On this communion Sunday we began a sermon series on our church mission statement: “To Know Christ and to Make Christ Known.” This will be a 9 week series. This week I reintroduced the mission statement (which is on the front of our bulletins each week) to the church. Over the next 8 weeks we will spend the first four discovering how it is that we come to know Christ more fully and we will spend the next four discovering what it means for us to make him known. Oh, how the kingdom would grow if particular churches were internally strong and externally focused!
The focus passage this week was John 6:25-40. In this passage we find a hungry crowd seeking Jesus for the wrong reasons. They want to “see” who he is. They want to have their bellies filled with more of the loaves and fish he miraculously distributed the day before.
Jesus’ frustration with this crowd is born in the fact that this multitude is interested in the product of his power but not so much in what his power says about who he is. Jesus says that God has but one thing that will please him: Believe in the one whom he has sent. The crowd begs for more proof that he is worthy of such belief appealing to the manna in the wilderness.
Jesus proclaims that he is the true bread that has come from heaven.
Two things hang in the balance of knowing Christ as the true bread.
1. Satisfaction in this life. “Whoever comes to me will never hunger and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
2. Salvation in the next life. “And this is the will of him who sent me that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.”
The whole of this life and the next hang in the balance of knowing Christ- through faith believing that he is who the scriptures testify him to be.
After coming to the table to celebrate the sacrament- Christ the bread broken for us- we closed our worship together by joining in a statement of purpose:
Leader: Church, what is our mission?
Congregation: Our mission is to know Christ and to make Christ known.
Leader: How is it that we come to know Christ more fully?
Congregation: We come to know him through worship, fellowship, in the Scriptures, and in prayer.
Leader: How is it that we make Christ known?
Congregation: We make him known through our actions, our words, our testimony, and our life together.
The focus passage this week was John 6:25-40. In this passage we find a hungry crowd seeking Jesus for the wrong reasons. They want to “see” who he is. They want to have their bellies filled with more of the loaves and fish he miraculously distributed the day before.
Jesus’ frustration with this crowd is born in the fact that this multitude is interested in the product of his power but not so much in what his power says about who he is. Jesus says that God has but one thing that will please him: Believe in the one whom he has sent. The crowd begs for more proof that he is worthy of such belief appealing to the manna in the wilderness.
Jesus proclaims that he is the true bread that has come from heaven.
Two things hang in the balance of knowing Christ as the true bread.
1. Satisfaction in this life. “Whoever comes to me will never hunger and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
2. Salvation in the next life. “And this is the will of him who sent me that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.”
The whole of this life and the next hang in the balance of knowing Christ- through faith believing that he is who the scriptures testify him to be.
After coming to the table to celebrate the sacrament- Christ the bread broken for us- we closed our worship together by joining in a statement of purpose:
Leader: Church, what is our mission?
Congregation: Our mission is to know Christ and to make Christ known.
Leader: How is it that we come to know Christ more fully?
Congregation: We come to know him through worship, fellowship, in the Scriptures, and in prayer.
Leader: How is it that we make Christ known?
Congregation: We make him known through our actions, our words, our testimony, and our life together.
Each component of the congregational response will be the focus of our next 8 weeks together.
-Pastor Scott
-Pastor Scott
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