is a great reminder of that promise to always be with us. And then we live our lives out of that. Help us we pray. Amen.
