Life On Mission: The Mission of God and the Kingdom of God

Transcription

1 Life On Mission: The Mission of God and the Kingdom of God From Ronnie Floyd: In dealing with today s culture, be but. Be involved in the. The real motivation is that Christ came to the world. Everyone has. God has created us to extend His to the nations, to make a difference and know that God can use us.

2 THE MISSION OF GOD: Who? Every disciple a! Matthew 4:19 (ESV) 19 Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. John 20:21 (ESV) 21 As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. Ephesians 4:11-12 (ESV) 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry What? making! Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV) 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age Why? God s! Ephesians 3:21 (ESV) 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Where?! Acts 1:8 (ESV) 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. THE KINGDOM OF GOD: (adapted from Saturate, ch. 13, by Jeff Vanderstelt) The ORIGINAL plan: God created the heavens and the earth. God gave Adam and Eve the right of ruling and reigning. Made in His image, they represented Him in all they did. They were to be fruitful and multiply and their children would also be His image bearers. God s intent was to fill the earth with His image on display so that all of creation would show what He is like.

3 Who is God? What has He done? Who are we? What do we do? What happened? Satan tricked Adam and Eve into submitting to him as ruler instead. In that moment of sin, they handed their authority over to the evil one and in exchange, became his. The father of sin and lies became the god of this world. And all humanity, from that point on, was born into reality to sin and to Satan. And his rule is. Everything is under his authority: relationships families communities creation itself So Jesus comes as the we all need: Luke 4:18-19 (ESV) 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord s favor. (See: Isaiah 61) Jesus came to bring about a new where everything would be restored to its previous place under God s good rule. Mark 1:14-15 (ESV) 14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel. This is the essence of the! Jesus did not come as other kings do. He did not come to be served because he needed nothing. He came to serve because we needed everything he had!

4 Philippians 2:5b-11 (ESV) 5 Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Under His rule, the kingdom belongs to the in spirit. The inherit the earth. The least become the. And He invites men to come to Him! If you come, you do so because you recognize that you needed Him to you from your slavery to sin and Satan, to you from your spiritual sickness, to fill your spiritual with His riches, and to cover your sin and with His righteousness. If you come to him, you are delivered from the kingdom of and transferred to the kingdom of. Colossians 1:13-14 (ESV) 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. You are now no longer a slave to sin, but a servant of righteousness. Jesus is your King and you are His servant. More than servants, we are God s, baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Our love for one another demonstrates this new reality. So does our service to others: (See Matthew 25:31-46) We are now His people; He is the Head, we are the. We are now his earthly, bodily representatives/ambassadors. His mission is now our mission. What he has done me, he now wants to do me. Who is God? What has He done? Who are we? What do we do?

5 Through our lives, Jesus is showing the what kind of King He is and the nature of the kingdom He rules. As His servants, we point forward to a far better world where Jesus rule will be experienced everywhere. Everyone in our lives should get a taste of the Kingdom through us. Look around you. Consider where God has placed you and others with you. Does it look like Jesus s kingdom? Are the hungry fed, the naked clothed, the broken brought to health, the disconnected included in families, and the captives set free to fully live? If we are servants of Jesus, we are in the place where he has put us in order to serve others as he served us. He wants people to experience what life can be like in his kingdom through his body, the church. As his body, we give tangible expression to what Jesus is like. He wants people to taste and see, through our actions of love, that he is very good and his kingdom is amazing, so that, after experiencing it, they will want to be with him forever in his kingdom. - Jeff Vanderstelt, Saturate: Being Disciples of Jesus in the Everyday Stuff of Life