The Courage We Need for Mission

00:00:00.000 | One year ago today, health officials in the United States confirmed COVID case number

00:00:10.880 | 1000. A year ago today. What a year since. In uncertain times like the ones that we live

00:00:18.240 | in today, it's especially relevant to ponder God's providence, the theme of Pastor John's

00:00:23.960 | new book by that title. The reassuring truth of scripture is that God's sovereign decree

00:00:30.440 | governs over everything, over every virus and over every nation and over every human

00:00:37.000 | ruler. He does this to bring about his final purpose and end for his creation. It's such

00:00:44.160 | an awesome doctrine. When we can see it and delight in it, it can make a very deep and

00:00:49.360 | definite impact in how we live our lives, even down to how we fulfill our mission on

00:00:53.800 | earth. It's one of 10 implications Pastor John is focusing on in this little Wednesday

00:00:58.000 | series on the podcast. Last time in episode 1595, we looked at how God's providence gives

00:01:03.800 | us the confidence that God has the right and the power to answer our prayers. Providence

00:01:09.440 | gives us the confidence to pray. That was implication number eight. Here now with implication

00:01:15.360 | number nine is Pastor John. This ninth real life effect, real life benefit of believing

00:01:25.360 | firmly in the all embracing providence of God is very closely related to the previous

00:01:33.120 | benefit concerning prayer. There, back in that previous podcast, we turned the objection

00:01:43.640 | that prayer is pointless if providence is true upside down and said, "No, no, no.

00:01:51.000 | In fact, the truth of providence makes prayer powerful, not problematic." Now I'm going

00:01:59.000 | to do the very same thing with evangelism and world missions that I did with prayer.

00:02:07.280 | So here is the ninth glorious life-changing benefit of believing in the all embracing

00:02:15.980 | providence of God. It shows us that evangelism and world missions, finishing the Great Commission

00:02:25.200 | against all human odds, these human activities are absolutely essential for people to be

00:02:36.000 | converted to Christ and for the nations to be reached and will be successful. These essential

00:02:45.320 | human activities of evangelism and world missions will be successful precisely because of God's

00:02:53.520 | all embracing providence that has the right and the power to convert sinners to himself.

00:03:01.480 | That's the ninth glorious life-changing benefit, being confident of that double reality. In

00:03:10.840 | other words, the reality of God's providence guarantees the sending and going of missionaries

00:03:19.040 | and evangelists and witnesses to the neighborhoods and nations of the world. And it guarantees

00:03:25.400 | that through these human means, conversions to Christ will happen, and the church of Christ

00:03:33.680 | will be built in all the places and among all the peoples that God intends for it to

00:03:39.960 | be. The objection to evangelism and world missions

00:03:44.200 | that I am turning upside down into a blessing, a blessing of providence, rather than a problem

00:03:51.640 | for providence, is this. They say, the objectors say, when they consider this view of providence

00:03:58.600 | that I'm asking you to take so seriously, they say, "Well, there's no point in evangelism

00:04:05.600 | and missions since God has planned already, even from eternity, who will be saved."

00:04:13.000 | Now, again, just like with prayer that we saw last time, again, a glance at the Bible

00:04:21.640 | will reveal that God's plan to save people is through the Word. Romans 10, 17, "Faith

00:04:31.920 | comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word." And his plan is that this saving Word be preached

00:04:39.520 | by human beings. The Bible is plain. No one believes and is saved without hearing the

00:04:48.960 | gospel. The new birth comes through the living and abiding Word, the gospel. 1 Peter 1.23

00:04:59.920 | goes like this, "You have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable

00:05:06.000 | through the living and abiding Word of God, and this Word is the good news that was preached

00:05:12.480 | to you." The gospel is not written in the clouds. It is entrusted to Christians who

00:05:20.320 | become witnesses and missionaries. If there were no human witnesses, there would be no

00:05:26.800 | salvation. Listen to Romans 10, 13-17, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be

00:05:35.640 | saved, but how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are

00:05:44.320 | they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone

00:05:51.880 | preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? So faith comes from hearing,

00:05:59.680 | and hearing through the Word of Christ." When Jesus commissioned Paul to the Gentiles,

00:06:06.520 | he said to do what only God can do. Listen to these words. These are the words of Jesus

00:06:14.080 | to Paul, "I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness

00:06:21.520 | to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins

00:06:27.840 | and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me." That's Acts 26, 17, and

00:06:34.480 | 18. Open blind eyes? Really? Liberate from Satan? Really? I mean, he's just a mere

00:06:41.040 | human being, right? That was Paul's mission, and it is ours. Jesus gives it to us, namely,

00:06:49.320 | to become the human means of what only God can do. Open the eyes of the blind, spiritually

00:06:57.760 | dead, raise them up to life. How do the blind see? How are the enslaved set free? Answer,

00:07:07.400 | by evangelism, by missions, by words, speaking the words. Faith comes by hearing, hearing

00:07:13.320 | by human words, speaking the Word of God. We are the instruments. We become in the hands

00:07:23.120 | of providence the means of the miracle of the conversion of sinners to Christ everywhere.

00:07:32.360 | But evangelism and world missions are even more amazing in the hands of providence. The

00:07:38.960 | obedient senders and goers in missions are not just the means of the miracle of conversion.

00:07:48.760 | They are themselves a miracle, the miracle of obedience. God's providence is miraculously

00:07:56.560 | at work in us for obedience before he uses us for the work of the conversion of others.

00:08:06.920 | We are a miracle before we work miracles in the providence of God. From start to finish,

00:08:15.540 | evangelism and world missions is a gracious work of providence. When we go or send in

00:08:23.640 | obedience to Christ, God has triumphed over our selfishness and our provincial limitations

00:08:30.600 | of his good news. And then, when we speak thus obediently to unbelievers, the Lord works

00:08:41.900 | the second miracle. According to Acts 6.14, the Lord opened Lydia's heart to give heed

00:08:55.720 | to what was said by Paul. The providence-created obedience of Paul speaking to Lydia is followed

00:09:04.320 | by the providence-created belief in the heart of Lydia.

00:09:10.720 | As in the case of prayer, the unthwartable providence of God is not a problem for evangelism

00:09:19.280 | and missions. It is their only hope of success. The obstacles to missions around the world

00:09:28.040 | today are insurmountable, but for one thing—that the providence of God is unstoppable. It cannot

00:09:37.240 | be stopped by closed countries. It cannot be stopped by hostile religions. It cannot

00:09:44.320 | be stopped by difficult languages and cultures. It cannot be stopped by the ultimate self-determination

00:09:52.680 | of the fallen human soul, not the self-determination of the Muslim soul or the self-determination

00:09:59.000 | of the Hindu soul or the self-determination of the Buddhist soul or the self-determination

00:10:04.920 | of the Jewish soul or the purely secular soul, because in the world of God's providence,

00:10:12.060 | there is no such thing as the ultimate self-determination of the human will. It does not exist. Only

00:10:22.360 | God is ultimately, sovereignly self-determining. We may—indeed, we must—build our lives

00:10:31.520 | and our mission on this confidence. "I will build my church," says the Lord Jesus,

00:10:39.400 | "and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," Matthew 16, 18. That is a statement

00:10:44.880 | of sovereign, purposeful providence. And to that end, Matthew 24, 14, "This gospel of

00:10:52.120 | the kingdom will be proclaimed." That's a statement of sovereign providence. It will

00:10:57.360 | be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the

00:11:02.920 | end will come. One of my most urgent prayers for this book

00:11:07.680 | on providence is that God will use this book to catapult thousands of new missionaries

00:11:17.240 | into God's harvest with undaunted confidence in God's unstoppable providence.

00:11:24.360 | Amen. May it be. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening. We are normally answering

00:11:31.700 | audience questions, and you can ask us a question. You can search or browse all 1,598 of our

00:11:38.320 | past episodes, or you can subscribe to the podcast. You can do all that right now at

00:11:42.680 | DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Episode 1599 is up next. 1599. We're going to look at how

00:11:53.840 | we know who God is. It's a highly debated question. Who are we as Christians to say

00:12:00.200 | who God is? We're going to look at that and our basis of authority for speaking about

00:12:04.260 | God, and we're going to do that next time on Friday with Pastor John in the studio again

00:12:08.460 | with us. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.

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The Courage We Need for Mission

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