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Missionary work is an often misunderstood command from God. However, missions are critical to the purpose of the Church in the world today.

To Reach the Unreached

What has moved so many Christians over the centuries to leave their homelands to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth?

Why would they leave everything that is familiar, cross oceans and lands to live amongst unreached peoples, savage tribes and pagan cultures?

William Carey, often referred to as ‘the father of modern missions’, said,

“It must undoubtedly strike every considerate mind, what a vast proportion of the sons of Adam there are, who yet remain in the most deplorable state of heathen darkness, without any means of knowing the true God.“

In 1792, he and his family left England’s shores to go to India. He would never return.

All believers are certainly called to evangelise in their locality and culture. Nonetheless, not all are called to evangelise as missionaries in regions beyond.

The “mission” of the Church can perhaps be described as everything the Church does that points people to the one, true and living God. However, the term “missions” describes the specific task of making disciples of all nations as an activity of the Church throughout the entire world.

This is achieved through the work of missionaries. A “missionary” is a man or woman who has a divine calling to work cross-culturally and to proclaim and demonstrate the Gospel to unreached peoples. This often involves translating the Bible, planting churches, and setting up hospitals and schools.

Missionaries are sometimes referred to as ‘sent ones’ as they are commissioned and sent out by local bodies of believers.

To Rescue a Lost Mankind

Adam and Eve were created as perfect human beings in the image of God.

Nevertheless, because they sinned, the image of God in them was marred and they became subject to death. Since then, all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve are born into the world as sinners.

Tragically, in that fallen state, they missed out on the chief purpose for which people were created — to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

Regardless of how the image of God may be marred by sin, the fact is that men, women and children still bear the image of God. This shapes our views and actions toward them.

It also underscores the urgency of reaching out to those who do not know the Lord Jesus. Their eternal destiny is at stake.

Will they spend eternity in heaven or hell?

The Mission of Jesus

Missions originate with God the Creator, who purposed to rescue and restore a fallen human race. God the Father did this by sending His supreme missionary, the Lord Jesus Christ, to this earth on a mission:

“to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

Jesus willingly left the glories of heaven “to dwell amongst us” (John 1:14) to communicate and demonstrate God’s love to a lost humanity. God foreknew that to do this He would need to send “his own Son in the likeness of sinful man” (Romans 8:3b).

The taking on the bodily form of a man by Jesus is described by the word ‘incarnation’. Although not found in the Bible, this word means ‘coming in the flesh’.

We can be eternally grateful that Jesus achieved His mission!

God’s ultimate goal for those who come to faith in Jesus is to “be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29) who is the perfect “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15).

When an individual believes in Jesus, he or she experiences the miracle of becoming “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The image of God in them has been renewed and they are recipients of the free gift of eternal life.

We Have Been Commissioned!

After Jesus had laid down his life and taken it up again, He sent forth the disciples to continue the work He had begun.

They were commissioned to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19); that is, to proclaim the Gospel using all possible means to reconcile a lost humanity to God.

Down through the centuries, this same task or mission applies to all who are disciples of Jesus. He left us an example, known today as the ‘incarnational model’.

What does that mean?

Incarnational Missionaries

Australian missionary Graham Staines started working in remote tribal areas in India in 1965. From 1967, he worked with leprosy patients while translating the New Testament into a tribal language that he had learned to speak fluently.

In 1981, he met his future wife Gladys in India, where she had come to serve God. He continued serving God there with Gladys and their 3 children, Esther, Philip and Timothy, until his death in 1999.

Image source.

The Staines spent more than 30 years working with leprosy patients in the eastern state of Orissa. As a nurse, Gladys worked tirelessly among the lepers and the wider community.

Gladys always wore the garb of local women. Graham was popular with the patients whom he continued to help after they were cured.

He taught them how to make mats out of rope and baskets from local grasses and leaves, and in this way giving them a means to live.

Giving All for the Cause of Christ

In January 1999, Graham and his two sons, Philip, aged 10, and Timothy, aged 6, were burnt alive by a mob of Hindu fanatics who accused Graham of forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity. While taking part a jungle Bible camp, they were sleeping one night in their old jeep when the attack took place.

Their charred bodies were found embracing each other.

Despite the tragedy, Gladys Staines offered a clear and public statement forgiving the killers. She then stayed on in India with her daughter, overseeing the completion of a hospital for leprosy patients in Orissa.

In 2019, on the twentieth anniversary of the martyrdom of Graham and his two young sons, the Indian Evangelical Mission (IEM) paid special tribute to them. In an outreach magazine dedicated to their memory it was stated:

“If we could summarize his [Graham Staines’] life in a sentence, it would surely be, “He was just like Jesus.””

What tribute could ever surpass this?

Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You for sending Your Son Jesus to earth on a mission to save a lost humanity. I praise You that You sent Your perfect Son in the likeness of sinful man to suffer and die and so pay the price for the sins of all people once and for all. Thank You that in His incarnation, Jesus, the perfect image of the invisible God, showed us Yourself. How wonderful that in doing so Jesus modelled what it means to be a missionary.

Father, please raise up many more missionaries so that every person in every tribe, nation and tongue will hear the Good News that salvation is found in Jesus. O that many will believe in Jesus and receive Your free gift of eternal life. Speak to me if You want to send me out as a missionary. Please burden my heart to pray for and support a missionary or a missions organisation who work amongst unreached peoples who do not know the Name of Jesus.

In His Name I pray.

Amen.

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Image by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.