Announcement:

My book "Is God Calling Me to Missions? 10 Questions to Help Determine Your Calling" is now available here on Amazon.

Before you head over to Amazon to grab a copy you should know that I'm sending a copy of the book out as a token of our gratitude for anyone who gifts a gift to the ministry during January.

US donors can give through ABWE USA here.

Canadian donors can give through ABWE CA here. (Choose "Suko, Caleb and Christina" from the drop down list)

Sermon notes

God’s Holiness Motivates our Mission

One of the worst things we can do in the Church, in the ministry, and in missions is to do the right things for the wrong motivations. When I say “motivations” what I’m really talking about is the driving force of the heart. I’m talking about that inward factor which pushes us on, gives us reason for what we do, and provides fire in our bones to continuing doing what we do even when things get tough.

Christianity is unique among the religions of the world because it makes these intentions and motivations of our heart primary. We find throughout the Old Testament prophets that God laments the fact that his people would offer sacrifices and outwardly make good-looking attempts to keep the law yet inwardly their hearts were far from him.

Isa 29:13

13 The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.

I want you to think with me today about the proper motivation for missions. This is important because God is not only concerned with what we do in missions but individually he is concerned with why we do it. Yes, a wrongly motivated missionary may preach a true gospel and some may even come to faith by the grace of God through their ministry but wrong motivations set us up for failure, they are at the best temporary motivations which will sooner or later come crashing down on our heads.

However, worse that, wrong motivations do not please our Heavenly Father. God our Father has given us a task and he doesn’t want us to pursue that task for any outside reason, for mere secondary motivations. Even above understanding the task God wants us to comprehend the reason and motivation for the task he has called us to do. In fact, I would say that understanding the proper motivation for the task is foundational to understanding the task itself and soon you will see why.

Isaiah’s experience with God’s holiness and glory

Isaiah 6:4

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple.

2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.

3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."

4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

About King Uzziah

He had the 2nd longest reign of all Judean Kings and one of the most peaceful and successful, he built an army of over 300,000 men which was greater than the army that his father Amaziah had built before he was conquered by Israel. He conquered a number of other peoples around and had taxes coming in from them. He developed the area around Jerusalem significantly.

He developed war technology.

“In Jerusalem he made machines, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and the corners,