Part one of this series: (Lordship of Christ) – Philippians 2
Part two of this series: (Gospel-Centeredness) – Matthew 4
Part three of this series: (Commitment to the Great Commandments) – Matthew 22:34-40
Part four of this series: (Inerrancy and Sufficiency of the Bible) – 2 Timothy 3:14-17
The recording for part five is not available.
Jon Akin sermon series through the Axioms of the Great Commission Resurgence Declaration continues with Axiom 6, “A Commitment to Biblically Healthy Churches.” He has been taking his people through Bible texts that relate to the different Axioms of the GCR and showing why the local church should care about the GCR. In this sermon, Jon Akin takes his people through Matthew 16.
Axiom 6 of the GCR states (From the Pray4GCR Website – Please sign up to pray at this site if you have not.)
VI. A Commitment to Biblically Healthy Churches. We call upon all Southern Baptists to focus on building local churches that are thoroughly orthodox, distinctively Baptist, and passionately committed to the Great Commission. (Matt. 16:13-20, 18:15-20; Acts 2:41-47; Rom. 6:3-5; 1 Cor. 5)
Baptists have always been a people committed to building local churches that reflect as closely as possible the faith and practice of New Testament churches. We sense numerous threats to contemporary Baptist churches including worldliness, laziness, faddishness, heterodoxy, arrogant sectarianism, and naïve ecumenism. Our churches must be committed to a biblical orthodoxy that informs every aspect of church life. Sound doctrine must guide every priority our churches embrace and every task they undertake.
We must be especially mindful to resist contemporary threats to our historic, biblical Baptist identity. Our churches must remain committed to the Baptist distinctives of a regenerate church membership, believer’s baptism by immersion, the priesthood of all believers, congregational church polity, local church autonomy, and liberty of conscience for all people. Each of these distinctives must be embraced under the Lordship of Christ as revealed in Christian Scripture and interpreted by gospel-centered congregations. We must be willing to alter our practices to better accord with a robust Baptist identity, including in many churches a more responsible baptismal policy, the recovery of a redemptive church discipline, a healthier relationship between pastors and their people, and a commitment to an every-member ministry.
Mission is not a ministry of the church, it is at the heart of the church’s identity and essence. We must encourage our churches to see themselves as the missionary bodies that they are. Pastors and other leaders must be willing to teach and model for their people how to be missionaries in their community, regardless of their vocation or location. Churches must have a global perspective and recognize those members who are called to serve overseas long-term and engage in short-term global missions. Churches must labor to both plant new churches in unevangelized areas of North America, especially the great urban centers, and revitalize existing congregations. We long to see a Convention where every church is a church planting church in its unique Jerusalem, its Judea and Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.