If evangelism is the sharing of the gospel with others, what is missions? This devotion looks at the tasks that are the components of missions.
Nuggets
- One of the tasks disciples are called to do is to live our lives for God.
- Preaching could mean that it is as simple as one person talking to another person, telling how to ABCD.
- We have to perform our mission in the way that God is calling us.
- God will bless our mission when we are doing His Will.
- It isn’t us who will be doing the talking.
Devotions in the What I Believe series
Devotions in the Evangelism and Missions category
What Is Missions?
What Was Jesus’ Mission?
How Is the Mission to be Inclusive?
In the last devotion, we started looking at evangelism. In this devotion, we will start looking at its tie to missions.
Let's Put It into Context
According to the Holman Bible Dictionary, evangelism is “the active calling of people to respond to the message of Grace and commit oneself to God in Jesus Christ.” I really liked how Holman linked evangelism with a deep-rooted concern for people. This concept — even though evangelism isn’t mentioned anywhere is Scriptures — permeates them.
Resource
Evangelism is sharing, as led by the Holy-Spirit, the good news of God’s kingdom to ensure all sinners have heard of God’s love and mercy so that they may choose to accept Jesus as their Savior. Sinners are all people who have not made a genuine profession of faith — who have not sincerely ABCDed.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
On the other hand, missions, according to the Holman Bible Dictionary, is “a task on which God sends a person He has called, particularly a mission to introduce another group of people to salvation in Christ.” While — again — the term missions is not used in the Scriptures, evangelism is accomplished through missions.
Resource
The “Go” Task
“As you go, proclaim, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near’” (Mt. 10: 7 NIV)
One of the tasks disciples are called to do is to live our lives for God. “As you go …” (Mt. 10: 7 NIV) indicates that our lives should reflect Jesus’ imminent coming.
Some may say that Jesus’ words were meant explicitly for the disciples standing in front of Him. No, He was talking to us, too. And we can take heart that Jesus is talking to us.
Look at the disciples. We said before that four were fishermen. There was also a tax collector, a farmer, and a revolutionary. We don’t know the occupations of five of them.
What we do know is what Luke said about them. “Now when they [rulers and elders and scribes] saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Ac. 4: 13 ESV). Not a Pastor Chad-type in the bunch.
We might could argue, as Martin did, that the disciples had special training because they spent three years in direct contact with Jesus. But then, we could say that they had a harder job than we did.
These ordinary men were in on the ground floor of beginning of the religion. They were telling people things they had never heard before. Today, many people at a minimum know Jesus was born on earth.
Neither were they perfect men. Jesus didn’t change them in a twinkling of an eye in order to facilitate the building of His church.
Jesus called ordinary men to change the world. He calls us to change our world.
We are witnesses “as you go …” (Mt. 10: 7 NIV). Elliot said it this way: “Every life is a little Bible — a revelation of God.”
Our mission field is our homes, our work places, our recreational facilities. Wherever we go, we should be on mission for God.
The “Preach” Task
“Then he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation’” (Mk. 16: 15 CSB)
Paul said this about himself. “Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3: 8-11 NIV).
What is preaching? According to the Holman Bible Dictionary, preaching in the Bible is the “human presentation through the Holy Spirit’s power of God’s acts of salvation through Jesus Christ.”
It doesn’t say it has to be on a Sunday morning. It doesn’t say it has to be a Pastor Chad-type. It doesn’t say how many people are needed to constitute an audience.
Spurgeon really expanded the definition. He wrote that preaching “… includes all church work for the spread of the gospel.”
That could mean that it is as simple as one person talking to another person, telling how to ABCD. It is us talking about His love and His grace.
Preaching needs that human touch. The definition of preaching in the Bible went on to say, “a sermon becomes God’s word to us only as God’s servant reconstitutes the past realities of the biblical revelation into vital present experience.”
It is like when Philip preached to the Ethiopian (Act 8: 26-40). The Ethiopian was reading it. He needed more.
“Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Philip asked. ‘How can I,’ he said, ‘unless someone explains it to me?’ So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him” (Ac. 8: 30-31 NIV).
A simple explanation and practical application. That is how we preach. (Remember, it is in our disciple’s job description.)
The Disciple’s Job Description
Complete Job Description
Individual Description
Job Duty #4
Proclaim the Gospel (Mark 16: 15)
The “Obedience” Task
“The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: ‘Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach the message that I tell you.’ Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord’s command” (Jonah 3: 1-3 CSB)
We can learn so much from Jonah.
- God will give us second chances if we genuinely repent. Repentance is expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to changing ourselves through obedience so that we no longer do the wrong things.
- We may be asked to do things that challenge our beliefs because we need to align them with God’s.
- Obedience is the key. Obedience means to hear and carry out the instructions that God gives us.
When we apply this to our mission, we see that God knows we are fallible, imperfect creatures. He will forgive us when we ask. He will still use us to expand His kingdom.
Ray said there are two ways we disobey God regarding our mission. He wrote, “He may not go, may plead excuses, and refuse to try to do the work. Or he may not do what God tells him to do, may do something somewhat like it, but not it.”
We have to perform our mission in the way that God is calling us. It is His kingdom. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. We need to listen to Him.
The “Stay” Task
“But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, because a wide door for effective ministry has opened for me — yet many oppose me” (I Cor. 16: 8-9 CSB)”
Have you ever wanted to move on to a next season in your life, and God was keeping you where you were? We have to listen to Him and do His Will.
God will bless our mission when we are doing His Will. Remember He goes before, with, and after us.
No, our mission work isn’t going to be all rainbows and unicorns. We are going to have challenged. But God will be with us every step of the way when we are genuinely serving Him.
The “Speak” Task
“Now go! I will help you speak and I will teach you what to say” (Ex. 4: 12 NIV).
Unfortunately, we pull a Jonah a lot of times. We make excuses as to why we can’t do the mission God is giving us. We say we can’t speak, as Moses did. Worst case scenario, we flat outrun the other way like Jonah did.
We said in the last devotion that God isn’t in the business of setting us up to fail. God is in the salvation business. He needs us to do our part so that His kingdom is expanded.
We get forgetful like Moses did. Parker wrote, “He has forgotten the promise, ‘Certainly I will be with thee.’”
It isn’t us who will be doing the talking. “For the one whom God sent speaks God’s words, since he gives the Spirit without measure” (Jn. 3: 34 NIV). God will take care of it all.
Many times, we say we don’t know the Bible well enough. “You will be his witness to all people of what you have seen and heard” (Ac. 22: 15 NIV). God wants us to talk about Him and us. He wants us to tell about what we know. Still, we are going to want to know the Bible.
Making the Connections
We all have different tasks that God has called us to do in order to accomplish evangelism. “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4: 11-13 NIV).
One isn’t better than the other. All are needed.
Making the Connections to Self-Discipline
Being on mission for God will cause us to want to know His Word better. We will use self-discipline to accomplish that.
We’ve been looking at defending our beliefs when we are witnessing. That means we have to be secure enough to convince someone to accept our beliefs.
Our questions should still serve us to determine on what we need to focus.
- What does the Scriptures say?
- What do I believe?
- Why do I believe the same/differently than the Scriptures?
- What are the talking points when witnessing to a non-believer?
Related Links
I have created a worksheet of the questions above. Click on the button below to access it.
How Do We Apply This?
Cuyler wrote, “But every living Christian is a preacher. Every prayerful, Ernest, godly life is a sermon.”
But we can’t just rely on others seeing us live our lives and get God’s message. We have to talk with them. We have to build the relationship so that we can make an impact in their lives.
We also rely on missionaries and mission trips to get the job done. We have to act like we are on mission every day of our lives — where ever we go and with whomever we come in contact.
Father God. We wait for You to send us. We diligently perform the tasks You assign to us. We will go where You send us; we will stay where You plant us. Through our lives and our words, we will preach Your gospel to those who need to hear. May we always be obedient to You. Amen.
What do you think?
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