El Libro Antiguo Testamento plantilla: Capítulo 3

Hemos perdido nuestra Misión

"Si echa los cimientos y no puede acabarla, todos los que la vean comenzarán a burlarse de él, decir, 'Este hombre comenzó a edificar y no pudo terminar. "
Lucas 14:29-30

"Mas tenga la paciencia su obra completa para que seáis perfectos y completos, sin que les falte nada. "
James 1:4

Un amigo me la lección muy importante enseñar, cuando se le da un nuevo trabajo que hacer, de siempre pidiendo, "¿Qué hace un trabajo bien hecho parece?"Usted no puede hacer bien lo que no entiende. Si la iglesia es hacer lo que Cristo nos ha dejado aquí para hacer, tenemos que saber cuál es nuestro trabajo y lo que es mirar como cuando hemos terminado.

Hacia el final de su vida, Jesús oró esta oración, "(Padre,) Yo te he glorificado en la tierra; he acabado la obra que me diste que hiciese ".¹ Su padre le había enviado en el tiempo y el espacio para lograr los objetivos específicos. Él sabía lo que eran, y les ha completado. Todo el trabajo de llegar al mundo no se llevó a cabo en su muerte, pero Jesús comprendió que no fue enviado a hacer todo lo. Gran parte de la misión del Padre sería proseguirán y concluirán en la iglesia Dejaría atrás. Pero, por el momento, Su función específica como Hijo y el Mesías se completó.

Después de casi treinta años en las misiones, Me maravillo de este texto. Tan a menudo como trabajadores cristianos que ni siquiera sabemos lo que nuestro trabajo es. Si algo necesita ser hecho, que debe ser nuestra responsabilidad de hacerlo. No recuerdo haber oído decir a un ministro, "He hecho mi trabajo." Jesus, sin embargo, no creo que todo lo que era su responsabilidad. Él sabía lo que el Padre le había mandado hacer, y sabía cuando lo terminó,. Podemos aprender mucho de esto en nuestras propias vidas y vocaciones. ¿Sabes lo que Dios nos ha llamado a hacer?

Otra cosa que me llama la atención de este texto es que el Padre fue glorificado por Jesús acabado su trabajo. Cuando me presenté como ponente, mis anfitriones suelen encadenar una larga lista de logros de mi vida. Ellos están tratando de dar al público un punto de referencia y razones por las que tal vez quiera escucharme. Mientras que es muy apreciada, que es tan importante que no me vuelvo impresionado con mi propia banda. Dios no mira hacia el pasado; Él está mirando a la meta. He is challenging me to not only begin well, but to finish well. Entonces, y sólo entonces, 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:

Mateo 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.”

Marque 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.

Muchos han reducido estos objetivos a dos mandatos simples que dicen que Cristo nos ha llamado a "llegar a toda criatura" y "discípulos a todas las naciones." Esto encaja con lo que parece ser el énfasis de Dios a través de la Biblia para la existencia misma del hombre.

Hay una continuidad de Adán a Cristo… un hilo de oro del propósito de nuestra existencia. A Adán y Eva, masculino y femenino, Dios habla estas palabras:

Génesis 1:28
Y los bendijo Dios y les dijo:, «Sed fecundos y multiplicaos; llenad la tierra y sometedla;. Dominen a los peces del mar, en las aves de los cielos, y en todas las bestias que se mueven sobre la tierra. "

Para Abraham y sus descendientes Dios habló una y otra vez, diciendo cosas como esta:

Génesis 22:17-18
Cierto te bendeciré, y multiplicaré tu descendencia como las estrellas del cielo y como la arena del mar. Tus descendientes conquistarán las ciudades de sus enemigos, En tu simiente serán benditas todas las naciones de la tierra, porque me has obedecido.

Parece claro que esta multiplicación y bendición énfasis, el enfoque cuantitativo y cualitativo, están en el propósito y plan de Dios para el hombre desde su creación. Estamos aquí para llenar la tierra y el mayordomo a la gloria de Dios. Esta declaración se propuso no desapareció o se disipan con la caída del hombre y de la venida del pecado, aunque el pecado ahora tendría que ser tratado.

Podemos mirar el trabajo de la iglesia en dos dimensiones - el aspecto amplitud de llegar a toda criatura, y el aspecto de la profundidad de bendecir y discipular a todas las naciones. De estas dos áreas, hemos entendido la dimensión de desarrollo de nuestro trabajo muy bien en los dos últimos siglos.

El Grupo cuantitativa: Llegar a toda criatura
La tarea cuantitativa de la iglesia se puede medir, mapeado, y graficada. Esto ha sido, quizás, siglo más emocionante en la historia de la iglesia a nivel mundial para la medición y la orientación a los no alcanzados. Tenemos cantidades increíbles de información para ayudar a evaluar nuestro trabajo de llegar. Organizaciones enteras se han formado en el último 30 años exclusivamente comprometidos con el seguimiento y la documentación de cómo lo estamos haciendo como una generación de cristianos en el cumplimiento de nuestro mandato para llegar a cada persona en la tierra con el Evangelio.

Sabemos que hay más de seis mil millones de personas en el planeta hoy en día. 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, one Christian believed we were to reach the world for every seven who needed to hear. Today there are seven Christians for every person who has never heard the Gospel. Sí, more people live on the planet today than in all prior human history, but more Christians and more churches are trying to reach them than at any point in human history. The quantitative task of “reaching every creature” in this generation is advancing. We can be proud of the church’s commitment to this in our age. The work must continue and increase, por supuesto,. Our job is to finish, to reach every creature, if God is to be glorified in our generation.

But what about teaching, blessing, discipling all nations? What does this job mean and are we doing it?

The Qualitative Task: Discipling All Nations
Along with telling the disciples to reach every creature, Jesús, 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? Seguro que no!

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, but those reached individuals, comunidades, and nations are living in unacceptable conditions. Dr. George Kinoti of Kenya says, “The wretchedness of the African people dishonors their Creator. Por lo tanto, every Christian has a moral responsibility to do his or her very best to correct the situation.”²

It is not enough to reach the unreached. It is not enough to plant churches amongst those who have no churches. We are to disciple individuals, and through them, disciple their communities and nations. If we do not, we are not fulfilling the purpose for which we were created and given eternal life. Moreover, if we do not disciple the nations, God is not glorified in our generation. He is glorified when we finish the work He has left for us to do. Saving souls and planting churches is a beginning. 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. Juan 17:4

2. Kinoti, Ibídem

3. Nehemías 1:3-4

Próximo