Week 1 | MISSION
01 MISSION
We seek to glorify God by finding life in Jesus together and inviting others to do the same.
That simple statement is our mission. Perhaps it seems too simple? While the Christian life often feels very complex and does in fact require everything from us, the reality is that what God calls us to do is very simple. We have summarized it with these simple statements. All of it, we want you to notice, is about our pursuit of God's glory. He alone is glorious and worthy of all praise and credit and honor (Exodus 20:3, 34:14). Everything we do is meant to demonstrate his greatness rather than our own. So the whole prospect of engaging in this mission is rooted in the most important thing: we want God to be seen as he truly is, as great and good and glorious and gracious.
This is our non-negotiable beginning. But how specifically do we intend to glorify God? To dive into that, start by reading the following verses from the Gospel of John.
READ
John 14:6
John 15:1–5
John 17:3
John 17:15–18
John 17:20–23
FINDING LIFE IN JESUS
Our common mission is to glorify God by finding life in Jesus. This statement should feel at once freeing in its simplicity and profound in its implications. As you read above (John 14:6), Jesus made the bold claim that he IS the way, the truth, and the life. He is the only way that anyone can have an encounter with God the Father.
When Jesus says that he is the life, it's helpful to look at this in light of what Jesus said in the second passage you read. All five of those passages you read from the book of John are relating a single conversation that Jesus had with his followers, or disciples (recorded in John 13–17). Jesus was about to be handed over to the religious leaders and government authorities to be killed as a religious heretic and a political insurrectionist. But before that happened, he gathered his twelve disciples and gave them clear instructions on what it would look like for them to continue to follow him after he was gone. It's in this context that Jesus explained what it means for him to be "the life." He used the analogy of a vine and branches (John 15:1–5).
"I am the vine," Jesus said, "and you are the branches." He invites us to view our relationship to him in terms of a branch being connected to a vine. A branch will produce grapes because that is what God designed it to do. But it can only do this if it is attached to the vine itself. The nutrients flow through the vine, into the branch, and then out into the growing grapes. This, Jesus explains, is exactly how life is meant to be lived.
Too often we think of the Christian life as an exercise in producing fruit. So we go out into the world and do our best to be well behaved, to make a difference, to be moral and encouraging and truthful and helpful. If you've tried this for any amount of time, you know how hard it is. Actually, the Bible tells us it is impossible for human beings to do everything the way we want to (Romans 7:15), let alone the way God calls us to (Romans 3:23). Jesus said it in this context as well: "Apart from me, you can do nothing" (John 15:5). The lesson here is that we were never designed to simply go out into the world and be good people. When we attempt to do this, something vital is missing and we will hurt ourselves and the people around us. What's missing, of course, is the vine.
Our job is to "abide" or "remain" or "stay with" the vine. There is a shocking simplicity in Jesus' call: the Christian life is all about staying connected to the vine, to Jesus. As Jesus says a bit later, "This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3). So while we may be tempted to identify our mission as going out into the world and accomplishing big things, Jesus sets our mission as simply finding life in him. That's what we're about. That's our whole pursuit. We're not trying to aim small by making this our mission, we're trying to follow Jesus' instructions.
What does Jesus want for us? To always and continually find life in him. To come alive inside ourselves as we learn more about him and get better acquainted with him. To find joy and peace and hope and love as we open our eyes and discover that he's all around us, even in the places we never imagined he could be, waiting for us, working ahead of any of our strategies. Finding life in Jesus means growing always in our experience of him and having our souls awakened by who he is. It's a beautiful pursuit. And it's the very mission that God calls us to pursue for the rest of our lives.
TOGETHER
But there are a couple of important clarifications to be made about HOW we find that life in Jesus. The first is that we find life in Jesus together. That word "together" is very important, because too often, we try to live the Christian life on our own. Those who try to maintain a relationship with Jesus apart from a church family often find themselves unmotivated, isolated, and lacking purpose. The truth is, we were never intended to live this way.
Going back to Jesus' final instructions to his followers, he prayed that his disciples would "be one even as we [God the Father and God the Son] are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me" (John 17:22–23). Jesus wasn't just trying to keep the peace here. He had already explained the importance of his followers finding life in him. Now he explains that this is something they are called to do together. We are to be united in our mission. We don't just root each other on, we find life in Jesus together.
Group work is often more cumbersome. But in this case, it's vital. This one clarification ensures that we can never fulfill Creekside's mission by ourselves. It's impossible. The only way to find life in Jesus together is by investing in each other's lives. We need each other, and our mission reflects that. So as we gather week to week on Sundays and head out into the world to find that life in Jesus, we connect with each other and team up in pursuit of the life we each experience in Jesus.
INVITING OTHERS
But there's one other important clarification before we wrap up. Our mission is to glorify God by finding life in Jesus together and inviting others to do the same. A church might feel healthy if it regularly gathers a group of Christians to experience the life of Jesus, but something vital is missing. And Jesus said it at the end of his prayer: "As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world" (John 17:18). As we find that life in Jesus together, Jesus sends us out into the world to invite other people to find that life in Jesus along with us.
It's important to note that we're not just going out into the world to tell other people to do something. We're not just leaving instructions. We're inviting people to do something with us. What are we inviting them to do? The very thing that we've identified as our mission: We are inviting people to join us in finding life in Jesus together.
What a joyful mission! We should feel the weight fall off of our shoulders as we recognize how simple this is. We do not need to find a strategy for changing the world. Jesus does that. We do not need to meet a quota of converts. That's in God's hands. Jesus called his first disciples to simply "Follow me" (Matthew 4:19). They would discover that the call to follow would ultimately require everything of them, but when they accepted that invitation, they were joining Jesus and experiencing his life as their own. We get the opportunity to accept the same invitation. And, beautifully, we get to pursue that life together with the people God has placed around us. And, winsomely, we have the privilege of inviting the friends, neighbors, and coworkers around us to experience that life in Jesus together with us.
PROCESS & DISCUSS
Find someone else to read the Scripture passages above and to process the following questions with:
1. What do you think it means to find life in Jesus?
2. How have you experienced life in Jesus in the past?
3. What does it mean to find life in Jesus TOGETHER? Why is this significant?
4. When you think about INVITING others to find life in Jesus together with you, who comes to mind? Why?