The Sent One

The Sent One

Missio = “Sent One”

Some of you may know of T.L. Osborn, a great missionary. He produced a movie, years ago, when he was in Holland, called, “The Holland Wonder.”  He had hundreds of thousands in an open air crusade in that north part of Europe, which is unheard of. It was a miracle. He was a true evangelist. But he said this, “There is no such word as missionary in the Bible.”

Wait a minute, Brother T.L.; you’re messing up our theology here.

He said there is a call for us all to be , “the sent one,” but you’re sent as who you are. So if you are not that here, you’re certainly not going to become that there. There is a ministry to fulfill wherever you are, whether you’re in South Bend or Timbuktu. There’s a ministry of helps, a pastor, teacher, or an evangelist. You can service in the ministry wherever you are.

I’ve heard people say, “The boat ride, or the plane ticket, is not going to make you a missionary.” It’s not like the phone booth Clark Kent used and you hop out a super missionary. No, no, no. You’re you will be the same dud there as you were at home. You can’t think that when you get “there”, you’re going to be a  super missionary, or that all of the sudden you’ll have the power of God, or assume people are going to want to hear what you have to say. Just because you go, you don’t become somebody else.

Who you are, is who you are. 

You can not change that. You’ve got to be that person you want to be here, before you transport there. As many of you know, I was brought up many years, on the mission field. Up until high school, I had lived in the Philippines, twice, Hong Kong, Israel, and other parts of the world. I’ve seen people that have come from the United States that had good hearts, good intentions, but they were not prepared. They would land at the airport and say, “what do I do now?”

That is not the place to figure that out.

Those things need to be figured out at home, before you go.

Therefore, you have to go, knowing, that you are the anointed of the Lord and you are sent, not by accident, but on purpose to do a work for God.  Amen?

-Pastor Steve