Audio Transcript:

Welcome to Missions on Point, the Propempo perspective on church and missions.

Thank you for joining us for Missions on Point episode 226. This is the second part of a series on preaching about missions. If you regularly preach or think about what makes a good sermon, then start with the previous episode that gave a basic case for having a framework of missions for every sermon you preach.

Now, I don’t presume to be the best preacher, but if someone does, then you probably shouldn’t be listening to him.  We all have ways to grow in our preaching, and I pray that my encouragement to you today will help you become aware of an aspect of preaching that you may have occasionally neglected. Perhaps as you are putting the finishing touches on your sermon, you go through a regular short checklist of items that you want to make sure you have accounted for. Perhaps some of those items on your regular checklist include the following:

• Making sure to call unbelievers to repentance and faith in Christ
• Encouraging and comforting discouraged believers
• Rebuking the potentially idle and calloused person
• Your checklist could be much longer. These are just examples of what you might ask yourself each time before you preach.

And what I’m suggesting to you is that you check yourself every time you preach and simply also ask this: have I rightly accounted for the biblical emphasis on global missions as reflected in the passage and context of scripture that I am preaching now?

As I said last time, I’ll reemphasize now. I believe every passage of scripture can touch on this biblical theme, because it is such a thoroughly biblical idea found cover to cover in scripture, and global missions is not a secondary side issue that is occasionally touched on. If you only preach about missions at a yearly missions conference, then you are not doing something right.

I’d like to give you today some practical “how-tos” on preaching missions. And first, I’ll start with what not to do. Let me reiterate the dangers here and make clear what I am not proposing. There are two things not to do.

1. Number one. Do not force missions into your sermon. Let’s be clear. If something is not in the text of scripture, don’t preach it. You should enter the pulpit with fear and trembling, because if you say “thus saith the Lord,” and the Lord has not said thus, then you must stand before God accountable to him for every word you’ve falsely accused God of saying. Too many preachers have used the text of scripture to springboard off into a topic that the text is not really concerned about.
2. But there is another danger here. Number two. Yes, we shouldn’t say more than what the scriptures say, but we also should not say less than what the scriptures say. We should not fail to preach what God has given to us. And this is a sneaky danger, often unknown to the preacher. We often don’t know what we’re missing. Sometimes it is easy to know what we are leaving out, and that happens a lot because we can’t say everything. And hopefully preachers are self-aware enough to guard themselves from the temptation to add to a text of scripture. And if you’re aware of that, then integrity demands that we avoid it. But how do we self-correct with what we don’t know we are missing? Well, the answer is that we actually see it. And maybe you’re an experienced enough preacher to have had this happen to you. Perhaps with a particular doctrine that you did not have a conviction about at one point in the past, but then God used some teaching on his word to open your eyes to it, and now you can’t help to see it everywhere. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And that’s really the main point here. I want you to be convinced from scripture. I want you to see that the Bible is full of missions. From cover to cover, from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22, the Bible is full of missions. The Bible is always pointing us to God’s purposes in the world to use the church to bring about his glory to the ends of the earth by its preaching of the gospel of Jesus to all peoples.

So, how can we do that rightly? How could preaching about missions come up in any sermon?

The main answer to this question comes when our thinking is captivated by Biblical theology. When we frame our passage of scripture that we are preaching in light of the entire message of the Bible, then we will have an opportunity to touch on global missions. While we never want to diminish a particular author and his unique writing, we must recognize that there is also a Divine Author of scripture, and he has an agenda in putting his words down in writing for us. God intends that his word would be preached to every people and nation on earth, so that through his word, God might exalt the resurrected Jesus Christ and redeem for himself a diverse people who worship him. God’s purpose in scripture is a missionary purpose. And every time we preach, we should in some way, even if it’s minor, connect our particular passage to the whole message of the Bible. With that in mind, I’m going to give you ten topics that you might be preaching on where you could find a potential onramp to speaking about missions.

1. Number one, perhaps you are preaching about God’s glory over all creation. That’s a common topic in scripture. And that’s the goal of missions. Before the second coming of Jesus, global missions is the effort to spread the glory of God to all creation. Yes, your first and most important application in considering the glory of God is to call your present audience to worship God, but right on the heels of that we should call them to tell the whole world of God’s glory.
2. Number two, maybe you are preaching about universal truth and the authority of scripture. Well, there is no better way to emphasize this than to call our hearers to consider people in other cultures. If the word of God is universally true and authoritative, then it must be so for all people of all times and of all places. Missionaries must endeavor to show people in different cultures how the Bible is universally true for their hearers, and it’s not just a western religion.
3. Number three. What if you are preaching about the Trinity? Well, this too is an opportunity to talk about missions. The Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world. So too, the Son sends us. And the great mystery of our salvation is that we are partakers of the divine nature through the indwelling Holy Spirit. We obey the Great Commission as we baptize others in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, knowing that God has promised the power of his presence with us as we go to the ends of the earth.
4. Number four. If you preach about mankind’s rebellion against God, that is also an opportunity for talking about missions. It’s the one common feature that all mankind shares. We are all born of Adam, born in sin. When I think about how I once was lost but now am found, I must also realize that the world around me and to the ends of the earth is filled with equally lost people. And their only hope of reconciliation with God is the same hope you have.
5. Number five. As you read and preach through your Bible, you may notice that it talks a lot about the nations of the earth. From the Tower of Babel on, any time the Bible talks about nations, our hearts should also be turned to their need for Jesus as their savior. Missions is all about setting our sights on the full scope of the task given to us to preach the gospel to every nation.
6. Number six. The universal call to repentance and faith. The gospel message should be a common occurrence in your sermons. But as you preach to your immediate audience, don’t forget that this call is the same one that goes out to all mankind everywhere. God calls on all people to repent and believe in his Son. And anytime we make that call, it is helpful to remember that it is the same call for everyone.
7. Number seven. If you are preaching about God’s calling and purposes for his people, then that is a perfect time to talk about the possibility that God still calls people and sets them aside for a special work. Just like he called Abraham, and priests and prophets in the Old Testament, God still sets apart people for a special work now. Through your church’s confirmation, the Holy Spirit may set apart a missionary from your church for his work.
8. Number eight. A common topic when preaching from the New Testament is preaching about the nature of the church. When doing so, this is a prime opportunity to talk about missions, because the work of global mission is exactly what the church is designed for. When we think about the church as distinct from the world, a shining city on the hill, this is the best picture for effective missions. Those dark places in this world need the light of the gospel coming from communities of believers gathered together in local churches preaching the gospel. The nature of the church is a call to missions.
9. Number nine. Maybe you are talking about discipleship in your sermon. Well, you can’t talk about making disciples without thinking about the full scope of discipleship found in Matthew 28, making disciples of all nations. If you want to make disciples, but you’re not thinking about making disciples from all nations, then your field of view is too narrow. Furthermore, thinking about making disciples from another culture helps to emphasize the kind of counsel we give to someone as either universally true or situationally applied.
10. Number ten. The return of Christ. Many sermons turn our attention to our future hope of glory at the return of Jesus. We can’t help to include in this grand vision of Jesus’ glorious return the sight of people from every nation gathered around the throne in worship. Philippians 2 and Revelation 5 and 7 give us this picture. And this is the motivating force behind missions. Go with confidence to all the nations, and this is the sure reward.

Now, I could add more to the list of ten topics that I just gave you. I think you can see though that all of these topics are connected to world missions. Keep them in mind when you preach, knowing that there is a ready onramp to applying the scriptures to the only task that God has given the church this side of heaven. Pastor, preacher, teacher, please keep missions on your mind.

Finally, I’m going to repeat the warning I gave earlier. If you don’t see something in scripture, then don’t preach it. Don’t force missions where it isn’t. But my simple challenge to you is that it is there, and I hope you can see it. To help you see missions throughout the Bible, with an aim to preach about missions well, the next several episodes on this podcast will dive into seeing and preaching about missions in various parts of scripture. So I hope you’ll stay tuned.

Thanks for joining us today on Missions on Point. We trust that you'll find more help and resources on our websites at Propempo.com and missioserve.org. We are so thankful for those who support us, enabling us to produce this podcast. Now to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.