The entire story of the Bible centers on God’s heart for the nations. Missions is not a topic scattered in a few places throughout the Bible; it is central to the heartbeat of Scripture:
Our God will be praised by every tribe, tongue, and nation. This is central to the heart of God and must be central to the heart of every Christian. When the Bible uses the word “nation,” it does not refer to geopolitical nation-states (political entities where a legitimate government exercises authority over a territory), but people groups (a community of people formed around shared features like language, history, ethnicity, and culture). With this definition, there are over 17,000 nations in the world today, speaking over 7,100 languages. God being worshiped by every tribe, tongue, and nation means that at least one individual from each of these groups will hear and believe the gospel and live around the throne of Jesus. Unfortunately, there are thousands of nations where the name of Jesus has never been uttered. They cannot believe in Jesus because they have never heard of him.
The 17,000 nations (or people groups) in the world today should be split into three categories:
We are living in a GA place and we must keep working to reach the lost where we are, but we also have an obligation to use our resources for the good of those who have less or no resources. Jesus has died to save people from every tribe (Revelation 5:9), we need to lay our lives down to send missionaries to carry the good news of Jesus to them.
Every Christian should be open to going, because Christ is worthy of it and the nations need to hear the hope of Christ.
The center of the Christian worldview is the kindness and mercy of God, which is seen supremely in the work of Christ (Exodus 34:6–7, 1 Corinthians 2:2), so every session will include a reminder of how this topic points us to God’s unfailing kindness.
God does not need our help to accomplish his mission, but, by his grace, he has involved us. God has invited you to play a crucial role on his winning-team. No prayer for the unreached, email to a missionary, or dollar given to missions will ever be spent in vain. You are not giving yourself to a lost cause, but a certain victory.
20 My aim is to preach the gospel where Christ has not been named, so that I will not build on someone else’s foundation, 21 but, as it is written, “Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.” 22 That is why I have been prevented many times from coming to you. 23 But now I no longer have any work to do in these regions, and I have strongly desired for many years to come to you 24 whenever I travel to Spain. For I hope to see you when I pass through and to be assisted by you for my journey there, once I have first enjoyed your company for a while.
Some Christians are called to go, some are called to send, but every Christian is called to pray for the unreached. A good resource to help you pray for the unreached is the Unreached of the Day, which you can see at UnreachedOfTheDay.org (there is also an app available for most phones, which can give you a daily notification to remind you to pray).
Commit to pray daily for the unreached.
Pray for an unreached people group together — a nation where the gospel has never been proclaimed.
Pillar Church is part of The Praetorian Project. The Praetorian Project is a family of Gospel centered churches near military installations worldwide. To learn more about our effort, visit praetorianproject.org
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