Missions on Point

Isaiah, the evangelical prophet, probably more explicitly than anywhere else in the Old Testament predicts the Suffering Servant who would die for the sins of the world. Yet, this gospel hope is directed toward the nations of the world. Salvation for all nations comes through the exile of God's chosen servant. The missionary's call is quite similar to Isaiah's, yet listen to this episode to find out how they are different.

Right missions methodology is highly dependent on how we understand the kingdom of God inaugurated with Jesus as King. How do we relate to the kingdoms of this world? How is Jesus the king leading his kingdom of priests in this world now? The history books of the Old Testament offer to us a helpful contrast between the failed kingdom of Israel and God's design for the church in the new covenant.

God's story to redeem mankind is a story that spans all of history. If the church hopes to understand its place in obeying the Great Commission now, then we need the history books of the Bible to rightly situate us in time. God is gaining for himself an inheritance of the nations, and the Old Testament faithful did not received what was promised to them because God was insuring that the Gentiles would be adopted into his family. God's faithfulness to save a people for himself should spur us to be faithful to God's call on our lives today.

The law of God is essential for missions. Rather than simply a cultic and ritual code of conduct for the nation of Israel, Deuteronomy shows us the Spirit of the law, which has been made universally applicable for Gentiles through Jesus Christ who fulfills the law for us. Each of the ten commandments leads us to a need to preach these laws to all people everywhere. It is a worthy effort to consider how to apply these timeless principles to particular peoples, because Jesus hid these words in his heart, and he used them in his defense against Satan. The church now stands unified with believers of all places against the darkness of the world around us because we have the same doctrine and morality.  

The Israelites are on a journey from Sinai to the Promised Land. Rather than a book about genealogies, this book gives us the story of the gospel, and the pattern of all of time, where a second generation replaces the first. There is hope in God's mercy and covenant faithfulness. Listen to this episode and learn about four motivations for missions from the book of Numbers.

Leviticus is the central book of the Pentateuch, and at its center it teaches us an important lesson - a lesson which motivates us for global missions - the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. Man is not justified by following the law, his uncleanness is too great. But God's unilateral grace toward fallen man makes us holy. As the nation of Israel once gathered at the one place where sacrifices were made, so now the church goes out into all the world, now already made holy by the death and resurrection of Jesus, to be holy as God is holy. Holiness is missiological.

God's people are called out of their slavery to their sinful cravings, and called to be holy, separated as the people of God, strangers and aliens on this earth. Yet, like Moses, we are called to go into the world and rescue the lost. The book of Exodus lays a blueprint of God's dwelling with mankind, and the church now is the temple of God, preaching God's word to God's people, calling believers to obedience to God. Local churches need to be obedient to God's command to go into the world and preach the saving message of Jesus Christ, the only perfect mediator between God and man who can lead his people to God's holy mountain. The imagery and typology in the book of Exodus is rich, and it has global missions written all through it. 

The book of Genesis begins God's story of his global glory. Jesus Christ completes that story. And now through the church, we get to tell all nations how they fit into that story. Beginning with God's intentions in creation, his plan for a second Adam to rule to world, and for Jesus to be everyone's hope of undoing the curse and reversing the division at Babel. The hope for all nations of one offspring from the line of Abraham starts here. And how every nation relates to this one has eternal consequences. Now we go into all the world and tell them that this hope has been born. Think with us about how to best preach missions from the book of Genesis.

There are dangers when preaching about missions, because we want to avoid reading into the text something that is not there. But how can we preach about it rightly. This episodes offers one primary way we can do that: biblical theology. From this recognition, we explore ten topics that are commonly found throughout scripture, and we see how they are naturally and easily connected to thinking about world missions. Come listen and get equipped for faithfully reading, thinking, and preaching from God's word with an aim for God's glory among the nations through the church preaching the resurrected and exalted Christ.

Is it possible to preach about mission in every sermon? Does every text of scripture lead us to this topic? Certainly you have preached or heard biblically faithful sermons where missions wasn't even mentioned. But once you start to see missions in the entire Bible, you can't help but to see it more. Consider this with us and we explore four ways to think about preaching and teaching missions from a framework of missions. You still might not mention missions explicitly, but at least you'll see the clues that have always been there.