Sermon Tone Analysis

! How Few There Are Who Die So Hard!

Suffering and Success in the Life of Adoniram Judson: The Cost of Bringing Christ to Burma

2003 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors

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By John Piper February 4, 2003

 

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Our Lord Jesus said to us in very solemn words, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24).

Then he adds this: "Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" (John 12:25).

In other words, a fruitful life and an eternal life come from this: dying like a seed and hating your life in this world.

What overwhelms me, as I ponder this and trace the life of Adoniram Judson, America's first foreign missionary, is how strategic it was that he died so many times and in so many ways.

More and more I am persuaded from Scripture and from the history of missions that God's design for the evangelization of the world and the consummation of his purposes includes the suffering of his ministers and missionaries.

To put it more plainly and specifically, God designs that the suffering of his ministers and missionaries is one essential means in the joyful triumphant spread of the gospel among all the peoples of the world.

So what I would like to do in this message is show four things and close with a plea that all of you earnestly consider your role in completing the Lord's great commission.

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God's purpose to spread the gospel to all peoples.

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God's plan to make suffering a crucial means to accomplish this purpose.

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The position we are now in with regard to world evangelization.

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The pain of Adoniram Judson as an illustration of the truth.

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A plea to you to be a part of what Judson and Christ died for.

!!!! 1.

The invincible purpose of God is that "the gospel of the glory of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:4) spread to all the peoples of the world and take root in God-centered, Christ-exalting churches.

This was the promise of the Old Testament:

"All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, \\ and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.

\\ For kingship belongs to the LORD, \\ and he rules over the nations.

(Psalm 22:27-28)

It was the promise of Jesus to his disciples:

"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."

(Matthew 24:14)

It was the design of God in the cross:

"They sang a new song, saying, 'Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.'"

(Revelation 5:9)

It was the final command of the risen, all-authoritative Christ:

"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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

(Matthew 28:18-20)

It was the divine aim of Paul's apostleship:

"Through [Christ] we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations."

(Romans 1:5)

It was his holy ambition, rooted not just in a unique apostolic call but in the Old Testament promise that is still valid today:

"I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, "Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand."

(Romans 15:20-21; see Isaiah 52:15)

"So the Lord has commanded us, saying, 'I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.'"

(Acts 13:47; see Isaiah 42:6)

It was the divine purpose of the sending and filling of the Holy Spirit:

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

(Acts 1:8)

The invincible purpose of God is that "the gospel of the glory of Christ" spread to all the peoples of the world and take root in God-centered, Christ-exalting churches.

This great global vision of the Christian movement becomes clear and powerful and compelling in pastors' lives whenever there is Biblical awakening in Christ's people - as there was among many in the first decades of the 1800s when Adoniram Judson was converted and called into missions along with hundreds of others as the light and power of truth awakened the churches.

!!!! 2. God's plan is that this gospel-spreading, church-planting purpose triumph through the suffering of his people, especially his ministers and missionaries.

I don't just mean that suffering is the consequence of obedient missions.

I mean that suffering is one of Christ's strategies for the success of his mission.

Jesus said to his disciples as he sent them out:

"Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."

(Matthew 10:16)

There is no doubt what usually happens to a sheep in the midst of wolves.

And Paul confirmed the reality in Romans 8:36:

"As it is written, "'For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.'"

Jesus knew this would be the portion of his darkness-penetrating, mission-advancing, church-planting missionaries.

"Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword" (Romans 8:35).

That is what Paul expected, because that is what Jesus promised.

Jesus continues:

" Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them (eis marturion autoi) and the Gentiles" (Matthew 10:17-18).

Notice that the witness before governors and kings is not a mere result or consequence, but a design.

"You will be dragged before . . .

kings to bear witness."

Why this design for missions?

Jesus answers:

"A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. . . .

If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household?"

(Matthew 10:24-25)

Suffering was not just a consequence of the Master's obedience and mission.

It was the central strategy of his mission.

It was the ground of his accomplishment.

Jesus calls us to join him on the Calvary road, to take up our cross, and to hate our lives in this world, and fall into the ground like a seed and die, that others might live.

We are not above our Master.

To be sure, our suffering does not atone for anyone's sins, but it is a deeper way of doing missions than we often realize.

When the martyrs cried out to Christ from under the altar in heaven, "How long till you judge and avenge our blood?"

they were told

to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

(Revelation 6:11)

Martyrdom is not the mere consequence of radical love and obedience; it is the keeping of an appointment set in heaven for a certain number: "Wait till the number of martyrs is complete who are to be killed."

Just as Christ died to save the unreached peoples of the world, so some missionaries are to die to save the people of the world.

And lest we think this way of saying it aligns the suffering work of missionaries too closely with the suffering-work of Jesus, listen to the decisive word on this from Paul in Colossians 1:24:

"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church."

In his sufferings Paul is "filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for . . . the church."

Not that Paul's sufferings atone for sin or propitiate wrath or vindicate divine justice in passing over sins, but they show the unreached peoples of the world the sufferings of Christ.

When Paul shares Christ's sufferings with joy and love, he delivers, as it were, those very sufferings to the ones for whom Christ died.

Paul's missionary suffering is God's design to complete the sufferings of Christ, by making them more visible and personal and precious to those for whom he died.

So I say this very sobering word: God's plan is that his gospel-spreading, church-planting purpose triumph through the suffering of his people, especially his ministers and missionaries.

And not many illustrate this better than Adoniram Judson.

!!!! 3. The position we are in now at the beginning of the 21st century is one that cries out for tremendous missionary effort and great missionary sacrifice.

Patrick Johnstone says in Operation World that only in the 1990s did we get a reasonably complete listing of the world's peoples.

For the first time we can see clearly what is left to be done.

There are about 12,000 ethnolinquistic peoples in the world.

About 3,500 of these have, on average, 1.2% Christian populations - about 20 million of the 1.7 billion people, using the broadest, nominal definition of Christian.1

Most of these least reached 3,500 peoples are in the 10~/40 window and are religiously unsympathetic to Christian missions.

That means that that we must go to these peoples with the gospel, and it will be dangerous and costly.

Some of us and some of our children will be killed.

When Adoniram Judson entered Burma in July, 1813 it was a hostile and utterly unreached place.

William Carey had told Judson in India a few months earlier not to go there.

It probably would have been considered a closed country today - with anarchic despotism, fierce war with Siam, enemy raids, constant rebellion, no religious toleration.

All the previous missionaries had died or left.2

But Judson went there with his 23-year-old wife of 17 months.