A MISSIONS MANDATE
#098 A MISSIONS MANDATE
Scripture Psalm 96:1-13 NIV Orig. 12-3-61
Rewr. 11-28-79
Passage: 1 Sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Sing to the Lord, praise his name;
proclaim his salvation day after day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous deeds among all peoples.
4 For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
he is to be feared above all gods.
5 For all the gods of the nations are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
6 Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and glory are in his sanctuary.
7 Ascribe to the Lord, all you families of nations,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering and come into his courts.
9 Worship the Lord in the splendor of his[a] holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth.
10 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns.”
The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity.
11 Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
let the sea resound, and all that is in it.
12 Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them;
let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.
13 Let all creation rejoice before the Lord, for he comes,
he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples in his faithfulness
Purpose: To call my people to the high goal of response to the nobility of the task found in missions, and doing all that we can to further His cause.
Keywords: Missions God’s Word Jesus the King
Timeline/Series: Lottie Moon
Introduction
A pastor friend here in the city share a counseling burden through which he had recently gone. It had to do with a 22-year-old mother of two children, whose husband had tired of the boredom of relationship and went off looking for his thing. Her inability to cope with this situation, the responsibility, the loneliness, the inequity, brought her finally to her pastor’s study.
Before the hour had passed, He knew that she was facing far more than just this debilitating circumstance. He recognized that this young woman’s life was in jeopardy. Somebody was going to have to do something, and soon. Discovering that there was no one else who would help, my pastor friend went to the Orleans Parish coroner’s office. There he was advised to secure the services of a lawyer who could appeal to the courts for this woman’s admission into a mental health unit. This in turn would enable the Court to order the appropriate agencies to take action on behalf of this young woman.
Before this process could be secured, my friend’s counselee took her own life. I do not know what happened to the young husband, and I must honestly say I do not care. I do not know what happened to the two small children, bereft first of their father, who did not love them, and then of their mother, who most assuredly did. But for them I do care. Our responsibility in missions is facing up to the fact that we are living in a world fraught with the burdens of broken relationships; destitute with the inequities with which some people brutalize other people. We are living in a world where we Christians are the only ones who have the answer. Our responsibility is to heed “A Missions Mandate” for the world’s sake. The world, like this desperate young woman, cannot long cope with what is happening to it. We American Christians are spending our time trying to find a negotiated answer, which will permit someone else to do the dirty work, when the only answer is in the giving of ourselves.
I. A Missions Mandate Declares the Purpose of Missions. V3 Declare His glory among the heathen, His wonders among all people. The principal purpose is to reveal God’s love. This aspect of God’s character has taken a beating. Only its truth has enabled this love to break through the barriers of human pretense.
I surely do not need to do more than remind you of the injustices carried out in the name of Jesus. The Arab, Khomeini, is not the first of his kind to preach his gospel of hate, and murder, in the name of God. God will deal with him and his kind appropriately, but we best be ready to stand by our guns. This present crisis may yet involve us all. Perhaps it is an appropriate time to remind you that Muslim faith was under the gun of its founder, Mohammed, who conceived it as a mixture of Jewish, Christian, Greek, and Roman influences. Of all of the great prophets, he passed himself off as the greatest, even the Holy Spirit promised by Christ.
How many people do you know about whose lives would be very, very different if there were just one person to show them love? In that purpose inspired by love is the offer of salvation. It is an offer made unconditionally. It is an offer made irrevocably. My insurance company sold me a policy to protect my car. They didn’t tell me at the time, but part of that policy was conditional and revocable. The coverage on breakage becomes deductible after I file a couple of claims.
It is an offer made through Jesus because only in Him is God’s love fully measured.
Involved with that purpose is the understanding that we who follow Him must declare His glory before all people. Nothing else portrays His love as Jesus does. The Jews had failed as a people to respond to this love. Amos 3:2 You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
II. A Missions Mandate Proclaims the Message of Missions. V10 Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved. Our principal message is to tell the world that the Lord reigns. No greater service can you render your king than to let him reign in your heart. No greater gift can be given from the human heart than to announce yourself subject unto your Lord.
Years ago, an English king went to hear a little-known minister. As the scripture was being read, the King whispered something to his consort. The minister turned from the scripture and declared: When the lion roars, the other beasts are silent; when the kings of the earth speak, then all others become quiet; but when the King of Glory speaks, even the kings of the earth shall keep silent and listen.
To say that our Lord reigns is to acknowledge that He has the temper of human history under His hand. In 1812, Adoniram Judson went to Burma, paid for, by the way, by the offerings of other people. He labored there for six years before he had his first convert. He spent untold numbers of hours translating the Bible into the Burmese tongue. In all of his ministry there, part of which was spent in jail, he witnessed only a few hundred conversions. How many of us, knowing such rigors, would have advised him that it wasn’t worth it to spend his life that way. Yet, because they have the message, because one man’s life stood under the Lordship of Christ, there are hundreds of thousands of believers in that place today. Can you think of one place where, because you lived there, there is one person who has become a believer?
Can you think of one place where, because you lived there, one person became a believer who otherwise would not? We are bearers of a seed that will propagate itself. We are to see that it gets to some. They then must see that it is taken to others.
Those through whom you heard and believed were faithful. Will those who wait for you be so fortunate? In the library at the Prague, there is displayed a triad of medallions dated 1572. On the first. Wycliffe, the Bible translator, can be seen striking sparks from a stone. On the second, the great martyr Hus is seen kindling a flame from the sparks. The last contains the image of Martin Luther holding high a flaming torch. They were an Englishman, a Bohemian, and a German, united in faithfulness.
III. A Missions Mandate Elicits a Picture of Our Victory Through Missions. V12f Let the field be joyful and all that is therein; then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord: for He cometh, He cometh to judge the earth; He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with His truth.
Make no mistake about it, God’s offer of salvation is offered to all mankind. Are you inclined to doubt your ability and capability? So am I! It was for this very reason that the disciples heard their Lord, and they looked at the multitudes around them, and observed the handful of loaves and fishes. John 6:9 “What are these among so many?”
The same One who strengthened the faith of those first disciples offers us His strength today. There is that most-quoted of verses Philippians 2:10f That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, . . . And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
It is unquestionably the destiny of the people of God. Habakkuk viewed this destiny when he declared, “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Isaiah proclaimed it when he wrote “The wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together; and the little child shall lead them.” Micah believed it. “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not rise up against nation, neither shall they study war anymore.” And John in Revelation gave a final testimonial. “After this I looked, and beheld a great multitude, which no man could number, from every nation and from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb.’”
Isn’t it time for you to give your life to Jesus? Isn’t it time to stop playing religious games when so much is at stake?