Recovering biblical missions

This recording is from our Grace Fellowship Church conference, Behold Our God 2026. Please visit our website at gfcedmonton .ca. You can also find us on Instagram at GraceChurchYag, all one word, or on Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church.

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The Vision of God as the Foundation of Missionary Motivation

All right, good to see you. Let's take a moment and I'll pray for us, and then we'll look at a few places in God's Word as we consider a biblical view of missions. So let's pray. Well, Father, we thank you that you have sent to us preachers, that you have sent to us men, women, and relatives that have shared with us the gospel.

How beautiful, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. And so, Lord, we praise you for the message of the gospel that has found us where we are in our death and caused there to be life.

Lord, we praise you and thank you for all of your goodness towards us, for the message that is foolishness to the world, but it is to our salvation. Lord, would you please, as we consider these passages, as we consider this teaching, would you please motivate us by the power of your Spirit to dedicate ourselves to seeing your great commission fulfilled, to seeing the nations be able to praise you.

Lord, we look forward to the fulfillment of your Word that just as the water covers the sea, your glory will cover the earth, that, Lord, the many coastlands will be glad, and there will be joy, and there will be your praise among all peoples from every tribe, nation, and tongue.

Father, would you use us, use our prayers, use our hands, use our feet to see that happen. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, based upon some of the things that we've already talked about and we've seen in our main sessions and even in in our last breakout, I want to just for a moment go back to Isaiah 6, and I want to bring our attention to something that actually has to do with missions.

Right here, Isaiah chapter 6, as we think about this conference being, Behold our God, it is the vision of God in His glory through Christ by faith that is the catalyst, the motivator for missions. It is, and we see it right here in Isaiah 6.

So we'll just start at the very beginning again as a passage to remind ourselves of. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.

Above Him stood Seraphim, each had six wings, two He covered His face, two He covered His feet, and with two He flew, and one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory.

So again, that great vision that Isaiah has, he sees the Lord, and he sees the Seraphim reminding one another of why, of who He is, of why He's to be praised in all the earth. If you consider even these beings, even these Seraphim, it actually means fiery ones, flames of fire, messengers sent forth by the Lord, willing servants, the closest beings that we know of to the Lord, sinless as far as we know.

Think of it, and yet they cover their face, they cover their feet, they don't even look upon Him, but His glory goes forth, and all they do all day long is remind one another, oh isn't He worth it? Isn't He glorious?

Isn't He unlike any other? Isn't He holy, holy, holy? And then you can hear, one day we'll see, one day we will see, one day our eyes will see, and our ears will hear, as we heard this morning, that praise for all time, and it will be glorious, and we will know He's worthy of it all.

He's worthy of it all, and even in this vision, the threshold, the foundation of the thresholds shook at the voice of Him who called. When the Lord speaks, things get shaken. When the Lord uses His word, and He speaks to us, things get shaken, things get shaken in our lives, and we realize, the Lord is doing something here, I need to pay careful attention, and that's exactly what's happening, and Isaiah looks, the house was filled with smoke.

So at this point, if there's anything else that's going on in heaven, Isaiah is probably not going to be able to see it. See, God has shown Himself in multiple ways, and one of the ways that He shows that He's present in a place is that there is a cloud, right?

There's smoke. We see it in the tabernacle, we see it on Mount Sinai, a cloud comes, so God often shrouds Himself, His presence in a cloud. One of the glorious things is that even though at this moment, probably He's not able to see as well, all the other things that are going on, but do you realize that John, when he's given his vision, gets to see it clearly.

So what is hidden from us, and what's hidden from Isaiah, what's hidden from Isaiah, and what's hidden from us by way of him writing this, is actually explained to us in full by John. He sees all the, He sees the elders throwing their crowns, He sees the other things that are going on.

It would be interesting just to consider that, and then to go there, maybe that's something you can give yourself to at another time, as you go, oh well, what else is there in this heavenly scene, and John gets to see it.

But with all that he's seen, and with all that he's heard, a great realization comes upon Isaiah, and he says, yeah, He is set apart. He is holy, holy, holy, and I'm not, not, not. I'm not like Him. I don't even deserve to be here.

Woe is me. Woe is me. When we see the bright shining radiance of God, and all of His glory, of Christ, and all of His glory, we, we cannot help but see how distant we really are from Him, how, how in need we are of Him, and His righteousness, and of His cleansing.

In fact, he goes on to say, woe is me, for I'm lost. I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell amongst the people of unclean lips. It's just a poetic way of saying, oh, how desperately evil are we that our mouths spew forth lies.

We, we, we're not right in heart, because from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, and we have a tendency to show how broken we are when we open our mouths, and he goes, I, I recognize my sinfulness.

I'm a man of unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean lips. Oh, but my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. This, this direct contrast, yes, I'm so far away from Him. I'm so unworthy to be in His presence, and then one of the angels flew to me, having a, having in his hand a burning coal, which he had taken with tongs from the altar, so this, this searing, this fire, this purifying agent, he comes down, and he touches his mouth with it, and he says, behold, this has touched your lips.

Your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for, and I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then he said, here I am. Send me, and then he goes on, as we read earlier today, this, this, he, he will now be sent to a people who are hard-hearted, who will not hear.

It will be a very hard mission that he's on, but I want us to consider that when we get a, when we get a vision of who God is, when we meet with the Lord, a right response is two things. Confession of sin, and to see our need, a repentance.

Lord, you are so glorious. I'm not. Lord, I am, I am in desperate need. I need so much, and I need your forgiveness. I need your cleansing. I, I need you, so we see our need, and then we see the need of others.

I live among a people of unclean lips, and when God says, I, I need someone to go, if we've gotten a real vision of the Lord, we can't help but go, ah, I'm here. If you're asking for someone to go, I've seen you, and you're worth going.

You're worth all of my life, so please send me. I'll go. Oh, that there would be an awakening of a vision of the Lord, and that there would be an awakening of hearts that are willing to sacrifice for the sake of this message of him.

There's so little missionary sacrifice. There really is among the people of God who say we've seen him, who say we want all to experience and have the joy and peace that comes in believing, but people are unwilling to go, unwilling to go across the street to share the gospel, much less across the world to share the gospel, unwilling to move across town for the sake of the gospel, much less across the world for the sake of the gospel, but we're told time and again God's promise is that he will be glorified among the nations, that he will be praised by all people, and so even in the midst of what seems like a famine in the land of missionary sacrifice, God is not slow in fulfilling his promises, and we can trust that even now God will raise up laborers for the harvest.

He will call hopefully some of us to sacrifice for the sake of the gospel going to our neighbors all over the world. There are places that his name is not magnified, but he's worthy of being magnified there.

There are people's lips that do not speak anything but cursings of him, and with those lips God is worthy of praise. How? How will they hear? How will they know unless God sends someone? Romans 10 asks, and so we need to ask, Lord, will you send someone?

And we need to be a people who go Father, you've shown me your glorious gospel. I've seen Christ in the word. I've seen his faithfulness. Oh, here I am. Send me. Use me for your sake, Lord. I am a vessel.

I'm a tool for the master's use. We need to have that sacrifice. Go with me to Psalm 96. Psalm 96. You can go there for just a moment, and as you do, I want us to start right there in Isaiah 6 to kind of draw our attention to what we're seeing in our conference that beholding God, beholding God causes us to have a high view of him, to cast off the weight and the sin that easily entangles, to have a vision of him and to realize who we are and our great need and the fact that we're among a people who have a great need, and that need is to worship the Lord and also to have a cleansing, having a purification for sins, to having forgiveness, to having joy and hope, a joy and a hope that we could not have apart from him, and so when we think about biblical missions, I want us just to think for the next little while about what motivates us.

Yes, a grand vision of God is what motivates us, but I think the first motivation for biblical missions is the greatness of the glory of God. The greatness of the glory of God makes biblical missions and our involvement in it worth it, so the greatness of the glory of God is worth it.

It's worth our lives. It's worth going. When we truly behold the face of Jesus Christ, we're animated to respond to him. How could I have tasted and seen that the Lord is so good and not want to share that?

If I once was lifeless, and then the seed of the gospel has been supplanted into my heart, and it has life within itself, it almost seems as if at times I'm compelled and motivated by the Spirit to grow, when I'm so often thinking, how is this going to happen?

I'm so lifeless within myself. I'm so unable to do this on my own. Well, the great promise of God is that he's the one who saves us, and he's the one who sanctifies us. He is our great sanctifier as well.

Remember, the author and the finisher of our faith, which means in between there, he's going to grow us. When we think about how God has caused us to be part of the vine, right? We're to be abiding in him, and him in us, in order that we might bear much fruit.

When we think about that vision, because we see it in scripture multiple times, we get the idea of we are a tree. We are someone who is, hopefully, we're like Christ, the blessed man in Psalm 1, who is planted by streams of water, bearing its fruit in its season, and all he does, he prospers.

In fact, the Spirit, we find, he produces fruit within us, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Have you ever thought about the fact that so oftentimes we look to that fruit, and we think, oh, I like this, I want to be able to enjoy this, but a fruit tree doesn't eat its own fruit.

That's not what they do. Fruit doesn't, a fruit tree doesn't bear fruit, and then you look up, and it's somehow found a way to consume the fruit that it has borne, but instead it's for the enjoyment of others.

And so whatever God is doing in you, whatever vision you're getting of the Lord, whatever he's supplanted in you, whatever growth you're seeing in the Lord, when you go, whoa, the Lord is bearing fruit, it's not for you.

In fact, it's for you to go, pop it off of the tree, and to go, look, taste and see that the Lord is good. I don't, you know me. That's the great thing about being in community, being in a church. You're encouraging one another, and you're going, wow, taste and see, taste and see, he's so good.

And then the time that you're spending in the Word, Proverbs 2 tells us it's like, it's a treasure, and if you seek for it like silver, you will find it. You will be satisfied in it. And so what do we do?

We decide, okay, I need to know Christ, and I need to know the glory of Christ, and I need to know him more. I need to grow in him more. So I need to, as we were encouraged this morning, I need to be in his Word.

I need to be in his Word. I need to seek for it like silver. I need to incline my heart to his Word. It is a great treasure, and so it's as if we're mining the depths of the Word, and we're going, look, look at the riches.

Look at the riches herein. Family, enjoy the riches that we have in Christ. Church, enjoy the riches that we have in Christ. And then we look to our friends and our neighbors, and we go, will you just enjoy the riches that I found in Christ?

And that's what we do all over the world. We say, taste and see that the Lord is good. We go, and we go, taste and see. Enjoy the riches of Christ. It's more satisfying than anything in all of the world.

And so Isaiah sees it. He says, Lord, send me. I want to do that very thing. And so we need people that see the glory of God and are so moved to say, God, whatever you want, whatever you want, and more than that, wherever you want, Lord, wherever you want.

I think the reason why there's so little missionary sacrifice in our day is that it's directly proportional to the little God that so many churches worship. It's this little God theology. It's this theology that has been set up that everything becomes about us and our great comfort.

No wonder there's so little sacrifice, because even our Christianity isn't a sacrificial one where we're taking up our cross to follow Him, but instead it's, what can I get out of this? What can I get out of this?

And so it's that thinking that so marred the church in our day, and that's the reason why there is famine when it comes to missionary sacrifice. But when we behold God, it should motivate us to sacrifice for the sake of the King, to say, I will serve you.

I will serve you, whatever you call me to, wherever you call me to do it. Lord, you are worth it. Of course, it makes me think of those Moravian missionaries. You've probably heard this story where they've practically sold themselves into slavery because a slave owner has an island in the Caribbean, and he will not have a missionary there.

And they go, well, how will those people ever know? How will God ever get the glory that He so rightfully deserves there? And so as the boat is pulling away, they say, may the Lamb of God receive the reward for His suffering.

And they go, and in Psalm 96, we see this great message of missions right here. This was one of the songs of the church. Oh, sing to the Lord, a new song. Sing to the Lord, all the earth, all the earth.

Sing to the Lord, bless His name. You know, so oftentimes we ask that the Lord would bless us, and we think about the blessings of the Lord, and sometimes we don't understand when we say bless the Lord, what does that even mean?

But when we bless the Lord, we speak well of Him. We speak well of Him. So sing to the Lord, speak well of Him. Tell everyone of the wonders and the goodness of God. Bless His name. Tell of His salvation from day to day.

Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples. For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods, for all the gods of the people are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

Splendor and majesty are before Him. Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. Yes, ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory.

Do His name. Bring an offering and come into His courts. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. Tremble before Him, all the earth. Say among the nations, the Lord reigns. Yes, the world is established.

It shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar and all that fills it. Let the field exult and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord, for He comes, for He comes to judge the earth.

He will judge the world in righteousness and all the peoples in His faithfulness. So this great hymn of the church, this song that was born in the heart of God and given to His people to sing back to Him, is one filled with missionary zeal, that His name would be proclaimed among all the earth, that His glory and who He is would resonate and fill all of creation.

Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous work among the people, for great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He's to be feared above all gods, for all the gods of the people are worthless idols.

But the Lord made the heavens, yes, made the peoples praise Him. It is the greatness of the glory of God in getting a vision of Him and knowing, knowing that He is worthy of all praise from all peoples that motivates us to serve Him.

I know there's, there's a, there's a balance here. So we're going to look at two other motivations, but I want us to see that there's a balance because what has happened, particularly among people in the Reformed faith, is that this, this motivation becomes the motivation and there is no other motivation.

And I think that this is a great motivation. This is the motivation that we see in Isaiah, and this is the motivation that we see here in 96, that all the peoples would praise Him. But even here we see that this is not devoid of other elements that are motivating factors.

And so there's a theologian, a pastor that has said that, that missions exists because worship doesn't. Missions exist because worship doesn't. There, God deserves to be worshiped in Tabor. And so there's a lack of, of, of people praising Him.

And so God raises up someone and He goes and He preaches and He declares His work among the nations. There's a lack of God's praise in worship in Morocco. And so God raises up someone and He goes to Morocco and He goes to a certain place to declare the glory of God that all the people might get a vision of Jesus Christ and they might be motivated to, to worship Him.

Yes, so true. And it should be, that should be a motivation. But I think that, that there's a, an unbalanced approach in so many ways because what we've seen in the past is we've seen a humanistic, a humanistic motivation that's been very unhealthy.

And in fact, it's been the, the death of many a missionary that they would go for because of the people. And that is a motivation, but I just want to set the stage for us before we get to some of these others.

And so if perhaps you've heard an old famous sermon, Ten Shekels and a Shirt by Paris Reedhead, and he, he talks about him wrestling with this. He, he went thinking that somehow he was going to be the savior of the heathen.

Somehow he was going to be used to God that, that these people might experience the great joy of who God was. And he got there and he realized, no, these people know who God is. They just hate God and they don't want to praise Him.

And so it almost caused his feet to stumble, almost caused him to lose complete faith in what God had called him to do. And then he realized that no, the motivation for him to go was actually that God get the glory, that God be praised, and that the subsequent thing would be that, that the heathen would be saved.

And so there is this imbalance, and I just want us to be careful because this is true, but so are these other motivations. The other motivation, the second motivation is biblical missions is motivated by an obedience to Christ as worth it.

That, that obedience to Christ is worth it. Christ, the Lamb of God who has taken away the sin of the world, who, who was crucified and died, and then 40 days later, He's standing, He's standing among His disciples.

And what does He tell them? All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, go. You, you're going to go from victory to victory. I'm giving you your marching orders. You want to follow me?

You want to take up your cross and follow me? This is what it means. Go, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded.

And when you think that I've abandoned you, remember, I'm with you always. He didn't say that part, but he did say, lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. And so it is that commission, it is that charge, it is that command that we hear and we go, yeah, we've seen the risen Christ.

Yes, we've experienced the risen Christ. Yes, we have put all of our faith into the risen Christ. All of our hope is in Him. He is telling us to do this. I'll do it. I'll go. Well, in another instance, we're told specifically that Christ desires that we pray, that we pray that the Father send out laborers for the harvest.

He says the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray to the God of the harvest that He might raise up more. And so you might think, well, I can start there. Please do. Start right there. I'm not sure how I feel about the go part.

I'm not sure what God's doing with me there. I'm not sure about what He wants me to do, but I can pray. Everybody can pray. We pray about all sorts of things. Can we not include, Lord, raise up more laborers.

Raise up more laborers, God. We need them. We need them to go to our neighbors close by. There are towns in Alberta that need a good, solid church. Lord, raise up laborers for Brooks. Am I right? Raise up laborers for Fort McMurray.

Raise up laborers to go to Cold Lake. Raise up, raise up men who have gotten this vision of you and have sound doctrine and have a love for souls, which is what we're about to get to, and have them go.

Lord, please motivate them to go that we might beg the Lord to do this. And do you know that is praying in accordance with His will. And He says that when we pray according to His will, He hears and He answers.

Will we believe Him? Will we believe Him and pray, God, raise up laborers. There are people in this room that are answers to that prayer. Seriously, I've seen it. I think even one of the great opportunities that I've had in the ministry that the Lord has given me is I'm able to travel all over the world.

And one of the places that I've been able to travel is in the Middle East. So I know I'm being recorded, so I'll just be careful. And in this one place in the Middle East, I see the millions of people that are without a gospel witness.

I see the millions of people that have no access to the scriptures, that have no access to the gospel, much less a biblical church. But God, in this one place, was doing things and saving people, but there are no really good solid churches that speak the local language.

And we're talking about a capital city, a metropolitan area. And I just began to pray, Lord, will you please raise up a man, just send a man. And just a few months ago, I was in a church pastored by a godly man, just a small group of people, maybe a fourth, maybe a third of the people in this room.

But how much joy there was to go. God had been motivating me and probably countless others to pray that God would do this very thing. And I'm able to be there. I'm able to see it. God had answered that prayer.

And that's what God does. He answers prayer, and he answers prayers like this. So as you pray for that, though, I want to warn you, you may be the answer to that prayer. God may put it so much on your heart that you would pray, God, raise up laborers.

And he may say, all right, I'm raising him up. He's just sitting right where you're sitting. I'm raising him up. It's just you. And we need to be willing to go. Yes, God. Yes. I've always thought about it as, Lord, my yes is on the table because my yes, you are worth my yes.

Cash that in anytime you want, but you have to lead. I will not, we will not go from here unless I know you're going with me. Unless I know for sure that very well do that. I've seen it in my life and I've seen it in the life of countless others.

But we do need to pray. We do need to pray. And it's not just slavish obedience either. I know many men that love to preach. I know many men that that they like to get out there and they like to call all men to Christ.

And there's this slavish obedience. I have to do this. God has told me to do this, so I have to do this. But it should be a love, should be motivated by love. Oh, how I love Christ. Oh, how I love his praise.

Oh, how I love him and how worthy he is. I just, I need to be compelled to do that. Brother Jeff and I were talking about a great sermon we had heard a few years ago. A man was talking about in 2 Samuel when David just, David just a passing remark.

He's like, oh to have a drink from the well in Jerusalem right now, just to have a drink of water, that sweet tasting water. A few of those mighty men overhear him and they go, oh we'll get you water.

Why would they go behind enemy lines, sacrifice their lives to get this man a cup of cold water from this well and to take it back to him? Why? You know why? Because they loved their king, loved him. And they said, doesn't matter what it takes.

We'll go. We'll get that for you. And Jesus, King Jesus says, I've got souls. I've got sheep that are not of this fold and I love them. Oh, just to have, just to have them within my personal store, just to have communion and fellowship with those sheep and we overhear it and we go, I love him enough to go.

He's worthy enough to go. Well, the third motivation is that lost souls are worth it. Yes, you heard that right. People are worth it. So often we're motivated to do missions by that God's glory alone.

It's very important to obedience to Christ and that's so important. Cannot be devoid of love for the lost. We cannot. What happens when we see that God is worth it is that we see that he came, he was sent to redeem the souls of man, that he was, he came to die to redeem for himself a people for God's own possession.

So yes, God is absolutely worth it, but on some level Jesus saw that people were worth it. He saw that we were worth it. He did. He had to have. Let us never forget Christ loves people. Remember he saw people and he had compassion on them as sheep without a shepherd.

He had compassion on them. He wept at the sight of the brokenness of people and in their unbelief. Other than Christ's desire to allow the cup to pass from him in the garden, his desires are associated with his love for people.

That's what we see in the New Testament. That's what we see in the Gospels. Whenever we see the desire of Christ, it's always associated with his love for people. For instance, Mark 1. Mark 1, the leper comes to him.

The leper comes to him and says, if you will, if you desire, you can make me clean. And Jesus says, I desire it. Be clean. He heals him. He loves him. He has compassion on him and he heals him. John 17.

Jesus prays for his disciples. He prays with a fervent desire that those whom the Father has given to him would be with him. There's the communion aspect. Lord, I desire that they, that you've given me, are with me.

That I have communion with them. That they know me and that we have a relationship with one another. And that by so doing, they'll see my glory. So he desired that. Luke 22. He desired that, he desired to be with his disciples at the Passover meal before he died.

He said, I've been desiring to take this meal with you. I wanted this time of fellowship with you before I left your presence. He had a desire for them. Even some of the most notable heroes of the Reformed faith used greatly of God in missions, didn't lose sight of this.

It's often noted in the biographies of Robert Murray Machain that he had a great compassion for people. It's been noted that he would walk through the streets of Dundee, Scotland, and that street people would look up and see him and they would remark, there goes the man who loves my soul.

That's the reputation that he had. And that he would weep over sinners. You can go, I've heard it said, you can go now and see the Bible that he preached with and their tear spots as he cried, begging people to be made right with God.

Charles Spurgeon has said he would weep while giving an invitation, pleading with the souls of men, come, come. If not, you perish. If not, you're destroyed. If not, you will have no hope tomorrow and you will have no hope in eternity.

If God has been gracious enough to give us that message and someone came to us and someone prayed for us and someone cried for us, did Christ over sinners weep and still our cheeks be dry? Have you ever heard that old hymn?

I'd encourage you to go look it up. It's incredible. I think I have it. Let me read it for you. I don't have it on my phone. Sorry. This is where I have it. Give me just a moment. But I do want to share it with you before we're done.

Maybe I don't. Did Christ over sinners weep and shall our cheeks be dry? Let floods of penitential grief burst forth from every eye. Behold the Son of God in tears, the angels wondering, see. Hast thou no wonder, O my soul, he shed those tears for thee.

He wept that we might weep, might weep over sin and shame. He wept to show his life for us and bid us love the same. Behold the Son of God in tears, the angels wondering, see. Then tender be our hearts, our eyes, and sorrow dim till every tear from every eye be wiped away in him.

A glorious hope we have in the gospel. So what must we do? Pray that the Lord of Harvest would send out laborers and have our yes, have our yes on the table and say, Lord, if you call me, lead me, I will go.