This is the last blog in the series that links directly to the Lent / Easter message... Enjoy
The end of Lent marks the beginning of the Great Commission… to go
out into all the world and preach the good news of Jesus Christ, whose
sacrifice restores our relationship with God. So how do we communicate this
plan of salvation to the world? How do we go about revealing to the world, that
we can all live in a moment-by-moment relationship with God? And how do we
develop this relationship with God in order to understand what Gods missional
call on our lives looks like?
Professor Brian Russell makes the following statement that, ‘Every person that you’ll
ever meet, including yourself, has over-estimated his or her own personal goodness
by a ridiculous degree’. He speaks about the need for our “ministry (our act of
service) to be missional; in feeding the hungry; looking after the poor; looking
out for those in our community that cannot care for themselves; that our
ministry is here and now; and that our salvation is rooted in God’s plan that was
set in place at the moment of creation.’”
I tend to agree… particularly as the UK is in recession (2013) and some
sections of our society are desperate for help. I believe that the question we
need to ask is not necessarily about what God has saved us from… but rather
what God has saved us into? What is our purpose? What is our mission?
Two scriptures that point to the missional call of God for our
lives are from the New Testament:
‘For God
called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserve it, but
because that was his plan from before the beginning of time-to show us his
grace through Christ Jesus.’ (NLT Bible, 1 Timothy1.9)
‘Now all glory to God who is able, through his mighty power at work in us, to accomplish infinitely more that we might ask or think.’ (Ephesians 3.20)
These two scriptures echo the consequences
of the fall of man, outlined in Genesis 3. The devil used that most ancient of
weapons in his armoury… “Did God say?” (Gen 3.1). The question deflects Adam
from his missional calling to tend to the Garden of Eden, and places a question
in the mind of man, like yeast in dough, which filters through the generations,
questioning what God has called us to do, or what we are to be… How we are to
behave; how we are to act, and so forth. If we ‘doubt that God has our best interests at heart’ then we will be
unable to understand the call to serve.
The ancestral history of Israel
contains a narrative that show’s how God began to work out his plan to draw all
nations to himself. The story begins with the call of Abram, and works through
all of his descendants to the establishment of the Nation of Israel through Moses
and Joshua and ultimately, to the establishment of the temple through David and
Solomon.
The temple symbolised to the world
that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the same God who protected Joseph in
Egypt; the God who rescued the people from the hand of Pharaoh through his
servant Moses; the same God who led the people across the Red Sea and the River
Jordan; and the same God who told Joshua to be strong and courageous, and to
study the word of God as he led the people into the promised land, could be
worshipped here.
The temple could not truly contain God
in all his fullness, but it occupies in the minds of the Israelites, a place of
worship and a place where we can receive God’s mercy and his forgiveness. This
was also true of the foreigner who could pray and receive forgiveness at the
temple. This fulfilled the missional call of God’s people to exist as a
community who aligned themselves to God and his law, and as such, reveal the
character and nature of God by their faithful obedience.
In Abram, God found a man who was
faithful in answering Gods call and secure in his calling: “I will bless those who bless you, curse those who curse you; and all
the peoples of the earth will be blessed by you.” (Gen 12: 1-3). God was no
longer in the business of wiping the pallet of life clean as in the flood, but
rather re-starting the commission that as the people of God, we are accountable
for how we reveal the heart and character of God in the communities we build. God
offers to Abram a new beginning out of the sin and wickedness around him and a
new purpose. He answers a missional call to leave the comfort of what he knows,
and to act in faithful obedience to the God he worships and in whom he places
his trust.
As Christians, we are part of this heritage
of faithful obedience which we see demonstrated in Abraham. Jesus repeats this
promise that those who follow him will gain an inheritance: “And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or
father or mother or children or property, for my sake, will receive a hundred
times as much in return and will inherit eternal life.”
(Mat 19.29)
Abram placed his trust in a God he
knew; a God he knew to be true; a God who knew him; a God who offers hope, and
a God who brings new life. Abram’s faithfulness, despite the stumbles that he
and Sarah made along their journey, demonstrates to us that God is faithful; he
is watching, waiting and listening; to pick us up when we fall; to set us
straight; to enable us to continue on life’s journey.
The Israelites found that mercy and
forgiveness was attained through repentance and sacrifice at the temple whereas
today, we know that in Jesus we have the ultimate sacrifice and the source of
Abram’s trust. Jesus came to seek out and save all who were lost. Those who
longed for a fresh expression of God could see in Jesus at the cross, the
fullness of God revealed. Where the temple could only symbolise the presence of
the living God; Jesus was the fullness of God. Jesus calls us out of our sin
and into a new life with the promise of an eternal blessing.
Paul in 1 Cor 6: 19-20 says to his
listeners, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of
the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?” Just as the fire
came down from heaven and consumed Solomon’s offering in the temple, so we are
filled with the Holy Spirit to carry out the work that Jesus began at creation,
and continues to do in each of our lives.
God calls us out into his continuing
mission; to be a blessing in our communities, to pray for our government and be
transparent in our dealings with those who we work with, and to bring hope
to a broken world. As temples of the living God we are commissioned to “go and make
disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and the
Son and the Holy Spirit.” (Mat 28.19)
So this Easter, cling to the cross… see in Jesus not
only our salvation, but our hope for a better tomorrow. Only when we grasp the
majesty of what Jesus has done for us, can we recognise our true calling.
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