What Living On Mission Looks Like

A solider in the Army got called up one day and was told to get ready. His unit was going out on deployment. He reported to base, attended the briefing, and was sent out to the battlefield. When his superiors arrived, his entire unit was sitting at their base playing cards, watching movies, scrolling social media, and taking naps. Meanwhile, bullets from the enemy are flying, and the commanding officer is screaming at this unit, “What are you doing!? Can’t you see that the enemy is shooting at you?” A few of the soldiers look up at him and say, “Oh tat? Yeah we were going to get to that, but hey, check out this reel I found. I cat on a skateboard. Isn’t that crazy?”

That is how many Christians live their lives. They were called into battle, given a mission, yet the bullets are flying and they are not engaging. There are casualties and they are not bothered. They have become consumed with everything except the extremely dangerous projectiles flying at them.

Meanwhile churches talk about being on mission. We come up with mission statements and long term visions. We say our mission is to help people find forever family through Christ-centered relationships. How do we know we are on mission?

Sometimes we may not know what it looks like to live on mission. Every church has a mission, and each church is responsible for pursing its mission the way God intends them to. But just because a church has a mission statement does not mean it is living on mission. So how do we know? Today, we return to the life of Joseph to look at his life and see what it looks like to live on mission.

There are three ingredients to living on mission.

You must own God’s purpose for your life.

Joseph was a dreamer. At seventeen years of age, he received his dreams of being in charge of his brothers. His dreams came in the form of symbolism. First it was the sheaves of wheat, then it was the stars, sun, and moon. He also received the interpretation of those dreams. Now, that skill, which was first dependent on God, lied dormant for years until this moment.

Two very important figures were thrown into the prison and Joseph was put in charge of them. They had strange dreams that they couldn’t find the interpretation for. Joseph notices they are looking disturbed. It is his job to oversee their wellbeing, so he asks what’s going on. They tell him about the dreams, that no one can interpret them, and so he offers to hear them out. The cupbearer goes first. Joseph interprets the dream, saying he will be restored to his position in three days. The baker sees the cupbearer’s interpretation is good news, so he goes next. He tells Joseph his dream. But Joseph has bad news for the baker. In the same three day timeframe, he will be executed, not restored. Three days later, everything happened as Joseph described. He only asked that the cupbearer remember him and mention him to Pharaoh.

I want you to notice what happened here and how this translates to your life. Let’s follow the timeline one more time. Joseph is sold into slavery. He does unbelievably well until he’s set up by his master’s wife and accused of a crime he didn’t commit. He is imprisoned, and does so well the warden practically hands him the keys. Day in, day out, he showed up faithful to the task. Was it where he thought he would be? No. Is it where he wanted to be? No. Did he show up and do it anyway? Yes.

What if you were already exactly where God wants you? Hear me out. You may already be exactly where God wants you, but you may not be doing what God is calling you to do. Some of us are so fixated on where we want to be that we are not paying attention to where we are. Some of us are so fixated on where we are, that we are not paying attention to where God wants us to be.

If our mission is to help people find forever family through Christ-centered relationships, and it is true that God already has you where he wants you, then we can reasonably conclude that the people he wants you to help find that forever family are either already in your life or about to be. Recognize that Joseph probably wasn’t interpreting dreams every day. God moved some people into his life so he could serve them with his God-given skills, that would lead to opportunity later. What did Joseph say? In chapter forty, verse eight, he said,

Genesis 40:8 NASB95

“Do not interpretations belong to God?”

They know that Joseph’s interpretations are not his own. They come from God. His work points them to God, not himself. How does your work point to God, not yourself? Who in your life is far from God? Are you looking for opportunity to serve them? Are you looking for opportunity to share with them? What is the driving force of your life? You are probably where God already wants you to be. But are you doing what God wants you to do?

Let’s keep exploring this as we move further. The second thing you must do is:

You must allow God to build the platform.

When you want help with something, you think of someone or a company as being the person or entity who can provide that need. Microsoft is known for computers and operating systems. Apple is known for their line of personal computing devices. Nike is known for athletic wear. Sony is known for electronics and entertainment. Joseph, though, had no reputation as a dream interpreter. He had no platform and he had no way of creating the platform. There is no social media, YouTube, or online medium for getting his content out there. What he had was access to people who had a problem for which he had a solution, and he simply asked, “Do you want help with that?”

So many of us are trying to build a platform for ourselves. There is something in us that is part of our fallen nature that lends to building a platform for ourselves. Hear me when I say this: it is not wrong to have a platform. It becomes wrong when the platform feeds our ego rather than point people to Jesus. God wants you to have a platform, but you must allow God to build it, and be content with where you are in the moment.

Let’s go back to what I said earlier. Some of us are so fixated on where we want to be that we are not paying attention to where we are. Some of us are so fixated on where we are, that we are not paying attention to where God wants us to be. Let’s look at this through platform building. Some of us are so driven to build a platform (to get our content out there) that we are missing the platform we already have. Some of us are so content with whatever platform we have that we have zero ambition to step into something greater. But if God had something greater for you, would you not want it?

There are high school athletes convinced they will grow up to play professional sports, but only about 0.05% of high school athletes will play professionally. Millions of people across the globe are trying to build an online presence through social media. It consumes their lives. They walk around everywhere filming everything, yet only 2% of social media influencers make a significant living. Fifty percent of all monetized social media influencers make $10,000 or less annually, yet so much time and energy is poured into it. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears are spent on building platforms for ourselves, but we must let God build the platform.

Joseph was right where God wanted him to be, to meet the right people he wanted them to meet, to provide the right opportunity he would need.

Ken Coleman, who until recently worked for Ramsey Solutions, is an expert in helping people pursue meaningful work. He wrote a book called Find The Work You’re Wired To Do, and another called The Proximity Principle. He developed an online assessment called the Get Clear Assessment that helps you understand the intersection of your talents, your passions, and your mission to articulate the work you are wired to do. I took the assessment not because I needed to look for a new career, but because I wanted to know if it was a resource I would be willing to point people to. I found it pretty insightful. It further clarified how I can own God’s purposes for my life.

The second book, The Proximity Principle, explores how someone looking for a career in a certain field can spend time (be proximate) to those in that field. If you know somebody doing the kind of work you want to do, the likelihood of you finding a position in that field goes up. If you want to be an electrician, you need to be around other electricians. If you want to be a teacher, it is helpful to know other teachers or school professionals.

Allowing God to build the platform doesn’t mean we sit and wait. Unlike Joseph, you have the ability to move around, make phone calls, send emails, meet people, etc. I spend a lot of time on video calls learning from people who are doing the things I believe God wants me to pursue. But it requires me asking them for their time. Do you want to know what I have found out? Most of them are willing to give it.

The Proximity Principle is really about learning how to be in the right place at the right time. Most people think that happens purely by accident, but it doesn’t. Many people try to manufacture it and fail, but the story of Joseph shows us that if we will allow God to build the platform, it is he who puts us in the right place at the right time. The biggest lesson to learn is that this process isn’t passive. Joseph had access to a guy who had access to the Pharaoh.

You must seize the opportunity.

You know, I don’t think Joseph knew what God had in store when he interpreted the cupbearer’s dream. I think all Joseph could think about was a potential audience with the Pharaoh so he could plead his innocence and be freed. But it tuns out God had other plans. All of chapter 41 tells the story of how Joseph rose to the second most powerful position in the known world at the time. I don’t think he was expecting that. He was called before Pharaoh not to plead his case, but to interpret a dream. He had this one chance to stand before Pharaoh and he took it.

As the rest of the story goes, Joseph successfully interpreted Pharaoh’s dream and went a step further to propose a plan for avoiding a catastrophic food shortage through a seven year famine. The Pharaoh was so impressed with Joseph, that he put him in charge of the project.

Genesis 41:38–49 NASB95

Then Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is a divine spirit?” So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are. “You shall be over my house, and according to your command all my people shall do homage; only in the throne I will be greater than you.” Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” Then Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put the gold necklace around his neck. He had him ride in his second chariot; and they proclaimed before him, “Bow the knee!” And he set him over all the land of Egypt. Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Though I am Pharaoh, yet without your permission no one shall raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.” Then Pharaoh named Joseph Zaphenath-paneah; and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, as his wife. And Joseph went forth over the land of Egypt. Now Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt. During the seven years of plenty the land brought forth abundantly. So he gathered all the food of these seven years which occurred in the land of Egypt and placed the food in the cities; he placed in every city the food from its own surrounding fields. Thus Joseph stored up grain in great abundance like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring it, for it was beyond measure.

And that, my friends is how a Hebrew boy rose to be the second most powerful man in the world.

In today’s vernacular, we call what Joseph did “shooting your shot.” The hockey legend, Wayne Gretzky, famously said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” He actually got that from his father. Michael Jordan famously said, “I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed... and that is exactly why I succeed." People think opportunity only comes around once, and that is sort of true. That opportunity may only come around once. You can’t go back in time and recapture a moment you missed out on. But there will be another, and another, and another, and another. Every shot you don’t take has a 100% failure rate. But every shot you do take is a chance at success.

The question is, “What shot is God inviting me to take?” Don’t miss the moment. You can miss the shot. Just don’t miss the chance to take the shot. Living on mission is about understanding where God has you and owning that, allowing him to build the platform, and having enough courage to seize the opportunity that he lays before you. What opportunity is he laying before you right now?

The opportunity he is laying before you might be that your journey begins today. Every journey begins with a single step, and if you have never placed your faith in Jesus, today is the day. Just as God was guiding Joseph’s steps, when we turn control over our lives to Jesus, he becomes the guide, helping us navigate the path of life, which leads to everlasting life and fulfillment. God sent his son into the world, to live as one of us, yet lived his life sinless, meaning he never strayed from God’s design and commands. He offered his life as a sacrifice, paying the penalty of our sins, buying our pardon, and offers eternal life and acceptance into the royal family of God not based on our goodness, but on his. Do you need to come to Jesus today?

Is there something in your life God is drawing attention to? Maybe you never thought of your work as ministry. Maybe you are retired and you think your time has passed. Maybe you have realized that you have just allowed life to be so busy that the things that are truly important always get pushed aside. Choose to change one thing today. Maybe you will be more outspoken about your faith at work. Maybe you get creative and use what skills and time you have to start making a difference in someone’s life. What is God pointing you to?

Commit to take action today. Living on mission is owning God’s purposes, letting him build the platform, and seizing the opportunity when it comes.