🌍 World Missions — Unit 1: The God Who Sends

I. Missions Begins in the Heart of God

We are tempted to think that missions began with a great man — with William Carey and his little book, or with Hudson Taylor sailing for China. It did not. Missions did not even begin with the Great Commission on the mountain in Galilee. Missions began in eternity, in the heart of God Himself. Before there was ever a missionary, there was a missionary God.

Look at how God reveals Himself across the Scriptures, and you will find that He is by His very nature a sending God. The Father sent the Son: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16, NKJV). The Father and the Son sent the Spirit (John 14:26). And now the risen Son sends His church: "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you" (John 20:21, NKJV). Theologians have a name for this. They call it the missio Dei — Latin for "the mission of God." Missions is not first a program of the church; it is the mission of God, and the church is swept up into it. When we go, we are not starting something; we are joining Someone.

This matters more than it may seem. If missions were merely our idea, we could set it aside whenever it grew costly or inconvenient. But missions flows from the character of the God who is love, the God who gives, the God who sends. To refuse the nations is not merely to neglect a duty; it is to misrepresent our God.

II. The Goal of Missions: The Glory of God Among the Nations

Why does God pursue the nations? The deepest answer is not first about us. It is about Him. The ultimate goal of missions is the glory of God among all peoples. God is jealous for His own name, and He will not share His glory with idols. "Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples" (Psalm 96:3, NKJV). The prophets saw a day coming when "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea" (Habakkuk 2:14, NKJV).

The rescue of the lost is precious — gloriously precious — but it is not the highest end. The highest end is worship. The goal of missions is a great multitude that no one can number, from every nation, falling down before the Lamb. John was given a glimpse of that day; the redeemed sing to the Lamb, "For You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation" (Revelation 5:9, NKJV). Missions exists so that worship may rise to God from peoples who do not yet know His name. When the last of them is gathered in, missions will be over forever, and only worship will remain.

III. The Need for Missions: A World Without Christ

If God is to be glorified among the nations, and if men are to worship Him, then something must be done about the lostness of the human race. Here is the hard truth that gives missions its urgency. Apart from Christ, people are not merely unfortunate; they are lost. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23, NKJV). Paul describes those outside of Christ as "having no hope and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12, NKJV).

Paul lays out the logic of missions with relentless clarity in Romans 10. "Whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?" (Romans 10:13–15, NKJV). Read that chain backward and you have the whole argument for missions. Salvation comes by calling on the Lord. But no one calls on a Lord he does not believe in. No one believes in a Christ he has never heard of. No one hears without a preacher. And no preacher goes unless he is sent. The unreached cannot believe what they have never heard. That is why we must go, and why we must send.

IV. The Heart of Missions: Christ the Only Way

Missions rests on one immovable conviction: that Jesus Christ is the only Savior of the world. Peter declared it before the rulers of Israel: "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12, NKJV). Jesus said it of Himself: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6, NKJV). And Paul wrote, "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5, NKJV).

Here is something we must see clearly. If there were many roads to God, missions would be a cruel waste — even an insult — sending people across oceans to peddle one option among many. But precisely because there is one Way and one Mediator, missions becomes the most loving thing the church can ever do. We do not cross the world to impose our preference; we carry the only bread to people who are starving, the only cure to people who are dying. To withhold it would not be tolerance. It would be the worst kind of cruelty.

V. The Scope of Missions: God's Heart for All

How far does God's saving purpose reach? The Scriptures answer without hesitation: to all. God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4, NKJV). He is patient, "not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9, NKJV). Through Ezekiel He swore that He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11). And the cross was wide enough for the world: "He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world" (1 John 2:2, NKJV).

This is the warm heart of the gospel we carry. Christ died for sinners, and the offer of that salvation is to be pressed upon every person without exception. Faith is the appointed door — "without faith it is impossible to please Him" (Hebrews 11:6, NKJV) — and so the call to believe must reach every ear, because the Savior died for all and God desires all to come. We do not go out wondering whether God might possibly want this nation or that one. He has told us His heart: He desires that all should come to repentance. The only question that remains is whether we will carry the word He desires them to hear.

VI. The God Who Sends Is Sending Still

So we return to where we began. Missions is the overflow of the heart of God — the Father who sent the Son, the Son who sent the Spirit, and the Lord who now sends His church. "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you" (John 20:21, NKJV). That word was not spoken to professionals only. It was spoken to the church, and you are the church.

The God who sends is sending still. He has not changed His mind about the nations; the multitude before the throne is not yet complete. The question of this course — and of your life — is simple. The Father is still sending. Will you go? Will you send? Will you pray? The mission is His; the privilege of joining it is ours.

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