Revolution in World Missions

Chapter 19, The Church's Primary Task God obviously is moving mightily among Native believers. These are the wonderful final days of Christian history. Now is the time for the whole family of God to unite and share with one another as the New Testament church did, the richer churches giving to the poorer. The body of Christ in the East is looking to the West to link hands with them in this time of harvest and to support the work with the material blessings that God has showered upon them. With the love and support of North American believers, we can help Native evangelists and their families march forward and complete the task of world evangelization in this century. As I sit on platforms and stand in pulpits all across North America, I am speaking on behalf of the Native brethren. God has called me to be the servant of the needy brothers who cannot speak up for themselves in North America. As I wait to speak, I look out over the congregation and I often pray for some of the missionaries by name. Usually I pray something like this, Lord Jesus, I'm about to stand here on behalf of Thomas John and P.T. Stephen tonight. May I represent them faithfully. Help us meet their needs through this meeting. Of course, the names of the Native missionaries change each time, but I believe the will of God will not be accomplished in our generation unless this audience and many others like it respond to the cry of the lost. Each of us must follow the Lord in the place to which He has called us, the Native evangelist in His land and the sponsors here in this land. Some obey by going, others obey by supporting. Even if you cannot go to Asia, you can fulfill the Great Commission by helping send Native brothers to their pioneer fields. This and many other similar truths about missions are no longer understood in the West. Preaching and teaching about missions has been lost in most of our churches. The sad result is seen everywhere. Most believers no longer can define what a missionary is, what he or she does, or what the work of the church is as it relates to the Great Commission. A declining interest in missions is the sure sign that a church and people have left their first love. Nothing is more indicative of the moral decline of the West than Christians who have lost the passion of Christ for a lost and dying world. The older I become, the more I understand the real reason millions go to hell without hearing the gospel. Actually, this is not a mission problem. As I said earlier, it is a theological problem, a problem of misunderstanding and unbelief. Many churches have slipped so far from biblical teaching that Christians cannot explain why the Lord left us here on earth. All of us are called for a purpose. Some years ago when I was in North India, a little boy about eight years old watched me as I prepared for my morning meditations. I began to talk to him about Jesus and ask him several questions. What are you doing? I asked the lad. I go to school, was the reply. Why do you go to school? To study, he said. Why do you study? To get smart. Why do you want to get smart? So I can get a good job. Why do you want to get a good job? So I can make lots of money. Why do you want to make lots of money? So I can buy food. Why do you want to buy food? So I can eat. Why do you want to eat? To live. Why do you live? At that point, the little boy thought for a minute, scratched his head, looked me in the face and said, Sir, why do I live? He paused for a moment in mid-thought, then gave his own sad answer, to die. The question is the same for all of us. Why do we live? What is the basic purpose of your living in this world as you claim to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ? Is it to accumulate wealth, fame, popularity, to fulfill the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and somehow to survive, and in the end to die and hopefully go to heaven? No. The purpose of your life as a believer must be to obey Jesus when he said, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. That is what Paul did when he laid down his arms and said, Lord, what do you want me to do? If all of your concern is about your own life, your job, your clothes, your children's good clothes, healthy bodies, a good education, a good job, and marriage, then your concerns are no different from a heathen's in Bhutan, Myanmar, or India. In recent months, I've looked back on those seven years of village evangelism as one of the greatest learning experiences of my life. We walked in Jesus' steps, incarnating and representing him to masses of people who had never heard the gospel. When Jesus was here on earth, his goal was to do nothing but the will of his Father. Our commitment must be only his will. Jesus is no longer walking on earth. We are his body. He is our head. That means our lips are the lips of Jesus. Our hands are his hands. Our eyes, his eyes. Our hope, his hope. My wife and children belong to Jesus. My money, my talent, my education all belong to Jesus. So what is his will? What are we to do in this world with all of these gifts he has given us? As my Father hath sent me, even so I send you are his instructions. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. John chapter 20 verse 21, Matthew chapter 28 verses 19 through 20. Every Christian should know the answers to the following three basic questions about missions in order to fulfill the call of our Lord to reach the lost world for his name. One, what is the primary task of the church? Each of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John gives us a mandate from our Lord Jesus. The mission statement of the church known as the Great Commission. See Matthew chapter 28 verses 18 through 20. Mark chapter 16 verses 15 through 16. Luke chapter 24 verse 47 and John chapter 20 verse 21. The Great Commission reveals the reason God has left us here in this world, the main activity of the church until Jesus returns as the King of Kings to gather us to himself. He desires us to go everywhere, proclaiming the love of God to a lost world. Exercising his authority and demonstrating his power, we are to preach the gospel, make disciples, baptize, and teach people to obey all the commands of Christ. This task involves more than handing out leaflets, holding street meetings, or showing compassionate love to the sick and hungry, although these may be involved. But the Lord wants us to continue as his agents to redeem and transform the lives of people. Disciple making, as Jesus defined it, obviously involves the long time process of planting local churches. Note, too, that the references to the Great Commission are accompanied by promises of divine power. The global expansion of the church obviously is a task for a special people who are living intimately enough with God to discern and exercise his authority. 2. Who is a missionary? A missionary is anyone sent by the Lord to establish a new Christian witness where such a witness is yet unknown. Traditionally defined missionary activity usually involves leaving our own immediate culture for another, taking the gospel to people who differ in at least one aspect, such as language, nationality, race, or tribe from our own ethnic group. For some reason, many North Americans have come to believe that a missionary is only someone from the West who goes to Asia, Africa, or some other foreign land. Not so. When a former Hindu Brahmin crosses the subtle caste lines of India and works among low-caste people, he should be recognized as a missionary just as much as a person who goes from Detroit to Calcutta. Christians in the West must abandon the totally unscriptural idea that they should support only white missionaries from America. Today, it is essential that we support missionaries going from South India to North India, from one island of the Philippines to another, or from Korea to China. Unless we abandon the racism implied in our unwritten definition of a missionary, we never will see the world reach for Christ. While governments may close the borders of their countries to Western missionaries, they cannot close them to their own people. The Lord is raising up such an army of national missionaries right now, but they cannot go unless North Americans will continue to support the work as they did when white Westerners were allowed. 3. Where is the Mission Field? One of the biggest mistakes we make is to define mission fields in terms of nation-states. These are only political boundaries established along arbitrary lines through wars or by natural boundaries such as mountain ranges and rivers. A more biblical definition conforms to linguistic and tribal groupings. Thus, a mission field is defined as any cultural group that does not have an established group of disciples. The Arabs of New York City, for example, or the people of the Hopi Indian tribes in Dallas are unreached people groups in the United States. More than 10,000 such hidden people groups worldwide represent the real pioneer mission fields of our time. They will be reached only if someone from outside their culture is willing to sacrifice his or her own comfortable community to reach them with the gospel of Christ. And to go and do so, that person needs believers at home who will stand behind him with prayers and finances. The native missionary movement in Asia, because it is close at hand to most of the world's unreached peoples, can most easily send the evangelists. But they cannot always raise the needed support among their destitute populations. This is where Christians in the West can come forward, sharing their abundance with God's servants in Asia. Missionary statesman George Verver believes most North American Christians are still only playing soldiers. But he also believes, as I do, that across America, individuals and groups want to arouse the sleeping giant in our nation to support the missionaries needed for Asian evangelization. We should not rest until the task is complete. You may never be called personally to reach the hidden peoples of Asia. But through soldier-like suffering at home, you can make it possible for millions to hear overseas. Today I am calling on Christians to give up their stale Christianity, use the weapons of spiritual warfare, and advance against the enemy. We must stop skipping over verses that read, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. And so likewise whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple. Were these verses written only for the native missionaries who were on the front lines being stoned and beaten and going hungry for their faith? Or were they written only for North American believers comfortably going through the motions of church, teaching conferences, and concerts? Of course not. These verses apply equally to Christians in Bangkok, Boston, and Bombay. To quote George Verver, some missionary magazines and books leave one with the impression that worldwide evangelization is only a matter of time. More careful research will show that in densely populated areas, the work of evangelism is going backward rather than forward. In view of this, our tactics are simply crazy. Perhaps 80% of our efforts for Christ, weak as they often are, still are aimed at only 20% of the world's population. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars are poured into every kind of Christian project at home, especially buildings, while only a thin trickle goes out to the regions beyond. Half-hearted saints believe by giving just a few hundred dollars, they have done their share. We all have measured ourselves so long by the man next to us, we barely can see the standards set by men like Paul or by Jesus himself. During the Second World War, the British showed themselves capable of astonishing sacrifices, as did many other nations. They lived on meager, poor rations. They cut down their railings and sent them for weapons manufacture. Yet today, in what is more truly a spiritual world war, Christians live as peacetime soldiers. Look at Paul's injunctions to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2 verses 3-4. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. We seem to have a strange idea of Christian service. We will buy books, travel miles to hear a speaker on blessings, pay large sums to listen to a group singing the latest Christian songs, but we forget that we are soldiers. Day after day, I continue with this one message. Hungry, hurting native missionaries are waiting to go to the next village with the gospel, but they need your prayer and financial support. We are facing a new day in missions, but it requires the cooperation of Christians in both the East and West.