Who Are We? : Mission

This morning we’re continuing our sermon series on the DNA of our church. We’re looking to reestablish and remind ourselves of who we are and what we’re about. It is always good to go back to the beginning. To go back to the fundamentals. Anyone who has participated in some kind of sport knows the importance of knowing and establishing the fundamentals again and again.

We’ve all probably had a job where we felt like we were languishing in pure drudgery. And sometimes it was truly the nature of the work that we were doing, but often it’s because we either don’t know or don’t believe in the overarching mission and purpose of our work or organization. And so it’s always a good idea to circle back and be reminded of why we are doing what we are doing.

Thus far in our series we’ve covered our identity has a community centered on the gospel, a people that are learning to worship, a people that are being formed through rhythms of grace. And today we’re going to look at another defining characteristic, which is mission.

Now I know that some people get really excited about mission, and some do not. Some of you have been all about worship and formation, but mission has never been particularly important or interesting to you. If that is you, I hope to change that.

Because mission is central to following Jesus, and therefore it is a fundamental part of what it means to be his church. You can’t have a church without missions. Just like you can’t say you love ice cream, but you don’t like it frozen. That doesn’t work. By necessity, Ice Cream is only ice cream when it is frozen - so too, the church of Jesus Christ is only a church when it is on mission.

So this morning I want to make two simple points regarding mission.

1) Mission is essential because the God that we worship is a God on a mission. 2) God’s mission is carried out by ordinary people.

Mission is essential because the God that we worship is a God who is on a mission. To understand the mission of this church, we have to understand the mission of God - because our mission is nothing more than a localized expression of God’s global mission.

So what is God’s mission? Well, in Ephesians 1, Paul summarizes quite succinctly the mission of God. As he begins this letter to the church in Ephesus, Paul is caught up in worship. He begins in verse 3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ...” and from there proceeds to go on and on about the reasons that we should glorify the name of the Lord. But let me pick it up a few verses later in verse 7:

7 In [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

So what’s the plan? What is God’s ultimate mission? To unite all things in Christ - things in heaven and things on earth.

Let’s unpack that for a moment. Heaven and earth are ways the Bible talk about God’s space and our space. We know our space pretty well - it’s the world we live in. But God’s space is not something we know a whole lot about. The Scriptures gives us images that try to describe heaven, but God’s space is pretty inconceivable for us.

But we can see that heaven and earth are two very different kinds of spaces. But even though they are different in nature, they have not always been separated. In fact, the Bible begins in Genesis 1, with heaven and earth perfectly overlapping. You can think of it as two different dimensions occupying the same space. In the Garden of Eden, God and humanity dwelt together perfectly. There was absolutely no separation, and humans partnered with God to build a beautiful and flourishing world. Heaven and earth were united.

But that didn’t last long. Eventually, we wanted to part ways with God. We wanted to build a world apart from him, and actually separate heaven from earth. Which is what we ultimately did. And so what we got was on the one hand, heaven was full of God’s presence, and beauty, and justice, and goodness. And on the other hand, the earth was full of human sin, and injustice, and violence and ugliness. The main problem that is given in the Bible is that heaven and earth aren’t just two different kinds of spaces, they are actually in conflict with one another. Which means they can never come back together! They can never be united unless something changes - or to use a chunky biblical world that is all throughout the new testament - heaven and earth can never be reconciled, unless something changes.

And that change came about when God the Son left heaven and came to earth to live with us. In the Gospel of John, we hear this claim that God became human in Jesus and dwelt among us. But the literal translation for that word, “he dwelt among us” is “he set up a tabernacle among us.” Now, without going into too much detail, what John is referring to is the Tabernacle or proto-temple that was set up in the wilderness which functioned as the place where Israelites could meet with God and be in his presence. The Tabernacle, and later the Temple, were places where God’s space and our space overlapped - which is why both structures were made to resemble the Garden of Eden, where heaven and earth perfectly overlapped.

And so, when John says that God made his tabernacle among us when he became human in Jesus - what he is saying is that Jesus is now the place where heaven and earth overlap. And this helps explain what Jesus is doing during his ministry on earth. When Jesus goes about from town to town, he’s bringing heaven with him. And the result is that people are being healed of their diseases and maladies! Sins are being forgiven! Why is that? It’s because everywhere he goes, he’s bringing the blessings of God’s space with him. He’s going around in the world of sin and death and bringing people into the presence of God where they experience life and flourishing.

Is it any wonder that when Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he instructed them to pray that God’s kingdom come, God’s will be done, here on earth just as it is done in heaven? When Jesus gave his life as a sacrifice for the whole world upon the cross, he did so in order to once-and-for-all free us from the stain of our sin, so that we might gain full access into the holy presence of God. The whole focus of Christ’s ministry was to bring us back to God, but not just as individuals. But to bring whole communities, whole people groups, whole nations back to God. To once again unite our space with God’s. And the promise is that one day the overlap will be complete when Jesus returns.

This is how the story of the Bible ends. At the end of the book of Revelation, we see this beautiful image of the Garden of Eden, now in the form of a city, coming to end the age of sin and death by redeeming all of human history in a renewed creation.

2 And I 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 the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

This is the mission of God - to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.

Mission is essential to who we are as Christ’s church, because our God is a god who is on a mission. And he calls us to partner with him.

In John 20, Jesus tells his disciples, and by extension he tells us “As the Father sent me, so now I am sending you.” Jesus is sending his church out to continue the work that he began, which is to partner with God in bringing the blessings of heaven to earth.

Now, that sounds like quite a big ask, doesn’t it? To partner with God as he unites all things in Christ? To participate in the reunification of heaven and earth? Like, are you kidding me? You may be thinking, how on earth am I supposed to be a part of that?

Well, because the Bible makes clear that God intends for his mission to be carried out by ordinary people. Everything that we are told about Mary in the gospels suggests that she was an ordinary young girl. A poor girl from a lowly town, and yet she gives birth to the Light of the World. In John 4, a text that we looked at a few weeks ago, the Samaritan woman that Jesus meets at the well goes on from that encounter to serve as a witness to her whole town, and many come to put their faith in Christ. And you know what? We are never even told her name.

In Luke 9, Jesus sends out the twelve disciples, all of who’s names we know, But one chapter later, Jesus sends out seventy-two other disciples, and we don’t know any of their names. They’re just ordinary people, and yet they return from their mission rejoicing at what God had done through them!

In Acts 8, a great persecution erupts against the church in Jerusalem, and Christians are scattered all throughout the nearby regions - everyone is scattered except the apostles, who stay behind. Who were they? Just ordinary people. Well, what do these ordinary Christians do? They found the three great centers of the Christian movement in the first century: Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome.

In fact, when the apostle Paul finally makes it to Rome - the place that he had been longing to go to preach the gospel. When he finally makes it there after imprisonments and shipwrecks and beatings - he finally makes it to Rome, and we read in Acts 28 that when he arrives, he is greeted by brothers and sisters. They were already there, worshiping Christ and loving their city. Who started that church? No one knows.

The mission of God is carried out by ordinary people like you and me. Which means everyone one of us is called to join in.

But we have to be honest: the scope of the work is huge. I mean, uniting heaven and earth? Can the scope be any larger? So how do we as finite beings fit into God’s mission?

Well, it’s best to think of our role in two different spheres of life. The first sphere is our life together as Redeemer Church. We believe that God has called us to cultivate a particular plot of ground for his glory, and that is Lawrenceville, Georgia. When it comes to ministry and mission, we are unapologetically focused on this city. God has given us a burden for the people of Lawrenceville. We want to see the grace of Jesus transforming lives, the hopeless finding hope, the lonely finding their true family, the restless finding rest. We want to see addicts being liberated, the prodigal sons and daughters coming home, marriages being restored and families being reconciled. We want to see cycles of poverty being broken and the end of injustice.

We want to see the kingdom of God spring up here. In this place and among these people. This is our mission together, and we are all in on it.

But there’s another equally important mission that each of us are called into, because we all have our own individual spheres of life. Not all of us live in Lawrenceville, and that’s perfectly fine! But just as we are called to committed to this city, we are also called to be committed to the place where we live, the place where we work, the place where we go to school, the place where we engage your hobbies, and the friends and family and neighbors that God has placed around us.

God has strategically placed you in your neighborhood to serve as an ambassador for Christ. He has strategically placed you in your job to proclaim his grace. God has strategically equipped you with particular gifts to be used in your specific contexts for his kingdom purposes.

And if you are struggling to figure out your place in God’s mission, the best advice I have for you is to find the place where your passion intersects with the needs of your community. If you have a passion for people experiencing homelessness, get involved with Home of Hope or Family Promise or Village of Hope. If you have a heart for people suffering from addictions, get involved with Celebrate Recovery or other groups. If your heart burns when hearing the plight of immigrants and refugees, our friends who supply the coffee every Sunday morning have a wealth of knowledge regarding where you can help local refugee families here in Gwinnett County.

The point is that God has equipped you with gifts and passions for the express purpose of carrying out his mission in the places you live and work and play. So ask yourself: what are you passionate about? What aspect of God’s kingdom gets your blood pumping? Once you’ve got that sorted, ask the Lord to show you the places and people in your life where that passion can be put to use for his mission.

It’s that simple. But it all begins with believing that God intends for his mission to be carried out by ordinary people like you and me. From the very beginning, he has been partnering with us, inviting us to be a part of building this world into something beautiful and wonderful, and he continues to invite us into that mission today.

Mission is essential because the God that we worship is a God on a mission. God’s mission is carried out by ordinary people.