Core Value: Spread
December 9, 2007
We prayerfully seek to spread this kingdom proclamation and portrayal in our immediate neighborhood and as God leads us in our city, country, and world.
As we continue walking through our proposed core values at Whitton Avenue, this week’s value qualifies the previous two, namely, our call to proclaim and portray the gospel of the kingdom. The clarification is of the scope of this proclamation and portrayal: it is a work that should spread geographically and culturally. This spreading nature of the kingdom permeates the New Testament so much that it may seem too obvious to state as a church priority, yet it often requires enough cost that we must keep the vision in front of us in order to stay on mission.
The first hint we get of this is in Jesus’ own ministry. After his wilderness temptation, our Lord came out of the blocks in a big way, speaking boldly, healing, and casting out demons. Thus it is understandable that the people “sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them” (Luke 4:42). Jesus’ response sets the pace for the mission he passed on to us: “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose” (v. 43).
We should not miss the significance of the words, “I was sent.” Jesus’ spreading work did not begin when he went from town to town preaching the kingdom. It began when his Father sent him to take on human form and be the true Immanuel–God with us. This “sent” mentality gave great clarity to his mission. Jesus was not on planet earth to capitalize on small-town success but to bring a kingdom that would spread throughout the whole creation.
This mindset of being sent, in turn, drove Jesus’ sending out of the 12 (Luke 9:1-6), the 72 (Luke 10:1-12), and, after his resurrection, his followers to “be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). For whatever reason the church stayed put in Jerusalem initially, but before long “there arose…a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria” (Acts 8:1). The result of this aligned exactly with Jesus’ own spreading work and his commission to his disciples: “Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word” (v. 4). Such missionary zeal escalated with the Apostle Paul, who made it his “ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named” (Romans 15:20).
The implications of this expanding kingdom work affect us on multiple levels. On the personal level, we embrace God’s design for us to spread the gospel of the kingdom–the good news about Jesus’ death, resurrection, and reign–throughout the spheres God has placed us in. Practically this involves our involvement with personal evangelism and deeds of mercy. On the church level, as our core value says, we assume that we are to proclaim and portray the gospel of the kingdom in our neighborhood. But we also “pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2). We look at our city, our country, and our world and ask how the Lord desires us to be a part of his spreading work through commissioning missionaries, planting churches, and whatever other means he makes known. Like Jesus, we have been sent to spread.
Pastor Chris