What is mission about?

Mission

The moment I mention the word ‘Mission’ I suspect there is a good chance I can guess what goes on in your mind.

Now I may be wrong, but let’s see how close I get.

I’m guessing your mind goes straight to a developing country. You then probably think of one of those select breed of Christian. Perhaps we might think of them as super Christians, because they are so dedicated to what they believe that they are willing to sacrifice everything for God. And with these thoughts probably comes great admiration for these people, but we’ll more than likely put a big distance between ourselves and them. We’ll pray for them. We might even donate if the right opportunity presents itself. Let’s be honest, mission isn’t really going to play a big role in our lives.

Now there is a problem with this line of thinking.

You see, as I’m going to explore over the remainder of this month, mission is central to what God is all about.

It’s actually not just a thing on the side.

You see, let’s think about it for a moment.

One of the fundamental truths that we believe is that God loves us. And not just us - but every single person.

From this fundamental truth, it follows that God wants every person to be reconciled to himself. After all, if you love someone, you would want them to be reconciled to you.

Which brings us to our understanding of mission. You see, mission is about spreading the good news - the gospel - to all people.

Now if mission can be so directly linked with the love of God, how could we possibly think that it is just a little thing on the side.

The reality is that mission needs to be fully integrated into everything we do as a church.

Now depending on what you’re doing, the link might be more obvious than others. For instance, being involved in ministries like Community Meals 4U or Playtime, you can see the link.

But even something like being on the cleaning roster, while the impact will be more indirect, you are acting out of God’s love. You are showing people love by doing making the place clean. This might not be traditionally what we think of as mission, and certainly we need people who are going to be proclaiming the good news, but the point I’m trying to make is that we shouldn’t completely separate all of these roles from an understanding of mission.

Now, before I keep going I do want to balance these comments with another remark. You see, while I’ve just argued that all we do here should be thought as being integrated with mission - there is a danger we can take this too far and never consider mission beyond our own community. The reality is that Australia is well resourced with Christian workers, whereas vast amounts of the population of the world have very little to no Christian workers - in other words, it is good to keep cross cultural mission at the fore front of our minds.

Mission with Paul

Well, to help us think about mission throughout May, my intention is to take us on mission with none other than the Apostle Paul.

I’m going to be flying through it quite fast, so we won’t have a lot of time to really delve into all the different facets of what Paul does and says, however in our quick trip, my intention is to draw out some of the big ideas that we can learn about mission and see how it can apply to us today.

Acts 1-12

But first let’s do a really quick look back to see how we got to the point where Paul is actually heading out to tell others of the good news of Jesus Christ.

If we go back to Acts 1, we find Jesus with his disciples with Jesus just before his ascension. Now you might recall that during the ministry of Jesus he would often speak of the fact that his main focus is to the Jews. But as Jesus ascends to heaven, he tells them that they are now to be his witnesses in “Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”.

Now if you follow the book of Acts, you find that this statement of Jesus actually creates a bit of a blue print for the the growth of the church.

The first seven or so chapters describe the growth of the church in Jerusalem itself.

In chapter 8, the church spreads to Samaria, and also south with an Ethiopian eunuch.

Now in these early chapter, we got the briefest of views of this nasty character called Saul who saw it as his job to squash this new sect, but in chapter 9 we see an amazing conversion. Saul encounters Jesus on the road to Damascus and it sets us on the path that we are about to take.

Now Saul was the Hebrew version of his name, but as we will see shortly when we get to the passage that we’ll focus on shortly, he becomes better known by the Greek version of his name - Paul.

Well, after chapter 9, Paul doesn’t feature. We know from some of his letters that he spent time in Damascus becoming further acquainted with the risen Lord Jesus.

But let’s jump down to chapter 13 because it is here that we see Paul heading out on the first of his missionary journeys.

Patterns

In fact it is in verse 2 of chapter 13 that we’re told that Barnabas and Saul are set apart for the work of sending the gospel to the Gentiles. Now it is interesting to note at this point that it is Barnabas who gets named first at this point in proceedings, because this is going to change very soon.

But as I take you on the journey with them what I want to do is to look at some patterns that we see.

You see, Luke, who is the author of this book, is known for his careful observations, and the subtleties of what is going on doesn’t get lost of him.

You see, when we start to look closely at how God operates we start to see patterns which I think of like God’s finger prints. As we give consideration to these patterns, it can serve two purposes - firstly, as a sort of validation of the people who are doing God’s work, but secondly, there is a sense in which it can help us gain an appreciation for how God works and flowing from this, an idea of what we might expect.

So I’m going to try and pay attention to these now.

Cyprus

Well, the first stop on this journey Cyprus - an island in the middle of the Mediterranean.

Synagogues first

Well, one pattern that we’ll see consistently throughout all of the journeys is Paul’s approach when going to a new city. Almost always, his first stop is the local Jewish synagogue, and when you read verse 5 of chapter 13, that’s exactly what he does in Cyprus.

Now in some ways, it might be considered a bit of an interesting tactic, particularly when he seems to consider his main mission to be to the Gentiles - however in this pattern, Paul is observing the bigger pattern of God revealing the gospel first to the Jew then to the Gentile.

Now that is not to say that in our ministry today, we should necessarily minister to the Jews before we minister to anyone else, however, it can serve as a reminder that we should always give consideration to the bigger picture of what God is doing, even if our focus is going to be on the immediate context before us.

Sergius Paulus and Bar-Jesus

But there is actually another little pattern we see in Cyprus, which we can easily miss if we’re not paying attention. But in a sense you could call it an counter-pattern.

You see, not only does the Bible give us patterns of how God works, it also gives us patterns of how the enemy works, and it might surprise you how much the evil one operates with an almost inverse pattern of God’s way.

The curious thing here is the similarity of some of the names - a point that helps us see this counter pattern.

You see, as Paul does his ministry on this island, our attention is drawn to two main characters.

The first is someone who is described as a Jewish sorcerer. But this is where the name becomes interesting.

You see, this sorcerer has the name Bar-Jesus, which more literally translates as “Son of Jesus”. Interestingly, he is later called Elymas which roughly translates as magician.

But the second character we meet is Sergius Paulus. Who is the proconsul in this place.

Now I’m going to suggest that the account we’re about to see of Sergius Paulus and Bar-Jesus is essentially the story of Paul and Jesus but in reverse.

You see, Jesus reveals the truth to Paul, whereas Bar-Jesus blinds Sergius Paulus of the truth. Interestingly, as Paul receives the truth he becomes blind for a time, whereas in this counter story, it is Bar-Jesus who becomes blind for a time.

Now there is something I want you to see in that counter pattern. It is never a complete reversal. That is because the counter reaction is not equal to God. When the evil one tries to outdo God, God still comes out on top.

Pisidian Antioch

Right, so we’ve seen a few pattern already popping up in this first missionary journey of Paul.

Now after he leaves Cyprus, he goes back on to the Main land which is modern day Turkey.

Interestingly, it is here that we start to see Paul’s name come before Barnabas.

He then goes up to a place called Pisidian Antioch. Actually, it would have been just Antioch, but we put the Pisidian in front of it so as not to confuse it with the Antioch where this missionary trip started from.

Now again we see him first going to the Synagogue - this time however, we get a rather lengthier record of the message he gave their.

Stephen’s speech

Now the keen observer of the book of Acts is going to notice something with this speech. That is, it is reminiscent of another significant speech earlier in the book - the speech of Stephen back in chapter 6.

In both speeches, we see a rather lengthy prelude of stories from what we call the Old Testament, before coming to Jesus.

Now maybe you might remember what happens at the end of Stephens speech. Well, it wasn’t good as it ended in him being stoned to death.

Now that doesn’t happen on this particular occasion - but don’t worry, before I finish today, we will see Paul being stoned as well.

Opposition

But it is here that we start to see a pattern that follows faithful ministry. When the gospel is preached, opposition follows.

In Pisidian Antioch, Paul gets to come back on the following Sabbath to talk, in fact with a much bigger crowd. In this we see God working powerfully, but as it tells us in verse 50, the Jewish leaders incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city and they stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas.

Iconium, Lystra and Derbe

Well, Paul’s first missionary trip moves on again - this time to the city of Iconium.

In Iconium the pattern is more firmly established.

Firstly the good news is preached, with the Jewish synagogue being first stop.

We then see powerful things happen. People believe. Signs and wonders are performed.

But with the good, comes the opposition.

And so Paul and Barnabas have to move on, and so they go to Lystra

Lame man

Now in Lystra, we’re told a story of a lame man being healed which is actually very similar to the story of Peter healing a lame man back in Acts 3.

The similarities of the two accounts could almost be seen as a validation that what Paul is doing is a continuation of what Peter was doing in the first half of the book of Acts.

This time however, we get quite a different reaction. That’s because the people of Lystra think Paul and Barnabas must be gods, which actually causes issues even if of quite a different nature.

But on top of this new difficulty, we see the old form of opposition remain, in fact it was the people of Antioch and Iconium, the last two places Paul visited, that find him out.

And this time they do drag him out of the city and they stone him - leaving him convinced that he was dead.

But God is far more powerful than this opposition. And so Paul gets up and walks on back into the city.

The return

As we get to verse 21 of chapter 14, we then see Paul retracing his steps.

He deliberately goes back to the places that he had previously visited because he is keen to encourage them to remain true to the faith.

But in this verses, it is very instructive in what we see, and it is something that I’m about to bring out as our application for today.

You see, while encouraging them to remain true to the faith, he also tells them outright: “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God”.

He doesn’t beat around the bush. Sometimes as believers we want to downplay the hardships, particularly if we are speaking to new believers. We want them to think that if they start following Jesus that everything will be rosy.

But this is where it becomes important for us to have a good grasp of what happens when we follow Jesus.

You see, on one level, it is truly the most amazing thing ever to put your trust in Jesus. When you do, your life transforms. You get a new outlook. You become friends with the one that truly can make a change, and someone that actually listens to our prayers and acts accordingly. This is amazing.

But, the closer we get to Jesus, the greater the opposition we face.

While being with Jesus is amazing - there is a hardship that comes with it.

Newton’s third law

Now, I wonder if any of you remember some of your physics that you might have learned in high school.

Perhaps you might recall Newtons three laws of motion. Well the third of these laws state that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Well, we can almost think of Christian ministry as having a very similar law, although there is one very big difference.

You see, while Christian ministry attracts opposition, the opposing force is not equal.

And we’ve seen this demonstrated in the patterns that I’ve been looking at.

Remember the counter pattern we saw in Cyprus. Though Bar-Jesus was an opposing force, God’s way prevailed.

Or the opposing force that saw Paul being stoned to death. God was more powerful.

Now, by saying God’s way is more powerful is not to say that Christian won’t sometimes die, or that Christians won’t suffer terribly, it just means that God hasn’t lost control and that ultimately he will triumph.

So let me give you what I want to call the Christian law of ministry - For every action, there is an opposite reaction, but God is always more powerful.

God is always going to see his purposes fulfilled.

This is a strong feature of this first missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas.

Conclusion

So let’s come back to where I started.

We need to see mission as something vital to what God is all about.

Now we might not be cross cultural missionaries like Paul and Barnabas, but we will still do mission as we step out in faith and be what God wants us to be.

As we do this we need to start following some of the patterns that we see here in this missionary journey.

We need to see the bigger picture of what God is doing throughout the world. Even if we’re only a small part of it, we need to recognise that we are part of something huge.

But we need to also recognise that as we live out the gospel, that there are going to be reactions against us. This should not surprise us. But it also shouldn’t overawe us because we know that God is more powerful.

Our job is to remain faithful to God word. With much prayer and fasting, we should be stepping out and listening to what God wants, and going boldly.

As we do, while the opposition we be an ever constant, we will also see God move in powerful ways.

So let me pray...