“I Believe in the Mission of God”
John 20:21, Preached on October 12, 2008
John 20:19-22 19 When therefore it was evening, on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst, and said to them, "Peace be with you." 20 And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus therefore said to them again, "Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you." 22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.
INTRODUCTION
This passage is sometimes referred to as the Great Commission of John’s Gospel.
In this passage, Jesus tells us that we are a sent people.
We have been sent out to publically proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, calling upon all people everywhere to turn and believe the good news. We are a sent people, sent out with a message of salvation in Christ.
This is a hot topic in our society today.
A very, very hot topic.
Is it even legitimate to do this?
Is it legitimate to go out there and publically proclaim that you should believe in Jesus too?
Should we even take this message of Christ and Him crucified and risen again and tell people that they too must believe this proclamation?
Or is this imposing our values and beliefs on other people?
Is this being narrow and egotistical and judgmental?
Isn’t this the root cause of all those people who kill each other because they don’t believe what you believe?
I recently began thumbing through the book made very popular by Oprah recently. It’s called “A New Earth: Amakening to Your Life’s Purpose” by Eckhart Tolle. Tolle makes this very charge. (Michael Craven) He says on page 17,
“The more you make your thoughts (beliefs) into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself. Many “religious” people are stuck at that level. They equate truth with thought, and as they are completely identified with thought (their mind), they claim to be in sole possession of the truth in an unconscious attempt to protect their identity. They don’t realize the limitations of thought.
Unless you believe (think) exactly as they do, you are wrong in their eyes, and in the not-too-distant past, they would have felt justified in killing you for that. And some still do, even now.”
So this is a very hot topic. So let’s dive right into it.
In this passage, Jesus gives his disciples a mission, a message and a motivation.
A MISSION
Jesus gave his followers a mission.
Go! I am sending you out into the world. Go spread the gospel.
In other parallel passages, Jesus says, “Go and make disciples of all the nations.”
In other passages, Jesus says, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15).
In the gospel of Luke, Jesus took the 72 disciples and he sent them out two by two. And their mission was to persuade people of the truth, to cast our demons, and to heal the sick.
Our mission is really the same.
We are to persuade people of the truth.
We are to seek to liberate people from all kinds of bondage and enslavements.
And we are to seek the mending and healing of the whole world, starting right here in our own neighborhoods.
Think about what Christian is.
A Christian is someone who has been radically called in.
God has drawn us close to himself.
He has cleansed and washed us of our guilt and shame.
He has dressed us in the beautiful garments of his righteousness.
He has made us his beloved children.
There has been intimacy, beauty, healing, restoration, renewal, love and enormous blessing.
God has called us radically in. And he has blessed us.
But now, every time he calls us radically in, he then turns around and sends us radically out.
I sent you out.
I bless you in order to make your life a blessing for others.
I only call you radically in so that you can go radically out into the world.
No longer focus on your own needs, but on the needs of others. And these two things always belong together. He calls us in and he sends us out. They belong together and they cannot be separated.
Abraham, come in. I’m going to bless you. No, go be a blessing to the nations.
Moses, come to the burning bush, I want to know you. Now, go to Pharoah.
Isaiah, come before my holy presence. Now I will cleanse the sin of your lips with the burning coal. Now go and preach the good news.
The inner and the outer always go together. God calls you into great blessing, and then he sends you out to become a blessing in the lives of others.
I want you to radically live for others now in a whole new way.
Don’t live for yourself anymore.
The gospel has changed that.
I want you to live for others.
Be a healing agent.
Be an agent of transformation.
Meet the needs of others. See that their hearts are filled with abundant life.
It’s almost as if God says to us, “Look, before I knew you, you were mired in shame, guilt, despair, self-inflation, self-condemnation, loneliness. You were hiding and you were consumed with manufacturing your own righteousness and your own sense of self-worth. But now I’ve changed all that. I’ve loved you in my Son. My gospel has made you completely accepted. I’ve washed it all away. I’ve met your deepest longings for beauty and wholeness. And even though you may not yet completely feel that way, it doesn’t matter. I’ve done this for you. So you have no excuse to live for yourself anymore. You have no excuse to be absorbed in your own little problems and your own little issues.
Get out! Get out of yourself! And start living for others! I have sent you. The gospel has freed you to go. Now get out! Go!”
EPHESIANS
There is an amazing verse in Ephesians that I think gives us a new way of looking at our sentness.
Ephesians 2:8-10 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Notice the really powerful thing here. It says that God has prepared good works for you to do in advance. There are ways of serving others that God has specifically prepared for you, and for no one else. So go walk in those good works that God has prepared beforehand.
This means that there are some hands that only you can hold.
Some hearts that only you can heal.
Some souls that only you can speak the gospel to.
Some needs that only you can meet.
God takes whoever you are, with your particular background, experiences, gift mix, age, gender – all of that. And God has prepared good works before hand for you. So go walk in them.
This means that Jesus doesn’t just call all Christians to go out there and publically proclaim the gospel and serve others in some generic, non-specific way. It means that you have a specific calling in which you are sent to specific people.
This is completely different from the reigning worldview. The reigning worldview says that life is an biochemical accident. There is no real rhyme or reason. There was a German existentialist philosopher named Martin Heidegger who spoke of life in terms of “throwness” (GeWorfenheit – Scott/Gery Monroe). We are just thrown out there. And it’s up to us to scratch and claw and exert ourselves and protect ourselves in this harsh world if we are to create any significance for our lives.
But the Christian worldview is completely different.
I’m not randomly thrown out there into the universe. And it’s not up to me to go fight for my own street corner in order to make a name for myself. God has already given me a name. My name is written in the book of life. I’ve already been accepted and blessed in the gospel. I don’t have to fight for my existence or significance in life. I’ve already been given it through Christ. And I’m not just randomly thrown out there, I am specifically sent by Jesus into just the lives that I need to be involved in to do acts of service and witness that God has specifically prepared beforehand for me to do.
So just take a deep breath. Relax. Drink in the gospel. Stop striving and competing. Get out of yourself. Look around. And see how God has sovereignly placed you in a specific location for you to serve and witness to some people now. And with the gospel in your heart and with love on your lips, quietly go to them and serve them.
It’s not “thrownness”. It’s sentness.
Jesus gives you a mission, and he also gives you a message.
A MESSAGE
We are sent out, but what are we went out to do?
Every single Christian is given a message that they are to publically communicate and urge everyone to believe it.
This message is the good news of Jesus Christ.
It says right here in our passage (John 20:20), that when he appeared to them, he showed them his hands and his side. Actually, that’s the message right there.
The message is Christ and Him crucified. The message is the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The message is the gospel – the good news that Jesus is God’s forever King, and that through His death and resurrection, through repentance and faith in Him, you can enter the Kingdom of God and enjoy him forever.
Now, as I said at the beginning of the sermon, this is an amazingly hot topic today.
Lots of people say, “It’s alright that they believe in Jesus, but should not try and convert other people. That’s wrong. That’s narrow and intolerant. You can believe in Jesus, but don’t tell others that they should believe in Jesus.”
But there’s a problem with that problem.
We are sent to communicate the gospel.
What does the word gospel mean?
When this word was chosen by Jesus as the message that we’re supposed to take out, people understood what this word gospel meant.
The word gospel had a specific meaning:
a gospel was news of an objective, history changing event, that changed everyone’s situation, that everyone needed to respond to.
This is the beginning of the gospel of Caesar Augustus
It was the declaration that he had ascended the throne.
The word gospel had a specific meaning: a gospel was news of an objective, history changing event, that changed everyone’s situation, that everyone needed to respond to.
You could say, “well, he’s your emperor, but he’s not my emperor. No, everyone had to deal with it. Whether you wanted him to be your emperor or not, he was. And that’s why you wanted to know the news. It affected you, whether you wanted it to or not. Whether you accepted it or not, it was what really happened.”
The most famous example of this is the Battle of Marathon
AD 490. Persians were invading Greece. Athenian army went out on the plain of marathon to try to defend against the Persians. But back in Athens, everyone knew that the Persians were probably going to win. So the whole city was in an uproar trying to prepare for the Persian invasion. Panic. But to everyone’s surprise, the Greeks won.
But as soon as they won, they realized, they needed to communicate the gospel. They needed to tell everyone in Athens the message of good news. Unless they got word back, there would be panic in the street. It was absolutely critical. So they sent a single runner from Marathon to Athens. Guess how far that was? About 22.5 miles. This is where we get the modern distance marathon.
When Jesus said, go and proclaim the gospel to every creation. Do you know the enormity of what he was claiming? He was claiming to be the uncreated second person of the Triune God. I am God’s King. God’s messiah. I am God!
Now, if he’s just a prophet and he has some teaching about God, then that’s advice. Your might say that the gospel is “here’s some advice”
But if he is who he says he is, then his gospel – it is a history changing, momentous event that you have to respond to – or history is going to leave you in its wake.
And that’s the whole point behind of being sent out into the world. We have a gospel. We have good news that Jesus is God’s royal messiah.
When a person says, it’s okay to believe in Jesus, you just can’t convert anyone else to it
What you’re really saying is that you must not believe in Jesus – the gospel isn’t true. Now, they don’t want to say that, but that’s really what they are saying, isn’t it?
You’re really saying, “He can’t be God’s unique Son who has broken into history”
If he really is God’s royal Messiah, then you have a gospel to tell
And to not publically proclaim this gospel would be the most radically unloving, radically wicked thing you could do.
It would be like finding the cure for cancer, but saying, I’m not going to tell others. I’ll just keep it to myself and to my children.
That would be utter wickedness!
Jesus is infinitely beyond any prophet or any guru – he’s God! He’s God’s King.
When they say that it is wrong, narrow for you to proclaim the gospel to others, what they are saying is,
“My cosmology is right. Abandon yours. Adopt mine.”
Ok, you have the right to say that, but why is it any more or less tolerant for you to say that than for me to say that the gospel is true?
Which one is more narrow? Neither is more narrow. They are the same. It’s just that one is more disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst.
Everyone is proselytizing for their worldview. To say, “Stop it” is actually impossible. To say that there is no absolute truth that applies to everyone is self-contradictory – because to say that there is no truth is itself a truth that everyone must submit to. It’s dishonest.
So Jesus gives us a mission and he gives us a message.
We are a sent people. And we are sent with a message. And when the culture tells us that it is narrow and wrong to proclaim the gospel, we don’t need to be shaken or intimidated by that because what they are doing is no different from what we are doing. We are both proclaiming a message, a worldview. We are both proselytizing for our worldviews – and one is no worse or better than the other.
So the question is not “Should you proclaim the gospel” – the question is, “Is Jesus really who He said He was?” If He is God’s royal Messiah (and not just a good teacher), then you have to respond to that.
Jesus gives us a mission, a message and finally a motivation.
A Motivation
Let me be brief here. There are two motivations here in the text for being sent into the world.
The first is how Jesus began his address to the disciples: “Peace be with you.” When Jesus says, “Peace be with you”, he not just saying hello. It’s not just a greeting. It’s a benediction. It’s a blessing. That is a statement about the gospel. The peace of Christ is upon us. We’ve been blessed in the gospel. We have peace with God. The striving is over. We have peace.
The gospel calls us in – we have peace – then the gospel sends us out – because we have peace.
Do you remember how in Luke 9 Jesus sent out 72 the disciples two by two to proclaim the gospel, cast out demons and heal the sick? When they came back from the their mission, what did they say to Jesus? They marveled that even the demons obeyed them. And what did Jesus do? He rebuked them. He told them “Do not rejoice that the demons obeyed you, but rather rejoice that your names are written in the book of life.”
You see, there can be a bad motivation for publically proclaiming the gospel. It is possible to be motivated by pride. One is especially tempted to pride the moment that they experience some success if sharing the gospel. And Jesus says, “Don’t go there. Beware of pride. Don’t let your identity become based on ministry success, but keep your identity based on the grace of the gospel.”
Perhaps you’ve seen the movie Elmer Gantry. Or The Apostle. Or you’ve seen one of the dozens of television preachers who have fallen in a very public and humiliating way. Proclaiming the gospel becomes a harmful, dangerous thing when pride begins to become the motivation. The culture is right about one thing: proclaiming the gospel can turn into something destructive. But Jesus is wise enough to know that the problem is not the proclamation of the gospel, the problem is the motivation of the heart that proclaims the gospel. Beware of pride.
Let your motivation be nothing other than the gospel of grace. And if people begin to be influenced by your ministry and service, and if they begin to look to you, then be especially careful of pride. Rejoice only in the peace of Christ. Rejoice only in the fact that your name if written in the book of life.
The second motivation to mission is this: you have been sent second. God sent himself first.
See what our text says, “As the Father has sent me, so send I you.”
Mission is not primarily a human activity.
It is primarily something that God does.
What you and I do is secondary (derivative) and it is in partnership with God.
Mission is less of a human activity and more of a divine attribute.
The mission of the church is not derived from obedience to a command. It is derived from the very nature of God.
God is a missional God. The Bible is his missional book.
Mission is first and foremost not a movement of believer to unbeliever.
Mission is first and foremost a movement of God to this world.
To participate in mission is to participate in God’s mission to the world.
Mission begins within the Trinity. God is the fountain of sending love.
That’s why it is utterly significant that Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit upon the church in verse 22.
The Father send the Son. The Son and the Spirit send the church. You are sent in the peace of Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. God has prepared beforehand the good works in which you are to walk.
No get out of yourself and go. You are a sent people. Now go.
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