Our Mission

So today we’re starting a new sermon series that’s gonna go on for the next six weeks, and the title of the series is: “We Are Cities Church.” The goal is simply to tell you who we are.

The reason we wanna do that is because, going back to last year, the pastors recognized that God was bringing our church into a new season, and so we took that as an opportunity to hit pause and begin a process of re-clarifying our mission and vision as a church. We wanted to get down to the foundations and ask, in a fresh way, who has Jesus called us to be and what does he want us to do?

So this series is about that — and if you’ve been around Cities for a while, I don’t expect that you’re gonna be surprised by anything you hear … if you’re brand-new, I’m excited for you to meet our church … and if you’re semi-new, I hope this might fill in some gaps for you. 

Today I’m talking about our mission and we’re gonna be looking at Colossians Chapter 1, verse 28. We’re gonna focus on just this one verse, and I’d like to ask you to do whatever you gotta do to get this verse in front of your eyes. 

Father in heaven, thank you for the Holy Scriptures, and thank you that we have them! In our hands, we have your very word to us, breathed out by you. Your word is “more to be desired than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb” — and we know that your word is for our good. So, by your Holy Spirit, we ask, speak to us, in Jesus’s name, amen. 

Colossians Chapter 1, verse 28. Everybody look at verse 28.

Verse 28 starts with the word “him” — Paul is talking about Jesus:

“[Jesus] we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.”

Now when it comes to the mission of our local church, there are at least three things we learn here from the apostle Paul, and #1 is this …

1. Know the play you’re running. 

So when I was a kid I played a little football — I didn’t play a lot of football, just a little  — I pretty much peaked in 8th grade. But that’s when I played for the Four Oaks Middle School Cardinals, and I was the starting quarterback (and the only reason I was the quarterback, I think, is because I could say “down, set, hut” in the deepest voice). Because it really didn’t matter who the quarterback was. We ran an I-Formation and every play I was either giving the ball to Melvin, my tailback, or to Jason, my fullback.

We ran a true smash-mouth offense and it worked. All we had to do was get at least 2½ yards every carry, and we did most of the time. We were pretty good, but we were good not because we had the best talent, but because we knew our game. We knew the play we were running.

And I think we see the same thing in the example of Paul in verse 28. We’re gonna look closely at verse 28, but first let me back up a second and show you how we get there.

Paul’s Mission Strategy

Before verse 28, in verses 24–27, Paul says that God has given him an assignment for the sake of the church. God has called Paul to make “the word of God fully known” (verse 25). What used to be a mystery is now out in the open (verse 27) — and it’s “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” 

Now remember Paul is saying this to the church at Colossae. Paul is saying to this Gentile church that an amazing thing has happened: It’s that Christ is in you, Gentiles! Christ, the Jewish Messiah, is a global Savior. He’s not just the hope of Israel, but he is the hope of all nations — Jesus is for everybody from anywhere who trusts in him.

And when you trust him, you become united to him — His Spirit lives inside of you and you become so joined to Jesus that all of his benefits as the Son of God become your benefits: you are declared righteous before God; you are forgiven for all your sins, you are adopted as a child of God with a future. And you have the hope of glory, which means, you will be with God in his joy forever.

God has sent Paul on a mission to make that known! That’s verses 24–27, and then in verse 28, Paul tells us what he does because of this mission. I think we can call verse 28 Paul’s mission strategy. 

And if you’ll bear with me for a minute, I want to explain a little distinction between the idea of “mission” and “mission strategy.” 

Think about it like this: A mission is what you’re sent to do; and a mission strategy gets into how you do it.

Now we know as a church that our mission is to make disciples of Jesus. This is what Jesus has sent us to do. He tells us this in Matthew 28, the Great Commission, that because he has all authority over all things, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” That’s what we’re called to do as a local church and it’s non-negotiable.

And now when it comes to how we do that — when it comes to our strategy — we’re supposed to learn from the apostle Paul. This is how the New Testament is set up: in the Gospels we have the life of Jesus and his commission to us; in Acts we see that commission happening and the gospel advancing; and then in the letters we get into the details of gospel transformation and practice.

“Christ Clear for Christlikeness”

Look again at what Paul says in verse 28. Because of Paul’s mission to make the word of God fully known — to witness to Jesus and make disciples — he has a simple strategy. It’s a straightforward action-purpose. He does an action for a desired purpose.

ACTION: Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom.

PURPOSE: So that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Do you see that? Action-purpose. 

Paul is saying I preach Jesus for the purpose of making mature Christians.

Or another way I think we could summarize Paul’s mission strategy is to say: 

Make Christ clear for Christlikeness. 

Now there are more details and tactics when it comes to how we work this out, but I want you to see that this is the basic strategy — for Paul and for us. For our mission to make disciples of Jesus, the most important thing we can do is show people Jesus, and the highest goal we could aim for is that everyone become like Jesus.

And it’s not complicated. One of the things I love about this strategy is that we don’t have to be superstars to do it. All we need is 2½ yards every carry — we just need to know the play we’re running. It’s been the same play we’ve been running since the very beginning. 

Back on January 18, 2015, in our very first church service together, I preached this verse, Colossians 1:28.

In that first sermon, I highlighted two things: I called it our work and our goal. I said our work is to proclaim Christ and our goal is for us and others to be complete in Christ.

Christ clear for Christlikeness — same thing. That’s the play we’ve been running, that’s the play we’re going to keep running. Church, know the play. 

Here’s the second lesson from Colossians 1:28 …

2. Remember Jesus is the ultimate difference-maker.

1928 was a rough year for the St. Louis Cardinals (we got swept by the Yankees in the World Series and we’ve had hard feelings ever since), but ’28 was a great year for moms.

Because in July of 1928, a man named Otto Rohwedder from Iowa, finally debuted this machine he had spent years inventing. It was a power-driven, multi-bladed bread slicer. 

And it was shocking. It could take an entire loaf of bread, and in seconds, it could make a beautiful block of perfectly identical bread slices each about an inch thick. It was incredible, and of course what do you do with bread like that? You bag it, distribute it, and sell it.

Within two years, bags of pre-sliced bread were in grocery stores all over the country, and the first major brand to do this called itself Wonder Bread. And there’s no doubt how big a deal this was. 

You may not realize this, but your life has been impacted by the bread-slicer. You have never had an experience with bread that was not affected by this machine. This doesn’t mean that you always eat pre-sliced bread, but it means that if you’re not, you know you’re not. Like, if you want unsliced bread, you intentionally have to go out of your way to make that happen. The bread-slicer was a difference maker. 

Centered on Jesus

And in the same way, but on a more cosmic, ultimate level, Jesus is a difference-maker. Here’s what I mean: ever since Jesus came into this world two-thousand years ago, nobody has been able to think about God or this world the same way. 

Now this doesn’t mean that everybody believes in Jesus, but it does mean that you cannot ignore him. 

You either believe Jesus to be who he says he is, OR you have to come up with some theory that denies him (and those theories have been attempted since he was actually on the ground here). 

So there have always been only two options: you either believe Jesus OR you don’t believe Jesus — and if you don’t believe Jesus then you know you don’t believe him. You intentionally do not believe him.

Whatever you do, you can’t ignore Jesus — the magnitude of his claims and reach of his impact are both too great. Nobody has changed the world like Jesus has and said the things that Jesus said. So you can’t side-step him. Everybody must make a decision about Jesus.

And because this is true, it makes sense that our mission strategy centers on him. It’s him we proclaim.

And look, I’ll tell you, the pressure is always to make it about something else. We’ve felt that here at times over the last ten years. You’ve probably felt it in your relationships, with your friends and family and co-workers.

I was having lunch with a friend last week over at Macalester and we were brainstorming the idea of starting a Bible study on campus, and he said Well, you know, the thing is with college students is that they just wanna talk about the issues. “The issues.” And I get it, but here’s the thing: Jesus is real.

We can get to the issues, but the question that every thinking person has to deal with first is Who is this man? Who is Jesus?

So we talk about him. What we need is to see him and keep seeing him, and to show him and keep showing him — first and foremost, beginning, middle, end. Everything absolutely comes back to Jesus Christ. Who do you believe he is? 

Jesus is the ultimate difference-maker, and so Paul says, Him we proclaim. 

Sweeping and Building

And then Paul explains more of what that means. He says it means that he warns everyone and he teaches everyone with all wisdom. Warning and teaching. 

That word for warning is sometimes translated “admonish.” It’s the idea of putting things in order, or clearing things up. The word “teaching” is the idea of positive construction. It means we’re building something. And there’s an important dynamic between these two. 

It reminds me of when I was a kid … my dad used to bring me to his job sites and pay me to sweep the floor. And there was a little bit of a process involved. The first thing I had to do was get rid of all the big leftover material, and then I got the broom, and the whole idea was to make the place ready for the next subcontractor, so that construction could continue. Because, see, something was being built.

And this happens when we proclaim Christ. Sometimes the reality of Jesus means that people (including us!) need to do some sweeping. I wrote an article for you two weeks ago called “The Vital Unmasking” and it was about the Holy Spirit’s ministry to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. It’s that if we’re trusting in false saviors, we need them to be exposed, right? 

No alternative to faith in Jesus ultimately works, and if you’re not trusting in Jesus, you’re trusting in an alternative. We need the Holy Spirit to convict us of that (which he can do even right now; you can ask him to do that). If you’re here this morning and you know you’re not a Christian, you are trusting in some kind of fake savior and that doesn’t end well. The proclamation of Jesus warns you. He’s the only way.

Sometimes we’re sweeping, but then we’re also building. We’re seeing Jesus, and then we’re seeing all of life in the light of Jesus. We’re learning how to build the house of our lives on the rock, because the rain will fall, the floods will come, and wind will blow, but our house will stand because it’s founded on the rock. That’s a big part of what we’re doing in our Sunday morning classes and in The Cities Institute (mark your calendars, November 1). We’re building, teaching. 

This is our strategy: Make Christ clear. 

It really does all come back to him. Jesus is the ultimate difference-maker. 

Third thing we learn from Paul for our mission strategy …

3. Aim for Christlikeness from the heart.

This is more on the purpose, the goal. Paul says we proclaim Christ “so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” That means to be complete in Christ, to be grown-up in Christ. Paul is talking about Christian maturity — true Christlikeness.

And I wonder what you think when you hear the word Christlikeness? What does it mean to be Christlike?

If you’re like me, you probably think that to be Christlike means to act like Christ. It’s about what we do, how we behave. I used to think that, and to give credit where credit is due, the writings of Dallas Willard have really helped me here. 

Willard pointed out something so obvious that it feels crazy to think we could miss this — He points out that Jesus teaches that the heart is the center of the human person. Jesus says that our sinful behaviors flow out of our hearts. That’s the problem. 

So then, when we imagine Christlikeness, how can we imagine anything less than our hearts being transformed? 

Willard says conformity to Christ must arise out of an inner transformation. The main goal, then, of Christlikeness, is not that we act like Christ, but it’s that our hearts become like Christ’s heart. 

I don’t want to just appear like Jesus, but I want my heart to be like Jesus’s heart, which means my thoughts and my feelings and my dispositions and my choices become what Jesus’s would be if he were in my shoes, because they’re flowing from my heart which has been made like his. 

This is heaven. Does anybody want heaven? In heaven, we will be transformed to be like Jesus, not just in how we look, but in our truest self.

And get this: how God effects that transformation is not by just zapping us and making it happen out of nowhere, but it’s a work that he is doing now, a little bit at a time, by the Holy Spirit. 

And we want it. For this we toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within us. There is grace-fueled, Holy-Spirit empowered effort to reach this purpose, for all of us, for everyone. For me and for you. That’s the purpose of making Christ clear. Christ clear for Christlikeness. 

It’s like what the Scottish pastor Robert Murray M’Cheyne said (in his 20s). He prayed, “Lord, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be.” We want to be as Christlike as is possible this side of heaven.” Christlikeness from the heart.

Joyful Disciples of Jesus

Now imagine that … Take a second here and picture yourself being more Christlike from the heart. If you are that kind of Christlike, how are you? What are you like? … picture yourself.

Now I would bet that a lot of you have just pictured yourself as having less fun and being more serious.

Now why do we think that?

Did you not know that God is happy?

In his presence there is fullness of joy. At his right hand are pleasures forevermore. We have the glorious gospel of the happy God! And if we are made to be more like him, doesn’t that mean that we will be happy, too?

The Bible teaches that God in his essence is love, and therefore, joy. “This is the my beloved Son in whom I’m well-pleased!” — the Father says of Jesus, This is my eternal Son I love, in whom I delight! 

This means that joy is deeper than the universe. We came from joy, and headed back to joy, and that means the more Christlike we become, the more joyful we become. 

This is so fundamental to being a disciple of Jesus, and it’s so important to our church, that we want to be more explicit about this in how we talk and what we do. We want to be and make joyful disciples of Jesus.

What’s New and Coming

This is a new way we want to start talking about our mission. Our mission has always been, and will always be, to make disciples of Jesus. That’s what Jesus tells us to do. And when it comes to what we mean by making disciples, we want to make joyful disciples of Jesus who remember his realness in all of life. 

That’s why we make Christ clear for Christlikeness. And over the next four sermons, we’re going to tell you more about this. There are four aspects to being joyful disciples of Jesus. It means …

We are Jesus worshipers.

We are joyful servants.

We are generous disciplers.

We are welcoming witnesses. 

That is who Jesus has called us to be and then to multiply — That is Cities Church.

Now we come to this Table.

The Table

The Lord Jesus Christ is everything to us, and he has given us this Table to remember him together each week. The bread represents his body broken for us and the cup represents his blood shed for us, and when we come here to eat the bread and drink the cup, him we proclaim. We are making Christ clear to one another — we are saying that Jesus is our hope. We have been saved by him, and we adore him. And if that’s your story this morning, we invite you to eat and drink with us.