Mission - Joining in with what God's up to! (Part One)

What do you think of when you here the word Mission? For me the word invokes images of deepest darkest Africa, tropical islands and Americans with beards and bum bags! 

Anyone else? No, just me, ok moving on…

Most of us would have heard it said that Mission is about sharing the good news and making disciples of all nations, now I’m sure this is true, but what is the heart behind Mission and what does it mean for our lives? How about we start at the beginning (it’s a very good place to start!).

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and it was good. He created water, earth and sky and it was Good. Plants and vegetation, it was good. Night and day, it was good. Animals for the earth, sea and sky, it was good. Then God created human beings.

When God created humans He did something amazing, when God created humans He put His Image into humans. And in response said “It’s very good”.

But if we look around the world today we see that Gods image is being warped, all across the world God’s image is being scratched by poverty, injustice, oppression, corruption, by all the bad things we see on the evening news! But it's even being scratched  by things we see happening in and around our own schools and work places; bullying, abuse and when people are just plain old mean to each other! The list goes on, and God weeps.

Stop. Pause. Question. Where do you see the Image of God being scratched in the world, Australia and your school?

Continue - The amazing thing about God was that when we as human beings chose our own way and rejected God’s way, when humans introduced corruption, death and conflict into the world God didn’t give up on us or run away. He stayed with us seeking us out, calling us back, and showing His people how to be forgiven. God was faithful, and He asked humanity to work with Him to make things right. All throughout the Old Testament we see God choosing people, individuals and families who He would work with, people who would come into relationship with Him and work along side Him to make things right. He gave them laws and rules by which to live, laws that protected the weak and insured justice.

Clearly mission is about God, but it is also about humanity working alongside God, but why should we join in with what God is doing in the world?

One day on the Sabbath Jesus, (God’s own son, wholly man and Holy God - see what I did there!) walked into his hometown synagogue (because Jesus went to Church!) – and He was handed a scroll from the Old Testament, a scroll of Isaiah to Read.

This is what Jesus read;

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. 
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, 
to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 

Then Jesus rolls up the scroll and says – “today this is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:20-21) … in other words what Jesus is saying is “this is happening now”. Many people agree that this is about the closest thing to a mission statement of Jesus. This was Jesus saying, this is me, this is what I am about, this is my mission here on earth. And it’s really important that we understand what Jesus was doing… because He calls us to do it with Him. In itself a good reason to be involved in Gods mission!

Throughout history as people have read this passage in Luke they have responded in a few different ways.  Some people have gone… ‘well clearly this is about finding peace with God’. There is Good News for those who are oppressed by sin and held captive by darkness, we can have peace with God through Jesus’ death and resurrection because Jesus is the light! - True.

Others have come along and looked at the Spirit bit of the message and said perhaps when Jesus speaks of recovery of sight for the blind that there will be physical healings (that the Blind could actually see again!), and when he speaks of freedom for the prisoners, perhaps Jesus is saying that we can be set free from the things that bind us – bad choices we have made and bad things that people have done to us. That the Spirit of the Lord is here to start undoing the mess in our lives that we might experience the grace and love of the Lord, not just in heaven but also here on Earth!

So, perhaps I should be a part of God’s mission because He has saved me, because He loves me… but what if Mission is about even more than that.

What if Mission is about more than just me?

To be continued in Part Two...