Faith Promise

John 21:21

Faith Promise Missions

Woodlawn Baptist Church

January 20, 2007

Introduction

In John 20:21, Jesus said to His church,

“Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.”

This morning I am going to begin a three-part series of sermons dealing with the subject of missions and mission support. I have asked you and want to ask you again to make every effort to hear each of these three messages. I am excited about what God has in store for us this year as we launch out into a new year in missions and pray that you too will share in the excitement as God works through us to reach our world for Christ. If you are new to Faith Promise or have never participated before, I plead with you to join in and experience the blessings God has in store for you.

According to John’s gospel, God sent Jesus into the world to accomplish His work. Throughout His life, Jesus said that He had come to do His Father’s will, and the Bible bears out that Jesus was absolutely devoted to doing that will, a devotion that you and I are to share today. Each of us has the responsibility of sharing the gospel and making disciples. The supreme reason Jesus established His church and every church since then is to help people know Jesus Christ as both Savior and Lord: “as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.”

But what does that mean and why does it matter? That’s what I’d like to answer for you today by dealing with just a couple of simple questions.

What is Faith Promise Missions?

Before dealing with what Faith Promise missions is, let’s be clear on what missions is. Simply put, missions is our sharing the message of Christ, and a missionary is one who is sent out bearing the mission message. Moses and Samuel and David and Elijah and Elisha and Jonah and Paul and Barnabas and even Jesus were missionaries. They were sent out by God to bear His message to a dark and dying world! A missionary is anyone who will join God in the work of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.

“But God hasn’t sent me, so I’m not a missionary.” That’s simply not true! Jesus was speaking to His church when He said, “As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” That command is just as true for this church as it was for that church, and you and I are this church! Jesus said that Woodlawn Baptist Church is to go, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”

He said that we would be witnesses unto Him throughout the world, and the issue is not whether we will be witnesses, but what kind of witnesses we will be. We all bear witness of something in our lives. We all give testimony that our lives are influenced by something or someone. You can look at some people’s lives and know they are influenced by football or politics or their job, but the child of God is to bear witness of the saving power of God in their lives. I love the testimony of Peter when he got in trouble with the Jerusalem authorities. The Bible says…

“And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard.”

They were so consumed by the life of God they couldn’t help but tell people who had changed their lives. They were missionaries doing mission work – the same mission work God has called us to do. He didn’t command us to pay someone to do it or to call a preacher and let him do it. He didn’t say we needed a seminary education or that we had to attend a special Bible study to do it. Mission work is about you and me sharing the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s about you and me being so unmistakably transformed by the gospel of Jesus that the world sits up and takes notice.

The fact of the matter though is that you and I will never reach much of the world. Most of us will never go much farther than our own community, so God has seen fit to bring other men and women into our lives who will go to other parts of the world. God has seen fit to call those men to preach His Word and build churches in places we’d never be able to go. I am thankful today for men like Kevin Clinton who answered the call to reach people in McKinney, or Kabsu Kim who is reaching people in Japan, or David Bostick who will reach people in Ukraine that we may never have the opportunity to meet.