How Do We Do That?
In construction, before you start building you need to know what you’re supposed to be building … you need a mission. Building God’s kingdom here on earth is no different. We need a mission.
We were given that mission in Matthew 28:16-20. Jesus told His disciples that they had, “been given authority to go to all people and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,and teach them to do everything I have told you.”
We have been given that same mission.
When building, you also need to have a plan, a blueprint, and some instructions as to how it should be built. This is the same with God’s kingdom. The Bible gives us those instructions.
In Ephesians 2:18-22, we’re told that, “the apostles and prophets are the foundation and Christ as the most cornerstone. Christ is the one who holds the building together and makes it grow into a holy temple for the Lord. And you are part of that building Christ has built as a place for God’s own Spirit to live.”
The cornerstone of a building is the first stone set in the foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the positioning of the entire structure.
Jesus is our cornerstone.
It’s good to have a general contractor when building a big, complex project. Someone to help keep all the different trades working together to accomplish the mission.
The Holy Spirit has been given this job when it comes to building God’s kingdom. As Jesus is getting ready to leave His apostles, He tells them, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and give you power. Then you will tell everyone about me.”
The Holy Spirit is our general contractor.
We have been given one Spirit and one mission. We are to be spreading Jesus to everyone.
This is just like the different trades on a construction site who all have different missions within the bigger mission. This doesn’t mean that they all see eye to eye on everything or that there aren’t disagreements. As a general contractor, I have had to mediate differences between subcontractors. One thinks it needs to be done this way, while another thinks it needs to be done that way.
As Christians, we can have these same kinds of disagreements. We need to remember what our mission is and when we differ we need to go to our General Contractor and ask what we should do. How can we best move forward to accomplish The Mission?
There is one mission and one Spirit.