Prescott Presbyterian Church Mission Statement

The phrase from our Vision Statement “.  .  . and We Shall Be His People” is something of a Mission Statement. That is, it summarizes the response of God’s people, but more detail is required – What does it look like to be God’s people? From a survey of Scripture, we find that it means: Total, Dependent Worship

“And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:30-31

And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ” Luke 4:8

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Romans 12:1

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:12-13

As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, Colossians 2:6

From these verses above, we note three things:

These three aspects are also present in our denomination's third membership question

Do you acknowledge Jesus Christ as your sovereign Lord and do you promise,
2) in reliance on the grace of God, 3) to serve Him 1) with all that is in you, to forsake the world, to mortify your old nature, and to lead a godly life?                                                OPC Membership Question #3

1) With all that is in you, 2) in reliance upon His grace, 3) to serve the Lord.

Total

The total commitment of our response is obvious from these verses and many others. Next, we will look at the power we have from God to live like this. Then, thirdly, we move on to what this full-time service to God looks like – how this service is characterized.

Dependent

God gives Himself to His people to be God to His people in transformation of their hearts and in relationship to Himself Isaiah 42:6; 59:21; I Peter 4:14. To be a bit more concrete, we need the presence of a teacher, and we need a doctor (one that can raise the dead!).

We must continually depend upon God. Scripture expresses this dependence as abiding in Christ, walking in the Spirit, letting the Word dwell in us richly. Mark 9:24; John 15:4-8; Romans 8:1, 4; Galatians 5:16, 25; 6:14; Ephesians 2:10; Philippians 2:13; II Thessalonians 2:13. All of our lives, we continue hearing and believing what God has done for us.

Three of the verses at the beginning of this section (Romans 12:1, Philippians 2:12-13, and Colossians 2:6) reflect the fact that because God has done something for us, we are to respond in ways that accord with what God has done. This is the foundational principle of Sanctification and of Good Works. God’s people offer themselves to Him wholly because He initiates and upholds their new lives in Christ by the power of His Spirit and His word.

This scriptural principle is summarized in Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 35  What is sanctification?

Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, (II Thessalonians 2:13) whereby we

Worship

The word for service in Luke 4:8 and Romans 12:1 quoted above has connotations of “service of worship” as seen by its translation in Hebrews 9:1 “divine service”. So, one way to characterize our entire lives is as lives of worship.

We summarize these three points as: 

God’s Mission for His People: Total, Dependent Worship.