On Mission Week 3 - Missio Mathétés

 Last week I told you about my hopes for my high school baseball team that were quickly dashed by reality. Well when I went to college, those hopes didn’t get any better. In the spring of my high school year, I had already decided to go to Simpson College because I wanted a place where I could grow in my walk with God. I picked Simpson because it had everything I was looking for in a Christian college. That choice was solidified when I met the coach for the baseball team. He seemed to know what he was doing, the practice I attended was well organized, and the team seemed to be focused on becoming better. A far cry from my high school team. 

So it was decided, I started in the fall, and the first day on the field, I learned that the two coaches had quit at the end of the last season. Not only them, but several of the players were not returning for various reasons. On that first day, there was only eight of us and I learned quickly that baseball wasn’t a priority of the school. Simpson’s team at the time was little more than a club team. We were intercollegiate only as far as we put the effort into it. We had to pay for almost everything, from uniforms to trips. 

In the years I played for Simpson, only one of those years did we have more than twelve players consistently. One year we went on a week road trip with only eleven players; playing much bigger schools like Vanguard, Occidental, and Master’s College. That last one had two teams, of which we played the “B” squad. But because of our situation, I had to learn to play more than one position. I had to become a utility player. Now when I was younger I played other positions, and from time to time on my high school team I had to fill in other places. But I never knew those positions. In college I had to know every position inside and out. Which, I found enjoyable. Looking back over my entire time playing baseball, I realize that my favorite position to play was first base, a position I only played my final spring season. During my college career, I realized that as a player, your job is to develop with the needs of the team in mind, just has much as for your own purposes. I had more fun on that team than any other, because I learned to be everything the team needed. 

And it’s this idea of developing as an individual that brings us back to our sermon series, where we’re talking about being on mission with God. The reason we’re walking about mission, is because, we have a tendency as people in general to either not understand what the Mission of God is and our part in it, or we get so caught up in life that we neglect God’s mission. 

So, in our first week, we looked at God’s overarching mission. In that, we talked about how God’s mission is to restore his creation’s access to his presence, which is the place we find fulfillment. God’s mission has three milestones: First, it’s his perfect good creation, humanity’s rebellion in sin, and their entering into eternal death, which is eternal separation from him. From there, God’ work is to bring about Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, which results in the forgiveness of sin, and opens our relationship with him that is to be experienced now and lasts into eternity. The final milestone is the culmination of all God’s work in Jesus’ return, which brings a new creation and an eternity to experience God’s goodness. This has been and is God’s mission in our fallen world.

In our second week, we talked about the Mission of the Church. As a body of beliers we are to bear witness to what Jesus has done. This witness includes both the proclamation of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, and is shown through Christian unity, where grace and love are given out. Now we talked about how there are things we have to divide on based on what the core of the Gospel is. Since Jesus states that he is the only way, that separates Jesus from other belief systems. However, we tend to divide more on secondary and third tier issues that are not at the core of the Gospel, and it’s at the core where we need to unite, and give grace to those areas that are disagreements. Finally, we are to also make disciples. That means every believer is a part of every other believer’s growth. We are to be encouragers, mentors, brothers, and sisters to each other as we each walk Jesus’ path.

With God’s mission and his mission for the Church clear in our minds, we turn to the final mission, which is the mission of the Mathétés (ma-thay-TAYS), the mission of the disciple. Like we said last week, there is a lot of overlap between the Church’s mission and the disciples’ mission, because the Church is made up of disciples. However, there are a few things that we must be doing as disciples on an individual level, which then strengthens the greater Church

To be consistent in our series, we’re only going to look at three facets of God’s mission for his disciple.

To start off with, in the first eleven verses of the opening of John’s Gospel, John gives us an introduction to Jesus and his mission. John writes, “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

“6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.”

These verses tell us that the Word of God is an eternal person who is both unique in relation to God, and God himself. This Word brought all things into existence, and in verse 14 we learn that this Word takes on human flesh and becomes known to us as Jesus. In the Word taking on human flesh, John the Baptist, a different John from the writer, bears witness to Jesus’ work. The writer tells us that the Word brings true light, true illumination to what God has been doing. And this Word bringing light first comes to the Jewish people. The people that God had worked with for thousands of years as he brought his mission to fruition. But Jewish people rejected Jesus, they rejected their God. This is reality of the mission of God. And it’s here that we get verses, 12 and 13, “12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

The writer states that if you receive Jesus then you become a child of God. It’s not because you’re good enough, or that you willed it to happen, but because you responded to God and then God brought you into his family. This is the end goal of God’s mission. That he would have a people, children, who willingly embrace him, and in turn, he willingly embraces. 

This is the first aspect of our mission, to be children of God. It’s really easy to think that God’s mission for me is to do something. To evangelize people. To build ministries. To do something with my life that leaves a mark for the kingdom. But in reality, our primary mission is to be his children. It is why Jesus uses the terms Father and Son. God’s intention was to build a family. We are to be more than servants, more than workers, we are to be children of the Father. Princes and Princess of the King.

This is why Paul writes Romans 8:14-17, “14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” If we don’t have this realization, then everything becomes work for a master, rather than bringing joy to a parent. God is our Abba, our Papa, our Father, and we are his children, if we receive Jesus’ life, death and resurrection on our behalf. This is what it means to receive Jesus’ as Savior. It is to be received as a child of God.

The next aspect follows the first, and comes from Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:14-16, “14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

When we receive Jesus as Savior, we receive the Holy Spirit. When we receive the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ light is placed in us. When Jesus’ light is placed in us by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are to shine the light to people around us. We are to not hold back the light, nor be ashamed of it. Light is meant to brighten darkness and bring attention to perils. Street lights are there to help us see our way down the sidewalk and roads. Lighthouses are there to warn ships of treacherous waters. Jesus’ light shinning out from us is to illuminate this dark world and to point back to God. 

Paul would writer this in Colossians 1:27, “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The hope of God through Jesus, which now indwells his children, is the hope of the world. God chose to use individuals to be lights who gather together as the Church to light dark places and reveal destructive paths, so that people may turn from sin and receive Jesus as Savior. This then fulfills God’s mission of bringing people back into his presence, that they may be children of God.

And how do we shine this light? We might think that it’s evangelism or sharing the Gospel with someone. In reality it’s seeking to live out God’s holy life, relying on the Holy Spirit to do so. It’s living Jesus’ command of loving God with with all heart, mind, soul, strength. It’s asking for greater transformative work in ourselves. It’s learning to trust ourselves fully to God, laying our will down before his own. It’s seeking the greater and sweeter things that God has for us. It’s living the abundant life of Jesus, by abiding in him for all our sustenance. It’s failing and turning back to God to be lifted up. Like a kid who fell of their bike and scraped out knee, we call out for our parent to come and fix our hurt. 

In other words, to be light, its to be in relationship with God and not hiding it. That relationship is to overflow to others, thus fulfilling the second great commandment of loving people as ourselves. By doing this, we are fulfilling the mission God has for us.

The final facet is the speaking aspect. We must never have it in our mind that we are to never speak of what God has done. But too often we think it has to be done as if we are an evangelist. We think, in order to fulfill God’s mission, we must be a street preacher like Ray Comfort, or lead huge rallies like Billy Graham. In reality, we are to fulfill Peter’s word in 1st Peter 3:15, “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect …” We are to honor Jesus as holy, the way we do this is to be prepared to make a defense, or to give an answer to why we live in the hope of Jesus. Why do we live as a child of God? Why do we live shining Jesus’ light? We’re to be able to give an answer to someone who questions that. It’s why we provide the apologetics class on Wednesdays. It’s why we do apologetics series throughout the year. 

As a pastor, one of my jobs is to equip you to give answers. And as you grow, your understanding of what Jesus has done grows, and your answer to questions deepens. But at the core, our answer is a sharing of what God has done for us. It’s our witness to his greatness in our lives. It’s the reason why we personally have hope. There is an answer to every question that people propose. Some answers take more study to share, but our primary witness is to the transformative work that God has done in us as we put his words into practice and we rely on the Holy Spirit to strength and guide us. 

Knowledge is a good thing, but only when it’s put into action, which is wisdom. Knowledge by itself, divorced from action, simply puffs us up. Which ends with us thinking of ourselves greater, and in turn leads to a diminished witness to the Gospel. I would take a hundred believers that seek and struggle to live holy lives and do not know more than their own hope in Christ, than a thousand apologists who know a lot but do not live it. 

God’s primary mission for us as individuals is to live out the life he has saved us to live. We do that by putting into action his words. It’s loving the unlovable. Praying for those that hate us. It’s serving those who cannot repay. It’s standing firm on Jesus’ words that he is the only way. And it’s laying down our will, for that of our loving Father. It’s also sharing our hope with others. It’s being able to articulate why we trust in Jesus. When we do these things, we are fulfilling God’s mission for us as individuals. We are living out being his disciples. If every individual disciple took a greater concern for their own spiritual health, the mission of the Church would be fulfilled, and we would see the greater work of God happen all around us.

My challenge for you this week is to take an inventory of your walk with Jesus, preparing your hearts for the coming weeks when we talk about discipleship. Are you living as a child of the King? That means you are cultivating a relationship with God as Father, in a loving relationship of parent and child. Are you living that out among people, letting God’s work in you effect others? Until that relationship is cultivated, you will always be frustrated with not being able to share your faith. But when we hone in on our relationship with God, God will bring us into situations where we will be asked to give a reason for our hope. And because of our deeper life with our Father, we will be able to speak of the great things he has done. Take this week to bask in the love of God, for if you received him as Savior, he desires to dote upon you with all his love, mercy and grace. 

Let us be firm in our relationship with our heavenly Father, and through that, shine before others, that we may share the great hope that Christ has accomplished in us. Amen.

On Mission Week 2 - Missio Ekklésia

 As most of you know, I played a lot of baseball growing up. In my sophomore year, though I practiced, I never played on a team. The main reason is because the school I attended for that year, didn’t have any formal sports. In my junior year, I changed schools, and one of the reasons I chose to go to the school I did, was because not only did they have a team, but they had won their league the previous year. To top it off, they were only losing one player to graduation, and only one player was a entering his senior year. That meant that the core of the team was my age, and we would have two more years to win. I was excited to play at that school.

However, I quickly learned that wasn’t the case. See, the year the school won, there were a lot of factors that I didn’t know about. First, the league was trash. Some schools were in a building phase, others were too small to really field a good team. Those issues had been worked through, and in my junior year, the other teams had grown. Secondly, our coach wasn’t a baseball coach, he was a guy who liked baseball. Liking a sport and being able to coach a sport are two different things. There are a lot of Monday quarterbacks, but only a few who are out on the field. The talent on the team was never coach to development, they won their league on their own raw talent and drive to win. But as other teams grew, they were outpaced. Without a coach who could cultivate their talents, the team just floundered. It’s one of the reasons that when I went to college I was so poor at batting. In the two years I was with that team, I had batting practice maybe three times. The coach’s philosophy was that those at the top of the batting lineup should get the most practice. Being a pitcher, I was always put ninth, and so rarely got to practice my hitting. 

Thirdly, most of the guys on the team thought they were good enough. They believed they didn’t need to get better because they had won in the past. So when I got there, they didn’t feel like they needed to put the effort into the game to improve themselves.

Due to these three factors, our team took third both years I was there. The team wasn’t willing or able to prepare for the task they took the field to accomplish. Therefore we lost to those schools that took their playing seriously.

This idea of taking our task seriously is what leads us back into our sermon series, where we’re talking about the three missions every Christian should be engaging in. In our first week we looked at the foundation for these three missions, the Missio Dei, or God’s mission. In that we saw how God’s mission contains three milestones: His creation and the fall of humanity into sin, his work in bringing about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and then his bringing all those who trust in him as Savior into his presence, which starts now and goes into the new creation. And we saw how God’s mission is to restore his creation’s access to his presence, where we find fulfillment.

  From God’s mission, we get a little more narrow, as we talk about Jesus’ mission for his Church. This is the Missio Ekklésia, or the mission of Christ’s gathered people. Now, in the mission of the Church, and the mission of the individual disciple there’s overlap, because the disciple is a piece of the gathered Church. But there are three aspects that the Church in general has as it’s mission that is supposed to be done in the midst of the gathering. So let’s take a look at the three aspects of the Church’s mission.

The first aspect is that the Church is a testimony to the work of God in front of the world. Jesus’ final words in the book of Acts chapters 1, verses 7-8, are a response to his disciples’ question about the restoration of the kingdom. Jesus says this to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” In Jesus’ words, we learn that, as a Church, our job is not to concern ourselves with the time of Jesus’ return, instead we are to be witnesses to the work of Christ throughout the whole of the world. Too often we get bogged down in future predictions or signs of the return of Christ, and in doing so miss the need to be witnesses. Should we desire Christ’s return? Yes! Should we be prepared and know the signs of the return? Yes! But not at the expense of being his witnesses. Because, as a Church, we are to bare witness to our great and glorious God, who will return in his timing.

By conducting ourselves as witnesses, we are actually participating in the return of our King. In Jesus’ final sermon in the Gospel of Matthew, we get this statement by Jesus in chapter 24, verse 14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” The testimony that is proclaimed about the Gospel to the ends of the earth is the catalyst to the return of Jesus. The Church’s witness is vital to this. No individual believer can accomplish the work of proclaiming the Gospel throughout the world. Many of our brothers and sisters have lived and died in the steady march of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. As we walk as the Church today, we are to make sure that we are doing our part in moving the Gospel to places that have not yet heard it. We must be joining together with whatever arm of the Church God has connected us with to bring about the testimony to all peoples. That’s why I don’t care if you’re Alliance, Baptist, Pentecostal, Methodist, Anglican, Reformed, Calvinist, Armenian, Free will. I care that those who hold to the core of the Gospel bear witness as a gathered people of God to proclaim the Good News of Jesus. The Church’s focus should be holding to the core teachings of Scripture, being a witness to the work of the Lord, until the day he returns.

This witness leads us into the second aspect of the Church’s mission which is that the Church has to be unified. In Jesus’ final public prayer before the cruxifixction, he stated this in John 17:20-23, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

Too often we get hung up on doctrines that have no bearing on salvation. Is Christ, the only way of salvation? Yes! Is he coming pre, mid, or post tribulation? Who knows! What we do know is he’s coming back. So why do we divide on things where grace should abound? I do not have to like certain musical style, certain worship service formats called liturgies, nor do I have to agree with every sub-point of theology, but what I do have to love are my brothers and sisters in Christ. I have to love them with all their quirks and deficiencies. And they have to love me with all my quirks and deficiencies too. It’s easy to divide, it doesn’t take a strong person to divide, division is weakness, unity on the core, setting aside those small infractions, of the Christian faith is hard, and it takes strong mature believers to do it. 

Paul would tell the Ephesian Church, “15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (4:15-16)” I would rather see love from the people of God, who by grace accept each other’s differences over non-salvific issues, and are being built up in Christ, than a congregation who knows a lot of Scripture, yet has no love for each other. The loving congregation will always see God’s blessing, while the other, as Paul states, will be a clanging gong (1 Cor. 13:1), clanging along wondering why God hasn’t moved in their midst. 

The final aspect is Jesus’ words, that we know as the Great Commission from Matthew 28:19-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The Church as a whole are to make disciples of nations. On Wednesday nights I teach our apologetics class. As of right now there are three courses in that class. Course one is Basic Beliefs of Christianity, number two is World Religions. Right now we’re going through course three which is Counter Arguments. Several times throughout the years, when I have taught the Basic Beliefs course, people have come up and said, “I didn’t know about some of the doctrines we’re talking about.” Now I have put more challenging discussions within the course to help the class grow in seeing the bigger picture when it comes to the discussion between the theological sides, but there are basic things that I have been surprised to see many people do not know. 

This is an issue of discipleship. If we have been in the faith for a decade or longer, we should have a clear grasp on basic theology. We should be clear in what it means that God is Triune, and the difference between faith alone for salvation and living out good works after the point of justification. And know what those words I just said mean. We should be able to clearly share our testimony of what Christ has done for us. We should have a decent grasp over where to find core teachings within the Bible, on things such as worry, prayer, and love. And, we should be implementing those things in our lives. Last week we looked at Colossians 1:25-26 to see God’s mission, but Paul continues as to make another point as well. Starting in verse 25 of Colossians 1 we read, “of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (v.25-29)”

We are to be discipled, trained up in the faith that we are saved to live out, and we are to train up others to be disciples as well. It’s the Church as a whole. There are no non-disciples within the Body of Christ. Everyone is a disciple, who calls on the name of Jesus for salvation, and everyone is to participate in both their own discipleship making process and the making of disciples. This is how the witness of the Church to the the Gospel is seen in the world, and how love and unity is built within the Church to show that Jesus is the Savior. 

The mission of the Church is the mission of individuals being built together by Jesus himself to grow into his people. We are to be a reflection of our Savior in purpose and love. When the world sees that reflection, they see a witness to the great work of God in the world. 

As individuals, we must see ourselves as a part of the Church. Paul states it like this in 1st Corinthians 12, “… But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (v. 24b-27)” Individuals who make up the body, who are so interconnected with each other that they suffer as one, and are honored as one. This is why it’s important to meet together, to share with each other, to grow alongside each other. As disciples of Jesus, there is no lone ranger. We cannot hope to be where God wants us, unless we are also alongside other believers being built as Christ’s Church. 

So my challenge then for you this week is to take each of these three aspects of the Church’s mission: witness, unity, and discipleship, and ask, “How am I doing in my witness of what Christ has done? Have you loved Jesus’ Church the way he does? Are you being discipled, and are you discipling others? For each of us it may look a little different. If you’re a traveler, snowbird, winter visitor, RTR, or Rv’er, it’s going to look different than if you live in one place full time. If you’re traveling, I want to challenge you to experience a denomination that isn’t one you’ve experienced before. As long as they hold to the core of the Gospel, visit their congregation, you will meet different people who you will one day worship alongside of in heaven. Build that witness, build that love and unity. For your own discipleship, read through a basic theology book. Make sure you’re clear on the faith that you hold. One book that I might suggest is Charles C. Ryrie’s Basic Theology. It’s bite size, but goes over a large amount of theology every Christian should know. And then, disciple someone else. Discipleship always begins with prayer, then encouragement, and maybe mentorship. Being a disciple-maker is living your life with someone else. It’s not classroom, or sermon teaching, it’s living your faith out with a less mature believer. 

God is calling us to be an important part of his Church as he builds her up for his glorious return. Let us then participate fully in that building process that we might bring honor and glory to our great Architect. Amen.