Three Fundamental Truths about Missions
Missions Series
Chuck Sligh
March 10, 2013
Adapted from a skeletal outline by Jimmy Chapman titled “Three Simple Truths about Missions” found on SermonCentral.com.
TEXT: 2 Peter 3:9 – “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
INTRODUCTION
Today I want to talk to you about “Three Simple Truths about Missions.” OPENING JOKE: But before I do, I want to tell you a story about a missionary. Dr. Jim Kennard tells of a missionary in Japan who came by one evening before the evening service and said, “Jim, I’ve been studying Japanese for 6 months and I still can’t witness in Japanese. Can you just tell me how to say ‘Will you please read this?’ and at least I can go on the street and pass out tracts and feel like I’m actually doing missionary work rather than sitting around learning Japanese 8 hours a day.”
So Dr. Kennard told him to say in Japanese, “Dozo yonde kudasai.” So the missionary kept repeating that phrase all the way to the street, but by the time he got there, he had unknowingly changed one single word. He saw a Japanese man come by and so he said what he THOUGHT was “Please read this,” but got a curious reaction. The man asked in Japanese, “What?” and the missionary repeated the phrase, to which the Japanese man broke out in a fit of laughter. Next, he tried it on a young lady, who turned red, politely covered her mouth to stifle a chuckle, took the tract and ran off giggling.
He got the same reaction at least 10 times, so finally he went back to Dr. Kennard and asked, “Why is everybody laughing at me?” Dr. Kennard said, “Well, what are you saying?” When he told him, Dr. Kennard broke out in leg-slapping laughter and said, “John, what you’re really saying, ‘Would you please MARRY ME?’
Well, every missionary has a story like that to tell, and it’s all very funny years later. But believe me, if you’re the missionary who made the mistake, it’s not very funny at the time!
And neither is our subject this morning. Today, as we try to lay the groundwork for a great missions conference THIS Thursday through Sunday, I want us to understand the importance of missions.
• Why would sane people leave the comforts of America to go to a foreign land, sometimes in primitive conditions to tell people about Jesus Christ?
• Why expend the time and the energy to have a missions conference four days in a row?
• Why should WE sacrifice our money, and our time in prayers for worldwide missions?
Let me give you three simple truths about missions that will answer those questions and provide the underpinnings of everything that will be said about missions this week.
I. TRUTH NUMBER 1: MISSIONS IS THE HEART OF CHRIST.
There’s a telling phrase in John 4:4, before Jesus went to meet the woman at the well. That verse says, “And he must needs go through Samaria.” In modern English that means this: “Jesus HAD to go through Samaria.” There were two highways from Judea to the northern territory of Galilee. One is shorter than the other. Devout Jews avoided the route through Samaria and preferred the longer route than to journey among people they detested as half-breeds Jews and Gentiles.
The MUST of our text was not a necessity imposed by geographical restrictions. The route through Samaria was necessary because there was a needy woman who needed to hear that Jesus was the living water and that “…whoever drinks of the water I give him will never thirst; but the water that I’ll give him will be in him a well of water springing up to everlasting life.” Jesus’s heart was so filled with love for the lost, He went the route other Jews would not dare take in order to reach one woman of a different ethnic group.
You see, God had only one Son, and He made Him a missionary. In Mark 1:38 Jesus said, “…Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth [i.e., “that’s why I’ve come”].”
Jesus came to die for sinners; and all His life He proclaimed to others that He was the living water. Reaching people—saving people from sin—that was the HEARTBEAT of Jesus. Even his name, Jesus, meant “Savior.”
In Matthew 18:11, Jesus made clear His mission when He said, “For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.”
If a missionary is someone sent to rescue the lost from sin, Jesus was the first missionary.
Missions—telling others about forgiveness from sin through Him—was the supreme purpose of Jesus. Every beat of His heart throbbed to save souls. Every person he healed physically, He then forgave them of their sin. Every person he dealt with, He first caused him or her to grapple with their sin and pointed them to Himself as the answer.
John the Baptist understood fully the missionary heart that beat in Jesus’s breast. – While baptizing in the Jordan River, Jesus appeared, and look at what John 1:29 says occurred, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.”
Paul left no doubt about Jesus’s heart for missions—when he said in 1 Timothy 1:15 – “…Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.”
Missions is, first of all, the HEART of Christ.
II. TRUTH NUMBER 2: MISSIONS IS THE HOPE OF THE LOST.
Without the Gospel, the lost are helpless, hopeless and hell-bound. Though the lost here on earth may not recognize it, the doomed in hell believe that missions is the hope of the lost.
In Luke 16, Jesus told the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Though wealthy, the rich man was lost and though poor, Lazarus was saved.They both died, and the rich man was in the flames, while Lazarus was in the joys of heaven with God. Jesus said that the rich man, suffering in hell, begged Abraham to allow Lazarus to return to earth to warn his family of the judgment to come.
Believe me, THE CONDEMNED OF HELL BELIEVE IN MISSIONS! While we wile away our days in fun and games; and while we consume our money on things that will pass away; and while we do not see the urgency of the hour, the condemned in hell certainly DO see the urgency of reaching the lost.
And those saved on the mission field also know the urgency of reaching the lost.
Illus. – The story’s told of an agnostic professor who visited the Fiji Islands. The professor said to an elderly chief, “You’re a great leader, but it’s a pity you’ve been taken in by those missionaries. No one believes that anymore. People are tired of the story of Christ dying on cross for the sins of mankind. We know better now. I’m sorry you’re so foolish as to accept their story.”
The old chief’s eyes flashed as he answered, “See that great rock over there? On it we smashed the heads of our victims. See the furnace next to it? In that oven we used to roast the bodies of our victims. If it weren’t for the those missionaries and the message they brought that changed us from cannibals to Christians, you would be our next supper!”
Turn with me in your Bibles to Romans 10:13-15 In verse 13, we see both the simplicity and the sufficiency of the Gospel: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Even a child can understand that, and that’s all one needs to do to receive full pardon for sins—to call on the Lord and ask Him in faith to save them.
But Paul recognized a problem: He goes on to say in verses 14-15 – “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? 15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!”
The problem with reaching the world for Christ is not the SIMPLICITY of the Gospel, nor the SUFFICIENCY of the Gospel, but the SCARCITY of GOERS. Jesus said “GO” and we need folks who will GO and proclaim.
Peter said the Lord is “not willing that ANY should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) Are YOU concerned about what is the heartbeat of our Lord?…the will of God the Father?…and a deep burden of the lost in hell?
Jesus gave every believer your marching orders when He said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” My question is: What are YOU doing to reach the lost around the world with the Gospel? That’s what this missions emphasis this month and the Missions Conference this Thursday through Sunday is all about.
Basically, there are three responses you should have to the challenge of missions:
• First, you can GO – Maybe God would call you to become a missionary to a foreign land, and certainly we’re ALL to be missionaries to our friends and co-workers and neighbors and loved ones.
• If you cannot personally go, you can PRAY for our missionaries and pray for God to send forth more laborers into the fields of the world. – Several times Paul exhorted those to whom He wrote to pray for him and his missionary endeavors because he needed their prayer support. Jesus said, “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:38)
• Third, you can SEND OTHERS. – That’s what our Faith Promise commitment is all about. At the end of next Sunday’s service, I’m going to challenge every one of you to make a commitment for the next year to give a certain amount above your regular tithes and offerings for the cause of missions through Grace Baptist. This money is what we’ll use to continue to support the missionaries we already support (whom you see in the bulletin insert this morning) and if possible, to take on some more missionaries so that our outreach can be greater than ever before. Maybe you cannot go, but every person in this room can PRAY and you can GIVE TO SEND OTHERS to go to the mission field to reach the lost around the world with the Gospel.
The first truth about missions is that it’s the HEART of Christ and second, missions is the HOPE of the condemned.
III. TRUTH NUMBER 3: MISSIONS IS THE HEALTH OF THE CHURCH
Again, what did Jesus say in Mark 16:15? – He said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” The last command from Jesus’s lips must have been the dearest desires of His heart. Since salvation has been provided for all people, it was Christ’s last command and His deepest desire that salvation through Him be proclaimed to all everywhere. Only as a church fulfills her missionary obligation does it justify its existence. The mission of the church is MISSIONS—both here and throughout the world! The best remedy of a sick church is to put it on a missionary diet. The church that does not evangelize will fossilize!
In our beginning text this morning, Peter said “The Lord…is not willing that any should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance.” The SUPREME task of the church is getting the Gospel out to every person. God is not willing that ANY should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance.
That’s His will; that’s His desire; that’s His command to you and me.
• When God loved, He loved the WORLD.
• When the Father gave His Son, He gave His Son for the WORLD.
• When the Son died, He died for the WORLD.
God’s vision is the WORLD. No, everyone in the world will not be saved, but it’s God’s will that the Gospel go to everyone in the world—that EVERYONE have the opportunity to know Jesus Christ.
And it’s God’s will that people be saved from every tribe and every tongue and every nation.
Missions is God’s main business, and if a church’s business is not God’s business, then that church has no business being IN business!
Illus. – I read this week that here’s a bridge built across Panther Creek in Western Kentucky, built by the United States government during the Great Depression. It was a source of pride and a symbol of recovery during the Depression. Today, 70 years later, the bridge looks as new as the day in which it was built. You know why?—Because there’s no road leading TO it or FROM it.
Friends, a bridge that doesn’t carry traffic is a bridge in name only, and I’ll tell you something else…a church that doesn’t go with the Gospel is a church in name only.
Listen folks, this church is not a country club, or a social gathering-place to hang out with your friends, or a place to hear feel-good, self-help psycho-babble. This church is a place that worships JESUS—who is SAVIOR of the lost—and the ultimate purpose of this church is to save sinners for whom Christ died. All other tasks are subservient to that first and foremost task. We’re also tasked to baptize and to disciple and to fellowship and to serve, but it all begins with the very FIRST task of the church given in Christ’s Great Commission in which in Mark 16:15 He expressed it this way: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”
CONCLUSION
No, we cannot reach everybody, but we can reach everybody we can. God help us to be soul-conscious at Grace Baptist Church.
• May God put in your heart A BURNING DESIRE to tell your friends and loved ones and coworkers and neighbors about Christ.
• And may God put in your heart a will to give to missions; a resolve to sacrifice for the cause of worldwide evangelization; a determination to do all you can to reach the lost at any cost.
• And may some of you SURRENDER YOUR LIVES to become an overseas missionary. [Illus. of Scot Dabill]
• May we all RESOLVE TO BE PRAYER WARRIORS for missions and missionaries.
“The Lord is…not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
“Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”
