The Second Part of the Equation: A Return to Mission: Our First 15

By Martin Sim

Martin Sim is a devout Christian with a heartfelt desire to help others know the truth of Christ and the importance of His Word.

In an inspirational guide, Sim explores the art of missional giving by returning to one of Christ’s most powerful commandments—the Great Commission. While encouraging believers and church leaders that when we reengage with the dynamic “Book of Acts” model and bring the first 15 percent of our efforts and resources toward the war effort of the Commission, that these actions will allow the church to once again find its joy, purpose, peace, and calling. By utilizing the simple first 15 model, Sim reminds believers that it is well in their ability to change a world to see a kingdom and what they will receive if they follow Christ’s mission and restore themselves to the needs of the poor and needy, the lost, and those without hope. All when we go outside of ourselves.

The Second Part of the Equation shares stories and scripture that show a clear path and demonstrate viable reasons for the church, its leaders, and its followers to return to its original mission.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664273702

Martin Sim

Martin Sim worked in the computer industry for over twenty-five years. Today, he resides on the family farm in Saskatchewan, Canada, with his dog, Libbie. Martin’s hobbies include his daily morning prayer walk, a good coffee, watching the final nine holes of the Masters, and keeping a watch on his Dallas Cowboys.

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WestBow Press rev. date: 10/27/2022

CONTENTS

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Preface

Acknowledgments

The Dream, The Vision

Introduction

The Second Part Of The Equation

The Harvest Fields

The Twelve-Point Plan

Conclusion

PREFACE

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It all started at a men’s conference event. Something as simple as that.

Scrimmaging through the multiple booths while in between sessions, I didn’t realize how this one moment in time would lead to a vision that would change my life.

He always does this kind of things. His Plans. His Ways. (Isaiah 55:8–9; Ephesians 3:20; Jeremiah 29:11).

At one booth during this event, a woman started pushing a book on me to the point that it was coming to be real annoying. The book was free, and she was insistent that I take it. Being a new, young believer, I thought that I knew all I had to know about Christ and that I didn’t need any more information or to waste my time reading books thank you very much. Who needs knowledge? C’mon man, let’s just get on with the show and take this show, the gospel, on the road!

What’s the saying? Humility comes before honor?

Just to appease her, I accepted the book and walked away thinking I would read a little of it and that would be it. Little did I know how that one book would forever reshape my life. God was planting the seed. That event happened roughly just over thirteen years ago now.

To say this book was like a stick of dynamite that had been placed under me would be an understatement. I had never been moved by a book like this. I could sense its truth. It was one of those books you just didn’t want to put down. Its title was Revolution in World Missions.¹

It was all about Him. All about getting back to the mission.

His Mission.

I read the book, and it’s been interesting to see the trail He has been leading me on. Leading but most of all training me into what He wanted to show me and now sharing it.

The art of missional giving. Coming back to the Great Commission.

Individually and corporately.

I love what I read on someone’s resume or Twitter account that he graduated in missions work and the course name listed as applied theology. I love that term. It reflects what missions is really all about—putting our theology into action. The Great Commission.

All during the process that Christ was bringing me on, I was being introduced to all these amazing players on the front lines, the boots on the ground. The mission agencies, missionaries, the compassionate care ministries, church planters, Bible translators, the persecuted church, etc., doing the unheralded, backbreaking work of sharing the gospel.

His message. His mission.

This book is a signal to coming back to our part, our responsibility, our peace, and our joy.

Most especially is the cry the emphasis of this book to the North American corporate church. To its leadership again into the investment back into our mission of the mission.

Our mandated mission. Our divined part. His commandment.

The Great Commission.

I hope that this book will clarify how so very simply we can apply and get back to this in our churches. To get back into the game without investing a dime.

Yes, you heard me right.

The only cost will be the giving back a fraction of our hearts but with the expected sure thing of a thirty-, sixty-, hundredfold windfall of His rewards, blessings, favor, and mission.

Him.

Because that is our ultimate reward.

That is our ultimate payoff.

Knowing we are on the right path.

On the right mission.

Him.

Well done, thou good and faithful servant. (Matthew 25:21 KJV)

My biggest prayer is that you and your church will see Christ in a way you have never seen Him before. In unexpected ways as you have never seen Him before. All by and through the work of mission.

By the cost of faithfulness. By the rewards of faithfulness.

Being faithful in the little now be to counted faithful in the very much later. (Luke 16:10)

All so that others may see Him.

Through our greatest mission. His greatest commission.

Individually and corporately.

The church leading the way, showing the way, modeling the Way.

For our congregations, our world, our witness.

Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

To elevating the importance of mission. The reason of mission. The placement of mission.

The commandment of mission.

His mission.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19)

Installing the principal concept of mission over main site (the physical site of our local churches). Not replacing it but coming alongside it.

Teaming together, working together, supporting together, winning together towards the Great Commission.

And here is the incredible part of this new reengagement of this mission—

We have it in our hands.

No special fundraising or special offerings required here.

By a simple tweaking of our hearts, we win not only the world to the glimpse of His kingdom we ultimately win ourselves back.

By coming back to His mission.

This is what the gift of giving always gives back.

That is what the act of dying to oneself always returns.

Giving back new life, a new vision, a new mission.

This is what mission does.

By His Word. By His commission.

That kernel of wheat going into the ground to produce a harvest for His kingdom happens when we go against the norm of inward to the outward.

To share His indescribable gift. His eternal gift. His Son to a waiting world.

Of His kingdom. Of His hope. An eternal hope.

An eternal truth.

Gleaned all in the workings of His commission.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19)

This is what this book is all about.

To showing the simplicity of how just a little can create so much when we pool together.

As His church. In His mission. In His great commission.

We can do this together. We can live this together.

Saving lives together.

Any church. Any size. This book’s solution is a guide to fit all.

To having a fully complete and automated global missional outreach arm running for you

24/7. Doing it all.

For I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me. (Matthew 25:35–36 NKJV)

As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! (Romans 10:15 KJV)

The working out of His Great Commission.

On a fraction of your budget.

Running a global effort. A global commission. All from home base of main site.

Fully installed. Fully running. A fully completed (great) commission arm for your church running 24/7.

To all nations. All tribes. All tongues.

Your community. Your nation. Your world.

Bringing His kingdom.

On a set fraction of your budget. On a set fraction of your time.

Set it up. Start it up. Watch it run.

It’s that simple.

To giving access to all peoples of not only help and hope but to the greatest gift—an eternal truth.

An eternal hope. An eternal Christ.

This is the enormity of our mission.

Won by the simplest of sacrifice as you will soon see.

And all on the guaranteed and complete full backing of His Word.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19)

To the ultimate privilege to dine with others at the ultimate banquet.

Sharing what was so graciously given (sent) to us all.

All done by the same commission. All by the same mission.

The Great Commission of others done --- for Him.

On a fraction of our time. A fraction of our efforts. A fraction of our hearts.

When we go outward to give that special someone an eternity in life.

An eternity in Him. In Christ.

This is our Great Commission.

I hope you enjoy this book and what can really be.

Coming back to the mission.

The joy of His mission.

Thank You, and God Bless.

For His name.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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I thank first my heavenly Father and my Lord Jesus Christ by the calling of His grace and salvation. For truly only you could have ever reached me.

In conjunction, let me also say thank you to the Holy Spirit for bringing this all together. You were the one who glued this all together and kept me all together from the start. Thank you for giving me the strength, belief, understanding, hope, mercy, patience, your favor (Did I mention strength?) when I could have easily given up. Thank you so much to helping ensure where it was always meant to go. To what it was all meant to be. What is was meant all for.

His glory. His truth. His name. His mission. His honor.

Thank you.

To my dad and mom. Thank you for the structure, discipline, and respect you taught me in my younger years, but more important, you also gave me the freedom to pursue and thus dream big. Because of the environment you raised me in, I come to this place I find myself in now and allowed to do. Thank you so much for everything you sacrificed and placed into me to get me to where I am today.

Thank you.

I give special mention to a very special praying aunt, my aunt Avis. She was faithfully obedient and diligent to never leave the call for praying for me among many other people I am sure. Intercessory prayer and its power have never been lost on me because of that. I say, Thank you, Auntie Avis. Because of your faithfulness to pray and intercede, I stand here today.

To Carlo, my good friend. Thank you for being that amazing vessel of God by which I was introduced to the world of the hurting out there and specifically the persecuted church and compassionate care ministries.

Thank you for all the years for your friendship, your input, and at the most needed times, your laugh. You probably didn’t realize it, but thank you for being the catalyst and tour guide you were to me in the beginning of all this. Thank you, my friend.

I acknowledge the amazing true warriors out there, those quiet, unassuming, ordinary folk on the front lines of the mission who are the hands and feet of Jesus Christ on the ground every day doing the hard, unheralded work of Christ.

Those of the missionaries going off to foreign lands. The translators of His Word going to the outer reaches of this world to bring His Word to life for many. The ministries that carry the compassionate heart, hands, and feet of Jesus Christ to the service of the hurting, the needy, and those without hope.

Thank you all for your sacrifices that bring to the people of this world the knowledge of the hope of this world. You bringing the name of Christ. The truth of Christ. All in the compassion and Spirit of Christ. At so that others may know Him.

My prayer is that this book reach you and give you new hope, new provisions, and a new uplift in your work of His Great Commission. I know that there are many lonely days out there for you and that there seems to be more days of defeat than victory. I can hear the missionaries and frontline staff at the battle lines saying Amen! at this point. I want you to know that you are not alone and that your example of perseverance and commitment is such an encouragement to us all who view it and are inspired by it.

Thank you.

I give a nod to the many supporting staff back here at home who keep us informed of the happenings on the front lines of the Great Commission’s work. Helping us here from the back lines to know their requirements, prayer, and provisional needs for the front lines of the mission. You are a vital connecting link to us all here to knowing these needs, and we thank you for all your work behind the scenes of being that link.

For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister. (Hebrews 6:10 NKJV)

Yes, He really does see.

My prayer for you is that God will reveal and reward you by His deepest intimacy to you.

Thank you again for your work in His commission.

I give very special thanks to some truly incredible people who through all the writing of this book were key inspirational links who kept me rolling along due to their faith, endurance, and total commitment to the mission. They will probably never know the extent to which they impacted me or the process of this book, but I want them to know that they were an integral part of encouraging me throughout the process. I am speaking of the persecuted church beyond our borders, our freedoms, our blessings. Daily, they endure constant affliction, persecution, torture, incarceration, loneliness, and yes even martyrdom at times. Yet, they endure.

And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere, even beyond Macedonia and Achaia, for wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. (1 Thessalonians 1:8 NLT)

Your stories of faith (btw, thank you, Open Doors and Voice of the Martyrs so much for all your work of getting their message out to us) recount to us what is needed and how it is needed daily to live for the faith. This book acknowledges the shining example of your faith, endurance, perseverance, and commitment to Him through all obstacles.

Thank you for your stories. Your testimony. Your witness.

Your stories always kept me connected to the real mission

The mission to reach beyond our doors (Revelation 7:9).

His Great Commission.

Thank you again so very much.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:10–12)

I thank all my contacts and sources who generously gave me permission to use their quotes and other material in this book. I am greatly indebted to you and appreciate what your inspired words brought. Thank you.

To everyone who reads this book, may the Holy Spirit give you a glimpse into the excitement and the joy of the special part that He has specifically designed for you in your mission of His mission. (Jeremiah 29:11).

Individually and corporately.

May you be blessed by the message of the mission. The joy of the mission. The purpose of the mission. And the integral part you play in the mission.

I pray for the billions in this world who have never gotten to hear or will ever know of the grace and truth of Jesus Christ. I hope that the fruit of this book (or mission I should say) may come to reach and assist you in need, hope, and revelation of a joyous truth.

To see you seated at the very front seats at the greatest wedding banquet of all time would simply be my greatest reward and joy.

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen! (Revelation 7:9–12)

Amen.

Now, let’s all go on to our greatest mission.

THE DREAM, THE VISION

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I have many times referred to this as I have a dream speech.

I have not relayed it to many people, but the Lord has kept this dream burning in my heart for a long time.

Never did it come from my own wisdom but by that beautiful grace of inspiration that God himself gives by His Holy Spirit. What strikes me more and more is how simple this path to victory really is when we reengage with the Great Commission.

Very simple. Very easy.

When we look to His Word for our leading, we find our path, peace, strength, and mission.

Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. (Luke 3:5–6 KJV)

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:30 KJV)

All this comes when we come back to His mission and His original intended direction of the commission.

To finding a joy I think the church has been looking for a really long time because again I believe we have been looking in the wrong direction.

But by a simple 15 percent turn, much like the turning of the sun that Hezekiah was offered (Isaiah 38), we have that same opportunity to turn it back on the right path again of finding His joy and finding our mission.

Just a simple 15-degree turn of the heart.

To His way. His mission. His outcome. His results.

This I believe will transform the church by the same magnitude and force as the reformation did.

Because it all correlates to one of Christ’s most powerful commandments—the Great Commission.

It was one of the last major commandments He issued to his disciples before He ascended to His rightful throne. Not the building of more synagogues (buildings) but a speaking of mission.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19)

The timing of this verse just before His ascension I think explains just how powerful a statement that Jesus wanted to imprint on our hearts and minds as to its significance. To be concentrated on the mission.

To that of using the Great Commission to redeem people to His kingdom by the biblical standard of going.

The trouble came when we began to redefine that standard of mission.

Check the financials.

But with this dream, by such a simple number, a very easy number actually, I think we can (must) get back to that original definition and scope of what His mission was always meant to be. To go and make disciples of all nations.

To encompass, include, comprehend and envelop all aspects of the Great Commission into our church’s missional agendas again to steer not only our resources but also our hearts to look beyond to carry out that mandate, that mission.

By our first 15 percent, I believe we can carry out that mandate with a dynamic force and overwhelming results with healing and hope to the nations—an eternal hope.

And this is where the dream, the vision, the hope really comes in … by His church coming together in bringing the first 15 percent of all our received (undesignated) donations toward the war effort of the Great Commission.

Just by that simple number, we collectively win a very simple victory.

When we pool in together.

When we believe in the same mission together.

Based upon a truth. Written in His Word as truth.

Our first 15 begins the mission of the Great Commission.

Individually and corporately.

Steering the church back into its proper direction of the Great Commission outside our doors.

The book of Acts church had it all so right—outward looking, outwardly focused.

However, we returned it inwards.

Check the financials.

But by a simple adjustment to how we treat our first 15, I believe we can get back there again.

Back to His Great Commission, and back to the same book of Acts results.

Just on that one initiative alone.

On how we use our first 15.

This is how simple an amount (really a percentage) can propel a revolution.

To a brand new Revolution in World Missions.²

To bringing humanity to restoration through His Son, Jesus Christ.

By a missional heart, a missionary focus and force, a given commission.

Individually and corporately.

Our first 15 gets us back on that track.

I know this story oh so well about getting right with the true mission. My life was all about getting to that elusive dream of a million dollars. (I know; think Mike Myers, Austin Powers …)

I know it really sounded that silly and even more so when I looked back now to how I was going against the grain. Against His Word.

All that work. All that worry. All that tiredness.

Again I saw something meaningless under the sun: There was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. For whom am I toiling, he asked, and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment? This too is meaningless— a miserable business! (Ecclesiastes 4:7–8)

That was going to be the destiny of my life—a million dollars, a simple, one-bedroom apartment, and then do whatever I wanted.

Sounds like a Bible story somewhere in there, doesn’t it?

And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. (Luke 12:18–19 KJV)

I know it sounded silly, but that was my dream. That was my story.

But then God came along in my life and totally blew that all up. He has a way of doing that.

And I can just hear Him say, You want a dream? I’ll show you a dream!

That dream is what I share with you now. When we look to Him for our mission.

However besides individually, even more so the heart of this book is really geared to the corporate church audience—our elected boards, elders, pastors, etc.

It’s only when this gets understood and it is led from the top corporately can we then make this the dynamic influence (commission) it truly can be and was meant to be.

Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,