The Gospel Mission and Its Success
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
This coming Saturday, March 25, is the birthday of a little known but extremely important man in Christian history: Luther Rice. The Bible College that both my dad and I enrolled and from which I graduated with my bachelor’s degree, is named after this important figure: Luther Rice University and Seminary.
Luther Rice was friends and partners with a more famous man: Adoniram Judson. Both Adoniram and Luther Rice had decided that they would become missionaries and go to India to work with William Carey, the father of modern missions. They had to leave from different ports and would arrive at different times in India, but both had a radical change of doctrine on the sea, without either knowing about the other. Both were Congregationalists, and therefore both believed in infant baptism and not believer’s baptism. These men, along with their wives, had been sent by a Congregationalist missions society to preach the gospel alongside Carey. The problem was that Carey was a Baptist. Which meant he didn’t believe in infant baptism but believer’s baptism instead.
On the way to India, Luther Rice began to feel anxious about working with William Carey. The issue of baptism was surely to come up and he wanted to be able to make a defense of infant baptism. So, he did what any good scholar would do. He pulled out his Green New Testament and set to work to show that infant baptism was solidly and preferably biblical. However, he could not find any evidence for it, and became a Baptist instead. A similar event happened with Adoniram Judson.
Now they had a different problem. They had been sent by Congregationalists—those who believed in infant baptism—but they could not keep their doctrine of baptism. Once they docked in India, Judson and Rice, along with William Carey, met and agreed that Rice would return to America, inform the Congregationalist missionary society, and seek to raise support a different way.
Within 2 years, Luther Rice, by traveling on horseback and meeting with Baptist congregations all over the United States (which numbered 18 at the time), Luther Rice was able to begin a Baptist union called the Triennial Baptist Society. These Baptists, working together had one mission: to spread the gospel of Jesus across the world. It would split in 1845 and form a new society—a new convention of Baptists known as the Southern Baptist Convention, which has as its dual-mission to spread the gospel at home and to spread it abroad.
I tell you this story, because though there are some wretched sins that Southern Baptists have had to come to terms with as to its origins, the root of the cooperation of Baptists in America is thoroughly biblical as we shall see this morning. As we open up our text this morning, we shall see two keys are needed to have success in gospel missions. The first key to success is the mobilization of the mission. The second is the means of the mission. I will say that there could be a third point that a key to gospel mission success is the message as well. But I am taking for granted that we understand that the gospel mission cannot be successful without the gospel message: that we are sinners deserving of God’s wrath, and that Jesus lived the life we are meant to live, died the death absorbing the wrath of God that we were meant to die and absorb, and that he rose again that we would be made right with God.
The Mobilization of the Mission
The Means of the Mission
Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him,
and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,
and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.
The Mobilization of the Mission
The Mobilization of the Mission
The first key to a successful gospel mission is the mobilization of the mission. The mission must be mobile. Stagnant ministry dies eventually. Jesus never stayed in one place too long. Nor did Paul. They were constantly on the move in order to spread the gospel message to those who had not heard it.
From the very moment that Jesus comes out of the wilderness and temptation, we see him on the go.
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country.
And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
So far, in Luke, we have seen that Jesus went to Nazareth, Capernaum, out on the Lake of Gennesaret, Nain. He’s preaching in synagogues, homes, plains, and on roadsides. His ministry is never stagnant.
Similar we see Paul taking multiple missionary journeys, always heading to various cities and regions. At one point his wrote to the Romans,
and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation,
but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.”
Here is Jesus going through various cities and villages—none are too important to too unimportant—he is making his way through each one. But this is not just his mission. He has the twelve with him. He has his apostles.
As he is going throughout the cities and villages, he is teaching his apostles how to do the same thing so that when he is gone, they can carry on the work of gospel ministry. They watch him proclaim the gospel. They watch him heal the sick and the demon-possessed. They listen to his instructions and commands and are learning ever so slowly to obey what he is commanding.
We know that one of the last things Jesus said to his disciples, as recorded by Luke in his second volume was:
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
And we know that for at least a time, the church had become for all intents and purposes stagnant in Jerusalem. It wasn’t until the persecution that the church spread out and really began to infiltrate Samaria and the rest of the world. Most of us know about the Pharisees and the Sadducees to some degree. They were two of the three dominant sects of Judaism. The third was the Essenes. They aren’t even mentioned in the Bible because they were recluses. They were a stagnant sect that lived in the desert. The Sadducees were a sect that disbanded after the destruction of the temple in AD 70 because their lives revolved around temple service. No temple, no service. The Pharisees lasted a while longer but died out eventually. Had Christianity stayed stagnant like the Essenes, the Pharisees, or the Sadducees, we would have been a footnote in history much like these sects of Judaism.
By God’s grace, persecution came to spread the gospel as it was meant to be spread. The church was forced to mobilize the gospel message and to take it to all nations, teaching them to observe everything Jesus commanded, and baptized those believers in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
It’s this same drive that took Adoniram Judson to India and then to Burma where he faced hardship and persecution like few ever have. He ministered for years before his first convert. He was imprisoned for his faith along with so many that there was literally standing room only in the prison. They slept standing up. He and his fellow prisoners were taunted by having a caged tiger outside their cell. They were told that they’d be fed to it, but before they could be, it died. He suffered the loss of three of his eight children in infancy and two of his wives due to disease. He not only translated the Bible into Burmese that is still in use today, but also made the first Burmese dictionary/lexicon that was used up until recently and every new dictionary has been based on his original work. Burma, now called Myanmar has the third highest Baptist population in the world! Only the US and India have more.
But it wasn’t the baptist message he spread, but the gospel. The gospel demands to be mobilized. It cannot have success if it is not moved about from person to person, village to village, city to city, nation to nation. It must be on the move.
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
Highland View Baptist Church must be a church that mobilizes the gospel message if we are to be successful as a church. The size of a church is not key to success. The quality of music in a church is not key to its success. They eloquence of its preachers and teachers is not key to success. What is key to our success, to any churches success is that the gospel message is mobilized.
The Means of the Mission
The Means of the Mission
But that is only one key to success. The second key to success is the means of the mission. And in this passage we see two means of this mission. It’s the “how to get the mission done.”
The first means of accomplishing the mission is the sent.
As we just saw what Paul wrote the Romans, the only way for the gospel mission to have success is for the gospel mission to be given by means of the sent. How does anyone believe if one is not sent to tell them?
In Hebrews 3, we see that Jesus is called the apostle. He is the foremost of apostles. The word apostle simply means the sent ones.
John wrote in his first epistle
And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
The word sent there is the verbal form of the noun apostle. Jesus was one sent into this world to be its Savior. Of course, the apostles that we normally think of are also those sent by Jesus to proclaim the message.
and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,
and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
This was the message of the apostles. The office of apostleship doesn’t exist anymore, but the closest thing we have to it is what we’d call missionaries. Those like Adoniram Judson who are sent to proclaim the message.
Thus, the gospel mission’s success hinges on those who are sent. They must be sent! And my prayer is that there would be some from Highland View who will aspire to being sent—sent on mission trips that last a week, sent on summer missions that last for months. Sent on short term missions that last a couple of years, and even sent for lifetimes of mission work in the US or other nations.
But there is a second means of gospel mission. That is to be the sender—the supporter.
We saw that Jesus and the twelve were going through the cities and villages proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. But we also see, now, that there were people who were supporting ones.
and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,
and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.
We don’t know a lot about these women. The person we know most about is Mary Magdalene, but we really don’t know much about her according to the Bible. Mostly, we know what we see here. She was freed from demonic possession, she was a follower of Jesus, and she was the first to see Jesus resurrected. The rest of what we know about the others are in verse 3 here. Except that Joanna was also one of those that had gone to the tomb on Resurrection Sunday.
But more than this, we know that these women were about the support of the gospel mission. The ESV translators stated that they provided for them out of their means. That certainly is an accurate way to state it. But the literal way is that they served them out of their means. It’s the same word that we get for deaconing.
Thus these women did their part by making sure the needs of those who were sent are met. Rarely, in Jewish culture, would a woman be part of a ministry, even a support to a ministry. Women would not be able to give testimony and to have them in ministry would have lessened the ministry in the eyes of many. But Jesus had women who not only followed or hung on every word. He incorporated them into his ministry. They lent aid to him and the apostles in the gospel mission.
While these women were not deacons as we would think of deacons today, I want us to think about what is often called: proto-deacons. Those men that we see in Acts 6. Do you remember why they were sought after? A problem arose in church as to the feeding of the Hellenistic widows. The apostles said that they could not handle the issue because thy needed to focus on prayer and the handling of the word. In other words, they needed to be able to focus on the gospel mission. The needed support. They needed people to do what they could not do.
The deacons were a vital part of the gospel mission. In a very similar way, these supporters of Jesus and the apostles, were key in the success of the gospel mission. Because of these supporters, those who were sent did not need to worry about having to work. They didn’t have to worry about having to cook. They didn’t have to stop proclaiming the good news because they needed to raise funds. Instead, there were those in the background who kept the gospel mission going by giving from their own means.
This wasn’t just in Jesus’s day either. We see Paul writing about this quite often.
I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a while.
Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble.
And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only.
Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again.
I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you.
And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way.
Remember Luther Rice? He was a man who wanted to be a missionary, but instead he was sent back to the U. S. to garner support from various churches to support the gospel mission in India and Burma and now all over the world. It would not be wrong to say that Adoniram would not have been able to do what he was able to do if not for the support of Luther Rice. Lottie Moon would not have been able to do what she was able to do if not for Annie Armstrong’s and the SBC’s support back home. Supporters of the gospel mission are a key component to the success of the gospel mission. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Now, some people may not have the financial means to give like these ladies did. That’s fine. Perhaps you’re in a season of life where your income is limited and you’re bills are not! Perhaps you’re retired and aren’t making as much as you once were. No problem. There is other support that you can give. Prayer support is the greatest support anyone can give. If you know of a mission opportunity that others are taking but you aren’t among the sent, and you can’t financially support. Pray before, during, and afterwards. No one will probably know what you’re doing. But that’s okay. God works through the prayer support of his people. For example, if we were to minister to people in St. Charles during one of the many festivals that we have during the year. For whatever reason you cannot participate by going. Perhaps you have young children and can’t get away. Perhaps you are out of town that weekend. Maybe for conscience’s sake, you don’t believe you can participate. And then you just don’t have the financial means to give. Pray for those who can. Even if the sent don’t realize how much they need your prayer support, God does.
Some of us feel compelled to go and become a missionary. Great! You should go and not delay. Some of us though do not feel that desire. Great! Support those who do! We here support four missionary families directly, and tons of missionaries indirectly. We, as a church, give to both those in the states and those overseas.
I wasn’t planning on preaching this during the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering season, but here we are. We take up these offerings like this and Lottie Moon to support those who go when we cannot. If you’re giving to Annie Armstrong or Lottie Moon or are privately giving to missionaries or are giving through the church to missionaries we support, then you and me and Highland View as a whole are key in the success of the gospel mission.
This isn’t a reason or an excuse to stagnate in our own mission field, but a reason to celebrate that God works through the supporters as well as the sent.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Piper says, and I agree, “You have three choices in world missions: be a joyful, sacrificial goer, be a joyful, sacrificial sender, or be disobedient.”
We have seen this morning that Jesus and his apostles were goers. They were those who were sent to call people to the kingdom of God. They mobilized the gospel mission. Without them there is no success of the gospel mission. The gospel of the kingdom of God must be proclaimed and it must be proclaimed by those who are sent. But we also saw that the ladies were supporters (what Piper called senders). They made sure that those who were sent could do what they were sent to do, much like deacons help pastors to do what they need to do.
To do nothing though, to remain stagnant, is to be disobedient. And we must not allow ourselves nor our church to be stagnant in the gospel mission. Let us therefore pray.
As Jesus said,
And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.