Trying to be a world class Christian can be a world class
pain. Ralph Hult learned this the hard way. This Nebraska
born Swede at age 32 went to Africa as a missionary, but on
his first furlough in 1926 he was told there was no money to
send him back. So he started a fruit farm near Springfield,
Missouri. He was quite fruitful himself in that he had 10
children with his wife. He wanted to start a home mission
church, but again he was told there was no money available.
It was 1941 before the board could send him back to Africa,
and then two years later he died of a heart attack.
His story sounds like a good reason not to bother with a
world vision. But his story does not end with his death. His
world class perspective was passed on, and 5 of his children
became missionaries to Africa and other nations. His
attitudes and values live on and fulfill the Great Commission
of our Lord. The reason I start with this true story of a
missionary who did not accomplish a great deal with his own
efforts, yet did a lot by his attitudes, is because that is the
key to being a world class Christian. You can read mission
books by the dozens, and even go to the mission field, and
still not be a world class Christian. It is not where you go
and what you do, but it is your spirit that makes you a world
class Christian.
Jonah is the best example in the Bible of a missionary
who did not have a world class spirit. He went to Nineveh
and preached the message God gave him, but he did not
have the spirit of God at all. Jonah cared only about Israel
and not the rest of the world, which was full of mere Gentile
dogs. God was the God of Israel and He wanted to keep it
that way. He did not want every Tom, Dick, and Harry of
the pagan world finding out about the real God. Let them
perish with their stupid man-made idols. That is what they
deserve.
In Jonah we see the dark side that can be in even the
most godly people. They can be so narrow in their
perspective that they do not care about people who are not
like them. They want God to love and care for them
exclusively, and not waste His time with the worthless of the
world. As far as Jonah was concerned, he wanted God to
forsake the Gentile scum and just focus on blessing the
people of Israel. When God had compassion on the people
of Nineveh because they repented it made Jonah angry. He
threw a hissy fit like none other we find in the Bible. He was
so thoroughly discussed with God's love for these people that
he did not want to live anymore. He did not want to live in a
world where God loved everybody.
I have heard people say, "Who wants to bring a child into
this evil fouled up world where there is so much hatred and
violence." But here is a man of God saying, "I can't stand
living in a world where there is so much love and grace
shown to people who deserve to be wiped out. If that is the
way God is going to be, then get me out of here, for I'd
rather be dead." If you think that a man of God cannot be
filled with bitter prejudice against those who are not of the
same race or religion, you had better think again, for here is
a biblical prophet who reeks with the foul stench of putrid
prejudice.
You can't get any worse than Jonah, for he was mad at
God for not conforming to his self-centered conviction that
the Ninevites did not deserve to live. Jonah would have
loved to fire God and get a new God on the throne who
could see the need to narrow his focus and knock off this
concern for the whole world. Godly people do not life God
when He cares too much about the ungodly. The godly
leaders of Israel killed the Son of God because He cared
about people they knew better than to care about. Here is
the ultimate idolatry. It is the worshipping of your own
feelings, convictions, and opinions. Even God is rejected by
those who make these things their God.
The world is filled with people who are angry at God
because He will not conform to their bigoted view point. He
goes on loving Ninevites and other minorities all over the
world just like someone who never reads the paper to see
how despicable they can really be. God would be a lot more
popular in every race if He would just love that race
exclusively, and promise to send all the rest to hell. Jonah
would have praised God and doubled tithed if God would
have destroyed the Ninevites. Instead, he is complaining
bitterly that God let him down by sparing them. I have
heard of preachers being depressed because they feel their
sermon did not touch anyone, but here is a preacher who
saved a whole city from judgment, and he is depressed
because of his success. He was hoping to report a totally
fruitless ministry in Nineveh. He was hoping his message
was a total flop and that not a living soul would pay any
attention to his message.
But alas, God failed to cooperate with his plan, and now
he is stuck with the reputation of being the prophet whose
message saved and entire pagan city. How embarrassing
this must have been for poor Jonah. It would have been
easier for him to die than to go back to Israel and his fellow
Gentile despisers with this kind of reputation. His message
brought great success, but he was a big failure because he
failed to have a world class spirit. God is the God of all the
world, and when His people do not have this perspective of
His world wide love and plan they cannot dream His dream.
God made it clear in His covenant with Abraham that
his seed was to bless all the people of the world. God's plan
has never been narrow and limited to blessing just His
chosen people. The only reason for having a chosen people
was to have an instrument by which He could reach and
bless the unchosen people of the world. The Jews were
chosen, not so they could be saved alone, but so that they
could reach the whole world with the message of God's love
for all.
The universality of God's plan runs all through the
Bible. The Bible is world class from start to finish. All the
Patriarchs in Genesis are told that their seed is to bless the
whole world. Here are a few texts that give the world class
perspective of the whole Bible:
Psa. 33:8, "Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people
of the world revere Him."
Prov. 8:31, has the wisdom of God "Rejoicing in His whole
world and delighting in mankind."
Isa. 27:6, "In days to come Jacob will take root, Israel will
bud and blossom and fill all the world with fruit."
Jesus sent His church into all the world to be the light of
the world, and He says in Matt. 24 that the end will not come
until the whole world hears the Gospel. And we know they
will for the final scene for the redeemed in heaven reveals
that there will be people from every tribe, tongue and
nation. Jesus died for the sins of the whole world and He
will never be content until there are redeemed people from
every part of this fallen world. To be a world class Christian
is simply to be Christ like in recognizing that our God is
global, our Gospel is global, and our goals are global. To be
a good Christian means that you have to care about the
whole world.
This is easy enough if you are an infinite God
everywhere present in the world, but for us finite beings,
who are so limited, this is more than we can handle. We
have to focus on some parts of the world. That is what every
Christian denomination does, and every mission
organization. Nobody is trying to reach the whole world,
but there are hundreds of different groups trying to reach
parts of it, and together they will reach all of it.
It should be easier for us to be world class then it was for
Jonah, for we live in a world where communication has
made the world so much smaller. We can watch the
Olympics with world-class athletes. Television brings the
whole world into our homes. World-class musicians and
singers are in concert. World-class scientists travel, speak,
and consult with scientists in the U. S. World-class authors,
artists, and leaders in all realms of life are a part of our
culture. Being world-class is a part of the whole vast
computer world of the internet where you can communicate
with millions of people all over the world. The secular mind
is becoming world-class, and the point is that Jesus told us to
be world-class and concerned about people everywhere. The
Christian should be more world-class than anyone, but it is
not always so. The Jonah complex still exists in the minds of
many of God's people.
Who cares about the pagan world and all the masses of
sinful humanity in foreign lands? God says that He cares,
and that you had better care too, for that is part of His
dream for you. He wants you to make some difference in
this world where over half of the population have never
heard that they have a Savior who died for them that they
might have eternal life. To make this happen often calls for
us to break out of our comfort zones and pay a price to love
people whom God loves. Here is a testimony of a missionary
who was asked if he liked his work in Africa. "Do I like this
work? No, my wife and I do not like dirt. We have
reasonably refined sensibilities. We do not like crawling
into huts trough goats refuse. We do not association with
ignorant, filthy, brutish people. But is a man to do nothing
for Christ he does not like? If not, then God pity him.
Liking or disliking has nothing to do with it. We have
orders to go and we go. Love constrains us."
This goes against the grain of our culture where the idea
of sacrifice is taboo, and the goal of life is comfort and
pleasure at any cost. The number of career American
missionaries dropped by almost ten thousand between 1988
and 1992. it is harder and harder to motivate American
Christians to break out of their comfort zone for the sake of
a hurting world. Paul Borthwick in his book How To Be A
World Class Christian quotes Tom Sine who said, "We all
seem to be trying to live the American dream with a little
Jesus overlay. We talk about the lordship of Christ, but our
career comes first. Our house in the 'burbs comes first.
Upscaling our lives comes first. Then, with whatever we
have left, we try to follow Jesus.
There are none of us who can plead not guilty to the
charge of being more self-centered than Christ-centered.
Part of the problem is that we live in an age of information
overload. There is so much information on so many subjects
that we are all overwhelmed by our ignorance. We can't
even keep up on all the information vital to our own well
being in the world of health, insurance, investments, and a
host of other issues. How in the world can we keep up with
the issues missionaries face in foreign lands where we know
so little of the culture and customs. The result is that our
prayers for missionaries are often based on total ignorance.
A missionary family from Kenya home on furlough
learned that people here were praying for their protection
from leopards. They said they were in Kenya for 18 years
and have prayed to be able to see a leopard, but with no
success. They never heard of a missionary in all of East
Africa who ever got attacked by a leopard. Many have been
killed and injured, however, in car accidents. They face the
same dangers we do here, and they need people praying for
protection from the real dangers and not fictitious ones.
Lack of information makes prayer an exercise in futility.
Prayer has to be informed to be of any value. People pray
for the missionaries in Quito, Ecuador who live right on the
equator, and ask that they be able to withstand the heat.
Then they learn that Quito is 9 thousand feet above sea level
and has a year around temperature of 70 with nighttime as
low as 55. Whether is the least of their problems, but in
ignorance it becomes the main focus on those who do not
know the facts.
We cannot know everything about every land, but we
can focus in on some places and missionaries in order to
pray for their real needs. That is being world-class.
Missionaries are just like us, and they have the same needs.
We often assume they are different, and so we do not
minister to these normal needs. Paul Barthwick writes
again and shares this testimony. "Carl, a missionary in
South America for 20 years, lamented after a furlough visit
home, 'in multiple visits with all my supporting churches, no
one asked me about my spiritual health, and when I came
home last June, my spiritual life was in a state of disrepair.
I wasn't praying, my Scripture reading had lapsed, and I
was thinking of quitting the ministry. People should never
think that because I am a missionary, I am automatically
spiritual.'"
Missionaries need people who show they care, not just
when they are home on furlough, but when they are on the
field. I pray for them, but I do not write to them and
encourage them. Thank God for those who do, for they are
world-class Christians on a higher level, and they keep
missionaries striving to succeed. This is one way to become
a world-class Christian. It is to become pen pals with a
missionary family. Another way to care about the whole
world is to recognize that the world is coming to us. Millions
have come to live here from other lands. Tens of thousands
of the best students from all over the world come to America
each year to study. Only a faction of these students ever get
into American homes. They spend 2 to 4 lonely years in our
country, and then go back to their land with no positive
impression about Christianity. Thank God for exceptions.
A British couple took a student from the Muslin nation
Oman into their home and showed him Christian love. They
did not win him to Christ but they still changed the world
for many others. This man became the Sultan of Oman and
was totally favorable to Christians in his country. He even
contributed land for the building of Christian churches.
Christians in this Muslim land now have the freedom that
most such nations never allow, and it is all because a couple
in England were world-class Christians and showed love to
students from other lands.
Any of us can do this, for there are abundant
opportunities to befriend foreign students. You can help
change the world by what you do right here with a
world-class perspective. None of can do everything, but all
of us can do something to help the growing movement to
reach our world with the Gospel. We all need to hear things
life this story related in Hugh Steven's book To The Ends Of
The Earth. A witch doctor in Northern Brazil rejected the
Gospel for he said, "I work to get spirits out of people. I
don't want the spirit of Jesus in me." But when he was
dying he had a dream of a large book with the names of all
the people in the village who were Christians written in it.
His, of course, was not there. In that dream he asked God to
write his name in the book. When he woke up he told people
he thought it was too late, but God gave him a chance to
receive Jesus in his dream. He dyed joyful that he was able
to trust Jesus even after years of rejecting Him.
It may not be true that it is never too late, but it is
seldom too late for anyone, for God can even come to wicked
people in their dying dreams. We ought not to ever give up
on people but pray until their final breath, for they may
with their final breath yet breathe a prayer of faith. God is
not willing that any perish but that all come to repentance.
If we have the mind of Christ, that will be our attitude
toward all the people of the world.
Tom Sine, one of the leaders in the Christian movement
to resist the consumer life style of our culture, says it is
never too late for Christians to start caring and sharing
more with the poor of the third world countries. He tells of
6 Christian couples who gave the money they used to eat out
together once a month to a literacy project in Haiti. This
enabled parents to develop vocational skills so they did not
have to sell their children into slavery. He challenges us all
to come up with some creative way to make a difference in
the lives of the poor. Anne Frank in her diary said, "How
wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment
before starting to improve the world." May God help us all
to start right now by asking God to make us world-class
Christians.
