The Role Of Faith And Obedience In Missions Sermons – Grace Evangelical Free Church // Wyoming, MN

Hebrews 11:8-19 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.







INTRODUCTION







Good morning, Grace Church. Welcome to the final event of missions week 2024. For those of you who are not sure what that means, let me briefly catch you up to speed. At Grace Church we believe that the Bible is God’s Word. In it, God reveals to us everything He requires of us. One of the things He requires of us (which Mat highlighted in his sermon last week), is to bring the good news to all mankind that all mankind might be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ, our resurrected savior and king. Within that, we see that God’s Word tells us that missions is pleasing to God.







For that reason, every year for the past eleven (?) years, the missions team at Grace Church has put together something we call “Missions Week.” The missions team’s aims for Missions Week are clear and constant—to keep God’s commands to call the entire world to follow Jesus in front of us, to encourage all of us to more fully obey them, and to help us better support those who already are. That’s a fair summary, right, missions team?







Again, you’ve found yourself at the tail end of this year’s missions week this morning. Last week, in the Sunday school hour, we kicked Missions Week off with Krista taking a look back with us at her time in France and then forward at the next leg of her missionary journey in Scotland. During the worship service, Mat preached on the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). Then, many of us came together on Wednesday evening to hear a bit of the heart of the missions team, to learn more about the part of the world most in need of missionary work, and to pray for our church’s missionaries. This morning, Mat and Miranda shared about their move to Etheopia in Sunday school and I’m about to preach on the role of faith and obedience in missions from Hebrews 11.







Before I get to the sermon, though, I want to do two things. First, I’d like to publicly and enthusiastically thank the missions team for another Word-driven, God-honoring, faith-encouraging, practically-focused missions week. They don’t typically see the Grace Church missions needle move a great deal for all their effort,