Filling our City with the Gospel: Multiplication -- Part Two
Matthew 24:14
A few years ago there was a young couple here in our church who had landed jobs teaching in the public school system, were getting ready to purchase a home and start a family. But then something happened inside them; and all that changed.
They took a summer vacation to Central Asia to visit family members who were missionaries to an unreached people group – the U-people. There’s 10 million U-people. They are Muslim by background, and they live in the region of eastern Kazakhstan and northwestern China. Out of the 10 million, research conducted a few years ago showed that there were 50 believers. That would be like of the 1 million people in all of San Jose, you five right here are the only believers.
The reason the U-people are called “unreached” is because there is no established church in their culture and language. Which means that the only way they will hear the gospel is if someone crosses geographical and cultural and language barriers to bring them the good news of Jesus.
And while this couple was there in Central Asia meeting U-people and talking with the few U-people who spoke some English, Jesus filled their hearts with compassion for them, and with a longing that Jesus would be glorified among the U-people. So when they came back, they changed the course of their life. And about a year later, they moved to Central Asia, where they started learning the U-language and culture, meeting U-people, sharing Jesus with U-people, and God has used them to raise up a small underground church of U-people.
But all of this raises a question. Yes, there’s people who don’t know Jesus in Central Asia. But there’s 950,000 people who don’t know Jesus here in San Jose. And it’s much easier and cheaper to stay here in this culture and help people come to know Jesus. Why would this couple go through all the risk and cost and trouble to go to Central Asia to help people come to know Jesus? And why would we as a church support them in this?
To answer that question, let’s turn to Matthew 24:14. If you need a Bible, go ahead and raise your hand and one of the ushers will bring one to you. Matthew 24 is on page 829 in the Bibles we are passing out.
Have you ever wondered when Jesus will return to earth – when His Second Coming will take place? There is one passage where Jesus tells us. It’s right here in Matthew 24. Look at what Jesus says – starting in v.1 –
1 Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple.
2 But he answered them, "You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down."
3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?"
So the question Jesus is going to answer is – when is the end? When is history going to end? When will He return to the earth? Look at what He says --
4 And Jesus answered them, "See that no one leads you astray.
5 For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will lead many astray.
6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.
7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
8 All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.
9 "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.
10 And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another.
11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.
12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Did you catch that? In v.14 Jesus tells us when the end will come. Read v.14 again --
And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
So when will the end come? When the gospel has been preached to all the nations.
And as I’ve thought about that verse, I’ve seen three crucial implications that we need to understand.
First, that the gospel has not yet been preached to all the nations. Think about it. Jesus will come back as soon as the gospel is preached to every nation. Has Jesus come back yet? No. So that must mean that the gospel has not yet been preached to all the nations.
Now this might puzzle you, if you think that the word translated here as “nations” refers to places like China or Africa or Morocco – because over the past century the gospel has been preached to all the nations.
But in New Testament times this word “nations” did not refer to places like China or Africa or Morocco; it referred to peoples – distinct groups of people who shared the same culture and language and ethnicity. So the word “nations” does not refer to places, it refers to peoples – people groups.
For example, in Morocco there are 16 million Moroccan Arabs, the 1.8 million Jebala people, the 2.4 million Tamazight people, the 1.3 million Rif Berber people – and these are all very different from each other in terms of race and culture and language. So if we are going to preach the gospel to all the nations we can’t just preach it to Morocco – we need to preach it to every people group in Morocco.
The research shows that today there are still 12,000 people groups who are unreached – who have not yet had the gospel preached to them.
The second implication I see in this verse is that the gospel will be preached to every people group. Here’s why I say this: in Matthew 24:14 Jesus says that He will come back when the gospel has been preached to every people group. Now think about this: is there any doubt about whether Jesus will come back? No. Jesus Christ will come back.
So -- if it is certain that Jesus will come back, and if He will not come back until the gospel is preached to every people group, then the gospel will be preached to every people group. It will happen.
The third implicatino I see in Matthew 24:14 is that every believer should be passionate about taking the gospel to every people group. Here’s why I say this. If you are a follower of Jesus, then you know Jesus Christ. Your have experienced the heart-filling joy of beholding Him. And your greatest longing is to have Jesus come back so you can be in His presence forever. If you are a follower of Jesus, then you are passionate about Jesus coming back, you long for Jesus to come back.
But if you long for Jesus to come back – and Jesus says He will come back as soon as the gospel is preached to every people group – then you will long to see the gospel taken to every people group. Now there’s other reasons we long for this as well. We long for this because we have tasted the joy of being forgiven and brought into relationship with Jesus – and we long for this for everyone. And we long for this because we care about people – and we don’t want to see anyone facing the judgment they deserve for their sins. And we long for this because we love the thought of Jesus being glorified among people from every nation, tongue, and tribe.
But here’s another reason we should long for this – it’s because as soon as the gospel is preached to every people group – Jesus will come back.
So how are we doing in reaching every people group? To help you see how we are doing, I want to give you a visual picture of the world and what’s happening in missions. What I want to show you is first: who the people are in the world; second: where they live; and third: which ones have had the gospel preached to them.
So first, I want to show you the world population. There’s 6.7 billion people in the world today – just to make things easy let’s round that down to 6 billion. And I need 12 volunteers who will represent the world to us. Like I said, there are around 6 billion people in the world; this will be a big job, since each of you are representing half a billion people. So put your heart into it.
Now we are going to take our world and divide it into half. These six on the left are the reached part of the world. These six on the right are the unreached part of the world. By "reached" we mean that people in this part of the world have access to someone giving them the good news of Jesus. There are Christians, and churches, and Scriptures available to them. By "unreached" we mean people who do not have access to the good news of Jesus. There are few Christians, few churches, and often no Scriptures.
Our first representative in the "reached" part of the world -- you can give him a hand if you want to -- is "Joe Christian.” He trusts and loves and follows Jesus Christ. I am going to give him a Bible to show that He loves the good news of Jesus.
Our next two representatives in the "reached" part of the world are "nominal Christians." We're going to give them name tags because they are Christians in name only. They probably go to church on Easter and Christmas. They would call themselves Christians. But they are not personally trusting Jesus.
Our last three representatives in the "reached" part of the world are "non-Christians within reach of the gospel." They know they are not Christians and would not claim to be. But they are living in places where they can easily learn about him. They can talk with Christians they work with -- or live near. If they want to visit a church, there is one close by. We're going to give them sunglasses because they are living in places where the light of the gospel is shining, but they are not seeing it.
So these are the reached people -- people who have access to the gospel.
Now we're going to move to the unreached part of the world. Our first representative of the "unreached" part represents Atheists of the world, found mostly in Eastern Europe and China. We're putting a red scarf around this guy to show that when he was a young boy in China, he joined the Red Brigade. He was taught to be a good Chinese, a good communist, and a good atheist. All his life he has heard that there is no God and that only uneducated people believe in God.
Our next three friends are going to represent the Muslims of the world. Almost 1.5 billion people are Muslim. Muslims believe and recite "there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet." They have been taught that Jesus did not die on the Cross. They hope to go to heaven when they die, if their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds on the day of judgment. They have no assurance of forgiveness or of eternal life. They need the gospel.
Our next representative in the unreached part is a Hindu. I will put this red dot on his forehead. Found predominately in India and the nation of Nepal, Hindus believe there are millions of gods. They believe in reincarnation; they try to live a good life so they might can back as a priest or a god, because if they live a bad life they might come back as a dog or a rat.
Our last representative in the unreached part of the world represents two different blocks of unreached peoples. First the Buddhists. Buddhist monks usually wear orange robes and shave their heads. They're trying to work their way to Nirvana which is a state of blissful nothingness.
And lastly this person represents the Tribal peoples of the world. Contrary to the image of living a peaceful, carefree village existence, tribal people live in constant fear of evil spirits and work hard to appease these spirits. There are approximately 3,000 unreached tribal groups, and many of these still don't have the Bible in their own language.
So these six people represent the thousands of unreached people groups in the world, most of which are either Atheist, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or Tribal animists.
So these 12 people give us a picture of the world in terms of the spread of the gospel. Now if we have the world in front of us like this -- what's missing? Missionaries! So let's have 10 more volunteers who will come up and represent our missionary task force. Stand here in a line -- and I will commission you -- "Go into all the world and preach the gospel."
Now -- you missionaries have to decide where to go. So on the count of three -- go and stand in front of the people you feel like you should go to.
Isn't this great! Most of our missionaries went to the unreached part of the world. If this was the actual situation in the world today -- we'd be right in line with God's heart for all the peoples. But unfortunately this is not an accurate picture. I have to rearrange some of you to show what is actually happening in the world today. (All but 2 go to reached part of world.)
So this is what the world really looks like. In actuality, 8 out of every 10 missionaries who learn another language and work cross-culturally go to work among people who are within reach of the gospel.
Now the point is not that all these missionaries should leave what they are doing and go work among the unreached peoples. They are doing good work. But the point is to show us how much need there is among the unreached people groups.
But remember: when will the end come? When the gospel has been preached to all the people groups. When people have been saved from all the people groups. So can you see how important this is? Jesus will not come back until all the people groups have been reached. So we should long to see all the people groups reached.
Let's thank our volunteers for bringing us the world.
What this means for us:
First, be deeply concerned about the plight of the unreached. Romans 1 makes it clear that they have known enough through the evidence of God in creation to respond rightly to God. But they have responded the same way we all have – we’ve all turned our backs on God.
So the unreached will only be saved if people like you and me go to them and learn their culture and language and share the gospel with them. So we should be deeply concerned that there are 12,000 unreached people groups.
Second, pray for the unreached. We are specially involved with two unreached people groups: the U-people in Central Asia, and the Rif Berbers in north Morocco. So set aside time regularly to pray for these people groups, and for the missionaries we know in both places.
Third, go on a short-term mission to an unreached people group. Lord willing we’ll be sending a team to north Morocco next Spring – 2010. It would last around 10 days. The team will raise money for the trip from our church body and others you know. We’ve had teams go as families – the Kuehns all went together, the Mancini’s took Holden, and the Marshes all went together. So there’s lots of possibilities.
And fourth, consider giving your life to bringing the gospel to an unreached people group. Followers of Jesus are missionaries wherever we live. So you’re a missionary whether you’re here in San Jose or in Central Asia. But as great as the need is here, the need there is much greater. So here’s my challenge. Ask Jesus if this is His call on your life. We elders are praying that we as a church could send out dozens of career, long-term missionaries to unreached people groups over the next years. So far we’ve sent out one family. Who’s going to be next? Ask Jesus if it’s you.