September 23, 2009 THE MISSIONARY’S GOAL

Luke 18:31 - And taking the twelve, he said to them, "See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.”

In the natural life our ambitions alter as we develop; in the Christian life the goal is given at the beginning, the beginning and the end are the same, viz., our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we end with Him – “until we all attain to the stature of the manhood of Christ Jesus,” not to our idea of what the Christian life should be.
What a wonderful explanation of the Christian walk Chambers gives us here – the beginning and the end ARE the same – we are at the feet of our Lord. Our lives are simply always to be about measuring up to the standard of Christ and working steadily and simply towards that goal alone. It is the goal we are given the day we submit our lives to Christ and it remains the same throughout our lives. Note that he says: “’until we all attain to the stature of the manhood of Christ Jesus,’ not to our idea of what the Christian life should be.” How often does our “idea of what the Christian life should be” interfere with our being what God has truly called us to as Christians? Consuming ourselves with a legalistic notion of our faith based upon adherence to a series of rules and demands can suck life and energy from us – life and energy better spent conforming ourselves to Christ Himself. We must remember that it was those who prided themselves on their adherence to legalism, the Pharisees, who failed to recognize the Messiah when He was in their midst. I never want to miss Christ because I’m too busy with my own definitions of what He should be.

And so what is His will for us? Chambers refers to it as our “Jerusalem.” Christ fulfilled the will of His Father when He went to Jerusalem and faced the crucifixion. Wherever God’s will culminates for us is that place and we won’t know where that is until we are willing to spend the time and energy at the feet of our Lord seeking it. Chambers makes an interesting – and a critically important – observation. He says:
Nothing ever discouraged Our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in other villages where He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned Our Lord one hair’s breadth away from His purpose to go up to Jerusalem.
Sometimes Christians spend too much time looking for “signs” to determine the path they should take. They get an idea and then look to the world around them for indications that this is the right thing. Our pastor several months ago warned against this method of confirmation. For one thing, we can always find a sign to fit the answer we want to hear. If we say “Lord, I want a brand new Mercedes” we’ll see every Mercedes we pass on the street as a sign from God that we ought to have it. We’ll See back-to-back Mercedes advertisements on TV and convince ourselves that the Lord is speaking to us through broadcast television. The state of our bankbook and the practicality of such a purchase become nearly irrelevant as we find ourselves bombarded from every side with confirmations that this is truly the will of God.
That isn’t what Christ did at all.

He knew the will of His Father and was undeterred by the winds that blew to the left or the right. He did what He knew He was to do, and paid no attention to the worldly “signs” that might suggest otherwise. I think we sometimes think that if something is too difficult that it isn’t the will of God. But might it be possible that the opposite is the case? That perhaps it is difficult because it IS the will of God?

Functioning in the will of God is sometimes a difficult proposition. I want the writing on the wall that says “HERE IS YOUR PURPOSE.” That isn’t how God works. Our job is simply to come to Him and seek, to study His Word and to LISTEN. We sometimes have to be willing to be quiet and listen to His responses rather than talk to God nonstop about our own plans and ask Him to bless them. What is He calling us to? Seek and you shall find (Matthew 7:7). When we truly seek His will, He will not fail to show it to us. And when He shows us, we should pursue it with reckless abandon. Chambers says:
There will be the works of God manifested through us, people will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude and the rest will show gross ingratitude, but nothing must deflect us from going up to our Jerusalem.
We start with Christ, and we end with Him. Our measure of whether we are in God’s will or not comes in the quiet times when we are on our knees before the Father and not through the praise of men or worldly success with the work we’ve undertaken. They may go hand-in-hand, but then again they may not. We are called to be as Christ – focused only on the will of our Father and nothing less.