MISSIONS: GO...TELL...GIVE...PRAY

“The mission of the church is missions.”

Oswald J. Smith

 
This past May, Davy and Natalie Lloyd, a young married missionary couple from the U.S., alone with Jude Montis, the local director of Missions in Haiti Inc were all fatally shot by gangs in northern Port-au-Prince after leaving a youth group activity at church. Davy and Natalie joined Missions in Haiti, as missionaries after they were married in 2022. They loved Haiti and its people and ultimately gave everything for them. They reached countless lives and were selfless and full of love and devotion to the people of Haiti.
  It’s estimated that there are 100,000 Christians martyred every year. The history of the Church from the days of the Apostles is one overflowing with blood and sacrifice as men and women have left the safety of their homes and native lands to share the gospel on the fields of the world and paid the ultimate price to advance Christ’s Kingdom.
  Though Jesus commanded Christ-followers to go to the far ends of the world with the gospel, for the most part that’s neglected in the contemporary church. For example, the northern part of Yemen has 8 million people. That’s twice the population of the entire state of Kentucky.   Do you know how many believers there are out of those 8 million people? 20 or 30. There are more believers in a small group of most churches than in all of northern Yemen.
  Over 2 billion people in the world today are classified as unreached, which means more than “unsaved” but that the gospel is simply not accessible to them. Over 6,000 people groups with over 2 billion people in them are not yet reached with the gospel. 
  What is the right perspective to have in supporting missions? The Bibles teaches that every Christ-follower is called to be a missionary whether we serve in missions at home or abroad. We all are called to go throughout the world and make disciples (Matthew 28:19). Yet, most believers don’t even pray for missionaries or lost people groups. For example, we are rightly angered at the evil some Muslims do, yet rarely pray for the coming to Christ of some 1.7 billion Muslims in the world.
  Then, we must remember that God has chosen to do the work of missions through the financial support of faithful saints. When God sent His Son to do the work of missions on the earth, He chose to provide for Him through the faithful financial support of others. Luke 8:3 says: “Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.”
  The Lord Jesus was provided for through the faithful support of others and specifically through women, who had a low standing in that society. When God sent Elijah to Sidon, he commanded a widow to provide for him there (1 Kings 17:9). When God called for Nehemiah to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem, God gave him favor with the Persian king to pay for it (Nehemiah 2). The Apostle Paul was supported by the Philippians who were extremely poor as seen in 2 Corinthians 8:1-2: “And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.” Yet today it can sometimes take years for a missionary to raise the support needed to go to a foreign field. As Chuck Colson wrote, “When the church fails to break the [cultural] barrier, both sides lose. Those who need the gospel message of hope and the reality of love, don’t get it, and the isolated church keeps evangelizing the same people over and over until its only mission finally is to entertain itself.”
  Too often we can be so focused on the American Church, that we forget that the mission is the fields of the world. It’s astounding what God can do with just one Christ-follower committed to serving Him. For example, Peter Cameron Scott founded what is now known as the Africa Inland Mission near the end of the 19^th century. Few organizations have done more to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ on the African continent in the last century than AIM. A Washington Post article from 2015 says, “Over the past 100 years, Christians grew from less than 10% of Africa’s population to its nearly 500 million today. One out of four Christians in the world presently is in Africa, and the Pew Research Center estimates that will grow to 40 percent by 2030.” This incredible transformation on the African continent can be traced in a large part to Peter Cameron Scott and the Africa Inland Mission.
  But Peter Cameron Scott almost completely gave up his mission to spread the gospel across Africa before it even got going. He first went as a missionary to Africa as a young man but got Malaria and had to return to Britain to recover. In his second attempt, he brought his brother John with him to Africa. But John quickly became ill and died. Peter Cameron Scott buried his brother all alone in Africa and renewed his commitment to preach the gospel in Africa. Unfortunately, he became ill again and left Africa again. It seemed his dream was as good as dead. He might never return to Africa.
  However, when Peter Cameron Scott was recovering in London, he visited Westminster Abbey and visited the final resting place of David Livingstone, a pioneer missionary to Africa. And on Livingstone’s grave was written one verse…only one verse. When Peter Cameron Scott read that verse, the Lord gave him the courage, confidence, and resolve that he needed to return to Africa, preach the gospel there until his death, and found the Africa Inland Mission. “And I have other sheep who are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So, there will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16). This verse had the power to fuel Peter Cameron Scott for a lifetime of frontier mission and it has the power to fuel us for a lifetime of global impact for the sake of the gospel.
  The idea of this verse is: Jesus’ worldwide mission, and your part in it, will succeed. That’s why Peter Cameron Scott went to Africa a third time and stayed until his death. That’s why we give our money, our prayers, our time, and our lives to Jesus’ worldwide saving purpose. Because Jesus’ worldwide mission, and your part in it, will succeed. And wouldn’t it be exciting if the Lord called someone from our church family to serve Him on the fields of the world?

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