Missionaries
A mission requires a missionary – one who is sent to accomplish the mission. In order to accomplish the rescue mission in Haiti after the recent earthquake, rescue workers needed to be sent into Haiti. Those who went to Haiti went as rescue workers, missionaries in one sense.
God’s Missionary – Jesus Christ
The missionary for God’s mission is His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man. The Father sent Jesus to accomplish His rescue mission of redemption.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. -John 6:44Jesus Christ was sent into the world to accomplish the Father’s mission willingly, and joyfully, and with a desire to accomplish everything the Father sent Him to do. He was not a reluctant missionary, but a willing One who whole-heartedly agreed with and worked with the Father to plan this mission.
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, -Galatians 4:4
Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. -John 4:34God’s Mission of Redemption
For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. -John 6:38
At the heart of God’s mission to rescue a people for the praise of His glory is God’s plan of redemption. God the Father sent Jesus to accomplish His rescue mission through redemption. To redeem someone is to free them from their bond of slavery through the payment of a ransom.
Jesus Christ Our Redeemer
Jesus was sent to redeem a people from their bondage of slavery to sin. Jesus Christ accomplished the redemption of sinners through through His perfect life, His substitutionary death, and His life giving resurrection. The ransom price Jesus paid for our freedom from sin and its consequences was His own life; the pouring out of His blood. Jesus Christ redeemed a people for the praise of God’s glory.
And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for your sake, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. -1 Peter 1:17-21CrossWay exists to live as those who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. We exist to sing, and testify, and bear witness to the new life that we have in Jesus Christ. We exist as those who no longer belong to themselves, but as those who were bought at a price. We gladly exist as a community of the redeemed.
Related Posts:
Conviction 1 – The Glory of God
Conviction -2 – The End of Human History
Conviction 3 – The Rejection of God
