International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin challenged messengers to the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting Nov. 17 to pull from an internal desire to reach the world with the new God’s Plan for Sharing (GPS) strategy.
This should be more than projects, he said, noting this desire comes from a clear understanding of the Great Commission.
“If there’s any verse of Scripture a good Southern Baptist knows, next to John 3:16, it would be the Great Commission, Matthew 28:19–20,” Rankin said during his convention theme interpretation of The Great Commission…GPS.
“We clearly understand our missions task. We understand the urgency of telling people about Jesus, making disciples, bringing them into the Kingdom,” he said. “We know the consequences of lostness for someone to be apart from Christ.”
But “too many times we treat the Great Commission as if it were just an afterthought,” Rankin noted. “Having coming to the end of His ministry, it’s as if Jesus gathered with His disciples and thought, ‘By the way, it just occurred to me, why don’t you go and disciple other nations.’
“It wasn’t an afterthought,” Rankin said. “It was the heart of His mission. It was born before the foundation of the world.”
Preaching from 1 John 3:17, he asked Alabama Baptists, “With the number of churches, Baptists and Christians in Alabama, by what criteria should any person be deprived of hearing the life-changing message of Jesus Christ?”
In his own interpretation of Alabama’s embarkment on the decadelong GPS strategy (see editorial for more information on GPS), Rankin noted two GPSes of his own.
1. God’s perspective for seeing.
“Before we presume to fulfill GPS, we need God’s perspective for seed,” he explained.
“It’s not a matter of understanding our mission, but a motivation for personal involvement for missions involvement,” Rankin said, noting Jesus knew this would be a problem and even prepared His disciples to be motivated.
“The first command Jesus gave to His disciples was not the command to witness, to make disciples or to go to the nations,” he said. “The first command was to look.
“In John 4, following Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well … Jesus told the disciples ‘lift up your eyes and look onto the fields.’”
The same is true today, Rankin said.
“Look beyond missions trips and projects. See the lost world around us, the world as God sees it.”
Noting the self-centeredness that exists for many people, he said self-centeredness will hamper one’s ability to witness.
“We’ll never reach a lost world until we are willing to open our eyes and look beyond our self-centered providentialism to see a world needing Christ,” Rankin said.
“You will never fulfill God’s will and plan for sharing until you are willing to acknowledge them (the lost world) and their need.”
And after Jesus commanded the disciples to look, He commanded them to witness, to go and make disciples, Rankin said, adding that He also commanded them to love.
In John 13:34, Jesus gives the disciples a new commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
“Deuteronomy 6:5 says, ‘Love your Lord with all your heart, soul and mind and your neighbor as yourself,’” Rankin said.
Then there’s the story of the good Samaritan, which is much like the neighbor to be loved today, he added.
“Those neighbors we are too love are not people like us we gather with every Sunday. They are people of different races, cultures, even antagonist relationships, people that don’t necessarily like us.”
2. God’s program of sowing.
“GPS must be done with God’s perspective of seeing and God’s program of sowing,” Rankin said. “The world must be able to see what motivates us to share.
“People will know if you have love for one another,” he said. “We must have a motivation of love.”
The opposite of self-centered, love is other-centered, Rankin said. “We are willing to give for the sake of the love.
“What about a lost world? Do we think we’ll implement GPS just so our denomination will report more baptisms? or improved attendance? No, the only motivation is a love for people, a love that comes from God.
“[That] enables our lives to become a channel, motivating us, compelling us in God’s Plan for Sharing.”
So many people know the need for believers to go, but they are not motivated, Rankin said.
“If we are going to be successful in GPS, it’s going to come only when we have God’s perspective of seeing and God’s program of sowing and love — not because we are commanded to, not because it’s what we ought to do or need to do. God never commanded anyone to go to a lost world.”
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