In sports, the best team has players focused on what they produce together, not obsessing with individual performance. In religion and matters of faith, we might miss the mission, obsessing over matters of little value or consequence to the real mission, God's will and Kingdom.
(Yes, that's Matt Duffy, third baseman of the San Francisco Giants pictured - see sermon.)
The scriptures point to similar instances of missing the mission.
In Numbers, Moses distributes the Spirit of God to the gathered elders of the Hebrew people. Moses has become fed up with leadership and decides that it's time to get the elders to take a bigger role with leading these problematic people. Apparently two elders didn't get the meeting memo and they didn't show up at the tent of meeting with everyone else. Yet when Mloses distributes the Spirit of God, and the gathered elders start prophesying, the two delinquents start prophesying, too.
Someone sees this and runs to report what's happening to Moses and his right hand man Joshua. Joshua jumps all over this and insists that Moses make them stop. Moses disagrees, saying he wished all of Israel would prophesy. Joshua badly missed the mission point on that one.
In Mark, the normally silent disciple, John, son of Zebedee, has seen someone performing healing and was appalled that they claimed to do it in the name of Jesus. John reports this to Jesus who uses this latest disciple flop for another teachable moment. Whoever is not against us is for us.
We can miss the mission, too, when we fail to realize the many ways God can advance the Kingdom, and the many people and circumstances in which that can occur.
Check out the whole message with the sermon video below, and note the downloads below the video panel.
(Yes, that's Matt Duffy, third baseman of the San Francisco Giants pictured - see sermon.)
The scriptures point to similar instances of missing the mission.
In Numbers, Moses distributes the Spirit of God to the gathered elders of the Hebrew people. Moses has become fed up with leadership and decides that it's time to get the elders to take a bigger role with leading these problematic people. Apparently two elders didn't get the meeting memo and they didn't show up at the tent of meeting with everyone else. Yet when Mloses distributes the Spirit of God, and the gathered elders start prophesying, the two delinquents start prophesying, too.
Someone sees this and runs to report what's happening to Moses and his right hand man Joshua. Joshua jumps all over this and insists that Moses make them stop. Moses disagrees, saying he wished all of Israel would prophesy. Joshua badly missed the mission point on that one.
In Mark, the normally silent disciple, John, son of Zebedee, has seen someone performing healing and was appalled that they claimed to do it in the name of Jesus. John reports this to Jesus who uses this latest disciple flop for another teachable moment. Whoever is not against us is for us.
We can miss the mission, too, when we fail to realize the many ways God can advance the Kingdom, and the many people and circumstances in which that can occur.
Check out the whole message with the sermon video below, and note the downloads below the video panel.
| 09-27-15-ff-answers.pdf |
| 09-27-15-missing_the_mission.pdf |