God has a blue print for all
mankind with a purpose, a goal, and an execution plan right from the beginning.
God is busy executing His plan and reaching out to His people since man's fall.
His love impulses Him to take initiatives. God paid a dear price in order to
save mankind from eternal condemnation and brought His people back to the
ultimate harmonious relationship with Him through Jesus' redemptive work on the
cross. God is on a mission with His people to achieve His divine goal. Wright
states that "Mission arises from the heart of God himself, and is
communicated from his heart to ours. Mission is the global outreach of the
global people of a global God."[1]
Based on this understanding, God's mission involves a group of people (God's
people) sent by an initiator (God himself), a message (the Gospel), and a
targeted audience (the whole world). The following sections will examine these
elements in detail.
Who are God's People?
When we examine the legacy of
God's mission, we find Noah to be the first missionary who accepted God's
command by faith and responded to God's calling to save his family of eight and
one pair of animals from all species. Abraham is another example of answering
God's calling by faith; he stepped out
of his comfort zone into an unknown mission field in Canaan. Three generations
later, God preserved His chosen people in Egypt for 400 years until Moses was
called to lead the Exodus from Egypt. Now there are more than two million
Israelis who identify themselves as God's people and are following God's plan
to return to the promised land. In the New Testament, we see Jews and Gentiles
alike answering and following God's calling, participating in His plan, and spreading
His message to all the known world. God's people, both in the OT and the NT,
are those who answer God's calling and take actions to follow His plan. They
share the same identity as God's people, born or adopted, who are sharing and
living out God's commandments in the midst of a wicked world. As Wright puts
it, "God's people are a people with a mission."[2]
God's People Know the Story We Are Part of
Knowing their identity is just
the first step. God's people also know God's story right from the beginning,
which started when God made a covenant with Abraham.[3]
Disciples in the first century knew about God's story and witnessed the arrival
of this promised “Seed”. They were right in the middle of this great event,
they were excited and wanted everyone to know about the great news (the
Gospel), which fueled the crazy "Jesus Movement" until now.
God's People Care for Creation
Should the mission of God's
people include all God's creation? Wright argues that the scope of God's
mission includes the environmental works because Jesus' redemption includes all
God's creation, not just for humans. With this perspective, I agree that environmental
missions are legitimate, but that they shouldn't be an end goal (e.g. saving
whales). These missions should be a
means to reflect our redemptive living (caring for nature), so that through our
stewardship others may be attracted to Jesus[4].
God's People be a Blessing to the Nations
Paul makes it clear that once we
are baptized into Christ, "we are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according
to promise."[5]
God's people are a community chosen and called to be the vehicle of God's
blessing[6] to
the nations, and thus we are a missional church by the very nature. Throughout
history, God's people have always been on the move from Abraham, Exodus, Exile,
until the Great Commission. we are commissioned to spread the blessing of
Abraham to the world.
God's People Walk in God's Way
Once we are called into God's
people, we are expected to obediently follow God's commands faithfully. Wright
puts it this way, "the moment we fail to walk in the way of the Lord, or
fail to live lives of integrity, honesty, and justice, we not only spoil our
personal relationship with God, we are actually hindering God in keeping his
promise to Abraham. We are no longer the people of blessing to the
nations."[7]
If we are no longer the people carrying out God's blessing, then we lose our identity
as God's people, and as a result, we lose our purpose of life. If we find
ourselves feeling empty and powerless, this may be why.
God's People are Redeemed for Redemptive Living
To walk in God's way requires a
redemptive living which requires God's redemption. God uses Exodus to
demonstrate His redemption work on Israelites[8].
Not only did God rescue them from Egypt, God gave them a new nation, a new
land, a new life, and a new identity with God. Wright puts it squarely,
"The exodus was not a movement from slavery to freedom, but from slavery
to covenant. Redemption was for relationship with the redeemer, to serve His
interest and His purpose in the world."[9] In
the New Testament, Paul also emphasizes redemptive living as he said, "For
He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of
His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."[10]
God's people assume a new identity (citizen of God's kingdom) and pursue a new
redemptive life in which we are the light and the salt to the world. We are to
live a life of priesthood, holiness, and obedience in the pagan world so that
"they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits
us."[11]
Therefore, we are a redeemed people through whom God will bring His blessing
and solutions to all nations.
What Are God's People Doing?
God's People Know the One Living God and Savior
Knowing God is knowing not only
who God is (The one sovereign God) and what He has done for us (His redemption
plan through Jesus), but also knowing what He is doing (bringing blessing to
nations through His people). With this knowledge of God, we are naturally drawn
to God's mission. Wright states nicely that, "the knowledge that there is
no other God and no other name leaves no other choice but to make him
known."[12] This knowledge of God gives God’s people
the undivided loyalty to God and to His mission.
God's People Bear Witness to the Living God
In the OT, God called Israelites
out from permanent slavery and tasked them to live a holy life in the midst of
the corrupted world so that they could bear His witness and bring blessings to
the world. Similarly, in the NT, we are called into His fellowship and become
His witnesses (Acts 1:8). Peter summaries this fellowship for us - "all of
you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit;
not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing
instead; for you were called for the very
purpose that you might inherit a blessing."[13] As
God's witnesses, we possess the knowledge of God. We must demonstrate our trust
in God and live in a holy life, even that means persecution, because we are
called for this purpose (to give the blessing).
God's People Proclaim the Gospel of Christ
As God's people, once we are
saved and are brought into God's community that bears a holy testimony, we
bring the world the good news which is what God promised to Abraham and
completed in Jesus (and thus the Gospel begins in Genesis, not in Matthew[14]).
Peter encourages us to be ready to "make a defense to everyone who asks
you to give an account for the hope that is in you."[15]
Making a defense of what we believe and what we have experienced can be a form
of apologetics or a personal testimony, either way we are proclaiming the
gospel - the gospel which has the saving power for those who hear it and call
upon Jesus and believe in Him[16].
God's People Send and Are Sent
In Romans 10:13-15, Paul makes
the connection of this saving gospel to sending messengers who proclaim the
gospel so that it can be heard and the lost people can be saved. God has been
sending His messengers (e.g. Moses) throughout the OT to deliver and to speak
(prophets) along with God's Word and God's Spirit. In the NT, apostles and
disciples were sent by Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, and by the supporting
churches to preach the gospel throughout the world. God is a sending God, so
His people is a sending people.
So where are we sending our
messengers? To the world! the world which is full of "desires of the flesh
and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions."[17] As
God's people living as a holy community in this world, we are fully engaging
the world but not indulging in the world. We are called to be different, to be
holy, to be the light and the salt of the world. God's people are both
"missional" (they are used for a purpose) and
"confrontational" (they challenge the decay and the darkness, and
transform both).[18]
Wright warns that we need to resist turning our works into idols and to expect
persecution from the world as Jesus warned in Matthew 10:22, " You will be hated by all because of My
name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved."
God's salvation has an
"into" aspect of it, which Wright puts nicely, "God seeks the
ultimate well-being and blessing of human beings by bringing them into a
relationship with himself in which they love, worship, and glorify him, and
find their greatest joy in doing so."[19] Through
loving, worshiping, and glorifying God from the bottom of their hearts, God’s
people benefit from the ultimate manifestation of a harmonious relationship in
God which describes the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham that all
nations will be blessed through him."[20]
Summary
The ultimate harmonious
relationship with eternal God is the greatest news for anyone. By entering into
redemptive living, God’s people find total peace and freedom from the bondage
of sins. Jesus asks His disciples to "deny ourselves (deny our worldly
identity and desires), take up our crosses (endure persecution or even death),
and follow Him (do as He says - mission)". The mission of God's people is
to bring people into God's eternal blessing, not for our worldly gains. For Christians
whose minds are still on earthly gains or for those who just want to ensure a
"ticket to heaven" but reject the idea of living out a holy life,
God's good news can easily become a "soft gospel" or a
"watered-down" gospel. Wright warned about this kind of
"prosperity" gospel and he even used the term "prostituted
gospel"[21]
to describe any gospel that sells anything but the whole gospel. Lausanne
Covenant puts it this way - "World evangelism requires the whole church to
take the whole Gospel to the whole world"[22]
which nicely gives us a summary of the scope and the mission of God's people.
[1]
Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of
God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Zondervan, 2010), 24.
[2]
Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of
God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Zondervan, 2010), 29.
[3]
Gen. 12:1-3 states that through Israelis (God's people), God's blessing will
come to the whole world through the Seed (Christ).
[4]
1 Peter 2:12.
[5]
Galatians 3:27-29.
[6]
Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of
God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Zondervan, 2010), 73. God's blessing can be understood as the God's
redemptive plan through Jesus Christ to save people from the slavery of sins to
the freedom in God's kingdom as well as God's restoration plan to redeem all
the creation back to the original harmonious state.
[7]
Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of
God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Zondervan, 2010), 95.
[8]
saving them from permanent slavery (political oppression), economic
exploitation (free labors), genocide (social/human right injustice), and
hindrance of worshipping God (spiritual bondage) , summarized from chapter 6 of
Wright's book.
[9]
Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of
God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Zondervan, 2010), 101.
[10]
Colossians 1:13-14.
[11]
1 Peter 2:12
[12]
Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of
God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Zondervan, 2010), 161.
[13]
1 Peter 3:8-9 (Italic added).
[14]
Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of
God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Zondervan, 2010), 179.
[15]
1 Peter 3:15.
[16]
Romans 10:13-15.
[17]
1 John 2:15-17.
[18]
Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of
God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Zondervan, 2010), 236.
[19]
Ibid., 244-45.
[20]
Genesis 12:1-3.
[21]
Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of
God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Zondervan, 2010), 280.
[22]
Ibid., 26.
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