FOUR CALLS OF MISSIONS
At age twelve, Robert Louis Stevenson (who later wrote Treasure Island) was looking out into the dark from his upstairs window watching a man light the streetlamps. Stevenson’s governess came into the room and asked what he was doing. He replied, "I am watching a man cut holes in the darkness." I see this as a marvelous picture of what our task should be as sharers of God’s light--people who are busy cutting holes in the spiritual darkness of our world.
Are you motivated in missions? Let me suggest a few reasons why you should be:
2 Cor 5:11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. 12 We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. 13 If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God
1. The Commission from Heaven Above (vs. 18) – we are given the ministry of reconciliation
The first call to missions is the fact that Jesus Himself said GO! That in itself should be enough for us. If our commanding officer says go than we need to follow his orders until He tells us to stop.
Matt 28:18 Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
The term POSTHASTE goes back to the time of Henry VIII. Postmasters were given relays of horses to carry messages from the king to important cities in England. Because some couriers were irresponsible and wasted time in taverns and inns on the way, a drastic law was put into effect demanding that every dispatch carrier should "ride for his life." The king’s edict meant that anyone caught delaying his messages would be publicly hanged. Often there was drawn upon important letters the figure of a man suspended from a gallows. Beneath was this ominous warning: "Haste, post, haste! Haste for thy life!" A number of men did suffer death because of their inefficiency, but in the 19th century the practice was discontinued. However, the old expression still remains as a reminder that the utmost speed and urgency is required when the king’s business is involved!
If the Bible is a missionary book then the People of the Book must be a missionary people.
2. The Constraint from the Heart Within (vs. 14) – Christ’s love compels us
The second call to missions is from within our own hearts. The love of Jesus which we have experienced compels us to make Him known. When you find something of great value that gives you joy you have to share it! E.g. Naomi won the antique chair – the first thing she did was call her parents to tell them.
One of my favorite stories is of the 4 lepers at the gate who find the plunder from the Aramean camp and go back to tell the city.
2 Kings 7:9 Then they said to each other, "We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace."
It could be that one of the great hindrances to evangelism today is the poverty of our own experience. -- Billy Graham
History is full of people whose hearts compelled them to make a difference in the world. This Christmas there will be an Urbana conference. I remember my first one. One of the speakers was at one of the very first Urbanas. He said afterwards to his roommate, "lets sell everything we’ve got, but the clothes we’re wearing, and buy Bibles with the money. Then let’s go to Mexico and give them out." They did this. Trip to Russia failed but a movement was born. He had a dream that "by the year 2000, every man and woman and boy and child will have heard the name of Jesus once." Crazy, you say? Right, and God loves crazy men like George Verwer.
3. The Call from Humanity Outside (vs. 20-21) – Christ’s ambassadors
The third call to missions is from the world around us. All around the world we see the effects of sin in the lives of people. Those who are without Jesus are slaves to the tormentor and in bondage. We see this in broken homes and marriages, in AIDS and disease, in drug addictions and poverty. All around us is death as people try desperately to fill their lives with things that do not satisfy.
Acts 16:9 During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." 10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
In 1814 the Methodists in Australia sent an urgent appeal to the Methodist Missionary Society in London: "Send us a preacher. Send a faithful servant of the Lord to us. Disappoint us not! Deny us not! Leave us not forsaken in this difficult land. We call upon you on behalf of our children: let them not be left to perish. "We call upon you on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves: perishing, dying sinners, outcasts of society, leave them not in their blood. Send us one of yourselves!”
Of all the places Naomi and I went on the ship this region was the most difficult. There was not a single recorded convert in 1995.
I have but one candle of life to burn and would rather burn it out where people are dying in darkness than in a land that is flooded with light. -- Hudson Taylor
One night on the Doulos we had a call for help, not directly from God but from ship in trouble. A passenger ship from Egypt in the Red Sea carrying pilgrims to Meca had caught fire and was in trouble. We turned our ship around and headed for help.
4. The Cry from Hell Below (vs. 11) – we fear the Lord so we try to persuade mankind
The fourth call to missions is the reality that all of us live forever. The question is where we shall spend that eternity. There is an eternal punishment that awaits all who die without Jesus. The reality of hell should stir all of us to action.
2 Cor 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
We see all through the Bible that Hell is real and that it is not pleasant. That barrier that we place between ourselves and God becomes permanent at death. Once you are gone it is too late to make a decision. Hell is truth seen too late. -- Tryon Edwards
Rollercoaster story. Listen to message for full story.
Luke 16:25 "But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’ 27 He answered, Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.
If more hell were preached in the pulpit, there would be less hell in the community.
Mercedes Benz first patented a car body design that absorbed the force of a collision on impact. One Mercedes Benz TV commercial shows their car colliding with a cement wall during a safety test. Since then many other car companies have followed it’s design. Someone then asks the company spokesman why they do not enforce their patent on the Mercedes Benz energy-absorbing car body. He replies mater-of-factly, "Because some things in life are too important not to share." How true. In that category also falls the gospel of salvation, which saves people from far more than auto collisions.
How do we respond to this message? The Bible makes it clear:
Romans 10:14 How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
God is looking for those who will go. The world today needs more laborers. It is a sad fact that 99 percent of all missionaries today work in countries where the majority of the population is already professing Christians. What about those nations that still have no witness at all. God is looking for those who will send.
