The Mission Of The Gospel

Introduction

As American Christians, we have missed one of the most important points of the Gospel. Arguably, the point of the Gospel is missions—evangelizing and making disciples of the world’s lost. Many churches today are dying because they have lost this focus. Would you like to see revival in your church? "The best remedy for a sick church is to put it on a missionary diet." -- David Livingston

I. Missions is a common theme throughout the Bible.

A. New Testament

1. Matthew 28:19-20

2. Paul’s letters, Acts, etc.

B. Old Testament

1. Isaiah 52:7-12

2. God has always been concerned with spreading his name throughout the Earth.

C. Missions is the foundation of the Bible

II. Missions has been greatly deemphasized in today’s Church.

A. Proper prioritization of the church’s goals:

1. Loving God

a. Matthew 22:37-38

b. This is accomplished by:

i. Personal Discipleship/worship

ii. Corporate Worship

iii. Keeping his commandments (John 15:9-10)

2. Loving Others

a. Matthew 22:39-40, and John 15:12

b. This is accomplished by:

i. First and foremost, by meeting physical needs.

(a) Jesus usually performed physical miracles (i.e. healings) before teaching the crowds.

(b) James 1:27, 2:14-17, caring for “the least of these”

(c) 50% of the world’s population lives on <$2 a day

(d) The number of AIDS deaths every week is approximately equal to the number of American casualties in the Vietnam War.

(e) 5 children die every 15 seconds due to preventable disease and malnutrition. One of those five, from diarrhea.

ii. Secondly, by evangelism.

(a) How can you say you love someone, but are unwilling to share the Gospel with them?

(b) Would you not tell people you ‘loved’ if you knew a nuclear bomb was going to go off tomorrow in your town? Or if you knew how they could win $1 million?

(c) The saving power of Jesus’ blood is the best news in the history of the world!

(d) Evangelism is simply an outpouring, a result, of a grateful heart.

iii. Thirdly, by discipleship.

(a) As a new Christian, they must be guided in the growth of their new faith.

(b) The objective of discipleship is to encourage the new convert to 1) Love God, and 2) Love others.

(c) It’s a cycle

iv. Other methods, such as discipline, fellowship, etc.

B. The Great Commission was given to the Church.

1. The idea of a church having a ‘missions program’ is about as absurd as the idea of a bank having a ‘financial program’.

2. Missions is not a program of the Church, it is the purpose of the Church. The two are as inseparable as a bank and money. Missions (and worship) should permeate every aspect of Christian living.

3. If either Missions or worship is not the driving force behind every decision and action a church makes, it has forfeited its right to exist.

III. “How do I know if I’m called to missions?”

A. Who was the audience of the Beatitudes in Matthew 5?

1. The immediate audience was, of course, the multitudes in Israel.

2. But, we understand them to apply just as much to modern Christians as they did to early Christians.

B. Who is the audience in Matthew 28:18-19?

1. The immediate audience was, of course, the multitudes in Israel.

2. But, we understand this passage, also, to apply just as much to modern Christians as early Christians.

C. Our view of missions, as American Christians, is distorted.

1. We view missions as a separate “calling,” that only the most radical “super-Christians” receive.

2. Christianity OS

a. Christian 1.0—Saved, baptized

b. Christian 2.0—Ministry

i. 2.1—Music minister

ii. 2.2—Sunday School teacher

iii. 2.5—Deacon

iv. 2.7—Pastor

c. Christian 3.0—Missionaries

i. 3.2—Foreign missionaries

ii. 3.5—Third World Missionaries

iii. 3.9—Hostile country Missionaries

3. If you can answer “yes” to these two questions, then you ARE called to missions:

a. Are you saved?

b. Are you alive?

c. Say aloud, “I am called to missions.”

4. This idea that only the elite are called into mission work is a deadly disease that has spread through our churches, choking the life out of them and keeping them from growing, and keeping them in chains.

5. If you can convince yourself that you’ve just not been “called” into missions, or that you just don’t have the spiritual gift of evangelism, then you can live your life ignoring the fact that millions upon millions of people are dying and going to Hell, without feeling guilty about it.

6. "The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become." -- Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia

D. Missions is not a passive activity.

1. What do you expect of a missionary that receives funding from your church?

a. Lives modestly

b. Daily evangelism and discipleship

c. Church growth, souls saved, members added.

d. Self-sacrifice

2. We should be actively engaging in mission work.

a. Meeting physical needs

b. Evangelism

c. Discipleship

IV. “Ok, I may be a ‘missionary,’ but I’ve not been called to foreign missions.”

A. Where is your home? How would you describe its location?

1. John 17:14, Matthew 6:19-21 “This World is Not My Home” hymn

2. As believers, our home is in Heaven

3. We are all foreign missionaries

4. One of the biggest obstacles to a missionary’s effectiveness is comfort; when a missionary starts to feel as if he is ‘from’ that country, he becomes more complacent.

5. We’ve become complacent because we think of ourselves as being ‘from’ America, and we’ve gotten comfortable.

6. The only thing you need to pray about, concerning your call to foreign missions, is which foreign country God wants you to serve in!

7. “God doesn’t want you to pray about going, He wants you to pray about staying where you are.” --James, missionary to India

8. “God doesn’t want you to pray about whether you should go, but where you should go.”

B. We like to think that it’s other people who are called to serve overseas.

1. Some basic definitions, first:

a. People Group—a group of people with the similar culture, language, geography, etc. Boundaries between people groups are defined by significant obstacles that would prevent the transmission of the Gospel (i.e. language, social barriers, etc.)

b. Church Planting Movement (CPM)—a rapid, exponential increase of indigenous churches planting other churches that occurs within a people group.

c. Last Frontier People Groups—having <2% evangelical Christians, little or no access to the Gospel or other evangelical resources, and having had no active CPM in the last two years or more

2. Statistics

a. ~16,600 people groups exist in the world, as identified by the Joshua Project

b. 6,900 of them are “unreached,” having <2% evangelical Christians.

c. About 25% of the world (1.7 billion) is considered “Last Frontier” people.

d. "We talk of the Second Coming; half the world has never heard of the first." -- Oswald J. Smith

e. The US contains ~4.5% of the world’s population.

f. ABA has 41 interstate and 28 foreign missionaries, for a total of 68.

g. As of 2000, the ABA reported a national membership of 275,000.

h. That means that ~2.5/10,000 ABA members are interstate/foreign missionaries.

i. SBC has ~6.25/10,000 domestic and foreign missionaries

j. On average, that leaves one missionary per 310,000 people, counting only those who have little or no access to the Gospel.

i. "I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light" -- John Keith Falconer

Conclusion:

"The Gospel is only good news if it gets there in time" -- Carl F. H. Henry

"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose" -- Jim Elliot, missionary martyr who lost his life in the late 1950's trying to reach the Auca Indians of Ecuador

“Having seen all this you can choose to look the other way, but you can never say again, ‘I did not know.’” -William Wilberforce