February is the month of God’s Church and today I would like to preach about the goal and purpose of the church.
Genesis 1:28: And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply and fill the earth, and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heavens, and all animals that move upon the earth.
The goal and purpose of the church is to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth with God’s glory. God’s glory is His principles, God’s glory is His order. God’s glory is His truths, His standards, and His values. This is the glory and these are the qualities that we should fill the earth with.
How do we fill the earth with the glory of God? We take God’s principles – holiness, righteousness, mercy, peace, forgiveness, and all other values and principles, which function within the Kingdom of God, – and spread them throughout the earth, filling it with the culture of heaven. When we fill the earth with the substance of God the Father, the earth then acquires the image of heaven. The more we change the sinful image of earth to the image of heaven, the more successfully we fulfill God’s assignment in filling the earth with His glory; that means every believer has a purpose and a destiny, a calling from God, which is to spread the Kingdom of God in all spheres of their influence. We have been created and called to bring heaven to earth. The same way Jesus did it: He left heaven (the place of His comfort), to sacrifice Himself and bring God’s values, principles and the reality of God’s presence to earth. This is what Jesus teaches His disciples about the way they should pray in the Gospel from Matthew 6:9-10: “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven” (verse 10). Fulfilling this will is the greatest calling and purpose of a local church.
Therefore, no pastor or church can measure themselves and their success in terms of external factors. We must measure our ministry and success based on the abovementioned criteria. We as ministers are as successful as we manage to bring God’s will, His principles, His character and His presence to earth. However, if we do not change the values of this earth and do not transform the culture of our society, we only waste our time, we are just playing religion, and in this case church turns into another club. Also you cannot measure a church by the number of its members, because you can have many people, but still have no influence. Church is not measured by its financial health, because you can have plenty money, but never change the culture and the values of society.
For an administration of the fullness of times, to head up all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:10). Therefore the defining factor in the evaluating activities of a church is the following: does the church bring heaven to the earth? That is why in our church we pay so much attention to ministry outside of the church, for God saves people not only for the sake of people, and the church’s purpose does not end with the saved people. Church is created to be salvation, the pillar, and the truth to the society.
On the 6th of February our church, Embassy of God, turned 17 years old (it used to be called “The Word of Faith” and we used to gather in the conference hall of present NAU). Of course you all know that we are going to celebrate the anniversary from March 31 to April 3, 2011; however, let us see what the Embassy of God church is all about today, and how it carries out its mission as a church.
1. According to Genesis 1:28, undoubtedly with God’s help, the Embassy of God is spreading God’s glory all over Ukraine.
An example of that can be seen in the response of one of our critics, who immigrated to Canada in the 1990s. When he arrived back in Ukraine, he was annoyed and upset that ”everywhere, in every region of Ukraine, from Ivano-Frankivsk to Donetsk, from Chernigiv region to the south point of Crimea, people call everyone, who is not an orthodox believer, a Sunday guy”. According to him it is supposedly the greatest evil that has occurred in Ukraine since it gained independence. He explains this phenomenon by saying that Sunday has advertised himself well… but what seems to be the greatest evil to him, is the greatest compliment to us.
Actually no advertisement can make the whole country believe itself. God is faithful to His word: we have managed to spread the news about God, the living God to all the ends of our country. And this fact shows that we not only need to be fruitful, but also multiply and fill the earth.
2. Nowadays it is hard to find a person in Ukraine, who will not have heard about the Embassy of God.
Even though the rumor may be false, because this is a natural law which no one can avoid. People have spoken ill about all new movements which were in their prime, whether they were religious, social, or political movements, but after a while the persecuted becomes generally accepted, nationally. The same thing will happen with us! The rumor about the Embassy of God has transformed into national folklore, into jokes and anecdotes, and that helps us to spread even more and become a national church.
3. Undoubtedly, millions of people have gone through the Embassy of God.
Many of them now attend churches of other denominations, some do not attend any church at all, but they have all been introduced to God thanks to this church in Ukraine. Only a small part of us has gathered now in Kiev in this hall for the anointing service. At the same time churches in all 300 centers of the population in Ukraine are holding church services. Those are people who used to live outside of God’s principles and therefore were going to spiritually die, but who today are spreading the Kingdom of God in all places.
4. The Embassy of God church plays a concrete role in the formation of the society’s culture.
All the time I hear the youth say that they did not see an example of a happy, healthy family, nor did they possess the right values, until they came to the church; and some of them admit that they believed that drinking and smoking was a norm for our country! However, today it is not a norm anymore; now we have a nation that stands for the healthy lifestyle. Recently, (Praise God!) also not without the actions of the Embassy of God, smoking in public places became prohibited by law. And this year the government banned obscene words in public places. The values of the Kingdom of God are planted in this government in spite of all persecutions. We are creating a new generation (new gene fund), and through the truths of the Kingdom of God, through raising children and adults on the principles of the Kingdom of God, Jesus Christ is building His Church in Ukraine and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
It is the same way it happened in the life of some Swedish missionaries – two families, who went to Brazil at the beginning of the 20th century. Today these two families have multiplied so much that according to the latest statistics 50 million Pentecostal followers came out of the church started by these missionaries. At that time those missionaries also suffered persecution, but time puts everything into place. People spoke ill about Jesus, they persecuted Him, and killed him as a villain, though He was not one. But you can never destroy the truth!
Look at Genesis 1:28; it says that church is called to fill the earth with His glory. Here I’d like to give an example of the lives of two people who lived in the same generation (I describe this story in one of my books). One man was called Jonathan Edwards, he was an evangelist, and the other one – Mark Jooks, a successful man, who did not believe in God and was a die hard atheist. After 100 years a study of these two men was conducted. They found out that the descendants of Jooks multiplied only up to 560 people; 310 of them died of alcohol, 50 of them were convicted of robbery, 100 became alcoholics, 50% of the women became prostitutes, and the American government spent 1 million 250 thousand dollars on their treatment. Jonathan Edwards had 1300 descendants; 295 of them graduated from university, 100 of them became missionaries, 13 – chancellors of universities, 65 – professors, 3 – judges, 3 – senators, 3 – governors, 100 – lawyers, 56 – doctors, 75 – generals and officers in the army, 80 took high positions in the government, one of his descendants became a director of an institute. The difference is obvious – the family of Jonathan Edwards continues to this day, because its existence was built on the principles and values of the Kingdom of God, and they dedicated their lives to ministry and spreading the Kingdom of God on this earth.
So, today we also have the honor not only to spread the principles of the Kingdom of God, but also to fill the earth with them. And these principles of the Kingdom of God will change any nation; so after all only the holy remnant will live on this earth, just like in the case of Jonathan Edwards.
Today is the 17th birthday of the Embassy of God, and I prophesy to each of you that your descendants will be a blessed seed, they will continue for centuries, thanks to a righteous lifestyle and righteous principles, on which we build our lives.
We recommend the following books to study this topic deeper:
- “Praise God I suffered!” by Sunday Adelaja;
- “The Final Quest” by Rick Joyner;
- “Jesus Freaks” Volume 2 by dc “Talk”;
- “God’s Generals II” by Roberts Liardon;
- “Driven by eternity” by John Bevere.
May the Lord bless you and your family!
With love and prayers for you,
Senior Pastor of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations
Sunday Adelaja
(theses of the anointing service for February)
Translated by Ekaterina Popova
Edited by Kizito Leacock
