"He (Jesus) went to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day He went into the synagogue, as was His custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it is written:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent Me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
Then He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on Him. He began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing’.
Luke 4:16-21 [NIV]
In our series on Being Missional thus far, we have seen that we are missional because we serve a missional God. He is the One that started to reconcile man to Himself after the Fall, and He continues to do so today, using His church as an instrument of reconciliation in this world. But the Church is not just an organism, a structure or a group of clergy making decisions – the Church is the Bride of Christ, and consists of every believer that has put his or her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, just as the Church (and every congregation that has Jesus as its Lord) is called to be missional, so is every believer.
The moment you put your faith in Christ, you become a Christian, a believer, a disciple, one that is missional. It is not something that we can choose to be or not. It is not something that we become after years of attending church, leading Bible studies or going to Bible college. It is something that we are. We need to recognize it, and learn what it means to be missional. For the next few months we will be looking at what it means to be missional as a believer in Jesus our Lord.
The idea of ‘being missional’ might be a new idea for many of us, but the understanding of what it means to be missional is as old as God’s relationship with His people. The characteristics of being missional can be found in some of the characteristics of God’s person and identity, and how we as His children reflect them in our lives, as well as those things that God has called us to be, ways of life he has called us to live and words, deeds, actions, attitudes and behaviours we are called to display. To address all these characteristics will not take a few months, but years, and therefore I will address some of the most obvious and important ones. To have a complete understanding of what it means to be missional, you can do a study on your own – working through the whole Bible, listing the characteristics of God and those which we are called to reflect in our lives, as well as those commands God has given us to obey concerning our lives: what to say, what to do, how to behave and what our attitudes should be.
(see note at end of article.)
"The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children and their children for the sin of their fathers to the third and fourth generation".
Exodus 34:6b-7: [NIV]
God is a compassionate God, and He calls each one of us to be compassionate. In his book, The Hole in Our Gospel, Richard Stearns says, "The gospel – the whole gospel – means much more than personal salvation of individuals. It means a social revolution". He refers to the social revolution as themes of reconciliation, compassion and justice. To be missional means to understand that God has given us the means to be reconciled with Him through His Son, Jesus Christ, but that we should also share that message of reconciliation with others. But to be reconciled with God also gives us the strength, wisdom and courage to be reconciled with others, ourselves and this broken world. The message of reconciliation is not driven by duty, but by compassion and love, as we see clearly in the example of Jesus in Matthew 9:35-36:
"Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd". [NIV]
We are also called to show justice. When we read the Old Testament, and especially the prophets, we see that God’s judgment was on His people, not because they were not religious enough, but because they did not show justice and mercy (For example in the Book of Amos, the prophet highlights the oppression of the poor (2:6-7a, 8:4), injustice in the courts (2:7a, 5:12), religious abuses (2:8), violence (3:10) and corrupt business practices (8:5)). We see the heart of God in Micah 6:7-8:
"Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God". [NIV]
To be missional means to turn the focus from ourselves to others. And how can we focus on others without realizing the pain, the need and the suffering that we are all facing? When we think of those in need, most of the time we think of the images of starving children in Africa, earthquake victims in Haiti or millions suffering from HIV/AIDS. But the reality is that suffering and poverty are not only restricted to physical suffering or material needs. There are millions of people (also around us) suffering from emotional, social and spiritual needs. Think of Jesus’ reaction of compassion to the people in Matthew 9; He did not have compassion on the people because they were poor, hungry or suffering from illnesses and diseases; He had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Their needs were not as much physical and material as they were social, emotional and spiritual. They did not have leaders who led them in truth and some of the leaders that they did have, exploited and harassed them (together with the political and military harassment from the Romans). Jesus showed compassion for their greatest needs.
But what does compassion mean? The Greek word that Matthew uses in this text is ‘splangizomai’, literally meaning, "to feel from your gut". It is not empathy or sympathy; it is to actually feel what the one who is suffering feels. It is to experience their pain, hurt, suffering, and helplessness. Personally, I think it is very hard to be compassionate just by hearing stories or looking at pictures. Jesus had compassion on the people because He was among them, saw them, heard them, smelled them, touched them. He knew, understood and felt their pain.
During the month of December we will focus on our Global Compassion Campaign. God has put His desire on the hearts of our leaders for CrossRoads Church to show compassion to three communities (one each in Uganda, Sudan and Haiti). We are building relationships with them, supporting them in their most immediate needs and searching with them for answers on how to become more sustainable. Through the GCC, we are being missional and compassionate. But each one of us is also being called to be missional and compassionate.
We have the opportunity this Christmas Eve to show our compassion through giving, but showing compassion is more than just giving money. Not all of us have had the opportunity to go to Uganda, Sudan, Haiti or other countries to experience the needs to show compassion. And we do not have to. We live in a society with more than enough needs – yes, some physical and material, but many more which are social, emotional and spiritual. All it takes from us is to ask the Lord to open our eyes to see the needs around us, and to ask the Holy Spirit to fill us with compassion and love. Maybe it is your neighbour, colleague, someone downtown or in a shelter, or maybe it is the person sitting next to you, your spouse, sibling or child, who needs compassion. Maybe it is you that needs compassion, and someone else reading this article will be prompted to show you compassion.
In closing, I am reminded of some of Jesus’ last words in Matthew 25:31-46.
When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on his left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited Me in, I needed clothes and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you came to visit Me.’
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? When did we see You a stranger and invite You in, or needing clothes and clothe You? When did we see You sick or in prison and go to visit You?’
The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for Me’.
Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave Me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite Me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe Me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after Me.’
They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help You?’
He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me.’
Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
[NIV]
Questions to consider:
What are the greatest needs, injustices and sufferings in our own community, and how is God calling us to show compassion to suffering people?
What are my gifts, experience and resources that God can use to show compassion, mercy and justice, here in Central Alberta and around the world?
Have you ever felt real compassion from your gut? If so, think about what you experienced and learned from that. If not, maybe ask God to give you such an experience.
Books for further reading:
The Hole in Our Gospel
by Richard Stearns (Thomas Nelson)
When Helping Hurts
by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett (Moody Publishers)
Cross-Cultural Servanthood: Serving the World in Christlike Humility
by Duane Elmer (IVP Books)
I need to make a few notes here to clarify some important principles of interpretation when doing a study like this:
- 1) When making a list of God’s characteristics, it is good not to start off by listing those characteristics that we have learned through the years (like ‘God is almighty’, ‘God is omnipresent’, ‘God is good’ etc.), but rather read through the Bible systematically, from the beginning to the end, and when you find something that God reveals about Himself, write that down, as well as the text in which you found the reference.
2) The first and most important principle of Bible interpretation is to understand the text within the context. For example, Deuteronomy 6:15 says, for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land.[NIV] In reading this verse only, you may conclude that God is both a jealous and angry God (both negative characteristics on their own), and that we should be scared of Him. But this is not the meaning of the text. Within the context it is clear that God has chosen Israel as His people, brought them out of slavery and taking them to the promised land (Deut. 6:10-12). He has done everything for them, and what He asks in return is that the people fear Him (not fear as being scared, but fear as reverence) and serve Him only (Deut. 6:13). And the warning: they are not to follow other gods (Deut. 6:14), for God is jealous about his people (jealousy here is to be understood as a desire not to share what is your own with others, like sharing your spouse with another) and His anger will come down on the people if they do not follow His commands (Deut. 6:15). Therefore, the right understanding of this text is not that God is jealous and angry in a negative sense, but that He treasures those that He has saved and cares for, but that He is also righteous to punish those who do not keep His commands.
3) When listing the characteristics of God, we will find that we cannot display or reflect all the characteristics of God. We are not the same as He is. There are some characteristics that are only true to God and there are some of God’s characteristics that we as believers can reflect and display. For example, in Genesis 1 we read that God is the creator of everything, and although we can create art, music, architecture and technology, it is only God that can create matter from nothing. We read in Exodus 34:6-7 that God is compassionate and gracious; and we also read that He gives us the same ability to be compassionate (e.g. Psalm 103:4 and Jeremiah 42:12) and to show grace (Psalm 45:2, 2 Corinthians 8:7 and 2 Peter 3:18).
4) In making a list of the commands God has given us to obey concerning our lives; what to say, what to do, how to behave and what our attitudes should be, the danger is that we can become legalistic in applying New Testament commands and in applying Old Testament laws that are redundant to our lives. Let us look at both of these.
a) We live in a constant tension between legally following everything the Law and God told us to do (we focus on our right deed rather than our right relationship with God), and the freedom that we have in Christ (we are not under the Law anymore, but live under grace). The right understanding of following the laws and the commands God has given us is not to do them to gain salvation, God’s favour or blessing. Because we have been loved, saved and made God’s children, we do the things He has commanded us out of thankfulness and love. Therefore, in making a list of these commands, it should not be a list of things that we should do or expect others to do because it is the right thing to do, but it should be a list of the things we do out of gratefulness and a desire to reflect God’s grace.
b) In the Old Testament, we find four kinds of laws: moral laws (like the Ten Commandments), civil laws (how the nation should live as a testimony to others), dietary laws (what were clean and unclean food to be eaten) and ritualistic laws (like sacrifices that show the need for atonement). Looking from a New Testament perspective, we see that the first two kinds of laws, moral and civil laws, are still applicable to us today, but the last two, the dietary and ritualistic laws, are either fulfilled in Christ and His sacrifice, or are redundant because of the new covenant in Christ. Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection fulfilled all Old Testament sacrifices and offerings (the five categories of sacrifices and offerings in the Law of Moses were: burnt offerings, grain offerings, fellowship offerings, sin/purification offerings and guilt/reparation offerings). According to Acts 10, God made those unclean and impure things of the Old Testament clean and pure, therefore making the dietary laws redundant.
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