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The Missio Dei (Mission of God)
Owens face was one of absolute defeat when I set him on the mission of cleaning his room.
We had had friends over for the day and all the kids decided to pull out every possible toy in Owens room.
“dad, there is too much stuff - i’ll never get it clean”
To tell him to clean everything right now is not helpful when there seems to be an impossible task ahead of him.
rather, its better to introduce him to the life changing principle of gradualism
The Principle of Gradualism
the principle of gradualism says, don’t worry about the whole room right now, first, start by cleaning up your legos.
And when he’s done with his legos tell him to focus on picking up his clothes, followed by nerf bullets, and so on.
Owen’s mission was to clean his room, and understanding the principle of gradualism helps him accomplish his mission
We all have missions before us, and like Owen we often can become discouraged because the mission may seem impossible.
Your mission this week maybe
to conquer that load of laundry
To save enough money for vacation this summer
To get a promotion at work
To faithfully read your bible everyday
On verse, on chapter at a time.
To understand how to accomplish a mission, we first must understand what the mission is, and then understand each subsequent mission needed to accomplish the great mission.
If the mission of World War 2 was to take Berlin, Germany, soliders first had to figure out how to take the beach of Normandy, France.
Without understanding the mission of Normandy you’ll never be able to get to Berlin.
And without understanding Berlin you won’t know why you need to take Normandy.
To succeed in the mission, you have to understand the mission, and how the mission is to be accomplished.
And this is what our sermon series is all about.
We want to understand what the mission of God is, and how God has called to be apart of this mission.
So, What is the mission of God?
What is the mission of God’s people?
What is the mission of God?
The Bible speaks about the mission of God on nearly every page yet it uses different language, images and symbols to communicate its meaning
We see scriptures talk about mission of God as:
Seeing the kingdom of God advance throughout the whole world
God uniting all things united in Christ
All things being brought into subjection to Christ
It is to see the knowledge of God cover the earth as the waters cover the sea
It is to see the whole world bow the knee to King Jesus
It is to see all the nations of the world blessed
It is making disciples of all the nations
It is to see the nations bringing tribute to the throne of God.
The mission of God is symbolized with
water, seeds, farmers, leaven, stones, plants and parties
So for the next five weeks we are going to be looking at the Mission of God so that we might have a greater confidence in what God is doing in our world today.
And a clearer vision of what we are to be doing as individuals, families and as a community.
So if you would, turn with me to Ezekiel 47
1-11 The call of Ezekiel and the rebellion of God’s people
12-24 Judgement of Israel
25-32 Judgement on the nations
33-37 hope for Israel
38-39 hope for the nations
40-48 hope for all creation
Chapters 40-48 is a vision and is packed full of symbolism that point to a greater reality that is yet to come.
In these chapter Ezekiel is guided by an angel through this symbolic temple being shown what is in store for God’s people in the future.
So in this vision an angel brings Ezekiel to the door of the temple.
And Ezekiel notices something… There is water coming from below the threshold of the door of the temple.
The water moved down to the south side of the temple and then traveled east from there.
Notice that Ezekiel makes mention as to how the water is flowing (in verse 2)
The water wasn’t gushing, it wasn’t flowing with any sort of great quantity, rather, it was trickling
The water was dripping.
Why is this important?
Look with me at vv.3-6
The angel takes Ezekiel on tour of the water that is trickling out of the temple
Going eastward the angel led Ezekiel 1000 cubits (1/3 of a mile).
And the water began to form together and was only up to his ankles
going another 1000 cubits, he measured the water again, and it was now up to his knees.
And another 1000 cubits its up to his waist
And finally the angel led him another 1000 cubits, and it was so deep and so wide that he could not pass through.
What started as just a small trickle in the temple, in just over one mile has now become a massive river that could not be passed through.
This is how God works - he begins small and then gradually adds increase.
In fact, this is one of God’s favorite stories to tell
The first promise of redemption, after the fall, was that the seed of the women would come and crush the head of the serpent.
It took God 4000 years to fulfill this promise.
Think about how the spread of the gospel
Jesus -> disciples -> early church -> etc.
Think about the growth of the Christian experience
slow growth toward maturity
God works on reveling sin and turning our hearts to love him
We live in a world where we want everything right away.
And business is often ranked on how fast you can provide a customer with your product
we want fast food, fast internet, fast computers, fast shipping, fast service
We live in a time where we expect everything to happen immediately.
I think our desire for immediacy and are inability to wait has distorted our view of the Mission of God in our world.
We become so concerned with the here and now that we forget that God is not a God who hurries, but rather is patient as his mission continues to advance.
Even Peter picked up on God’s apparent slowness
1 Peter 3:9 says, “the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises as some count slowness, but it patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
So often our perspective of God’s work in the world is like turning on the movie the Wizard of Oz for only a few seconds in the first five minutes - thinking that its a black and white movie about farmers in Kansas.
We get so focused on the hear and now we miss what God has been doing throughout history and we lose hope of what he has promised to do in the future.
What if in the course of history we are still in the early church?
What if God’s patience extends for 10, 20, or 30 thousands more years?
What if in the course of human history people will struggle to remember who came first, CS Lewis or Martin Luther?
This is how the kingdom of God is viewed in the bible, it starts small, and gradually grows.
Mustard Seed - smallest of seed grow into the biggest of garden plants
Leven - Just a pinch of leven will travel and grow until is causes the whole loaf to rise
The Rock that becomes a mountain in Dan 2
This small stone that strikes the statue, which represents the kingdoms of the world, will itself grow into a great mountain that will fill the whole world.
Later Daniel says that this stone is the kingdom of God that will never be destroyed.
So we see the principle of gradual growth all throughout the bible
from Adam to Christ
The mustard seed and the Levin
The Stone that grew into a mountain
And the waters that flow from the temple in Ezekiel’s vision
It started small, as a trickle, and then became this great river.
So What does this river do?
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