Why Missions?

Our ambition as a church should be to see the gospel proclaimed and believed, with the manner of our lives being “worthy of the gospel of Christ” (Philippians 1:27). Our pursuit of gospel advance, however, is not limited by the geographical radius of our everyday activities or just our lives and those around us. The scope of gospel advance is to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8), and we are to be an instrumental part of that advance (Matthew 28:19). Biblically speaking, mission makes perfect sense as disciples of Christ traverse the globe to make disciples of every nation. Humanly speaking, however, missions makes little sense and can even come across as arrogant instead of loving, foolish instead of wise, and wasteful instead of profitable.

Why do we support missionaries? Why do we send people from one nation, culture, and language, to another nation, culture, and language where they will need to spend years adapting, learning, and, through much trial and error, build a ministry? Why must they leave what they call home to go to a place that will feel foreign for years and then grow so accustomed to that foreign land that when they return to their homeland it feels foreign? Why has the church, over the course of its history, sent out young men and women who would arrive in their place of service only to die by the hands of the people they sought to reach or from the diseases they had never faced? Why do we think we need to impose a “foreign religion” on a people who are not asking for help and not looking for the gospel? Why do we give 10% of our annual church donations to missionaries half-way around the world when there is plenty of work to be done here in the Capital region?

We don’t do any of these things because we thought it was a good idea. We do it because God thought it was a good idea. As I see it in Scripture, here is God’s good plan that helps us think through the amazing significance of missions and our participation in God’s plan for the advance of the gospel:

1. God’s promised goal for humanity is to bless all the families of the earth through the seed of Abraham (Genesis 12:3).

2. This blessing would come through the ultimate seed of Abraham – Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:16).

3. The blessing is to be justified before God on the basis of Christ’s atoning sacrifice on Calvary (Galatians 3:8).

4. This blessing would not be limited to those who have Jewish blood flowing through their veins, but those who have been born again by the will of God (John 1:13) and have received the gospel message by faith, both Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:13).

5. Since the message of the gospel is not limited to a particular group of people, it is to be offered to all people everywhere (Acts 17:30; Luke 24:47).

6. The means God uses to propagate this message to the nations is through the preaching of the gospel. If the gospel is not preached, it cannot be heard. If it is not heard it cannot be believed (Romans 10:14-15). If it is not believed, sinners cannot be saved (Romans 10:10).

7. Through this proclamation, sinners from around the globe will become disciples of Jesus Christ in the obedience of the faith (Romans 1:5).

8. The expansion of the gospel results in greater and greater praise and thanksgiving to the God who saves through His Son (Psalm 67, 2 Corinthians 4:15).

9. The final result is that at the end of the age, when all those who are redeemed gather around the throne of God and the Lamb, voices of every nation, tribe, people, and language would in great accord worship them with the song, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10).

When we support missionaries, or if some of us go as missionaries (and some of us probably should go as the Spirit equips and sends), we are joining in the outworking of God’s plan to make the gospel of Christ known for the salvation of sinners to the glory of God. What a privilege! It may not make human sense, but it is God’s will.