17. Call to Missions
17
CALL TO MISSIONS
The Bible teaches in Luke 12:48 that with every privilege is a corresponding duty. “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” Surely God has not permitted us to be the richest people on earth by chance.
As Christians, how can we not use our position of privilege and wealth to advance the kingdom and win the world to Christ? The acid test of our commitment to Christ is the depth of our involvement in what concerns Him the most—world evangelization.
How can we say He is Lord unless we are seeking to fulfill the greatest longing of His life—to carry out His orders and finish the task He began on the shores of Galilee?
Jesus said in Mark 16:15 that we are to go to the “whole world” with the Gospel. It would appear some people think this means just to people of their race who live on the right side of town. Others with a really “big vision” seem to think it means the country they live in. But Jesus gave a clear command. We must have a world vision that reaches to our own “Jerusalem” as well as our “Judea, Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.”
The benchmark of your love of God is your burden and committed action for the whole world—not just for your small corner of it.
What clever, spiritual-sounding excuses I’ve heard in my travels.
One of the most interesting excuses blames God for our problems. It usually begins with, “But, Brother K.P., you don’t know my ... ” and ends with a sob story about some old defeat, hurt, sin or temptation. I call this the “wounded soldier” excuse.
With love in my heart, the only thing I can say to this excuse-maker is, “I understand. But no matter how badly you’ve been hurt, you’re in a million times better shape than any lost sinner walking down the road to hell. If you think you’ve got problems, how would you like to worship a demon god that demanded you sacrifice your newborn baby by cutting her throat before their deity? How would you like to worship a god that demanded you throw yourself alive into the flames of your husband’s funeral pyre? Or how would you like to be enslaved to a religion that forced you to bow down and worship the rats that were eating your grain and causing your children to starve to death?”
All of this is happening in Asia today and around the world—wherever people are enslaved to heathen religions.
Another excuse that has a nice ring to it goes something like this: “Brother K.P., what about my ________?” You can fill in the blank yourself: career, children, church, education, health, insurance, family, retirement. This excuse is based on the idea that God does not love us and will not provide for us if we serve Him.
There are as many other excuses as there are people, but one of these days, each of us will have to stand alone before God and repeat them if we dare.
Your children. Your boss. Your parents. Your pastor. Your spouse. Your friends. None of them will be there with you then. All the people you’ve tried to impress with your spirituality or sophistication over the years will not be there. You will stand alone and look into the eyes of Jesus. You will have to answer to God for what you did about the lost world.
In Ephesians 2, Paul describes the unredeemed as living for the things of this world and the flesh. Instead, the chief characteristic of our lives is to be that we “seek those things which are above” (Colossians 3:1).
Why not stop this minute and take a spiritual inventory of your life? Are you living for eternal realities, or is your life centered around getting more of the things of this world or protecting what you already have?
When was the last time you laid aside your shopping list, your problems, your needs, your family and said, “Here am I, Lord; send me!”
Spiritual reality always burns with a compelling, driving purpose. Christ has given us as individuals and as a nation the most exciting task imaginable—to be the bearers of His love and salvation to a world lost in sin and darkness.
Into the Heart of Jesus
The heart of the Lord I love beats for the lost. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is one long love story. Until we as believers can enter into that love, we don’t have the strength to pick up our cross and follow Him.
Does this kind of passionate commitment to world evangelism seem unreal to you? Do you not yet weep over lost souls and nations without the knowledge of God? Do immorality and sin no longer affront your sensibilities?
Is all this talk about world evangelism and the kingdom out of touch with your everyday life and concerns?
Are you able to pray for your own salvation, for your family and loved ones—but not for the lost millions of this needy world?
May I then challenge you to pray a simple little prayer that has changed my life forever? I believe it can do for you what it did for me late in 1976.
I’m not sure where I read it, but one day I came across a little anecdote in a booklet about Jonathan Edwards, the great preacher of the 1700s. He was in a dry spell. The spiritual fire had gone out inside. His heart no longer beat with a love for the lost.
In desperation, he fell on his knees and cried out to God, “Please stamp eternity into both of my eyes!”
When I read that, I knelt right then and prayed the very same prayer with all my heart. What a change it has made.
Take your present age and add 100 years to it. Where are you now? Where is your car? Your house? Your library? Your furniture? Your clothes? Where are all the things you worry about, and pray for, and save for—where are they now?
Measured against eternity—nothing of this world makes much difference at all. A hundred years from now, it is unlikely that even one person in the world will remember what we looked like in this life!
But heaven is real. Hell is real. This is what gave Jesus such purpose and urgency in His ministry. Jesus knew the reality of eternal death where lost souls tumble year after year—forever—into a fiery bottomless pit where the flame is not quenched and the worm dieth not.
This is why He could stand and weep over Jerusalem. This is why He kept pressing on relentlessly from one village to the next. This is why He became homeless and hungry and faced danger and rejection. It is why He finally chose to go voluntarily to the cross. This is why He left us with His Great Commission.
You see, Jesus lived with eternity in view. He had come from eternity, and He was going back to eternity. He never was out of touch with spiritual reality. No wonder He could live a life for others as a selfless servant.
Jesus knew that He was “the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me” (John 14:6). Yes, our Lord knew there is a heaven and there is a hell. He knew that He was the only way to get to heaven and not go to hell. That’s why He loved lost souls so desperately and was willing to spend His ministry reaching out to sinners of all kinds—bigots, drunks and prostitutes, as well as respectable religious folks who were just as lost as the rest.
Many times I have struggled with this fact: Jesus is the only way to God—and without Him, lost sinners will spend forever in hell. I have wished it weren’t so, but it is so. Jesus taught it, and that fact sent Him to the cross. Jesus was gripped by a passionate love for the lost, and we need to let ourselves be consumed by the same spiritual reality.
This is the only way we can enter into the reality of His life of love. We have to see the lost world as Jesus sees it. How can we be the Body of Christ if we’re not thinking as He thinks, loving as He loves and being motivated by the things that motivate Him?
In my first book, Revolution in World Missions,[1] I told about my life-changing meeting with Bob Pierce in Singapore. I’ll never forget the tears in his eyes as he prayed, “Lord, break my heart again with the things that break Your heart.”
On the road to spiritual reality, we must come to that point at which we can see the lost world as Jesus does and our hearts break with the concerns that break His.
The Two-Way Test of Maturity
When we learn to see the situation of this lost and dying world as the Lord Jesus does, I believe we must ask two questions about everything we do:
First, does this fulfill the Great Commission?
Second, will this help bring His kingdom?
If you can say yes to both these questions, then you can be almost certain your next move is the right one. These two questions can and must be asked of every activity, purchase or relationship. This is also the acid test of any corporate decision at your church or in any Christian mission—does this new program or purchase square up? Or is it a tangent that takes us away from world evangelism and building the kingdom?
When my wife and I first returned to the reality of this kind of kingdom living back in 1976, I remember even praying about getting a $2 haircut, because in those days that $2 bought 1,000 Gospel tracts. I believe every detail of our lives should be lovingly and prayerfully measured against this yardstick. And I’m not advocating legalism. This is the simple obedience that any love-slave joyfully owes his master! Too many today misunderstand obedience as legalism, just as they confuse knowledge with action.
Jesus makes no apology for demanding obedience in this area. If you’re not putting the kingdom first, how can you be on the road to spiritual reality? You are either in sin and need to repent—or you’re kidding yourself about being a born-again Christian. The word “Christian” means “little Christ”—how can we truly follow Him when we’re in direct disobedience to His most basic demands?