[We Are the Children of God]
Welcome to the mission of God. You are a part of his family and a part of his kingdom. He has designed you, created you and called you to advance his kingdom on earth. You are, above all else, his child. This is the part where you put this book down and just think about that. On second thought, books are for reading and since you purchased this, I suppose it’s up to me to keep writing.
I am a somewhat new graduate of seminary so I’ve read and heard a million stories about everything so I can’t really even tell you where I heard this but I think it’s important to share. The story involves a pastor who was called to speak at a conference. While he had a decent sized church, the conference had other pastors who had much larger and more, shall we say successful churches than he did. So, needless to say, he was a bit nervous about the whole thing.
For weeks leading up to the event, he poured himself out as he prepared to have the most amazing sermon he had ever preached. He imagined what the scene would look like as well. He would stand up on stage, deliver an awe inspiring message and the crowd would go wild. So, as a pastor, he knew that he needed to put in a lot of time and energy for that kind of an outcome.
The problem was though that the line-up was rather difficult to follow and some of the other speakers were more established than he was. He knew he had his work cut out for him. He sat there on the first night and listened to that night’s speaker who delivered a great message. During that message, reality spilled into his world and he realized he was in way over his head. He began to second guess himself and he began to think about how poor his message was. He began to think about the negative aspects of the reception which he believed would be inevitable when he spoke. He realized that his dream of delivering a great message and having the crowd go wild as he delivered the message was slipping away.
The next night he arrived and he was more nervous than ever. All he could do was think about how he wasn’t going to be able to pull through. As much as he wanted to be great, he knew he wouldn’t be. Following the worship music, the host of the event introduced this pastor and he slowly walked up the steps, took the stage and drank a slip of water. In the midst of his fear and his self- realization that he wasn’t going to be any good, he heard a still small voice whisper into his ear, “You don’t need to worry about having a great message. You just need to be my son!” With that, the preacher let go of everything else and concentrated on being God’s child.
I want to be up front and honest that this story hit me. I am just like that preacher I heard about while going through seminary. I’ve survived the college and seminary years by serving in small churches and while I dream of making it big, it seems that reality shows me, again and again; my platform has always been smaller than I thought it would be.
When I preach the Word of God, I envision myself of speaking with such great conviction and getting the crowd up off their feet and clapping. I picture myself being adored by the crowd and awed by my mere presence. Without fail, every time I stand behind the pulpit and open the Bible, I begin to second guess my abilities to preach and sometimes I find myself lost up there, wondering what to say next. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we are God’s children first.
I love to work, do you? I mean, I don’t like to think that really but in the end, I really do love to work. Doing something is better in my mind than sitting around doing nothing. Sitting around is being lazy, isn’t it? So, I carry the same mindset when it comes to Christianity and following Jesus. While I don’t want to make this out to be an attack on “Religion” but the truth of the matter is that I love working rather than resting. You see, I like writing sermons, I like preparing worship songs for church, I like thinking about and thinking through sermon series, I like getting things ready for church and making sure everything is all set for church. But often times, in the pursuit of excellence for Christ, I can forget that I need to rest in Christ. I need to remember I am his child; I am loved, forgiven and accepted just as I am by a holy and perfect God.
Working is never really the issue though. The real issue is how we have allowed ourselves to tie our identity to what we do. Let me give you an example. Most often, when you meet someone for the first time and you are getting acquainted with them, you ask the basic questions. What’s your name? This establishes a personal identity. Are you single or married? This establishes the martial aspect of their identity. Then, what do you do for a living or work? To be honest, asking someone about their vocation is often asked within the first five questions. What we do with our lives is often associated with who we are.
If you met me, you would learn right away that my name is Mike, obviously I am an author, I am a pastor and I work outside the church as well. However, most of those things are what I do, not who I am. Our identity begins with who God says we are. The reason I discuss identity at the forefront and will continue to brush over this idea is simple because our obedience to God flows from our relationship with him. When we begin to understand who we are in Christ, we can accomplish his mission on earth. You see, our identity is connected to God’s identity.
Luke 1:26-28|
“In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called to Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be?” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.”
There is no doubt in my mind that I would freak out if an angel appeared before me. In fact, most of the times we read about people in the Bible encountering an angel, they are afraid so much that the angel’s first words are, “Don’t be afraid.” Since angels are messengers, one would assume God puts them up to this as well. I’m sold on the idea that when God gives an angel a message to give to someone on earth, God begins by saying, “No matter what my message is, you will need to start with these words. Write this down because this is important. If you don’t remember to say these three words then you’ll never get to the part I need you to get to. You ready? Here are the first three words you need to say: Don’t be afraid!”
Mary’s fear with this encounter had everything to do with the message that was given to her. The angel informed her that she had been highly favored and God was with her. She was disturbed by those words! Why is that? I think she was troubled because of the way she compared herself and the way she saw herself and now she’s being told how God sees her. Most often, there’s a huge difference there!
I can relate to that and I bet you can to. As a perfect example, I have no issue whatsoever referring to myself as a sinner on the simple basis that I have and continue to sin. God, on the other hand, clearly states in his own Word that those who have trusted in Christ and his finished work are righteous! It sounds great but in my mind, I struggle with that kind of assessment. I find myself arguing with God over whom he says that I am.
To live the mission of God, we begin with the willingness to step outside of the box we have placed ourselves in and allow a radical transformation of our minds to renew us. So again, we have to face the argument whether we can think like that however, the Word says we have the very mind of Christ. (1 Cor. 2:16)
The angel Gabriel continued with the message he had to give Mary, which was about the birth of Jesus. Again, Mary had an issue with the content of the message because it made no logical sense. You don’t get pregnant just because, things have to occur. So the angel explains to Mary that while it seems unlikely that this could happen, nothing is impossible for God.
So, think about the ramifications of this though. We’re not just talking about a young woman having a child-there’s so much more to the story than that. Mary was pledged or engaged to a hard-working, blue collar man. While they loved each other, Joseph probably wasn’t going to be happy with the news that his soon to be wife was knocked up. She wasn’t going to be able to have a few nice quiet years with her new man because they were going to be parents right away. She was going to have to explain her pregnancy to her family and her friends knowing she would face ridicule and some, if not all of her friends would be perhaps skeptical of the situation. In fact, we learn later on in this story that Joseph actually wanted a divorce!
Why would the plan of God involve divorce, broken relationships and possible complete abandonment? That’s the reality that Mary could have faced and she knew it. She could have lost friends, family members and even her husband over this. You see, Mary struggled not with the plan of God for her life but her identity in God. Her identity was that she was highly favored and God was with her. I can totally get behind that, I can relate to that.
The question isn’t do we understand the plan of God for our lives, the question is, do we know who we are in him? Following the angel’s message, Mary said something very profound. She said I am the Lord’s servant. It wasn’t that she fully grasped the plan of God for her life but she was willing to face whatever challenges she might encounter because she understood her identity. She accepted her identity in God because she accepted his word as true.
For you and I to fulfill God’s mission on earth, we must come face to face with who we are in Christ. With that, I want to share the heart of an evangelist, a missionary and a church planter. His name was the Apostle Paul and he wrote two-thirds of the New Testament and is considered by many theologians to be the greatest missionary who ever lived.
Prior to his conversion though, he was Saul and his heart was bent on destroying the church. He had no love for believers and approved the stoning of Stephen. In his letter to the Corinthians he said this, “For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am…”
Paul’s mission had a rather simple formula. Do anything and everything to stop the church through the persecution, arrest, imprisonment and death of anyone who believes in Jesus. Paul’s goal was to divide and destroy the church of Jesus. That was going great until one day; Jesus appeared to him and changed everything. Paul came face to face with the grace of God and he was recomissioned into a life of serving Christ and advancing the kingdom of God.
When Paul discovered that Jesus laid his life down willingly, Paul did the same. Paul understood his calling after understanding the reality of God’s grace. Paul persecuted the church because he had an identity crisis. He began to truly live when he came to an awareness of his identity in Christ. Paul knew he was a son of God. So we too are God’s sons and his daughters. We are called by his name, adopted into his family and given a new identity and a new mission.
Living in Jesus is the result of resting in him. Living like Jesus is the result of believing in him. Living for Jesus is the response to who he is, what he has done and who we are in and through him.
