The Perfect Missionary

Jesus is the Perfect Missionary.  No other person in history crossed such a wide divide on such a mission of love.  The Son of God left behind the unimaginable riches of heaven to travel to the landfill of sin we call Earth.  

Any mission trip we might take to a third world country pales in comparison to His radical journey.  Here in these verses, Paul describes the Perfect Missionary.  

He describes the timing of His trip.  He describes the One who sent Him.  He describes conditions of His mission.  

We can't forget the big picture here.  Paul is firing off a quick and blunt letter to the Galatian church network after he receives the horrible news that these new believers have fallen prey to a counterfeit gospel (Gal 1:6).  

He has just returned from Galatia after telling them how Jesus has thrown the door of salvation wide to not only Jews but the entire world (Acts 13:13-14:23).  

Spiritual snake oil salesmen rolled into town just as he left.  They told these new disciples that Jesus may have gotten them into His kingdom but they must keep themselves in by following the law (Gal 1:7; 3:1-3, 11).  

The apostle walks through the pages of the OT to explain that the way of salvation has always been simply trusting in God.  Theologians call this justification by faith.  

We're not self-saved by meticulous rule following.  We simply place ourselves into God's hand like Abraham, who "believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness" (Gal 3:6; Gen 15:6).  

The man from Tarsus tells the Galatians that all of the covenant promises God made to Abe found fulfillment in Jesus (Gal 3:16-17).

All of the OT points to the day when the long awaited Promised One will arrive.  Page after page.  Prophecy after prophecy.  Promise after promise.  

Never forget that Jesus is THE Hero of the story.  Everything in the Law and the Prophets points us to and prepares for His arrival.  Jesus said so Himself (Jn 5:39, 46).  

We read the Torah and wonder when our Hero will arrive on the scene.  How much worse could it get?  How much longer will He wait?  When will Messiah get here?  

But we don't see the river of time from God's perspective.  Timing is everything.  And His timing is perfect.

Just when things are at their darkest, the Light of the World shines His brightest (Jn 8:12; 9:5).  "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son" (v4).  

At just the perfect time, God the Father sent His Son out the door of heaven on the most radical and revolutionary mission trip history has ever seen.  

Paul uses the Greek verb εξαποστελλω/exapostello.  This is a compound term meaning away, out of or from (εξ/ex-) to send as an official representative, ambassador or apostle (-αποστελλω/-apostello).  

This mission was so critical, so important, so urgent that the Father sent His one and only Son as His hand-picked representative.  

The holy Son of God is the only One for the job.  Because of His love for His Father, the Son submits to His request.  He willingly accepts His divine assignment.  

Jesus is the Perfect Missionary because He is perfectly God.

But the conditions of this mission are brutal.  The Second Person of the Trinity leaves the perfect and palatial opulence of heaven for a trip to the sin-sick third planet from the sun.  He is to be fully human, in other words, "born of a woman" (v4).  

Just like you and me, Jesus had a mom.  This means that the God Man didn't exchange His godliness for humanity.  He added humanness to divinity.  He is 100% God.  He is 100% human.  

People much smarter than me call this the Hypostatic Union.  Fully God.  Fully man.   How is that possible?  Add it to the list of things we can never fully understand on this side of heaven.

Being born to a human mother is an important fulfillment of God's prophetic promise about Messiah.  Back in the opening days of human history, God warned Satan that one day this long-awaited Son "shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heal" (Gen 3:15).  

And it wouldn't be just any woman who would give birth.  "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel" (Is 7:14).  

And "when the fullness of time had come," God handpicked a teenager named Mary as the mother of His Son.  

Jesus is the Perfect Missionary because He is perfectly human.

But the conditions of His mission don't just stop with His humanity.  He is "born under the law" (v4).  The law.  God's law that He hand-delivered to Moses on a mountain called Sinai.  Not just the Ten Commandments but 613 commandments.  

God didn't give these to His people as a means of salvation.  He gave them to His people to make it blatantly obvious that they needed a Savior.  

The law was back breaking.  The law was impossible.  To miss on any one part of it meant disobedience to all of it (Dt 27:26; Gal 3:10).

There was no way anyone could ever keep such a perfect, mind-numbing standard.  Oh wait.  Yes there is.  His name is Jesus.  Only His complete obedience to God's law on our behalf could do what we could never do (Rom 8:3; 2Cor 5:21).  

Being "born under the law," Christ was obligated to fully obey the law.  And He did.  Every bit of it.  That's what He means when He says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Mt 5:17).  The Spirit-filled Son of God is sinless and perfect.

Jesus is the Perfect Missionary because He is perfectly obedient.

And because of what He has done to save me, how can I not serve Him as a missionary of the gracious Gospel to those around me?

©2012

Jay Jennings

A Draft Day Surprise

“Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness” (v1).

You know you’re a hardcore sports fan when you can wait to watch the draft. Yeah, I confess. But I know I’m not alone. Go ahead. Admit it. You do too. It seems like at every draft there’s some sort of crazy surprise in the first round. Some team takes what seems like a ridiculous chance on some dude you’ve never heard of. Mel Kiper scratches his well-coiffed head. Nobody had him on their draft board! 

Turn back the clock to the first century and you could well be talking about the Apostle Paul. Nobody could have predicted that God would make him a top draft pick. Check out the scouting report on this guy. He was formerly known as Saul of Tarsus. Oh, he has skills. No question about it. “Tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee…as to righteous under the law, blameless” (Phil 3:5, 6b). Sounds like lottery pick material, doesn’t he? 

There’s just one problem. Right in the middle of his resume in Philippians, Paul makes an interesting admission. “As to zeal, a persecutor of the church” (Phil 3:6a). The apostle formerly known as Saul shows up running the coat check table at Stephen’s stoning (Acts 7:58). He gave two thumbs up to this bloody execution (Acts 8:1). At that point, he rolled up his sleeves and took his act on the road. “Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and woman and committed them to prison” (Acts 8:3). When it comes to hunting down the followers of Jesus, Saul’s the baddest man on the planet.

That all changed one day when he and his black ops team headed to Damascus to take out more Christians. Before they could bust the door down and raid the local church, the resurrected Jesus ambushed them just outside the city (Acts 9:1-8). Before he knew what was happening, Saul was blind and hearing the voice of Christ. Jesus took His number one enemy and made him His number one draft pick. One moment he’s persecutor Saul. The next he’s Apostle Paul. From murderer to missionary. Nobody had him on their draft board.

Ever feel like a lost cause? Ever feel like God could never use you? Yeah, I think Saul/Paul’s story pretty much slams the door shut on that argument.

Here in the opening lines of his letter to Titus, the former Saul now humbly refers to himself as “a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ” (v1). Wow. Talk about a 180! By claiming the title of servant, Paul puts himself at the bottom of the org chart. Later in this same letter, he writes instructions to slaves save by Jesus. This is the Greek word doulos. “Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything, they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:9-10). Paul lets us know that he’s modeling that submission to the Master. He’s letting Titus know that he’s ready and available for whatever God wants, whenever God wants, with whomever God wants. 

Are you available? Are you ready? With God, it’s not about your ability. It’s your availability. 

Paul goes to say that he’s “an apostle of Jesus Christ” (v1). For those of us who spent a little time in Sunday School, we might make the mistake of thinking an apostle is just another word for disciple (and that an epistle is one of the their wives!). Back in the Greco-Roman world, an apostle was someone appointed by the boss and given full rights and privileges. When you’re talking to an apostle, it’s the same as talking to the boss. So when you’re talking to one of the Twelve, it’s like you’re talking to Jesus Himself. That means that when you’re reading what they wrote under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it’s like you’re reading something from Jesus. So when Titus opens this note from his mentor Paul, he reads it like it’s from his Savior as well.

Paul doesn’t play the apostle card willy nilly. He does it humbly. He does it appropriately. Even when he does, he sees himself as “the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1Cor 15:9). What a great lesson for the rest of us. This is an awesome lesson of servant leadership. There’s absolutely no reason for any follower of Jesus to get cocky. We’re all simply beggars who’ve stumbled onto the Bread. 

The man from Tarsus lets us in on a big part of his purpose as a servant/apostle. It’s “for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords to godliness” (v1). Or as the Message tells us, “for promoting the faith among God’s chosen people, getting out the accurate word on God and how to rightly respond to it” (v1 The Message). It’s very important to remember that in Paul’s day, the idea that Jesus is the Messiah and He selects non-Jews to salvation was hot off the presses. A huge part of the apostle’s role was to explain this amazing truth, especially to Gentiles (Acts 9:15; 22:21). 

The apostle wanted God’s hand-picked people to know exactly who Jesus is, what He has done, and who they are because of Him. Paul wrote to his friends in Corinth, “For our sake He (God) made Him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him (Jesus) we might become the righteousness of God” (2Cor 5:21). Jesus lived the perfect life that we fail to live. He died the brutal death for our sin that we should have died. He rose to a spectacular new life that we don’t deserve. In other words, we’re just like Paul. Nobody looked at us as draft picks for God. We weren’t on anybody’s draft board. 

Once we know the truth of who He is and what He’s done for us, we know how to live. This is “godliness” (v1). We don’t try to be godly so that Jesus will save us. We’ll never be good enough for Him to come to our rescue. No, it’s the other way around. He saves us and then we respond by living godly lives. We live lives of godliness as an act of worship. We do what He commands because we’re so thankful for what He’s done for us. Paul’s buddy Pete lets us know that Jesus didn’t save us and leave us swinging in the breeze to try and be godly all on our own. “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and goodness” (2Pet 1:3). Christ isn’t simply our Hero who pulls us out of a tight spot. He then gives us all the resources we need to live godly lives.

Paul is a draft day surprise. So are you. So am I. Once Jesus handpicks us, He gives us His power to perform.