Purpose
Our Purpose
“7 Who in the days of His [JESUS’] flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared;
8 Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered;
9 And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him;
10 Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec.
11 Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing.
12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” (Hebrews 5:7-14)
We have certain goals with this web page which are based as closely as we can on the Bible. Of course we would like to say that the whole Bible encompasses our message but these verses in particular hit on, what we believe, will be a huge chunk of what this website will be dedicated to: sound doctrine, in all areas of life.
Verse 7 While we are here ‘in the days’ of our flesh we want to follow the example of our LORD and Saviour JESUS Christ. One of the chief things we are called to do as followers of Christ is to suffer. Needless to say, you don’t hear this much in the modern Gospel message! But this is something you are just going to have to come to grips with. We have. And the reason we have is because we have realized, through the revelation of God, that “…the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Rom. 8:18) We are called by Christ to endure hardship, “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps” (1st Peter 2:21) Keeping foremost in our minds that the primary and greatest reason for doing so is the glory of God. Sin does not in any way bring glory to God and since it is so contrary to His nature we must, by His grace, die daily. We realize that in us (that is, in our flesh) dwelleth no good thing (Rom. 7:18.) That is, in our flesh dwelleth nothing but putrid, prideful selfishness. This is the greatest suffering we endure (outside of hell and on this earth) when our flesh cries out for the hatred it has in being submitted to a holy, righteous and disciplined life.
Goal #1: Seeing as we are weak, pathetic and stupid men our goal is to fear God and offer up to Him prayers and supplications hopefully with strong crying and tears and trust that we will be heard of Him Who is “full of compassion.” (Ps. 78:38; 86:15; 111:4; 112:4; 145:8)
Verse 8 We can only attempt by God’s grace to follow in the footsteps of JESUS. As He took on human flesh and became a man and was just as much man as you or I He learned the same way (“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” –Luk. 2:52;) for an example unto us.
Goal #2: Learn how to obey God by the things that He allows us to suffer through, whether it be chastisement for the sin of commission, the sin of omission or just the weariness that sometimes comes from laboring in a sin filled world.
Verse 9 We praise God for our salvation! And we praise the Author of our eternal salvation as we wholeheartedly obey Him: “…This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him Whom He hath sent.” (Joh. 6:29)
Goal #3: Encourage and beseech those who have not already done so to obey the words of the Son of God, and we ourselves strive to obey Him in all areas of our lives, for He hath said, “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” (John 14:15)
To win the lost is a great, heartfelt desire for this ministry. JESUS said, “The Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.” (Matt. 18:11) And if it was of chief importance to Him we believe it should be the top priority of every Christian. We believe that God is most glorified in man when a single individual, within mankind, gets saved. It is then that it is said of a human being, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light:” (1st Pet. 2:9) We love our LORD JESUS and we want to obey His command, “…Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mar. 16:15) for the Word also says, “…it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” (1st Cor. 1:21b) Spurgeon (who everyone likes to quote) said, “I would sooner bring one sinner to JESUS CHRIST than unravel all the mysteries of the divine Word, for salvation is the one thing we are to live for.” We could not agree with him in this point any more.
Verse 10 JESUS is our High Priest Who has made us, “..kings and priests unto God and His Father;” (Rev. 1:6!) We also, “..as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” (1st Pet. 2:5)
Goal #4: We will serve as priest in the spiritual house that Christ has built, for the edification of this house. We will endeavor to build on the doctrine and learning of God in the person of JESUS CHRIST.
Verse 11 Our God is amazing. And for our short relationship that we have had with Him so far we have seen over and over that we have not even begun to tap the very surface of Who He is. The Hebrews were have that problem but it a little worse. We should never get “dull of hearing” in our Christian life about Christ Himself! There are many things He wants to teach us about Himself and we need to have our ears ever open!
Verse 12 We believe that every follower of Christ should be able to teach the height and breadth and depth of Christ. Not that every follower of Christ ordained to teach the flock of God but they are to at least be learned enough to be able to teach what their teachers have taught them. We should not remain babes in our understanding and unfortunately there are many Christians who do not move on in their walk from milk to meat.
Goal #5: We will teach those who are willing to move on from the first principles of the oracles of God unto stronger and stronger meat.
Verse 13 We are to desire the sincere milk of the Word (1st Pet. 2:2) as newborn babes. Take a baby for an example as to how you are to treat the Word of God. Hunger for it, cry out for it, and devour it when it is set down before thee. This is the way we are to come to the Word, but when we come to it we are not remain novices. We are to grow and keep that hunger that we may be able to handle the strong meat.
Goal #6: We will strive to become masters in the Word of righteousness, in all doctrine and persuade others in that means as well.
Verse 14 We must move on to owning this strong meat the Word speaks of. We must desire to be of full age and by using strong meat over and over we can trust that our senses will be exercised to discern both good and evil.
Goal #7: Our last goal is to become “fathers” (1 Jn. 2:13-14) in the Word of righteousness, to come to full age that we are able to stomach strong meat. This is an everyday battle with the end goal being to be able to discern both good and evil that we may reject the evil and walk in the good. We will also provoke others unto the life also, hopefully every hour, everyday.
Believing to be called by God to lay down our bodies as living sacrifices that God may fill us and be all and all and that to minister to the body of Christ we set out to minister in the way we believe He sees fit and by His grace.
The purpose we believe we are to fulfill here as believers in the one, true and living God is to glorify Him in whatsoever we do. We believe this is done primarily by obedience to Him. The greatest commandment given to us in Scripture, and the second that is just like unto it, is as follows:
“Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt. 22:36-40)
Jesus also said in John 14:15,
“If ye love Me, keep My commandments.”
So part of our mission, as members of His body in glorifying Him, is to edify (build up) His body and preach the Gospel to every creature. These are what we believe are the practical ways in which we can love God with all our heart, soul and mind and also to love our neighbor as ourselves.
We set out to minister to our own body of believers (currently God has us at McGregor Road Baptist) and this is the main reason for our writings, teachings and answers. We do this expressly for the purpose that they may be built up and mature in the faith. Believing that the will of God for every believer is their sanctification (“For this is the will of God, even your sanctification…” 1Th. 4:3) We hope to not only grow more and more in this area but also help our brothers and sisters along the way. The passage in Hebrews 5 speaks of a mature believer as one that is able to discern both good and evil and has become skillful, seemingly very skillful, in the word by being able to handle the strong meat of it.
Lastly, we believe that every thinking and responsible person is in a war. This battle wages daily and it is the fight over who you are going to put your trust in. We are all trusting in someone or something. Whether it’s true or not should determine our wholehearted allegiance. If you have the truth are you trusting it with all thy being? Our continual prayer will be that God give us the grace to strengthen thy faith and trust in His perfect Word and therefore in thy Creator, the God of heaven, “…the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” (1st John 5:7)
