40 DAYS OF PURPOSE
YOU WERE MADE FOR A MISSION
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 28:18-20, ACTS 1:8
OCTOBER 16, 2005
Pandita Ramabai is not a household name. Most of you have never heard of Pandita Ramabai. Perhaps all of you have never heard of her, but in heaven surely her name is etched in glory. Pandita’s father was a 19th century Brahman Priest. When he was 44 years old, he took a 9-year-old girl to be his wife. In his time and in his culture, that was not unusual. They moved to South India and into a vast remote forest. There Pandita’ s father instructed his wife in everything he knew about history, everything he knew about language, everything he knew about religion and morality. The years passed and Pandita was born and her father then began to instruct her in everything he knew about history, everything he knew about languages, everything he knew about religion and morality. By the time Pandita was 12 years old, she had memorized 18,000 Sanskrit verses and she was fluent in five languages. She was more educated than most of the women of India; indeed, more educated than most of the men of India.
Pandita’s father soon died. He was fairly old even upon her birth and she was still very young when her father died. She remembers his last days. Pandita could remember how he, before he died, held her in his arms and he stroked her hair and he kissed her cheek. He said, “I love you.” He said, “Always do what is right and never leave the way of righteousness. Never leave the way of righteousness.” Her father died and then her mother died, and she was all alone.
Pandita began to walk across India, sleeping outdoors, exposed to the cold, eating wild berries, and she came to the city of Calcutta. When Pandita was in Calcutta, it was there that she first heard the story of Jesus Christ and that story touched her. That story moved her heart, but she did not embrace Christ. She was not ready. As she walked around India and she saw the condition of women, she was very concerned because many women were treated like slaves and like lower class citizens. And so Pandita began to gather crowds and she began to lecture on the dignity of all people. She got in trouble with religious authorities and Pandita fled to England and then to the United States of America. It was here in America where she went to university and she graduated with honors in mathematics and medicine. It was here in America that she asked Jesus into her heart and accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and she was baptized in the Christian faith.
The year was 1888 and she was 30 years old when she resolved to go back to India and to be a missionary there. She gathered money from wealthy Americans and she went back to India and she started the Mukti Mission. The word “mufti” means, “salvation.” It was a mission for orphans and a mission for widows. She ministered in salvation. Physically she provided food and clothing, and she saved these children and these women from starvation. She ministered in education and of course she shared her love for Jesus Christ. She told them the story of Christ as the story had once been told to her. Thousands of people, historians tell us, came to faith in Jesus Christ. It was there at the Mukti Mission that Pandita had a church built and the cornerstone had 1 Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 4: “The rock was Christ.”
In the latter years of her life, she devoted herself to translating the entire Bible into the Marathi language. The Marathi language was spoken in central and southern India. It was spoken in Bombay, modern-day Mumbai. So that’s what she began to do. She was almost done with translating the entire Bible when she became gravely ill. She asked the Lord for ten more days that she might complete the translation of the Bible. She died ten days later, April 5, 1922. She was 64 years old. Her final day she translated those last words of the last page of the last book of the Bible, the last page of the Book of Revelation. That day she translated those words: “Come, Lord Jesus. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all the Saints. Amen.” That was the final thing she did, translating those words, and she had completed the Bible. She died at the age of 64.
You might think, “Well, why shouldn’t she have been able to enjoy a little retirement or maybe a lot of retirement? Why couldn’t she have years to read at leisure? Why couldn’t she have years to take walks in the park and in beautiful places? Why couldn’t she enjoy the bounty of the earth and the fruit of the vine and all the good things of life? Why couldn’t she have had a great retirement?” But of course, God had something greater laid up for her in heaven. Whatever this earth could offer is nothing compared to what God had laid up for Pandita Ramabai in heaven.
God wants us all to understand that this life, the time we have on this earth, is primarily about mission. It’s about mission. God wants you to understand that your life, whatever time you have on this earth, whatever days are provided for you, is all about mission. You were made for a mission. So, this morning I want us to take a look at this subject of mission. I have two teachings and the first teaching is this: Mission is all about life. Our mission, the mission that’s been given to you, is all about life.
Many of you have heard of Jeremy Bentham. Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher. It was Jeremy Bentham who founded the philosophy of utilitarianism. The philosophy of utilitarianism teaches that all things should be judged by their utility. Everything should be valued in accordance with its usefulness, the greatest good for the greatest number. That was the motto of Jeremy Bentham. He was a brilliant man. He graduated from Queen’s College at Oxford University when he was 15 years old, a brilliant man. It was Jeremy Bentham who established and founded the University College Hospital in London, England. For him, it was his crowning achievement and he sat on the Board of the University College Hospital, and he loved that. He considered that a high honor.
In the year 1832, he had a problem and the problem was he was 84 years old and he was dying. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to leave the University College Hospital Board. He had a strange idea. He got the Board together. He was very rich, one of the wealthiest people in England. Jeremy Bentham said to the University College Board, “Listen, I will endow this hospital with my wealth if, upon my death, you will embalm my body and perfectly preserve it, put it in a sitting position inside a mahogany case with a glass window, and pull it up to the Board table for every Board meeting in perpetuity.”
The University College Hospital Board didn’t want to do that. They thought it was sick. They didn’t want to do that but they wanted his money and so they said, “Okay,” and so it was that his body was embalmed and preserved and it was placed in a sitting position inside of a mahogany case with a glass door. At every Board meeting, Jeremy Bentham was brought right up to the table for 92 years!
For 92 years, from 1832 to 1924, Jeremy Bentham was at the Board meetings. And then something happened in 1924. They didn’t pull him up to the table anymore. It wasn’t that anything was wrong with his body other than the fact that he was dead. He was still perfectly preserved. In fact, today you can go to London, England, and you can go to the University College Hospital and they still have the body of Jeremy Bentham inside that mahogany case. You can see it today, but in 1924 they decided not to have him at Board meetings anymore because they were having a hard time finding board members. Nobody wanted to serve on a board with a dead guy. People said it just reminded them too much of their own mortality.
We all are often reminded of our mortality. It’s often been said that the death rate is 100%. And of course it is true. Two months from now, I’ll have my 60th birthday. I know it’s hard to believe, but two months from now I’ll have my 60th birthday. I feel a lot more mortal today than I did ten years ago. I feel more mortal today than I did 20 or 30 years ago. I don’t know how you feel, but we’re all mortal. We’re all mortal and death waits for all of us. There are a lot of people in the world today who live in fear of death. That’s what the Bible tells us. But, you see, if you’re a Christian, you have a mission and it’s exciting because your mission is all about life. The Bible says, “God loved the world so much He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.” Everlasting life—“zoe aionios.” What an incredible promise. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live. And he who lives and believes in Me will never die.” It’s all about life. Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly.” Our mission is all about life. Jesus said, “I am the Living One. I died, but I am alive forevermore. Fear not.” It’s all about life. Jesus said, “ego eimi he zoe,” “I am the life.” Our mission is all about life.
Rick Warren in his book says, “Our mission is to tell the good news, to tell the world the good news about Jesus Christ.” But in a broader sense, from the very beginning God created man as male and female and from the very beginning the mission was life. It was all about life. God created life and God gave men and women this charge to advance and enhance life. And so, in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, you have the Eden account and it’s all about life. The charge is to tend the garden, to till the soil, to bring forth the produce of the earth. The charge is to multiply and fill the earth. It’s all about life. From the very beginning, the mission was all about life.
Of course, today the mission is all about life. I think in the broadest sense as Christians we should remember that the environment and the ecology is about life. That’s part of our mission also. Of course, the Bible tells us that mankind, that men and women are the crown of God’s creation. Our mission is to come against anything that destroys people. Our mission is to come against poverty. Our mission is to come against disease. Our mission is to come against oppression. We should be concerned about wholesale abortion. Regardless of your political persuasion, surely wholesale abortion is a tragedy nationally. Of course, we should be concerned about euthanasia. There is a complexity of issues with regard to euthanasia, but our mission has to do with life.
The Bible has this deep and beautiful view of life, just biological beings. We’re not just physical. It’s not about the Greek word “bios” or even the Greek word, “psyche.” It’s about the Greek word “zoe.” We have spiritual life, and we have a soul. The Bible tells us the souls of people are separated from God because of sin. The Bible tells us that some people will live for all eternity with their soul separated from God, but we have this incredible mission and it has to do with life. We go forth with the good news that if people will accept Jesus Christ and receive Him as Lord and Savior and trust Him for their forgiveness of sin, their sins will be forgiven them. They will be brought into the family of God. They will become a son or daughter of God and they will be given eternal life. This is the mission of God given to His people in all of its diversity.
I want you to see a little clip from the movie “About Schmidt” starring Jack Nicholson:
“I know we’re all pretty small in the big scheme of things and I suppose the most you can hope for is to make some kind of difference. But what kind of difference have I made? What in the world is better because of me? When I was out in Denver, I tried to do the right thing, tried to convince Jeannie she was making a big mistake. But I failed. Now she’s married to that nincompoop and there’s nothing I can do about it. I am weak and I am a failure. There’s just no getting around it. Relatively soon I will die—maybe in 20 years, maybe tomorrow. It doesn’t matter. Once I am dead and everyone who knew me dies too, it will be as though I never even existed. What difference has my life made to anyone? None that I can think of, none at all. Hope things are fine with you. Yours truly, Warren Schmidt.”
“Dear Mr. Warren Schmidt: My name is Sister Nadine Gautier of the Order of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. I work in a small village near the town of Embeya in Tanzania. One of the children I care for is little Ndugu Umbu, the boy you sponsor. Ndugu is a very intelligent boy and very loving. He is an orphan. Recently he needed some medical attention for an infection in the eye but he’s better now. He loves to eat melon and he loves to paint. Ndugu and I want you to know that he receives all of your letters. He hopes that you are happy in your life and healthy. He thinks of you every day and he wants very much your happiness. Ndugu is only six years old and cannot read or write but he has made for you a painting. He hopes that you will like his painting. Most sincerely, Sister Nadine Gautier.”
In the movie Jack Nicholson plays the part of a man who had just retired as vice president of an insurance company and he feels like his life has been meaningless. He’s entering into retirement, and he believes that his retirement will also be meaningless. But he had begun to send $22 a month to this 6-year old boy in a Catholic mission and he came to understand that there was someone who cared about whether he existed or whether he was happy. He came to understand that he actually was making a difference in a little boy’s life.
I don’t know about your life. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I do know you were made for mission. God wants us all to understand that this morning. When you get to heaven, will anyone come up to you and say, “Thank you. Thank you for telling me about Jesus. Thank you for telling me that all that Jesus meant to you.” Will anyone come up to you in heaven and say, “I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick or in prison and you came to me. You visited me.” Life is about mission, and we have this incredible privilege of taking the good news of Jesus to our neighborhood and to our place of work and to the world itself. What an incredible privilege it is and it’s all about life. From the very beginning, the mission has always been about life, enhancing and advancing life, and of course we do that supremely when we share the good news and the gospel of Jesus Christ and the eternal life that only He can offer.
Now, I have a second teaching this morning and it is this: Our mission is not only about life but our mission is about the church. It’s all about life and it’s all about the church. Some of you might be kind of new to church. Maybe you don’t normally go to church. I don’t know how you feel about church. I know there has to be a variety of feelings in this room this morning with regard to the whole subject of church.
On April 8, in the year 1527, 10,000 men and women came into the Papal Square in the city of Rome for the blessing of Pope Clement VII. They got down on their knees asking for the Papal blessing. As these 10,000 people got down on their knees, this one guy stood up. He was dressed only in a leather loincloth. You want to look out for guys that are dressed only in a leather loincloth. This guy stood up and got on a statue. He looked at Pope Clement VII and he shouted, “You bastard of Sodom! Because of your sins, the city of Rome will soon be destroyed. Turn and repent!” The authorities seized this man and they took him away. Of course, Pope Clement VII did not turn and repent. He was not a bastard, not biologically, not physically. He had been born into the de Medici family and it was one of the wealthiest families in Europe. Pope Clement VII was corrupt. He was, in some sense, the spawn of Sodom. He was debauched and he led a corrupt church.
Just ten years earlier, Martin Luther had nailed his ‘95 Theses to the church door at Wittenberg. He wasn’t seeking to start a new church; he just wanted to reform and purify the one church. But, you see, on April 8, 1527, the church was in chaos and it was still corrupt. So this would-be prophet in a leather loincloth pronounced judgement on the city of Rome. Less than one month later, May 6, 1527, the armies of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, came upon the city of Rome. His armies were out of his control because his armies were filled with barbarians. They stormed the walls of Rome and they cast down the Roman guards. They began to butcher people in the streets. They went into orphanages and they butchered children. They went into hospitals and they butchered people who were ill and infirm. They raped nuns and they murdered priests and they burned down churches. Pope Clement VII fled to his Castle of Saint Angelo. Cardinal Cajetan, the second most powerful man in the Christian world—a good man, a man who loved Jesus, a man who had debated Luther because he didn’t want to see the church divided—looked at the 2,000 bodies floating in the Tiber and 10,000 bodies rotting in the streets of Rome and he said, “The church of Jesus Christ was called to be salt on the earth and we have become part of the earth’s corruption. This is the judgement of Jesus Christ upon His church.”
You can look at church history and you can see good times and bad times for the church, times when the church has made horrible mistakes. Of course, there have been many good times and the church continues today because Jesus Christ said, “I will build My church and the gates of hell, the powers of hell, will not prevail against it.”
Of course, through the ages the church has built hospitals, orphanages, and schools, and I think the greatest single source of compassion in the last 2,000 years has been the church of Jesus Christ. But how is the church doing today? We can look at the Third World and the church is doing well. The church is strong and it is growing stronger. We can look in South America and you can look in Africa and parts of Asia and the church has remembered its mission and it is serving Jesus Christ with love and compassion and sharing the story, telling the good news. The church is growing. It’s awesome to behold. Literally the center of Christendom, the center of the Christian world, has moved from the west to the Third World.
In the Western world things are not so good. In the Western world things are kind of sad. In Western Europe they’ve entered a post-Christian era and 2% to 4% of the population even attend church. Here in the United States and in Canada, mainline Protestant denominations are dabbling in theological apostasy. Judea-Christian values held sacred for 2,000 years are being questioned. Perhaps most sadly, Christians are no longer sharing the good news of Jesus. Christians have ceased to share the good news of Jesus. Christians have forgotten the mission. That’s why recent surveys show there’s not a single county in the United States of America with a higher percentage of Christians today than there was 25 years ago. In the last 25 years, no county in America has a higher percentage of Christians today because we don’t tell the story.
So, how about you? Are you reaching out with the love of Christ and are you seeking to make a difference? Do you care about hurting people? Do you come to them in their time of need and just love them? Do you love people enough to tell them about Jesus? Or even to invite them to church? That’s part of the mission, you know, just to invite people to church. We want to be a seeker-friendly church. We want to love people. I know you want to love people so that when people come here they will feel the love of Christ and the care of Christ and the servant-heartedness of Christ. Are you willing to embrace the mission?
In the year 1988, Barb and I and Gene and Lorna and some other people went to China. I had the privilege of speaking in the British Embassy. It was just an amazing experience. And of course in China we saw the Great Wall and many wonderful things. We went into the Forbidden City built by the Ming Dynasty over 600 years ago. The Forbidden City is incredible and the inner city of the Forbidden City is only 250 acres. It’s surrounded by a high wall. It was built in such a way that there would be a high wall and the wall would then be surrounded by a moat. They didn’t want anyone to come into the Forbidden City but the royal family, the Ming family. They were the only ones who could come into the Forbidden City, but they were afraid somebody might dig down and burrow up underneath the moat and burrow underneath the wall and come up within the 250 acres of the Forbidden City itself. So they put stone floor all over the 250 acres and, believe it or not, that stone floor is 5 feet thick all over the Forbidden City. They were paranoid. They just didn’t want to let anybody in. Of course, they didn’t need to be concerned because outside of the Forbidden City was the Imperial City and it had its own walls. Outside of that so-called inner city it also had walls. But I think it’s safe to say the royal family was not seeker-friendly.
Now you understand we are a royal family, not because we’re any better than anyone else but because of the grace of Christ. As we’ve come to Christ and we’ve received Him as Savior and Lord, we have been adopted into God’s own family. We are sons and daughters of God. Jesus is our elder brother. We’ve been called to be seeker-friendly, not to keep out but to bring people in and to love them and to invite them into the family. This is the great call of God upon His Church. Do you believe this? Do you believe this and are you willing to commit to this? Because we were made for a mission and this is the mission and it’s all about life and it’s all about the church.
In the year 1814, there was a split amongst the Baptist churches of America. Of course, in the Baptist church there have been many splits over time. I’m kind of reminded of that little joke about the Baptist guy that was stranded on an island. Eventually they came and they found him and they rescued him and they said, “Hey, what are those three tents there on the shore?” He said, “Well, that first tent is where I live.” The guy said, “What’s that second tent?” He said, “That’s where I go to church.” The man said, “What’s that third tent?” He said, “Well, that’s where I used to go to church.” It’s just an old joke.
In the year 1814, there was a split in the Baptist churches in America and it was all caused by Ann and Adoniram Judson, who were missionaries to India. They had asked the Baptist churches for support. The Baptist churches had to meet and they had to decide how they felt about mission. The Baptist church split into what were called non-missionary churches and missionary churches. Can you imagine that there were churches called non-missionary churches? There were non-missionary churches and missionary churches. This is all part of Baptist history. Of course, the non-missionary churches resolved that they just wanted to kind of work within themselves, mind their own business, and leave the world alone.
Fifty years later, it’s a fact of history, non-missionary churches had virtually ceased to exist and the missionary churches were thriving. You understand that we want to be a missionary church. We have many of our members who have now gone to the mission field. We have members of our church who are serving in 33 different nations, and we support missionaries in an additional 20 nations. We’re seeking to make a difference. Of course, we support missions all over this nation and 17 different missions and ministries in the inner city. We want to encourage you to be part of all this. We’ve had thousands of you, more than 2,000 of you, go on short-term mission trips and we want to encourage you to do the work of a missionary and to remember the mission every day when you go to work, and to remember the mission every day when you talk to your neighbors in your neighborhood. Remember the mission. You were made for a mission. Let’s we look to the Lord for a word of prayer.