Why Missions?

INTRODUCTION

Well, good morning again. I want to thank Prince and Chipo for sharing their mission and work in Kenya with us. It is vital to the church that we can support the work of missionaries worldwide as they take the Gospel to people.

I want to take a couple of minutes to wrap up the service this morning by looking at the simple question, Why Missions? Maybe if you are newer to coming to church, you are wondering what a missionary is or why a church supports missionaries around the world. Or maybe you have been a Christian your whole life, and today will be a good reminder of why we do what we do.

Would you pray with me this morning?

PRAY

Why Missions?

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 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.”

Acts 1:6–8.

To begin to understand what is happening here in this passage, we have to get the context. Acts begins the history of the early church. In the first chapter, we are essentially wrapping up the story of Christ on earth, as he will ascend into heaven right after in verse 9.

The disciples still hoped that there would be an earthly kingdom of Israel established by Jesus. They have just been witnesses to the resurrection. Jesus died and is now alive again, so they figured this was the best time to go ahead and set up that kingdom! We have to strike while the iron is hot. But Jesus turns that around quickly.

That earthly kingdom will come, but it is not for you to know that time. Instead, we have a real mission to focus on right now. Soon, the Holy Spirit will come and indwell the believers, and then they will be witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.

So while this earthly kingdom is not established at this time, there is work to be done. The message of the Gospel now needs to be spread throughout the world, and at that moment, they are the only carriers of the message. Jesus is telling them that the worry should not be when the kingdom is set up, but that the message is taken to the world.

Jesus also lays out the map for how this will be done. It will start with them in Jerusalem, spread to Judea, then Samaria, and finally to the end of the world. And, if you look at how the book of Acts is laid out, this is exactly what happens. But here is the key for us today. We are still living out the “ends of the earth” portion. Right now, we are responsible for carrying this message of Jesus to the ends of the earth.

When the disciples heard this, the ends of the earth seemed reachable. The idea of the American continent didn’t exist. But now we know where these ends are. We know what it means to reach those ends, and we can see the goal ahead of us. Statistics show us that there are roughly 7,000 unreached groups. There are even groups here in the United States that can be considered unreached.

We know that there is still work to be done! Some people still need to hear the gospel today. Some lives still need to be changed by the transformative work of God. We still have people who need to hear this Good News.

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?

Romans 10:14.

If we want the Gospel to go out from us, we have to be sharing it as we go. We have to be the ones with the voice crying out to the world around us. How can they call on Him whom they have not believed in? How can they if they haven’t heard, and how can they hear unless someone takes the message to them?

To bring this all back to our first question, why missions? Why do we support missionaries? Why do we send money, supplies, prayers, and help to those who are carrying the Gospel to the unreached and least of these? Because someone brought the message of the Gospel to us. We support missions because we are partaking in the work of the Gospel around the world.

As a church, we have no other option than to support mission work. We want to see the Gospel spread around the world! And as individual believers, we have two options. First, let me make it clear, we do not get to opt out of the work of missions around the world. We don’t get to exclude ourselves from the work of the Gospel through missionaries and their ministries. So don’t think you can let this go in one ear and out the other today.

But as believers, we have two options. We can support, and we can go. We can support the work, and we can go do the work. We can support through giving individually to the work, giving to the church as it gives to the missionaries we support, or times when needs arise, and we can give to make sure a need is met.

Our other option is to go. We can both leave our homes and go to a place as missionaries to take the Gospel to people, and we can go on short-term trips to the people we support. It is not necessarily that we only give or only go, but that both are options for us.

Missions are a must, not a maybe.

Anonymous

This mission work is an extension of all the churches that are supporting the missionaries. We give to them so they can do that work. Why do we do this? Because we believe in the transformative power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the same reason that we gather here today. It is the reason we do all we do. It is our motivation that we want to see the gospel change lives and people grow in Christ.

That is our motivation, our drive, our inspiration, to see people who are slaves to sin be set free by Christ. Today, if you have never decided to follow Jesus, I would love to speak with you.