Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Feb/82

Contributor - John Moerman

Title - How Can This Christian Minority Reach the Three Billion Unreached?

Topic - Outreach

The world will be evangelized when you and I are willing to learn and accept all that Jesus taught His disciples. Jesus said, "observe all that I have commanded you". Paul said, "do not shrink back from declaring ... the whole counsel of God".

This includes setting aside certain doctrinal hobby horses. Only what is essential to salvation and empowering for reaching out among the lost is determinative. The schism in the Body produced by broken fellowship is far more damaging and therefore a greater sin than the supposed errors, petty differences of traditions or beliefs (Love Covers, a viable platform for Christian unity, by Paul E. Billheimer). Jesus prayed for those who believed in Him through the word of those whom He sent, "that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in me and I in Thee, that they may also be in us, so that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me". Disunity about certain variations of traditions (creeds, confessions) is sin and hinders effective witness for Jesus Christ.

This teaching "all that Jesus commanded" includes also the acceptance and practice that "Jesus Christ (indeed) is the same yesterday, today and for' ever". This truth has been accepted and applied too much in just certain areas of life. Jesus did not just come to forgive sins and thereupon leave us struggle around in weakness, defeat, misery and despair. He came to set us free from (break the power over) self, sin, and satan. "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil...... I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." Jesus came to make people "well" and "whole" in body, soul and spirit. His miraculous work of the past stands equally so for today. Reformed preaching and teaching has been extremely weak here. We have left out parts of what Jesus commanded His followers of today to pass on! "The Kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power." (I Cor. 4:20). When Jesus Christ is no longer the same yesterday, today and forever to us in every facet of life, is it any wonder that our reaching out for Christ is ineffective.

"Teaching them to observe all that I commanded you", equally so includes recognition and acceptance of the fact that the Holy Spirit is our chief source of power. No program, methodology, ecclesiastical structure, so-called "finest of Reformed theology", or scientific breakthrough will ever take the place of Spirit-filled followers of Jesus Christ, whose hearts are so aflame with Him for His way to touch lives and so burdened for hell-bound souls that His people in this way become Holy Spirit empowered witnesses. I have said if before and would like to repeat it: If Jesus Christ, who was supernaturally conceived by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, did not venture on His ministry until He was thus empowered; if Christ instructed His disciples not to go out to do His work, representing Him until they were clothed with power from on high; if their baptism with the Holy Spirit was followed by various repetitions and evidences of the effusion with the Holy Spirit in the lives of other Christians who became Christ's followers; and if the same promise of the Father is "for all flesh" and "for you and your children d all that are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God shall call", will we as Christians today deny the absolute need d necessity to be thus filled or baptized with the Holy Spirit and empowered for witness, service and ministry to thereby reach out among the lost everywhere?

The 3 billion unreached will be evangelized when every member of the church sees and accepts the holy call to reach someone who has not been reached for Jesus Christ. This is implementing God's missionary strategy to "go out into all the world". It is witnessing to our neighbours, relatives, colleagues, employers, employees, friends. teachers, etc. in our cities, towns, villages, hamlets and country sides.

The criteria of measuring ministry is not how many seats we have in our church auditorium, rather how many go out witnessing for Jesus Christ nearby and far away. And how many of those who are members of our church live for Jesus on Sunday and during the week? "Let us stop complaining that we don't have enough people, enough money, or enough tools." That simply is not true. There is no shortage of anything we need, except faith and obedience, vision, will and prayer. And all this is resource that is immediately available to us all. "If more Christians were on their knees praying, more Christians would be on their feet evangelizing."

The 3 billion unreached people will much sooner be reached for Christ when the "sending churches" enable and allow those who have been touched with the Gospel of Jesus Christ to take over from the missionaries. Our funds must than be channeled to help these new Christians establish their own churches. "The world will be evangelized when money and personnel are seen as having an international character, instead of a national identity." Let western funds help support non-western Christians. "The world will be evangelized when indigenous churches are free to adopt and develop flexible methods of evangelism that are suited to the cultures in which these Christians witness and work." And this principle also applies in settings other than our own.

Note: For some of the convictions and quotations, read the article on World Evangelism by W. Stanley Mooneyham in "Christianity Today", September 18, 1981.

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