"I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given to me according to the working of His power. To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places." - Ephesians 3:7-10
I was sitting in a Rotary Club meeting. It was the late 1980s. The man that was giving the talk that day was from a new and very small division of BellSouth called BellSouth Mobility. And he held up a Seinfeld-sized cell phone and said, “Folks, it won’t be long before all of you will have one of these.” Then he said something reallyoutrageous. “Not only that. It won’t be long before you’ll be using one of these more than you use your landlines, because we believe that we have an unstoppable mission to get one of these in every one of your hands.”
Many snickered that day and thought, “That will be a real long shot.” Yet, he was exactly right. Even though cell phones are not Seinfeld-sized, we would be hard pressed to find anyone reading this that doesn’t use a cell phone far more than a landline. It was really an unstoppable mission that has been fulfilled.
A little over 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ gathered His remaining eleven specially chosen disciples. And He gave them an unstoppable mission of taking the good news of Jesus Christ to every people group on the face of the earth. Can’t you imagine how overwhelmed they were? (Getting the message to the whole world?) These eleven ordinary guys had never been out of Israel and He was giving them the charge to spread the good news of the Gospel to every people group on the face of the earth. Yet, Christ assured the disciples that His power would be their power and that He would be with the disciples every step of the way.
Jesus began an unstoppable mission that continues to this day. Thousands of missionaries live all over the world, sometimes in very dangerous places and in horrible conditions, striving to fulfill the mission that Jesus began. Yet, you don’t have to go to another country to be part of this effort to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. We have signs posted at the exits to our church parking lots that read, “You are now entering the mission field.” That means our neighborhoods, our friends and families, co-workers, even people we might meet today! The church’s unstoppable mission is to take the Good News to EVERYONE! It is the most important work on the face of the earth. Followers of Jesus, get it done!
