Introduction: Making missions a delight
I am on a quest in my spiritual life at this time to convert more and more of the things I do from mere discipline to the expression of or pursuit of joy. The man who can’t stand being around his wife but who forces himself to take her out on dates anyway out of sheer duty is severely deficient in love. His goal should be to convert what is now mere duty to the activity of desire and delight. God is not honored when we obey or serve Him out of mere duty alone. That does not show Him to be the great, satisfying, joy-giving delight that He is. The core of love is desire and delight. And so progress in the Christian life comes in great measure by converting areas of mere duty into thing you really want to do. And that goes for everything you do in the Christian life – reading your Bible, prayer, coming to church, loving people, giving to the church and to the poor, fulfilling your vocational calling, etc.
Today we are going to study how to do that in the area of missions. I think if I asked for a show of hands for how many are committed to world missions, probably every hand would go up. But if we were honest with ourselves, probably a significant number of us would have to admit that our commitment comes much more from mere duty and discipline than from desire and delight. I pay my taxes because I’m supposed to. I eat banana splits because I want to. And my goal is to make my commitment to and involvement in missions more like my commitment to banana splits than like my commitment to paying taxes. And one of the best places to learn how to do that is in Psalm 67.
I. The Mission: Joy to the world!
The core of this psalm is the middle section - vv.3-5. There we hear the psalmist singing his version of “Joy to the World.”
3 May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you. 4 May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth. Selah 5 May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you.
A. Praise and joy
All three verses are saying essentially the same thing, because praise is an outburst of joy. Praise is nothing but the expression of joy in God. And when you understand that, you can see that these verses are just saturated with joy. 3 May the peoples express joy in you, O God; may all the peoples express joy in you. 4 May the nations be glad and sing for joy, … 5 May the peoples express joy in you, O God; may all the peoples express joy in you.
Six times in a row the psalmist prays for the same thing. You don’t have to be a great theologian to be able to interpret this. He really, really, really, really wants all peoples in all nations everywhere in the world to be overflowing with exuberant joy in God.
Last week I talked about hell as a motive for evangelism. But there is a higher motive than that – joy. The reason I say that’s a higher motive is because if someone just avoids hell, that, by itself, doesn’t point to God as an all-satisfying treasure as much as if someone is shouting for joy in God. The highest goal is whatever glorifies God most, because God’s glory is the best thing there is. And what glorifies God the most is when His creatures see Him and are thrilled by what they see. So the highest goal of missions is to generate shouts of joy in God in every language in every place.
B. His highest glory is our greatest good
The following is a quotation from an atheist in the London Financial Times. Why should [God] . . . expect us to worship him? We didn't ask to be created. … We know that human tyrants, puffed up with pride, crave adulation and homage. But a morally perfect God would surely have no character defects. So why are all those people on their knees every Sunday? The only incentive that writer can think of for God to demand praise from us is that he has a defect – a need to be praised to boost His ego. It doesn’t occur to him that if it’s true that God is the greatest and highest good there is, and God knows that the best thing that could ever happen to me- the most beneficial thing; the thing that would generate the deepest joy and greatest satisfaction in my soul; would be for me to see His glory for what it is and experience it and be so filled up with joy that the happiness spills out of my mouth(which is the definition of true praise); then the kindest, most loving thing God could ever do would be to call me to that.
If you think of humanity like a bunch of people drowning in the middle of the ocean, God is like a big cruise ship that comes along and says, “Trust me enough and delight in me enough to climb aboard, so that your fate rests with me.” That’s not a defect. It’s love. The cruise ship doesn’t need passengers – it will do just fine without them. But it is a good thing when passengers climb aboard because then that ship is shown to be a wonderful place. So calling out to drowning people and saying, “Climb aboard! Put on some dry clothes, and take a seat in the dining room and feast to your heart’s content” is not a moral defect. In v.4 he gives us two examples of what is on the table in the dining room of that cruise ship. C. Delighting in God’s justice and guidance for you rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth.
1. Justice All people crave justice. Even as children - you can hardly do anything that will bring a more angry response out of a child than treating him in an unfair way. There is something in the human soul that just recoils against injustice. And so when a person comes to know God and for the first time has full assurance of total protection from ultimate injustice, it’s a wonderful thing! God has a universe-sized passion for making things right. It’s not just something He sometimes does depending on His mood or the circumstances. It’s something that is so much a part of His nature that there is absolutely no question He is going to do it.
So if you are a Christian nothing ultimately unfair can ever happen to you!
Psalm 103:6 The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
Luke 18:7 will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones
No matter what kind of injustice is inflicted upon you, God will make it right someday – either in this life or on Judgment Day.
So much joy can be found in your life the more you realize that as a child of God you are 100% immune to injustice. Ultimate injustice can’t happen to you. God wants the nations to come aboard the ship and sit down in the dining room and enjoy that delectable morsel of God’s character.
2. Guidance
Another terrific, joy producing attribute is God’s guidance. for you rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth.
Every human being wants to know which way to go. We can’t see even one second into the future, and yet we have to constantly make decisions about the future, and so without guidance from Someone who controls the future we are constantly at risk of disaster. Wisdom alone isn’t enough. You can make the wisest decision in the world and it can turn out to be a disaster depending on circumstances.
But one very wonderful thing about God is He is a God who guides His people in the best path. Once you get an idea of how good He is and how wonderful He is and how powerful He is and how gracious He is, and how wise He is, being guided by Him is an incredible delight.
Those are just two of hundreds of attributes of God that are on the buffet. And every one of them, if their eyes are opened to see them, will fill them with enough joy to cause them to burst into song. And that is the goal of missions.
D. Why does God so desire the nations?
God calls the nations to praise Him because He loves the nations. He also loves His own glory. But there is no tension between loving His own glory and loving the nations because the thing that glorifies God the most is the very thing that brings the greatest joy to the nations – enjoying how wonderful God is and expressing that enjoyment in praise.
But why the nations? Why didn’t He just tell us to reach the greatest number of people? Matt 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations , and then the end will come.
Why is the Lord waiting for the Gospel to be preached to all the nations until He comes back? If you are rescuing shipwreck victims you don’t pick up one in one place, then go to another area and get another one. You just gather as many as you can right where you are.
For one thing, it’s strategic even from a human point of view, because every time you establish the Church in a new culture, that church can now do the work of reaching the rest of that culture. If you want to light a huge field on fire, you don’t light one blade at a time. You get some started in one area, then another area, etc. and each little fire ignites the area around it.
But there is more to it than just that.
Greater Glory – Wider variety of worshippers
The promise to Abraham was that every clan in the entire world would be blessed through him. A clan is a people group that is broader than a family but more narrow than a tribe (there can be numerous clans in a single tribe). So a clan is a very specific people group. And Scripture is loaded with references to God’s desire to gather people from every people group in the world. And the passages that speak about that appear in contexts that speak of the greatness and worthiness of God. And the reason for that is this: the wider the variety of worshippers when Christ returns, the greater His glory and the more worthy He is of praise. Rev 5:9 And they sang a new song: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased (men) for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
The emphasis in the original Greek is not that He purchased people, but that He made purchases from among all the people groups. This is a theme in Revelation. Whenever you see God’s name being exalted, you see it being exalted by the widest possible variety of worshippers. Rev 7:9-10 there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb …. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God…
Rev 14:6-7 he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth-to every nation, tribe, language and people. 7 He said in a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory…
Rev 15:3 you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you
Just as in a choir or orchestra harmony is more beautiful and powerful than everyone just playing the exact same thing in unison, so it is with worship. The greater the variety of worshippers the more magnificent the worship.
The greatness of something increases in proportion to the diversity of those who recognize its beauty. If there is a piece of art that is considered good art only by one small, like-minded group, but no one else, it probably isn’t really that great. On the other hand, if something is considered great across all cultures throughout the centuries, obviously the glory it receives is greater. The greatness of a leader is magnified in proportion to the diversity of the people he can inspire to willingly follow him. A local deity is not very impressive. The more universal the worship, the greater the glory. That’s why Psalms like Ps.96 call us to declare His glory among the nations because “He is to be feared above all gods.”
Worthy of universal praise
What a great thing it is to serve a God who is worthy of universal praise! There is no place or people or setting in which it would not be fitting to worship Him. And not only is He worthy of universal praise, but he is good enough to fully satisfy every human being’s appetite for joy. People have a lot of different tastes. A bowl of rice will satisfy some and not others. But God is so good, that no matter who the person is and where she lives and what her culture is and what kind of genes she was born with, if she could just experience God’s favorable presence there is a 100% guarantee that she would be full of joy!
If you get upset when God’s name is dishonored by some policy or law, the most important solution is not to write a letter to your congressman. If you are unhappy about God’s name not being honored then redouble your commitment to world missions. There is no law that could ever be passed that will make a rebellious heart start to honor God. Only the Gospel can do that. The Greatest Motive for Missions – max worship So our highest motive for missions is worship. We seek to reach the nations because we love God and long for His name to be honored and hallowed everywhere, and we long to see Him worshipped on the grandest possible scale. We want Christ to return to a million-part harmony with voices shouting His praises from every quarter and every sector. Every culture has different strengths.
And when Jesus comes back we want to utilize every possible strength of every conceivable kind of worshipper everywhere in the world to offer Him the fullest, richest, most glorious offering of praise possible.
Application for our worship: Variety
And that principle has application for the way we at Agape Bible Church should worship. The wider the variety of worshippers we can attract in this church, the more glorious and honoring to God will be our worship. Our worship would be far better if we could somehow attract a whole bunch of black people and Hispanic people and Asians; if we could get poor, inner-city people linking arms with wealthy, upper class people- janitors worshipping along side CEOsDemocrats, Republicans, expressive, joyful, emotional types who want to shout for joy and dance, and serious, reverent, liturgical types who tremble in the presence of God, brand new baby Christians who have a fresh perspective and the fresh joy of first love for God, and solid, mature Christians who have gone deep into the things of God, lots of young people who are strong and energetic, and lots of elderly people who are wise and steady, and lots of children because of such is the Kingdom of heaven; the wider the variety of worshippers the more magnificent will be our worship. That means when someone comes in who is different, treasure that person as a priceless addition to our worship. And if you’re different, don’t ever leave this church until you have managed to bring in some others like you who can take over your influence when you leave.
So that’s the local application of the principle, but the greater application is global. We need to pour ourselves into reaching all the people groups on this planet.
So we have an idea of what the task is, now the question is – what is the best strategy to get it done? How are we going to manage to reach the remaining 6400 people groups in the world that are still unreached? The answer to that question is in v.1.
II. The Method: Receive grace in order to give grace
Listen to how the greatest missionary psalm in the whole Bible starts out: 1 May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us
He starts by asking God for truckloads of blessing – not for the nations, but for Israel.
A. Be gracious to us
First he asks for God to be gracious. That just means to show favor. There is no greater thing you could ask for than God’s favor. If you had to trade your family or your health or your job or your life or anything else for God’s favor, it would be like trading a penny for Fort Knox. Because if you have favor in the eyes of the Giver of all good things, You have everything. So the psalmist is asking for Fort Knox here. He’s asking for the biggest, most expensive gift from God he could possibly ask for.
B. Bless us
But he doesn’t stop there – he also asks for God’s blessing. 1 May God be gracious to us and bless us
Blessing from God is when God gives you that which best brings about your highest wellbeing and joy. When you get the things that will ultimately make you the happiest and the most well off, that’s blessing. When good comes your way and makes you happy that’s not good luck; it’s not good fortune – it is blessing from God. So he says, “Give me Your favor and fill my life up with that which will give me joy and delight and wellbeing.”
C. Make Your face shine upon us
But he’s not done. Now he adds a third request: 1 May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us
Making your face shine upon someone is a Hebraism for smiling. It’s a lot like the first request, but it adds a very personal element to the idea. You could receive favor from someone you’ve never met. The President of the United States could show you favor by sending you a gift from Washington. But he isn’t just asking for gifts from heaven. He wants a direct, personal experience with God, in which God looks at him and smiles. There are reasons for the figures of speech used in the Bible. God wants us to think of this kind of experience as being a lot like when someone you dearly love and deeply admire looks you right in the face and breaks into a great big smile. That’s what the psalmist is asking for from God. Think for a moment about what it would be like for that to happen. It would be a delightful, pleasant experience of the presence of God, in which there is a communication from God of love and delight and favor and happiness and approval as He looks at your life. Like the Olympian Eric Liddell who said, “[God] made me fast, and when I run, I feel God's pleasure."
So that’s all this guy wants. “Lord, just give me Your favor – personally delivered; I want to feel Your face smiling at me, and I would like you to pour out on me that which will fill me with joy in You.” Would you like all that? I hope so, because that’s probably as good a test as any of whether your faith is real. If you desire the smile of God more than anything in the world, you know the Lord. But if there is something or someone in this world that has a stronger pull on your heart, that’s a very bad sign and you need to put your spiritual life into red alert.
This is the opposite of the James 4:3 types. Those are the people who really love and desire earthly things more than they desire God, and pray to God to supply them with more of what they really love. But this psalmist isn’t like that. He’s not trying to use God to give him some earthly thing that he loves. What he asks for is a greater experience of God Himself. To him that’s Fort Knox and everything this world offers are just pennies.
So now the question is – why is he asking for that? The reason you ask for Fort Knox is so you can go shopping somewhere, right? So where is he going shopping?
D. The connection between v.1 and v.2
Underline the word “that” at the beginning of v.2. The most important point of this psalm depends on that word. 1 May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, Selah 2 that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.
The reason he is asking for Fort Knox is because he needs that to reach his goal of delighting all the nations with God’s salvation. All this success described in the heart of this psalm (vv.3-5), where all nations are singing and shouting for joy in God and exuberantly praising Him, all that success comes from v.1 being fulfilled. You will only have that kind of success if you first get the resources of that Fort Knox of v.1. That’s the biblical strategy for missions – fill up the Church with blessing from God, and then and only then will grace be poured out from the Church to the nations.
E. How it works
“How does that work?” How does God’s blessing His people result in all the nations shouting for joy in God? The Bible speaks of our reaching the lost as being like a tree bearing fruit. It’s like we are a seed, and God looks at us and say, “I want you to provide apples to all the nations.” Then He puts us in fertile soil and waters us with His grace. It’s only after we drink in His grace and grow to maturity that we can bear fruit. That’s not to say a church should hold off on missions until it has existed a long time. But it is to say that progress in missions will come only as we grow in grace. The more grace is poured into the Church the more the Church is strengthened and enabled and motivated to reach the world for Christ.
That’s why there is so much emphasis in the NT on building the Church. Jesus gave the Great Commission and told us to make disciples of all nations, and then we read the NT, and every time there’s something about the purpose of the Church, the goal is always the edification of the Church. Very little about missions and a whole lot about building up the saints and reaching maturity.
Some people who really have a heart for the lost don’t like that emphasis. They say that’s too inwardly focused, and if we focus mostly on that we will become an Evangelical ghetto. I praise God for the passion and zeal those people have for the lost. But for the sake of the lost I hope fewer and fewer churches buy into their strategies. That kind of thinking is like a firefighter who hears the alarm go off and says, “We don’t have time to mess around - people are dying in this fire.” So he goes running off with no bunker gear, no fire hose, no ladder, no fire truck, no ax, no water- he just shows up to this skyscraper that’s engulfed in flames with shorts and a T-shirt and no equipment. You appreciate that guy’s urgency and passion, but if you’re one of the people trapped on the top floor, you would really rather he take the extra time to get properly equipped.
The biggest favor we can do for the unreached people in the jungles of Africa is to make Agape Bible Church mature in Christ- to fulfill our role as the body of Christ, bride of Christ, holy priesthood, temple of the Holy Spirit and household of God. When we devote ourselves to the preaching of God’s Word and prayer, and we pursue love for God with all our energy, and we fulfill the one anothers – (encourage one another, pray for one another, build one another up, rebuke one another, bear one another’s burdens, confess our sins to one another, etc.), then we will become a grace dispensing fountain that will have enough supply to shower grace all over this planet. We will become a giant apple tree that can feed the nations. It is through our receiving grace that we will become grace dispensers.
Only a spiritually mature church will have deep enough love for God that their passion for the lost will be like God’s. Only a spiritually mature church will have a deep enough love for God to be able to communicate to others how wonderful and desirable and satisfying God is. Only a spiritually mature church will be willing to give up earthly pleasures and make the sacrifices necessary for effective missions. Only a spiritually mature church will have people who are willing to lay down their lives to reach the lost. Only a spiritually mature church will be solid enough on the gospel to avoid letting the message get watered down in order to get more converts. Only a spiritually mature church will have the perseverance necessary for the long-term effort that is needed.
That’s true of a local church and it’s true of the Universal Church. It’s true of the Church in the United States. Despite of all our vast resources, we in the United States send out an average of 15 missionaries for every 100 churches – just 15. Compare that with Norway, where they send out 71, or Singapore where they send out 144 (that’s 1.44 per church – ten times the number we send). There are only about 6400 people groups left to reach. If the Church in the United States became spiritually mature enough and healthy enough to do what the Church in Singapore is doing, the United States alone could send 100 missionaries to each remaining unreached people group. We could do the job if we would just grow in grace. That’s why the main thing we are called to do is work toward the upbuilding of the Church.
1. The purpose of gifts is missions
So the principle we see in the word “that” at the beginning of v.2 is that the purpose of God’s grace is to enable us to dispense grace to others. That’s why you have your money, that’s why you have your health, that’s why you have your car, that’s why you have your computer, your phone, your spiritual gifts, your wife, your husband, your children, your watch, your shoes – everything you have. It’s all so you can be about the work of cranking up the volume of worship of the true God on this planet. That wouldn’t be a bad purpose statement for a church – “We exist to crank up the volume of worship of Jesus Christ on this planet.” That’s why God has given Agape Bible Church all that He has generously given us.
Last Sunday the Lord moved in someone’s heart to give $10,000 in the offering. And I was so pleased with the leadership this week as we were talking about what the Lord would have us do with that. When you have 50 people in a new church plant, and it’s hard to imagine how we will continue to pay our bills at this size, it would be awfully easy to get into a safety net mentality and just stick that money away in the bank. And a lot of church boards I’ve been around would have done exactly that. But our leaders were talking about the principle of 2 Cor.9:10,11 that says our resources are seeds, and if we sow them liberally God will give us more seeds. And there was a lot of enthusiasm about investing that money in strategic ways in ministry. That’s the right attitude, because God gives us His blessing not so we can horde it, but to broadcast it like seed in a field.
2. Heart after God’s heart for the nations
There is no upper limit to the words that could be used to describe the intensity of God’s desire for the joy of the nations, because that joy magnifies the most important thing there is, and that is His glory. And I’m so glad, because I am a gentile who lives in the uttermost parts of the earth. If it weren’t for God’s passion for the joy of the nations in Him, He would have never moved in the hearts of the thousands of missionaries who had to spill their blood in order for me to receive the Gospel.
My goal is to develop such a passion for God’s glory (as well as a deep love for the nations) that I long for the joy of the nations in God as a controlling force in my life. And that’s my goal for us as a church as well. If we are content to have His favor and blessing and smile for ourselves only, and we don’t care if others have to face His wrath, that’s evidence that we don’t even have His favor or blessing or smile. Because favor from Him includes grace that adjusts our hearts to be more like His, and our affections and desires to be more like His. Our greatest motive for missions should come from our desire to be near to the heart of God in close fellowship.
So, the process we are to follow is this: We seek truckload after truckload of blessing from God for the Church. We follow hard after God and do everything we can possibly do to put ourselves in a position to receive grace from Him. The result of that is we will be equipped and motivated to reach the nations. We will become so passionate for the name of God, and so desirous to see Him glorified and honored by the greatest possible variety of worshippers, and our hearts will become so closely knit with His that His love for the nations and desire for their joy in Him will become our love for the nations and desire for them to take joy in Him, and we will go to the ends of the earth and sacrifice anything to bring the gospel to every people group. Then comes step 3, which is in the last 2 verses. III. The Result: more blessing
6 Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us. 7 God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him.
Step 1 – we seek grace and blessing from God. Step 2 – once we get that grace we reach the nations with the gospel. Step 3 – we get more grace and blessing from God. The land will yield its harvest. Now, when you are in that James 4 mode of seeking your joy from earthly things instead of from God, material prosperity is a terrible thing. But when you are in the mode this psalmist is in – seeking your joy from God alone – desiring nothing but His smile, then when prosperity comes you see it as an expression of the smile of God and your enjoyment of that prosperity is worship.
A. Joy and fear
And notice how once again fear and joy go together.
7 God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him.
God will bless us, and all the nations – these same people who are shouting for joy in God, will also fear him.
The more they enjoy Him as the only source of good, the more they will fear nothing in life except displeasing God. The more joy you have in God the more you will fear Him.
B. Israel’s job to bless the world
The whole Bible is the story of how God is working for the joy of all the nations. That’s why God chose Abraham. And He repeated that again in ch.18, 22, 26, and 28. Israel was chosen by God because God wanted her to function as the wellspring of His joy-giving grace for the entire world. That’s why in Ps.48:2 Jerusalem is called “the joy of the whole earth.” Is that a spectacularly wonderful phrase or what? I thought about making that the title of the sermon: “the Joy of the whole earth.”
Isaiah explained the it would be the Messiah who would actually fulfill this.
Isaiah 49:6 "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth."
And yet we have no record that Jesus ever traveled more than about 100 miles from home. That’s like living your whole life and never going farther away from here than Colorado Springs.
The fulfillment of Jesus’ responsibility to take God’s salvation to the ends of the earth is to be fulfilled by His body, the Church. That’s why Jesus’ last words to us were these: Acts 1:8 you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
The final fulfillment of that is described in Rev.7. Revelation 7:9-10 After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."
Oh, how obvious and clear it will be at that time to all what a wonderful treasure God is. I can’t wait for that day. What could be more wonderful than being so full of joy that it comes out in loud shouts, and to have that amazing joy be amplified and enlarged by being in the middle of an ocean of praisers who are full of exuberant joy!
I don’t know exactly what it will be like on that day, but here’s the picture I have in my mind: Imagine yourself just going about your normal daily routine when suddenly a loud, awesome trumpet blast rings through the atmosphere of the entire earth. It’s startling at first, but quickly recognizable by the elect for what it is. Thoughts flood your mind, “Could it be? Yes, this is it! This is it! This is it!!!” You look to the east only to see the most awesome sight ever witnessed on earth – the sky ripping open and rolling back like a scroll. And from the other side streams indescribable light and beauty and glory. You stand there witnessing this whole thing, and it is more real and more sure than anything you have ever witnessed.
Then I see something that infinitely outstrips the spectacle of the sky opening up. The Lord Jesus Christ appears in all His unveiled glory! Millions of saints rise up out of the ground in glorified bodies ascending up to meet Him in the air, and you find that you’re being lifted right behind them. The earth is far beneath your feet right now, and there you are before Him – part of the most glorious entourage ever assembled. You look around to see thousands and thousands and 10,000 times 10,000 angels gathered around the Lord Jesus singing praises more glorious than anything human ears have ever heard. And among the angels are the saints – an ocean of people from every tribe and people and clan and language. And the shout of joy goes up from them thundering with power that would shatter the very earth if the Lord didn’t sustain it. And as they all take a breath for their next shout you hear a deep, awesome rumble that seems to dwarf even that shout, and you look again and realize that this ocean of people is just the front row! And you are so overcome with joy that praises come out of the depth of your soul, expressed without limitation by your new, glorified body, and glorified superpowered vocal chords, and you feel God’s pleasure as you experience delight in Him beyond anything you ever imagined in your wildest and most wonderful dreams. Is that your hope? If so, let’s do all we can to bring as much of that about right now as we possibly can.
Giving: If you are not already serious about missions giving, please give that some prayer and thought. If you make a financial sacrifice to reach the nations for Christ I promise you the Lord will not forget that on Judgment Day.
Here’s a challenge for you to consider – If you are already giving 10% to the church, what if you designated an additional 3% of your income to missions? If everyone would do that we could have a massive impact on this world for Christ.
Some of you are probably giving far more than that. And others might have to work toward that as a goal over a period of time.
And there is nothing magical about that number – I just throw it out there because I know we could accomplish some absolutely amazing things in missions with that amount.
Whatever you give, if it is above and beyond your regular giving to the church and you want it to be devoted to missions, just write that on the check memo.
Benediction: Ps 100: Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. 2Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. 4Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. 5For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Our Missions Strategy
1. Following the principle of this psalm, our greatest focus will always be on growing Agape Bible Church to maturity in Christ by seeking after God with all our hearts
2. Building the Church in our area.
The reason the frontier missionary moves on once a church is established in an area is because from there it is that church’s responsibility to reach the rest of that area. So it’s our responsibility to have the greatest impact we can in our region. We do this mostly through personal evangelism, the radio broadcast, and church planting. I realize that sounds strange given the fact that there are thousands of churches along the front range, but the bad churches outnumber the good churches in such great numbers that we need to plant more good churches. There are some really wonderful churches around. For example, Northridge Church not too far from here with pastor Mike Devries. Mike spends his full time in study and preaches expository, verse-by-verse sermons. They are committed to a biblical philosophy of ministry and the total sufficiency of Scripture. And no doubt there are other churches like that around. But they are next to impossible to find, because there are so many unfaithful churches.
3. Helping churches in need of help Paul said he had to move on to Spain because there was no work left for him in Asia Minor.
But on the other hand, he told Timothy to stay there in Asia Minor (specifically in Ephesus) and do the work of an evangelist. (2 Tim.4:5) That area had been reached with the Gospel, and a church established, and yet Timothy left his home in Lystra, and traveled hundreds of miles and committed to a long term work in Ephesus. John Piper calls that “Timothy-Type” missions. Even though the church is established in a place, they may still need outside help (training, finances, etc.) Please be praying for Phil and Tina Cruz, as they are considering entering into this type of missions sometime soon. One of the best organizations I know of for this kind of work is Vision Nationals in Indea. They do an outstanding job with
- evangelism
- church planting
- pastor training
- caring for orphans and widows
4. Reaching the unreached
Piper calls this “Paul-Type” missions – going to an unreached people. Jesus said when we reach all the people groups He will return.
We want to make sure we are pouring ourselves into all three kinds of missions. Right now my sister Carolyn and her husband Dave and their two little girls are in Russia long term to reach an unreached people group called the Auhdig people. We don’t finance them, because they are being fully supported by the SBC. But we do pray for them as a church, and we do expect to care for their needs when they come home for furlough. (If you don’t get their updates, send an email to the church office.)
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In our next leadership meeting we will be talking about exactly which missions efforts to support, but one thing you can be assured of is that any money you give toward missions will go toward these priorities.
Appendix 2: The favor of God in the harvest
The psalmist delighted in material blessing because it was an expression of God’s favor. We should learn to see all prosperity that way. Scripture is very clear that when you see things like wheat coming up from the ground, or a tree or garden flourishing- God designed those kinds of things to teach us what happens to your soul when it comes near the presence of God.
Isaiah 58:11 The LORD will … will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
Psalm 1:3-4 3 (the one who delights in God’s Word) is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. 4 Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
Isaiah 44:3 I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. 4 They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams.
Jeremiah 17:8 He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."
And when someone doesn’t have the favor of God it’s just the opposite.
Isaiah 27:11 When its twigs are dry, they are broken off and women come and make fires with them. For this is a people without understanding; so their Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor.
Enjoy being a child of the God who is the giver of life. Right in the middle of a whole universe of total, sterile lifelessness, the earth stands with an explosion of life – every square inch, thriving with forms of life. What fools are the naturalists and evolutionists, who can’t see any difference between thriving earth and barren Mars! God’s gracious, life-giving hand of blessing is so abundantly obvious when the earth is compared to any other body in space that we know about. Whenever you look around and see the profusion of life on this planet just take a moment to enjoy being the child of a God who has promised to make your heart flourish with eternal life and health like an eternal garden of Eden. This is the kind of God we serve. He is so full of grace that everything He smiles at flourishes. If He smiles upon the earth rather than the moon, then the earth will have places like Black Mesa, where there are awesome forests and lush, beautiful meadows filled with millions of flowers and grass and food enough to feed the amazing variety of animals. Streams of water to satisfy the thirst of God’s countless creatures, providing that soothing, delightful background music that accompanies the sounds of the forest and the singing of the birds. In the distance are the awesome, rugged, snow-capped San Juan mountain range that takes your breath away. Nearby a doe cares for her fawn, and a squirrel scurries around in his urgent busyness. Meanwhile the moon sits in total barrenness and lifeless silence - as do all the other billions of bodies in space. The only difference between the moon and the earth is God’s smile. His favor alone is the difference between a dead, barren landscape and a lush, thriving garden. It is the difference between a dead, dried up tree and a green, healthy tree loaded with sweet fruit. It is the difference between thorns, thistles and cracked earth; and flowers and rich soil and abundant harvest.
Let’s make sure we have eyes to see and ears to hear and minds to interpret the grand parable of the Creation. Let us notice everywhere we look what the effects of God’s smile are, that we might crave those kinds of effects on our souls. Surely it is not for the sake of the dirt that God blesses it and makes it rich and fertile. When God blesses the creation it is an emblem of what His grace does. If He smiles upon me your life will be a garden paradise. You will be like a tree, planted by streams of water which yields fruit in season. I will be like a field that produces a 100 fold harvest. Like a spring whose waters never fail. There will be spiritual life and peace and health and fruitfulness and soundness and loveliness. Oh Lord, give me more grace!
The psalmist asks for favor from God because in his eyes that’s all there is. For the tree that is dying for lack of water there are really only two things – that which is water and that which isn’t. There are really only two things in this world – grace and non-grace. May we learn to crave only grace and never non-grace.
And when you see the effects of the curse – when you see thorns and heat waves and drought and disease, see in those things illustrations of the corruptions of your soul, so that you long all the more for God’s redemption.
