God Invites You Into His Gospel Work
When I was growing up, my mom cultivated in me a love for baking. I remember really enjoying it in junior high and high school, especially desserts. My mom would be making some cookies and, of course, I wanted to help. And so, she would give me jobs: scoop out a cup of flour, pour this thing in, stir that up. I slowly learned. Of course, by “helping” her, I actually made the process of making cookies many times harder less efficient, and many, many times messier. She didn’t need me. But she included me in the process because she loved me and she wanted me to learn to love to bake.
In a similar way, God does this with us. When it comes to evangelism and making disciples of the nations, God could do everything much better without us. In a single moment, God could audibly speak to everyone in the world simultaneously, share the gospel with them, and give them faith to believe. In a moment, the entire world could be converted. It would be quick and efficient and effective.
Instead, he invites us into the process of reaching the nations. By inviting us into this process, we make the situation messier, stumble over our words, don’t explain things as clearly as we ought, don’t take advantage of opportunities, and let fear keep us from sharing the good news. If God could do it all on his own more efficiently and effectively, why does God include us in this process when we make such a mess of it? The answer is clear: because he loves us and he wants us to love the lost just as he does. By including us in the process he is giving us a heart like his.
We live next door to lost people, we are in families where some or many are lost, and we interact every day with lost people. Myriad in our country are lost, and we live in a world where whole nations are still lost. There are people groups who have never heard the gospel and have none of the Bible in their language. According to the Joshua Project, which does extensive studies on these statistics, around a third of the world is still unreached. Three billion people who are born into families that don’t have the gospel will live their decades apart from God, only to be damned in hell forever.
This reality grieves God, and it should grieve us. And if we have a heart like God’s, if we truly love the lost, it will create in us an urgency to go. God is calling you to go—to go next door or across the street or around the world to share this good news of great joy that is for all people.
As God invites us into this process of reaching the nations for Christ, it is important for us to understand our role in this process. If we don’t understand our role, then we get confused, get distracted from our task, take on burdens that we shouldn’t, and get discouraged.
As we participate in God’s plan to reach the nations, there are three components to this plan that we need to keep in mind.
Our Responsibility
In Romans 10:14, Paul talks about the critical nature of our work. If we don’t go to the nations then people will not hear, and if people do not hear, they will not believe and be saved. If we don’t go, they’ll be damned forever. We must go. God could convert everyone in a moment without us, but he has chosen to use us as the tool to reach the nations. If we don’t go next door, if we don’t reach to the farthest corners or the most secluded cultures on the earth, then they will not hear and they will not be saved. There should be an urgency for us to go.
In this work of going, there are goers and the senders. Every single Christian is called to be either a goer or a sender. A goer is one who moves across the world to reach the lost—missionaries, Bible translators, and missionary pilots. A sender sends the goers and supports them so they can carry out their ministry. If you have trusted in Jesus, you should consider being a goer. Consider the urgency to reach the farthest corner of the world. Is God calling you to move away to serve on the mission field? There are 3 billion people who are headed for hell, unless we go. There should be an urgency in our step to reach them. Will you go? Every single one of you should consider this call.
But God doesn’t call everyone to go. My plan when I entered the pastorate was to serve two or three years at the church as an associate pastor and then head to the field. But in God’s providence, I didn’t go. Does that mean that I’m not really that concerned about reaching the nations? No, it just means my role is a little different. I aim to serve as a sender.
We tend to think of these two categories as either/or. Either you are a sender or you are a goer. But the reality is that every Christian is called to both. We are all goers, whether that is going next door or going to the next hemisphere. You are sent wherever you are to be a light for the gospel, to reach the lost, to tell people about Christ. Each of us should be living with a mentality of a missionary because where we live is our mission field, sent here by God to proclaim the good news about Jesus Christ. At the same time, if we serve as goers, we are also senders. We want to help mobilize and support the work of missions around the country and around the world, to send people to places where we cannot be directly involved. So, when it comes to missions you should think of yourself not just as a goer or a sender, but also think of yourself as a goer and a sender. God has given us the enormous task of reaching this world. It is our responsibility to go, and we should go with urgency in our step.
Gospel Integrity
If we are to reach the world we must proclaim the truth of the gospel. Paul says at the end of Romans 10:14 that as we go into all the world, we are to preach. And what is it that we preach? Paul says that we preach the good news (verse 15), the gospel (verse 16), the words of Christ (verse 17). In the Great Commission, we are told to teach everyone to observe everything that Jesus commanded. In John 8, Jesus says that it is the truth that will set you free. In Acts 20, Paul said that he didn’t hesitate to teach the whole counsel of God.
Our primary goal in world missions is to preach the gospel and the truth of God’s word. Yet sometimes churches and missions organizations lose their grip on this component.
Sometimes we feel like we have to change the message so that it is less offensive, so instead of talking about sin, we only mention brokenness. Instead of the cross we talk about glory. Instead of judgment we talk about love. By compromising the truth, Paul says elsewhere that the cross is emptied of its power. If we preach a less than holy God and refuse to confront the wickedness of sin, if we preach the resurrection without the cross and call for a faith without repentance, then let’s just close up shop because that so-called gospel is emptied of its power. As we go, we must maintain gospel integrity, because it is the truth that will set people free.
We can also compromise the truth by focusing on social issues rather than spiritual formation. Churches and missions organizations are rightly concerned with social issues—the gospel compels us to speak into them. But we don’t want the gospel to take a back seat to social issues. There are many examples of decades of missionary labor leaving not a network of churches and elders and preachers and members, but merely schools and hospitals and teachers and doctors. Schools and hospitals do a lot of good in our society, but our goal isn’t simply to keep people healthy and educated; our goal is to see people saved and a healthy church established in every community.
It is the truth that will set us free, so we preach the gospel. We preach Christ crucified and raised. We preach repentance and faith unto life. We preach discipleship and the kingdom. We preach the whole counsel of God. We must maintain Gospel integrity.
God’s Sovereignty
God will accomplish his purpose. After Paul explains the urgency of us going with the gospel to the farthest corners of the world, he then spends the rest of chapter fourteen talking about how Israel had the gospel but was a disobedient and contrary people. He talks about the gentiles as those who found God even though they didn’t seek for him. When we preach the gospel and proclaim Christ, we have no control over who actually believes. You could be the greatest evangelist the world has ever known, but unless God opens hearts to believe, unless the Spirit of God causes people to be born again (John 3), no one will be converted under your ministry. We pray that God would prepare hearts to hear, and cause people to be born again so they would see the light of the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ—the image of God.
If God isn’t sovereign, you may conclude that if no one is converted, then you are a failure, or that you didn’t evangelize well enough. Thankfully, God is sovereign—he alone bears that burden. Isaiah was sent to be a prophet, and God told him that no one was going to listen or believe him. Isaiah, humanly speaking, was faithful to God but had a fruitless ministry. But that doesn’t mean he failed. Isaiah preached and his word fulfilled God’s purpose. The real beauty about God’s sovereignty is that we know that people will respond. We know that God will save his people. We know that no matter how unqualified we may feel, how unclear we explain the gospel, or how ill equipped we are for the task, God will still save his people because God promises to do just that.
As we do this hard work of evangelism and reaching the world, we face disappointments and we make sacrifices, and there are days when we cry many tears (Psalm 126:5). But we keep our hand to the plow and we don’t give up, because we trust that as God promised to save his people, the day is coming when we will reap with shouts of joy.
God could save the world without us, but as our loving Father, he invites us into the process so that we would learn to have a heart just like his, a heart for the lost. Whether you go across the street or across the world, God calls you to go. And as you go, remember the three components of evangelism: our responsibility, gospel integrity, and God’s sovereignty. Take one of those away and it leads to frustration and futility. So let’s go—with the gospel in hand, let’s watch as God changes the world one heart at a time. All for his glory.
The author, who asked to remain anonymous, is a member of the RP Global Missions board.