Our Great Calling

           In Mark 16:15 Jesus says to His disciples, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel; to every creature.” He says the same thing in Matthew 28:19, Luke 24:47, and Acts 1:8. This is our great commission. God has called us to preach His word to the world. He never told us it would be easy to preach His word, He simply told us to do it in His strength. While still here on earth Jesus sent out His disciples out, He is sending us out in the same way. We are supposed to leave all we have to go. He is the one who gives us strength to preach His word.

            Often times we read these verses about Jesus sending us to preach the gospel and we try to make ourselves believe that He is calling others, not us. We think that we are too weak to talk the gospel to every nation. We avoid Jesus’ great commission by hoping that others will do it for us. Every nation seems too great an amount for us to reach, it’s too hard for us, and we ignore the calling.

            But, God called all His children to shine their lights in the darkness. His great commission is for all of us, not one of us can avoid the calling and then stand before God. It will be hard, but God’s strength is shown in our weakness. Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  Preaching the gospel to every creature may seem a daunting task, but with God all things are possible, and we are not working alone, He will always be there working through us.

            This does not mean that every Christian is called to go overseas, but that God has a special place for everyone to serve Him. There are 2500 tribal group which have never heard the good news and God has called each one of us to help change that. There are three areas in tribal missions and God has called each one of us to serve Him in one of these areas, all we must do is ask Him to show us where He wants us to serve. The three areas are tribal missionaries, support missionaries, and church missionaries. Each area is equally important in the furthering of the gospel among those who have never heard the name of Jesus.

            Tribal missionaries are those who go into a tribe which has never heard the gospel before or who don’t understand the gospel. These missionaries leave their families, homes, and comforts behind and go into an isolated area in order to preach the gospel. It isn’t always easy for these missionaries; they have to deal with sickness, discouragement, and hostility. But these people are hurting, they need Christ to save them, they need missionaries to tell them of an eternal hope. While I was in Papua New Guinea one of the tribes we stopped at asked us to send them a missionary. Their desire to have a missionary made me realize just how great the need for missionaries is.

            Support missionaries don’t go into the tribes; rather they help tribal missionaries stay where they are. Support missionaries either live overseas on the mission bases, serving as school teachers, pilots, mechanics, doctors or nurses, technicians, etc. or they serve from home in the mission offices as travel coordinators, accountants, etc. Without these support workers tribal missionaries would not be able to stay on the field and help reach people with the gospel. These workers allow the tribal missionaries to continue their work without being hindered.

            The last area of tribal missions is those at home in the church. Those at home in the church are advocates for the missionaries overseas. They have three main responsibilities, to pray for those overseas, to financially support those overseas, and to encourage those overseas. Prayer is essential for preaching the gospel, Colossians 4:3 says, “…praying also for us, that God would open a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ…” Missionaries need prayer to continue in their work, we need to ask that God would be with them, protect them, encourage them, and open the door for them to preach the gospel. In our world nothing is free, and this is very true for mission work. Missionaries need financial support; they need enough support to stay on the field to continue to do what they are doing. Last, missionaries need encouragement. While I was in Papua New Guinea one of the missionaries told us that at the time when everyone thought that he would be the most encouraged by the work going on in his tribe, he was the most discouraged. Missionaries easily get discouraged, they are away from home and not everything works out. They need encouragement through e-mails, letters, and prayer.

            We have all been called to one of these areas of mission work. God has called me to be a support missionary and help preach the gospel through aviation. I would like to challenge you today to ask God to show you where He is calling you to serve Him. We are all called to preach the gospel; all that we have to do is ask God to show us where He is calling us to serve Him.