A People With A Purpose

When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" (Matthew 16:13–15)

On the birthday of the church, a look at who Christ's people are and the unstoppable mission He has given them.

Why We Celebrate a Jewish Feast

Today we're taking a slight detour from our study in Paul's trials in Acts to celebrate a special day on the calendar: the Feast of Pentecost. You may wonder why a church would celebrate a Jewish feast, so let me set the stage.

The nation of Israel was commanded by God to observe three convocations and seven feasts. A convocation was a time when the people convened together in Jerusalem—three times each year, at the beginning of spring, the end of spring, and the fall. At the first gathering they celebrated Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Feast of First Fruits. Fifty days later came the Feast of Pentecost. And in the fall they celebrated the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and the Feast of Tabernacles.

Some Christians believe we should observe and celebrate all of these. If you can get your employer to give you seven holidays, God bless you. But while these feasts are important, their greatest importance is that they point to Jesus. Everything in the Old Testament points to Him; the law and the prophets are fulfilled in Christ.

The Harvest Feast and the Birth of the Church

This holiday at the end of spring—Pentecost, or Shavuot—is especially important to the church, because around AD 33, which makes it 1,981 years ago today, God did something great on the Lord's Day. The people were gathered together, and God birthed the church. This is literally the birthday of the church. Years later they were still celebrating it; Paul wanted to return to Jerusalem for Pentecost.

It is fitting that the birth of the church happened on the day celebrating the harvest. Both Jesus and the New Testament writers picture the giving of the gospel and the gathering of believers as sowing seed and reaping a harvest. In Matthew 13, Jesus' first parable is of the sower who goes forth to sow seed—the seed is the word of God, the ground is the hearts of men, and a time of harvest comes.

In John 4, Jesus passed through Samaria around springtime, met a woman at the well outside Sychar, and as the Samaritan men came streaming out of the city, He said:

Do not say, "There are still four months and then comes the harvest"? Behold... the fields... are already white for harvest! (John 4:35)

The church begins at the time of harvest. For 1,981 years God has been plowing, planting seed in human hearts, and bringing in the harvest—and we get to be part of that work.

What Is the Church?

When we talk about these things, we must define what church actually is. The word translated "church" is the Greek Ecclesia, meaning a gathering or assembly of people convened under one common thing. By that bare definition, even a flash mob is a "church." So what makes the gathering under the heading of Christ different?

Nearly two thousand years later, people hear "church" and think of a building. They say, "I'm going to church," "I'm at church," "I went to church." But that is a Temple-driven, Old Testament mindset. The reality of the New Testament is that the church is the called-out people of God, saved by His grace and for His purpose. Remember the little rhyme: "Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the door, see all the people." The people are the church—not the building.

We are not only saved to be saved, but saved for a purpose, for a task. And this whole thing is not the invention of man. It is human nature to gather in tribes and groups—people who look like us, talk like us, follow the same team. Fraternities, clubs, and foundations are the constructs of men. But the church is something else.

The Church Is God's Plan, Not Man's

The very first time the word "church" appears in Scripture is in Matthew 16. Jesus was with His disciples at Caesarea Philippi, in the northernmost part of Israel below Mount Hermon. There stands a red rock cliff with a cave and a spring—one of the headwaters of the Jordan River. For centuries people gathered there to worship the false god Pan and many other deities, offering animal and fruit sacrifices to images carved to look like something.

There, surrounded by people worshiping carved rocks, Jesus asked who men said He was. The disciples reported the rumors—John the Baptist (already beheaded), Elijah (whom Malachi prophesied would come before the Messiah), Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. Then Jesus asked the important question every person must answer individually: "But who do you say that I am?"

You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. (Matthew 16:16)

Underline that word living. While others worshiped lifeless images, Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ—the Anointed One, the fulfillment of all Old Testament prophecy—and the Son of the living God, come with the authority and power of God Himself.

Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter [Petros, little pebble], and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:17–18)

Jesus is the one who builds this gathering, and He builds it upon this truth held in common: He is the Anointed One, the incarnate Son of God with all authority and power. That confession is the foundation of the church. This is God's plan, not ours.

The Church Is God's Plan to Accomplish His Mission

Jesus did not stop at building His church. He rescues a people by His death, burial, and resurrection—indeed His very next words pointed to Jerusalem, where He would be crucified and rise the third day—and then He gives them a task. Consider the commissions:

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 of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:18–20)

Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. (Mark 16:15–16)

Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:46–47)

Notice that Luke says beginning at Jerusalem—not ending there. The church is God's plan to accomplish His mission, not our ideas or our visions. The church must get in line with His calling: to go and make disciples, to baptize those who believe, to teach them, to preach the gospel, and to deliver the message of repentance and remission of sins to all nations.

The Church Is Empowered and Equipped by God

In the same breath, Jesus slips in a surprising command in Acts 1:

And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father... "for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." (Acts 1:4–5)

Why wait, if He just said "go"? Because we cannot accomplish this task in our own ability—it is too big for us. So He says wait until you receive power from God's Spirit.

When the disciples asked, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" Jesus answered:

It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:7–8)

It is the temptation of the church to be inordinately focused on the timing of Christ's return and His kingdom. But Jesus turns our focus to the mission. The church is called, empowered, and equipped by God.

Pentecost Has Fully Come

When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind... Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:1–4)

Ten days after Jesus ascended, the Spirit was poured out on about 120 gathered believers. Devout Jews from every nation under heaven were in Jerusalem, and they were amazed:

How is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?... we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God. (Acts 2:8, 11)

Put an exclamation point next to that. The mission God has given us will not be finished until all languages hear the wonderful works of God in their own language. That is what started the church, and it should inspire us to be about the same thing.

Then Peter—the same man who fifty days earlier denied that he knew Jesus—stood up and preached:

Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:36)

Lord—the one with all authority and power from heaven. Christ—the Anointed One. When they heard this they were cut to the heart and asked what to do. Peter answered, echoing all three commissions: "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Those who gladly received his word were baptized, and about three thousand souls were harvested that day. The church was born.

The Church Will Not Fail

This point is so important we must grasp it. In Matthew 16:18 Jesus said the gates of Hell will not prevail against the church, and for 1,981 years the church has not only continued but grown.

I recently heard a pastor I respect bemoan the state of our nation and say, "The church is one generation away from extinction." That's a great sound bite, but it's bad theology—because Jesus said the gates of Hell will not prevail against the church. And we have not only His past word but a prophetic promise of the future:

After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" (Revelation 7:9–10)

That is our future, church—representatives from every tribe, nation, people, and tongue, standing before the throne. So when someone says the church will fall apart and become extinct, no. The gates of Hell will not prevail.

The Unstoppable Force

Of the 7.2 billion people in the world today, about 33%—2.3 billion—stand under the banner that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and the number is growing. Yet there are still around 2,000 distinct ethno-linguistic groups with no one reaching them and no Scripture in their language. At a recent missions gathering of about 500 movers and shakers, the reports from Wycliffe, the Seed Company, and others were that by their own measurements, by the year 2030 there will be workers reaching every one of those 2,000 people groups. That is within your lifetime. The church will not fail.

Consider the YouVersion Bible app. In 2008, Life Church built it and gave it away for free. To date it has been downloaded 143 million times and is nearing the most-downloaded app on smartphones in the world. It now offers the Bible in 628 different languages and 924 versions, adding ten languages a month. Since it went live it has logged 94 billion minutes of reading—about 183,000 years—and it's increasing by 4 billion minutes a month.

We've heard it's hard to get Bibles into certain places. But Apple, Motorola, and others want to put smartphones into those unreached places to increase their bottom line—and they become Bible distributors for us. You meet someone who speaks Farsi or some language you've never heard of, and you can pull up John 3:16 right there on the phone. There are 628 of them.

The gathering of God's people—saved by His grace and for His purpose—is the unstoppable force in the world today, and no blood moon will stop it. You'll hear people claim Islam is the fastest-growing religion; that's a political claim, and it's not true. The church will continue to grow and thrive. Things look good. God is doing good things, and that's why today we celebrate the birth of the church.

Closing Prayer

Father God, we thank You for the fact that the church is not our movement but Yours; not our work but Yours. You said You would build the church and the gates of Hell would not prevail against it. Gamaliel said if this were a work of men it would fail, but if it is a work of God you cannot fight against it—and we know it is Your work, because in 1,981 years it has gone from 120 to 2.3 billion. We are thankful for each soul that comes to salvation, and that someday we will stand before the throne with an innumerable number worshiping You from every tribe and tongue and nation. Help us to be part of bringing the good news. We thank You for our team going to Mozambique to bring Your word to people who cannot read, on little devices that read it for them. Bless Your church, and use us to be Your mouthpiece—for how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach unless they be sent, and how beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things. We know that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by Your word; help us to be those who give forth Your word. In Jesus' name, amen.