Obstacles to Missions
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Gal. 5:1)
Christ did not come to frolick in a field of flowers; Christ came for a purpose. He was the God-man on a mission. When He set His face towards Jerusalem (Luke 9:51), nothing could deter Him from setting the captives free, from breaking the yoke of slavery, from dying a substitutionary death for the sins of His people. No one who picks up the Sacred Scriptures can deny this fact.
However, there seems to be some sort of confusion about our mission, about the Church’s mission. The confusion happens on two fronts. On one hand, we change the mission. Our mission originally was to proclaim the gospel of freedom found in Jesus Christ. Period. Now, the mission has become sharing Jesus plus “something” – Jesus plus a political party, Jesus plus a social issue, Jesus plus anything. When we had anything else to Jesus, Jesus takes a backseat while “anything” drives the bus. As the late Harry Reeder would say, “If you change the mission, you change the message. And if you change the message, you change the method.” From the Epistle to the Galatians to our own present day, any addition to the freedom found in Jesus Christ ultimately becomes “a yoke of slavery.” Only the gospel faithfully proclaimed can transform the barren wasteland into a fruitful field.
But alongside changing the mission, the second problem is cooling the mission. How many times have you heard, “Well, that church is a country club”? The difference between a river and a cesspool is movement. Where there is no movement, there is no mission. Allowing ourselves to grow cold in our mission is using our “freedom as an opportunity for the flesh” (Gal. 5:13). Can we rightfully say that we are “on fire for the Lord” if no one else can feel the heat? Am I right? The way you can tell if a man loves a dessert is if he wants others to enjoy it with him. A heart on fire for the gospel brings light and heat to everyone else.
I recently heard of a man in a local Hinds County church who was on mission. This older gentleman lived in a beat up house, driving a beat up car, and wearing beat up clothes. Everyone assumed he lived in poverty. Lo’ and behold, after his funeral, news came that he was giving 80% of his income to his church’s mission budget. That man was on a mission. Are we on a mission?
As a disclaimer, I would invite you this summer to pray with me. 1,940 people live in Raymond, but I can assure you that 1,940 do not go to church. Would you join me in praying that one percent would join each of our local churches? Can we be on mission together?
