The Father’s Business

Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson

When Jesus was twelve years old, he did something that might be considered bad.  His parents were in the habit of going down to Jerusalem for the Passover every year, and they did this.  As they were coming back, they went with a lot of family, people, friends and that sort of thing and they didn’t know that Jesus wasn’t with them, so they were walking back and it was a whole day before they discovered that Jesus was gone.  They went back to Jerusalem and couldn’t find him.  Can you imagine that?  Losing your child in a big city?Well, they did finally find him.  They found him at the temple – teaching in the temple at twelve years old.  Naturally, his parents said, “Why did you do that to us?”  “And why are you so surprised that I am here in the temple doing my Father’s business?”  And it says in the text that his parents didn’t understand what he was talking about, but Mary treasured these things up in her heart.  Jesus had a purpose and he knew it early on, and we see that purpose acted out in his life, and when he is on the cross, he says, “It is finished.”  His purpose is finished.  Jesus had a mission to do the Father’s will and he has given us that mission ourselves.  Every one of us is a missionary whether we know it or even like it.  We are missionaries.  Jesus is with his disciples during the last few days of his life, and he is praying to the Father, and he prays this, and it’s from John 17:

¹⁸ “Make the holy, Father, consecrated with the truth.  Your word is consecrating truth in the same way that you gave me a mission in the world, I give them a mission in the world.  I’m consecrating myself for their sakes so they’ll be truth consecrated in their mission.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Will you pray with me?

Father, we come before you now as we heard stories of mission.  We pray that these missions would enter our hearts and we would see ourselves even though we weren’t there as missionaries that we are missionaries right where we are bringing your message and your work into this hurting world.  I do pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

The bible tells us to count our days.  If we were to do that and you were to average out the lifespan of people in the United States, it would be about seventy-five years or 27,375 days.  Now, many of you have gone well past seventy-five days – seventy-five years, but even so, our days – now that seems like a lot of days, they pass quickly, don’t they?  They go by really fast, and as I’ve grown older and some of you have shared with me, it goes faster as you get older seemingly.  But, you know, it’s not really about counting our days, it’s about making our days count.  The question is how do we do that, and I think that we find that how in the life of our Lord. 

Now Jesus lived a little over twelve thousand days, but I think everyone agrees that those twelve thousand days were something.  Most everybody would acknowledge, whether they believe in him or not, that Jesus is the most influential person who ever lived.  Why was that so?  Well, we can answer, “Well, he’s God.”  That’s true and I grant that, but as a human being, he was tempted like we were to get off course, and he knew his purpose, his mission.  He had a sense of what he was to do and that was to do the Father’s Will -- to be a servant, to be a missionary, to bring the message, to redeem fallen human beings.  He knew the Father’s business and that is what we are to do, too. 

We don’t have a long time this morning, we have heard a lot, but I just have a couple things to share with you and that is, you need to see yourselves as missionaries, and I find that many people don’t.  Even people who have gone to church all their lives, they don’t really see themselves as that for a couple reasons, In think.  One is many of us have a hard time believing that God would actually choose us to do that kind of thing, but I want to say to you very gently that if that’s your belief, that God wouldn’t choose you, you haven’t read the bible very well, and you don’t know the gospel very well.  I’m saying that very gently.  Just read the bible and notice the characters.  What a motley crew that you find there.  How could God use those people?  You have several murderers in the bunch or people who were at least complicit in murder, Paul, David, Moses, many adulterers, Judah was an adulterer, David, many thieves, Matthew the tax collector, he collected taxes alright, often making people pay a lot more and putting it in his pocket, a typical politician at least in some cases – well I shouldn’t make that a big – yeah, well (laughter).  Pardon me if you’ve run for office.  They had a zealot.  A zealot became a zealot by murdering a Roman in cold blood at least one, Simon.  They had a few cowards along the way -- a matter of fact all of the disciples turned tail and ran, and on and on it goes. God takes a motley crew and uses them and that’s what the gospel is all about, is it not? 

I spent a lot of time the last few weeks making a theological point saying that God does not accept us the way we are.  Why?  Because we are not acceptable.  All have sinned.  Every one of us.  None of us are acceptable in God’s sight, but there is good news and this is the gospel, that there is someone who is, and his name is Jesus.  When we by faith affix ourselves to him, we are loved by God and we are His.  We are not perfect.  That doesn’t happen until we get to heaven, but we can be used, and that’s the message.  You know, someone asked me just recently, how do you come up with those sermons every week?  “You know,” I said, “it’s pretty simple.  I just try to tell people how much God loves them every Sunday in one way or another.”  It’s not that hard really, and that is our mission, our purpose is to talk about the love of God in Christ who died for our sins.  Yes, there is some negative news in that.  There is a negative, but the positive is what we are about.  All have sinned, but there is good news.

The second thing I want to say to you is that, you know, life is not about us.  You know, if you were to say what your purpose is, you would see what you would count as success in your 27,000 whatever days you have.  And for many people, it’s all kinds of things, you know, some want to be successful in business, some  want to be good dads, some want to make their dad proud, some of them – all of us have different kinds of things, but if you really get down to brass tax, our purpose often isn’t about what Jesus was about.  Jesus said, “If you want to be great in the kingdom, you must be a servant.” 

I am reminded of the story of Dave Thomas of the founder of Wendy’s, and I did not know this, but Dave Thomas never graduated from high school.  He kind of jokingly he had his MBA before he got his GED, and every picture you see of Dave Thomas in his corporate garb, he has an apron on, and he talks about everyone having their MBA and there is something different about that, he say’s it’s called a “mop/bucket mentality” and I’m not sure with that what he means, but a mop/bucket and you know that’s what we need.  It’s what we are about.  I realize that everybody can go to Mexico or down to Mississippi, but you can support it, and you can be a missionary where you are, whether you are retired and doing something else, whether you’re a CEO, or whether you are a custodian some place.  You are God’ missionary and that’s what it is about.  That’s the purpose we’ve been spending some time speaking about our purposes again of worship and connecting and growing and reaching.  Now, we are missionaries, every one of us, and God will ask us what we did about that.  I just want to encourage you that God really does love you, he’s giving you power.  You’re never going to be good enough.  I’m certainly not.  I’m the biggest sinner I know because I know myself very well, but that’s not really the point.  God takes the motliest person and sends them out and we can be and are his missionaries.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.