The Urgency of Missions

Missions Sunday - 2026

Welcome, dismiss children, mission/vision,

next week “when we pray” a 3 part sermon series on prayer from the sermon on the mount

Turn with me to Romans 15:18-24

Brief overview of what we are looking at here at the end of Romans

Read the text

Pray

“to boldly go where no man has gone before”

Sermon outline:

A question from Romans 15

3 statements regarding the nature of God from Psalm 67

and a direct call to missions from Matthew 28

Wrap up with some implications and comments.

A Question:

Vs 19 - How has Paul “fulfilled the ministry of the Gospel of Christ” from Jerusalem to Illyricum (Macedonia)?

Vs 23 - Why does Paul not “have room for anymore work in these regions?”

The Answer:

Paul’s Ambition: Vs 20 - His passion is to proclaim the Gospel among those who have not heard and have no access

Not to demote other Gospel work but to create a category in our mind for how we should definitionally understand missions.

Paul’s ambition is God’s ambition

The ultimate goal of God is to spread his glory among all people groups around the world.

Psalm 67:1–4 ESV

1 May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, Selah 2 that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. 3 Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! 4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah

The ultimate goal of God is his glory among all people across the world. That all the peoples of the world would see his saving power and rejoice in him.

If I told you my ultimate goal was to glorify myself in this life you would rightly remove me as a pastor but God is a different story

to accomplish this purpose, he sends

God is a sending God

He sent his son (not to condemn but to save Jn 3:17)

He sent his spirit

He sends us into the world to participate in his mission

Gospel Heights was sent by University Baptist into a new community.

We send missionaries

“this gospel does not stop with us but it is sent through us to a hurting world”

God has created and crafted us to participate in the spread of of His glory among the nations.

Your ultimate satisfaction, pleasure and joy will be found when you embrace the goal of God as your goal. You were crafted and created to function best in worshipful participating in the mission of God.

The people of God’s ultimate goal in life is to enjoy the glory of God which is best manifested in the spread of the Gospel in our world

Our ambition, our aim, our goal, our purpose in life ought to be displaying God’s glory through proclaiming the Gospel of God here, near, and everywhere

Obvious implications for personal evangelism, making disciples, and openly sharing our faith here and now.

So if you are tracking with me so far we still need to answer the question, why should the people of God the church participate in “missions?” If there are plenty of lost people around us, why do we even have a missions sunday where we consider needs around the world? And how do we define missions?

What is the Great Commission?

Matthew 28:19 “go make disciples of all nations”

More than just a command to “make lots of disciples”

Make disciples among all people groups.

What is the difference between living missionally and carrying out world missions? Am I a missionary when I share the Gospel with my coworker or neighbor? Is it “missions giving” if I give to my church?

If everything in the christian life is missions, than nothing is missions.

Lots of good, faithful work, being done around the world but that doesn’t make it missionary work as defined by the Scripture.

Missions is going for the spread of the gospel to a foreign place. and the ultimate goal should be to go where others do not have access to a church or a faithful witness to salvation in Christ. Not to downplay mission trips to Christian contexts or faithful missionaries training up pastors and leaders in reached foreign contexts. Its fruitful kingdom work and these ought to be training grounds for us.

Paul was a missionary. Leveraging his life for the Gospel to be proclaimed in places where it was not already available

So today we give and go to missions around the world among people who are unreached

You might say Bryson the people who live in the apartment or house next to me are unreached…….

Little boy from the madrassa

Project 42 and Joshua project.

3.5 billion people around the world are currently unreached. which means they have no known access to the Gospel (show the map here)

The amount of unreached people and people groups is higher today than at any point in world history……We are not progressing.

About 700 Billion dollars goes to Christian ministry, churches etc. A majority of that goes to internal affairs. 45 billion of that money goes to “missions” or about 1 percent but only 450 million goes to work being done among unreached peoples which is less than 1 percent of that……In other words the american church is largely ignoring the unreached with our funding.

According to Wycliffe bible translators there are still over 1,000 languages worldwide who don’t have a single verse of scripture translated into their language.

These are massive problems that are not going to be fixed by you or even by us collectively as a church but we can pray, be a part of the solution and Lord willing some of us in this room might be called to go.

Like Paul, some in this room need to go and feel a tug when we proclaim these things from the Scripture.

Some of us need to be the Roman church and send Paul’s on their way to the field and actively pray, give, and participate in the mission. Even if you aren’t called to go, as a Christian you are called to leverage your life for the mission of God which is our mission.

Some diagnostic questions:

Are my ambitions, motivations, and joy aligned with the goal of God?

Are my regular rhythms allowing for evangelism and Gospel sharing?

What are the reasons I have yet to participate in short term missions?

What are the obstacles keeping me from taking my life to an unreached context?

As you ponder these questions, check out this video from some of our world partners around the world.