Thursday, June 25, 2009

Sent: The Missional God

God sent because we needed him to. The God expressed most fully and finally in Jesus of Nazareth is not the god of deism who sits back and watches as we live our lives, uninvolved. He is not the god of Graeco-Roman mythology, waiting to punish us if we mess up in life, which we do everyday, which is not to say He has no wrath or anger, He does, which would be expected if He were real - with the injustice and perversion of a world like ours, where, for instance children are raped, kidnapped and sold into a sex-trade which is more pervasive than any of us wants to admit. Where genocide still flourishes, where poverty still kills millions, where wealth is so unequally distributed. God is angry about all of this be sure.

But instead of just dealing out death and judgment to each of us who is guilty and deserving of it, this God, the one true God, full of grace and truth (John 1.14), does something else: He satisfies his wrath and anger by sending his Son - Why did he send him? To die in our place; because of us, for us and instead of us, so that if we come under that sacrifice by faith the just condemnation no longer gets applied to us, meted out on us, precisely because it was applied to him. This is why 'it pleased the Lord to crush him' (Isa. 53)l not because God oves to punish and hurt his Son, but because He knew what that punishment was actually accomplishing. Salvation for the world. 'God has sent his only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through him...this is love: that God loved us and sent his Son, and whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him' (1 John 4.9-15).

God rescued us, we did not rescue ourselves, no matter what the 'myth of progress' preaches at us everyday from internet, TV, and film-screen. God is the ultimate missionary, the first mover, the Father running out to embrace the prodigal. We live because he died and rose again in our place. Al of this because He sent. He got involved. he became part of this mess. Death by love.

The missionary/sending nature of God is central in to his character.

This is seen amazingly in the Gospel of John. The Fourth Gospel begins with the incarnation, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1.14), in John 3:16-17 the Father sends the Son, and the book ends with Jesus sending his disciples in John 20:21. Beyond these three passages Jesus sees himself as one “sent by the Father” astonishingly more than twenty-five times:

John 3:16
"For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, so that whomever should believe in him shall not perish but have everlasting life."

John 3:34
“For he whom God has sent utters the words of God.”

John 5:23
“He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.”

John 5:24
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life.”

John 5:30
“I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”

John 5:36-38
“These very words which I am doing, bear witness that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness to me.”

John 6:38
“For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.”

John 6:44
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”

John 7:28-29
“But I have not come of my own accord; he who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, for I came from him, and he sent me.”

John 7:33
“I shall be with you a little longer, and then I go to him who sent me.”

John 8:18
“I bear witness to myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness to me.”

John 8:26
“He who sent me is true.”

John 8:29
“And he who sent me is with me.”

John 8:42
“I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.”

John 9:4
“We must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day.”

John 12:44-45
“He who believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And he who sees me sees him who sent me.”

John 12:49
“The Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment what to say and what to speak.”

John 13:20
“He who receives me receives him who sent me.”

John 14:24
“The word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.”

John 14:26
“The Counselor will teach you everything and will cause you to remember all that I told you. This Counselor is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name.”

John 16:7
“If I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

John 17:3
“And they have believed that you have sent me.”

John 17:18
“As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

John 17:25
“They know that you have sent me.”

John 20.21
"As the Father sent me, now I send you"

So, we must listen, and embrace the Son that God sent for us, by faith in his finished work on our behalf, and then embrace our own sent-ness - our own missional calling, sent by God to love, care for and minster to people from a gospel-centered life. This is a sending that is not for super-disciples, not only for those traditionally called "missionaries", but for every follower of Jesus. Send to love and proclaim in our work-place, our schools, our relationships, our families. Sent to and for the ones you live and move beside.

If you are a follower of Jesus, one who has believed and confesses him as the Son of God who died for the sins of the world, you've been sent.

If this is you the question is: 'Am i embracing my sent-ness' ? Am I acting sent?'

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