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Tag: Church

  • Mission 3 – Who?

    Mission 3 – Who?

    Whatever your mission, whatever the corporate mission of your church: People are more important than things.

    Our mission is not so much what we do or where we go, as it is who we do it for.

    My personal mission, your personal mission and the corporate mission of our churches must minimally include two VIP’s:

    1. THE LORD GOD
    2.  Each person we serve.

    Your mission may have a long laundry list of things to do and places to do them, but ultimately our mission is to go to another in the Name of God and Jesus Christ, to accomplish the mission of the LORD in the life of another.

    Much ado is rightfully made about the great commission. Christ Jesus IS! He alone defeated sin and death. Christ sent His Apostles into ‘all the world’ to preach the Gospel and indeed they went out from Jerusalem into other lands.

    Jesus commands us to take the gospel into the world; however before Jesus and His Disciples went into the world, they first saturated the world nearby and the people they knew and loved with the good news: Our salvation is come in Jesus Christ.

    Repent! for the kingdom of God is at hand. Worship the LORD. God is our loving Father. Your sins are forgiven.

    Matthew 4: English Standard Version (ESV)

    Jesus Ministers to Great Crowds

    23 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

    IF you and I were to take the Gospel into all the world in the fashion of Jesus’ three-year earthly ministry, we would start at home. Galilee was Jesus’ home state. He was known by others in relation to his home town; for many called our Lord, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’

    • Does your mission to those in your home town and local community show you living a life like Jesus?
    • Is your life good news to your family, your neighbors, your friends?
    • Is your righteousness in Christ Jesus good news of love and forgiveness?
    • Do you dare call your fellow sinners to repentance?
    • Is your daily life an invitation to others to live a godly life like yours?
    • Does your life preach the Gospel throughout all the places you travel in your state and in the world?

    Jesus lived, breathed and walked as ‘GOD in the flesh.’

    GOD did not send Jesus Christ on a mission of miracles, but on a mission to heal sin and save sinners.

    As Jesus taught scripture He demonstrated the saving power of the Word of God. Prior to His death and resurrection Jesus showed us how to be changed in our daily lives. Jesus showed Christians how to love one another as God truly loves us.

    GOD loves us Personally, in the incarnate Person of the Son, Christ Jesus.

    We have many examples in the four Gospels of how Jesus Christ spread the Good News. Jesus repeatedly set aside the ‘TO DO list’ of His brief journeys to be the Good News for individuals personally.

    To the LORD, people are more important than things.

    The NIT’s (Not Important Things) of our “Mission” seem to steal mortal time from the VIP’S (Very Important People) of our lives.

    Jesus Christ has a mission to take the Gospel into the whole world. Our Lord’s mission always takes time for the VIP’s God would save from sin and death.

    Do you have time for these in the mission of your life?

    In our next series [August, 2015] we will examine the Mission of Jesus in the Gospels and look to His example of how our Lord took time to interrupt His Mission to minister to the VIP’s to whom He is sent.

  • Mission – 1 – What?

    Mission – 1 – What?

    What is your mission in life?

    Do you have one? Have you ever thought about your daily life in terms of what GOD wants you to do?

    Christians typically don’t think of our day to day life in terms of mission, but rather we ‘send missionaries’ away to other places to ‘spread the Gospel.’

    The Apostle Paul addresses the mission of Jesus Christ in his opening advice to the church:

    1 Timothy 1:15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

    Jesus Christ has a mission to save sinners. Our Lord paid the price for our sin. He continues to save us from the penalty of sin and death. Paul confesses his own sin, as should we.

    Jesus had a mission to accomplish in His three-year ministry which He continues to accomplish through those accepted by God as part of His body, the church.

    What is the mission of our church?

    Many churches and most Christians will take some approach to mission to accomplish the sending out of missionaries (as Jesus sent out His Apostles).

    We support or hire missionaries to accomplish the mission of Christ, rather than approaching our own lives as being one sent as an ambassador from God into this perishing world in the Name of Christ Jesus to save sinners.

    The church of this century has corporately fallen into a worldly check-list of ‘christian’ things that we do through others for others in the Name of Christ.

    A brief look at our corporate church websites will include visions and missions not unlike a Fortune 500 focus constructed with a secular and worldly-relevant appeal. I do not condemn us for laying a groundwork for the important business Christ has given us to accomplish, yet even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.  [2 Corinthians 4:3]

    Sending missionaries makes our church feel good. We ourselves seem to have no mission for Christ in our daily life beyond the doors of a building we call our ‘church.’ (We contribute to missions as a small portion of our meager offering.)

    How easy it is as a church or as a Christian for us to either get caught up in goals of our ‘mission’ or to ignore them entirely.

    What is my mission as a member of Christ’s church?

    If we approach our typical intention to a mission individually we might take a systematic approach. Vision pyramidOur local body of believers may only make the connection to mission as we understand it’s meaning from the Latin root: Mid 16th century (denoting the sending of the Holy Spirit into the world): from Latin missio(n-), from mittere ‘send’.

    Mark 16:15-16 “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

    Perhaps as Christians it is time for us to take another look at mission more in terms of the reason Christ Jesus has already sent us into the world to live as ambassadors of Heaven to a fallen world. Perhaps the time of our return should be taken with more of the daily intentional seriousness of the Apostles.

    The Letter of Paul to the church at Philippi

    3:14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

    Do we press on toward this goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus in the same way that the Apostles remained so focused on God’s ambassadorial mission for our daily lives… until we are called upward to the time and place we will receive our resurrected eternal bodies?

    If a ‘christian’ is to have a Christ-like mission, shouldn’t we look to Christ Jesus as our example for our day to day life?

    Is your life a mission for Christ?

    Do you have any thought at all of how God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit would use you in the lives of others?

    To be continued…

  • And you, who once were alienated

    And you, who once were alienated

    Colossians 1: NKJV 21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—

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    Jesus Christ! Friend or foe?

    No other Name evokes such controversy and alienation: not Muhammad, not Buddha, not Obama, not Putin. The world, your workplace, our government: all oppose any suggestion that Christ Jesus IS Lord; that the Lord will judge sinners, that we are created once to die once, to be raised to the judgment and accountability for our sins against our fellow man and enmity against God.

    Wicked works of our daily lives, evil ideas conceived for our advantage over others, evil efforts to bring pleasure at the expense of others – all are rebellious against ANY man or ANY god being Lord over us.

    We must be in charge of our own destiny.  And so we are; for we have choice between the passions of these evil days, with eternal punishment after death, or accepting Jesus Christ as Lord to serve God in exchange for His righteousness leading to eternal life by His grace.

    Before the Lord mercifully called you to peace of your soul and invitation to worship in the body of believers, were you not indignant that Jesus could command you to NOT do those things you have always done, that Jesus could command you to action of love when you would easily ignore the need of another?

    How wicked are our works and deceitful our hearts. Yet by grace we are saved to His love, the love of Christ Jesus in place of the things of this perishing world and pursuits of this decaying flesh.

    Psalm 36

    How Precious Is Your Steadfast Love

    To the choirmaster. Of David, the servant of the Lord.

     Transgression [rebellion] speaks to the wicked
        deep in his heart;
    there is no fear of God
        before his eyes.
    2 For he flatters himself in his own eyes
        that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.
    3 The words of his mouth are trouble [iniquity] and deceit;
        he has ceased to act wisely and do good.
    4 He plots trouble while on his bed;
        he sets himself in a way that is not good;
        he does not reject evil.

    5 Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
        your faithfulness to the clouds.

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    By contrast to our evil, sinful nature, the Lord is good, full of steadfast love. The Lord is faithful, but we are not.

    The NKJV [v.4] says of the wicked: He does not abhor evil. Christians know this to be true of all who surround us in our workplace, where we dine, shop, and are entertained in spectator sports or even casual observation of those all around us. Do you abhor evil? Or has the world convinced you to ‘tolerate’ evil, even in the holy worship place and communion of our Lord?

    Do not hate evil with hatred, but abhor evil with the love of Jesus which also called you to repentance for your sins.

    And lest we paint ourselves into a sanctuary of perceived righteousness apart from Christ, let us recall with humility the mercy God has already shown us, miserable sinners in His sight.

    Romans 2

    Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

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    Do you rant and rail against abortion, bold christian, while condoning your teens having intercourse before marriage?

    Do you shout out about marriage between one man and one woman, while divorcing your Christian husband or wife to whom you have made your vows before God?

    Our righteousness is only in Christ Jesus. If He is our Lord, our Lord commands us to be merciful to others, as He has shown us much mercy. Surly our Lord requires continued patience with you and with me, grace for the reshaping of our repentant hearts into the clay of His love.

    The witness of Christ, passed on in truth and in love by His Apostles continues in all the generations until the Lord returns again. Paul and Timothy write in their letter to the church at Colossae:

    Colossians 1: ESV [NKJV]

    3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven…

    13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

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    Paul writes to the church of the transformation which takes place that makes believers in Christ Jesus different from the world. The Apostle Paul cautions continued faithfulness in believers, that we might not fall back into our former sinful and wicked ways so evident in those worldly enemies of Christ around us.

    [NKJV] 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

    For how did Paul precede this caution? With the contrast of our redeemed life in Christ Jesus.

    21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—

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    Do not fail to show mercy to others nor to remember the grace by which we were saved.