Go...and do what?

And Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

- Matthew 28:18-20

Anyone recognize that button?

If you you were born after 1960's, I doubt it. I was a senior in high school, and it was the lynchpin of a national plan to get Christians to "witness." We wore these buttons to school, put bumper stickers on our cars, and had a pocket full of tracts to help us talk people through the Good News.

So, according to the training (yes, there was training), conversations were to go like this:

"I found it!"
"What did you find?"
"New life in Jesus Christ."

Now, let me stop and say that I'm sure there are a lot of people who began their road to faith in Jesus with just such a conversation. Or by reading a "Chick Track" left on a restaurant table. And I personally know people who came to faith because of someone bold enough to share the Four Spiritual Laws with a stranger.

But as I read the passage and look at the level of commitment among those who profess the name of Christ, I wonder where we lost our way. Do we really believe that we can just follow a formula - like praying a specific prayer - and treat it as a guaranteed ticket to heaven? That it doesn't matter what we do after that?

A Gospel built around a formula and getting someone to walk through an exercise. What kinds of fruit has it produced?

Well.....

• We don't need to go to church and worship collectively with other believers. Faith is a personal thing, just between me and God. I don't need you, I prayed the prayer. I'm good, thanks.
• For that same reason, I don't want to force my beliefs on you.
• I can live however I want - after all, I prayed the prayer and punched my ticket years ago. I can live out my life full of envy, greed, sexual immorality, and all sorts of selfishness.
• My salvation is about my eternal destination - not about the glory of God here on earth. As long as I asked Jesus into my heart, that's all that matters. Check with you at the end, God.

But alas, that is not what Jesus commanded. He didn't tell us to go and convert people to a shallow religion that makes no difference in our lives. In fact, he condemned religious leaders who did so:

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one convert; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are."

- Matthew 23:15 

Ouch!

No, he commanded something much deeper. He came to announce God's kingdom, and the disciples were to be part of his mission to spread the glory of God throughout the earth. He said to make disciples - people who devote their lives. And for us to teach them to obey everything he commanded.

So, Christian, go. Go, not to accumulate notches on your belt for the number of people you got to walk through a conversion ritual. But go, live out the Gospel. Share your life with everyone around you. Tell them about Jesus, who through his death made it possible for us to come into God's presence. And teach them what it means to have true faith and repentance - and how a changed heart will enable them to love Jesus and obey what he taught.

And when that happens, we'll be a step closer to the goal.

Blessed be his glorious name forever;

may the whole earth be filled with his glory.

- Psalm 72:19

Go.

The rescue...to what end?

I've been doing a lot of reading lately. I think having a Kindle is a big reason for that...I don't know. That theory will be the subject of another blog post. But regardless, it's definitely true. It seems I can't get enough. I usually have one work of fiction and one non-fiction going at once, just so I can jump back and forth.

Anyway, in reading so much, I have come across a truth has been off my radar for most of my life. One that I'm sure I knew but I just didn't think of it this way. And because I just seem to have nothing better to do on a Friday night than write, you get to read about it. Lucky you.

Ready? Here you go:

God did not save me to make me happy.

Kind of obvious...and kind of radical. But the more I look at Scripture the more I see its truth. The whole goal of God pursuing me to have a relationship with him was not - gasp! - to make me feel happy and safe about my life.

Why then? For his glory. To show the richness of his mercy, grace, wisdom, power, and love. To make much of him, not of me. Said another way, in the words of N.T. Wright (Surprised by Hope, p. 184) so that I would "worship the creator God and discover thereby what it means to become fully and gloriously human, reflecting his powerful, healing, transformative love into the world."

You see, it really is not about me. Even my salvation. And that last part is what I didn't get.

This is radical stuff to me. In many ways, but two are huge:

First, it means that eternal "fire insurance" is not a good motivation to be saved. If that's what I'm looking for, then I've made it about me. The prospect of heaven isn't either - again, that's about me and my enjoyment. The question before me when I decide whether to follow Jesus shouldn't be, "Will I walk streets of gold or will I burn forever?" because that makes it a selfish decision. The question is whether I will be part of God's wondrous plan to bring glory to himself and rescue his creation from evil, or will I be part of the problem? Oh, the eternal rewards (and consequences) are real...no question. But when we make the decision about that, I see now that we dim our view of God's glory, substituting our own.

Second, and most importantly to me, it gives my life purpose. If I've been rescued from my sin just to go to heaven (so that I can be happy forever), bring it on NOW. Why stick around? But that's not the reason. God has saved me to reflect him and be part of his plan for his creation. So from the moment I begin to follow Jesus, my mission begins. I am part of his divine reign and have a role to play. So instead of waiting for "the sweet by and by," I need to be getting about his business. I've got work to do: to love the unloveable (including my enemies), free the oppressed, take care of the helpless, and proclaim the good news that there's a new Sheriff in town.

Listen as Stephen Curtis Chapman sings about it:



Do you see how transforming this is? It makes our faith about changing this world and reclaiming it for its rightful owner. Not about just sort of putting up with this world because one day we'll get to leave it. No! We are saved to be agents of the King.

Let's get to it!