The Bible passages chosen for this week’s Sabbath School Lesson discussion reverberate with the cry for action, not just an emotional experience.

Mission is the heartbeat of the church. If mission stops, the church dies. This week’s lesson deals with the necessity of sharing our passion for Jesus in our mission at home, as well as abroad.

The Great Commission given in Matthew 28:18–20 and Matthew 24:14 can also be described as the Great Co-mission. God initiated mission, but it becomes a joint venture as soon as one becomes a Christian.

Hope is supposed to motivate Christians to fulfil their mandate and to carry out their global mission. Hope is needed in an apparently hopeless world. Who is bold enough to predict a way out of the morass in which this world finds itself? Hope helps the destitute to hold on a little longer. Hope breeds patience.

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew words qawah, yahal, hakah, or sabar, mean hope, and they can be translated: "to be stretched out toward," "to long after," or "to wait for" (with God as the object). To hope means to long for God, or to wait for God. There is a sense of security in this hope.

Hope is associated with trust. Hope is an expectation that is combined with both certainty and tension. Hope looks toward something in the future. The hope of the people in the Old Testament was in God. The Psalmist prayed "You Lord are my hope" (Ps. 71:5). Jeremiah spoke about God as "the hope of Israel (Jer. 14:8; 17:13). Yahweh was the embodiment or the guarantor of Israel’s fate.

In the New Testament, hope does not play as prominent a role as in the Gospels. But in the writings of Paul hope shines through. Hope in the New Testament is also God-centred. It is always confident and never fearful. Romans 8:24 tells us that we hope for what we do not even see. This hope is patient and disciplined. This hope is not static.

Hope is not a noun. It is a verb. It suggests setting in motion. Jesus said "occupy till I come" (Luke 9:13). The Greek word pragmateuomai literally means "to do business." The business of the church is to share the good news of salvation. This is the "business" of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18–20, and the "business" of the messages of the three angels in Revelation 14:6–12.

Jeremiah, the "weeping prophet" was so motivated by this hope that he graphically described the motivation that propelled his hope as "fire in his bones." "But if I say ’I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones" (Jer. 20:9).

The motivation for mission can also be found in what Peter says: "But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have" (1 Pet. 3:15).

The story of the four lepers in 2 Kings 7:3–11 shows how hope motivates people to action. When the lepers found food in the Aramean camp they ate and drank, took silver and gold, and then realized that they were not doing the right thing. "This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves" (2 Kings 7:9). So they broadcast the good news, and even though there was skepticism at first, in the end the starving masses were fed.

Ancient Israel’s hope was in God. God had done great things for his people. God had demonstrated to them that, as his people, they would lack nothing if they trusted him. That is why God opened up waterways like the Red Sea and the Jordan River, and even provided manna six days a week for forty years.

God’s hope was that Israel would spread the good news about him and the trust that it had in him. There must always be a centripetal movement toward God followed by a centrifugal movement into the world with the Good News.

The motivation for doing good has to be a result of what God has done for each individual Christian. It cannot be to impress a colleague or fellow church member. It dare not be a means of bribing God.

As he said to the demoniac in Mark 5:19, Jesus is saying to Christians, "Go home and tell your friends how much the Lord has done for you." To go into those familiar places to witness is often the hardest thing to do. But it is the most fruitful. We may all conjecture as to why Jesus denied the healed man the much-coveted opportunity to follow him. I believe that Jesus wanted this motivated man to return to the familiar places rather than go to the alluring far away mission fields hoping to "Christianize" the so-called "heathen."

The lesson this week should help us see how the hope that Christians have compels them to do evangelism wherever they are. Christians who are emboldened by the hope they have in Jesus are motivated to reach out and touch lives in a tangible way. Evangelism in this postmodern world cannot be a means of shouting from across the street to the people who are passing by on the other side. Evangelists and church members must go across the street and mingle with the crowd in order to be effective, like the seasoned salt that Jesus spoke about (Matt 5:13).

Proclamation of the gospel is demonstrated in building homes for the homeless, digging wells for the waterless, and teaching agricultural science to people whose crops have failed and for whom famine has caused malnutrition.

The hope that burns within the hearts of Christians must continue to motivate us to missions. But this approach has to be more than lip service.

As long as the hope of the soon return of Jesus burns within our hearts and is lived out in our daily lives, we will show that we are motivated missionaries. Without that hope and that motivation we are likely to become misguided mercenaries.

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