Today on Disciplers Convocation we are considering a question, and I believe it is a question that is directed at all of us, exempting none of us, irrespective of age, gender or background. The only set of people that may exclude themselves from this word are those who consider themselves to be mentally unstable. One thing about mentally unstable people is that they go to places without reasons known to man, they say things without reason known to man, except if you have reason for sitting down today, you have reason for living, you have reason for being involved in groups, joining yourself to associations, in doing things, then this message is meant for you.
The question is: What Drives Your Mission Work? When David said “is there not a cause? Is there not a reason to come to you my brother? I have other businesses to attend to, I take care of the few sheep.” There was a time his brothers called him “the keeper of few sheep.” I have few sheep I take care of; I am not just here because I just want to be here, there is a cause. That cause is a reason. Don’t forget he was feeding the flock of his father when he was called by his father. And the father said “your brothers have gone for battle for days, go ahead and check their welfare for me, and then give their captain this provision and give them this provision.”
So, on the command, on the directive of his father, he departed from where he was to go to another place. He was to go for a mission. As he was going, even though it was his biological father that was sending him, he was a missionary, a man that was going towards a goal that was not his. He was on a mission. So, the question we could ask is: At the time he left the things he was doing before the father called him, and the time he was walking, it must have taken him hours or days before he got to the battle ground. What drove him along the paths? What drove him towards the execution of that mission? The mission objective was simple: go and check the welfare of your brothers, hand them these provisions. Simple! And if we, haven gone through the book of first Samuel, conclude that he actually succeeded, the question is; how did he succeed? What drove him to success?
I am sure he was not the only son, or the only person, that was called unto by a father in his generation. I am sure there were many sons, many daughters that their parents beckoned unto them and said; “son, daughter, come for a journey, come and go for a journey”, and not everyone that were called actually reached the end. Not all of them fulfilled the purpose of their calling. There is something that separate those who fulfil the purpose of their calling from those who do not. Everyone is called. Jesus said; “for many are called, but few are chosen.”
Now, in case you can’t make the chosen, are you among the called? You cannot tell me you have not been called; you cannot tell me no responsibility has been entrusted into your hands by God on the earth. You are not here simply because you want to be here, none of us can remember biologically and mentally speaking, the days before our birth. You seem to have no memory of your life until you began to mature as a child in your father’s house. Even though we cannot remember, there is none of us that is here accidentally. And there is none of us that is here because he wants to be here. If you cannot remember your past before you became mature; a mature boy, a mature girl if you cannot remember that past, then it means you didn’t create it. It means that you were not the one that said “I want to be and here I am.”
You are not existing as a living being by your own power, God is making it possible, God saw a need for you, God beckoned on you and said “my son, my daughter come and go for me and do so and so on the earth.” When the father called David, he was busy, that’s how I’m sure some us were busy in God and with God. And then God beckoned on us and said; “come and go.” The father did not send him anywhere, the father sent him to a specific place. He was not asked to figure out where he will go, he was not asked to originate the mission target on his own. Where he was going was not his idea, what he was going for was not his idea. It was whose idea? The father’s idea. Now, if he assumes that he is the one responsible for his mission, and the details of his mission, then there is a very strong likelihood that he will not be able to fulfill his mission.
So now that we know he fulfilled his mission, in fact from that mission, he began to emerge a deliverer in his country, and eventually, the ruler of his country; from that mission. Some of us are at different phases of our missions. There are missions that God gives to us, that becomes a stepping stone to our emergence in life and in destiny. The question is; if you do not fulfill that mission that is supposed to be a stepping stone, how would you emerge? You are not the one that created your life, you don’t know the mission that will take you to the place that you are intending to go. Some of us have great dreams, but our great dreams are just mission away from their reality. Little, errands that God sends us, like: “my son, go there” and you quickly leave everything you are busy with and you go, it prepares you for where God is taking you to.
If you answer God and go successfully, the question is: What drives you? How were you able to go? Could you go without those things that drove you? So, we want to look at three things that should drive you in your mission work. And see, that mission includes everything. None of us on our own deem ourselves wise. There were certain decisions we didn’t make, like the schools we attended and all of that. We did not make those decisions; we were led into them. We were led by different things, different people, different circumstances into each one of them. And here we are; we are a product of those things. They have driven us and now we are here. If you were not the one in charge of all those things that have driven you to this point, how come you think you will be in charge of what will drive you into your destiny? These things we want to look at has nothing to do with you.
What drives you has nothing to do with you. It is not about you, it is not because you are a woman of great insight, foresight, and every kind of sight. It is because of what is bigger than you or who is bigger than you that is making it happen through you. Let’s go to Isaiah 42:22.
The Bible says; “But this is a people” the reason why we are reading this is because we are talking about mission. Missions differ for different people. But this verse we want to look at is a background for every people. Whatever mission you want to pick up, or you want to accept, now that you know you do not originate any mission, whatever mission you want to agree to, it has to be founded on this. It says; “but this is a people rubbed and plundered” all manner of robbery and plunder “all of them are ensnared in holes and are hidden in prison houses, they are for prey and no one delivers, for plunder and no one says restore.” The one, who delivers and the one who says restore, is a man or woman who accepts responsibility for the mission.
What is the mission? The mission of speaking restoration, the mission of deliverance. So, let’s go to Isaiah 61:1-3 familiar chapter of the Bible. When Jesus rose up at a time in His life, He read this. The Bible says: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed me.” The Spirit of the Lord comes from above. We said earlier that the mission does not originate in or from any man. The mission for David came from his father. The same way the mission for our lives comes from God. The same one who gave the mission, is the same one who gives the Spirit. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me “because” not because I have anointed myself, not because my society anointed me. My society cannot anoint me for what my society did not send me.
My society did not call me, I am not called by my society, I am called by God, and I require the anointing of God to do the work of God. The mission we are talking about is the work. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed Me to preach”, my mission is clear, he has anointed me to preach “good tidings to the poor” I know my target audience, I have a message to the poor. So, if Jesus had accepted this, had agreed to this mission, it means He understood what God wanted him to do, and He understood whom God has sent Him to. Inside the mission of God for every man, there is clarity. You cannot receive the mission of God and you are confused. He has sent Me; I know who He has sent me to. “He has sent Me to heal the broken hearted.” So, when I find the broken hearted, I heal them! when I find the poor, I preach good tidings to them.
“To proclaim liberty to the captives” when I find any human being in bondage, what do I do? I speak for their liberty. The Bible says; “no one says restore.” Are we not seeing the relationship between Isaiah 42:22 and Isaiah 61 now? The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he has anointed me not to have fun, he has anointed me not to be proud, He has anointed me to do some things. It is because of the things He expects me to do, that I am anointed by Him. My anointing has nothing to do with my personal aggrandizement, it is not for me to boast, it is not even for me to have fun, it is for me to do a job. There is a work that God has called me, God has beckoned on me to do. When the father of David called him, he didn’t tell him to trek for days to the battle field; he must have given him a donkey, he must have given him food that he himself will eat, he must have clothed him very well, he must have given him a good sandal to walk on a rocky soil.
Those things are like the things we could call anointing. He has called me, He has sent me, He has not sent me empty, He has not sent me helpless. He has equipped me, He has empowered me, to go on a mission. So, I go in His name, I go by His power. It says: “To proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound” Do we remember that place in Isaiah 42 that says “all of them are ensnared in holes and no one delivers.” When I find anyone ensnared in holes, hidden in prison houses, what do I do? I deliver, I open the door, let them go. “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God.” To comfort those who mourn.” When I find those, for example; who mourn I don’t laugh, I comfort them. Why? I have been sent on that mission to comfort those who mourn. “to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes.” If I must give them beauty for ashes, I must have a lot of beauty myself. I cannot give people beauty for ashes when I am envious of beauty or beautiful people.
We are always envious of the things we think we don’t have, and you can’t give what you don’t have. So, it means a man or woman on this mission, must be endowed with enough beauty by God, to the point that you can exchange peoples rubbish for beauty. You collect their rubbish; you give them beauty. It’s like they are draining beauty out of you. You are collecting their rubbish and throwing it away and you are exchanging it for beauty. It is not an easy ministry. Everybody loves a ministry where great, glorious, rich, and intelligent people come to you. You don’t want a situation where the people coming to you, nobody wants to associate with them in the society. Yet for any group of people you could imagine, God has a man or woman He intends to send to them. Such a man/woman is a man/woman on a mission those people.
You cannot look at them and be disgusted; you must have sympathy for them. “To give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the Spirit of heaviness, that they may be called.” Who? The missionaries? The people of course! So, it means as a missionary, you will function until the people God has sent you to “become the trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord” They will be so beautiful and glorious that when people see them, they associate them with God. The question is; has God visited these people physically? These people that will be called “the planting of God, the trees of righteousness”, are they going to become those because God came down physically on the earth and fixing them? How is that going to happen? The people that God has called, and the people that God has sent. Because the journey of the missionary begins from being called.
You cannot become a missionary until you are called, the father must call unto you. So first you must be a son/daughter of His, how is it easy for any one of us to call any other persons’ child? Will the person respond easily? Except if the person is well cultured. It means for you to really call; it must be your own child. So, the first condition is not even to be called, the first condition is that you must become the child of God and God must become your Father, and haven become your Father, He can call you at any time. When he calls you, He can call you to say “my son come towards Me, my child come towards me, my daughter come to me, come and learn of me.”
Matthew 11:28. It says; “come to Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. It says; take my yoke. At a point He said come and learn of Me. So, it means when He calls you, it could be for you to sit-down and learn or when He calls you it could be that haven learnt, He sends you out. When you go out in the name of the Lord, by the anointing of God, the product of your labor, the product of your missionary work must be trees of righteousness, the planting of God. When you have gone out to places, to platforms, when you have gone into circumstances, into situations, when you have gone into all that, what must be left is a situation that God is proud of. A situation that is associated with God, or that God reckons with. God recognizes such to be His. Let’s give an instance; a man has children and they have grown up, one of his children who lives abroad decides to get married, and then haven gotten married, had children, even though the man is abroad, the children of that son abroad, who are they to the man at home in Nigeria? Grandchildren!
So, even though they could think they belong to their father abroad, they are really the sons and daughters of their father in Nigeria. Being a grandfather is not a joke or title it’s a reality. If the grand father is very rich, the wealth of the grandfather flows to the children. If the father is very blessed, the blessing of the father rest on all the children. It rests on the immediate child and the children of the immediate. If the father is so cursed by God, once the father is cursed, the curse flows. So, the grandfather, grandmother thing we say is not a title, in reality as a mother can claim her son/daughter, the same way the grandmother can also claim, that’s why some times you find a child that looks exactly like the grandfather or the grandmother without looking like the immediate parent.
Sometimes, whatever glory, and the honor that rest on the children can be traced to their grandfather. That’s why we are saying; when you have done all the things you could do, let every credit go to God. The Bible says; when they saw Jesus do great things, Bible says; they glorify God in heaven, who has given such power to men. It is by the power of God that Jesus has done it so they didn’t bother to praise Him too much excluding God. No wonder the Bible says; “Wisdom is justified by her fruits.” If you do your great works as a missionary, God should be glorified. If you will ever succeed as a missionary there are certain things, I have identified by the help of the Holy Spirit that must drive you in the course of your mission work.
The first thing is the FEAR OF THE LORD. In case you think you, have heard this over and over again the question is “how much of the fear of the Lord really dwells in you”? In spite of the frequency of hearing this word, the phrase, the fear of the Lord, how much of the fear of the Lord do you have? In the book of Isaiah 11:1-4, there is something for us to consider about the coming Messiah that has actually come. There was a prophecy concerning the coming Messiah. Isaiah 11:1-4 “There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, And a Branch shall grow out of his roots. Already in Isaiah 61:1 we saw the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me. “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.3 His delight (His excitement, His joy, another word is His drive) is in the fear of the Lord, And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, nor decide by the hearing of His ear.”
The question is: why will he not do all that? The reason why He will not do is because of the fear of the Lord. If there is anything anyone of us could do today, just tell God, “Lord, let me fear you, help me to fear you.” All we need for us to keep on the good work, it’s one thing to start a good work and it’s another thing to sustain it. To build on the momentum and keep it going, you require the fear of the Lord. Don’t forget we said the mission has nothing to do with you, it originates from the father. The father called David, and David came, the father gave David the mission statement and the Bible says “and David went on that journey.” Why did he go? He went on the journey because he feared his father. He didn’t fear his father because his father was a terrorist. When we talk about fearing your father and fearing God, it’s not about terrorism.
Some of us can’t sleep very well because of thieves in the night when we hear anything walking around our compound, we are afraid. That’s a terrible fear, the fear of God is a different thing. That’s why we should ask the Holy Spirit to show us “help me to fear the Lord.” We shouldn’t disappoint God, because He doesn’t fail us too. You should ask yourself what God has done wrong to deserve you betraying God or disappointing God. There is nothing about your life that is good that is not traceable to God. Think about it. And there is nothing about your life that is not good that you can trace to God, nothing! You ask yourself, “why should I not fear Him” because that fear talks about “reverence.” In fact, English word is not even enough to explain the fear of the Lord. The Bible says “Christ didn’t consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation.” Why did He do it? The fear of God.
There was a time myself and my wife, we were meditating on Revelations, and she came to a point and she just marvels at how the twenty-four elders will just cast their crown and then they bow. What is it that they see or hear that made them to bow? You dwell around the throne? For example, here in Nigeria, we are very physically far away but you are dwelling so close but yet to cast your crown and you bow. If it were to be some of us, we tell ourselves “I can’t do that, I will be tired” the reason you will be tired is because the fear of the Lord is not in you. It comes by revelation. You must fear God by revelation, not because you are terrified, don’t be terrorized or terrified to fear God. Let it be revealed to you and you will fear God for it. When you know how God is meticulously caring for you, that alone can make you to fear him.
Have we never thought about it? The whole world is filled with evil and wicked people; some people can just wish you to become a rat. Some just hate you for no reason. There are people like that. There are also people who believe they have spiritual powers to even make you become rat, the question is, why haven’t they made you become rat?
God is responsible for your safety, is it not enough for you to fear Him? If you can’t fear Him for anything, Fear Him because he is God. He maintains your lots and He keep it safe; He maintains it; He sustains your breath. Sometimes you go wrong, He welcomes you back like the father of the prodigal son, can’t you fear Him for His heart, His love for you. When you want to fear God, you want to think about some things, but there are simple things that will help you. The devil doesn’t love you; your enemies don’t love you and yet they can’t hurt you. Why? Because God is faithful. For the faithfulness of God fear Him.
When Jesus was confronted by Satan and Satan asked Him to do several things including bowing down to him. Why will Jesus say “it is only God that deserves that, it is only God that I can worship.” Why would Jesus do that? He will do that because He fears God. If Jesus fears God, you must fear Him. Whatever Jesus saw or knew that makes Him to fear God you must ask the Holy Spirit to show you. The easiest thing for any human being, is to lose the fear of anything that you cannot see. It is difficult to fear God that you cannot see, but it is easy for you to fear a terrorist organization simply because you can see their bombs. The Bible says “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” it is wisdom to fear who you can’t see.
No Nation that has nuclear weapons loves the other nations in the world, but no, they can’t use it. No matter how much development they have, they can’t destroy the world, when God does not say so. God is watching over you, the one who keeps you never sleep, nor slumber. You should fear Him for that. There are many things we can say and hear about it. But the truth Is God is the reason why you maintain your sanity. The Bible says “God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of love, power and of sound mind.” He has not given us the spirit of bondage again to fear, He has given us the Spirit of sound mind.
So, you should fear Him. There is a place in Isaiah where the Bible says “God gives breath to the inhabitants of the earth”. So, anyone you see that is walking up and down on the earth, it is because God has given breath to them. If you read the book of Enoch, in case you have the opportunity to find it, there is a part of it that talks about when Enoch was also prophesying and by revelation he was saying “that God gives breath to us, the people on the earth.” God also gives breath for us to even speak with, it was from that day that I realized that apart from breathing with breath, can you speak without breath? The words that you are hearing from me, you are hearing it because breath is coming out of me, and as it is coming out, breath is coming in. So, by breath I speak. If someone wants to speak and he can’t speak, the breath has been withheld. You have to fear God who gives you breath.
The second thing that must drive you in the mission work towards fulfilment is “THE HEART FOR THE LORD.” The first is the fear of the Lord and the second is the heart for the Lord. So, let’s go to Psalm 42:1-2. “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So, pants my soul for You, O God 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God…” not the dead gods, not the gods of this earth, when shall I come and appear before God?” The question is: why was he desirous of coming and appearing before God? Was he not desirous of coming and appearing before God, simply because it was from God he proceeded? The mission he was going up and down for, he got from God. And so, his heart was panting for God, just to come back to the place he left. When he is going to places, what is happening in reality, a man that says his hart pants for God. As he is going on a mission for the Lord, his heart is panting for God and the last thing he will ever want to do is to disappoint God. Can you disappoint a man or a woman that your heart is panting for? It is impossible!
Your heart biologically, is that organ in your body that pumps blood. The Bible says; “the life of the flesh is in its blood.” Now, if your heart refuses to pump blood for a project or for a purpose, you will be lifeless towards it. Once your heart pants for something, you do it instantly. So, what drives you, what drives me into the fulfillment of my mission or into the assignment that God has given to me is the “heart that pants for God.” So, I am thinking about God, I am thinking about the work of God and so, when you find me going up and down, you will find me doing what God has sent me to do, why? Because my heart is panting for HIM. The Bible says in Romans “because a people refuse to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to do things that are not convenient.” So, their hearts begin to pant after something else, they refuse to retain God in their knowledge and God gave them over. It means the direction of their heart was shifted to something else.
So, some people that are cold to everything God but they are hot to everything sport, everything politics, everything gossip. But if you mention God or anything Bible they could sleep instantly. What’s happening? Their heart does not pant for God. You cannot do the work of Him that you don’t love. When we are talking about your heart panting for God, it means that you cannot sleep. You cannot go cold on God. The word of God comes hot to you and it turns you on. The word of God defines the decisions you make on a daily basis. You could be calm until the word of God comes to you. But as soon as the word of God comes to you, you arise.
Let’s go to Isaiah 9:6-7. “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of His government and peace (of the increase of the execution of his life mission that follows it), there will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. (why will that continue?) The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”
When we are talking about “zeal” we are talking about your love, your passion, your energy, what excites you. Does God excite you? Is God the last on your to-do-list or God is the number one? Who determines your schedule? Who determines your new association, your new company? Who determines the kind of business you go into? For those who think God does not want them to make money or to be profitable; it’s not true! But who determines the profitability or the direction of your business? The choices you make who determines it, is it God or something else? Would you rather do something for the sake of your love for God or for the sake of your love for something else?
So, in reality you could be consumed by a work that God has given to you, not because of the work itself, but because of Him who gave you the work. When Jesus made a chord and drove out the people buying and selling in the house of the Lord, the Bible says “the zeal of the Lord has consumed me.” So, when a man has zeal for the Lord, the man is driven in the work of the Lord. You cannot be driven in the work of God through the terrains of life and of missions of ministry without having the zeal of the Lord. We are not talking necessarily the zeal for people; the zeal of the Lord will produce that. You can’t love God because you love people, but you can love people because you love God.
The last one is: “THE HAND OF THE LORD.” The first one is the fear of the Lord, it drove Jesus. It drives good people in the direction of their God-ordained mission in life. The heart of for the Lord and the last one is, The hand of the Lord. Let’s look at Luke 11:18-20. Jesus speaking and said:
“If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? Because you say I cast out demons by Beelzebub. 19 And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they will be your judges. 20 But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.”
Why will Jesus cast out demons? Jesus will cast out demons because of the following reasons. Number one: In the pursuit of preaching good tidings to the poor, number two: healing the broken hearted; because sometimes, demons are responsible for the heart of people that are broken; number three: Setting the captives free and opening the eyes of the blind, Proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of God. In the pursuit of all these, Jesus will cast out demons. The question is: what will drive the casting out, what will make it possible? Jesus said “if you think I have done my good works because I was driven by Beelzebub, how have your sons been doing it?”
Have they also been doing it by Beelzebub? Then your sons will also judge you. But if I do these great works by the finger of the Lord, the Bible says; the kingdom of God has come. So, how do you do great works in the kingdom? It’s by the hand of the Lord. The Bible says: “for it is God that works in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasures” His working producing a willingness and a sense of excitement towards a goal, and then he is working in you, making it happen, how? by His hands. So, the invisible hand of God is behind you, pushing you forward. The invisible hand of God is upon you, keeping you steady, the invisible hand of God is upon you engaging your hands.
So, when you hear David talking about how God has taught his hands for war to the point that even the things, he was holding becomes one with his hands, you must understand how God did it for him. Ezekiel 37:1. The Bible says: “The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones.” By the hand of the Lord, Ezekiel was brought to the place of his mission, by the hand of the Lord he was established there. Ezekiel said “the hand of the Lord brought me down and set me down, he planted me there, and the place He has brought me to is filled with dry bones.”
This is a people robbed and plundered, their situation is dry, they are hidden in prison houses. They are for prey, no one delivers, for plunder, no one restores. The same thing that happens in Isaiah, happens in Ezekiel. The Spirit of the Lord by the hand of God, brought him to a place where he must find relevance. The situation on ground was so pathetic that there was a need for God to intervene and see how God did it, God brought by His hands Ezekiel. And by the hand of God Ezekiel functioned, and so what drove him there? Of course, he must have feared God, of course his heart panted for God, but at that moment it was in addition to the earlier two: The hand of God.
I believe it is a good time to pray!
