But, WHY?
So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?” -Acts 1:6, NLT
“The vital question was the one posed by the disciples: now that Jesus had been raised from the dead, was God going to complete his purpose by finally establishing his rule? The answer given was twofold. First, the time of this event remained God’s secret; what was more important was the immediate task of the disciples which was to act as witnesses to Jesus from Jerusalem to the end of the earth. The spread of God’s rule was to take place by means of the disciples, empowered by the Spirit. This was the final command of Jesus before he left the disciples. Secondly, the departure of Jesus was interpreted as a pattern for his ultimate return to the earth to inaugurate the final establishment of the rule of God. These verses thus spell out God’s purpose and the place of the church in it.” – I. Howard Marshall
Purpose imparts passion. Purpose fuels direction. If we know the “why”, it reinforces our desire to act. When we lose sight of our purpose, we become easily distracted and unfocused. This creates the illusion that the purpose itself is unimportant. We know that the purpose of the church is vital. It is the only hope for humanity. If the church does not carry out the mission of Jesus, humanity is lost in its rebellion. Tragically the lost are unaware of the salvation offered in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus without the witness of the church. But, if the Enemy of our souls or our flesh clouds the critical nature of this mission or causes us to be focused on 1,001 other missions, then our approach becomes watered down and our efforts unconcentrated. Its not that we will (probably) forget altogether to witness, its more that it will become an activity among many activities. The enemy of the critical task of witness, is in fact, the good tasks of running ministries, or keeping up a facility, or endless debating about a whole myriad of theological or practical matters. None of these is evil in itself. Most of them in fact must be done to enhance accomplishing the purpose we’ve been given. But, if they crowd out the mission there must be a serious and difficult reevaluation of what energy and resources we give to them. If the mission is not central to our lives or in our church, that reveals a priority problem in us. But, it will also create a myriad of other troubles. We will lack passion about the right things, which leads to disillusion. Nothing saps energy and leaves a person and a church directionless quite like poor focus on our purpose. Nothing causes infighting and disunity quite like forgetting the mission. Suddenly the main thing is not the main thing and so either everything is a main thing or on the other extreme almost nothing matters. When we forget the call of Jesus to be on mission for Him as a witness, our desire to live for Jesus soon follows. We either become legalists or lazy, and sometimes both but never do we become what Jesus intends. So, the mission of the church must be made central again. We must rouse ourselves to the critical nature of the mission and be focused on it. We must not lose our passion to witness to the life-giving, eternity altering Jesus, by whom we’ve been rescued and redeemed. This is how the Kingdom comes- in the witness of Jesus’ followers. This is how we bring back the King- in the witness of the church to a lost humanity. Let this be our purpose: to be a witness in the lives of those near and far, like and unlike, us until the King returns or calls us heavenward!