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The Missional Life | To the Ends of the Earth - 5.2.2010
We must be global Christians with a global vision
because our God is a global God.
- John Stott
Readings from: What the Bible Teaches About What Jesus Did pp. 49-50
By F. F. Bruce
The Acts of the Apostles does not end haphazardly; Luke has achieved his purpose when he brings Paul to Rome and leaves him preaching the gospel there. Yet there is a sense in which the Acts of the Apostles is an unfinished book; at least the story which it begins to tell is an unfinished story. Luke tells how the gospel spread within one generation; the same gospel has been spreading generation by generation ever since;
Nor shall they spreading gospel rest
Till through the world they truth has run
Till Christ has all the nations blest
That see the light or feel the sun.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century a book was published with the title The New Acts of the Apostles, by Dr A. T. Pierson. This was a survey of Christian missions from the thirteenth century to the author’s own day. He drew many parallels between the apostolic age and more recent times, acknowledging the ‘the New Acts of the Apostles is, like the Old, an unfinished book’. But he emphasized that the secret of the new Acts, as of the old, was the abiding activity of Christ with and through his messengers. There would be further advances, further conquests, ‘until God’s chosen heralds leave no Regions Beyond unpenetrated, and not creature unreached’. But, he emphasized in the last sentence of the book, ‘all this depends on the manifested Presence of the redeemer, in the power of that Holy Sprit, whose holy ministries made luminous with glory of the Acts of the Apostles!’
Of course, to talk about apostles in this more recent context is to use the word in a wider sense than Luke intended. But in the wider sense “apostle” means ‘messenger’ or ‘agent’. The original apostles were Jesus’ special agents, directly chosen and commissioned by him; but Jesus has had many agents in all succeeding ages. Only, there is this difference between his agents and other people’s: he accompanies his agents. He does not energize them by remote control; he is present with them by his Spirit. They work for him, but He works in them. He does not see the work going, and then leave it to carry on by its own momentum, he keeps it going.
Questions:
• In the book of Acts the gospel spreads from a small band of Jesus’ Jewish disciples all the way to Rome, the center of the ruling power of the world at that time. How does the way the book of Acts ends encourage us to spread the gospel in our generation?
• What does the word apostle literally mean and how does it apply to us in the “wider sense?”
• If we are Jesus’ agents and messengers in the world, what should we expect our connection to him to be as we are sent into the world?
Readings from: Christianity Today, “An Upside-Down World”
By Christopher J. H. Wright (Jan. 28, 2007)
Perhaps what we most need to learn, since we so easily forget it, is that mission is and always has been God's before it becomes ours. The whole Bible presents a God of missional activity, from his purposeful, goal-oriented act of Creation to the completion of his cosmic mission in the redemption of the whole of Creation—a new heaven and a new earth. The Bible also presents to us humanity with a mission (to rule and care for the earth); Israel with a mission (to be the agent of God's blessing to all nations); Jesus with a mission (to embody and fulfill the mission of Israel, bringing blessing to the nations through bearing our sin on the Cross and anticipating the new Creation in his Resurrection); and the church with a mission (to participate with God in the ingathering of the nations in fulfillment of Old Testament Scriptures).
But behind all this stands God with a mission (the redemption of his whole Creation from the wreckage of human and Satanic evil). The mission of God is what fills the Bible from the brokenness of the nations in Genesis 11 to the healing of the nations in Revelation 21-22. So any mission activity to which we are called must be seen as humble participation in this vast sweep of the historical mission of God. All mission or missions that we initiate, or into which we invest our vocation, gifts, and energies, flows from the prior mission of God. God is on mission, and we, in that wonderful phrase of Paul, are "co-workers with God."
This God-centered refocusing of mission turns inside-out our obsession with mission plans, agendas, goals, strategies, and grand schemes.
We ask, "Where does God fit into the story of my life?" when the real question is, "Where does my little life fit into the great story of God's mission?"
We want to be driven by a purpose tailored for our individual lives, when we should be seeing the purpose of all life, including our own, wrapped up in the great mission of God for the whole of creation.
We wrestle to "make the gospel relevant to the world." But God is about the mission of transforming the world to fit the shape of the gospel.
We argue about what can legitimately be included in the mission God expects from the church, when we should ask what kind of church God expects for his mission in all its comprehensive fullness.
I may wonder what kind of mission God has for me, when I should ask what kind of me God wants for his mission.
We invite God's blessing on our human-centered mission strategies, but the only concept of mission into which God fits is the one of which he is the beginning and the end.
Questions:
• According to this article, as Christ’s followers ministering to the world, what must we remember about the basis of our mission?
• What does the Bible reveal about God’s missional activity to the nations of world?
• With the previous two questions in mind, what does the author suggest our approach to missions should be?
Scripture Study:
Read Genesis 12:1-4:
Context: God is calling Abraham to follow Him. Abraham becomes the first patriarch of Israel and the father of faith.
• What is the result of Abraham’s (Abram) obedience to God for all the people on the earth?
• Knowing that Abraham becomes the father of Israel (God’s people), what do you think this passage illustrates about God’s desire for all people?
Context of Mathew 28 and Acts 1: Jesus has risen from the dead and now is commissioning his disciples into their mission.
Read Matthew 28:18-20:
• According to this passage, what is the mission Jesus gives to his disciples?
• What are two things we must do to make disciples of all the nations and what is significant about each?
• What can followers of Jesus be confident about as they go and make disciples?
Read Acts 1:4-9:
• Look at the maps at http://www.ccel.org/bible/phillips/CN600NTWORLD.htm. What are the significances of the being Jesus’ witnesses “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth?”
• According to this passage, where does the power to fulfill Jesus’ mission of being witnesses come from?
Conclusion:
• As you looked at God’s mission for all nations, are there any specific ways you feel God directing you?
• Considering all you’ve read, what ways can we as individuals, small groups, and as a church grow in our mission to the world?