God is on a Mission

The Good News: Global Growth of Christianity

We are going to talk about the unfinished task of the church, but let us start with the good news. The good news is how much we have advanced in completing our task. Everything with the Great Commission began 2,000 years ago and the church has been making disciples, and Jesus has been saving since then. The good news is that in the past two hundred years, Christianity has become a global faith. It has been growing, and if you look at the statistics, the percentage of the non-Western or majority world church now represents 80% of all evangelical Christians worldwide. In 1800, the non-Western church was just 1% of the whole church. In the 1900s, it was 9%. In 2000, the non-Western church was already 80% of the whole church. This is a result of the missionary efforts all over the world. Today, the church is not just in the United States and Europe but in vast numbers in Africa, Asia, and South America. It is everywhere, and it is growing. This is exceptionally good news. God is working—the church is growing, the kingdom is growing, Jesus saves, and thousands of people receive eternal life. This is a tremendous achievement for which we are very thankful.

The Unfinished Task: Unreached People Groups

But what is the unfinished task? There are still unfinished tasks. There is a mission organization called “The Joshua Project,” whose aim is to identify all the people groups in the world. They have identified about 17,000 people groups in the world. From those 17,000 people groups, about 9,000 are reached with the gospel, and about 7,000 are still unreached. So, this is the unfinished task of the church.

What is an “unreached” people group? Being “unreached” does not mean there are no Christians there, but there is no viable church that can reach its own people without outside help. There are about 7,000 of these unreached people groups in the world, and the total number of unreached individuals in the world is about three billion – these are people who have never heard the gospel. So, this is the unfinished task, and this is why we need missions—this is why we need missionaries to go and proclaim the gospel and turn unreached into reached.

The Harvest and the Harvest Force

The challenge of the mission today is that the harvest is ready to be gathered, but the harvest force is not mobilized to stand up and do the job.

What is “the harvest”? Today, there are about 7,000 unreached people groups and about 6.5 billion people are not followers of Jesus. About three billion (of these 6.5 billion) have never heard the gospel and there are a total of about 6.5 billion people who are not followers of Christ. These additional 3.5 billion people, even though they live in “reached” with the gospel nations, also need to be saved. So, there is nothing wrong with the harvest. Jesus said the harvest is white and ready to be gathered.

But the problem is and always has been with the harvest force. The good news is that we have the most potent harvest force ever that we have had in history. Today, there are about five million local churches. That is good news, isn’t it? And there are about seven hundred million followers of Jesus. In this number, I do not include nominal Catholics and Orthodox or people who we do not know if they are born again. The harvest force is seven hundred million – people who go to church, worship Jesus and have been baptized. If we do the math and divide the numbers, you will see that there are about 714 local churches for every unreached people group. So, if seven hundred churches unite and say, “Let’s send missionaries to this one particular unreached people group that we adopt,” then the unfinished task will be finished.

If we talk about individuals, the statistics say that there is one follower of Jesus for every ten non-followers. So, if every follower of Jesus shares the gospel with just ten other people who are non-believers, then the task will be completed.

The calculations show that finishing the task is possible. It is doable in a generation if we return to what God intended Christianity to be: a movement.

Missions: A Call for Everyone

“Movement” indicates that we do not need just organizations or strategies. We need every Christian to live a life on a mission with God. And this is my message for you today: that mission is not just for the missionaries but for everyone. God wants everyone to live a life on a mission with God.

What Is the Bible All About?

“What is the Bible all about?” – different people have different answers to this question.

For some people, the Bible is a medical first aid chest. When you are sick and hurt your knee and need something, you go to that medical chest and get some medicine for your healing. Yes, we can find healing in the Bible, but the Bible is not just about healing.
For others, the Bible is like a refrigerator. They think, “Well, there are goodies in the Bible. If you are hungry, go to the Bible and take candy, M&Ms, and other things, and we can feed ourselves.” That is true, but the Bible is not just a food pantry.
For others, the Bible is a crystal ball. “Oh, if you want to know the future, go to the Bible, and then you will see what the future holds for us.” Well, I am not sure about that.
Another significant group of people thinks the Bible is a manual for self-improvement and that if I read the Bible, I will become a better and prosperous person.

All these things are true, but my suggestion today is that the Bible is a book about God on a mission. We see this even in the first chapters of the Bible because it is all about what God planned and proposed before the world began and is now being worked toward its glorious fulfillment.

God’s Plan and Purpose

What is “mission”? You have a task in front of you, and you want to complete it. This is a mission. We get a glimpse of the plan of God in Genesis 1 and 2 – the perfect world that God created. We see a glimpse of the glorious fulfillment of God’s plan in Revelation 21 and 22. We train pastors, and when we teach them how to find the truth in the Bible and the big idea of a book, we tell them, “See the beginning and the end of the book – how it starts and how it ends – then you have a better idea what the book is all about.” If we apply this to the Bible, we can see the plan of God in the beginning and the fulfillment in the end. From Genesis 3 to Revelation 20, we see God on a mission, bringing His end vision to full realization for all eternity. We have God’s plan in the Bible’s first two chapters. We have the fulfillment—the glorious fulfillment in the end chapters of the Bible when there are no tears, where God’s glory outshines the sun, and everything is so magnificent. But from Genesis 3 to Revelation 20, God is on a mission.

God on Mission with His People

But things become more exciting in Genesis 12 because there we learn that the Bible is not just a book about God on mission, but about God on mission with His people. In the Bible’s first eleven chapters, we see God dealing with humankind directly. He would talk to Adam and Noah and come down to the Tower of Babel. But then, in chapter 12, He started to work with one man. In Genesis 12, we see God choosing one man, one family and one nation, through whom all the nations would experience God’s blessing. This is a continuation of what God began even in Genesis 1 and 2: a Man, made in His likeness and image so that they may collaborate with Him. The Great Commission is not just a mission but a commission. We are collaborating with God. For example, God asked Adam to name the animals. It was not that God did not know how to name the animals, but He asked man to name them because He wanted from the very beginning to work together with man, to delegate work to Adam. Adam’s assignment was to be a good steward of God’s creation.

The Abrahamic Covenant

However, Genesis 12 contains the Abrahamic Covenant, which may be our central passage or text for today.

²I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. ³I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse. And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:2-3)

Here are several observations on this Abrahamic Covenant.

The first is that this covenant has two parts. Part one we can call, “I will bless you.” God said to Abraham, “I’m blessing you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will make your name great.” So, these are the blessings. But then there is part two, and part two is, “All people on earth will be blessed through you.” This is like a contract, with the title and some leading lines. But then there is a line and a small script under the line. Even though it is in a small script, it is also part of the contract.

We like the first part, “Oh, I’m blessed.” But God said, “Yes, you are blessed, but you are blessed not just for you, but you are blessed to be a blessing.” And so, we have, “I will bless you, and all people on earth will be blessed through you.” This is what missions are doing. They help us to turn our focus from ourselves to others and see the nations. Missions help us to lift our eyes from ourselves and see the world and what God is doing in this world.

In one form or another these two main parts – we being blessed and we being blessing to others – are found more than three hundred times throughout the whole Bible. And I challenge you, when you read the Bible, look for this, “I’m blessed, but I’m blessed to be a blessing.” You can see this in Aaron’s blessing, Psalm 67, and other places in the Bible. You can see how God is blessing Israel, but Him blessing them is so that all nations can know His name and His name to be glorified. Not just in the New Testament but even in the Old Testament, God had a mission effort and missionary people.

The second observation about the Abrahamic covenant is that the word “peoples” here is with an “s.” “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” And “peoples” with an “s” means groups of people with a common culture and language. Language is the basis of a culture, so people who speak the same language are the one people group. In the New Testament, the Greek word for “peoples” is “ethne.” This is how we use the English word “ethnic,” and from there, we use the expression “ethnic groups.” Today, there are about 234 countries worldwide but about 16,000 “peoples” or ethnic groups. And it is as peoples, or nations, that God sees the world. Today, if we count the countries, maybe there is a church in every country because there are just 234 countries. But in some countries, like India, there are hundreds of people groups. God does not care about the countries because these are human-made designations. He cares about people groups. He cares about languages and cultures.
The final observation from this Abrahamic covenant is that God will bless all the ethnic groups of the world through His chosen people and not apart from them. He said, “In you.” He was going to use Abraham, his children, and his generations. The people of Israel were God’s agents in the Old Testament. God’s nation was to be a missionary to all the world’s nations. Therefore, the mission does not start with the New Testament and the Great Commission. It begins with the Abrahamic covenant.

The Seed of Abraham and the Church

This idea of co-laboring and co-missioning with God flows seamlessly from the Old Testament to the New. For example, in Genesis 22:18, God says, “and through your offspring” or seed (in the King James version) “all nations on earth will be blessed.” Apostle Paul interprets these words in the letter to Galatians. In Galatians 3:16 he says,

¹⁶The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say “and to seeds” means many people, but “and to your seed” means one person who is Christ. (Galatians 3:16)

And all the glory goes to Jesus. Because only through Him can we have all the blessings through His life, death, and resurrection. This is how we were saved. And this is the essence of blessing. The nature of blessing is salvation, redemption, and the right to be a child of God. All this is through Christ. That is why we give all the glory to Him. He is the fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham.

Then there is something exciting–even surprising. Just after saying these words, in the same chapter in Galatians 3:29, Paul says,

²⁹If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:29)

Praise the Lord. I am glad to be Abraham’s heir. I am delighted to be blessed with Abraham’s blessing. But God doesn’t bless me just to be blessed.

God blesses me to be a blessing to others.
I am blessed to be used by God for His purposes.
I am blessed to live a life on a mission with God.

So, in the New Testament, we—the church, become God’s missionary people to bring His blessings to all the peoples and all the people of the world. The church becomes God’s missionary nation. That is why we say that God is on a mission, and we are on a mission with God. “God is on a mission, and we are on a mission with God.” This is our slogan. Repeat it in your mind so it can be engraved on your heart.

The Priesthood of All Believers

We see confirmation of this motto of ours in the doctrine of the ministry of all believers or the priesthood of all believers. We like the idea of priesthood. We want to be priests of Jesus because we do not want to have a priest (a middleman, an intermediary) between us and God. We want to have a direct connection with God. But this is not just for our benefit. This is for the work of God. We are priests so that we can serve Jesus. We are priests who live a life on a mission with God. We are priests so that we can minister. This is something that Joel prophesies in the Old Testament and in Acts 2:17-18, Peter explains to the crowd what happened when the Holy Spirit came on the 120 and they started to speak in tongues. The witnesses of this phenomenon were listening to people talking in different languages. Explaining what is happening, Peter quoted Joel’s prophecy about “the last days.” We live in “the last days.”

¹⁷In the last days, God says, “I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your young men will see visions.
Your old men will dream dreams.
¹⁸Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.” (Acts 2:17-18; Joel 2:28-32)

Let me clarify something here. When God says, “I will pour out my Spirit on all people,” He refers to all God’s people, not just on some elected pastors or missionaries but to all God’s people. This is a revolutionary thought because in the Old Testament, who was anointed with the Holy Spirit?—only selected individuals: only kings, prophets, and priests. Only these people had the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives. But with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, God gave the Holy Spirit to everyone – not only on the twelve apostles but also on all a hundred and twenty believers assembled – no selectivity whatsoever.

In Acts 10:44, “While Peter was still finishing his message, the Holy Spirit came on to all who heard the message” – all Gentiles gathered there. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

The Power of the Holy Spirit

For what purpose was the Holy Spirit given? In Acts 1:8 (and this is a version of the Great Commission), we read the words of Jesus.

⁸But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

The purpose of the Holy Spirit was to empower us to be on a mission with God. If you are born again, you have the Holy Spirit in you. And the Holy Spirit is in you to give you the power to be a witness for Jesus and what God is doing in your life. The Holy Spirit is in you to provide you with the power to live a life on a mission with God.

The ministry of all believers is a prominent New Testament theme. In 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 (this is one of our favorite verses) we read:

¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Praise God. I am a new creation in Christ, and you are a new creation in Christ.

¹⁷The old has gone; the new is here! ¹⁸And this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:17-18)

This is the work of God and what Jesus did on the cross. We cannot do this redemptive work. But then, we are blessed and privileged to be empowered and authorized to have this God-given mandate to perform “the ministry of reconciliation.” And verse 18 continues:

¹⁸And gave us the ministry of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:18)

God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ – this is God’s part. And he has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation – this is our part. We cannot do the work of Jesus. This is what only he can do. But we can do our work, which is to communicate the gospel.

²⁰We are, therefore, Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. (2 Corinthians 5:20)

We see this even in the Abrahamic covenant. God has chosen Abraham to bless all the nations through him, his sons and daughters, and his generations. But today, the church is God’s instrument for working in this world. And everyone needs to be involved. It does not mean everyone is going to the mission field, but no one is excluded from the responsibility of being an ambassador. Only criminals are resting or doing their business in a time of war. Everyone needs to be involved, supporting, praying, sharing, and doing the good works God prepared for us to do. These are the works of mission that we read in Ephesians 2:8-10. Everyone needs to be involved.

Living a Life on Mission with God

This may be a surprise to you today. Maybe you thought, “Oh, I was going to hear about this missionary and about his wonderful mission work.” No! God wants you to live a life on a mission with God. God wants you to rededicate yourself to Him and his ministry. You should not ask, “God, what is your plan for my life?” You should ask, “God, what is your plan? And what is my role in your plan?” This will transform your worldview, and you will start living on a mission with God. God’s people in Christ are God’s missionary people to all the peoples and all the people of the world. Every believer, therefore, has been called, conscripted by God, to live a life on a mission with God. “God is on a mission, and I am on a mission with God.” If we do this, we are going to see spiritual growth and we will see people saved.

In the New Testament, the priesthood of all believers is a game-changer from the Old Testament. In short, not only has God provided Christ and the message of salvation, but he has also provided the messengers. The messengers are not just a few super saints; every born-again believer becomes a message communicator. This is a tremendous increase in the task force for the unfinished task.

The Great Commission: Jesus’ Vision

Now we come to the Great Commission—Jesus’ vision for saving the world (Matthew 28:19-20). In the Great Commission, we are connected because Jesus is our “boss.” He is the head of the church, which is His body. And because we are parts of his body, this is where we are united – in our common purpose – completing the unfinished task – fulfilling the Great Commission.

When I was a younger pastor, I would go to different pastors’ conferences and always heard, “Oh, if you’re a pastor, you need to have a vision.” Oh, okay, so I return to my little church and say, “Okay, now, so what is my vision? I need to figure out my vision. I need to write it down.” But then I discovered that Jesus also had a vision statement. And Jesus’ vision statement is the Great Commission. Oh, that was such a relief. So, I said to myself, “Oh, I just can stick to the Great Commission of Jesus. And if I do this, then I will be a good pastor, and I will be a good missionary.” Jesus said,

¹⁹Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations. (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15)

This is what Jesus wants to do. This is what He wants to do through us. This is His mandate to us. This is God’s mandate to all people to live on a mission with God. You may not go to another country, but you should be making disciples. The question that you need to ask yourself is not, “How many years have I been going to church?” or “How much do I know the Bible?” You should ask yourself, “How many disciples did I make last year?” This is what Jesus said: “Go and make disciples.”

Years ago, when I was young in my ministry, I thought Jesus wanted me to deliver good sermons. And I was, you know, trying to be the best preacher ever. But then God spoke to me, saying, “Oh, I don’t want you to make sermons. I want you to make disciples.” Oh, okay. So, of course, the sermons are good and they are essential, but they are not the goal. The goal is to make disciples – this is what Jesus says. This is the main verb in that Great Commission, “mathēteusate” in Greek, “make disciples.” If we make disciples – cross-culturally and in the same culture, then Jesus will be with us.

²⁸Indeed, I am with you always to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15)

Reaching All Nations and Saturating Evangelism

A good definition of mission will help us to stay on the same page. What is a mission? There are two main activities here. The first is reaching all nations, which is the cross-cultural aspect of missions. When you share the gospel with other nations, this means learning another language. The first disciples were Jewish people. Of course, Greek was the most popular language, as English is today. But if they would go to preach to another nation, they had to learn that language. This is the cross-cultural element of missions, and the gospel must first be preached to all nations.

There is also this activity we call “saturating evangelism.” These are reached nations, and these are people groups that already have heard the gospel, but they are still mission fields. The United States is a mission field. I travel to different states. You need to send some missionaries to both coasts of this country because there are many unsaved people there. Evangelizing reached nations is also a mission because this is the will of God recorded in 2 Peter 3:9.

⁹The Lord is patient, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

Of course, God is sovereign, and not everyone will be saved, but how will we know who? We need to share the gospel with everyone. This is a broadened definition of missions. Before, the mission was interpreted as dealing exclusively with unfamiliar cultures and languages overseas. But today, missions are also the same culture. So, you can live on a mission with God here in your own town. Isn’t that good news?

God’s Twofold Mission Agenda

From another perspective, what is God’s twofold mission agenda in this world? The first thing God is doing today is (in the words of James, the brother of Jesus) in Acts 15 on the first church council, “taking out of the world a people for His name” and making the church His people, His nation.

The Bible has metaphors for that activity:

The first one is reaping. Jesus said the harvest was ready. Harvesting souls for Christ is salvation.
The second, fishing. The first apostles were fishermen, but God said, “I’m going to make you fishers of men.” This is what God is doing.

But once people are saved, God prepares them for His future world. God does this with us after we are saved, and there are metaphors for this as well:

Body growing. We need to reach the stature of Christ, to grow to the fullness of Christ. The church needs to grow.
Building, being constructed. We are the stones in this temple that God is building.
A Bride making herself ready. We must clean ourselves from every sin and become the perfect bride for Christ.
Priesthood being prepared (Revelation 5:10)
“And you have caused them to become a kingdom of priests to serve our God. They will rule on the earth.”

So, we need to prepare and God is preparing us.

Mission: God’s Pathway to Maturity

Here we come to the secret I want to share with you. I hope you are ready for this. The secret is that the life on mission is God’s pathway to our maturity. Once you get involved in missions, you start to grow and mature. Living a life on mission with God is God’s way to mature us.

In Mark 8:34-35, Jesus with his words is explaining what “living a life on a mission with God” is: namely “whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel, will save it”. To lose your life. Not to live my life for me, thinking only about me, myself, my retirement, my crisis, my things, but to live for Jesus, for the gospel. This is not living for ourselves but living for Jesus – this is a “life on a mission with God.” To have this awareness—that I am not living for myself but for Jesus. Every morning, remind yourself that God is on a mission, and you are on a mission with God.

If we understand and apply this in our daily life, we will better understand 1 Corinthians 15:58:

⁵⁸Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always, give yourself fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

And for those who are younger and love to go to the gym, the Apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:8:

⁸For physical training is of some value, but godliness, (living God’s life, living for God, living with God, practicing spiritual disciplines) has value for all things holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. (1 Timothy 4:8)

Hitting Two Birds with One Stone

I do not know if you know the old English saying, “Hitting two birds with one stone.” In Bulgarian, we have a similar saying, “Hitting two rabbits with one bullet.” But the stone God is throwing, or the bullet that God is shooting is living on a mission with God, and the two birds are the two aspects of God’s mission agenda in this world represented by the two sets of metaphors we talked about.

Once we start to live on a mission with God and everyone, the first “bird that will be hit” is that people will be harvested for the kingdom. People are going to be saved because everyone is going to share the gospel with everyone. It will be a church movement, and as a result, people will be saved. Everyone will want to support missionaries. There will be missions everywhere and missionaries will share the gospel so the unreached will be saved.

The second “bird” is that in the process, God will build His church. God is going to mature you.

These two birds are the two sets of metaphors we discussed earlier. The first set was the harvest and the fishers—that is, saving people. When we live on a mission with God, people will be saved. The second set of metaphors, the church maturing, also happens through missions. I can say this about myself. Once I grasped the Great Commission and started to live on a mission with God, I could see how God began to work with me, and I started to grow spiritually. And I can see this with churches that become missional. Once more people are involved with missions, you are starting to grow as a church. Living a life on a mission with God is God’s pathway to our maturity.

Remain Focused

I want to finish this sermon with a reminder to remain focused because we know all these things. But we, as humans, are very easily sidetracked and distracted. Jesus said in the parable of the Sower:

¹⁴The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by life’s worries, riches, and pleasures, and they do not mature. (Luke 8:14; Matthew 13:22; Mark 4:18-19)

Let us focus on the essential things and stay focused on the Great Commission.

The Sad Story About Matt Emmons

Matt Emmons was a sports hitman. He was an Olympic contestant in 2004 in Athens. His sport discipline was the fifty-meter rifle. As you know, Americans are exceptionally good with guns, so he was the best. The moment he was at the end of the Olympic contest, he just needed to hit the target—it did not matter where on the target he hit—he would win. He would be the champion.

However, Matt was a perfectionist. He could never aim for just hitting the target; he would always hit the bull’s eye. He aimed, triggered, fired, and bam, the bullseye. He looked at the scoreboard, expecting to see his name in the first rank. He almost felt the golden medal around his neck. He thought, “Oh, now I’m going to be a champion.”

But then he saw his name relegated to the eighth position, and he wondered what happened. He expected that officials would correct their mistake immediately, but nothing happened. Then Matt looked around even more closely. What a shock when he realized that, to his horror—he had hit the bullseye, but in the target of his neighbor.

Even the best competitor makes mistakes, so we need to stay focused. Matt Emmons was in some way distracted. He aimed and hit the bull’s eye, but not the bull’s eye of the correct target.

Remember that the Bible is a recounting of God on a mission and God on a mission with his people. Never forget that living a life on a mission with God is the right target for all God’s people.

Prayer

Lord,

Thank you for saving us and giving us the privilege to be Your children. Thank you for blessing us.
Thank you for giving us the Bible and your revelation. Thank you for revealing yourself to us.
Thank you for giving us Jesus and the atonement on the cross.
Thank you for choosing in your sovereignty to collaborate with human beings. You chose Abraham. You chose the people of Israel and now, in the New Testament, you have chosen your church, which is not just the Jewish people but people from every tribe, every nation – people who have put their trust in Jesus and have been redeemed.
Thank you for now giving us the ministry of reconciliation. You want us to be part of your plan. You want us to collaborate with you. You want to collaborate with us – co-missioning, co-laboring with you to fulfill Jesus’ vision, the Great Commission.

Help us, Lord.

Help us to leave our egoism behind. Help us to repent from the distractions that we see in front of us.
Help us focus on your plan and the assignment you are giving us so we can complete our mandate. Let us be as Paul, who said, “I finished my race, and now I’m expecting the crown that the Lord has prepared for all who love him.”
Help us to love you, not just in words, not just in songs, but to walk in deeds that you have prepared for us before the creation of the world.
Help us to be obedient to your will so that people can be saved and we can mature in you. One thing that is better than going to heaven is to come to heaven not alone but to bring others with us.
Help us to be part of what you are doing. There is nothing more blessed; there is nothing more satisfying than that.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.