The open door to send
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13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
14 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!
Introducción
In this famous passage of Scripture, we see the apostle Paul, who was himself a missionary, making a renewed case and plea in regards to the great commission.
We all know the Great Commission, the last command of Jesus Christ to his disciples and to us before His ascension into heaven.
15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
And Paul, having been called of God to be a missionary in Acts 13, was himself sent out by the church at Antioch.
Here in Romans 10 he states again the simple gospel message in V13, and then he reminds us in V14 that this gospel message is of no use, without a messenger to take it to the lost.
“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?”
Someone once said that “the gospel is only good news if it gets there on time.”
Paul reminds us here of that important fact.
And then he says in V14… “How shall they hear without a preacher?”
This is obviously a rhetorical question.
The point here is that they won’t hear without a preacher.
In this missions conference, we are looking at how you as a church can step through the open door of opportunity that is in front of you and make a difference in getting the gospel around the world.
And each day we are looking at specific open doors that you can go through.
Last night we looked at the open door of prayer.
Tonight I want to preach about the open door to send.
A major goal of this church needs to be to at some point send the actual boots on the ground to do the missions work.
We need the finances to do the missions work.
But the missions money is useless without the people who will go and do the work.
How shall they hear without a preacher.
Example: How excited we are to be sending the Duartes. This is a great step for our church, to send a missionary family to the field. And I pray that we can in the future send many others.
The point of this verse is Paul, himself a missionary, pleading for more missionaries and showing us the importance of sending missionaries to the harvest fields.
Sending people has to be done in order to fulfill the Great Commission that was given to us as Christ’s final marching orders.
During the time of Paul, the population of the earth was estimated to be around 300 million people.
Today it has just surpassed 8 billion.
We have seen throughout the history of the church age many great missionary movements in which churches sent out great numbers of missionaries throughout the world.
Trying to reach their generations with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Example: The story from last night about the Moravian missionaries.
But the question needs to be ask, how is the modern missionary movement doing in the year 2025?
Are we equaling or exceeding the progress that was made by the great missionary movements of the past?
While we definitely need to thank God for the many missionaries and great works of God throughout the world, upon examination, the reality is that our missionary force is dwindling.
An alarming survey was done in 2023 of a number the Independent Baptist Missions Boards.
They found that the year 2023 was one of the lowest years on record of new missionary recruits applying to be accepted at Independent Baptist Missions boards.
I have been personally alarmed over the last few years with many conversations I have had with pastors, missions board directors, and Bible college administrators regarding the dwindling number of new missionary recruits.
Mission boards are seeing a marked decrease in new missionary applicants every year.
There seems to be far fewer missionaries on deputation right now than there was a decade ago when I was on deputation.
At almost every church I have gone to on furlough, I have asked the pastors if they have noticed this. Almost without fail, they are telling me that they hardly get any calls anymore from new missionaries that are raising support. There are some exceptions, but 95% of pastors have told me this.
The same is true when we examine the young people that are graduating from Bible colleges and Bible Institutes.
Dr. Don Sisk told me recently that he remembers a time when at least 20% of the graduating student body many Bible colleges were planning on going into foreign missions…today you are lucky to find even a few of these new preachers that are interested in missions. Almost all want to work right here in the United States.
The problem of the lack of new missionary applicants is compounded by the fact that many of our faithful veteran missionaries of past generations are retiring and coming off the field.
It is up to the younger generations, my generation especially, to take their place, and yet we are currently failing miserably.
With the population of the world exploding, it seems obvious that we are not going in the right direction.
The concerning part of all this is not that we are not reaching the world, but that we are doing significantly worse than past generations in regards to new missionary recruits actually going to and staying on the field.
Did God just call 20x the number of young people just a few generations ago compared to today?
I don’t think so.
I think the problem is in people answering the call, or being prepared even for God to call our young people to the mission field.
But this trend doesn’t have to continue.
I believe we can reverse these trends in our churches today.
But it is going to take a conscious effort by the local churches to do so.
NOTE: How all the missionaries seem to come from the same churches.
I do not believe that this is a coincidence.
God does not expect us as individual churches to reach the whole world, but if each individual church were to do a few simple things I believe it would drastically help us reverse these concerning trends in modern missions.
Let me share with you as a missionary, some very simple steps that churches can take that can help lead to revival in our modern missionary movement.
I want to share just a few simple things we can do in our churches to turn the tide on this very real problem that we are experiencing.
Last night we covered the need to pray, I would once again encourage you to be serious about praying for new missionaries.
But tonight I want to give you a few other things that you can do as a church so that you can help send laborers to the harvest field.
1. Care
1. Care
18 And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. 19 Then said Hezekiah unto Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. And he said, Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days?
Here we see a good king, who finished his race very poorly because of apathy.
He had a good life, a good kingdom, a good ministry, and he no longer cared about what happened to the future generations.
Apathy is such a sad thing, but it is alive and well today.
Example: CathyJo, a single missionary lady is coming to work with us on the field. She will be working under our ministry and my authority and I received a call from a pastor asking me why he should support her and why she should not just help a ministry in the states.
As I explained the great need for more laborers in Colombia I threw out some simple statistics of how few churches and missionaries are in the country (second largest Spanish speaking country in the world).
“yeah I have heard the statistics before” or “I’m not moved by all that anymore, I’ve heard it already”.
Apathy, can set into our hearts if we are not careful.
You may of heard it before, but that doesn’t make it less true.
I don’t care about pulling on your emotional strings, but it is important that we have a heart that truly cares for the lost on the mission field and sees the great need.
Example: How Christ was moved for Jerusalem.
11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
We cannot allow ourselves to become cold to the needs of the lost on the mission field.
We cannot allow apathy to set in.
Example: The preacher who once undid my message after I preached it by saying…“That is all good for Bro Putney, but your mission field is right here”.
He didn’t care about God calling people to the mission field, and he didn’t want people to leave his church to go.
He just simply did not care about the plight of the lost in heathen lands.
Contrast that with this…
Example: Pastor Gipp getting up after I preached almost in tears and said “I am sick and tired of people not going to the mission field.
What is the difference…one pastor cared, and the other did not.
Which church do you think God is going to use to send laborers to the field?
Apathy is the killer of the Great Commission.
Apathy is often caused by being distracted by the glamor and pleasures of the world.
Example: We care more if our team gets to the playoffs than we do if the Colombians get to heaven.
I know you have heard of the great need before.
I know that missions may not generate the same emotional response as it once did the first time you heard about it.
But we don’t run on emotion as God’s people.
We run on truth.
And the truth is, this world needs the gospel.
Apathy can be a real frustration when missionaries encounter it after coming back from the field.
Example: How the marines that fought in Okinawa felt the apathy of Americans coming home and it drove them to re-in-list and feel alienated from people at home.
We need to pray for laborers.
But we need to care about laborers going.
Seeing new missionaries going to the field should be very important to us.
It should drive us.
The great need to get more soldiers onto the battle field for the souls of men should drive us.
It should be a common subject in our church and conversation and from the pulpit.
“wow, we are praying and hoping that God would use our church to help send laborers to the harvest field.”
Wise words: If you aim at nothing you will hit it every time.
Many churches are aiming at nothing in regards to sending laborers and they are hitting it ever time.
We must fight the monster that is apathy, lest we become like Hezekiah.
And just be content that we have the gospel, and care less about those who do not.
So the first step to sending missionaries to the field is to care.
You should care about seeing missionaries sent out of your church and that should constantly drive you and motivate you.
2. Encourage
2. Encourage
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
Example: The monument build after the crossing of the Jordan
I love stories like this in the old Testament, they were diligent to explain to their children the biblical concepts and principals so that their children would carry them on.
Teach the young people the attitudes they should have regarding the things of God.
In regard to new missionaries, we need God to call and send the next generation.
And how we speak to them about missions and being a missionary to our children makes a difference.
Example: The men that were mad at Dr. Sisk.
These attitudes will not help our young people take seriously the possibility that God might want to use them on the mission field.
We should teach them that being called of God to be a missionary is the greatest job and privilege that any of them could ever have.
Missions is at times a difficult road…but boy is it ever worth it.
Being a missionary is the greatest job there is…I truly believe that.
Important: Don’t speak of being a missionary like its some kind of condemnation to a life of misery.
Example: The lady who told me she was glad we were going to Colombia and not her kids.
-Don’t talk about missionaries to your kids as if you pity them and their miserable life outside of the United States.
Example: “missionary kids have the hardest life of any kids”
These attitudes are not only incorrect and wrong (being a missionary is awesome. Best job in the world).
These attitudes are harmful.
Your kids hear you say these things and they think that being called to be a missionary is some kind of condemnation from God.
We need to teach our young people that God’s plan for their life is the best.
Especially if that plan were to include them being missionaries.
In how you raise your kids, show them that if God were to use them on the mission field it would be the greatest job in the world.
Example: In our church we have a lot of young people. I hear from them all the time that they want to be a missionary. I don’t know if God will use them in that way or call them…but it is their desire.
Why?
I believe it is because of how we talk about missions and promote missions in our church and in our homes.
Being a missionary is presented as the greatest honor and calling God could have on your life.
And it affects the attitudes of our children.
And I pray that God would call some of those kids to go to the mission field and that one day our church could send them out.
Note: I have visited hundreds of churches across the US. You can see this difference very clearly in different churches. The attitudes of the adults regarding missions, reflected in the young people.
Example: The churches where the kids come up to me and ask me to sign their Bibles and a number of them tell me they want to be missionaries when they grow up.
You can see a difference in the attitudes of the kids depending on the attitudes of the adults.
God is not going to call all our children to the mission field. But what a good thing it is when our young people want that.
Example: How some of my kids right now have told me they want to be a missionary when they are older. I don’t know if God will call them. But I think God is please that they have the desire.
And we adults can affect that in our kids.
By how we talk about missions in front of them, in the Sunday School class, in the Jr. Church, from the pulpit, in the missions conference like this one. At home around the dinner table.
What a sad thing, when we discourage our kids from wanting to be missionaries.
When we present some secular job as more important and a better life than if they were to be called to be a missionary.
When we teach them to value money as more important than souls.
3. Preach
3. Preach
17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
God uses preaching to convince us of His will.
Example: How many missionaries are called during preaching.
Example: How I was called during the preaching of the word.
Example: Count Zinzendorf’s message where 10% of the church surrendered to go to the foreign field.
God uses preaching to affect our hearts.
The preaching of His Word.
And His Word says “How shall they hear without a preacher?”
Explain: How I hardly hear messages anymore in missions conferences about the great need for laborers.
If we are going to see new laborers going to the harvest fields, we need to make it a topic in our preaching.
Prayer makes a difference in God calling people to the field.
Preaching the Word also makes a difference in God calling people to the mission field.
The Bible makes it a topic of it’s preaching
Paul preached it
The Lord preached it
We must preach it.
4. Send
4. Send
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!
Once God calls people to go, we need to encourage them, train them, prove them, and when the time is right, send them.
Example: How excited we are to be sending a family out of our church in 2025.
What a privilege it is for a church to be able to send others to the field.
This is part of the biblical model.
This is part of the great commission.
Example: The two missionaries from the Phillipians that our church in Colombia just took on.
And we should not only pray for laborers, but pray that God would send people out of our church specifically.
This means we need to be ready and willing for God to call our best people out of our churches.
Note: We don’t need your knuckleheads on the mission field.
And you will miss them - we will miss the Duarte family when they go out.
Example: How many churches dont want to send them because they need them.
But I also believe that God blesses tremendously the churches that care and send out their best people into the harvest field as God calls them and they are ready.
5. Go
5. Go
30 And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.
This verse describes a lot of the problem today with laborers.
Too few are willing to go.
We can pray for laborers, we can encourage, and care, and preach, and be willing to train and send, but in the end…someone has to be the volunteer.
Someone has to step forward and sign up.
We all must be willing to go to the mission field, if God were to call us to.
Example: We think the Great Commission is “Go Them” not “Go Ye”.
God will not call all of us to the mission field, but we all should be willing.
Note: How God could call any of us.
I was someone who had no interest in being a missionary before God called me.
But God changed me, He equiped me.
And if He can use me, He can use any one of you.
Explain: How God equips those He calls.
You may not think you are a person who naturally would be a good fit for the mission field, but that does not matter.
God could equip you if He calls you.
25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: 27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: 29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.
Have you ever seriously considered whether God wants you to be a missionary?
Young people, have you ever prayed sincerely, “God, would you call me to go to the mission field?”
90% of all the ordained preachers in the world preach to 13% of the world’s population that can speak English. Only 10% of the ordained preachers in the world preach to the other 87% of the world’s population that cannot speak English.
There are hundreds of cities in Colombia that do not have a church preaching the gospel of Christ.
Who is going to reach them?
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
Conclusion
Conclusion
In this missions conference, there are multiple open doors of opportunity.
We learned of the open door of prayer.
And now we see the open door to send.
This open door is not a quick task. It requires years of caring, encouraging, preaching, and finally sending.
But the churches that intentionally try to create a spirit and environment that God can work in to call and equip missionaries, these are the churches that send missionaries.
Can we turn things around when it comes to the modern missionary movement?
I believe that we can.
We can pray
We can care
We can encourage
We can preach
We can send
And we can go
Lets pray tonight that God would use Victory Baptist Church in the future to send many missionaries to the harvest fields.
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