The Mission of God and the Nations

This is part one of a missions series, focussing on four themes from Scripture: God’s mission and 1) the nations, 2) covenant, 3) salvation, and 4) eschatology. I teach missions and missions theology, so this may become a bit academic, but that is not a bad thing. We could tell stories to inspire and motivate, but instead I want to ask what Scripture tells us about missions. “Biblical”, not “academic”! I assume for these four sermons that Christian faith is true and that the Bible is God’s Word Written for our guidance in all of life.

At the heart of the Great Commission in Matthew 28 lies the command to “make disciples of all nations” (NIV, NRSV). I think that “all nations” is an unfortunate translation – it should be “all Gentiles”, expanding the reach of the gospel across the greatest boundary line of Jesus’ day. But it makes the point anyway: The gospel is for everyone, Jews and Gentiles, men and women, people of the lower classes as well as of the ruling class. The gospel is for everyone; God calls everyone to new life in Christ.

We begin our four-part series on missions by focussing in on this basic truth: Everyone throughout the world has rebelled against God, and God calls everyone throughout the world to new life in Christ. We consider this truth by looking at the theme of “God’s Mission and the nations”.

 

Genesis 12

The call of Abram (as the subtitle in my Bible reads) is the first step in God’s grand plan to enter the world as the Incarnate Word. In Genesis 11, Abram’s father, Terah, had started the journey from Ur of the Chaldees (Iraq – in today’s geography) to Canaan. He got about halfway – as far as Harran (in modern Turkey, close to the border with Iraq) – and settled down there.

 

In our text, God calls Abram to finish the journey to “the land that I will show you”. We call this “the Promised Land” because God had promised Abram’s descendants a home there. The Children of Israel (as they came to be known) eventually made it their home, and it is the place in which the Messiah was born.

There is much that we could dwell on here. We could spend time considering what Abram and Sarah gave up. As one preacher said, this is real consecration and sanctification: Leave everything you know and love behind and follow God. We could trace the way that God’s covenant with Abraham worked out, using the further statements of the covenant in Genesis 17 and Genesis 22 to understand more of its shape. We could explore the meaning of the blessing and the cursing found in verses 2 and 3.

In keeping with our theme, we zero in on the end of the blessing: “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” It is unusual in the way that we speak to say, “all peoples”. People is already plural. Why do we make it a further plural, with “peoples”? Because it does not mean simply “everybody”, “every person”. The blessing comes specifically to all groups of people. The word in Hebrew is “mishpahot”. A “mishpaha” is a family of people, a clan, an extended family. Abraham and his family were a “mishpaha”. It would be easy for Abraham and Sarah and their children to think that they were special and that God had come to them for their benefit. After all, God had blessed them specifically. So, God makes it clear in the blessing that God’s action and blessing are for the sake of every family on earth.

Sometimes I wonder if this passage was placed in Scripture for the special benefit of Mennonites. We can be preoccupied with family. We can think that our own family is better than others. The truth is that many different churches face this same danger. I come from the Brethren in Christ, where “Climenhaga” was once one of the names at the centre of the church. When we moved here, I stopped at Kipe’s Garage over in Tourond. The owner came from BIC country in Pennsylvania and knew that someone was coming to Providence from one of the families he knew well. He asked me, “Are you a Climenhaga or a Hostetter?” naming two possible candidates. Of course, we are not special – or at least, we are no more special than anyone else. 

 

When God acts in our lives, God does so for our benefit and for the benefit of everyone else around us. This is the taproot of the missionary call: God acts in you and me for the benefit of everyone around us. 

 

Notice something else about the plural of groups: Mishpahot; families; groups of people. This apparently simple observation reminds us that God saves people in community and for community. We come to the family of God from our own family. We live in community, and we live for community. The missionary task belongs to the whole community. We don’t send someone out and breathe a sigh of relief that they are doing our work. We are engaged in the mission of God, “missio Dei”, as the whole church of God.   

 

Matthew 28 

These verses stand at the heart of the church’s mission in many people’s thinking. Our concern this morning is to note simply its approach to the nations, but first a note about whose mission our mission is. Jesus gave the commission to the twelve disciples. The essence of the commission is the command to make disciples, divided in the text into the tasks of Baptizing (that is, bringing people to faith and incorporating them into the body of Christ) and Teaching Obedience (that is, walking together into a constantly growing life modeled on the life and teachings of Jesus). Conversion and ongoing spiritual growth are both part of the commission. 

 

Many people think of missions as an evangelistic task, sometimes reduced to preaching or witnessing the need for salvation to as many people as possible. I know some who have left tracts on the beach in resort areas, hoping that the words written there will lead people to Christ. I know another person who was in Spain as a missionary intern. She was told to distribute tracts, even though she could not converse with people in their language. The idea was that this distribution of the word discharged her responsibility to “make disciples”. 

 

The written word does work miracles, and God reaches people through many different methods. I do not discourage any of them, but the examples above rest (I think) on a basic misunderstanding – that we are responsible for missionary outreach. We are indeed responsible to do all God commands, but the mission is not ours. It is God’s. That is why this series is called “missio Dei”, (the mission of God). The Great Commission begins with the words, “All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me.” The commission comes from Jesus, God the Son, and the task of bringing the nations into God’s Reign is God’s mission, not ours. When we speak about the mission of the church, we are talking about our participation in God’s mission. With these thoughts in mind, consider the specific command: Make disciples of “all nations”. 

 

Some mission scholars (such as Donald McGavran) emphasise the Greek original (ta ethne) here. We get the English word “ethnic” from this Greek word – a reference to cultural groups similar to the mishpahot of Genesis 12. It’s an attractive thought, but I believe it is not what Matthew had in mind when he recorded Jesus’ command. 

 

Go back to Matthew 10. When Jesus sent out the Twelve (Matthew 10:5), he told them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles …” They were to preach only among the “lost sheep of Israel.” The word he uses for Gentiles is “ton ethnon” – the same root word as in the Great Commission. I think we should translate “ethne” the same way in both places, so that in our passage we hear Jesus say, “Make disciples of the Gentiles (as well as of the Jews)”. 

 

This is important because the Jew-Gentile divide was almost absolute in Jesus’ day. Jesus tells his disciples to make disciples of everyone – of people like them, people they connected with naturally, and of people they would normally avoid if at all possible. We should hear Jesus’ words clearly in our day: The gospel is for everyone, not just for the people we are most comfortable with. 

 

This theme sounds a warning to us as Mennonites (and as Brethren in Christ). Our denominational identity is important to us, so we insist on our own way of doing things. For example, I have heard us say that MCC’s program supporting children is better than World Vision’s child programs. We may be right; I think we are! But I hear something else underneath – the idea that we are better Christians than non-Mennonites. I think that Jesus is warning us about human barriers that we erect between ourselves and others. 

 

Remember that the mission belongs to God. We work together as God’s people – tearing down the barriers that some erect within the church, and we reach out with the gospel of Jesus Christ to all people – tearing down the barriers that our world erects between people. We are God’s instruments to work towards the unity of love that characterized Jesus’ life on earth. 

 

Revelation 7 

Our journey through the Scriptures brings us to the last book of the Bible. We look briefly at this wonderful scene in heaven. I believe that this scene is not simply a picture of the end, but it is also a picture of the spiritual reality that exists behind the events of our day. The picture is of those who followed Christ faithfully through all that happened to them, who followed Christ to their death. They are the saints of God gathered in triumphant joy before God’s throne. 

 

What concerns us is their ethnic makeup: “All nations and kindreds and people and tongues”. Here again we see the family units and clans of Genesis 12. Here again we see the diversity and breadth of God’s people. Here again we see the place of community in the mission of God. God’s diverse people are a family bound together by the blood of Christ. We are brothers and sisters with all of God’s people around the world, gathered in joyful community with Jesus, our elder brother, in the presence of God our Father. 

 

This is the goal of mission: God’s people gathered before God’s throne with every barrier between us destroyed. 

 

Synthesis 

We bring these Scriptures together in our understanding of God’s mission to the world. All people are separated from God by the human rebellion that began with our first parents. God is the only one who can heal that ancient breach and restore all people to communion with their Creator. God sent God’s Son into the world for precisely that purpose. 

 

Our part is to participate in God’s great reconciling work. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to God and has committed to us the ministry and message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5: 18f). What do we learn from this emphasis on “God and the nations”? What does this theme tell us about our participation in missio Dei? 

 

I said earlier that as Mennonites we face the danger of turning inward. We used to live in Lancaster County, and I know well the way that Swiss Mennonites can play the in-group games. Now that we live in southern Manitoba, I see that Russian Mennonites have their own version of the game. As do the BIC from whom I come. My grandfather used to pride himself on being able to name the extended family of anyone he met. “Who’s your father?” he would ask, and when you told him he would name your siblings and cousins. 

 

This inward focus has its strength, much like the Children of Israel becoming God’s People so that the Messiah, God’s Anointed One, could come to them. But the inward focus with its purifying fire is always for the sake of the whole world. We take care of ourselves spiritually at SMC so that we can be God’s hands and feet in Steinbach. We take care of ourselves spiritually in Mennonite Church Manitoba so that we can be God’s hands and feet in Canada. We take care of ourselves spiritually in MC Canada so that we can be God’s hands and feet in the whole world. Our membership in Mennonite World Conference follows naturally from this identity. 

 

Still we ask, what does this outward focus mean for how we engage in God’s mission? Some bullet points: 

• We work with our brothers and sisters around the world – first of all, Mennonites, but also Christians of all kinds who are in our circle of relationships.
• We break down relationship barriers wherever we find them. We embrace our unity with our Metis brothers and sisters in Manigotagan. We break down barriers with marginalized people in our community and country. We become aware of ways that people around the world are disenfranchised and we embrace them.
• We recognize the extent to which all of life depends on the authority of Jesus Christ. When we meet marginalized people who are excluded by their own rebellion, we embrace them, and we invite them to a new relationship with Jesus.
• The blessing given to Abraham and Sarah was that their family would be God’s family. The nations then would share that blessing. The blessing given to us is the same: That the people around us will come into God’s family through their relationships with us. The Great Commission has the same focus: That the people around us will come into God’s family through us. The picture in Revelation 7 is of the family that has come to God through relationships with followers of Jesus. We receive God’s blessing and we become part of God’s work reconciling the world with God. That’s what we are about: Reconciling the world to God. That’s who we are: God’s reconciling people. That is our ministry and our message: Be reconciled with God.

 

17 January 2021; Steinbach Mennonite Church 

1) Theme: God and the Nations 

 

Genesis 12: 1-4 

The call of Abram

12 The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. ² “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. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” 

⁴ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.

 

Matthew 28: 16-20

¹⁶ Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Revelation 7: 9-17

The great multitude in white robes

⁹ After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰ And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” 

¹¹ All the angels were standing round the throne and round the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, ¹² saying: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honour and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” 

¹³ Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes – who are they, and where did they come from?” ¹⁴ I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. ¹⁵ Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. 

¹⁶ “Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat. ¹⁷ For the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

 

Focus Statement: A commitment to community can cause us to look inwards. God’s desire to reconcile the world to God expresses itself by calling us to look outwards. We are God’s hands and feet in the world to carry out the mission of God (missio Dei). 

 

Looking Ahead Question: How do we participate in the “mission of God”? What is God’s mission? What is our part? 

 

Going Deeper Questions: 

 1) I said that breaking down barriers is basic to Christian mission. What are the barriers that we face, which we need to surmount with the gospel? 

 

2) I suggested that sometimes Mennonites are too inclined to work only with other Mennonites in our missionary outreach. Is this a fair criticism? How do we balance a proper commitment to MCM and to the work of the larger church of Jesus Christ? 

 

3) What is our role within Mennonite World Conference as regards the mission of the church? 

 

4) What is the place of the evangelistic appeal for conversions in the overall mission of God, as well as in the mission of the church? 

 

5) Which mission agencies are part of the Mennonite world as SMC experiences it?