Bible Information on Missions and on the Philosophy of Missions

<p>Bible Information on Missions and on the Philosophy of Missions</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

East Bangladesh Mission of SDA

Eugene Prewitt

The State of Missions in Adventism

The Bible on Missions

Codependent Missions

Making a Connected Mission Strategy

Assets, Cons and Support for Missions


I want to welcome you to our series on the state of missions in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I'm speaking to you today from Bangladesh. And before we start, let's pray. Our Father in heaven, I'm asking you to bless us as we talk about the most important things about the work we have to do. Guide us by your Holy Spirit, I ask in the name of Jesus, amen.

So in this sermon or this message, in the next few as part of a series, I wanna talk to you about your part and my part in missions, about what's going on in Adventist missions, what I know about it, the very good and the not so good, and parts that really need attention. And we'll look at some Bible evidence too, and even some thoughts from other sources. But first let me tell you a story. It wasn't so long ago that I was in Malaysia and there my wife and I had made some friends in Malacca. And 1 of our friends had a friend, a friend of a friend that we invited to eat with us 1 day at a restaurant there.

He was from Yemen. And as we began to share with him some ideas from the Prophet Daniel, this young man, Abdullah, he admitted that he was on the verge of becoming an atheist. He had seen things in Yemen that had really turned his mind against Islam. He saw the very popular public preachers there, the Islamic preachers, switch from being oriented towards the Sunni ways of Saudi Arabia to the Shia ways of Iran in just a few days. That is, they just turned coats just like that over the political situation in their country.

And this really made Abdullah doubt that religion was real. So what he saw in Daniel impressed him. He studied, he became a believer, and he went through some real struggles. 1 of the real struggles he went through was in relation to marriage. Yemeni men often have intended a fiancee for many years before they marry because it's hard for them to raise enough money to pay the dowry.

And he had had an intended woman for him for a long time. They'd known each other since primary school. And now he finally had enough money from working there in Malaysia to marry her, but she was a Muslim and he was a Christian, and he struggled with that. And eventually he did marry her, and his own interest in these things had cooled down a bit but it wasn't long after that that a young man there, we'll call him Sajjad, but that's not his real name, He was studying the Bible for himself in the university. He also was from Yemen.

And he looked on YouTube for some evidence and he became a Christian. He began to share Christianity right there in the university. He was found out. His abandonment of Islam was discovered. He lost his scholarship there and maybe some of you even are the ones that helped sponsor him still.

He's graduated now and But his work in trying to reach other Muslims in the university led to several young men giving their lives to God, and also reminded Abdullah of his experience. And he began to join Sajjad there at the university, and they became a team. And the warmth of Sajjad brought Abdullah back to the table. Well, today, Abdullah and his wife and their baby, they're in France. He's attending an Adventist church there near where he's working as a researcher, and Sajjad is awaiting baptism in the country where I met him.

Beautiful things are happening in missions. Let me talk to you about some of the things that are on my mind. If you have a Bible with you, turn to Philippians chapter 1. Philippians chapter 1. Philippians 1 was written when Paul himself was in prison.

Philippians chapter 1. And we're going to look at verses 15 to 18. It says here, some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill. So Paul recognized that among preachers, you have various types. Some are really trying to compete with each other.

Some of them just want to help people. He recognized both. Verse 16, the former preached Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains, not meaning that their ambition was to hurt Paul, but meaning that their ambition hurt Paul, It really hurt him that they were striving for supremacy. He says in verse 17, but the latter, out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. That is, some people who loved their neighbors and were trying to reach them knew that Paul had been prepared to speak.

He'd been given visions that would prepare him to know what to say in the right place. Now look at verse 18. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached. And I in this rejoice.

Yes, I will rejoice. So, when I'm talking to you in this and the next few messages about the state of Adventist missions, if I tell you about someone or something that's going on that's negative, I don't want you to end up thinking that there's no reason to rejoice in the work that's being done by that person or that situation. Whether in pretense or in truth, if Christ is preached, it's something to rejoice in. God can use insincere persons to reach sincere persons If only those sincere persons will talk about Jesus and about his gospel. So, if we talk about the biblical basis of mission, We have 2 passages that I think you're very familiar with, but we need to mention them both.

1 is Matthew 28, verses 18 to 20. There when Jesus gave the Great Commission, it has a few elements that we might need to think about more. He said, go, that's the first step, as opposed to stay. He said, go and why don't you turn there with me, we'll just see it. You have Bibles with you.

Matthew 28, the last page of Matthew 28 and verse 18. He said, actually I'm starting in verse 19 after the all power in verse 18. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things, whatever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. But what it says right there is that in this business of Adventist missions, there needs to be a strong teaching component before baptism, that's denied by some, and a strong teaching component after baptism.

And that's neglected by almost everyone. That is, there needs to be a strong preparation for baptism and a strong discipleship program after baptism. And those 2 ideas would make such a difference in Adventist missions. But now turn to the other familiar passage, Revelation 14. Revelation 14, and looking at verse 6 and 7.

My goal in giving this short series is to make a difference in Adventist missions, maybe even in how Adventist missions are funded and what you do. Revelation 14, verse 6, it says, "'Then I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, "'having the everlasting gospel to preach to them who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. In this talk, I'm not gonna get to the content, that's in verse 17, but I want you to see how tribalism opposes the first angel's message. How when Jesus sent us to preach to every kindred nation, tongue, and people, he was saying that it's not right for Caucasians to preach only to Caucasians or to seek them out, or the Japanese to speak to the Japanese, or the Tongans to the Tongans only. Revelation 14, 6 requires cross-cultural missions.

And I tell you, they're needed. There's a reason why in the Philippines that foreigners are the ones reaching some of those hill tribes. It's because of prejudice. There are plenty of avenues in the Philippines to reach every class of people in the Philippines. Plenty of them.

But there's a racial, evil racial issue. I'll call it what it is, it's tribalism that prevents a lot of the good work that could be done. So as we're getting into the Issue of missions, but let's keep these ideas in mind the idea that tribalism is anti gospel The idea that we need to do strong Preparation work before baptism and have a beautiful discipleship program post baptism 1 that brings people to practice all the things that Jesus said, and then he promises when we have those 3 components that he will be with us always, even to the end of the world. So as my first point after that introduction, I want you to consider what you would find if you read Acts 7 and 8. I won't read it to you, but Acts 7, that is where you find Stephen, the newly chosen deacon, is preaching and he is stoned, and he dies there in chapter 7, and that just puts the church on fire.

I mean, the church is scattered because of persecution, and they go everywhere preaching, that's 7 and 8. I wrote a little jingle or a little rhyme over that. I said, 7 or 8, or heaven can wait. What I mean is, how do we respond to persecution? In Malaysia, where I've been working many of the last few years, it was, I was told when I got there that someone who reached out to the Malay people was killed.

He himself was killed. And I learned later from Johnny Wong that someone that he knew personally, a Malay convert there in Sabah, was also killed by his own family in an honor killing. You know, when I learned that story about the first man, I was told that story as a warning to kind of stop me from reaching out to the Malay people. It was as if persecution was an ice pack designed to freeze the church to stop it. That's terrorism.

That's the way it's designed to work, where persecution freezes the church. But in the book of Acts, that's not what happens. In that book of Acts, persecution is like a fire. It's a fire that gets into the church and pushes the church forward. And if we would think about these 2 ideas, whether persecution is a fire to us or whether it is a freezer to us, you'd get an idea of whether you have a proper concept of missions.

Maybe it's reflected something in your choices of where you go. I've been doing a lot of statistical analysis of missions in the last year. And if you have gone on a mission trip yourself or gone on a mission, have you gone to Romania or have you gone to Germany? Have you gone to Peru or have you gone to Los Angeles? Have you gone to the islands of Palau or have you gone to the Maldives?

Have you gone to, in Malaysia, to the Dusun people or have you gone to the Maldives? Have you gone to, in Malaysia, to the Dusun people? Or have you gone to the Malay people? If you've been in Thailand, are you working for the Karen people, or are you working for the Thai people or if you've gone as a missionary to Kenya? Were you working for the people of the state Kisi?

Or have you been working for the Somalis there in the capital or if you've come to Southeast Asia? Have you gone to Cambodia where you could work with a man who's the only worker in his whole village? He was the first Christian in the village and now he's raised up a church? Or have you been going to the Philippines on your mission trips where there are so many Adventists, almost as many as in North America in that little country. And if you're going to Ghana, are you going to South Ghana?

Are you working in Northern Ghana? But when I ask these questions, these aren't random questions, because when communism fell in Romania, there were more Adventists in Romania than in all of Western Europe. That's Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, all of Western Europe put together. There were more in Romania and less in Western Europe. And yet when people go on mission trips, even today to Europe, they quite often go to Romania.

And Peru has a lot of Adventists, so many. But Los Angeles doesn't have nearly the ratio. It might be something more like 1 in 40 to 1 in several thousand. Which would you go to? When you talk about Palau or the Maldives, you're talking about the difference between 1 in maybe a score of people to 1 in 100, 000.

Just totally a different ratio. And I mentioned these 2 together because if you want to go on a mission trip to a place that has beautiful beaches and has great snorkeling, I mean, if that's what's important to you in missions, the Maldives have it, and they're unreached. Palau has plenty of Adventists to reach all the rest of the people in that region. I mean Micronesia has plenty of Adventists to reach Micronesia, plenty. And in Malaysia when I got there I found out that among the Dusun people, maybe 1 in 40 or 50, actually I think it's more like 1 in 60 there, are already Seventh-day Adventist.

When you go in Sabah to the various villages, often you find a mosque, a Catholic church, and an Adventist church. That's the most often worship places you'll find. When I was driving there, that's what I found. And yet so much of what's done in that country is done in Northern Borneo, among the people of Sabah and Sarawak. When the Malay people, that number, there are 2 thirds of the people, even, yeah, about two-thirds of all the people in Malaysia, not even 1 in a million of those is a Sempe Admonist, and yet very little work is done for them.

And thanks to our Eric B. Hare, a lot of Karen people are Seventh-day Adventist. But not many Thai people are. And yet many missionaries that go to Thailand are working for the Karen people, and very few working for the Thai individuals. And then in South Ghana, that's where you have the Christians, in North Ghana, that's where you have the Muslims.

And Many people go to West Africa and go to Ghana and do some sort of evangelism there. Very few ever working in the North among the Muslim people. But what I'm trying to say to you about your choice of missions, if you're going to Peru or the Philippines or Romania or Palau or working for the Karen people or for the people of Kisii or the people of South Philippines, I'm not shaming you. I mean, I'm glad you're doing something because most Adventists aren't doing anything at all. So thank you for what you're doing.

But if we would think strategically, maybe we could transition our mission strategy to reach those unreached people that are in this very same country, in the same general location, so accessible, even if it involves some risk. Let's let persecution be a fire, not an ice pack. Well, why would you go to where there's a lot of Adventists? I know there are some reasons. You might do it for infrastructure.

You might do it because you want to get results. I mean, you take young people. I remember Elder Bob Byrd took me as a missionary to the Philippines when I was 17, and hey, that was good for me. We had, I think it was about 180 baptisms there in Negros Oriental, and it was just very exciting for me. I learned so much.

It was a good experience. I've gone with Young Disciple ministries on mission trips to the Philippines where we've had scores of baptisms and a very good experience for the young people. I get it. I know that when you go on a mission trip you need to have some place where there are some Adventists to take care of you and where you can have good hope of success. But that's if you're going in large groups.

Do you think you could consider making every other mission trip 1 of a small group, maybe just you and your spouse, or you and your best friend, and go somewhere to reach people who are less reached where you won't make such a scene in trying to reach them. I don't know, maybe you could do that. Now I decided in every 1 of the messages I'm sharing here that I wanted to give some good news. And 1 really great news going on in missions today is that there's campus ministry. I mean, I've been talking to some young people just yesterday by Zoom, and they are targeting universities, reaching the almost 0 reached people groups of the world.

That's just going on. I'm so pleased with it. I'm so thankful. And there are courageous people doing that. Let me summarize what I've said in this first talk, and then I'll pray with you, and I hope you'll listen to the second in this series, because I'm making them short to try to keep your attention, but I have so many things to say to you about missions.

What I've said this time is let's make sure that before we baptize people, we make sure they're ready. If you doubt that's important, I have an article at Bible Doc called Cost of the Covenant that I think makes a pretty cogent argument that baptism should not happen until after there's been a lot of instruction about behavior and about how to keep the 10 Commandments. And then the second point there is that we want to be anti-tribalism. We want to make sure that we're doing cross-cultural missions and not just limiting our work to the people near us. I was talking recently to some friends of mine who are from Tonga, and they mentioned about some Tongan churches in New Zealand that are reaching out to the Tongan people.

But I was talking to them about the idea that a very high portion, maybe even 1 in 10 of the Tongan people there in New Zealand are Seventh-day Adventist. That's a high portion of them. And yet in Auckland, where those Tongan Adventist are, there are people groups there, the New Zealanders themselves and the Maori, who are almost unreached, comparatively far unreached, so that that Tongan church would do well to broaden its perspective, and the Tongans to say, instead of saying, we're Tongan, let's reach Tongans so we can have more Tongan Adventists, let's have the Tongans saying, God has blessed us with so many believers among our people, let's reach out to other people groups where they have far less chances. That's what's demanded by that first angel's message where it says to every kindred nation, tongue, and people. And then what about persecution?

What should it do? It should get you moving, get you going. That's what it does for me. And I haven't been avoiding what would happen, but God has spared me from it, at least so far. I don't know how long that will be.

I'm not worried about that. But we want to be sure that persecution isn't something that keeps us back from doing the work that needs to be done. And that third thing I shared with you was really statistics. I could have made that so much longer, but the difference between working for the Kisii 1 in 4 or the Somalis in Nairobi 1 in a million or 1 in 10 million would be more likely, like none of them. If we would strategize in these ways, maybe we'd find the church growing in places where it hasn't been growing to date because of a little bit of fear, a little bit of tribalism, a little bit of loving the infrastructure and the success that comes easier in places where we've been working already and don't forget that you could get involved in campus ministry.

I'll say more about that later, but I'll just say now that if you're about to go to university, or if you have a child about to go to university, why not study in 1 of those fine universities in 1 of those countries that are hardly reached? They have some beautiful English-based universities, and you could study there, and you could be reaching out. It would just be a wonderful idea. All right, let me pray for you, and we'll close. Our Father in heaven, I'm asking that you would take the few things I share about missions and use them to make a difference for how missions are conducted today in the Adventist Church.

I ask for that gift in the name of Jesus. Amen. This media was brought to you by Audioverse, a website dedicated to spreading God's Word through free sermon audio and much more. If you would like to know more about Audioverse, or if you would like to listen to more sermons, Please visit www.audioverse.org.

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The State of Missions in Adventism

The Bible on Missions

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Parent Series

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Other Teachings in Series

The Bible on Missions

Codependent Missions

Making a Connected Mission Strategy

Assets, Cons and Support for Missions

Sound Doctrine