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‘Missional’ – the church with its skates on
2 Corinthians 5v11-6v2
ID?
When working with students one of the most common questions I was asked was the question of God’s leading. ‘What should I do with my life?’ ‘Is God calling me to serve him on a foreign mission field or get a job here?’
It is a common question and an important question. It is the kind of question it is good to be asking, but it is not the most important question.
Whenever I was asked this question I would always, somewhere in my response, say this. ‘God is more interested in who you are than what you do for Him.’ Of course who I am affects what I do, but God really is more concerned with the ‘who’ than the ‘what’.
In 2008 a little town called Washington in the North East of England was made famous when it became the centre of the world’s biggest identity scandal. 25 million people’s details lost on CD’s and in danger of falling into the hands of people who would want to use them for criminal reasons.
The thing is, if I were to ask you ‘who are you’ you probably wouldn’t respond by giving me your bank account details, national insurance number and address. You would think of all sorts of other things before that.
So who am I? Am I what other people see of me or am I what I see of me when no-one else is looking? Or am I what God sees (who sees everything) and if so, what does He see?
Well, we could say all sorts of things about ourselves but the New Testament doesn’t allow us to look on the surface of what we can see when answering this question. The message of Jesus has changed us.
In 2 Corinthians 5v11-6v2 Paul addresses the issue of who we are.
‘What has the work of Jesus done in us?
Paul is initially writing about himself and those who minister with him, though as we shall see we should not read this as exclusive. Paul is defending his work and ministry and in so doing is explaining the foundations on which his ministry stands.
The first thing we see is in v11 is that who we are is plain to God. He knows us and everything about us. He knows our strengths and weaknesses, our stories and histories, our dreams and ambitions; everything.
The second thing we see is that all those who have put their trust in Jesus have died (v14). When Jesus gave his life on the cross, they died with Him, died to their old lives and old ways of living and were raised to new life with Him and for Him. They are not the people they were, they no longer live for themselves; they live for Jesus.
The third thing is that from God’s perspective the message and work of Jesus has made us a new creation. (v17) The old has gone and the new has come.
Fourthly, this new creation is now at peace with God. God has ‘reconciled us to Himself through Christ’ (v18).
Fifthly and finally, in Him we have become the ‘righteousness of God’. As our sin was placed on Jesus on the cross when he died, so his righteousness has also been given, or ‘imputed’ to us. God regards and treats people who have trusted in Jesus as having the legal status of ‘righteousness’. Jesus lived a life that was sinless, and we are considered the same.
This is amazing stuff that we have only whizzed through, but it is clear that to Paul, the gospel changes everything and changes the outlook of every believer, of every DISCIPLE of Jesus.
How has your outlook been changed?
But it has done more than that. We need to ask another question that Paul is tackling. We have thought about the question ‘What has the saving work of Jesus done in us?’, but
What does the work of Jesus do through us?
This might seem like an odd thing to ask, but you can’t get away from it in these verses.
In v11 we read that we try to persuade men and in v14 that we are compelled by the love of Christ. But compelled to do what?
This is made very clear in v18-6v2. We have been reconciled to God through Christ and have been given the ministry of reconciliation. Verse 19 tells us what this reconciliation is; that ‘God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.’ It is this message he has ‘committed’ to us!
We have been given the message of reconciliation, the job to tell the world that God has made a way that rebels can find peace with God so that their sins, which for so many define them either inwardly or outwardly, may not be counted against them. As those committed with this message we have become ‘ambassadors’.
An ambassador is a very high status occupation; you represent the government of your country. It is as though you are the president or the King. So when you speak on behalf of your government, people ought to listen!
Think about what ambassadors do. All round the world Britain’s ambassadors are working hard; but they are not making speeches, or visiting presidents; they are building networks. They make friends, do introductions; they always know how to work a room! This can be you, you can be an ambassador!
Notice the role of an ambassador is both to appeal to those who are not yet reconciled and also to those who are. In 6v1 Paul is writing to fellow workers, yet in v20 he is still appealing to them.
This is what the message of Jesus does through us. Disciples make disciples.
Every one of us who has put their trust in Jesus Christ is a radically changed person, as new creation; the righteousness of God. This is what it means to be a Disciple, but this also works out through us. Disciples must be about making disciples or they are not really disciples!
Disciples making disciples
This is our mission. Over recent years there has been much talk amongst theologians, church planters and missionaries about ‘Missional church’. It can sound highfalutin, but at heart it is this: Disciples making disciples.
At heart it requires 2 things: Christians to be in meaningful relationships with other Christians and Christians to be in meaningful relationships with people who are not Christians.
Fellowship
We have just been reading about reconciliation – of course this is that basis on which Christians can have meaningful relationship with other Christians. We are all disciples who have been given the message of reconciliation and as such we are responsible for one another. Just as Paul implores the Corinthians, so we implore one another. We look out for one another, bear with one another, rejoice, celebrate, comfort, challenge, admonish and correct, train, support, love and care for one another. This is what it means to be a part of a Christian community. Of course on the largest scale this happens in the whole church.
Are you a part of the church. I don’t mean ‘do you attend on a Sunday’. I mean are you a part? The Bible word ‘fellowship’- ‘Koinonia’ is really a business word. It means partnership. In a business partnership there is a common aim, bond or objective that unites people in purpose and commitment to the cause. This is fellowship, and it is this that marks the church out.
As Elders we have been studying a couple of books together. Recently, we read this:
‘According to the New testament, the church is primarily a body of people who profess and give evidence that they have been saved by God’s grace alone, for his glory alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone…A few passages in the New testament seem to refer to the church in the abstract, or universally, but the overwhelming majority of references to the church are to a local, living, and loving collection of people who are committed to Christ and committed to each other. That’s what the word means again and again in the New Testament. It is a body from which you can be excluded and in which therefore you can clearly be included. Consider this: if there is no way for you to be excluded from the church you are currently attending, perhaps that’s because you have not included yourself in it as the bible intends’ Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (Mark Dever), p149-150
There is a commitment and mutual accountability that comes from being a Disciple of Jesus.
But, these kinds of relationships are very difficult to nurture in an environment the size of many churches. We need to meet in smaller groups, where people have access to one another’s lives. Groups such as fellowship groups, prayer triplets etc. where people have the forum to implore one another as disciples making disciples. Our mission is to be a church where disciples make disciples and you can’t do this properly without being in one of these groups where people take responsibility for you and you for them.
Getting ‘missional’
Of course, God doesn’t only want us to be concerned that each other grow as disciples but that we look outside of our church community. In fact, missional communities are communities that are turned inside out. What do I mean?
A deep thinking missionary called Leslie Newbigin has done a lot of thinking about how the good news of Jesus crosses from our Christian cultures to the predominant cultures around us. In a slightly adapted form he speaks of 3 important elements.
Firstly – the gospel. Jesus Christ, at the heart of the Scriptures. This is this ministry of reconciliation we have been speaking of.
Secondly – we have culture, the culture in which those around us live. Our lives are shaped by our culture and its values, stories, beliefs, likes and dislikes etc. And our lives shape our cultures. The gospel must be fitted to (but not altered for) particular people, times and circumstances so that people can really hear our message of reconciliation.
Thirdly – we have the church, the gathering of God’s people but which often includes people who would not be Christians. This is where people are built up in their faith and knitted together in loving community. It is from here that people can faithfully engage those in the culture with the gospel whilst knowing its transforming power in their own lives – Disciples making disciples.
Gospel, culture and church. If we get one of these wrong we are being unfaithful and lead to failure.
- The Gospel connecting with culture but without connection with church fails because people end up being disconnected from the rest of Jesus’s people. There isn’t this accountable commitment to others which leads to immaturity. This is not disciples making disciples.
- Adapting church to culture without the gospel leads to liberalism. People find themselves deeply connected with their culture, but the gospel is missing. People might be converted to the church or to good works but not to Jesus. People are not presented with a message of reconciliation and so never find peace with God.
- A Church passionate about the Gospel but with no connection with culture is what most evangelical churches are in danger of. People know the gospel, but rarely take it out to those who need to hear it. People love the church and love people in the church but do they love lost people in the culture around? This eventually leads to legalism. This is not Disciples making Disciples either.
‘Missional’ communities are communities that are passionate about the gospel, believe deeply in the church but understand that the church exists in all its forms to share a message of reconciliation. We are to be ambassadors – Disciples making disciples.
Working it out
So – who is committed to you as a disciple in your church? Who are you committed to as a disciple? How are you, and we, functioning as ambassadors of God for our town and the surrounding area? This is, and must be, what we are about. It is what we are called to.
But once again we can only do so much of this as a large community. We need to be doing it in our fellowship groups and small groups as we act as ambassadors in our networks and amongst our friends and neighbours.
Wouldn’t it be great if our church became a community so committed to disciples making disciples that we were all in fellowship groups or small groups where were connected in to people who are committed to our discipleship and whom we are committed too. And as a community of these communities we were active as ambassadors not just here in the middle of town, but all over the town and surrounding areas. Little embassies for the gospel spread out across the town.