Missions?

Matt.28:18-20 - And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Missions. One of the greatest evils that has come from the church has been its caricature of those words from our Lord. We, the wealthiest of all believers on earth, have found a way to create a mission construct that strokes our conscience and can present a plausible response to that commission, but is in fact a mirage of the religious flesh. To say it is unseemly is to praise it.
The western missions effort remains an effort of the flesh, restrained and convenient, and packaged in such a way as to soothe the western evangelical need to appear evangelistic. But anyone who has been part of a local building program knows that the money raised for buildings here dwarfs the paltry crumbs given to missions. It is safe to assume that there will be more spent on Christmas presents this year among believers than on missions.
Just what should be the guidelines for the support of missions as it pertains to the local body of believers? What sacrifice is too much, and what would constitute fanaticism? In order to evaluate our own view and response to missions we must juxtapose it upon the original template. And by “original” I do not mean the early church and apostles. The original missions effort has always been the Incarnation.
It is impossible to put into words the sacrifice revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ. Who can fully understand the great gulf that was spanned when God the Son came in the likeness of human flesh? Perhaps He could have used some of those resources to add rooms in heaven. Maybe build a place for redeemed teenagers. Perhaps whiter robes. But instead the entirety of an immeasurable sacrifice was birthed in Bethlehem and culminated in the lavishness of Golgotha. The incarnate alabaster box was broken and spilled out upon us.
Therein lies the glory of divine missions. In a practical as well as sacred sense, missions is putting feet to the cross. God knows how serious this business of eternity is for all mankind, and He has provided for us an example for which to follow. But to take the concept of missions and reshape it to fit nicely within an ecclesiastical budget along side of hundreds of hollow activities is a monstrous compromise and on some level turns its back on the cross. But of course every local assembly must have a missions program. It is our custom.
Little by little the surrounding culture has taken its toll upon the church until almost every area of the life of the church, personally and collectively, has been infected with a spiritual toxicity that emasculates its power and presents a counterfeit, not just a lighter version. And so it is with missions, which by any New Testament standard, should be the passion of any church which truly follows Christ. How is it that the laborers are few? Isn’t God calling enough or are our ears inclined to other things? Do you desire to know where people’s hearts are? Look where they spend their time and money. The same evaluation must be for the church.
Organize a Christmas pageant complete with a large choir and cantata. Watch the excitement; see the hours of sacrifice; look how much money is spent; and then listen to the exuberance after a successful presentation. But Bethlehem doesn’t urge us to recreate a nativity scene - it SCREAMS MISSIONS! Can you not see the disconnect here that has so grievously strayed from the commands of the Spirit? Do some people come to Christ at these Christmas presentations? Yes, to the glory and grace of God.
But that is hardly the point. Paul even admitted that when some preach Christ as a contention that sometimes the Spirit can even use that, but that does not mean we must recreate that either. But Christmas makes us feel good, and there is some entertainment value in it all, and it does serve to unify the church around a common cause. But if it is not of the Spirit then those things are still carnal.
Christmas is just an easy comparison. But when we view the entire passion of the church against the passion of Christ we are left with a gaping hole that we attempt to fill with programs, buildings, stuff, and the finer points of systematic theology. Did it ever occur to anyone that a sacrificial passion for missions might serve to strengthen marriages more than all these seminars? With the divorce rate still astronomical within the church, can we now admit all our expertise about communication and date nights and love speech doesn’t seem to be the answer?
A revival of devotion to Christ, and an awakening to a passion for missions, is the only cure for the ills of the western church. How dare we build gymnasiums and fellowship halls and spend incredible amounts of money on advertisement and only throw missions the proverbial bone. The western church in many ways is a fraud. The very last thing Jesus said before His ascension was to go into all the world and be a witness for Him. The western church has convinced itself that the path to rescuing souls from eternal punishment is found in adding butts to their own pews.
And the church has come up with a name for people who sacrificially give their lives in the cause of spreading the gospel. We call them “missionaries”. So what do we call people who really trust Christ? Believers? To separate the term “missionary” and only apply it to a small subset of believers is an affront to God’s command and indicts the entire body of Christ. But it reveals the pitiful level to which we are committed to the reaching of the lost. It has become part of the doctrinal culture but not part of the self denying manifestation of a believer’s life.
And so, after many centuries, and after assimilating the culture in which we live, the church has been able to incorporate a missions program that neither squeezes us financially, nor requires elongated times of intercessory prayer, nor necessitates the absolute offering of a believer’s life, regardless if he goes oversees or not. No one can claim we do not have a missions program. And let’s face it, we can live with that.