2023-Q4-L03

2023-Q4-L03: God's Call to Mission

Read for This Week’s Study: Genesis 11:1-9; Genesis 12:1-3; Daniel 9:24-27; Matthew 1:21; Genesis 12:10-20; Genesis 13:1; Acts 8:1-4; Acts 1:8.

Memory Text: Memory Text: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

God's true mission

What is God's mission.

Relational. Let us make man in our image. If God is going to have a meaningful relationship with a creature He created, it will have to be a creature that is like Him.

God wants us to grow and do great works.

What was God's original plan for man. Psalm 8: Man was made a little lower than the angels (for a little while). But His ultimate goal is that Man will be higher than the angels. This is by virtue of the Son of God becoming the Son of Man.

The common approach to evangelism is "How to get a man to go to Heaven?" which is not wrong in and of itself.

But the fundamental issue is not about getting someone to heaven. Why? Because sin in heaven began with a perfect creature, the angel Lucifer, who had no propensity to sin. Sin on earth began with two perfect creatures, who had no propensity to sin.

So, perfecting an individual does not solve the fundamental problem.

God's ultimate goal is not taking people to Heaven, or the creation of a New Earth.

God's ultimate goal is that men should be like me. God-likeness.

The nature of Christ. This is key in understanding Christ's mission.

Jesus saves us from the Penalty of Sin, the Power of Sin, and finally the Presence of Sin.

Abraham--to be a blessing to the world.

Blessing. Begins with God's presence and continues with health and prosperity.

Flaws with Missions

Several "flaws" with our mission outreach/effort:

Theory vs. Practice. Examples: Swimming (theory vs. practice). We learn about fishing without fishing itself.

Top-down vs. bottom-up.

Those who are "sent" vs. those who remain with the baggage.

Telling others how to live vs. Showing others how to live.

Knowledge vs. Love. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

Doctrine vs. Discipline.

SUNDAY. Moving Beyond Our Comfort Zone. Genesis 11:1-9. Tower of Babel.

A 11:1 (unity of language)

...B 11:2 (unity of place)

...... C 11:3a (intensive communication)

......... D 11:3b (plans and inventions)

............E 11:4a (building)

...............F 11:b (city and tower)

X 11:5a (God’s intervention)

...............F’ 11:5b (city and tower)

............E’ 11:5c (building)

.........D’ 11:6 (counter plans and inventions)

......C’ 11:7 (communications disrupted)

...B’ 11:8 (disruption of place)

A’ 11:9 (disruption of language)

From the lesson: In order to reach others, God intends for us to move beyond our comfort zone. The desire to remain only with our own ilk and ethnic or social kind can lead to selfishness, even evil. This danger is one of the lessons derived from the story of Babel.

Notes

Did God have to "come down"

"toward the east".

There is a flaw in the above logic. It's the opposite. It is not the desire to remain only with your kind that leads to selfishness, even evil. Rather, it is selfishness that leads us to remain only with our own kind--sectarianism, prejudice, bias.

Secular (non-religious) people are almost always divided. The government likes it that way. It justifies their existence and control.

However, an existential threat such as war or Christian evangelization or promotion will unite them.

MONDAY. Becoming a Blessing to the Whole World

Notes

Sacrifice of Isaac. Why?

(1) Abraham needed to mature in faith. James 2:20-24.

(2) Abraham saw the coming (and enactment) of the Messiah. John 8:56.

(3) Abraham as a witness to angels and men. PP 154.

(4) To demonstrate that God did not want human sacrifice to appease Him. Micah 6:6-8.

TUESDAY. Abraham’s Call

Notes

The faith of Abraham; the frailty of Abraham.

Why was he led out of the land he was from.

WEDNESDAY. The Early Church and Comfort Zones

Notes

Acts 8:1. Great persecution. They were scattered abroad...to reach the Gentiles.

Paul was central in scattering the church and then Paul was central in reaching the Gentiles.

The same it true with Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel 4:1-3

GC 607. "Show us from the Word of God our error."

THURSDAY. Starting From Where You Are

Notes

Where do we start?

You start with you.

We are witnesses of God's character and of the centrality of the life of Christ.

Not only to know God but to live with and for God.

Lot is the example of compromise, of siding with God and the world.

FRIDAY. Further Thought: Israel was given a 2nd chance in the testimony of His disciples. It was 3.5 years with Christ, and another 3.5 years with his disciples. After that, it was to go out to the world.

APPENDIX

STEPS To CHRIST

God is love.

Creation is a testimony of the Father's life (word), wisdom, and joy. A true study of created things, even in the midst of pain and suffering.

The Bible is a testimony of God's character.

Satan's accusation: God is not love, but is of stern justice: severe judge, harsh, exactin creditor, jealous eye to discern errors and mistakes in men, so that He may visit judgments upon them.

Jesus' mission: To reveal the Father. John 14:8-9, "Have I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip?"

Jesus' nature. One that we can image, emulate. He came our Example.

Jesus' life. Words of truth, attentive, healer, patient, etc. Jesus became a "Man of Sorrows" that we might be made partakers of everlasting joy.

Back to the issue at hand: The nature of the Father. How to handle the accusations, particularly of sin and suffering.

The Father did not need to be appeased. God is love even before Jesus came to earth.

Sons of God. Through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ the sons of Adam may become the sons of God. By assuming human nature, Christ elevates humanity. Fallen men are placed where, through connection with Christ, they may indeed become worthy of the name "sons of God."

Our need (2).

Before the Fall: Joy in God's presence.

After the Fall: No joy in holiness. The spirit of unselfish love that reigns there. Heaven would be to him a place of torture; he would long to be hidden from Him who is its light, and the center of its joy. It is no arbitrary decree on the part of God that excludes the wicked from heaven; they are shut out by their own unfitness for its companionship. The glory of God would be to them a consuming fire. They would welcome destruction, that they might be hidden from the face of Him who died to redeem them.

Impossible to change ourselves.

Born from above (again). unless he shall receive a new heart, new desires, purposes, and motives, leading to a new life, "he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3, margin. The idea that it is necessary only to develop the good that [p. 19] exists in man by nature, is a fatal deception.

Not enough to recognize God's character. It is not enough to perceive the loving-kindness of God, to see the benevolence, the fatherly tenderness, of His character. It is not enough to discern the wisdom and justice of His law, to see that it is founded upon the eternal principle of love.

Change thru the spirit of Christ abiding in the heart. "Christ in you."

The nature of Christ

Was Jesus nature that of Adam, before the Fall or after the Fall? Answer: Neither.

Adam and Eve were created without the propensity to sin. They were perfect, new babes of Creation. Not knowing sin or with the inclination to practice it. They were not tempted to lie, steal and kill, because that was not in their nature and would actually be abhorrent to them.

Today: We are born with a set of parents who are both sinful, both with the propensity to sin. And, we are, therefore, born with the same nature.

Jesus: Was not born with a set of imperfect parents, nor with a set of perfect parents (as the Catholics believe). Jesus was born from an imperfect mother and a perfect Father. Thus, Jesus' birth was unique. His nature was and is unique.

Jesus declared himself, almost excllusively as the "Son of Man" throughout his ministry. He was also identified as the Son of God and he himself declared the same before the Sanhedrin. That's why they declared "blasphemy" to his statement.

Jesus, then, by virtue of his mother, is the Son of Man; and, by virtue of his Father, the Son of God.

Jesus' nature is the nature that we can have.

Jesus was born with the CAPACITY to be tempted. But he was also born with the CAPACITY to say "No!" The temptations Jesus had were real, as real as they are to us, but just as real was his capacity to resist them.

Everything Jesus did was with the same power available to us. It required Jesus to be dependent on His Father's power throughout his life.

Jesus' greatest temptations were to distrust His Father. To the very end, Jesus remained loyal to his Father's will, even to death. That is, Jesus manifested the greatest form of faith any man can experience--to face eternal extinction in order not to show disloyalty (breach of trust) to the Father.

The temptation to Adam and Eve revolved around eternal life and death. In type, this was the same temptation Jesus experienced at the cross, but with far greater consequences.

EGW

The terms:

"fully divine" - none

"100% divine" - none

"fully human" - only once below.

ST June 17, 1897, par. 8: Had he not been fully human, Christ could not have been our substitute. He could not have worked out in humanity that perfection of character which it is the privilege of all to reach. He was the light and the life of the world. He came to this earth to work in behalf of men, that they might no longer be under the control of Satanic agencies. But while bearing human nature, he was dependent upon the Omnipotent for his life. In his humanity, he laid hold of the divinity of God; and this every member of the human family has the privilege of doing. Christ did nothing that human nature may not do if it partakes of the divine nature.

"his divine nature": 163 occurrences. Generally, the phrase, "we become partakers/participation of his divine nature"

21LtMs, Ms 138, 1906, par. 6: [Sermon notes, St. Helena Sanitarium Chapel] “His divine nature.” [Verse 4.] A question was asked if Christ brought His divine nature. Of course He did. He was humanity and divinity combined. Here He was tempted in all points like as we are, that He might know how to succor those that are tempted; and then every soul that will follow His example and His teachings shall be a partaker of that divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. If you want heaven, why, you must every one strive for it.

COL 169.1: “The Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” When Satan seeks to cover the people of God with blackness, and ruin them, Christ interposes. Although they have sinned, Christ has taken the guilt of their sins upon His own soul. He has snatched the race as a brand from the fire. By His human nature He is linked with man, while through His divine nature He is one with the infinite God. Help is brought within the reach of perishing souls. The adversary is rebuked.

ST June 17, 1889, par. 8: The sin of Adam and Eve had divorced earth from Heaven, and finite man from the infinite God, but Christ had passed over the very ground where Adam had failed, and at every step he was a conqueror. Every victory he gained elevated humanity in the scale of moral value before Heaven. It was impossible for man to redeem himself, and this was the reason that Jesus took human nature upon himself, that through humanity his divine nature might reach and lift up humanity.

DUAL ATONEMENT

From the lesson: Christ’s death was part of the reconciliation process, not the end of it. Through His resurrection, Jesus conquered death and received “ ‘all authority . . . in heaven and on earth’ ” (Matthew 28:18). Based on this reality, He then commissioned all of His followers to make disciples around the world, with an awesome promise: “ ‘I am with you always, even to the end of the age’ ” (Matthew 28:20).

Notes

The concept of dual atonement is implied in the lesson. That is, the death and resurrection of Christ did not end the conflict.

Desire of Ages, "It is Finished" page 761.

Jesus voluntarily surrendered his life to Satan's power and death. God the Father, in turn, allowed Satan to manifest his full force of evil on His Son. The purpose of this was to reveal the true nature of evil and thereby conquer the lies perpetrated by Satan. That is, the true nature of sin is the desire to destroy the true nature of God. They are complete antithetical (def. directly opposed or contrasted; mutually incompatible). One cannot continue to exist with the other. One must continue to exist and one must be extinguished.

God's universe cannot be a perfect universe, if sin is allowed to continue in some corner of the universe. The reason is that sin cannot continue without God allowing it to exist. God is the source of life, sin is the source of death. If left alone, sin will destroy itself.

"Every sin must meet its punishment, urged Satan" p. 761.

DA 762.2: The law requires righteousness,—a righteous life, a perfect character; and this man has not to give. He cannot meet the claims of God's holy law. But Christ, coming to the earth as man, lived a holy life, and developed a perfect character. These He offers as a free gift to all who will receive them. His life stands for the life of men. Thus they have remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God. More than this, Christ imbues men with the attributes of God. He builds up the human character after the similitude of the divine character, a goodly fabric of spiritual strength and beauty. Thus the very righteousness of the law is fulfilled in the believer in Christ. God can “be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” Romans 3:26.