Mission Statement

This is a sermon I'm using this Sunday at a church I am interviewing to be the senior pastor at. It is a combination and expansion of a few blogs I've written. This is my mission statement.

Mission Statement

All businesses, Schools, Organizations, and Churches have something in common, a mission, something they strive to accomplish. The mission statement for Nike is, “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” Ford motor company is, “We are a global family with a proud heritage passionately committed to providing personal mobility for people around the world.” Microsoft, “At Microsoft, we work to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential. This is our mission. Everything we do reflects this mission and the values that make it possible.” These statements tell what the aim of the company is, it tells what the company wants to accomplish with the products and services they provide. It tells why the company exists. Over the last year I’ve developed a mission statement for my own life, they reason why I do what I do, the goal I try to accomplish. It can be summed up in four words. LIVE, PREACH, GLORIFY, LOVE.

LIVE

Galatians 5.16-18, 22-25, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law... But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

Live in the Spirit. The very first verse of Galatians 5 declares, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” The freedom we are given is not the freedom to indulge in any pleasures that we desire, it isn’t a freedom to live as we please, but it is freedom from slavery to sin, from the lower life of corruption. Christ has set us free to live the life He has called us to live, the life He desires for us to live. We are set free from sin, and empowered to walk with the Spirit.

He outlines the things of the flesh, the things that we are enslaved to apart from God, and he says that those who practice these things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Apart from God, there is no real life. At the moment we accept Jesus into our lives as our Lord and Savior, we are no longer slaves to sin, but rather we are children of God. We are no longer to live in sin, but in the Spirit. And that life is completely opposite.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, this is the fruit of the Spirit. These are the characteristics that are to fill the life of the Christ follower. Love, seeks the best for everyone, even our enemies. Joy, the reason to rejoice even in the midst of fear or uncertainty. Peace, contentment and satisfaction, serenity not anxiety. Patience, the ability to endure trial and hardship without complaining or retaliation. Kindness, accepting and welcoming, goodness expressed through action. Goodness, moral excellence, striving to be like God in character and action. Faithfulness, being trustworthy and reliable, dependable. Gentleness, being humble, teachable, and considerate. Self-Control, being in control of you motives and actions, with the help of God, so that you can be a servant to others.

When we accept Jesus, we accept His freedom; we receive the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. We live in this power and presence. These things are evident in our lives. Paul says in Philippians 2.15, “so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,” The first part of the mission statement of life has to be to live in the Spirit. If the way you live your life doesn’t reflect Christ, then nothing else matters. It all begins here. Live in the Spirit.

PREACH

Jesus gives a command in Matthew 28, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…teaching them to observe everything that I commanded you;” We are commanded to proclaim the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, not just through how we live our lives, though that is the most important way, but also through our words. Live in the Spirit, Preach the Gospel of Jesus.

2 Timothy 4.1-5, “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

Paul starts by saying Christ is the judge, and one day everything we do will be judged by Christ. Therefore everything must be done so that it can be offered to Christ. Our lives need to be fit to be offered to Christ. So he begins by saying to live in the Spirit. Seek nothing but the will of God and long only to hear Christ say, “Well done good and faithful servant.”

We are to preach the word, the Gospel of Jesus. It is urgent that this message is proclaimed, because it literally is a matter of life and death. Proclaiming the Gospel is an essential part of the mission. The message has to be proclaimed, but at the same time it must be done with gentleness and respect. We must meet people where they are.

The Gospel will show sin to be sin, the message and the Spirit will convict. We must be willing to give words of warning and correction when they are needed and as the Spirit guides us. But we must also offer encouragement we must give hope. The message of Jesus is ultimately the message of hope, life, and love.

There will be times when people have no desire to listen to the truth. People seek what they want to hear. When Paul wrote this there were men who would go from city to city and teach whatever people wanted to hear as long as they were paid for it. I think this happens today not only in the secular world, but also in some churches. Pastors don’t want to step on people’s toes so they water down the message to give people what they want, so they stay happy and keep tithing. That isn’t the call, that’s not the mission. “But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

Be sober, look at things clearly and see them for what they are. Don’t get sucked into trends stand firm on the truth. It won’t always be easy, but we are to endure hardships and pay the price. The call is to do the work of an evangelist, to proclaim the Good News. We are to fulfill the ministry; we are to build the Kingdom of God. Preach the Gospel of Jesus.

GLORIFY

Live in the Spirit, Preach the Gospel of Jesus, and when we do these we will Glorify the Father. We serve a Triune God, a God with three parts. God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. Each one of these members plays an active part in our lives.

Philippians 2.5-11, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Here we see that everything is to be done to the glory of God the Father. Jesus Himself, who was God, does not regard it as something to be embraced, but empties Himself in order to point everyone to God. God is supreme, 1 Corinthians 15.28, “When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.” Jesus draws people to Himself in order to draw them to God. God’s will is for everyone to declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, one day it will happen; but His greatest desire is for every person to submit willingly to the Lordship of Jesus.

The will of God is for us to submit to Christ so that we may become like Christ. Jesus entire mission was not to focus people’s attention on Himself, but on God. That is why He came as a servant; that is why He went to death, to give glory to God. This is the attitude that we as Christ followers are to have. Not to attain glory and honor for ourselves, but to give God the glory that He alone is worthy of. Our lives are supposed to point others to God, not to draw them to ourselves. Jesus did everything to the Glory of God the Father. We are to Live in the Spirit, to be empowered to Preach the Gospel of Jesus, in order that we may Glorify the God the Father. But there is one more essential part, without this next piece all of these would be meaningless.

LOVE

Live, Preach, Glorify, Love. In Matthew 22.37-40 Jesus says, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” Jesus says the most important thing is to love. First we are to love God, everything begins here. In love we commit our lives fully to God. This love for God dominates our lives. It consumes our emotions and guides our thoughts and actions. Love for God is the first and most important thing for us to do.

The second most important thing is for us to love each other. Our love for God will bring us to love others, and in order to really love God we must love others, 1 John 4.20 “If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. “ But again our love for God is primary more important, 1 John 4.19, “We love, because He first loved us.” 1 John is an incredible passage about love. Love God, then love others, because only when we love God are we able to really love others. Only when we know who love is are we able to give love away.

Jesus says that all the law and the prophets hang on these two things. Think about it, if I really love God then I won’t worship an idol, I won’t have anything before God, I won’t miss use His name, I will keep His day Holy. If I really love people I won’t steal, murder, covet, lie, violate a marriage, dishonor my parents. That is the law. The prophets came to communicate God to the people, a lot of the time the prophets came to call the people back to God, back into a loving relationship with God because they had forgotten or ignored God.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul says that three things remain: faith, hope, and love. Love is the greatest because love lasts forever. In eternity hope ends, we don’t need hope anymore because we will be able to see the face of God. In Heaven we no longer need faith because we will be in the very presence of God, but Love remains for all eternity, because God is love.

1 Corinthians 13.1-3, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”

If I don’t love, it doesn’t matter how I live my life, without love it profits me nothing. We looked at the fruit of the Spirit, the first part of that is Love. Without love it is impossible to live in the Spirit. It doesn’t matter what sermon I preach, it doesn’t matter how well I can speak, without love the words are meaningless. The message of Jesus is love, so if I don’t have love I can’t proclaim the Gospel, the good news, of Jesus. 1 John 4.8, “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” If I don’t have love, the Bible says I don’t even know God, if I don’t know Him how can I glorify Him?

“Our work must be such that it will stand the scrutiny of Christ. Our lives must be such that they will welcome the appearance of the King. Our service must be such that it will demonstrate the reality of our citizenship of the Kingdome of God.” LIVE, PREACH, GLORIFY, LOVE. Let’s pray.

Benediction:
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.

(-1 Thessalonians 5.23-24)

Peace be with you.