Appendix 2: Why Missions?

Introduction¹

Our nation will be going to the polls to vote for our nation’s leaders in a couple days. And I want to encourage you to vote, if you have not done so already. And to keep biblical convictions in mind as you do. But I want to focus our attention this morning on a topic that is really even far more consequential than the election, or even than the future of our country (as vitally important as that is). And that is the Mission of God. Not the mission of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. But the Mission of God. Not that the mission of our political parties is inconsequential. But from the eternal perspective, the mission of God is of even greater consequence.

You are launching today your church’s missions conference. And I felt it would be good to begin by simply addressing the question, “Why missions?” That might seem like a simple question to answer. After all, our Lord told us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. We call it the “Great Commission.” Isn’t that reason enough? Well, yes it is. But in the back of some of our minds, we may be thinking, “You know, I’m all for missions. But it’s really inconvenient. And it’s costly. And it might even be dangerous. So, I’m just going to leave that to others.” So, I would like to explore with you how we can answer the question, “Why missions?”, and then to consider a few ways we can become involved in the Mission of God. I want to begin by taking a look at some of the backstory behind our Lord’s commission. The first part of our message will be a bit of a history and theology lesson. So bear with me. I think it will be worth our time.

The Biblical Basis For The Mission Of God

In the beginning days of our race, there was no “mission field” and no need for missions. The Lord was fully known to our first parents. And even after they turned away from God, and he had promised that he would act to redeem humanity through a descendent of Eve (Gen. 3:15), they still knew him. But it didn’t take long for the spiritual and moral condition of our race to descend into serious decline. For sure, there were some who maintained faith in the true God, and “called on the name of the Lord” (as we are told in Gen. 4:26). But in time the decline of our race was so serious that the text says that the entire earth was “corrupt…and filled with violence” (Gen. 6:11). And so, according to the biblical narrative, God judged the entire race by destroying it through the flood, with the exception of Noah and his family.

After the flood, there was a new beginning for our race, through Noah and his children. But it didn’t take long for the downward spiral to begin again, culminating in the erection of the Tower of Babel as a statement of human pride and hubris. So God acted again. But this time, he acted to restrain the corruption of our race, by creating a multitude of languages to separate them into many different nations. It was as a result of this scattering that the many nations of the world were formed. We have what we call the “Table of the Nations” in Genesis chapter 10. It was, no doubt, the Lord’s intention from the beginning that the many people groups of the world would arise naturally, as people obeyed his command to scatter throughout the earth. We know by witnessing his creation in the natural world that God loves diversity. And this is no less true of his design for humanity. God just accelerated the process at Babel.

Now, there’s evidence that the knowledge of the Lord was preserved among the nations. There was, for example, during the lifetime of Abraham, Melchizedek, who was a priest of “God most high” in what would later become Jerusalem. You may also know that many cultures give evidence of an original monotheism.² In fact, many believe that the Genesis story is reflected for example, in some of the ancient characters in the Chinese language.³ But over time, the various nations drifted further and further from the Lord, into various forms of idolatry. This spiritual and moral decline is described in graphic terms in the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans. The psalmist also speaks of the “nations who forget God” (Ps. 9:17). And the New Testament records that God “permitted all the nations to go their own ways” (Acts 14:16). This doesn’t suggest that it was impossible for individuals in these nations to find salvation. Job certainly did. But it does mean that there were no nations that embraced the Lord as their God. They descended into a spiritual abyss, that often entailed immoral practices, and even human and child sacrifice, which we find described in the Old Testament, and is well attested as well at many places throughout the world.⁴

Now, at this time, rather than judging the entire race again, God created a new nation out of the family of Abraham—the nation Israel. And among God’s promises to Abraham was that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:3; 22:18)—these nations that had been created through the confusion of languages at Babel. In fact, when God established the nation Israel at Mt. Sinai, he said that she would be a “kingdom of priests, a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). Just as a priest is a mediator between God and man, Israel would be the mediator between God and the nations of the world. It would be through Israel that other nations would come to know the true God. To facilitate this purpose, the Lord placed Israel in a very strategic position, at the crossroads of three continents. The Lord said through the prophet Ezekiel: This is Jerusalem; I have set her at the center of the nations, with lands around her (Ezek. 5:5).

Later, when Solomon dedicated the temple in Jerusalem, he uttered these words: Also concerning the foreigner who is not of Your people Israel, when he comes from a far country for Your name’s sake (for they will hear of Your great name and Your mighty hand, and of Your outstretched arm); when he comes and prays toward this house, hear in heaven Your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to You, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know Your name, to fear You, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by Your name…. so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no one else (I Kings 8:41-43, 60). During his reign we are told that, Men came from all the peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom (I Kings 4:34). Who knows how far Israel’s influence reached in ancient times? Centuries later, when the Lord spoke through the prophet Isaiah, he said: Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other (Isa. 45:22).

I share these things, simply to point out that, far from being an afterthought in the mind of God, from the beginning it was always God’s plan to see that the way of salvation be made known among all the nations of the world; and he has always had a strategy for doing so. During Old Testament times, it was through the nation Israel. As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, Salvation is of the Jews (John 4:22b).

Of course, when the nation Israel did not receive Jesus as their Messiah, God set them aside as the agent through whom he would reach the nations, and formed a new people we know of as the church. And he gave us the commission to make the gospel known in every nation, beginning at Jerusalem (Mt. 28:19-20; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8).

Now, when we come to the end of the New Testament, we read of the culmination of God’s purposes for the world, and the establishment of his rule on earth through Jesus. When that happens, his kingdom will replace every existing political entity on our planet (including our own).⁵ And when it is described, we read that God’s kingdom will be composed of people from every people group and nation (Rev. 5:9-10; 7:9). And we even read in Rev. 21 that the glory and honor of the nations will be brought into the new Jerusalem. When the kingdom of God comes in its fullness, it’s going to have a very international and multicultural flavor. Every national group will contribute something uniquely glorious and honorable to the spiritual enrichment of God’s kingdom. This is one of the wonderful blessings of being involved in missions—that we are spiritually enriched by our exposure to brothers and sisters in other cultures.

So this is God’s purpose in history, the establishment of his kingdom on earth, composed of people redeemed from every nation. This is what theologians call the “Missio Dei” or the “Mission of God.” When we engage in missions, we are participating in the fulfillment of God’s purpose for the world. It’s the purpose that is most on God’s heart. And it’s a purpose which cannot fail. I can’t think of any enterprise more inspiring than this—than joining in partnership with God in the fulfillment of his mission in the world.

How Do We Participate In The Mission Of God?

If this is the purpose God is most passionate about, a question that we must ask is how do we participate in the fulfillment of the Mission of God? I’d like to suggest this morning three ways in which God can use us. Ways that are indispensable to its fulfillment.

The first is by devoting ourselves and our resources to the proclamation of the gospel message in every culture. This includes Bible translation, scripture distribution, proclamation through radio, television, the internet, in every way feasible. Because it’s through the gospel that people are brought into relationship with God, and delivered from his judgment on our sin. And what is the gospel? It’s that Jesus Christ is God’s Son, and that he has made payment for our sins through his death in our place on the cross, and his resurrection from the dead. And that through placing our trust in him and what he has done for us, our relationship with God can be mended. I once counted at least 42 passages in the New Testament that explicitly state that salvation comes through hearing and believing the gospel. They are so numerous and familiar that we hardly need to repeat them here. But this fact is also supported by the many passages that describe those who have not yet come to know Christ as being “in darkness,” or “without hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). According to Jesus himself, even a person as religious as Nicodemus, a teacher in Israel, needed to be born again through faith in Jesus to enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3).

People often ask, well what about people who never hear of Christ? Couldn’t they be saved simply by receiving what they can know about God through what we call “general revelation” through the creation and their conscience? The simple answer is “not really.” People must know more than can be gleaned by simply reflecting on what God has revealed of himself through the creation or through our conscience, or even through any other religion. This is not to say that God’s general revelation is useless or pointless. Far from it. The Holy Spirit can certainly use creation and our conscience to prepare people for the gospel, (and I believe he does), by convincing them that there is a creator, and awakening in people’s hearts an awareness of our sins, and a desire for his forgiveness of our sins, and a hunger for a relationship with him. He can even use truths in other religions to do that. He uses these truths to prepare people’s hearts for the gospel, much as a farmer plows the soil of a field to prepare it for the sowing of seed. But it’s only through our hearing and believing the gospel that we can come to know God personally, and that our thirst for forgiveness and for a personal relationship with God can be quenched. This is the clear teaching of God’s word.

We also know that God’s normal means of communicating the gospel is through a human messenger, whether that communication is spoken or written. Someone might ask, well couldn’t God just reveal the gospel to someone directly, without our having to go to all the trouble to communicate across cultures? Certainly he could. And who’s to say that he never has? I knew a nurse at the hospital where I served in the Dallas area for many years, who was from Africa, and a former Muslim, who told me that she came to faith through a vision of Jesus. The apostle Paul was converted through a direct revelation of Jesus on the Damascus road. But remember that the Lord directed a believer in Damascus by the name of Ananias to seek out Paul and to establish him in the faith. And this is God’s normal method, that even where he might use extraordinary means in someone’s conversion, he also employs human messengers in the process.

Now, what is amazing is that God knows how to put people at the right place and at the right time, to be used by him in communicating the saving message to people whose hearts are prepared to receive him. We learn this from the book of Acts. For example, remember how the Holy Spirit directed Philip to intercept the Ethiopian eunuch just at the moment when he was reading from Isaiah chapter 53 about the sacrificial death of the servant of the Lord. And the text says that Philip explained to him how this passage was speaking of Jesus.⁶ We know this also from the experience of Peter who was extraordinarily directed to the home of Cornelius, whom the text says had been praying, I believe praying that God would quench his thirst for salvation and for forgiveness. And he did, through Peter’s preaching the gospel to him.⁷

Many years ago, when I was a senior in college, at Seattle Pacific University, I sat down over lunch at a table in the student union.⁸ There was a fellow sitting across from me I had never met. As we talked, I learned he was a transfer student to this Christian college. I asked him how things were going for him there. He said, “You know, I’m taking one of these Bible classes, and other students keep talking about having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m not sure I know what they’re talking about.” Well, I almost swallowed my sandwich whole. But I briefly shared with him how he could come into a relationship with God through faith in Christ. And I asked him if this is something he wanted to do now. He said, “Yes, it really is.” We prayed there together in the student union. Over the course of that year we got to know him and his wife. But then we moved to Dallas, and lost track of them. However, six years later we were travelling by air to San Francisco to see my parents on Christmas eve, 1977. And as we were making our way across the then huge terminal that was very crowded, suddenly someone collided with us from behind. We turned to see who it was. It was this couple we had come to know several years prior. We asked them where they were going. They said, “We’re headed to the Philippines as missionary school teachers.” Many years later I learned through a seemingly random encounter with a friend, that he ultimately became a pastor in Idaho. We would have never known. But I realized that God had orchestrated our meeting this couple, both at the beginning, and then when they were on their way out of country. God loves to do that kind of thing. And I believe he does it far more often than we will ever know in this lifetime. If we are seeking to walk with the Lord, I believe we should simply always assume that he will be bringing us across the path of people who need a touch from him in some way.

A number of years ago I had the privilege of getting to know and working with the young lady in Vietnam. She was our translator for teaching sessions that we had for indigenous Christian workers in the north of Vietnam on several occasions. She and her husband serve a church in the port city of Haiphong where he is pastor, and she does translation work for those of us who visit there. She told me how her family fled Vietnam many years ago, when she was a young child. And they lived for seven years in a refugee camp in Hong Kong, hoping to be transferred to another country. But they were eventually sent back to Vietnam for reasons I do not understand. But during the years they were in the refugee camp, they attended Bible classes sponsored by Christian workers at the camp. And she and her family became believing Christians. God has been using her and her husband ever since to serve his people in the north of Vietnam.

You probably have never heard of Samual Isaac Joseph Shereschewsky.⁹ He was born in Lithuania in 1831 into a Jewish family. But someone gave him a Hebrew copy of the New Testament, and he became convinced through reading it that Jesus was the Messiah. He later emigrated to the United States where he joined a Presbyterian church and attended Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He then gave himself to serve as a missionary in China. He would eventually devote himself to translating the Bible into a form of Mandarin that could be read by people in China who lacked formal education. In spite of the fact that he contracted what was apparently Parkinson’s disease, he completed this task while sitting in a chair for over twenty years, able to use only two fingers to type out the last two thousand pages of his translation of the Bible, which was published in 1899. Four years before his death he said, “I have sat in this chair for over twenty years. It seemed very hard at first. But God knew best. He kept me for the work for which I am best fitted.”¹⁰

You know, the history of Christian missions is the story of individuals and even nations being transformed through the spreading of God’s word, and the proclamation of the gospel. I read many years ago the book entitled “The Book that Set My People Free.”¹¹ This is the story of the evangelization of the Hmar people in northeast India. They were notorious for their headhunting practices and worship of spirits. No one dared wander into their territory. But in the early 1900s a Welshman by the name of Watkin Roberts read about them, and became convinced that the Lord wanted him to reach out to these people. He became a missionary to India, and had the Gospel of John translated into the language of a neighboring people group. Through this group, the gospel was given to the Hmar people. A village chief wrote to Watkin Roberts and asked him to come and explain it. Roberts asked permission of the British government to go. But they refused. They said it was too dangerous . . . and that the invitation was deceptive. They just wanted his head! But he went anyway. He spent only five days there. But the chief and two others believed in Christ. And gradually others did also. Within two generations, the entire Hmar people were evangelized. And today over 98% of the four million Hmar people identify as Christian. Some time after his encounter with the Hmar chieftain, Roberts had to leave India. And it wasn’t until 46 years later, while living in Toronto, Canada, that he learned of the fruit of his efforts through a young man from the Hmar people who was studying at Wheaton College. But his experience is a dramatic illustration of the power of the gospel to change entire nations.

Some years ago I was involved in an auto accident, and had to go talk to an insurance adjustor. He told me that he was a recent university graduate. While talking with him I felt led to ask about his spiritual background. He said that he was an atheist or at least an agnostic. I just listened to him. But after our conversation, I felt the Lord was urging me to return to his office and leave for him a copy of Josh McDowell’s little book More Than a Carpenter.¹² I also left my business card with my phone number. Well, several years later, I received a call from this young man. He told me that he had recently gone through a divorce, and in the midst of his pain he picked up the book I had left for him and read it through. He called a friend of his whom he knew to be a Christian, and he put his faith in Jesus. He was calling me to thank me for leaving this book for him. Though it had sat on his shelf for several years, when he was most aware of his need, he read it, and the Lord touched his life.

I share these stories simply to illustrate that the first way God uses us in the fulfillment of his Mission is by becoming involved in the proclamation of the gospel, making Christ known where he is not yet known . . . and that he is able to place us at the time and place where he knows he can best use us in his mission in the world. Whether it’s around the world, or across the street.

But a second major way is through the demonstration of Christian character, and especially of Christ-like compassion. I say Christ-like, because if you read through the gospels, the most frequently mentioned emotion of Jesus is his compassion. Of the 24 times that Jesus’ emotions are described in the gospels, compassion is mentioned in 7 of them (nearly twice as often as any other emotion). And when the church has been at her best, she has exhibited the same kind of compassion to those who are suffering in various ways.

Historians have documented that in the second and third centuries, when epidemics ravaged the Roman Empire, it was the Christians who went out of their way to minister to the sick and dying, even at their own peril.¹³ In the Greco-Roman world, compassion and mercy were considered pathological qualities. But not for the Christians. And this is one reason why the early Christians made such an impact on their culture. John Chrysostom was an outstanding preacher in the city of Antioch in the fourth century. It is said that his church provided 3,000 meals for impoverished people in the city every day!¹⁴ Christians in the fourth century were responsible for the creation of the first public hospital in Western Europe.¹⁵

Several years ago I had the privilege of ministering in Delhi, India with Sushil and Sara Tyagi. Sushil leads a ministry called “Nicodemus Trust.” In addition to pastoring a church in Delhi, they also sponsor a school in a Muslim community there, entirely staffed by Christian teachers. It was my privilege to meet with them and encourage and pray for them. It’s their purpose to serve the needs of this community of Muslim families by providing education, and exposing them to the Christian faith, by their lives and by their teaching. They’ve been there since 2005! And these Muslim parents are very grateful.

I read some time back of a ministry to Muslims in Africa that established a school to meet the educational needs in a Muslim community.¹⁶ Within two years, seven churches had been planted. The local Muslim leaders were so outraged over this that they hauled the ministry leader into a Muslim court. But when he told the court about how God had helped them provide the community not only with a school, but also with mobile medical clinics, dentists, safe water programs, and seed banks, many of the Muslim clerics who had wanted him deported instead walked away with his business card or with plans for further conversations about what they were doing to help their community.

How God uses the demonstration of Christian character and compassion was brought home to me one day when leading a worship service at a healthcare facility where I served as chaplain for many years. During the service a young lady from Sudan, and whom I knew to be a Muslim, raised her hand and said, “I want to become a Christian.” I asked her if we could talk privately back in her unit after service. I asked her what had brought her to the place of wanting to take this significant step. She said to me, “I have some friends who are Christians; and I’ve been watching them (observing their character) for a long time; and I want what they have.” I said to her, “I’m sure you know, coming from your background, what this will likely mean for you.” She said to me, “Yes, I know. But I’m old enough to make my own decision. And this is what I want to do.” I prayed with her and gave her a New Testament, and attempted to put her in touch with some believers from her country. But I later learned that she left our area and moved to another city in Texas where she knew some Christians from her homeland.¹⁷

One of my colleagues at the hospital told me of a man in his church who was dying. He had very few family members to support him. And so the church family resolved to sit with him around the clock during his last days, until he passed on to heaven. After he died, his son told the church that he was returning to the faith that he had abandoned in his youth. And he said that the reason was because of the compassion he saw demonstrated by the people in his father’s church.

God uses the proclamation of the gospel, as well as the demonstration of Christ-like character and compassion in leading people to himself. But thirdly, he uses our prayers. Jesus told us to pray that God would raise up and send out workers to advance the gospel (Matthew 9:38). The Apostle Paul tells us to pray that God will open doors for the gospel, and make it clear how he should communicate it (Colossians 4:2-4). The Mission of God advances on the prayers of God’s people.

In the eighteenth century, a government official in the area of Germany known as Saxony by the name of Count Von Zinzendorf had a tremendous burden for the advance of the gospel into as yet unreached areas of the world.¹⁸ He started a prayer chain for missions that ran 24 hours a day, every day . . . for over a hundred years! As a result, some 300 Moravian missionaries were sent to all parts of the world during that time. According to John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, a group of them on board a ship crossing the Atlantic was used by God in his conversion.

The first time I had the privilege of going to India, I went to the city of Patna in the State of Bihar (which is known as the “graveyard of Christian missions” because of the resistance the gospel has met there over the years). While there I met a missionary couple. The wife told us how she had grown up in a Shiite Muslim family in Africa, but that she and her two twin brothers had come to know Christ, and had remained faithful to him in spite of the strong objections of their family. In fact, her parents even employed the services of a renowned Muslim apologist to try to dissuade them from their Christian faith. She told me that a missionary with the Africa Inland Mission had met them when they were young children, and had vowed to pray for their family every day. It was after eighteen years of his praying daily for them that she and her brothers came to know Christ personally. And now, this couple has been serving the Lord among some of the least reached people in the world for the past several decades.

Many of you know the name of Wiliam Carey, the first Protestant Christian missionary to India. But not many people know about his sister Polly, who played a vital part in his ministry in India, while remaining back in England.¹⁹ When she was twenty-five years old, she contracted a degenerative spinal disease. She soon became paralyzed, except for her right arm, and was bedridden for fifty-two years! Yet for those fifty-two years she upheld her brother’s work through her daily prayers and her frequent letters of encouragement. She could do little else with her life. But she engaged in the most significant work of all. She prayed.

I want to encourage you to look on line for the Joshua Project, which will give you information about how to pray for the nations and people groups of the world. You may feel led to focus on one particular country or group of people, or perhaps one each week or month, and devote yourself to becoming informed about their needs, and begin to pray for them daily.

Conclusion

You know, unless you are of Jewish descent, every person in this room who is a believing Christian is so because someone once crossed a cultural barrier to bring the gospel to your ancestors. In my own case, on my father’s side our family is of Swedish descent.²⁰ My ancient ancestors served gods with names like Odin, Frigg, Thor, Balder, and Tyr. But back during the 9th century, in spite of strong resistance, Christian missionaries began making inroads into Sweden, until after about 150 years, the faith took root in the hearts of many of our forebears. Thank God that those whom he had sent did not give up. The fact that there are Swedes today who know the Lord isn’t because we are of a higher spiritual aptitude than other people; but it’s due to the fact that those early missionaries persevered in reaching out to our forebears centuries ago.

If the fact that we know the Lord is due in part to the willingness of people long ago to cross cultural barriers to bring the gospel message to our forebears, can we really do any less? One day may it be that people as yet unborn might walk up to us in heaven and thank us that we had a part in reaching out to their forebears who are alive today, with the hope of the gospel, and with Christ-like acts of compassion, and through our prayers. May it be so. Amen.

Prayer. Father, we thank you for the gift of your Son Jesus, and for invading our lives with your cleansing and renewing grace. May you use us in furthering your mission in the world through the communication of the gospel, through compassionate service, and through our prayers, by the power of your Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen

Rick Rood
October 2024

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