Mission in Action: The God Who Sends
Mission in Action: The God Who Sends • Sermon • Submitted
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What is Mission?
What is Mission?
Mission:
an important assignment, typically involving travel abroad
1. an important assignment, typically involving travel abroad
an important assignment, typically involving travel abroad
■ noun
a. [treated as singular or plural] a group of people sent on a mission.
1 an important assignment, typically involving travel abroad.
2. an organization or institution involved in a long-term assignment abroad.
[treated as singular or plural] a group of people sent on a mission.
Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson, eds., Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
▶ [treated as singular or plural] a group of people sent on a mission.
an organization or institution involved in a long-term assignment abroad.
an organization or institution involved in a long-term assignment abroad.
MISSION(S) Task on which God sends a person that He has called, particularly a mission to introduce another group of people to salvation in Christ. In the Christian context the person sent is called a missionary. This person is charged with the task of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ to people to whom he is sent.
Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson, eds., Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Bob Compton, “Mission(s),” ed. Chad Brand et al., Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 1140.
10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
The first and greatest missionary in the Old Testament is God. From the very beginning, He has been engaged in a personal relationship with His creation. He spoke with Adam and Eve (), searched for them (), became the Savior of humanity (, ), and tried to win sinners back before the Flood ().
Jiří Moskala, “Mission in the Old Testament,” in Message Mission and Unity of the Church, ed. Ángel Manuel Rodríguez, vol. 2, Studies in Adventist Ecclesiology (Silver Spring, MD: Biblical Research Institute, 2013), 61.
Missions: Creation Phase
Missions: Creation Phase
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Gen 1:26-
Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson, eds., Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Fill the earth
Subdue the earth
15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
18 And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” 19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.
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So long as they remained loyal to the divine law, their capacity to know, to enjoy, and to love would continually increase. They would be constantly gaining new treasures of knowledge, discovering fresh springs of happiness, and obtaining clearer and yet clearer conceptions of the immeasurable, unfailing love of God.
Ellen Gould White, The Story of Patriarchs and Prophets as Illustrated in the Lives of Holy Men of Old, vol. 1, Conflict of the Ages Series (Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1890), 51.
Missions: Redemption Phase
Missions: Redemption Phase
15 And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”
22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—23 therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
The Lord “placed” (shakan) the cherubim at the east of Eden. This word springs from the same root as does shekinah, the visible manifestation of Deity (). […] Near his death Moses reminded Israel that it was “the Good Will of Him that dwelt (shakan) in the bush” () Who had summoned him to service. “Dwelt” might be rendered as placed His Shekinah or abode in a tent of light. It depicts the radiant Christ concealed in the incandescent desert shrub [emphasis mine]. In describing His incarnation, John used a term which is probably a Helenized form (skene) of shekinah (from shakan; cf. , both have the same three consonants skn) to represent Christ’s Divinity tabernacling or “tenting” in humanity.
Hardinge, Leslie. With Jesus in His Sanctuary: A Walk Through the Tabernacle Along His Way . American Christian Ministries. Kindle Edition.
New Earth Phase
New Earth Phase
Paradise Gained
Paradise Gained
Rev 21:1-
1 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. 2 Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
1 And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. 4 They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. 5 There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.
Rev 22:1-
The Preeminent Missionary
The Preeminent Missionary
Gen 3:8-9
8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
9 Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
Phil 2:5
5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
The Last Missionaries
The Last Missionaries
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.
Paul himself was a living testimony to the power of the gospel that he preached. His transformation from a zealous persecutor of the church to one of its most active, eloquent, and ardent advocates could not have been lost on those who listened to him speak, especially his Jewish listeners. He calls people to follow his example as he follows Christ (; ; ; ; ; cf. ; ). While he urges the Corinthians as an apostle and an “ambassador” for Christ to be reconciled to God, his appeal that “we are ambassadors for Christ” implicitly includes his hearers. If they are to follow his example, they must also appeal to others to exercise faith in Jesus and likewise be reconciled to God ()
Clinton Wahlen, “Mission in the New Testament,” in Message Mission and Unity of the Church, ed. Ángel Manuel Rodríguez, vol. 2, Studies in Adventist Ecclesiology (Silver Spring, MD: Biblical Research Institute, 2013), 94.