Preached at Markham Baptist Church, January 21, 2001

Have you ever owned a gold fish? They're interesting fish don't you think? Did you know that a gold fish will only grow as large as its environment allows? If you put a small gold fish into a small bowl it will remain that size its entire life. But if you put that same small gold fish into a larger bowl it will grow larger. Apparently a goldfish produces an enzyme that in essence poisons the goldfish and retards its growth. But a larger bowl allows that enzyme to break down and dissipate so that the gold fish is allowed to grow. That's why we see small gold fish in small bowls and large, humungous, man-eating goldfish in garden ponds. Have you seen them? Huge, multi colored fish allowed to grow big because the environment allows for it.

That's why when I see gold fish in a bowl I like to look them in the eye and say, "if you only knew what you could become. If you only could get out of that bowl, there's so much more waiting for you."

There are times when I feel that God is saying that to me about my faith. There are times when my faith is so narrowly focused that all I am seeking from God is to be blessed. My prayers consist primarily of, "O Lord keep my kids safe and thank you for this meal, and may I have a good night's sleep." And the goal of my Christian activity is simply to churn out another sermon, or complete an assignment on time for my course, and make sure that the Sunday bulletin is put together. Those are all fine things but sometimes I feel that there's got to be more to my Christian life than what I'm experiencing.

Do you ever feel that? Do you ever feel God to be looking you in the eye and saying, "If you only knew what you could become if you only got out of that goldfish bowl of narrow thinking and limited expectations and short sighted vision"?

Maybe you feel that way about worship - that there's got to be something more of God than what we are experiencing. Even though what we are experiencing is good - there's got to be something more, something more substantial, so that we are actually able to say, "I have tasted the goodness of God." So that you leave this place saying, "God's presence is palpable. I felt God to be near to me, I heard God speak to me."

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this experience is found in the big and grand and the flashy, the experience of God is often in the ordinary, the quiet, the childlike.

I'm not suggesting that. All I'm saying is that sometimes I feel that there has got to be something more of my experience of God than what I am seeing and experiencing, something more than asking God to bless me, my wife and children and give me a good night's sleep. There has got to be something more to church than getting together with Christian friends - even though that's a good thing - than checking off the next item in the order of service. Structured worship - good thing - but is there something more to this Christian life?

There are times when I feel God looking me in the eye and saying, "If you only knew how much more awaits you in this Christian life - if you could only get out of that gold fish bowl of narrow thinking and limited expectations and shortsighted vision. Like the gold fish you are only growing as large as your environment allows. If only you would allow me to put you in a bigger pond so that you could grow."

The question then is, "what is the bigger pond?" And the bigger pond is world missions. God seeks to grow our experience of Him by giving us a vision for the world.

He asks us, "Do you want to grow in your faith and experience of me? Do you want your worship of me to be dynamic and alive? Then open your eyes to what I am doing around the world and come be a part of it."

Let me explain this - I believe that Scripture teaches that our experience of God becomes greater, more alive, when we allow Him to give us a vision for what He is doing in the world, and not just our small fish bowl.

I believe that God says to us, "allow me to show you my worldwide purpose in Christ." Open your Bibles to John 3:16. Here Jesus is speaking with Nicodemus, a religious leader of the day and John 3:16-21 brings us in at the end of the conversation. But it is here that we see God's worldwide purpose in Christ.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God." (NRSV)

Do you hear the word repeated here? (verses 16 and 17 again)

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." (NRSV)

Verse 17 [the second sentence] is pivotal in understanding God's worldwide purpose in Christ. The worldwide purpose of God is not to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.

God's singular intent is to save the world - that is his desire; that is the purpose statement that God has engraved on a plaque hanging in the conference room of heaven. And so Jesus says in Luke 19:10, "I have come to seek and to save those who are lost."

Sometimes we get trapped in the gold fish bowl of church life, being with Christians, saying Christian words, going to Christian conferences, singing Christian songs, and we forget that for which our master came and for which he called us into service, to be instruments through which he can seek and save the lost of the whole world.

Billy Graham noted at the Lausanne International Congress on World Evangelization that:

"Many sincere Christians around the world are concerned for evangelism. They are delighted at evangelizing in their own communities and even in their own countries. But they do not see God's big picture of 'World need'. And the 'global responsibility' that he has put upon the church in his world. The Christians in Nigeria are not just to evangelize Nigeria, nor the Christians in Peru just the people in Peru. God's heartbeat is for the world."

Have you ever heard of a little Island out in the middle of the South Pacific called Tonga? If you go there you will discover that it is a very Christian country. I first heard about this country about 9 years ago and you can imagine my excitement when I met some Tongans in Amsterdam this past year, and I asked them about what I'm about to tell you, and they said it's all true.

Tonga is a country filled with Christians; they have had one murder in 50 years. 75% of the people of Tonga belong to the Wesleyan church. The first missionary couple came to Tonga in 1826; within three months they died and another missionary couple came. The success of the mission was considered to be low; only a few responded to the message of gospel.

But those few Christian Tongans began to pray, "O Lord send your spirit upon us; fill us with your Holy Spirit; let your word spread through our islands." And their prayers were answered. The Spirit came. For 30 days the Spirit moved across their island uninterrupted, convincing people of their sin and moving them to faith in Christ. Over half of the population was baptized.

And do you know what happened the next year? A group of Tongan Christians climbed into a sea-going canoe and they pushed five hundred miles to the west to share the gospel with their neighbours on the Fiji islands. If you go to the island of Fiji today and you talk about Christianity or the Christian church they'll say, "Lotu Tonga," which means religion of Tonga. It was not European missionaries, it was Tongan missionaries.

And one year later, 1836, in a sea-going canoe they pushed 150 miles to the north to share the gospel with their Samoan neighbours.

Within 10 years it became a mission sending church.

That's getting out of the fish bowl. That's where the thrill of the Christian life is - where we see God's worldwide purpose in Christ and respond in faith and witness first hand the spread of the gospel, transformed lives.

God asks us, "do you want to grow in your faith and experience of me? Do you want your worship of me to be dynamic and alive - then open your eyes and see my worldwide purpose in Christ."

But there is also this, God calls us to see a world full of people without Christ. When you look around you, do you see a world full of people without Christ, do you see the lost as really lost? Or do you simply see people?

Open your Bibles to Matthew 9:35-38.

"Then Jesus went all about the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.'" (NRSV)

What do you see when you look at the world? Jesus looked out at the crowds and what he saw moved him "to compassion," says our text. Because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Think of that word, compassion. The root word for compassion in the Greek is entrails. What this means is that something happened when Jesus looked at the crowds around him, something happened in the entrails of his heart. He was deeply, profoundly moved by what he saw.

What do you see when you look at your fellow employees? Do you see a work place full of people without Christ so that you are moved to compassion for them?

What do you see when you look at your ethnic neighbours? Do you see them as people who possibly don't know Christ? Does your heart break for them?

What do you see when you see the Arab Moslems on your TV screen? Do you see them as people without Christ who need to know of his grace and life in their lives?

Several young Salvation Army officers wrote and asked General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, "how can we win the lost?" Booth's return letter simply said, "try tears."

Jesus looked at the crowds and had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless - that word, harassed, means in Greek that they are flayed or beaten, and the word helpless means they are thrown down on the ground. So when Jesus looks at people, he sees people as ones that have been beaten on, and flayed, and thrown on the ground, and it breaks his heart.

O how we need to fall on our knees and ask God to break our heart with the things that break his, to open our eyes to a world full of people without Christ.

Have you ever seen the horror movie called the Sixth Sense? I haven't seen it, but I've been told that it's very scary. And I have been told about the plot and know that in it is a little boy who is terrified because, in his own words, "I see dead people."

O that we would have the same terror for the people around us that do not know Christ. We don't need a sixth sense, we need a gracious God-given sense, so that when we see those who are without Christ, we see dead people. People dead spiritually, who have been beaten on, harassed and helpless - with no hope of life outside of faith in him.

O that God would help us to see a world full of people without Christ.

III

But there is this yet to say: God enables us to move from our small fish bowl into the bigger pond, thus enabling us to experience more of him when we see His worldwide purpose in Christ, when we see a world full of people without Christ, and then this, when we see that in becoming a world Christian we need to see our world-sized part with Christ.

Our last text is Matthew 28:16-20. Our Lord's last words to us are these:

"Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'" (NRSV)

Go and make disciples of all nations. Do you know in the Greek that sentence means, "go and make disciples of all nations"? It means just what it says and it's God's commission to you and me individually, and you and me as his church. We are to be a people who go out to the world with the good news that has touched and transformed our lives.

It was Oswald Smith, the founder of People's Church here in Toronto, who coined the phrase on one of our banners here, "you must go or send another." It is based on this text in Matthew 28, "you must go...." Wouldn't it be wonderful if from our congregation some decided that they had enough of swimming in their small gold fish bowl of narrow thinking, limited experience, and offered God their lives in full time missionary service? Wouldn't it be wonderful if some of our young people caught the vision of a world full of people without Christ and decided to give their lives to Him in full time Christian service? Wouldn't it be wonderful if some of those of you who are retired decided to offer to God your services in some sort of full time mission? Go into all the world.

To be sure, not all of us have been called to be missionaries in that sense. We are the body of Christ and each a member of it. That's why I like the last part of Smith's sentence, "you must go or send another". For those of us who remain at home, it remains for us to model a faith that is alive and real. It remains for us to support those who go with our prayers, encouragement and finances.

Allow me to give you four practical ways you can play a world-sized part with Christ for sharing the good news of God's love:

During your daily personal devotions spend five minutes discovering something of what Scripture teaches about Christ's global cause.
Then spend an additional four minutes reading current world related literature, such as a magazine article, or a letter from our partners in mission.
Take three minutes to carry out a mission to the world through prayer, using what God gave you in the previous nine minutes of building your vision.
Sometime each day in personal conversation with another Christian, share for two minutes what God has given you in the previous twelve minutes of building your vision and reaching out in prayer.

15 minutes a day - you will enlarge your vision.

My friends, I get tired of spending my life in my own gold fish bowl of narrow thinking, limited expectations and shortsighted vision. There is a hunger inside for more of God, for a deeper understanding of who he is and what he's about. I long to witness his power in transforming lives through my witness and the witness of his church.

And I know that you share that same hunger - you know there is so much more of God to discover, so much more of his goodness to taste in worship, so much more of his power to experience in this world. Don't ignore the hunger.

Take it to God, ask him to show you His worldwide purpose in Christ. Pray that he would show you a world full of people without Christ, and ask Him what world-sized part he would have you play in it all.

And he will take you out of your little fish bowl of narrow thinking and limited expectations and shortsighted vision and place you in the big pond of his world-sized purposes.