Today we’re celebrating the last day of Vacation Bible School and I want to welcome all of you who are with us for that again. We are also in the sixth week of our summer sermon series called “You Asked for It.” This series came from questions and topic suggestions from the congregation with the only limiter being “don’t ask a question you don’t want an honest answer to.” Now, like I said earlier, this is the sixth week of the series which means I scheduled these sermons at least 7 weeks ago. So far we talked about Adam and Eve, heaven and hell, sin and sinners, the problem of evil, and Christ’s descent into hell. But this week, I looked at the scheduled topic with our VBS celebration in mind and thought to myself “this might not be the topic.” The scheduled topic for this weekend was/is a history of the church and a history of Christianity. I can just feel the excitement radiating off of everyone, and I thought about pivoting topics. But I really don’t like just picking a topic to preach on - when we’re not in a series like this, we have different Bible reading each week that are automatically scheduled out and those reading dictate where the message goes. So I decided that I would start my typical preparation and see where it led - and I’d scrap it and start over if necessary.

As you might’ve guessed, by the time I finished preparing for this message I thought it would be worth going through together. Because the history, the story of Christianity is the story of people who did whatever it takes to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and make disciples who obey Him.

The History of the Church

There are a few different places where I think you could fairly point to as being the birth of the church. On the very general side of things, you could say that since the church is just the assembly of God’s people who He has set apart, the ancient Israelites were the first church. For a biblically grounded timeline, you could point to the birth of Christ as the beginning of Christianity, you could point to when He first gathered disciples around Him, you could point to Jesus’ death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins, and many people point to Pentecost when Peter and the disciples are given the Holy Spirit to proclaim the good news to people in Jerusalem. If you want a more objective or legal approach, you could point to when the Roman Empire recognized Christianity as separate from Judaism somewhere in the 2nd century.

I’m not going to though. Where I want to start is in our reading just a few minutes ago, this collection of verses called The Great Commission. It was in these verses that Jesus gave His disciples still on earth after His own ministry a purpose, a goal, a mission. It was here that they are set apart for a purpose, to grow as disciples and to lead others in doing the same. The mission of the church is to make disciples, and here is where that mission started. Now initially, at least by the Romans, Christianity was considered a sect of Judaism. That was important because most religions were disallowed by the Romans in favor of their state religion, but Judaism had enough influential people who found it interesting that it was allowed within the Empire. Now the disciples of Jesus, those men and women who had witnessed His earthly ministry, they told everyone who would listen about Jesus’ death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins and the church grew explosively - even though most of those disciples were martyred for it - early Christians were willing to do whatever it took to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and make disciples who obey Him.

Then, in 313AD, Emperor Constantine issued something called the Edict of Milan. This made it so that Christians could no longer be persecuted within the Roman Empire and the Emperor became a patron of the church. Over the next thousand years, the church grew in the people who heard the Gospel, but it also grew in power and influence as it became more and more united with the Roman Empire - now the Holy Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church. There were disagreements, a notable one giving birth to the Orthodox churches in the east, but by and large the largest empire in the world was made up of Christians - part of what gave rise to the term “Catholic” in the first place, Catholic church roughly meaning universal church. That is until a man named Martin Luther, a German monk, started writing over a thousand years later. You see, Luther had studied the Bible extensively and had come to the conclusion that the Catholic church of the time had lost its way. He wanted to bring the church back to the proclamation of the Gospel above all else, back to teaching people that we are saved by God’s grace alone, through the gift of faith alone, in the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ alone. He was excommunicated from the church, violently persecuted, and wars were fought over this proposed Reformation that gave birth to the denominational variety we see today. And at its core were Christians willing to do whatever it took to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and make disciples who obey Him.

Fast forward another couple hundred years and a group of German settlers make their way to the shores of America. They were Lutherans, Christians from Germany who wanted to pursue their faith in the New World. Initially they were led by a man named Martin Stefan who was their pastor, that is until he was convicted of spending too much time with several women and taking money from the community - so they kicked him out of the community and, quite literally, sent him up the river. The group that remained was deflated and defeated, they didn’t have any spiritual leadership anymore and were coming to believe that they wouldn’t be able to remain faithful in America like they had hoped. Until a man named CFW Walther rallied the community, started to lead them, and the roots of what eventually became the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod took hold. A group of Christians where were willing to do whatever it took in this New World to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and make disciples who obey Him.

Fast forward to today, to Sunday, July 9th in Eastvale, CA. There is a group of people who meet every Sunday morning to pray together, to spend time in God’s Word, to worship Him for all that He has done, and to receive His gifts of forgiveness, community, and love. A group that is willing to set-up chairs on a weekly basis, a group that meets in their homes during the week for Bible study, a group that supports one another in faithfully following Jesus and growing as disciples. Edgewater Lutheran Church is a place where we are rooted in the Gospel together, and do whatever we can to make disciples of ourselves and of the people we care about in our lives. And for those of you visiting us today, there is a place for you here on Sundays for worship, a place for you to grow in a smaller group setting, a place for you to join in monthly community events, a place to grow in your personal devotions - all within this community of Christians that are willing to do whatever it takes to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and make disciples who obey Him. Amen.