The Missionary as a Son: Other Titles, #1

By Theodore Andoseh

The Missionary as a Son is a keynote lecture delivered by the author to missionary candidates during a transformative session at the School of Knowing and Serving God, the esteemed missionary training institution of Christian Missionary Fellowship International in Yaounde. The message unravels the essence of being a missionary son and provides invaluable guidance on how to embrace this identity.

Drawing inspiration from the Lord Jesus Christ—the ultimate example, the author illuminates the core principles of becoming a missionary son. Jesus, as both the Son of God and the Son of Man, devoted His entire existence to fulfilling the work entrusted to Him by His Father, thus bringing glory to God.

In this divine blueprint, God reveals His design for the missionary enterprise, expecting every missionary to begin their journey as sons, both of God and of man. The pathway to truly belonging to a man is through complete allegiance to God. To accurately relate to a man of God, one must first understand how God speaks and relates to that individual. Admiration forms the foundation of sonship, for without admiration, one fails to perceive the glory inherent in another person. It is through this natural process that we emulate those we admire.

Ministry is the natural outgrowth of a genuine relationship with God. Spiritual union and communion with the divine inevitably bear fruit in the form of impactful ministry. As you embark on this enlightening journey, may your heart be open to the cry within these pages—a heartfelt plea for God to perform spiritual heart surgeries within the lives of all missionaries and missionary candidates, birthing in them a profound transformation that molds them into missionary sons, mirroring the character and example of Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books4revival
• Release date: Mar 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781922151735

Theodore Andoseh

The current leader of Christian Missionary Fellowship Internation

Book preview

The Missionary as a Son

THE MISSIONARY AS A SON

OTHER BOOKS

BOOK 1

THEODORE ANDOSEH

Books4revival

Copyright © 2006 by Zacharias Tanee Fomum

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Published by

A division of the Book Ministry of Christian Missionary Fellowship International

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CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

1. Jesus was a missionary

2. Jesus was a son

3. Practical application—1

Aaron

4. Practical Application—2

The Levites

5. Practical application—3

You and I

6. Practical application—4

An established pattern

7. Practical application—5

Our ministry

8. The Practice of Ministry

9. Putting on a man—1

More Lessons

10. Putting on a man—2

11. Putting on a Man—3

12. Ministry, The Ministry, Our Ministry

13. Serving a man

Back Matters

Notes

PREFACE

The Missionary as a Son is a keynote lecture delivered by the author to missionary candidates during a transformative session at the School of Knowing and Serving God, the esteemed missionary training institution of Christian Missionary Fellowship International in Yaounde. The message unravels the essence of being a missionary son and provides invaluable guidance on how to embrace this identity.

Drawing inspiration from the Lord Jesus Christ—the ultimate example, the author illuminates the core principles of becoming a missionary son. Jesus, as both the Son of God and the Son of Man, devoted His entire existence to fulfilling the work entrusted to Him by His Father, thus bringing glory to God.

In this divine blueprint, God reveals His design for the missionary enterprise, expecting every missionary to begin their journey as sons, both of God and of man. The pathway to truly belonging to a man is through complete allegiance to God. To accurately relate to a man of God, one must first understand how God speaks and relates to that individual. Admiration forms the foundation of sonship, for without admiration, one fails to perceive the glory inherent in another person. It is through this natural process that we emulate those we admire.

Ministry is the natural outgrowth of a genuine relationship with God. Spiritual union and communion with the divine inevitably bear fruit in the form of impactful ministry. As you embark on this enlightening journey, may your heart be open to the cry within these pages—a heartfelt plea for God to perform spiritual heart surgeries within the lives of all missionaries and missionary candidates, birthing in them a profound transformation that moulds them into missionary sons, mirroring the character and example of Christ.

INTRODUCTION

MISSIONARY SONS

There is a father of missions and there are the missionary sons. Often, God finds a man, enters into a covenant with him, and commits His purposes to that man and to his spiritual sons.

Jesus served as a missionary on earth under an inward constraint. It pleased God to limit Him as the Son of Man. He reduced the Omnipotent One to babyhood. He was going to be Son of God and Son of Man. By this God was setting forth a blue-print for His missionary enterprise. He would expect all missionaries to begin as sons and go for Him as sons; sons of God, and sons of man.

A MISSIONARY SON

He is someone who goes as a missionary and also serves as a son. He preaches the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, produces disciples, plants churches, oversees those churches, ensures that Jesus is obeyed, and that the church in that locality manifests something of God.

Let us look at Jesus,

So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too, am working.’ For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer: ‘I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it (John 5:16-21).

He knew how the Father was working and on earth He imitated the Father’s pattern. For the Son, the pattern was settled by what he saw the Father doing.

The Jewish understanding of sonship means equality. So it makes the word son a loaded word. It did not mean child. Jesus could speak on another occasion expressing the truth that if one saw Him, it means that one had seen the Father. He would be surprised if one did not know it. This makes it weightier.

Sonship is an acknowledgement of maturation. The son does the Father’s work.

Jesus gave them this answer: I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son also does (verse 19).

The Son can do nothing of himself. He is admitted into unlimited possibilities. There is an enabling that comes by mere association. There are potentialities that accrue with bonding. There is character that will be reproduced, as though effortlessly, from the father to the son. Consequently, it matters whose son one is.

The missionary son is not free to make additions to the vision. His genius lies in the execution of it.

I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do (John 17:4).

The son has one task: to complete the work that has been given him to do, and in so doing, brings glory to His Father. A son is a custodian of his father’s glory. That is his duty.

JOSEPH OF OLD

Let us look at Joseph in the service of Pharaoh:

There was no food, however, in the whole region because the famine was severe; both Egypt and Canaan wasted away because of the famine. Joseph collected all the money that was to be found in Egypt and Canaan in payment for the grain they were buying, and he brought it to Pharaoh’s palace. When the money of the people of Egypt and Canaan was gone, all Egypt came to Joseph and said, Give us food. Why should we die before your eyes? Our money is used up.

Then bring your livestock, said Joseph. I will sell you food in exchange for your livestock, since your money is gone. So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and he gave them food in exchange for their horses, their sheep and goats, their cattle and donkeys. And he brought them through that year with food in exchange for all their livestock. When that year was over, they came to him the following year and said, We cannot hide from our lord the fact that since our money is gone and our livestock belongs to you, there is nothing left for our lord except our bodies and our land. Why should we perish before your eyes—we and our land as well? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we with our land will be in bondage to Pharaoh. Give us seed so that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become desolate. So Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. The Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields, because the famine was too severe for them. The land became Pharaoh’s, and Joseph reduced the people to servitude, from one end of Egypt to the other. However, he did not buy the land of the priests, because they received a regular allotment from Pharaoh and had food enough from the allotment Pharaoh gave them. That is why they did not sell their land. Joseph said to the people, Now that I have bought you and your land today for Pharaoh, here is seed for you so you can plant the ground. But when the crop comes in, give a fifth of it to Pharaoh. The other four-fifths you may keep as seed for the fields and as food for yourselves and your households and your children. You have saved our lives, they said. May we find favour in the eyes of our lord; we will be in bondage to Pharaoh. So Joseph established it as a law concerning land in Egypt—still in force today—that a fifth of the produce belongs to Pharaoh. It was only the land of the priests that did not become Pharaoh’s (Genesis 47:13—26).

Joseph’s service enriched Pharaoh. It shaped all of Egypt and Canaan. By his service, he made a great man limitlessly great.

1

JESUS WAS A MISSIONARY

HE KNEW HIS MISSION

Jesus knew His mission:

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost (Luke 19:10).

What did the Son of Man come to do? To seek and to save the lost. He could say,

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour (Luke 4:18—19).

Jesus knew what He came for, He knew the reason why God gave Him the Holy Spirit. Was He guessing? No, no, no. But he said,

"I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent." And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea (Luke 4:43—44).

For this is the reason why I was sent. Did He know the reason why he was sent? Yes!

HE KNEW HE NEEDED DISCIPLES

When Jesus had called the twelve together,