New IMB Missionaries Reminded of Great Commission's Urgency
A stay-at-home mom, computer analyst and dental assistant were among the 54 new International Mission Board missionaries appointed at a Jan. 25 service
A stay-at-home mom, computer analyst and dental assistant were among the 54 new International Mission Board missionaries appointed at a Jan. 25 service at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Colonial Heights, Va.
“You are here being commissioned because of your obedience to God’s call, and you can be assured of the promise of the Great Commission, that His presence will go with you and empower you and use you to fulfill His purpose to disciple the nations,” IMB President Jerry Rankin told the new appointees, as reported by the Baptist Press
Using the Great Commission—recorded in Matthew 28:19-20—to challenge the new missionaries to make disciples, Rankin told of one missionary who said the two most important words of the Great Commission are “go” and “lo.”
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“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…” Jesus charged His followers. But then He reminded them, “... lo, I am with you always ...”
“No ‘lo,’ no ‘go,’” the missionary had said.
“He grasped the significance of what you should realize as you are appointed to missionary service,” Rankin noted. “You do not go alone, but Jesus goes with you. You’ve got no business going to a foreign country as a missionary unless He goes with you.”
Rankin recounted that people often say that they’re willing to go but they’re just not called.
Ranking said he’d like to respond: “To whom do you think the Great Commission was given? Just to a handful of disciples on a hillside in Galilee? Or just to a select few among all the Southern Baptists?”
“His heart is to reach every nation, every race, every tribe,” Rankin reminded the new missionaries.
“Who’s convinced us that a call is a burning bush or a Damascus road experience rather than the still, small voice stirring in our hearts with a burden for a lost world and recognizing the potential in our lives of going and doing something about it?” Rankin asked.
“As we rejoice in sending out these 54 new missionaries, we still have one missionary for every 1.2 million people around the world,” the IMB head stated.
Gordon Fort, IMB vice president for overseas operations said that the Dec. 26 quake-tsunami devastation serves as a reminder of the Great Commission’s urgency
“In the twinkling of an eye, more than 200,000 were swept into eternity. How many of them will spend a Christ-less eternity?” Fort asked.
Images from Asia showed survivors scanning photos of bodies—looking for lost relatives. God’s eyes, too, roam the earth, looking for lost to be found, Fort said.
“What part will you play in the search?” he asked the audience.
In addition, Rankin emphasized that many of those who died in the tsunami had never heard of Jesus Christ. “By what criteria should any people be deprived of hearing the Gospel? He died for them, but they never knew He died for their sins because no one went and told them.”
Earlier, Rankin told the new missionaries, “It is not because of your education, language skills or personal abilities that you will be able to make disciples of those who have never heard of Jesus or have no interest in following the Christian faith.”
“It is the power of Christ that indwells the message of the Gospel, the message you go to proclaim,” the IMB head exhorted.
As of Dec. 31, 2004, a reported 5,163 field personnel were under appointment in the IMB.
