1 Timothy 1:12-20
Numbers 15:22-31
The mission of the church
What is the core business of the church?
Make money? No
Develop land? No
Feed the hungry? No
Clothe the poor? No
Community projects? No
The core business of the church is the salvation of souls!
Our central mission is the same mission that Jesus was sent on- to save sinners.
Our mission is to save sinners. Period. Full stop.
Ahhhh- but Paul, you may say, but Paul, it says quite clearly on your website that our mission, the mission of this church, is to make disciples of Jesus- not saving souls.
But here is the thing…… don’t think that we can separate our mission of “making disciples of Jesus” from “saving souls”- Making disciples of Jesus and saving souls are one in the same thing.
As we gather as God’s household- the church, around God’s word and listen to the bible being read and the listen to God’s word being exhorted, yes, we are making disciples of Jesus, as they grow in their love and knowledge of Jesus and yet at the same time we are living out and clinging onto the salvation that Jesus has given us at the cross.
Listen to how Paul described the Job of Timothy, his son in the Lord, who was also a pastor in God’s house.
Look at 1 Timothy 4:13-16 with me:
13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. 14 Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. 15 Practice these things, immerse yourself in them,[c] so that all may see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.
Notice that Paul told Timothy to read the scriptures and explain the scriptures in order that both He and his flock would be saved. The whole purpose of God’s people gathering around God’s word was the salvation of souls.
This is why it is so important that people meet regularly together around God’s word- salvation is at stake.
This is why it is so important that God’s word is read and explained- salvation is at stake.
This may sound dramatic, but it’s true- what we do here today, is a matter of life and death.
Picture the church like a big rescue boat.
We reach out to people with the good news of Jesus, begging them to get on board, and when people are on board we encourage them to stay on board, because we know if they jump off, their very salvation is at stake.
The mission that Jesus sent his disciples on and therefore us on, is accomplished through his people- the church.
Our mission statement for Wingham, Krambach and Old Bar, is taken directly from the words of Jesus, from Matthew 28:19-20
19 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, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
I firmly believe that this mission is mostly accomplished through the church, through a gathering of God’s people around God’s word.
God didn’t save us to be a lone ranger, but he saved us to be part of his body- the church.
It is the church who helps makes disciples of people, as we gather together and encourage one another.
When a person declares faith in Jesus, it is better if it is public declaration, and so there is no better place to publicly declare your faith than in the assembly of believers. There is no better place to be baptised in water than in the assembly of believers. There is no better place to listen to God’s word, than in the assembly of believers. There is no better place to live out our salvation than in the assembly of believers. Where we grow in our faith together.
In the Psalms, the Psalmist, often started his prayer in despair, and yet often his prayer ended in praise, amongst his brother and sisters in the assembly. The psalmist, who was often David, knew how important it was to live out his faith in the assembly, not only for his sake, but for the sake of his brothers and sisters.
As the church makes disciples of Jesus, it clings firm to the salvation that Jesus has already brought us.
The core business of the church is the save sinners like me and you, because this was and is the core business of Jesus, who is the one true foundation of the church.
Look at 1 Timothy 1:15 with me:
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost
Jesus came to save sinners- first and foremost.
Jesus didn’t come to create political and social reform- at least that’s not his core business.
Jesus didn’t come to save the whales, save the rain forest, save the planet from burning up, save us from financial crisis, save us from……….
Jesus came to save us from our sins, which condemn us to eternal death and by his death and resurrection, he did what he came to do- He saved us from our sins.
Don’t get me wrong- social reform is good, political reform is good, looking after animals is good, looking after our environment is good, looking after the poor and needy is good, - and yet this is not the core business of Jesus, it is not the core business of the church.
Our core business is the salvation of souls.
And here is the truth, if every single person on this planet was saved, if every single person on this planet was so gripped by the gospel and lived out the gospel in their lives, this earth would be a better place, in fact it would literally be heaven on earth.
That’s what heaven is, a place where God’s people gather with God amongst their midst.
Perhaps some churches have moved away from the core business of saving souls, because it is hard to see tangible results, it is hard for us to contribute anything to a person’s salvation. Perhaps some churches have adopted the business mentality of the world, where things can be measured and presented in a way which reflects well for the business. It is easy to show how much money a church gives, it is easy to show how many community projects the church runs, and yet, it is so much harder to show how the salvation of Jesus is being lived out in a person’s life.
It is hard for us to measure, what only God can do!
Perhaps as a church, as individuals, we have stopped our core business of saving souls because it just seems too hard and too slow. We want results quickly.
And yet the apostle Paul reminds us in this letter to Timothy, that with God, while there is still breath in a person’s lungs, there is always hope of salvation. We are reminded that we all run to God’s clock- not our own.
Look at verses 12-17 with me:
I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, 13 though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief,14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.[d] Amen.
Paul uses his own story of salvation as an example of the perfect patience of Jesus.
Paul, who was known as Saul, considered himself the worse of sinners. We know from Acts chapter 9, that Saul wanted to rid this world of the church, he wanted to rid this world of Jesus. Saul had devoted his life to crushing the church, and yet just at the right time, Saul met the person he wanted to kill- he met Jesus on the road to Damascus.
And after Saul met Jesus, Jesus flowed out his mercy and forgiveness to him, and Saul became of lover of Jesus- not a hater- Saul became a lover of the church- not a hater.
What is perhaps more remarkable about the patience of Jesus with Paul, is that it tells us in Galatians 1:15-16 that God had set Paul apart before he was born to preach Christ to the nations.
Saul had committed sin after sin, and at any point, God could have killed Saul for his sins. Like the time when Saul watched the killing of Jesus’ servant, Stephen. Or the time when Saul put Christians in prison, or the time after time, when Saul read the Torah, but could not see Jesus pouring out the pages.
Jesus had been patient with Paul.
Paul had been rebelling against Jesus, rebelling against his church- and by the way, when Paul was persecuting the church, Jesus took it personally, he asked Paul why he was persecuting him.
Jesus didn’t separate himself from the church, and neither should we.
And yet despite Paul’s opposition to Jesus and the church, Jesus reached out and saved him.
Friends, God’s anger with sin, is slow and patient.
God is slow to anger, because he wants to give us time to repent, his desire is that all should be saved. And so instead of smiting us immediately for our sin, he is slow to anger, because he wants to give us time to repent and be restored.
And so here is the good news and the warning for the punishment of our sins.
The punishment for our sins have already been dealt with at the cross, and so we continue to repent of sins, knowing the punishment has been dealt, or, if we don’t turn to the cross daily, then punishment for our sins will be dealt with in Hell.
Either way, God deals with sin.
Perhaps you have heard of the saying, “all sin is equal”- and in one sense that is true, since sin, all sin separates us from God. Hence we are all sinners.
And yet in another sense, all sins are not equal.
Some sins have greater consequences than others.
For example, murder is a worse sin than spitting at someone.
Murder takes away the life of someone and it effects deeply all the family members of the person who died. There is no chance for reconciliation if a person is dead.
Spitting at someone, doesn’t take their life away and so there is still a chance that the person you spat at can grow in a loving relationship with you.
In Numbers 15, it also tells us that some sins are unintentional and some sins are intentional.
Now, whether sins are unintentional or intentional, they are still sins and they separate us from God.
Unintentional sins weighed heavy on the heart of Martin Luther, the great reformer. As a monk, he constantly prayed for forgiveness of sins which he was blind to. We was always confessing of sins which he wasn’t aware of.
For the apostle Paul, he wrote in verse 13, that when he was trying to kill the church, he was acting out of ignorance. He was trying to kill the church, because he thought he was carrying out the will of God. Many Jews at the time thought that to silence the teachings of Jesus was a good thing- they thought it was a God thing- they were acting out of ignorance.
Perhaps there are some today, who genuinely believe that it would be good for our world if the church just disappeared. And perhaps many of those people are acting out of ignorance, because they genuinely don’t know who the church is and on whom we stand.
But then, there are those who know who the church is, they know who Jesus is, and they are deliberately trying to rid the world of the church.
These are people who may have started loving Jesus and his church, but deliberately became a hater of Jesus and a hater of his church.
Look at verses 18-20 with me:
18 This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, 19 holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith,20 among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.
Paul names and shames here:
He mentions two false teachers, Hymenaeus and Alexander. These teachers started by holding to the truth of the gospel but slowly and deliberately rejected the gospel and started peddling their own truth.
In 2 Timothy 2:17, it tells us that Hymenaeus was a false teacher who said the “resurrection of God’s people had already happened”. In other words, he was preaching that we had already reached perfection in this life and so we no longer have any need to repent. In fact he was teaching we no longer have to live according to God’s way, we don’t have to follow God’s way with marriage, or church, or anything. He was basically teaching, if you believe that you are saved, you can just keep living in your sin-which Paul tells us in Romans chapter 7- is just nonsense!
Hymenaeus and Alexander where examples of people who knew the truth, and yet deliberately wandered away from it, and because of their intentional sin, they would have caused many others to wander from the truth as well.
When we gather as God’s people, our very salvation is at stake and so it perhaps should be no surprise that Paul exhorted Timothy, to hand over these false teachers to satan.
Which means, as Jesus told us in Matthew 18, that they were to be treated like non- believers, because that is exactly what they were.
This is why it is so important to name and shame.
If people genuinely believed that Hymenaeus and Alexander where believers, they would think that they were teaching the truth of the gospel. It would have caused a shipwreck for the church as well as the two false teachers.
When Paul said hand them over to satan, he meant that the church was to treat them as non-believers, which meant the church should have continued to preach the gospel to them, continued to pray that they would repent and believe.
Did you notice the aim of giving these men over to satan?
It was so that they might learn not to blaspheme.
They may learn not to lie about the gospel of Jesus, but instead to proclaim and live the gospel of Jesus.
Just like God showed patience and mercy to Paul, Paul showed mercy and patience to these false teachers. Just like Jesus confronted Paul on the road to Damascus and called for change, Paul confronted Hymenaeus and Alexander and called them to change.
Hymenaeus and Alexander didn’t suffer physical blindness for 3 days, but they did “suffer” losing their “status” within God’s church.
You see, even in the context of discipling false teachers, even in the context of Church discipline, it was all done with the purpose of the core business of Jesus, the core business of the church- Salvation.
I met with a dying man on Thursday. He had suffered a major stroke- he could no longer speak. He had lost all movement down one side of his body. He could understand everything that I was saying, he just couldn’t respond, apart from a squeeze of a hand.
In that moment, when all is stripped away, and you are awaiting to meet your creator, my core business was not to tell Ian how much money the church has made, it wasn’t to tell Ian how many good deeds he has done is his life, or what he had accomplished, no, my core business, since it is the core business of Jesus and his church, was to reassure him, that in Jesus, his salvation is secure. In Jesus, his sins have been forgiven, In Jesus, he has an eternal home waiting for him.
Friends, this is what we do, this is what God does- Salvation!
Let us pray
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