December 18, the Christmas model for missions. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them

into the world, John 17, 18. Christmas is a model for missions, missions is a mirror of Christmas.

As I sow you, for example, danger, Christ came to his own and his own received him not.

So you also, they plotted against him, sow you. He had no permanent home, sow you. They trumped up

false charges against him, sow you. They whipped and mocked him, sow you. He died after three years

of ministry, sow you. But there is a worse danger than any of these which Jesus escaped.

So you, in the mid-16th century, the missionary Francis Xavier, 1506 to 1552,

wrote to Father Perez of Malacca, today part of Indonesia, about the perils of his mission to China.

He said, the danger of all dangers would be to lose trust and confidence in the mercy of God.

To distrust him would be a far more terrible thing than any physical evil which all the

enemies of God put together could inflict on us. For without God's permission, neither the devils

nor their human ministers could hinder us in the slightest degree. The greatest danger

of missionary faces is not death, but to distrust the mercy of God. If that danger is avoided,

then all other dangers lose their sting. In the end, God makes every dagger, a scepter in our hand.

As J.W. Alexander says, each instant of present labor is to be graciously repaid with a million

ages of glory. Christ escaped this danger, the danger of distrusting God,

therefore God has highly exalted him. As he saw you, remember this advent that Christmas

is a model for missions, as I saw you, and that mission means danger.

And the greatest danger is distrusting God's mercy, succumb to this, and all is lost.

Call her here, and nothing can harm you for a million ages.