Good morning everyone. My name is Neil Schori, and I’m one of the pastors here at The Edge. We are so thankful that you are taking time to join us today as we continue in this series that we have called The Blueprint: Spiritual Disciplines For a God-Filled Life. We’ve covered a lot of disciplines so far that God has specifically directed us to do, and we’ve also talked about areas that are intimated in Scripture.
That is why context is always so important, and this is really essential for us all to grasp that the Bible is not just a rulebook — a set of rules that we have to follow to be good enough, to make God want to like us. Nope, that’s not his heart for us at all. He is for us, and he paid the price for us to be in relationship with him. So what we want to do is get at the heart of God and then apply that heart to our lives and then learn to love those around us with the same heart that Jesus has for us.
Today we’re going to talk about a discipline that is really at the center of the vision for our community here at The Edge for this entire year, and if we summed it up in one word, it would just be this: Mission. Now, when you think of mission, you might think of things like Mission Impossible, or you might think of the Blues Brothers. In your more spiritually-minded moments, you might think about going far away on a week-long trip to serve some of the poor of the world and to share your hope that you have — the eternal life that you’ve found in Jesus. But what if there’s more? What if there actually is a purpose for your life that goes beyond just some of the moments in your life but becomes part of your very essence? Doesn’t that sound appealing?
Finding purpose can be really hard. As a matter of fact, if you go on Google right now and you type in “what is my purpose?” you’re going to get around 1.7 billion results, and what that tells us is that there are a whole lot of people out there that are wondering why they’re here.
Now here’s the thing. We wonder the purpose of a lot of things, like what we’re supposed to do, where we’re supposed to go to school, who we’re supposed to marry, what job path we’re supposed to get on, where we’re supposed to live, what we’re supposed to do when we retire — ultimately, what will we leave behind in things and also in values? And while many of those details really have to be discovered along the way, significant lives and lifetimes and even generational change can happen when we choose to accept the invitation of God to us, and that is to join him on his mission.
Rewind with me just for a minute. The simplified version of the vision of our community in 2021 is active discipleship, gospel growth. Now the gospel, and then teaching people to follow God in obedience through discipleship, that’s what the mission of God looks like, and I’m convinced that when we center his mission in our lives, he is going to work out all of those peripheral issues that we so desperately seek to find the answers for.
I’m reminded of Jesus’s own direction to us about this very subject in Matthew 6:33. He says:
33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (NIV).
What a peaceful thing for Jesus to say to us. He’s saying, “You don’t have to run in every direction, chasing after all of those things that you think are going to make you happy. If you focus on me first, I’ll take care of all those other details.” So, in the context of living out the spiritual discipline of mission, what does that look like for us? What does it look like to seek God’s kingdom and to put his way of living first?
In order for us to do that, we’re going to have to take a look at what Jesus said his mission is so that we can make it more of our mission. After all, even the word Christian, it means “little Christs,” and it was meant as an insult to the followers of Jesus in the book of Acts, but it is actually the call that is on each of our lives for us to become just like Jesus and to walk in his steps.
In the gospel of Luke 4:16–21, Jesus shared his mission. His mission. That’s a big mission, and we need to focus on it. As he quoted the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, it says, starting in verse 16:
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (NIV).
The mission of Jesus, when you read through that passage, it’s a balance of proclamation and of action. So it’s important for us — the people of the church, God’s people, his gathered people on mission with him — it is important for us to recognize that both of those elements are essential for us in order to make any legitimate claim that we are living on his mission.
So let’s talk about the pieces that make up the mission of God, and the first one is this: The proclamation of orthodoxy. That sounds really short, but it’s essential for us to grab it, and really what it means is that we need to be able to speak an active, biblically-founded faith. We have to be able to say it. We have to be able to explain it. We have to be able to focus on what God actually has said in Scripture, and it just means that we need to be able to articulate what the gospel of Jesus Christ is.
Now, why is the “what” so important? I mean, after all, God is love, right? We’ve all heard that. God is love, and that’s true. Why can’t we just love people then? The answer to that really depends on what love means, and for so many of us, when we say love, we’ve come up with our own definitions, and it doesn’t often line up with what Scripture sure says love actually means.
If you’ve been around me for very long, you probably know that I don’t have a huge level of patience for anyone who attempts to wield the Bible as a weapon against another person or use the Bible to control other people. Some of the least tolerable people are the religious people who know the right things to say from the Bible, but they don’t do it with love, and this is what 1 Corinthians 13 is all about when Paul said this — the first three verses tell us a whole lot about love — Paul says:
13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing (NIV).
Love is essential and so is doctrine. As a matter of fact, the two of them can never be separated if we’re going to claim to have a biblical faith. And this is what Paul tells us is essential for us to verbally proclaim to the world. Like, if someone said, “Tell me what your faith is all about,” you really need to know this passage here. 1 Corinthians 15:1–4. These are the essentials of the faith. Paul says:
15 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (NIV).
I want you to think just for a moment, the ramifications for not representing what is true about God. Paul tells us very specifically: Salvation is at stake. You are saved if you hold to these teachings. So the “what” is essential for you to know and to proclaim. So no matter how much truth makes you uncomfortable, make sure that you know it so that you can share it accurately, always wrapping it in the love of God. Why do you have to be able to speak this truth? Paul answers again, Romans 10:14, he says:
14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? (NIV).
I mean, these are all questions that really come back to us. Why do we need to be able to articulate our faith? Because there will be lots of people who will not take a step of faith because they haven’t heard. So what that means is this: For whatever glorious and messy reason, God wants us to be part of his work in sharing his good news with the world.
Here’s the second part of our mission: We are called to be active disciples of Jesus. Another way to say this is to have the right practice of our faith or what’s called orthopraxy. Now orthodoxy is placing belief in the right thing. So we have to have a belief that is centered on Scripture — so that is orthodoxy — and orthopraxy is the practice of those right beliefs. The cost of just believing things, believing the right things and not doing those, it’s evident if you just look around a little bit. It shows when we know all the right things to eat for our bodies to function optimally, but then we don’t do it. And it shows anytime we say that something is true, but for whatever reason, we choose a different direction.
I’m convinced that there are few things that exact a higher cost to our souls or to the souls of others than when we profess the truth of God and then we refuse to walk out that truth by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The author Brennan Manning once said, “The greatest single cause of atheism today in the world is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
James, the brother of Jesus, he said so much about this issue. He spoke to what faith is actually supposed to look like. In James 2:18–19, it really serves for us as a check engine light for our faith journey. Let’s see if you’re connected to what faith, biblical faith, actually looks like. James writes:
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that — and shudder (NIV).
So what this tells us is that we must never separate right belief from right practice when we are on mission. If we have just right belief, we can still act like the demons that James mentioned, and if we only have right practice, they’re going to be many people who never know that there is a path for them to actually choose — that they actually have to make a decision, personally. It doesn’t just automatically happen. You don’t just automatically end up on the Christian journey — it is a decision, and it’s in your court.
Here’s the final part of the mission God has called us to: Good works. Okay, I want to be extremely clear about the messaging here. I’m not suggesting in any way, shape or form that there’s something that you can do that will bring you salvation. What I am saying is what James already said, that faith without works is dead. There is no such thing as a Christian who isn’t involved in the outflow of works that are made to show the goodness of God and of the kingdom that is to come one day. Paul tells us the importance of engaging our faith to action in Ephesians 2:10, he says:
10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works ...
And it says:
… which God prepared in advance for us to do (NIV).
Good works were always his idea, and he wants to engage us in that mission.
What are you doing that aligns you with what Jesus said he came to do. Maybe the answer is you already know exactly what he’s called you to do, and you are on mission. That is awesome. So these next questions aren’t for you. What are you doing, or maybe what is that thing that you’re starting to feel a burn in your heart that you just know you could engage in, that might help set captives free? What are you doing, or what are you thinking about doing that eliminates oppression? Jesus is in those places, and he is inviting you to join him.
The danger for some of us is that our beliefs about Jesus will just stay in our head and never make that journey to our hearts. If you want to live on mission, you have to get on the field. In Matthew 25:31–36, we get this vision of what it’s going to look like at the end of time. It’s explaining Jesus, how he’s going to talk to us. Matthew chapter 25, starting with verse 31, it says:
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ’Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me’” (NIV).
You’ll find Jesus in prison. You’ll find Jesus in recovery. You’ll find Jesus in the women’s shelter down the road. You’ll find Jesus hungry, and you’ll find him left for dead on the side of a highway. Jesus has designed your life so that you bring him the most glory by living in a way that demonstrates the value of every single person you meet, and when you do that in his name, he says it’s as if you did it for him personally. This is what practicing the discipline of mission looks like.
The Father who has invited us to join him on this mission has first invited you and me to recognize him as the one who has offered to take away all of your sins and all of mine. And if you’ve never opened that gift before, don’t leave it on the shelf. I want to tell you how you can open it today. Acts 2:38–39, it says:
38 Peter replied to the crowd, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off — for all whom the Lord our God will call” (NIV paraphrase).
If you haven’t been baptized yet, but you would like to be, I want to encourage you to email hillary@edgeaurora.com, and you can be baptized in a hot tub at the end of this month. At the end of each of our messages, we like to leave you with questions to process.
What is your main takeaway from this message?
Which of the three points makes you the most uncomfortable? Explore that with your house church or with a friend during this week.
What will you do this week — really, this week, the week that’s coming up — to live with more of a sense of mission.
God bless you as you connect with the Lord and his people and as you seek to live on mission. We’ll see you next week.