Foundation of Sacrificial Leadership

Opener

If you are a man you are a leader! On the one hand you

A young man by the name of James Taylor had lived a worldly life, and was a leader in opposing a revival that had swept his neighborhood. The morning of his wedding day he awoke with the words of Joshua 24:15 on his mind. In earlier years he had memorized that verse. Unlike our modern customs, he put in a full day’s work before his wedding that evening. As he went about his labors, the Holy Spirit convicted his heart, and he accepted Jesus as his Savior. He said, “Yes, we will serve the Lord!” At first his bride was dismayed by this decision, but she soon became a believer, and a Christian home was established.

You say, “What’s so unusual about that story?” Well, that young man was the great-grandfather of J. Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, now called the Overseas Missionary Fellowship.

Galaxie Software. (2002). 10,000 Sermon Illustrations. Biblical Studies Press.

"China is not to be won for Christ by quiet, ease-loving men and women … The stamp of men and women we need is such as will put Jesus, China, [and] souls first and foremost in everything and at every time—even life itself must be secondary." - Hudson Taylor

“Troubled that people in England seemed to have little interest in China, he wrote China: Its Spiritual Need and Claims. In one passage, he scolded, "Can all the Christians in England sit still with folded arms while these multitudes [in China] are perishing—perishing for lack of knowledge—for lack of that knowledge which England possesses so richly?"” - Hudson Taylor

Worried about the safety of sending missionaries into inland China: “"There the Lord conquered my unbelief, and I surrendered myself to God for this service. I told him that all responsibility as to the issues and consequences must rest with him; that as his servant it was mine to obey and to follow him." - Hudson Taylor

Swiss Study. Published January 2000. Switzerland. Country wide survey. The question was asked to determine whether a person’s religion carried through to the next generation, and if so, why, or if not, why not.

“If both father and mother attend regularly, 33 percent of their children will end up as regular churchgoers, and 41 percent will end up attending irregularly. Only a quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all. If the father is irregular and mother regular, only 3 percent of the children will subsequently become regulars themselves, while a further 59 percent will become irregulars. Thirty-eight percent will be lost.”

“Let us look at the figures the other way round. What happens if the father is regular but the mother irregular or non-practicing? Extraordinarily, the percentage of children becoming regular goes up from 33 percent to 38 percent with the irregular mother and to 44 percent with the non-practicing, as if loyalty to father’s commitment grows in proportion to mother’s laxity, indifference, or hostility.”