Our All-Nations Charge

When you go to the website of Bethlehem College and Seminary, and you click on “Seminary” at the top, what you see is this motto: “Shepherds equipping men to treasure our Sovereign God and Sacred Book for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.” This is a seminary for the sake of the peoples, plural — a seminary with its sights on the nations.

Then, if you click on “College” at the top, you see the college motto: We study the “Great Books in light of the Greatest Book for the sake of the Great Commission.” This is a liberal-arts college in the Reformed classical tradition for the sake of the Great Commission — a classical education, with (baked into it) a commitment to God’s global purpose for the nations.

A seminary for the peoples; a college for the world. I cannot tell you how thankful I am for those mottoes and what they stand for. I didn’t write them, but I love them.

And I have the happy assignment now in my message to speak on this topic: “Our All-Nations Charge: What It Means to Be a World Christian.”

The approach I want to take is, first, to give a resounding biblical statement of the all-nations charge; second, to give a brief biblical definition of being a world Christian; and third, to deal with three peculiar obstacles that would hold you back from red-blooded, risk-taking, unashamed engagement in getting the saving message of Jesus to the least-reached peoples of the world. And we will do that by looking at Philippians 2:17–18.

Biblical Charge

But first, what is the biblical statement of our all-nations charge? It’s the words of Jesus:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:18–20)

That global authority that Jesus has to make disciples of all nations he obtained in a peculiar way — namely, by ransoming a global, transnational people for himself by his blood.

Worthy are you to take the scroll
     and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
     from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
     and they shall reign on the earth. (Revelation 5:9–10)

In other words, he sends us to call them because he bought them with his blood.

I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock [and] one shepherd. (John 10:15–16)

Yes, they will listen. And it will be through your voice that they hear his voice.

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:13–15)

Some of you sense God’s moving in your life for the sake of the nations, and you wonder, Can I do this? To which Jesus says,

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

That is the resounding biblical statement of the all-nations charge. Every one of us has a place in that glorious, global enterprise.

World Christian

Which is why (and this is the second point) we speak of every Christian being a “world Christian.” What do we mean by that?

We mean that, whether you are a goer or a sender, your heart and mind are engaged with God’s mission to gather a redeemed people for himself from all the nations of the world. Your heart is in world missions. It also means that, together with all the true Christians in the world, you are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God’s] own possession” (1 Peter 2:9) — which means that you are more significantly united to a Russian believer than an American unbeliever, or to a Palestinian believer than an American unbeliever.

National identities, ethnic identities, political identities, family identities — are all less significant than the identity we have with all born-again people from all the peoples of the world. The global church is a “holy nation,” which means we are sojourners and exiles in every nation of the world. Our citizenship is in heaven. Our constitution is the Bible. Our King is Jesus. Our homeland is the heavenly Jerusalem. Our mission has no borders. That’s what we mean by “world Christian.”

Three Obstacles

We turn now from the biblical statement of the all-nations charge, and from the definition of “world Christian,” to obstacles that stand between your engagement with this calling.

This is a multigenerational conference. There are younger people here, there are middle-aged people here, and there are a few old-timers like me. And I want to address a peculiar obstacle in each group that threatens your being all-in with Christ’s all-nations charge — and then turn to Philippians 2 to find a triumphant power that overcomes those obstacles.

Cowardice

In the younger group, a new form of politically correct cowardice has appeared in recent years. It takes the form of opposing those whose views you don’t like by claiming that you don’t feel safe when they talk. You call their words “violence.” In other words, you protect yourself by turning your preferences into thought police that have the authority to shut other people down (even legally, if possible), and so you stay in your little self-defined safety.

For example, a speaker on a Christian college campus speaks out about the entanglements of Planned Parenthood and abortion and ethnicity and poverty, and a group of students protests that this kind of talk makes them feel unsafe.

I’m calling that a politically correct form of cowardice. And I am referring to it at a conference on global missions because the more deeply and widely that mindset takes root in the Christian community, the greater the hindrance to the global mission of God. For this reason: If you are so committed to feeling safe, how will you ever risk your life for Christ?

“When your joy is given away, it is not cut in half; it is doubled.”

There is no Christian mission without the surrender of safety. “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves” (Matthew 10:16). If you are so fragile and cowardly that you must shut down words that offend you, how will you speak the gospel to those who revile you?

If that mindset of politically correct cowardice is threatening your courageous engagement with God’s mission, I have a word for you from the Lord in a moment.

Consumption

For those of you in the middle years, the peculiar obstacle between you and missions may not be politically correct cowardice but the obstacle of unquenchable consumption. The consumption I have in mind is not the consumption of the bread of life and the word of God, but the consumption of social media and movies, the demands of career, and the quest for more and more stuff.

The quest to consume more and more entertainment, and toys, and travels, and the money that buys them, is insatiable. It does not satisfy. A life devoted to consumption consumes your life. “They . . . hear the word [of God],” Jesus said, “but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things . . . choke the word, and it proves unfruitful” (Mark 4:18–19). No missions. It is a snare that plunges people into ruin and destruction, all the while giving the sensation of success (1 Timothy 6:9).

A life devoted to the unquenchable consumption of more and more media, movies, and mammon will not be able to compute the spiritual calculus of Jesus’s words:

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. (Matthew 19:29)

And where that kind of calculus doesn’t compute, missions is over. If you are being lured to this kind of unquenchable consumption, I have a word from God for you in a moment.

Comfort

And for those wonderful seventy- or eighty-somethings among us — “we few, we happy few!” — our peculiar obstacle may not be politically correct cowardice, or unquenchable consumption (though both of these may threaten us as well), but rather the creep of comfort.

From every corner of our culture, we are told that the biblical command, “Let us not grow weary of doing good” (Galatians 6:9), has an expiration date on it. It expires at about 65. We no longer exist for accomplishing and creating; we exist for comfort. Play. Spend your last decades cramming in your bucket list as though heaven did not include every imaginable joy.

That’s not what this season of life is for. Near the end, Paul referred to himself only once as an old man. And when he did, he was not in the comforts of paradise; he was in prison. Philemon 9: “I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus.” And when he wrote what were almost his last words, he did not describe the final years as a breather before meeting Christ. He said,

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7–8)

So, if you are feeling the creep of comfort threatening your engagement with Christ’s global mission, I have a word from God for you — and for the young and for the middle-aged. It comes from Philippians 2:17–18. So, let’s lay the foundation!

Three Facets of Joy

Turn with me to Philippians 2:17–18. This is God’s word for all three groups and all three threats to being a world Christian (cowardice, consumption, and comfort):

Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

There are three facets of the beautiful diamond of Christian joy in these two verses. This three-faceted joy is the power that frees from cowardice, cuts the cords of consumption, and halts the creep of comfort.

Rejoicing in Death

First, there is Paul’s joy in being poured out on the offering of their faith. Verse 17: “Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad.” There is no doubt what this picture of being poured out refers to. It refers to dying. Because Paul uses the exact same phrase again in 2 Timothy 4:6, where he says, “I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.” So, the first facet of Christian joy in these verses is Paul’s joy at the prospect of dying in the service of their faith.

That’s not natural. The diamond of Christian joy is not natural. It is supernatural. It is one thing to rejoice because you are the instrument to bring out someone’s faith. But it is beyond all normal human experience to rejoice particularly because it costs you your life to serve another person’s faith — say, to bring the gospel to the unreached.

What is behind this strange Christian joy? Paul had already said in Philippians 1:21, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” But that’s not the main point here, because the joy is specifically because he is dying for their faith. Jesus had taught Paul, by his own words as well as actions, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

It is blessed, or joyful, to see another person’s joy in God increase. But it is more blessed, more joyful, when your sacrifice is the very means by which their joy increases. How is it more blessed? Because when you give yourself to bring them joy — the joy of salvation — your joy expands as it becomes their joy and theirs becomes yours.

You’ve all experienced this. When your joy is given away, it is not cut in half; it is doubled. So, Paul is not losing as he dies to increase their joy. He is gaining. He’s gaining Christ, and he’s gaining doubled joy in their joy in Christ.

That’s the first facet of the diamond of joy in these verses: the joy of pouring out your life for the sake of other people’s joy in Christ, even unto death.

Rejoicing with Faith

The second facet of the diamond is at the end of Philippians 2:17. Paul says, “I am glad and rejoice with you all.” So, if he is rejoicing with them, they are already rejoicing. What are they rejoicing in? He just said he is pouring out his life for their faith. How does Paul think about the relationship of saving faith (which they already have) and joy?

Here is what he said in Philippians 1:25. Though he is in prison, he expects there to be a season of life to minister to the Philippians, and he describes it like this: “Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy [of] faith.” For Paul, joy and faith are inseparable. When you have saving faith, you have tasted the soul-satisfying value of Jesus — the joy of faith.

That is the second facet in the diamond of Christian joy: the joy of faith. What does faith rejoice in?

• Faith rejoices in the word of God. “Your testimonies . . . are the joy of my heart” (Psalm 119:111). “I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil” (Psalm 119:162).
• It rejoices in the love of God. “I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love” (Psalm 31:7). “[The] steadfast love [of the Lord] is better than life” (Psalm 63:3).
• It rejoices in the whole final salvation of God. “The ransomed of the Lord shall . . . come . . . with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isaiah 51:11).
  
• It rejoices in suffering. “In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy” (2 Corinthians 7:4).
• It rejoices in the “hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2).
• Which means that the endpoint and final satisfaction of all our joy is God himself in Jesus Christ. “I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy” (Psalm 43:4).

So, the second facet of the diamond of joy in these verses is the joy of faith — faith in all that God is for us in Christ.

Rejoicing with the Spent

The third facet of joy is in Philippians 2:18: “Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.” Paul has just said that his joy was the joy of being poured out for the sake of their faith — the joy of dying so that they could have the joy of faith. And now Paul says, “Rejoice with me as I die for your joy of faith.”

To which we can easily imagine the Philippians responding, “Paul, this is asking too much. May we not have a season of sorrow at your death — your dying for our faith? We love you!” To which Paul would answer (I think): “You may indeed grieve at my death, but in your sorrow you must not stop rejoicing with me” (which is why 2 Corinthians 6:10 says, “Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing”).

So, there are three facets of the diamond of Christian joy in Philippians 2:17–18:

1. the joy of pouring out your life for the sake of the joy of faith;
2. the joy of faith itself; and
3. the rejoicing with those who joyfully die for the sake of other people’s faith.

This threefold joy is an invincible force in global missions.

Three Answers to Obstacles

So, let me close by showing how these three facets of joy correspond to the peculiar obstacles I mentioned earlier — obstacles that may hold you back from red-blooded, risk-taking, unashamed engagement with the all-nations charge of the Bible to bring the joy of faith to all the peoples of the world.

First, what becomes of your politically correct cowardice that tries to shut down other people if you are experiencing the joy of pouring out your life for the sake of other people’s joy? That cowardice cannot survive. Cowardly ostracism of those who offend you cannot survive in the same heart with joy that is ready to die for those who hate you. The cowardice of self-serving safety cannot survive in the same heart with the joy of martyrdom. “If I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad” (Philippians 2:17). That is not the voice of politically correct cowardice. It’s the voice of Christ-treasuring courage and love. And I pray it’s your voice.

Second, what becomes of the choking cords of consumption in midlife if you drink deeply from the inexhaustible spring of the joy of faith? If with the psalmist you go to God, to God your exceeding joy (Psalm 43:4), and drink of the river of his delights (Psalm 36:8), you cut the cords of life-choking consumption. You will be free from bondage to more and more media, more and more movies, more and more mammon. The joy of faith — joy in all that God is for us in Jesus — is a mighty and powerful liberator.

And third, what becomes of the creep of comfort among us seventy- and eighty-somethings if we rejoice with those who rejoice to lay down their lives for the joy of the unreached peoples of the world — if we live Philippians 2:18: “Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me [as I am poured out for the nations]”?

One very specific answer: We who are grandparents will never, never say to our twenty- or thirty- or forty-something world-Christian children, “Don’t you ever take my grandbabies to that dangerous place!” What! Would you hear your son or daughter say, “We are ready to be poured out for the faith of the nations,” and say to them, “How could you do this to us?” No! God has a better dream for you. Be glad and rejoice with them. Pay their way. Or better: Go with them.

So, let us all be done with every obstacle between us and Christ’s all-nations charge. Let us be done with politically correct cowardice, be done with unquenchable consumption, be done with the creep of comfort. And let us embrace God’s word to us about the liberating power of joy in being world Christians.

Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me. (Philippians 2:17–18)