If you read my last post, some of you may be left with wondering questions. Rather than delve into what is happening at the top levels of Christian leadership in Christian churches, schools, denominations, and institutions, let me summarize these cultural battles as a battle where the sufficiency of Scripture is being fought over. In my own denomination, a fight for the inerrancy of Scripture began taking place a little over forty years ago. This is not where the fight is today. The point of this post and my last post is not to say that these cultural battles are unimportant, but rather to say that the things we are fighting over are secondary to getting the gospel out to the nations.
Cultural restoration is often emphasized as part of the gospel today. “Social” justice is often included in these new definitions of the gospel. I think this adding to the gospel is where many go wrong. People who have been transformed by Jesus and his gospel do in a sense bring about restoration in culture. But, (1) Gospel transformation in one’s life must come first and (2) The culture, though restored in a sense, will never be fully restored or redeemed through a Christian’s best efforts because culture, like Christians, continue to exist in a fallen state. I am not saying here that Christians aren’t saved or that their cultural restoration efforts don’t matter. I’m simply saying the best Christian still sins and our best efforts in restoring culture on earth today continue to leave an imperfect culture. Full restoration for Christians and culture will not come about until the end of this present age when God, in his infinite wisdom and timing, decides to create (or renew) a new heaven and earth and therein give Christians their new resurrected bodies. Then and only then will there be no more crying, dying, or pain.
Until then, obeying the Great Commission is to be the priority of all Christians. We are to be proclaiming the gospel or “good news” of Jesus Christ with our lips and we are to be promoting this same gospel with our lives. At a recent gospel conference, Pastor David Platt ended his platform time by saying to all brothers and sisters in Christ, “We can fight hell for the good of the nations or we can fight each other while the nations go to hell.” Right on! We can continue fighting each others over cultural issues or we can get busy obeying the Great Commission. We do need to face our culture and stand up for truth but we don’t have time to face and fight each other while untold billions go to hell.
Sources vary but the number of people unreached is somewhere in the 2-4 billion range.
It has been said that the central mission in the Great Commission is international missions. A quick survey of the life of Paul and his missionary journeys is enough to justify this statement. Paul was always running about to spread the gospel in regions of the world where the gospel had not been preached. In other words, Paul was all about reaching the unreached. The Joshua Project reports these figures about unreached people groups:
“So how many of the approximately 17,400 ethnic people groups are considered unreached i.e. less than 2% Christ-follower and less than 5% Professing Christian? The latest estimates suggest that approximately 7,400 people groups are considered unreached. That means over 40% of the world’s people groups have no indigenous community of believing Christians able to evangelize the rest of their people group. Over 42% of the world’s population live in these over 7,400 people groups.”
Excuse me! With about half of the world’s population living in unreached territory, wouldn’t a Christian be better served to do everything they can to reach these people with the gospel vs. doing everything they can to win an argument. If your focused on reaching the unreached and might I add reaching the unsaved in our own country, you won’t have time to tweet damaging remarks about other Christian leaders. This is what I meant about putting your mouse down and picking your cross up. Deny yourself, pick up your cross, and go reach “the unreachables” for Jesus.
The Joshua Project goes on to report via International Mission Board statistics that “there is possibly over 3000 ethnic people groups that are not only unreached, but also completely unengaged meaning there is no known active on-site church planting effort underway and few, if any, known believers . . . To say that a people group is unengaged means there are definitely no missionaries, in all likelihood no outreach, no church or fellowship of believers, no Christian materials, and few if any Bibles in these people groups.”
If you are a leader of the next generation, don’t dodge questions about cultural issues. Answer the questions the best you can based off what the Word of God says. The Scriptures are sufficient and contained within are all that is needed for life and godliness in this age! But more than that, make sure you are taking the next generation on mission. For college students, this definitely means taking them around the world. Middle and High school students may or may not have that privilege, but you can definitely take them across country or at least out of state. And children can do all kinds of local missions at home!
This is no time to sit back or to criticize other ministries. Get busy going after the billions and I don’t mean money.