What is God's mission in the world? And how can I find my place in that? To answer both of those questions we have to first answer, what is wrong with the world?

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God's Mission

What is God’s mission in the world, and how can I be a part of that? Those are two great questions. But to answer them, we first have to understand what is wrong with the world.

What is wrong with the world?

How you answer that depends on your worldview. However, the fact that there is something wrong, none of us would deny. We know the world should not be like this, and the Bible tells us why. It tells us the world was created perfect, but that sin, death, relational breakdown and alienation from God came into the world because of man’s desire to take the place of God, to be his own God.

And in the place of God we have chosen God-substitutes, created things in the place of the creator. So at the root of all of humanity’s problems is this root problem: our failure to glorify God as God.

So, what is God’s solution to all this?

What is God Up To In The World?

The Bible tells us that God is making all things new. God is calling a people to himself from every nation and tribe. So the garden will be restored: the world we all long for. And God will be glorified at the centre of his new, redeemed people.

But how is God going to achieve that mission? He does so by choosing a nation – Israel – to be a blessing to all nations. He chooses a family – the family of David, from whom he righteous king will come, under whose rule God’s enemies will be humbled and peace and security will reign. He chooses a man: Jesus, the ultimate King.

But he did not come as people expected – born in poverty, the friend of sinners, he entered Jerusalem on a donkey. But Jesus achieves his world-wide rule by dying for his people, by dealing with their root problem.

In his resurrection from the dead he became the first-fruits of God’s new creation, of God’s ultimate triumph over sin and death. Now, the good news of that victory, the gospel (in Greek: the evangelion), is to be proclaimed in all the earth, and people invited to enter his kingdom, and come to the feast.

What’s Your Part in This?

It is to repent of our sins, and trust in Christ, and enter his kingdom. It is to allow the gospel to radically transform the way we live.

For some that will mean going – to leave our comfort as Christ left his and take the gospel to those who haven’t heard it.For others it will mean welcoming people as Christ has welcomed us, like asylum seekers and refugees. For others it will mean creating wealth and giving generously. For others it will be prayer: as Christ bore our burden in the garden we will bear others’: the persecuted church, the advance of the gospel.

Whatever it means for you, all of us must find our place in this great, divine drama of salvation.