/ Church Planting, Discipleship, Equipping, Great Commission, Mission Mobilization, Missions, Unreached People Groups / By

What is the goal
of global missions?

Eternal Purpose for Earthly Work

Does worship of the God of the Bible exist where His Church is not present? 

Do people there know God’s identity and worthiness to be esteemed?

Is God’s name glorified there? 

Where there are no believers in Christ, how can people come to believe in Jesus Christ? 

Where God’s written word has not been translated, how can people hear God’s word to believe it?

It has been said that the goal of missions is worship. That is, the goal is that people come to recognize the reality of God’s worth and reflect His worthiness back to Him and to all other people in the world. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. I believe this is true.

However, I also believe the ministry of the Church and the mission of the Church are not the same thing. 

Where the Church exists there is the ministry of the Church in evangelism, discipleship, and service to glorify God.

Where the Church has never been, the ministry of the Church does not exist. 

Can people worship God where they have no access to knowledge about Him? (Romans 10:14)

Worship does not exist where  people have no access to God’s message. He is the unknown God.

In our day, most of what is called “missions” is focused on people groups who already have churches in their community, Christians in their workplace, and Bibles in their language. The ministry of the Church already exists among them. Witnesses of God’s glory and majesty have been established. While evangelism is needed and necessary, the mission of the Church has been accomplished. (Romans 15:23) Where worship does exist, let’s endeavor to equip messengers to go where worship doesn’t. 

The objective of missions is access

For each of us, there was a time when we did not know about the God of the Bible, His goodness, and His righteousness. We were enemies of God. (Romans 5:10) We did not know we were short of the standard of goodness that God’s righteousness demands of us.  We did not know about Jesus Christ; His identity, His life, His death, His resurrection and provision for us. We did not know His written word to believe His message to us. 

Someone told us. 

Someone gave us access to the Good News.

After about six hundred years of having the Bible in our English language, we have multiple avenues of access in our own language to what God has written.

About three billion people still have no access.

No access? No worship.

How can they believe in Him of whom they have never heard?

Worth Shipping. The goal of missions is to equip people who do not know the God of the Bible to know Him, to recognize His worth, to realize that the knowledge of Him is worth gaining for themselves, to realize that the knowledge of Him is worth shipping or carrying to others, and to equip them to ship the knowledge of His worth to the ends of the earth; to people who have no other way to hear about Him. The goal of missions is to glorify God by shipping His worth around the world. 

Missions is about giving people access to the Gospel as a starting point. There was a time when each of us did not know about the identity of Jesus; His person, purpose, plan, people or processes.  Just as someone told each one of us, missions is about giving other people access to knowledge about His worth. Maturing believers, working together both individually and in community, can main

The glorious Good News is not available unless those who love God tell other people about Him. The first and greatest commandment is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. People cannot do that unless they know from His written Word who He is and what He has done. (Romans 10) The second greatest commandment is to love other people as ourselves. Can we do that without sharing our greatest treasurabout 

 

Do For Others

A key reason why I am able to communicate with you about ideas recorded in The Holy Bible is because, since the time of the resurrection of Jesus and before my time, people who believed God made sure that His word would be available to me in my language. 

There was a time when the Bible did not exist in the English language.  Since faith comes by hearing God’s word, it’s important to have God’s word available to be heard.  Some people were burned at the stake for trying to give me a Bible in English. It was that important to them that they gave up their own lives to give God’s word to us.

Today there are people in thousands of language groups who still do not have access to any portion of God’s written word available in a language they understand. 

Missions is about laying down our lives for the glory of God and for the people who will not hear the Good News unless we tell them.

Is God is worthy of our sacrifice to tell them?

Living for the eternal benefit of others, leading them to know and love God, is the highest calling on earth. (John 17:3, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Mark 12:30-31)

Accomplishing the work

Missions is accomplished by teaching God’s written word from Genesis to Revelation so that each person taught is rooted in God’s identity, person, purpose, and plan. People need to be equipped to discover for themselves what God has written for them to know. They need someone to disciple or coach them through that discovery so that they are equipped to carry what they have learned to someone else. To discover God’s word for themselves and carry God’s word to someone else, they need to be able to read God’s word and they need God’s written word in their own hands in a language they clearly understand. Where no Bible exists in their heart language, Bible translation is necessary so that a thriving church, that is centered on what God has written, can be established. 

In Matthew 28:20, Jesus gives us His goal in our mission. He wants us to teach people to obey all that He commanded us.

Keeping the goal in view

 

In other words, the goal of missions is to establish thriving churches of Christ-followers in every language group, ethnic group, and people group who are able to glorify God through believing, applying, sharing His written word. 

The goal of missions is to establish groups of people who know the God of the Bible and work to proclaim His glory among every tongue, tribe, people, and nation on earth. 

People need a clear understanding of the identity and goodness of the God of the Bible. They need to see His power, grace, and intention to bring them into His close fellowship. They need a clear understanding of their own, individual, desperate need for the perfection of His goodness and their inability to attain it by their own efforts. They need to see the lavish provision and grace provided for them by the identity, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in providing the perfection that is needed. They need to see that the only way they can appropriate the goodness that is provided for them is by believing God’s word; by placing their faith in the work that was accomplished by Jesus. They need to see that the life they have been given has meaning and a purpose on earth in God’s eternal plan.

Eternity in sight

Until this has been accomplished in all of the earth, the goal of missionary work among a particular language group of people is to equip those people to know God personally, appropriate the light of the knowledge of His glory in the person of Jesus Christ, believe Him and live in obedience to His perfect plan as revealed in His written word (The Holy Bible), sharing what they have learned of Him with all people everywhere. 

The goal of missions is to go to language groups of people who do not know the God of the Bible and equip them, through believing and applying His written word, to discover for themselves and proclaim to the world the glory of our Creator. 

The objective of missions is to ship the realization of God’s worth everywhere that people might respond to Him through faith in Christ.

Let’s give access to the Good News to all people in every part of the world. Then those who believe Him will be joining us in glorifying Him through the spreading His fame, and in being with Him to worship Him forever. 

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(The only step you can take by faith is the next one.)