Christ Our Great Reward

The following is a lightly edited transcript provided by a transcription service. Please check the video before quoting.

David Platt at CROSS CON16

If you have your Bible, and I hope you or somebody around you does, you can look on with it, let me invite you to go ahead and open with me to numbers Chapter 13, numbers in the very beginning of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus.

Then you get to numbers, numbers chapter 13. So for those of you who have been attending the cross-conference the last few days, these next few minutes will represent in a sense what this entire conference has been headed toward.

We’ve been talking for three days about God’s plan to make his glory and his gospel known in all nations, among all the peoples of the earth, how every single one of us is called by him to play a part in that plan, either as a sender or a goer. When it comes to people who have not been reached with the gospel.

We either give our lives to go to them or we give our lives to send and support those who are called by God to go to them. In the next few minutes, I want to give you an opportunity to express what you believe God is leading you to do in light of his work in your life.

Now, for those of you who are joining from Crew and others who are listening even via simulcast, I want to give you the exact same opportunity this morning. I’ve prayed for you, specifically prayed for those of you from Crew.

I remember being at Crew Conference when I was in college right after Christmas, and the effect of that conference on my life. I’ve prayed for you specifically. I’ve prayed for those of you who are listening, and watching online, I’ve prayed that God might use the next few moments maybe in a surprising way to utterly alter the trajectory of your life.

So here’s what’s going to happen at the end of our time in God’s word, a few minutes from now, I’m going to invite people all across this room to stand if they would say, if you would say today, based upon God’s leadership, through his word and his spirit and my life, I believe I need to communicate to my church my desire to go as a missionary specifically to cross barriers for the spread of the gospel among the unreached among people who don’t have access to the gospel.

So I’m going to ask you to stand if you would say that at the same time. If as much as you can tell you believe God is saying you need to stay to make disciples where you live in your culture and to send others across cultures, then I’m going to invite you if that’s you, to stay seated and to be content and confident in that.

So this is not in any way a call to divide this room into two tiers. For the super Christians who are goers and the sub-Christians who are starters, the most important issue during that moment is not going to be whether or not you are sitting or standing. The most important issue in that moment is going to be whether or not you are being obedient and for some obedience will mean standing for others. Obedience will mean sitting and wanting to be clear.

When God Calls You to Go

For those of you who believe God may be calling you to go, those of you who will stand at that point, I want to be clear about what I’m not calling you to. So I’m not calling anybody today to move tomorrow to the Middle East.

I’m not calling anybody today to make some rash vow based on manipulated emotion for that matter. I’m not even calling anybody to make a decision like this alone. That’s why I want to emphasize that in your standing you would be saying that you believe the Lord is leading you to go to your church.

If you don’t have a church to join, go to that church and say to that church, I want to be sent. I want to be sent as a missionary. I want to cross barriers to the spread of the gospel to people who haven’t heard it.

So that’s the moment toward which the next few minutes are headed and we need the spirit of God to lead us in this room to that moment. So I want to pray for all of us right now in anticipation of what’s going to happen. A few minutes from now. Before we pray, I simply want to invite every follower of Christ in this room.

So every one of us, every student, every leader, every campus minister, crew, staffer, pastor, speaker, every single one of us in a fresh way right now just to put a blank check on the table with your life before God and to say whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it wherever you want me to go.

I will go with no strings attached to ask God with open hands. Are you leading me to go? Are you directing my future toward life among the nations to just ask him that with open hands as we go into this time in the world? So will you bow your heads with me as we pray together to God our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name in all the earth? We are asking you to cause your name to remain known as holy on all the earth.

May your kingdom come. We want your kingdom to come. May you be done. May your will be done in our lives and our future. May your will be done in this room in the next few minutes as it is in heaven.

We pray that in the next few minutes, you would speak clearly to us by your Spirit, through your word, oh God, that you would keep the adversary from distracting us, from hearing your voice, from doubting you.

When we hear your voice deceiving us and think that your voice can’t be trusted, help us to hear you clearly and help us so God will obey you completely no matter what you say, no matter what that means because we trust in you, we worship you and we pray.

I pray, oh God, that in the next few minutes, you would set apart men and women in this room in the same way you set apart Paul and Barnabas to go 2000 years ago. I pray. Oh God, we pray that the nations in the future might feel the ripple effects of what your spirit does in the next few minutes, I pray this humbly and boldly in Jesus’ name,

Amen. All right, you ready? We’re going to start by doing something a little different. I want to spend some time telling you a story that I hope will make a point that will lead us into the world. So I want you to imagine with me an 8-year-old boy named Samir. Samir’s name means pleasant companion.

Samir has two sisters. One is five years old. Her name is Amira, which means princess, and that’s exactly what she is to him. Samir prizes himself by taking care of his sister’s princess of a sister. He’s nothing short of a pleasant companion to her. And then there’s Raja, their baby sister born a short six ago. Her name means hope.

Together they lived in Syria with their father, mother, and grandmother. Samir’s parents were both teachers. His dad taught Arabic in a state-run school in Syria. While his mom taught music, they worked hard to provide for their family in a quaint village of about 4,000 people. Well, it used to be quaint.

Their village was situated on the border of three different provinces in Syria and over recent years, it has become trapped in a triangle of terror. The Syrian army on one side, the free Syrian army on the other side, and the Russian army in the middle Samir vividly remembers the first time a bomb landed in his village.

He was inside the house playing with a mirror when the door suddenly flew open. Samir’s dad, out of breath from running home as fast as he could, started yelling, get out of the house. A minute later, they were huddled together in a makeshift shelter while the sound of bombshells shot all around them, shrapnel littered the streets, and a sure sign to these Syrian villagers that their quaint homes had suddenly become a war zone.

It wasn’t long until electricity was out for most of the day, and schools could no longer function. Work came to a halt. Food and water were both becoming scarce. Bombs would fall day and night leaving no semblance of peace at any point for Samir or his family. Anxiety started to set in on this eight-year-old’s mind with a diversity of side effects. Samir was turning into a cowering stuttering version of himself.

Too scared to sleep at night, just waiting to wake up his sister and sprint with his family to the shelter at any moment. One night he overheard his parents saying, we can’t stay here anymore. His father told his mother, we need to go somewhere else. Samir’s mom asked the obvious question, of where for generations their families had lived and worked and that village, Syria was all they’d ever known. Where would they go?

How would they support themselves? Samir’s dad shared how he had seen and heard of relocation opportunities, how if they could just get across Turkey to the A GNC, they could cross over to Greece and there they’d be free.

If only they could get to Greece, then they would have passage into the rest of Europe and they could start over. Samir’s mom immediately expressed concern saying, do you really think we can travel with your mom and three kids including a six-month-old baby, hundreds of miles across Syria and then Turkey, and then how do we get across the A GNC to Europe? She asked, and who’s to say they won’t turn us right around when we get there?

I don’t know. Samir’s dad said he sunk into silence, but after a long pause, he spoke again. I also don’t know any other option. We either stay here and die or we risk our lives and go. Within days the family was packed. Everyone but the baby had a bag to carry.

And just like that, generations of history and the entire family’s possessions were reduced to five plastic socks, one of which contained all the money Samir’s mother and father had saved. They set out on foot leaving what used to be the comforts of home behind for a journey into the unknown.

It was about a three-day trip to the Turkish border, some of it by bus, most of it by foot. In light of the various dangers associated with travel on the main roads the first night, their family slept in an abandoned coal factory.

The Greatest Challenge: Samir

The next night was spent in a stable, the third day posed the greatest challenge, a massive mountain to cross on foot of the Turkish border, about a nine-hour trek with the sound of bullets and bombs nearby, they ran out of water. About halfway through Samir’s dad was now carrying Amira.

His mom was carrying Raja, the baby Samir, and his grandmother plotting along behind each one of them ready to quit if it weren’t for others, pushing them along. But they finally reached Turkey in need of rest and relief, neither of which they would find.

You see, ever since refugees began trekking across Turkey, an entire industry of exploitation has begun. Refugees need simple goods, water, food, supplies for the journey to the coast, and a swath of smugglers are there to charge exorbitant prices for everything they need. Samir’s dad had no choice but to pay whatever they asked to get.

Whatever his family needed, he saw his money slipping away. Yet the highest sum was still left to come. As they approached the coast, they found themselves joined by thousands of other refugees, the sea of humanity seeking asylum.

Samir’s dad checked his family into a hostile humble semblance of a hotel where the family would cram into a small room with one bed. Samir’s grandmother would sleep on it with the baby while the rest of them would be side by side on the floor.

Samir nuzzled up next to his dad that night. He thought about all that. He missed his home, his friends, and his life and thought about all that. He’d seen the effects of war all around him. His tears came to his eyes, though he took solace in the fact that he no longer heard bombs overhead, at least here they were safe.

The next morning, Samir went with his dad to find a way to cross the sea. The system of smugglers here at the coast was nearly impossible to tell who you could trust and who you couldn’t. So a ferry across the c would cost you or me about $17.

But smugglers were charging refugees approximately one to $2,000 a piece for each member of a family, including infants, to cross to the other side, and they wouldn’t be crossing on a ferry. They’d be crossing either on a small boat or a rubber dinghy. A raft made for about 30 people with no guarantee that it would make it to the other side.

Samir heard people telling the stories the day before, 34 people, including 15 children and four toddlers had drowned when an overcrowded boat capsized due to storms and high winds. Those 34 joined approximately 2,500 people who have died trying to get to Greece.

The Sea Has Become a Graveyard

That great sea has literally become a graveyard. The journey across the aian is delicate depending on everything from weather conditions to armed criminals masked men on jet skis are known to attack boats smashing into them with sticks, threatening to drown them if they won’t surrender their valuables, anything they have with them.

After a while, Samir and his dad met a man who said he could get them across for $1,800 a piece, $1,800 a piece that would be over $10,000 for Samir’s family. Samir’s Dad knew that would come close to draining his savings, but what choice did he have?

The living conditions in Turkey were harsh. There’s a reason people are spending their savings and risking their lives to leave that country. So Samir’s dad reluctantly agreed. I’ll try to get you on a more sturdy boat, the smuggler said, but we will see. Simply keep your phone by my side and I’ll call you when it’s time.

Samir and his dad left the meeting with this man and immediately went to buy life jackets, never realizing their quality is so poor that many people have drowned wearing them. Once they were purchased, Samir and his dad went back to the hostel where the rest of the family was waiting.

They gave them the news, and and told them that it needed to be ready at any time. That night they received a call from the smuggler, too much rain and wind. He said we can’t go tonight. The next night, the same message would come, and the next and the next and the next.

Until some nights a message never even came. Samir’s dad began to worry if he’d made a mistake working with this particular smuggler if the passage was ever actually going to be a reality. As long as they were working with him, they would spend long days in the hostel, meeting other families, sharing each other’s stories, spurring on each other’s hope and what might lie ahead on the other side of the sea.

That hope was fading fast until one night the phone rang suddenly and the voice of the smuggler on the other end said, you can travel on a rubber dinghy tonight. Come to the meeting place immediately.

And just like that, Samir’s dad had a choice. He’d waited for weeks hoping his family would be on a more sturdy, safe, secure boat instead of a small rubber dinging amidst these crashing ant waves. Now he had minutes to decide if he was ready to risk his family’s life on a dinghy, an utter exhaustion from the journey. By this point, Samir’s dad thought this may be our only chance.

So he looked at his family and said, grab your bags and life jackets. Let’s go. Soon they were crammed into a small van with other refugees making their way through alleys toward a hidden crag in the sea. There is a raft for 30 people.

A raft built for 30 people was waiting for 60 refugees arriving in vans, they began loading the raft one by one, cramming closely next to each other. As each of them climbed in, they were immediately cold, able to feel the freezing temperature from the water around them. One of the refugees was appointed by the smugglers to drive the boat. A task that man and nobody else on the boat had ever done.

The smugglers started the engine, pushed them out to shore, and thus began the longest three hours of Samir’s short life. Just imagine being crammed into that boat. See the pitch-black darkness. Feel the shiver of the sea as its waves toss you back and forth. Hear the sound of people screaming in fear as a man who’s never driven a boat before, nervously navigates the Asian C with 60 lives in his hands.

Trials and Tribulation

Samir looked over at his mom and saw fear on her face for the first time in this journey, and she clutched his baby sister tightly knowing that if she or the baby were to fall off now, there was no way the baby would live. To make matters worse, freezing water was pouring into the boat with every passing wave, which became a major problem as they approached the coast because the raft was now completely overloaded and it was starting to sag into the seawater. Somebody cried we need to bail out this water.

And they started trying to do so, but to little avail, there was too much. So another person yelled out in panic, wait, we need to shed more weight. So they began throwing what little valuables they had left among them overboard did little to help something more significant was needed. And it was at that point that Samir’s dad suddenly stood.

He looked into his son’s eyes then across at his wife, and he said, I want you and everyone else on this boat to live. I’ll do my best to meet you on shore. And without any further hesitation, he jumped.

Samir screamed in horror as his dad, just like that was gone. His mom, sister, and grandmother, wailing as well, but it was too late. The loss of weight immediately made a difference, and the raft began moving quickly toward the land.

Everyone was relieved except for Samir and his family as they now watched his dad disappear into the darkness of the Aegean Sea. After a time they arrived on shore, and and people jumped out of the boat. Their clothes quickly drenched as they all trudged to shore. For most of these refugees, shouts of jubilation suddenly filled the air.

We’ve made it we’re in Europe, they cried. Samir’s family, however, didn’t join the celebration while others ran away from the sea. Samir and his family couldn’t take their eyes off of it. Tears streamed down his mother’s face as she now faced the prospect of the journey ahead, ahead of life ahead, apart from her husband. What do we do? Mommy Samir and Amir asked Samir’s mom was silent not knowing what to say.

When an aid worker suddenly came running over to them, she’d heard the story of what Samir’s father had done and she told them that there were Greek coast guard boats patrolling those waters. There was a chance she said they could find him and pick him up. Samir’s family now found themselves clinging to the sliver of hope.

As they came up the shore wrapped themselves in warm blankets and waited. They waited for an hour, then two until a Greek coast guard ship radioed in and said the man who jumped from the rubber boat had been rescued. Not long after that, they brought him ashore and Samir’s family’s celebration could begin, but the journey wasn’t over.

A 40-mile walk led them to a processing center where they would wait in line for papers, food, water, and hing, for everything. It didn’t take long to feel more like cattle than people,

But in the refugee camp, there was a short-term stay. Their goal was to get to the border of Macedonia as soon as possible. There they heard was the easiest access en route to Germany, the place where most of these refugees wanted to end up. So after a night in the camp, Samir’s dad wanted them to waste no time and the journey continued.

They caught a bus to a nearby city about 52 miles south of the Macedonian border. When they arrived there, Samir’s dad looked at his wife, kids, and mother and realized they did not have the energy for a 52-mile walk. So he found a taxi driver who agreed to take them to the border for the equivalent of about $300.

Nearly all of the family’s remaining money hesitantly Samir’s dad gave the driver the $300 family climbed into the taxi. 20 minutes later though the driver abruptly stopped and told him to get out of the car. Samir’s dad protested. I paid you to take us to the border. He said I gave you the money.

You asked us to take us to the border. The taxi driver wouldn’t. Listen, I’m not taking you any further. He said I’ve taken you as far as you’ve paid me to take you. I’ll only take you farther if you pay me more. Samir’s. Dad responded can’t pay you more. I don’t have any more to pay you. The driver responded that you and your family would have to get out.

And so they did. And for the next two days, they trudged along using the last pennies. They had to buy small sips of water and snacks for food until they arrived at the Macedonian border, exhausted and dehydrated.

The Passage to Europe

This was their destination. The destination everyone had said was the place or passage into inner Europe became a reality, but nothing could have prepared them for what they found when they arrived. The Macedonian border had just been closed a couple of days before. Passage into inner Europe was now blocked and this refugee camp made for 2000 people was now filled with 15,000 people. All of the established tents were taken.

The only option for shelter was a thin small tent made for two or three people for the family to set up in the field. The tent was barely enough for the six of them to sit in, much less lie down by now. It was getting close to dark. So Samir went with his dad to stand in line for food, water, and blankets while his mom, sisters, and grandmother waited in the tent.

The temperature was dropping. It will be a cold night. So they stood in separate lines, the dad and one and the 8-year-old son and the other. And as they stood there, the rain began to fall. Freezing rain, relentless rain that would not stop.

Two hours later with a couple of blankets and a portion of food, they returned to the tent and zipped it open only to discover their entire family, shivering, wet as the water was creeping into the tent from above and below them quickly, Samir and his dad crammed. I zipped the tent closed. They passed out the blankets to the girls.

Samir and his dad would go without food and water. It didn’t take long for the meager meal to be finished. They were all exhausted. So they did their best to situate themselves to sleep. The adults propped up while the kids laid down upon them.

They sat and lay there in the relative silence of the tent with cold water seeping in among them, freezing rain, pelting all around them. And that’s when it happened. They broke. They all broke. It started when Raja, this sweet now seven-month-old baby girl whose name means hope began coughing in the cold.

And when Samir’s dad heard the sound of his baby girl getting sick, he could no longer hold it in. As she coughed, he began to cry. Earlier while he was waiting in line for food and water, he had heard other men talking about a new government plan to export Syrian refugees from Greece back to Turkey.

Up until this point, every step of the way he had held out hope for his family in the future, but now crammed into this cold tent with no money to his name and no hope for a better tomorrow. Nothing could hold back his tears.

He wept, his wife cuddled up next to him, followed and turned, and then his mom and then Amira and finally Samira, they all cried uncontrollably as Samir’s dad said over and over again to his family. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. They cried that night until they were weary from their weeping and without another word spoken, they all fell asleep. A family with no hope for anything the morning might hold.

Now I need you to know that this is not just one true story. It is a conglomeration of different true stories of different individuals, and different families, some of whom I’ve met, some of whom among whom we are working. I’d read and heard stories like this, but everything changed when I walked late at night on the Macedonian border and a sea of tents swimming in mud as freezing rain fell on them.

Looking at these lines of men and women standing and listening to the sounds of their children crying and their babies coughing. Children the same age as my kids, men and women just like you and me living in a semblance of hell on earth.

And these are not just a few stories here or there. These are stories that are repeated over and over and over again. Among millions of people never before in history have so many people in the world been displaced, put in danger, or forced from their homes.

In Syria alone, 11 million people, half of the country have either been displaced or killed. And I mentioned numbers like that just to show the sheer enormity of the refugee crisis that surrounds us because I fear that on a whole, we are paying so little attention to this or if we do pay attention to it, we are looking at it through the lens of political punditry and partisan debates regarding whether or not we should allow a relative few refugees into our land. It is a sure sign of American self-centeredness that we have taken the suffering of millions of people and turned it into an issue that is all about us.

It’s not just our country, our culture, it’s the church. The way so many are progressing. Christians today talk about refugees as springing from a foundation of fear, not faith. Our thoughts and opinions flow from a view of the world that is far more American than it is biblical and far more concerned with the preservation of our country than it is with the accomplishment of the great commission. And it’s that great commission that I want to point you to.

I spend all this time telling you this story because I want you to hear that doors are open right now for the spread of the gospel and the world that has never been open. People who are open, Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, and Kurds, argue for hope and are open to listening to the good news of Jesus Christ. One Syrian woman said to our missionary, I’m tired of being tied to a religion that doesn’t offer me hope. I want to be a new person.

She, her husband, and their friend all placed their faith in Christ that day and were baptized outside the camp. Two Curtis brothers whose family had been killed by radicals in Iraq, including their parents, right in front of their eyes, straight up said, we don’t want to be Muslim anymore. We want to follow Jesus.

Palestinian-Born

While he was standing in line for water, a Palestinian-born man who was raised in Syria because of conflict in Palestine. So just think of his life fleeing from conflict in Palestine now civil war in Syria. He’s separated from his wife and his children. Not sure when or how in the world he will ever unite with them, but he saw our missionary distributing water, pulled him aside, and asked him two questions. One, do you speak Arabic?

To which our missionary said yes. The second question was, can you tell me how to become a Christian? I could go on and on with story after story. I got a text just the other day saying that eight new believers were baptized in one refugee camp.

But this is why I wanted to spend time sharing this story because I want to make one truth crystal clear to you as this conference closes, unprecedented opportunities abound right now for the spread of the gospel among people who’ve never heard it. If we will take them, say that again. Unprecedented opportunities abound right now for the spread of the gospel among people who’ve never heard it. If we will take them,

If we refuse to retreat from a mission in fear and instead risk our lives on a mission in faith. And that’s the question I want to ask us. That’s the question I want to ask you right now. Are you going to retreat from a mission in fear or are you going to risk your life on a mission? In faith, you’re going to retreat from mission and fear or risk your life on mission and faith. Now, we’re not the first people to face that kind of question.

So in the passage you have before you, the people of God were standing on the brink of the promised land, a land of opportunity. God had told them he was going to lead them out of slavery and bring them to a fruitful, abundant, prosperous place.

They had lived in slavery, oppressed, abused, overworked, and overwhelmed by the Egyptian dynasty that ruled them, but God had delivered them miraculously. He turned an entire river into blood. One day he sent frogs everywhere, the gnats, the flies, he struck down their livestock.

God sent boils on the skin of their captors, followed by harrowing hail from heaven, then a swarm of locusts followed by three days of total darkness. In the end, Egyptian households suffered the loss of their firstborn sons. And before you knew it, they were handing the Israelites goods and gold and sending them on their way.

It didn’t take long for the Egyptians to wish they had not done that. So they started pursuing the Israelites all the way to the edge of the Red Sea. They had them trapped until God split the sea in half. And he told his people to walk through the sea and they did.

And as they looked in their rearview mirrors, the water came crashing down on their enemies. In the days to come, God would lead them through a cloud by day and a pillar fire. By night when they were thirsty, he’d give them water from rocks.

When they were hungry, he’d send bread from the sky. He gave them his word. He showed them his grace every step of the way promising them the same thing. He had promised the forefathers, I’m leading you to a great land and it’s all going to be yours. So they arrived. They could see it with their own eyes. They were standing on the precipice.

And they decided to send some spies to check it out. And spies came back with a report. The land is glorious. They said, so pick up with me in number 1325. At the end of 40 days, they returned from spying out the land and they came to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Perran at Kadesh.

They brought back words to them and all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. They told ’em, we came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey and this is its fruit,

Change is Constant

However, this is where everything changes. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of a there, the Amalekites dwell in the land of the neb, the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan.

But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and occupy it for we are well able to overcome it.” The men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against the people because they’re stronger than we are.

So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out saying The land through which we’ve gone to spite out is a land that devours its inhabitants. And all the people that we saw in it were of great height. There we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anac who come from the Nephilim and we seem to ourselves like grasshoppers. And so we seemed to like them.

God had called them to this land of opportunity, but the majority of the spies said, we can’t take it. It’s not safe, it’s not secure. We can’t do it. We won’t do it. And the people responded in chapter 14 verse one.

Then all the congregation raised a loud cry and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, the whole congregation said to them, would that we have died in the land of Egypt or would that we have died in this wilderness?

Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword, our wives and our little ones will become prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? They said to one another, let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.

Do you see what just happened? I just see the anatomy of retreat in fear in at least four ways. What happened here? Well, one, they disregarded the goodness of God. Listen to their first words, would we have died in the land of Egypt? In an instant, they had forgotten the glorious grace of God. He had delivered them miraculously from slavery. As they stand on the brink of a good land and exceedingly good land, they say, God is not good to us.

What Happesn when you Disregard the Greatness of God

He should have left us to die in slavery, they disregarded the goodness of God. Two, they doubted the greatness of God. Do you hear verse three? Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Oh, don’t miss it.

The line of thought here, the Lord Yahweh has brought us to this land to die. That’s what he’s doing. It’s like they forgot how God split a sea in half for them. They’ve forgotten plague after plague after plague through which God demonstrated his power, him revealing himself in consuming fire on Mount Sinai sitting here saying, we can’t do this.

Notice what they’re doing. They’re magnifying potential problems. You look up at the spies report in chapter 30 13, verses 32 and 33 that we read about Nephilim this Race of Giants, large people. And the reality is they were likely small in number. But the way they’re talking here, it sounds like everybody in the promised land is Goliath himself. It’s not true.

But they had convinced themself it was, and the more they thought about those people, the bigger they got. Does that ever happen to you? Ever come face to face with an obstacle, a barrier that you face in your life? And the more you think about it, the more you focus on it, the bigger and bigger and bigger it gets to where it drives you to worry and fear.

And magnified potential problems and minimized powerful promises. Look back at chapter 13 verse one, the very beginning of chapter 13, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel.

That’s God speaking, I am giving you this land. Now don’t miss this. You have to even know the lead-up to this. So you look at chapter 13, verse 22 when it talks about the spies going up in the land. Listen to where they went. Verse 22, they went up into the nab and came to Hebron, Ahman, Shai, and Talai.

The descendants of Anac were there. He was built seven years before Zan in Egypt. So they went to He where they saw the descendants of Ants, people who were intimidating them. But we have to realize their significance in where they’re standing in He.

So hold your place here for a minute. Go back to the very first book in the Bible, Genesis. Look at Genesis chapter 13. You’ve got to see this. So turn, look at this mark. Make a note. They’re in your Bible and your notes somewhere like Genesis chapter 13 verse 14.

So what’s going on here is that God had called Abraham Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 and said, I’m going to lead you to a land that I’m going to give you. I’m going to give land to settle in to make it yours. So where is that land? Look at Genesis 13, verse 14.

The Lord said to Abraham after he had separated from him, lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are northward and southward and eastward and western. For all the land that you see, I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted, arise, walk to the length in the breath of the land for I will give it to you.

So Abraham moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of ma ray, which are re he, and there he built an altar to the Lord. So you keep reading in Genesis and you’ll never guess where Abraham and his wife Sarah are buried and Hebrew, same with Isaac and Rebecca, same with Jacob and Leah, Israel and Leah buried at he.

Then you turn over to Genesis chapter 15. Look at Genesis chapter 15, verse 13. In this land in Hebrew, the Lord said to Abraham, know for certain that your offspring will be a sojourner in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there they will be afflicted for 400 years. That’s exactly what ended in Egypt where they were slaves. But he said so long before, decades before he said, after that, I will bring judgment on the nations they serve. And afterward, they shall come out with great possessions.

As for you, you shall go to your father’s in peace. You shall be buried in an old age and they shall come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. So this is the place where God had made a covenant with Abraham and said to him, this is your land. I’m going to bring you and your descendants back here.

So now it’s here. Come back to numbers 13 and 14 here in the land of promise where the patriarchs to whom that promise was given are buried, that the people of God are saying, we can’t take this land. You’d think they’d have gotten back to Hebrew, fallen on their faces in aw, e and said, God is faithful.

He’s brought us back right here. We’ve heard about this. He’s brought us here. Instead, they’re so preoccupied with the sandal sizes of a few guys in He and they say, we can’t do this and minimize God’s promises while magnifying potential problems, ultimately doubting the greatness of God himself.

Experience the Blessings of God

They disregarded the goodness of God. They doubted the greatness of God. And as a result, this is the third step in the anatomy of retreat, they disobeyed the word of God. They disobeyed the word of God. Back to chapter 14, verse four, they said to one another, let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.

So they want to turn around in disobedience and as a result of that one decision, this is the fourth step in the anatomy of retreat. As a result of that one decision, they disqualify themselves from the blessing of God. That is the point of the story. Retreat in fear. Robs the people of God from the blessing of God, retreat in fear.

Robs God’s people from God’s blessing. The 10 spies died almost immediately and every single person in the congregation, apart from Joshua and Caleb who was an adult, was sentenced to die in the wilderness Here, God humbled words to his people. Chapter 14, verse 35, I, the Lord have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me in this wilderness. They shall come to a full end and there they shall die.

And yet they still don’t get it. They try to fight after God has said this and they’re defeated soundly. So mark it down, brothers and sisters. If God is for you, no one can stand against you. But if God is against you, you have no hope.

Nevertheless, there are two men who are different. Chapter 14, verse five. Then Moses and Aaron fell in their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel and Joshua, the son of none. And Caleb, the son of Jah who was among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, the land which we passed through to spite out is an exceedingly good land.

Oh, do you see it? So now the anatomy of risk and faith in those same four ways turned around. So number one, they believed in the goodness of God. This is a good land, they said, and God has made it good. Do you know why? He’s made it good for us. They knew God had been gracious to them. That’s why God had brought them to this point.

Believe in the Goodness of God

They believed in the goodness of God. Second, they trusted the greatness of God. Verse eight, if the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us. A land that flows with milk and honey. God will give it to us. This is the point. Yeah, there are some big people, and notice what Caleb and Joshua are saying.

They’re not saying a piece of cake guys like we can do this. They’re saying, yes, they’re big, they’re bigger than us. We can’t do this alone, but God is with us. He’s bigger, he’s powerful. What he has chosen to do on behalf of his people all throughout the is to put his people in places where they can’t do things on their own. And God is faithful in those places to provide for their needs according to his power, we can trust his greatness.

You see where others saw an obstacle, these two saw opportunity. Were there obstacles? Of course, there were. But in Joshua and Caleb’s eyes, those obstacles were mere opportunities for God to display his power turnover. Real quick to the right, to Joshua chapter 15, you got to see this Joshua chapter 15.

So once they make it into the promised land, Caleb is allotted his portion of the promised land. I want you to check this out. Joshua chapter 15. So you turn past Deuteronomy to Joshua. Joshua chapter 15, verse 13. Listen to what this says.

According to the commandment of the Lord to Joshua, he gave to Caleb the son of Jah, a portion among the people of Judah eth Arba, that is Hebrew. Arba was the father of Enoch, and Caleb drove out from there, the three sons of Anak, Shai Ahman, and Talai, the descendants of Enoch.

Did you realize Caleb Caleb is 85 years old at this point? Do you see what he just took them out? This 85-year-old man just took down the giant obstacles to God’s people as opportunities for God’s power. So don’t miss it.

Others were worrying about what men could do. They were confident in what God could do. Back in chapter 14, verse nine, just don’t rebel against the Lord. Don’t fear the people of the land, but they’re bred for us. Their protection is removed from them and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. You cannot stop the people of God with the presence of God, period. So what did they do? The third step in this anatomy of risk and faith.

They obeyed the word of God. They stood up to the people and almost cost them their lives. The people said to stone them. But at that moment, the glory of the Lord, much like we saw in Reva, in Acts chapter seven, rose on behalf of his servants, and in their obedience so forth, part of this anatomy of risk and faith, they would experience the blessing of God.

So what is the result of risk and faith? Experience? God’s blessing. They go into the land, and Joshua from the tribe of Efram would become the dominant tribe in the north of Canaan, and Caleb from the tribe of Judah would become the dominant tribe in the South.

The Book of Numbers

So do you know who this book, the Book of Numbers was written for? It was written for the sons and daughters who would enter into that land. It was written to remind them of the sins of their moms and dads, and they disregarded God’s goodness doubted his greatness disobeyed his word,and missed his blessing.

It’s written to remind them that God can only be provoked so far. But here’s the deal. It wasn’t just written for that generation. It was written for generations to come. You read through the Psalms and the prophets, you’ll see the Israelites over and over again. Looking back to this day, you look in the New Testament and look at Hebrews three and four.

You’ll see Hebrews 13, all kinds of different places. You’ll see the people of God, the church, looking back to this day, what happened at Baria when the people of God retreated in fear instead of risking their lives and faith. In other words, it wasn’t just written for that generation, it was written for this generation.

It was written down to us in this road for and thousands of years later, the same question sits before the people of God in this room. And I’m not saying the situation is exactly the same today as what happened in numbers 13, and 14, that all the parallels are there. But I’m confident this story is intended to confront us with this question at this conference. Are we going to retreat from the mission in fear? Are we going to risk our lives in mission and faith?

Believe in the Goodness of God

And I want to urge us today, I want to urge you across this room and view a world in great need of the grace and glory of God and opportunities to make his grace and glory known. I want to urge you, to believe in the goodness of God. When God calls you to a mission in the world, he calls you to a mission for your own good.

People say I don’t know if I can give God a blank check with my life. What if he calls me to West Africa in the middle of Boko Haram or in the middle of Somalia Al-Shabaab? Or what if he calls me to go to northern Iraq or Syria in the middle of ISIS, or if that’s where he calls me to go, what about a husband or a wife or kids?

I mean, I could lose everything, my future, all of this. So the thought of a blank check with your life may be frightening to you, but if it is, I just want to remind you, don’t forget who you’re giving the blank check to. He is good. God is so good, and he loves you so much. He loves you so much. He sent his son to pay the price for all your sins and rebellion against him.

So not based on anything you do, but simply faith in him as the one who lived the life. You could not live a life of perfect obedience to God and one who died to death. You and I deserve to die. He died in our place as a substitute for us.

He died for us and then he conquered the enemy. We could never conquer sin and death itself. He did all of that because he wants relationships, reconciliation, and redemption in your life. He loves you so much.

And for all eternity, I was in Revelation 21 of my quiet time this morning. There’s going to be a day when there’s no more sin and sorrow and severing. There’s no more tears. There’s no more refugee crisis. There’s coming a day when we’re going to enjoy God for and ever and ever for billions and billions. God loves us so much. He’s made a way for that to be a reality for every one of us in this room.

Trust the Greatness of God

So if you can trust him to save you from your sin for all eternity, then surely you can trust him to lead you in your life on this earth. And not just to lead you, but to satisfy you every step of the way. Believe in the goodness of God.

When you realize who he is, you realize the most foolish thing you can do is put conditions upon obedience to him. You realize that that’s what you need to be afraid of. Be afraid of putting conditions on obedience to God. Fear that believe the goodness of God and trust the greatness of God. Will there be obstacles? Yes. Will they be big, or large? Yes, but your God is bigger.

I remember when I was growing up, I was a little runt in high school, and so ninth grade started high school and went to a basketball camp I got to the basketball camp and started getting word that it was the tradition for the seniors to take the freshmen and initiate them in different ways in unhelpful ways for the freshmen.

And so me and my buddy are sitting in our dorm room on this campus at this camp, and all of a sudden our door busts open and a couple of big senior guys come in there, they grab my buddy off his bed, and they go take him into the bathroom. I’m not sure about everything that happened. I just heard yelling.

And he came out with very wet hair and they threw him down on the bed and they came over to me and I’m just kind of standing there like trembling. Why didn’t I run? I don’t know. So anyway, so I’m sitting there just like, and so one guy grabs me and he turns, he starts taking me out. Well, as he starts to take me out, there’s another guy, another big senior guy that rounds the corner into our room and he looks at this guy who’s holding me and he says, stop. We can’t take him.

Now, I had no clue who this guy was, but immediately I loved this man. And he said, stop. We can’t take him. The guy who’s holding me, why can’t we take him? And the guy who just ran on the corner said, we can’t take him because that’s Platt’s brother. I had a little secret weapon, an older brother who I was a little runt.

My older brother had a little different genes. So just to give you a little perspective, he was the heavyweight state wrestling champion in Georgia. Oh yeah. So I’ll never forget what happened next, like this guy. So this guy’s holding me, the guy comes in and says, you can’t take him. That’s PLA brother. I’ll never forget what happened. The guy turns, he looks me up and down and he says, this is not Platt’s brother. I’ll never forget his next word. He said this is Platt’s left leg.

And I don’t think he meant that as a compliment, but I was pretty proud to be Platt’s left leg on that day. There was another day I got this jacket from my granddad and loved this jacket, wore it all the time, it was hot outside, and still wearing the jacket. And so I wear it to school one day I set it down and I come back at the end of the day and it’s gone.

And so somebody had stolen my jacket, and so my dad, he was coming to pick me up and so I told him what had happened. He starts talking to the principal and I’m sitting there and my older brother, Steve, comes up to me and he says, Dave, I heard your jacket was stolen. I said, yeah, he’s pretty upset. And he said, lemme see what I can do.

So I watched Steve go over and kind of pull aside one of the guys who’s known for doing that kind of thing in school, and basically said to him, if my brother’s jacket, my little brother’s jacket is not back to me by the morning, then you and I are going to have a talk.

So the next morning I’m sitting there, my first class, and I’m sitting by the door and I keep looking out in the hall and I lean back and I look and there I see my brother, Steve, around the corner. You’ll never guess what he’s holding in his hands. He’s got my jacket. And he comes into the room and he hands it to me and he says, David, just know, no matter what happens to you, your big brother’s always got your back. Yeah, pretty emotional. Do you realize infinitely create your way?

That o matter what you face in this life, in this world, you have the God of the universe at your back. I don’t doubt his greatness. Don’t say, I don’t know if I can do it because of this or that. Look at your God. He is God, your back. If God is for us, who can be against us?

So trust is greatness now and trust is greatness, then I’m praying that God will raise up many to go out from this day and 10 years from now, being among unreached people groups where it’s hard and difficult and the challenges are great. Don’t forget at that moment when Satan tempts you to see just magnify potential problems and big obstacles. Don’t forget at that moment the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the sovereign king of the universe, has your back. Trust the greatness of God.

Obey the Word of God

Believe in the obstacles to God. People are opportunities for God to show his power. Believe his goodness, trust his greatness, and obey his word. Obey the word of God. Do whatever he tells you to do. Go wherever he tells you to go. Abide in this word and walk and step of the spirit and go into the land of opportunity that lies before you. Do.

We realize the opportunities that lie before us, specifically in this room for the spread of the gospel in the world. Jan, refer to this. For far too long we have had a limited view of missions, a limited view of missionaries, only thinking about the few people who might leave their jobs, sell everything, and move overseas for the spread of the gospel.

So yes, God has called some people, I believe he’s calling more people to do exactly that, to leave their jobs for the spread of the gospel. But God is also calling multitudes of people not to leave their jobs, but to leverage their jobs for the spread of his gospel, his glory in the world. You talk about a land of opportunity. Do we realize that God has sovereignly designed an entire global marketplace replete with opportunities for people to take his gospel to the nations?

I was on a plane one day, I was telling breakout sessions about the guy who recognized me from some Bible study videos. His name’s Hugh and Hugh gets to talk with him. He’s from Demopolis, Alabama.

Is anybody from Demopolis, Alabama? I didn’t think so. So Demopolis is no metropolis, right? So this is a small town, sweet home, Alabama. And Hugh is traveling. I said, Hugh, where are you going? He said I’m going to Mexico. I said, what are you doing in Mexico, Hugh?

He said, I have a lumber business and we’ve expanded to Mexico. I said, that’s interesting, Hugh, are you anywhere else in the world? He said, oh yeah, we’re in Indonesia, we’re in China. We’re looking to get into the Middle East right now. And started naming countries in the Middle East. I said, Hugh, have you ever thought about how God’s opening up some doors, not just for the spread of lumber, but for the spread of the gospel through you?

He said I’ve never thought about that. I say you gotta start thinking about that. That’s one guy from Demopolis, Alabama. I’m looking at a room full of students with all kinds of opportunities to lie before you. Unique opportunities.

I think about one guy in the church. I was a pastor before I stepped into this role in North Alabama. So this guy has a horse betting business, horse betting with a D, not a T. So that’s significant. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

Yeah. So that’s significant. That would be a different pastoral conversation. So horse betting, so betting for horses. And so this will get kind of weird, but I think it’ll be worth it. So there’s a unique tree in northern Alabama that its bark is uniquely able to soak up horse urine, and so it’s helpful for horse betting. So that’s the weird part but just go with me.

So we’re sitting around one day with a group of leaders in the church and talking about different places in the world we might focus on and sending people to and how we can get there in the world and unreached peoples. And we’re looking at the list of job platforms that particularly work well here or there.

And we’re looking at this one country in the Middle East, a prominent country in the Middle East, and we’re looking at it and it says on their horse betting and this guy’s eyes just light up. He realizes that he’s got an opportunity to be a part of the spread of the gospel in this place that I can’t go, but he can go.

The Sovereign Creativity of God

I’m just sitting there smiling like the sovereign creativity of God that he would design a tree in northern Alabama to uniquely soak up horse urine for the spread of the gospel in the Middle East. You can’t write a script any better than thou.

God’s got the whole thing rigged. I think about it, I was in North Africa. North Africa, this couple that is with us and they have a rug business. They’ve started, and so they’ll go up into a North African village, they’ll pay the equivalent of about $50 for a North African rug, and then they’ll pay the equivalent of about $50 to get it repaired and cleaned up.

Then they’ll put it on it. So they got about a hundred dollars into it. They’ll put it on an online site like Etsy and sell it for like $1,600 to a New York loft owner.

And they’re telling me this, I’m like, this is great. Like ripping people off in New York for the spread of the gospel in North Africa. There are so many opportunities not to rip people off, but to do missions if we take advantage of them.

So I’ll have college students come to me and say, I hear the urgency of the need among the nation, so I think I’m just going to quit school and go. And I’m like, no. Okay. It’s possible the Lord might lead you to do that.

Yes, but just make sure you’re walking into a sermon on that one with a church. Think through, but just think about the opportunities. All right, last one. Nursing student here, a college student getting a nursing degree. She graduates and she starts looking for a nursing job. But instead of right around her, she looks for a nursing job in the Middle East.

She gets a job there. She moves over there, she starts doing nursing in the Middle East and the very significant city in a strategic hospital in that city. She starts rising up in the ranks of nursing. She’s now head over nursing in this strategic hospital, in this significant city in the Middle East. She has a Bible study in her office every week with Muslims and nobody stops her. Do you know why?

Because she’s so good at nursing said Don’t quit school. Work hard, work so hard that the nations will clamor for your gifts skills, and expertise and you’ll have opportunities to spread the God the opportunities are before us.

You see it as an unprecedented opportunity. Opportunities exist right now and abound right now for the spread of the gospel among people who’ve never heard it. If we will take them to God, help us to take them to obey His word in the time and place in which he’s put us with the opportunities he’s given to us and as we do to experience his blessing, to see God’s power and work in our lives, in others’ lives through our lives. To see and experience the wonder of walking with God, risking faith. I have to tell you this story.

Our Missionaries Share the Gospel

One of our missionaries was sharing the gospel with a guy on the streets and the missionary had a New Testament with him guy he was sharing the gospel with was looking at his New Testament while he was trying to share and he remarked to the guy that he’s sharing with remarked that the New Testament ha ad nice thin paper that would be really good for rolling cigarettes and smoking them.

So the missionary said, I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you this New Testament with all of its nice paper. If you’ll promise me that before you tear out a page to roll it into a cigarette, you’ll read that page. So the guy thought about it and said, okay, I’ll do that. Missionary said, so I have your word that before you roll the page into a cigarette, you’ll read that page. Is that right?

I said, yeah, that’s right. So the missionary gave him the New Testament, left a while later, missionary back on the same street, ran into this guy, and asked him if he was keeping his promise to read the pages before rolling him into cigarettes and this is the guy’s response. He said, well, I read and smoked my way through Matth.ew.

And then I smoked my way through Mark and Luke. I smoked all the way to John three and I read this verse, verse 16, and everything made sense. I realized that God loves me so much that Jesus died for my sins.

Now I’ve asked him to forgive me and become my Lord. And just to finish out that story, this guy who smoked his way through the New Testament is now training to be a pastor. So here’s the deal. I am not necessarily recommending that particular method of evangelism, but I’m reminded that this word has power. When we take it, we make it known. We’re going to see and experience the power of God at work.

Alright, one more. This is the last one, last one, last one, last one. So this is an Aslan believer. So in a very unreached part of Southeast Asia where we’ve seen disciples made, gathered together in churches, and then we’re helping train up people going out from those churches.

So this is one of the people who had gone out from those churches, so believers and some buddies from the church had gone up to this unreached village, a very remote village, started sharing the gospel, having bible studies, and going in and out telling stories from the word. And slowly people were starting to say maybe this is true.

And in this village, like a lot of animistic villages around there, they wear all kinds of necklaces and emulates. They have all kinds of idols in their homes to ward off evil spirits. So they started bringing their necklaces and emulates and idols to the center of the village and they started piling ’em up.

And these guys said, well, why are you doing that? And they said we’re making plans for a bonfire. Like if what you’re saying is true, we don’t need these things. So then one day these believers went back up and they saw everybody go into the middle of the village where the bonfire was going to have and started taking the necklaces and omelets and idols and putting ’em back on their necks and their necks and their wrists and putting ’em back up in their houses. And so the believers said, why are you doing this?

And somebody said, well, our village leader died and people believe it’s because we’re getting rid of these things.

So these believers were totally discouraged. They just get along and they start praying and just saying, God, why do you love these people? They were getting so close. Why would this happen now, show your glory in this village.

Show your love, your mercy in this village. They’re praying, finished praying. They say, what do we do? They say, well, at the very least we need to go express our condolences to the village leader’s family. So the custom in that village once somebody dies, is to keep the body in the house for a number of days and there’s a burial ceremony days later.

So they go up to the house surrounded by people mourning. They walk into the house and the wife of the village leader is there. They go and express condolences to her. Then with broken hearts, they go over to this man whose body is lying there and they just pray quietly that God would show his grace and his glory to the people in that village.

So the believer tells our missionary that as they were praying over this man, all of a sudden the man coughed and everybody in the house got still. And the guy coughed again. People came over to the village, leaders started breathing, and people started helping ’em up. Everybody’s looking at these Christians like what happened?

And they decided that was as good a time as any to share the gospel. So they shared the gospel and massive change started to come about in that village. People ended up coming to Christ Church planted, and people started burning their idols. Ambulance. So here’s the deal. I tell that story with a little hesitation and I hear that story. I’m guessing there might be some who might hear that story and think, I mean really was he really dead? Just kind of dead? I thought he was dead. He wasn’t dead.

Obviously, I wasn’t there. I do know that in villages like this, they know how to recognize death. This is not an unusual thing. They have processes they go through. But even if this is how our missionary put it, he said even if he wasn’t dead, God sure chose an opportune moment for that guy to cough. I think that’s a great point.

God Has Conquered Death

Oh, here’s the beauty. We have the good news of the God who has conquered death, who has the power to bring the dead to life, those headed to eternal darkness, to everlasting life. So don’t you want to give your life to making that news?

No. Don’t you want to give your life to sin? Men and women in their dead in their sin, come to life in Christ. Don’t retreat in fear from the mission. Risk your life and faith on a mission. Believe in the goodness of God. Trust the greatness of God. Obey the word of God, and experience the blessing of God. I plead with you based upon the word of Almighty God.

As you stand at your Nia, don’t retreat in fear. Risk your life in faith as Joshua and Caleb and Steven and thousands of others who have gone before you. Risk your life in faith. So we come to the moment of decision. What is God leading you to do? And if you would say based upon his word and the leadership of his spirit in your life today, I believe I need to communicate to my church my desire to go, a desire to go as a missionary

Specifically to cross barriers for the spread of the gospel to those who haven’t heard it, to don’t have access to it. And if you would say that in this room in just a moment, I’m going to invite you to stand and we’re going to pray for you.

And if you sense God sang to you as far as you know, I’m calling you to stay where you are right now and for the foreseeable future not to make any different plans to call you to make disciples where you live in your culture and to work to send other brothers and sisters across cultures. For those who haven’t heard, then I’m going to invite you to stay seated and to be confident and content in that. Again, this is not a call for a two-tiered class of Christians in this room. This is a call to obedience to Christ In this room, if you would say,

I want to talk to my church. I’ve got some things I need to figure out, but I want to talk to my church because I believe the Lord may be leading us to go, leading me to go. And that’s what you’re standing for.

We’ve prayed that God would raise laborers for the harvest field during this time. This is a call for laborers to go to new harvest fields that are waiting to hear the gospel. So if you believe God may be setting you apart to go as a missionary across barriers for the spread of the gospel and you’re ready to pursue that possibility with a local church, then I’m going to invite you to stand wherever you are in this room right now. I can give you just a moment.

Anyone trust his greatness, his goodness, all you by God’s grace, by the work of and trust in the spirit of Christ, there are brothers and sisters standing all across this room. So here’s what we’re going to do, and just a second, I’m going to ask those of us who are seated to gather around these brothers and sisters and put a hand on their shoulder and we’re just going to pray for them and we’re going to intercede for them according to the word, just praying for grace. Wisdom be boldness, power the leadership of Christ in their life.

The process lies. Just think about all the things that you would want to pray for at the beginning of a journey. It’s headed to unreached people. And so we’re going to pray for them out loud, just all across this room at the same time. Just start praying whenever we get to that point.

And then after you pray for a couple of moments, Zane Pratt, who has spent decades on that journey is going to lead us in prayer for these brothers and sisters. Would you stand up now everybody just to gather around where these brothers and sisters are?

Just try to get a hand on every shoulder possible. And as soon as you get there, lemme invite you to start praying for them and start interceding lifting them up before the Lord pleading to God for his grace on their behalf, half..

Thank you. Strengthen them God, your righteous right hand through your power, glory, your steps to write their steps in Act 16. Kind way. Spread the gospel through them. Please give them strength from holiness and purity and to grow in Christ and be disciples and make disciples, good churches who will send them God, give them pastors who shepherd them, lead them, conserve them, help them God.

Pray that they’re beyond their faith as a result of their obedience. God, please, please God please, please cause your face to shine and bond and be gracious to them. Be merciful to them, your righteous right hand is in need. Instruct them in the way. Lead them in the hands of righteousness. Be their shepherd of God. Give them grace. Give them power. Protect them from false doctrine, from spreading false doctrine in their going God, please help them to proclaim your truth, your love, and your mercy and your power. Lord, give them wives and husbands and contentment as they go.

And blessed families must-have kids born here and on the field, these brothers and sisters, oh God, for your glory, may know them, please oh God, send them out, help no walk in faith. Give them close to you. Give them all the adversary attempts to pull them away from please.

Lord Jesus. You are worthy of the praise and worship and trust and obedience of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation on earth. You are worthy of the investment of our lives. You are worthy for us to lose our lives, to lose everything for the surpassing greatness of knowing you and serving you and being with you forever.

And Father, I thank you for those who have just stood. I thank You for the work of Your word and Your Holy Spirit these days. I thank you Father that you have stirred up and challenged many to take the gospel to those who have never heard it.

And Father, I pray for them right now. Father, I pray that you will continue to work your word and your spirit in their lives. Father, I pray that they would grow as disciples and that they would grow in passion for You in the knowledge of Your word, in the holiness of life, in the transformation of every area of life so that they would become more and more like Christ.

Father, I pray that they would invest their lives deeply and wisely in a local church. And I pray that you would raise up local churches that would nourish and sustain this kind of conviction and commitment. And Father, I pray that their churches would speak into their lives in helpful ways that make them more and more ready for the direction they’re going.

And Father, I pray that they would not wait until somewhere out there and somewhere over there, but that they would be sharing the gospel with people and disciplining others right now where they are. Father, I pray that you would guard them from the attacks of the evil one. I pray Father, that you would particularly guard their most important relationships, that you would keep them holy and pure in those relationships.

And also Father, that those who know and love them best would be a source of encouragement and strength to them. But Father, I pray that through them, many who right now have no idea Jesus ever even existed, would come to know him, would hear the good news, would embrace it in faith by your grace, and would join the task of spreading the good news to others. Father, I pray that there are people groups around the world on that list of 6,000 that would leave that list because of the work of people who just stood up.

And Father, I pray that you would give them the strength and the courage all the way through until we each see you face to face. And I pray this all in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Let me invite you to stay standing and I want us to flip this in the sense we talked about this is not a two-tiered class of Christians, so we pray for those who are going No, there’s also a need to pray. Just pray for those who are going.

No, we also pray for those who are staying and sending. So this is no less commitment in a sense, this call to stay and sin is a call to go against the grain of a materialistic culture, sexually confused culture or you’ll be tempted to do all kinds of things but help send and support people to go to the nations. And so we want to pray for senders across this room that would be even myself. So I’m not going across cultures at this point in my life, working in sending and many others of us in all kinds of different ways.

Begin Praying

You’re going to be doing that and we want to pray for sending. And so I want to invite you just right now to begin praying. For those of you who stood and said are going, just start praying for the senders around you.

And those of you who are saying, okay, I believe the Lord’s called me to stay in this culture and send us cross-culture, start to cry out to him for grace and mercy to know how to do that well, how to do that best. Lemme invite you to pray along those lines for the next couple of minutes and then after you’ve done that, John Piper will lead us in prayer for senders all across this room. So let’s pray now for the senders.

Please, please give grace raise to a church that is passionate about spreading the glory, gospel, and glory of nations’ leaders who love your glory through lives and living and transform the church. God, to give us awakening we pray. Please will God give us a missional awakening in our churches? See your great glory.

See the nation’s great. Put it together. God please, please namesake for your namesake, for the spread of the gospel. The nation’s God helps us to maximize the opportunities only internationally. So it helps to use us to reach unreached people here. It helps to reach Unre, help.

Father, we know that the apostle Paul wrote the greatest book in the world, the Book of Romans, not to recruit the entire church to go with him to Spain, but to plead with them to send him. We know that John wrote his third letter, not so that everybody would go, but that they would send in a manner worthy of God.

We’re not making up this glorious role of sending, we’re not making it up. This is a sacred calling and a sacred moment for those who were sitting a minute ago and now have rightly stood alongside those who sense their goers to dedicate themselves and consecrate themselves to something very, very great.

Oh God, don’t let the senders waste their lives. May they do their vocations well to the glory of God. And as you lead, do them strategically for the mission of God. May they never think they are insignificant in their praying and giving and encouraging and traveling and dreaming. I mean, we have just sat under the ministry for the last two hours with JD Greer and David Platt who are senders.

Did you not move? And you mean to move through these thousands in this room for the sake of the goers, for the sake of the places where they’re going for the sake of their offices and their schools and their homes and their neighborhoods where they themselves will be radical disciple makers living out the gospel in their place.

God Choreographs the World

You are the greatest choreographer in the world and we trust you. Now that you have done a good thing in the proportion in this room of those who stood and those who sat, you’re doing a good thing. Oh grant, that the senders who would be holy granted that they would be pure in heart and childlike and humble and hungry for righteousness and peacemaking and living for the righteousness of Jesus that they might see Christ and become like him as they fix their eyes on the glory of Jesus.

May churches feel the radiance of the senders. May pastors who have no heart for the nations be swept into the joy of the senders who are going home from here. Many schools feel the impact of the strategic senders. What a team. What a glory, what a plan.

What a Christ, what a gospel, what a salvation, what a future, what a cost. You are worth it. Lord Jesus, confirm in this room now and in the days to come. Confirm the calling to go and the calling to send. And if any in this room is in that third category of disobedient, convict them, and before they’re home, make them a sender or goer. Exalt your name through Christ we pray. Amen.

There’s one more way I want to lead us to pray. So we prayed for one another and now I want us to spend just a few minutes pleading on behalf of the people that we will go to and we’ll send brothers and sisters to. So the unreached people group on that app today is the Knda Dora in India. That 300,000 Hindu people, in southeastern India, the Kda Dora, most of whom have little to no access to the gospel.

So whether it’s the Kona Dora or other people groups, we’ve prayed for different countries and people groups, just as the Lord brings people to your mind, just pray, just think the word or do Lydia-type work, and people’s hearts open their hearts to believe as you send out workers, Lord gives them success. So I want us just to please. So whether that’s just you calling out yourself or getting together with a group of people around you, just go in before the Lord.

Let’s spend the next couple of minutes praying for the nations. So let me invite you to do that now. Oh God in heaven right now across this room, we take our rightful place. Take this rightful privilege you’ve given to us as your sons and daughters.

To intercede on behalf of people, peoples yet to be reached by the gospel. And we believe that right now you’re listening to us and that our prayers, we believe our prayers are part of the means that you’ve chosen to use, that they might hear the gospel and believe it and give you glory. And so we don’t pray in vain.

God, keep us even from being distracted in our praying right now to help us realize the gravity of what we’re doing. God, we plead before you on behalf of 6,000 people, groups that haven’t heard your grace and your love and your mercy in Christ, we remind you of your word. You said it.

Oh God, you said that Jesus has people from every tribe language, and nation. You said, ask me, I’ll give the nations as your inheritance. You said this gospel of the kingdom will proclaim the testimony to all the nations we know there’s coming today when a multitude of the knowing can count from every nation, tribe, and tongue. People are going to be gathered out in this room and we know that includes all the people groups in the world. So we’re pleading, oh God,

What You Have Promised?

Bring about what you have promised, bring about what you have promised. We know that you desire their salvation. We know that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

So we pray, oh God, show your grace and your mercy to them. We know they stand under your wrath. We don’t minimize that they have sinned before you. They’re rebels against you. Just as all of us were in this room. We praise you for how you reach down your end of mercy into our lives.

How you caused us to be reached by the gospel. Even putting us in families, many if not most of us, where we’ve heard the gospel for many years and we know we had nothing to do with where we were born.

And we don’t know why we’ve been reached and saved. Our only explanation is your mercy. Oh God, thank you for saving us. We’re asking you to do that among them. We pray for the Knda Dora people in southeastern India to cause laborers to go and give them boldness as they go. We pray.

Give success to churches and missionaries who are sending people to unreached people. Do Lydia type work in people’s open hearts to believe we pray, all who are pointed to eternal life, believed God.

May that be the commentary all around the world. And we pray, Lord Jesus, that you will receive the glory you deserve. All these Hindu gods among the K door people, none of them deserve your glory. They’re idols, they’re mute, they can’t speak, they can’t hear, can do nothing.

God Has the Power to Save

You have the power to save. You deserve their worship. So show your power to save. We plead to show your worth to those people that they would turn aside from all their idols and confess to you as the one true God.

We pray this for Hindu people, groups for Muslim people, groups for Buddhist people, groups for animistic people, groups for atheistic, secularist, people, groups. Lord, may they see open their eyes in the second Corinthians four, four through six, count away, Lord, open their eyes that are blinded.

Help them to see the light of the gospel and the face of Christ. Please, oh God, show your salvation to them. Please use us. Bless us toward that end. Bless our churches toward that end church around the world. Toward that end, God, we want to see the great commission fulfilled. We want to see all the nations reached. We’d love to be a part of that in our generation. Oh, what pure joy that would be.

So God, would you grant us that? Or if in your wisdom and your patience you decide to prolong, then would you grant us grace to be faithful, to play our parts in anticipation of that day when we’ll gather around the throne with them, with all the people groups, and we will sing your praises and enjoy your presence forever and ever and ever. Help us to be faithful in going and sending until that day we pray for the joy of the nations, for the joy of our hearts and lives and churches. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.