The Church a Missions Society and a Bible Institute
(A sermon preached by the Rev Dr Jeffrey Khoo at True Life BPC on 12 July 2009)
“And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Matt 28:18-20)
Matthew 28:18-20 is well-known as the Great Commission, the first commandment of Christ to His Church Note that in the Great Commission the word “teach” occurs twice-“teach all nations,” and “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” The Great Commission is a “teaching” commission.
In order to accomplish the Great Commission, it is important that every Church be a Missions Society as well as a Bible Institute.
The Church a Missions Society
A missions society does the work of evangelism. It sends out Christian workers to national and international mission fields to sow the gospel seed and to reap the harvest for the kingdom of God. In order to do this, the Church must actively “Go.” Jesus commands, “Go … and teach all nations.” As such Christians cannot be contented to sit back, do nothing and just wait for the lost to wander into the church to be evangelised. We have to go, as someone has said, we have to put the “Go” back into the “Gospel.” People need to know the Gospel— “that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3- 4). And Romans 10:9-10 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
Many people think that it is enough just to believe in a god and everything will be well. They think that any god will do and every god is the same. Since all roads lead to Rome, all religions lead to heaven. But what does the Bible say? 1 Timothy 2:5 says, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Acts 4:12 says, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” John 14:6 says, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” It is not enough to say “Jesus Saves,” we need to say, “Only Jesus Saves.”
The Bible also tells us that salvation is purely by grace and not by works, for God “hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (1 Tim 1:9). Titus 3:4-6 says, “But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.”
In a world full of bad news, the Church must work harder to tell the good news of Jesus Christ who is the only Saviour of the world. “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Rom 10:14-15).
True Life BPC is doing its best to be a missions society. We are supporting missions and missionaries in Africa (Bai Eunyoung who serves in the Bible College of East Africa, and we give to support the work in BCEA both in Kenya and Tanzania), Australia (Rev Hien Gia Nguyen, our missionary pastor of Brisbane BPC), Holy Land (Rev Danny Awad of Baraka BPC in Bethlehem), Malaysia (Kemaman Life BPC under Dr and Mrs Wee Tiong Soon; and Marilyn Nanta who serves in Kuching), Myanmar (Orphanage in Yangon under Thangno). Locally, we have our evangelistic band which goes out month after month. I trust that we individually as believers are witnessing for Christ wherever we are. I know of a medical doctor who puts gospel tracts in the waiting area of his clinic so that his patients while waiting to see him might read the tracts and find salvation.
Now, let me say something about the two Christians who were convicted for sedition recently because they distributed tracts that explicitly insulted another religion. I do not believe that in evangelism we need to put down another religion just to promote ours. In fact, when we read the Book of Acts we do not find the Apostles doing that at all. What they did do however was to preach the Gospel boldly and truthfully, and to let the Holy Spirit do the work of convicting and converting sinners to salvation in Christ Jesus. In Acts 19 we see the Apostle Paul doing just that in Ephesus, and many were converted to the Christian Faith, and they showed their faith by burning their occultic books out of their own accord (Acts 19:17-19). Those who were making money out of idolatry and sorcery were of course not happy with this, and they went about spreading lies to stir up public anger and hatred against the Christians. But the town clerk or law officer of the city addressed the angry mob justly by saying, “ye ought to be quiet, and to do nothing rashly. For ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess” (Acts 19:36-37). The Christians did not desecrate their places of worship, nor insult their gods or goddesses. Neither should we today. The simple preaching of the Gospel that only Jesus saves is good and powerful enough.
Every Church ought to be a missions society. We need to evangelise, we need to send out missionaries. The Antioch Church for example sent out Paul and Barnabas as missionaries. Who can we send out from our church? Who will give his life to serve the Lord full-time? The Lord continues to call labourers into His harvest field, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me” (Isa 6:8). Will anyone answer God’s call to full-time service today?
The Church a Bible Institute
It is not enough just to go and teach the Gospel to sinners; once sinners are converted, we are commanded to baptise them in the name of the Triune God, and teach them the whole counsel of God. It is not enough for the Church to go and teach the Gospel which is evangelism, once a sinner becomes a saint, the Church needs to do the work of baptism and catechism. Know that the Great Commission is not a matter of getting people saved and that is all. The neo-evangelicals think this way. To them, all that is important or essential is the Gospel; doctrines are really not that important since doctrines often divide and lead to a separation. To them, the work of the Church is just to preach the Gospel and love everyone without regard for what Jesus said about “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” There is this deadly failure today in the Church to teach and observe “all things” as found in the perfectly inspired and perfectly preserved, infallible and inerrant words of God. You will often hear the neo-evangelicals say, “Only the Gospel is essential, the rest of the Bible are non-essentials.” I do not see Jesus saying that there are non-essential words and nonessential doctrines in the Bible. Jesus said, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4). Every word means every word. Jesus says what He means and means what He says. And so every book, every chapter, every verse, every word, every syllable, every letter in the Bible is good and necessary—“all things” means all things, including the doctrines of biblical division or separation (Luke 12:51, 2 Cor 6:14-7:1, 2 Thess 3:6-15).
Although there are separate and autonomous schools of prophets which train full-time servants of God like the Far Eastern Bible College (FEBC), the Church in and of itself is a sort of Bible College or Bible Institute because it is commanded to indoctrinate all its members with all the words and doctrines of the Lord. No church can do without a teaching institute and that is why we have our Sunday School which is indispensable for the growth and maturity of the Church. It must be emphasised that the Sunday School is not only or mainly for children, it is for every member of the church. Most of our children are in the Sunday school, but how about our adults? Sunday School is also for adults. We have an Adults’ Sunday School class studying the Bible book by book taught by spiritually gifted and qualified teachers. It is so good to study God’s Word, do come! Then there are the prayer meetings, fellowship group meetings, church camps, and not forgetting the pulpit ministry. These are all part and parcel of the teaching ministry of the Church. To supplement what the Church does, the FEBC offers night classes on Mondays and Thursdays which involve a highly disciplined study of God’s Word with assignments and examinations leading to the award of a certificate upon successful completion of all the academic requirements. The FEBC is glad to have about 200 lay students studying in our night classes every semester. “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15).
Day in and day out we are bombarded by the words of the devil, the words of the world, the words of men which make us spiritually sick. All the more we need to be indoctrinated and inoculated with the words of Scripture, the words of God, the words of everlasting life so that we might be strong and healthy Christians. We need to be sanctified by God, and the only way is through God’s Truth, God’s Word is Truth.
