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Three Facts About Missions (A Missions Sermon)
By Bro. Cheek | October 4, 2007
Three Facts About Missions
John 4:1-4
Sermon #67
By Pastor Robert L. Cheek Jr.
Victory Baptist Church
I am going to preach on the subject of missions. The message is not really geared to getting the church to support more missionaries. I think the message is more geared to reminding us that missions is not just something limited to missionaries. I think you will see that as we move along.
John 4:1 When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,
John 4:2 (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,)
John 4:3 He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee.
John 4:4 And he must needs go through Samaria.
You may or may not know that the words mission, missions, and missionary are not found in the Bible. In fact, neither are the words trinity, the rapture or the phrases the great commission or second coming. Though they are not Bible words and phrases, they sure have become a part of the Christian vocabulary haven’t they? Though missions is not found in the Bible, one thing is sure: it sure is illustrated, taught and even commanded in the Scriptures. I want us to look at this very familiar story of the woman at the well, and I want us to consider Three Facts About Missions.
1. Missions is the Heart of Christ
John 4:4 And he must needs go through Samaria.
That means that Jesus felt a need to go through Samaria. Now this was a very unorthodox thing for a Jew to do. The Jews would always go around Samaria. They would never pass through it. Notice the Samaritan woman’s reaction to her seeing a Jew in Samaria.
John 4:7 There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.
John 4:8 (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)
John 4:9 Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
The Lord’s heart was so filled with love for the lost, he went where no Jew would dare go, to preach to the Samaritans. Missions is the heart of Christ. But it wasn’t really the heart of the disciples. How many of you noticed that it took 12 disciples to buy meat for the Lord? Isn’t that something? Judas had the bag, why couldn’t Judas and maybe Thomas go and get food? Why did it take 12 to do it? Maybe it was because Jesus headed for a place they loathed to go. And that’s the way it is with missions. I want you see that were it not for Christ, none of them would have found themselves at that well with that woman. The disciples would have never gone there. That should show us a little bit about the natural man and the natural tendencies of the heart. If it was not for the Lord’s love that is shed abroad in our hearts, we would never think about the lost. We would never witness, or pass out tracts, or door-knock. It’s the love of Christ that causes us to want to do those things.
Romans 5:5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
It is the that love that emanates from the Lord, that gives us our desire to win the Lost. The Bible says that David was a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). What happened when David stopped following after the heart of God? His own heart, which the Bible says is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, took over and he became an adulterer, a murderer, a liar and on and on.
EVERYTHING WE DO FOR GOD IS DONE BY GOD THROUGH US.
No wonder the Bible says that we will lay our crowns at the feet of Christ. They are really His crowns anyway. Did the songwriter write: TO GOD BE THE GLORY GREAT THINGS WE HAVE DONE? No, it’s GREAT THINGS HE HATH DONE! When the disciples came back with food, The Lord told them in verse 32:
John 4:32b …I have meat to eat that ye know not of.
His heart was fed with the desire to win the lost. He had a heart for missions. If we go to the very beginning of the Lord’s ministry, right after being tempted by the Devil, what do we see?
Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
And if we go to the last minutes of his life on Earth we read:
Luke 23:43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.
His entire trip from heaven and back was a missions trip to humanity. The Lord loved missions so much, He never ceased to proclaim it. When the Lord was resurrected, He appeared to His disciples in Mark 16.
Mark 16:14 Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.
Mark 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
Notice, in the midst of unbelief, and hardness of heart, He commanded them to go. What was He trying to say? He was trying to say that they didn’t have time for unbelief! They didn’t have time to be sitting around the table arguing whether or not someone had seen the Lord! He said, now you’ve seen me, now get up and go! There are literally thousands of Christians that would never miss a church picnic or a fellowship dinner or a Christmas program or any other thing that the church wants to do. But those same Christians find it hard to witness, pass out tracts, help with visitation or anything else that has to do with the Gospel. They beg the preacher to go and witness to their dying loved one in the hospital when they themselves have never once said a word about their Saviour to that person. That’s a shame! The best thing any church can do for a missions program is for the members to become missionaries themselves and take the Gospel to their little Jerusalem and Samaria. We need a heart for Missions like Christ had. The only way to get that is for us to allow Christ to work through us.
Missions is the heart of Christ.
2. Missions is the Hope of the Condemned
John 4:10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
John 4:11 The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?
John 4:12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
John 4:13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
John 4:14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Without the Gospel, man is helpless, hopeless and hell bound. She boasted of Jacob’s well just like many lost people do.
They boast of the well of MORALITY. “Well, I’m a pretty good person.”
They boast of the well of MONEY. “Well, what do I need God for?”
They boast of the well of MATERIALISM. “Well, I don’t have time to go to church I’ve got a business to run.”
They boast of the well of MEMBERSHIP. “Well, I’m a third generation church member.”
Listen, any other “well” besides the well of living water will not get a person to heaven. They all leave you thirsting for something else. I don’t know about these people that teach you have to get saved over and over; that you can lose your salvation. I have to ask why they are thirsty in the first place! Jesus said a man would never thirst again. I wonder if they drank from the right well?
Missions is the Hope of the Condemned!
Have you ever noticed how the world uses the word HOPE?
They speak of curing cancer as a “Hope”. When someone dies of cancer, they say, he lost the battle with cancer. Well, if he had won the battle with cancer, he would have died some other way. I’m not making light of cancer. My Father-in-law was diagnosed with it. But the Hope that is REAL HOPE is found in the words of the hymn:
OUR HOPE IS BUILT ON NOTHING LESS THAN JESUS BLOOD AND RIGHTEOUSNESS.
And let me say, before I move on, that the hope I speak of, is not a “Hope So” type of Hope. It’s a “Hope Know”.
2 Timothy 1:12b …for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
Every Child of God owes his Christian conversion to MISSIONS! None of us got saved by ourselves. Somebody had a part in bringing us to Christ when we were condemned. Have you ever imagined what your life would be like right now if someone had not taken MISSIONS seriously? You and I both would be on our way to Hell in a hand basket and might have already been there. Missions is the hope of the condemned. If a church is going to offer HOPE, they have to offer the RIGHT KIND OF HOPE - The Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Notice that Samaritan woman left her water pot in verse 28. That is what every lost person must do in order to be saved. They must FORSAKE all those wells they have trusted in. The songwriter wrote:
NOTHING IN MY HANDS I BRING, SIMPLY TO THY CROSS I CLING.
On the television show, “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”, Regis holds up these checks so the contestant can see the money they won. But the truth is, the checks are not real, they are fake. They take them home as souvenirs, but they cannot be cashed, because Regis signed them. There are many people that think they can cash in their church membership or their baptism or their good works to get into heaven. But their checks are worthless. Oh, they look nice, but they can never be cashed in at the Bank of Heaven. Only those that have the signature of Christ, written with His blood, can enter heaven’s gates. And that is what happened to this woman at the well.
The woman got saved, when she met Christ. Notice in verse 41:
John 4:41 And many more believed because of his own word;
She got saved, and then many more got saved. And that’s the way God’s HOPE works.
Missions is the Heart of Christ
Missions is the Hope of the Condemned
3. Missions is the High Calling of the Church
John 4:27 And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: (that’s what lost church members do when you bus in children with dirty hands, amen! I said lost church members…) yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her?
John 4:28 The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men,
John 4:29 Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?
John 4:30 Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.
John 4:31 In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat.
John 4:32 But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of.
John 4:33 Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat?
John 4:34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
John 4:35 Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.
When I was in the Air Force, the U.S. Government began a program called Total Quality Management. They basically decided to treat the Military like a corporation instead of a war machine. One of the requirements was that each unit was to develop a Missions Statement that defined what the organization’s mission was. I wonder what kind of Mission Statement the Church of God would adopt today?
When you look at professing Christianity today, you begin to think that the mission statement of the churches could read something like these:
To provide for the care of the membership through various fundraising activities, including rummage sales, bingo games, spaghetti dinners and bake sales.
To promote the spread of worldliness and compromise so as to become acceptable to our community and not to appear too much of a fanatic, that we might gain the greatest possible numbers to our membership roles.
To ponder God under an umbrella that is big enough for every person that names the name of Christ, for there is no difference.
To partake of God’s goodness by obtaining the greatest salary and benefits package the church can offer, cementing solid business contacts on the golf course so as to provide the best possible lifestyle when the minister retires.
We think that’s funny but in PRACTICE, it’s almost the truth today in many churches. What the MISSION STATEMENT ought to read is found in Mark 16:15:
Mark 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
Everything a church does ought to center around that verse. Somebody said, “IF THE BUSINESS OF THE CHURCH IS NOT GOD’S BUSINESS, THE CHURCH HAS NO BUSINESS DOING IT’S BUSINESS.”
Missions is the High Calling of the Church!
Spurgeon said this: “A church that does not exist to reclaim heathenism, to fight evil, to destroy error, to put down falsehood, is a church that has no right to be. Not for yourself, O Church, do you exist, any more than Christ existed for himself.” Our reason for existence is to come together to gain encouragement, to gather enlightenment, and to go to the ends of the earth with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Somebody said, “The church exists for two purposes. Gathering in, and sending out.”
I want you to notice something in verse 40:
John 4:40 So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days.
Now I don’t have time to develop this, but that two days is significant. If you know anything about dispensationalism, you know that the church shall last about 2000 years on God’s time table. A day with the Lord is as a thousand years. So what can we learn from the fact that Jesus stayed there two days? We can learn that Jesus wants us to preach the Gospel until He comes back. We are not to change the command of God, we are to obey it. There are literally thousands of churches all across America that are closed today. In almost every case, they closed because there was NO Gospel preaching and NO Gospel witness in that church. So long as we make the Gospel the high calling of this church, the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. That is what Christ promised! But if we go the way many have gone, God will not hesitate to write ICHABOD on the doors of this building, and raise up some other work to fulfill His will in this place.
Missions is the High Calling of the Church.
Missions is the Hope of the Condemned.
Missions is the Heart of Christ.
The question is, do we consider it our calling?
(If this message has been a blessing to you, please feel free to post a comment.)
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