Mentoring Men for the Master

OUR GOD IS A MISSIONARY GOD AND EVERY REAL CHRISTIAN MAN A MISSIONARY

  1. God the Father is a Missionary God. He decreed that all nations would be blessed through Abraham.  He had just one Son and made Him a missionary to planet earth.
  2. God the Son is a Missionary God. Jesus stepped from a mansion in glory to a manger in Bethlehem, and the first gospel ever spoken was in these words, “Fear not – for unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord, who shall be for all people.
  3. God the Holy Spirit is a Missionary God. Without the Holy Spirit, no one dare go on mission.  The Risen Lord commanded His disciples to preach “repentance for the forgiveness of sin,” but they could not do so until they tarried in Jerusalem until they were endued with power on high (the Holy Spirit) – Luke 24:47-49.  They did wait, the Holy Spirit baptized them into the body of Christ, the Holy Spirit filled each – Acts 2:4 – and within a short time they were known over the Greco-Roman world as those “who had turned the world upside down.”  – Acts 17:6.  James Kennedy, “Had the church continued to share the gospel in power as they did from AD 30 to 300, the whole world would have been evangelized by AD 500 when the church began to say, “Let Clerical George do it.”  Explain.

Today let us focus on the Mighty Missionary Mandates of our Master for Christian Men:

There are six of them:

  1. “Pray the Lord of the harvest to thrust out laborers into the harvest.” – Matthew 9:38. No where does Jesus command that we pray for the lost, but He asked us to pray for laborers who would go forth to share the good news.  This mandate is more urgent today than ever.  A great church is not its seating power, but its sending power (Rick Warren), and its sending power is through the power of unceasing, fervent, believing prayer, and men are to take the lead – 1 Tim. 2:8-9.
  2. “Give” – “Freely you have received, freely give.” Matthew 10:8.  Evangelism is but one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.  Our task is simply to share what has already been given to us.  “Unto me who am least among all saints is this grace given that I might share among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” Ephesians 3:8.   Paul said, “I am debtor both to the wise and unwise, the Greek and Barbarian, so as much as in me is I am already (on fire) to share the gospel to those who are in Rome also (Romans 1:14).

What to give?  Give your all, not just money.

  1. “Go” – A word not just to a few super saints, but “You all go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations” (ethnic groups). The word is short, simple, and doable.  It is spelled GO.  But most professing Christians spell it:  Attend, Give, Sing, Teach, Visit, Preach, etc.  Not one verse in the Bible commands the lost to come to us, but throughout we are commanded to “go out into the highways and hedges and compel them (by love) to come in.” – Luke 14:23. In the church at Jerusalem lay persons went everywhere “gossiping the gospel.”
  2. “Follow Me” and I will make you fishers of men. How can anyone possibly say they are following Jesus if they are not fishing for men?  Can we not say, “If we are fishing, we are following, if we are not fishing, we are not following.  If any person would follow Jesus, He will follow Him unto the uttermost parts of the earth, for that’s where He is working and where He sends us to join Him.
    1. Read and Weep:
      • Only 6000 Southern Baptist Missionaries out of 16,500,000.
      • 3-5% of professing Christians ever witness.
    2. “I Will Send You  to Be My Missionary”   The verb “send” is “Apostello” in Greek, meaning to send.   The word to send in Latin is miseo, meaning I will make you a missionary.  Every obedient believer is a Missionary.  Every genuine church is missionary.  George Truett , “If a church is not missionary, it does not deserve the ground upon which it is sitting.”  Billy Graham, “today, the church has become a great mission field.”
    3. “Receive the Holy Spirit” John 20:21.  After Jesus spoke these words, He immediately followed with these words, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit” (21:22), meaning to wait for Pentecost when the Holy Spirit would come and endow them with power to the ends of the earth.” – Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8

Before Pentecost, God’s people were waiting for the Holy Spirit.  After Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is waiting for you to:

  1. Pray
  2. Give
  3. Go
  4. Follow

 

 

Will you?