Mission Sunday is this Sunday and it provides a remarkable way for us to prove to God how much we love Him and to show ourselves how much we share in heaven’s goal to get the gospel to every creature.
Before this world began it was part of God’s plan to save the lost through preaching. Paul said, “It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:21). The opening words of the letter to the Hebrew Christians reminded them that in former times God spoke to the world in so many different ways, but that is no longer the case. He revealed Himself in visions, dreams, burning bushes, a small still voice, talking animals and speaking directly from a mountaintop or from heaven.
All of that has changed because He now reveals Himself through preaching. Paul’s letter to Rome showed the universality of God’s plan when it used the word “whoever” in the phrase “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” That same, universal “whoever” is linked in that same process of must call—must believe—must hear—must have a preacher. The only one who can find God must have someone to teach him. His plan today does not involve dreams, visions, burning bushes, etc. mentioned above.
This is where Mission Sunday impacts the lives of each of us. The only hope this world has of salvation is for someone to teach every person. Those of us who have been taught have thereby become debtor to all mankind. Would to God we could feel the burden Paul spoke of when he said, “I am debtor . . . I am ready to preach . . . I am not ashamed” (Rom. 1:14-16). Not all of us can go, but all of us can send! If God so loved the world that He sent His Son, we must so love the world that we send our messengers.
With the beginning of our great participation in the work in Paraguay, the opportunities before us provide times for reflection of priorities and for actively becoming involved in the eternal plan of God. Before the world began, it was God’s plan for the lost in Paraguay to enter heaven by being taught the gospel. We must never forget that we are part of that eternal plan.
Mission Sunday involves so much more that those “sons” of ours who are in Paraguay. It funds our outreach to PBC in using Heart to Heart. It involves the reaching of the Hispanics in the sister congregation who meets in our building. It involves teen mission trips which shape the lives of our children. It involves so many more works we have discussed. However, most of all it involves you. God is counting on us!