Making a Difference through Missions
The World: The Motive for Missions
Mark 16:15
One of the great names in missions is Henry Martyn He lived from 1781-1812, and was an English missionary to India and what was then called Persia. When he arrived in Calcutta in April, 1806 he made the statement, "Now let me burn out for God!" Little did he know how fast he would burn out for God.
Only six years later, at the young age of 31, Henry Martyn was dead. While traveling to Constantinople, he became ill with fever and died. He was buried by strangers and unbelievers at Tocat, Turkey. However, Martyn compressed a lifetime of service into those six short years.
Let me share with you a quote by Martyn that I will share with you over the next three weeks. He said, "The Spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, and the nearer we get to him, the more intensely missionary we must become."
I want us to spend this month thinking about missions. Tonight and next Sunday evening Bro. Jimmy will lead commitment services for our summer mission trips. On the last Sunday of this month, Tim Gentry, Evangelism Group Leader for the BGCO will be with us to talk about our work through the Cooperative Program. And on the next three Sunday mornings I want us to take a look at “Making a Difference through Missions”.
You don't have to attend Trinity Baptist Church very long to realize that mission's is a very important part of what we are and what we do. You could say that a major artery of this Church is missions. We are the only church in the area with a staff member who has a specific assignment to missions.
Every year a significant number of our congregation is involved in mission trips. Thousands of dollars are given by this place every year for missions. In my opinion, one of the greatest things that could be said about our church is our commitment to missions.
I believe, like Martyn, that the nearer we get to Christ the more intensely mission-minded we will become as a Church and as individual Christians. It is easy as a Church to gradually develop an attitude that missions is just one of the many things we do as a church.
But I want us to see that missions are an extremely important part of what we do. In fact, I believe missions are vital to being what we should be and do as a Church. And beyond that, it directly impacts you on an individual level in that being on mission is vital to being what you should be and do as a Christian.
It has been said that a church without missions is a church without a mission. Another has said that a Church that doesn't care about missions is a mission field. Still another has said that a church that is not a missionary church will soon be a missing church.
In Mark 16:15 we have Mark's version of what has become known as the "Great Commission."
Over the next three weeks, I want to take the different segments of this verse and see how we make a difference through missions.
Mark 16:15
Today, I want us to look at the words "all the world," because there we find the motive for missions.
What is the motive for missions? It is reaching "all the world" for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Oswald Chambers said, "When the Spirit of God comes into a man, he gives him a worldwide outlook." Mission's is having a worldwide outlook. The spirit of missions is looking at our camily and neighborhood; our city and state. But it goes further than that. It is having a worldwide outlook as a Church and as a Christian. Today, let's look at the world.
First, think with me about:
1. God's Love Revealed To The World
The "world" is the object of God's love. Perhaps the most familiar verse in the Bible is John 3:16. It has been called, "Everybody's Text." It declares God's great love for we read, "For God so loved the world."
What is the proof of God's love? Is it health or wealth? The proof of God's love is that He gave His Son for us.
If you ever doubt God's love for you then remind yourself that God SO loved you, and all the people of the world, that He was willing to give His Son for you.
God gave His Son. Why? Why would God do that? did He give His Son and to what did He give His Son? In the greatest act of love the world has ever known, God gave His Son to die for our sins.
Someone has said that God loves you so much that if He had a refrigerator in heaven, your picture would be on it. I like that, but when it comes to seeing how much God really loves us, we must look at the cross. That is where you see how much He loves you. He loves you so much that He gave His Son to die in your place on the cruel cross. That is the great expression and the extent of how much God's loves the world.
When we talk about the world we are talking about a world that is loved by God. Robert Moyer wrote: "It reaches into the icy huts of Greenland's mountains; it flows into the Orient, to water the lives of India's teeming millions; into the lonely jungles of Africa to quicken the soul of the savage Bushman. God's love is abundant, its supply so inexhaustible that it above all and for all."
There is not person upon the face of this earth that is not loved by God. God's love is not limited to a particular race or nationality. Neither is it limited to a specific country or place. His love is universal. John 3:16 declares, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." His love is a "whosoever" love.
As a Southern Baptists, we support missionaries who are serving in Central America, South America, Russia, Eastern Europe, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, to just name a few.
Not one of these missionaries is serving in a land or among a people that is not loved by God. When God gave His Son, He gave Him for all peoples. When Jesus died, He died for those of all races and nationalities. Both reveal God's love for the world.
So when we talk about the motive for missions we are talking about letting the world know of God's love. It is letting the world know that God loved the world so much He gave His Son for them.
Secondly, as we think about the world, I want you to think about:
2. God's Grace Required By The World
The Bible says in Titus 2:11, "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men." John 3:16 speaks of a universal love--"God so loved the world." Titus 2:11 speaks of a universal salvation.
The grace of God has brought salvation to "all men." The truth of salvation reminds us that the world is not only loved by God, but the world is also lost before God.
Why do all men need to be saved? It is simply because all men are lost. The Bible is clear about the matter of all men being lost. In Romans 3:23 we read, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Sin is a universal problem.
The whole world is lost without God. All men, regardless of race or nationality, are sinners, sinners who are lost. Sin is a universal problem.
Sin is not just an African problem. It is not just a Hispanic problem. It is not just a caucasian problem. It is a universal problem. Every man on the face of this heart has a sin problem.
But thank God, the Bible tells us in Titus 2:11, "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men." Through the grace of God, salvation has been provided for all men. There is not one person who has to go to hell. All men may be lost, but Jesus died for all men.
Paul said in 1 Timothy 4:10, "For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men." Paul said that the reason he labored as He did, and suffered what he did, was because Jesus is the Savior of all men. Paul was a missionary and his great passion was to tell men that Jesus had died to save them from their sins.
What is mission's all about? It is about telling a world that Christ died for their sins! It telling the world that Jesus is the Savior of the world! This is why Churches give to missions. This is why missionaries go into "all the world" preaching the Gospel.
When I speak of the grace of God required by the world, I am referring to the fact that all men need to be saved. Salvation is a universal requirement. There is no man upon the face of this earth who does not need to be saved. This is the great need among men.
- COMFORT - A mother comforts her daughter in a tent city in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after the massive earthquake of January 2010. A year later, many thousands of Haitians remain in dirty, dangerous tent camps as the nation struggles to rebuild.
- AFTERMATH - A woman sits amid the rubble outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, one of thousands of buildings destroyed in the January 2010 earthquake. Her despair captures the plight of Haitians following the quake. They continue to recover with the aid of Southern Baptists and others.
- AMID THE RUINS - Residents of Constitución, Chile, survey the ruins left by a 10-foot-high tsunami that slammed into the coastal city following a February 2010 earthquake. The local Baptist church escaped damage. It became a shelter for survivors and a distribution center for relief supplies delivered by missionaries and Chilean Baptists.
- A PATCH OF GROUND - Mothers and children sell produce beside train tracks in Dhaka, Bangladesh. There, as in many Asian cities, poverty and overpopulation force people into every livable space — even inches from active train tracks.
- NOT FORGOTTEN - Already high from sniffing glue at 9 a.m., a boy sits with his “family” — other homeless boys — at a train station in Kolkata, India. A Christian worker visits the children at the station to minister to them and invite them to a hostel he runs for abandoned children.
- STUDYING GOD'S WORD - A woman listens to the leader of a small-group Bible study in a slum area of South Asia. Thousands of such groups begun by missionaries and local believers meet daily around the world. Many become churches.
- KIDS GAMES - Children wait for the “Kids Games” to get started at a church just outside of George, South Africa. Many local South African churches hold games for children to keep them out of trouble during long school breaks. Kids also learn about the love of Jesus Christ. Young people under age 20 comprise increasing majorities in many countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
- FRIDAY PRAYERS - During Friday prayers in Kolkata, India, the street outside a mosque fills as far as the eye can see with Muslim men bowing toward Mecca. South Asia is home to more Muslims than the Arab world.
Like you and me, they are sinners who need a Savior. Salvation is their greatest need. It is the greatest need of the whole world. This is why we support missionaries. This is why we send missionaries. It is to tell the world that the grace of God has brought salvation to all men.
Lastly, I want you to think with me about:
3. God's Wrath Reserved For The World
We often forget that the God of love is also a God of wrath. The Bible says in Psalm 9:7-8, "But the LORD shall endure forever: He hath prepared His throne for judgment. And He shall judge the world in righteousness..." The Bible says in Psalm 96:13, "Before the LORD: for He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth: He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with His truth."
If there is anything that ought to motivate a Church and a Christian to be mission-minded, it is the eternal destiny of those who die without Jesus Christ. God loves all men, but as a righteous and holy God, His wrath is reserved for those who die lost.
Understand that those who die lost without God will spend eternity in hell. The Bible says in Psalm 9:17, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." Why do we as a Church make mission's such a priority? Why do missionaries leave family and friends to serve in distant lands? It is because peoples of the world are lost and dying and going to hell.
Isaiah said in Isaiah 5:14, "Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure."
Every day the population of hell increases by the thousands. According the World Fact Book, there are approximately 8.78 deaths per 1,000 people each year. Considering our world population is over 6 billion; that means more than 56 million die each year, or over 153 thousand every day.
Of the 153,000 that die every day, I wonder how many died lost without God? Yes, hell enlarges itself every day. I am safe in saying that every day literally thousands of people die and go to hell. Even as we have sat in this service, hell has been enlarged by several hundred.
When we see the needs of the world around us, we need to realize that millions of the world are in danger of going to hell. When you meet people does it ever cross your mind that that person will spend eternity in either heaven or hell? To you see them as someone who is in danger of dying lost without God?
I think of the words of C.T. Studd said, "Some wish to live within the sound of church and chapel bell. I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell." This is the motive of missions! The world is lost! The world needs Christ! Missions is doing everything we can that the whole world hears the gospel. As a Church we want to do everything we can to keep people from going to hell. As Christians, we want to do our part to see that the world knows that Christ died for them.
Let me draw your attention once again to the statement by Henry Martyn. He said, "The Spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, and the nearer we get to him, the more intensely missionary we must become." The closer we get to God, the more we will care about missions. Why? God loves the world. The great passion of His heart is saving people.
Therefore, the closer we get to Him the more we understand what He cares about.
Let me ask you in closing, HOW WILL YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN MISSIONS? What will you do help reach the world with the gospel? Will you pray? Will you give? Will you go?
