Our Call to Missions
POSTED Mar 31, 01:11 PM
From the Pastor’s Desk –
Our Call To Missions
Most of the time, when we think about Missions, we start with Matthew 28:18-20, the Great Commission. Here Christ tells us to “go” and “make disciples.” But in order to understand more fully why we all should be involved in Missions we need to go back even further than the time of Christ on this earth. We need to go all the way back to the Beginning, or even before then.
In Ephesians 1:4 we read that God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.
That is the beginning of Missions! God chose us to be His people – His Elect people. Have you ever wondered why? Why did God choose us to be His people? Was it because He needed us? Certainly not! God does not need anything or anybody. He is self-existent and self-sufficient. He chose us to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever (Shorter Catechism, Q & A #1), not because He needed us to glorify and enjoy Him, but simply because it was His will to do so.
According to Eph.1:4, in order to truly glorify Him we have to be holy and pure. We also have to be blameless, sinless, and without defect whatsoever. So in order to be God’s people we must be perfect in every way. God knows that we are not perfect in and of ourselves. Indeed He knew from the very beginning that we would not be perfect – that we would sin. So He chose us in Christ before He even made the world. He determined that we would be what He wants us to be through the work of His Son Jesus Christ. It is only through Jesus’ perfect and sinless life, His death on the Cross, and His Resurrection from the tomb that we are enabled by the Holy Spirit to be what God wants us to be – His people.
Is everybody saved? Is everybody chosen? No! Only those God has predestined, called, justified, and glorified will enter the kingdom of heaven to live with God forever (Rom.8:29-30). In John 15:16 we read Jesus telling His followers, “You did not choose me, but I chose you to go and bear fruit…”
Scripture is very clear. We did not choose God. He chose us! It is only as God effectually calls His Elect people through the Word and the Spirit (a call that is irresistible) and works in our hearts and minds to enable us to see and understand the Gospel – to enable us to see our need of salvation – to enable us to recognize Christ as the Son of God and Savior of sinners – to enable us to acknowledge Christ as Lord, that we are then enabled to come to Him in faith and repentance. This is the way anybody and everybody who ever has been, or ever will be, saved is saved.
God, many times, chooses to accomplish His work and will through secondary means, that is, He uses His people, His Church, to further His purposes on earth. He has given us His Word which reveals to us what God’s will is. It is our responsibility to do what He has told us in His Word He desires for us to do. What does He desire for us to do? God’s will is that we Love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. He desires us to carry forth His Word – His Gospel – His Truth.
What does all this have to do with Missions? Only God knows who the Elect are. Only He knows all those whom He has chosen to be His own. Since we don’t know who they (we – the Elect – the Chosen Ones) all are and since God chooses to work through secondary means (you and me) in proclaiming the Gospel, then we need to be busy doing what God commands us to do in the Great Commission – “Go and make disciples of all nations…”
Romans 10:14-15, & 17 teaches us our duty and privilege in this regard, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?…Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word of Christ.”
Our Call to Missions is loud and clear. We must GO and Make Disciples of all nations, teaching them the Word of God. We are to GO and we are to send others to GO as well.
How well are you and I fulfilling our Calling?
