On Mission

This Sunday we will be concluding our Origins message series. We have gone back to the book of Genesis to understand "life as God designed."

From the very beginning God told Adam to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. He repeated the instruction to Noah. God wanted His glory to be spread among the nations, filling the entire earth. I love Isaiah 45:18. For this is what the Lord says - he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited - he says: "I am the Lord, and there is no other."

God fashioned His created universe and then He fashioned man to inhabit it - all of it. God designed his creation for a specific purpose, to display His glory. And we are on mission with Him - to display His glory to the nations.

Our natural tendency is to stay in our comfort zone; to play it safe. Without even trying, we become what Robert Quinn defines as self-focused, externally directed, internally closed, and comfort centered. This is the story of the Tower of Babel - make a name for ourselves so we won't be scattered over the face of the whole earth. They were more concerned for their own comfort that fulfilling the mission God had given to them. They didn't want to live life the way God designed.

Living with God on mission is a life of adventure and risk. It cost our Heavenly Father His only Son. When we follow God on mission we will go places we have never gone, we will do what we have never done, and we will become what we have never been. His mission hurtles us into the future, bringing us to the place where He has been all along - waiting for us to join Him.

And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. Isaiah 42:16

It's God's desire to fill the earth with His glory. He longs to create self-sustaining, life-giving, mission-focused, reproductive communities that bear His image. This is what Adam was called to do, this is what Noah was called to do and this is what His church is called to do - go therefore and make disciples of all nations.

We are called to fuel a mission, not build a monument. We are called to press into the darkness as pioneers, rather than huddle around the light as settlers. We are sojourners, pilgrims, time travelers, and strangers just passing through. This world is not our home. We have a better one awaiting us once we finish our mission. We are following in the steps of Jesus, on mission with Him.