As most of you know, prior to my coming on staff here at Redland, I served a brief stint in the Army National Guard. I was a chaplain assigned to a M.A.S.H. unit based in Newport, Delaware. Now, one thing I learned very quickly in my first few weeks as a “weekend warrior” was that our M.A.S.H. unit had a mission. It was clearly defined and everything we did revolved around our fulfilling that mission. As you might guess, our mission-our assigned task-was to set up and run a mobile hospital so that we could provide the best medical care possible for wounded soldiers. And, we spent every minute of every drill weekend training so that we would be ready and able to accomplish this mission.
In fact, in the summer we’d go out in the backwoods of Delaware and set up our hospital as if we were in the middle of a real war. We’d stay out there living in tents for two weeks. People from the “real” army who would come and give us a “war scenario” to play out including number of casualties and specific types of wounds. They brought along with them a specially trained unit to put realistic make-up on men and women to make them look just like real wounded soldiers. Our doctors and nurses would then be rated as to how they treated these wounds. As a chaplain, I was even tested as to how I responded to wounded and dying people. But suffice it to say that we had a mission-one that we took very seriously.
Sermon:
Well, as Christians-we must always remember that we have a mission as well given to us by our Commander-in-Chief. In John 17:18 Jesus referred to it when He prayed to our Heavenly Father and said, “In the same way that You gave Me a mission in the world, I give them a mission in the world.” And in John 20:21 Jesus said, “As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you.” So, in essence our mission, as Jesus followers, is to continue what He started. I like the way Warren puts it, “Jesus calls us not only to come to Him but to go for Him.” And in Matthew 28 that’s exactly what Jesus said, “Go…to the people of all nations and make them My disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to do everything I have told you.”
I’ve asked Aaron to share a song with us that deals with this mission.
Special Music – The Mission
Now, this mission to go into all the world has been given to every follower of Jesus and its been called what? “The Great Commission.” A few years ago I saw a man wearing a T-shirt that said, “I work for commission-the great commission.” And I like that-because as Christians we do indeed work on commission. We have a great, God-given commission to go into all the world and share the Good News of His love in sending Jesus to die for our sins. Think of it-God has put the future of the world in our hands! You and I have been given the responsibility of sharing news that will determine the eternal destiny of all mankind! Talk about a source of significance! When you visit the mission fair today be sure to note the sign above the door as you exit the facility. It says, “You are now entering the mission field.”
Okay-go ahead and write this in your outline. “My fifth purpose is to share the Good News.” That’s our mission.
Now, another word for sharing the Good News is evangelism, and like the words we use to describe the other four purposes, it too is a word that is often misunderstood by Christians and non-Christians alike. In fact, one thing we have in common with non-believers is the fact that we don’t like this word, evangelism or evangelist because when we hear it many of us think of guys with really big hair who shout real loud on TV and say “Send me your money.” But that’s not what evangelism is-and that’s not what real evangelists do. No-evangelism is simply sharing the good news of God’s love in sending Jesus into the world and it is something that all Christians are called by God to do.
Now why does God want us to do this? Why does He want us to share the gospel with everyone? Why has He given us this mission?
Well the main reason is that God loves people-all people. Every person who has ever been born or ever will be born matters to God. As John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world…that He sent His only Son.” And as 2 Peter 3:9 says, “God does not want anyone to perish, but for everyone to come to repentance.” So this mission comes straight from the heart of God-it is motivated by His great, all-encompassing love for all people.
In fact, completing this mission is the only reason He keeps us here after we become Christians. Think about it. Why doesn’t God take us to heaven the moment we become believers? Have you ever thought about that? Heaven is perfect. Earth is not. It’s full of problems and trials, sin and temptation. Wouldn’t it make sense for our loving Heavenly Father to take us away from this fallen world-just beam us to Heaven the moment we respond to His love and become Christians? To answer this dilemma Warren points to the fact that there are only two things we can’t do in heaven – sin, and tell people who don’t know it the Good News about God’s love. Well which of these two things do you think God keeps us here on earth to do? The answer is obvious isn’t it! The only reason God keeps us here after we come to Christ is because He wants us to share the Good News of the Gospel with people who haven’t heard. He wants us to tell all the people we can what He has done for us and what He waits to do for them so that more and more people will respond to His love by giving their hearts and lives to Jesus.
How do we complete this Great Commission? What do we need to know in order for us to fulfill this 5th purpose that God has given each of us?
1. The first thing we must understand is that people both need and want to hear the Good News of the Gospel.
This week I attended the annual meeting of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware over in Ocean City. In one of our sessions a church starter named Andy Elders, who is planting a new church in Bethany Beach, reported that one day as he was surveying the community he noticed a bunch of men his age playing football. He quickly called his wife and asked her to bring a cooler full of sodas so he could given them to the men and then invite them to church. And it worked. Several of the men ended up not only coming to church but also coming to Christ. Well, Andy began to weep as he shared this great news with us. He apologized for his lack of emotional control by saying, “I’m sorry….I just have this burning desire in my heart to share my faith with lost people because, you see, I remember what it was like not to know Jesus.”
And you know, I think many of us don’t remember. We’ve forgotten how lonely and empty and lost we felt before we came to Jesus in repentance and faith. In fact, if you’re like me you grew up in a Christian home and accepted Jesus early on so you don’t even have memories like this. Well, we all need to remember…we all need to understand…that lost people in the world desparately need to hear the Good News of God’s love!
Ephesians 2 says that without Christ, people are, “spiritually dead” and “without hope.”
Colossians 1 says they are “prisoners in the domain of darkness…..enemies of God and cut off from Him.”
In Matthew 9:36, Jesus said that without Him people are without real direction and purpose.
Titus 3:3 says that non-Christians are “enslaved by the pleasures and passions of this world.”
And then, the thing we most need to understand about lost people is that as 2 Thessalonians 1:9 says, without Christ they are destined for Hell. Listen to the horrible fate that awaits people who die without Christ: “They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of His power.”
Andrew Meekens, an elder in the International Evangelical Church of Addis Ababa, was one of those who died on November 23, 1996 when a hijacked jet ran out of fuel and crashed near the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean. Perhaps you remember the dramatic video footage of that crash. Well, according to survivors, after the pilot announced he would attempt an emergency landing, Meekens stood up and spoke, calming passengers on the Ethiopian Airlines flight. Meekens then presented the gospel of Jesus Christ and invited people to respond. A surviving flight attendant said that 20 people accepted Christ before that plane went down. Now, Meekens did this-He used the last few minutes of his life witnessing because he believed in the reality of hell. He knew that eternity was only seconds away so he shared the Good News that would prepare the crash victims to face it.
And, you know, in a sense eternity is only seconds away for all of us. James 4:13-14 says, “You do not even know what will happen tomorrow. Your life is a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” There is a hell, friends. We must never forget this fact that is so clearly taught in God’s Word. And people are going to Hell unless we give them an opportunity to hear and respond to the Good News that we have been commissioned to share. So it is an understatement to say that our witness is indeed Good News for the lost. I mean, more than anything else, they need to hear what we have to say!
And, not only do they need to hear-they also want to hear. I point this out because I think many of us have bought into the myth that people aren’t interested in spiritual issues and nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, every single poll and every single survey taken these days says that Americans are more interested in spiritual things now than they have been in a long time. For example, I read this week that George Gallup did a survey recently in which they discovered that 65 million Americans have no church home and that 34 million of them said they would attend if somebody would just invite them! I bet a big hunk of those 34 million people are right here in our area-just waiting for someone like you or me to ask them to come to Redland! Another recent Gallup poll showed that today’s teens would rather talk about God than sex, drugs, or music. They actually want to talk with someone about God! All they need is you or me to bring the subject up. Well, these stats show that opportunities to share the Good News are really all around us-they stare us in the face every single day. People are open to hear what we have to say. They are ready to be told.
This week at the convention, every session included testimonies of people who had come to Christ simply because they were invited to do so. It was so moving to hear their stories! It reminded me that just as Jesus said, “The fields are indeed ripe to harvest!” All is needed is for workers like you and me to get out there! (Matthew 9:37ff) And many Christians are out there harvesting souls-in some very creative ways. Warren says he knows a manicurist who shares her faith while she holds her customer’s hands and works on their nails. Talk about a captive audience! He also tells of an eye doctor in his church who put the Four Spiritual Laws on the eye chart in his office. Can you imagine it?
“Okay sir, please read the line on the top”
“God….loves…you…and has a wonderful plan for your life…”
“Very good….now law two-I mean line two…” And so on!
And you guys can be just as creative as these Saddleback members-I encourage you to do that. Ask God to help you know how best to share with people who need to hear the Gospel who live next door or who sit next to you on the Metro. Remember, not only do they need to hear the good news-they are ready! They want to hear the news God has given you to share.
And to help you get started, we’ve included a special calling card in each bulletin for you to use this week. I’m praying that God will open the door for you to share it with someone at work or the grocery store and when He answers that prayer I want you to go through it and then I want to hear your stories. So call me or e-mail me and tell me about your experience of sharing the gospel okay?
2. The second thing we need to understand to fulfill this great commission is that evangelism is sharing a person not a plan.
You see, as Christians, we follow a Person, not an idea, not a set of religious codes, and this means that we don’t have to be a documented expert on the Bible in order to share our faith. We simply talk to others about Someone we know….we simply introduce them to the person of Jesus Christ. Remember, this is what the disciple Philip did when He met Jesus. John 2 says that Philip immediately went and found his friend Nathaniel and invited him to “come and see” Jesus for himself. Philip’s evangelistic “come and see” technique was effective because when Nathaniel met Jesus and talked with Him he responded by boldly exclaiming, “You are the Son of God!”
And that is what we do when we reach in the name of Christ. We introduce lost people to a real Person. The goal of evangelism is not to obtain decisions for Christ as much as it is to introduce people to Christ.
You may have heard that our own Todd Jones was called as pastor of Colesville Baptist Church last Sunday. He begins his duties as their under-shepherd next Sunday. Isn’t that good news?! Doesn’t that make you feel justifiably proud to know that one of the people who grew up here at Redland is now following God’s call in this way?! Well, when it comes time for our next associational ministers’ lunch I’m going to go and introduce Todd to the other pastors in our area. I’m going to do this because I know Todd and the rest of my peers don’t, so this is my responsibility. I won’t introduce Todd by saying, “Guys, Todd is this high and weighs this much and here is his seminary transcript.” No of course not. I’ll do much better than that. I’ll take Todd with me and say, “Here is Todd Jones, come and meet him.” Well, we do the same thing when we share our faith. We simply introduce people to the Person of Jesus Christ.
You know, many of us are uncomfortable when we think of witnessing. Perhaps it would help for us to understand that witnessing is simply sharing the experiences we have had down through the years in relating to the Person of Jesus. It’s telling another person, “This is what my relationship with the person of Jesus has meant for me. This is how the person of Jesus has changed my life.” It’s that simple. Sharing the gospel is basically sharing a witness of your experience. Jesus doesn’t want us to be His defense attorney. He doesn’t want us to be His prosecutor. He doesn’t want us to be His salesman. All He wants us to do is to be His witness. And you can do that. You may think you have nothing to share, but if you’re a Christian that’s not true. In fact, the longer you have been a Christian, the longer you have related to the Person of Jesus Christ, the more experiences you have to share with people who’ve never met our Lord. You can tell them how Jesus saved you, what that means to you, how He has helped you deal with the problems of life, and so forth. The fact is every child of God has a powerful testimony to share. As 1 John 5:10 says, “Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony of God in them.” 1 Peter 2:9 says that each of us were chosen by God, “to do His work and speak out for Him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference He made for us.” This is the essence of witnessing, simply sharing your personal experiences with Jesus. Warren writes, “There is no other story just like yours so only you can share it. If you don’t share it, it will be lost forever. You may not be a Bible scholar, but you are the authority on your life, and it’s hard to argue with personal experience.”
3. Okay….the third thing we need to understand this mission can only be completed by relying on the power of God.
The fact is you and I don’t have the ability to change lives. We can’t convict people of their sin. We can’t draw people to Jesus. No-only God can do those things. Three scriptures leapt into my mind when I was developing on this point:
A. The first was Acts 1:8 where Jesus says “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and then and only then you will be MY witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
B. Another was Romans 1:16 where Paul wrote, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.”
C. The third was Galatians 2:20, which says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in-through the power of–the Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
You see, the truth is without God’s power it is not only difficult to lead a person to faith in Christ. It is impossible. But in God’s hands we become powerful evangelists.
When missionary Robert Morrison first sailed to China, he was asked, “Do you really expect to make an impression on the idolatry of the great Chinese empire?” In reply Morrison said, “No, sir, but I expect God will.” And he had the right idea because evangelism is done in God’s power and not out own. Many times when I have been sharing my faith with someone I’ve experienced a flood of boldness and courage and insights that I can only attribute to the work of God in and through me. And this is because effective witnessing is done in God’s power and not our own.
4. A fourth thing we must understand to complete our 5th purpose is that effective evangelism is not just what we say…it is also what we do.
I think this is the principle Jesus was referring to in the Sermon on the Mount when He said, that when we “let our light shine before men such that they see our good deeds they will praise our Father Who is in Heaven.” (Matthew 5:16) Our Lord was telling us that doing good deeds, serving other people the way He did will draw lost people to Him.
Doug Nichols served as a volunteer missionary in India in 1967. While there he became ill and was forced to spend several months recuperating in a government-run hospital. Doug didn’t speak the Indian language so he tried to pass out gospel tracts printed in the local dialect to doctors, nurses and fellow patients. But all snubbed him and refused to take a tract. One night not too long before Nichols was released from the hospital, he was awakened by groaning from an old man who was in the bed across the aisle. The next morning his sense of smell told him why the man had been groaning. He had needed to go to the bathroom but was too weak to do so. The stench in the ward was awful. Other patients yelled insults at the old man. Angry nurses moved him roughly from side to side as they cleaned up the mess. One nurse even slapped him. The old man curled up into a ball and wept. Well, the next night the man’s groaning again woke Nichols. He noticed the old man trying to stand and walk to the bathroom but he was so weak he would collapse on the bed. So Nichols got out of his own bed and put his arms under the little old man and picked him up. Listen to Nichol’s own words about this incident: “He was very light due to old age and advanced TB. I carried him to the washroom, which was just a filthy, small room with a hole in the floor. I stood behind him with my arms under his armpits as he took care of himself. Then after he finished, I picked him up, carried him back to his bed. As I laid him down, he kissed me on the cheek, smiled, and said something I didn’t understand.” The next morning another patient in the ward woke Nichols and handed him a steaming cup of tea. The patient motioned with his hands that he wanted one of Nichols’ gospel tracts. As the day went on other patients came and asked for the same booklets about the gospel that Doug had tried to circulate before. Nurses, doctors, interns…everyone wanted the literature. A few days later an evangelist who spoke the language visited Nichols and discovered that several had put their trust in Christ as Savior as a result of reading his tracts.
Okay, what did it take to reach these people for Christ? It wasn’t the ability to speak their language and persuade them to make this decision. It was the simple, compassionate act of ministering to an old man by helping him to the bathroom. Giving enough effort to meet this old man’s physical need made it possible to satisfy the spiritual needs of many people.
One day Fulton Sheen, the famous Catholic bishop, was visiting a leper colony in Africa. He said that as he knelt down to talk to a man whose wounds were very extensive, the chain that he was wearing around his neck broke and the cross on the end of the chain fell into an open, pussy wound on the man’s leg. Sheen said, “You know for a moment I was just repulsed. I wanted to just kind of step back. And then all of a sudden I was filled…I was overcome with love for this person. I reached into the sore and I took up the cross.” Well that is part of what it means to take up our own crosses and follow Jesus-because to fulfill this mission He has given us, we must be His hands and His feet. We must reach into the wounds of this world, ministering as Jesus would, because when we do that people will be open to hear of our experience with Jesus.
5. Finally I want to point out that every Christian is responsible for sharing the Gospel with the WHOLE WORLD.
And I say this because many of us tend to think that world missions is for world missionaries. Many of us think our personal mission is limited to right here where we live. This is a misconception because the Bible teaches that all Christians are responsible for getting the gospel to the entire world. As Jesus said in Mark 16:15 we are to, “Go everywhere in the world, and tell the Good News to everyone.” So, as Warren says, we need to start thinking globally and there are several ways to do so.
A. First, we can pray for specific countries.
In Psalm 2:8 God says, “If you ask Me, I will give you the nations; all the people on earth will be yours.” So all Christians should pray for countries where people have never heard of God’s great love and they should also pray for people to go and tell them. We should pray “for the Lord of the Harvest to send forth reapers.” (Matthew 9:38) It will also help our praying if we will learn to read and watch the news with “great commission eyes.” When I say this, I mean we need to learn to look at crisis in a particular country as an opportunity for the gospel to spread because people are always more open to spiritual things in times like that. When you hear a news blurb about that, pray, pray, pray.
B. A second way to do your part in global mission endeavors is to give financially.
After you have given your tithe, give to offerings like the Lottie Moon Christmas offering or the Annie Armstrong offering, or to the ministry of Cathie Burke in Kenya or to fund our own mission trips.
C. And then third go on a mission trip yourself.
Join our team going to New Hampshire or Mexico or Kenya next year. Actually see missionaries working there. Join with them in their work. And then when you return, you will be able to pray more specifically for them.
These three things will help you to become what Warren refers to as an “Acts 1:8 Christian,” a believer who takes seriously his or her responsibility to take the Gospel to, “Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”
And you know, you are in a great church when it comes to being involved in global missions. Here’s why I say this. Uncle Sam brings people here to our area. Our members lead them to Christ. They join Redland and begin to mature in the faith and then Uncle Sam sends them all over the world. That happens over and over again. Here at Redland we send missionaries all over the world at government expense. We’ve found a way around the separation of church and state issue!
Bill Dixon and Chris Boyum and Chris Lanier are all our missionaries to Iraq. Chris Kates and his wife Melony are our missionaries to the American Indian reservations of Arizona. Al and Phyllis Runzel have been our missionaries to Guam and so on.
And you know, in my mind one of the most powerful examples of this principle is Boyd Robinson. Boyd was a dentist in the Navy, and as most of you know he’s retired now and teaches dentistry at the University of Florida. When Boyd first came to the D. C. area about 15 or so years ago, he was not a Christian. But Dennis and Sheila Woofter invited him to Redland and he came. And the Woofters and another Redland family, the Masslers, shared their faith with Boyd and he responded. He asked Jesus to come into his heart and life. He was baptized by Dr. Brian Connor, our former pastor and he began to grow as a Christian. Well Boyd was sent to the White House, where he served as the dentist for Presidents Reagan and Bush. Can you think of a more pivotal place for a Christian to be salt and light?! Boyd also served in San Diego and in Rhode Island. As I said, he’s now one of the most popular professors on the Gator campus.
So understand, the Gospel was sent to all these pivotal places because Christians here at Redland took their mission seriously, and their actions helped get the Gospel in a place it would not have gone otherwise.
Invitation:
As you know, here at Redland we believe God has called us to be a Grace-Driven church. So we should understand that our salvation, our experience with the person of Jesus Christ, was an incredible gift of grace. We have freely received, and that should compel us to freely give. That’s what it means to be Grace-Driven. In Romans 1:14 Paul said he was grace-driven. He wrote that since he had experienced the grace of God he was “…obligated to share his witness-he was eager to preach the gospel to everyone.”
This morning as we sing, let us all embrace this same obligation and eagerness to "reach in the name of Christ", because people out there desperately need to hear the Good News that we have to share. In fact, you may be one of those people. Why not make this the day that you allow us to introduce you to the person of Jesus Christ? Why not accept His free gift of eternal life and make Him the Lord of your life today? If you will come talk to me now as we sing or even after the service, I will be glad to personally introduce you to Him. There may be other decisions God is leading you to make; to become a part of this church that is situated in a position to impact the entire world. We sing to give you a chance to respond, won’t you do so?