When you have been in ministry forty-four years, you have preached a lot of sermons, taught a lot of lessons and given a lot of talks. Lots! Someone asked me recently how long I had been teaching. I replied “I have been teaching for 160+ years: 40+ years at 4 teachings a weekend.” That is a lot of teaching.
When I read through the gospel of John, looking for and paying attention to the verses about Jesus being sent, the theology of sentness gets big and bold and obvious to me. Jesus was clearly sent by God the Father into this world “to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Sometimes the best way to hear from God is to simply let the scripture speak. Here is what Jesus says in the gospel of John about being sent.
The Jesus mission means we share the good news, live the good news, and do life with others who are sharing the good news and living the good news. And we do all this to help others find their way back to God.
My definition of church as a young adult were clearly shaped by my church experiences as a child. Regardless of whether we grew up as part of a church, or did not experience church until adulthood, those first church experiences effect and define our idea of church.
I believe Jesus came into this world because it was full of mess and sin and hurt. He did not run from the mess. He entered the mess. He loved into the mess. He embraced the mess. He even took the mess upon Himself.
Have you ever thought about your personal theology? The things that we believe in most should shape our lives the most. While theology is the study of God, the practice of our theology in our lives should affect us every day.
I am convinced that one of the biggest reasons that we do not embrace a theology of sending is because we are personally afraid of being sent.
It seems to me that in life, you have two choices when it comes to your mindset of provision. You can operate from a place of abundance – believing God will provide all that you need. Or you can operate from a place of scarcity – believing you have to hang on to all that you have just to survive.
You change the spiritual landscape of a city – by sending people out, planting churches that plant churches that plant churches.
Our God is looking for followers with an unwavering commitment to the mission of helping people find their way to God.
The heart of Jesus is that the world through Him might be saved. That heartbeat – and that heartbeat alone – will move us off the sideline and into the game.
This is the heartbeat of the God who sends. He sent us a perfect place. We blew it. He sent us the law, leaders, judges, kings, prophets, even enemies to try to get our attention. None of it worked. And then He came in person. The Father sent the Son. To gain more sons and daughters. To win us.
God does not promise to prosper and bless our plans.
God does promise to prosper and bless us when we join Him in His plans.
Jesus calls us to cross the great divide. He calls us to go back to the home and the neighborhood and the workplace where we are from and show and share the good news of Christ.
Too many times we only see the sharing of good news – the telling, the declaring, the verbalizing – as the gospel. The gospel is also doing the good deeds, and building the good will, so we can share the good news.
If my mission is the mission of Christ, then I am always about the mission of helping others find their way to God. That mission will impact every area – every dimension – of my life.
I want to be a friend of sinners more than a pastor of saints.
I want to be a regular guy who hangs out with regular guys to share good news.
I want to be a sinner who tells other sinners where to find love and grace.
The whole world is looking for real people with real faith that they can ask real questions about the real God and about real life.
