Biblical Arc of Mission in the New Testament

Recap:

We have said the purpose of ANCC is: Making Jesus Known to Everyone, Everywhere.

We have said one of our four priorities is:

Mission: Reaching out with the Good News, both home and away 

Last time I spoke we looked at the Biblical Arc of Mission through the OT. Now, afterwards, because I had described it as a ‘broccoli message’, a message that does you good but may not bring an instant gratification. Some of you took exception to this because I was giving broccoli a bad name! Some of you said it was meaty, or heavy.

As you can see from my physique I know a lot about body building. One of the things that you do when building muscle is to lift something a little heavier than your body is used to. Then you’ll go back to what you’re used to, but every now and then, lift something a little heavier. You have to trust the process.

With these messages, where I am giving you an overview of a biblical theme, you have to trust the process.

Remember we are looking at a kaleidoscope, stepping back to see a bigger picture, not pointing to one segment of the pattern.

So, we discovered that God’s mission is central to the theme and message of the Bible.

The Bible tells of God’s long historical journey to liberate his world from the destructive power of sin.

Today we are going to look at the overall missional theme of the NT.

The Opening of the NT

The reference to Abraham at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel (Matthew 1:1-2) reminds us of the promise through Abraham’s offspring:

The gospel of Matthew has its primary theme the proclamation of the Kingdom of God. There are fifty references to the Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew’s gospel and the Good News is overtly labelled ‘this gospel of the Kingdom’ in Matthew 24:14.

Foundational to the missionary vision of the New Testament was the promise God made to Abram in

Genesis 12:1-3: The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and  your father’s household to the land I will show you.“I will make you into a great nation, and  I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those  who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be  blessed through you.” 

John the Baptist

Matthew 3: 1-12: In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”

4 John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5 People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. 6 Confessing their sins, they were baptised by him in the Jordan River.

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptising, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “I baptise you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

John is pictured very much as an OT prophet. In fact, he is the last OT prophet, the Elijah spoken of who would come before Jesus (Mark 9:11-13).

Key points in John’s message (Matthew 3:1-12)

• 2: Repentance
• 3: Prepare
• 7: Challenging injustice
• 11: One more powerful
• 11b: Holy Spirit
• 12: Judgment, through Jesus.

John the Baptist believed that the axe and the winnowing fork were already in the hands of the Messiah to bring salvation and judgement (Luke 3:9,17). 

Yet John, like others, finds himself confused when God’s judgement does not fall, and sends his disciples to ask whether or not Jesus is in fact the Messiah promised in the OT - Luke 7:18-23

Jesus

Jesus’ own disciples struggle with the concept of the kingdom and so Jesus tells them parables that they might understand that although the Kingdom has dawned, it has not arrived in its fullness.

The “already but not yet” era of the Kingdom a a time of gathering - the eschatological era of the ingathering of Israel and the nations begins with the kingdom message of Jesus.

The reason for this overlapping of the ages is mission:

Jesus is first sent to Israel for their mission…. The gathering of the end time people of God begins with Israel Matthew makes it clear that Jesus’ mission is limited to Israel: Matthew 10:6

This narrowing of Jesus’ missions to Jews only has puzzled scholars. How does this fit in with the very clear world-wide horizons of the OT, a view that Jesus shares: 

Matthews 8:11: 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 24:14:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

When Jesus speaks of many coming to share in the banqueting table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it is clear He has the OT in mind: 

Isaiah 2:2-4:2 In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. 3 Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4 He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.

The prophets foresee two successive events: first the call to Israel and subsequently the redemption and incorporation of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God.

Jesus’ Manifesto

Luke 4:17-19:.. and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written “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 favour.”

This is known as ‘The Nazareth Manifesto’. This Isaiah passage becomes the agenda for Jesus’ public ministry, which seems different to John’s expectation of Jesus. Why?

Jesus stops before the end to the passage, at the year of the Lord’s favour, and does not continue to the day of the Lord’s vengeance (Isaiah 61:1-2 cf). 

Then and now we are in the period of the Lord’s favour, the opportunity for repentance, for relationship with God, when ultimate judgement is postponed until the appointed time.

Jesus is sent from God

There is something amazing as Jesus is moving throughout the land, preaching, teaching and healing, heading towards Calvary.

Jesus does not see Himself as independent of the Father. In fact, He sees Himself as copying what God is doing.

John 5:19: Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.”

Jesus is on God’s mission. God’s mission is to reconcile men and women to Himself. Everything Jesus said or did was on the backdrop of this mission.

Jesus goes even further. He says: John 10:30 “I and the Father are one.” He is God, sent from God to do God’s will (mind blown?). It is the basis for our understanding of the Trinity.

Jesus is Seeking

Jesus carries the echo of the Garden of Eden. Remember God called out to Adam: “where are you?” Genesis 3:8-9. 

Jesus came to find us - just as God looked for Adam and Eve in the garden Jesus comes to the garden of the earth to find us: Luke 19:10: For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

The Parables of Jesus

The gospels are replete with parables of Jesus. We are looking at these in our Growth Groups this year. They centre on what the Kingdom is like, what God is like, what the end times will be like. Jesus knew the way people learn is through story, through illustration, through identifying what is in culture and using it to point to God.

The Miracles of Jesus

There are only 37 recorded miracles of Jesus in the Bible. “Only”! But they point to God, they show comparison, they speak of power. Jesus did and said things only God could do. He heals, raises from the dead, all pointing to the future of His resurrection and power given to the Church.

The birth, death, resurrection of Jesus

“The resurrection proves the Virgin Birth and the death of Jesus. The three are intertwined within the Scriptures. If Jesus did not rise from the dead then the Virgin Birth is a myth. If Jesus is not virgin born there is no possibility of His resurrection, for why would God validate an imposter? If Jesus did not die, He would not have been fully human, therefore the resurrection would not have occurred. The resurrection is one leg of a very important three legged stool that faith is rested upon.” Keith Jackson, Exquisite Jesus

The fact of the resurrection of Jesus gives you five things that those who deny its authenticity cannot enjoy.

• Gives Hope: The resurrection gives hope for the future.
• Builds Trust: The resurrection shows that you can trust Jesus implicitly. The resurrection proves all He said to be true. 
• Creates a new Mindset: Because He is risen, you treat death differently than you did before you were a Christian.
• Proves Jesus’ Is Returning: If everything He says is trustworthy then be assured, He’s coming back for you too. (John 14: 1-4) 
• Changes the Present: Not only is there the sense of optimism, hope and surety of our future in God, there is another promise that is only possible because of His resurrection. He sends the Holy Spirit! Acts 1:8

The Commission

Christ’s commands to His disciples says that they are to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth and the end of time (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8).

“The last command of Christ is not the deep and final ground of the church’s missionary duty. That duty is authoritatively  stated in the words of the great commission, and it is of infinite consequence to have had it so stated by the Lord Himself. But if these particular word had never been spoken by Him, or if, having been spoken, had not been preserved, the missionary duty of the church would not be in the least affected. The supreme arguments for missions are not found in the use of any specific words. It is the very being and character of God that the deepest ground of the missionary enterprise is to be found.”- Robert Speer.

In other words, if the last chapter of Matthew had been lost the church would still be out there proclaiming the Good News, because God is seeking, just like He was seeking Adam in Genesis 3.

The Church

The missional story of the Church can be seen in the Book of Acts. It is the early history of the Christian church. 

Do we replace Israel? No but we are grafted into Israel in a special way and the Church is the promise of what the prophets spoke to:

Romans 11:17 (ff): If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root

(Diagram of ingrafted gentiles). We do not replace, we are parallel.

Our mission is to Israel and the gentiles; to soften Israel we need to preach to gentiles! Huh?

Romans 11:25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in…

Paul, boldly goes where no one had gone before: Romans 15:20: It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation.

The Old Testament is the explicit foundation of Paul’s work as a missionary.

Book the Book of Acts seems to be left hanging at the end. It has no tidy conclusion. Why? Because the story does not end there - it continues. It goes on through the early church, the Church of the middle ages with many failures, and successes, and travels through to the Church of today.

The book of Acts ends with a cliffhanger - we don’t know what happens to Paul (church history tells us he was beheaded). We are not adding to Scripture but it is as though Luke, who wrote the Book of Acts, takes the baton and reaches over the generations and says, “Your turn now! Run!”

“God is triune. The Father sen the Son on a mission to redeem the lost. The Son, in turn sent His disciples to extend and complete the mission commenced. The Holy Spirit enables and assists in the work of mission by bringing conviction of sin. Engaging in missions is being involved in the God's fulfilment of God's will.”

Though evangelism is central to mission, mission is more than evangelism. Mission is a broader terms which embraces the idea of Christian responsibility.

This is an essential and vital work and must be continued but it must not be either evangelism or mission rather it must be missions with evangelism at its core. There are a number of dimensions of mission (missiology):

1: Mission must carry the truth of the Gospel that Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15).

This involves showing what it means to be a redeemed, transformed and transformative community.

“It is not about doing missions but being mission.” J.A. Kirk.

2: The servant nature of the church. Mission must be motivated by genuine compassion.

3: The justice promoting role of the church. The church has been rightly vocal on many social issues such as the promoting and defending of family values.

4: The church is a prophetic community. Those who work in the cause of the kingdom will encounter opposition of those who want to protect their own interests.

The Holy Spirit and the Church

This sets up Jesus’ mission described in John 3:16-17. He sent the Spirit to continue this mission through His church, from a chosen nation to a chosen people. 

Acts 2 recounts the first outpouring of the Spirit. As pentecostals we believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is available to all believers. That power is primarily missional power (Acts 1:8). But the Spirit is also:

• The Holy Spirit is a Helper Who Teaches and Reminds - John 14:26
• He Convicts the World of Sin - John 16:7-8.
• The Holy Spirit Dwells in Believers and Fills Us - 1 Corinthians 3:16
• He is a Source of Revelation, Wisdom, and Power - 1 Corinthians 2:10-11; Ephesians 1:17-20.
• He Guides to All Truth and Knowledge of What Is to Come
• The Holy Spirit tells what is yet to come - John 16:13-15
• The Holy Spirit Gives Spiritual Gifts to Believers - 1 Corinthians 12:7-11.
• He is a Seal in the Lives of Believers - Ephesians 1:13.
• He Helps in Our Weakness and Intercedes for Us - Romans 8:26-27
• He Makes Believers New and Grants Us Eternal Life - Romans 8:10-11.
• The Holy Spirit Sanctifies and Enables Good Fruit in Our Lives - Galatians 5:22-25.

Wrapping this Up:

So how do we get serious about mission? How do we do it. The simplest way is through friendships. We need to commit to pray for our friends.

OnePlus1 cards: will you commit to pray, speak to, meet up and bring them to church (man gathering and Growth Groups).

Blog Bonus:

Whereas a traditional interpretation of missio Dei revolves around sending - the Father sends the son, and together they send both the Spirit and the Church - Wright speaks of God’s mission in terms of God’s long-term purpose to restore people from all nations and the whole creation. 

Thus the Bible tells of God’s long historical journey to liberate his world from the destructive power of sin. 

Eschatology apart from missionary obedience is false! 

“By missions I mean the total calling of the church as it reflects the eternal purpose of God. This involves an upwards activity - worship, thanksgiving, intercessions with God. It involves an inward aspect - the organisation of individual believers into local churches, their edification or discipling, their care and comfort, their mutual fellowship and training. Finally it involves an outwards activity - witnessing or evangelism, concern and care for the needs of the community, and particularly missionary outreach, a commitment of the resources necessary to plant churches among the unreached in the community and among all the peoples of the earth.” - Eric Wright.

The “I am” Statements

The “I am” statements found in the Gospel of John are:

• the bread of life (6:35), 
• the light of the world (8:12), 
• the door (10:7), 
• the good shepherd (10:11, 14), 
• the resurrection and the life (11:25), 
• the way the truth and the life (14:6) 
• and the true vine (15:1).

In these statements Jesus is explicitly identifying himself as God, and bearing God’s presence on Earth.

The phrase “I am” reflects Exodus 3:14, where God introduces himself to Moses with the expression “I am who I am.” This statement became a way to connect with God personally and was used throughout Israel’s history to convey that God always was, always is and always will be.