How Do I Find My Mission in Life?
Ever wondered what your life’s mission is? Can your life’s mission change over time? What examples of missions can I learn from Jesus?
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13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by[a] the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
How Can I Do Missions Like Jesus?
Initially, this may seem like a simple question, but when we sit with it, we start to see there’s more to it than expected. When we look at the life and person of Jesus Christ, we see the way He defined and did missions was much grander than our definitions tend to settle.
Jesus directly answers this in our passage. These verses are the middle section of Jesus' final prayer for His disciples. After washing their feet, sharing the last supper, and giving notes about the coming Holy Spirit, Jesus prays. In this prayer, we see Jesus share incredible insight on missions.
Joy, Not Guilt
"I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.” (v. 13)
In his prayer, Jesus, while acknowledging His return to the Father, is sharing with his disciples the steps to having the full measure of joy.
I want you to hold onto this idea of joy because it's central to missions. So often, we make guilt our starting point with missions: "I should be doing this. I need to be doing that. I have to be doing this." Instead, Jesus begins by telling us He has something to say that is not motivated by guilt but by joy.
We were made for the fullness of joy, which we see in creation. God spoke the world into existence with order and beauty that joyfully sings out to its Creator. As a result, everyone and everything is flourishing. This is how life was meant to be lived; Each person in a relationship with our Creator—people in perfect peace with one another. Societies function justly in work and rest. These are things that lead to joy. It's what we are made for and what Jesus wants us to have in this prayer.
The Word & The World
"I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world." (v. 14)
Look at how the sentence traces out four ideas and how they build on one another.
Jesus gives us the Father's word.
Because we have this word, the world hates us.
The world hates us because we aren't of the world anymore.
We aren't of the world anymore because we are of Jesus.
There's a lot to unpack in this verse. Who is the world? What is the word? And why does the word make us different and hated by the world?
Who Is The World?
Here, we see that Jesus acknowledges that there is more to what is going on than what meets the eye. We are part of something much bigger and more cosmic than we realize. We see this in the very beginning of Scripture when Adam and Eve listened to the voice of the serpent instead of God. As a result, they sinned, which is when you do something contrary to God's law or live contrary to God's character.
Sin broke their perfect relationship with God.
Paul teaches that when sin entered the world, it became used as a tool by the enemy's rebellion to spread brokenness, suffering, and ultimately, death to everyone and everything.
Here's some hard news: No one gets to be neutral in this rebellion.
Here's harder news: We choose the enemy's side by our sins. We choose it actively by our wrongdoing, and we choose it passively by not doing good.
What's God's Response?
God doesn't abandon us in our rebellion or require a to-do list to earn back His affection. The same word that spoke the world into existence enters His creation in the person of Jesus. In this fallen world, Jesus lived a perfect and sinless life, the life of the full measure of joy.
In a decisive battle with the enemy, at the cross, Jesus took on all of the world's sin. The enemy was ready to claim victory in His death, but three days later, Jesus rose triumphantly in new life. Through that, He makes an incredible offer to us:
With His resurrection, Jesus Christ began to redeem and restore our fallen world. As a rebel against Him, you can turn away from your sin and brokenness and, in faith, follow Him back into the fullness of joy.
But here's the thing about that: The enemy still fights and hates every bit of God's redemption and restoration. The world hated Jesus, and as we identify with Him, it will hate us. With that in mind, Jesus' following statement in His prayer might shock you.
Remaining In The World
"My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one." (v. 15)
God's redemption is not for us to remove ourselves from the brokenness that we experience but to be protected from the enemy's power while we engage it.
The paradox of this is astounding. Jesus acknowledged that we are of a different nature from this world, yet He also prays that we remain in this hostile environment. If this is true, that means two important things for missions.
1) Missions Aren't Periodical; It's Lifelong
Missions aren't something you periodically participate in but something you live on. Jesus' prayer is that our lives would be in the world, continually engaged with the brokenness around us. It's an entire life on mission. More on this later.
2) The Enemy Is Satan, Not Someone Else
The enemy we address in missions isn't another person or thing in this world but the evil one himself. While we live in hostile territory, Jesus isn't calling us to fight with each other but to recognize that "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
As a result, we are freed to love our enemy and approach the world with the strange kindness of the gospel, knowing that it will lead to repentance.
Turning Mission into Action
"Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world." (v. 17, 18)
Look at the two dynamics here: We are people sanctified by the Word and sent into the World. In short, the two things that define the growing and going of discipleship are:
1) Sanctified By The Truth of the Word
The Greek for by could also mean that we are sanctified in the truth. Truth is not an adjective for a true thing but a noun for an objective truth of the universe. As we shared previously, this word is the word of the gospel. This gospel sanctifies us, which might sound complicated, but it means two things:
To be made holy.
To be set apart for a particular purpose.
Essentially, Jesus is saying that we will grow closer to Him by the word of truth in the gospel. We will be made holy as He is holy, and we will be set apart for a particular purpose that we see in the next verse.
2) We Would Be Sent Into the World Like Christ
Through sanctification, Christ's nature becomes our nature, and His story becomes our story. Consider the life of Jesus in the gospels. Every moment that we see him, Jesus is living a life on mission, full of intentional encounters of love and truth.
You never see Jesus make a misstep in approach or response. He is strong and blunt to Nicodemus in John 3 but patient and gentle with the woman at the well in John 4.
Jesus is entirely free to associate, eat, befriend, and call into ministry across racial, gender, class, and political affiliation. Returning to John 3 and 4, we see Jesus with Nicodemus, a male Jewish Pharisee known for his purity, and then with a female Samaritan, who we know has a life marked by sexual immorality.
Truth
Jesus never compromised the gospel but used it as the only solution to joy. He showed Nicodemus that his religion was leading him away from the gospel but then showed the woman at the well that her irreligion was leading her away from the gospel.
Jesus was sent into brokenness, and He intentionally brought the gospel everywhere He went. So now, just like Jesus, we are to see a world of brokenness around us that is meant for joy and to bring the gospel into it.
Essentially, Jesus is saying that we will go into the world with the word of truth in the gospel and lead others to His joy. Therefore, as we live on mission in this world, we must do so knowing that true human flourishing and joy are impossible apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ.
3) We Don't Have to Choose: Evangelism or Justice
Scripture defines both lostness and injustice as a part of brokenness. The gospel is the only hope to address both. These two things are not in conflict with each other in mission but should be seen as two wings on an airplane that needs each other to fly.
We are disciples of Jesus, growing in the Word and going into the world. Our Savior calls our entire lives into the endless immensity of his cosmic defeat of brokenness. He calls us to follow Him with our whole lives to participate in His redeeming and restoring works.
How to Find Your Life’s Mission?
As we ask: "How do we do missions like Jesus," we respond: Jesus sets us apart & sends us into brokenness with the gospel to bring joy.
But if this is how Jesus defines missions, how do you find your mission? This question isn't answered with a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, three questions provide building blocks to find your mission.
1) What breaks your heart?
This passage has shown us that we find ourselves living in a broken world, and we are living in enemy territory. Jesus showed us how He saw it, and now, the Holy Spirit gives us eyes to see it too.
Our Savior's eyes are on every bit of brokenness in this fallen world, such as spiritual brokenness, physical brokenness of mental & physical health crumbling, the relational brokenness of conflict & family instability, the societal brokenness of larger systemic issues like poverty or injustice.
What breaks your heart? What is it that you look at in the world around you that causes you to cry out with your heart, "This isn't how life is supposed to be!"
2) What gives you joy?
This passage has shown us that we experience the fullness of joy in Christ. The cosmos might be at war, but that's not how things are supposed to be. Our Savior approached every bit of brokenness with the gospel's hope, healing, and restoration. The Holy Spirit equips us with gifts to seek it as well.
Peace, joy, rest, and flourishing are what we were made for. We have been given different skills, passions, abilities, knowledge, networks, and most importantly, stories to experience this flourishing ourselves. Through our personal stories, we can lead others out of spiritual, physical, relational, and societal brokenness and into the joy of the gospel.
What gives you joy? What is it that when you look at yourself, you have this realization of "This is what I was made for!"
This passage showed us that Jesus' prayer is for us to remain in this world. We aren't to hide in a bunker but to spend our lives on mission. Jesus never wasted a moment and addressed what was right before him. Now the Holy Spirit speaks to us with a calling to hear.
We are sent people. We don't go to missions or participate in missions. We live on it. In your life, you must acknowledge that you are "where you are for such a time as this." Your neighborhood, job, school, activities, city, and the countries your church is going to open and ready as your mission field.
Your mission might look different in each of those places, and one may have greater attention due to your life stage, but that doesn't mean it's not a place to be on mission.
Where are you being sent? Where is a place in your life that you look at in this season of life and say, "I can bring the gospel here!"
How To Do Missions When You're Not Jesus
When you put those three things together, you'll find your mission. You'll experience what author & pastor Frederick Buechner said, "The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."
Jesus sets us apart & sends us into brokenness with the gospel to bring joy.
But as we close, you might have one objection. How do I do missions like Jesus when I'm obviously not Jesus?
In the gospels, we see Jesus perfectly living a life on mission, yet I find myself far from that in my life. My laziness keeps me from intentionality, my busyness keeps me from loving, and my fear keeps me from speaking the truth.
"For them, I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified." (v. 19)
In the passage, Jesus was speaking to his disciples, who were also imperfect people like you and me. Yet He offers this hopeful promise.
Jesus chose to be set apart and consecrated for His mission: to be truly sanctified and brought back into the fullness of joy we created for. This mission set Him not just apart from the world but lifted Him upon the cross for our sake.
He experienced true and complete brokenness.
Spiritually: He was separated from God.
Physically: His mind and body in anguished pain.
Relationally: His disciples abandoned him.
Societally: He hung unjustly on a criminal's cross.
Yet what do we learn about this moment from Scripture? First, Hebrews 12:2 teaches us that he endured the cross, scorned its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God with joy from a completed mission.
In that joy, we find a final lesson for us in missions: Because Jesus completed His, we can have hopeful confidence seeking ours. Because He experienced this brokenness, we know that we will never have to. Because He conquered death that day, even our setbacks and failures shall be victorious. Because He sanctified himself, we may be truly sanctified as we labor onward unto the glory and New Creation.
TL;DR
Missions should be centered around joy, not a guilt of should be doing this or that.
With His resurrection, Jesus Christ began to redeem and restore our fallen world. As a rebel against Him, you can turn away from your sin and brokenness and, in faith, follow Him back into the fullness of joy.
We don't go to missions or participate in missions. We live on it.
How to find your life’s mission?
What breaks your heart?
What brings you joy?
Where are you being sent?
Because Jesus completed His, we can have hopeful confidence seeking ours.
Related Reading
How Do We Balance Faith and Work by Grant Caldwell
A Seat At The Table For Everyone by Grant Caldwell
How Can I Know God by Grant Caldwell
About Christ Church Memphis
Christ Church Memphis is church in East Memphis, Tennessee. For more than 65 years, Christ Church has served the Memphis community. Every weekend, there are multiple worship opportunities including traditional, contemporary and blended services
