This last week in the Gathering we had a guest preacher, Matt Blackwell, who continued our series on Acts. I have always loved Acts 3 and the story of the lame beggar at the gate who was healed and went away leaping, jumping and worshiping God. It is such a beautiful picture of our response to salvation. When I think about how God intervened through Jesus when I had no hope - I want to leap, dance and worship too.
On Sunday night, I realized that Acts 3 is also the perfect combination of our call to gospel ministry: the creation mandate from Gen 1:26-28 and the disciple-making call from Matthew 28:19-20. My friend Jonathan Dodson has a great post on this to explain it further. When we truly understand the gospel, we see ourselves as the empty-handed beggar and want to tell other beggars about the love of Jesus -- the evangelism or disciple-making mandate. But also we have to see our ministry like that of the apostles who looked into the beggar's eyes and restored justice to his life -- the creation/restoration mandate. Both kinds of ministries have their foundation in the redemptive message of the gospel. Historically churches have either done really well at evangelism or social justice but rarely both.
It seems like the apostles saw both as part of their redemptive call from Jesus. Jana personalizes that struggle so well in the Gathering Blog and I have felt the same conviction as I walked the streets of Bangladesh or even today when I drive the streets of Austin. I recognize that I need to be intentional to live both mandates in order to have a full picture of the Gospel ministry of reconciliation.
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1 comment:
Mmmm, good stuff. This is why I've loved the CHE training we've been going through for our Sudan trip. I've gone through one weekend training so far and the scripture we've looked out has renewed my mind to think about both mandates and how I should apply them to my life and my ministry. Unfortunately, like Jana had written on the Gathering Blog, I live on auto-pilot and auto-pilot sometimes is not as easy as it seems. The ramifications are more than I probably recognize. I do know that the longer I’m on auto-pilot it begins to feel like I’m walking through some of the thickest mud and hardly able to pick up my legs. I get “stuck” in a yucky rut.
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