DrivenByGodsMissionSrm
6-2-02
Driven By God’s Mission
Today I am beginning a series of messages over the next several weeks about the principles that are foundational to the life and effectiveness of the church in the days and years ahead. Two months ago I expressed these principles to the staff and elders. Yesterday I communicated them to the men at our men’s retreat at Camp Christian. In the next several weeks I am going to try to explain them and instill them in our minds and lives.
Jesus made a statement recorded in Luke 16:8 that’s a little hard to understand exactly, but it can mean something to the effect that, “Sometimes people of the world ‘get it’ when God’s people don’t.”
That 30 second video bite from the profane Blues Brothers I think illustrates this when it comes to a mission from God. Christian people can have all kinds of explanations for what they do or don’t do. But the world simply understands that if there is an Almighty Creator of the universe and He has given someone a job to do, there’s no questioning of it, you do everything you possibly can to fulfill it and it doesn’t matter what happens to you.
The very first principle which I am starting with today is the most important of them all. This principle is the principle of Purpose. The church of Jesus is primarily a mission agency on a mission. The church of Jesus is Driven By God’s Mission, but we too often don’t get it.
The first question to ask in order to determine the effectiveness of any organization or any activity even on a personal basis when you want to know if you’re doing anything or getting anywhere instead of wasting your time and effort is to ask, “What is my business?” What is it exactly that I’m supposed to be doing? This is where we start because the issue of purpose divides people into two groups: those who get it and those who don’t. This is illustrated by an old story that comes from Europe. It happened during the construction of one of Europe’s great cathedrals. I don’t remember which one. The architect of the grand cathedral visited the site during the construction process and walked up to a man who was mixing something. The architect asked the worker what he was doing, and the laborer said he was mixing mortar for the men setting stones. A little while later the architect saw another man doing the exact same thing and asked him what he was doing. The man replied, “Well, sir, I’m building a cathedral.”
We have to see the big picture. “What’s our business?” We’ve been given a mission by God and we must be driven by that mission and that mission alone. First of all we have to...
I. Accept the Mission
Many people today are familiar with a very popular 1960’s television series because of the recent feature film productions of Mission Impossible I and II. At the beginning of the movies as in the television program instructions for a very dangerous, highly confidential spy project are presented through a recorded message that self-destructs after being played. The recorded voice says, “Your mission--should you choose to accept it--is...” and then goes on to describe what was needed to be done. I watched a lot of episodes of that tv show. Never once did the recipient refuse to accept the mission. That was what the show was all about. If the recipient had refused to accept the mission there wouldn’t have been anything but commercials to fill the next 29 minutes of tv time. Whoever got the secret message always decided to accept the mission. That’s what their job was and that’s what the show was about. Now, I know it was just a show for entertainment, but what a contrast that is with people who sincerely think they are followers of Jesus who gave a completely public, mission possible to everyone of His followers without suggesting they had any choice in the matter but they often walk away from it. Jesus has never said, “Your mission should you choose to accept it.” He has said, “I have a mission for you.” He said either we’re with Him or we’re against Him. Either we’re doing His mission or what we’re doing is not with Him.
The only choice followers of Jesus have is to accept the mission. There is no choice to not accept the mission. That’s why we’ve got to accept the mission the Jesus gives us. In order for us to accept it we have to know what it is. You’ve probably heard it hundreds if not thousands of times. It’s stated directly in different ways in each of the four Gospels and in the book of Acts, and indirectly all through the Bible. In case you somehow missed it, let’s read it again.
“Jesus said to his followers, ‘Go everywhere in the world, and tell the Good News to everyone.’” [Mark 16:15, New Century Version]
There is no alternative suggested here. This is an imperative. I want you to see the big picture that this has always been God’s purpose for those who belong to Him. A way to generically state this is that we have been given the job of taking territory for God. Win the world for God. It started in the very beginning. In the creation God said to Adam and Eve: be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and “subdue it” that means “bring it under your control” (Gen. 1:28) Well that didn’t last long. Our first parents didn’t gain control of the world, they gave up control of the world. They gave control to the enemy of our souls by listening to him and doing what he said. Things went downhill from there so far that God was sorry He had ever made humans and He started all over again with Noah. God gave Noah the same command He gave Adam and Eve only it became a little tougher because the animals were now adversaries--afraid of what humans would cause to happen to them again. After a period of time God determined that the efforts to gain back the world from the enemy’s hands should be concentrated so He chose one man and his descendents to do it. God told Abraham to move to a specific foreign land that his descendants would establish as a beachhead of God’s territory in the world and move out from there to win the world back to Him. It took several hundred years even before Abraham’s desdendants began to take over the original land God promised to them. They never got anywhere in winning the world and returning it to God’s control. God knew that was going to happen. Those Hebrews were part of His process to prepare for His ultimate tactic--providing His own Son, Jesus for the task. Jesus died as a sacrifice to provide a way for everyone to get to God. He was put in a tomb but He rose from the dead in 3 days. And before He returned to heaven 40 days later, He restated God’s purpose that His people show the whole world the way back to God. And God’s purposes have never changed.
So, how are we supposed to go about doing it? How are we supposed to go about bringing the whole world out of the control of the enemy and delivering it back to God? In principle we do it the same way God planned to do it with Abraham. We establish a beachhead in the midst of enemy territory and we do everything we can to free the captives from the enemy’s clutches and get them safely into God’s hands. Maybe you have never heard it put quite like this, but this is essentially what we’re to do. Let me explain. We start by moving into enemy territory and establishing a beachhead. Here’s what the Bible says about that.
“You were chosen to tell about the wonderful acts of God, who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light...Dear friends, you are like foreigners and strangers in this world.” [1 Peter 2:9,11, New Century Version]
From the position of foreigners in the world we have been chosen to tell the wonderful acts of God. Followers of Jesus have been given a mission. This makes all of the followers of Jesus missionaries and we need to think, live and act like missionaries.
Think of the missionaries to this land before there was a USA. The predominant church of the 17th and 18th centuries was not very healthy spiritually, but for very mixed reasons they did have missionaries. Their concerns were more for political and economic power than for spiritual purposes, but when the New World of North America was discovered, missionaries were among the very first to explore what was here. This is how we got cities named St. Louis and San Francisco. Missionaries were taking territory for the church (not necessarily for God but for a religious institution.) Along the California coast 21 mission outposts were established by the Franciscan order of the Catholic Church. The architecture is still today appreciated for its historic value. These missionaries went to a foreign land, established a beachhead and sought to bring the people of the land into subjugation to the church. Their methods and spirit were wrong. Their purposes were probably wrong, too, but the theoretic model was right. Establish a beachhead in order to win territory. Spiritually we must do the same thing. Some people have very literally done so. Two weeks ago I told you about Margy Gorman’s mother who in the late 1960’s as a single mother packed up and moved out of her safe midwest culture and banded with a few other families who moved to the northeast US for the express purpose of establishing a church where there were very few at the time. You don’t have to move to another part of the country. You could do the same thing right here in Dayton. There are serious Christian people who are moving out of their comfortable suburban neighborhoods and purchasing houses in inner-urban areas of Dayton that have been plagued by drugs, crime and urban blight. They are doing this for the express purpose of cleaning up the property and living in the neighborhood to bring a Christian presence where there has formerly been only spiritual darkness. You don’t even have to do something that dramatic. You can take a job in an office or join a social organization for the explicit purpose of providing a Christian presence and influence where there has been none previously. This is the missionary enterprise of establishing a beachhead. That’s the beginning of the mission. The business of the mission is to take back territory for God.
Jesus recognized that the enemy of our souls is currently the god of this world. Not forever, of course. When Jesus returns that will all be changed and the Kingdom of this world will have become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. (Rev. 11:15) In the meantime Jesus has given us the mission to move into the enemy’s territory, establish a beachhead and from there by influence, instruction, and persuasion to take that territory away from the enemy and return it to God. People are not the enemy. Satan is the enemy. The territory is not a plot of dirt. It’s the heart’s and lives of people trapped into listening to the enemy. Our mission is to return their heart’s and lives to God. Jesus said that the gates of hell cannot stop that. Hell couldn’t stop Jesus at the cross or in the grave. Hell cannot stop Jesus’ people. Nothing can stop the effect people have when they live in mission for Jesus. No amount of darkness (no matter how concentrated) ever extinguishes light. It’s the other way around. Light always dispels darkness. This is how we take territory. We shine the light of Jesus we have in us on the hearts and lives of the people in enemy hands. The Bible says...
“God’s perfect children, who live in a world of corrupt and sinful people. You must shine among them like stars lighting up the sky, you offer them the message of life.” [Phil. 2:15-16, Good News Bible]
Here is what happens to people who know Jesus and what happens to everyone who receives Him.
“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” [Colossians 1:13]
When a person chooses Jesus, that person moves out of the enemy’s territory and returns home to God. That life becomes God’s territory once again. This is the mission: establish a beachhead, (that means we’ve got to be where non-Christians are,) and help people escape from enemy territory by shining the light of Jesus on their lives so they can see the way back to God.
That’s the mission. Jesus’ followers accept the mission. At FCCHH we have personalized the statement of our mission to say:
Our Mission
We exist to advance the Kingdom of God by taking Christ to the world and developing disciples for Him.
Now let’s do a check. Have you personally accepted Jesus’ mission? Where’s your beachhead? Who are you trying to influence for Jesus? Who are you talking to about Jesus? Who are you showing how to escape from darkness and get into God’s light? Let’s check your understanding of mission on the congregational level. Do you understand that the church is a mission? Let’s check that? You will know if you understand that by your answer to this question: How would you go about starting a new church? Maybe you’ve never thought about that before. Take a few seconds right now and start.........If you thought, you’d try to find somebody who knows something about it, and decide where to meet and when, and what to do when Sunday came, your idea of what church is is a program. The person who understands the church is a mission agency would answer that question by trying to find out where there are people who don’t know Jesus and would begin trying to figure out how to influence them for Him.
The church of the future accepts God’s mission and its members are driven by that mission. When you’re driven by God’s mission, you not only accept it, but you also...
II. Fulfill Your Recruitment to the Mission
The Bible describes a follower of Jesus in a way that the church doesn’t talk about much today. We used to. I have a picture in my mind of a time in church when I was 6 years old. Our class was in a line marching around the room singing a silly little chorus: “I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery. I may never fly o’er the enemy, but I’m in the Lord’s army.” It wasn’t just the children who sang about God in military language. A song in the hymnal had these words: “Rouse then, soldiers. Rally ‘round the banner. Ready, steady, pass the word along. Onward, forward, shout aloud Hosanna. Christ is captain of the mighty throng.” Even in public high school when I was a sophomore being inducted into the Key Club, we filed into the auditorium singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” We don’t talk much about it nowadays, but the Bible says we are soldiers in God’s army. I like that image. Christians are not just sitting around people. We’re warriors in a spiritual battle. We’ve got a war to win. We’re soldiers. There are a lot of characteristics of soldiers that apply to followers of Jesus. One of them is discipline. Another characteristic common to soldiers and Christians is the idea of recruitment. Christians, like soldiers, are signed up and take an oath to do a job. In the same way the military today has suffered some of the same kind of misunderstanding of purpose that the church has. A fairly common attitude about the military is that it’s a good place particularly for a young man who doesn’t yet know what he wants to do with his life. It’ll make a man out of him, and it’s a good way to earn the benefits which can pay for a college education. Although it may happen and is probably necessary, the mission of the military is not to mature young males or to provide college education funds. The mission of the military is to fight a war should the occasion require it. They and their families might not like it very well, and they get nervous about it and when they signed up they hoped it would never come to this, but when military reserves are called up to active duty as they have been in Desert Storm, Bosnia, and most recently in Afghanistan, they go because that’s what they’re in the military for.
Parents sometimes think it’s a good idea for their children to go to church at least for a while because it will provide a moral education for them. Similar to the military’s situation, the mission of the church is not to provide a moral education. That is hopefully a result, but the mission of taking territory for God is spiritual warfare.
“This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.” [Ephesians 6:12, The Message]
A follower of Jesus is a recruit for His mission. The very first words Jesus spoke when He enlisted Peter, Andrew, James and John to follow Him were these:
“’Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.’” [Mark 1:17]
Now what do you suppose these guys thought they were going to be doing with Jesus? Fishing for people, of course. What do you suppose we ought to think about doing? The same thing--fishing for men. It’s what we’ve been recruited by Jesus to do.
Another military image which describes the followers of Jesus appears in the 6th chapter of Ephesians and lists the Christian’s battle gear including a kind of footwear.
“Your desire to tell the good news about peace should be like shoes on your feet.” [Ephesians 6:15, Contemporary English Version]
The desire to tell the good news about God to people is part of the Christian’s battle gear. For a Christian fulfilling Jesus’ mission is like shoes on a person’s feet. It gets you going. Followers of Jesus have been recruited for the mission of influencing others for Christ. The Bible says, “fulfill this recruitment.”
“Teach these great truths to trustworthy people who are able to pass them on to others...” (that’s our mission)
...And as Christ’s soldier, do not let yourself become tied up in the affairs of this life, for then you cannot satisfy the one who has enlisted you in his army.” [2 Timothy 2:2&4, New Living Translation]
The church of the future is mission driven--fulfilling their recruitment to this mission and it will...
III. Avoid Derailment of the Mission
We just read the warning in 2 Timothy 2 about getting tied up in the affirs of this life. When we do that, we are not fulfilling God’s mission. To stay on task with the mission takes regular reminders, evaluation, discipline and determination.
Both Jesus and the apostle Paul provide stunning examples of disciplined determination to fulfill the mission to which we all have been called. Here is what was observed in Jesus and recorded about His mission integrity.
“As the time drew near for his return to heaven, he moved steadily onward toward Jerusalem with an iron will.” [Luke9:51, Living Bible]
Jesus had an iron will to fulfill His mission and He knew that is what it took to do it. In a similar way the apostle Paul wrote about his own commitment to God’s mission.
“Nothing matters except that, in one way or another, people are told the message about Christ...I will speak very boldly and honor Christ in my body, now as always, whether I live or die.” [Philippians 1:18&20, God’s Word]
What a strong commitment. Nothing else matters whether in life or death.
I want to close with a very well-known story--most of you have heard before--which describes the tragic consequences of mission drift. It is so easy to happen and so frighteningly common that the very purpose of the church for which Christ gave His life gets set aside, overlooked and then even abandoned altogether. This is the reason we have to keep the main thing the main thing--not just with words from the preacher on Sunday, not just with signs on the church house walls, but with action in the lives of this army of God establishing beachheads in enemy territory and taking it back for our One and Only True God.
On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a little life-saving station. The building was primitive, and there was just one boat, but the members of the life-saving station were committed and kept a constant watch over the sea. When a ship went down, they unselfishly went out day or night to save the lost. Because so many lives were saved by that station, it became famous. Consequently, many people wanted to be associated with the station to give their time, talent, and money to support its important work. New boats were bought, new crews were recruited, a formal training session was offered. As the membership in the life-saving station grew, some of the members became unhappy that the building was so primitive and that the equipment was so outdated. They wanted a better place to welcome the survivors pulled from the sea. So they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged and newly decorated building.
Now the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for its members. They met regularly and when they did, it was apparent how they loved one another. They greeted each other, hugged each other, and shared with one another the events that had been going on in their lives. But fewer members were now interested in going to sea on life-saving missions; so they hired lifeboat crews to do this for them. About this time, a large ship was wrecked off of the coast, and the hired crews brought into the life-saving station boatloads of cold, wet, dirty, sick, and half-drowned people. Some of them had black skin, and some had yellow skin. Some could speak English well, and some could hardly speak it at all. Some were first-class cabin passengers of the ship, and some were the deck hands. The beautiful meeting place became a place of chaos. The plush carpets got dirty. Some of the exquisite furniture got scratched. So the property committee immediately had a shower built outside the house where the victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.
At the next meeting there was rift in the membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's life-saving activities, for they were unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal fellowship of the members. Other members insisted that life-saving was their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all those various kinds of people who would be shipwrecked, they could begin their own life-saving station down the coast. And do you know what? That is what they did.
As the years passed, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a place to meet regularly for fellowship, for committee meetings, and for special training sessions about their mission, but few went out to the drowning people. The drowning people were no longer welcomed in that new life-saving station. So another life-saving station was founded further down the coast. History continued to repeat itself. And if you visit that seacoast today, you will find a number of adequate meeting places with ample parking and plush carpeting. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.