Thinking Toward The Mission of GOD
June 22, 2010
God willing, on June 27th we will begin a seven week series on The Mission of GOD. As I shared in last week’s article, I believe this could be a significant opportunity to be reinvigorated in our sense of mission in our relationships, in our church’s neighborhood, in our city, and in our world.
When I told Gabe of my plans for this sermon series, he reminded me of a book of the same title, The Mission of God by Christopher Wright. Since I have spent much of this week preparing for this series and working through Wright’s phenomenal work, I thought I would share with you some nuggets of his biblical perspective that have been shaping my thoughts.
“The whole canon of Scripture is a missional phenomenon in the sense that it witnesses to the self-giving movement of this God toward his creation and us, human beings in God’s own image, but wayward and wanton. The writings that now comprise our Bible are themselves the product of and witness to the ultimate mission of God” (48).
“The authority of the Bible is that it brings us into contact with reality-primarily the reality of God himself whose authority stands behind even that of creation…Reading and knowing the Scriptures causes us to engage with reality…The authority for our mission flows from the Bible because the Bible reveals the reality on which our mission is based.
“If the God YHWH…is really God, then that reality (or rather his reality) authorizes a range of responses as appropriate, legitimate and indeed imperative. These include not only the response of worship but also of ethical living in accordance with this God’s own character and will, and a missional orientation that commits my own life story into the grand story of God’s purpose for the nations and for creation. Mission flows from the reality of this God-the biblical God” (53-54).
“In Jesus we have become part of this people, sharing the comprehensive range of identity and responsibility that was theirs [Israel]. For through the cross and the gospel of the Messiah Jesus, we have become citizens of God’s people, members of God’s household, the place of God’s dwelling. Such an identity and belonging generate an ethical and a missional responsibility in the church and the world, which the New Testament spells out in some detail” (58).
I look forward to sharing more with you from God’s word as we seek to understand God’s great plan for this world and our place in that plan.
On God’s mission with you,
Pastor Chris