The Mission
CCCAG, 11-13-22
Scripture: Romans 10:9-15
When I got saved in 1993, one of the biggest movies in the theaters was called Schindler’s List. If you aren’t familiar with that movie, it’s about a German industrialist named Oskar Schindler who bought a factory in Poland to sell things to the Nazi government that could be used to fight the Allies during World War II.
Most of the 1200 employees of that factory were Jews. If you don’t remember your history, Nazi’s don’t like Jews very much, and the factory that Schindler owned was very close to a concentration camp where they were killing Jews by the 10’s of thousands. Initially, Schindler didn’t care about the people who worked at the factory, he was in it for the money, but after time, his heart changed and he began to really care about them, spending much of his fortune bribing Nazi officials not to deport his workers. He even bought a munitions factory further away from the death camps and made it a necessary part of the German war machine so they would leave him and his Jews alone.
Ironically, Schindler made sure that the munitions factory never produced a single shell that worked, but with the chaos surrounding the allies advancing toward Germany, the Nazi’s never caught wind this munitions factory was deliberately making dud rounds.
As the Russians were pouring into Poland from the north they were pushing the Nazi’s back into Germany for a last stand. As the Nazi’s fled the areas where Schindler had his factories, he had only one choice. You see, you couldn’t do business in Germany unless you were a member of the Nazi party. Schindler was afraid they would only see that he was a member of the Nazi party and shoot him, so he was preparing to flee west toward the American lines where he could trade intelligence about the Nazi war machine for leniency. As he was getting into his car, the leaders of the Jewish people he saved met him on the way to his car.
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You may ask, what does this have to do with missions? Everything.
Someday we will stand before God to give an account of how we lived our lives. Like Oskar Schindler, when we see what we could have done but didn’t, or how we wasted our time or money on things that had no eternal value, that same kind of regret might fill our hearts.
Jesus did not leave us here to have our best life as the prosperity preachers say. I’m not saying we can’t enjoy our life, but that isn’t the main reason we are here. We are here to fulfill a mission.
Our mission orders are as follows-
Matt 28:19-20
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, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
Point to missions banner-
Today being our missions Sunday, I want to focus on some of the how of this mission.
And that leads us to our central verse for this morning. In Roman’s 10 the Apostle Paul encapsulates the Gospel message and the Gospel mission in a few short verses-
Rom 10:9-15
That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11 As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile — the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
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!"
Prayer
The section we read is often used during ordination services for pastors. It was used when I was ordained by my first church before I became A/G.
But it is a not just something that is for pastors or missionaries. It’s a directive for all of us to follow. Paul is giving us a common sense, almost legal argument here.
I. The plan-
First, he presents the Gospel message-
He gives the minimum requirements to be saved-
Confess with your mouth that Jesus is LORD and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
What does it mean to believe with your heart? The Greek word used is “Kardia”, which is the root word for cardiac meaning the physical heart beating inside your chest. We know today that the heart has no ability to believe. It doesn’t have neurons or a functioning brain within it. The easiest way to understand it is that Paul was simply speaking to the understanding of human physiology of his time, and the thought then was that the heart was the resting place for the soul and made all the decisions for a person.
I would say that’s true, but there is also a second way to understand this.
You and I, along with every human being who has ever lived, is a spiritual being. That is your created nature, and it’s critical that you know that and live like that. It will determine how you understand reality, and how you live your life according to that truth.
Let me break it down a little for you-
In Genesis 1, it says that the Spirit of God resided over the waters. In Genesis 2, that Spirit breathed into Adam.
When you and I breath, parts of us leave trapped in the water vapor we exhale. Cells that if captured could be tested and confirmed as belonging to you. We learned all about that with COVID how much even breathing or coughing around people could spread disease.
But think about this- the Hebrew word for breath in this instance is
neshamah (nesh-aw-maw'); from OT:5395; a puff, breath, divine inspiration and intellect.
So when God breathed into us, some of what makes God a god came with him. Higher reasoning, free will, even eternal life for our spirit.
Yes, you and I will live forever. The question is where?
God created Adam’s spirit in that very moment, and breathed it into the physical body God made for him so he could experience all of the glory of His creation.
What does that have to do with our heart?
There is something that happens when we turn toward God and believe in his plan of salvation for us- our spiritual heart- the center of our will, emotions and intellect is changed to want to follow Jesus as our God.
Since the bible says it’s out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks, when we confess Jesus as LORD, God, Savior, and King, it shows that inward change that came from us surrendering our lives, hearts, and spirit to HIM.
That’s an incredible gift to us from our Father God…
That’s the truth of what happens, so how does that work in our lives?
A changed heart should carry with it change priorities. We should want everyone we know to hear this news and experience this awesome new life that we have.
And that is where the Mission of the Great Commission comes in. It’s a direct command of Jesus to spread this Word throughout the entire world.
II. The mission
Paul gets very basic, almost condescending in the next few verses. Paul writes on multiple levels- most of it is very easy to understand, but sometimes, like in the Book of Romans, he also gets very heavy in how he expresses truth.
Not so here
Pau lays out this critical truth about missions in a very logical, almost pedantic manner.
Here it is-
God loved you enough to make sure you heard the news so you could be saved.
Everyone else on earth right now deserves that same privilege.
But, how can they call on Jesus if they have never believed in him?
How can they believe if they have never heard
How can they hear unless someone preaches to them?
How can the preacher preach if they are not sent?
Again, Jesus gave the great commission, and Paul tells us how it is supposed to be done.
When it comes to places not in your neighborhood or country, it’s the job of the missionary. We send people to other places to tell them about Jesus.
Missionaries don’t just preach, ideally they built church and train local people to run them. In fact, if you take any bible college class they will tell you that a missionary’s responsibility to the church he is helping to build in that foreign land should become-
Self-supporting- you want them to take ownership of their church in all aspects, including financially.
Self-Governing- you want to train up leaders within that community to take over from you and lead that church.
Self-propagating- the members of that missions church should then be evangelizing and planting other church’s in the area.
Paul was the greatest missionary of all time and that’s the way he did his job. Throughout his writings, he is addressing the leadership of the churches. In the pastoral epistles of 1&2 Timothy and Titus, he instructs the pastors there in these very areas. Ideally, the missionary should someday work themselves out of a job.
That some of the rubric I use when I evaluate a person to be brought into our mission’s network here at Coulee Community Church. Those on the ground forming churches should be toward that kind of outcome.
Another questions Paul askes here is this-
“How can they go, unless they are sent?”
Sending a missionary into the field is a very laborious process.
In our fellowship, the Assemblies of God, First, they need to apply with AG world missions.
If accepted, there are several training courses they have to attend.
Then they start the itineration process in visiting church’s and asking for monthly support and to build up a lump cash fund for expenses.
That can take a couple of years before they even get close to going into the field. It can take over a hundred Sundays or midweek services to get enough church’s on board to drum up the kind of support they need, because in many countries, their host country will not issue work visas for them to hold a job so they are completely dependent upon the money they raised over those few years.
Then there is language school in many instances, and they often do their first tour of duty in the foreign land as missionary associates under a seasoned missionary to learn the culture.
That’s what it takes to send a missionary into the field today.
Obviously for home missions, that process is a little less lengthy, but it still takes a lot of work for a home mission’s church or missionary to get off the ground.
That is what it takes to send the missionaries. And all of that costs money. That’s why we give to missions, to enable these missionaries to be sent and proclaim the Gospel and build the church.
Finally, lets look at the last part of the great commission- teaching those who come to Christ to obey everything HE taught.
If you remember the list we went through at the beginning of the message, a few of the people we support run schools to train up teachers and pastors locally.
Technology has given us a wonderful tool to quickly train people we may never meet in person, but can have a local impact in ways that might take a missionary decades to accomplish.
It’s critically important that these new church’s have teachers within them to train people in the correct doctrine and use of scripture.
Even in the early church, many people rose up calling themselves teachers and led many people down paths away from the truth of the Gospel. We want to avoid that in having properly trained and educated people in these areas to guard the faith.
In the pastoral epistles-those are 1&2 Timothy and Titus Paul gives a very important instruction to these young missionary pastors. We know it’s important because he says it over and over again to them.
In Timothy, in every chapter Paul tells Timothy to guard what has been entrusted to his care. In Titus, 2 of the 3 chapter have some sort of admonition to guard the truth.
Guarding and teaching the truth is one of the most important jobs of a missionary or an elder or pastor within the church.
My friends, that is what our mission is today- to make sure the Gospel is spread to the entire world, and to teach correct doctrine so that God’s light can drive back this darkness that seems to be overpowering us in our day.
I want to send the service today with a song. It’s an anthem kind of song proclaiming the truth of who Jesus is and what he does for all of us.
It’s one of my all time favorite songs, and I invite you to sing this as our close today.
All Rise
