Where Do We Go? Series

WHERE DO WE GO?

A few weeks ago Joshua and I went on a trip to Lebanon and Egypt. It was an amazing time. We saw a glimpse of what God is doing right now in that region of the world. I spent 10 years living in Kuwait, and ministry in the Muslim world is difficult. I knew missionaries that had lived there for 10 years, and in all that time they had not seen a single Muslim come to Christ. If they had, it was only 1 or maybe 2. When we were in Lebanon the first day we were visiting a church made up of Kurdish people who had come from Syria. It was a group of about 80 people. I asked how many of these people had come out of Islam and the answer was ALL. Every person including the pastor had been a Muslim. They had all in the last year or 2 come to Jesus through dreams and visions. It was amazing. God is doing amazing things in Lebanon in these days. Who would have known 10 years ago that a Syrian crisis would lead to such a large number of Muslims coming to faith? God knew.

Today we are continuing in our series Made for Mission. Last week we asked the question “Why do we go?” Today we want to ask the question “Where do we go?” What is our mission field?

John 4:4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. ) 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

We see in this encounter with Jesus that our mission field includes;

1. Wherever you are - here

It says in verse 4 that they "had to go through Samaria”. It says in the verse before this that that had been in Judea but were heading back to Galilee. They were on their way home, and probably had their hearts and minds set on the destination. They had loved ones waiting for them and just wanted to get their trip over with.

When I was younger, I used to love the adventure of flying. The thrill of going to the airport and getting on a plane was all so new and exciting. I would say that most of that excitement has long since worn off. Now I am just focusing on the destination and enduring the long trip ahead.

Perhaps the words "had to" meant it was just a place between point A and point B. It was necessary to pass through Samaria in order to get home to Galilee. It is like saying that, in order to go to Lebanon we HAD TO go through Pearson Airport. There is truth in that. We are called to witness wherever we are. On the bus, walking along the road or talking to your neighbor.

I remember a time we were in Africa. I had a team that was headed to the fish market to do some evangelism. On the way we were stopped by some young people on the street and started talking to them. I was sharing my faith with them when one of the team said “We have to get going. We need to go over THERE and do evangelism.” Sometimes we can have that same problem. We send people to different places to tell others about Jesus yet have never even spoken with the person across the street from us. The place for evangelism is HERE, wherever you are.

Do you actively look for places to share your faith as you go about your day to day life? I see that people are so often willing to share their faith or do evangelism if they go on a missions trip or there is some special event, but not so much in their day to day life.

When we lived in Kuwait I used to help out leading the Young Adult group. I was speaking to them one day about the importance of sharing their faith and they asked me if they could go on a missions trip. When I asked where they wanted to go for this missions trip they said they wanted to go to Africa, because that is where missionaries go. So we went to Kenya. We left one of the most unreached nations on earth to go on a ‘missions’ trip to Kenya – one of the most Evangelical Christian nations on earth. They felt they had to go somewhere else to share their faith.