"Coca Cola & Mission"
Now there were four men with leprosy sitting at the entrance of the city gates. "Why should we sit here waiting to die?" they asked each other. "We will starve if we stay here, but with the famine in the city, we will starve if we go back there. So we might as well go out and surrender to the Aramean army. If they let us live, so much the better. But if they kill us, we would have died anyway."
So at twilight they set out for the camp of the Arameans. But when they came to the edge of the camp, no one was there! For the Lord had caused the Aramean army to hear the clatter of speeding chariots and the galloping of horses and the sounds of a great army approaching. "The king of Israel has hired the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us!" they cried to one another. So they panicked and ran into the night, abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and everything else, as they fled for their lives.
When the lepers arrived at the edge of the camp, they went into one tent after another, eating and drinking wine; and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and hid it. Finally, they said to each other, "This is not right. This is a day of good news, and we aren't sharing it with anyone! If we wait until morning, some calamity will certainly fall upon us. Come on, let's go back and tell the people at the palace."
So they went back to the city and told the gatekeepers what had happened. "We went out to the Aramean camp," they said, "and no one was there! The horses and donkeys were tethered and the tents were all in order, but there wasn't a single person around!" Then the gatekeepers shouted the news to the people in the palace. (2 Kings 7:3-11 NLT)
A missionary friend of mine preached a great missions sermon on this passage once. It has stuck with me since.
He brought out a couple of great truths. The lepers at the gates say to themselves, "Why are we sitting here until we die?" They knew their life was short. They would either starve or be killed by their enemies so it was worth the risk to approach their enemies. They refused to stay at the gate of the city.
In the same way, we should ask ourselves, what are we living our lives for? Are we just living for what we can gain, sitting here until we die? Shouldn't we be willing to give our lives for a more worthy cause? Shouldn't we be willing to risk so that others can here the good news? In reality, we are like these lepers, we could die at any minute.
Another truth he pointed out was the fact that they couldn't keep the good news to themselves. They had to share it with others! Do we feel this way about the gospel?
He told a story about serving as a missionary in the most remote parts of Asia. They were so remote that they would have to backpack in in order to reach certain villages. He noticed that the gospel had never reach that village but something else did: Coca Cola. In the 2000 years since Jesus lived, the gospel hasn't penetrated certain places but a soda company can get their product there. Something is wrong with this picture isn't it?
How committed are we to getting the gospel across the street & around the world? Willing to give up our comfort here? Do we see ourselves biblically? That to be a Christian is to primarily be a missionary?
How is God calling us to light up the dark around us with the good news of Jesus?
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