1 John 1:1-4
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life — the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us…” (1 John 1:1-4)
“Born in the likeness of men…. obedient even unto death,” Paul says in Philippians 2. When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, “You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages.”
To that, Calvert replied, “We died before we came here.” Died to self-will, self-preservation, self-fulfillment. Died to the old man.
We may not be called on to suffer martyrdom – though more of our sisters and brothers around the world have been martyred in the last years than ever before. But for most of us, what does it mean to take up my cross daily? The daily cross is not some mysterious feeling of self-abnegation. It’s to choose someone else’s benefit over my own. When my desire or pleasure or rights collide with God’s best interests, who gets sacrificed – God or me? If I choose the other person’s benefit, if I choose God’s, that’s to die to my own benefit. Why should I have that kind of mind-set, that life-orientation? It’s the only way to follow Jesus.
And when I follow him, where will we go? He came into this world on purpose- to save those who don’t yet know Him. And we’re to have in us the same mind-set. He leaves us in this world, above all else, to save those apart from Him. So missions really is the bed-rock meaning of Christmas. It may cost me my life, as it cost him. It certainly will cost me a daily dying to my own rights and desires.
Let me tell you about a mighty flood, a new thing, God is doing in our day. Have you heard of the “back to Jerusalem” movement in China? The vision was to go from China on foot to evangelize the peoples of middle Asia, India, the Muslim world–all the way back to where the gospel started: Jerusalem. The vision began to flow through Simon Zhou in the late 40’s, but he was arrested by the Communist government in the early 50’s and given a 40-year prison sentence for his Christian witness. When Zhou was released in 1983, he began to spread the vision again. Now it has become a flood to reach the nations. A new thing! 1,500 have already gone and their goal is 100,000. Where did they get that number? The leaders decided they should send a tithe of their pastors and since there are a million leaders among the house churches of China, they’ve decided on 100,000 missionaries. A new thing! Should we not participate in flooding the nations with the gospel in our own small way?
How did China get so many believers? It wasn’t always that way. Indeed, persecution of Christians is increasing in China today. In 1950, there were fewer than a million Protestants in that whole vast land. But the communists took over, expelled all missionaries. So what happened? A new thing. A new thing in all of church history since the Apostles were first sent to evangelize. A flood of witnessing Christians in that desert, meeting together in homes, forming small house churches across the land. Flooding, you might call it–a new thing! Today there are 100 times more believers in China than when the communists took over! A hundred million, in fact. A mighty flood! An altogether new thing. Perhaps the new thing would mean sons and daughters in every church flooding out to some dark corner of the world where there is no church, no gospel witness at all. Fully one-half of the world’s population live in such places. A new birth and a daily cross – Christmas incarnate for the world!