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The Great Omission part 1

Submitted by Art on Fri, 18/01/2008 - 8:29am.
Many know the Great Commission, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Great Commandment is, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with allyour soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Mat 22:37-39 (NRSV)
JESUS HAS ANOTHER ESSENTIAL, THE HEARTBEAT of Jesus for His church. It’s the foundation for the “going” and our loving God and neighbor. It’s how we relate to other Christians. And, man we suck at this. I fail here all the time, but let’s keep the finger pointing more distant. You don’t need any imagination, just look how unpresidential candidates look when challenging one another’s Christianity. Or how about the brawl at the Nativity Church in Bethlehem between rival priests Dec 27, 2007! These were the headlines, "Members of rival Christian orders have traded blows at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, with four people reported wounded in the fray." It’s not much different than what the world sees when a hardcore Baptist neighbor won’t have anything to do the Presbyterian across the street because they sprinkle when they should be dunking! It’s not televised but the neighborhood gets the message. It’s the same message they’ve been getting for decades.

So what happens when you start talking to your neighbor about the sweet sweet love of Jesus? The neighbors are like, “Yeah, right.” The whole time you are talking (witnessing), they are secretly saying their own prayer. “God please let be get called to the phone by a telemarketer!”
 

By our failure to serve together and love one another has sabotaged our “going to make disciples.” It has undermined our credibility when we say “I love God with all my heart and I love you to.”  It’s why people seem so inoculated to the Gospel here. We sound to the world like the adults talking to Charlie Brown and his friends in the Peanuts cartoon, “Wonk, wonk, wonk.” We have tried to live out fulfill the Great Commission but have made such a great omission our words fall flat.WE HAVE MISSED THE HEART BEAT OF JESUS’ PROMISE to build His church. We have to build His way if the church is going to have His desired effect. Instead we have argued separated, majored on minors, acted on our own. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Rom 3:23 (NRSV) sounds like a fitting indictment for the church in America. I am not trying to be weird or say there must be one central church that fits somebody’s end time conspiracy theory. I’m suggesting we are making a huge omission refusing to seriously consider Jesus’ heartbeat for how His church should work.LOOK AT WHAT JESUS SAYS, “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” John 17:22-23 (NRSV) It’s easy to paint the picture of the church Jesus has in mind to go into the world. It’s like painting by the numbers, just follow the “so thats.” In Jesus’ prayer He says He has given us (disciples) “glory” “so that” we (disciples) may be one. He gave us the “glory” for the purpose that we would be one in the way He and the Father are one. They have the same purpose, they work together in mission and message to the world. I think there is a clue here for us (disciples).JESUS SAYS HE WILL BUILD HIS CHURCH AND HERE IS HOW. The next “so that,” again shows the purpose or end result that “the world may know” two things. We serve in the world as one, so that the world comes gets the message; 1) Jesus is sent by God 2) God loves the church. Its like the secret plan of effective evangelism, church building, mission work. It’s what makes the message of Great Command and the Great Commission credible. Its Jesus’ plan. It’s the Great Omission. “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”  . find more at ilent.org and churchwithoutshoes.com

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