2025 October news-letter article

Greetings dear friends!

In recent months, I have been writing about how we ought to view missions, and how God calls us each to “live on mission”.  Though I took a bit of a break from this theme this-past month, I hope you took away the importance of commitment to an undiluted Good News, which further strengthens our ability to obey the Great Commission faithfully.  Last Sunday, I preached from Philippians 2, where we find King Jesus setting the ultimate example of humility.  It seems clear to me that God calls us to strive toward humility, understanding it as a synonym of “Christ-likeness” and “holiness”.  This striving goes hand-in-hand with the process of sanctification, where the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin.  As we continually repent, walking closer and closer with Jesus, we grow toward maturity, looking more and more like Jesus over time.

This process of sanctification is the natural course of spiritual growth for all followers of Jesus.  It is accelerated by intentional discipleship processes.  Let’s recall that the Great Commission (Matthew 28) doesn’t call us to “go and make converts”; it calls us to “go and make disciples”.  Discipleship is a life-long process, whereby we are “conformed into the image of Christ (Romans)”.  At the end of Matthew 28, the command to “make disciples” is explained with three participles: going, baptizing, and teaching.  Baptizing is the obvious one; making disciples assumes evangelizing the lost.  If we are being disciples who make disciples, souls will get saved, and those new disciples will get baptized.  Teaching is fairly obvious too; as we grow in our faith (sanctification), we need to learn more, teaching others, and being taught by others.  We all need a “Paul” who is an example for us to follow; we all need a “Timothy” who is following our example; we also need multiple people around us as “Barnabas” was to Paul, partners in ministry, sharpening one another in encouragement and brotherhood/sisterhood.

Going, is a bit more ironic.  Going is a prerequisite if we are going to meet new people on mission, evangelizing them.  No lost people will ever hear the Good News if the Church doesn’t go.  We absolutely must leave the house, but we don’t even need to go “on a mission trip” to live intentionally.  We can befriend, and get to know, and earn the trust, and share our faith with our neighbors, and waiters, and cashiers, and bankers, right here in town!  However, as we grow toward spiritual maturity, as we are engaged in the teaching of sanctification, our “going” becomes much effective.  As we grow in discipleship, we are better equipped to serve lost people, share the Good News through our testimonies, pray for sensitivity and discernment as we navigate conversations, and understand what the bible has to say about the issues raised by our lost neighbors.  As we are being made into more mature disciples, we will improve in our efforts to go and make further disciples.

Whether you prefer to call it “discipleship” or “sanctification”, it is an essential aspect of us being the followers of Jesus that He calls us to be.  I want our church family, and every member hereof, to be disciples who make disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples, until Jesus calls us home.  If we are going to be the church on mission that God calls us to be (that I very, very much want us to be), we must – individually – be followers of Jesus, living on mission faithfully.  If we are individually obeying the Great Commission, if we are corporately obeying the Great Commission, it assumes that God’s instructions to us trump our collective will.  Back to the notion of humility: as we grow toward humility, we are better able to set aside personal agendas, yielding to the lordship of Jesus.  May we all put our respective will aside, walking in selflessness (of which, Jesus is the ultimate example), keeping our eyes upon the objective of all people groups gathering around the throne of God in heaven one day.  In so doing, as subjects of King Jesus, let’s be who He calls us to be, let’s go where He calls us to go, and let’s do what He calls us to do!

My will is not my own, ‘til Thou hast made it Thine;
if it would reach a monarch’s throne, it must its crown resign.
Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free;
force me to render up my sword, and I shall conqueror be!
--A.J.