The Mission of God & The Stewardship of Choice
Missional people recognize that the story of the Bible is the story of God on mission, redeeming the world through his son, Jesus Christ, forgiving sin and restoring shalom.
All through the Old Testament, beginning with Abram being blessed in order to bless all the nations, we see a missionary God on the move. Then, following the Gospel accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus we have the book of Acts, in which followers of The Way, in the words of N.T. Wright, attempt to live lives of “faithful improvisation.” The Bible ends in the book of Revelation with a breathtaking scene in New Jerusalem, with men, women and children from every one of these nations worshiping God together.
But between the books of Acts and Revelation are mostly letters addressed to churches. You and I, it could be said, are living between Acts and Revelation today, with these letters meant for us in some ways just as much as they were meant for the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and others.
So, recognizing that we for one reason or another find ourselves in the middle of the most amazing story ever, the cosmic story of God redeeming his rebellious people from the clutches of sin and its hellish ramifications, how are we to know that we’re truly living missional lives - that is, lives that are fully invested in the story of the mission of God?
Here, I believe, is how: the story in which we’re living will be revealed in the stewardship of choice.
Does the mission of God to restore shalom in every last corner of the planet inform my decision-making in areas big and small? When choosing a college or picking a career or looking for a marriage partner, am I asking whether this school, this line of work, or this woman will help me enter more fully into the mission of God? Will I become more fully the person God has intended me to be for the sake of his Kingdom? Or am I basing these decisions on socially accepted norms and expectations of comfort, security and pleasure?
As we seek to be “faithful improvisers” on The Way, I pray we’d all have the wisdom and the courage to tell a different story with our lives - the story of the mission of God.
I like the thoughts. And I think they admonish me in a way I have been seeing a lot recently. That is, I do not really appreciate or understand the opportunity I have to play a part in God’s story. I do not recognize what God is looking to do in and through me. I live with a pretty small vision of what God is doing and the urgency of his activity.
However, having said all that, in terms of some of your specifics I am not sure I completely agree. My struggle is that first it seems to indicate that God has a specific preference for each person on each of these issues and I am not sure he does. I think he is often more concerned with how we and why we do things then he is with what specifically we are doing, i.e. college choice. My second struggle is the overwhelming nature of trying to get all these decisions “right” if God’s will is indeed that specific all the time. What do you think?
Ultimately, I think I agree with your premise that being inside out people, being disciples of Jesus, is often about hard decisions more then it is about hard work.
Thanks for the thoughts and the clarification, Pete. I was definitely trying to indicate that it’s the heart/motivation behind these decisions that matters, rather than getting each decision just right somehow.
Most of us don’t hear an audible voice or see handwriting literally on the wall, telling us what to do in specific situations. I know I don’t. I believe God is sovereign but I think he gives us the freedom to make decisions, based on Scripture and our intuition and intellect and other people’s wisdom, etc. That’s what I meant when I talked about “faithful improvisation.” In my mind it conjures up more of a live jam band feeling it out as they go, rather than walking a tight-rope across Niagara Falls.
When I consider the account of the early church in the book of Acts, especially at the end of chapter two, what strikes me about it is that they don’t have a blueprint for doing church. Their activities are consistent with the life and teaching of Jesus, but he never laid out all the specifics for them. They’re making it up as they go, experimenting with what it looks like to love God and love people more and more fully. And that’s what I had in mind in mentioning the specifics.
Because a heart in the right place is going to result in real life specifics. Do I go to the bar with friends and buy a drink for four dollars plus tip or do I send five dollars to Africa and provide clean water for five Africans for a whole year? Is there a clear-cut answer to that? Maybe I do both. Or neither. I don’t know. But I think an inside out person begins asking those questions.