Well, here it is.  The final installment of our discussion of missions.  In case you are just joining us, what I'm trying to do is answer the question, "Why should we Jesus-followers continue to engage in missions by fervent prayer, sacrificial giving, and personal going?"  I’ve given two answers to that question already, so now it’s on to the third:

Mission is, fundamentally, an attribute of God and, thus, true “Godliness” necessitates a missional life.

     Now, I have to admit, this is one of my favorite reasons to talk about because it is one of the hardest for me to understand.  Does that sound weird?  Well, it's just that I really like it when a theological concept just sort of puts me in my place.  Thoughts about the bigness of God just really excite and awe me.  So here's the deal--our participation in mission is related to the imitation of God.  Let me explain.

     In Ephesians 5:1, Paul calls on believers to be “imitators of God.” As you read the Bible, you will at times come across this idea.  A writer in speaking about how we, as Christians, should live will found commands upon the very nature and attributes of God.  For example, John tells us to love one another because God is love (1 Jn. 4:7-8).  Elsewhere, we are told by Peter to “be holy” because God is holy (1 Pet. 1:16).  There are other places like this too.

     Now, throughout the New Testament we see very clearly that God’s goal for us is to make us like Jesus.  For example:

·             2 Cor. 3:18 (God is transforming us into the image of the Lord Jesus from one degree of glory to another.)

·             1 Jn. 3:1-3 (This teaches that our ultimate hope is that we will become like Jesus and that even now that hope stimulates the transformation process.)

·             Lk. 6:40 (Jesus says that the goal and result of discipleship is to become like the Teacher—Him.)

     We know that as humans we have been created in the image of God, but sin has damaged that image.  God’s plan of salvation and sanctification is to restore the image and reflection of God’s glory in our lives.  This restoration is both the promise of salvation and the outworking of it.  We have the firm hope that we will one day be like Him.  And we have the charge to imitate Him right now.

     So this is the first of three parts of a basic argument for the third answer to the question, "Why mission?"  It is the truth—we should be imitators of God.  Now, keep that in mind as I talk about the second part which has to do with "attributeness."

     Because we, as Jesus-followers, desire to imitate God, we’ve learned to behold Him—to look at and watch God.  We study Him to see what He's like and what He does.  With John, we look and see that God is love.  Not just that God is loving, but that He is the very definition of love.  Love is not some abstract principle that exists apart from the person and nature of God.  Love is a concept that is originally derived from who God is.  John is so convinced of this that he goes as far as to say that anyone who really loves must be born of God and that no one who lacks love can really claim to have any knowledge of God, “For God is love.”

     Well, that is what it means for something to be an attribute of God.  An attribute of God is an attribute of God not because it is a concept or principle that God conforms to, but because it is originally, ultimately, and perfectly found only in God.  And like John, our meditations upon these attributes of God very often lead to applications in our personal lives.  I’ve been talking about 1 John 4:7-8, so let's just read it:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

     For John, the desire to be like God, is a given.  But what I want to talk about is mission.  I said that mission is, fundamentally, an attribute of God and I intend to prove it very simply.  Let's look a few verses:

Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. (Joh 8:42)

So, the Father sent the Son.

"But when the Helper comes, whom I (Jesus) will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me." (Joh 15:26)

So, the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit. And now, lastly, a series of verses from Luke:

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness . . . . And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. . . . On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal.  (Luke 4:1, 14, 18, 5:17)

     This may be the weirdest part, but the Bible testifies to the fact that Jesus Christ, in His humanity, found the power and direction (in essence, the support) He needed to perform His mission on the earth from God the Father, through the Spirit. 

     Now these are some relatively new thoughts for me, but at this point I’m simply in awe as I consider the glorious doctrine of the Trinity which may well be the most missional doctrine of them all.  For in it, we see that mission is an attribute of the Triune God.  We see here, God sending, God being sent, and God the Sender supporting God the Sent.  And keep in mind that the word “sent” in the Bible is the Greek “apostollo” which is translated in Latin as “missio” from which we get our English word, “mission.” Some call this, the Missio Dei—the sending of God.

     Think about it.  Before any of us came along, before we ever commissioned anyone to go to any place, before anyone ever came to tell us about Jesus, before there was a knowledge of Christ in any human being, before there where human beings—there was a Triune God who was, by His very nature, missional.  And if tomorrow there were all of the sudden no more Christians and no more churches there would still be mission because there would still be God and mission comes from and is perfected in God.

     So the all three parts of my argument goes like this:  We should imitate God.  God is missional by nature.  Therefore, we should be engaged in mission.  Let's think for a moment about this third piece.

     This Missionary God—this God who sends God, this God who is sent by God, and this God who supports God in mission—sends us.  Take all that stuff I just said about the Trinity and attributeness and the imitation of God and pour it into this huge saying of Jesus:

"As the Father sent me, even so, I am sending you."  (John 20:21)

     It makes sense.  We are, after all, His children.  We should resemble Him.  We should have His eyes and smile.  His laugh.  His walk.  His passions.  His heart.  We should even take up the family business.  I remember growing up with my dad running a gas station in Shawnee, Oklahoma.  Some of my best days and fondest memories were of going to work with my dad.  Pumping gas, washing windows, running the cash register, helping him fix flat tires and change oil.  There was always something quite special about just being with dad and doing what he did.  That, my friends, is exactly what mission is – an invitation by our Father to go to work with Him.  Today, tomorrow, and every subsequent day until Jesus returns are all “take-you-kid-to-work day,” and our Father is eager to show you what He does all day.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  (1 John 3:1)

Peace.