Why is Missions needed?
What is the need in missions?
Christ tells us that the goal in missions is to make disciples of “all nations”
But what does all nations mean? Is it political borders? There are roughly 200 countries in the world. Do we need to simply make sure each of them has a Christian presence?
People studying missions have almost unanimously come to the conclusion that reaching “all nations” means something more than simply every recognized country.
Many have referred to the goal of reaching “all nations” as a goal to reach “all people groups”
What is a “people group?”
“For evangelization purposes, a people group is the largest group within which the Gospel can spread as a church planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance”
Barriers of understanding and acceptance include lots of things. For instance, though people may live in the same country, they do not all speak the same language. You may have Christian missionaries in China who speak Mandarin, but they are only able to reach 80% of the country before encountering a significant language barrier with the rest who do not speak that language.
Another example is tribal affiliations. You remember the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 between the Hutus and Tutsis. They lived in the same country and spoke the same language, but their ethnic distinctions were significant enough that they hated and distrusted one another. Establishing a Christian presence in Rwanda among one group would still leave the other entirely unevangelized.
Or this is very common in India where all people are understood to be part of the caste system. Every person is informally categorized as 1 of 5 castes based on their significance and all their interactions with one another are based on caste. If the gospel is established among the lower classes, the upper classes would still remain an unreached people.
There are still other factors such as religious tradition or tribal affiliation that can all be considered barriers of understanding and acceptance.
For this reason, missionary sociologists have determined that there are more than 16,000 people groups throughout the world.
Scale of progress levels
I’ll mention the website name again - joshuaproject.net has compiled this information. They are kind of the leading authority on gospel progress among people groups and each of these charts and maps I’m showing you have come from their site.
They have divided each people group into 1 of 5 progress levels.
You’ll notice that it is estimated 43.6% of the world is unreached with the gospel.
Map of progress levels
Here is a map of what all of the people groups in the world look like color coordinated with their progress level.
Let me show you examples of a people groups
Choctaw
Deaf in Iran
10/40 Window
You’ll notice that many of these unreached people groups are huddled in one part of the globe. This is called the 10/40 window because the bottom of it is on 10 degrees latitude and the top is 40 degrees latitude.
5.5 Billion People in this window, 8,500 people groups
69% of the groups are unreached, equalling about 3.4 billion people
Top 50 unreached cities are all in 10/40 window
Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism each find their core adherents in this window.
Of the poorest of the poor 8/10 live in 10/40 window
We’re used to seeing the gospel on billboards and living in a town where every single person is connected to a church somewhere, but I want us to recognize that there are people all over the world who are born, live 80 years, and die and never once hear the name of Jesus or meet a single Christian. Their grandchildren are born, live 80 years, and die and never once hear the name of Jesus or meet a single Christian.
The missionary task is huge.
But take heart that God will ransom a people from every tribe nation tongue and language (Rev. 5:9-10)
What is the motivation for missions?
Guilt is a popular way to motivate (“Jesus died for you… what have you done?”)
Guilt doesn’t last
I’m going to recommend a different motivation - worship
Psalm 67
Let the Nations be Glad
Our goal is for God to be glorified and for the nations to be glad.
There’s an old catechism that asks, “What is the chief end of man?” “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever”
John Piper says, “God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in him.”
He gets glory when we delight in him.
The goal of missions then is to see more people give God glory by delighting in him.
This means that missions isn’t a sales pitch. We aren’t trying to say, we’d like you to switch from your brand of toothpaste to our brand of toothpaste so that we can get a greater market share and ultimately increase our bottom line. Rather, we know someone so delightful, so lifegiving and beautiful, and we want to share him with you.
But the requirement for this to work is that we actually delight in God and enjoy him and believe he is the greatest source of pleasure and satisfaction above all else.
When you delight in something, it’s not a chore to share it with others. Movies, books, food, deals, etc. The reason Christians are motivated to share Jesus, is because we delight in him.
When we delight in God, he gets glory.
[SHOW VIDEO OF KIMYAL RECEIVING BIBLE]
Next week Robbie will be here, we support the LRBA as part of our missions giving. They meet the needs of those in our area and share the gospel while connecting them with churches.