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Going Into The World
Brian Mashburn
April 23, 2017
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Incarceration Or Incarnation?
My title, I admit, might be a bit dramatic and overstated.
However, when you hear the word "church," what image comes to mind? Is it Christians collected together in a building, set apart from the world, singing, studying, and remembering Jesus? Or is it Christians leaving the building, going into the world, on the mission of Jesus?
Guess which one describes the church in Acts?
Truth be told, embedded inside of every Christian is a Holy-Spirit-impulse to give Christ to the world. Each one I know admits this. Now, they are either expressing it or suppressing it, but they know it and feel it. Put it to the test: If you are Christian, still yourself and think about our commission. Your commission. If you are still (and honest), you will acknowledge the joy you feel when you are doing it, and the emptiness (maybe even guilt) when you are not.
This is a Biblically explainable phenomenon. Christ is a missionary (Luke 19:10). Christ embedded a missionary heart into his followers (Matthew 28:19). And Christ himself is embedded in each of you (Colossians 1:27). "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you," our Master says. It is not for lack of desire that we do not go into other people's lives in Christ's name, rather it is for lack of submission to that desire. And, oh, how we have our reasons: "That's not my gift," "That's what we have missionaries for," "I don't know anyone who doesn't know Christ," or "Look, I'm just afraid."
In the book of Acts, they were sent into the world. We have been sent, too. We are not to warehouse Christians in the pews of the church building, set apart from the world as the people of God. We are trying to mobilize an unstoppable force for good, deployed into the world as the people of God.
Soooo... Go.