Day 1: Why World Missions?
Jake Potter, Author
Read
Pslam 67:1-7
1 May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us,
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.
5 Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!6 The earth has yielded its increase;
God, our God, shall bless us.
7 God shall bless us;
let all the ends of the earth fear him!
Reflect
One question that I often get when I teach on missions is simply, “Why?” An easy answer would be to quote the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–20) and say, “Because Jesus told us to.” But I work with our students, and many of them are going through a period in their life where they really question everything about what they believe and why. For Gen-Z, telling them “because the Bible tells us so” is an unsatisfactory answer, not because they don’t trust God’s Word, but because they want to know the big picture. They don’t just want a job description; they want to know what caused that job to be necessary in the first place.
This notion isn’t only true for our students. As adults, especially those of us raised in church, it can be all too easy to simply become accustomed to common church phrases like the Great Commission and take it at face value without really unpacking it.
That’s where the above scripture comes in. Even in the Old Testament, long before Jesus was born, we see that God’s desire was for all the people and nations of the earth to know and worship him. Nearly a thousand years later, the apostle John echoed this same sentiment in the most well-known Bible verse of all time, John 3:16 that begins: “For God so loved the world.” God created all the people of the world, and he loves them. What he desires is for all the people of the world to worship and love him in return, or as Psalm 67 says specifically—to praise him, to rejoice in him, to be guided by him, and to fear him.
God desires for us to partake in his mission to bring the gospel to the world, and thus missions is an act of worshipful obedience on our part. But even beyond that, worship is the goal of missions. What I mean by that is that when we partake in missions, the goal is for other people to find and follow Christ, or rather, that other people would worship Christ who had not worshiped him before.
This is the heart of Psalm 67. The psalmist asks God to make his way and saving power known throughout the nations of the world, and then moves into a call for the nations of the world to praise God. The goal of missions then is not only that the people of the world would have knowledge of God, but that they would worship him. Pastor and author John Piper puts it this way:
“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.”[1]
So why world missions? Because God loves the world, and because God desires to be worshiped and loved—not just by us, or by people like us, but by all people of the world.
Respond
What do you think of the assertion that “missions exists because worship doesn’t”? How does that help us understand why world missions matter to God?
Mission Trip Highlights
In this section, we will be highlighting Christ Fellowship’s short term mission trips for 2021. There will be a mission trip meeting to hear about all our trips on November 15 at the McKinney campus. Below, we’re including links for you to go and read more about each trip and pray about whether or not you feel God calling you to participate either by going or by helping send someone else.
CUBA – February 5-10, 2021: https://cfhome.focusmissions.com/!#/18812/cuba-trip
We will equip you to serve as we partner with Proclaim Cuba to come alongside pastors and their house church congregations, joining them in light construction, children’s ministry, Bible teaching, and even training pastors.
GUATEMALA – March 6-13, 2021: https://cfhome.focusmissions.com/!#/18805/guatemala-spring-break-family-mission-trip
The family trip is during Spring Break and includes compassion outreaches and dental clinics. Designed with children in mind. We’ll work in a Mayan village. We host dental clinics and various outreaches with the village mothers and children.
To see info on all trips, click here: https://cfhome.focusmissions.com/!#/
[1] Piper, John. “Let The Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions, Third Edition”, Baker Academic, (Grand Rapids, MI.) 2010., pg. 35
