God's Mission and Our Talent

Something occurred to me as I was preparing my sermon this week. God's mission is accomplished (saving people from their sins) largely through our time, talents, and treasure. God uses us as His instruments with the time, talent, (skills, abilities, and gifts) and treasure that He has given us. We do not have the ability to do any of this apart from Christ. He is the one who gives us all this according to our abilities and expects us to multiple them accordingly.

These gifts that He gives us are bigger than we can imagine or think. In the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus uses the talent (a unit of money in those days worth about $400,000) to make a point that He is far more generous than we can think or imagine. He gives one fellow 5 talents ($2M), another 2 talents ($800k) and the last one, one talent ($400K). Metaphorically, He is communicating that He give us an amazing amount of stuff (desires, intelligence, gifts, abilities, skills, critical thinking, etc.) far more than what we think we have to do His work.

He expects us to increase what He has given to us through effort, perseverance, and passion for what we are doing, anything less doesn't cut the mustard. For there will come a day when He will ask each of us what we did with all the stuff He that has given us. How will you answer Him?

God the Multi-Tasker

As we go through life, we often get sucked into it so deeply through our circumstances, that we lose sight of the overall picture of what God is trying to do. Many times we don't even see how God's overall mission (to redeem His people from their sins) is applicable to our lives. In times like these Psalm 91 is a great reminder of how God comforts us in our time need even while He is accomplishing His mission. God is the ultimate multi-tasker. Nothing is too great for Him to do, nor is anything too insignificant for Him to do either...including assuring you that you are going to be O.K. despite the circumstance that you find yourself in.

The Psalmist writes in Psalm 91 if we trust God, he will deliver us from destruction. Notice that he doesn't write that God will deliver from your trials, but He will deliver you from the catastrophic effects of those trials. He will shield you and protect you and not allow them to consume you.

God will use your life's stories as inspiration for others who are going through similar trials to encourage and inspire them....and possibly save them. How cool is that! God will use your trials to redeem His people from their sins. God will use catastrophic events in your life to advance His mission while comforting and encouraging you.

Working Together for the Common Good

It seems to us that if you want to get anything done on a large scale, it requires a bunch of people coming together for a common cause. We have a real heart to support the local high school in ways that would be meaningful to them. The Principal is a committed follower of Christ and welcomes us with open arms to help the students at his high school.

One of the projects that we are currently working on is with the Athletic department. Many of their student athletes are sidelined because of academic eligibility issues. We are reaching out to other churches in the area as well as Young Life to form a tutoring program to help these kids stay eligible and to start a Young Life club on campus.

Today I had lunch with three local student ministries pastors to discuss our idea and to gauge interest on their part. All of them had buy in and were excited that we were working on this.

Who knows where this is headed, but it is tremendously encouraging that there are folks out there wiling to partner with us to impact the lives of kids today...with an eye of impacting them eternally.

God's Mission Quietly Playing Out

After worship service this morning I was stopped by one of the elderly women who attend our church. She told me that see visits with a neighbor a couple hours of week and this last week the discussion turned toward the spiritual realm.

Her neighbor began to challenge the Christian faith and labeled us "narrow minded". She didn't know quite how to respond to the charge so she asked me this morning. I suggested a way or two for her to gently challenge her neighbor to see just how open minded he really is.

She said she would try the approaches that I suggested. I imagine that this happens countless times everyday in every city and town. This is one of the quiet ways that God advances His mission...one person at a time, whether young or old, standing firm in the faith and offering a better way to those who are willing to have a discussion.

After our discussion my heart just lept for joy, knowing that an 80 year old woman was dialoging with a person 25 to 30 years her junior about our Lord. May we have the same zeal when we are in our 80's.

Meditating on Mission

One of the things that endears me to the Psalms is the deep meditation and reflection of who God is what He has done by the Psalmists. It's remembering and reinforcing God's mission. Not only do many of them look back on the history of what God has done, but often times asks direct and very powerful rhetorical questions like in Psalm 77 that describe the anguish that all of us feel in our hearts at one time or another.

Questions like will the Lord reject forever? (v. 7) or has God forgotten to be merciful? (v. 9) There are seasons in our lives when many of us emotional feel as if the Lord has abandon us though Scripture and our head knowledge knows otherwise. The Psalms, and Psalm 77 is just one example, are a wonderful place to wrestle with God and then ultimately to receive mercy in our time of need during those seasons of life when we feel a bit lost and uncertain. Not only do they comfort us, but they help us regain much needed perspective that God is on a mission and nothing, not even our doubts, will stop Him.

Shooting Ourselves in the Foot

We can learn a great deal from the latter stages of Solomon's life. Solomon was David's son who was one of the richest and wisest men in the world. He built God's temple and ruled Israel during a time of unprecedented peace and wealth creation. It was common during that period of time that when nations traded goods and services, they also offered their women as part of the deal. Solomon received hundreds of foreign women and loved about 1000 of them.

Knowing the softness of a man's heart for a woman, God specifically instructed the Israelites not to marry or be with foreign women because they will "surely" turn the Israelite men's hearts after their gods. As many of us know, men have a difficult time not being unduly influenced by women. Soon Solomon began building temples in honor of these "gods" to please his women despite God commanding him to discontinue these relationships.

God finally had enough and ripped Solomon's kingdom away from him by raising up adversaries. God eventually divided the kingdom into two...10 tribes to the north and 2 tribes to the south after Solomon's death.

As we look at this in the context of God's mission, we see that God expects us to finish as we started. If we don't because we moved away from him, he will simply let us go our own way and he will raise someone else to do his will. God's plan will not be held captive by any human being. If we become obstinate to His will for our lives, He will find someone else to carry out His plan and we lose out on the blessing that He freely gives to those who obey Him.