Our mission opportunity - when the world’s promises don’t deliver

The last Census tells us that, for the first time since statistics have been collected, less than half of all Australians identify as Christian (43.9 per cent). The next largest group in Australia is those who say they have no religion (38.9 per cent). Islam is the second-largest religion in the country, at just over 3 per cent of the population.

So, the very high number of people who say they have no religion is a huge mission opportunity. I can tell you that as I travel around the Diocese every single church has people visiting for the first time, or people who have joined in the past year. Sometimes they have had no contact with a church before; sometimes they’ve been away from church for a long time – maybe even decades.

One reason people are turning up at church is because living according to what the world tells us – follow your heart, pursue your dreams, do whatever you want and be whoever you want to be – is not only really hard work, it doesn’t deliver.

The result? One in four Australians say they are lonely. Thirty per cent say they don’t feel like they belong to a group of friends, and 17 per cent experience anxiety or depression. In addition, relationships are tragically and painfully letting people down. Twenty-three per cent of women and 7 per cent of men report that they have experienced intimate partner violence.

But Jesus came into the world to let us know there is a God who made us, loves us and remains in charge of the present and the future. He knows that we struggle internally with good and evil and that we need a Saviour. Jesus says he is this Saviour – bringing forgiveness, new life and the promise of his presence with us now and life forever with him in the future.

All of this was put on an eternal billboard when he died on a cross, was laid in a tomb, and then walked out of his grave on the third day.

Commissioned and equipped

John 20:19-23 is sometimes called John’s Great Commission, because in verse 21 Jesus says to the disciples, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you”. “Sending” is a mission word: Jesus is the sent one – sent to do God’s work, sent with a mission; and now he is sending his disciples to continue this work.

The disciples are locked away behind closed doors for fear of the Sanhedrin who put Jesus to death. But Jesus has work for them to do. He commissions them, and he equips them for the mission.

First, with blood-bought peace. “Peace be with you!” he says, and shows them his hands and side (v19-20). It was an everyday greeting – but this is not everyday peace. This is the peace Jesus gives, which is not like the world’s peace. Not mere words, not an empty wish, not a hollow promise. This peace has overcome the world, and Jesus’ disciples may carry it with them in the midst of trouble.

We see this peace when Peter and John are told by the Sanhedrin to stop preaching in his name. They reply, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him?” and they ask God to help them preach with boldness.

Second, Jesus leaves his disciples with a pattern for mission: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you”. The key here is in the little word “as”. In the same way that the Father sent Jesus, he sends his disciples. In other words, this isn’t a new mission – it’s the same mission, now being carried out by Jesus through his disciples.

He is the risen King, ascended to the Father’s right hand, but he is not absent. Jesus is in the midst of his people as we pursue his mission. We are not sent to win arguments, but to love others; we are not sent to conquer with the sword, but to hold out the word of life; we are not sent to build our own empires but to serve, so that Jesus may build his church as people put their trust in him.

Third, Jesus promises his disciples the gift of his powerful Spirit. “With that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (v22). Jesus does not commission his disciples for the mission and leave them without the power to complete it. And the power that he gives is the power of his own presence, by his Spirit. The wind in the sails of this mission will be the breath of the risen King.

We always feel weak, don’t we, serving the Lord? We feel we aren’t spiritual enough, wise enough, clever enough, convincing enough, or godly enough. But God’s work has always been done through ordinary, weak Christians who trusted the word that the Spirit inspired the apostles to write down in Scripture, and the power of the Spirit to work through his word in the hearts of people.

Jesus also equips his disciples with the promise of the gospel: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven” (v23).

We learn what Jesus had in mind as we read what the apostles did in the book of Acts. At Pentecost, the Spirit comes on all the disciples, and people from many nations hear the gospel preached in their own language (Acts 2). Peter says to them, “repent and be baptised… in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”.

In Acts 10, Peter says to Cornelius the Roman centurion, “all the prophets testify about him [Jesus] that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name”.

The apostles’ consistent pattern is to preach forgiveness in the name of Jesus and call on their hearers to put their trust in him – not them.

Finally, John reminds us what it is like to be “on mission” with Jesus: “The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord” (v20).