Church on Mission (pt. 1): Pattern for Mission
This Sunday, we kicked off a new sermon series in the book of Acts, where we will be seeing how the truth of what Jesus has done compels the church to join him on mission. Over the next few posts we’ll be taking a look at the biblical and theological bases for mission.
The Pattern for the Church’s mission is God. Orthodox Christians confess that there is One God, who has eternally existed as Three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three have eternally existed in a loving community of sharing, adoration, and joy. God has all that God needs within Godself: perfect companionship, love, and any other conceivable joy are found in this intra-trinitarian dance. And yet the story of the Bible and of history is a story of God gathering a people to himself.
In Creation, God made man in his own image, to enjoy fellowship and peace with God. But through mankind’s sinful rebellion, this relationship was disrupted. When this happened God took the initiative, and promised to send the Seed of the Woman, who would crush the Serpent’s head (Genesis 3.15). Thousands of years later this promise was fulfilled. The Father sent the Son on a mission of rescue and restoration.
The Son of God joined himself to humanity and became flesh, a truth we call the incarnation (John 1.14). And in his human life Jesus lived with distinct purpose. He was constantly about the Father’s business (Luke 2.49), and frequently referred to how God had sent him (John 5.19-29). Jesus’ purpose in coming was fulfilled when after a lifetime of perfect obedience to God he suffered on the cross for the sins of his people. He took our place under God’s wrath, so that we could take his place as God’s beloved children (cf. 2 Corinthians 5.21). Three days later he rose from the dead in triumph.
And now he is sending the church. In John 20.21, he tells his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And to help us, he and the Father have sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in and with the church, empowering it to bear witness to what he has done. Now, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are able to live lives of mission, patterned after the life of the God who has made us, sent his Son to redeem us, and sent us with his sent Spirit to join in his mission.
Posted by: Gene Schlesinger
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