Mission Critical

Well, thank you very much, Melody, for the beautiful special music. It is incredible, the comfort and the peace that God can provide when we do come to Him in those times of difficulty, in those times of trouble that we do have. So, appreciate that very, very much. Well, brethren, there has been a lot of discussion in recent months regarding the mission and vision of the Church. Our theme this year at the GCE was advancing the mission, and the messages, the seminars, the discussions, primarily revolved around this concept. They revolved around the concept of the mission of the Church, the vision of the Church, and what all of this entails. Now, we recently met, just this last week before last, all of the pastors in the Northwest region, up in the Canby area for the Northwest Ministerial Conference, in which the importance of that mission and the importance of that vision was brought up again. So, this has been something that has been discussed quite a bit in the last few months. For those that have never been involved in strategic planning or have never had to write a mission statement or a vision statement, the vision statement of an organization is designed to express verbally or express in writing what that organization desires to become. It is the eventual end goal of what it is that you are looking for, what it is that you are planning, the end result of all the work that you do, whereas the mission statement itself is the method and the process by which, as an organization, you plan to get there. If you execute the mission, you achieve the vision. And that's the way that these two things relate to one another. Now, in businesses, non-profits, organizations in the world, well, these two statements kind of have to be crafted from scratch. You know, the organization needs to consider exactly what their goals are as an organization. What do they do? What is their purpose? What is it that they're outset to do? What sort of impact do they wish to make on the world?

And then they align their corporate vision, they align their strategic objectives, they align their mission then to propel them forward. Now, when it comes to the Church of God, when it comes to our organization as the Church, in many ways, you know, as this big, broad body of believers, in many ways, our vision and our mission have been spelled out for us. Let's start today by taking a look and turning over to the book of Ephesians. If you begin turning over to Ephesians, the Church in Ephesus, when we think about the example that was outlined for us in the book of Acts and ultimately that was preserved in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, it paints a picture of an incredibly vibrant church congregation. You know, when we talk about what we see in the book of Ephesus, or in the book of Ephesus, in the book of Ephesians, and when we ultimately see what we see written in the book of Acts during Paul's time there, we see a very vibrant church congregation. Apostle Paul dwelt in Ephesus for a little more than two years, somewhere between two to three years, where he preached the gospel of the kingdom of God in the synagogues and, likely, though it's not specifically spelled out in this book, worked as a tentmaker during the time that he was there. As we've talked about before, this congregation in Ephesus came from humble beginnings. You know, in Paul's first journey through the area, he came to an encounter with a small group of individuals that ultimately grew to become such a large movement in those intervening years that the city was up in arms over this new faith. From such a small, humble beginning grew a vibrant congregation that literally—well, maybe not literally—set the world on fire in that sense, in that city. They challenged long-standing idolatrous traditions. They challenged the norms of that particular city, and we see that that was not appreciated by individuals that lived in Ephesus. Ephesians 4 ultimately records Paul's words to the congregation there in Ephesus. His admonition to them and what they were to be—we'll pick it up in Ephesians 4 and verse 11, just to get a little bit of the context going into the statement—says he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Till we call come to the unity of the faith and to the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of cunning men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. But speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into him who is the head of Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

In the eyes of the Apostle Paul, as we see written here in the book of Ephesians, this is what a vitalized and a vibrant church looks like. A body of believers that would be edified for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for service. A body of believers who are coming to the unity of the faith, to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, maturing and being perfected as time went on to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. He describes how they would be spiritually mature enough not to be deceived by winds of doctrine. They would speak the truth of God in love, and in doing so, the whole body would be joined and knit together by what each of those joints supply. Every part does its share. And ultimately, that results in the growth of the body for the edification or for its edification in love. Now, it's this passage in Ephesians 4, ultimately, that forms the foundation for the vision statement of the United Church of God.

Vision statement of the United Church of God reads as follows. It says, It is a church led by God's Holy Spirit, joined and knit together by what every member supplies, with all doing their share and growing in love to fulfill God's great purpose for humanity to bring many children to glory. This is what we desire to become. This is what we're in the process of working to become. How do we get there? How do we get there?

We get there by executing the mission of the church. Remember, the mission is what drives an organization forward to achieve its vision. Let's turn to Mark 16. It's been referenced already here once today. Mark 16. After Christ's death and resurrection, he appeared to his disciples a number of times leading up to the day of Pentecost. On one of those final appearances, he gives his disciples their mission. He gives them their orders, so to speak. Mark 16. And we'll pick it up in verse 15. Mark 16 and verse 15. He says, he said to them, Go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. He who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe in my name. It says they will cast out demons. They will speak with new tongues. They will take up serpents.

And if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick. And they will recover. So we see Messiah tell his disciples that their task, their mission, was to go into all the world, not just one specific place, not just one specific region necessarily, but into all the world and to preach the gospel to all.

Christ's expectation was that their work and their efforts would result in those who believed and were baptized as the Father called sons and daughters to be part of his family, those who refused to believe, it says, would be condemned. He spoke also of the wonders and the signs that they would do in the process. He talked about them casting out demons in Christ's name. They would speak new languages. They would be protected from venom, from poison, in which case we see all of these examples take place. They would lay hands on the sick, and the sick would be healed.

The parallel passage to Mark 16 is in Matthew 28 and verse 19. Matthew 28 and verse 19, we won't turn there. I'll go ahead and read it if you want to put it on the screen. Please feel free. It says, Therefore, or go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations. We just sang those lyrics in the middle hymn. 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. Not only were these individuals to believe and be baptized, they were to become disciples. They were to become disciples. They were to be baptized in the name of the Father and the Son. They were to be baptized through God's Spirit. They were to be taught to observe that which Christ commanded his followers, what we see later referenced as the Apostle's doctrine in Scripture. Christ promised he would be with them to the end of the age, ultimately to the point of his coming. And brethren, that mission that was given to them then has been passed down through time and has been entrusted to us. It has been entrusted to you and to me. This is our job. This is why we have been called, is to take this into the world around us. As a result, the foundational basis of the mission statement for UCG comes from these two passages. Our mission statement reads as follows. It says, The mission of the United Church of God, an international association, is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God in all the world, to make disciples in all nations and to care for those disciples. As a church, this is what we have said is going to be the method and the process for the here and now in order to then achieve the vision of what we wish to become and what we are in the process of becoming. And there's a whole mess of strategic objectives that fall under that big umbrella of these things—of preaching the gospel, of making disciples, of caring for those disciples. And that's what we go through. And we go to the GCE each year. We go through this annual strategic plan and our objectives, efforts, and focuses in order to move things closer as a group to our vision. But there's a term that's used today in organizational planning and a concept that extends from organizational and business world into society as well. And that is the concept of something that is mission critical—the concept of something that is mission critical. If something is mission critical, by definition, it is something that is considered to be vital to the function of an organization.

And as a result, that organization and its mission cannot tolerate an intervention, cannot tolerate a compromise, cannot tolerate a shutdown on those specific mission critical factors, or it will derail the entire operation. They are that important. Mission critical factors.

In the world around us today, there's a lot of things that are defined to be mission critical—online banking systems. You imagine the chaos that would take place in the world around us if tomorrow your online banking system was gone. And you think, well, I got cash in a coffee can in my backyard. Well, that's great. That's fine. The people who are accepting your payment at the store can't count it back to you if they wanted to. But if it were to go down immediately, it is so mission critical that society would collapse. It would collapse completely and totally.

If our transportation systems were to go down, you would have an absolute crippling of the United States and the world economy in short order. That includes road. That includes air. If those transportation systems went down, you would have a crippling of the world economy in no time.

Food would not make it to stores. Goods would not make it from place to place. People could not travel from location to location. These things are mission critical systems. You disrupt for a long enough period of time and things grind to a halt. Our national power grid is mission critical. You turn that thing off, we have all manner of issues. The disruption to society and economy would be significant. So, in other words, these systems can't tolerate a compromise. They can't tolerate a shutdown on these specific systems or the system itself ceases to function. They are mission critical. When we think about our mission, when we consider our mission and what was provided to us by Messiah was handed down to us through time to the modern era of the Church of God. What are these things that are mission critical? I'd like to take some time today to explore this concept as we consider this mission that we've been given and ultimately our personal connection to it. The title for the sermon today, probably unsurprisingly, is mission critical.

When we consider the mission that's been set before the Church of God today, it's something that each and every one of us has a part in. It is not something that we can delegate. It's not something that we can hand off to someone else. Our calling is an individual calling, one that we individually have ownership in. Despite that individual calling that each of us has been provided, the body itself is made up of a collective of individuals. And ultimately, we as a body cannot achieve the vision that is outlined in Ephesians 4 if we are not actively involved in the process of the mission itself. If we individually are not actively involved in the process of the mission itself, particularly in those areas in which we have a locus of control, then ultimately we can't achieve the vision that we've set out to achieve. Brethren, it begins with each and every one of us individually. That's where it begins. We are called to be disciples of Jesus Christ. That was the specific model that Christ used to impart knowledge, the specific model He chose to provide to His disciples as He preached the Gospel of the coming Kingdom of God. What does it mean for us to be a disciple? What does that mean? The Greek word that's used in this section of the Great Commission to refer to making of disciples is the root word mathetis. It's a Greek word mathetis. At its most fundamental, a disciple is described as someone who learns. Someone who learns.

Someone who is teachable. Someone who is malleable. Someone who is willing to listen, willing to understand, willing to make the efforts to go through that process.

Culturally, during that time, there were a number of people that had disciples. Prominent Jewish rabbis such as Gamaliel, men like John the Baptist. They all had loyal followings of men who were classified as disciples. That was the term that we use in Greek to describe it. Talmadim, in Hebrew, ultimately, individuals who would follow them around and learn from them. They dedicated a period of their life, in fact, many of them their entire lives, dedicated the entirety of their lifetime to learn all of the lessons that they could from this individual as that individual taught them their perspective and their interpretation. This cultural system in the land of Judah, in particular, led to all manner of disagreements and controversies. You can read them in Scripture. Different schools of thought that are now interacting. Because, wait a minute, our interpretation is different than your interpretation, and we're going to squabble about that. That happens quite a bit as you see it in school, or in school in the New Testament.

Different schools of thought, different schools of rabbinical thought, often had controversy as these disciples learned from these different things. In the case of the disciples of Jesus Christ, what we see is a group of men that were purposefully selected. That was different than the way that discipleship worked in most other circumstances. In most other circumstances, those individuals had to seek out their rabbi. In this case, the rabbi sought out his disciples. That's different. That's significantly different. They were taught directly during the three and a half year ministry of Jesus Christ, and as a result of this relationship, as time went on, followers of Christ in general began to be known as disciples. Let's go over to Luke 14.

Luke 14, in this particular section, what we see Christ do is speak to his multitudes, or to those who are gathered here, on the topic of discipleship. What it really means to come to God in this way, in this relationship, as a disciple. What does it mean? What does it look like in our lives? Luke 14 will begin in verse 25. Luke 14 and verse 25 says, Now great multitudes went with him, and he turned, and he said to them, verse 26, If anyone comes to me, and does not hate his father and his mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes, and his own life also, Christ himself says, he cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Says, For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it, lest after he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish.

He says, Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first, and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand, or else while the other is still a way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. Christ brings to bear this idea that a person shouldn't enter this relationship frivolously, shouldn't rush the process, that we have to take the time to count the cost, we have to understand exactly what is being asked of us when we agree to disciple under Jesus Christ.

We have to take the time to determine whether we have the capital necessary to finish what we started, especially when, especially when this life begins to exact a cost. When this life begins to exact a cost. Verse 33, he goes on, he says, So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not forsake all, Christ says, cannot be my disciple. Brethren, is there anything that is not encompassed in all? The word all, is there anything not encompassed in the word all? The word all literally means all.

There can be nothing that gets between us and Jesus Christ. That includes our personal wants and desires. It includes familial bonds. It includes friendships, employment. It includes our possessions. It includes any false interpretation of Scripture that we might hold on to.

It includes anything that divides or ultimately separates us from God. Anything that divides and separates us from God. And as disciples, we desire not only to learn the teaching of our rabbi, not only to learn what it is that he teaches, but in addition to imitate the practical aspects and the details of his life. We seek to embody his character. We seek to embody his nature. We seek to put on his righteousness. The joke back in those days was that they would follow so closely they would be covered by the dust of their disciples or their rabbis' feet.

The idea that they would be so close behind him, learning and watching the way that he interacts and the way that he operates so that they could then embody those same things. So if you turn back to Ephesians 4 here real quick, turn back to Ephesians 4. We're going to go ahead and take a look at another section here in the book of Ephesians that describes this nature and this set of characteristics that we as disciples are ultimately to be emulating.

Ephesians 4, and we'll quickly see, I think, when we look at this, how a church made up of individuals who are growing as disciples can become what we saw in those earlier verses of Ephesians 4. If we pick up where we left off in verse 17 of Ephesians 4 as it continues from verse 16, Ephesians 4 and verse 17 says this, it says, This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness, it says, of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with greediness.

Paul writes in verse 20, But you have not so learned Christ. It says, But you have not so learned Christ. If indeed you have heard him, and if indeed you have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.

Paul says, If we have heard him, and if we are taught by him, in other words, if he is our rabbi, and if we are his disciples, if we have heard him, if we have been taught by him, says that we put off concerning the former conduct, the old man that grows corrupt, grows corrupt through the desires of our heart, through the selfishness that we have, our unwillingness to sacrifice for others, be renewed in the spirit of our mind through God's Spirit dwelling in us, we put on the new man in true righteousness, ultimately, and holiness.

Verse 25, he goes on, He says, Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with your neighbor. For we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. But what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers?

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

Paul writes here a series of admonitions for the brethren lining out the need for these big picture concepts. He starts with these big picture concepts. No locking, no stealing, no deceitfulness. He says, speak truth with your neighbors. He says, don't sin in anger. Solve the issues that you have with one another promptly. Don't let things fester.

Solve it. He says, we shouldn't steal, that individuals should labor to give those a need. Those are big picture things. Those are big picture aspects of Christianity.

One of the most interesting things about biology, when I taught biology, was teaching kids how to use microscopes. Some of you guys have used microscopes before as you try to bring something that's hard to see or something small into focus. A microscope has two different dials on it. It has a coarse focus and it has a fine focus. The goal is, when you put whatever it is you're going to look at up there, you jam that slide on there and then you start with whatever lens you're using. Then you use the coarse focus to get down to the point where you can see the image.

The goal with the coarse focus is to get you into the ballpark. It's to get you into the ballpark so that you can fine tune the image to see it in all of its detail. What Paul outlines in the beginning of this, kind of speaking to some of these things such as lying and stealing and speaking truth, that's the coarse focus. That gets you in the ballpark of what it looks like.

The fine focus, on the other hand, is when you start getting rid of bitterness.

You start getting rid of wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking.

And you begin to be kind to one another, tender-hearted, as you're bringing that picture of what Jesus Christ looks like into focus, using that fine-tuning knob, so to speak.

Ultimately, that's what we are being called to become what we're being called to do.

But it's only through the application of both that the big picture comes into play.

Just the coarse focus isn't enough. It's not enough. It's the fine-tuning that settles the character of Christ in our hearts. It's what it means to be a disciple. It means to become like Him. It means to become like Him in our nature, in our expression, in our actions, in the way that we interact with other people, to be like Jesus Christ. And brethren, that is mission critical.

That is mission critical. If we compromise, if we somehow otherwise intervene on that aspect of the mission, we will hamper the mission and we will impact the vision. If we as individuals are not doing those things, if we are not becoming and being regularly disciples.

Individually, when we think about the modern era of the Church and we kind of consider the mission that we've been given, what's in our direct locus of control, this is one of the primary things that we have control over to be able to actually impact the mission. There's one thing that we have control over is how well we are following Jesus Christ. That is the one thing we have control over and no one else does. As you and me, that's our call. That is our ultimate decision of how close we are going to follow right on His heels. We've been called, we've been accepted, we've ultimately accepted that calling and now we haven't let anything get in the way of us becoming like our elder brother, Jesus Christ. We talked earlier about how we had to hate family. You know, we're not treating family with disdain. We're not treating family horribly. What that means is to love less by comparison. The Greek word is miseo. It means to love less by comparison. So, when you take the relationship that you have with your spouse, it can't come between you and Christ.

Christ has to be the more important. When it's the relationship between you and your children, Christ has to be more important. You then love less by comparison whatever else is on the other side of that scale. And where it gets really tough is when it comes to our self, when it comes to our wants, when it comes to our desires. Do we let those things get in the way of the relationship that we have with Jesus Christ? Or do we love less that self by comparison?

We've been called. We've accepted that calling. We cannot let anything get in the way between us and Jesus Christ. But we need to understand that while we have been called to an individual calling, there's not tens of thousands of different bodies. There are not tens of thousands of different bodies. There is one body. There is one body. That body is Christ's. And only He and the Father determine what constitutes that body. We've been called to become a part of it, to come into submission of Christ as Head, to align ourselves with His teachings. But brethren, we have to recognize we, as the individual, we are not the Head. We are not the Head. Jesus Christ is the Head. We cannot run around thinking that we are the Head and that we are the one that is in control of it all. Because we're not. The world around us is full of organization. You know, in the human body, the way that God, again, things are done decently. They're done in order. That's God. The way that God operates. It's in His nature. Things are organized. In the human body, for example, individual cells are organized into tissues. Tissues are organized into organs. Organs are organized into organ systems. And then that makes up the whole organism itself. So, there's growing levels of organization as things go. As an example, a myocardial cell, a heart cell, is part of a group of cells that make up cardiac muscle tissue. Cardiac muscle tissue makes up the heart itself along with other tissues. Ultimately, that heart makes up the cardiovascular system. It has some other things connected to it as well. And ultimately, that set of systems, along with other organ systems, make up the individual overall. God has organized us as individuals, similarly. He has called us into a unit that is designed to be the method by which His way is disseminated and ultimately a unit in which disciples can be made. And that unit is the family.

That is the unit that God has called us individually into as the family unit.

God ordained specific roles for the family in the time that we are here in this life. He has created roles of husbands and wives. He has created roles of parents and children. He's created roles of brothers and sisters. And all of these interactions, all of these relationships, all of these roles as a part of this structure that God has ordained teach us different things about the way of God, the importance of the collective aspects of this.

Do you ever wonder why Satan attacks the family so hard?

It's because it is the organizational block that God has called individuals to in order to learn more about God and His way. If Satan can destroy it, he can undo what it is that God has put together.

One of the most fundamental aspects of organization in humans is this fundamental building block of family. And we have a responsibility to one another as a part of this. Let's go to Colossians 3.

Colossians 3. Let's go over to Colossians 3. We'll see here the Apostle Paul address this particular letter to a group of primarily gentile believers. The congregation in Colossians was a group of gentiles. They'd likely been established during a period that Paul was serving in Ephesus as they sent groups outward from Ephesus as the word went out to all of Asia.

In that particular area was Philemon. Philemon was a prominent member in this particular congregation. You might remember Philemon as being a slave owner, ultimately that had a letter written to him specifically from Paul regarding his slave Anissimus. And as ultimately you see him writing these particular words in Colossians 3, we're going to pick it up in verses 18 to 25.

What we see is Paul address and provide instruction on these societal structures at the time. Again, remembering that these relationships are designed to be analogues to the relationships that we see patterned by God in Christ, as we see patterned as brethren, as we see patterned in a lot of different ways. These are analogues to help us be able to understand that. So in the book of Colossians, we'll pick it up in Colossians 3 and verse 18. Colossians 3 and verse 18, Paul writes, wives, submit to your own husbands as is fitting to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives.

Says, do not be bitter toward them. Children, obey your parents in all things. Obey your parents in all things, it says, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. Bond servants, obey in all things your masters, according to the flesh, not with eye service, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. And whatever you do, verse 23, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not to men. Do we do our relationships in this life heartily, as to God, and not to men? In our marriage relationships, in our familial relationships, from parent to child, do we do these things heartily, knowing to the Lord is whom we are doing these things? Colossians 3 has a series of instructions that are similar to the instructions that we see outlined in the book of Ephesians, so it wasn't necessarily something written specifically to this congregation. It does seem to be more of a generalized instruction that Paul was writing to various congregations at the time, but likely to address issues that he was seeing. Marital challenges, family issues, those are not new inventions.

That has been going on since the very beginning of human history. But ultimately, this is probably more generalized instruction to be given to the people of God, to instruct them on how the family was to govern. But it lays it out. The husband is the head of the family. That husband was to be submissive to Jesus Christ in all things. In other words, that husband was to be a disciple.

They were to be a follower of Jesus Christ. He says wives are to be submissive to their husbands.

And those husbands are submitting themselves to Christ in all things.

She was submitting herself to him and also submitting herself to Jesus Christ as a disciple as well in that individual calling spiritually that she has been provided. So what you had was a home that was governed by two disciples. Two people following Jesus Christ in all things, both of them subject to him. And again, as we see in the parallel instruction in Ephesians 5, subject to one another. They were also subject to one another. What we see lined out as well here also in Ephesians 5 is that children were to be obedient to their parents in all things.

Children were to be obedient to their parents in all things. And when you look around the world, around us today, this is something that is in short supply. This is something that is in very short supply. Parental instructions are viewed by so many today as suggestions.

They are not instructions. They are suggestions. I came across an article a bit ago. I'd encourage you to read it. You can find it. Just Google these words. John Piper. Parents require obedience from your children. That's the title of the article. The article is simply entitled, Parents require obedience from your children. In the first paragraph of the article, he writes the following. He says, I am moved to write this by watching young children pay no attention to their parents' requests with no consequences. Parents tell a child two or three times to sit or stop, to come or go. And after the third disobedience, they laughingly bribe the child. And this rarely gets the behavior desired. He goes on to describe a situation that he witnessed on a flight with a mother and child where the announcement came on the intercom. All of us have seen this and heard this. The announcement comes on the intercom that all electronic devices needed to be turned off.

We've all been there. The child, who was around seven at the time, he said, didn't turn it off.

And the mother did not require him to follow through on the instruction.

Okay? The flight attendant walked by, asked him to turn it off. And as they often do, they keep moving. Please turn it off, sir. Or ma'am or whatever. And they keep going.

He still didn't do it. And his mother didn't require it. One final time, the flight attendant stood over them both and stated that the boy would need to give the device to his mother.

He turned it off. She walked away. She took her seat for takeoff. The child turned it back on.

And the mother did nothing. He goes on to describe an epidemic in the world around us today that is referred to by some as laissez-faire parenting. I actually wasn't aware of this. I'd never heard of this before. I've heard of the term laissez-faire, the idea of just leave it alone. Like, I'm familiar with that. I didn't realize it was an actual parenting style that is mentioned in literature and discussed. That was something that was new to me. But laissez-faire parenting, if you're not familiar, is a hands-off parenting style. It encourages children to grow independently without their parents' interference. It's also known by some names as permissive parenting in that it doesn't impose rules or boundaries. Laissez-faire parents do not hover over children or tell them how to behave. They step in only when there's obvious danger or immediate risk of harm, and sometimes not even then. According to the Gottman Institute, the tenants of laissez-faire parenting are as follows. This is the fundamental tenants of this style of parenting.

Laissez-faire parenting freely accepts all emotional expression from the child.

It offers little guidance on behavior, does not set limits, believes that there is little you can do about negative emotion other than just write it out, does not help the child solve and work through problems, instead leaving it to figure it out on their own. It believes that managing negative emotions is a matter of just getting them out. Just release them and get that emotion out, and then the actual work itself is done. The article in the Gottman Institute goes on to describe the long-term emotional effects on this style of parenting on children.

They found, as research has gone on, that children don't learn to regulate emotion in a household that follows this. They struggle to concentrate, they struggle to form friendships, they struggle to connect and get along with other children, which has a significant effect in their lives later on. They also struggle with imposed boundaries, they struggle with following rules and instructions. And while Piper doesn't specifically come out and state it in his article, I believe it's implicit in his argument that laissez-faire parenting, as described by the Gottman Institute and other sources, quite frankly, is not scriptural. It is not scriptural.

Piper goes on to talk about the biblical instruction relating to the obedience of children in the Lord. For the instruction of children in the things of God, certainly instruction relating to life itself. He talks of the implicit aspect of the command here of children to obey their parents is the requirement of parents to ensure the obedience of their children.

That is the parent's job to do so. Obedience is not just legal. Sometimes I think we think of it in that way. We think of it as solely following rules, but obedience is spiritual. It's a spiritual aspect. Mr. Consela just went through and gave a sermon on the concept of obedience.

Sometimes, again, we think of obedience solely as rule following, but Romans 1 and verse 5 speaks to the obedience of faith. Scripture talks about how we're to take every thought captive to obey Christ. Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica that if anyone does not obey what they say in that letter or what he wrote in that letter as an appointed authority of God, Paul says that they were to take note of that person and have nothing to do with them. Obedience is something that God takes very seriously. Mr. Piper draws his assertion to a conclusion by stating the following. He says, parents who do not teach their children to obey God's appointed authorities, whatever they may be and wherever they may be, prepare them for a life out of step with God's Word, a life out of step with the very gospel that they desire to empathize.

Now, there's two ditches in this road. There's two ditches in this road. On one ditch is what's been described by Mr. Piper, a complete hands-off approach to raising children in the world, according to the world's wisdom. Again, that's where this comes from, is the world's wisdom in which kids are free to do whatever they want, whenever they want. No expectations, no boundaries.

Parents ask the child to do something they're ignored. The parent doesn't follow up to ensure that the child listens and actually obeys. In some circumstances, maybe they're going to count to three, and then at three, the child's going to obey because they know that a consequence is coming if they don't. If there's little follow-through, sometimes the counting doesn't matter.

This is what my experience was with kids in middle school when I taught in public ed, where parents would come with a kid that was 14 or 15 and go, I just won't listen to me, I don't know what to do. I said, well, you kind of missed your window. In a lot of ways, you kind of missed your window. The other ditch is an authoritarian home. It's full of unreasonable rules, full of unreasonable expectations, outbursts of rage, outbursts of anger and wrath, severe punishment when those rules, and I'm going to put them in quotes, rules, are broken, so much so that the children in the home are afraid to sneeze for fear of punishment.

That's the other ditch. The problem is, frequently, children who grew up in one of the various households, when they have children of their own, go for correct. You slingshot from one side right into the other.

Brethren, it needs to be noted, both of these ditches, both of these ditches, whether it's an authoritarian home or whether it's a laissez-faire home, both of these ditches create ongoing generational dysfunction.

The middle of that road is what some refer to as authoritative parenting. It's a home that sets high expectations. It works with children to meet those expectations. They aren't hands-off, just ignoring the kids and kind of leaving them to their own devices. There are reasonable rules, there's reasonable expectations, and there are loving consequences if those expectations are not met. But obedience is required, and a lack of obedience is not tolerated. There is shared control between the parents and the children, particularly in the things that don't matter as much. In those big things, when it really matters, it requires us as parents to do our job and to parent. How do you teach a child to become a disciple? How do you teach discipleship to a child?

How do you teach them to appropriately follow God? It's through godly obedience. It is through godly obedience in the analog relationship between a parent and a child. That is where this is learned.

That is where this is taught, ultimately. The family unit is the method by which we have the most control over making and training disciples. The overall strength of that unit has a direct impact on the mission and the vision of the church. Brethren, it is mission critical.

It is absolutely mission critical. And if we compromise, if we face a shutdown in this capacity, our overall ability to fulfill the mission and the vision of the church suffers greatly. It suffers significantly. Why? Why is it so critical? Why is it something that's mission critical? Because our congregations, as you look around our group here, are made up of a collection of families. That is the next level of organization that God put into place, from individuals to families to congregations. That's the next level of organization that God put into place. And then the church, quote-unquote, is made up of all of those congregations. That's the overall organization of the setup. From individuals to the family unit to congregations, God organizes His people in increasing layers of organization with varying loci of authority. Aristotle once said, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Individually, if you took all of us in this room, separated the family connections, just treated us as individuals. Just as individuals. No connected family or anything along those lines. Just individuals. If you took all of those individuals as individual components without the organization that God has instilled in the family, in the congregation, in the church as a whole, there is very little that we can do individually to advance the mission of God.

There is very little that we can do individually to advance that mission.

If you take just looking at it as solely individual. But when you start to organize that into families, what you receive is something where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You get synergy. You get people working together, doing the same thing, pulling in the same direction. And that synergistic effect, now instead of just one person, there's two, or three, or five, or seven, or who knows, right? That are all working, pulling in the same direction.

If those families are led by two parents who are disciples first, if they are submitting themselves to God, ultimately to one another, and they are active in the process of training up those disciples that they are parenting, you get that synergistic effect that Aristotle describes, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You know, together we can accomplish so much more than what we could ever accomplish alone. But even a family, even a small organizational group such as a family, is limited in the scope of its ability to be able to achieve the mission and the vision. And so we see God organize a congregation. He commanded that congregation to assemble together before him on the Sabbath. He commanded it to assemble before him on his holy days. He appointed overseers to ensure the day-to-day operation takes place, that there's spiritual leadership, that there's administrative service. And within that organization of that congregation, we learn together. We grow together. We fellowship with one another. We get to know one another.

We work to advance the mission. We work to advance the mission and the vision. We bring together families that are led by disciples that are in the process of training up disciples.

That synergistic effects become even stronger. And when you have that taking place across the board, when you have that taking place in all of the areas where God's people find themselves, and those congregations are growing and thriving, you'll see a church that achieves the vision that we saw set out in Ephesians 4. Let's go over to Acts 2 real quick. Acts 2. We go here quite a bit. I want to remind everyone what this looks like. I want to remind us again what this looks like.

And I want us to ask the question, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Have we reached that point? Have we reached what we see in that vision necessarily? This is one example. This is one area. This is one example right after the day of Pentecost. Acts 2, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 42 of Acts 2. It says, and they, speaking of these new believers, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship. They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and prayers. It says, then fear came upon every soul, and many signs and wonders were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together.

They had all things in common. Verse 45 says, they sold their possessions and their goods, and they divided them among all as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. It says, the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. So we see as a church and a group of individuals gathered together, a congregation, we might say, who continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, in what they had received from Christ and what they passed on to that next group of individuals.

The teachings that they received from Peter and John and those who had been directly with Christ, those same teachings that we see preserved for us right here in Scripture, the same things that we see preserved for us in Scripture. They continued steadfastly in the breaking of bread.

Breaking bread is important. They continued steadfastly in the breaking of bread and in prayer. There was fear that came upon all and the apostles we see did these signs and these wonders. But what we see is those who believed were together. They were together. They had all things in common. There was a closeness. There was a care for one another. It says they even sold their possessions. They sold their goods, ensuring that any who had need were cared for. And that's less about all of us running out and selling our houses. It's more about making sure that as we know about needs, doing everything we can to care for those needs. They continued daily with one accord. They continued together with one mind in the temple. They ate their food from house to house with gladness and simplicity of heart. And it says they praised God. What I want to draw your attention to is what's recorded in verse 47. Because again, that's incredible. That is vibrant. I mean, you look at that description. That is vibrant. But notice what it says in verse 47.

That they had favor with all the people. They had favor with all the people. People noticed.

People noticed this. They saw the way that they lived. They saw their example.

The gladness may be in the simplicity of their hearts. The fear of God that they exhibited. They noticed the unity of mind and spirit that they had. It says the people saw and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. Their example was an effective method of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in the kingdom. Those individuals around them saw their lives. They saw their families. They saw the energy and the vitality of the group that was gathered together as a congregation. Their examples shine through and that synergistic effect of the whole became obvious. The cohesiveness and unity of a congregation is mission critical. The cohesiveness and unity of a congregation is mission critical. If we compromise on this, if we otherwise interfere, we run the risk of mission failure. We run the risk of mission failure. And what that means is that all of us who are able to be here are here each week. If we're able to be here, we're here. We're jumping in. We're connecting with each other. We're serving as we're able. We're connecting. We're talking. We're fellowshiping. We're doing all of those things. We're working together to strengthen those bonds. We're serving each other. We're honoring that command that summons by God to assemble on His Holy Convocation. It looks like a congregation that's pulling in the same direction as the Lord. That mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God in all of the world to make disciples in all nations and to care for those disciples. Brethren, we are the Church. We are the Church. The word Church is Eclaecia. It is the assembly of believers.

Those who have been called out. I think sometimes we like to think, well, preaching the gospel is Home Office's job. I'm happy to send my tights in. I'm happy to have their produce beyond today. They do all these different things. We have publications. We have booklets. That's why we have media initiatives. That's not my responsibility. I think sometimes we like to approach it in that way. But, brethren, mission of the Church of God. The mission of the Church of God starts right here. It begins in a heart that is willing to be led by God's Holy Spirit.

A heart that's willing to be led, not the other direction, not to lead, to be led, begins with a heart that's willing to follow, a heart that's not willing to insist on its own way, a heart that's malleable, that's putting on the nature of God both inwardly and outwardly, a heart that desires more than anything else to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Are we there yet?

Are we there yet? It's a disciple that is submissive to others, that serves others, exhibits godly leadership in the family and in the congregation, and all of those things begin right here. They begin in that heart. Every single one of us, whether we're husbands, whether we're wives, whether we're children, whether we're members, prospective members, deacons, elders, none of that matters. It begins right here in our hearts. And brethren, we won't advance the mission that's outlined in Mark 16 and Matthew 28 if we are not primarily focused as individuals on becoming disciples first and foremost. If we are not focused first and foremost individually as becoming disciples, we will not be able to achieve the mission of the Church of God.

If we have families that are led by two disciples, both pulling in the same direction, we have the opportunity to strengthen that unit. We have the opportunity to train up disciples of our children.

Our children are called by God. They are called by God through the faith of the family. They're given the opportunity to come to Him as sons and daughters and enter into that covenantal relationship with God. The enemy of all synergy is dysfunction. The enemy of all synergy is dysfunction. And because of the way that things are organized, we've talked about this system today of going from an individual to the family unit to the congregation to the Church, this system of organization that's put into place. Individual dysfunction, if not dealt with and healed, will lead to familial dysfunction, which if not dealt with and healed can lead to congregational dysfunction unless it's taken care of in some way. Brethren, it all begins with our individual discipleship. That's where it all starts. Our willingness to follow, our willingness to allow God to lead us, that's the first rock in the pond. You throw the rock in and the ripples go out from there. And those ripples extend to our families, they extend to our congregations, they extend to our capacity to preach the gospel and to achieve the vision that we see outlined in Ephesians 4.

That vision, once again, is a Church led by God's Holy Spirit, joined and knit together by what every member supplies, with all doing their share and growing in love to fulfill God's great purpose for humanity to bring many children to glory. If the mission is the means to achieve that vision, then the importance of individual, familial and congregational discipleship cannot be overstated.

To make disciples, we must first be disciples. In order to do a work, we must first be a work. And rather, that's mission critical.