Communal Disciplines (6)

So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”John 20.21

The mission of Jesus
The word “mission” comes from a Latin root which means, “to send.” Jesus explained that He had been sent to earth by the Father, and it is evident from the record of His life and ministry that His mission entailed a specific purpose.

He explained to His apostles – itself a Greek word deriving from a root which means, “sent out” – that what they had seen and experienced in His mission, they were to replicate and expand in theirs (cf. Jn. 14.12). The followers of Christ, being disciples, are also His “sent ones,” sent into the world together with a mission that intends to carry on and carry further the mission Jesus Himself came to fulfill.

Local churches are the embodiment today both of the resurrection life of Jesus and the legacy of the apostles. They are, in other words, communities of “sent ones” whose overarching purpose is to replicate and extend the mission of Jesus and His apostles within their own communities.

Church, therefore, should not be understood as something we go to – as in, “Where do you go to church?” – but as something we are sent out from. All believers, being followers of Christ and heirs of the apostolic legacy and mandate, are apostles and missionaries and “sent out” ones for Jesus. Together their communities serve as both signs and outposts of the Kingdom of God.

Sent like Jesus
In order to understand our mission, we need to look carefully at the mission of Jesus. Two foci define the reason for Jesus’ being sent from the Father.

First, Jesus was sent to bring near the Kingdom of God. God has always been King over the world and everything in it. But He chose to rule the world at a distance, as it were, for many thousands of years, exercising only a remote authority over the peoples of the earth, leaving them to their own designs and the schemes of the devil. God continued to order the cosmos and provide abundant blessings of life, community, culture, and bounty to the peoples of the earth (Acts 14.17), but He held back from asserting Himself spiritually into their midst, so as to advance His preferred agenda among the nations.

With the coming of Jesus, all that changed. As we see in His life, works, preaching, and teaching, the announcement that God’s Kingdom had “come near,” was “at hand,” or even was “within you” took center stage in all Jesus did. In Jesus, through His work of salvation and by the outpouring of His Spirit, God was beginning a new period of human history, a period in which, increasingly, His rule of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Spirit expands to encompass the world and its peoples and cultures (Is. 9.6, 7; Dan. 2.44, 45).

This focus on the Kingdom allowed Jesus to accomplish the second reason for which He had been sent, that is to glorify God in all His works (Jn. 17.4). God the Father intends that the knowledge of His glory should cover the earth as the waters cover the seas (Hab. 2.14), and we certainly see this in every aspect of Jesus’ life and ministry. Now He is determined that Jesus, by His Word and Spirit, in and through His Church, should fill all things with Himself, thus bringing the glory of God to light in all aspects of life, society, and culture (Eph. 1.22, 23; 4.10; 1 Cor. 10.31).

Thus, the mission of Jesus – to advance God’s Kingdom and bring His glory to light – continues today in those He has sent, like Himself, to fulfill the good purposes of God.

Rediscovering mission
But when we look at the churches in our land, is this what we see? Do we see whole communities of people becoming equipped, week by week, and sent out into every nook, cranny, and corner of their society to bring the glory of God to light in all their relationships, roles, and responsibilities? To announce with joy and boldness the arrival through them of a Kingdom not of this world, and to call every knee to bow and every tongue to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father?

Well, it’s not what I see, and I doubt it’s what very many of us see, either. Churches treat “mission” as something they pay others to do in distant lands or among the needy and downtrodden – people who don’t attend our church. “Mission” takes a special calling, or requires some special and usually short-term program, involving only a few people in the church.

But the work of mission as Jesus intends it is the work of the entire church, the goal of which is to turn the world of their local community rightside-up under the Kingship of Jesus Christ (Acts 17.1-9). Every member of every local church is a missionary in this respect, sent from the church to shine the light of Christ into every area of life, culture, and society. Churches are made up of people with differing vocations, and each member engages his calling as one who has been sent like Jesus.

We need training, vision, encouragement, the assistance of our fellow church members, and meaningful accountability to one another if we are to fulfill the mission for which our church has been sent to our community. A church that does not seek the Kingdom of God together cannot sign the Kingdom to its community and will not serve as an outpost from which the Kingdom makes progress, week by week.

And such a church, for all its outward trappings and earnest intentions, is in fact no church at all.

Next steps: How do your pastor and church leaders understand the mission of your church? Ask them.

T. M. Moore

This week’s study, Communal Disciplines, is part 6 of a 7-part series on The Disciplined Life, and is available as a free download by clicking here. We have prepared a special worksheet to help you begin getting your disciplines in proper shape for seeking the Kingdom. Write to T. M. at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for your free PDF of the “Disciplined Life Worksheet.”

A rightly-disciplined life requires a Kingdom vision, and that vision is centered on Jesus Christ exalted. T. M. has prepared a series of meditations on the glorious vision of Christ, based on Scripture and insights from the Celtic Christian tradition. Order your copy of Be Thou My Vision by clicking here.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.