A New Look at John 3:16

The man you're about to meet is an expert on world outreach, a prolific author of over 20 books like "How to Be a World Class Christian" or "A Mind for Mission." I invite you to check out his books in the lobby after the service today. He's a professor at Gordon College in Boston. He's led over 100 short-term mission trips around the world, spoken at conferences in South Africa, Malaysia, the UK, Sri Lanka, and now out into the true missions frontier, Santa Cruz, California. And it is a huge privilege to introduce Dr. Paul Borthwick. Let's give him a warm welcome.

Well, thank you, Mark, for that. Actually, I'm really excited to be at your church. I love your church, everything that I've met about the church family here. But even the freedom to have some influence, because when René was making his announcement a minute ago, he said "Africa." And that's like the New England translation of it. And I said, "Man, we're really going well here." I actually would love to be here for this one month to live series because I do think it's a wise thing to think about some sort of bucket list.

On one of my books, they asked me for something clever on the author bio. So I put there that one of my life goals is to go on a mission trip, an Amazon river cruise down the Amazon river in Brazil. And I got an email from this guy. "I can make your dream come true." And it turns out he works with a group called Youth With a Mission. They do medical clinics just like you were doing in India. They do up and down the river with some of the indigenous people that live along the river there. And he said, "If you came, what skill do you bring?" And I said, "Well, I'm kind of a speaker." He said, "Well, do you have any useful skills?" And I said, "No, but my wife is a microbiologist and she specializes in tropical parasitology." So he said, "Could you just send her?" So I haven't had that dream fulfilled yet, but I think it is a good thing to have them.

Well, the question was already posed for us, the "why" question. Why World Outreach Week? And why, you know, if you look in the lobby, you see all the different ministries this church is already involved in. And people who have been going and coming and you get that brochure you can look at. And this evidently is on every table and you can find out in the inside about international opportunities, on the outside about local opportunities. Why would it be such a high priority for Twin Lakes Church Fellowship?

And the answer ultimately I'd like to take from a very common passage of the Bible. If you have Bibles and you want to open them up, we're looking at John's Gospel, Chapter 3. And arguably the most famous verse in the Bible, or at least in the Christian understanding of the Bible, and that is John 3:16.

Now, if you understand the context, this discussion, this John 3 discussion is taking place between fundamentally two rabbis. Nicodemus, who is what's called a Pharisee, he's one aspect of being a rabbi. He is a Jewish teacher. And Jesus, in the context of the first century, was also called rabbi. But he comes to Jesus by night because he has some spiritual questions. And in John 3, you have that famous phrase where Jesus says, "You must be born again." That's right, out of John 3.

But then we'll pick it up in verse 13 because Jesus is explaining the mission of God, if you will, to Nicodemus. And he says to Nicodemus concerning himself, "No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man." Now, what does that even mean? Well, to Nicodemus as a religious leader, he understood what it meant. Jesus was saying that I've come here from God, and that would mean to Nicodemus, Jesus is saying, "I'm equal to God. I'm God made flesh."

Then to sort of expand Nicodemus' understanding, Jesus turns to an Old Testament story, and he says, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man," that's Jesus, "will be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him." It's an allusion back to an Old Testament story where the people of Israel are wandering in the wilderness, and snakes get into their camp, and some of the people are dying because of poisonous snake bites. God tells Moses to melt down some gold and craft a standard, if you will, or a serpent on a pole, and you hold it up, and whoever looked on that because it was provided by God, whoever looked on that would be saved or healed of their snake bites.

And Jesus is saying, "Nicodemus, as Moses did that with the snake in the wilderness, I, Jesus, the Son of Man, I'm going to be lifted up." And he's referring, obviously, to the cross. So that anyone who looks on me, Jesus, the sacrificial death for our sins on the cross, anybody who looks on me will be saved or have everlasting life. And then he comes to this most famous verse. Sometimes you see it advertised even at football games. You know, people have little posters that say, "JN, period 3, colon 1/6." How many of you just out of curiosity know John 3:16 from memory? All right, a lot of people, right?

And the good news is, this week's memory verse, if you look in the bulletin, so you're like ahead, right? But let's just either read it from there, or if you know it from memory, just say it in whatever translation you know. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life." I believe this verse has become so common to many, especially those who call ourselves Christians, that we don't actually break it down anymore. We don't actually think about what it means.

And I'd like to invite you to look at it slowly with me, even just only the first half of it. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son," as an answer to this question of why we're so involved in local and global outreach. When Jesus is sort of summarizing the whole mission of God in this one phrase, he starts off and says, "For God." He says, "Nicodemus, all of this begins with the character, with the heart, with the pursuing heart of God. Our God is a pursuing God."

It's quite a striking thing because in most of the world religions, and one of the classes I teach at a college level is the Survey of World Religions. And in most of the world religions, and even in some aspects of Christianity, it's more advertised that we're pursuing God, that we're trying to be good enough, that we're trying to do more good deeds than bad deeds, that we're trying to achieve paradise or nirvana or release from karma or whatever it is, but it's all about human effort and the idea is do more.

But the John 3:16 message is that God is the pursuer. That in the Christian gospel, God comes down looking for us. In the Old Testament, in the book of Genesis 3, Adam and Eve are in the Garden of Eden, and they've been told by God to do anything they want except for this one tree. So what do they do? They eat from that one tree. And when they eat from it, sin enters the world, and by sin I mean a broken relationship with God. And when God comes walking in the garden, is the metaphor they use, when God comes into the garden, they hide themselves because they realize that they're naked, their relationship is broken.

And in Genesis 3:9, you have the very first interchange between the Creator, Holy, Almighty God, and now broken, sinful humanity. And in Genesis 3:9, God says, "Where are you?" Where are you? Now I realize you might not be trained theologians, but let me ask a question. If God knows everything, He's everywhere present, and He's all powerful. Did God know where they were? Be courageous. Yeah. I mean He had to have, at least according to God presented in the Bible. You know, where are you though? Why would He even say that? Because the Almighty God wanted broken humanity to know that, "Hey, I'm the God who looks for you. I'm the God who pursues you. I'm the God who comes down. I am the pursuing God."

He's looking for lost people. Jesus picks up the same theme in the New Testament. In Luke 15, He tells three stories. One's about a lost coin, one's about a lost sheep, and one's about a lost son. And in each of the stories, God is portrayed as the homeowner who sweeps clean the house looking for the lost coin. And the shepherd who leaves behind the 99 sheep to go find the one lost sheep. And the father who breaks with all social convention to run out to welcome his prodigal lost son.

And in Luke 19, Jesus continues the same theme. Because Jesus is criticized for having lunch with a tax collector. And Jesus says to the people listening, "Don't you realize the Son of Man," referring to Himself, "has come to seek and to save that which was lost?" Why do we do world outreach? Because when we join God in His mission as being the great pursuer, we're basically saying, "God, in Your grace, You've pursued me. Now by Your grace, I want to go out in pursuit of others." We're joining God in what He's doing. We have God's outreaching heart, if you will.

You see, if you're here this morning as me, as a follower of Jesus Christ, you made a concrete decision to make Jesus Christ Lord of your life. It's because someone pursued you. God pursued you through maybe a parent or a Sunday school teacher or a neighbor. Maybe it was through your spouse, maybe a family member, a youth worker. Maybe it was a radio broadcast or something you read. But God is pursuing. That's why in some of the old literature, God is referred to as the hound of heaven. He pursues lost people. He says, in a sense, like He said to Adam and Eve, "Where are you? I want you back. I miss you. I want that relationship restored. I'm ready to forgive you."

And if you're not yet a follower of Jesus and maybe you're just contemplating it, let me just tell you, God's inviting you in. He says, "Nothing you've done can keep me from loving you, please. I'm in pursuit of you." God is the great pursuer. And when we understand that, that we have been pursued, now we pursue.

Let me illustrate from the Gospel of John. In John's Gospel, Jesus uses one word that's very frequent specifically in John's Gospel, John's edition of the Jesus story. In John's Gospel, Jesus refers to Himself as being sent more than 40 times. "For this reason I was sent." I was sent, as we sang earlier, to glorify your name. The Father has sent the Son. For God so loved the world, one translation says, "God sent His only Son." John 3:17, "I was not sent into the world to condemn the world." But then something unique happens at the very end of the Gospel.

On Easter night, after the resurrection, Jesus stands before His disciples and through them to us. And He says, "As the Father has sent me," Jesus says, "now I'm sending you." In other words, God gave me a mission, I've completed it, now I'm sending you on your mission by my power. You are sent.

So let's see if you're getting this, in terms of the idea of outreach, and world outreach especially, but even local. You're living in Santa Cruz or the Central Coast. Am I getting that right, finally? And they asked me what my favorite country was, I said California. So you're living in this area. How many of you live in Santa Cruz or the Central Coast area? Raise your few hands. Bass majority. How many of you are sent by God to the Santa Cruz Central Coast area? Okay, less than half. Where are the rest of you? I've got news for you. If this is where you live, this is where you're sent.

I'm going to make a bold philosophical statement. Credit worthy of any great institution. Are you ready for this? Philosophically. You cannot be where you're not. Now that's not to say God might not send you long term or short term to India. God might send you to work in the inner city streets of San Francisco. God might send you future, you know, into some work with the Navajo people. He might send you on a short term mission trip to Zambia. I'm not saying you have to stay put, but if this is where you are, this is where you're sent. Identify your own mission that's right in your midst.

It's one of the reasons why I encourage people, you know, you live in an apartment house, just stand some time in front of all the doorbells, all the names, and pray over all the names. You know, don't have to be obnoxious about it. You live in a neighborhood, you know, walk through the neighborhood and just pray over the households. You might know the people and pray for them, not in a Christian weird way. You know what I'm talking about? Where people walk around, you know, big old Bible in their hand, and you know, and they're standing in front of people's houses, in the name of Jesus. You know, it's like, don't do that. That's just creepy weird, right? But get to know your neighbors. That's one of your places you're sent.

My wife goes into her microbiology lab on a Monday morning and prays over all the workstations and the people that will work there, because that's where she's sent. A high school kid told me that he goes into his school early on Monday and prays over all of his friend's lockers, because that's where he's sent. Open your eyes to where God's already sent you, but join God in going beyond that. That's probably one of the reasons René gave you the challenge to serve in a new context, because we are sent into the world, which we'll get to in a minute.

But if you understand that the pursuing heart of God, you realize that we indeed are sent into the world. And if you understand the pursuing heart of God, you know one other thing. That is, if you're going into the world, God is going ahead of you. God is going ahead of you. He's the ultimate pursuer. You join him in his pursuit of lost people. And I say that because I do a lot of traveling, and sometimes people, they give us a pressure. Last May I was going to Columbia, South America to work with some pastors down there. And as we were going, we were going into an area that where maybe half of the pastors at our conference had lived in areas that were controlled by guerrillas, G-U-E guerrillas, you know, violent, militiamen type of thing, anarchy, this kind of situation, dangerous.

And some of the folks from my own home church, they said, "Wow, you're really going there? You know, is it safe?" I said, "I don't know if it's safe." But then they said, "Well, you know, we're praying for you." But you could tell by the way they were praying that they felt like God must get off the plane in Miami. Where you're going, God's gone before you.

There was a conference a few years ago in West African nation. And in that conference, they were celebrating whatever it was, their mission work, they were celebrating 100 years of the missions work in that particular country. And some guy, white guy like me, was up front talking, and he was talking about the state of this country or this region before the missionaries came with the gospel. And the missionaries said, "And this is the way it was before the missionaries brought God to Africa." And that's the way he would use it. He said it three or four times. Before the missionaries brought God to Africa.

The next guy was a very distinguished PhD African theologian. And he stands up and he says, "Before I speak, I would like to correct my dear brother." He said, "Brother, you need to know, missionaries did not bring God to Africa. God was already here, and God brought the missionaries to Africa." In other words, God's preceding you. And when you go, you don't need to be afraid because God's going ahead of you.

Perhaps the most vivid way that I see this in my travels is when I have the experience of going into the Middle East. And I'll talk to people there, and they'll tell me a story about someone who has become a follower of Jesus. And that person has become a follower of Jesus because Jesus appeared to them in a dream, or an angel appeared to them. We had a young lady in our college ministry who came from the nation of Turkey, which is 99.9% Muslim, but mostly cultural Muslim. Not deeply, religiously, fervently Islamic.

And she would come to our church, the college age group. She loved the fellowship and the singing and food and all these things. She just loved it. But so finally somebody asked her, they said, "Would you like to join a Bible study?" And she said, "Oh no, I'm sorry. I don't even know my own book." Meaning the Quran. "I can't really study your book." And so they said, "Fine." Two or three days later, her mom gave her a call from Istanbul. She said, "Daughter, I had a dream. The angel appeared to me and said, 'You must tell your daughter it's okay to study the book.'" That's what the Muslims call the Bible.

So she said to the people, "I have to join the Bible study. The angel said so." No, seriously, Muslim people have a huge regard for angels. And actually I have friends that are devout Muslims, more devout than I am as a Christian sometimes. And one of the things I'm praying for is that Jesus will just visit them. And this young lady joins this Bible study and over the period of time she decides that she wants to become a follower of Jesus. And now she's married to a guy with an Irish last name. So it's like, you know, Turkish first name, O'Connell. It's like, where does that fit?

Why are the dreams and the visions? Because God's in pursuit of people. And there's always a human element that a person who comes along and explains what Jesus means. But God's preparing people even in advance because God is the great pursuer. Love is the great motive. Love. The interesting thing is Jesus says later, the son, Jesus, he says, "I did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that through the world, through me, might be saved."

Our first message is not about condemnation. This may surprise you to realize this, but if you don't know much about Massachusetts, you'd be surprised to know the state I live in is very liberal. Anybody know that about Massachusetts? You know that already? But it also has similar... Santa Cruz, a very high spirit of academia, very, you know, very, very interested in study and a lot of universities and everything. And a lot of people who are frankly just unreligious.

My friend Jack is one of those guys. He and I swim at the same pool and, you know, we talk a lot in the locker room. We've gone out to lunch together and he loves asking me questions about places that I've traveled to and everything. But I decided that, you know, sometimes because I'm sort of like born and brought up in the Christian world, I asked Jack, I said, "Jack, could I take you out to breakfast sometime and ask you questions?" He goes, "Why?" I said, "Well, I'm convinced that I, as a follower of Jesus, I might use language that you have no context to even understand. And I want to give you the words that I use and see what you think they mean." To which Jack said, "Are you paying?" I said, "Yeah." He says, "Are we going someplace nice? You know, not the Golden Arches." I said, "Sure, fine." So he went there and it was fun. It was a lot of fun.

Jack's a good friend and, you know, I was asking him this stuff. I said, "Jack, you know, what does it mean to be born again?" This guy's a, he's in many respects his life a better Christian than some Christians. He's a Harvard educated lawyer. He spends his life defending the rights of Alzheimer's patients. You know, so he's very humanitarian. I said, "Jack, what's that, what does it mean to be born again?" He says, "You're describing some sort of religious experience that I really have no idea of what it means." So we're good. I said, "Well, how about the four Gospels? What are the four Gospels?" He was guessing, he said, "John, Paul, George and Ringo." So, you know, we were getting there.

I asked him what he thought the Trinity was. He said it was a college in Connecticut. And we had a bunch of, you know, it was a good conversation. And the only time he got agitated though, the only time he got agitated, and he's a very even-keeled guy, I said, "What does the word 'evangelical' mean?" "Oh!" He said, "That's the finger-pointing, nasty people that are always telling me, 'I'm wrong, wrong, wrong,' and they're against this, this, and this, and they tell you all the things that are wrong with America, and they're holier-than-thou people." And I said, "Jack, what about Christie and me? We're evangelicals." "Oh, well, you're pretty good."

But it's interesting. It was so grievous to hear that response. Because whether it's our own doing or the doing of the media, I think it's a lot of times we do it to ourselves. And all I'm saying is, I wish Jack would say, "Oh, you're the people that love the unlovely. You're the ones that create orphanages in India. Oh, evangelicals, you're the people that are still working with those devout Muslims in Western Indonesia whose houses were destroyed by the tsunami in 2004. Oh, you guys, you're some of the first ones reaching out to people with HIV/AIDS. You're first on the scene when there's an earthquake." I wish he had some of those stories. But all he could think of is we're the finger-pointing, negative people.

And that's my way of saying, I think in the world we live in, we have our work cut out for us to communicate love to this world. And that's one of the reasons why so many of the ministry opportunities available in the lobby are about demonstrating love before proclaiming love. Because in a sense, the background, the credibility of our words is going to be our deeds. And it's interesting, my friend Jack, he said, "I'll never go to church with you, but take me on a Habitat for Humanity building project. That I'll do." See, he wants to see love in action. Then maybe he'll believe.

For God so loved. Love is the grand motive for our mission. Twelve years ago this month, in India, there was a family named the Stains, Australian family, that had been working for years and years with leprosy patients. We call them now Hansen's Disease. They'd be working at a leper colony. And the outcast of the outcast were being loved on by these people in Jesus' name. And the father Graham and his two sons, seven years old and ten years old, I think they were, were on their way to a camp that their ministry sponsored for children with, either the children of people with Hansen's Disease or people that had it as themselves.

And on their way, these radical religious extremists surrounded their vehicle as they were sleeping in their Jeep at night. And in January of 1999, they put bamboo poles against the doors and set that vehicle ablaze, and the father and the two sons were burned alive. The next day, Gladys Stains went on Indian national television to tell the people of India that as sad and as grieved as she was, she wanted to make sure the people knew that she forgave the people that did this. Why? Because her ultimate motive in being there was to communicate the love of God.

For God so loved the world. If God is the great pursuer and love is the motive, the world is the target. Nicodemus and Jesus are having this discussion, and Nicodemus, as a religious leader, he would have expected Jesus to say, "For God so loved the people of Israel." For God so loved the twelve tribes or the Hebrews. But he would have, you know, Jesus said, "God so loved the world," and Nicodemus would have to say, "Hmm, I guess you're right." Because in his own scriptures, it says, "Declare God's glory to the nations, His wonderful deed to all peoples." In Isaiah 49, it actually says that it's too small for God to be concerned only for the people of Israel.

In other words, I'm concerned for the people of Israel, but that's just too small to stay there. He says to the people of Israel, "I care for you, but I've made you a light of revelation to the Gentiles that all the ends of the earth might fear me." And Nicodemus would have said, "Yes, Jesus, you're right. God so loved the world." We who live in the United States are only five percent of the world's population. There's a lot of world out there that God loves, that He's called us to love on in His name.

It's not an either/or proposition. It's not short-term mission trips only overseas or only in San Francisco or Santa Cruz. It's both and, because God so loves the world. God so loves the world. That's why I appreciate the fact that René suggested adopt a ministry and begin to pray for that ministry. Enlarge your vision. Learn about something. Go through the lobby and look at the flags. There are flags out there with religious symbols on them that tell you something about the country that that flag represents.

Maybe you want to choose a flag to pray for that flag and the nation behind it. One teenager told me a 15-year-old kid says, "I'm praying for Mozambique." I said, "Cool." I didn't expect a 15-year-old American guy to even know that Mozambique is a country. Never mind that he's be praying for it. And he gave me some of the data and it was pretty accurate. I said, "Why did you choose Mozambique?" He said, "The flag got my attention." I said, "Really? It's the only flag in the world with a machine gun on it." It's true. Guatemala has a rifle. A few flags have swords. But this one has an automatic weapon with a tripod on the flag. It just can't be good.

But that's what got him interested. I don't know what's going to get you interested. But start your prayer and start circling outward. You know, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth. So, you know, Aptos and then Santa Cruz and then California, then the USA, then North America to the ends of the earth. Because our God loves the whole world. Now you might not go into the whole world. But there's no place on earth that's limited to you in your prayers.

And that's why I strongly encourage you to just maybe add one thing of a prayer nature. Maybe the recent news has made you really interested to pray for Egypt. You've got to find out more about it and pray for the nation of Egypt. You know, maybe you're just really interested in what's happening in a country like Bolivia. And you want to learn about that and pray about it. Go there. Get one new thing and expand your vision. Because the God who loves you loves the whole world. And you ought to be loving on the world in some way, small as it might be.

We had a missionary fellow supported by our church. And he came home from a trip and he was... He had been living in Kenya for the better part of 20 years. And I said, "What encourages you most when you come home to a church that's been sending you out?" He says, "When someone says to me, 'I've been praying for you by name every day.'" So just choose one thing and pray for that person or that ministry every day. But then I said, "What discourages you?" He says, "When they tell me what they're praying for." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, I live in Kenya. A lot of safaris go to Kenya. A lot of wild animals in Kenya."

So these people tell me, "I'm praying for you every day to be protected from wild animals." Right? He said, "Paul, we go on vacation looking for animals. We've been 19 years in Kenya. We've never yet seen a leopard." I said, "Because the people back home are praying." You know, you're praying, "Lord, show us a leopard." And they're praying, "Keep the leopards away, Lord." Simply by volume of prayer, it gets outweighed. I said, "What is the thing they should be praying for?" They said, "You should be praying for us to have safety as we drive." You know, the number one way that Christian workers are killed around the world? Our car accidents.

And we know this because we train missionaries in Boston how to drive in the rest of the world. Come, I'll show you. The world. There's only one creative idea I've had in my whole life. I live six miles from where I grew up, a native Bostonian, and I don't think there's a lot of creativity back east. I think all the creativity rolled to California, you know? So if I have one creative idea, I'm doing pretty good. So here's my creative idea. Are you ready to listen to this? Expand your global praying today by praying for the country on the label of your clothes. You know what I'm talking about? The made-in back here.

You say, "What's that significant?" Well, first of all, you know, irregular is not a country. And even though the Bible calls us to stand in the gap, that's not what I'm talking about either. I'm talking about the made-in. I would dare say less than 10% of the clothes that you wear is actually fabricated here in the United States. Most of it comes from other places. I share that wherever I go, just as a starting point, because everybody can do that if you're 4 or 40 or 94. You can do that. You can just turn and look and just breathe a prayer on behalf of the country.

I printed my shirt this morning. It said, "Made in Bangladesh." Poorest country in the world. And I stopped and prayed, not just for Bangladesh. I prayed for the person who made my shirt. I don't know who it is, but I'm guessing it could be a Muslim young man or woman living and working maybe in a sweatshop of some sort, and I prayed about injustice in the world. And you just let your springboard out. And you start praying for the world. This lady in Texas came to me and she said, "That was a great idea," she said. "I homeschool my boys. They're 7 years old, 9 years old, and I can't get them interested in world geography to save their lives."

And I said, "Would you at least be willing to study the country on the label of your clothes?" And the boys said, "Sure, fine. Probably thinking it was going to be Canada, USA, Mexico maybe." She said, "They started taking clothes off the hanger." She said, "We had 26 nations in one closet." China, the world's largest country. India, the world's second largest country. And largest Hindu country. Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country. Pakistan and Bangladesh, third and fourth largest Muslim countries. Countries like Vietnam and Thailand, Cambodia, which are predominantly Buddhist. You know, a lot of countries that are very abjectly poor countries.

And, you know, she said, "26 nations." And that's when it struck me. We're only doing what Jesus commanded in the Sermon on the Mount. Are you ready for this? He said in the Sermon on the Mount, "When you pray, go into your closet and pray." So, there you have it. I was actually down in the Orange County area and she had my creative illustration. And this lady comes up to me afterwards, she goes, "This is the first global outreach sermon I can actually do anything about." And I said, "Why?" She goes, "I'm a stay-at-home mom and I have three kids under the age of like 12. I feel like all I do all week is laundry and ironing, laundry and ironing." She goes, "Now I can have a global ministry." You know, because all of a sudden today we're praying for Sri Lanka today, you know.

And she's hanging clothes up, doing laundry, checking, you know, putting the thing on the collar, you know, you're praying for the... I mean, it's very practical. But it expands your vision, you start learning about the world by virtue of the clothes you're already wearing. For God, the great pursuer, so loved the ultimate motive, the world, the big target, that He gave His one and only Son. It's not just about communicating love, it's not just about going in Jesus' name, it's not just crossing cultures. It's realizing that the core of the gospel, at the foundation of the gospel, is the message of sacrifice.

You join a short-term mission trip, it might take you someplace that's dangerous. You go on a short-term mission trip, it might cost you opportunity cost or actual money because you're not working those weeks. You know, it's at the core of the gospel though. The very thing we believe is that someone laid down his life for us. And as Jesus would say in 1 John, as I laid down my life, as Jesus laid down his life for us, we are to lay down our lives for others.

To do the work of God in outreach, it's going to cost us. Socially it might put us in situations where we feel unequipped and a little bit awkward. Financially it might be costly. Timewise. To start praying for more countries or other ministries, it takes time out of our busy schedules. But sacrifice is at the foundation. I'm in a small group with my wife and some others and they love to pray for us when we travel and we were getting ready to go to a country that's had a lot of violence, inter-religious conflict and a bunch of other things. And it's a fairly dangerous place.

And one of the ladies in the small group says, she was going to pray for us, and she said, "But just remember, the safest place to be is in the center of God's will." I said, "Wow, thank you. That is such a sweet thing to say." Isn't that nice? I mean sentimental. I love that phrase, "The safest place to be is in the center of God's will." I love it. Unfortunately it's just not true. You say, "What? The right place to be is in the center of God's will." But it might not be the safest. If you join the mission trip to Haiti, you're going into a very difficult situation. You're going to the inner city. Something could happen. A drive-by shooting is a random thing. They don't schedule it.

It's dangerous. And it's ironic. The number one thing that Americans ask me when I challenge them to go on short-term mission trips, is it going to be safe? And you know what I say? No. It's not safe driving when the road's wet. I mean, you know, you take risks every day. But do you believe that God's big enough to take you through? And if He doesn't take you through to glorify His name through your life and maybe even your death? That's the whole history of our Christian gospel. Life's laid down. Whoever says that the safest place to be is in the center of God's will has to evaluate that Jesus was the person most in the center of God's will. Watch Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ," and tell me that's safe.

I'm not trying to make you afraid. I'm just saying we have something bigger than our own security in mind. That's why in one of the earlier services they talked about stepping outside your comfort zone. Because in this gospel message, the "why" is answered by the fact that we're following a crucified Savior, taking up our crosses and following. It means we might go to the difficult places on earth because God, the pursuer, so loved those people.

My question for you and my challenge as we conclude this week, but obviously participate in global outreach throughout the year. Are you a John 3:16 follower of Christ? Do you understand that God's called you to pursue after his heart for lost people? That God calls you to love on people and declare the gospel by deed and by word, across cultures, to the ends of the earth, even at personal expense sometimes. Let's pray.

Thank you, Lord, that words so basic, so well known to many of us could be also challenging. And we invite you to, by the power of your grace and your mercy, enable us to say, "Yes, Lord, I want to be a pursuer in love, across the street, across the cultures, even if it's costly." In Jesus' name, amen.