God’s Heart for the Nations From Eden to Eternity

If you’d rather listen to today’s Deeper Devo click HERE. And in case you missed it, here’s my latest Revive Our Hearts post: How to Walk with Jesus When Your Kids Are Little. 

Friends, it’s that time of year again when I soak up the sunshine, swim in the pool with my kids, and take some time off from Deeper Devos. Rest is a rhythm God mandates for all of us. But don’t worry, I’ll be back after these blissful summer weeks fly by faster than a mouse can make me jump out of my van. And trust me, that’s fast. In the mean time, I have a special treat for you. My pastor has graciously offered to be a guest here at Deeper Devos and I said YES!!!!! Just like that, with all capitals and fifteen exclamation points because that’s just pretty cool. So today and for the next two weeks you get to hear from my pastor on the topic of missions. Pastor Mike is a serious student of the Word. I love sitting under his teaching, and I think you will too.

Hi. My name is Mike Nafziger and I’m the Senior Pastor of Rock Prairie Church, and today I want to share with you a little about my journey to learning the importance of missions, and the extent of it in Scripture.

As both the Lord and my wife can tell you, I am a slow learner. Sometimes, it takes me a while to pick up on things. And when it comes to the importance of missions, it took me a long time to get it.

I didn’t get it in college where all that stood between me and a degree from Taylor University was an online missions class that I put off until the last possible minute, and then sped through in order to earn my diploma.

Nor did I get it in seminary, where I vividly remember sitting in a coffee shop in Louisville with my pastor and telling him that I wasn’t all that excited for my missions class that semester. When he asked me why, I said, “I know missions is important, but I’ve never really felt that passionate about it.”

Honestly, I still didn’t get it even when I took on the title of Missions Pastor my first year out of seminary. I could give lip service to the idea. I could tell others how important missions was, but I personally didn’t get it. I didn’t get it because I didn’t see the thread. Literally.

That changed when I led a group of high school students to Engage Global in Minneapolis. Engage Global is a ministry that teaches people about God’s heart for the nations by immersing them in a religiously diverse community. Teams visit a Buddhist temple, a Somali market, a mosque, and a Hindu temple in order to learn about other religions, and see firsthand the importance of sharing the gospel all over the world.

I thought the trip would be a great learning experience for high school students learning to see the world how God sees it. Little did I know what the Lord was about to do in my own heart.

Our first evening there, we unpacked our things and piled into a small classroom. Rick, the founder of Engage Global, began by asking us a question: “How many Bible verses about missions can you think of?” A student raised their hand and suggested the Great Commission in Matthew 28. Then someone else suggested Acts 1:8. Both were correct. But then, we were stuck. No one could think of any other verses about missions.

Rick then strung a red piece of yarn from one end of the room to the other. He said, “From Genesis chapter 1 to Revelation 22, there is a thread that runs through the whole Bible. And that thread is missions.

I was skeptical. I knew missions was important, but to say that the whole Bible is about missions seemed like an overstatement. But he was right. And for the next half hour he took us on a whirlwind through the entire Bible, laying out for us God’s call to enjoy His grace, and extend His glory to the nations.

My heart was stirred like never before as I saw God’s heart for the nations from Eden to Eternity

The Plan

In Genesis 1:28 God creates man and woman and blesses them. In other words, He encourages them to enjoy His grace. And then God gives them a mission—be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with image bearers who would worship Him. In other words, God commands them to extend His glory.

However, it didn’t take long for things to go wrong. In Genesis 11 we come across a group of people trying to build a tower to heaven. Verse 4 tells us why: “Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

Did you catch that? This was a direct challenge to God’s command to Adam and Eve to fill the earth with worshipers! As a result, God confused their language so they couldn’t stay together. Then verse 9 says God dispersed the peoples “over the face of all the earth.”

Part one of God’s plan is complete, due to God’s merciful intervention. His image bearers have filled the whole earth, but they aren’t worshipers yet. They’re rebellious. So God chooses one nation, Israel, to be a people for His own possession in order to show the nations how to have a right relationship with God and neighbor. In other words, enjoy His grace and extend His glory.

That’s right, God chose Israel not just because he felt like playing favorites, but in order to use them to reach the nations. In God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12, God says, “all the peoples (nations) on earth will be blessed through you.”

If the Abrahamic Covenant promised blessings for the nations through the family of Abraham, the Mosaic Covenant taught the family of Abraham how to extend those blessings to the nations (Exodus 19-24). The whole reason for the Promised Land was so other nations could have a front row seat to observe what it looks like to worship Yahweh, the one true God.

Enjoy my grace and extend my glory, said the Lord to Israel.

The Solution

But once again, things went south. Israel demonstrated time and time again that they could not be faithful to God, and therefore they were unable to bless the nations as God desired. No matter how promising a certain king might be for a time, no matter how dire a warning the prophets gave, Israel always ended up turning to other gods.

The world needed a perfect man, a representative head of the true Israel to come and bridge the gap between God and man, in order to fill the earth with worshipers of the one true God, as God had ordained from the beginning. And that man was Jesus.

Jesus came and perfectly demonstrated how to have a right relationship with God and neighbor. In other words, Jesus came so we could know what it is to enjoy God’s grace and extend His glory. Jesus died as the perfect sacrifice so that all who believe can be called sons and daughters of the King—image bearers who no only get to enjoy God but extend His glory.

Which brings us back to the two missions verses that our group came up with that day in Minneapolis. Verses which carry all the more weight when we can see the thread that precedes them.

What was Jesus’ final instruction to his disciples after he came and accomplished what Israel couldn’t? “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28). “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Enjoy my grace, and extend my glory, says Jesus. Fill the earth with worshipers!

And in Revelation 6 we see the glorious conclusion. In it the elders fall down before the Lamb and sing a new song, saying, “for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

Jesus’ last instructions on earth were to fulfill what was promised from the beginning—to make disciples of all nations. And Revelation shows us that God’s plan will succeed, and that there will one day be people from every nation, tribe, and tongue worshiping around the throne of the Lamb.

Disciple the Nations!

The mystery of the gospel is that it’s not just for the Jewish people, but for all people. And all of Scripture makes it clear that it was God’s plan from the very beginning to redeem a people from every nation, tribe, and tongue.

So what does that have to do with us? Great question! At our church we say that “Missions isn’t a program; it’s a culture.” Next week I will explore some things that your church can do to develop a missions culture, and then the week after that I’ll share some practical steps that anyone can take to become a world Christian who enjoys God’s grace, extends God’s glory, and fills the earth with worshipers of the one true God.

God Bless,

Pastor Mike