O Antigo Testamento Template Livro: Capítulo 3
We’ve Lost Our Mission
“For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’”
Lucas 14:29-30
“Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
James 1:4
A friend taught me the very important lesson, when given a new job to do, of always asking, “What does a job well done look like?” You cannot possibly do well what you do not understand. If the church is to do what Christ has left us here to do, we must know what our job is and what it’s to look like when we have finished.
Towards the end of His life Jesus prayed this prayer, "(Father,) Eu lhe trouxe glória na terra, completando a obra que me deste para fazer. "1 Seu Pai O havia enviado em tempo e espaço para alcançar objetivos específicos. Ele sabia o que eles estavam, e Ele completou-los. Todo o trabalho de alcançar o mundo não foi realizado na sua morte, mas Jesus entendeu que ele não foi enviado para fazer tudo. Grande parte da missão do Pai seria realizada em e completou pela igreja Ele deixaria para trás. Mas, por enquanto, Sua função específica, como Filho e Messias foi concluído.
Depois de quase 30 anos em missões, Fico maravilhado com este texto. Então, muitas vezes como obreiros cristãos que nem sequer sabe o que o nosso trabalho é. Se algo precisa ser feito, deve ser nossa responsabilidade fazê-lo. Eu não me lembro de ter ouvido um ministro dizer, “I completed my work.” Jesus, contudo, did not think that everything was His responsibility. He knew what the Father had sent Him to do, and He knew when he had completed it. We can learn much from this in our own lives and callings. Do you know what God has called you to do?
Another thing that strikes me from this text is that the Father was glorified by Jesus finishing His job. When I am introduced as a speaker, my hosts often string together a long list of accomplishments from my life. They are trying to give the audience a point of reference and reasons why they might want to listen to me. While that is much appreciated, it is so important that I not become impressed with my own P.R. God is not looking at the past; He is looking at the finish. He is challenging me to not only begin well, but to finish well. Em seguida, e só então, will He be glorified in my life and through my work for Him. On a personal level, these are sobering challenges and good questions to raise in prayer on a regular basis. Are you doing what God called you to do? Will you finish it?
What Is “The Work” Of The Church?
Beyond this personal lesson, we can also apply these questions to the institution of the church. What is the work of the church? How do we know if we have finished it? How do we evaluate and measure a generation’s obedience as the body of Christ? What are our specific goals and how do we develop strategies and evaluate their value? Answering these questions is key to transforming a huge church into an influential church in the 21st Century. Historically, some have said our work is to get people saved and to build the church globally. Others have said we are to be more concerned with man’s material needs such as food, abrigo, and protection. But what does God say? What does the Bible teach as the mandate for our existence on this planet? If we know what God’s Word says, we can build our future on solid foundations.
The Golden Thread Of Purpose: Reach and Teach
At the end of His life on earth Jesus gives instructions to His disciples. This is their record of what He said:
Mateus 28:18-19
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Marcar 16:15
He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”
Lucas 24:45-47
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
Many have reduced these objectives to two simple mandates saying that Christ has called us to “reach every creature” and to “disciple all nations.” This would fit with what seems to be God’s emphasis throughout the Bible for man’s very existence.
There is a continuity from Adam to Christ… a golden thread of purpose for our existence. To Adam and Eve, macho e fêmea, God speaks these words:
Gênese 1:28
Deus os abençoou e lhes disse:, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; enchei a terra e sujeitai-a. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’
To Abraham and his descendants God spoke time and again, saying things like this:
Gênese 22:17-18
I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. A tua descendência tomará posse das cidades dos seus inimigos, e através de sua descendência todas as nações da terra serão abençoadas, porque você me obedeceu.
Parece claro que esta multiplicação e bênção ênfase, a abordagem quantitativa e qualitativa, estão em propósito e plano de Deus para o homem de sua criação. Estamos aqui para encher a terra e mordomo-lo para a glória de Deus. Esta declaração propôs não desaparecer ou se dissipar com a queda do homem e da vinda do pecado, Embora o pecado que agora têm de ser tratadas com.
Podemos olhar para o trabalho da igreja em duas dimensões - o aspecto da amplitude de alcançar cada criatura, eo aspecto profundidade de abençoar e discipular todas as nações. Destas duas áreas, we have understood the growth dimension of our job really well in the last two centuries.
The Quantitative Task: Reaching Every Creature
The quantitative task of the church can be measured, mapped, and graphed. This has been, talvez, the most exciting century in church history for globally measuring and targeting the unreached. We have amazing amounts of information to help us evaluate our job of reaching. Whole organizations have been formed in the last 30 years solely committed to tracking and documenting how we are doing as a generation of Christians in fulfilling our mandate to reach every person on earth with the Gospel.
We know that there are more than six billion people on the planet today. We know that more than ninety percent of those who have never heard the Gospel live in what missions call the 10/40 window. This window lies between the 10th and the 40th latitude from West Africa across all of Asia. Within this window lies most of the Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and Confucian world. We know that fewer than five percent of the world’s Christian missionaries work inside of that 10/40 window and the remaining ninety-five percent or more work where less than ten percent have never heard the claims of Christ. This gives us a very clear picture of where we are to pour our energies if we are going to complete the task of reaching every creature in our generation.
In addition to our awareness of the population and geographic challenges of this task, we know today that some 11,000 languages in the world still have no witness of Jesus. We know which of these groups have already been targeted by translation ministries and how long it will take them to be reached. Computers, language, and mapping programs have made this an exciting area of research giving meaningful tools to workers in the field. All of it helps us to evaluate the job the church needs to accomplish and the strategies needed to do it.
We can compare the job of reaching every creature today with the job for the first generation church. We know that in Paul’s day approximately one church existed for every 400 or more people groups that needed to be reached with the gospel. Today more than 400 churches exist for each unreached tribe. In the first generation church, um cristão acreditavam que estávamos para alcançar o mundo para cada sete que precisava ouvir. Hoje existem sete cristãos para cada pessoa que nunca ouviram o Evangelho. Sim, mais pessoas a viver no planeta hoje do que em toda a história humana anterior, mas mais cristãos e mais igrejas estão tentando alcançá-los que em qualquer outro momento da história humana. A tarefa quantitativa de "alcançar toda criatura" nesta geração está avançando. Podemos estar orgulhosos do compromisso da igreja para isso em nossa época. O trabalho deve continuar e aumentar, claro. Nosso trabalho é para acabar, para alcançar cada criatura, se Deus é para ser glorificado em nossa geração.
Mas o que sobre o ensino, bênção, discipular todas as nações? O que significa esse trabalho e estamos fazendo isso?
A Task Qualitativa: Discipular todas as nações
Along with telling the disciples to reach every creature, Jesus, at the end of His life, re-emphasized man’s second mandate. He tells them to “make disciples of all nations.” God’s destiny for man, for Israel, for nations, and finally for the church was never size alone. He was concerned with our quality of life. If reaching individuals is the quantitative task, then discipling them and their communities is the qualitative work of teaching and applying truth to life-producing growth and maturity.
What does it mean to disciple a nation? What does a discipled nation look like? These are difficult questions, difficult because qualitative evaluations are harder to make. When is a person mature? When is an act great? How do you determine when an economy is developed? What is poor? What makes a painting good? These questions are even harder in this age because for the last one to two hundred years we have been focusing almost solely on the quantitative growth of the church. The result is that we have perhaps the largest church in history – and the shallowest.
We may not know what it means to disciple a nation, but surely we know what it does not mean. When we look at Dallas, Texas or Malawi or Rwanda or any other Christianized community or country today are we willing to say, “This is what it looks like when we are finished”? Is this God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven? Certamente que não!
If we are to glorify the Father in our generation we must know what our job is, and do it. We are reaching the unreached, mas aqueles indivíduos chegaram, comunidades, e nações estão vivendo em condições inaceitáveis. Dr.. George Kinoti do Quênia diz, "A miséria do povo africano desonra o seu Criador. Portanto, cada cristão tem a responsabilidade moral de fazer o seu melhor para corrigir a situação. "2
Não é o suficiente para alcançar os não alcançados. Não é suficiente para plantar igrejas entre aqueles que não têm igrejas. Estamos a indivíduos discípulo, e através deles, discípulo suas comunidades e nações. Se não o fizermos, não estamos cumprindo o propósito para o qual fomos criados e deu a vida eterna. Além disso, Se não discipular as nações, Deus não é glorificado em nossa geração. Ele é glorificado quando terminar a obra que Ele deixou para nós fazermos. Salvar almas e plantar igrejas é um começo. But the quality of those churches and the impact of the lives of the believers on their communities is the litmus test of the quality of our work for Christ. Right now we are failing to do our job well. Christian pollster George Barna finds there is “no significant difference” between the behavior of people in the United States who call themselves born-again Christian and those who do not make that claim. Muslim evangelists in Africa ask, “What does Christianity do for the people?” The answer today is nothing. Nothing changes. The churches get bigger. More and more people get saved. But nothing changes. They are still poor, diseased, uneducated, and left in political and economic chaos.
We must grieve, weep, and mourn this state of affairs in the church today, as Nehemiah did over the condition of Jerusalem.3 We need to fast and pray because the body of Christ and our communities world-wide are in “great trouble and disgrace.” We need to rise up, put on the mind of Christ, and become all He intended the church to be.
The question is, “How do we do that?"
1. Banheiro 17:4
2. Kinoti, Ibidem
3. Neemias 1:3-4
