God’s Mission Has A Church (Part Three)

What is the Church's Role in God's Mission?

The mission is identity, not just action; we are ambassadors of Jesus' mission. An ambassador, in geopolitics, is sent with the authority of their sender to declare the words of the one who sent them. Suppose we are ambassadors of reconciliation between the Creator and the creation, exactly as Christ was first God's ambassador to us. In that case, we must be joyfully diligent in sharing His will and word in His world.

 Jesus sends His people on a peace mission to our host culture as representatives of God. He sends them as an ambassador of reconciliation between a rebellious world and God, who created it. He sends His people to offer peace where there is no peace and to show the love and hope found in Jesus. They are sent on God's mission to God's world to see God's people reconciled to Him.

Jesus' mission is fundamental to the foundation and life of His Church.

If you follow Jesus, you have been saved, sanctified, and filled with God's Spirit to live, love, and proclaim the love that binds you to God and His people. It is God's glorious cosmic mission. God has entrusted the formerly dead with the message of life, not only for the individual but all of creation! It is not an option or a request you participate in but a mandate. 

God is making His appeal through you and me! God is pleading through us, petitioning through us, calling through us, and making an urgent request. Being no trivial matter, this effort reveals God's character, nature, and love. His love is the compulsion of our hearts to share that message in our cities and with our neighbours and wherever we live, work and recreate. His love is our compulsion to tell the gospel's good news to those who do not know, have not heard, or have grown cold to Jesus. 

God is a missionary God. The Father sent the Son, the Son sent the Spirit, and the Spirit sent the Church on reconciliation's peace mission. The call of the Church is clear. God formed His Church as the missionary community sent out into the world as God's ambassadors, moving towards His reign and His new kingdom and His new world.

Knowing this, then. What will change about how you engage your family, friends, neighbours, coworkers and the world around you tomorrow? Hopefully, nothing can ever be the same! 

Come back next week for part four of this Theology of the Church series.