by John Piper
This is just what we saw in Romans 15:9. There the nations glorify God for his mercy. Here they praise God for his grace. In both cases, God gets the glory and humans get the joy. So the more passionate God is for his glory, the more passionate he is for meeting our need as sinners. Grace is our only hope and the only hope of the nations. Therefore, the more zealous God is for his grace to be glorified, the more hope there is that missions will succeed.
The Power of Missions Is Worship
What we have been showing is that God’s supremacy in his own heart is not unloving. It is, in fact, the fountain of love. God’s full delight in his own perfections overflows in his merciful will to share that delight with the nations. We may reaffirm then the earlier truth that worship is the fuel and the goal that drive us in missions because it is the fuel and the goal that drive God in missions. Missions flows from the fullness of God’s passion for God, and it aims at the participation of the nations in the very passion that he has for himself (cf. Matt. 25:21, 23; John 15:11; 17:13, 26). The power of the missionary enterprise is to be caught up into God’s fuel and God’s goal. And that means being caught up in worship.
Only One God Works for People Who Wait for Him
This remarkable vision of God as one who “exalts himself to show mercy” (Isa. 30:18) impels world missions in more ways than one. One way we have not pondered is the sheer uniqueness of this God among all the gods of the nations. Isaiah realizes this and says, “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him” (Isa. 64:4). In other words, Isaiah is stunned that the greatness of God has the paradoxical effect that he does not need people to work for him but rather magnifies himself by working for them, if they will renounce self-reliance and “wait for him.”
Isaiah anticipated the words of Paul in Acts 17:25: “[God is not] served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” The uniqueness at the heart of Christianity is the glory of God manifest in the freedom of grace. God is glorious because he does not need the nations to work for him. He is free to work for them. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Missions is not a recruitment project for God’s labor force. It is a liberation project from the heavy burdens and hard yokes of other gods (Matt. 11:28–30).
Isaiah says that such a God has not been seen or heard anywhere in the world. “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him” (Isa. 64:4). What Isaiah sees everywhere he looks are gods who have to be served rather than serve. For example, the Babylonian gods Bel and Nebo: “Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock; these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts. They stoop; they bow down together; they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity. Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save” (Isa. 46:1–4; cf. Jer. 10:5).
The difference between the true God and the gods of the nations is that the true God carries and the other gods must be carried. God serves; they must be served. God glorifies his might by showing mercy. They glorify theirs by gathering slaves. So the vision of God as one whose passion for his glory moves him to mercy impels missions because he is utterly unique among all the gods.
The Most Shareable Message in the World
There is yet another way that such a God motivates the missionary enterprise. The gospel demand that flows from such a God to the nations is an eminently shareable, doable demand, namely, to rejoice and be glad in God. “The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!” (Ps. 97:1). “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Ps. 67:3–4). “Let the oppressed see it and be glad; you who seek God, let your hearts revive” (Ps. 69:32 RSV). “May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you! May those who love your salvation say evermore, ‘God is great!’” (Ps. 70:4). What message would missionaries rather take than the message, “Be glad in God! Rejoice in God! Sing for joy in God! For God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him! God loves to exalt himself by showing mercy to sinners.”
The liberating fact is that the message we take to the frontiers is that people everywhere should seek their own best interest. We are summoning people to God. And those who come say, “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11). God glorifies himself among the nations with the command, “Delight yourself in the Lord!” (Ps. 37:4). His first and great requirement of all men everywhere is that they repent from seeking their joy in other things and begin to seek it only in him. A God who cannot be served14 is a God who can only be enjoyed. The great sin of the world is not that the human race has failed to work for God so as to increase his glory but that we have failed to delight in God so as to reflect his glory, for God’s glory is most reflected in us when we are most delighted in him.
The most exhilarating thought in the world is that God’s inexorable purpose to display his glory in the mission of the church is virtually the same as his purpose to give his people infinite delight. The glory of a Mountain Spring is seen in how many people (and how many different peoples!) find satisfaction and life in its overflowing streams. Therefore, God is committed to the holy joy of the redeemed, gathered from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, with the same zeal that moves him to seek his own glory in all that he does. The supremacy of God in the heart of God is the driving force of his mercy and the missionary movement of his church.
Biblical Expressions of the Supremacy of God in Missions
Against the background we have developed so far, we may now be able to feel the full force of those biblical texts that emphasize the supremacy of God in the missionary impulse of the church. The motives we see will confirm the centrality of God in the missionary vision of the Bible.
We have seen some of the Old Testament texts that make the glory of God the centerpiece of missionary proclamation: “Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!” (Ps. 96:3). “Proclaim that his name is exalted” (Isa. 12:4). There are many others.15 But we have not yet seen the straightforward statements of Jesus, Paul, and John that say the same thing.
Leaving Family and Possessions for the Sake of the Name
When Jesus turned the rich young ruler away because he was not willing to leave his wealth to follow Jesus, the Lord said, “Only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:23). The apostles were amazed and said, “Who then can be saved?” (v. 25). Jesus answered, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (v. 26). Then Peter, speaking as a kind of missionary who had left his home and business to follow Jesus, said, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” (v. 27). Jesus answered with a mild rebuke of Peter’s sense of sacrifice: “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life” (v. 29).
The one point of focus for us here is the phrase “for my name’s sake.” The motive that Jesus virtually takes for granted when a missionary leaves home and family and possessions is that it is for the sake of the name of Jesus. That means for the sake of Jesus’ reputation. God’s goal is that his Son’s name be exalted and honored among all the peoples of the world, for when the Son is honored, the Father is honored (Mark 9:37). When every knee bows at the name of Jesus, it will be “to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10–11). Therefore, God-centered missions exists for the sake of the name of Jesus.
A Missionary Prayer for
God’s Name to Be Hallowed
The first two petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are perhaps the clearest statements in the teachings of Jesus that missions is driven by the passion of God to be glorified among the nations. “Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come” (Matt. 6:9–10). Here Jesus teaches us to ask God to hallow his name and to make his kingdom come. This is a missionary prayer. Its aim is to engage the passion of God for his name among those who forget or revile the name of God (Pss. 9:17; 74:18). To hallow God’s name means to put it in a class by itself and to cherish and honor it above every claim to our allegiance or affection. Jesus’ primary concern—the very first petition of the prayer he teaches—is that more and more people, and more and more peoples, come to hallow God’s name. This is the reason the universe exists. Missions exists because this hallowing does not.
How Much He Must Suffer for the Name
When Paul was converted on the Damascus road, Jesus Christ became the supreme treasure and joy of his life. “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8). It was a costly allegiance. What Paul learned in Damascus was not only the joy of sins forgiven and fellowship with the King of the universe but also how much he would have to suffer. Jesus sent Ananias to him with this message: “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16). Paul’s missionary sufferings were “for the sake of the name.” When he came near the end of his life and was warned not to go to Jerusalem, he answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13). For Paul, the glory of the name of Jesus and his reputation in the world were more important than life.
“For the Sake of His Name among All the Nations”
Paul makes crystal clear in Romans 1:5 that his mission and calling are for the name of Christ among all the nations: “We have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.”
The apostle John described the motive of early Christian missionaries in the same way. He wrote to tell one of his churches that they should send out Christian brothers in a manner “worthy of God.” And the reason he gives is that “they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles” (3 John 6–7).
John Stott comments on these two texts (Rom. 1:5; 3 John 7): “They knew that God had superexalted Jesus, enthroning him at his right hand and bestowing upon him the highest rank, in order that every tongue should confess his lordship. They longed that Jesus should receive the honor due to his name.”16 This longing is not a dream but a certainty. At the bottom of all our hope, when everything else has given way, we stand on this great reality: The everlasting, all-sufficient God is infinitely, unwaveringly, and eternally committed to the glory of his great and holy name. For the sake of his fame among the nations he will act. His name will not be profaned forever. The mission of the church will be victorious. He will vindicate his people and his cause in all the earth.
May the Blessed Redeemer See the Travail of His Soul!
David Brainerd, the missionary to the Indians in New Jersey in the 1740s, was sustained by this confidence to his death at age twenty-nine. Seven days before he died in 1747, he spoke of his longing for the glory of God in the world. These are the last words he had the strength to write with his own hand:
Friday, October 2. My soul was this day, at turns, sweetly set on God: I longed to be “with him” that I might “behold his glory.” . . . Oh, that his kingdom might come in the world; that they might all love and glorify him for what he is in himself; and that the blessed Redeemer might “see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied.” Oh, “come, Lord Jesus, come quickly! Amen.”17
The absence of Brainerd’s passion for God is the great cause of missionary weakness in the churches. This was Andrew Murray’s judgment a hundred years ago:
As we seek to find out why, with such millions of Christians, the real army of God that is fighting the hosts of darkness is so small, the only answer is—lack of heart. The enthusiasm of the kingdom is missing. And that is because there is so little enthusiasm for the King.18
This is still true today. Peter Beyerhaus also sees it clearly and calls us to put the glory of God at the center of our life and mission.
We are called and sent to glorify the reign of God and to manifest His saving work before the whole world. . . . Today it is extremely important to emphasize the priority of this doxological aim before all other aims of mission. Our one-sided concern with man and his society threatens to pervert mission and make it a secular or even a quasi-atheistic undertaking. We are living in an age of apostasy where man arrogantly makes himself the measuring rod of all things. Therefore, it is a part of our missionary task courageously to confess before all enemies of the cross that the earth belongs to God and to His anointed. . . . Our task in mission is to uphold the banner of the risen Lord before the whole world, because it is his own.19
The zeal of the church for the glory of her King will not rise until pastors and mission leaders and seminary teachers make much more of the King. When the glory of God himself saturates our preaching and teaching and conversation and writings, and when he predominates above our talk of methods and strategies and psychological buzzwords and cultural trends, then the people might begin to feel that he is the central reality of their lives and that the spread of his glory is more important than all their possessions and all their plans.
The Power of Missions When Love for the Lost Is Weak
Compassion for the lost is a high and beautiful motive for missionary labor. Without it we lose the sweet humility of sharing a treasure we have freely received. But we have seen that compassion for people must not be detached from passion for the glory of God. John Dawson, a leader in Youth With a Mission, gives an additional reason why this is so. He points out that a strong feeling of love for “the lost” or “the world” is a very difficult experience to sustain and is not always recognizable when it comes.
Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have a love for the lost? This is a term we use as part of our Christian jargon. Many believers search their hearts in condemnation, looking for the arrival of some feeling of benevolence that will propel them into bold evangelism. It will never happen. It is impossible to love “the lost.” You can’t feel deeply for an abstraction or a concept. You would find it impossible to love deeply an unfamiliar individual portrayed in a photograph, let alone a nation or a race or something as vague as “all lost people.”
Don’t wait for a feeling of love in order to share Christ with a stranger. You already love your heavenly Father, and you know that this stranger is created by Him, but separated from Him, so take those first steps in evangelism because you love God. It is not primarily out of a compassion for humanity that we share our faith or pray for the lost; it is first of all, love for God. The Bible says in Ephesians 6:7–8: “With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.”
Humanity does not deserve the love of God any more than you or I do. We should never be Christian humanists, taking Jesus to poor sinful people, reducing Jesus to some kind of product that will better their lot. People deserve to be damned, but Jesus, the suffering Lamb of God, deserves the reward of His suffering.20
The Miracle of Love
Dawson’s words are a wise and encouraging warning not to limit our mission engagement to the level of compassion we feel for people we do not know. However, I don’t want to minimize what the Lord is able to do in giving people a supernatural burden of love for distant peoples. For example, Wesley Duewel of OMS International tells the story of his mother’s remarkable burden for China and India:
My mother for years carried a hunger for the people of China and India. For many years practically every day as she prayed
during family prayer for these two nations she would break down and weep before she finished praying. Her love was deep and constant, and she will be rewarded eternally for her years of love-burden for those lands. This is the love of Jesus reaching out and mediated through Christians by the Holy Spirit.21
I emphasize again that the motive of compassion and the motive of zeal for the glory of God are not separate. The weeping of compassion is the weeping of joy in God impeded in the extension of itself to another.22
The Call of God
God is calling us above all else to be the kind of people whose theme and passion is the supremacy of God in all of life. No one will be able to rise to the magnificence of the missionary cause who does not feel the magnificence of Christ. There will be no big world vision without a big God. There will be no passion to draw others into our worship where there is no passion for worship.
God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of his name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with his, and, for the sake of his name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join his global purpose. If we do this, God’s omnipotent commitment to his name will be over us like a banner, and we will not lose, in spite of many tribulations (Acts 9:16; Rom. 8:35–39). Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. The Great Commission is first to “delight yourself in the Lord” (Ps. 37:4) and then to declare, “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy” (Ps. 67:4). In this way, God will be glorified from beginning to end, and worship will empower the missionary enterprise until the coming of the Lord.