MISSIO DEI
WHOSE MISSION IS IT ANYWAY?
The Bible’s grand narrative is of a sending God, who has sent His Son and whose Son now sends us.
Missions is not merely something that God’s people do. Hear this! It is not “all about us.” Missions is something God does. It is the movement of God in history. It is His self-revealing in love to the world.
He is, after all, the one constant. Just read a missions history book. Man passes from the earth like grass. Like vapor. Isaac Watts aptly summarizes the human condition this way, We blossom and flourish like leaves on a tree...then wither and perish – but naught changeth Thee. We are but supporting actors.
We are extras called in to better display the character of the lead starring role. God, who is the author of the production, is Himself the main character. It is our purpose to magnify Him and His work. God is that main missionary. Our missionary God gets all the glory. Revelation 7:10, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
Two things I desire to write:
• First, God is not following our lead, but is leading us. Let us not think we are doing grand things for God in going forth into the fields. God is doing grand things by leading us and allowing us a part.
• Second, God is not a God who is merely engaging in missions. God is, on the contrary, a missionary God. Missions is not merely one activity that our God engages in; it is a characteristic of His very Being.
Now, these two things again, at greater length.
First, God is not following our lead in this thing. His is out front.
If missions depended upon us, What a pitiful state! What a pitiful God! If God were waiting for us to move, the situation would be hopeless.
I once heard a Baptist missionary proclaim that God needed us to save the heathen. He stated that the salvation of those who had never heard rested upon us. God actually could not fulfill His plans unless we went in obedience to his Great Commission command of “Go.” Never mind that the main command of the Great Commission is not “go” at all. It is to “disciple” as we go. Never mind this man’s bad exegesis, this man’s theology made God an impotent fool.
God is not frail. He marches on. To His own drum. Generation after generation God’s glory is being spread forth. His wonderful name is reaching the last jungles of Irian Jaya, and will yet reach the deserts of Arabia.
Again, from the pen of Isaac Watts (based on Psalm 72):
Jesus shall reign wher’er the Sun,
doth its successive journeys run.
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
till moons shall wax and wane no more.
When a church sends a missionary, God is not in their debt. God is pleased when someone steps out in service to Him. God is not pleased, however, in the way that a losing general in wartime is pleased to have more reinforcements to bolster his failing defenses.
The church that sends a missionary is merely repeating what God has already done. God is the Sending God. “Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” (John 20:21). Worshipping this God, we become a sending people.
Second, missions is not activity but very being for God.
God is the first and greatest missionary. As one writer put it, it is not so much that God has a mission for His church. On the contrary, God has a church for His mission. God is the one who does mission. We are not even so much “doers” but “witnesses” (Acts 1:8) to what God is doing.
Not only is God a God who does missions, God is a God who is missionary. The very being of God, after all, throbs with a missional pulse, a constant willful self-revealing of His glory. God delights in blessing the nations and in spreading his glory.
Why else did God create the world? Out of loneliness? God forbid! His love bubbled over and could not be contained. He is the All-glorious. He created the universe as a stage to display that glory.
His being is also Trinitarian – a Trinity that sends and is sent. God the Father sent the Son and the Father and Son together sent the Spirit. Missionary work has a Trinitarian basis! God is a missionary who loved His people, incarnated Himself to pursue and even sacrifice His life for His People and now has sent His Spirit to indwell this same People.
Praise God! We can even participate!
Though it is God’s mission, He gives us a part. He has won the victory, but allows us to tread Satan under our feet.
It is as if a parent has killed a snake loitering on their front door and then given the stick to their young child to take a few whacks at it. “Good job...” and that is how the child learns obedience. Though the parent is the one who has accomplished the final victory, that parent is pleased to include the child whom is loved, for the pleasure of the parent and the furtherance of the teaching of the child.
God has conquered through the sending of his Son and now sends us to gather the spoil. God has done mighty works, and He is pleased to place us so that we may see his mighty works and even take part in them. Through God’s inclusion of us into His own mission, we learn more about Christ, the Sent one, as we are being sent out.
God has, by the death of His Son, reconciled the world unto Himself, and now sends us forth, having given to us the ministry of reconciliation. (II Corinthians 5:19)
Thank you Lord for allowing us to reap the fruit of your labors.
WHOSE MISSION IS IT ANYWAY?
The Bible’s grand narrative is of a sending God, who has sent His Son and whose Son now sends us.
Missions is not merely something that God’s people do. Hear this! It is not “all about us.” Missions is something God does. It is the movement of God in history. It is His self-revealing in love to the world.
He is, after all, the one constant. Just read a missions history book. Man passes from the earth like grass. Like vapor. Isaac Watts aptly summarizes the human condition this way, We blossom and flourish like leaves on a tree...then wither and perish – but naught changeth Thee. We are but supporting actors.
We are extras called in to better display the character of the lead starring role. God, who is the author of the production, is Himself the main character. It is our purpose to magnify Him and His work. God is that main missionary. Our missionary God gets all the glory. Revelation 7:10, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
Two things I desire to write:
• First, God is not following our lead, but is leading us. Let us not think we are doing grand things for God in going forth into the fields. God is doing grand things by leading us and allowing us a part.
• Second, God is not a God who is merely engaging in missions. God is, on the contrary, a missionary God. Missions is not merely one activity that our God engages in; it is a characteristic of His very Being.
Now, these two things again, at greater length.
First, God is not following our lead in this thing. His is out front.
If missions depended upon us, What a pitiful state! What a pitiful God! If God were waiting for us to move, the situation would be hopeless.
I once heard a Baptist missionary proclaim that God needed us to save the heathen. He stated that the salvation of those who had never heard rested upon us. God actually could not fulfill His plans unless we went in obedience to his Great Commission command of “Go.” Never mind that the main command of the Great Commission is not “go” at all. It is to “disciple” as we go. Never mind this man’s bad exegesis, this man’s theology made God an impotent fool.
God is not frail. He marches on. To His own drum. Generation after generation God’s glory is being spread forth. His wonderful name is reaching the last jungles of Irian Jaya, and will yet reach the deserts of Arabia.
Again, from the pen of Isaac Watts (based on Psalm 72):
Jesus shall reign wher’er the Sun,
doth its successive journeys run.
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
till moons shall wax and wane no more.
When a church sends a missionary, God is not in their debt. God is pleased when someone steps out in service to Him. God is not pleased, however, in the way that a losing general in wartime is pleased to have more reinforcements to bolster his failing defenses.
The church that sends a missionary is merely repeating what God has already done. God is the Sending God. “Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” (John 20:21). Worshipping this God, we become a sending people.
Second, missions is not activity but very being for God.
God is the first and greatest missionary. As one writer put it, it is not so much that God has a mission for His church. On the contrary, God has a church for His mission. God is the one who does mission. We are not even so much “doers” but “witnesses” (Acts 1:8) to what God is doing.
Not only is God a God who does missions, God is a God who is missionary. The very being of God, after all, throbs with a missional pulse, a constant willful self-revealing of His glory. God delights in blessing the nations and in spreading his glory.
Why else did God create the world? Out of loneliness? God forbid! His love bubbled over and could not be contained. He is the All-glorious. He created the universe as a stage to display that glory.
His being is also Trinitarian – a Trinity that sends and is sent. God the Father sent the Son and the Father and Son together sent the Spirit. Missionary work has a Trinitarian basis! God is a missionary who loved His people, incarnated Himself to pursue and even sacrifice His life for His People and now has sent His Spirit to indwell this same People.
Praise God! We can even participate!
Though it is God’s mission, He gives us a part. He has won the victory, but allows us to tread Satan under our feet.
It is as if a parent has killed a snake loitering on their front door and then given the stick to their young child to take a few whacks at it. “Good job...” and that is how the child learns obedience. Though the parent is the one who has accomplished the final victory, that parent is pleased to include the child whom is loved, for the pleasure of the parent and the furtherance of the teaching of the child.
God has conquered through the sending of his Son and now sends us to gather the spoil. God has done mighty works, and He is pleased to place us so that we may see his mighty works and even take part in them. Through God’s inclusion of us into His own mission, we learn more about Christ, the Sent one, as we are being sent out.
God has, by the death of His Son, reconciled the world unto Himself, and now sends us forth, having given to us the ministry of reconciliation. (II Corinthians 5:19)
Thank you Lord for allowing us to reap the fruit of your labors.
, brother. We are being given the privilege of taking part in His work, nothing more. I've always loved "The Glory of God and Missions" by Paul Washer - a great sermon on this subject.
