I Peter 4:1-11

What is the church’s value? What is its reason for existence? What is its true function? Does it have any real service to render in our time? These are fundamental questions we need to consider as we seek to discover the duties that rest upon the church.

Last week, we were reminded that our age is marked by opposing factors. One force is self-seeking and highly skeptical; the other is spirituality, which seeks Christ as the center of all things. What do we have to say to such a world?

• We have found the Messiah (John 1:40-42)
  • He reveals
    • Through Him, God is made known to men
  • He redeems
    • Portrayed by Isaiah
    • Revealed in the Gospel
• The church’s duty is the exposition of the Christian faith in theory and practice
  • Proclamation of Christian faith in practice
    • In a wide scope of teaching
      • We teach Scripture for the whole of Christian faith is contained in Scripture
    • Bible is the library of the Christian faith
      • If the Bible is destroyed, the theory is lost, and practice will cease
    • All Biblical truth is to be taught with a view to application: personally, socially, and nationally
  • Proclamation of Christian faith in practice
    • The Word only becomes forceful in the world as it is incarnate in the lives of men and women
    • The daily practice is of greatest urgency in the proclamation of Christian faith
    • What is Christian service?
      • Service Christ rendered
        • Loving
        • Teaching
        • Helping
          • He went about doing good
        • Suffering
          • Take up your cross and follow Me
          • This is not suffering for self, but for others
          • Sacrifice for others

A wide range is provided for us, for individualism and imagination, in our service to Christ. But we should never violate these fundamentals, for violating them destroys purpose.