Our Great Goal - World Missions part 2

Go ahead and take your Bible and turn with me to two different places. We did this before last. I want to ask you to turn to Revelation Chapter 5. Revelation Chapter 5 verse 9. Mark your Bible there. Then turn back. Go to that Matthew 28 passage, the Great Commission passage, starting there in verse 16. I'm going to refer to various passages all throughout the message. Jot those down. If you have trouble following me with those, I can help you and get you the message notes. I don't want you to turn so much in your scriptures that you lose your train of thought and your ability to follow where we are going.

I want you to track with me in this journey. Mark Revelation Chapter 5. Then go ahead and turn to Matthew 28. We'll look at those verses here in a few minutes. Now this morning's message is a part two. It is a part two. We looked at our great goal of world missions the week before last. We were interrupted by our baptismal service. It was a very pleasant, wonderful interruption. I'm thankful for that interruption. But week before last, we established the fact that world missions is a command from Christ to the church. Let me repeat that. We established the fact that world missions is a command from Christ to the church.

Then we went over into Acts 13 and we looked at that wonderful example of the church at Antioch. Many of you might not have understood the significance of that church. That was the home base for the Apostle Paul. They were that great sending church. They went all the way out on that great first missionary journey to the Gentile world. Then they came back and they gave the report of all that God had done. They sent them and they received them. They exemplified as a church being obedient to the command of world missions. Now, if you listen close to that message, you heard me say that the goal of the church is to fulfill the great commission.

That goal is above all the other goals that we have in the church. Now we have many goals. These are good goals. But I want us to see that all of the goals that we would seek to accomplish in the life of the church are to enable us to accomplish this one great goal and that is to take the gospel around the world. We need to build strong families. We need men who lead their families. We need families that love the Lord and raise their children who love the Lord. And we seek, we work hard. We have the goal of having strong families in the church. But that goal is sought after so that we can accomplish this goal, which is world missions.

So we see that the great commission is first a commandment from Christ and second, it is the ultimate goal of the church. I want to add to this equation, if I can use that language, I want to add to the mix and I want to add our motivation. We must ask ourselves what is our motivation with all that we are doing and our motivation must be worship. We do these things because we love God and we worship God and we worship God and we love God, therefore we seek to be obedient to the command and the commands that He would give us. When we boil it all down, this great goal, it comes down to worship.

The heart of the matter for you and me is worship and also the heart of the matter is to enable those who are lost around the world to be able to worship this God that we love. Many of you are familiar with John Piper, he is a famous pastor, writer, author, and he is very much a missionary statesman. Enjoy listening to him from time to time, especially in regards to missions. I'm going to read you a quotation and he phrases it a little bit different. I'm going to take what John Piper says and weave this together with what I have been saying.

John Piper says, I quote, "missions is not the ultimate goal of the church, worship is. worship exists because worship doesn't." In other words, those lost people can't worship so therefore we must evangelize them so they can. But what I want to do is combine what Piper says with what we've been looking at and summarize it this way. Our heart is worship and therefore our task is missions and if we worship the great God, we will receive this commandment and we will roll up our sleeves to this task. Now I want you to take your notes and I want you to write down three words.

I want you to write down the word command, I want you to write down the word goal, and I want you to write down the word worship. We receive the command, it is our goal and our motivation is worship. We're going to come back to these three words at the end of the message but I want you to write them down before we really dive off into the message. Now you see the title of the message, like I said it is a part one, it is a part two. We have our great goal, world missions and this is part two. Like I said earlier we'll be dealing with two different verses, Matthew 28 and then Revelation 5.

This morning we're going to go further down this path, we're going to pick up where we left off in part one and we're just going to go on down the road a little farther. We have major truths that we're going to explore, I'm going to give you one revealing statement, one probing statement and then two probing questions. There is a great ignorance in the church, that's the statement and the questions, do we see the great need? And then third, will we offer ourselves? Let's glance at our foundational passage, this great commissioned passage and then we'll dive into these verses.

Jesus says starting in verse 18, the end of verse 18, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. He has supreme authority, he is God. Go therefore and make disciples." That is evangelizing the lost of all of the nations, baptizing them as a true profession of faith of their conversion to Christ in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you and then he says, "And lo, I am with you." So that is our foundational passage that we're going to build on and let's look at the first truth I want us to see. That's this statement. Number one, there is a great ignorance in the church.

There is a great ignorance in the church. Now when you say that someone is ignorant, that usually irritates people or even invokes anger. It would be more polite for me to say there is a lack of awareness in the church. But notice Webster's definition of ignorance. Webster's definition of ignorance is like this. It is a state of being ignorant, lacking of knowledge or education or awareness. But I like ignorance because we need to be provoked. We need to be irritated, maybe even insulted in this manner. If it is God, if it is God's word, if it is God that provokes or insults us, then we need it.

And I believe that there are many people, even many people here today and you are ignorant concerning the Word of God as it teaches on missions. Now let me help you see this by going from Genesis all the way to the Gospels. I am going to take you on this journey from Genesis all the way to the Gospels. First I want you to see that God expected world missions from the beginning. God expected world missions from the beginning. Some of you might be surprised to see, but world missions begins in the book of Genesis. We see this in the heart of God through the covenant that He made with Abraham. That starts in Genesis chapter 12.

And we must see that the story of redemption, God redeeming mankind starts in Genesis 12. Genesis 12 verse 3 reads, God tells Abraham, "I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse. And in you all of the families of the earth shall be blessed." That is the heart of God that the nations will be blessed through Abraham. You continue on Genesis 22 starting in verse 15, but I will read to you the end of verse 18. God says, "In your offspring shall all of the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice." We see the mission's heart of God right here in the covenant that He made with Abraham.

We see this in the Exodus account when God called the Jews from Egyptian slavery. We're familiar with that story. God raised up for Himself a great leader in the man of Moses, and He called His people out of Egyptian slavery. But there were many Egyptians who abandoned their God's little gee to follow the one true God as well as other Semitic peoples and races. We see this in Exodus 12 verse 38 because this verse says, "A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock both flocks and herds." God said in Exodus that He intended that Israel to be a kingdom of priests to the nations.

We see this in Exodus 19 verse 6, "And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. So we see this begin to happen even in the Exodus story. We see this when we see Gentiles in the Old Testament who come to know the one true God. I'll give you a couple examples. Remember the story of Rahab. Rahab was the harlot who lived in Jericho, and she received the spies that were sent in to spy the land from Joshua. And when they came in to spy out the land, she hid those spies and she hid them from her own countrymen.

And if you follow the story, not only was she saved by faith, but her whole family was saved by faith when Israel destroyed the city. And she ultimately became an ancestor of the Messiah, Jesus. And we see that in Joshua 2 verse 1, in Matthew chapter 1 verse 5. We see this in the story of Ruth, the Moabites. Remember, she was first married to a Jew named Melon, but yet he died. And if you follow her story, she began to identify with the God of her mother-in-law. And ultimately, she married a wonderful Jewish man named Boaz. And ultimately, she became in the lineage of King David, therefore in the lineage of Jesus.

And she is one of the four women named by Matthew in the genealogy of Jesus. And there were Old Testament examples of Gentiles converting to worship the one true God. We see this. When we look at various passages, we see God's missional heart. I'll read you a couple and then mention a few more. Psalm 22 verse 27. All the ends of the earth shall remember to turn to the Lord, and all of the families of the nation shall worship before you. Isaiah 49 verse 6. It is to light the thing that you should be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to bring back the preserved of Israel.

I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. And that is just two, but there are so many all through the Old Testament. There are more in the book of Psalms, more in Isaiah, more in Daniel, more in Hosea, and even in the book of Malachi that say the very same thing. Did you know we see the missional heart of God even in the construction of the temple? When you look at the construction of the temple, there is a court for the Gentiles that shows us that God desires the Jews. He desired the Jews to evangelize the Gentiles.

But they had done such a poor job of that by the time Jesus came along and He came on the scene, what was taking place in the court of the Gentiles? It was filled with money changers and animals and Jewish trade associated with their worship. They had ignored the Gentiles and squeezed them out. But what am I showing you? From Genesis to Malachi, we see that God had a heart for the nations and it was His desire that His chosen people Israel would take the message of the one true God to them. We also see this exemplified, this heart of God in Jesus' ministry.

If we are not careful, we will think that Jesus took this great commissioned passage and if we are not careful, we will think that Jesus just dropped this passage, this story, this command, cold turkey on the disciples. But that is not the case. All throughout Jesus' earthly ministry, Jesus was taking the gospel to the Jews and the Gentiles right before the disciples' eyes. Just a couple of examples. Matthew chapter 8, we see that He interacts with the Roman centurion. What does He say about this Roman centurion? The Roman centurion understood the great authority with God and what did he say?

I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith, a Gentile. Matthew chapter 12, when Jesus interacts with the Canaanite woman, He says that He could not talk with her, interact with her because He first come to Israel and what did she say? Then the dogs get the crumbs under the table. And what does He say to this woman, this Canaanite woman? Woman, you have great faith. Then in John 4, Jesus interacts with the Samaritan and then not only that, a Samaritan woman. And not only does He grant her salvation, but He grants salvation to those other Samaritans and He stayed with them for two days.

And then He takes those disciples in verse 35 and He says, "Look, look around you. I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for the harvest and all along they did not even want to be there." And from the beginning of His ministry to the end, Jesus interacts with the Gentiles. He carries His disciples into contact with the Gentile peoples and He calls their attention to their need for salvation. So what am I trying to show us here? God the Father has been concerned with world missions from Genesis 12 on. From Genesis 12 on, we are seeing world missions unfolding, the story of missions unfolding.

Jesus simply fleshes out His ministry and He is fleshing out what is in the heart of the Father all along. This command here in Matthew 28 was nothing new to the disciples if, if, if they had been paying attention all along. And because we know how the rest of the story unfolded, it was dropped on them cold turkey because they just did not get it. Now in application, what do we need to see? I want to show you that the church is far more ignorant of this truth. The truth that God has been missions minded from Genesis on, the church is more ignorant of this truth than we know.

First of all, I want you to see that there are a lot of people who did not even know those passages existed. Some of you might think that missions really began in the Great Commission. That is not the case. Jesus is just exemplifying what was in the heart of the Father all along. So if you did not know that from the Old Testament in many ways and in a great way, you have been ignorant of the heart of God when it comes to world missions. Second, I want you to see that in most churches, the court of the Gentiles is crowded with animals, money changers, and the usual business of worship. What were the Jews doing in that day?

Gentiles, we have no concern for you. We are not going to pray for you and we are not going to evangelize you. We are more concerned with our worship. That happens in the life of the church today far more than you know. This is what we say, this is how that is fleshed out in so many churches today. We are more concerned with our worship than the worship of the pagan peoples around the world. We are more concerned with our comfort in our church, our paid parking lots, our larger buildings, our air conditioning and heating.

We are more concerned with crowding the courts of the Gentiles with our comfort than taking the gospel around the world even in a sacrificial manner. Third, most Christians in the life of the church today are like the apostles. If you follow the apostles through the book of Acts, they were very, very reluctant. When the gospel began to be made manifest in the life of the Gentiles, how did they react? Did they jump up and shout, "Hallelujah! God told us all along that this would happen?" No, they were reluctant. They were fearful. They were saying the gospel to the Gentiles.

And when you parade missions before many people in the life of the church, they automatically recoil and they are reluctant and they are apprehensive. So what am I trying to show you? There is an ignorance by so many that this is the heart of God and it's been the heart of God all along. Now let's continue. I want us to look at these two questions. Number two, our first question, do we see the great need? Do we see the great need? Now for this passage, for this main truth, I want us to go back or go over to that Revelation passage. Revelation 5 starting in verse 9, I'll read that for you.

"And they sang a new song saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ran some people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation." Verse 10, "And you have made them a kingdom of priests to our God, and they shall reign on earth." Now we must see that this is a new song. What does the Scripture say? And they sang a new song. But I want you to see that this is futuristic. This song is sung upon the completion of the redemption of man. It is distinguished from all of the other songs that are sung in heaven before the work of redemption is completed.

I give you an example. In Job chapter 38 verse 7, it teaches us that there are angelic choirs they celebrated when the foundations of the earth were laid. But this song in the book of Revelation, it cannot be sung until redemption is complete. That is in the future. So out of that, I want us to see a couple of things, observations. First we must see that the work of redemption is not complete. Matthew 24 verse 14, Jesus says, "And this gospel," what gospel?

"His gospel that He preached and He fleshed out, this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then, then the end will come." I will say a little more as we continue, but notice the second observation. We must see that this work of redemption is for many. What is the passage say? And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations. But what I want you to see is this. The purpose of the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross was to provide salvation for the nations. The cross was not only for us, but it was for them.

When this was written right here in Matthew, when this was written, I want you to see that the them were us. I want you to see that we were the them. Now I'm going to break down this Revelation passage, and I want you to look at this wording here with me. Notice that this is for every tribe. Go back to the Revelation passage. Whether you take the scroll and open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you were ransom people or God from every tribe. Now the word "tribe" here, it means a comparatively small division or class of people associated together. It refers to a family or a race having a common ancestor. I give you an example.

The tribes of Israel would be a good example of a tribe. But then I want you to notice the other wording, that is language or tongue. This is for every tribe and language. This is a people speaking all language or a language. The word here seems to denote a division of the human family larger than a tribe, but smaller than a nation as we would see it. And then also he says, "From every people." Go back, "From every tribe, every language, and people." This word properly denotes a people considered as a mass made up of smaller divisions, as an association of smaller bodies, or as a multitude of such bodies united together.

See how it's getting bigger? And then for every nation. This is a larger group. What does it say? From every tribe, every language, every people, every nation. This is a people in a wider sense as we would see nations. So what do we see? We must see that the work of redemption is not complete and the work of redemption is for many. So here we see that this gospel, the cross of Christ, it is to be taken to all peoples of the earth. From the smallest of division to the strangest of languages, Christ intended the church to take the gospel to them. Now an application, I want to give you a friendly but very firm warning.

Do not allow yourself to have an "us" and "them" mindset. Let me say that again. Do not allow yourself to have an "us" and "them" mindset. I want you to repent of that thinking right now. At the time that this was written, at the time that the gospels were being flashed out, at the time of the substitutionary of Christ on the cross, we were the "them." That thinking, which is by the way, comes right out of a heart of pride, is what destroyed the Jews' ability to evangelize the nations. What did they say? "We, us." Look at us. Look at us. Not "them," the Gentiles. Get that "us" and "them" mindset out of your mind.

I was reminded of this this week in some study of how dangerous this thinking is. I recently acquired a little book called Eternity in their Hearts. It's by Don Richardson. And I want you to notice what he says about the Great Commission. This is very powerful. And I quote, "Jesus did not come to give the Great Commission. He came to take it away from the Jews who had already possessed it in prototype for nearly 2,000 years and had done almost nothing with it.

It was time for the world to see what believing Gentiles entrusted with that same imperative in the New Testament form would do with it." So notice what that mindset got for the Jews, that "us" and "them," "us" and "them" mindset. It became pride, and the Great Commission was literally taken from them. Get it out of your mind. Because we must see the Great Need. I've been helped in understanding this Great Need by a resource that I came in contact with. I encourage you strongly to look at this resource. There is a missions organization called Operation World. You can go on the internet. You can look up information concerning Operation World.

It was headed up by a man named Patrick Johnstone. Matter of fact, I have my Operation World book right here below me if you want to take a look at it after the service. But simplistically, what Patrick Johnstone did and does, his organization does, is they gather together information, accurate information about the peoples of the world and what they're like and what their religion is like and if they are reached. Patrick Johnstone said that in the 1990s, because of technology, we finally have the ability to have an accurate count of the peoples.

Through his information, he has come to teach that there are some 3,500 people groups who are considered unreached. That means that less than 1% of the population profess Christ and most of them have little or no access to the gospel. Some might say, "Where are these people located?" They are located in what's called the 1040 window. If you look at your globe, that basically stretches from the north and the northwest portion of Africa all the way over to Japan, one of the most dangerous places on earth. Do we see the great need? Those who are living in darkness and they do not have access of the gospel and the cross of Christ was for them.

Not us, but for them. Let's look at our next question, main truth number three. Will we offer ourselves? Will we offer ourselves? Not only must we see that this is a command, not only must we see that this is the goal of the church, motivated by worship, motivated by love because we love God and we worship God, we receive his command and therefore we will take the task of taking the gospel around the world. Not only must we see the great need, we must see that we are included in this great work to take the gospel to them. We were the them and now it is our responsibility to do the same.

Someone took the gospel and brought the gospel to us and now we must take the gospel to them. Real quickly, four ways. I believe that we should offer ourselves. This is purely out of my heart how I've been praying and allowing the Lord to work this out in my heart. First of all, I believe we should offer our church for this task. I believe that we should offer our church for this task. You might say, "Pastor, we are much too small. We are too frail. Maybe the work here is too fragile. We don't have the resources." Listen, none of those excuses will stand against the commandments of the scriptures.

We must come to the place where we will offer our church for this task. Second, we should offer our lives for this task. You might say, "Pastor, me? Us? You? Yes. We should offer our lives for this task." I do not believe that it was just Barnabas and Paul who were caught up in that great work there in the church of Antioch. I believe there were nameless and faceless people who offered their lives to take the gospel to the Gentile world. And then third, I want you to say that we should offer our families. Yes, we should offer our families to the task. And then fourth, we should offer our children for the task.

We should offer our children for the task. A few probing questions here. I ask these questions out of a work that God's been doing in my heart for quite some time. And I ask myself these questions many times. Could it be that the next Adonai Judson is in the back of the church on Wednesday nights? If you've never studied and read about Adonai Judson, I challenge you to do. He was considered the first missionary saint from America. A great story of how he took the gospel, he took the message of the one true God to what was called Burma in that day, and he paid a great price.

And he paid such a price that he lost his children, he lost his wives. But what did he do? He gave the Burmese people the Word of God. And even today when you go to modern day Burma, which is called Myanmar, the marks of Adonai Judson are everywhere. Could it be that the next Adonai Judson runs through the halls of this church? Could it be that the next Jim Elliot or Elizabeth Elliot is in our church right now? If you're not familiar with Jim and Elizabeth Elliot, you should be.

Jim Elliot is considered a modern day martyr, gave his life to take the gospel to the Waddani Indians, and then ultimately his wife went in and ministered to those peoples. Could it be that the next Jim and Elizabeth Elliot is in our church right now? One of my favorites is Frank and Marie Drown. They ministered in a very similar area that Jim and Elizabeth Elliot did. Could it be that the next Frank and Marie Drown are in our church right now? They gave 37 years to Ecuador.

And what blows my mind about Frank and Marie Drown, not that they died and not that they suffered like so many, but they gave the best years of their life to the gospel and came home worn out. Could it be that one of our own or some of our own are marked off like a piece of property like Barnabas and Paul were in Acts 13, verse 2? Remember, it was the spirit that said, "I have marked them off. I have got my hand on them, and they are for me." Could it be that some of the people in our church are marked off for a place in the far corners of North Africa or India or Pakistan or Afghanistan?

Could it be that we are an Antioch that sings them and supports them and we are obedient to this call? Now, honestly, I do not believe that we can answer these questions in just one message. I believe that it will take a work of God for us to be able to answer these questions and this question. Will we offer ourselves honestly? I believe that we will be answering this question from now on unless we turn away from the task like the Jews. And then if that is the case, God will give the great commission to somebody else.

Now, in conclusion, moving away from this statement and these questions, inevitably, some of you here could have a problem with where I have gone in this message. You might say, "Our church may be my child, never. I want to remind you that they are not yours. They are not yours. They do not belong to you. They have been given to you as a gift." And listen, if you reject this wholeheartedly, if you take all of what I have shared and you put it in one package and you put a bow around it and you reject it, it could indicate that you are not converted. If you struggle with this, it could mean that you lack.

You have a lack of Christ's supreme authority in your life. Listen, I do believe that a Christian can struggle with this. Lord, you mean you would want my life? You mean you would want my children? But look, it is about surrendering to His Lordship and the supremacy of Christ in our life. It is not your life, my life, my children, our wealth. It is His. And if you affirm this, it could be that God is showing you that you are far more usable than you know. Now we started off the message with three words, command, goal, and worship. It is a command. It is the goal of the church and we do this because we worship Him.

But I want to add a word and that is participation. If we are obedient to this command and our goal is to fulfill the Great Commission and we do it because we love God and we worship God, we will participate. I thought of a message this morning, it is our great goal, world missions. Let's pray together. I ask you to bow your head. Maybe set your Bible off to the side.