The Mission of God

Sermon 421 St. Martin’s 175 (Riverway) 4/12/26

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 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.”

Matthew 28

Francis Xavier landed on the shores of Japan in August 1549. He was far from his home in Spain, where he had been the son of a nobleman with dreams of becoming wealthy in his own right. But just a few years prior, his life took a dramatic turn when he got “religion,” as they say.

He wasn’t even supposed to be in Japan; his friend, who was chosen to go on this adventure, got sick at the last minute, and they looked around and decided to send Francis—apparently, he wasn’t their first or second (or maybe even their third) choice.

But Francis was part of a small, new religious order that he helped create, called the Society of Jesus (also known as the Jesuits), and for the rest of his days, he was tasked with being a missionary.

He had relative success in India before bouncing around Southeast Asia, preaching to any community that would host him. He was so far out of his element, and nothing proved that more than when he arrived in Japan.

Juan González, St. Francis Xavier Embarking for Asia, oil on wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl, 1703, private collection

For one thing, the language was extremely difficult and a major barrier to the spread of the gospel. The closest word for “God” in Japanese could also mean “Big Lie,” so they had their work cut out for them. He worked closely with a Japanese translator, who was a recent convert, to help formulate key Christian concepts in a way the Japanese could understand.

If that wasn’t enough, the Japanese people were already committed Buddhists or Shintoists, and there were major parts of Christianity that didn’t map onto their worldview.

They were rational thinkers, so Francis ended up preaching very differently from how he had in the other places. He focused on answering their questions and tried to find as many commonalities between the Christian faith and their existing beliefs as he could to bridge the gap.

He would move from one region to the next every few months because the community leaders began to grow agitated by his constant teaching and conversion of their people. But he left behind budding new churches wherever he went.

Francis’ harrowing journey throughout Southeast Asia—and bringing the gospel to the very edges of the known world—begs the question:

What was he thinking?

Why in the world would you leave the comfort of Spain, the prestige of nobility, for months on the open ocean, venturing into unknown places that may be hostile or indifferent to him and his message? 

It wasn’t so that he would gain notoriety when he got back home because he never made it back home. The answer is that Francis Xavier was a man on a mission; God’s mission, in fact. Francis was caught up in God’s mission that he felt very personally about, and he understood that it applied universally. He simply could not stay at home.

---

And that idea of God’s mission, which is both personal and universal, will be our focus over the next three Sundays. We’re calling this series Missio Dei, which simply means “The Mission of God.” And my hope for this series is that each of us realizes that God’s mission is not just for missionaries like Francis Xavier, but somehow for each of us.

Today, I want to lay the foundation by answering the question: What is God’s mission? Then we’ll look at some different aspects in the following weeks.  

What is Mission?

When we hear the word “mission,” I’m curious what comes to mind. For many of us, we likely think about mission trips or the church’s mission statement.

Mission trips are something we go do; it’s very tangible and somewhat transactional. We bring Jesus to needy people or do something for others. But in my experience, it’s usually focused on us and on what we can offer others rather than on what God is already doing there.

Or when it comes to mission statements, there’s a committee that has worked hard on a statement that sums up the church’s stated mission, and it gets printed everywhere, yet is instantly forgotten.

I remember interviewing with the vestry of the first church I served and asking them to tell me about their mission statement. I had read it on their website and was curious about the story behind it.

Well, the room was silent after I asked that question. Not one vestry member could tell me what their church’s mission statement was. Finally, one brave person said, “Is that the sentence on the front of our Sunday bulletin?” It was. [It’s actually on the front of our traditional bulletins as well.]

But mission is more than a statement: it is the action of the Holy Spirit and THE fundamental characteristic of the church. God created the church for mission. It is not for some people, a selective few who are called to faraway places, but for all of us. THE CHURCH (you and I) as the collective Body of Christ are made for mission.

That is evident in our gospel reading this morning. Jesus’ final words to his disciples make clear that all authority has been given to him—he is the crucified and risen king of all, he has defeated even sin and death—and his first order of business as King of the world is to empower his followers to share what they have seen and heard him do.

It’s a bold charge: “Go and make disciples of all nations,” Jesus says,  “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.” That’s the church’s mission statement.

Amazingly, his followers did just that! They went out preaching the news of God’s salvation in every direction. It’s a shocking change for a bunch of boys from Galilee to up and leave for the great unknown, but they were clearly inspired by the mission Jesus had given them.

Our reading from Acts 10 is this vivid moment when Peter finally realizes that the Good News is not just for Jerusalem, Judea, and Galilee, but for everyone, everywhere. God’s mission is expansive, it’s universal.

These disciples went with confidence to places unknown, not because it was somehow their mission. No, it was God’s mission. The pressure was off them; they were simply messengers of how God had acted decisively within history and in their lives. 

God had brought about the forgiveness of sins and new and abundant life through his Son. As they went from village to village, they were sharing what God had done and how the world would never be the same.

The gospel they shared was universal: it was for all people, and it was not rigid or brittle; it could be shaped to fit whatever context it entered without losing its integrity.

Francis Xavier was not the first to creatively translate the truth of the gospel into a new language or culture. He stood in a long line of people who had offered the truth of the gospel in a way people could understand in their own context.

Throughout the New Testament, we see the great missionary himself, St. Paul, speaking to people in ways that make sense to them.

Paul even said, “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law…I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”[i]

You see, God’s mission is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow because it is deeply personal, surprisingly adaptable, and yet universal.

It didn’t begin when Jesus was born—it was there from the very beginning. God’s mission was to create, to share, to love and be loved; God’s purposes are good and overflow to the created order.

That’s Genesis 1, and that mission to love and reconcile the world to God’s good purposes can be found in very apparent (and very subtle) ways on every page of the Bible. The Bible is not so much a story about us as it is a story of God’s action, God’s mission in this world, for this world.

But we can say that God’s mission is summed up fully and perfectly in Jesus’ ministry, and he even claims multiple times in the Gospels that he has been sent for a particular purpose, a mission from his Father in heaven.

That mission was to reconcile all people (and creation itself) back to God. And through his death and resurrection, we know that Jesus is the vehicle through which we can again participate fully in God’s love story.

From the beginning of his earthly ministry, we know that Jesus is a man on a mission, and he fulfills his Father’s mission obediently to the end. On that mountaintop in Matthew 28, where he gives his final charge, what is known as the Great Commission, he is co-missioning his followers into that same work.

---

So, what is mission? It is sharing in the work of Jesus for the sake of the world by the power of his Holy Spirit. It is Jesus’ work that we are invited into.

Lesslie Newbigin, a great 20th-century Anglican missionary, puts it in a more memorable way: “The church is a pilgrim people on its way to the ends of the earth and the end of time.”[ii]

The world is heading somewhere, history itself has a terminus, and you and I are not passive bystanders; we, too, are caught up in the great purposes of God for all people and for all time. God’s mission is for us, too. And Scripture seems quite clear that there is no participation in Christ without participation in his mission to the world.[iii]

It is not something you have to come up with on your own; it’s not another thing you have to try to achieve. No, God’s mission is something that you and I participate in.

God is already ahead of us, already working where we are going, already laying the groundwork and moving in the lives of people and places we cannot begin to imagine—in ways those people cannot fully comprehend just yet.

The mission of God requires us to be open to what God is already doing in our lives and those of others, and to be ready to respond in faith and confidence.

To fulfill the Great Co-mission that Jesus set forth to his followers, we must simply walk in step with the countless individuals who have found themselves caught up in God’s love for the world; folks like Peter and Paul, Francis Xavier, and Lesslie Newbigin.

It’s a mission for us, a pilgrim people journeying in places near and far until the end of time, proclaiming that Christ is truly the light of our lives and the light of the world.

[i] Parts of 1 Cor 9:20-22, NIV

[ii] The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission (1995)

[iii] From the Willingen Conference of the International Missionary Council (1952)