Hey, it's great to be here with you guys. My name is Taylor Richardson. I'm the family ministry leader. Gets the privilege of hanging out with parents and kids. Zero to graduating. And it's a genuine, genuine privilege to be here to open God's word with you. We're in a unique series this morning. Last week, we opened up a series on the church. This is different than what we normally do. Normally we like to slowly walk through books of the Bible and to see what God's word has for us. Taking into the topic of what is the church about? How has God made it? And Jordan got it all kicked off last week, covering what is necessary to have a healthy church. What are the ingredients? We want to get the recipe right. What are the ingredients? And so he boiled it down into organization ordinances and operations, organization elders and members ordinances, baptism and communion. How we remember who Jesus is and celebrate him, the way he has organized the church to and operations. What we do as a church together, preaching of God's word, edifying one another, worshiping together, singing. And these are three categories that summarize God's design for the church, for a healthy church. But what would a healthy church look like? Right? What would a healthy church look like? The word healthy is important because it points to, like, a body. When we think about a body, we can imagine a healthy, thriving body that's working properly together. But what would a healthy church look like? I think it would look like this. Everyone who walks in on a Sunday morning is welcomed genuinely. And when people ask, hey, how are you? They really mean it. And then you feel open and trusting to share what's on your heart, and you're met with compassion and prayer. When we are anxious about life's circumstances, we come into the body of Christ knowing that we're gonna be encouraged with scripture. Prayer requests that we've shared before are being followed up on week after week. Children, this one's important to me. Children come. Want to come to church because they know they will be loved by the family of God. As we sing and worship together and look around at the church, we see people who are worshiping God with their mouths and are encouraged because they worship God with their lives. And we are excited to bring our neighbors, our coworkers, our family members to this gathering of people. Because no matter what their background, no matter their history, we know and trust they will be met with grace. People are aware of our struggles, ask how they can help, and help people have babies, like maybe Thursday, and their meal trains are locked and loaded for a month and their meals are taken care of. Right? Like that's a church we would want to be a part of, right? That's this image, this vision of a healthy church. And what's so encouraging to me is that there's taste of that here. We see so much of that here in this church, here in Urbana. But we have to admit, we're not perfect. We do not have this figured out. And though we see people being welcomed, being cared for, being invested in, we need to recognize that we can drift into unhealth. That's what a body does when left alone. It drifts into unhealth. And as a church, it can lead to being selfish. We can be just thinking about ourselves as individuals or stagnant where we're not seeing new life coming about in the church. And if we're honest, we as people, we can drift in those directions. Well, so how, the question is how do we pursue this vision of a healthy church, this wonderful community of people that is encouraging and life bringing and giving? And it all comes down to how we answer the question, why? Why does the church exist? What is Veritas church's purpose? Because purpose drives this healthy practice. And so we're gonna be, we're gonna be digging into a lot this morning. I'm just gonna warn you guys now, I've got a lot to cover. It's going to be a bit more teaching than preaching. But we have three ministries that we have to unpack to get to the healthy, this healthy vision and why of the church. So we're going to look at it and I'm going to show off my graphic design skills here. We're going to unpack this with a triangle. So let's just show off my graphic design skills here. This is what I can pull off. So don't make me design t shirts or anything like that. But this is going to be a tool for us to get the picture of the pieces of a healthy church. Now, question for my students that are in geometry, is this triangle going to stay a triangle if we remove a corner? No, it's going to be an awkward, like four shaped lines, right? Like it's not going to work. And just like that is true for a triangle, for us to have a healthy church, we need to have each of the three points of this triangle to get it right. So we have a lot to cover. But stick with me, we're going to dig into our first ministry and just unpack them one at a time and hold out to the end because the end really makes it all come together. Okay, let's go. We're going to jump into ephesians four, starting in verse eleven through 16, because it is a text that clearly depicts this first ministry that we need to get after as a church. Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus, this healthy local church body, and he celebrates them for their faith and their endurance. And he explains to them the following about the local church, starting in verse eleven, Ephesians 411. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, he being God, being Jesus, the maker of the church, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Okay, so what does this maturity look like? So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather, speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Man, that was a lot, wasn't it? But it's rich. It is good. What is Paul saying here? This text clearly depicts the church's ministry to believers or church members. There are three key points here that we can glean from this text. Church leaders are given by God to equip believers to do the work of ministry. That ministry work looks like the church growing up into maturity. And maturity, it looks like rejecting false doctrine, false truths about who Jesus is, and believing the truth about Jesus living like Jesus. Boil those points together. God's purpose for the church is for it to grow up into Christ. That's our first corner of the triangle this morning. Grow up into Christ. We need to look like Jesus as a body. And the body analogy here is key. Think again with me of a healthy body. Right? A cute baby is born, becomes a curious toddler, who is eventually a creative teenager that becomes an adult at some point in time as it continues to grow and thrive. But for that to happen, each part must work together properly so that the body grows into maturity and health. If one part, let's just say, like the hand, decides to just not grow, not thrive, not mature, that's going to lead to, at best, unhealth and a deformity, and at worst, the hand just falling off. And then you have a body with one hand. That's not good. And the same goes with the church. A church is a body, a group of members who are working together to look more like Jesus, to grow up into Jesus. So the question is for us, are we working properly in the body to grow up into Christ? Are we, as individual members, growing up into Christ together? And to answer that, we need to look at two things briefly. We need to know our part to play, and we have to have a clear picture of growth as individuals. We need to know our part to play. And then as a body, we need to have a clear picture of growth. So maybe you're wondering, if I'm a member of a body, what's my part to play? Am I a hand? Am I a foot? Am I an ear? What does that look like? We all have a part to pay. Look back at verse 16, where it references here every joint with which it is equipped. Every joint, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow, there is an integral, important, essential piece for us each to play in the body. Each person is uniquely made and intentionally placed by God to help the body grow. And so maybe you are here this morning and you don't feel particularly gifted. You don't know how what you are good at fits into the church. And that's okay. This morning. That's okay if you're unsure about that, because that's a part of our job as church staff and elders to equip you in the work of ministry, to help you see what part that you have to play. Because our giftings might not look like the person next to us. But that's good. That's right. That's beautiful. There's diversity in our backgrounds, gifting, and that's how the body works, right? We can't all be thumbs. Maybe we'd love to be a thumb because it's like the most important part of our hand, but we can't. It's not necessarily the case. We look different. We all have different gifts. And if you want to read more, we don't have time this morning to get into it, but if you want to read into that more, romans twelve, three, eight and one corinthians twelve are great places to go to learn more of how we are equipped for God, for the church. And so one key verse from that section is first corinthians twelve seven, which says this to each is given the manifestation of the spirit or gifting of the spirit for the common good. Whatever our strengths are, whatever our giftings are, the purpose is for the common good. So you could be a leader, you could be an encourager, a hard worker, maybe a cookie baker, a faithful babysitter, sitter, a money maker, an empathetic shoulder, an accountability partner, thoughtful teacher, good listener. Whatever your giftings are, you have a part to play. At risk of showing my age here, in the words of a Disneyland musical masterpiece, we are all in this together. High school musical, right? We are all in this together. Church is a team sport. We need to know our part to play. If you need help finding that out, let your connection, group leaders, us as leaders, help you find what that part to play is. But once you know the part to play, we need a clear picture of what this community is going to look like, a clear picture of growth. What are we to aiming for? Another way to ask it is, in what way would this community look like Jesus? And here's what we can aim for that Jesus said about himself in Mark 1045, I don't think I have it on the screen, so just listen with me this morning. Mark 1045. Even as the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. That's powerful. Think about that. This morning, Jesus didn't come to be worshipped as God. He came sacrificially to serve. He's exalted as God on the throne now, but he came as a servant, not to count equality with God, a thing to be grasped and sacrificed his life so we could live. He sacrificed so that we could be welcomed into the family of God. And what if, what if we took this pattern of Jesus to shape our investment as a church, to invest in Veritas Urbana? What would it look like? We would be a people who sacrificially serves each other, who lay down our lives, our wants, our needs, our preferences, so others can thrive. So the church can thrive. And that's what growing up into Christ looks like. It looked like as a community, and it is our job as elders and staff to equip our church for this work of ministry. So this, here's a takeaway here, Christian. God made you uniquely to serve in the church sacrificially so we could grow up into Christ together. God made you uniquely to serve in the christ, serve in the church sacrificially so we would grow up into Christ together, so that we would live more like Jesus, build each other up more, and love so how, how do we do that? How can we do that? Sacrificially serve on Sundays. Sacrificially serve on Sundays. And that looks like serving in roles and serving in relationships. So, yes, serving in roles. I'm thinking kids. I'm selfish. We need kids. Volunteers. It's the truth. We need people with welcome team info, central setup, tear down worship team, all these volunteers. But this is an opportunity for all of us. It's not just so that the rosters are filled. This is the starting place for us to serve any day of the week. It's like the easiest, it's the lowest hanging fruit to say, I'm committed to this church. I want to be invested in this church. I want to use my giftings for the body of Christ and to enter in and to invest. So serving in roles sacrificially on Sundays and then serving in relationships, we love the fact that we've bumped back our time, our start time, to 915, and people are hanging out at nine and 915 to meet together, to connect with each other and ask meaningful questions, to respond with purposeful encouragement, to pray together on the spot like that is. That is an incredible thing that we get to do on Sunday morning. So sacrificially serve on Sundays so we can grow up into Christ together. And let sacrificially serving on Sundays overflow into any day. Let it flow into any day. Whereas Sundays is just the beginning. On into living as the church throughout the week. That's what it would look like for our church to grow up into Christ, and it would grow in depth, but it would also grow in breadth, which leads us to our next ministry. I promise the next two ministries are not as long as that first one. Okay, so breathe with me. We got a lot to cover, but these ones will be shorter. But these ones are still so rich and so good and so necessary. Our church would grow in depth as we grow up into Christ, and it would grow in breath as it reaches out to the ministry, to the world, which we will talk about under the heading going to the lost. So that's our next corner of this purpose triangle. Go to the lost. So I want to draw a few brief observations from Matthew 20 818 through 20 as we talk about this. This is a critical, critical text of scripture for the church. These are Jesus final words after he completed his earthly mission. He has come to seek and save the lost. He died and rose from the grave, victorious over sin, Satan and death. And he's bringing about new life in a new community for those who follow him. And this is what he says to the disciples before he ascends into heaven. Verse 18, Matthew 28, verse 18. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you to the end of the age. Okay, so this text deserves its own sermon, so we're only gonna look at a few pieces of it. What is Jesus saying here? He's saying, go. Go because I am king over heaven and earthen. Go. Go into my world, because there are lost that need to be found. So go. And in the Greek, the usage of this word go can mean go as you are going. Which is why our mission statement says, raise up every day, send out everyday missionaries, because we want you all, us all, to see our everyday lives as mission fields, to go and to share the gospel with our coworkers, our family members, our acquaintances. They are lost who need to hear the gospel to be saved. But sometimes this goes as we are going as a cop out as a reason to not see the rest of the text here. When it says the nations, we get stuck and trapped in our neighborhoods and not think outward outside of our neighborhoods. So maybe you're thinking, well, I can keep doing barbecue evangelism, which is a great idea, don't get me wrong. Barbecue evangelism, having people over at your place, grilling good food, making good food, being hospitable, sharing the gospel with them, that is a wonderful thing, wonderful ministry opportunity. And I really hope you take that opportunity to serve me and my family because we loved grilled meats. We love smoked meats. So please have us over. But it can't be a cop out for considering the nations. We can't get stuck in our neighborhoods and forget about the nations because the nations are in this text. The peoples of the world who don't know Jesus are in this text, we are called to make disciples of all nations. The end result of this is a is a multiethnic, multigenerational, multimillennial church that we see in the book of revelation. Just catch this picture with me as we look at revelation 7910 real briefly. This is beautiful. Revelation 7910. After this, I looked, this is the apostle John in this vision given to him by Jesus. And behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lambda, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. That's amazing. And this is what the universal church will look like altogether one day in the new heavens and the new earth. The problem is, is that there's a lot of work to be done. There's a lot of people that don't know Jesus. And without getting in the weeds, getting real, real brief about this, there are currently 3.44 billion people in the world who are a part of a people group that it's very unlikely, almost like not going to happen, that they would hear Jesus by the time they die. 3.4 billion people that are a part of a people group, ethnic group, nation, as Matthew 28 and revelation seven put it, who do not have access to the gospel. 3.4 billion people who, unless christians choose to leave their neighborhoods to the nations, will probably die without ever hearing the name of Jesus, let alone the saving gospel truth, the good news. And this is where we all need to pause and remember. This is where we all were at at one point. We were all hopeless without the gospel, needing for it to be brought to us. And if the disciples at the call of Jesus here in Matthew 28 said, nope, I'm not going to the nations, we would have never been reached by the gospel. We need to recognize that that is where we all began. And so, remember, church, the church must go to the lost. That's why we're here. That's why we're here. That's how God planned for the lost to be found. Jesus came, died, and rose from the grave to save the lost. Like you and me, he ascended into heaven, passing the mission off to us, to be on mission with us. Maybe one day, Veritas Urbana will send a team of people to a nation that's never heard the gospel, to a people group that, left alone, would never hear the gospel. Wouldn't that be amazing if our church would do that, would rally people up to send them overseas? Think about how that would encourage us to grow up into Christ together, that we would see a family or some young people that say, hey, the gospel is beautiful enough, it's amazing enough that I'm going to leave the comforts of my home to go to the lost. That would be incredible. That would be amazing. But where can we start? That doesn't just happen overnight, right? That's not just gonna happen next Sunday. How can we start? How can we begin to go to the lost. If we struggle with confidence and sharing the gospel, maybe we just struggle to say the name of Jesus around people. Where can we start? I think we can all start with prayer. We can all start with prayer. We can think of that one lost person that's on your mind right now. It's a family member, a co worker, a neighbor, and we can pray for them daily. We can pray for Bob now, not necessarily your neighbor Bob. This is what a pastor and author put it. Pray for Bob, as in pray for a burden for that person. Pray for an opportunity to share the gospel with that person and pray for the boldness to follow through. Pray for Bob as you pray for your neighbor. And also we can pray for the nations. Today we can all start to pray for the nations. And just a window into our family, we've started praying for a group of people named the Adi Dravida people. Now there wasn't really anything special or holy about me picking this group of people. It was. I looked at a list. It started with the letter a, and it had a lot of people in it. And so we're like, hey, let's pray for them. Okay? And so we pray with our daughter at night for them at some points, and she loves bringing it up. Hey, can we pray for the Adi Dravida people? But it's because she thinks the name sounds funny and she then just prays gibberish when she's. We're working on her. It's a growth thing. But what if that were just a rhythm and a pattern in our lives that we would look outside of even our neighborhoods and regularly as families and as a church, be praying for a people, that God would send missionaries to them, that we would consider being sent. That would just stir us to think outside of our several selves. Remember this picture of the gospel? Remember the point of the church to go to the lost? That would be an amazing thing. Now, I anticipate this is all sounding like a lot of work. This is a lot of stuff to do, a lot of stuff to think about. And as we. I'll get just the, the first two points of the purpose triangle up here. Again, going to the lost, growing up into Christ on the screen, this can feel like a lot, and it is a lot. This isn't easy. Living for Jesus, being a part of the church shouldn't be easy. It isn't easy if we're doing it right. Nothing in life that is valuable and good and true is ever easy. Right? And then we talk about a third. There's a third ministry. Oh, my goodness. Are you kidding me? But this third ministry, it's genuinely the point of the triangle. Okay, I did that because I think I'm a dad. Dad jokes. It's the top point of the triangle, but it's also the point. It's the chief purpose. The chief. Why behind the church? Because if we don't get the top of the triangle right, if we don't get the point right, the first two will get burdensome, will just be work without joy, and it'll be crushing, and we won't have this vision of a healthy church that we all truly long for and desire. So we want to get this third point right. So with that, turn with me to revelation seven. This is revelation two. My apologies. Revelation, chapter two. As we look at our final ministry of the church. And this is a, this is a letter as a part of this revelation, that's a part of seven letters to the seven churches. This is like a direct message from Jesus. And the letter or the number seven is symbolic for completion. And so as these letters are written to the church of Ephesus, we'll see. This is written to us this morning as well. They are written by the apostle Paul out of the mouth of Jesus. This church was doing a lot of good, but was missing the point. So read with me revelation two. Starting in verse two, Jesus says this. I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my namesake. And you have not grown weary. Okay, that sounds like a healthy church. Right? They're fighting for good doctrine, staying true to the Bible through being patient in persecution, which is hard. That's tough. It's not easy. It sounds like a healthy church. And then Jesus says this, verse four, but I have this against you. That doesn't sound good. That you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. 1st, they had forgotten the love they had at first, which in the church, what would that be? Love for God. Right. They had forgotten their love for God. They've been working hard in the church, but have forgotten their love for God. And the point is that it's all about God. All of this growing up into Christ, going to the lost, it's all to glorify God. That's the point of our triangle here. Glorify God. Our church. Our ministry to God. Our ministry to God. That's the third ministry. Now, this isn't because God has any needs, because he doesn't. But God deserves worship and glory. He's the prize. He deserves our love, our affection, our Ydez entire lives. He died so that we could live, so that we could know him, so we could be with him. He deserves our worship. He deserves the glory. The church was made to glorify God. The church was made to glorify God, to celebrate him for how awesome he is. Jesus is saying here to the church in Ephesus, go do the work you did at first. Love me again. Pursue joy in me, satisfaction in me, for that is the greatest way you will glorify me. That is your greatest work. Author and Pastor John Piper said it like this. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. And get this, which means that you never have to choose between your greatest joy and God's greatest glory. God is about his glory, and that ends up being for our good as individuals and as a church. A church is for God's glory and our good. And God's glory leads to our joyous. And it drives the purpose of these first two ministries that we were talking about. It drives the purpose forward. So let's see that together as we close out this morning. How does glorifying God stitch this all together as a purpose of our church and lead to this vision of a healthy church? God gets glory when his church is growing up into Christ together. How? Because it shows the power of the gospel. It shows that the death and resurrection of Jesus isn't just a story. It is life changing. It is powerful. It impacts the community. It changes the way we live. It shows that man, God is awesome. When we grow up and look more like Jesus through serving each other sacrificially, it makes much of God. It shows God that. It shows everyone, the world that God is amazing. When we are united around the name of Jesus as a community and seek to honor him with our lives. That's the way that we live as a community together. Paul puts it this way in romans 15 five, 6. May the God of endurance and encouragement. I think I'll have that on the screen. Maybe. Romans 15 five and six. Maybe. Nothing? Nope, my bad. Listen here. This is good. This is good. Romans 15 five and 6. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice, glorify the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that with one voice looks like singing and worship on a Sunday morning, and with one voice, as we go out proclaiming the message of the gospel to the lost. And God gets glory when the church goes to the lost, because there are lost people who need the gospel, who need their lives transformed so that they can be brought into the family of God. And God gets the glory for their lives, God gets the glory for their transformation for them, saying, no, living for the world isn't what matters. Living for God is what matters. Going to the lost gives God glory. Going to the nations gives God glory. Piper put it well again when thinking about missions, and we can think about this for our neighborhoods and the nations. He says this missions exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, we just pictured that in revelation. Seven missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. Church, the ultimate purpose that the reason why we exist. It's the glory of God. It's the glory of God. He has made the church to grow up into Christ and to go to the lost together. So we would glorify God. And if we as a church would embody this, if we live this out, we would see people being welcomed, people being cared for, needs being met, people being encouraged when we are struggling in sin, encouraged when we are struggling with stress and anxieties and financial duress. We would be encouraging each other with how great God is. We would love each other. This would be a beautiful thing that would come together if we sacrificially served each other, if we reached out to the world together. So let's get after it. Let's think about these things one last time. Let's grow up into Christ with everyone serving, sacrificially serving on Sundays, so that we would overflow into any day of the week, so that we would take a phone call and care for a need, that we would pray for each other throughout the week, that we would fight for each other looking like Jesus, that we would go to the lost, that everyone would be praying, that we would pray for Bob, we'd pray for a burden, for opportunity, for boldness, that we would pray for the unreached. And so also we would glorify God together, so that we would sing and worship together, unify it on a Sunday morning. That we would live our lives for the cause of the gospel. As we spread from this place, all for the glory of God. Let's pray this morning. In closing, Father, we praise you for who you are. We praise you for the design of the church. We praise you for just how masterfully you built it and how you've revealed it to us through your word. Thank you for giving us that gift, Lord, thank you for being in pursuit of us through Jesus, and that we get the privilege and the opportunity as a community to look like Jesus. Though you know that we will fail and that we will not live in ways in line with who you are, you still are. After our sanctification, our changing our growth, because it is for our ultimate good and for your ultimate glory. May we have a burden for the lost Lord. May we hunger to give you glory and praise your name. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.