XIX — MOTIVATION
XIX – WHAT IS THE MOTIVATION FOR PARTICIPATING IN THE MISSIO DEI?
How do we motivate ourselves and others to participate in the Missio Dei? That is another big question. The answer to this last Missio Dei catechism question is essential.
The devil, the world, and our flesh tempt us by trying to deceive or lure us into apathy, anarchy, disobedience, distraction, and preoccupation with self. The devil, the world, and our sinful nature would love nothing more than for Christ’s beloved to evade His call, His sending. These sin-filled three love to see members of the faith community weak and tired, to be satisfied with old mindsets and habits.
Is motivation essential for participating in the Missio Dei? Yes!
Moreover, one way that evil loves to deceive Christ believers is to motivate them with the law and its curbs and commands, taking the believers’ focus off the Gospel. We can be deceived by fear – threats that you will get what is coming to you or threats of God’s wrath and judgment on the unbelieving world. We can be deceived by seeming goodness of pure doctrine, piety, volunteerism. These are good things, to be sure, but without the love and mercy of the Gospel, they are meaningless.
Motivation from Christ alone moves believers to participate in His sending (mission) – His love, His work! Yes, God’s sending. What alone moves the believer is the power of the Gospel – being baptized into Christ. It is Christ’s saving relationship with His beloved children – not His directions or commands – that brings about change of heart and life. It is His love, not my love; His grace, not my gratitude; His service, not my service. (Parents, this also applies to the parent-child relationship. Pastors, this applies to the pastor-congregation relationship.)
Biblical examples of being motivated by the law include command- or need-passages. While all of these are strong and wonderful passages in the right context, it is easy to focus on the “do” that we can accomplish through them while forgetting the “done” that has already been accomplished through Christ:
Luke 14:23 And the master said to the servant, “Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.
Acts 16:9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him, and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”
Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (Author’s note: This passage is interpreted by many to mean good things of education and healing for the deprived of the world – social gospel.)
Matthew 28:19-20 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Acts 1:8 But… you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
The Gospel, which is centered in the sending and saving activity of Christ, moves the individual Christian and congregation to participate in Christ’s sending! This catechism question ends where it began with Articles I to III, the Gospel essence of God’s sending, the Missio Dei.
92. John 3:16-17 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
93. John 17:2-3 …since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
94. John 17:18 As you sent me into the world…
95. Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
96. Matthew 9:2,6 And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven… But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” — he then said to the paralytic — “Rise, pick up your bed and go home.”
97. Luke 19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
98. John 10:11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
99. John 10:14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.
100. 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
101. John 1:29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
102. Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
(For further study see the Second and Third articles, the Apostles Creed, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the Office of Keys, Luther’s Small Catechism.)
