IV — WHY
IV — WHY WAS AND IS THE MISSIO DEI (SENDING OF GOD) NEEDED?
The death, decay, destruction, and corruption of the institutional human-ordered Church is in direct proportion to its failing mission health, failure to repent and bear the fruit of participating in the Missio Dei. The church needs to repent, be converted and be saved from its selfish war. It can no longer face inward and be an end unto itself. True humility and repentance will lead the church to a commitment, a heart transformation. This is the reset, renewal, and return to God’s Missio Dei, His great sending.
Beginning with Adam and Eve, everyone has rebelled against God. Everyone has broken the relationship with Him and has been filled with wickedness and disobedience. Mankind sinned and continues to sin against God’s will. We are all guilty and deserve punishment. Because of the reality of sin and its consequence, we all deserve eternal damnation. Our broken relationship with God also manifests itself in broken relationships between one another in society, in families, and in the Christian family, the visible church. Mankind and the church urgently needed and still needs the great sending of God for rescue and redemption, and for the restoration of relationships!
The church needs the Missio Dei itself to exist for others. Only when God’s great sending lives within us can we go into the world for Him. We do not live for ourselves while we wait for others to recognize God’s gifts; we cannot embody a “come to us” attitude and continue on with our own lives. Instead, Christ calls us into the world as apostolates, sending us always beyond and outside of ourselves.
15. Romans 3:9-20 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
(For further study, see “The Ten Commandments” and “Close of the Commandments,” Luther’s Small Catechism.)
