The Church's Lost Vision

I've been contemplating missions and the Church's lack of passion for the work of God in the nations. I don't understand it. Why isn't the church excited? Why doesn't the Church care? Why is the Church living so passionles for God's vision in the world? Hmmm...I have thought of three reasons (not that there aren't more...):

1. We don't believe "missions" is applicable to all believers.
2. We are blind to God's love and glory.
3. We have been sucked into the American mindset of comfort and ease.

I have three things to say in answer to these questions:

1. Missions is applicable to everyone (we are called to send or be sent).
2. We are blind to God's glory and therefore must fight to unveil it, love it, and savor it, in order that we might proclaim it to all peoples.
3. We must not buy into the American dream. It is a lie and it holds no eternal joy.

I am shocked and dismayed to see very little passion for missions in the Christian community. I don't think we understand that this is God's plan--to make much of His name by having it proclaimed to all tribes, tongues, and nations. This is huge! Yet there is so little excitement and enthusiasm...

"Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!" Psalm 96:3

"The purpose of world missions is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God into people groups where there is no indigenous, evangelizing church. This assumes something about "disciples" and something about "nations." These terms are used in Matthew 28:19, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations." My assumption about "disciples" is that they are people who have seen "the glory of God in the face of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6), and who cherish "God in Christ" as the supreme value of their lives (Philippians 3:8). My assumption about "nations" is that they are not geographic, political countries but "tribes, languages, peoples and ethnic groups" (Revelation 5:9; 7:9). Based on these two assumptions, then, the purpose of world missions is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God into people groups where there is no indigenous, evangelizing church." --John Piper

The result is eternal, ethnic worship...

"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!'" Revelation 7:9, 10

The price is great, but not so great that the result is not even greater. Oh, what joy stands before us!