YOUR FOCUS IN MISSIONS
I cherish my basketball memories, and remember many important lessons that still apply to my life today. However, there is one important principle that I never understood at the time because of all the "Hoosier hysteria" and my lack of maturity. Do you know how the T-league baseball player is more interested in the free snacks at the end of the game than he is in the game itself? Have you heard the adage, "One cannot see the forest for the trees?" Details are often distracting. It is only now that I can fully understand why the coach made us perform all the drills, practice all the plays, and run all the windsprints, but it's now too late. Now it all fits together, but I am no longer seventeen years old. I often think that, if I had known then the purpose of it all, I could have reached my potential and the team could have won more games.

THE BIBLICAL FOCUS ON MISSONS
Believe it or not, there is application here to the Christian life and to the church and her mission that is eternally significant! As believers we are often distracted by all the details of the truth, to the point that we have difficulty seeing the "big picture" or the purpose for which Christ has redeemed us and placed us in the church. We do not see our mission clearly. Many Christians seem to have lost their collective way regarding their goals and purpose as a church. As Michael Griffith said, "The church is not a third class waiting room where we twiddle our thumbs while we wait for the first class accommodation in heaven." We have a unique purpose that we must understand. A biblical understanding of missions brings everything into focus. We must not merely go through the motions of formal worship each week, but we must sense a state of urgency and limited time to accomplish God's goal. As Griffith quotes Brunner who said, "The church exists by mission as a fire exists by burning," he then proceeds to say, "The church which has lost its concern for missions is down to its ember days amidst the institutional ashes. It needs the fresh breath of the Spirit of God to fan its dying embers back to life." We must not lose sight of our mission because of the distraction of the details of the Christian life. If we do, we will fail in God's purpose of redemption. We are to be conquerors like the apostles were. We are to become His witnesses by the power of the Holy Spirit from Jerusalem (our home church) and unto the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

THE MISSION IN WORSHIP
The psalmists, like the Apostles, were dissatisfied to worship God by themselves. They wanted all the world to know and worship Jehovah alone. "Let the peoples praise you, O God; Oh let the nations be glad and sing for joy!" (Ps. 67:3, 4). Knowledge of the true and the living God compels a person to make this God known to all. There is an important distinction here. Man desperately needs God, but it is not man's need that compels us; it is knowing God that drives a person to the ends of the earth to make Him known.

Therefore as John Piper declares in his book Let the Nations Be Glad, "Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man."

THE MOTIVATION IN HIS NAME
The third letter of John, written to commend a Christian named Gaius for his missionary concern, states: "Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers, who have borne witness of your love before the church. If you send them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God, you will do well, because they went forth for His name's sake, taking nothing from the Gentiles. We therefore ought to receive such, that we may become fellow workers for the truth" (3 John 5-8).

Now, in thanking Gaius for caring for their brothers, John tells us why these "brothers" went out with the Gospel. It was "for His name's sake." This phrase is extremely significant, and is a golden thread that runs through all of Scripture. The believer is compelled by the name because this is nothing other than a representation of God Himself.

As John tells Gaius that he should show hospitality to these missionaries, he uses a meaningful word. It is the word opheilo that means to be indebted. It is only as we truly know the Father and the Son that we sense something of the debt we owe because of our sins and Their grace. Consequently, this love of Christ compels us to make known His name and His glory to the ends of the earth.

Our burning desire and longing attitudes should be that we should know God with all of our heart and soul and that we should long for all the world to know Him as well. After all, what saddened our Savior in His prayer in John 17 was that the world did not know His Father. They saw Him as a tyrant and were afraid of Him. They knew nothing of His glory. As believers, we have come to know Him and must make Him known. We are debtors to this message of grace.

THE MOTIVATION TOWARDS ACTION
Timothy George said in the conclusion of his book about the pioneer of the modern missionary movement, William Carey, "Today, as we stand on the brink of a new millennium with the mandate for the world evangelism still looming before us, the best lesson we can learn from Carey is the principle by which he lived and died. 'You should think of us as Christ's servants who have been put in charge of God's secret truths. The one thing required of such a servant is that he is faithful to his master' (1 Corinthians 4:1-2)." Let us think and pray and love and play with the all-encompassing goal of missions in sight.

Tom Lutz is the Pastor of Edgewood Baptist Church in Anderson, Indiana.

Reprinted from Tabletalk magazine, August 1998, with permission of Ligonier Ministries, P.O. Box 547500, Orlando, FL, 32854, phone (800) 435-4343.

If you would like more information on Ligonier Ministries go to www.ligonier.org.

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