Christ to the Nations
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Open your bibles this morning to Psalm 67.... I am aware that the bulletin says 1 Timothy 3, and I have shared with some of you that we would be back there today… But, there has been a change of plans. God changed my course this morning, so He has something that he wants you to hear.
With that, lets stand for the reading of God’s word…
To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Psalm. A Song.
May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us, Selah
that your way may be known on earth,
your saving power among all nations.
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide the nations upon earth. Selah
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
The earth has yielded its increase;
God, our God, shall bless us.
God shall bless us;
let all the ends of the earth fear him!
The author begins in verse one with the exact words of the priestly blessing God gave to Aaron in Numbers 6. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. It is a blessing to the people, but more so in the way of a reminder of God’s promise. For, the Abrahamic covenant is in view here. When God called Abraham out of his pagan homeland he told Him this:
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
So, in this song we open considering this promise of the Lord’s. One commentator said, “it is as though the blessing lingered in the psalmist’s mind to germinate in a prayer that explored it’s posibilities”. Meaning, from the begining, the psalmist is calling to our mind that the blessing of knowing God, the blessing of having God’s favor, was never meant to be monopolized.
Verse two tells us what the psalmist has in mind as he writes. May your face shine on us O Lord, that your ways may be known on the earth. That your glory may be seen everywhere. But not only that, he gets specific. That your saving power may be known among the nations.
My friends, there knowing there is a God and knowing God are two totally different things. Nearly every nation in our world today serves a god. (start scrolling through the temple pictures) ...They know there is a god. That is undeniable. But not all of these nations know the One True God. Not all of these nations fear and serve and praise Yahweh, the creator of the world or know that he is three in one, and that he send his son Jesus into the world to save it. Many nations believe their salvation is foudn in many lifetimes of trying to get it right. Which is sad because we know that it is appointed for a man to die once, and then the judgment.
They die not believing this. Not hearing that truth. Not knowing that there is someone they can call on. They die not knowing there is a God who is real who loves them and has died for them. So they go about their temple visits in order to win favor with their god, and they go about their ritualistic burrials hoping, just hoping they do something right.
My friends, this is opposite of the opening words of this psalm, and it is the oppostie of our faith. We understand that we don’t go to the temple hoping to bring God something. There is nothing we have that God needs. The prayer is, may God be gracious to us. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:1
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
and verse 4
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
Millions of people die every year not knowing this. Not believing this. Why? Because they have never heard it.
Thus the Psalmist continues in the heart of his message.
Let all the people’s praise you. Lets the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon the earth.
The prayer is for the people to praise God! In order to praise God you have to know God! The psalmist declares God’s ominpotence in that Yahweh guides the nations. The Psalmist declares that Yahweh is the soverign judge over the universe.... and they don’t know it. Remember psalm 2? Psalm 2:1
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
What about Deuteronomy 10:14
Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.
The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
Whether they know it or not, the truth is that God, our Father, is over all the nations. The heavens are his throne and the earth is his footstool. The people of the earth need to know this God! He is just in His judgments. He is equitable.
My friends, there exists in our world today people groups, nations, tribes and tounges that have not heard the name of Jesus let alone his gospel.
I want to show you something…
This is a map of our world today. SHOW THE LARGE MAP. The green coresponds to tribes and tounges that have been mostly reached, the yellow corresponds to some gospel presence, the orange is minimally reached and the red, little to no gospel presence among them today. They are unreached in the highest form. Their may be missionaries there, but so many people to missionary ratio.
Now lets zoom in NEXT PICTURE… This is the 10-40 window. The 10-40 window is claled that because it is the land the is between 10 and 40 degrees north latitude. This window constitutes only one-third of earth's total land area… Yet nearly two-thirds of the world's people reside in the 10/40 Window. 5.3 billion live in this rectangle, and 3.3 million of them are unreached. 6 thousand out of 8,600 people groups in this window are unreached. No gospel presence there today. Which means what?
When these people die, they die without Jesus. They die without salvation. They die praising their false gods, believing a lie, not knowing God or His Christ or feeling His face shine upon them.
We will come back to this picture, but lets finish the psalm. Verse 5, again, it is no secret what the psalmist desires. Let all the peoples praise Yahweh, not just some! Then he finsihes by saying, the earth has yeilded its increase, which points to the harvest. This gives us direction as to when this psalm might have come out, after harvest.
But look at the point here. There is thanksgiving all around. But it is not simply for thanksgivings sake. Thanksgiving in the harvest is used for the nations. Meaning, let our gratitude for God. Let our joy in the Lord overflow into the nations. God shall bless us. It is true, our father knows how to give good gifts whether it is in the harvest or not. Nevertheless, through our blessing, let all the ends of the earth fear him.
Jesus considers a different harvest… Matthew 9:36-38
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
My friends, there are many out there, who are just wiating for the word of power to be delivered to their ears. But there are so many people on the earth, and too few who are willing to risk it all to tell them about Jesus. Too many who have too small of a picture of ministry.
The whole storyline of the bible points to fear of the lord moving people to obey God. Deuteronomy 28 points this out… The whole storyline of Kings shows that blessing doesn’t come to the nation because obedience was not offered, and ultimately we see this with Christ. He told his disciples, if you love me you will obey my commands. The apostle John wraps it up nicely for us when he tells the church,
Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
This is amaxzing! And you have had most of your life to at least hear this. Maybe you don’t care, maybe you simply come to church to feel better about yourself rather than to worship God. Ok, you’re not saved, but you have had every opportunity to respond to the Gospel in obedience. To seek Jesus and get to know Him. My friends, look at this picture (Show the second picture again). They have had no chance.
Now, why this matters is because we as a church have a mission that is to relect the heart of Psalm 67… Consider Matthew 28:18-19
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Our ministry is not to be with our community only, but realize there is a big world out there. Does it ever hit you when you look at the stars? Like maybe you are not the one the world revolves around? There are billions of people on the earth and the Lord loves them all. He wants them to know his Son. In fact before Jesus will return we know he will fulfill the abrahamic covenant because His blood has secured a people for himself from every tribe tounge and nation. Look...
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
How do they get there? Not by Magic. Paul reminds us,
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
My friends, why this is on my heart this morning is because I have an opportunity to go into the heart of the 10-40 window and help. (show the 3rd picture). I can give you the full story of how the Lord has been drawing my heart to world missions for the last fifteen years, but this morning I will simply hit the high notes. A new dear friend of mine and a mutual friend of the Griffin family is a man named Chris McMillan. He spends time through a mission organization training pastors in the world. They spend a lot of time in Africa and some in Asia. For the last six years Asia, particularly India has been on my heart and Chris has invited me to go with him to Nepal and India (both circled in the green) to spend a couple weeks training pastors.
We will spend out time training indigionous pastors to go into their local villages and preach the gospel. To pastor their people. For it is more effective coming from a native. But listen, 9 out of ten pastors in these areas have no acccess to training of any sort. Even though I am in the last semester of my masters degree, I don’t believe that every man needs one in order to be a pastor.
Yet even Paul, who was a bible scholar of bible scholars needed training in the gospel to be equipped to go to the gentiles. We are no different.
But this trip is not just about them, or me. This trip is about you. I desire, as your pastor, to lead you into fulfilling the great comission. That means, we need a robust theology and a robust heart desire to serve and make disciples in the nations. That means having boots on the ground in these places through me and other missionaries and maybe even you. That means taking mission trips. That means having a place in our budget to support missions throughout the world. It doesn’t happen over night, but that is my vision.
Now I know, your mind may rise up and say, don’t we need help here? Yes everyone needs help. Everyone needs pastors. We are not going to turn our eyes away from the gospel needs here. Yet, in our own land, there is free access to the gospel at the click of a button, while there are places in our world where there is none... Not that our community isn’t important, but consdier this my friends, if there are so many people who are dying without hearing the name of Jesus, shouldn’t we be rushing to them in at least one of these areas to tell them?
This morning I am calling on you to do three things…
Pray to the Lord to give you at least some heart for world missions. Maybe you have one, maybe you don’t. Part of our comission as Christians is to care, as Psalm 67 says, that the nations rejoice as we rejoice in God! We should desire for all people to coming to a saving knowledge of Christ as we have! We have a treasure, one which is worth eternity, how will we share it? This starts in your home. It starts by prayer. It goes further through reading about missionaries. It goes further through financial support etc. And further by going! How then will you cultivate this culture in your own home that it might grow in the church and overflow into our community?
Pray for your pastor who is preparing to go overseas. Through the prayeful consideration and the blessing of our Elders and much prayer from Emily and I and our friends, I will be going with Chris to Nepal and India in January. We will be gone two weeks. My plea to you is to cover this trip in prayer. Its like laying down cover fire… Pray. Before, during, and after. Pray, that the Lord has His way. That people are saved. That I learn so much to bring back to you. That God opens a door for us to minister among the nations. Pray for my family! Pray for our love of Christ as a church to grow ever more.
If you are so led by God, please financially support my trip. The church is not able to financailly support the trip, meaning, still, we are not meeting our budget of 130,000 dollars a year. We are under spending and under budget. Which is fine for now, the Lord will lead us next, which right now it is through a constitution. By getting our base set straight. But our budget not being met means ministry is not to its fullest extent here at providence. But I will ask you, for the Lord may use you individually to finance my trip. I am looking at a few thousand dollars of expenses between planes, trains, and lodging for two weeks. This will not be a glamorous trip. But I have heard the call, all the easy places are glamorous, I desire to go to the hard places and encourage and be encouraged by people who have nearly there faith only to cling to. But I also go on your behalf, and as an ambassedor for Christ and Providence Christistian church. So please consider this mission and giving to this trip.
Let me close with this question… Does Christ make you glad? HAve you submitted your life to Him? Then, what is your part in world missions? My desire since I came to providence has been that through my ministry the Lord would raise up even one child to give their life to minsitry in the nations. But what about you? Has the Lord called you to go? Consider this as you pray for God to stir your heart to make disciples among the nations… The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few… Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into HIS harvest.
