MISSIONS

WORKSHOP ON MISSIONS, PRESENTED AT THE ANNUAL FAMILY CONFERENCE DECEMBER 2013 AT GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH-KISUMU.

What is mission?

Ordinarily, the two words vision and mission go together. Vision gives one a picture of what he/ she wants to be or achieve in the future. The picture of the future desired within a given period of time. Mission defines those actions which are engaged in to bring that vision to come to pass.

Brought in to biblical context, Christ eagerly longs to be with saints in glory when the times are over. This is the future picture in the mind of Jesus-vision (John 17:24), to achieve this, the church has been commanded to be involved in a mission, what is famously called ‘Great commission.’ Our mission to achieve the vision of eternity with God is therefore to win the elect to Christ Jesus while we work and wait for the vision of glory. This is Christian mission.

What it involves. (Mathew 28:18-20).

1)      Preaching the gospel within our churches and beyond (Vs. 19). Many a times, people get it wrong here. What we are sent out to do is to preach the gospel with an aim that sinners will be convicted of their sins, repent and turn to Jesus Christ for salvation. This is the gospel that Paul preached and other apostles, study it in 1Corinthians 15:1-11. A lot goes out there in the name of the gospel yet they are not Paul’s gospel hence never saves.

2)      Baptizing: This is part of the mission. The saved, MUST be baptized. Acts 2: 41.

3)      Teaching obedience to God’s word. Our vision and that of Christ is to be gathered with him in heaven. These are those who have been saved and who have faithfully walked in obedience to God to the end. They cannot walk in obedience if they are not taught. Teach them the whole counsel of God. Doctrines cannot be avoided.

4)      Presence of God assured. Calls for boldness and assurance since it does not all depend on our effort (Zech. 4:6).

Why mission is important.

1)      Because it is important to God. When the first Jewish church slumbered to go out, persecution was used to send them out Acts 8. When the first Gentile church slumbered, Holy Spirit was sent out to snatch their two pastors for mission Acts 13.

2)      It is important because it is a command from the master, we MUST obey it.

3)      Life and progression of the church fully depends on it. The argument that if God has chosen His people to be saved then there is no need for mission is lacking in understanding of the entire Bible. The same God who has chosen His own has said GO. He uses means to bring his purposes to come to pass. He would have chosen to fly the Israelites in the air like birds into the Promised Land but Moses was the acceptable alternative that was sent to do it.

4)      It is a blessing: Churches today fall over each other running to get blessing this and blessing that from the Lord. Blessing of reproducing Christians is however forgotten and sits in the secondary. Church budgets will read of building this and building that, investment this and investment that but no allocation for the greatest blessing, mission work-reaching to the lost sinners.

Who is to go?

The mandate to carry the gospel to various parts of the world is given to ALL Christians. However, there must be a biblical structure to this:

1)      In all missions in the Bible the pattern is two by two. The Lord Jesus himself sent his disciples out two by two just as it is the case in Acts 13 when Barnabas and Paul were asked for by the Holy Spirit. The current rebellion in which one man starts his own so called ministry is strange to the Bible.

2)      A church needs to be behind the person going out for both support and accountability.

3)      Just as leadership work in church is not recommended to novices, so is missionary work. Challenges and temptations in the field require a mature Christian. Here again we meet the beauty of going out two by two. A mature saint can go out with a younger one.

Challenges to mission and how to surmount them:

Proverbs 22:13 and 26: 13 have always been my encouragement to cast my bread upon waters (Ecc 11:1). Until we learn to attempt great things for the Lord; we will only be seeing lions in the streets. Missions should not be looked at in terms of the impossible. We must find ways of trusting God and moving around the seemingly bigger obstacles to the intended mission work. Perceived hindrances include:

1)      Funds. For one to carry out the work of Christ beyond his familiar local territory, funding is inevitable. Few churches enjoy supply of adequate funds for this. One thing we generally lose sight of is the joy of partnering in mission work through cooperation with churches of like mind. I do not think that Antioch church left to itself could have managed funding the entire three missionary journeys of Paul. Clear evidence exist that churches teamed up to support the apostle. Phil 4: 14ff (Church in Philippi gave). Corinth was also keen to give though apostle was a bit reluctant when it came to Corinthians case (12: 11ff). However, when need was sensed in Jerusalem he was not shy to ask them to give just like other churches did (2 Cor. 8, 9). In Thessalonik, Paul worked to meet his needs but this was not because the church there saw no need of providing for his needs. He chose not to be a burden to them and be like a father to them.

2)      Lack of one to go: The cry of God to Isaiah ‘whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ (Isa 6:8) still rings in the air today. But unlike Isaiah who said ‘here I am send me.’ Many today respond to that cry: ‘not me Lord, not me,’ ‘oh how about my work?’ etc. The field is ripe unto harvest but labourers continue to be few. Again in this, partnering can help. One church may have the missionary but no funds and the other may have the funds but no missionary. Why not put together both resources for the mission work.

I must add here that most of the times young people from college look at the poverty men of God go through and they simply conclude that they were not cut for this job. It is a job for men of thicker hides and not mere skins. The result? They would rather look for much more ‘meaningful’ employment elsewhere. I see nothing wrong if churches keep ministers so well remunerated that their job attracts young people to the ministry other than drive them away. Churches, watch out!

3)      Lack of proper strategy in mission. Paul’s strategy and Christ’s was that they targeted populated areas/cities. Strategy must target growth other than stagnation. Proper strategy will ensure that the resources given are put on what will yield result. If people of the world know where to put their monies for good return why not Christians.

4)      Lack of properly equipped trained men. Train them. A lot of debate is currently going on concerning the merit and demerits of church based training to seminaries (Bible schools). My view is, let us not over emphasize either choice, what matters is that the men are trained in a Biblical sound school/church.

Aim of every mission work.

To plant a church that will join other pillars of truth. The church must be self sustaining and independent though dependent in association with other like minded churches with which they can share resources of God together. If a work does not have this end in view it remains suspect. Somebody could be building his own empire with or without that popular title of ‘Bishop’ (head of a church with many clusters of churches under him). I see no pattern of this kind in the Bible. Local church, self sustaining and self regulating are what we find in the Holy Book.

May God bless our labours.

Presented by Pastor. Sam Oluoch.

Great lament.

                                                   

How would you feel when you see thousands of people, women and children included, being led to hell simply because you misled them in your ministry? Put simply, because you gave them what their ears were itching to hear so you compromised the word of God.

This is the scene that met many prophets who gave false teachings and visions during the time of Jeremiah that led Israelites away from God but to Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon as captives to that mighty nation. I wonder what they felt like seeing myriads of God’s people being led to Babylon as slaves because they misled them. In fact, these very false prophets were among the people led to captivity. Brownlow North, in his commentary on the rich man and Lazarus, and in his bid to bring his point to bear upon ministers of the gospel, once wrote: ‘ I do not believe there exist a more miserable being even amongst the lost themselves than a lost minister shut up in hell with his congregation.’ I agree. A lost minister with lost congregation which he misled all in hell is truly a miserable sight- this is a lamentable situation. It is lamentable because he himself is responsible not only for the loss of his own soul but also of the congregation which he ministered to. The Lord puts the blame squarely on his neck!

Listen to this from Israel round about the year 586 BC when the people of God were taken captive after constant disobedience to the clear word of God, their disobedience being aided by unfaithful prophets before they were taken to captivity:

‘Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading.’ (Lamentation 2:14).

During the time of Jeremiah’s ministry, he often denounced these false prophets. In Jeremiah 5:12, Jeremiah warns the Israelites about such prophets way before captivity: ‘They have spoken false of the LORD and have said, ‘He will do nothing; no disaster will come upon us nor shall we see sword or famine.’ In Jeremiah 6: 14. ‘They have healed the wounds of my people lightly, saying, ‘peace, peace’ when there is no peace.’ See also Jeremiah 8:10-12, 14:13-15, 23:9-40 and 27:9-28:17.

Now, let us go back to Lamentation 2:14 and study the nature of the false prophets which led Israel to captivity:

One: They cooked their visions which later proved false and worthless. I can imagine them sitting under a tree in the day or on their beds at night thinking: ‘mmm aaa mmm, yes! This is what I am going to tell the people tomorrow and I guess they will love me and continue to pour their money on my way. In fact, this will make me very popular. Why bother about their sins that Jeremiah keeps on hammering on. I think Jeremiah is not wise.’

Two: Their ministry was designed purposely not to expose sins of the people. Again, see them on their bed: ‘Mmm I know that that rich man in the congregation stole his neighbour’s wife and he normally does not pay his workers. Oh that poor man did not keep Sabbath because he needed to sell his grains for survival. But what does it matter. I need not point out these sins lest I become unpopular and they leave my ministry.’

Three: Like number one above, they faked the words of the LORD. The oracles they gave were false and misleading.

So life went on in the mode of ‘live and let us live, let us not bother one another so long as everyone is happy.’ This is a very dangerous mode and it leads to death. From the rebuke given to the prophets above, one can see clearly, that had they not cooked their own messages to the people and had they not pampered people in to slumber in their sins, the blood of the captives could not have been asked upon them. Put simply, a preacher’s task, amongst other things is to speak not his own cleverly invented words but the words of the LORD (2Peter 1: 20-21). What Apostle Paul calls ‘the whole counsel of God’ (Acts 20:27). Also he must never forget that he must meet with sins of people and rebuke those sins without favouritism. He must expose the sins and their owners and rebuke them like Prophet Nathan did to the mighty king David. Otherwise the congregation remains Babylon bound (hell bound) plus the unfaithful minister.

Today?

I live in a country where I am supposed to believe the statisticians that our population is 80% Christian. I remember those days when I first joined high school and filled the admission forms. One of the questions would ask: ‘Are you a Christian?’ This was a mixed race school with mixed religion. But the funny thing was that, for blacks, it was automatic that you were either a Christian or a Muslim. For Indians they would be Hindu suspects-only Hindu! It was never imagined that there can be an Indian Christian or Muslim. So we went through high school known as Christians by the virtue of filling a form to differentiate us from Muslims and Hindus. The sad part of it is that this notion of Christianity is what the government still relies on to know who is a Christian. Added to this, it is true from the look of Sunday activities around us that many people actually walk into places of Sunday worship in the name of being Christians. But they remain the same as they were in high school-without Christ.

As this population continue to walk in to these churches every Sunday and some participate to the core of church activities, they still leave a lot to be concerned of. In the churches, they have full time pastors with some having titled themselves Bishops and Arch-Bishops etc. This concern leads an inquisitive heart to peer a bit into what might be taking place in these churches and I suspect that inside them there are ministers like the ones in Lamentation 2:14. Otherwise how can one explain the reason behind the so called 80% Christians yet of no substance? The fear of God is not there in the community just as the solid Gospel is also lacking in these buildings. How will people ever know of this great salvation when all they hear is ‘give and you will be rich, or plant a seed here and plant a seed there, come to the Lord and all your earthly problems will be sorted out etc?’ You never hear anything to do with sin. The scene does not change when it comes to the daily exhortation to live holy for the Lord. Church discipline has totally lost its meaning and any person propagating this is seen as cruel and inconsiderate to the plight of people or victims of circumstances. I have this nagging feeling that a big section of ministers today have gone the way of the false prophets above. We have come to prove the prophetic words of Apostle Paul to be true: ‘But understand this that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant …lovers of pleasure rather lovers of God, having appearance of godliness but denying its power’ (2 Timothy 3:1-6). The saddest parts of his prophesy lies in 2 Timothy 4:3. ‘For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passion’- ESV. NIV puts it thus: ‘For a time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.’ This is that very situation where the pew dictates to the pulpit what to preach but God designed it that it should be the other way round. In case you are waiting for this prophecy to be fulfilled in the future, I am afraid you might never see it come to pass because it is already with us and has been.

To conclude, Lamentation 2:14 sounds a great warning to both the preacher and the preached to:

To the preacher:

1. Preach the whole counsel of God, do not add and do not remove. Even the apostles, who were with Jesus, did not follow cleverly invented stories to win people but what the Holy Spirit gave them. The Bible is complete you will be safer to be faithful in expounding what is in there than looking to what is outside.
2. Let your preaching reveal the true Christ of the Bible. The Saviour of sinners who has come to save. Once we believe in him we need to hate sin, expose sin and love God more and more. Without holiness there is no seeing God.
3. Avoid the attitude of picking out big fish/small fish in the congregation for favours.

Remember the most miserable sight above? Do not be amongst them.

To the preached to:

1. Those itching ears could be your very down fall, and more so, if your minister is feeding them according to their want yet with stuff very strange to the Scripture.
2. Discern who your minister is. It is your duty to do this lest you feed on false prophets. You will not have an excuse before God for having believed their message which misled you to hell. Imagine the time of Jeremiah. As the captives are being led in to long distance Babylon, one old lady with her child strapped on her back pleading to be released because she was misled by the false teachers to worship some gods and disobey the LORD of Israel. She does not have a case to present. It is too late to reason; it was her duty to discern who is a prophet from God than to listen day and night to the false prophets.

You could be today following your false prophets with all genuine heart, seriousness and innocence but this will not be your defense on that day of great assize. Today is the day to avoid them and it is your duty.

‘And he said, then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house-for I have five brothers- so that he may warn them, lest they also come in to this place of torment. But Abraham said, They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them…if they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’  (Luke 16: 27-31). Spectacular ministries devoid of Scriptural truths will never lead one to heaven.

Sam Oluoch (Pastor GBC-K)

Summary and Review of the first 84 pages of John Newton

 From Disgrace to Amazing Grace by Jonathan Aitken

       It is remarkable that Jonathan Aitken’s biography of John Newton begins, in part with a note about the spiritual teachings that the latter’s mother Elizabeth laboured to instill into her son at an early age. She ensured that by the time young Newton was four years old, he could at least read. A pious woman, she introduced the word of God to her son ensuring he stored in his mind many “valuable pieces, chapters and portions of scripture, catechisms, hymns and poems.” Indeed and even though she died while Newton was only a little child, Elizabeth’s early teachings of the word of God to her son were to later have a great influence on the outcome of his life when it is considered that his father, Captain John Newton was an absentee father, a sea farer whose “frequent absences at sea” is much talked about in the book. It is noted, for example that when Elizabeth Newton died in 1732, her husband was away at sea and only returned home “in early 1733”, yet the scripture lessons young Newton learned at his mother’s knee were not  completely forgotten and these would become the foundation for his eventual conversion and subsequent Christian commitment.

       Captain Newton introduced his son to seafaring in the latter’s teenage, but the captain being of the view that his son was not suitable for a career at sea, found him employment with a family friend, one Joseph Manesty in one of the latter’s plantations in Jamaica but Newton never took up the job, he having gone for a visit at his mother’s cousin Elizabeth Catlett’s house where he met his cousin Polly Catlett with whom he fell deeply in love and decided to overstay the visit. It was during a second visit to the Catlett’s in Chatham that he was press-ganged (forcefully recruited) into the Royal Navy and placed abound HMS Harwich. He soon lost his captain’s favour after prolonging a day’s leave he had been granted to over ten days on account of Polly Catlett but things came to a head when he attempted to desert the navy, was caught flogged and degraded. Eventually he was discharged from the Navy through an exchange programme then allowable and onto a merchant ship, the Pegasus, a slave trading ship that would take him to Africa and into the slave trade, with its appalling brutality. By this time Newton was an ardent blasphemer and even though he survived several near death mishaps which he would later attribute to divine providence, he became increasingly steeped into sin.

       Starting his life in Africa as a land-based slave trader, Newton soon disagreed with his employer, Amos Clow and he soon found himself under severe punishment first after disagreeing with Mr. Clow’s African mistress, one PI and even more so after it was falsely alleged by one of Mr. Clow’s friends that Newton had stolen his employer’s property. When he contracted some tropical diseases in the absence of his employer who had then travelled inland from their base at the West coast of Africa, Newton was extensively mistreated by the his employer’s mistress who not only denied him medication and food, but also taunted him with unending abuses and insults. When his employer came back he believed PI’s side of the story against Newton’s and so the punishments were increased, for Newton, in this state of severe illness, was put in chains on the upper deck of a slave ship where he stayed through the cold of rain and the heat of the African sun, was starved, beaten, mocked some more and denied proper medication such that even his fellow African slaves pitied him. It is at this point that he wrote and smuggled out letters to his father, describing the horror of his plight in Africa. Newton felt hopeless, helpless and humiliated, with no end of his captivity in sight. By this time, Newton was about twenty one years of age.

       By God’s providence, Newton was subsequently offered employment by another slave trader who even gave him a share in the said trader’s “factory” so that he, Newton, also now owned and sold some slaves for personal profit besides his pay for the work he did for this new employer. Living as he pleased, with increased income and an unbridled lust for African slave women who he often raped, Newton began dabbling in witchcraft and blasphemed God even the more. Back home, however, his father had received the letters his son had written and managed to smuggle out while in captivity and so Captain Newton organized for a rescue mission of his son to be carried out by a captain of one of Joseph Manesty’s trading ships, the Greyhound. By the time the rescuers reached the younger Newton, he was so comfortable in this sinful lifestyle that it took persuasion and indeed a litany of concocted tales and lies to get him on board. Once on the ship, he took to heavy drinking and unending blasphemy and even later when he read a Christian classic that he found aboard the ship “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas Kempis, he was largely indifferent to it. Soon enough however, the Greyhound was hit by a huge and devastating storm that smashed a large section of its upper bow to smithereens and the crew laboured hard to keep her afloat with increasing desperation even as it was all too apparent that the all the ship’s food stores and supplies had been lost, not to mention that some of the crewmen got swept overboard to their deaths in the cold Atlantic. It was then and only then and after all hope seemed lost that Newton remarked “If this will not do, the Lord have mercy on us”

       This appears to have been the beginning of Newton’s conversion to faith for even his fellow crew members, convinced that his God-mocking profanities had brought down divine wrath upon the Greyhound increasingly started toying with the idea of throwing him overboard in a manner akin to the story of Jonah of the Bible. This beginning part of the book sets the stage, so that through the diverse and severe sufferings that Newton encountered, for his eventual conversion, we are taught that in our stubbornness, God may allow us to suffer that we may then look to Him for salvation. Indeed at the end of chapter ten of Jonathan Aitken’s book, and as the Greyhound to their amazement, eventually landed in Ireland, with a limp and quite miraculously, it was difficult for John Newton not to see the providences of God in his life. Yet in all this, I have seen that the grace of God which is mightier than human thought can comprehend or fathom never left Newton and this has encouraged me greatly and to the extent that I would recommend this book to all serious Christians who would want to look again at the grace of God in its exemplary work in the life of John Newton. I have, as well, learnt anew from this book the truism in Proverbs 22:6 that if we “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” This God that his mother had long taught him about, and whose teachings had somehow remained at the back of Newton’s mind, is the one who rescued the Greyhound and her crew when all else appeared unhelpful.  It is at this point that John Newton stated “About this time I began to know that there is a God who hears and answers prayer”. It was the time of John Newton’s conversion. And his song ‘Amazing Grace how sweet the sound ‘ testifies to his conversion.

Review by Kennedy Owiti of Grace Baptist Church-Kisumu

SIN PAINS!                                                                                Article by Pastor Sam Oluoch GBC-K

May I draw your attention to Psalm 38? This is one of the penitential Psalms (others being 32, 51, 102, 130 and 143). It deals with sin, in fact, with the weight of sin on a believer’s shoulder and gives us tips on how Christians should respond to sin when they happen to fall.

The Psalmist here (David) has fallen in to sin, it is not clear what it is but he becomes conscious of this and groans under the weight of it. He ‘suffocates’ under the umbrella of sin and this causes him not only physical pain but also psychological (vs. 1-4). This is aggravated by the fact that he awakes to the reality that it is against God that he has sinned and possible chastisement awaits him from the hand of the Holy God (vs. 1). This is striking when compared to Psalm 51:4 when he also says: ‘against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.’ Any sin committed is done against the laws of God. Men suffer from our sinfulness because we have disobeyed God. So, in as much as we directly sometimes sin against fellow men, eventually, we sin not against man but against God.

It is also enlightening to see that David takes full responsibility of his sin in verse 5 and 18. He is categorical that ‘my wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly.’ Aha my. This sounds better than Adam’s ‘the woman you gave me.’ What I see here is that a regenerate person, born again through the second Adam (Christ Jesus), in as far as accepting responsibility of sin is concerned, is far much better than the first Adam. When you sin, it is you who has sinned. Yet many a times we hear excuses like: ‘oh it was my wife’s behaviour that led me to sin’, ‘oh it was the weather that made me…’ or even, ‘had it not been for my poverty, I would not have stolen the money.’ Sin properly repented of is sin acknowledged and faced without passing blames to external forces (See James 1: 13-15). Notice the phrase ‘by his own evil desires.’ This is emphatic that sin comes from inside you and you are responsible for it. How about Jesus saying that what goes in is not sin but what comes out of man. Sin cannot be shared, inside you is inside you. You cannot share a ‘stomach.’ of sin. Hence David here owns up to his own sin by saying ‘I’, ‘I am’, and ‘my’. Not ‘we’, ‘we are’, ‘our’. Once we start passing blames to others when we sin, it is impossible to deal with that sin properly. It is this owning up that pains one and makes him/her groan for forgiveness from God (Psalm 32:3-5). Pride will not allow one to do this.

David however brings another aspect of suffering in to the equation of sin’s torment. Possibility of friends and relatives deserting you (vs. 11) with some even taking advantage of the shame sin brings on you. Jesus experienced this when he carried our sins to the Cross and closer friends deserted Him and even denied any knowledge of Him. Socially he was rejected and abandoned by many due to our sin. Christ suffered this desertion. In Psalm 38:11 David suffered the same (He is known as a type of Christ in many ways). May I explain this rejection by friends and where the pain comes from?

Human beings are created to socialise. We are social beings and living around people derives some kind of completeness in man. When this is denied us, depression can occur and pain of neglect is felt. This is the essence of prison facilities where normally prisoners enjoy all that they need but not social life. Even Christians need this kind of socialization, not only with fellow Christians but general community. This is why apostle Peter counts it as persecution when the world looks at us as strange fellows because of our faith and cuts us off from their social life (1 Pet. 4:1-4). When brothers turn against brother, father against son because of the gospel, Christ says, do not worry for He will raise up greater brothers/sisters for you to socialise with as Christians and enjoy their company lest you be lonely, feel the pain and drop faith.

A good look at 1 Corinthians 5:1-5, 9-13 also confirms the need for closer walk with others. Here, Apostle Paul commands that we should never associate with excommunicated sinners in a manner to give them warmth of fellowship as if they still have the right to enjoy the social life of community of believers. When this is denied a repentant sinner, the pain of being away from true brethren is expected to turn him to Christ in repentance. If the people of the world feel the pain of being locked away from social life with the rest, how much more a true Christian locked away from the community of believers. Surely, this should bring repentance.

In Psalm 38: 11 we therefore see the pain sin has brought David when his friends and companions are running away from him and even plans for his down fall. This surprises David greatly and leaves him with no words in his mouth (vs. 13-14).

A welcome friend.

Jesus was several times referred to as friend of sinners and tax collectors. Oh yes He was a friend of sinners and tax collectors, for such he came. David therefore runs to him. As the Psalm begun with merciful God in sight, it ends with the same hope. It is only Christ who can forgive the worst of sins (1 Tim 1:15-16) even when men have run away. He will in no way drive from him a man who is seriously repentant of his sin and appreciates that his own sin grieves God and must be let go. I am not talking here of superficial confession of sin but that which is expressed here by David. A true Christian understands the weight of sin and flees from it. When he repents, his heart’s desire is that he will never go back to it. He will not be like a dog that goes back to lick its own vomit or a swine who is washed clean and goes back to the dirty waters. One of the ways we can tell who a Christian is; is by the way they feel the weight of sin on them and the way they repent of it. ‘Have mercy on me a sinner’.

Amen.