How is each local church to operate in its own
location? We are confident that each
fellowship will have and should have its own “appearance.” That is, depending on the locale and on the
giftedness of those the Lord has placed in each body, they will serve
accordingly. But we are also confident
that the Lord of the Church must, on the basis of His authority over the Church,
have His say in how each church appears.
First, we learned that the Church exists for
the glory of God. Is that all we need to
know from the Bible? Do we go about
designing ways to glorify our Creator?
For example, could a church decide that it will glorify God by being an outpost
for conservationism or environmentalism or climate change? After all, we might think, how better could
we honor the Lord who made heaven and earth!
But, no, we have found that there is only one thing that glorifies God,
and that is by the Church exalting the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.
But now what?
Are we to set out and design programs and theologies that we think
glorify Christ? For example, could a
church decided to establish a hospital or a school or a business and give the
entity a name that includes the name of Jesus.
“The Jesus School.” Or “The Jesus
Investment Corporation.” Or perhaps a
church could decide to build a temple and call it the “Temple of Jesus Christ.” Or what if a church were to collect
signatures to put Jesus on the ballot for mayor of their city? Some of this is silly. Some of this might be what your church is involved
in.
What we discovered is that Jesus Himself is
doing something, something incredibly important. He was and is bringing salvation to the
world. Certainly, we must recognize that
in order to exalt Jesus we must be “doing” what He is “doing.” And, as it turns out, we also discovered that
He gave a command to all His Apostles and to the Church to do that very
thing. Go and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them … teaching them … and lo, I am with you always, even to
the end of the age (Mt. 28:18-20). He
gave this commission (yes, a “co” “mission”; us working alongside and in
the very thing He is doing) out of His authority (v18) and said that as we are
involved in this endeavor, He would be with us.
So now we say: “Finally; we know what He wants
us to do. We must devise plans and
methods and programs to do what He desires so He will be exalted!” To that we say, no! Not so fast.
It is still not time for us to exert our spirit-let creativity. Our Lord still has things to tell us about
how to carry this out.
We glorify God by exalting the Son. We exalt the Son by joining Him in His work
by which He glorifies His Father. Our
objective is to make disciples through evangelism (preaching the gospel) and
edification (building up those who believe the gospel). Now we need to hear Christ as to how we
fulfill these objectives.
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