God's Mission-My Purpose

In the Beginning

Today’s message starts in the beginning. I don’t just mean with the first words written. I mean it literally starts in the beginning.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In six days God would speak all that we see into existence. He would form man from the dust of the ground, and breathe into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. God made humanity in his image in the image of God he created them male and female. God looked back at all that he had made and declared it was very good. This is a summary of Genesis chapters 1 & 2.

When we look at the world today it can be hard to see the goodness of creation, or the image of God in humanity. What happened? Genesis chapter 3 happened. With the fall of humanity the image of God in humanity has been broken, and the goodness of creation seemingly lost to the darkness and evil we see in our world today.

As messed up and broken creation is, God in his mercy sent Jesus Christ to live and die as one of us. To reconcile us to God and restore the very image of God in which we were created. Since Genesis chapter 3 God has been on a mission to redeem all of creation. A mission he calls, us his people to do our part. Will you join the mission?

Romans 8:18–22 NRSV

18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now;

God works in and through his people.

We can see God’s mission to redeem his good creation carried out in and through his people. Hebrews 11 gives a good lengthy list of faithful people who carried on the mission.

In the Old Testament times God’s mission was carried out through the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When Israel was enslaved in Egypt, the mission was carried out through Moses. When God’s people strayed from the mission, God spoke through prophets.

God enters his created world through his servant Mary. When we had fallen and become subject to evil and death, God in his mercy sent Jesus Christ, to share our human nature to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to Him, the God and Father of all.

Through Christ mission of God become our purpose. God is working in us restoring the relationship between God and humanity, and restoring the glorious image in which we were created. God is also working through us his people as he has since the beginning.

God saves us by his grace that his grace may work in and through us.

Ephesians 2:10 NRSV

10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

The Woman at the well

Our reading from John today picks up at the end of the woman at the well encounter. It serves as a great illustration on how the work of grace flowed from that well and transformed a community.

In John 4 God’s mission was Jesus purpose. Jesus had to go through Samaria, to meet a samaritan woman at the well.

The samaritan woman comes to the well to avoid others. She comes to avoid the judgemental stares and whispers about her reputation in the community. Jesus a Jew should not have been talking to this samaritan woman, who has had five husbands, and the man she is with now isn’t her husband.

The disciples return looking at Jesus with perhaps some of the same judgemental stares the woman had received. Shocked that he was talking to a samaritan woman, they ask themselves, “What do you want with her?” “Why are you talking to her?”

The woman didn’t get judgemental glances from Jesus. Instead he asks her for a drink. Grace flowed from the well that day, and the ensuing conversation changed her life so much that she left her water jug to go tell others. The grace of God flowed from that well in Sychar that day and the community was not the same. The woman left her water jug to do her part in God’s mission.

The disciples finally got over what they had walked into and urged Jesus to eat something. Jesus response was I have food you know nothing about. The disciples were once again confused. Jesus explained “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work.”

Jesus then tells his disciples that he is sending them out to harvest crops they didn’t plant. The harvest in Sychar was plentiful because of the grace that flowed from the well that day. It spread because the woman went and told what Christ had done. The work of grace continues in through his disciples as they are sent out to harvest.

God invites us into his mission.

As I read a people of grace this week I liked the analogy of the warehouse. With online retail growing in popularity, there are now lots of warehouses cropping up just to store stuff until someone orders it. As followers of Christ and people of grace, we are not warehouses of grace. We should operate more like a river of grace. God’s grace should flow in and through us like it did for the woman at the well. God’s mission is our purpose we have a part to play.

In Matthew 22:1-14 Jesus illustrated what we are supposed to do through the parable of the wedding banquet. We issue the invitation, to come join in the work. Some may accept the invitation, some may reject it, some might even make up excuses why they can’t, we are called to invite. Our purpose in God’s mission is to invite friends, family and everyone in our realm of influence to come be reconciled to God and join in the work. From the beginning God has been on mission to redeem creation to himself. God invites us to pariticipate in the mission. Will you join him?