I just can’t help repeating what a great, never-ending source of material they provide me.

                                                                        FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Well, thanks to our good old politicians and political-speak we’ll have another spiritual lesson today.  I just can’t help repeating what a great, never-ending source of material they provide me.  What caught my ear this past week, and you may have noted it also, was some talk about “missions” as they relate to various departments, especially the military. 

You know, they just can’t have a “job” to do, they have to have a “mission” to perform.  My old occupation from which I’m retired, law enforcement, was really big on “missions” also.  And, of course, in order to have a “mission” one must have a “mission statement” defining what the “mission” consists of.  Oh yeah, got to have a “statement.”  And, like all things “governmental” it will consist of a great volume of important, legal-sounding words when a few simple ones would be sufficient.

I don’t really recall just which department or Secretary was talking about their “mission” a few days ago, but it got me to thinking about the Church’s “mission.”  Whether you’re aware of it or not, the Church does in fact have a “mission.”  It has a “job to do” here on earth.  And, I might add, it is not a complicated, hard-to-understand “mission.”  Unlike our governmental “missions” its “mission statement” is written in easily understandable terms.  Doesn’t take a lawyer or language professor to decipher its wording.

If you open your Bible to Ephesians 3, verses 10-11 you can read our “mission statement” - the guidelines that define our “mission.”  And, I say “our” because we, the members, are “the Church.”  It’s not some nebulous entity off in some headquarters somewhere run by religious bureaucrats.  It’s us.  Let’s read the “mission statement” of the Churches of Christ together.

“To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known BY THE CHURCH the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

That, brethren, in a nut-shell, is the “mission” of the Church.  To make known to the world the “manifold wisdom” of God that He “purposed” in His Son, Jesus Christ.  You know, unless we’re talking about an automobile part, we probably don’t use that world “manifold” much anymore, do we?  I think it will be a help to us to understand how and why it’s used in that passage.

It’s from a Greek word meaning something like abundant or many-faceted.  I like to think of it as telling us that the Church is the entity by which the world can know the culmination or completeness of God’s blessings to man which is found in Jesus Christ.  And where is that “mission” found?   In His Gospel.

Now here’s something else to consider.  As I mentioned earlier, “we” the individual members are “the Church” and as such we have an individual responsibility.  A “job,” if you will.  And, whether you realize it or not, by definition, we’re all “missionaries” even though we tend to think that it’s only those sent to some different country who are “missionaries.”

No, whether you go around the world, or just across the street we all have the same “mission” to accomplish.  We find our individual “missions” in the words of Matt. 28:19. “Go ye.....and teach all nations (everyone) and baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

That’s a pretty succinct “mission statement” isn’t it?  Doesn’t require a lawyer to interpret it, does it?  It just says that our job is to “go” and “teach.”  Doesn’t say how to go nor how far.  Just “go.”  And, we’re to “teach” the “gospel,” the “manifold wisdom” of God which He gave the world in the form of His Son.  Matt. 28:20 further tells us what we’re to “teach.”  “To observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you...”

And, furthermore, that isn’t a suggestion, it’s an order.  It’s what is known as something “bound.”  What we’re to teach is also “bound” - the Gospel.  Obviously the individual member can’t go everywhere, but we can go somewhere and somehow.  When each of us “go” and “teach” then the Church collectively is going everywhere throughout the world.

In closing our thoughts here today, I’m reminded of a little story I read a while back.  It was about a Christian man who was being recruited for a high level corporate position and during his interview he was asked, “What is your purpose in life?”  I thought that his answer to that question would be an apt closing to our subject lesson.  His answer is one that all of us can adopt for the purpose of our “mission.”

The man answered: “To go to heaven and take as many people with me as I can.”

Respectively submitted,

Ron Covey