Our Mission
Stephen Terry
Commentary for the August 30, 2014
Sabbath School Lesson
“For everyone who calls on the name
of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed
in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how
can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach
unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those
who bring good news!’” Romans 10:13-15, NIV
When I was
younger, I was fascinated with history and would play table games that
re-enacted historical battles. At the start of the game, a player would be
assigned a mission. If he or she achieved their mission, they would win the
game. Of course their opponent’s mission was to prevent the other player from
achieving their mission. For example, suppose a player was required to take
their small force up a valley and capture a building by keeping a certain
number of units inside the building for a certain number of turns. Their
opponent’s victory conditions would be to simply prevent that being
accomplished within the allotted time frame. Although, the military force the
attacker was given was small, it was adequate to accomplish that goal but no
other.
While the attacker’s
objective was clear, their adversary had to decide how to deploy their forces
to block the attack. Sometimes they would be tempted to place their entire
force in the building to defend it. However, even though the defender had
troops in the building, if the attacker could get enough of his troops in the
building for enough turns, though possession was still contested, he would win.
Another strategy was for the defender to place a large force forward, directly
in front of the attacker, in hopes of defeating the attacking force early. But
if the defense failed, which it usually did because the defender was not given
enough resources for that type of defense, access to the building lay wide open
as all of the limited resources had been committed to the front.
With time, I
discovered that when I was defending the building, the more successful approach
was to deploy units along the sides of the valley and harass the attacker with
inconsequential firing. If the attacker ignored the firing and proceeded to the
building, they would succeed in their mission. But often, as they started to
lose units they began to respond to the firing. If they chose to commit
resources to the harassing fire coming from the sides of the valley, they would
lose. As they got involved in fire fights with the units firing from the sides
of the valley, either time would run out or they would not have enough units
still available to occupy the building for the required number of turns. When
asked later why they had lost, the answer was usually the same. They had
forgotten the mission. They replaced the game objective with their own agenda
based on “knee-jerk” reactions to what was going on around them. As the
resources committed to reaching the building dwindled, their chances of success
diminished proportionately.
As
Christians, we are engaged in a historical struggle as well. We have been
assured that the war will one day end and victory will belong to Christ and His
people. However, we are not assured of the outcome of each battle of that war.
Like the tabletop war gamer, we are given adequate resources to achieve victory
in each battle, but our choice of how to use those resources makes all the
difference in whether or not we can achieve that victory. We have been given a
mission to carry the gospel to the world.[i]
The victory condition for reaching that objective is given in the verses at the
top of this page. We must be present for a sufficient length of time to present
the message. But are we? Or do we limit our presence for the battle to a smile
and a handshake at church on the weekend? How successfully will that convey
what Christ took three and a half years to share with His disciples? Even with
our table-top, historical games, it was hard to play the game if everyone did
not make time to commit to the endeavor. Woody Allen is widely quoted as having
said that showing up is half the battle. I beg to differ. It is all the battle
if we expect to win our objective. Of course losing the battle doesn’t mean the
war is lost, but our part in the ultimate victory cannot happen without our
presence.
But
supposing we do show up? What then? We must first discover if we are on defense
or offense. If we are on defense, we might decide to occupy the church and wait
for the enemy to come to us. But this may allow the enemy to penetrate deeper
than we would prefer. Besides it gives him free access to the entire
countryside while we are “holed up” inside our building. He can easily
intercept those who might want to seek sanctuary in the church. He can also
make the church feel so threatened and under siege, without ever actually
attacking them, that they have no ability to spread the gospel message for fear
of what is going on around them. Of course the defenders can deploy in the
field against the enemy with a concentrated show of force. They might even
bring a powerful warrior to lead them in the fight, an evangelist perhaps.
However, if they commit all their resources to this fight and neglect to
remember the nurturing needs of those in the church, any victory could be
short-lived. Those who respond and enter in may soon leave when they do not
find the nurture they need because the enemy has already outflanked the main
battle line and secured the building filling it with hostility and accusations.
Just as in my game, even when possession of the building is still contested,
the enemy may meet his victory conditions anyway. Perhaps the church will even
become ineffective for further outreach, either through discouragement at the
results or because of conflict within the church.
So how do we
achieve a defensive victory? Perhaps we do so by remembering the gospel
commission. If each one is involved in individual ministry, there is strength
in numbers. As we share the good news of Jesus Christ in many different ways,
we become so many different threats that the enemy has to worry about. We
become like snipers firing from the both sides of the valley and become such a
distraction that the enemy may forget that his initial target was the church
and splits up his forces in an attempt to deal with all of us in a battle he
cannot win.
But then
what? If the enemy attack loses momentum, how do we seize the initiative and go
on the offensive? Perhaps we can do so by not allowing ourselves to be
distracted from the mission into secondary and tertiary objectives that have
little relevance to the primary one. When racing down the valley to our
objective, once we have determined what is good and what is evil, it may become
far too tempting to want to respond to everything the enemy throws at us. It
isn’t too hard to notice the bullets of those battles whizzing by our heads. We
can allow ourselves to get involved in myriad struggles: Abortion, women’s
rights, pornography, abuse, social injustice, inter-denominational and
interfaith conflict, poverty, disease, slavery, and the list goes on and on. Of
course, each fight has its good and bad sides. This is what makes it so
tempting for us to jump into the fray, because we can so easily see the good
that can be done. But in doing so are we seeking minor victories in a major
battle? Are we sacrificing our primary objective and in the end doing little to
address the problem we are confronting? Can we become so involved in doing good
that the enemy no longer needs to feel threatened by us?
Are we to
deal with the immorality we find all around us then? Of course we are. The
Parable of the Sheep and the Goats[ii]
in Matthew, chapter twenty-five, reveals that we do have a social
responsibility to relieve suffering and comfort the afflicted. This parable
echoes the social responsibility outlined in Isaiah, chapter 58.[iii]
We also see this lived out in the life of Jesus. He healed the sick, fed the
hungry, and gave hope to the hopeless. However, He never lost sight of His
mission. His path to the cross was unwavering. Even when His disciples
attempted to dissuade Him from this purpose, He recognized it as an attack from
the enemy[iv]
and refused to be distracted.
But how do
we remain focused when there is so much evil abounding all around us? Perhaps
by recognizing that any help that we surely want to give to those in need is
only temporary. This is true not only in terms of the limited resources we have
to meet an almost unlimited need, but also because all of what we see around us
will pass away one day as every problem, every injustice, every evil will be
brought to an end permanently. That is an objective worth reaching.
