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Paul declares that followers of Jesus have been called and equipped to “do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Yet our success in pursuing God’s mission will be subverted if we yield to what might be called our shadow mission — priorities and activities that masquerade as being important, but which actually lead us to waste our lives chasing what is second best. Paul describes such a life as being “without hope and without God in the world.” How can we know the mission to which God has called us? And how can we avoid giving in to a life that is a few degrees off target?

Hope in Darkness
Overcoming Your Shadow Mission

 June 19-20, 2010

Glenn McDonald
Ephesians 2:11-13

The Bible is an enormously complex book. It features thousands of characters and subplots. But there is a basic storyline that weaves its way through these pages like the scarlet thread that is woven into every garment associated with England’s Royal Navy. It is the story of how our Father in heaven is desperately willing to do anything – to pull out all the stops – to rescue his hurting children, and to restore this broken world. What we learn in Scripture is that God is outward-focused. He has a plan for history. His intent is to bring more and more people into his family, and to let the world know that there is always room for one more at his table.

The key to unlocking the Bible’s basic storyline is to recognize three things. First, the Bible has one primary theme. It’s called The Promise. In the book of Genesis, God makes a promise to a man named Abraham, which includes a promise to Abraham’s descendents (who will become the Jews), who will ultimately bring to the whole world a Promised Person – the Messiah, who is Jesus of Nazareth. The Promise is like a clothesline that goes from Genesis to Revelation, and all 66 books hang on it like shirts and sheets and socks on a summer day. At its core is the idea that the Jews are the people through whom God is going to set the whole world right.

The Bible also presents one primary actor: God. The Bible is not a book about people looking for God. This is not the collective spiritual journal of several hundred deceased Middle Easterners. This book is the record of God rolling up his sleeves and getting down into the grime and sweat of space and time. We don’t see any evidence, for example, that Abraham was searching for spiritual significance. God was searching for him. And in the first chapter of Ephesians we have seen again and again that God is the actor who in every case knocks down the first domino in every chain of historical events.

The Bible also requires one primary response, which is Faith. From cover to cover the one thing that God consistently asks of us is trust. In every generation, ancient or modern, the most important questions about the next seven days have always been the same: This week are you going to worry, or are you going to pray? Are you going to be afraid, or are you going to trust God? Are you going to bank on yourself, or are you going to bet the house on God? Noah and Gideon and Sarah and Peter and Martha and James all had to answer those questions. So do you.

For eight months we’re working our way through the book of Ephesians, which is one of the slimmer volumes in the biblical library known as the New Testament. Ephesians is Paul’s effort to help us grasp our own place in the Bible’s basic story. We arrive today at a text in which we learn more about this outward-focused God, and how God is calling us to join him in his mission to extend his love to every corner of the Earth – especially when we face the overwhelming temptation to imagine our lives to be all about something else.

Let’s turn to Ephesians 2:11-13. Throughout this series we’re challenging each other to make our own marks, quite literally, in our personal copies of the Bible – not to be afraid to take notes, in other words, as God leads us. We’re also tackling the challenge of memorizing all 155 verses in Ephesians, and you can begin even with these words before us today.

I noticed last weekend during our time of worship that a number of you closed your eyes during particular songs. Your lips, however, were still moving. You got everything word perfect. We love to sing the words to favorite songs, all the way from Hoagy Carmichael to Steely Dan to Casting Crowns. It’s not a burden to remember lyrics that we love. Ephesians just so happens to be a love song that God has been singing over us all our lives. Therefore let’s speak these words together, whether by reading from our own Bibles, looking up at the screens, or reciting them from memory. Let’s stand and declare the Word of God:

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men) – remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

Paul begins by commanding us to remember. This is significant, because this is the only command that appears in the first three chapters of Ephesians. This is also the only place in the entire New Testament where we are told to remember, or bring to mind, our former way of life – the life that we had before becoming disciples of Jesus. Why would Paul instruct us to do this?

The transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is so compelling that millions of people eagerly relive his story every December. In our heart of hearts we want to embrace that story and to experience it for ourselves – to believe that love and truth can overcome even a lifetime of bad habits and mean-spiritedness.

We tend to get stuck, however, at two places. First, we doubt that our own lives have been quite as bad as Ebenezer Scrooge’s. And second, we have to admit that our own lives aren’t exactly buoyant with the kind of generosity and joy that Scrooge displays at the end of his story. Maybe, like Scrooge, we need a guide to take us on a tour of our past and present – so we can take a hard look at who we were (and would be now) apart from Christ. And maybe we need to grasp who we still could be if we were utterly sold out to Christ. That is the guided tour that Paul offers all of us in Ephesians two.

Our first step is to remember. The original readers of Ephesians were almost certainly Gentiles who had come to believe in Jesus. Almost all of us are Gentiles, too. We are not, by birth, the chosen people. We need to remember how far we used to be from knowing God, and how far we have come since then because of the sheer goodness of God’s grace.

Verse 12 expresses the lostness of Gentiles in five different ways. Non-Jewish people were “separate from Christ.” They were “excluded from citizenship in Israel.” They were “foreigners to the covenants of the Promise.” Notice Paul’s mention of the primary theme of the Bible – God’s promise to set things right by means of the descendants of Abraham. The Jews could properly claim that they were both the beneficiaries and the agents of the Promise. That left the Gentiles on the outside looking in.

The next two expressions of lostness are particularly ominous. Paul says that Gentiles were “without hope and without God in the world.” Now pagan Gentile people have always had a smorgasbord of gods from which to choose. But Paul is saying that we Gentiles didn’t know the One True God. And even if it seemed to our neighbors that we were living decent and good-hearted lives, we did not in fact have any hope of experiencing ultimate meaning apart from knowing the God who is really there.

This is a dreadful picture. Who was entrusted with bringing both “hope and God” to address our spiritual lostness and to heal this broken world? The answer is Israel. God’s chosen people had been given a mission. They were to be the light of the world. God had said to Abraham, “I am going to bless you, and everyone else on Earth will be blessed through you. You and your descendants are blessed to be a blessing.”

But here we come to one of the most important realities in the Bible’s basic storyline. Israel failed to carry out God’s assignment. The Jewish establishment of both Old and New Testaments stumbled in their mission of being the light of the world. The people who were supposed to be the solution in fact became part of the problem. Those who were given the keys to the rescue boat ended up needing to be rescued themselves.

Where do we see this in our text? Paul writes in verse 11, “Remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called ‘uncircumcised’ by those who call themselves ‘the circumcision’…” When a Jew called a Gentile “uncircumcised” he wasn’t just making an observation about a certain physical condition. This was a racial epithet. Jews and Gentiles were famous for bad-mouthing each other. In fact they loathed each other. Jews generally believed that Gentiles were pigs, losers, and spiritual nobodies. Rabbis taught that it was immoral to stop and help a Gentile woman who was struggling to give birth, because if you were successful you were doing the world the disservice of bringing another Gentile to planet Earth.

Now let’s be clear about something. The Jews of the ancient world were certainly not worse sinners than anybody else, and over the past 2,000 years Gentile Christians have all too often demonstrated profound racial insensitivity and spiritual callousness – not only towards Jews but towards each other.

But ancient Israel had a special vocation. They were the people of the Promise. They were to share God’s truth with the whole world, not to be end users or cul-de-sacs of God’s grace. Unfortunately, with a few glorious exceptions, they succumbed to the temptation to take care of themselves. They began to imagine that God had given them their extraordinary place in history as an entitlement instead of a responsibility to be outward-focused.

What was God to do? He did what he always does. He kept his promise. Look at verse 13: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.” God’s promise had been that Israel would bless and save the world. Israel was supposed to lay down its life so all of us might live. When Israel the nation balked and said, “No! I’m going to hang on to my life!” it was Jesus of Nazareth – the true representative of Israel and the ultimate fulfillment of the Promise – who said, “I will do it, Father. I will give my life so everyone else may live. I will be the light of the world – for Gentiles and Jews alike.”

This is why the Bible is so set on the notion that receiving Jesus is the only way to enter a right relationship with God. Every other way has failed. Jesus alone has fulfilled God’s true outward-focused mission of bringing people who were far away to a place at God’s table.

This also helps us grasp something huge concerning the meaning of our own existence. The purpose of every human life is to bring glory to God by joining his Son in extending his great love, in every possible way, to every corner of the Earth. That is our ongoing mission. We get to help fulfill the Promise. But just like Israel, we will find ourselves tempted to settle for something less. Instead of pursuing our true mission, we may succumb to a self-serving version of life that we might call our shadow mission.

That term comes from a small book by John Ortberg, an author and pastor whose stories and experiences have gotten a good deal of play here at ZPC in recent days. We all are created for life-changing purposes – God’s purposes. But as Ortberg puts it, unless we embrace God’s true mission for our lives we will by default succumb to a “shadow mission – patterns of thought and actions…that lead us to betray our deepest values… We will be tempted to drift on autopilot, to let our lives center around something that is unworthy, something selfish, something dark.” Our true mission always keeps us pointed toward God. Our shadow mission may point us just a few degrees in another direction, and we may even use Bible verses to back it up. But those few degrees of difference make all the difference in the world. What makes a shadow mission so dangerous is that it looks so authentic, when it fact it is a betrayal of our true call.

Biblical illustrations abound. Some characters in Scripture courageously fulfill their true mission. Ruth stays in a family relationship that seems to promise her nothing but heartache. Joseph refuses to become bitter toward his brothers. Daniel chooses not to compromise with a godless culture, but stays pure and alive with God. Jesus bravely refuses to walk away from the cross. “Not my will, Father, but your will be done.” Queen Esther learns that being arm candy for the most powerful man in the world may feel safe and comfortable for the moment, but that’s merely because it’s her shadow mission. Her true call is to be the arm of God to rescue her own people. As her uncle Mordecai puts it, “Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13-14)

Other Bible characters give in to their shadow missions. Solomon’s call is to embody the wisdom of God. But how can you be the so-called smartest man on Earth if you choose to have 700 wives? Judas insulates his heart from the love of Jesus. Herod clings to his own illegitimate throne instead of becoming a champion for the newborn Messiah.

We live in a culture that idolizes giftedness. Will anybody be surprised if people begin to overlook Ben Roethlisberger’s character flaws if he should win a truckload of games for the Pittsburgh Steelers this fall? It’s wonderful to be on the receiving end of God’s gifts. But we can use our gifts either to pursue our true mission or to pursue our shadow mission. Success from giftedness can mask a steady erosion of character. Every day we see this phenomenon in the lives of CEO’s, entertainers, athletes, teachers, parents, pastors, and world leaders. Are we blessed to be a blessing – as Israel was called to be – or are we living our lives as if they were entirely about ourselves?

John Ortberg says that his personal shadow mission can be expressed in four words. When he was 12 years old, growing up in Rockford, Illinois, he gave a couple of public talks. One of them was written up in the local newspaper. The headline read: Talkative Boy Wins Acclaim. John is one of the more gifted speakers I have ever heard. He knows that he can spend the rest of his life going around giving talks – garnering applause and paychecks – all the while ignoring both the Holy Spirit and the people who deeply love him. His shadow mission, although based on a gift from God, would in fact destroy him.

My own lifelong shadow mission was also spotlighted by a childhood newspaper article. When I about ten years old, The Indianapolis Star sent a reporter to my elementary school to interview children whose mothers were working full-time – something that was still rather novel in the early 1960s. I had such a mom. I can’t remember anything I said to the reporter. But I do recall that my picture appeared in The Star alongside these words: “Glenn McDonald is a young man who seems to have quite a head on his shoulders.”

And that’s my shadow mission. Early on I figured that I needed to impress people. I was never going to do it with good looks or athletic ability. So I’d better try to make people think that I’m smart. And maybe they would love me for that.

Last month John Ortberg spoke at a church over in Carmel. Everyone received a copy of his new book. I stood in line to have him autograph mine, mostly because I wanted to thank him for the way he’s let God influence the ministry of so many people, including my own. As he took my book and looked down and began to write, I smiled and said, “Talkative boy wins acclaim.” I figured that he would smile back at me, because that account of his Rockford days doesn’t appear in any of his mainstream writings. But I’m pretty sure I saw John flinch. I then shared with him my own lifelong temptation to substitute one of God’s gifts for God’s true mission in my life. And I named my struggle. John looked up and said, with great seriousness, “This is something that we really need to pay attention to, isn’t it?”

Indeed it is. And I’d like to tell you where I am today. I have learned to acknowledge the reality of this shadow mission in my life. But I have a long way to go. I am finding that the old impulses to take care of myself instead of risking everything for Christ are truly powerful.

But God’s love and grace are far more powerful. His faithfulness to me has been overwhelming. I know that I know this truth: I never need to stand in front of you again and think, “I hope you will love me for my mind, or for something that I’m about to say.” That’s because I know in my heart that I am already loved with the fierce and relentless affection of my Father in heaven. And that’s all I need. That’s all I have ever needed. At the same time, I also know that my struggle is far from over. I have to keep putting my shadow mission back on the altar every day. God’s desire is that I would be free to be a pastor for his sake, not for my own sake. Please pray that this would become a deeper and deeper reality in my life.

And what’s your shadow mission? Almost certainly you’ll know it when you hear it. It won’t be about God. It will be all about you. Maybe it’s staying in control of everything. Or keeping score with money. Or lighting up the room with your personality. Or getting more stuff done, even though you know it’s not the most important stuff. Or concealing your deepest secrets so that no one knows who you really are. Or hiding behind spiritual gifts like hospitality or singing or compassion – knowing that if you just keep practicing your gifts, maybe you won’t have to deal with God. Or when all else fails, maybe your shadow mission is simply to go shopping.

Let’s be honest about what we just described. These are not merely frailties or tendencies or “just the way I am.” These are sins – signature sins, in fact, which will destroy us if we leave them unchecked. They have the potential to be idols which will draw off our energy and our focus from the one true Living God.

Our deepest joy comes from doing what God has gifted, equipped, and called us to do – not for our own purposes, but for his. Look back at Ephesians 2:10: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” While it is impossible to be saved by good works, God has in fact saved us for good works. And giving ourselves fully to that vision is what allows us to overcome our shadow missions. We know that God’s mission for every one of us is to be disciples of Jesus who reproduce yet more disciples. But what are the specific good works that God has assigned to each one of us?

We can know that God has called each of us to an outward-focused life, for the simple reason that he is an outward-focused God. We can know that our good works – our specific part of God’s true mission – will be consistent with our gifts and temperament. They will be connected with what brings great glory to God and deep gladness to us. We will find ourselves waking up in the morning wondering and planning and praying as to how we might go bless other people, for God has in fact blessed us to be a blessing, just as he promised.

This week, ask God to open your eyes to three things. First, ask him to reveal to you some of the good works that according to Ephesians 2:10 God has specifically prepared in advance for you to do. Who knows but that you are in a specific classroom, or job, or friendship, or ministry for such a time as this? Second, pray that God might give you clarity concerning your shadow mission. You might ask him to send someone who can help you discern this. Those who are close to us often have our shadow missions down pat, even if we ourselves are blind to them.

And third, ask God to point you back to Christ and Christ alone. Fix your mind on verse 13: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.” No matter how far away you have wandered, and no matter how far away you are right now, there is a way back to the heart of God. His name is Jesus.

When Paul wrote the book of Ephesians he must have known that those outside the family of God would be skeptical about all of this. After all, God had established the nation of Israel to be the light of the world, but Israel had failed to carry out that mission. God had sent his only Son to Earth but the chosen people themselves had murdered him. Every disciple since has been tempted to pursue a shadow mission instead of Jesus’ own Great Commission. So we have to ask: Is God’s plan really working? Is the Promise being fulfilled? Is God actually in charge of what’s happening in the world?

Thirteen years ago, during a ZPC mission trip to Romania, I saw a man fall at least eight stories from an apartment window in Bucharest down to the level of the street. I remember that his arms were flailing, and that he landed on his back. That must have been a horrifying image for anyone just arriving on the scene. But for those of us who had been standing there for a while, it was actually rather fascinating. That’s because there was a large chair down on the street with one word written on the back: Director. And the stunt man who fell from that window landed safely on a giant inflated pad, hopped up, and walked away. That downtown street had in fact become a movie set. And the director had everything in control.

The bottom line of God’s Word is that even when things seem darkest – even when the most faithful characters appear to lose heart and lose their way – God never forgets his promise. He is in control of history. The scarlet thread that runs through his story is that he will never leave you nor forsake you. So here’s the question before each of us today: Are we willing to give ourselves, heart and soul, to his mission alone, and to let God be the Director of our story?