Your heart is given a rhythm only for Him.
You are given breath only for Him.
He’s not simply to have your best.
He’s to have it all!
(Time, thoughts, money, effort)
Every thing you ever do, all for Him.
Whether you eat or you drink, or the most menial task,
whatever you do is to be done for His glory, and in the context of His joy,
and in the fellowship of His person.
You were made for Him!
But what part of “Go” don’t you understand?
I mean, how many missions conferences do we have to have
before someone gets a clue that you either go down into the well as a missionary,
or you hold the rope for those who go down?
It’s quite simple.
Now leave and go do it.
See, we can light so many fires.
We can do so many things in all our activity.
But is God in it?
Is it for Him? Is it a heart burning for Him?
In most missions conferences, you have a man standing there,
telling you that "there are so many lost people all around the world,
and we’re God’s hands and feet, and if we don’t do what we’re called to do,
then God’s hands are tied, and there’s nothing to be done, and the nations will be lost,
and God will be lonely, and Heaven will not be Heaven."
All of that is blasphemy!
God will do His work!
God is doing His work!
God will be worshipped! God will be glorified! God will be rejoiced in!
The question is, “Will you participate?
Will you be a part of it?”
You’re not the catalyst, you’re not the great mover.
You’re not the cause behind all this; you are invited into the privilege of this!
Don’t you realize, we are the most privileged people on the face of the earth?
Because we are brought into a relationship with Him! - Number one privilege.
That we are brought into a relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ!
A privilege that we do not speak enough of.
And we are brought into the privilege of being instruments of the glory of God.
God will do the work!
He will get glory for Himself!
But He invites us to participate in that.
Missions is always the doing of God.
It is always prospered by God’s zeal for His own name.
It is always carried out by God’s power.
And He uses tiny, broken, sinful, weak individuals like myself, and like you.
I could come in here tonight and I could demand that you be something that I’m not,
so that God might use you in missions.
I could speak of great things, and acts of piety,
and give you examples from a thousand different people in history.
But I have come to believe this:
I myself have seen the power of God,
I have seen multitudes converted.
I have seen the miraculous. I have seen God do mighty things!
But when I’m alone in the dark with Him, I know what I am.
And it’s not because I have reached some level of piety that has escaped my brothers.
It is because God always works through broken, tiny,
yea, even sinful, even frivolous individuals like myself.
If you are ever going to be of any use in missions,
it is because God is going to take you,
and He’s going to be faithful to break you into a million pieces,
and to grind you into a weakness that you did not even know existed.
And the greater the depth of that weakness, and that brokenness,
the more you will see His power!
There are no great men and women of God.
There are only tiny, broken, weak, feeble men of a great and a merciful God.
Look at us! Look at you!
Many of you are here, you desire to know missions.
Have you ever sat down over a period of days, or months, or years,
and cried out to know God?
Searched the book of Psalms and the rest of Scripture,
to discover the attributes of God?
And then, understanding something of His person and His works,
to be propelled by that power, instead of your own, into missions?
We want to do missions, so we read books about missions.
We want to do missions, and so we have conferences about missions.
Maybe we should have a conference about the beauty and the glory of the person of God!
Because once that is set aright in your heart, everything else will fall in place.
This is so very important to understand!
Getting first things first.
MIssions, even evangelical missions, looks more to me like a peace corps
than it does a proclamation of truth.
Missions is not about sending missionaries,
missions is about sending the truth of God through missionaries.
And it is only those men and women, who have struggled violently to know Him
that can be propelled by that power into the mission field!
Years ago when I was in Peru, I had a young man call me from the United States,
and he said, “Brother Washer, I want to come down there to Peru and work with you,
I just want to give my life away.”
And I said, “Well tell me about your studies.
Are you in the Word? How many hours a day are you in the Word?”
“Well that’s not really my forté. I just want to give my life away.”
I said, “Well tell me something about God;
tell me something about truth.”
“Well, brother Washer, you’re not understanding me,
that’s not really what I’m about, I just want to come and give my life away in Peru!”
I said, “Young man, there is no one in Peru who needs your life!
They need someone who can come here and tell them about God!”
In all your Bible study, in all the little books you read,
in all the going to and fro, and cassettes and cds, and downloads,
and whatever else the Internet can think up,
how much time do you simply spend knowing God, the greatest of all pursuits?
Missions springs forth from a heart of a people that honors God,
but in order to be a people that honors God, you must be a people who know Him!
I’m not here to say something beautiful, I’m not here to say something eloquent,
I’m not here to have you leave talking about power in the pulpit,
I’m here to ask you a question!
How much do you know God?
And then let me—let me really catch you.
How much of your life, your Christian life,
has been given to the pursuit of knowing the attributes of God,
and the glories of God in the face of Jesus Christ?
Therein lies your problem.
So many dos and don’ts, and rules and regulations, and doctrines all precise and fine.
And that is good!
But if you’ve left off the greater thing, you can never have anything but strange fire,
if you have any fire at all.
You must seek to know Him!
Does anyone find you, at 2 in the morning, crying out to God to know Him?
All you young men, studying in seminaries, and this and that,
and going to this retreat and that retreat,
and group hugs, and getting together, and singing Kumbayah, and all the other things you do,
does anyone ever find you alone at 4 in the morning,
beside yourself, because you must know Him!?!
That’s what makes a missionary!
We have enough little boys standing in pulpits,
shouting about theology that’s not a reality in their life.
Most of us have already got more truth than we will ever be able to live out.
Do you seek Him!?
Is there ever a sleepless night?
"If I don’t have more of you, I will die.
If I don’t know you in a greater way...
Whom do I have but thee, oh God?”
Do you remember when that governed your life as a new believer?
Or did it ever govern your life?
When the only thing you thought about was Him?
That was it.
You had no great aspirations of being “used.”
No desire for greater "ministry".
You just wanted Him.
You wanted to know something about Him!
Do you remember when you just prayed because of Him?!
I could tell you to run off to the mission field, and you might just run off an empty husk,
driven by a romantic passion for missions.
And you’ll need stronger medicine than that to keep you on the mission field.
What I encourage you to do, is to run after Him.
Pursue the very thing for which you were pursued.
For Him. To know Him.
To know Him.
Who are you?
I want to know. That will be my magnificent obsession.
To know my God.
And then from that will flow out the work of God, and the ministry of God in your life.
Missions is not some independent thing that we decide to join up with.
It’s not a work that we suddenly feel called to do.
It must be an outflow of true spirituality.
It must flow out of communion with God!
It must flow out of a correct understanding of who God is,
and His works in the world, and the glory that He’s getting for Himself!
It must flow out of knowing this!
That everything outside of Jesus Christ is absolutely absurd!
And that all things were made for Him, they were made through Him,
they were made by Him, they were made in Him.
(He’s to have it all)
But what part of “Go” don’t you understand?
GO