Called to Mission
Called To Mission • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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If you are like me you have a few favorite Bible verses. Those that maybe you have memorized over time. Maybe you bring them back to your mind during specific situations and hold on to them them. One of those verses for me was the first verse I memorized as an adult.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
I remember that verse not only because it was the first one I memorized but because of the word picture that it paints. That the moment I turned away from my sin and turned to Jesus Christ, the old me, the lost, sinful me, the separated me, now became an entirely new person. And that all happened because I was now IN Christ.
This morning, from the stage you have had an opportunity to hear about God working in a place 7000 miles away. For most of you, it’s a place where you will never visit physically, you will never see it with your own eyes. The label on us is: missionaries. Those people who leave the familiar of their own country, family, grandkids, Chick-fil-a and Starbucks to go to a foreign land to be a witness for Jesus. To be a Mom and Dad and raise 111 children with the teachings of the gospel so that one day, they can raise their own family to make an impact for the Kingdom.
Missionaries, like Pastors and other people who have given their lives and to the ministry use a term that you may have heard before. And that term is: called. A Pastor might say that at some point in his life, he felt God’s call to preach the gospel. Or a missionary would say that God has called them to a certain country.
And this is what I want to rest on for the next few minutes… God’s calling on the lives of his children, did not end when the canon of Scripture was closed… it continues and will continue until Jesus breaks the sky and comes to get his children.
You are called to mission. You the worker in the office are called to mission. You the Mom and Dad who are raising children are called to mission. You the student are called to mission. You the grandparent who is an empty nester are called to mission. You are all called to mission.
We are all called to take Jesus to the world. And as believers, we have a special designation that has been placed upon us as we live in this world, and that is what I want us to see for the next few minutes.
But before we continue, I know most of you are familiar with the Creed we say together as a church on Sunday morning’s about what we believe about the Bible. Well, in Nsukka Nigeria at Cornerstone Baptist Church, we also say practice this same Creed. Take a look.
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Isn’t that great. I love it. I have been pumped all week thinking about getting to lead this on two different continents. So if you will, raise you Bibles and join me as we proclaim this together. Will start it like we do in Nigeria… 1-2-3- go.
(CREED)
(CREED)
The Bible Is The Word of God
The Truth of the Bible Will Change My Life
Lord Open My Heart And Awaken My Mind
And Give Me Grace to Respond
Change Me, For You Glory And My Joy, Amen.
If you would, turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians, Chapter 5. 2 Corinthians Chapter 5.
You are called to mission. In the middle of Chapter 5 the apostle Paul talks about reconciliation. To reconcile means to be brought back. To restore. But To restore from what? If you look here at the first verse I memorized, 2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
You see that this is the by product of something being restored. Someone can become a new creation. What was old has now become new. How? Verse 18,
2 Corinthians 5:18 (ESV)
18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
You, me, and everyone in this world has a problem… we were born with an old nature. And that old nature naturally makes us go away from God rather than to him. We can blame it on Adam and Eve. That old nature of sin, separates us from a relationship with God. He is Holy, we are not, because of our sin, so their can’t be a relationship. But God loved us, you, so much that he came down to earth in the form of a human to restore humanity back to him. To reconcile you. To bring you back. Change you from an old condition to a new condition.
And that happens for the individual when we understand what Jesus did. In Mark 1 Jesus says that now his Kingdom has come to earth, so repent, believe and follow. When someone believes God sent his Son Jesus to die for them, when they turn away from their sins, believe that Jesus is the Son of God and what he did on the cross and the grave, then begin to follow him…that is reconciliation. That is being restored back to God. That is being reconciled. That is why Jesus came… Luke 19:10 (to seek and save the lost).
But Paul, doesn’t stop here with the importance of everyone leaving the old and becoming new., he continues and lays upon every follower a special designation. Look at verse 20…
2 Corinthians 5:20
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
In other words, what you have been given, now, give it to someone else.
Did you see the special designation that Jesus has given us? As followers of Christ we are do be his Ambassadors.
Ambassadors FOR Christ.
Now here is a word that we know, but not one that we use a lot. When I think of an Ambassador, I think of a government appointed person who represents their country to another country. In Nigeria, there is an American Ambassador who represent the US before Nigeria, and in DC there is a Nigerian who does the same. They represent their own country.
And that’s how Paul describes our designation as an ambassador…a representative for God…his appeal is made through us… to a world that needs to see what God has done through his Son Jesus.
I believe, it’s a pretty simple verse to understand. You have believed in Jesus for the salvation of your soul. Your life in changed. Your eternity is changed. Now pass it on. Represent. Represent Jesus. Easy to understand. Right?
Did you know that you and I are both missionaries? If you have turned away from your sins, believed that Jesus is the Son of God and was resurrected from the dead, and now follow him as your Lord and Savior…you are a missionary. The difference between you and me and you and Karen, is just that our mission fields are different. But that doesn't take away the fact that God has deemed you his ambassador to make his appeal through you a home, a workplace, a community, or a world that needs Jesus.
When I think about the followers duty to live as an ambassador of Christ, I see two different designations of ambassadorship.
The first is a personal ambassadorship. You have people in your life everyday that you come into contact with. Family, friends, people from work, students at school, and even strangers. Your designation as an ambassador will personally put you face-to-face with people who need to be reconciled to God through his Son. And as important as I believe it is to life a life that looks different and reflects that were are different people because of what we believe, I also beleive that the Bible tells us that our ambassadorship requires us to engage in conversation with people who need Jesus and need to be reconciled. Do you ever think that the reason God has you where you live or where you work or where you go to school is for his glory? I do. And because of that, our personal ambassadorship should make us ready to represent. In the words of Peter, we need to be ready to talk about the hope we have. As followers of Christ we are called represent Christ where we are, in a very personal face-to face way.
But he Bible is clear, our personal reach with the restoration that comes through Jesus Christ must extend to places we we never go or never see face-to-face. And that is why we need to represent with an extended ambassadorship. Jesus words in Acts 1:8 before he went back to heaven were clear… take the gospel from where you stand and to the entire world. I love that missionaries like us can stand before you and talk about what God is doing around the world. This week Karen and I were talking about this idea of personal and extended ambassadorship, and she said they can be seen as “separate, but equal.” It’s true. This designation of personal and extended ambassadorship, I have only divided them for the sake of talking about them. The reality is, they are the same. You can’t separate on from the other. Every follower of Jesus is an Ambassador for Christ to the world. And the world begins right where you are personally and extends to places far away.
How are you an Ambassador for Christ there…wherever there is? You pray. The missionaries you know by name…pray that God would use them and hearts would be open to hear the gospel. You give. I have always said, that A Place of Hope exists only by the grace of God and the love and support of His people. And then, if possible, you can go. I know Temple is planning a trip to Nigeria in October and I don’t know if it is full, but let me say this, both Karen and I can attest, that the first time we took a mission trip, it completely changed our lives and our perspective.
Every one of us as followers of Christ are called to mission.
But let me add one more designation of ambassadorship… and that is what I would describe as a specific calling to the gospel ministry. I’ve got to believe that in an audience this size in this room and how every many are online, that someone or more than one has been called by God to step away from the ordinary way of living life and follow him in ministering the gospel in a way that is totally different. That may be a call to the pastorate or even the call to foreign missions. Maybe there has been a time when you felt that calling, or maybe within this service today, the Holy Spirit has begun to place that on your heart…whatever the case…don’t turn away. Don’t fluff it off.
Myself, at the age of 48, and Karen no where near that…. God called these two people to leave everything we knew, and take their ambassadorship to a small village in Nigeria to A Place of Hope Orphan and Child rescue.
10 years ago this coming November we arrived for a survey trip and immediately were greeted by 47 smiling faces. For 8 days we hung out with them, played football at the field, held the babies, and I even got to preach in the churches. We took so many pictures. And one of my favorites from those eight days was this one with a boy named Ugo. Ugo was small for his age, but had the biggest smile. When we returned a few months later as missionaries and began our life there Ugo, along with the rest of the children became our own kids. We became Mom and Dad, and we were all one big family. Each child has a specific place in our heart. Maybe it’s their personality, their smile, I don’t know. But as we began to do life together as a family, one thing I noticed, Ugo was an athlete. Do you every watch the Olympics when they do the gymnastics on the big mat and they go running and then break off about three or four flips, one right after another. Ugo could do that. He was an athlete. I remember one time, I was homesick for watching baseball. So I got some of the boys together and proceeded to teach them how to pitch a baseball. How to stand on the rubber. Do a wind up and come to a set. Look over your shoulder to hold the runner, then fire it to the catcher. And Ugo got it, he took right to it.
(Karen and Ugo) Here is a picture of Karen and Ugo just hanging out watching a futball match with some of our older boys. I think I remember Karen telling me about this picture and she said that Ugo just wanted to sit down and hang with Mom.
We had just come back from the States after a furlough and Ugo came to the house to pick up something we had brought back for each child. It was good to see him, it had been almost four months. The smile was there, but something was off. He had a little hot body, and possibly malaria, so Karen gave him some meds and off he went down the road to the children’s home. The next day was Sunday and we got a call from the children’s home that Ugo had been up all night throwing up. Ugo had a history of low blood sugar, so Karen decided to take him and a few boys to the hospital while I stayed and got ready for church. He was very lethargic and when they got to the hospital they put him on an IV and took his blood. For the next few hours his condition didn’t change, it stayed the same. So Karen decided to come home for a little bit to get me after church while the two boys stayed with Ugo. Karen had just gotten back to the house, when the boys called in panic, begging us to come right away. They said that Ugo wasn’t waking up. He wasn’t responding, and the nurses said the Dr. was in a meeting. They went back to the nurses several times, but nobody came. It took us about 20 minutes to get to the hospital, and when we arrived it was obvious that Ugo had died. Not long after that, the Dr came in, looked for a pulse and a heartbeat, said, yes, he is dead, and walked out of the room.
Now I understand your questions. How come no one helped? He is in a hospital, why didn’t they do this is this? How could they just let him die. I could tell you the answers to every question you might have, but I don’t want you to leave here concentrating on that. I want you to leave concentrating on this.
(Ugo at the alter)
A few years prior to his death, Ugo came to the front at the end of the service and said I want to give my life to Jesus.
When you live out your call to mission and daily wake up as an Ambassador of Christ, you will change lives as a representative of Jesus Christ. Please, don’t take that for granted…someones eternity is depending on it.
The band is going to come up and lead us a one more song and I am going to ask you to stand.
During this time of praise and prayer, Let me ask you this question… Who is your Ugo? Ugo and the those we are able to impact with the gospel is our calling to mission. But you have a calling too. Who is your Ugo? As Paul begins the next chapter in 2 Corinthians he says this… 2 Corinthians 6:1
2 Corinthians 6:1 (ESV)
1 Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
Don’t let the grace you has been given to you, end with you . Be an ambassador…be His representative. Because you are called to mission.
As we sing, Pastor Lance and I will be available here at the front if we can pray for you, and in the back there are people in the prayer room as well.