A Missionary

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. We greet you in Jesus' name this morning. Turn with me to Philippians chapter 2. I'd like to read verses 1 through 13. Philippians chapter 2, verse 1. If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any vows and mercies, [00:00:39] fulfill ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, [00:01:12] but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth [00:01:44] And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Let's pray. We thank you, God, for the wonderful gift of Christ Jesus that you sent to us to take our sins upon himself. [00:02:25] We thank you also, Father, for the example that Christ is to us to follow after. And we pray that you would help us to be able to do so. Help us in the few minutes that follow to look at how we can better reflect his image in our lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. It is interesting to me to notice how things fit together. In our instruction class this morning, we looked at lesson two in the Doctrine and Confession of Faith, and it has to do about the fall of men. [00:03:02] And I just had to think how that, how utterly hopeless was our situation. Maybe I should just read, I don't know if I should or not, but there is a statement here, it's a relatively long statement. It talks about the sin of Adam and Eve. And I'm just going to read, I think it's about the last sentence here. and that they did therefore through this one sin so far apostatize, depart and estrange themselves from God [00:03:35] that they could neither help themselves nor be helped by any of their descendants nor by angels nor by any other creature in heaven or in earth nor be redeemed or reconciled to God but would have had to be lost forever had not God who pitied his creatures in mercy interposed in their behalf and made provision for their restoration. All one sentence. But destitute, how destitute we were until Christ came and died for us. [00:04:05] And through that coming, things changed around. Now, we read, what does that have to do with Philippians chapter 2, verses 1 through 13? Here we see Christ. What Christ did for us. and the kind of example that Christ is for us. And I'd like to think this morning of missions. Either we are a missionary or we are a mission field. And lest you think it does not apply to you, you're not on the foreign field, you're not going there. [00:04:41] I think we each should be witnesses where we are. The definition of a mission in the Webster's says quite a few different things, but there are only a few that fit what I am thinking of this morning. One of them is a ministry commissioned by a religious organization to propagate its faith or carry on humanitarian work. and another one was this, a course of sermons and services given to convert the unchurched or quicken, make alive, Christian faith. [00:05:21] And I think those are very much what I would think of. And let me just say this, do you preach? You might say, no, I'm a lay person, I don't preach. I think I would just like to say to each one of us that we are preaching by our lives. We're preaching a message. And I'd like for us to remember that as we think of what the subject is this morning. [00:05:52] I think every person that has had a life-changing encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ and is founded in his faith wants to share with others that faith. And I trust that that is true. I am not taking away from the fact that it is important to send missionaries on the mission field. You where you are, I where I am, am a missionary and I trust that we remember this as we go through life. [00:06:24] I think it is important that we do not confuse sharing our faith with sharing our culture. What do you think of when you think of, or what do other people think of, I should say, when they think of the Amish Mennonite? Do they think of people that do good cooking? People that emphasize gardening? That sew their own clothes? I have nothing against these things, but those are cultural things. And they do not have to do necessarily with our faith. [00:06:59] They may be related, but not necessarily, because there are people that are not involved in any of those things that I trust are missionaries as well. I think it is important, too, that we do not dichotomize. And I don't know if you are familiar with the word dichotomize or not, but dichotomize simply means to divide into two groups, two distinct groups. I think it's important that we do not dichotomize and say, OK, now I'm in service. I'm going to go to wherever, going to go to Belize or to Hillcrest Home or to Faith Mission for a number of years, I'm in service. [00:07:40] Afterwards, I come home, I'm no longer in service. I'm working for a living now. I think it's important that we do as some people whom I have known who are in service all of their lives. May I say it that way? I think it is important to be in service whether I am out there or whether I am serving in northern Indiana or wherever you live. It is important that we are in service and that we not think of ourselves as not in service. [00:08:16] I remember talking with some friends who told me that they would get cards and letters from this certain lady. The lady was a widow, an older widow. There was not a lot that this lady could do as far as going out on the field herself, but she found something to do by sending cards, birthday cards, letters to people. Some of these people she knew, some she didn't know very well, [00:08:47] but she made it her ministry to write and send cards to people. That is one way of serving. There are many ways to serve. Matthew chapter 20. I'd just like to look at a few verses if you will turn with me to Matthew chapter 20. Verse 26 of Matthew chapter 20 says, But it shall not be so. Well, maybe I should read verse 25 to get the setting here. But Jesus called them unto him and said, [00:09:19] Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them but it shall not be so among you but whosoever will be great among you let him be your minister, your servant is another word for minister and whosoever will be chief among you let him be your servant even as the son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. [00:09:50] Jesus set the example by giving his life a ransom, by serving those with whom he had to do. And I trust that you and I can do the same. Some people find that gift by writing. There are, I mentioned the person that wrote to people on the mission field. There are people who write the devotional that we use for a daily devotional. I appreciate their contribution there. They write and I have, he writes very effectively, but we know the person and we identify with that when we see his name, when we hear what he has to write. He's a very effective person writing. [00:10:37] There are other people who find time to write articles for the Calvary Messenger or for Keepers at Home or other things as well. There are some people, some of our people who have written books. Brenda Weaver also tries to let her light shine where she lives. There are a number of you that have not read that. Yes, I'll Tell You Why I Wear It is a tract about the covering, the headship order veil, written very effectively. [00:11:10] And it was written by a person, I think she's a nurse, Brenda Weaver. And she spent time to put down on paper her answer so that she would have something to give out to people who asked her why she wears the headship order veil. And so she did that. She also wrote a book, but not only did she do that, where she lives, she tries to reach out to people, and some of you may have read this in a light, I think it's a CLP publication, where she wrote how she tried to relate, I think to a friend called Mary. [00:11:48] Mary was a neighbor and she was kind of a person that was alone and discovered that they had things in common and this was just before Brenda was finished writing her book then Mary became ill, she became ill with cancer and I'm not sure was Brenda instrumental in leading her to the Lord or not maybe some of you could tell us, I'm not sure But in the course of their friendship, Brenda left her book for Mary to read. [00:12:24] Mary didn't open the book. It was a Christmas present because she wanted to wait until she was by herself. But before very long, Brenda got a call from a delighted Mary who had gotten her book and had enjoyed that book very much. It just blessed her. Mary is going on to her reward now. But Brenda was able by the written word to help somebody else on. And whether you do it by the written word or whether it's by the oral, whether you do it by the spoken word is immaterial. [00:12:59] God has gifted us differently. And I'm not here to tell you what your gift is, but I am here to tell you that if you have a gift, all of us have a gift. Find it. Use it. Some people say you shouldn't spend time looking for your gift because it fosters pride. Well, let me see. Do we say that people shouldn't look for the area that their hand is given to in the natural work? [00:13:31] Is that wrong? Is it wrong to cultivate the natural gifts that God has given us? I think not. But is it wrong to cultivate the other gifts that God has given us? I don't think so. I think we should remember that I was not responsible for any of the gifts that I got or didn't get. And I shouldn't complain about the gifts that I have or don't have. Maybe I look at somebody else and wish I had his gift. But that is a, it's worse than a waste of time. [00:14:05] But it is a waste of time. We should cultivate the gifts that God has given us. And I think all of us can share a word of encouragement with people. So whether it's by the written word or the spoken word, let us encourage people. I think I've mentioned to you, I never knew my great-grandfather. In fact, I think he died some 10, 15 years before I was born. But I get a little bit of a window into his life through the book that he wrote. [00:14:38] Well, he actually wrote articles for the Herald of Warhite. And on a, what was that, a monthly magazine? I forget. I don't recall. But I think it was a monthly magazine. He wrote in there, these articles were compiled into a book. And some of us know the book Salvation Full and Free written by D.E. Mast. He was my great-grandfather. I never knew him, but he was an outstanding man. He was a preacher in the community where I grew up and he was one of the men who had a vision that where we are as a church, the practices, the immoral practices, if you please, are not pleasing to God. [00:15:21] And I think it was his preaching and his teaching that helped to bring about a revival in the Kansas community. And so let us not underestimate what God can do through us. And you may think neither the spoken nor the written word is your cup of tea. Well, that may be true, and I'm not going to argue with that, but find the gift that you have and use it. For Father's Day this year, one of our children gave me a book. [00:15:53] It comes from Focus on the Family, and it's called Castaway Kid, and written by Rob Mitchell. And I have been blessed by this book. There were some people, let me just give you just a brief window into the life of Rob Mitchell. At three years of age, Rob Mitchell's mother dropped him off at an orphanage in Princeton, Illinois. That's west of Chicago. What, several hours? I'm not sure. I didn't even look it up. [00:16:27] But it's west of Chicago. He was there. They were there overnight. He didn't have an idea of what was going on. The next morning, his mother talked with another lady there. He didn't know where he was. He was just three years old. But they asked him to go and play with another child And so he went over, they forced him to it, he didn't want to When he turned around, his mother was gone And she was only in and out of his life sporadically after that [00:17:00] And never for his good She was mentally unstable His father had tried to commit suicide, did not quite accomplish that But he did not have a mother or a father in his life He lived in an orphanage that is no longer existent I guess they do other things like they have foster homes now where they have four children like Robbie But Robbie wrote a book, he wrote this book, it's an autobiography about his journey in life [00:17:37] There was one man, I'm not sure where, I think he was a house parent at the orphanage. And I'm just going to read just a little bit about this man. He was a man of few, it says, Jim was a man of few words and no conversation. When I was in junior high, he became the big boy's house parent. Less than six feet tall, but incredibly strong. From years of working in Nevada silver mines, he taught me how to lift weights. In my case, weightlifting wasn't just exercise. [00:18:09] It helped me blow off steam, and Jim seemed to know that. Not a man of words, but he seemed to know that. He also tried hard to divert my anger in positive directions, teaching me Morse code and helping me become a ham radio operator. He and another man showed me how to build my own radio from a kit, and he goes on saying how this brought fulfillment to him. the fact that he was able to do something like this and he related to other ham operators all over the world [00:18:40] they didn't know who Robbie was they didn't know that Robbie was a homie that's what the children from the children's home were called they were just homies then there were the other kids as well as he referred to them but we do have gifts we do have gifts of relating to people Let's use them. Let's make them count for the Lord. We do use words. How many thousand words does a person speak in a day? [00:19:14] What is it? 29,000, I think. We can choose to let them count for the Lord. Jesus said every idle word we're going to give a count of. And he also said in Matthew 12, verses 36 and 37, For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. I'd like to say one further thing. We may say, well, we don't have any homies, if you please. We don't have any orphanage children in our church. [00:19:46] Do we have people that don't quite measure up is a question I would just simply pose to you. Let me just simply say something further. I remember very well when I heard one of the students of our school, after he became an adult, say that if your name was so-and-so, I'm not going to say the name, you didn't have a chance in our school. Brethren, sisters, these things ought not so to be. We shouldn't be that way. [00:20:19] We should relate together. We have to learn to relate together here before we can effectively represent Christ out there. And unless we do a good job here, we're not going to do a good job out there. Let's be sure that we include people in our circle of friends. But the spoken word has a lot of power. Robbie, the time that I am referring to, Robbie was not a Christian, but he did go as a lifesaver, lifeguard, to a camp, and he was, by his own admission, living an immoral life at that point. [00:21:08] I want you to know that. There's one other thing. I'm going to read just a few paragraphs out of this book. And I want you to know that I am not endorsing everything that I am reading here this morning. Robbie didn't have language that was the kind of language that his fellow workers appreciated. I'm just going to read a few statements. We don't use language like that, the girls on the staff told me. We like to laugh, Robbie, but not at dirty jokes. [00:21:43] You see, they were being the kind of influence, they were telling Robbie, that doesn't fly. You need to change. And then he writes about the time when this certain girl, and he never names the girl, and I'm glad that he doesn't, appeared on the scene, and she got Robbie's attention. and the other staff recognized what was going on. They saw Rabi's eyes, his demeanor and I'd just further like to read what they said. [00:22:15] One night several of them ambushed me. Listen up, Buster, their leader threatened, wagging her finger in front of my nose. Do anything out of line and we'll personally see that you fry. They were saying, Rabi, you're not going to get by with anything. But he went on and he had, he developed a relationship with this girl in the one week's time that she was there. But what happened there was what impressed me. Once we spent a little time together though, I realized, well, he was convinced she would be an easy catch. [00:22:50] Once we spent a little bit of time together though, I realized that wasn't the case. Even though she'd been warned, she didn't seem to feel uncomfortable around me. She had qualities I had never seen before in anyone. Her incredible sense of peace amazed me, and it was obvious she knew who she was and didn't feel threatened. And he asked the question, why hadn't she rejected me? Well, this is weird, I thought. Why hadn't she rejected me? Her innocence turned my plans upside down. The day before she left, we paddled a canoe on the lake and talked. [00:23:25] And listen to this. Then she said, tell me about your relationship with Jesus. I mumbled a vague sentence or two, then stopped. I wasn't going to lie to her. I don't have one, I admitted. I don't believe in Jesus. Life and God have abandoned me and left me to do the best I can on my own. I expected her to be shocked and disappointed. She wasn't. I expected her to turn cold and tell me to take her to shore. She didn't. [00:23:56] Instead, she listened calmly as I cautiously told her a little about my childhood. When I finished, she said quietly, Maybe if you allow God into your life, you will find the peace you don't have now. I protested, that's easy for you to say. You have parents who care for you. Compared to what I've been through, your life has been a picnic. God cares for all people, no matter what the circumstances, she replied. I know you've had it tough, but we're promised a better way if we trust him. [00:24:32] Stop reading there. If you want to read the book, you're welcome to it. But people there found a way to interact and to communicate what was important to them. And we do. We communicate what is important to us, to other people. May they be things that count. It's not wrong to talk about our work. It's not wrong to talk about our families, about housekeeping. But I trust that we have more than that in mind as we talk about those things. [00:25:04] Can people really see Jesus in me? It's easy when two people click. We know what that's like. Anne of Green Gables called it a kindred spirit. But you know what she meant. When you click with somebody, when the test comes though, when we don't click with somebody, when we relate to somebody that just has a different way of doing than I do, can I still minister to that person? What I'm going to tell you next doesn't really put me in a very favorable light, but that's all right. I'm going to tell you anyway. [00:25:40] By our lives, we are a witness for Christ or against him. We are missionaries by the way we deal. Are we honest in paying what we owe? And then there are things that are understood. I'm the kind of person that doesn't do as well with the nuances and the expected things. And I have wished that the tipping system were not a part of our system, but it is. Do the waitresses that serve us feel good about what we leave? [00:26:14] It's important. Somebody said that Mennonites and canoes are unlike in one way. Mennonites don't tip. God forbid that that should be said about you and me. I mean, if we know that it's expected, and if there are times when I have not tipped, when I was totally oblivious of the fact that you tip a certain person, And I wished I could have gone back and made it right, but I didn't have a clue how to get a hold of the person. [00:26:46] It was not in a restaurant situation. But what is the kind of image that we portray? I remember very well when Amy and I were newly married, not in this community, and we were at a store. I forget what it was that we were inquiring about, some kind of a special. And I will never forget the cynicism in the man's voice. He said, well, it's one per person, but you can take one. Your wife can take one. And he didn't say it, but he might as well have. [00:27:19] That's what Mennonites do. I don't mind being known as frugal. I don't want to be known as tight. You know what the difference is? Frugal is when I pick up the tab Tight-fisted is when I want the other person to pick it up In other words, when I ask the other person to come down It's not wrong to negotiate price I'm not saying that [00:27:51] But I don't want to be known as the person that always goes for the bottom dollar It does not leave a good taste. I have heard too many people that were turned off by some of our people. Let's be careful how we go about even being frugal, but let's not be tight. Let's not take advantage of a situation. [00:28:22] If we want our lives to count, I think every day should be bathed in prayer. All of what we do and say should be bathed in prayer. And it's easy to pray, Lord, would you change Brother Daniel or Brother Wendell or this brother or that brother, but maybe it takes more grace to pray, Lord, show me where I need to change. Show me what you want me to be, but I trust that we are people that lift others up in prayer. [00:28:55] They used our family in prayer, they used God's family in prayer, our community, our nation And we use a system whereby we pray for missionaries in different places on a regular, on a periodic basis And he proceeded to show me how that was, I don't recall exactly how that was But they prayed for missionaries in this certain geographical area that morning And it blessed me. He was a man of prayer. He was a man whom I appreciated. And that is something that all of us can do. It is something that doesn't cost. It is something that we should be involved in doing. [00:29:38] May we allow God to use our lives for him as missionaries, whether it's in northern Indiana or whether it's elsewhere in the world. Shall we kneel and pray?