What Could the Impact Be?

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

What Could the Impact Be?

Well, if you have a Bible, and I hope you do or somebody around you does, you can look on with, let me invite you to open or actually be in three places. Matthew 28, Romans 15, and Revelation seven.

So I don’t know how you put your fingers in all those places or mark ’em, but we’re going to go there and we’ll go there kind of in succession in a minute. So while you’re turning there, I just want to say how grateful I am to be here. My heart is always so full.

Yesterday morning, I just brought to tears in my time with the Lord, anticipating this moment, thinking about different people in this room who have had an indelible impact on my life and God’s grace toward me in this place. It’s so overwhelming and just really, really thankful and really, really exhilarated about what God is doing now and in the future in this school.

I’m so thankful for Dr. Do and for you and your family dying to whatever preferences or plans you may have had to do what he is leading you to do. I pray that that would be the testimony of all of us in this room. Along those lines, that’s what I want to dive into.

So I want to read these three passages that I’m guessing are going to be pretty familiar to many of us, but I want to bring them together, these three texts and put five truths before you that I believe these three texts together teach us. So let’s start with the word Matthew, chapter 28, verse 16. Now the 11 disciples went to Cali the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.

When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I’m with you always to the end of the age, the great commission From there over to Romans chapter 15, Romans chapter 15, we’ll, in verse 18, Paul writes, for I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me. To bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the spirit of God.

So that from Jerusalem and all the way around to a lyric, I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ. And thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation.

But as it is written, those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand. This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you.

But now since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain and to be helped on my journey, thereby you once. I’ve enjoyed your company for a while.

Then the last passage, revelation chapter seven, revelation chapter seven, verse nine. After this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice.

Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb and all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God saying, amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Exclamation point. Amen.

Those are three great texts. So let’s put ’em together. As I was on the way here flying in this morning, I thought it might be helpful to put together just a quick PowerPoint. For years I ran PowerPoint up there with Vanni.

I was Dr. Shaddox’s PowerPoint boy in the chapel. So anyway, I thought I was just going to do it. I’m going to give a last-minute PowerPoint to them. So I think there’ll be hopefully some help up here because I want to put these truths before you, but they’re not just like three-word truths.

The Goal of God is to be Enjoyed by All Nations

They’re a little more involved. So alright, here we go. Truth number one that I think we see in these texts coming together and really all of scripture that surrounds them, but truth number one, the end goal of God is his glory known and enjoyed among all the nations.

So the end goal of God, is there a PowerPoint out there? Maybe it’s gone. I’m just having a flashback even right now with those moments where I’m like, I don’t know what’s going on.

So all right, I’ll say it a little slower. Maybe it’ll come up, maybe it won’t. It’s fine. That’ll be like, there it is. All right, there it is. And look how massive it is. I mean, how much bigger can the words be?

All right, so I’m sorry, let’s just go with it. It is on the plane. So here’s the truth, number one, truth number one, the end goal of God is his glory known and enjoyed among all the nations. So if we had time, we could go this morning from cover to cover in scripture and show that from beginning to end in the Bible, God’s purpose aim is for his glory, his goal for his glory to be known and enjoyed among all the nations.

I’ll never forget where I was when I was in college and a breakout session at a conference it was just like 10 people in the room and a person leading this breakout just walked in and opened up his Bible and started in Genesis and for the next hour walked to from Genesis through Revelation and just showed God’s zeal for his own glory among all the nations in and out of every part of scripture. And I just remember when that breakout session ended, everybody got up and started walking out and my jaw was just on the ground because I just realized this changes everything.

This is what drives God and it’s just as fresh. Now, I was studying all day yesterday and some this morning for preaching this Sunday on Ephesians chapter one and just this powerful picture of his grace, Ephesians one, three through 14, which is an incredible sentence in the Bible for 12 verses, but it’s just this picture of adoption as sons and three times to the praise of God’s glory, to the praise of God’s glory, to the praise of God’s glory.

It’s all about, how he shows grace for his glory. So it’s one thing to say God is worthy of praise, but it’s a whole nother level to say God’s goal is his own praise because that really starts to maybe rub us a bit wrong, like to say God aims to exalt himself, God lives to exalt himself.

And if that rubs you wrong, I would just ask the follow-up question like, who else would you rather him exalt you this, that, no, at any point, God were to exalt someone or something else.

He would no longer be the God who’s worthy of all exaltation and he is what it means to be. God is to glorify himself. There’s none other who’s worthy of glory and might and wisdom and honor and Revelation seven just keeps going on and on and on.

This hit me. We’ve been in the church, I pastor reading through the story of scripture just chronologically this last year, and I preach each Sunday on a text from that portion of the story of scripture that week we were in the Psalms a couple of months ago, and it just hit me in a fresh way like the Psalms, these God inspired songs of praise to God.

I started thinking like, what if I went to my wife Heather, and I said, babe, I’ve written 150 poems about how great I am, and I want to give them to you as a gift and put them to music. I just want to encourage you to sing them to me and it will bring such joy to your soul.

I tell you when I’m not giving my wife 150 poems about how great I am, but this is what God has given us in the Psalms. Here are 150 Psalms that I’ve inspired for my worship, for my praise, and this is why.

So the end of the book, Revelation Chapter Nine, the end of all history is headed toward the day when God is glorified and God’s the one who has written the script that way. The end goal of God is his glory, not just known, but enjoyed.

Salvation belongs to our God. They’re singing because they love him. So why are we singing? Because we have to. Worship is not duty, it’s delight, and it’s not just certain types of people who love him.

It’s all types of people, all the nations, all the languages, all the peoples, every type of person giving him glory, God’s design history to culminate and that aim. So here we go, among all the nations, and I trust, we realize when we see nations, languages, and peoples, this is not talking about just geopolitical entities like we think of nations today.

This is thinking about ethnolinguistic groups. That’s the word that’s oftentimes used, certainly in Matthew chapter 28, verse 19, make disciples of all the nations, all the ethnic, all the ethnic groups, what we commonly call people groups today.

So in the church I pastor in Washington DC, we have well over a hundred different geopolitical nations and then many more people groups represented in that church. So it’s all kinds of different peoples, even though we’re all in the United States.

Our Goal is to Spread God’s Name to All Nations

So alright, that’s truth number one. If that is true, then truth number two, the end goal of every Christian local church and church leader is the spread of God’s glory among all the nations. The end goal of every Christian, every local church, and every church leader is the spread of God’s glory among all the nations.

Maybe that’ll come up on the screen at some point. So there it is. So basically, if God’s goal in history is for men and women from every nation, tribe, and tongue to glorify him, knowing and enjoying his glory, then that’s our goal.

That’s our goal. That must be our goal. If that is not our goal, then it is God’s goal. Well, I would just ask whose goal needs to change. So this is all of us, every Christian. I am sure I’ve told it at some point since coming back here because it was such a pivotal moment in my life, but it comes to mind here.

When I was on this campus Jerry Rankin then president of the International Mission Board was preaching in chapel and I’d been asked to take him to breakfast. I was a student. And so I took him to breakfast in the cafeteria right over there before he sat down at the table.

Well, let me back up. I’d seen in college God’s zeal for his glory among all the nations. I have since then learned about the number of nations that were unreached by the gospel and the number of people groups in the world that had little to no knowledge of the gospel.

And so the more I learned about the situation of the world and saw these truths in God’s word, the more I thought, no brainer, I need to go to the nations. I need to go to where the gospel’s not yet gone.

And so Heather and I had been praying about that, and then I got asked to take the president of the International Mission Board to breakfast. And so the night before they’re in Willingham Manor who lives in Willingham, there it is. Boom. Yes.

So we’re sitting there in Willingham Manor that night before and I’m like, babe, I’m taking Dr. Rankin to breakfast tomorrow. I said I’m going to tell him we’re ready to go. Are you okay with that? And she was like, I’m okay with that.

So I said, all right, we prayed. I got up the next morning and I went before he sat down at the table, I was already pouring out my heart, Dr. Rank, and I see it in the word, I see the need in the world.

I’m ready, I’m ready to go. And so my wife and I pray, we’re ready to go. Well, he looks back at me and for about 60 seconds encourages me in what I just said. And then the rest of breakfast he talks with me about the need for pastors to shepherd churches here among the reach for the spread of the gospel to the unreached.

It’s all he talked about. And I was so confused. I went back to the manor that night and Heather’s like, how’d it go? How’d it go? And I’m like, I think the president of the International Mission Board just talked me out of becoming a missionary.

And she looked at me With a disappointed look like, what’d you do? I’d blown it. I had failed. And so I just remember wrestling with that. I’m so thankful that that breakfast was so pivotal in my mind and my life because that day Dr. Rankin created a category in my mind that I don’t think was there before.

So here’s the category. So there’s actually a type of person who is zealous for the spread of God’s glory among the nations, but who does not become a missionary. And the more I thought about it, I thought, of course, there’s a category for that.

It’s called a Christian, right? The spirit of Christ wants the world for Christ. Do you have the spirit of Christ in you? Then you want the world for Christ. You’re driven with zeal. This is not just for missionaries, meaning those whom God caused to cross a geographic, linguistic, or cultural barrier to take the gospel where it’s not yet gone.

We’ll talk about that in a minute, but this is for all of us. Every Christian is to live with zeal for the spread of God’s glory among the nations. Every Christian, every local church, this is what the church, when you put Christians together in churches and all these Christians have the spirit of Christ that wants the world for Christ, then that church wants the world for Christ.

The local church has a global goal. Every local church has a global goal and it infiltrates everything a local church does. This is where we must be careful not to compartmentalize the global aim of God into a program over here for a select few people who are passionate about that.

No, this should infiltrate children’s ministry. Children’s ministry is like teaching kids to long for the glory of Christ among the nations more than they long for a comfortable life according to the standards of this world.

That’s one of the things that exhilarate me most as a pastor, is I pray for kids if they are in our church for 18 years before going off to college, just getting 18 years of God’s passion for his glory among all nations in the world such that when they go off and they start thinking major and they start thinking who they’re going to marry, and they start thinking what their jobs are going to look like, it’s all through the lens of how can I make my life count for the spread of God’s glory among the nations that should totally transform children student ministry. The global goal of God is not a program in the church.

It’s the heartbeat of the church that changes everything so well. And I say every church leader speaking of changing everything, the tenor of a local church will change when the pastor of a local church has a heart that beats for the global goal of God.

When a pastor’s zeal is for the spread of God’s glory among all the nations, it will be evident in his preaching when other leaders in the church have a zeal for God’s glory among the nations, it will be evident in their leading. Everything changes when the leaders in the church are driven by this kind of zeal.

So I would just ask, is this goal evident in your life right now? Is this goal evident in the way you are praying and the way you are using resources financially, time, and gifts, the way you work, and the way you dream?

For every faculty member teaching whatever subject to do it with zeal for the glory of God among all the nations, it changes the tenor of life, a family, a church, a seminary classroom, and on and on and on. The hidden goal of every Christian local church and church leader is the spread of God’s glory among all the nations.

God Will Accomplish His Goal Through the Great Commission

Truth number three, the means for accomplishing this goal is the great commission making disciples and multiplying churches. So this is what Jesus has told us to do. So we know the end, the aim, revelation seven, what all the scripture’s been pointing to the glory of God known among all the nations.

Well, how does that happen? How does God’s glory spread so that it’s known and enjoyed among all the nations? Jesus says, go and make disciples of all the nations, which makes sense now. So let’s connect those two texts like make disciples of the nations.

Let’s think about how that spread the glory of God among the nations. Well, think about just being a disciple. How has God glorified in your life and my life as a disciple? The more we become like Jesus, the more God is glorified in our lives, and the more we are.

And I think like Jesus desires like Jesus love like Jesus, live like Jesus. The more our lives are conformed to the image of Christ, the more God is receiving glory in our lives, and the more we know and enjoy God’s glory in our lives.

But then we realized in Matthew 28, that it’s not just about us being disciples, it’s about us making disciples. It’s about us leading more people to turn from sin, trust in Jesus, and conform to his image.

And the more people are being conformed to the image of Jesus, the more God is receiving glory in the world and not just individual people make disciples. Why I put multiplying churches there because this is the picture we see in the New Testament.

What Paul is summarizing in Romans chapter 15 he has been doing, lemme show you a map up here on the screen, just a very basic reminder of what Paul and Barnabas and Acts chapter 13 did. If you look on the far right portion of this map, you see Antioch, that is where Acts chapter 13 happened.

When the spirit of God set apart Paul and Barnabas said, I’m sending you out to go where the gospel has not yet gone. And so the kind of pinkish, reddish arrows are them going out. You see, they went down to Cyprus and they went north up into Pisidia, Antioch, econ Ra Derby, and then the bluish purple arrows are them going back.

And what were they doing? Acts chapters 13 and 14, everywhere they went, they were proclaiming the gospel. As people came to faith in Christ, they were gathering them together in churches.

And Acts 14 gives us that summary. Elders are being appointed in all these churches. As they go back, they’re strengthening the churches. So what’s happening is this is the outworking of the great commission in the book of Acts.

Disciples are being made and churches are being multiplied. This church at Antioch sends out missionaries filled with the spirit of God to make disciples and start churches in new places. And now the church is multiplying the way Acts chapter nine envisioned it.

So that’s the picture of how the glory of God spreads and is known and enjoyed by more and more and more people through obedience to the great commission making disciples, gathering those disciples together into churches, and in this process multiplying churches. Pretty simple.

The Great Commission is Not a General Command

Now, all of this sets the stage for two more truths that kind of based on these foundational three, bring things home in a way that I’m convinced we really need to hear in our day. So truth number four, assuming all these first three are true, then keep going to number four.

The Great Commission is not a general command to make disciples and multiply churches among as many people as possible. The Great Commission is a specific command to make disciples and multiply churches among all the nations.

So I want you to think about this. This is really key. Great commission means for accomplishing Revelation seven goal of God. It’s not just a general command to make disciples and multiply churches among as many people as possible.

Instead, it is a specific command to make disciples and multiply churches among all the nations. So let’s go back. Hopefully, you got most of that written down. It’s a long sentence but go back to that map.

We were just at a second ago. So this was the first missionary journey. They came back into Acts chapter 14 and encouraged the church at Antioch with what God was doing then set the stage for a second missionary journey.

So go to this next map with me, this second missionary journey. You see Antioch again on the right, Paul goes north this time a little dispute with Barnabas. So now we have two missionary teams this one with Silas, and they pick up Timothy along the way.

So Paul goes to the same places. He’s been retracing his steps into Derby, Racon, Pisidian, and Antioch. But then you remember Acts chapter 16 verses six through 10. When he starts going in this direction, the spirit of Jesus says no.

In that direction, the spirit of Jesus says no. And then he has a vision of a man from Macedonia saying, come over and help us. So we concluded that God was calling us to go there. So notice now God is beckoning calling Paul and his team to go to new places where the gospel has not yet gone.

So they spread up to the northwest. You go into places that we’re all familiar with Philippi, Thessalonica down into Corinth, you see, and Athens, Ephesus kind of in the middle. And then they make their way back down to Jerusalem and up to Antioch.

And what are they doing in all these places? They’re making disciples and multiplying churches. They are obeying the great commission, but not just doing it in places where the gospel has gone. They’re going to new places where the gospel has not yet gone.

They keep pressing on to where the gospel hasn’t gone. They don’t stop where the gospel is. That then sets the stage for missionary journey number three, this next map, missionary journey number three.

Again, you’ll see this time Paul goes out and he goes to all the same places, no new places on this journey. And you’ll notice though at the end, he doesn’t end up going to Antioch and you’ll say, well, of course he doesn’t because he got arrested in Jerusalem at the end of this journey.

But he wasn’t planning on going back to Antioch. Do you know why? Well, let’s broaden the map. Show this next one. This will be a little harder to see just cities. But on the far right you’ll see Antioch in Jerusalem, and then you’ll see Corinth kind of moving westward.

You’ll see Corinth and you’ll see Rome right in the middle. So on this third missionary journey, Paul gets to the city of Corinth and he sits down to write a letter. And what letter does he write? I’ll give you a hint. It’s one of the ones we read.

Romans. There you go. He didn’t write Matthew, he didn’t write Revelation. I’m going to go Romans. Romans, yes. So, so Romans. So he sits down in Corinth and he writes a letter to the church at Rome.

So why did he write the letter to the church in Rome to give us just this masterful treatment of the gospel in Romans 1 through eight? I mean, yes that, or do I like or totally baffle our minds in Romans 9 through 11?

Yes, that, and you could go on. There’s all kinds of, but you get to the end here in Romans, if you still got your finger there. In Romans chapter 15, he says, why he’s writing this letter. He tells the church in Rome, I am writing this because there’s no more work for me to do in these other regions.

What an outlandish statement. No more work really everybody, a Christian and Philippi, Corinth. I mean you’re writing in Corinth, Paul, there’s a lot of work to be done in Corinth. It’s a messed up place.

There’s tons of work to be done in all those places. So why does he say there’s no more work? I have no longer any room for work in these reaches. Why? Because disciples have been made and churches had been planted, multiplied there.

And Paul is saying, we must keep pressing on to where the gospel has not yet gone so that those who have never been told of him will see. Verse 21, those who’ve never heard will understand to make Christ known where he has not already been named.

And so he writes this letter to the church at Rome because he wants to go where he says it in verse 24. I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain on the far westward side of this map because they haven’t heard the gospel in Spain.

So the picture is very clear. The great commission is a command to make disciples of all the nations, all of them. And there are nations, there are peoples where the gospel has not yet gone.

And so the story of the New Testament church is pressing on until the gospel is known among more and more and more nations and there’s an impulse to keep pressing on where the gospel hasn’t gone. Now notice that doesn’t mean everybody is supposed to pack up and move to these places where the gospel is not yet gone.

Not everybody left Antioch to go to new places. The spirit set apart Paul and Barnabas. Paul’s not writing a letter to the church at Rome and saying, everybody needs to pack their bags and get to Spain.

But he is saying, we need to work together as the church to keep pressing to where the gospel has not gone. We do not have the option of just focusing on places where the gospel has gone.

The great commission does not leave us with that option because we have been commanded not just to make disciples among a lot of people, we have been commanded to make disciples of all the nations. So picture it this way, we obviously know what a hurricane is like.

So a hurricane will come in and just totally take out a whole large swath of land region. Tornadoes are different, right? Tornadoes are much more selective. A tornado can come through if you’ve ever been in a village, a neighborhood, or town, or a city that’s been hit by a tornado.

I mean you could have one house standing and the house right next to it totally gone. So imagine with me for a second that a tornado comes through a particular region and just goes through selectively just ravaging all kinds of neighborhoods in that region.

Imagine you are in charge of rescue operations on the ground and you and your team, come to the first neighborhood and when you get to that neighborhood, you realize there are more needs for rescue to be met than you and your team can even begin to address. And so you’re looking at this neighborhood alone and there’s more work to be done than you can even begin to address.

And then you think, well then there’s this over here, but if I send some of my team there, we’ll lose time and energy getting there. Or we could be working on rescuing people here. And then imagine you hear about a neighborhood way far away, but this neighborhood, it’s in desperate need of rescue like totally ravaged.

But you actually hear that the people who are there will actually resist you if you try to come help them. They will fight against you if you try to bring rescue there. So if you’re just using common logic at this point, what do you do?

You stay right here in this neighborhood, right? You spend all your energy there. You don’t lose time and energy trying to go to this neighborhood and then risk your men’s women’s lives in order to go to that neighborhood over there knowing that they’re going to resist you when you get there.

So the only reason you would disperse forces and go to these other neighborhoods is if your commanding officer told you, I want people rescued in every single neighborhood. If you’ve been told that by your commanding officer, then you say, all right, we’re going.

So some stay here, some go there and some go there. So it’s not a perfect illustration, but I would say based on what we are seeing in the word of God, this is exactly what he has told us to do.

He has said, I don’t want my rescue proclaimed and experienced in my glory known and enjoyed just in this neighborhood. I wanted in that neighborhood and that neighborhood and those people groups where when you go there you will face all kinds of resistance.

You are going there because I have told you to go there. You see it. The great commission is not just a general command to make disciples among whoever. It’s a specific command to make disciples among all the nations.

Now here’s why this is so important. Lemme put another map up here on the screen. So this map, hopefully, you recognize if not just to explain it to you. It’s a map that depicts. This is Joshua’s project information with the progress of the gospel by people group.

And on this map, the areas that are green represent places that have been reached with the gospel. Obviously we would not call these places in the official terminology it says established or significant church.

We would not call these Christian places. I mean you look across America, we know we have so much need for God’s mercy in our country. I just preached on just this last Sunday on sexuality in our culture and all kinds of LG, BT Q, just L-G-B-T-Q questions in the church that I pastor.

So we know there are all kinds of needs, but the green represents places whereby God’s grace, the gospel has gone and churches have been planted. The yellow represents the formative or nominal church. So think just a weaker church.

So maybe even a gospel list church in some places or just a weak church. Then red represents places that are unreached or least reached. So when we hear unreached, let’s just make sure we’ve got in our minds the same terminology here.

So unreached does not mean lost. It means more than just loss. It’s not the exact same as lost. So if yes, people are just as lost in Mississippi as they are in Saudi Arabia, if somebody doesn’t believe in Christ, they’re just as law separated from God.

The difference is there are a few churches in Mississippi, there are a lot of churches in Mississippi. There are very few churches in Saudi Arabia. There are a lot of followers of Jesus with the gospel by God’s grace in Mississippi.

There are very few in Saudi Arabia, which means if you live in Saudi Arabia, the likelihood is you’ll be born, you’ll live and you’ll die without ever even hearing the name of Jesus or the truth about Jesus. Never meet a Christian or have a church around you to make that known.

That’s what it means to be unreached. That’s why we don’t say so unreached means you don’t have access to the gospel. So we don’t say don’t why we talk about unreached people around the world. I mean, there are unreached people in my office.

There are unreached people in my neighborhood. Those people are not unreached. So how do you know? Because they’re in your office, your neighborhood has access to the gospel. You’re right by God’s grace.

So you look at that map and you see all these people. Joshua Project identifies over 6,000 of them. IMB uses similar numbers. Over 6,000 distinct groups of people are praying this morning for the Pashtoon in southern Afghanistan, 9 million of them, hardly any known followers of Jesus.

So here’s the problem, that’s the problem, but then take it a step deeper. Did you know that when we and our churches do missions over 90% of our missions, resources, money, and time go to reached places in the world, we’re doing all kinds of stuff in the green and Latin America doing all kinds of stuff in Sub-Saharan Africa like the missions program and the church that I pastor, or just to put it out on the table has been focused on Latin America, Ethiopia, Uganda, and places where there are by God’s grace. A lot of churches, and I’m not saying there’s not work to be done there, there’s not encouragement to be given there, but let’s get the picture like we’re patting ourselves in the back saying, look at all the missions we’re doing, but we’re not getting the gospel to where it hasn’t gone.

Don’t Disregard the Goal of God

We’re not actually obeying the great commission to make disciples of all the nations like we are even using mission’s terminology to describe not doing what Jesus has told us to do, really significant to get and to change. So all of that then would lead me to say, based on these three texts in God’s word and the old thrust of what the Bible is teaching, what we’ve seen, truth number five, if we are not living and leading to spread God’s glory among all the nations, then we are disobeying the great commission and disregarding the goal of God if we are just focused on right around us.

And I don’t want to in any way minimize right around us because yes, there’s need right around us, and wherever God has called us to be, God’s called you to be in New Orleans right now or this part of Louisiana or Mississippi. God’s called me to be in metro Washington, DC I want to live to make disciples right there among the nations that God has even brought there.

It’s awesome the way God is bringing the nations and the peoples of the world to our doorsteps to be able to share the gospel. So yes, yes. And we don’t stop there. We press on and our praying our giving and our leading in the church to see the gospel go where it hasn’t gone.

And if we are not doing that, if that thrust is not clear in our lives and our leadership, then we are disobeying the great commission and disregarding the goal of God. What would it look like in our lives and our families and our churches if we were all really working, actually working to see the gospel go to the ends of the earth with our praying, pleading just every day different people groups ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field.

If we were gathering together, like we did this just a couple of weeks ago, we had an Acts 13 couple of weeks in our church where we just set the stage. One Sunday said, here’s what God did in Acts 13.

He didn’t set apart everybody to go, but he set apart some to go where the set of hearts summoned to go, where the gospel had not yet gone. And he did it while the church was worshiping and fasting and praying.

So we’re going to gather on Friday, I’m going to call the church to fast on Friday, Friday night we’re going to gather from eight to midnight for a prayer gathering. We’re just going to plead for God to send out works from among us.

We’re going to pray for the spread of his glory among the nations. We’re going to lay our lives down. I’m just going to ask God, who are you leading us among us to go? And we got to that two days later, that next Sunday, and started that worship gathering and said, all right, and we’re not just going through the routine on Sunday kind of the church thing.

We have gathered together to meet with God. And we’re going to ask God today to do Acts 13 among us, like set some of us apart to go, everybody put your lives on the table. Who’s he setting apart to go and walk to the Word and then at the end of the Word just say, okay, who believes the Lord may be leading them knowing this is just going to start a process where we’re going to discern this together.

It’s what Acts 13 happened, the church working together on this, but who believes the Lord may be leading them to go stand up and people all across the room stood up beginning a process with them. I’m convinced you do that in your church no matter how many people there are in that church, like a hundred people filled with the spirit of God.

In light of that map we saw, I’m guessing God’s going to call somebody to go at least given the opportunity to call somebody to go and call the church to say, this is what we live for.

I can’t disregard his goal and disobey his commission. I don’t know what this means for your life. I pray that maybe even this time in the word today might plant a seed in your heart that will one day lose, lead some in this room to go and live and die where the gospel’s not yet gone, and pray for that.

And even if God does not lead you to do that, I pray, I pray that the fruit of even this time in the word today would be a clear trajectory in your life that you are spending yourself wherever you are, in whatever position you’re in, whatever place God calls you to, you are spinning yourself to see his glory known and enjoyed among all the nations for this. This is where the train of history is headed, and I just want to encourage you to get on that train.

Don’t waste your life on anything Allison. Don’t underestimate. Don’t underestimate what God will do when his goal is your goal. Lemme close with this. I put that map back up on the screen where we left off with Rome in the middle.

Sorry, not that one. The next one should be next. There we go. No, keep going back. Go backwards. Go backward, backward. One more. Okay, so on this map that’s where we left off.

You got Rome in the very middle, Antioch, Jerusalem on the right, and you’ll notice, maybe you’ll notice it’s hard to see. There’s a little bit of yellow around Rome in the middle and a little bit of yellow around Antioch and Jerusalem on the right.

That yellow represents the regions that were known to contain Christians at the beginning of Paul’s ministry. Basically the beginning of that first missionary journey in Acts chapter 13.

So that’s the yellow that represents areas known to contain Christians at the beginning of Paul’s ministry. In just a second, I want to show you a map that shows you the areas known to contain Christians at the end of Paul’s ministry.

And I want you to see if you can tell a difference in the yellow. Look at this next map with you see that yellow light up and all those places he went. And I’m not saying Paul was the only person to affect that map, but I would say Paul had a pretty significant influence on that map, taking the gospel where not yet gone.

But you’ll notice on this map that what’s not yellow at all, Spain, that’s where he wanted to get to. But as far as we know, he didn’t make it there. Likely don’t know all the details of Paul’s death, but when he died, likely died in Rome not having gotten the gospel of Spain.

So what shall we conclude? Paul, you failed, and did your best. You really wanted to make God’s glory known among the nations, but just fell really short. Well, before we conclude that, I want to show you this last map in a minute and it’ll show the regions known to contain Christians within two short centuries after Paul’s death.

I want you to see if you can notice a difference. I don’t underestimate for his second what God will do for his people are living for the same aim that’s driving him, not just in your life, but in your death.

I remember that sermon in Southeastern like, we’re all going to die. The question is whether we’re going to die in a way that bears fruit for the glory of our God. So I just closed with this last map on the screen and just exhorted us to spend our lives so that his glory is known and enjoyed all over that map as a result of our lives and our deaths.

So, God, we prayed it would be so. God, I don’t know all the ramifications of what this means for my life, my future, and my family don’t presume to know that for lives and families and futures around this room. But God, I pray, we pray.

We pray that you would spin us, lead us, guide us, bless us. God, I pray Psalm 67 over the men and women in this room. Be gracious to them. Bless them and cause your face to shine upon them so that your ways may be known on the earth and you’re saving power known among the nations, through them, through us.

Spend our lives, our families, our churches, our cooperation. Together this seminary spend us so that your glory would be known and enjoyed by more and more people right around us. Yes, here in New Orleans, in Washington DC right where you put us now and God not stopping there to the ends of the earth, we pray.

We pray that the past in Afghanistan would know and enjoy the glory of Jesus Christ, the salvation that comes from you. God, may they know it and may you use our lives to make your glory known In Jesus’ name, amen.