Friends, this post was first published in September of 2020.
The Great Commission calls each believer into what we commonly call missionary service. Missionary. What do you think of when you hear the word missionary? Missions, primarily, is not about men and women giving their lives away for a moral or humanitarian cause. Rather, missions are primarily about the proclamation of a specific message with a specific content and discipleship over the implications of that message. We see this message written large in every sermon recorded in the book of Acts. The redemption of the world through the death and resurrection of our incarnate God, Jesus Christ.
“Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.”
-Charles Spurgeon
If you warn someone of their sin, of Hell and, of the road to perdition they are on, you are speaking missionary words. If you tell someone of the love, salvation, and redemption of Jesus Christ you are speaking missionary words. If you proclaim “God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him” you are proclaiming the missionary message.
But where should you proclaim your missionary message? Jesus gives us clear instructions as to where we are to be missionaries.
In Acts, chapter one Jesus tells his original disciples that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth. In other words where they lived, where they were comfortable, across cultural lines and to the furthest parts of the earth.
We, His current disciples are called likewise. Although we tend to think of only the furthest parts of the earth as being the realm of missionaries, the truth is that all Christians are responsible for each area of witness. We must take care to witness in each of the realms to which Christ sent His disciples.
The Downings
