Undaunted by Resistance: Sustaining Missionary Zeal for the Sake of the Nations

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

The Call to Mission Work

I want to start this last time in the word tonight by praying for what’s about to happen in the next few minutes in this room and in dorm rooms and apartments and homes and campus ministries and church buildings and 50 different states and 75 different countries.

Acts 13 tells us that while the church at Antioch was worshiping and praying, the Holy Spirit said, set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I’ve called them and there’s some mystery surrounding how that happened. How did the Holy Spirit say that? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know that as a result of what the Holy Spirit said on that day, a missionary movement was born that led to the spread of the gospel throughout the known world in the first century. And I and many other people have been praying that God in his grace by his spirit might see fit tonight to set apart men and women just like that for the spread of his gospel to people who’ve never heard it.

We’ve prayed that God would raise up a thousand laborers tonight. So you know where this is all going to end at the end of this time, in the word, I’m going to invite people in this room and in simulcast locations to stand. That may be a bit intimidating in a room like this one with a lot of people. It may be a bit awkward in a room with only a few people. It may feel kind of funny if you’re in the room alone.

But regardless of where you are and how many people are around you, I want to give you an opportunity to stand and in your standing before God to say, based upon the work of God’s spirit in my life, I am resolving tonight to communicate to my church my desire to go as a missionary to cross a culture and spend my life for the spread of the gospel.

So lemme be clear, I’m not calling anybody to move tomorrow to the Middle East, nor am I calling anyone to make a rash vow based on emotional manipulation. I’m not calling people to make this decision alone.

That’s why I want to emphasize that what we’re resolving to do tonight is to say to your church, and if you don’t have a church to join a church and to go to leaders of your church and to say, I want to be sent. I want to be sent as a missionary, as one who crosses a culture to spend my life for the spread of the gospel. So that’s the moment toward which all this is headed and I just want to pray one more time now in anticipation of that moment. So will you bow your heads with me?

David’s Prayer

Oh God, we have worshiped, we’ve prayed. We’re praying now to you as the Lord of the harvest. We’re doing what you told us to do. We’re praying that right now you would send out laborers into your harvest field in this room where I’m standing and in dorm rooms and apartments and homes and campus ministries, church buildings, all these different places where we’re together around the world.

Right now we are asking: would you speak to us with the kind of clarity with which you spoke in Acts 13? We pray that you would keep the adversary from distracting people from your voice.

Keep the adversary from causing us to doubt you when we hear your voice from deceiving anyone into thinking that your voice can’t be trusted. So we pray, oh God, help us to hear your voice clearly and help us all, help us all to obey your voice completely. We pray this will God for your name’s sake, for our for the good of the peoples set apart, men and women to stand tonight in the same way that you set apart Saul and Barnabas to go 2000 years ago. We pray and plead for this in Jesus’ name, amen.

David’s Journal Entry and Testimony in Asia

Acts chapter 20, verse 22. Paul says, now behold, I’m going to Jerusalem constrained by the spirit not knowing what will happen to me there except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that prison imprisonment and afflictions await me, but I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself. If only I may finish my course and the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

I really want to be a goer.

I came in here tonight, sat down in a chair with a whole message prepared, and then I looked up at this background behind me and everything changed because all of a sudden I remembered where I was a year ago, at this time. I was in those mountains in Asia and so I pulled out my journal on my phone and I started scrolling back a year and I realized what happened in my heart and my life on February 27th, 2014. It was the last day of my time in Asia on that trip. So I’m going to take a little bit of a risk.

It’s a risk on a variety of levels, but to share, my journal injuries leading up to that day and on that day, just to give you a little bit of a glimpse into what’s going on in my heart and my life. It’s a risk. I definitely didn’t write this for you and I am not reading you everything I got, and I’ve shared about some of these things and some different places over the last year, but certainly not all this. So go on a journey with me. I and a group of pastors in the church that I was pastoring at the time traveled to Asia to go up into the height of the Himalayas, and so I wrote February 18th words really can’t express the anticipation I have for this trip. Oh Lord, so much need and so much opportunity. Give us wisdom to know how you were leading us to align with gospel ministry here.

That’s what we were exploring as a church. Use us, oh Lord, to proclaim the gospel to those who’ve never heard while we’re here. God, I pray and plead that these unreached people groups might one day become reached people groups. We’re going to work with 24 particular people groups in those mountains the next day, February 19th could work in this place, be something I might potentially give my life to that Heather, my wife, and our family might give our time and money and energy to working. Should we be working to see all these particular people groups reach with the gospel? Why is this even a question?

That was the day before we helicoptered up into the height of the mountains. We landed about 10 or 11,000 feet. Basically the height of where you could sustain life if that’s what you call what we saw and we started hiking. So our plan was over the next six or so days, we would hike out of the mountains about 90 miles.

So February 20th met a man today with a missing eye, and you could see right through to his skull. He’s clearly going to die soon and he’d never heard the name of Jesus. So we shared the story of Jesus healing a blind man as a bridge to the gospel that meets his greatest need. Lord, please save him.

We visited a Buddhist monastery. Kids, one from every home, come here at age five and live there for the rest of their lives. I’m looking at these mountains, these peoples who are surrounded by the glory of God, yet they’re engrossed in idolatry because they’ve never heard the gospel of God. The glory of God on display in these mountains is totally insufficient to save them. They need the gospel. Just picture that majesty, God’s revelation, so clear yet totally insufficient to say they need more. That’s beautiful. But what you and I have got in our hearts is what they need.

These villages have been hard to reach for generations and centuries. They’ve been without the gospel. Praise God that these ministry partners have been working in different villages for 10-plus years.

When they first started coming up here, the locals said, don’t come back or we’ll kill you, but praise God, they kept coming the next day on the trail, had a good conversation with a friend about my desire to reach unreached peoples, to maybe move at some point to live among them and I’m asking again, Lord, is this that point? We hiked up to an influential village with a huge monastery and broke into it. That was kind of funny. We couldn’t find our way in, so we just found a wall and hopped over it and so we broke into it and prayed for its downfall then left. I’m just being honest here. I’m not recommending mission methods. That’s not my purpose. Just telling you what we did. We broke into a monastery and prayed for its destruction. I don’t think that’s altogether bad.

Anyway, came to a village where two people, a couple, a husband and a wife came to Christ within two weeks. They were stoned to death by their neighbors. Saw poverty like I’ve not seen in a long time. They had done some research in these villages about 10 years ago and they found that half the kids in these villages weren’t making it to their eighth birthday.

One woman, 14 kids, and two made it to adulthood. So I saw a place where a handicapped child had been chained alongside animals for over 10 years and walked by three kids, grabbing at my pack. One grabbed my hand and held it but wouldn’t let go. Give a little bit of background on this one. They had told us when we were walking through these villages in light of the poverty that the kids would come just reaching up to try to grab anything in your pack, and we weren’t really carrying food in our pack. We had very little amount of things in our pack. They’ll just grab for anything they can.

And so we walked in this one village, the very beginning, these three kids came up and I remember this little girl’s face. She starts reaching for my pack and just clawing at my pack and I’m trying to turn my pack around and just kind of reaching out to her. Finally, she takes my hand and she holds my hand as we walk through the whole village, we get to the end of the village and we’re moving on after we’ve been in the village for a little while, we’re moving on.

And so I start to pull my hand away and she starts to reach for my pack again. I kind of turn and I’m trying to pull my hand away and she’s grabbing tighter. And so finally I just kind of jerk my handbag and this little girl looks up at me with the most sad, mean eyes, and she tries to spit on me, and she couldn’t do it. She just spit on herself. When I finally pulled away, she spit at me. Lord, help me not to waste my life with the urgency of need around me in the world.

The next day, February 22nd, was a long trekking day complete with girls carrying most of our bags. I’ve got to do a little explanation there. Some guys were kind of having a hard time on the trail, so some guys, other guys of course, and so they found these two, no, it was like three or four younger girls.

I had teenage girls who live in the mountains and they were like, Hey, this will be helpful for them if they can carry some bags and they can make some money doing it. So it was like, I mean really here in the mountains and the Himalayas and I’m going to give my pack to a teenage girl to carry for me. And so we did. And so anyway, we did that for a day. I’ll just go ahead and jump to the next day hiking again, but I got my bag back.

I just felt it was a pride thing I think is really what it was. It was like we could pay for her to walk with us, but I got to carry my pack. So anyway, met a precious little girl who had a cut on her face that ended up getting infected. She almost went blind because of it.

I was reminded how little things like that can turn into huge, even fatal problems amidst poverty. Just a little cut. So Lord, how much of my life and family do you want me to invest in seeing these people groups reach with the gospel?

Then the next day had unexpected time to think alone. While tracking today, it seemed to come out of nowhere as I thought about the best use of my life for the great commission, do I need to go? Do I need to give my life living among the unreached, making disciples and training pastors among peoples like this, even these particular peoples, I’m reminded of Jim Elliot’s quote. So what if the well-fed church and the homeland needs stirring, their condemnation is written on their bank books and on the dust on their Bible covers. God has his way of dealing with those who succumb to the spirit of Laodicea.

So should I go? My heart resonates with Paul’s heart in Romans 15, my ambitions to see the gospel known where it’s not been heard. On top of all this, I fear that I am in such danger of succumbing to the spirit of Laodicea myself.

So what’s the best use of my life, my family for the kingdom? So many guys could lead brick hills, tons of guys would line up to do it, and so few are lining up to reach these people. So do I lead out in church planning here? Lord, give me wisdom. I prayed as I walked, looking at every next step, just praying that God would guide my steps.

Finally, after four days of hiking, we came to a church. It’s four days. We got to a church and preached in a glorious gathering of a church in this place, this village, they came walking down the mountain with flashlights, a small gathering of believers crammed in a small room. A small room with one light bulb sitting on top of each other all ages. We sang and studied the word together and prayed that this church would be used for the spread of the gospel in this region.

The next day, this area is the birthplace of Hinduism and Buddhism. I prayed that the Lord would take this land and this people as those who are rightfully His. I began to ask the question again, where can I most effectively make disciples of all nations? When I ask that question, it seems to point to these people. This place and these people. The only thing that keeps me from not coming here is thinking I maybe can more effectively mobilize for the nations from there. But couldn’t I do that from here? And that’s a no-brainer that I need to move here. This is the question that is driving me with so much need over here. How can I stay over there, Lord to help me to walk and step with your spirit?

The next day we trekked out of the Himalayas road, a bus back to the city. Had a good conversation with my friend about the wrestling in my heart and his counsel was clear, David, you have a desire to be effective in this way or that way. That’s nice, but you just need to do whatever the Lord tells you to do or this is what I want more than anything else to do what you want me to do.

I thought much about moving to Asia as I went to sleep, trying to figure out what life looks like here, trying to figure out how I can get my wife here soon, the next day, spent the day with missionaries in the city doing all kinds of different work. My favorite was John who works with trout tanks. He takes trout poop rich in nitrate and through solar power he pumps water up through bamboo and the yield is so far beyond anything else that everybody wants him to come and help them build pumps for trout poop. Don’t you love the creativity of God and the avenues there are for the spread of the gospel among the unreached through trout poop.

Then February 27th, as soon as I woke up this morning, I learned that the president of the IMB, the International Mission War was stepping down because he believed God was raising up someone else to lead it. So a little background a few years ago, the IMB is a mission organization with about 5,000 missionaries around the world and $300 million a year all aimed at getting the gospel. People never heard it. And they had come to me and a variety of others about the possibility of leading an organization and the Lord had made it so clear that he was not leading me to that.

And so here I was a year ago on this day, I woke up in the morning, rolled over, and grabbed my phone to see if I’d missed any messages from home. And the first message I see is this right here, this news that the president of the IMB was stepping down and I just put my head on my pillow and think, “I don’t know if they’re going to talk to me again”. I wrote in the journal somewhere, I hope they don’t make it easier to not have to think through this.

But I thought, why would I be willing to consider moving to Nepal and not be willing to consider, be open to if God wants me to be in a position where I’m mobilizing thousands of people I pray to get to Nepal, others like it. I’ve been memorizing parts of Luke in my time on those mountains and I just fell on my face and prayed. Luke 17 verse 10. So you also, after you’ve done all that you’ve been commanded to do, say we are unworthy servants. We’ve only done what is our duty. I said, I just want to do my duty.

And then that day we walked into this city and we found ourselves in the area, this area of the city, of the city where there were all these brothels. And I’d seen these villages and I’d seen these villages where traffickers prey on the poverty of those villages. I mean, when you don’t know if your 10-year-old girl is going to live, it’s a pretty easy sell for a trafficker to say, I’ll take your daughter down and get her a good job in the city and she can work and send money back up and then she can come back up and periodically visit you and oh, here’s the equivalent of about a hundred dollars as a pledge of my commitment to take care of her for a family to say, okay.

And so these little girls, 10 years old get taken down into the city and I walk back past the places where they’re put to work and they’re broken through drugs and they’re raped repeatedly and then put to work every night, sometimes 10 or 15 customers a day again and knew the statistics about slavery. I hadn’t seen where they work.

And then there in that city, there’s one place called Pash, Potti, Hindu Holy site. It’s a holy river in Hindu belief. And so their custom is whenever a friend or family member dies within 24 hours, they bring the body to the river and they’ve got funeral pyres set up all atop the river. And what they do is they take the dead body, they place it on the funeral pyre and they set it ablaze and they believe this is helpful in the process of reincarnation as the ashes go down into the river.

So I round the corner and stop and stunned silence as I see, just picture it, bodies burning on funeral pyres. And I realize I’m looking at a physical picture of a spiritual reality at that moment. These people, I’m looking at their bodies, they were 24 hours before they were alive, but right now I’m looking at their bodies burning.

The reality is they’re right now in hell. They’re burning in hell right now and they’re going to be there forever, forever without end, without end forever. And then if that’s not heavy enough, then it hits me that most if not all of these people that I’m looking at their bodies that died 24 hours before they were alive, but they died and they’re in hell now.

And most if not all of them never even heard that God loves them enough to send his son to die for them so they don’t have to go there. Nobody ever even told him that. They’re in hell, and nobody ever told him how they could go to heaven. I want to be a goer and I want to mobilize goers.

Surrender to Christ Regardless of the Cost

And so I want to encourage you tonight, encourage us that hide even our own hearts with three simple expectations that will lead to our response. One, I want to encourage you to surrender to Christ regardless of the cost. I want to encourage you or we’re sitting in here or wherever you’re sitting, listening, surrender your life to Christ regardless of the cost. I consider my life worth nothing to me. I don’t want to count my life as any value, nor am I precious to myself, and he knows it’s costly. Verse 23, the Holy Spirit warns me in every city prison and afflictions await me, surrender your life to Christ regardless of the cross, knowing that surrender will be costly for all of us, all of us. Jesus has promised it. Remember what he told his disciples in Matthew 10:16? I send you out like sheep in the midst of wolves.

What’s that? What is the responsibility of the shepherd? The responsibility of the shepherd is to protect the sheep from wolves, right? To keep wolves from coming in among the sheep. That’s what the shepherds guard against. So here’s Jesus, the good shepherd. The great shepherd. He’s telling his disciples, to go hang out with some wolves, sheep, some of the most helpless of all domesticated animals.

Harmless noises can send them into a frenzy. When they face danger, they have no defense mechanism. All they can do is run and they’re slow. So the dumbest thing a sheep can do is go wandering into a pack of wolves. And Jesus says to his disciples, you do that. Jesus is saying to his disciples, then by implications to his disciples today, you’ll by my commission, find yourself in dangerous places among evil, rapacious, vicious people, and I will have you there by my design.

That’s so different from the way we think, isn’t it? We think if it’s not safe, it must not be God. If it’s dangerous, if it’s risky, it may cost or harm you. It must not be God. But what if that’s sometimes the criteria by which we determine actually is God?

Jesus says, go to danger, let it be said of you, or be set of sheep wandering in the middle of wolves. They’re crazy. Jesus says, that’s what it means to be my disciple. And it makes total sense in light of what we’re talking about tonight, these are challenging days for the spread of the gospel to unreached peoples Isis in North Africa and the Middle East War in Syria, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria from the isolated mountains of Asia to the impoverished villages of Africa, there are over 6,000 people, groups still unreached and they’re unreached for a reason. They’re hard to reach, they’re difficult to reach, they’re dangerous to reach. All the easy ones are taken.

And so the question before us in the church today is are we willing to go as sheep in the middle of wolves? And Jesus knows this is frightening. So he says just a few verses later in Matthew 10, have no fear of them. For nothing is covered that will not be revealed or hidden, that will not be known.

What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, what you hear whispered proclaim on the housetops, and do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Now, that’s a strange way for Jesus to encourage us. Jesus is saying, don’t be afraid of men. The worst thing they can do is kill you.

We think, well if I go to this place in this world, I could be killed. And Jesus says that’s all. Don’t be afraid. All they can do is kill you. Is that comforting to you, that comforting to your parents? Oh, it’s no big deal. The worst thing they can do is kill me. The only way that’s comforting is if you’ve already died with Christ and you’re so focused on eternity that nothing man can do to you even matters.

It was a set of saints of all that they feared man so little because they feared God so much and they trusted God. Jesus continues in the verses right after that. I love this. He says, now, not two sparrows sold for a penny, and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father, but even the hares of your head are all numbered. Fear not. Therefore, you’re of more value than many sparrows. Oh, he loves you.

You are so valuable to Jesus, to your father in heaven. The one who calls you to the wolves is good and he loves you so much. So you need not be afraid. Some of you may be afraid to stand tonight and say, I believe the Lord is calling me to go. I mean, what if he calls you to Afghanistan or Yemen or Niger?

What about a husband or a wife? What about kids? You could lose everything. So the thought of standing and surrendering your life to this mission may be frightening to you, but this is where I want to remind you who you’re surrendering your life to. If you can trust God to save you, then you can trust him to lead you.

If you can trust God to save you for all of eternity, then you can trust God to satisfy you on this earth. Once you realize who you’re surrendering to, you realize what we really need to be afraid of is any conditions we might put on our obedience to him. He loves us steeply and he’s promised us it won’t be easy. Some say, well maybe that was just for those first disciples in the gospels. Certainly, that’s not for all of us, but the testimony of the church in scripture and throughout history proves otherwise.

God’s Promise in Acts to Missionaries

If you turn pages back to Acts chapter one, you remember the promise that this whole book begins with Acts chapter one, verse eight when Jesus says, you’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you’ll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judean Sumerian of the ends of the earth.

And the word for witnesses there and the original language of the New Testament is martereo, the word from which we get the word martyr. Tradition tells us that 10 out of those 11 disciples died martyrs’ deaths. The one who didn’t die was exiled to an island.

Now we’ve heard David Sitton talk about martyrs. We’ve used that word tonight. Lemme just quick aside, when we talk about martyrdom, we’re not talking about what many people today think of when they hear the word martyr suicide bomber. It’s not what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about people who kill out of hate.

We’re talking about people who die out of love. The world right now is seeing all kinds of pictures and videos of people who kill out of hate. We are called to show the world a picture of people who die out of love. Then you turn the pages. So that’s Acts chapter one. You turn the pages, acts chapter two, one Christian sermon preached and by Acts chapter three, persecution is coming.

In Acts chapter four, they’re released and they’re praying. Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Acts chapter five, arrested again. Then they’re released and they’re rejoicing. They’ve been counted worthy to suffer for the name Acts chapter six, Stephen is brought in for questioning Acts chapter seven, Stephen Stoned. What happens right after that?

Acts chapter eight, they arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. They were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. Devout men buried. Stephen made great lamentation over him, but Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Those who were scattered went about preaching the word. The church is being ravaged. Chapter nine, next chapter. Saul was saved and showed that he must suffer to spread the gospel to the nations. Chapter 10:11, the gospel spread to new places and new peoples. Yet chapter 12 opens with James being beheaded and then Peter being delivered from imprisonment and death. It’s a baffling chapter. I have no explanation for why James loses his head and Peter keeps his. And why does one missionary live in another die?

It’s a mystery. Chapter 13, which I referenced earlier, Paul sent out and what lies before him, the chapters to come, countless imprisonments and beatings, often near death. Five times he receives the 40 lashes less one. Three times beaten with rods, stoned once, shipwrecked thrice, endangered from rivers, robbers, Jews, and gentiles in the city, and the wilderness at sea. Many a sleepless night in hunger and thirst, often without food in cold and exposure. It’s no wonder that he says to new disciples in Acts 14:22, through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.

So here’s the deal, there’s a way to avoid all of that. Don’t surrender your life to Christ and don’t commit your life to his commission because when you surrender your life to Christ and his commission, it will be costly. And this is true whether we send or we go because if God has called us to stay, call me to stay for now and send others, then surely he’s not calling me and others to live a life of ease and extravagance in this world.

Surely he’s calling us to live simply and to give sacrificially so as many people as possible can go in calling us to send. He is still calling us to sacrifice, to sacrifice possessions and pleasures and pursuits here so that more and more resources and missionaries and more gospel can get there. Where in the world did we come up with the idea that the call to Christ and his commission is a call to comfort in this culture?

If we sin, the cost is clear. If we go the cost is clear. Revelation seven tells us there’s going to be this great multitude from every nation, tribe, tongue, and people singing salvation belongs to our God, to the lamb who sits on the throne.

How’s it going to happen? Revelation 6 tells us how. Souls slain for the word of God and their witness to the gospel. But here’s the beauty, don’t miss the picture in all of this from acts to revelation. For Christians who’ve surrendered to Christ and have given their life to this commission, suffering may be inevitable, but our mission is unstoppable. This is the beauty of what’s happening here.

That’s what I love about Acts chapter seven, Satan strikes down one of God’s choices. Servants Stevens, Steven ha, he thinks I’m winning. Now. Next chapter, everybody scatters and preaches the gospel wherever they go. Take that! Even better.

Luke tells us that Saul was there approving of his execution. So Saul leads out in the persecution of Stephen, which leads to the scattering of believers, which leads directly; Luke tells us in Acts chapter 11 of the founding of the church at Antioch, which becomes the church that one day sends out Saul/Paul on a global mission. You can’t write any script better than that.

Saul inadvertently starts the church that one day sends him out as a missionary, mark it down, brothers and sisters. Satan’s strategies to stop the church will only serve to spread the church only serve to spread the church. We know where it’s all going in the end. So surrender to Christ regardless of the cost.

Abide in Christ and Follow His Lead

The second expectation, abide in Christ and follow where he leads. Abide in Christ. So surrender to Christ, abide in Christ, and follow where he leads. So Paul talks here in Acts chapter 20 about being constrained by the spirit, the spirit’s leading him, carrying him along on a day-by-day basis. And this is the key surrender to Christ and abide in Christ.

And when those two things are realities abiding in him, remaining in his word, walking with him in prayer, making disciples right where you live. If you’re surrendered to him saying, Lord, I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I’ll go wherever you want me to go, and you’re abiding in him on a day-by-day basis, you can rest that He is going to lead you. He is going to guide you. He’s going to direct your steps. He wants this mission to be accomplished in your life more than you do. So the good news is you don’t have to wander around in a fog wondering, okay, do I stay?

He’s going to make it known. He’s making it known in hearts right now. He’ll make it known in hearts in the days to come and say, well, how do you figure out? I mean, so I come back from the Himalayas thinking whatever my duty if that’s pastor the Church of Brook Hills for the next 40 years, I want to do my duty. If that’s a move to Nepal, I want to do my duty.

That was what I came back telling my wife. I got back late on a Friday night. We hadn’t been able to talk because we were in the mountains and she said, well, tell me about the trip. And I was jetlagged, tired. So we just lay down there and I’m scrolling through my journal, I’m sharing things and this is exactly how it happened. Right about the time I got to the point where I told her maybe we need to move to Nepal.

I fell asleep and my precious wife, her head on my shoulders, tears streaming down her face and I was snoring over her. We wake up the next morning, she says, we need to pick up with our conversation because we left off with you and me in Asia, and so could we start there and continue? And so I’m resting too. What do you want to do? And then a few months later, IMB calls me and they say, are you open to this? I’m like, man, I’ll go anywhere in the world right now or I’ll stay right where I’m, I’m a wreck.

Anyway, I just kind of threw up on the guy on the phone and she’s like, all right man. We’ll see what happens. I’m all, so we just start praying. And here’s the deal. I could go through the whole story of the next six months of what the Lord was doing to lead me to the conclusion at the end of August this last year to say, constrained by the Spirit.

I believe the Lord is leading me to step into this role leading the IMB. I wish there’s a part of me, there’s a part of me that wishes in February I could have had a dream with a man from the IMB saying, come over here and help us. And that’s how the Lord would’ve made it clear. So that’d be nice. Wouldn’t like to get that dream tonight or just to kind of close your eyes right now and see it? But usually, that doesn’t happen. Obviously that happens in scripture with Paul Macedonia, but it usually doesn’t happen that way.

Why do you think it doesn’t happen that way? I think it’s because God loves us so much that he’s designed to process by which we abide in him. And we look to him day after day and moment after moment. And we do what I found myself doing for six months and praying and fasting, reading the word and just saying all day long, Lord, what do you want me to do?

What do you want me to do? I just want to do my duty. What do you want me to do? And as I’m abiding in him, I’m growing in my relationship with him. And the reality is, oh, I love him so much more now than I did a year ago. And I realize the goal is not even an answer to our question.

The goal is God is joy in God and delight in God. It’s knowing God. And the beauty is he’s our father. He’s going to lead us. He’s going to guide us. He’s going to direct us. So abide in Christ and follow wherever he leads, wherever he leads, follow; surrender to Christ regardless of the cost abiding Christ, follow where he leads, and then finally trust in Christ for he is the great reward. Trust in him for he’s the great reward. What we’re talking about tonight is the theme from the very beginning has been everlasting joy in Jesus compared to never-ending suffering without Jesus.

Listening to the Voice of God

And so brothers and sisters, we stand on the porch of eternity. What we’re talking about tonight is billions of lives that are hanging in the balance. Will they have a chance at everlasting? Joy in Jesus says, aren’t just playing a game?

Just think about what’s at stake. Never-ending suffering. Jesus calls hell a place where people will weep and nash their teeth in a lake of fire with the smoke of their torment rising forever and ever. George Woodfield would speak of the horror of burning like a livid coal. Not for an instant or for a day, but for millions and millions of ages at the end of which people will realize that they’re no closer to the end than when they first began. And they will never ever be delivered from that place.

This can’t. The reality of unreached people can’t be tolerable to us. Not when there’s the hope of heaven, A place of never-ending joy, where we’ll be with him, where we’ll see his face, be satisfied in his presence, fullness, joy, forever, no more sins, sorrow, suffering, pain, death. It’s worth it then brothers and sisters. It’s worth it to give our lives here for the spread of the gospel there that they and we together might have joy in Jesus. It’s worth it. He’s worth it. Jesus beckons you and me to surrender to him, abide in him, risk our lives trusting him, doing whatever it is your duty. Your duty is our duty, doing whatever he tells us to do, to trust in him. And he guarantees we won’t regret it.

So then what is the spirit constraining you to do? We’ve worshiped, we’ve prayed. Has the spirit of God said to your heart, I’m constraining you to go? And that like we talked about, might look different for different people. For some, it might mean selling everything; leaving your job, moving to an isolated place for the spread of the gospel among unreached people.

Others, that may mean leveraging a job moving to a city in the world where unreached people are and intentionally working to spread the gospel among those unreached people. So the key is not where or how, but whether the Lord is leading you to move across cultures for the spread of the gospel among unreached people.

And in just a moment, I’m going to ask you to stand wherever you are if you would say, I resolve tonight to communicate to my church my desire to go as a missionary through some pathway to cross cultures and spend my life for the spread of the gospel.

Likewise, so listen, if you sense God is saying to you at this point I’m calling you to stay, to make disciples where you live, sacrifice your resources to send others across cultures, then I’m going to invite you simply to stay seated and to be confident and content in that I’ve shared with you my heart.

And yet a contentment that the Lord has me here for now. And I want to be clear. Acts 13, Paul and Barnabas were not super Christians. While everybody else was sub-Christian, God set apart Saul and Barnabas for this task. He didn’t set apart everyone in the same way. So this is not a call. Let’s be clear. It’s not a call for a two-tiered class of Christians. This is a call for obedience to Christ.

We’ve prayed that God would raise up laborers. And I also want to include one more thing I want to include. If you have already begun that process with your church, you’ve said to your church, send me. You’re in the process of going. So maybe that’s not starting tonight.

Maybe you are headed out on a plane tomorrow. I would invite you to join with those who are saying that for the first time tonight. So if you sense God is saying, I’m setting you apart to go as a missionary across cultures to spend my life for the spread of the gospel. I resolve to pursue that possibility in the church. And whether you’re in this room or wherever you find yourself right now watching this, I want to invite you to stand wherever you are. I obviously don’t know what’s happening in all the sight on the other side of that camera, but be encouraged that God has raised and is raising up many laborers in this room tonight.