Send Me! Your Journal to the Nations
charting the course
Participate in the Story of His Glory
Bill Taylor
It’s an experience forever engraved upon my memory. We were standing under a large tent pitched just outside Auckland, New Zealand, during one of the evening sessions of the South Pacific Prayer Assembly. My wife, Yvonne, and I were privileged to join believers from eight South Pacific nations for this week-long event. The worship had been rich, the prayer powerful, the diversity of peoples, languages, cultures, and interdenominational streams of Christian faith simply glorious. That night, God led Michael Maelieu of the Solomon Islands to preside over the meeting in a special way. He told stories of God’s work in the islands, thanking the Westerners present for bringing the gospel to their isolated region and paying the high cost of their very lives. He shared the story of the dramatic advance of the gospel among his people - people who 100 years ago were an unreached, cannibal people group.
But then Michael’s focus changed. “Now we island believers have heard God calling us to share with you, our Australian and New Zealand brothers and sisters, the flaming missionary torch of the gospel you so lovingly brought to us.” He called all the Papua New Guinea and Solomon islanders up to the front, then the Aussie and Kiwi leaders. Then he challenged his island peoples to encircle and minister to their Western colleagues. The heavenly-sounding cacophony of prayer, singing, weeping, and worship was incredible. Islanders were praying for Australians and New Zealanders. The former mission fields had been converted into new prayer and sending bases for world evangelization. We sensed deeply that the transactions taking place that evening would transform history in that region.
Flash Forward
to Heaven!
In my
mind I was transported to that majestic series of 17 worship scenarios that
play out in the drama of the book of Revelation. In chapters 4–7, John
the apostle, pastor, poet, and prophet offers us seven glorious multimedia scenes
which center attention on our unique, living God and His Lamb. These scenes
range from the four mysterious creatures to the 24 elders, from the angels to
all creation, and from these choirs to that unprecedented worship procession
where John writes:
“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb’” (Rev. 7:9-10).
Now, how did all those peoples get there? The story of God’s glory begins with God’s passionate heart for all His creation, for people made in His image who are loved in spite of their rebellion. Furthermore, children, youth, and adults have sensed the deep conviction that God is asking them to leave their own culture and family in order to cross cultural, language, and geographic barriers to present the claims of our unique Christ and establish His church among these different peoples. And these people have been willing to pay the price. Their obedience has been costly; to leave home to serve in another context is never easy. There are plenty of tough times, bitter and sweet tears, gut-wrenching pain and loss, darkness and despair. Satan does not relinquish his captives easily! But these servants persevere for the sake of the Lamb who is worthy to receive all praise and worship.
The Importance
of Worship
The prime
and ultimate business of heaven is worship. Pastor John Piper puts it bluntly:
“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is.” So
why do we still have missions? “Missions exists,” Piper reminds us,
“because worship doesn’t.” The task of claiming worshipers for
God and His Lamb is unfinished business. Thus, worship and mission merge as
my overarching passions, for I want to pack heaven with worshipers.
At the end of the 20th century, and as we move into the third millennium, the church of Jesus Christ has become truly globalized, and missions is now from all nations to all nations. We stand at an incredibly significant crossroads. This is a kairos moment, and we’re privileged to be a part of it. Thousands of faithful disciples have preceded us and participated in the harvest.
But in order to see heaven packed with the final ingathering of worshipers from all the nations, we need a strong, new, international army of long-term, cross-cultural workers. We must deploy a new generation of cross-cultural workers who will live in the slums, identify with the oppressed, the widows and orphans, who will cry out for justice! They and their colleagues in other ministries will be ones who will commit to stay long enough to learn the language well, to understand the culture, and to love the people, and thus incarnate the gospel and see the church established. They are the ones who will have the inexpressible joy of seeing those whom they served join the vast multitudes already surrounding the throne of God and worshiping the Lamb.
We will have the privilege of presenting the once-unreached peoples to our Lord as our offering of praise. That’s where history is going, and that’s our part in the story of His glory.
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Charting the Course
Excerpt from Send Me! Your Journey to the Nations Copyright 1999, World Evangelical Alliance, all rights reserved, reprinted by permission. The entire Send Me! workbook may be purchased online at www.wearesources.org.
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