WHEN OUR DAUGHTER was in Junior High, she became friends with some girls who lived in a little town about an hour’s drive from here. On occasion, these girls would invite her to an activity at their church or their school or even ask her to come to their house. So, I would drive her there, come back alone, then drive back to get her and bring her home. That’s four hours on the road. It was crazy, I admit, but I love our daughter. And I was happy to do it.
One Friday night, we were driving back—it was around midnight. My daughter had fallen asleep in the passenger seat, and I was left to my thoughts.
Now, I have to tell you that I’ve always been a sucker for the night sky. I love looking at the stars. This particular night happened to be during the winter, and there was a clear sky. There’s nothing better than a crisp clear night in winter for seeing the stars. At one point along the way, I noticed that there was not an artificial light source anywhere around except for the headlights on our car. There were no other vehicles on the road, no vapor lamps in the distance, not even the glow from a farmhouse window.
So, I slowed the car, pulled over to the side of the road, turned off the engine, and slipped through the door as quietly as I could so as not to wake my daughter. And then I just stood, gazing up at the stars. There must have millions of them. It looked for all the world like someone had spilled a giant salt shaker on a huge black tablecloth. It was breathtaking. I felt like I was on the front row seat in the theater of God, privileged to see the splendor of his creation. Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” I was so taken with the sight that I forgot the cold, I forgot the car, I guess I even forget where I was. Until…I heard this tiny voice whisper, “Dad, what are you doing?” That was my cue. It was time to go. I didn’t say a word. I got back into the car, a little embarrassed, I guess, but not much. I had seen an unforgettable display of light that made the darkest night seem small.
There’s a place in the Bible where the people of God are described that way—where you are described that way. Tucked away in the second chapter of Philippians is verse 15, where it says of you, “You…shine among them,” that is, among the people of this generation—“you…shine among them like stars in the [night] sky” (NIV).
Can you picture yourself that way? To do so, I’m thinking you have to take account of the darkness. It’s all around you. I don’t have to tell you that. You see it every day. It hangs heavy like a fog over everything.
That’s why there are lighthouses along the coast—or, there used to be. Because there was a need for them. I’m sure now that radar and other forms technology guide ships through the dangers of the night. But what do we do about the spiritual fog that makes it hard for people to see the hazards unwary souls have to navigate? We need churches—we need our church—to be like “a city set on a hill,” so that wanderers can be guided to safety. We need people like you to “light a lamp” and not—not, you understand—“put it under a basket, but on a stand,” so that “it gives light to all in the house.”
Our current preaching series, as you know, is called Missio Dei, which means, of course, “the mission of God.” God is at work in the world to push back the boundaries of evil, and he has called us to join him. We have seen the why and the what of the mission. And next week we are going to look at the how of it. And so, I thought today we might look at the where of it. Where is it that God’s mission takes us? And it’s clear what the Bible says about that. God’s mission always takes us into the dark, into places where people need the light. If you will permit me to say it this way, God has placed in your hand a torch, lit by the flame of truth, and he has sent you—me, too; all of us—he has sent us into the dark places of life. At its core, that’s what the word mission means. It means sent, like a missile is sent, but, instead of delivering destruction, it brings restoration and reconciliation.
And when I say sent, I don’t mean just being sent on a mission trip, whether across the country or around the world. That’s mission, to be sure, but so is showing up at work or at school or going to the golf course or talking to your neighbor over the back fence. Mission isn’t just a program in which we participate if we have the time or inclination—you know, volunteer a few hours a week at this or that agency, sign up for this or that project—that sort of thing. Those are good things to do, and I urge you to participate in as many of them as you can. But, really, the mission dei is more comprehensive than that. In God’s plan, you are on mission 24/7, 365 days a year. As we used to say, you are an agent of the kingdom cleverly disguised as a homemaker or a clerk or a teacher or merchant or whatever. Every place you go, every person you meet, every conversation you have—you’re there to dispel the fog, to illumine the darkness, to bear the light.
I used to hear my parents talk about the last World War (and may it be the last!). Everyone had a part. Some went to fight, but those who stayed home had a role to play, too. There were rations of food. Items made of certain materials were not available to the public so they could be used in the war effort. Business and industry was turned toward supporting the military agenda. And so forth. All of life was organized around the mission. And everybody knew what the mission was: win the war. You know what we need? We need a wartime mentality. We need to know the mission, and we need to organize our lives—and our church—around the mission. We used to say, "The church has a mission." But that’s really not the way we need to think. What we need to understand is, “The mission has a church.” And what does that mean?
It means at least this, that God’s mission isn’t about the church. It isn’t about working to make ours a bigger church or a better church or a more efficient church or a more effective church. Those things are important, but they don’t comprise the mission. The church isn’t the target of the mission. The church is the instrument of the mission; it’s not the target. The target is the city in which the church is located. And the schools in that city—and the hospitals and the military installations and the industries and the marketplaces and the institutions in that city. The target is the world out there. And what that means is the people out there—the confused, hurting, fearful, guilt-laden, anxious, troubled people. The darkness has enshrouded them, and they need you and me and all of us to “shine among them like stars in the [night] sky.” They need us to “light a lamp and put it…on a stand” to give “light to all in the house.” They need us to spill the salt shaker all over the dark backdrop of their lives.
So, how do we do that? Remember, next week we're going to look at some models that we can employ. But in anticipation of that, let’s lay out some preliminary thoughts.
First of all, we need to recognize that the light we bear is a borrowed light—or, maybe better, a bestowed light. Jesus says to us, “You are the light of the world,” but our light is a reflected light. When the moon shines brightly at night, it isn’t moonlight we’re seeing—not really. It is the light of the sun reflected off the moon. Jesus is “the sun of righteousness,” risen with healing in his rays (cf. Mal. 4:2). If you catch a glimpse of Venus or Mars, our neighboring planets, they will look like bright stars. But they’re not stars. They’re planets, and they are simply reflecting the light of the sun. We orbit around him—make no mistake about it—and the light we shed is his light or it is no help at all.
So, to be plain, you and I need to make sure that “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus” (2 Cor. 4:6). We need to make sure we know Jesus, who said of himself, “I am the light of the world” (John 9:5).
Second, we need a missional mindset. As individuals, we need to think of ourselves as being sent by God into every arena where life takes us. Jesus said in John 20:21, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” So, we need to see ourselves that way. And, along with that, we need to see every person we encounter with fresh eyes. We don’t need to look at them as if they were a project we’re undertaking. Nobody is going to stand for that. But we need to see them as people God loves, and we need to be asking ourselves—and asking God to show us—“What am I called to say or do or be in this encounter that will honor God and bring blessing to this person?” If you’re a teacher, think about the next conversation you will have with a student or a colleague—in it you will either shed light or spread the fog. If you’re a student, same thing. Or an employee or an employer, or a parent or a child, or whatever.
A sister church in our city has signs at the exits from its parking lot, and each sign says, “You are now entering the mission field.” That’s how we need to think.
Third, we need to model as a church the kind of relationships that characterize the kingdom we proclaim. The church is a window on to the kingdom of God. When you think about it, we’re a colony—or an outpost—of heaven. And we need to reflect heaven’s values. We need to order our lives not around getting—whether it’s getting our way or getting our needs met or getting whatever. We need to order our lives not around getting but around giving, not around being served but around serving. In short, we need to be an alternative society. The world counsels us to look out for number one; we need to look out for the last and the least. The world tells us we’d better know what we want and take it or we won’t get it; we need to know better than that and do better than that, trusting that God will supply all we need so we can meet the needs of others. The world touts money, sex, and power as the prize to pursue; we need to “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14). The world bestows on us entitlement; we need to remember we are not entitled, but rather we are heirs of grace, that we have received what we do not deserve. The world urges us to self-indulgence. We need to resist the world and learn to respond to the urgings of the Spirit. We need to guard our own hearts, to be sure, but we also need to guard the hearts of our families and the heart of our church.
“You are the light of the world.” Jesus says to “let your light shine…so that [others] may…give [the] glory to your Father who is in heaven.” That’s the mission: to shine brightly with the glow of Jesus till the darkness takes flight and people see the glory of God.
