The Mission of the Church

Eschatology involves us in a Christian philosophy of history.

That philosophy of history means that we must carry on the mission of the Church, the eschatological announcement of the Good News of God’s eschatological (final, eternal) salvation in Christ.

Eschatology means you need to proclaim the Gospel to the nations, (Jew and Gentile alike)!

Rev 21:23-26 - 3 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, 25 and its gates will never be shut by day--and there will be no night there. 26 They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.

Cultural and individual diversity is not erased in the New Heavens and Earth, it is redeemed from the fracturing and division of the curse of Babel!

The mission of the the Church finds its fulfillment in the NewJerusalem.

“If Jewish Christians needed to discover that their special role in God’s plan was to lead to God’s opening the floodgates of salvation to all peoples, how much more should North American Christians take to heart God’s transcontinental plans for gathering his international family! History and our own nearsightedness have chopped our view of the church into little pieces, randomly sliced apart by mere political boundaries. But that fragmented, myopic view of the church is too small… What would change if, for example, North American Christians were to ask themselves seriously where in the world the Lord could best use the financial resources he has temporarily entrusted to us, or the resources for biblical and theological study at our disposal?” – Dennis Johnson, The Message of Acts, pg. 48.

Take the message of your resurrected Lord and declare it to the

world!

“Missions is not theultimate goal of theChurch. Worship is.

Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”

John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!

Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in

missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white

hot enjoyment of God’s glory.

(Scripture)

But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let

the nations be glad!” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord...I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O

Most High” (Ps. 104:34, 9:2).

When the flame of worship burns with the heat of God’s

true worth, the light of missions will shine to the

darkest peoples on earth.

Missions begins and ends in worship. Missions is not God’s ultimate goal –

worship is.

The ultimate foundation for our passion to see God glorified is his own passion to be

glorified. God is central and supreme in his own affections. There are no rivals for the supremacy of God's glory in his own heart. God is not an idolater. He does not disobey the first and great commandment. With all his heart and soul and strength and mind

he delights in the glory of his manifold perfections. The most passionate heart for

God in all the universe is God's heart.

The deepestreason why our passion for God

should fuel missions isthat God's passion for God fuels

missions. Missions is theoverflow of our delight in God

because missions is theoverflow of God's

delight in being God.

Missions flows from the fullness of God's passion for God

and it aims at the participation of the nations in the very

passion that he has for himself.

Scripture

Think about God’s sheer uniqueness compared to all the other Gods of the

nations, and how this motivates missions:

Isaiah 64:4 From of old no one has heardor perceived by the ear,no eye has seen a God besides you,who acts

for those who wait for him.

Isaiah is stunned that the greatnessof God has the paradoxical effect that

he does not needpeople to work for him, but rather

magnifies himself byworking for them, if they will renounce

self-reliance and"wait for him.”

Scripture

Missions is not a recruitment project for God's labor force. It is a

liberation project from the heavy burdens and hard

yokes of other gods.

Scripture

The difference between the true God and the gods of the

nations is that the true God carries and the other gods must

be carried. God serves, they must be served. God glorifies

his might by showing mercy. They glorify theirs by gathering slaves.

A God who cannot be served is a God who can only be enjoyed. The great sin

of the world is not that the human race has failed to work for God so as to

increase his glory, but that we have failed to delight in God so as to reflect

his glory. For God's glory is most reflected in us when we are most

delighted in him.

Compassion for the lost is a high and beautiful motive for

missionary labor. Without it we lose the sweet humility of

sharing a treasure we have freely received. But we have seen

that compassion for people must not be detached from

passion for the glory of God.

John Dawson, a leader in Youth with a Mission, writes:

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have a love for the lost? This is a term we use as

part of our Christian jargon. Many believers search their hearts in condemnation, looking for the arrival of some feeling of benevolence that

will propel them into bold evangelism. It will never happen. It is impossible to love "the lost."

You can't feel deeply for an abstraction or a concept. You would find it impossible to love

deeply an unfamiliar individual portrayed in a photograph, let alone a nation or a race or

something as vague as "all lost people."

Don't wait for a feeling of love in order to share Christ with a stranger. You

already love your heavenly Father, and you know that this stranger is created

by Him, but separated from Him, so take those first steps in evangelism

because you love God. It is not primarily out of a compassion for

humanity that we share our faith or pray for the lost; it is first of all, love

for God.

Humanity does not deserve the love of God any more than you or I

do. We should never be Christian humanists, taking Jesus to poor

sinful people, reducing Jesus to some kind of product that will better

their lot. People deserve to be damned, but Jesus, the suffering Lamb

of God, deserves the reward of his suffering.

Of course, the the motive of compassion and the motive of zeal

for the glory of God are not separate. God-centered

compassion (which is the only kind that cares for people eternally) weeps over the the misery of

people who reject God's glory and drink the cup of his wrath.

God is calling us above all else to be the kind of people whose theme and passion is the supremacy of God in all of life. No one will be able to rise to the magnificence of the missionary

cause who does not feel the magnificence of Christ. There will be

no big world vision without a big God. There will be no passion to draw

others into our worship where there is no passion for worship.

God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide

purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for himself from

every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an

inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of his name

among the nations.

The Scope of the Project

Matthew 24:14

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

The 10/40 Window is the rectangular area of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia approximately between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude. The 10/40 Window is often

called "The Resistant Belt" and includes the majority of the world's

Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists.

The 10/40 Window

The 10/40 Window

The original 10/40 Window included only countries with at least 50% of their land mass within 10 and 40 degrees north latitude. The revised 10/40 Window includes several additional countries, such as Indonesia, that are close to 10 or 40 degrees north latitude and have high concentrations of unreached peoples.

An estimated 4.43 billion individuals residing in approximately 8,808 distinct people groups are in the revised 10/40 Window. The 10/40 Window is home to some of the largest unreached people groups in the world such as the Shaikh, Yadava, Turks, Moroccan Arabs, Pushtun, Jat and Burmese.

Why the 10/40 Window?

The 10/40 Window has several important considerations: first, the historical and Biblical significance; second, the least evangelized countries; third, the unreached people groups and cities; fourth, the dominance of three religious blocs; fifth, the preponderance of the poor; sixth, the strongholds of Satan within the 10/40 Window.

Joshua Project• Joshua Project is a research initiative seeking to highlight

the ethnic people groups of the world with the least followers of Christ. Accurate, regularly updated ethnic people group information is critical for understanding and completing the Great Commission. Jesus said in Matthew 24:14 "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come." Jesus directly links His return to the fulfillment of the Great Commission. While no one knows the date or time of His return, we do know that this gospel of the kingdom must be preached to all the nations first. Revelation 5:9 and 7:9-10 show that there will be some from every tribe, tongue, nation and people before the Throne.

“Every tribe, tongue, and nation.”

“The Lordreigns; let the earth rejoice; let the

many coastlands beglad!” (Ps 97:1).

“Let the peoples praise thee, O God; let all the peoples praise thee! Let the

nations be glad and singfor joy!” (Ps 67:3-4).

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John 15:11 (ESV)These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

Matthew 25:21 (ESV)His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into

the joy of your master.’

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Acts 17:25 "God is not served by human hands as though he

needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything.”

Mark 10:45"The Son of man came not to be served but to serve

and to give his life a ransom for many.”

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Isaiah 46:1-4

Bel bows down, Nebo stoops, their idols are on beasts and cattle; these things you carry are loaded as burdens on weary beasts. They stoop, they bow down together, they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity. "Hearken to me, 0 house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of

Israel, who have been borne by me from your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made,

and I will bear; I will carry and will save.”

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Matthew 11:28-30 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon

you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is

easy, and my burden is light.

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