Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUmkwMC757o
So what is the Biblical basis of mission? How shall we go about answering the question? Well, we might simply tease out the Bible’s entire story line. We begin with the creation and everything is good. Then in the rebellion, there's an archaic revolution against God. Already in Genesis 3:15, God himself, promises that the seed of the women will crush the serpent's head. He could simply have destroyed the race at that point, but already he is promising redemption. And then when hatred and idolatry multiply, He could have wiped out the entire race in the flood but he spares eight. And then he starts a whole new humanity, as we are calling Abraham. Yet Abraham, though his called a friend of God, the man of faith, he manages to be a liar more than once. His son is a bit of a wimp.
The patriarchs, well one is sleeping with his father’s concubines, another is messing around elsewhere. Ten of them try to decide whether to kill or sell the 11th into slavery and these of course are the patriarchs, and yet God Spares them preserving the promise line and until even in the book of Genesis. There is a promise that from one of these patriarchs will eventually come, a king, a redeeming king, the lion of the tribe of Judah.
The book of Exodus shows judgment and mercy as God constitutes the Israelites, a nation, and in the giving of the law, He institutes certain rights and rituals that anticipate what is yet to come. The sacrifices of the Day of Atonement for example, offered up for the sins of the priest and for the sins of the people repeated year after year after year which have the effect of reminding us of our sins even as they obey what God Himself has stipulated.
Then the degeneration of the book of judges, endless cycle of depravity getting lower and lower until by the end of the book of Judges, the sin is so dark that you can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys. Even the good guys are terribly embarrassing with the text of scripture that where really difficult to read in public. Oh God, how we needed a king, for everyone is doing what is right in his own eyes.
And eventually God races David, the man after his own heart. This man after God’s owns heart manages to commit adultery and murder. One wonders what he would have done it if he hadn’t been a man after God’s own heart. That dynasty rules over the twelve tribes for only 2 generations then the nation is split. Eventually, in sin and idolatry and depravity and endless malice and greed and cruelty, the ten tribes are going to captivity. Hundred and fifty years later, the southern tribes went into captivity. Even the words of the prophets promising eventually us a servant who would be wounded for our transgressions that same prophet Isaiah in chapter 19:24, "For seize a time when God will say Israel my third, Assyria my third, Egypt my third. And visiting a when time when the locust of God will not be one people but one tribe. Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handy work and Israel my inheritance,” says the Lord.
Then we came to the Lord Jesus and the great commission, the bestowal of the spirit. And eventually at the end of the Bible, a consummating vision of many men and women drawn from every tongues and tribe and people and nation. One redeemed community the blood bought around the thrown in resurrection's splendor. In other words we could have asserted the basis of Biblical mission is anchored in the entire Bible. God graciously goes after sinners and wins over a vast number of them, or we might simply focus on Jesus Himself. We could consider for example, his various titles and functions. He is the king and as the king he says, “All authority is given to me in heaven and on earth go therefore and make disciples.” Or we consider Him as the good shepherd and as the good shepherd, he gives his life for his sheep. Or his high priest to offers up a perfect sacrifice, He is the word of God, God’s ultimate self-expression to be declared to the entire world. Or we think of the obedience of Christ. In Gethsemane, His prayer was not, "Oh I really do want to go through with this because I love this sinners so much." His prayer is, "Not my will but yours be done." The driving power that drives Jesus to the cross is, first of all, His obedience to his Father's will, this is the heavenly Father's plan. And the world must know, He says in John 14, that "I always do what pleases Him." Or we might consider great events in Jesus' mission and their bearing on the biblical basis of missions, the cross, the resurrection, the Second coming, every knee shall bow to Him.
▶ But another way of getting at the Biblical basis of mission is to focus our attention on a specific passage. There are many text to which we could turn but I will fasten our attention to 2 Corinthians 4:1-12. Let me begin by reading these verses. 2 Corinthians 4:1-12
◑1. Gospel ministry demands unqualified integrity.
Verses 4:1-3 begin in our English bibles with the word “Therefore.” When I was a little whipper snapper, my father, who is trying to teach me elementary interpretation principles. He said “Don, whenever you see a wherefore or therefore, see what its therefore”, and in this case “therefore” connects the previous chapter with what is found in our verses. 2 Cor. 3 establishes the fact that apostolic ministry, the ministry of Paul in particular, is blessed with many privileged advantages over the ministry of Moses at the time of the giving of the law. Or to put it in another way, the ministry of the new covenant sealed in Jesus blood is superior to the ministry of the old covenant. So we read in chapter 3 beginning at verse 4, “Such confidence we have through Christ before God”. Not that we are confident on ourselves to play many things for ourselves but our confidence comes from God. He has made us confident as ministers of the new covenant, none of the latter but of the spirit for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life.
Or again, note some of the contrast between the two covenants as we teased out, verse 7. If the ministry that brought death (that is the law) which was engraved in letters on stone (referring the Ten Commandments) came with glory so that the Israelites could not look steadily on the face of Moses because of his glory, (transitory were as it was) will not the ministry of the spirit be even more glorious. If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness. Or again verse 18, we all who with unveil faces contemplate the Lord's glory or being transformed into His image with ever increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit, therefore (for what?) since through Gods mercy we have this ministry, “We do not lose heart." In other words, this presupposes at despite the privilege of this ministry which is unsurpassed, there are many reasons for losing heart, many reason for deep discouragement. But since it is through God’s mercy that we have this ministry as 2 Corinthians 3 have shown, therefore we do not lose heart.
Now before we go further, we should ask two questions. First, do these references to this ministry or our ministry refer only to apostolic ministry, if so we should be careful about applying them to us and to world mission work today? But of although 2 Corinthians 3 focuses on Paul and apostolic ministry, at the end of chapter 3 and right through chapter 4 and 5, Paul elides the discussion into the ministry of all believers. You can see this for example at the end of 3. And we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lords glory and so forth, or again in chapter 5 verses 9 and 10, so we make it our goal to please Him whether at home in the body or away from it, for we must all appear before the judgment seed of Christ. So though He begins with his own ministry and doubtless that is in some ways a model for all of us in any case, he specifically elides the discussion into as broad as set of parameters as he could possibly manage.
After all those are narrow minded bigoted intolerant statements, aren’t they? At least by the standards of contemporary definitions of tolerance which are really out of vogue with entire history of intolerance in any case. And as a result the god of this age at this particular culture blinds the eyes of countless people. It is very difficult for many, many people on this generation to think of themselves as guilty. We're much more prone in western culture in particular to think of themselves as victims. But how would you come to grips with a Savior who dies for our sins if at the end of the day what we really need is Savior that simply takes us out of the mock. And certainly there is a pretty hardly any refusal to contemplate hell. The person who talks most of the hell in the Bible is Jesus Himself. It’s pretty hard to say nothing about hell and be faithful to Jesus.
In other words sometimes quite frankly is the truth itself that is offensive. Jesus knew that in his own day of course. Remember the remarkable passage in John 8:45, He says to some of the law givers in His own day, “Because I tell you the truth, you do not believe." Now it would be bad enough if that sentence began with a concessive instead of a causal, it would be bad enough if the sentence read, “although I tell you the truth you do not believe”, that would be tragic. But it’s a causal, "because I tell you the truth, you do not believe.” So then what are your options, tell untruth and already get people to believe, but then what are they believing? Untruth. So it can be very discouraging to articulate the truth, to preach the truth and find people not simply rejecting it but writing you of some narrow minding bigot, that’s disheartening. In fact if you read the pagan literature of the first three centuries until the time of Constantine, the most common pagan criticism against Christianity, the most common criticism was that it was too narrow too exclusive and that was too bigoted, sound vaguely familiar?
Some of us who would volunteer for ministry, including international cross cultural ministry when we first heard called we may be down be tempted to think of ourselves as fledgling heroes of the faith. We may have read our shared missionary biography’s and have learned someone persevered and saw hundreds converted maybe thousands maybe ten thousand then when we actually get there we discover that it’s really difficult. And some places are actually dangerous. We like to hear the stories of preachers who saw enormous fruitfulness, but then there’s always this Samuel Zwemer who preached for 40 year in Muslim world and saw eight converts five of them were killed after 40 years of labor. Oh he did translate the Bible in Arabic too.
Even Paul has tempted to loose heart, but he says, “Since through God’s mercy it’s a privilege to have this ministry", its part the mercy of God. Since through Gods mercy, we have this ministry, this spectacular ministry, this superior ministry. 'We do not lose heart, rather we buck up. We have renounced secret and shameful ways, we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every ones conscience to the sight of God, and even if the gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing.'
So if you want to know what Biblical mission looks like, hear this, Gospel ministry demands unqualified integrity.
◑2. The gospel itself display the glory of Christ. 22:47~
verse 4:3-6. "The gospel itself displays the glory of Christ. Our task is to herald the gospel even if some cannot see its light verse 4, the god of this ages blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they can’t see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ who is the image of God."
What exactly does this gospel display, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, verse 4. And then verse 5, "We proclaim in ourselves that Jesus Christ as Lord." The notion of Jesus as the image of God is bound up of Paul especially with the incarnation, Do you want to know what God looks like when no one can gaze at him and live? study Jesus. Hebrew likewise says he is the radiance of God's Glory. That a bit like saying that's the God's light. He is the exact imprint of who He is, He is not only the full the radiance of His glory, He is the exact representation of His being, He is the image of God. The gospel is bound up in the first place with Jesus and who he is. Not just Jesus as cypher. Jesus who is also identified as God himself. And we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord. Oh undoubtedly that title is his before the world begin as the son of God, not yet the Human Jesus but Jesus Christ as Lord is bound up with His vindication. He is resurrected from the grave, his sacrifice has been accepted and although he emptied himself and become nobody according to Philippians.
God has highly exalted Him and given Him the name that is above every name and that in the name of Jesus every knee must bow. In other words, this is all predicated on his death and resurrection on his cross. In other word we're not taught here as Jesus as cypher, Jesus merely a magic word. Mention the name of Jesus and you get answers to your prayers. Rather what we preach is, God incanated, Christ crucified, risen again, vindicated and sovereign, so that all of God's authority according to 1 Corinthians 15 is mediated to him until every knee will bows on the last day, and the last enemy to be destroy is death itself. That’s what we proclaim.
It’s worth constantly asking the question, what is the gospel? You have to remember that in the first place the gospel is news that's what it is. Its powerful news. Very largely good news. What do you do with news? What you do of news is answer what should you do with news. But it’s not just any old news, its news about Jesus and it’s not about Jesus as cypher, it’s about Jesus who he is and what he has done by God's own decree as specially at the cross and resurrection and ascension in order to redeem man and woman for himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation and constitute this new blood bought community the church of the living God until in the purposes of God, all comes to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness and there is resurrection existing on the last day, that is the good news.
The good news is not, belief. That the entailment of the good news. The good news is not turn over new leaf though you must repent, that's required because of the good news. But what we announce is what God has done in Christ Jesus, that why there's so much emphasis here on what we are announcing and preaching on this ministry. What we preach is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord and the consequence of these ourselves as your servant for Jesus' sake. The transformation the obedience of faith. Those who loved to do the word of God. All of these flows out of the gospel the inevitable result of the gospel as it takes hold of all the people’s lives. But what we preach in the first place what we announce in the news is Jesus Christ in Him crucified Who He is what, his done specially on the cross of resurrection to redeems of the fallen and broken people for himself. He bore our sins in his own body at the tree that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
So if we have come to see the light of the gospel we're told, it is because God. Verse 6, "has made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of Gods glory displayed in the face of Christ." In other words if we have come to see the truth it’s not because were brighter or somehow more insightful or because we're western. It’s because God has somehow illumined our heart. He has made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory. In fact the language is specifically evocative of creation. God said, "Let there be light." and there was light. The darkness couldn’t stop it, John’s gospel points so. The darkness couldn't stops the light.
So in other words we preach this gospel but at the end of the day every conversion is a result of God speaking again and saying, "let there be light, let light shine out of the darkness", and there is sovereign regeneration. Otherwise the darkness abides, darkness remains. Bright, graduate students at Cambridge read John Stott and still remain in the darkness. Until God says, “Let there be light."
My confidence therefore in heralding the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, in obedience to His command, as a fruit of the mercy we have received in this ministry, my confidence is not that at by speaking the truth, everyone will be impressed by my articulation of it and become adoring Christians. But that again and again in large numbers or in small, God will say, "Let there be light and blind men and women see." His light will shine into more hearts to give them a light of the knowledge of God's glory display in the face of Christ. If you want to know what the Biblical basis of missions looks like, hear this, the gospel displays the glory of Christ.
That's the whole burden in verses 7-12. I have a son he is almost 28, he's in the marines. But when he was about 15 or 16 at that time he was playing a lot of violin and viola there was one of those chaps who like to pick up a instrument, almost any instrument and pretty shortly he gets some decent sounds of it. And somewhere along the line, he picked up a penny-whistle, and Irish penny-whistle, and he became pretty good at it. He bought himself a book and after few weeks, he sounded pretty respectable. One day he said to me, "Dad you know it'd be nice if you make me a nice box for this." He know a doubloon wood a bit, I said, "Nicolas as a seven dollar instrument if I made a decent box it would be worth 10 times that amount or maybe more. If you lose this instrument or it goes rusty or something, buy another one. Buy 10, they're cheap." He said, "Yeah, but dad it would be cool." Well how could I possibly resist that?
So I bought a nice piece of walnut, my favorite wood and shaped it and routed it out in the inside and put in a velvet lining on the inside, and inlayed magnets of piano hinge on the back, and on the front in layer brass plaque with his name on it, Nicolas J. Carson, and put a nice sheen on it. It was really a nice box. When I give it I told him it was an anti-gospel box, he said "What do you mean?" I said, "Well according to 2 Corinthians 4, with respect to the gospel all the treasures in the inside, outside there a cheap clay pot, this is the reverse." But you know some of us act now and then as if all of the potency for this music comes in fact, from the box.
He summaries the whole thing in verse 10, we always carry around in our body the death of Jesus. So that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. I think this is another way of saying what perhaps were more common or more commonly aware of. That is we're supposed to take up our cross and follow Jesus we're to die to self and Paul has faced so many occasions were quite frankly he would have not chosen that particular course but in dying to self to pursue the promulgation of the gospel and to honor Christ. It means death to self and of that means being crushed and perplexed that the way it is. Yet at the same time there is a “so that” half way through verse 10, "So that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body for we who are alive were always been given over to death for Jesus sake. So that His life may also be revealed in our mortal body."
“So send I you to labor unrewarded to servant paid unloved, unsought, unknown to bear rebuke to suffer, scorn and scoffing.
So send I you to toil for me alone.
So send I you to bind the bruised and broken or wondering souls to work, to weep to wake, to bear the burdens of the world the weary.
So send I you to suffer for my sake.
So send I you to loneliness and longing with heart a hungering for the loved and known, forsaking home and kindred friend and dear one,
so send I you to know my love alone.
So send I you to live your life’s ambition to die to dear desires self will resign to labor long and love where men revalue.
So send I you to love your life and mine.
So send I you to heart made hard by hatred to eyes made blind because that will not see to spend the wipe blood to spend and spare not
so send I you to taste of Calvary."
Yes, that’s right. And it’s only half the truth. For you see although Paul says, he is crushed and perplexed and persecuted and strucked down. He also says, verse 10, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. He also says verse 11 so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. He also says verse 15 all this is for your benefit so the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow though the glory of God. He also says 3:18 and we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory are being transform into his image with ever increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the spirit and he also says 4:17 for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far away them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but what is unseen since what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal.
These two emphases necessarily hang together. We are crucified with Him; we see glory with him, we died ourself and we experience more of his life. You can’t have one without the other, they hang together. You don’t crave the self-sacrifice because your masochists. God is no one debtor but in following Jesus who went to the cross so we learned to pick up our cross sand that too is part of gospel mission. So if you want to know what Biblical mission looks like, hear this, Gospel ministry is characterized by paradoxical death to self and overflowing life in Christ.
So what is the Biblical basis of mission? What we find in these verses is not so much an abstract definition of the biblical basis of mission. As a mind expanding depiction of how mission works, how is it tight at the gospel discharged with unqualified integrity. Reverberating with God's passion to display the glory of His son, Jesus Christ and herald it in the context paradoxical self-death which nevertheless overflows with the transforming life of Christ. Here are the hearts of the Biblical mission.
“Forbid, merciful father that we should think of missionary service in merely functional categories, that drive us back again and again to the gospel itself. To our dear Savior who though he was rich but for oursake became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich. The one who announced his determination to go to the cross and then told us, followers, that he must take his cross and follow him. Oh Lord God, fasten our eyes we beg of you on what is unseen, for what is unseen is eternal and forbid that we should be locked in to the passing cultural fancies of our age. Grant us Lord God that we may hear the mandate to proclaim the gospel through the foolishness of what is preached, knowing full well that in due course, in due time, in due measure , you yourself will say may the light shine in darkness and men and women will be saved. Give us this heart this passion this vision we beg of you. For Jesus sake, AMEN.
So what is the Biblical basis of mission? How shall we go about answering the question? Well, we might simply tease out the Bible’s entire story line. We begin with the creation and everything is good. Then in the rebellion, there's an archaic revolution against God. Already in Genesis 3:15, God himself, promises that the seed of the women will crush the serpent's head. He could simply have destroyed the race at that point, but already he is promising redemption. And then when hatred and idolatry multiply, He could have wiped out the entire race in the flood but he spares eight. And then he starts a whole new humanity, as we are calling Abraham. Yet Abraham, though his called a friend of God, the man of faith, he manages to be a liar more than once. His son is a bit of a wimp.
The patriarchs, well one is sleeping with his father’s concubines, another is messing around elsewhere. Ten of them try to decide whether to kill or sell the 11th into slavery and these of course are the patriarchs, and yet God Spares them preserving the promise line and until even in the book of Genesis. There is a promise that from one of these patriarchs will eventually come, a king, a redeeming king, the lion of the tribe of Judah.
The book of Exodus shows judgment and mercy as God constitutes the Israelites, a nation, and in the giving of the law, He institutes certain rights and rituals that anticipate what is yet to come. The sacrifices of the Day of Atonement for example, offered up for the sins of the priest and for the sins of the people repeated year after year after year which have the effect of reminding us of our sins even as they obey what God Himself has stipulated.
Then the degeneration of the book of judges, endless cycle of depravity getting lower and lower until by the end of the book of Judges, the sin is so dark that you can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys. Even the good guys are terribly embarrassing with the text of scripture that where really difficult to read in public. Oh God, how we needed a king, for everyone is doing what is right in his own eyes.
And eventually God races David, the man after his own heart. This man after God’s owns heart manages to commit adultery and murder. One wonders what he would have done it if he hadn’t been a man after God’s own heart. That dynasty rules over the twelve tribes for only 2 generations then the nation is split. Eventually, in sin and idolatry and depravity and endless malice and greed and cruelty, the ten tribes are going to captivity. Hundred and fifty years later, the southern tribes went into captivity. Even the words of the prophets promising eventually us a servant who would be wounded for our transgressions that same prophet Isaiah in chapter 19:24, "For seize a time when God will say Israel my third, Assyria my third, Egypt my third. And visiting a when time when the locust of God will not be one people but one tribe. Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handy work and Israel my inheritance,” says the Lord.
Then we came to the Lord Jesus and the great commission, the bestowal of the spirit. And eventually at the end of the Bible, a consummating vision of many men and women drawn from every tongues and tribe and people and nation. One redeemed community the blood bought around the thrown in resurrection's splendor. In other words we could have asserted the basis of Biblical mission is anchored in the entire Bible. God graciously goes after sinners and wins over a vast number of them, or we might simply focus on Jesus Himself. We could consider for example, his various titles and functions. He is the king and as the king he says, “All authority is given to me in heaven and on earth go therefore and make disciples.” Or we consider Him as the good shepherd and as the good shepherd, he gives his life for his sheep. Or his high priest to offers up a perfect sacrifice, He is the word of God, God’s ultimate self-expression to be declared to the entire world. Or we think of the obedience of Christ. In Gethsemane, His prayer was not, "Oh I really do want to go through with this because I love this sinners so much." His prayer is, "Not my will but yours be done." The driving power that drives Jesus to the cross is, first of all, His obedience to his Father's will, this is the heavenly Father's plan. And the world must know, He says in John 14, that "I always do what pleases Him." Or we might consider great events in Jesus' mission and their bearing on the biblical basis of missions, the cross, the resurrection, the Second coming, every knee shall bow to Him.
▶ But another way of getting at the Biblical basis of mission is to focus our attention on a specific passage. There are many text to which we could turn but I will fasten our attention to 2 Corinthians 4:1-12. Let me begin by reading these verses. 2 Corinthians 4:1-12
“Therefore since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather we have renounced secret and shameful ways. We do not use deception nor do we distort the Word of God. On the contrary by setting forth truth plainly, we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The God of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ who is the image of God. For what we preach is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus sake.
For God who said, “let light shine out of darkness made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that all surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hardpressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus sake, so that His life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” This is the word of the Lord.
For God who said, “let light shine out of darkness made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that all surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hardpressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus sake, so that His life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” This is the word of the Lord.
So how then does this passage contribute to our grasp of the Biblical basis of mission?
Verse 1 opens by talking about this ministry we have, therefore since through Gods mercy we have this ministry, “We do not lose heart.” This ministry according to verse 2 is bound up with setting forth the truth plainly. And according to verse 4 what we are placarding is, the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ who is the image of God. When we discharge this ministry we are nothing more than clay pots, according to verse 7 and following, and yet all of this achieves eternal glory verse 17 as we fix our eyes, now here’s a paradox, we fix our eyes on what is unseen but eternal at the end of the chapter. In other words, these verses do not so much define world mission, as described it. Sometimes the most powerful and moving Biblical basis for mission is in the Bibles depiction of what it looks like. It will be helpful I think to unpack three parts of this description.
Verse 1 opens by talking about this ministry we have, therefore since through Gods mercy we have this ministry, “We do not lose heart.” This ministry according to verse 2 is bound up with setting forth the truth plainly. And according to verse 4 what we are placarding is, the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ who is the image of God. When we discharge this ministry we are nothing more than clay pots, according to verse 7 and following, and yet all of this achieves eternal glory verse 17 as we fix our eyes, now here’s a paradox, we fix our eyes on what is unseen but eternal at the end of the chapter. In other words, these verses do not so much define world mission, as described it. Sometimes the most powerful and moving Biblical basis for mission is in the Bibles depiction of what it looks like. It will be helpful I think to unpack three parts of this description.
◑1. Gospel ministry demands unqualified integrity.
Verses 4:1-3 begin in our English bibles with the word “Therefore.” When I was a little whipper snapper, my father, who is trying to teach me elementary interpretation principles. He said “Don, whenever you see a wherefore or therefore, see what its therefore”, and in this case “therefore” connects the previous chapter with what is found in our verses. 2 Cor. 3 establishes the fact that apostolic ministry, the ministry of Paul in particular, is blessed with many privileged advantages over the ministry of Moses at the time of the giving of the law. Or to put it in another way, the ministry of the new covenant sealed in Jesus blood is superior to the ministry of the old covenant. So we read in chapter 3 beginning at verse 4, “Such confidence we have through Christ before God”. Not that we are confident on ourselves to play many things for ourselves but our confidence comes from God. He has made us confident as ministers of the new covenant, none of the latter but of the spirit for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life.
Or again, note some of the contrast between the two covenants as we teased out, verse 7. If the ministry that brought death (that is the law) which was engraved in letters on stone (referring the Ten Commandments) came with glory so that the Israelites could not look steadily on the face of Moses because of his glory, (transitory were as it was) will not the ministry of the spirit be even more glorious. If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness. Or again verse 18, we all who with unveil faces contemplate the Lord's glory or being transformed into His image with ever increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit, therefore (for what?) since through Gods mercy we have this ministry, “We do not lose heart." In other words, this presupposes at despite the privilege of this ministry which is unsurpassed, there are many reasons for losing heart, many reason for deep discouragement. But since it is through God’s mercy that we have this ministry as 2 Corinthians 3 have shown, therefore we do not lose heart.
Now before we go further, we should ask two questions. First, do these references to this ministry or our ministry refer only to apostolic ministry, if so we should be careful about applying them to us and to world mission work today? But of although 2 Corinthians 3 focuses on Paul and apostolic ministry, at the end of chapter 3 and right through chapter 4 and 5, Paul elides the discussion into the ministry of all believers. You can see this for example at the end of 3. And we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lords glory and so forth, or again in chapter 5 verses 9 and 10, so we make it our goal to please Him whether at home in the body or away from it, for we must all appear before the judgment seed of Christ. So though He begins with his own ministry and doubtless that is in some ways a model for all of us in any case, he specifically elides the discussion into as broad as set of parameters as he could possibly manage.
The second question, what is the nature of the discouragement that Paul faces? Why is he tending to lose heart granted all of this incredible privileges belonging to the new covenant?
Well, first it’s pretty obvious that many people are offended by the straight talk of the scripture. Verse 2 that surely is what hides behind verse 2, 'we’ve renounce secret and shameful ways, we do not use deception nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary by setting forth plainly we commend ourselves to every ones conscience on the sight of God.' Why would anyone use deception? Why would you use slightly shady language or ambiguous categories? But simply because we know for well that some what the bible says is none to be too popular.
Well, first it’s pretty obvious that many people are offended by the straight talk of the scripture. Verse 2 that surely is what hides behind verse 2, 'we’ve renounce secret and shameful ways, we do not use deception nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary by setting forth plainly we commend ourselves to every ones conscience on the sight of God.' Why would anyone use deception? Why would you use slightly shady language or ambiguous categories? But simply because we know for well that some what the bible says is none to be too popular.
Moreover, many people are blinded by contemporary culture, whatever the culture. You can have deep, deep, discussions with devout Muslims who really do understand what you’re saying but don’t really see the gospel. They don’t see it, they understand it at some level but they don’t see it. Or you can have deep, deep, discussion with Hindis, but they don’t really see its value at all, they’re blinded to it. The god of this world has blinded their eyes. And moreover there are particular forms of tolerance now taught in this world that are remarkably intolerant. If you proclaim an exclusive Jesus today, it’s difficult to engage with the subject because you are already dismissed as bigot. So what are your options? Well of course everybody has their own point of view and maybe there are other ways getting to God after all, maybe Peter wasn’t telling the truth after all when he said 'there is no other name given by who we must be saved.' Maybe Jesus was exaggerating a bit when He said, "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me."
After all those are narrow minded bigoted intolerant statements, aren’t they? At least by the standards of contemporary definitions of tolerance which are really out of vogue with entire history of intolerance in any case. And as a result the god of this age at this particular culture blinds the eyes of countless people. It is very difficult for many, many people on this generation to think of themselves as guilty. We're much more prone in western culture in particular to think of themselves as victims. But how would you come to grips with a Savior who dies for our sins if at the end of the day what we really need is Savior that simply takes us out of the mock. And certainly there is a pretty hardly any refusal to contemplate hell. The person who talks most of the hell in the Bible is Jesus Himself. It’s pretty hard to say nothing about hell and be faithful to Jesus.
In other words sometimes quite frankly is the truth itself that is offensive. Jesus knew that in his own day of course. Remember the remarkable passage in John 8:45, He says to some of the law givers in His own day, “Because I tell you the truth, you do not believe." Now it would be bad enough if that sentence began with a concessive instead of a causal, it would be bad enough if the sentence read, “although I tell you the truth you do not believe”, that would be tragic. But it’s a causal, "because I tell you the truth, you do not believe.” So then what are your options, tell untruth and already get people to believe, but then what are they believing? Untruth. So it can be very discouraging to articulate the truth, to preach the truth and find people not simply rejecting it but writing you of some narrow minding bigot, that’s disheartening. In fact if you read the pagan literature of the first three centuries until the time of Constantine, the most common pagan criticism against Christianity, the most common criticism was that it was too narrow too exclusive and that was too bigoted, sound vaguely familiar?
Some of us who would volunteer for ministry, including international cross cultural ministry when we first heard called we may be down be tempted to think of ourselves as fledgling heroes of the faith. We may have read our shared missionary biography’s and have learned someone persevered and saw hundreds converted maybe thousands maybe ten thousand then when we actually get there we discover that it’s really difficult. And some places are actually dangerous. We like to hear the stories of preachers who saw enormous fruitfulness, but then there’s always this Samuel Zwemer who preached for 40 year in Muslim world and saw eight converts five of them were killed after 40 years of labor. Oh he did translate the Bible in Arabic too.
Even Paul has tempted to loose heart, but he says, “Since through God’s mercy it’s a privilege to have this ministry", its part the mercy of God. Since through Gods mercy, we have this ministry, this spectacular ministry, this superior ministry. 'We do not lose heart, rather we buck up. We have renounced secret and shameful ways, we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every ones conscience to the sight of God, and even if the gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing.'
Elsewhere Paul faces other temptations in 2:17. “Unlike so many we do not pedal the word of God for prophet on the contrary in Christ we speak before God in sincerity as those sent from God." It is possible to shape your message to increase the income. Paul face the temptation and rejected it, then the very different temptation in 11:20, “In fact you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploit you or take advantage of you or slaps you in the face. To my shame, I admit I was too weak for that” he says. In other words there are some people who look for Christian leaders who look for preachers and missionaries who are police. They somehow feel secure if there is a strong man whose telling them to step off. But how is that breed character, humility of Christ and Godliness and maturity and train up leaders. "I admit I was too weak for that." the apostle says, his pen dripping in sarcasm. No, no, his resolved is not use deception not to distort the word of God not to pedal the word for money; he is not merely going to increase his income by just slanting the truth. On the contrary by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every ones conscience in the sight of God. What is required is courage, backbone, resolve, priority, submissive to the word of God.
So if you want to know what Biblical mission looks like, hear this, Gospel ministry demands unqualified integrity.
◑2. The gospel itself display the glory of Christ. 22:47~
verse 4:3-6. "The gospel itself displays the glory of Christ. Our task is to herald the gospel even if some cannot see its light verse 4, the god of this ages blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they can’t see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ who is the image of God."
Quite some years ago I knew a young woman at the university Cambridge, a graduate student, who was given a copy of the book by John Stott “Basic Christianity”. She read it carefully enough that she looks up a lot of Biblical references. She was a graduate student at Cambridge, she was not stupid. When I ask her some weeks after I have given her the book what she made of it. She said “I’ve decide that Christianity is for good people like you and Carol,” her Christian roommate “but it’s not for me." Now my question is how does a graduate student at Cambridge manages to read an author like John Stott with his limpid prows and think that the gospel is all about being good people. I recall when I hear her words it was this passage that came to my mind, “The God of this ages blinded the mind of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light that displays the glory of Christ, they cannot see it”.
What exactly does this gospel display, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, verse 4. And then verse 5, "We proclaim in ourselves that Jesus Christ as Lord." The notion of Jesus as the image of God is bound up of Paul especially with the incarnation, Do you want to know what God looks like when no one can gaze at him and live? study Jesus. Hebrew likewise says he is the radiance of God's Glory. That a bit like saying that's the God's light. He is the exact imprint of who He is, He is not only the full the radiance of His glory, He is the exact representation of His being, He is the image of God. The gospel is bound up in the first place with Jesus and who he is. Not just Jesus as cypher. Jesus who is also identified as God himself. And we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord. Oh undoubtedly that title is his before the world begin as the son of God, not yet the Human Jesus but Jesus Christ as Lord is bound up with His vindication. He is resurrected from the grave, his sacrifice has been accepted and although he emptied himself and become nobody according to Philippians.
God has highly exalted Him and given Him the name that is above every name and that in the name of Jesus every knee must bow. In other words, this is all predicated on his death and resurrection on his cross. In other word we're not taught here as Jesus as cypher, Jesus merely a magic word. Mention the name of Jesus and you get answers to your prayers. Rather what we preach is, God incanated, Christ crucified, risen again, vindicated and sovereign, so that all of God's authority according to 1 Corinthians 15 is mediated to him until every knee will bows on the last day, and the last enemy to be destroy is death itself. That’s what we proclaim.
It’s worth constantly asking the question, what is the gospel? You have to remember that in the first place the gospel is news that's what it is. Its powerful news. Very largely good news. What do you do with news? What you do of news is answer what should you do with news. But it’s not just any old news, its news about Jesus and it’s not about Jesus as cypher, it’s about Jesus who he is and what he has done by God's own decree as specially at the cross and resurrection and ascension in order to redeem man and woman for himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation and constitute this new blood bought community the church of the living God until in the purposes of God, all comes to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness and there is resurrection existing on the last day, that is the good news.
The good news is not, belief. That the entailment of the good news. The good news is not turn over new leaf though you must repent, that's required because of the good news. But what we announce is what God has done in Christ Jesus, that why there's so much emphasis here on what we are announcing and preaching on this ministry. What we preach is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord and the consequence of these ourselves as your servant for Jesus' sake. The transformation the obedience of faith. Those who loved to do the word of God. All of these flows out of the gospel the inevitable result of the gospel as it takes hold of all the people’s lives. But what we preach in the first place what we announce in the news is Jesus Christ in Him crucified Who He is what, his done specially on the cross of resurrection to redeems of the fallen and broken people for himself. He bore our sins in his own body at the tree that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
So if we have come to see the light of the gospel we're told, it is because God. Verse 6, "has made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of Gods glory displayed in the face of Christ." In other words if we have come to see the truth it’s not because were brighter or somehow more insightful or because we're western. It’s because God has somehow illumined our heart. He has made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory. In fact the language is specifically evocative of creation. God said, "Let there be light." and there was light. The darkness couldn’t stop it, John’s gospel points so. The darkness couldn't stops the light.
So in other words we preach this gospel but at the end of the day every conversion is a result of God speaking again and saying, "let there be light, let light shine out of the darkness", and there is sovereign regeneration. Otherwise the darkness abides, darkness remains. Bright, graduate students at Cambridge read John Stott and still remain in the darkness. Until God says, “Let there be light."
My confidence therefore in heralding the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, in obedience to His command, as a fruit of the mercy we have received in this ministry, my confidence is not that at by speaking the truth, everyone will be impressed by my articulation of it and become adoring Christians. But that again and again in large numbers or in small, God will say, "Let there be light and blind men and women see." His light will shine into more hearts to give them a light of the knowledge of God's glory display in the face of Christ. If you want to know what the Biblical basis of missions looks like, hear this, the gospel displays the glory of Christ.
◑3. Finally, gospel ministry is characterized by paradoxical death to self and over flowing life in Christ.
That's the whole burden in verses 7-12. I have a son he is almost 28, he's in the marines. But when he was about 15 or 16 at that time he was playing a lot of violin and viola there was one of those chaps who like to pick up a instrument, almost any instrument and pretty shortly he gets some decent sounds of it. And somewhere along the line, he picked up a penny-whistle, and Irish penny-whistle, and he became pretty good at it. He bought himself a book and after few weeks, he sounded pretty respectable. One day he said to me, "Dad you know it'd be nice if you make me a nice box for this." He know a doubloon wood a bit, I said, "Nicolas as a seven dollar instrument if I made a decent box it would be worth 10 times that amount or maybe more. If you lose this instrument or it goes rusty or something, buy another one. Buy 10, they're cheap." He said, "Yeah, but dad it would be cool." Well how could I possibly resist that?
So I bought a nice piece of walnut, my favorite wood and shaped it and routed it out in the inside and put in a velvet lining on the inside, and inlayed magnets of piano hinge on the back, and on the front in layer brass plaque with his name on it, Nicolas J. Carson, and put a nice sheen on it. It was really a nice box. When I give it I told him it was an anti-gospel box, he said "What do you mean?" I said, "Well according to 2 Corinthians 4, with respect to the gospel all the treasures in the inside, outside there a cheap clay pot, this is the reverse." But you know some of us act now and then as if all of the potency for this music comes in fact, from the box.
We have this treasure this treasure of Christ, this treasure of the gospel. We have it in jars of clay. To show that THIS ALL SURPASSING POWER THAT IS THIS POWER THAT ACTUALLY TRANSFORM PEOPLE Doesn't JUST CONVINCE THEM INTELLECTUALLY, BUT TRANSFORMS THEM. THIS ALL SURPASSING POWER IS FROM God and not from us. We’re hardpressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, strucked down but not destroyed. If you read on in this book till chapter 11, Paul reminds you of some of things he has gone through for the sake of the gospel. He has been ship wrecked three timers already, that’s before the shipwrecked recounted in Acts 27. Once he spent a day and a night in the open seas, five times he had receive in the synagogue wiping 39 blows, three times the robes of the Roman, they just kept going until they killed you or they were tired of the local officer told them to stop. Often hungry, besides all the other thing mentioned danger in the mountains dangers on the sea dangers on bringing; beside everything he says dangers false brothers. You see this all often hard pressed, crushed, perplexed persecuted but not destroyed.
He summaries the whole thing in verse 10, we always carry around in our body the death of Jesus. So that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. I think this is another way of saying what perhaps were more common or more commonly aware of. That is we're supposed to take up our cross and follow Jesus we're to die to self and Paul has faced so many occasions were quite frankly he would have not chosen that particular course but in dying to self to pursue the promulgation of the gospel and to honor Christ. It means death to self and of that means being crushed and perplexed that the way it is. Yet at the same time there is a “so that” half way through verse 10, "So that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body for we who are alive were always been given over to death for Jesus sake. So that His life may also be revealed in our mortal body."
In other words the appeal is not simply to suffering and sacrifice, there is recognition that God is no one’s debtor. And the, "so that" is the power of the gospel working through our lives, Christ resurrection life actually working within us which brings its own glory and reward. We recall what Paul says elsewhere in this book 2Cor. 12, has been suffering from what he variously calls, a messenger from Satan, or a thorn given to him by God. He prays earnestly that the Lord will take it away and the Lord simply says, "I will not going to do but I’m just going to add more grace instead." Until Paul recognizes the superiority of experience in such strength in grace and he says, “I will therefore glory in my weakness at Christ strength maybe manifest in me."
When I was a boy, there was a lot of emphasis in missionary meetings, missionary calls and the like on the importance of sacrifice. God knows the side of things. We use to sing that the song virtually remembers anymore.
“So send I you to labor unrewarded to servant paid unloved, unsought, unknown to bear rebuke to suffer, scorn and scoffing.
So send I you to toil for me alone.
So send I you to bind the bruised and broken or wondering souls to work, to weep to wake, to bear the burdens of the world the weary.
So send I you to suffer for my sake.
So send I you to loneliness and longing with heart a hungering for the loved and known, forsaking home and kindred friend and dear one,
so send I you to know my love alone.
So send I you to live your life’s ambition to die to dear desires self will resign to labor long and love where men revalue.
So send I you to love your life and mine.
So send I you to heart made hard by hatred to eyes made blind because that will not see to spend the wipe blood to spend and spare not
so send I you to taste of Calvary."
Yes, that’s right. And it’s only half the truth. For you see although Paul says, he is crushed and perplexed and persecuted and strucked down. He also says, verse 10, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. He also says verse 11 so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. He also says verse 15 all this is for your benefit so the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow though the glory of God. He also says 3:18 and we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory are being transform into his image with ever increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the spirit and he also says 4:17 for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far away them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but what is unseen since what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal.
These two emphases necessarily hang together. We are crucified with Him; we see glory with him, we died ourself and we experience more of his life. You can’t have one without the other, they hang together. You don’t crave the self-sacrifice because your masochists. God is no one debtor but in following Jesus who went to the cross so we learned to pick up our cross sand that too is part of gospel mission. So if you want to know what Biblical mission looks like, hear this, Gospel ministry is characterized by paradoxical death to self and overflowing life in Christ.
So what is the Biblical basis of mission? What we find in these verses is not so much an abstract definition of the biblical basis of mission. As a mind expanding depiction of how mission works, how is it tight at the gospel discharged with unqualified integrity. Reverberating with God's passion to display the glory of His son, Jesus Christ and herald it in the context paradoxical self-death which nevertheless overflows with the transforming life of Christ. Here are the hearts of the Biblical mission.
Let us pray.
“Forbid, merciful father that we should think of missionary service in merely functional categories, that drive us back again and again to the gospel itself. To our dear Savior who though he was rich but for oursake became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich. The one who announced his determination to go to the cross and then told us, followers, that he must take his cross and follow him. Oh Lord God, fasten our eyes we beg of you on what is unseen, for what is unseen is eternal and forbid that we should be locked in to the passing cultural fancies of our age. Grant us Lord God that we may hear the mandate to proclaim the gospel through the foolishness of what is preached, knowing full well that in due course, in due time, in due measure , you yourself will say may the light shine in darkness and men and women will be saved. Give us this heart this passion this vision we beg of you. For Jesus sake, AMEN.
No comments:
Post a Comment