The Reluctant Missionary
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Well, as you heard a minute ago, we are doing a period or season of mission emphasis. We chose this time because the Mission committee and the Session, we are going to change our direction a little bit in missions in that we are still going to support many of the things we supported in the past; but we are going to choose two main things, one international, one local, to support and make a big contribution to those two things. We want to make a difference in the kingdom. So we are still support many of the things we have but we want to make a difference. So we are in the process of choosing an international focus and we are hoping it will become more than just one over time, over several years; and we are going to choose a local focus. Again, we are hoping it is more than just one over time. We are going to hope to grow these things.
So next week, we have a wonderful privilege of having the chancellor from Daystar here because one of the options we might have is to choose a graduate from Daystar over in Africa and what they are doing. We are looking at that. Then the next week we are going to have a representative from Urban Homeworks. We all know about Urban Homeworks, we help build houses with them and renovate houses; but they do so much more. So they are one possibility. So over the next couple weeks we are going to emphasis that.
I am kicking it off talking about one of the first missionaries in the Bible, albeit he was a reluctant missionary. His name is Jonah. Now, whenever you talk about Jonah, you know, you have heard the proverbial “elephant in the living room;” well, with Jonah, it is the “whale in the living room.” Because, whenever you talk about Jonah that is the first thing that comes up: how can anybody believe that a man was swallowed by a, it is actually translated as “fish”, and live for three days? Well, we have to remember that in life, as well in the Book of Jonah, it is not about what but who? Given natural circumstances, I am not going to believe that a man can survive three days in the belly of a fish; but given natural circumstances, I am not going believe in a virgin birth or a resurrection from the dead, either.
Look at what this says. “But the Lord provided…” This was a God thing and this is a miracle story. Jonah survived because God enabled for him to do so. He had something for Jonah to do. He had something for Jonah to do. Now, Christians believe this that God made everything, the heavens and the earth, the earth in all of its glory, and the stars in the universe, every galaxy beyond which we can imagine; and God created certain laws to govern his creation of physics and biology, you name it, all kinds of different things. We believe that. In fact, science is figuring out how things work and, for a Christian, it is not only how things work it is how God made them to work. That is why I love science, because it is not only how things work, which I am kind of geared to anyway, it is how God made them to work and that is exciting. But God, being God, the Creator, can circumvent his creation and he does so from time to time. They are called miracles. See, our faith is a supernatural faith and sometimes, my friend, when we get wrapped around the axle about “Well I can’t believe that a man could live in the belly of a fish.” Well it is not about the what, it is about the who; and when you deal with the who, it is possible. You see God made him survive, given natural circumstances he was fish food. But God provided the great fish.
That’s true in your life too, by the way. We get wrapped around the axle with the what of life, and for us it is about the who. What is God doing in your life with this? Remember that God is always taking care of you no matter what happens. Whatever happens.
Another observation we find out about the Book of Jonah is that the first thing he does is he goes and tells the folks of Nineveh some very bad news. Now, I personally believe that Jonah is a historical book. To some degree it may not matter, it has a great lesson to it; but I believe that Jonah was a historical figure. He is mentioned in the Book of Kings; and how interesting it is that the city of Nineveh was recently discovered in the last hundred years of so—two tells, two hills, buried under the dirt, one of them was called, I don’t know the language how it is pronounced, but one of them was called the Prophet Jonah. So Jonah went to this city because God said these folks are wicked and I am going to destroy them. I am going to destroy them. The lesson for us is that even in our day, love requires telling the bad news along with the good news. You know it is so popular today, so common today, to forget about the fact that there is judgment. I hear all the time, you know, it has become popular also to separate the Old Testament and the New Testament. “Oh that is just the Old Testament God. Those were full of judgment.” One of my, not my very favorite movie, but a movie I like is called Absolute Power with Clint Eastwood. Toward the end of the movie Clint’s with E. G. Marshall, the character he plays, and E. G. Marshall says, “I believe in the Old Testament.” And by that he means he believes in vengeance and an eye for an eye and judgment. And that is our perception of the Old Testament, isn’t it; and, yet, the Old Testament drips with grace, drips with grace. God could have destroyed Adam and Eve but he gave them clothes instead.
God chose a man named Abraham who was an idol worshipper, a pagan. He continued to love his sons, Isaac and Jacob, of whom I have often said I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them. What about his sons? Boy that was a crew, wasn’t it? But yet God in his grace sent Joseph to Egypt and saved them. Again and again and again and again until it is absolutely boring, God sends prophets and judges to the people of Israel. They repent for a little while and then they forget God. And again and again and again and in the end God promises them a Messiah who will come in grace, and I can name so many other things. Conversely the New Testament drips with judgment and the person talking about judgment most is Jesus, himself. Jesus says to the religious leaders, and to the people around him, “I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.” (John 8:24) He says again in another place, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28) And he is not talking about Satan, he is talking about God. There is judgment. Now, if you will, it’s good news with the bad news thrown in. “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that who so ever should believe in him should not perish…” (John 3:16) But when we talk to our friends, it is not that we bible-thump them, or sit up there and “you’re going to hell!” But if we don’t repent, we are going to be lost and the world needs to hear that. It is not just about positive thinking; it is not just about grace. It is about grace, but grace has no power unless it is from something. That is why there is a cross up there. If everybody was O.K., if I’m O.K. and you’re O.K., why did Jesus have to die? Because we are not O.K. We are not O.K.
But take heart, now this English is a little rough, but we are only responsible to go and to speak, not the results. Jonah went to Nineveh, after a little persuasion, and he had one thing to say. “Go and proclaim that ‘you are going to be overturned unless you repent.’” Now, Jonah, Jonah didn’t want the Ninevites to repent. We will talk about that in a minute. As a matter of fact he wanted the Ninevites not to repent so that God would kill them all. Well, why is that, was he anti-Gentile? That really wasn’t the point. You see, the northern kingdom was where Jonah lived and the Assyrians were the greatest enemy of the northern kingdom. In fact, not many years after this the Assyrians come and they destroy the northern kingdom and cart everybody off and kill the rest.
If you want to read a great story, the Assyrians come and camp around Jerusalem and Hezekiah gets a letter from them and he goes and spreads it in the Temple and says “Lord look at this.” Then God kills all the Assyrian army, basically. So the Assyrians do not repent forever. You might say, “Well was this worth doing? They just did what we do, right, and what the Israelites did.” The prophet comes and says repent; they repent; and then they forget a little while later. Isn’t that your life? It’s kind of like my life, I don’t know about you. God has to continually come to me and say “Chris” and if I don’t listen too well sometimes it is “Chris!” Or as a friend of mine used to say, you get a rolled up newspaper over the head from God. Sometimes that’s true. But we are responsible, not for what people do with that, we are responsible to speak and that is hard enough; but we should take heart.
I read a great story this week about a young salesman who was disappointed about losing a sale and as he talked with his sales manager he said, “I guess it just proves you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” The manger replied, “Son, take my advise. You job is not to make them drink, your job is to make them thirsty.” So it is with evangelism. Our lives should be filled with Christ so much that they create a thirst for the gospel. Amen, to that. Sometimes it means not saying a thing. Now that doesn’t mean we are going to be great. We are saved sinners. We should never pretend to be what we are not. We are not great people. We may look great, we dress up pretty well, clean up good. But we are saved sinners and that is the key. So take heart. You are not responsible for what people do with it but we are responsible for what we say. Now, this is all about being a missionary and I said many times over the last several years that every one of us— wherever we are, whoever we are and whatever place we are — we are missionaries of God, every one of us. And we are. I know some of you may not believe that but I am not trying to be curmudgeonish or anything, I am just trying to say we are missionaries. We are and we need to embrace that in whatever we are doing, wherever God has placed us. We are missionaries.
But so often we are a lot like Jonah. God says go and he goes to Tarshish. At that time Tarshish was over in the western Mediterranean, as far in the world as you could get. He left, bought a ticket, got on a boat, and said I am not doing this. Well, why did he run away? Well as I told you, he didn’t want the Ninevites to repent. You know it is interesting to read the Scripture. A little later at the end of the book he says to the Lord, “Is this not what I said when I was still at home? This is why I was so quick to flee. I knew you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” (Jonah 4:2) In other words: I knew you were a God of grace and I didn’t want you to give them grace. Now we are not like that. We want God to give people grace but we still run away. We still run away.
Jonah was afraid. That is another reason he ran away. Now you can understand Jonah being afraid. Can you image going and setting up shop on a corner of Kabul or Kandahar and preaching? That is what he was doing. He was going to the heart of the enemy territory and being told to preach. So you can understand a little bit. We are afraid of other things. One question was asked by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association of some people they were trying to train. “What is your greatest hindrance for witnessing?” Nine percent said they were too busy. Twenty-eight percent felt the lack of real information to share; in other words, they didn’t know the Bible very well and they didn’t feel very good about that. None said they didn’t care. Twelve percent said their lives were not speaking as they should; in other words, they were afraid of being hypocrites. But by far the largest group, over fifty percent, said the biggest problem was the fear of how other people would react, or what would people think of us? You know, we have been brain washed. How dare we try to enforce our belief on other people, and yet they do exactly the same thing. You know it isn’t really about trying to beat people over the head but there is a competition of ideas out there and we have every right to express Christian ideas, in a loving and a winsome way. Why do we care what people think of us? Well, we are built that way. It is part of our DNA but to some degree we should be more concerned about what God thinks of us because in the end it is God we will stand before. And in the end, our lives belong to our God.
Being a witness, a missionary, begins with our love from God and for God. Old Jonah knew so well that God’s default nature was loving and graceful and mercy. That doesn’t sound like the Old Testament, does it? But here is a prophet who himself wanted them all to die, but God wanted them to hear. Wanted them to hear.
Last but not least, and I think this is actually first, being a missionary requires following the heart of God. I think it is beyond having to prove it, that God has a missionary heart. What I mean by missionary, a missionary is someone who goes to another culture, not necessarily leaving your home, but goes to another culture and learns the language of that culture, learns the language of those people whoever they are; they may be your next door neighbor. You are learning the language of what speaks to them. Didn’t God do that? God became a human being in the person of Jesus Christ and became a missionary and became one of us; the God of the Universe becoming flesh and bone in a person for a while and, not only that, died. God has a missionary heart and we need a missionary heart. Look what he says to Jonah. Jonah gets all petulant, you know. He preaches and then he gets all mad. It is a funny little story. He goes out; God allows a plant to grow up over him overnight and gives him some shade from the heat—over there it is one hundred and thirty in the sunshine— then the plant dies and Jonah gets all petulant again, gets all mad. God basically says you didn’t have anything to do with the plant growing and you didn’t have anything to do with the plant dying so what are you complaining about? I am God here and shouldn’t I be concerned about these people living in spiritual darkness? Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city? Shouldn’t we feel sorry for the millions out there who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ? You know, so often I have heard over my career, “Oh, we don’t need to send foreign missionaries. We just need to be concerned with the folks here at home.” Well, O.K. let’s be concerned with the people at home. The fact is that we spend about seven hundred million or probably a little more than that now on mission organizations in our country, all over the world; but we spend that every month on our cat food and dog food. Now, I am not going to let my dog starve, but it is a lot more money. We give a lot of money to missions but not as much as we should. We give a lot of effort to missions, but not as much as we should. You know, it is not an either/or it is a both/and. Yes, there is a vast mission field here in Minnetonka and Minneapolis and there always will be. But where would China be if it weren’t for the missionaries? Yes it is still controlled by Communist government but there are millions of Christians there because there were missionaries sent to them a hundred and fifty years ago and on and on and they didn’t see the results. Where would Africa be? Yes, Africa is still a tough place but it is literally a Christian continent by majority. A lot of places are sending us missionaries, now. Where would a lot of places be if it wasn’t for the missionaries that went over there some place? Yes we need to be missionaries right here but it is both/and because we can’t let those folks in spiritual darkness go, wherever they are, whether they are here or there.
We need to take care of ourselves and our church, get our own house in order. You know, it is interesting in the Book of Acts God said to them, “stay in the city until you receive power and then go.” To some degree, we need to do that, we need to get our house in order, but God will bless us if we go out. That doesn’t mean you have to leave your house or your town or your job. But we just need to be thinking about those around us who may not know the Lord, those who are hurting, those who need healing, those who need help. We are not going to save the world but we can save little pieces of it. We can make a difference and that is what we need to do. So as we listen to these folks that come in the next couple weeks, listen to them. Listen to them and see what you can do for their ministry and for the Lord in this place and in that place, because we are all missionaries, every one of us.
Let’s pray together.
Lord God thank you for Jonah because he is a great example to us, how we feel. We feel like running away when we are confronted with the idea of sharing the gospel or doing what you want us to do. We just do that but we ask for your forgiveness, and we ask for your help, and we ask for your power, and we ask for your heart; and we ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.