Missions 101

On August 15, 1999, Kent Hughes, the pastor of College Church in Wheaton, IL had been preaching through the Pastoral Epistles for over a year.  On that Sunday he came to 2 Timothy 4:1-5, the very day his son was leaving the church to assume the role of Senior Pastor in Washington State. 

This is a wonderful sermon to consume as a father and pastor charges his son to fulfill the role of a minister of the gospel.

The Puritan, John Owen, argued that preachers must have “experience of the power of the truth which they preach in and upon their own souls....  A man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul.”[1]  So his resolution was: “I hold myself bound in conscience and in honour, not even to imagine that I have attained a proper knowledge of any one article of truth, much less to publish it, unless through the Holy Spirit I have had such a taste of it, in its spiritual sense, that I may be able, from the heart, to say with the psalmist, ‘I have believed, and therefore I have spoken.’”[2]

Would that the Holy Spirit raise up more preachers who would resolve never to preach a text unless they have already tasted its majestic sweetness and severity.  

[1] Owen, Works, XVI: 76.

[2] Ibid., X: 488.

John Piper in The Supremacy of God in Preaching writes in the preface of preaching on the holiness of God. He writes:

I gave not one word of application to the lives of the people. Application is essential in the normal course of preaching, but I felt led that day to make a test: Would the passionate portrayal of the greatness of God in and of itself meet the needs of the people?

This past Sunday John Piper preached on the sovereignty of God. Jason Meyer highlighted the need to care for orphans and widows in the announcements. 

John has never met a woman in my small group who attends Bethlehem. A year ago while on home leave with their 8 children (two adopted), her husband died suddenly without warning. Her life was changed in an instant. Sunday would have been her 23rd wedding anniversary.

And so again, a sermon with little application and an announcement on widows and orphans turned the service into a message directly from the heart of God for this dear saint who sat in my house Sunday night marveling at God’s goodness to her.

Brothers – consider how the Lord may apply your sermon and announcements in ways you can not even fathom.

[3] For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, [4] that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, (1 Corinthians 15:3-4ESV).

 Can One Be Christian without Knowing the Gospel?

 In 2004, I preached at a youth camp in Cameroon, West Africa. One of my messages was titled “The Good News of Salvation.”  I began by asking  a series of questions, which follow with the answers the attendees gave:

Is the gospel message necessary for salvation?  Answer, “Yes!!”

You mean you cannot be saved without the gospel?  Answer, “Right!”

So you cannot be a Christian without understanding and believing the gospel?  Answer,

“Absolutely correct!!” 

Are you a Christian?  Answer, “Yes.” 

Do you believe the gospel?  “Yes, we do.”

What is the gospel, then? ---------  Unfortunately, I was met with blank stares.  No clue how to articulate the answer. They could not outline the gospel message.

This is troubling for two reasons: 1) These well-meaning young people believe that they are Christians and heading to heaven. 2) Yet, they do not know what the gospel is. So the question remains: can one be a Christian without knowing the gospel?

 The Problem

This experience highlights a problem in many mission contexts. While the church exists in terms of numbers, it is deficient in terms of the gospel message. If one asks people in the vicinity of the church, “What is the message of the church,” what will the answer be? If you were to ask members of the church what they believed in order to be saved, will there be a clear statement of the gospel centering around the death and resurrection of Christ? In most cases, one looks in vain. We need to pay attention to the gospel we preach, to put in place means of preserving it through the years so that future generations will not be in doubt as to what the gospel is. This is the task of the missionary. To bring the gospel to a people, preach it clearly, and train others to carry on the task of proclaiming the gospel as they received it.