The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."
(Genesis 12:1-3 NIV)
The mission of God (Missio Dei) is much larger and grander than the saving of my soul. The grand story of redemption is about Him and His relationship with the cosmos He created. God is out to redeem the effects of sin in everything.
The story of redemption begins with a loving God creating a beautiful world and populating it with plants, animals and humans as a place where His love could be given to us and received by us. But we fell into sin and everything was affected. The most profound effect was an infection in the very soul of human beings of a sin nature that instinctively rebels against the God who made us.
Through Adam and Eve, sin came into us - into our genetics. And by that bent to sin, we sin. Every single one of us, no matter how good and nice we try to be, seeks to displace the King of the universe from the throne of our lives. We want to call the shots. But God did not leave us in our sin and rebellion. He has acted through history to redeem us from sin and death.
He chose one man, Abram (later Abraham) and his wife, Sarai (later Sarah) and made covenant with them that he would make a great nation from them, His very own people through whom He would reveal Himself to His world. Even in the first account of God's promises to Abram, He speaks of the great Missio Dei: "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." The work of God in Abram's life was not just for Abram, it was for everyone.
In the end, God sent His Son, Jesus, to take on human flesh, and in the body as one of us to show us God's heart, to teach us God's truth, and to lay down His life as a perfect sacrifice in our place for our sin. Then God raised Jesus from the dead to overcome death by resurrection for Jesus and for us. After Jesus ascended to heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to indwell every believer who entrusts their life to Jesus by faith and to begin to reverse the curse of sin by the ultimate power in the universe: the love of God.
One day Jesus will return and fully establish His Kingdom in a new heaven and new earth. It will be glorious, and it will make right every wrong. That is the Missio Dei. And like Abram, He has chosen to give every follower of Jesus Christ a place in the mission. When the story of my life becomes the story of His redemption and I begin to live full-out for Jesus, He uses an everyday person like me to grow His Kingdom on earth until His coming. Jesus does save my soul as a crucial part of His mission of redemption, but He does far more than that.
The last words Jesus spoke before His ascension speak to our lives what He spoke to Abram.
"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
(Acts 1:8 NIV)
His work in my soul not only redeems me. The power of the Holy Spirit makes my life-lived-for-His-Kingdom a witness in the world to others. I am not blessed to make me happy. I am blessed to be a blessing. All of us who love Jesus with all our heart will begin to love others with His great love, and that will be a witness to them of the redemption that has taken place and is taking place in my life. Redemption is both an event of my surrender to Him and a process of His working in my life to make me more and more Christlike.
I believe all of us who believe in Jesus Christ are operatives in the Missio Dei. Each of us has a part to play. Every congregation has a role in redemption. And the God who made us is using all of it to redeem His creation. How's that for a life of meaning and purpose?
It all begins in each one of us by our making Jesus Lord and King of our lives. We take that step, moment by moment, day by day and decision by decision, and God uses our lives as witnesses, bringing others into relationship with Himself through us and our love, sacrifice, service and testimony. It's simple enough a child can do it, and difficult enough we cannot do it without the power of the Holy Spirit working in us to transform us from the selfishness of our sin nature to the self-giving love of our Lord.
Yes, the mission of God (Missio Dei) is much larger and grander than the saving of my soul. The grand story of redemption is about Him and His relationship with the cosmos He created. God is out to redeem the effects of sin in everything. And I'm glad to have a teeny, tiny part to play in His great plan. I pray you are finding your part and giving your life to it.
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