Chapter 9| Don't Waste Your Life

Chapter 9|THE MAJESTY OF CHRIST IN MISSIONS AND MERCY

A small group resource for students studying Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper.

Sometimes small-talk at airports turns into 'big talk.'

"What was the purpose of the trip?"

I responded, "It was a missions trip. I was scoping out a couple of opportunities to bring a team of young adults over and minister to the orphans of Kenya."

"Was it your first time here," he asked?

"Yeah," I said.

He replied, "I've been coming to Africa for thirty-plus years, but I always remember the first time... the sights and smells and sounds will never leave you."

5 years later they still haven't left me.

Since that initial trip to Africa I have often wrestled with God about missions. I want to go. He seems to make me stay. That trip wasn't my first missions trip, but it was significant. It gave me a lens through which I view the world. The lens that I am talking about is the global purposes of Christ. This chapter hopefully will give you the same lens.

Nearly 3 years after that trip to Africa, I responded to God's call to serve at Central Christian in Beloit, Wisconsin... I definitely put some strings on the deal, "God if you expect me to stay put in one place, if you want me to pour myself out in preaching the Word to this young generation to build them up in faith, if you want me here, well then you had better raise up some kids that I can send!" My prayer as you read this chapter is that maybe you are one of those we can send... and at very least I pray that God will give you a passion for His plan to evangelize people from every tribe tongue and nation.

"The ultimate aim of world missions is that God would create, by His Word, worshipers who glorify His name through glad-hearted faith and obedience. Missions exists because worship doesn't." (pg. 162, quoting Bethlehem Baptist Document on Missions). Missions is what God is up to in the world right now... If you want to know why He has taken so stinkin' long in returning, it is because He is infinitely patient and He desires that none should perish. He is calling to Himself a seemingly countless number of worshipers (Rev 5). His desire for us is that we would join in the efforts. When we think salvation is merely a story about us and focus on our benefits, we miss the big picture. Piper says, "We are like batboys at Yankee Stadium who think the great point of the World Series is to hand the players a bat" (pg. 163). What God is up to is much greater than a bat being handed off... He is at work in the world calling men and women to eternal joy. We want to be about His purposes.

To be fair not all will go... Some of us have to stay :( But it would be wrong not to withdraw and pray over this issue. Like Piper, I also take inventory regularly to see if I am where I am most effectively serving Christ in the cause of making others eternally glad in Him (pg. 178,179). It is important to me that I am either sending or going. So I pray, "God is this where you want me?" I want to constantly be willing to go where God sends me. I hope you will develop the same desire. Let me add though that God does value permanence. He wants people that will commit to plans and places. How sad it would be if every missionary went for a season and returned right when God might have been pleased to reap a harvest.... Missionaries need to give their lives to a region. Sometimes this means you will never step on American soil again. Like the great missionary Adoniram Judson.

Let me quote Adoniram Judson's letter to his potential father in law. In this letter he is asking for permission to marry this man's daughter and take her to the mission field. Let's change the tone of letter though... Let us imagine this letter being addressed to us. Do we consent to our loved ones giving their lives to missions? Would we be okay seeing our friends go? And, would we ourselves go?

I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of Indian; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all of this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of the perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in the hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Savior from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair? (pg. 158)

Would we be willing to consent that this is the greatest cause which men and women can give their lives to? We have three options... we either go, or we send, or we disobey.