Welcome to a firm foundation presented by Princeton Ministries with Dr. Ken Smith. This is Carol Smith, Ken’s wife. Please enjoy.

It seems that many had forgotten that Jesus said that he was going to be raised from the dead on the third day. And it’s early in the morning. A morning that would be the greatest morning that the history of the world would know about. And on this morning, Mary Magdalene and some other women gathered together. And they came to the tomb. And on this, the most exciting and meaningful day of history, they would meet Jesus Christ. Jesus said to them, go to my disciples. Tell them to go to Galilee. And there they will see me. That’s what happened in the morning. Now it’s the evening of the same day. The evening of the most important day certainly in the history of the church and of mankind. And by the end of this day, rumors are everywhere.

Because some have said that they spoke to Jesus on the road to Emmaus. The women have already said that they have seen Jesus risen from the dead. But according to Jewish law, the testimony of a woman was not to be accepted. And so on this evening, they take the words of these women. And they all assemble in the upper room. Now, it’s an evening that is unlike any evening that had ever occurred. Because as they are assembled in the upper room. Without even the sound of an opening door, without the sound of the latch being lifted, the door being locked, suddenly, in their midst in the upper room, Jesus appears. He stands. And the first words that he utters to his disciples, peace be with you.

Then a few moments later, having shown them the nail prints in his hand, showing them the wounds, the scripture tells us again, he said to them, peace to you. Then for the first time, the resurrected Jesus gives a commission to his disciples. That commission, once they know of his peace, he declares to them, as the father has sent me, so send I you. The commissioning of the disciples, that they would take the word of the Lord and they would go forth. It’s my prayer that these words, as the Father has sent me, so send I you would be branded on your conscience. That it would become a mark of your life as a Christian. Jesus says to you and to me, so send I you. Let’s look more closely at the words. We might assume that these are words just for the apostles.

Well, we know that some 500 people saw the resurrected Jesus. We also know that in acts chapter one, verse eight, he declares to his disciples, to those who are his followers, you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And so the words that Jesus is speaking, that you are sent in my name, so send I. You are not directed just to the disciples, nor is it just directed to ministers. Sometimes we think that the minister is the general out on the white horse, and we send him out every Monday morning and we say, go to it. Good luck. We’ll pray for you. We’ll come back next Sunday and find out how you did.

This is not the words that are directed to a minister, nor are these words directed to those people who we would refer to as professional missionaries. No, these words are directed to every person who has ever received from the scepter of Jesus Christ, peace. Peace I give to you. Have you received that peace of Jesus Christ? The forgiveness of your sins, the assurance that you are going to spend eternity with him? Then he says, I have given you that peace. And as the Father has sent me, so send I you to go into the world. There seem to be in scripture always two types of people that are presented. Jesus never spent much time in the gray areas. Most businessmen I know are always talking about decisions being more gray than black and white.

We seem to live in a time where everyone is preoccupied on the grayness of decisions. And to say that there is black and white is very unpopular. Well, Jesus talked a great deal about darkness and light. Jesus saw the world as being separated between sheep and goats. Jesus saw the world as a group that was made up of wheat and tears, the true seed and weeds. Jesus Christ saw the world as made up of missionaries and people in need of missionaries. To be a Christian is to be a missionary that we have taken upon ourselves a cultural understanding of who missionaries are. We think to ourselves, why a missionary is that person who comes to a church. We take a collection and we pat him on the back and we send him off to Timbuktu. Why, that’s a missionary.

No, a missionary is those people who have been sent out by God to share what they have learned about Jesus Christ. Every one of us is called upon to be a missionary for Christ. You may not go across the seas to be a missionary, but Christ certainly calls you, and he calls me to go across the street and to be a missionary to our neighbor. He calls us to go as a missionary to the people that we work with, to our friends. Robert Spear, who was instrumental in the last generation and one of the greatest waves of missionary movement. His conclusion is that we cannot think of God except in terms which necessitate the missionary idea. How often do you think of God under the concept of missions?

Ralph Winter, who has been studying the church and missions and outreach says, and I quote, missions is the only subject of the Bible. Missions is the only subject of the Bible. Did you know that when you opened your door today to go to church, if all of the unsaved world passed in front of your door, if all those people who did not know Jesus Christ were to pass in review, that line would stretch around the world 30 times and every day it would get longer by 20 miles. If you drove at 50 miles an hour, 10 hours a day, it would take you four years and 40 days to reach the end of the line of the people who are living today who don’t know Christ.

And when you got to the end of that line after four years and 40 days, you would find that it had lengthened by an additional 30,000 miles because of the number of people who had been born in those four years and 40 days who still did not know Christ. Most of the persons who are living today in this world have never heard about Jesus Christ. According to the Fuller School of Missions, some 2.9 billion people do not know Jesus Christ. Out of a world of a little over 4,000,000,001 of the things that is happening in the movement of populations is we find that by the year 2000, Mexico City, just the city of Mexico, will have a population of over 30 million people. I remember as a boy, New York City and London were considered to be the largest cities in the world.

Today, there are eleven cities that are larger than New York. By the year 2000, there will be 23 cities larger than New York or London. Jesus Christ is concerned about this world. He has called us to the task of going out. He refers to us as the ones who have been sent out. Let me ask you, are you a missionary or are you in need of missionaries? If you are not a missionary, if you are not engaged in the great proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, if for you, that is an incidental topic in the christian faith, then the place for you to begin is to look for a missionary who will share with you about Jesus Christ. Christ called us into this world, not that we would simply know that we’re going to heaven and everything’s okay.

He has called us into the world to be a proclamation for his gospel. Is it possible to be a christian and not share the gospel of Jesus Christ? I would say that the statements of scripture say that is impossible. Let me ask you this year, how many people have made a decision to follow Christ because you were one of the influences in their life? That when they talk about their new birth in Christ, they will list you as a contributor, bringing them into the kingdom. How many of you this year have shared the gospel of Jesus Christ? Perhaps you did not see someone come to the lord, but at least you have shared with them about the blood of Christ, his resurrection, about new life. How many of you have been silent, waiting for the right moment?

And as you look at the calendar, days, weeks, months have passed, and even now a year has passed. You meant to share with someone, but it just didn’t happen this year. Then I would say to you, Christian, wake up. Wake up to the high calling that Christ has for you. He has called us into the world, not simply to come together to worship, not simply to come together and to build a church building, not simply to come together and pray and enjoy fellowship. As wonderful as those things are, Christ has called us into the world with a high commission. We are not out seeking scalps for the kingdom of Christ, but we are seeking to do the will of Christ. We have been told that as the father sent Jesus into the world, jesus says to you and to me, so send I you.

Do you think Jesus had a month that went by that he never told anyone about the kingdom? Do you think there was a week that passed for Jesus, or a day? Or do you think to yourself that every moment Jesus was looking for those opportunities to tell about the power of God and the forgiveness of sins? What are we to do in being sent out? Well, sometimes we get very tired of the task, and we say, I’ve told so many people and so few have responded. I am simply tired. Well, in Matthew, chapter 22, verse three, we are told a story by Jesus, that is, that he called some of his servants together, and he called them to go out and to invite people to a wedding feast.

Now, I would think that many people would respond to a wedding feast, that they would come just simply by having received the invitation. But these servants went out, they gave the invitations, and we read that the people would not come. And so what happened to those servants? They got tired and they went home and they said, we have accomplished the task. No, that’s not what happened. We read in the very next verse four, they went out again to tell of the invitation, and the king instructed them to say, see, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen, my fatted calf. All these things are ready. Come to the wedding. Everything is prepared, you’d say, well, now, surely they came. Why, these people must have known what a great banquet feast has been prepared for them. Fatted calves. Sure, I’ll go. And what happened?

The people wouldn’t come. And so what happened to the servants? They said, well, went twice, we tried it. We gave it our all. Two times, nobody came. Let’s give up. Let’s just eat the stuff ourselves. We can have a good time. No, that’s not what happened. The king then said, go out again. This time, go to the highways, go to the byways, and as many as you find, bring them. You and I are called to be the sent out ones. Jesus Christ has commissioned us to go out. I remember reading about a New England storm back in the last century. There were rescue ships all along Cape Cod that knew of great reefs, where ships would be caught.

And on this one evening, the rescuers stood on the shore, and they could see in the distance a boat that had been caught upon one of the great reefs off of the cape. The storm began to grow intensity. They thought for a moment that the ship might be freed. But instead, the waves began to buffet against the sides and the sails were a shred. They could see in the distance people running about the deck. They also knew that there seemed to be absolutely no possibility that even if we got out there to save them, that we, the rescuers, are going to come back safely. And so one of the men who was hired to be a rescuer looked at the captain and he said, we can’t go. The waves are too great. It’s too intense. We’ll be killed. We’ll never get back.

The captain said, your responsibility is to go. Your responsibility is not to come back. Your responsibility is to go. Jesus Christ, I believe, says to us if we will take his commission seriously and if we will go to that friend, that neighbor, tell them about Jesus Christ. If you will go. And you’re worrying, but I’ll never get back alive. Christ will bring you back. He’s not concerned, and nor does he call us to be concerned on how are we going to get back, but he does call us to go. And as my father has sent me, Jesus said, so send I you to go. Well, how are we doing in our going? Well, if we look at it across the church of Christ, there are some very encouraging signs.

For example, George Gallup tells us that in the United States, some 40% of the population say that they have had a personal experience with Jesus Christ. If that is true, that means that over the next five years, if the same rate of growth occurs in the United States alone, there’ll be some 146,000,000 men and women who claim to have had an experience with Jesus Christ. Dr. David Barrett, who is working with a project to look at missions around the world, says that the net growth of the missions movement of the christian church, the net growth, is 63,000 converts per day around the world who are coming to Jesus Christ in 1980. More people were one to Christ around the world in 1980 than occurred in all of the conversions of the first three centuries of the church.

In the last two years worldwide, there have been more decisions for Christ than all of the people who ever claimed a christian conversion in the first 1000 years of the church. And so there are some encouraging signs as we look worldwide. Where is this growth occurring? 75% of that growth is occurring in the third world. 75% of the conversions are occurring in the third world. As the father has sent me, so send I you. And there are countless thousands who have taken that commission and are sharing the gospel around the world. But it’s also happening not only on the mission field, but is also happening in the schoolroom in America. We’re finding, for example, that the christian school movement is growing at a rate where there is one new christian school beginning each day of the year somewhere in the United States.

We’re finding a growing concern across the nation for the home schooling movement, where people, Christians concerned about the things that are being taught in the schools are training children in their homes for those early years. Christ says, so send IU to the classroom. So send IU into the world of the media. National religious broadcasters. Ben Armstrong, the president of that organization, reports that in the past year alone, there have been over 100 new christian television stations broadcasting only christian programming. That’s to say nothing of the thousands of christian radio stations that are broadcasting 24 hours a day across our nation. Christ also declares us to go as he sends us forth to the fatherless. We have seen over these past 13 years some 18 million abortions. And what has happened? Well, there have been christians who have stood up and said, no more.

And across the land are countless hundreds of crisis pregnancy centers. And you say, are they having any effect? Well, nationally, 70% to 80% of the people who go into one of those crisis pregnancy centers will decide to keep their baby. This year, for the first time was a dropping off of the abortion rate. So send IU into the world of obscenity in pornography. The greatest distributor of pornography, 711, recently announced that they will no longer sell pornographic material in their stores. Why? Because Christians stood out on Saturday mornings and said, we don’t want this being sold in a public area as children would come and see that material we’re seeing. Those who have taken the word, so send I you. They have gone to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, and to bring drink to the thirsty.

The ministries of world vision, Samaritans, Perths have had tremendous ministry in the past years as Christians have come forth to support those who would go and be sent. Let me ask you, are you personally involved in what is probably the greatest movement of the christian church since its inception? There is currently more missions and the sharing of the gospel than any other time in the history of the church. Are you part of that? Are you a missionary being sent out doing the work of the Lord? Or are you in need of a missionary to come to share with you about Jesus Christ? Those are the alternatives. Sometimes we say, well, my personality isn’t built for that. I’m shy. I just don’t have that upfront presence. I was reading several years ago about a man who in the evening passed by a house.

He noticed that there were flames coming out of the back window and he yelled, fire. Fire. And he went up to the door and he beat on the door and he yelled, fire. Nobody woke up. So he stopped yelling and went home. No, he pounded louder. He said, fire. Until finally the family awoke and they were saved. Did he say to himself, listen, I tried. I told them nobody would awaken. I did my task. I’ll go home. No, he didn’t say, I’m shy. I’m worried about what the neighbors are going to think. Here I am yelling, fire. People are going to wake up. Well, they need to wake up. And some of you need to wake up to the high calling that Christ has commissioned you as the father has sent me. Jesus says, so send I you.

But you might think to yourself, I’m not gifted. I am not capable. I think of young man Dwight al Moody. Dwight al Moody had four years of semiformal education. When he was 18 years old. He still couldn’t read. Finally, he was wonderfully converted to Christ. He was involved in the beginning of the YMCA. He spent his time bringing young children to Sunday school. He brought not one or two. He brought hundreds. No, he brought thousands. The ministry of Moody among young people was known throughout the town. And when he would read to these youngsters, some of them had never heard him before. He was still a young man and he would stumble over words because he wasn’t well educated and some of the kids would laugh. One of the greatest revivals that occurred in Cambridge, England, occurred under the ministry of Dwight L. Moody.

Moody never became a great grammatical expert. He was coarse in his presentations. He came before that very educated crowd at Cambridge, and he said, he don’t, and she don’t. And the people listened, and they had a custom that when you made a grammatical error, the students would pound on the floor. And so, as Moody kept teaching, all that he could hear was the pounding of the students as they would tell him, Mr. Moody, your grammar is wrong. At the end of one of his talks, a student came up to him with a sheet of paper, and he said, Mr. Moody, your grammar is terrible. And I have kept track of all the grammatical errors that you made in your speech. And I’d like to give this to you because I think it will really help you in your ministry in the future.

Moody responded and said, I know I don’t know much grammar, but I’m using all the grammar I got to bring glory to Jesus Christ. And he asked that student of the grammar that you’ve got, how much are you using to bring glory to Jesus Christ? Jesus said, as the father has sent me, so send iu. Let us pray. Our God and our Father, we ask that you would forgive us. Forgive us when we think that because we have come to church, therefore we have served you and therefore we have been sent. Father, forgive us that simply because we teach a class that we would mistake that teaching for sharing about Jesus Christ. Father, forgive us when we think because we have come to pray together, that we are in fact, being sent out.

Father, help us to see that we need to be taught, we need to pray, we need to worship. Why? That we might go out, that we might be those who are sent out by thee to share the gospel. Help us to shout fire. Help us to do the task to remember as Christ was sent into the world by the father that he sends us for. We ask that in Jesus name. Amen.

Thank you for listening to a firm foundation presented by Princeton ministries. This programming is supported by you, the listener. You may go to our website, princetonministries.org, or send your donation to Princeton ministries post office box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 8543. That’s Princeton ministries post office box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 8543. The Lord bless you and Dr. Smith looks forward to hearing from you. We would like to thank Rone’s web development company for making this webcast possible. You can find their link at the bottom of our website, princetonministries.org