Usually, when I speak somewhere, almost everyone has the same question burning in their minds: How old is that guy? I’m actually quite old. I’m older than Matt Chandler. In fact, I’m 37. Honestly, I’m not sure why I’m here. I’m young, foolish, and inexperienced. I mean, who am I that you should listen to anything that I have to say? Some of you have children my age. You’ve experienced more. You’ve learned more. Who am I? I’m nobody. I have a confession to make. I’ve been telling people that John Piper is crazy.

In November, when John and I were talking about why he invited me, he mentioned that he was “poking around the internet” and heard several of my sermons and decided to invite me. Then, I thought to myself, “He is crazy.” So I’m not sure why he invited me. I mean, to tell you the truth, most of my sermons aren’t much more than a string of John Piper quotes. Ironically, today might be one of the first talks ever where I don’t quote John Piper. So I’m just this sinful little boy, plucked out from Japan, brought here to Minnesota with five loaves and two fish. But if that’s enough for you and the Lord, let’s give this a shot. Amen.

The Asian Holocaust

Let me take a moment just to introduce my family. This is my wonderful wife, Pearl, and our five children: four daughters and one baby boy. Our youngest, MJ, just started crawling a few weeks ago. I thought I’d share that exact moment with you all. I’m not sure if he’ll grow up being a big John Piper fan like his mother and me, but we pray for him and for our four daughters that they will all grow up having a true hunger for God. As John mentioned, I’m not Japanese. I’m Korean. But my father was born Japanese, or at least he was forced to take a Japanese name, as a subject of the Japanese imperial government, which controlled Korea from 1910 to 1945.

As a child, he would be beaten if he used his Korean names, or spoke Korean. And now, I, his son, serve as a missionary among the people he was taught to hate. And there is, perhaps, good reason, humanly speaking, to hate the Japanese. We talk about the horrors of the Holocaust when Nazi Germany killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians. According to historian Thomas Chalmers, the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Koreans, Chinese, and other Asians.

There was a holocaust in Asia. But no one seems to have noticed. In Asia, Japanese scientists tested various chemical and biological weapons such as bubonic plague and Anthrax on human victims. Human vivisection was performed without anesthesia. Body parts were cut off and blood loss was tested. Women were impregnated by soldiers and doctors. Their bellies were sliced open. Their babies were removed and then tested upon leading to their death.

Nazi scientists who visited Japanese medical experimentation facilities vomited from the horror of what they saw. There were 200,000 Korean women and girls as young as 12 years old who were forced to be sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial Army, subject to rape upwards of 100 times per day. They are known today euphemistically as the comfort women. Many of them ended up dead as we can see in this picture, a ditch filled with the dead bodies of women.

By the way, all of these pictures were taken by Japanese soldiers as souvenirs. Undergirding all of these medical and sexual atrocities was a racist ideology that sought to subdue, civilize, and subject lesser races and peoples. On top of all of this, many Japanese leaders still today do not admit to fault during Japan’s imperialist past. And they wonder why Koreans, Chinese, and other Asians aren’t more thankful. It should come as no surprise then that the question that people most often ask me about our mission work is, “Why Japan? Of all the places in the world, why would a Korean person choose Japan?” The answer that I give is quite simply, “Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies.’” That was what originally brought me to Japan. But over the years, I’ve learned that the Japanese are an amazing people. They are industrious, dependable, and engineering geniuses. They are steadfast friends, and they are respectful and kind.

All of this is so much so that you might be tempted to ask, “Do they really need the gospel?” But if you can look beyond the high technology, the smiles, and politeness, you will see a nation that is so desperately lost without Christ.

A Lost Nation

They are a nation that is spiritually lost. They worship eight million gods, but so few know the one true God. The Protestant population is 0.2 percent. There are 183,000 cult groups in Japan.

They are a nation that is also sexually lost. The historical legacy of the so-called “comfort women” that I mentioned before is today continued as there are 150,000 Filipino and Thai women who are being exploited in the Japanese sex industry, having been lured by so-called “entertainment” jobs. I was in Thailand attending the Lausanne 2004 Forum where I met Patricia Green, the founder of Rahab Ministries, which seeks to rescue Thai girls from prostitution. She told me that 70 percent of tourists who enter Thailand are men. And 70 percent of those men participate in the sex industry. And the majority of those men are Japanese. I’m not Japanese. But I apologize on behalf of the Japanese. I’ve walked down the streets of Pattaya, Thailand with friends, praying with tears in my eyes as I saw not only women involved in prostitution, walking hand in hand with their Japanese clients but also young girls and young boys.

They are a nation that is also relationally lost. There is a phenomenon known as Hikikomori where people refuse to work or participate at all in normal life. They sleep all day. And if they venture out at all, it’s at night to their local convenience store to pick up some Cup Noodles and some pornography. There are today in Japan more than one million young men who are Hikikomori.

Young girls in Japan are so desperately seeking fatherly attention that many have even turned to teenage prostitution. Having a dirty old man touch you and pay you doesn’t seem to me like a fair substitute for a father’s love. One study says that upwards of nine percent of high school girls and even upwards of 4 percent of junior high school girls report having participated in such prostitution. The Japanese need the Lord and our love as well.

So the Lord called me, my family, and our team to love the Japanese people. I think, humanly speaking, there is almost no hope for reconciliation between the Japanese and Koreans. But in Ephesians 2, we are reminded that, in Christ, there is power to reconcile Jews and Gentiles, Blacks and whites, Koreans and Japanese, to God and each other through the cross by which he put to death our hostility. Amen.

Ministries to Japan

Our ministry is called Christ Bible Institute, which includes among other ministries a theological education component called Christ Bible Seminary, a church plant movement called All Nations Fellowship, and a downtown outreach to young people called Heart and Soul. Although Japan is a tough mission field, considered by some missiologists to be the most difficult mission field in the world, we’ve seen tremendous openness to the gospel among young people. We’re just a small ministry. But we’re involved in a fairly broad range of ministries, from evangelism to discipleship, from counseling to music, from lay training to graduate-level theological training.

Our goal has basically been to set up a ministry that models the whole range of gospel witness and gospel impact from a gospel foundation. At the very core of all these ministries is theological education. In missions, we’re not merely looking for numeric conversions. We’re looking for sustainable growth of the church as the instrument of God’s work in this world.

It’s easy to dismiss theology and theological training, especially in the mission field as we’re so, so busy, so undermanned, and so focused on evangelism. But theology is the foundational discipline for all of ministry. Theology must inform our evangelism. Theology must inform our discipleship. Theology must inform our church planting, our counseling, and certainly our theological education.

After Christ Bible Seminary was established, it was a very natural process that led to initiating evangelistic outreaches, lay training, church planting, and other ministries. These were just all-natural extensions of theological convictions and sociological opportunity. So please, please pray for Japan. Do pray for Japan. This is an extremely exciting season of fruit-bearing. Light has begun to shine, especially among young people. I’m very optimistic about the future of that nation and those people, the people that I love.

Hunger for God

The theme of my talk today is “Missions as Fasting: The Forsaking of Things Present for the Global Exaltation of Christ.” Now, the danger of having such a theme is that it uses as a launching pad a concept and practice (fasting) that is not widely understood nor incorporated into most Christians’ lives. So it’s my hope today that our time might encourage you not only towards missions but also towards the blessing of fasting. I commend Thomas Boston’s work on fasting, if you can find it. I’m thankful to Phil Ryken who sent that to me. And my son already commended to you John Piper’s A Hunger for God.

I’m no specialist or anything on fasting, so I’m not going to try to present a long treatise on fasting. You all can read books on fasting, and you all have your Bibles. Fasting has been a regular part of my life for about the last five years. I was skinny back then as well, so don’t worry too much about me. I remember, though, as a freshman in college in the Philippines meeting a pastor who fasted one out of every three days, both to know God more deeply, but also, honestly speaking, because of poverty. And for me, that kind of put the phrase “a hunger for God” in a new light.

Reasons for Fasting

For the sake of my theme today making any sense, let me talk just a little bit about fasting itself. Now, fasting at the very least is presumed in the Scriptures, both Old Testaments and New Testaments, as well as modeled. One pattern of fasting in the Bible is fasting as a part of our repentance before God, as we read in Joel 2:12, which says:

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
     “return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning . . .”

Fasting was a response to repentance for idolatry. In 1 Samuel 7:6, it says of Israel that they fasted. And there, they confessed, “We have sinned against the Lord.” Fasting is a response to difficult circumstances and affliction as we see with David who said in Psalm 109:24:

My knees are weak through fasting;
     my body has become gaunt, with no fat.

Besides David, Daniel fasted, Paul fasted, Israel fasted, and Christ himself fasted. And Jesus presumes fasting when he instructs us about how to do it in Matthew 6. He says, “When you give, do it this way. When you pray, do it this way. When you fast, do it this way.” He presumes giving, praying, and fasting.

So I commend fasting to you. If you feel like in your life, you have any good reason to humble yourself before God, I commend fasting to you. If you need repentance in your life, I commend fasting to you. If you have certain people or things in your heart that you know are idols to you, I commend fasting to you if you ever face difficult circumstances. I commend fasting to you if following the model of David, Daniel, Paul, and Jesus Christ seems of some value to you.

I think these reasons apply at least as much today as they did in the past. I don’t think we’re less in need to repent of idolatry, to humble ourselves before God, and to ask for his help in difficult circumstances. I don’t think that’s true of me or of you or the people in your congregation.

Fasting as Longing

One way to think about fasting is that it reflects longing, urgency, and opportunity. It’s a longing in the sense that John Piper explains so well from the Scriptures in this book, A Hunger for God. And here on the back, we have this great phrase or prayer: “This much, oh God. This much, oh God, I want you.” Fasting is a response to a longing for God, a longing for the glory of God, a longing for God to be known and loved and adored and worshiped here and there and everywhere. It’s a longing like Paul when he says in Philippians 3:10, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings.”

It’s a longing that inspires, a forsaking of things present, even food itself. And this is where the title of my talk comes from based on the words of John Chrysostom, who said:

Fasting is, as much as lies in us, an imitation of the angels, a condemning of things present, a school of prayer, a nourishment of the soul, a bridle of the mouth, an abatement of concupiscence . . .

But what I want to key in on is his phrase “a condemning of things present.” Now in my title, I substituted the word “forsaking” with “condemning” both because it’s a very biblical term, as well as perhaps being a better fit for our modern ears. Describing fasting as a condemning of things present, I think, is very well said. There is certainly nothing more present than food and hunger. And choosing to not eat really doesn’t make much sense. It doesn’t make sense to us today when we have an incredible abundance of food here in the US. Imagine how ridiculous it sounded hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

But there is a longing for things spiritual and heavenly. There is a longing for as of yet unknown worship of God. There is a longing for things future and eternal. There is a longing for God in all his fullness that makes even the absurd idea of not eating sound perfectly reasonable. Longing for such heavenly and future blessing and worship of God inspires the condemning of things present and, in many ways, compels such forsaking as a response to such longing, but also as an assurance that such longing will not be dulled or quenched or satiated by food and things that are but temporary.

Fasting as Urgency

This brings us to the next idea of fasting as a reflection of urgency. We each have been given just one life, and that life is so short and fragile. The fragileness of life became real to me when my uncle, who at the time wasn’t that much older than I am, had a run in his store in LA with a young gang member. It wasn’t enough for that guy to take things from my uncle’s store without paying. He also had to take my uncle’s life.

Life is so, so incredibly short. We really have no idea how long the Lord will grant us. And in light of eternity, even 80 or 90 years is just like a blink of an eye. And this one life that we’ve been given is also incredibly costly. Your one life was bought at the price of the blood of the Son of God. And from that moment on, the Lord says to us, “You are not your own, you are bought at a price.” So we all have a weighty stewardship such that we all must be devotedly pouring ourselves into our master’s affairs until he comes and to know that, in fact, our master will not return until his proclamation is made known to every people group on earth.

The urgency of the master’s task and global worship are so great that even the setting aside of food makes sense. And this brings us back to Chrysostom. He goes on to say about fasting, that it “excites reason. It clears the mind. By fasting, a man gets composed behavior, free utterance of his tongue, and right apprehensions of his mind.”

In other words, Chrysostom is arguing that fasting helps us to think rightly. It helps us to think rightly about God and about life. Such right thinking helps us to have the right priorities, and to have a God-centered life that, as difficult as it may be, orients every thought and decision and focuses upon God and not the self. And again, this is what makes such an unreasonable thing as fasting reasonable. It’s about a God-centered life, orienting everything for him and for his glory, not a me-centered life that says to God, “Serve me,” and turns its back on the world as it goes to hell.

Fasting as Opportunity

And then thirdly, opportunity. Fasting is a responsive global opportunity. There are more than 2.7 billion people among 6,600 unreached people groups in the world who have little or no opportunity to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are more than 4,000 language groups that have no Scripture and no gospel witness.

Now, if you have any sense of justice or fairness or compassion at all, that alone should move you to action, whether fasting or more. If you appreciate and understand and know an orientation on God’s glory in your life. If you’ve said, “Not only this much, oh God, I want to know you,” but, “This much, oh God, I want you to be known,” then, you should be moved to action. If your heart cries the cry of Scripture — “Come, Lord Jesus” — then you should be moved to action that will open the door to his return.

Can I ask you to raise your hand if you know what the 10/40 window is? Great. The 10/40 window includes nations that are 10 degrees north latitude to 40 degrees north latitude stretching from Japan and the East across through China and Southeast Asia, through India, and then through the Middle East and North Africa.

This fairly small window encompasses nearly four billion people. Ninety-five percent of those who have not heard the gospel live in the 10/40 window. Ninety percent of the world’s poor live there. The most persecuted nations in the world are there where thousands of Christians are martyred every year. Less than 10 percent of the world’s missionary force ministers are here. And less than one dollar of every 100 dollars of missions giving goes through the 10/40 window.

Sometimes, it looks like Christians who live very safely and comfortably outside that window could care less about the billions of people who perish inside it. And how about the God who made them and is worthy to receive their worship and praise? Do you have a longing for the glory of that God? Do you have urgency in death and life? Do you see the opportunity for gospel proclamation and God’s glorification in the world today?

Missions as Fasting

I hope you see where all of this is heading, that if such longing and urgency and opportunity call for a fasting of food, how much more so does it call for a fasting of much, much more than just food? Food is a wonderful thing. I like food. I’m hungry right now. Food is a blessing from God. But sometimes, there is enough longing and urgency and opportunity that forsaking even the blessings of God is called for. Forsaking sometimes doesn’t make sense to human reason. But in light of heavenly and Christ-honoring longings, urgency, and opportunity, it makes perfect sense. In light of the gospel, it makes perfect sense.

So what is missions as fasting? It’s the forsaking of things present for the global exaltation of Jesus Christ. What are those things present beyond food itself that the Lord calls us to forsake and fast? I think in one sense these are the very things that we cherish and hold onto most tightly. These are both among our greatest blessings and also among our greatest idols. These are not always things to be forsaken in a “throwing-away” sense. Instead, these are things to be forsaken in the heart, having a proper place well behind our Lord and his glory. And they are to be invested and burned and consumed in the effort of seeing the Lord receive such global and eternal glory.

What are some of these things? Well, I think that three of the most difficult things that missionaries fast are comfort, recognition, and family. Imagine having to all of a sudden walk backward, say every sentence in reverse order, look at everything through a mirror, and sleep standing up. That’s a kind of disorienting cultural discomfort that missionaries experience on the mission field.

Forsaking Comfort

Many missionaries face tremendous physical discomfort. A friend of mine is in the Congo to translate the Bible for the Vili people. He’s there with his wife and children. I always smile and shake my head as he so nonchalantly shares about the stifling heat and humidity of the Congo that is relieved occasionally by monsoon-like rains, or that they’re well enough though one of his daughters has a touch of malaria. He fails to mention that one million young children in Africa each year die from malaria for which there is no vaccine.

Others face great political discomfort and danger. My brother-in-law is serving in the Middle East where he has been for nearly 10 years. He’s had his apartment ransacked by the police looking for Christian materials. My cousin was serving as a missionary in China. Friends of hers were captured by police during a training session for pastors from the underground church. Comfort is something fasted as a daily reality and without much choice for Christians in many parts of the world.

Forsaking Recognition

Next, missionaries fast from recognition. There’s a very well-known story of a missionary couple who, after decades of faithful service overseas, were returning back to the States. They happened to be on the same ship to New York as President Theodore Roosevelt, who was returning from a big game hunt in Africa. As the ship pulled into the docks, there were huge crowds suppressed in a brass band. They were all gathered to welcome him home. The old missionary couple, with their health broken and spent in their service for Christ, walked off the ship. And through the crowd unmet and unknown as they walked, a tear trickled down the husband’s cheek. “What’s wrong,” his wife asked. He said, “My whole life, I’ve given to serving Christ. We’ve spent ourselves for Jesus, and nobody is here to even greet us on our return home.” His dear wife thought for a minute and then said softly, “That’s because we’re not home yet, dear.”

I’ve met lots of wonderfully humble missionaries who don’t need awards or standing ovations or brass bands, but would, of course, appreciate the encouragement of a simple thank you. But most of all in lieu of any recognition that we all long for and wait to hear, we wait to hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

For those who fast, earthly comfort and recognition, there is a heavenly comfort and recognition that will leave no one disappointed. The American dream embodies earthly comfort and recognition. And my family lived out that dream. My father is the oldest of nine children. They lived in great poverty in Korea through World War II and the Korean War. Defying his circumstances, my father entered the best medical school in Korea. Defying cultural expectations, he left Korea and his family for America with almost no money and almost no English ability.

My father worked full-time at the hospital where he had to redo all of his medical residency training to earn enough money to take care of his family. My father also worked the graveyard shift two out of every three nights. Every once in a while when I saw him as a little boy, I had no idea who he was. I would stand in front of my mother doing the Ultraman pose to protect her. Does anyone know who Ultraman is?

But eventually, we got out of the inner city into the suburbs. My sister and I did well in school. And we were tracking towards lucrative careers. We could have done anything. We could have been incredibly comfortable and recognized. Between my sister, my two brothers-in-law, my wife, and me, we have 15 undergraduate and graduate degrees — 11 of the 15 are from Ivy League schools, including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, and the University of Pennsylvania. Now, all five of us are either missionaries or heading to the mission field. When some people hear of this, they think, “It’s tragic.” But others see it like the pouring of ridiculously expensive and precious perfume upon the feet of Jesus.

Departing from the American Dream

Will those who fast the American dream regret it in heaven? Now, fasting the American dream does not mean neglecting excellence. I advocate for excellence in missions. Somehow, over the last few decades, the ideas developed maybe that missionaries are people who can’t do anything else or people who couldn’t have a successful ministry in their own country. To those who have received great educations and every opportunity to live wonderfully comfortable lives, Francis Xavier says, “Tell the students to give up their small ambitions, and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ.”

This year’s conference biography is on George Whitefield. He was Oxford-educated, he was quite poor though. In order to receive free tuition, he had to be a servant to richer students, waking them in the morning, polishing their shoes, carrying their books, and even doing their coursework.

Jonathan Edwards entered Yale University at the age of 12 and later served as president of Princeton University. Whitefield and Edwards were also pretty good preachers. It’s actually widely thought that Benjamin Franklin was the founder of my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. However, the original charter established in 1740, which the school uses to boast that it is the oldest university in America, was originally established by George Whitefield to help care for and educate the poor. There’s a statue of Whitefield preaching, which is located in the freshman Quad at the University of Pennsylvania.

One Sunday during my senior year, I had lunch with my father and told him that I wanted to be a missionary. My father’s response was, “No.” And then he said, “Michael, I want you to stay in America, and I want to see you at church every Sunday with your children and have lunch together like this.” But then I said to him, “Dad, I appreciate everything that you have done for me. That’s why I can be where I am today. But I refuse to live my life just trying to get into a good college so I can get a good job and make lots of money so that my kids can have every opportunity to get into a good college and get a good job and make lots of money so that their kids can have every opportunity to get into a good college and get a good job and make lots of money. I refuse to live my life like that.”

I don’t remember what he said to me after that. But I ask you, is that why Jesus died? So that we can get a good job and make lots of money so that our kids can have every opportunity to get into a good college and get a good job and make lots of money? Did Jesus die so that we could be comfortable? Comfort and recognition — these are both things present that missionaries fast for the global exaltation of Christ.

Forsaking Family

But for most, I think the greatest heartache is separation from family. My parents are getting older. They deserve to have me by their side helping and supporting them. I should be shoveling their snow. I should be treating them to dinner and sending them money. They should feel the warmth and joy of holding their grandkids. My kids also are missing out on the special love of grandparents. But we’ll have an eternity together talking about how it was all worth it even the fasting of family.

In wartime, the most moving scenes are fathers leaving behind their wives and children, the kissing of babies, and the tears of goodbye. In missions, we have the blessing of having our families by our side until we get a glimpse of the spiritual battle we face. And you ask yourself how in the world you could have brought your wife and kids into enemy territory.

Sometimes they can become casualties in the conflict of missions with children or wives neglected and incredibly hurt. And I think it’s crucial to remind ourselves that fasting for things present does not mean giving anything less than your whole heart and passion to your family on the field. Our families never become collateral damage in the pursuit of spiritual victory.

And certainly, that’s no less true for pastors on the home front. Fasting of your family is not a neglect of family — neither the family that you leave behind in America nor the family that you bring with you to the mission field. Instead, it involves mourning over lost time with extended family; it involves a fasting of financial, physical, and educational comfort and opportunity for your children; and it involves exposure of your family to some potentially dangerous and scary circumstances in enemy territory.

It sounds funny to talk about dangers in Japan, which is one of the safest countries in the world. But that depends on how you define safety. I have five children and we live in a country that has an alarmingly high rate of child molestation, and it was the number one provider of child pornography on the internet. I think Japan may have the most densely concentrated demonic population in the world. This is a nation that worships eight million gods, and in almost every single house and apartment in the most densely packed nation in the world, there is incense burning, food offered, and prayers prayed to idols, which Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:20 are offered to demons. No, Japan is not a place to casually bring your children. It is a battlefield.

The Feast in Our Fasting

Such fasting from the blessings of life is difficult. But it comes with encouragement from Scripture that it is the right thing to do, and it also comes with a promise. Isaiah 58:6–8 says:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
     to loose the bonds of wickedness,
     to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
     and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
     and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
     and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
     and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you;
     the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

The Lord has chosen fasting to lose the chains of injustice, to set the oppressed free, and to share food with the hungry. And as we engage in such food and life fasting, our light will break forth like the dawn. Righteousness will go before us and the glory of the Lord will be our guard. If we will spend ourselves on behalf of the hungry and the lost, then, our light will rise in the darkness. The Lord will guide us, satisfy us, and strengthen us like a well-watered garden and spring whose waters never fail. That promise is good enough for me, how about you?

Obstacles to Our Going and Sending

Now, fasting from things present is not just for missionaries. And that is because God’s mission in this world is for all who are a part of the church. It is for every Christian who has a longing for the glory of Christ to be known in all the world. And here, I’m going to have to, I think, quote John Piper who says that Christians have only three choices: go, send, or disobey. So many times, I’ve had conversations with my wife about various friends of ours who are trying to get to the mission field but are struggling so much because of not being able to raise enough financial support. But my wife always says, “Boy, if Christians won’t go into the mission field, they can at least send others.”

But I think that two recent trends pose a problem to going and sending. I recently met a stranger who, when I told her that I was a missionary in Japan, said, “Oh, I’m a missionary too. I’m a missionary in my neighborhood in America.” And this reflects the first idea, a recent idea, which is that we’re all missionaries. Now, there’s something very commendable about the notion and I had to smile a bit when the lady said to me, “I’m a missionary,” with such enthusiasm. But there’s also something flawed and problematic with this idea.

Missions has historically been defined as crossing geographic boundaries and crossing cultural boundaries to bring the gospel to those who haven’t heard in nations or areas where there is no or only a very weak indigenous gospel witness. And the kind of ministry that the Christian lady is doing in reaching out to her friends and neighbors is what we would call evangelism, which is a wonderful and very proper thing to be doing, but it is distinct from missions.

The “we’re all missionaries” trend is dangerous to the church because, first of all, it ignores the injustice of billions who have little or no opportunity to hear the gospel while we, in America, have more Christian pastors and schools and media and resources and finances than any nation ever in the history of mankind. As Oswald J. Smith said, “We talk about the second coming half, but the world has never heard of the first.” Someone asked Charles Spurgeon, “Will the heathen who have never heard the gospel be saved?” Spurgeon replied, “It is more a question with me whether we — who have the gospel and fail to give it to those who have not — can be saved.” Have you ever thought about the wonderful mercy of God that you were born into your circumstances? Most of you were born into relative comfort and tremendous Christian opportunity here in America.

From a human standpoint, I think it’s perhaps fair to say that it’s not fair how blessed and privileged we are. Think about it: You could just as easily have been born in the slums of New Delhi, or as the son of a Shinto priest. And if you had, knowing what you know today, would you not have wanted someone to cross oceans, lands, and cultures to bring you to the gospel?

Secondly, it ignores the privilege and obligation for every Christian to be a sender because the Great Commission was given to the church, all who are a part of the church are a part of that commission that we see from Genesis to Revelation. As John Stott said, “We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.”

Missions Void of the Great Commission

The second trend is the abduction of mission language by non-missional missional catch phrasing. I won’t dwell long on this. But let me just say that the recent popular adoption (or abduction?) and redefining the term “mission” or “missional” within the church, especially among the emergent church, is first of all understandable. I mean “mission” is a rhetorically powerful word.

Secondly, it seems that there are so many aspects and ideas involved in their definition of “missional” that it is honestly very difficult to even grasp with any coherence what they mean. And then finally what is clear is that most post-modern takes on “mission” or “missional” have very little to do with the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. And this lulls us into thinking that we don’t need to bring the gospel anywhere. People think, “We just need to be missional right here.” If that were truly the case, then really, someone should have told all of these missionaries before they dragged their families halfway around the world.

Imagine Paul and Barnabas being told by some leader in the church at Antioch, “Oh, you don’t have to go to Cyprus or Galatia or Macedonia. You can be a missionary right here where you are.” And Paul says, “Why didn’t I think of that?” So between these two trends, which say, “we’re all missionaries,” and the emergent church’s abduction of missional language, we’re seeing that on rhetorical, conceptual, and practical levels, there is a tremendous decaying and misunderstanding of biblical and historical missions. On that topic of the biblical theme of God’s mission, I commend to you Chris Wright’s book, The Mission of God, which takes a look at the grand narrative of God’s mission throughout Scripture.

Fasting for Senders

What are some ways that senders can fast in response to longing, urgency, and opportunity? How can you personally, as a pastor, and how can your congregation forsake things present for the global exaltation of Christ?

First of all, I want to thank you. Thank you for your service to the church. Thank you for your sacrifices. Thank you for the impact that you and your churches are already making around this world. Surely, your reward will be great in heaven. Thank you. But — and this may sound very greedy — I want to humbly ask for more. Your role in the global exaltation of Christ is crucial and strategic. Your congregations follow your lead. And practically speaking, the extent to which your heart is passionate and your life is actively engaged in global missions, is the extent to which your church will be globally missional.

A missionary like me can go to your church and share our lives, our experiences, and our stories. But you are the one who is there week after week and day after day. They follow your leadership. A globally-hearted and globally-oriented church is usually led by a globally-hearted leader.

So I want to invite you not to create or improve your missions program or committee, but first and foremost to get really on board with the Lord and his global gospel agenda, to get on board with the Lord, with his mission, with his passion for his glory, with a burden for the world, with a willingness to sacrifice and suffer with an eternal perspective, with humility about your own weaknesses, self-centeredness, and parochialism, with confidence in the absolute certainty of the victory that Christ has won, which will be seen and known globally and with eagerness — to be an active part of the winning side.

Coca-Cola has a well-published goal to place a Coke in the hands of every person on the earth by the year 2000. Their most recent business plan has a goal of having a cold Coke within one mile of every person on Earth by the year 2020. These are bold and ambitious plans. But I’d say don’t count them out. Coca-Cola has changed the world in many ways. They are more globally recognized, I dare say, than Christianity. The yearly revenue is $29 billion. They have $43 billion in assets. They have more than 90,000 employees around the world.

So is the church then a small little kid who should be intimidated by this big bully drinking a Coke? No, the church is the big bully who is intimidated by this little kid drinking a Coke. American evangelical Christians earn more than $2.5 trillion per year, almost 100 times more than Coca-Cola. US Evangelicals hold $5 trillion in assets, and that’s not including the value of their homes. Eighty percent of the world’s evangelical wealth is in North America. Oh God, Oh God, help us to be good stewards of this tremendous, tremendous wealth. There’s a famous saying in Japan: “Boys, be ambitious.” And this is a quote from William Clark who in the late 1800s was president of the University of Massachusetts. For eight months during his presidency, he actually taught in Japan where he led most of his students to Christ.

Today, in some Japanese restaurants, you can even see the phrase in the windows: “Boys, be ambitious.” The saying though is incomplete. As Clark gave his farewell to his students, he turned to them and said, “Boys, be ambitious for Christ.”

Oh, that the American church would have global ambition for Jesus Christ.

God’s Resources, God’s Work

In the 1980s, experts believed that Coca-Cola’s business had run dry with the saturated North American market. But the company turned its eyes to the rest of the world. And by the mid-1990s, they were serving up more than one billion drinks every day. Today, there are 6,600 unreached people groups in the world and 2.7 billion people. Japan happens to be the largest at 128 million. There are more than 4,000 languages where there is no Scripture available. And you can make a difference.

Ralph Winter once said to a group of pastors, “Don’t go, send 100.” I think that for many of you, the greatest impact that you can make for the global glory of God is as a true sending pastor of a truly sending church, and I want to ask you and encourage and challenge you all to be the most effective, God-honoring, earth-impacting senders that history has ever known.

How can that happen? One crucial and indispensable area is finances. I want to encourage you not to give to missions either as an individual or as a church. Giving assumes ownership. And honestly, we don’t own anything in the Old Testament or the New Testament. We’re reminded the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it. Instead, I encourage you to invest God’s resources for God’s kingdom work.

My friend Quang-Jinn works in investment. He was the youngest fund manager on Wall Street. When people give him money, when people put him in charge of their money, he never gives any of it away. He doesn’t give that money to Apple or Nike; he invests it. And he does so purposefully. There are 300,000 pastors in America, and I think pastors sometimes think that we don’t have to invest in missions or even give to the church our time, our efforts, our tithe, and our offerings. And I think in one sense, that’s true. In another sense, it completely misses the point. Neither for us nor your congregation is giving a compelled tax. It’s not a question of whether we are exempt from that tax, whether in our own consciences or biblical justification. That completely misses the point both for our congregations and for ourselves.

It is a high privilege to be able to invest in God’s kingdom work. It is a high privilege to take the whole of our God-given resources — whether time, talents, physical energy, or finances — and see them invested in God-glorifying, eternity-altering, globally-blessing endeavors. If all the pastors in America gave 100 dollars per month to missions — and I’m sure many of you are already doing that and more — that would infuse $360 million per year into the mission economy. We’ve heard so much over the past year about economic stimulus packages, right? The amount of 360 million would be a tremendously powerful missions stimulus passage.

How about a tithe to missions on top of church giving from pastors alone? It could infuse upwards of 1.8 billion per year into missions that could be used to send an additional 90,000 full-time missionaries into the world. Don’t underestimate the impact that you and your family and your modest salary can make on global missions.

God Loves a Cheerful Giver

We recently started to run into some financial challenges to our ministry and our family support accounts, both because of this global recession and also because we’ve lost 30 percent of the value of the dollar versus the yen in Japan. So we put out this urgent request for prayer and support. What happened? Five missionaries emailed me, telling me, “We’re sending money.” These are not missionaries with large trust funds. These are missionaries with large trust in God. These are widows mailing in two copper coins and in the process reaping incalculable heavenly treasure. The biggest mission givers that I know are missionaries. Many missionaries give a tithe or more to reaching the global unreached, but that’s our privilege that being a missionary cannot steal from us.

And that is just one more small way that every pastor can make a global and eternal impact and be a model for his congregation. If American evangelicals would invest the tithes to global missions, that would mobilize 250 billion dollars per year, making the goal of establishing a global gospel witness to every nation and people group on earth very much within reach. There would also need to be those willing to go though I think that this would be less of a problem if there were an army of senders, a tithing to global missions by American evangelicals would fund 10 million missionaries, more than 100 times the number of Coca-Cola employees. Don’t expect CEO bonuses though, at least not here on earth. So I want to call us all to global ambition for Christ that we would forsake things present for the global exaltation of Jesus Christ.

Fasting from Food, Comfort, and Material Prosperity

What are some other ways that this can happen in your churches? Number one, just fast — simple biblical fasting of food for all the reasons we talked about 30 minutes ago. I think we’ve abandoned fasting at the very time and circumstance that we need fasting most. Now, my wife weighs like 100 pounds and has a bad back. If she fasts food, there’s no way she’s going to be able to carry our 20-pound son up the stairs, let alone herself. So she’s exploring other ways to fast and other things to fast. But no matter what it is that you fast, because of the overwhelming influence of consumer mentality and lifestyle that faces us today, there’s a greater urgency to return to the discipline of fasting.

Fasting helps us sharpen our spiritual senses that are so dulled by materialism and worldly comfort and success. Instead, fasting has been lost in our generation and in our nation. We are hoarders and consumers. We hoard and consume, and we hoard and consume. When Jesus calls us to receive and give and receive and give, heavenly economic principles clash with the economics of consumption and greed. Should Christians living in poverty around the world fast and we Kmart and Costco Christians of America should not fast?

Number two, fast comfort. The American dream embodies earthly comfort, recognition, and glory. And these are powerful motivations because we’re human. And we’re created for comfort, not an earthly one, not one of down pillows and retirement funds, not one based on bank accounts and safe zip codes. That day of comfort is ours now in some measure because Christ left his Spirit as our wonderful counselor. But that day of comfort will be ours in perfection and for eternity when this life shall pass. Would you trade 50 years of earthly comfort for an eternity of glory? Jesus says in Matthew 19:29:

Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.

Would you do that as a missionary? Would you do that as a sender? How different would the world look if every congregation represented in this room were to fast the great earthly blessings of life for even greater future heavenly joy? Practically speaking, I would like to call American Christians to invest a tithe to bringing the gospel to the 2.7 billion unreached people of the world, so that we can mobilize God’s resources for God’s mission.

Becoming a Global Christian

In the past decade of unprecedented economic prosperity, giving to the church was significantly less than even the Great Depression. If it takes our global recession becoming a global depression to help wake up the church in America, then I say, bring it on. Bring it on, global depression. Bring it on.

So what else? What else can be fasted and forsaken for the global exaltation of Christ? Your time — invest time and heart and tears and prayer for the world and for the Lord’s glory around the world. Invest time to read and learn and grow your mind and heart for the world. Operation World is a must-have book for every Christian so that our prayers for the nations of the world can go beyond, “Lord, bless the missionaries. God bless those global Christian people . . .” If you want to learn more about the challenges and opportunities facing the global church and how global leaders are responding, I’d encourage you to get to know the work of the Lausanne Movement. As you hopefully know, the Lausanne Movement began in 1974 under the leadership of Billy Graham and John Stott.

Lausanne was used by the Lord to help stem the tide of liberalism in the 1970s. The Lausanne Covenant is used by more churches and organizations as their statement of faith and vision than almost any other document in the world today. The Lausanne Movement has a unique ministry and role in the global church being a broker of trust, unity, and vision for global evangelicals. And today, I can tell you that there is in and through the Lausanne Movement powerful and fresh momentum globally.

In October 2010, Cape Town, South Africa will play host to the third major Lausanne Congress, gathering 4,000 global church leaders and tens of thousands more through the internet and satellite. The leadership of Lausanne has emphasized that an event like this is only necessary when, like in 1974, there are both exceptional internal problems and external pressures upon the global church. And today that is a situation that we face.

Internally, we face once again theological challenges that threaten to undermine the faith and mission of the church. These include questions regarding the uniqueness of and salvation in Jesus Christ alone and the urgency of the church’s response to the prosperity gospel and prosperity. Externally, the church faces the pressures of the powerful influence and growth of Islam and the remaining task of bringing the gospel and proclaiming Christ to the whole world. There is a need for global, theological, and strategic discussion as well as greater global partnerships and authentic Christian living. So Lausanne 2010 will focus on highlighting these challenges of our generation.

I believe that the conference director for Lausanne 3, Blair Carlson, might be here today. Blair, are you here? If you are, could you please stand? He’s right there in the back. Blair, thank you for being with us. Lausanne is in the process of publishing a series of booklets called “The Didasko Files” that address some foundational issues of the church today, both theologically and strategically. This growing set of booklets includes topics such as gospel leadership and giving. Information about Lausanne and “The Didasko Files” is available on our information table in the exhibitor’s hall which also has information about our ministry in Japan.

Full Surrender

I also ask that you fast the very best and brightest of your church. Yes, send us 100. But please, don’t send us the 100 biggest headaches of your church. Send us your sons and daughters unless, of course, they are among the biggest headaches of your church. Send us your right-hand man. Send us the people who will leave the biggest gaps in your ministry. Send us Paul and Barnabas, and see if God does not bless you by raising up another dozen Pauls and Barnabases.

Also, surrender your heart, agenda, and life to the Lordship of Christ. You might be thinking, “Of course, we do that. We’re Christians, of course, we do that. I’m a pastor.” I say to you, “Well, of course we don’t do that. We’re sinners.” I know my own heart that fights with the Lord daily over who is in control and shuns suffering.

So many Christians are living so as to avoid suffering, right? They’re living life so as to not need faith or God, living life with the ultimate goal of being comfortable — physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually comfortable. If this were Jesus’ goal to be physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually comfortable, he would’ve stayed in heaven. I think it’s time for us to forsake our agenda of comfort, to repent of it, and to confess again and submit again to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And in light of this, of biblical teaching, in light of global realities, in light of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, I believe that every Christian should be able to say, “I have reason enough in the gospel of Jesus Christ alone, that should Christ call me, I would leave everything behind to follow him, even to the ends of the earth.”

That is as true for you and me as it is for John Piper or anyone else who calls Christ Lord. What is it about our understanding of Lordship that allows us to think that we can set parameters on what we will and will not do, where we will and will not go for Jesus Christ? Or is our understanding and appreciation of the gospel and our desire for the glory of God so tepid and tempered that the gospel itself, the gospel alone, is not motivation enough to pursue the proclamation of the gospel among the least reached peoples of the world?

Tithe Your Life

Again, for many of you, the call is to stay and send 100. But as someone once said, unless you are willing to go, you’re not qualified to send. So with all of that in mind, I want to encourage you to pray about and consider giving God a tithe of your life for missions. Invest 10 percent of your ministry life, let’s say five years, to the proclamation of the gospel among the 6,600 unreached people groups of the world.

Now, I know that some of you here are very important people. In many respects, it may seem that your church cannot exist without you. But maybe, that’s just what your church needs to learn, that it can exist without you. Or maybe the Lord would have you pastor and encourage a congregation of Fulani in Africa or Mappila in India for five years, or to teach in an overseas seminary for a month out of every year. If 300,000 American pastors gave a tithe of their ministry lives to global missions it would add 30,000 very well-trained missionaries and leaders to the cause of Christ globally. That kind of contribution would change the entire landscape of missions. I’m talking about investing a tithe of the finances that God has entrusted to us and investing a tithe of the life that God has entrusted to us for the global exaltation of Christ. It’s something to think about and to pray about.

Many of you feel this conviction for investing life and finances and their futures, either as those who go or as those who send, sometimes, we ask ourselves, “God, why me? Why not somebody else?” And then, after experiencing both the painful starvation of fasting earthly blessings, and the forsaking of brother and sister and father and mother and fields and finances for the sake of Christ, and the incredible blessing of feasting and leaning upon Christ and Christ alone, people ask themselves and God, “Oh Lord, why me? Why did I receive such favor and grace?”

The Tabernacle and the Temple

It’s about time for me to wrap things up. Again, I want to thank you for your graciousness in even listening to me. Let me close with just two passages of Scripture. These are wonderful examples of the forsaking of things present for the global exaltation of Christ. Exodus 36:2–7 says:

And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the Lord had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work. And they received from Moses all the contribution that the people of Israel had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him freewill offerings every morning, so that all the craftsmen who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task that he was doing, and said to Moses, “The people bring much more than enough for doing the work that the Lord has commanded us to do.” So Moses gave command, and word was proclaimed throughout the camp, “Let no man or woman do anything more for the contribution for the sanctuary.” So the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient to do all the work and more.

And then, in 1 Chronicles 29:1–9, it says:

And David the king said to all the assembly, “Solomon my son, whom alone God has chosen, is young and inexperienced, and the work is great, for the palace will not be for man but for the Lord God. So I have provided for the house of my God, so far as I was able, the gold for the things of gold, the silver for the things of silver, and the bronze for the things of bronze, the iron for the things of iron, and wood for the things of wood, besides great quantities of onyx and stones for setting, antimony, colored stones, all sorts of precious stones and marble.

Moreover, in addition to all that I have provided for the holy house, I have a treasure of my own of gold and silver, and because of my devotion to the house of my God I give it to the house of my God: 3,000 talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and 7,000 talents of refined silver, for overlaying the walls of the house, and for all the work to be done by craftsmen, gold for the things of gold and silver for the things of silver. Who then will offer willingly, consecrating himself today to the Lord?”

Then the leaders of fathers’ houses made their freewill offerings, as did also the leaders of the tribes, the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and the officers over the king’s work. They gave for the service of the house of God 5,000 talents and 10,000 darics of gold, 10,000 talents of silver, 18,000 talents of bronze, and 100,000 talents of iron. And whoever had precious stones gave them to the treasury of the house of the Lord, in the care of Jehiel the Gershonite. Then the people rejoiced because they had given willingly, for with a whole heart they had offered freely to the Lord. David the king also rejoiced greatly.

May the People Give Freely

In these Scriptures, we read about the overwhelming response of God’s people to the building of the Tabernacle and the building of the temple of God. This is before the people knew that Christ himself would tabernacle amongst us. This is before the cross of Jesus Christ, who himself was the greater temple, was destroyed and rebuilt in three days. The church of Jesus Christ and we all as leaders have the tremendous privilege of being a part of the building of the kingdom of God.

It is ours to receive. It is ours to enter. It is ours to preach. It is ours to proclaim. It is ours to seek. It is ours. Fellow workers of the kingdom of God, could it be set of us, could it be set of our churches, could it be set of our nation, could it be set of our generation that every skilled person to whom the Lord had given ability and who is willing went and did God’s work impacting even to the very ends of the earth? That the people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord commanded to be done in the building of his kingdom among every tribe, language, people, and nation? And may the prayers of our heart be like that of David, which I now pray to close our time and ask you to join by standing and agreeing in your hearts:

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth, is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.

But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you. For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding. O Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own (1 Chronicles 29:11–16).