Ray Vander Laan - The Mission of Jesus Discovery Guide: Triumph of Gods Kingdom in a World in Chaos

That the World May Know with Ray Vander Laan

Volume 1: Promised Land

Volume 2: Prophets and Kings

Volume 3: Life and Ministry of the Messiah

Volume 4: Death and Resurrection of the Messiah

Volume 5: Early Church

Volume 6: In the Dust of the Rabbi

Volume 7: Walk as Jesus Walked

Volume 8: God Heard Their Cry

Volume 9: Fire on the Mountain

Volume 10: With All Your Heart

Volume 11: The Path to the Cross

Volume 12: Walking with God in the Desert

Volume 13: Israels Mission

Volume 14: The Mission of Jesus

ZONDERVAN

The Mission of Jesus Discovery Guide

Copyright 2016 by Ray Vander Laan

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

Focus on the Family and the accompanying logo and design are federally registered trademarks of Focus on the Family, 8605 Explorer Drive, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920.

That the World May Know and Faith Lessons are trademarks of Focus on the Family.

ePub Edition May 2016: ISBN 978-0-310-81259-3

All maps created by International Mapping.

All photos, unless otherwise indicated, are courtesy of Ray Vander Laan, Paul Murphy, and Grooters Productions.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from the ESV (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version). Copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version. Public domain.

The Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible. Copyright 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Cover design: Zondervan

Cover photography: Grooters Productions

Interior design: Denise Froehlich

First Printing May 2016

In this ebook edition, please use your devices note-taking function to record your thoughts wherever you see the bracketed instructions [Your Notes] or [Your Response Here]. Use your devices highlighting function to record your response whenever you are asked to checkmark, circle, underline, or otherwise indicate your answer(s).

More than two thousand years ago, a young Jewish woman named Mary with no place to call home found shelter in a shepherds cave, or in a stable beneath a home, and gave birth to a son. With the birth of that child, God took the most significant step in his great plan to redeem a broken world. It was not the first step in his plan to reclaim his world, nor would it be the last.

From the beginning, God had entrusted to his human partners a mission to fill the earth, use it wisely, and rule it well. Long before Mary made her way to Bethlehem, Gods people had been part of a journey of redemption that had spanned more than a millennium. People such as Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Rahab, Ruth, David and Bathsheba, Elijah, and Isaiah had shared in the responsibility of being Gods partners his instruments in bringing the good news of redemption to the world around them.

God chose and entrusted the Promised Land to the Jewish people not only to provide for their daily bread but to give them a platform from which to fulfill their mission of displaying him to a watching world. The Via Maris, one of the great ancient trade routes, stretched from Egypt to Babylon and passed through the Promised Land. God placed the Israelites on the crossroads of the world, intending for them to take control of the cities along this route, serve him faithfully, and thereby influence the surrounding nations.

To some extent, Israel made God known to people from many nations as they traveled the Via Maris. In profound ways Israel also would experience and influence the great empires at both ends of the Via Maris. When God redeemed Israel from slavery in Egypt, the Egyptians and their king, Pharaoh, learned the nature of the Creator of the universe and his desire to redeem his creation.

The Assyrian dispersion and the Babylonian exile had also spread God-fearing Jewish people around the known world.

Yet the chaos of sin still reigned in the world. Had Gods plan failed because his people often failed? Was the baby Mary placed in the manger a replacement program for the failed efforts of his people?

The answer is no. Although Gods people often failed to carry out the mission he had for them, they were not failures. God used them to prepare carefully and well for the next step in his great plan of restoration: a redemptive mission that his Son alone no human partners could accomplish. All that had come before was preparation for the birth of that baby in the shepherds cave whose atoning death and resurrection are the only source of restored relationship with God our Creator.

The Mission of Israel Continued in Jesus

It is important to remember there was more to Jesus life on earth than the salvation accomplished through his suffering, death, and resurrection. Yes, Jesus is Savior and no one comes to the Father except through him. His redemptive mission dealt with the guilt of human sin, defeated the power of the Evil One, and healed and reconciled all creation to the Creator. We will investigate how Jesus came to fully accomplish Gods plan of redemption as Savior and Lord by his death, resurrection, and ascension.

God also entrusted to his Son the very mission he had given to Israel: to be the light that would make God known to all nations. So we will join Jesus in his ministry to see how he embodied that mission. We will come to know Jesus as the light of the world

We will follow Jesus in Galilee as he sailed across the sea and restored a man possessed by a legion of demons. Out of compassion for a deeply troubled man, Jesus challenged the power of the Evil One and made God known to the Gentile inhabitants of a Roman province. We will join the Gospel account of Jesus crucifixion by the authority of Imperial Rome. We will visit Rome itself, wondering how believers there explained his death to their Roman neighbors. We will stand on the Mount of Olives and consider the story of Jesus ascension to be enthroned at Gods right hand and given all authority in heaven and on earth a story much like the one circulating in the Roman world concerning Julius Caesars ascension. In each of these studies we will consider both aspects of Jesus mission: his suffering and death for our salvation and his embodiment of Israels mission to be a light to the nations.

The Text in Its Context