I have never played in an official soccer game. Not as a kid. Not as an adult.
And I had no intention of every being a soccer coach when my kids started playing soccer.
So I went to my son’s first soccer practice with the anticipation that this was going to be fun. He was going to practice. I was going to sit on the sideline and watch. An hour of sitting and observing sounded pretty good, since my life was pretty hectic.
But after practice my life changed. The coach gathered all the parents and the kids and made an announcement. He was being transferred to another city with his job. He was leaving in a week. And we needed a new coach. He asked if any of the parents would take on the job.
I assumed someone would raise their hand. No one did. I looked down at my nine year old son who had never played soccer but really wanted to give it a try. He looked up at me and said “You can do it dad.”
I volunteered to be the coach so the team and the season could go on.
I did not know the game.
I did not know the rules.
I did not know squat about soccer.
But I did know there was a need and I wanted to do something about it.
We tend to be a need oriented people. We look at the needs of those around us to motivate us. Sometimes that is enough. Sometimes it is not.
There are moments when I see the needs of the people in my community and that is enough. I see their lostness. I see their lack of purpose and peace. I see their brokenness. And sometimes that is enough to move me to action. Sometimes that is enough to call me back to my mission.
But there is a bigger calling.
Mission began in the heart of God. The mission to bring all mankind back to God is God’s heart cry. God is a missionary God. God is a God of mission.
Oswald Chambers said it this way. “A missionary is someone sent by Jesus Christ just as He was sent by God. The great controlling factor is not the needs of people, but the command of Jesus.”
Jesus knew and stated His mission with clarity: “I came to seek and to save that which was lost.” Our mission is the same. When we join Christ, we join His mission. When we follow Christ, we follow His marching orders. When we obey Christ, we do what He does and we are about what He is about.
The living God is a missionary God. We are on mission because God is on mission and we are His people.
The message of missions is woven throughout the Bible, and the sending of God’s people into all the earth was not an appendix to the story of redemption. It is the story of redemption. It is God’s plan for redeeming the world. Mission was in God’s heart all along. Our God is a missionary God.
We often think that the primary activity of God is in the church. We want to believe that God’s main goal is to work within the church. And God is certainly active in His church. But the primary activity of God is in the world. The church is an instrument created by God to be sent into the world to participate in what He is already doing.
God works in us so that He can work through us. He works in His church so He can work through His church and reach the world. He works in the Christ follower so He can work through the Christ follower and reach those around us.
My motivation for mission is not just the need of those around me.
My motivation for mission is the heart of the One who lives within me.
Jesus’ heart beats for those who do not know Him yet.
Our heart must beat for those who do not know Him yet.
I did not agree to learn soccer and to coach soccer and to get up from my comfortable seat on the sideline because I love soccer. I got up from seat on the sideline and agreed to learn soccer and to coach soccer because I loved my son. He was the reason. Not just the need of the team. The heart of my son was at stake.
The heart of Jesus is that the world through Him might be saved. That heartbeat – and that heartbeat alone – will move us off the sideline and into the game.