Rick Smith

Calvary Missionary Baptist Church

There are four questions that need to be answered when it comes to missions and evangelism.  If you are a Christian, then you are either a goer or a sender.  Both are important and necessary to the spread of the gospel around the world.  In Romans 10:14-15 Paul asks four questions that tell us why we need both goers and senders.  Listen carefully what Paul said:  “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?  and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!”  Now lets break it down so that we can understand our individual part in missions and evangelism.

“How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?”  We have the promise of scripture that “…whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13).  This is not an empty call, or empty words, but the expression of faith in the promise of God.  Some treat God as though He was a cosmic genie to grant every wish.  Those that trust in Him will call upon the Lord.  But faith is not a feeling. We understand with our hearts and place our trust in the Lord.  And this faith does not come from us but from God Himself.  “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God…” (Ephesians 2:8).

Since saving faith is reasonable, then we must ask, “and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?”  We hear and read of stories of pagans in foreign lands whose hearts were already prepared to believe the gospel.  But until they heard the gospel message they were still lost in their sins.  This is the reason that we are commanded to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Until they hear the truth of the gospel the lost cannot respond in faith.  Some places seem to be ready for the message as soon as it is preached.  Other places are hard and need the soil plowed and cultivated before they can even begin to respond.  So the whole world needs to hear the good news of Jesus before they can respond in faith.

But “how shall they hear without a preacher?”  You will note that it is not doctors they need.  Nor is it teachers of agriculture that will save them.  They need someone to preach, to proclaim the gospel of Jesus to them.  I remember hearing as a young Christian the story of a missionary doctor who ministered to lepers.  As he would practice his medical skills on the poor leper, he would be telling them about Jesus and making the gospel clear to them.  We have many missionary doctors, missionary teachers, missionary agriculturalist, but their primary function is to bring the gospel to the lost everywhere. Meeting felt needs is useless if we don’t give them what they must have.  The must have Jesus and how shall they hear about our Lord Jesus Christ without a preacher of the gospel?

This next question is the need and the beginning point of missions.  “And how shall they preach, except they be sent?”  Remember that as a Christian you are either a Goer or a Sender.  God calls, but the church sends.  As a member of a local church your mission may be that of a Sender.  God has called a missionary to go to take the gospel to peoples far away, but the local church participates in his work by sending and supporting those that God has called.  Remember that Barnabas and Saul?  God called Saul on the Damascus road, but it was the Antioch church that separated him and Barnabas for the work, ordained them, and sent them.  They also supported them in prayer and financed their work.  That is the purpose of Senders.

We support the Goers by sending them, so that they can proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to those that have not heard in order that they may hear and believe on our Lord Jesus Christ.   Our missionaries are precious gifts of our churches to those who are lost, because once they hear God can save them.  And they will rejoice with us and say, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!”

If you have any questions, we invite you to visit with us this Sunday.   Worship at 10:50 A.M.  We are located at 711 West Washington Ave.  Check our sermon videos on Youtube @ricksmith2541.  Send comments and prayer requests to prayerlinecmbc@gmail.com.

David Grousnick

A young girl who was asked to write an essay on “birth”

She asked her mother how she had been born. Mom, who was busy at the time, said “The stork brought you and left you on the doorstep.”

Continuing her research she asked her dad how he’d been born. Being busy, Dad similarly deflected the question by saying, “I was found in the garden. The fairies brought me.”

Then the girl asked her grandmother how she had arrived. “I was picked from a berry bush”, said grandma.

With this information the girl wrote her essay.

When the teacher asked her later to read it in front of the class, she stood up and began, “There has not been a natural birth in our family for three generations…”

We are in an interesting period of time right now between the end of an awesome winter Olympics, the beginning of the season of Lent and our journey to Easter joy.

For years, the opening of “The Wide World of Sports” television program illustrated “the agony of defeat” with a painful ending to an attempted ski jump. The skier appeared in good form heading down the jump, but then, for no apparent reason, he tumbled head over heels off the side of the jump, bouncing off the supporting structure down to the snow below.

What viewers didn’t know was that he chose to fall rather than finish the jump. Why? As he explained later, the jump surface had become too fast, and midway down the ramp, he realized if he completed the jump, he would land on the level ground, beyond the safe sloping landing area, which could have been fatal.

Changing one’s course in life can be a dramatic and sometimes painful undertaking, but change is better than a fatal landing at the end.

In John 3:1-17, this is the problem Nicodemus was having. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he is facing a fatal landing if he does not change directions. But Nicodemus knows only one way and that is the way of earth. It is the only way that any of us knows.

Jesus begins speaking of Heaven, of being Born Again. But Nicodemus is confused. “How can a person go back into his mother’s womb and come out again?”

There is a reason he has come to Jesus. He has an inkling that Jesus might be able to provide a missing important detail because Nicodemus senses he is headed in a wrong direction and he should change his course. But Nicodemus is hesitant. He’s uncertain about making such a drastic change. Why? What makes this remarkable man slow to take Jesus at his word?

Sometimes what we think is most familiar is also the most unknown.

Take the case of one Midwest family. The matriarchs of the family had passed along a time-honored recipe for the traditional Easter ham. Along with the list of spices and herbs, rubs and glazes, cook times and basting procedures, was the absolutely strict instruction that the last three to four inches of the ham must be cut off – completely removed.

This order was an fundamental part of the recipe that their great-grandmother had passed down. Grandma continued the practice, as did her granddaughter.

When the great-granddaughter was initiated into the secret recipe, she dared to ask “Why?” Why the necessary amputation of the end of that holiday ham. Neither her mother nor her grandmother had an answer.

Thankfully, great-grandma was still around and had a perfectly logical, if unexpected explanation. “My roasting pan was too short,” great grandma declared, “I had to cut off the last few inches or the ham would not fit in the pan.”

Although the conditions had changed for the ensuing generations of cooks, they had all continued to follow the old instructions, without knowing why, without embracing a new reality made possible by bigger pans for bigger hams.

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut. Thinking “outside the box” requires flexing some mental muscles, pushing out the walls of thoughts and expectations we find reassuring and familiar. There is perhaps no more faith-defining expression in Western Christianity than the concept of being “born again.”

Yet, after two millennia it is a phrase that is so familiar it has become unknown.

Journey with us to the celebration of Easter this year. We meet at 10:30 am and we gather at 11th and Bullock, right across the street from Zia Intermediate School. And when the Easter celebration feast is served, you will discover that we have a bigger pan for a large ham!!