Video 1 Intro to Mission

welcome to the course intro to missions I'm Timothy Moore your professor and um our first couple of lessons will be on the biblical basis of missions and so um what I want to talk to you about is uh the very first missionary in the Bible uh most Mission agencies or Mission networks would consider Abraham to be the very first missionary who took his family on Mission according to the promise of God and uh and actually conveyed the promises of God uh to others and in another country uh although missions really is across the street and

around the world it's what we do uh as our assignment from the Lord to make Christ and the promises of God uh known and so um a missionary uh at his or her core is a hope dealer we have hope that the world desperately needs because uh hope from the world standpoint is always just an uncertain wish uh we express it this way I you know you know when when someone's sick let's say they're they are um they're expected to die we may say I hope you feel better that's a very uncertain wish uh when

someone's eight months pregnant with a child we may say I hope you have a healthy baby well that's a great sentiment but it still is an uncertain wish uh you can say I hope I get an A in this class um but um that's contingent upon work that you do and how well you do on the quizzes so there's a some uncertainty to that and so um we are really revisiting in a in in a way in intro to missions what we covered in the course Christian spirituality in the sense that hope is what we're

taking it's what we're carrying with us hope in Christ hope in the promises of God and the biblical concept of Hope expressed in the in the biblical language of Co Greek elpas means a joyful and confident certainty and so there's there's no uncertain wish related to biblical hope it is joyful and con and confident um certainty in the promises of God and so the hope that we have in Christ is more more sure and certain than the sunrise and sunset uh God has made 7,487 promises in his word to us and he's never broken a

promise and he never will break a promise these are a sure and firm foundation and it's something that we carry to the world um I want to start in Romans chapter 4 and read a few verses from there and then we will uh we'll go to Genesis 12 and we'll see that initial call that missionary call of Abraham who was known as Abram at the time and then we'll probably end up in Galatians chapter 3 uh and so Romans CH 4: 18 says even when there was no reason for Hope Abraham kept hoping so you

see this call is all about hope believing it says that he would become the father of many nations for God had said to him that's how many descendants you will have and Abraham's Faith did not weaken even though at about 100 years of age he figured his body was as good as dead and so was Sarah's womb Abraham never wavered in believing God's promise in fact he grew stronger and in this he brought glory to God and so I want to go back into the context of Abraham and how God called Abraham as the First

Missionary and then and then bring those principles from Genesis CH 12 into our lives through the New Testament teaching that uh that gives us Direction and how we carry out the Miss of Christ in our day-to-day interactions and even in Mission assignments that the Holy Spirit may give us in other countries uh the Abraham recap then is uh God reaches down into a a very Pagan culture and the place the Bible describes as ER of the calans but that's modern day Iraq and it's the southern portion of Iraq and so God calls Abraham out of

Pagan religion and he tells him to go north and and Abraham uh in effect asks God what that's going to look like and and God communicates that he didn't need to know that he just needs to know the direction and so God gives him what to do but the how belongs to God and Abraham trusted God however God revealed that to him the Bible just says God said this and so we don't know exactly how that happened uh but we may assume it was in an audible Voice or some type of communication obviously that was

so direct that Abraham knew exactly what God was telling him to do and Abraham was not a poor man in her Abraham was a very wealthy man he had he uh he had servants he had flocks uh there were many people people that went with Abraham on his mission toward Canaan so God reaches down and some way and he calls Abraham his name at the time was Abram in Hebrew a and it's pronounced more like a the a is Father uh aam is uh is a name that simply means father and that was kind of

a a sting for Abraham because Abraham was never able to have children he didn't have a child until he was a very old man yet his name abam means father and so when somebody asked him his name he would say my name is father and he was like well how many children do you have uh I don't have any children and so God calls Abram father and he ends up making this Covenant of Grace and we're going to talk about what that means a Covenant of Grace with Abram and changes AB Abram's name to Abraham

which doesn't just mean father it means father of many nations and so he carried this name of father of many nations throughout his life and he had no children and so that's even more of a of a sting or a hurt uh in Abraham's heart but he trusted God and and he went when God called and so he demonstrates great faith and God makes a covenant with them it's and it's a covenant of pure grace and so a covenant is a sacred agreement between two parties but a Covenant of Grace is a is a covenant

that's only dependent on one party it's to totally lopsided so one party makes all of the promises does everything necessary for the Covenant and the other party benefits from it so this party is the benefactor this is the one who does everything this party over here this person over here gets everything and has to do nothing so it's a very unusual kind of Covenant and so uh here's the definition again of a Covenant of Grace this is very important because in Christ we're going to see that the scripture teaches that we are as much a

recipient of the Covenant of Grace as Abraham was in in Genesis when God made the Covenant of Grace with him in Christ we receive the same exact Covenant and so it's important to know what a covenant of Grace is here's the definition a Covenant of Grace is a gift to be received never something that can be achieved you can't achieve it you can only receive it and you can reject it but you can't do anything to earn it and so it can only be received as a gift so God makes this Grace Covenant with this

man Abram so when God changed the name of Abram to Abraham and he said I will make you a father of many nations did God keep that promise to Abraham so here are some facts there are 195 Nations on planet Earth today there are believers followers of Christ Believers in the promises of God in every single nation on Earth and in every single country 80% of the people who claim any kind of Faith any kind of Faith at all trace the beginning of that Faith to this one man Abraham and the Covenant of Grace excuse

me that God established with him and his descendants so here's the interesting thing the Bible teaches that every human being every human being can be a child of Abraham and if Abraham is your father then all the promises of God belong to you and again I say there's 7,487 verses that contains specific Promises of God to those who believe those who are in Christ um 2 Corinthians 1:20 says that all the promises of God are yes and amen to those who are in Christ Jesus and so if you're a child of Abraham every promise of

God belongs to you and it is by the pure grace of God alone alone it's through a Covenant of Grace So how do you know how do you know if you're a child of Abraham you guys asked the best question so I'm going to give you the answer to that Galatians chapter 3 beginning in verse 6 it says in the same way Abraham believed God and God counted him righteous because of his faith The Real Children of Abraham then are those those who put their faith in God what more the scriptures look forward to this

time when God would make the Gentiles the Nations right in his sight because of their faith God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said all nations will be blessed through you so all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith so you see that it says everyone who puts faith in Christ have you put your faith in Christ and what he's done for you if you believe that Jesus Christ came to this world the Son of God lived as your example he lived the

life you should have lived he died in your place on the cross for all of your sin and shame and he conquered death on the third day he rose from Death to prove that he is your source of forgiveness and the one who is the worthy leader of your life that's what Lord means he's the ultimate leader the worthy leader of your life he proved it through conquering death if you believe that and you ask Christ to come into your life if you receive Christ and Christ only works by invitation and so he said I

stand at the door and knock if anyone opens I'll come in and so Romans 10:13 says whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved and so you call out to him you ask him to come into your life and John 1:12 says as many as receive him to them he gives a right become CH children of God to those who believe on his name and so if you have responded to that truth that's the good news that he's talking about God let Abraham know he made promises to Abraham and he said God

proclaimed the good news to Abraham and all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing if if we were in a class interacting I would have you repeat the words same blessing the Covenant of pure grace that God made with Abraham is experienced all of the blessings of it are experienced with when you and I believe in Jesus Christ and all that he achieved and receive him into our lives so you have the Covenant of Grace and it is received because of your faith that's an amazing promise is it not that God calls

the First Missionary and he lets him know that he's going to send a deliverer in fact the word he uses back there in Genesis is he said I will bless All Nations through your seed and that means a descendant a singular descendant of Abraham would bring all of the blessings and Promises of God to those who believe on him that singular descendant he didn't say seeds plural he said seed singular and the scripture says in the New Testament that Christ is that seed he's that descendant of Abraham to bless all of the Nations all people

and I don't know about you but in in the United States we have vacation bible schools every year and a song that I learned uh when I was about five years old in Vacation Bible School uh the lyrics are Father Abraham had many sons and many sons had Father Abraham and I am one of them and so are you so Let's Just Praise the Lord so being a child of Abraham is is equivalent in the scripture to being a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ so wow Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 10 says

this when God made the promised to Abraham it was the promise of a country a promise of a land and Abraham made that Journey North but he never got to see the Fulfillment of that promise where he actually had the land God tells Abraham while he's camping in Canaan which is the promised land between a town called Ai and on one side of him and a town called bethl on the other side and I want to talk about the significance of that in just a moment um he told Abraham that the the promise of this

land would be experienced by his descendants by his children and that made Abraham very happy made him worship God the Bible says he built an altar there and worshiped God and His Faith Abraham's Faith The Confident expectation Hebrews 11:10 it says Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations a city designed and built by God and so Abraham went where God told him to go he carried the blessing and promise of God and Abraham knew that his real home was a city that had foundations whose Builder maker was God it's not a

city or a place made with human hands Abraham knew that heaven was his home and he also knew that all of these blessings down here that God had promised would be experienced by his uh by his children his progeny his descendants um if we're going to live our lives with joyful and confident expectation we need to have a big vision of where everything is headed that that was a driving force of this First Missionary Abraham he knew that he was destined for a city just like the old gospel songs uh often talk about we're headed

for a city whose Builder and maker is God the earth and its Descendants the the descendants of Abraham and and the people of the Earth will experience some incredible Promises of God here on planet Earth uh when Jesus returns and Abraham had a sense of that as well and so um I want us to look at that I want us to get a picture of what's going to happen on planet Earth and and and because the Bible tells us it gives us a very clear picture of what it looks like when Jesus returns and we're

looking forward to that we're looking forward to a to an eternal uh City we're going to get a picture of that in just a moment because Abraham looked forward to all of this and he looked forward to his descendants experiencing this even though he knew that he wouldn't personally experience it and he worshiped God uh because his descendants would experience it um what I want to do first before we look at that picture in Micah CH 4 is uh I want to pull up Genesis 12 where God calls Abraham and I want to visit that

um Genesis 12 verse one said the Lord said to Abram leave your native country your relatives your father's family and go to the land that I will show you I'll make you into a great nation I will bless you and I'll make you famous and you will be a blessing to others I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt and all the families on Earth will be blessed through you and so Abraham departed as the Lord had instructed and lot went with him Abraham was 75 years old when

he left Haron he took his wife Sarai his nephew lot and all his wealth which was considerable his livestock and all the people that he had taken into his household at Haron and he headed for the land of Canaan this was about a 1500 mile march by some estimations and when they arrived in Canaan Abraham traveled through the land as far as sheim and there he set up camp between the oak of Mora and at that time the area was inhabited by the Canaanites um Abraham went from there and he set up a camp in

the Hill Country with bethl to the west and AI to the East and he built another altar to the Lord and He Worship the Lord because the Lord said he was going to give these promises to Abraham's descendants so when we talk about AI we're not talking about chat GPT AI in the Bible means um literally means a heap of ruins and so on one side of where Abraham Camp there was a heap of a city that the name means a heap of ruins and on the other side was a city called bethl and bethl

in Hebrew means the house of God it's a reference to heaven to the Eternal Dwelling Place of God and so Abraham camped between Ai and bethl in the land of Canaan that is the promised land so in a figurative sense a missionary lives his or her life camped between the Heap of ruins Ai and the house of God Heaven your Camp is toward bethl the house of God but you're calling the people of AI people who are living without God people are living according to the lust of their their eyes their flesh the pride of

their life they're living according to material materialism sensuality and selfishness that is the worldly heap of ruins and you're calling them into the hope that can only be found in Christ you're living your life in the hope that can only be found in Christ and you're orienting your life toward the future Promises of God and so all of us in a sense are on Mission with God as Believers and we're camped between Ai and bethl so we're looking forward to the promise of God so I want to I want to go back and I want

to look at what's going to happen on planet Earth and maybe some things that we can look forward to uh in heaven uh Heaven the the Eternal state is going to be both City and Country but the city called the New Jerusalem is built by the very hands of God and not people uh in Micah CH 4 1-4 we have the absolute and I mean the complete fulfillment of all the promises God made to Abraham in the return of the Lord Jesus Christ who sets up his throne in Jerusalem in what was the land of

Canaan and he rules on this Earth and makes everything new we get this picture in Micah 4 of the Lord's future Reign on planet Earth Jesus Christ is going to return to this earth there is a second coming a second Advent of Christ his first Advent was being born as a baby in Bethlehem we SE celebrated at Christmas his second Advent is going to happen and here's what it's going to look like when he gets here verse one Micah chapter 4 it says in the last days the mount mountain of the Lord's House will be

the highest of all the most important place on Earth it will be raised above the other Hills and people from all over the world will stream there to worship the uh the language here language of the Old Testament is Hebrew Biblical Hebrew the language here seems to indicate that Zion which is Jerusalem is somehow going to be physically raised um and it's it's going to be higher than any other Hill any other Mountain that may be um a geological event where Jerusalem is physically raised up or it may just be referring to the importance uh

Jerusalem's a city on a hill Jesus as the King of Kings is going to rain from there so it may be just a reference to how important that place will be when Jesus returns that geographical location on planet Earth and it says that people from All Nations will stream there to worship Christ and to be instructed by the Lord it says in verse two people from many nations will come and say come let us go to the mountain of the Lord to the house of Jacob's God and there he will teach us his way and

we will walk in his paths for the Lord's teaching will go out from Zion his word will go out from Jerusalem Zion is Jerusalem the Lord will mediate between peoples and he will settle disputes between strong Nations far away they will Hammer their swords into plow shares the weapons of war will become the weapons of Agriculture says they'll they will Hammer their Spears into pruning hooks a nation will no longer fight against nation and no one will train for war anymore there will be no military on planet Earth because the King of Kings is on

planet Earth the second person of the Holy Trinity who has all power and all authority he will be reigning physically from Jerusalem and there will be no need for military because righteousness and peace will cover the Earth like the waters cover the sea what a day to look forward to it says in verse four everyone will live in peace and prosperity enjoying their own Great Vines and fig trees for there will be nothing to fear that the Lord of Heaven's armies has made this promise so what a big Vision what a wonderful thing to be

looking forward to uh to to be able to observe this and we will be able to observe this and see this even from the Heavenly City even from from the Eternal Dwelling Place of God the Bible teaches that we can observe what is happening on planet Earth and rejoice uh that it is happening so someday if Christ doesn't return in our lifetimes we will be in the Eternal City of God and with our new bodies new glorified bodies we will be living all of the promises of God God's presence is full majesty and peace the

Bible says in his presence there's fullness of joy and so we'll be living heaven and be able to observe what the Lord is doing on Earth Earth making righteousness and peace and prosperity cover the Earth like the waters cover the sea what an incredible thing to be looking forward to that's what Abraham looked forward to that's what kept him moving in the mission of God because he had a role to play here as do you and as as do I we have roles to play in the mission of God and we have the promise through

Christ in John chapter 14 he goes I go to prepare a place for you and if I go to prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to myself before he said that he said in my father's house bethl the house of God In my Father's house are many mansions I'm going to prepare that Mansion for you and I will come again and receive you to myself Christ is coming back he will reign his reign will create a world of peace Joy unity and prosperity that's the big Vision the Grand Vision

of Hope For The World The Hope For The Individual is the complete forgiveness of sin the promise of this eternity with God in heaven and then the Holy Spirit who comes inside of us and and creates this incredible opportunity of an abundant life here on planet Earth so we carry this hope this is the foundation of mission work and I believe in a sense every believer is a missionary even if you choose to be a teacher in a public school you are a missionary cleverly disguised as a teacher in a public school if you decide

to be a lawyer you're a missionary cleverly disguised as a lawyer if you're a plum you're a missionary cleverly disguised as a plumber God has assignments for us God has a calling on our lives he has work for each of us to do and so may you advance in his calling and his purpose for your life man we've been talking about Hope a lot because we need it right oh man when I was a kid I'm the pioneer believer in my family um my parents were sometimes CEOs you know Christmas Easter only uh CEO Christians

but we had a we had Church buses that ran in the South anybody go to church on a church bus when you were that's a thing up here I mean for some of you um went to church on a bus so so my sister and I would go to church at Allen's Creek Baptist Church ride on the church bus and a lot of times you got these little cards these little encouragement cards to take home and there was a boy that had one of those cards that just said have faith in God and and we

kids especially when it was uh spring or summer we like to push in those buttons and roll the windows down you know and so everybody's windows down and the GU the kid's got his little card and he's just admiring his card and the wind catches it and it flies out the window and he reacts and he goes stop the bus I've lost my faith card and uh I think the reason we need to focus on Hope is because the wind of the world sometimes takes our faith card away right and faith in the promises of

God that's what gives us hope and so we need to refocus on our faith card um Shakespeare said in MC Beth you know he really I think captured the hopelessness of of the world apart from the promises of God in MC Beth He said Each new more new widows howl new orphans cry and new Sorrows strike heaven in the face that's the hope the only hope that the world has is an uncertain wish you know I mean we might express it like I hope you feel better or I hope you have a healthy baby or

I hope I get an A on that test or I hope she likes me or I hope I make a difference in the world or I I hope their marriage makes it I hope I get a raise I hope we have World Peace as a result of the next election you know it's an uncertain wish right that's all that it is but we're ctk Hope Church and the hope we have is not an uncertain wish look at that hope I love that they put that up I I didn't notice that till the end of the

first service There's Hope on the wall even over there that's awesome our hope is the fruit of faith and the promises of God um last week we started talking about Abraham there's so much about Abraham in the Bible there are chapters and chapters in Genesis about Abraham but then there's all kinds of chapters in the New Testament that refer to Abraham and so Abraham is referred to as the father of all who have faith and so let's uh I want to focus our attention for the first few minutes on Romans chap 4: 18 which says

even when there is no no reason to Hope Abraham kept hoping the older translation says hoping against hope and I think how that would be translated in modern vernacular would be like Against All Odds Abraham had hope and that's the kind of hope we need right I mean the world's got some messy stuff our lives have some messy stuff and some adversity and Against All Odds we need hope amen so believing he would become the father of many nations that's what God told him he said that's how many descendants you will have he said try

to C count the sand on the seashore try to go out and count all the stars in the heavens God said so shall your descendants be Abraham and it says Abraham's Faith did not weaken even though at about a hundred years of age this is post flood so people's ages were more like our ages today and Abraham was 100 years old Sarah was 90 years old and they didn't have one baby and God said your descendants will be as numerous as the Stars like sand on the seashore says he figured his body was as good

as dead and so was Sarah's womb but Abraham never wavered everybody Say Never wavered Never wavered he never wavered in believing God's promise in fact his faith grew stronger and in this he brought glory to God the recap of Abraham if you didn't go go back and listen last week but the recap is God reached down into the darkest time in the history of humanity into Iraq did you know that's where our faith was born Iraq he reached down into Iraq to the son of a man named Tara and everybody was worshiping Idols including Abram

because it was the age of trinket Gods which really makes us God right and we carve a little image to serve us put it on the mantle because we want our stuff we want our relationships we want our achievements and carve a little trinket God and say Bless Me If You Can that's what was happening we learned that in Joshua 24 it describes that that's what's happening in Genesis 11: 27 when the Holy Spirit comes down plucks Abram out of that in ER of the CES that's Iraq and then he brings them out to haran

which is Syria and then from Syria to Canan which is Israel and he doesn't just bring him out God makes a Covenant of Grace with Abram what's a covenant of great we don't use the word covenant a lot we don't have covenants this today we have contracts okay you do this I'll do that quid proquo the difference between that and a Covenant of Grace is that it is beautifully and perfectly completely lopsided because in the Covenant of Grace that God made with Abram Abram didn't have to I'm going to say this Southern all right he

didn't have to do nothing all Abraham had to do was have faith and when God made the Covenant it was God that walked through the sacrifice and while Abraham fell into a deep sleep how does this affect you some of y'all need to fall into a deep sleep and just trust God with all this junk in your life you need to get your hands off of it and trust that there's a good God who will take care of it you need to let it go somebody said here going let it go let it go let

it go because when your hand is on it you're going to have anxiety in it and when you by faith faith just means to trust you're trusting in the goodness and the ability of God so when you start trusting in the goodness and ability of God Ephesians 320 is Unleashed Ephesians 3:20 God says I will do exceedingly and abundantly more than you ask or think according to my power that's at work in you