What is my mission?

A repeat on Sam but let me say this.  We must continue to come to Jesus and charge the throne of grace until “the love of Christ compels us” (2 Cor. 5:14,15).  If we are content to get about mission and ministry without this love stirring and pulsating in us, we ought to read 1 Cor.13 again.  “If I give my body to be burned but do not have love, etc”. In the end, this is the only kind of ministry and mission that is going to have the fingerprint of God on it.  

A strategic view of the church’s work remembers the centrality of the Great Commandments (“Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and love thy neighbor as thyself”) and the Great Commission (“Make disciples of all nations”). Love demands costly action but must begin in a heart imprinted with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Culture is all that people think, say, and do that flows from the heart of God’s image-bearers. Where you fit into that mission and how you contribute to culture depends on your personal calling and the sphere of responsibility that God has given to you—it varies from Christian to Christian.

God’s mission is a function of his original purpose to form a people for himself. That’s what Israel was to have been: “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). The eternal God freely chose to share his life with creatures that he made in his image. This is the original mystery of God’s grace. God ultimately accomplished his mission through the work of his Son and Spirit. It is through Jesus’ death and resurrection and ascension and gift of the Spirit that the church – the society of Jesus – becomes “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Pet. 2:9).

What is needed at the church level is formation. Each member of the church has to be formed to be a member of this holy nation. Each of us has to become a citizen of the gospel, so that we can live a life worthy of our high and holy calling: to be God’s special representatives on earth, ambassadors of Jesus Christ. The church’s mission follows from Jesus’ Great Commission to make disciples. That involves teaching doctrine and spiritual formation. That’s the church’s mission, and that’s the way to shape the culture of a holy nation.

God has called us out of darkness of sin into the light of his salvation.  Our first “mission” is captured perfectly in Susan Warner’s children’s song:

Jesus bids us shine with a clear, pure light,
Like a little candle burning in the night;
In this world of darkness, we must shine,
You in your small corner, and I in mine.

I am concerned about overwhelming God’s people today with grandiose visions of transforming culture along with accompanying strategic missions to change the world. In my humble opinion, the most strategic “mission” for orthodox, evangelical Christians today is to work hard on cultivating strong Christ-centered marriages and loving, stable families.  That addresses the gravest crisis of our society and culture and will be a correcting, renewing social and cultural gospel effect. Beyond that, I would underscore what I said in #4 above: Go where God has called you.

God has created us in his image so that we might act as his representatives in this world. He gives us work to do. He gives us purpose and meaning. He is all-powerful and can make whatever he wants. But in his grace he has deigned to use human beings as instruments in making things the way he wants them to be. And he has a purpose for each person who has ever lived and will ever live. He is so perfect and there are such depths to his love and magnificence that his “image” can never be captured or perfectly manifested in any single person (with the exception of that most exceptional person, Jesus Christ himself). As one of my favorite theologians Abraham Kuyper puts it, “The mere fact that God created a man and a woman proves indisputably that identical uniformity was not part of the plan of creation. So we may draw no other conclusion than that the rich variety among people, in terms of aptitude and talent, came forth from the creation itself and belongs to the essence of human nature. If this is so, then it follows automatically that in relation to the image of God, no single human being bears this feature of God in its fullness, but that all talent and all genius together comprise the capacity for incorporating within itself this fullness of the thought of God.”

Through Word, Spirit, and genuine Christian fellowship, become the new person you are becoming in Jesus Christ your Lord.

Well, it is certainly “another thing I have to do.” It is something God commands, among others. But I don’t think I should ever look at his commands as burdensome. The mission, particularly, is at the center of God’s plan for the world, and it is a great privilege for us to be a part of it. What is needed is for each believer to do all things to the glory of God, to take the gifts and abilities God has given and to find out how these gifts can be used to bring godly change in his environment. When we seek to do our daily work to God’s glory, we will inevitably shape that part of culture in which God has placed us. And we will at the same time be drawing other people to see Christ in us and themselves to come into his kingdom. 

God’s mission for his people is to spread a passion for the all-consuming glory of Jesus Christ and the unrivaled joy that comes from this above all else. It is not just “another thing I have to do for God” but something I truly and deeply delight to do out of the overflow of God’s love for me in and through his Son. What the church needs most, and what individuals in it need most, is a fresh revelation of the majesty of Christ and a heart that is captivated and enthralled by all that he is in himself and all that has done and will do for us who trust in him.

The mission of the church is to go into the world in the power of the Spirit and make disciples by proclaiming this gospel, calling people to respond in ongoing repentance and faith, and demonstrating the truth and power of the gospel by living under the lordship of Christ for the glory of God and the good of the world.

One of the key takeaways for me is that Jesus said we are His witnesses. He didn’t just say “go witness,” He said we are already His witnesses. That means that being a witness for Jesus is an identity, not just a task. Now, certainly, if we are witnesses in how we live, we’ll be involved in the activity of verbally “witnessing” the truth of the gospel, but I think it’s important that we keep the order there. Jesus says, “You are my witnesses.” Your very existence as a follower of Jesus is a witness to the truth of the gospel. So once you know that, you need to live into your identity – you need to lean more into that and not away from it. It’s like being named the son of a king and then realizing that you are a prince. This is who you are. You can focus on what you are supposed to do as a prince, but that’s not the place to start. Identity first, then tasks and responsibilities. Get that order wrong and you’ll burn out, thinking that your identity depends on your actions, rather than the other way around.