Go to the Nations: the What and Why of Missions
Selected Scriptures
June 10, 2018
I started studying for this sermon series almost 13 years ago. A man who was involved in a kind of mission ministry that we already were a part of in a part of the world where we were already supporting a missionary and with an organization that appeared to be doctrinally sound called me and asked if he could have some time with me to talk about his ministry. That kind of call is not unusual and because of overlapping interests I met him for lunch one day.
But during that meeting, it became apparent that our church and his ministry would not synchronize well. So I told him that we wouldn’t be able to partner with him. But I also realized that we did not have a document that articulated what we believed about missions and how we might identify the kind of missionaries that we would support. So following that meeting I began working on a document that gave a brief overview of what we believed about missions and the kind of missionaries we wanted to work with.
But I wasn’t satisfied with that policy and over the years, the elders realized we needed something more robust to articulate what we believe about missions. So several months ago I tackled the project again, doing additional study and reading and crafted a document that more exhaustively articulates our philosophy of missions. And at first we thought it would be a document that would only be used to guide decisions and policy on the elder board, but as we worked on it, we realized it would be a benefit to the entire church body. So this sermon series is an expansion of that document (which will be made available to the church body at the conclusion of the series).
I am excited about this series and about this document because GBC loves the gospel and loves missions. And this document should make us more effective in the missionary expansion of the gospel.
How will we summarize our commitment to missions?
The goal of GBC Missions is to cultivate a network of missionaries that will expand our global involvement and see people from all the nations trust Christ, love Christ, and live for Christ’s glory.
To say it more simply, our goal is to be involved in taking the gospel to other parts of the world so those who don’t know Christ will come to know Christ.
This morning we want to address two questions about missions: what is missions and why is missions important in the ministry of the local church?
- What is Missions?
- Missions is gospel-focused
- Missions is cross-cultural
- Why is Missions Important?
- God is a missionary God
- Christ’s command to the 12 is a command to all believers
- Hell is horrible and eternity is long
- There is only one gospel
Download the rest of this sermon on missions.
The audio will be posted on the GBC website by tomorrow.
Words of Grace 