Mission Statement

Introduction

Mission statements:

Facebook: “To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”

Walmart: “We save people money so they can live better.”

Nike: “Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. If you have a body, you are an athlete.”

The best ones are the statements where you read them and know the company. Because that means their company is living it.

Apple: "Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings."

Chick Fila: “We are about more than just selling chicken. We should be a part of our customers’ lives and the communities in which we serve.”

That is why they have commercials sharing testimonies of life connections and hardly talking about food. How many of you know someone that works at Chickfila....I knew Timothy at the one by my high school.

If there was a mission statement written about your life…would people be able to look at it and go, “oh yeah, that is totally Jack or Mary, etc.”

Today we will learn a little more about Paul and why this mission statement was so huge.

Paul’s mission statement

lays it all out for us here. Paul shares in the first 3 chapters of the book his manifesto and why he is called to this.

Even before we get to the “mission statement” itself with Paul, it is important to talk about how big this is that Paul is preaching a message of inclusion to the Gentiles. We, in reading Paul have probably heard him speak about Jews and Gentiles and the expansion of God’s covenant to include people outside of the Jewish people....but do we understand what this would mean in the context?

NT Wright:

“The division, from the Jewish point of view was greater than any other social or cultural division, more important even than the other two distinctions that ran through the whole ancient world, slave and free; male and female.”

Sometimes this played out in different ways and different locations. Everyone drawing the line differently. Business, friendships, intermarriage, etc.

However, there was always a sense of us versus them. Part of the issue were these huge public social indicators of the divide. How you ate, what you did each day, religion for the jew and gentile alike were prevalent.

From the perspective of the Gentile, the Jewish were peculiar at best and dangerous at worst. They did not worship any of the gods.

Again NT Wright (page 86-87, Paul):

“The gods mattered for the life and health of the community. If bad things happened, the obvious reason was that the gods were angry, probably because people hadn’t been taking them seriously and offering the required worship. People who didn’t believe in the gods were therefore placing the city, the whole culture, or the whole world at risk.”

Paul, before meeting Christ, understood this divide and promoted it as a good pharisee. He believed zealously that the Jews had to remain as Jewish as possible in order to live into the covenant. This was not simple racism, it was a belief that their future and even salvation existed in maintaining the Jewish faith and keeping it pure.

So, Paul has this transformation. A true encounter with the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus and he is given a new mission. A lot of people think about Paul’s Damascus road experience as a conversion....as a turning from Jewishness and into Christianity, but that is not the case. Revealed to Paul is that the God of Israel, the God he worships, has fulfilled his faith in a different way in Jesus. He is transformed and gives his life to this new mission.

“The grace has been given to me to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration (stewardship) of this mystery.”

Two parts to mission statement

So How does Paul get to this place of being sent to the Gentiles and with absolute clarity? Well he lays it out here in . There are two places where Paul has identical combination of greek words that say in english something like; the grace that has been given to me. The first place is in verse 2.....

Ephesians 3:2 NIV

Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you,

Ephesians 3:2–3 NIV

Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly.

Revelation: First Paul receives a certain revelation. God’s reveals to him this mystery. And as mysterious as this might be for Jews, that is not what is meant by the greek word translated to mystery....it means truths revealed by God…something that is beyond human discovery. He couldn’t get there himself. No humanitarian effort, apart from God, was going to lead Paul to proclaim inclusion to the people he always despised. God broke through and removed the scales from his eyes. Revelation is the beginning of any work in the kingdom.

Epiphany Sunday is today. Epiphany sunday is about God’s revelation. The truth that is born in him and through him and for the world. It is the starting place for us.

We need revelation to have mission statement. To have purpose. Listen, I am not prescribing Paul’s specific mission to you or pretending that we all have experiences like he does, but there comes a time where we (by his grace and guidance) discover Jesus like the Magi travelling to Bethlehem.

Someone in here today, maybe they just need to stop right here and ask for a revelation. For God to reveal himself in your life so that you might know Christ that came to save all those who believe in His name.

2. Commission: Then, for Paul, the revelation leads to the commission:

Ephesians 3:7 NIV

I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.

Ephesians 3:7–8 NIV

I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ,

The commission flows right out of revelation. Truth revealed becomes the foundation for the mission.

From one commentary (J.R. Stott):

It is clear that these two gifts of divine grace, the revelation and the commission, the ‘mystery’ revealed to him and the ‘ministry’ entrusted to him, were closely related to each other. For once he had received his special revelation from God, he knew that he was under obligation to make known to others what had been made known to him.

Paul has encountered the Christ who came for to “create in himself a new humanity,” and he knows he cannot keep that to himself. So in the same grace that met him on Damascus he is sent out on mission. God gives him the power to go and the power to accomplish....because it is mission born in revelation.

I dont know if many of you would claim that it is ok to receive truth and grace and not share it with the world....but many of us live like it.

Living out our mission statement

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” - Francis Chan

How do we live out a mission statement? What do we learn from Paul here? Well there are 4 characteristics from Paul’s life that I think will help us forward: I am going full pastor cheeseball today with 4 C’s.

Christ Centered:

Ephesians 2:19–22 NIV

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Ephesians 2:19

Paul, understood the centrality of anything he did had to be upon Christ and Jesus’ mission in the world.

As we think about our purpose, is Christ the center of it? Church this may sound cliche for a pastor to say, but is Jesus Christ the center of your life? Can you look at every aspect of your life, every major decision, every day, and profess that Christ is the middle of it. This led me to some repentance this week.

2. Commissioned:

Paul understood, sometimes the hard way, that he had to remain in the power of the Spirit....commissioned into the world.

Commissioned

Are we positioning ourselves to receive power in our mission or are we working in our own strengths and abilities? Too often in our lives we go and do things and then ask God to bless it. Right? And the church does this as well?

3. Consistent:

Paul was consistent and clear about his purpose. He proved it time and time again. He preached the same good news into every context. It sometimes was presented differently, but it was always the same good news.

Friends, to live lives with any purpose we must be consistent. Not perfect…but improving consistently at living out this journey.

4. Committed:

Paul was all in. Probably imprisoned at Ephesus. According Corinthians, even forced to fight with animals here.

Are we committed to our mission of proclaiming this good news to the world? Are we ready to lay down everything for it? Or is it a matter of convenience or when it does not cost too much.

I want to again be established in the mission of God so that my life is defined by the revelation of who he is in Jesus Christ.