JY: Welcome to GearTalk. Today, we’re replaying the first of three Missions-focused messages, originally delivered by Jason DeRouchie in the fall of 2022 at Midwestern Seminary and Spurgeon College’s Fusion Youth Weekend. The title of today’s message is Why Missions. All three of these messages grew out of Colossians 1:24-29. In these verses, Paul provides the foundation for his and the Church’s global mission. These messages clarify what fuels the work of Hands to the Plow Ministries, and we hope they will help motivate listeners to be goers or senders for the sake of Christ’s name.

JD: In order to show that the surpassing power comes not from us, but from him. We have the treasure of the gospel in our jar of clay in order to show that the surpassing power comes not from us, but from him. Open your Bibles to Colossians 1. Colossians 1. I praise the Lord that He has given me a passion for world missions, a passion to spread the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus. Global missions. But it hasn’t always been the case. 20 years ago, I was an associate pastor, associate pastor, and I had no heart for the nations. I didn’t burn with what burns God’s heart, the saving of souls, seeing healthy churches established. But it all changed when we went to a new church. A church that treasured Jesus and truly believed that by his blood he had ransomed some from every tongue, every tribe, every people, every nation. A church that was committed to seeking the day when a great multitude would be standing before the throne and before the lamb, crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to the Lord and to the lamb. Isaiah 12:4 supplies the central command of missions. Make known his deeds among the peoples. Proclaim that his name is exalted. The son of man came to seek and to save the lost. And as my wife and I began to behold the beauty of Christ’s heart for the nations, we found our own hearts increasingly mirroring his.

God led us to adopt three kids from Ethiopia, and then he moved us year by year to begin traveling overseas to train the majority pastor. Eighty-five percent of church leaders in our world have no theological training. So God led us to begin to target that 85 percent and also to reach out to the orphan, to the widow. Today’s three messages are all from Colossians 1. Wherein the great missionary Paul clarifies both the goals and the means for missions, why missions, how missions, now missions. Those are the titles of our three messages today, this morning, why missions. To that end, pray with me. Father, I’m asking that you would show up today. May your spirit manifest himself in power in this room, working through the revealed Word. You are the one who loves your church and has promised to build it, Lord Christ, and to build it through jars of clay. So I’m asking that you would be raising up in this room strong, capable men and women who, for the sake of your name, could seek the obedience of faith among all the nations. Work in a way that they would hunger to see churches mature, Christ cherished, and your Word fulfilled. For the glory of Jesus, I ask. Amen.

Why Missions? The first answer comes in verse 25. Colossians chapter 1:25. Everybody have your nose in your book. Colossians 1:25. We’re going to begin in verse 24. “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body,” that is the church, “of which I became a minister,” says Paul, “according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known.”

Why Missions? Point one, missions exists because of God’s initiative. This is amazing. Instead of wiping out rebels, God raises up an army of missionaries to seek and save the lost. Notice verse 25. It is God who calls, God who equips, God who sends, Paul. He is a missionary for the church’s sake, and there it is, according to the stewardship from God. It was God who so loved the world that he gave his only son. While we were dead in our trespasses and sins, in the way that all the rest of the world was walking, God showed up, for by grace we are saved. Instead of wiping out rebels, God sent Jesus to save sinners. Jesus is the one who set Saul, the first name before he was named Paul, the very one who wrote Colossians. It was Jesus who set Paul apart as his chosen instrument to carry his name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. Acts 9:15. Acts 13, we are told, “The Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I have called them.’” Then after fasting and praying, the church in Antioch laid their hands upon Saul and Barnabas and sent them off as missionaries to the Gentiles. Acts 13. Paul says, I was set apart, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God concerning the Son. Romans 1:1-3. Paul had a stewardship, a calling. God had commissioned him as a missionary to the nations. God is the initiator of missions. Why missions? Missions exists because of God’s initiative. Thanks be to God. But missions doesn’t only have a source, missions has goals. And Paul now tells us what those goals are.

Goal one, missions seeks to fulfill God’s Word. Look with me at verses 25 and 26. Paul says, For the church I became a minister, according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you. To what end? To make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to the saints. Now that phrase translated in the ESV, “to make the word of God fully known,” clarifies goal one of missions. It literally says to fulfill or fill up the word of God. God’s call for Paul was to fill up or fulfill his word, a word that had been hidden for ages and from generations, but is now revealed to the saints. He calls it a mystery. Jesus’ coming sparked the fulfillment of a host of Old Testament promises that were dormant until he came.

Consider Genesis chapter 17. God promises Abraham that he would be a father of a multitude of nations throughout the entire Old Testament. He’s the father of one nation in one land, but Jesus comes and everything explodes. Genesis 22:17, 18. It promises that there will be a single male deliverer who will overcome the curse, defeat God’s enemies, and bring blessing to the world. Here’s the wording. “I will surely bless you, says God to Abraham. I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.” But hear this. “And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies.” Now, if you’ve got an NIV, they keep translating it plural, but it’s singular. Elsewhere in Genesis, when Moses wants to say that the offspring is plural, he can use a plural pronoun. Here he uses a singular pronoun to emphasize that a day is coming when a single male descendant of Abraham will rise. And when he rises, he’s going to begin to claim enemy turf, possessing the gate of his enemies. And not only that, through this offspring, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. That’s happening today.

Or how about Isaiah 49? Isaiah envisions God commissioning his royal servant, that’s the title he gives the one we call Jesus, Isaiah envisions God commissioning his royal servant, “It is too light of a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel.” There’s lots of ethnic Israelites that need salvation. But it’s not enough that Jesus would only save them. I will make you a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. Isaiah 49:6.

God made these promises in the Old Testament. But ages and generations went by before they were realized. It took Jesus’ coming and missionary labors to fulfill God’s Word. And God raised up Paul to fulfill God’s Word. Through Paul’s ministry, Christ’s saving mission is extending to the ends of the earth. Listen to Paul in Romans 15. “For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me.” Christ gets the glory for all mission. “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the nations, to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God. So that from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum,” the west side of Turkey, which was almost the entire ancient world, “from Jerusalem to Illyricum, I have fulfilled the ministry of the Gospel of Christ,” Romans 15:18, 19. One of the goals of missions is to see God’s word fulfilled, and when it is, God is exalted as the trustworthy one, the faithful one. God is calling some of you, consider this, God is calling some of you to actually fulfill, be an instrument to see the fulfillment of promises that he made thousands of years ago. God may be calling you to be Jesus’ feet, Jesus’ mouth, to cross cultures for the sake of his name. In a world filled with bad news about wars and shootings, cancer and car accidents, tensions in relationships, immorality, in such a world with bad news, he wants some of you to be the instruments of his grace to take good news, light, life, proclaiming Jesus, eternal hope, eternal help, eternal peace. Is God calling you to this goal today?

Goal number two, it’s found in verse 27. Missions seeks to help people value Christ as their greatest treasure. Look at verse 27, “To the saints God chose to make known how great among the nations, how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Now, the ESV and other translations kind of make it sound like the mystery is Christ in you. But chapter 2:2, just look down a few verses, makes clear that the mystery is actually one thing, Christ alone. In 2:2, Paul hopes that those whom he serves, here he says, will reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In Christ are treasures. And those treasures become our riches which is only when we gain understanding and knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ. Look back at 1:27. I’m going to render the Greek phrase word for word to help us understand what I believe Paul is getting at. To the saints, God desired to make known among the Gentiles what is the wealth of this mystery’s glory, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Paul doesn’t say that the mystery is Christ in you, but that the wealth of this mystery’s glory is Christ in you. Christ on his own stands reflecting, resembling, representing God the Father. And when he does, what we see is glory. He is precious. He is wondrous. Jesus is the greatest treasure whether you receive him or not. And yet, when Christ is in us, all of that glory becomes our riches. And this wealth is related to hope. Paul spoke of this hope back in verses 4 and 5 of chapter 1. He said, Colossian Church, we’ve heard of your faith in Jesus. We’ve heard of the love that you have for the saints, all because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. The hope of glory is a hope of eternity, an eternity of joy in the presence of Jesus, rather than an eternity of pain in the context of hell. When you embrace Jesus, the treasure that Jesus is becomes your riches. And the missionary task is to magnify Christ as our greatest treasure. And when Christ is in us, and our hope rests in him, all that he is becomes ours. Jesus said, don’t lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves don’t break in and steal, for where your treasure is, that’s where your heart’s going to be. What do you value today? Our English term, worship, comes from the old English term worth-ship. Worth is about wealth. It’s about value. We glorify what we value. We worship what we value. We glorify Christ most when he satisfies us most. He is made to look great the more we treasure him. Paul is saying that missions seeks to create worshipers of Christ. A worship that is deeply satisfied in the soul and that magnifies Christ as glorious.

Psalm 22 is the “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me,” Psalm, that Jesus quoted at the cross. In Psalm 22, God declares of the anointed king’s substitutionary death. He stands on behalf of many. He dies in a crucified state. His hands pierced, his feet pierced, all that’s predicted right in Psalm 22. And then he rises in great victory and proclaims that victory to the world. And then we read this. God declares of this anointed king’s sacrifice, all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord. All the ends of the earth will remember this event and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship you. Missions exist to see red hot worship explode across the planet. As Paul says in Romans 5, missions seeks the obedience of faith among all the nations for the sake of Jesus’ name. The ultimate end of missions is worship. One day, there will be no more need for missions, but worship will last forever. The highest goal of missions is to exalt Christ as glorious, and we value Christ most when we embrace him as our greatest treasure. We receive help, hope, and salvation, and he is exalted as the helper, the hope giver, and the Savior. He is made much of. We find our hearts satisfied. Missionaries must treasure Christ, and seek to help others treasure Christ above all else. So I ask you today, are you treasuring Jesus? Is he someone of value to you? Would your best friends at school look at you and say, I know what he values? When your parents look at how you spend your time, or your siblings look at how you spend your time, does it look like you value Jesus above all else? Missionaries need to be those who treasure Christ. And the quest of the missionary is to help others treasure Christ above all other things.

Goal three, verse 28. Mission seeks to present people mature before God. Christ we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. Do you see the universality of that statement? It’s global, everyone, everyone, everyone, all. When Paul says we are warning and teaching everyone, he means everyone that his missionary team, that’s the we, comes in contact with as the word is proclaimed throughout all creation, chapter 1:23. And as it’s proclaimed, what he’s seeking is these people’s maturity. He wants to see everyone mature in Christ. Back in chapter 1:4, 5, Paul speaks in this way. He speaks of the faith that the Colossians have in Jesus Christ, the love that they have for all the saints, the hope that they have laid up in heaven. All of this is what is central to the word of the truth, the gospel. Good news, faith, hope, and love through Jesus.

Paul then celebrates in 1:6 that this word has been bearing fruit and increasing. You encounter the gospel, it’s like new creation. Life springs up even in the darkest places, even in the hardest places to reach on the planet. The kingdom is advancing. Light is overcoming darkness. It’s like a garden bearing fruit, multiplying, increasing. And God wants to use you to see his garden expand throughout the world. In 1:23, Paul urges, Paul the missionary urges this church, continue in the faith, stable, steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which is proclaimed in all creation. Missions.

A goal of missions is to shape mature Christians, not only reaching people through evangelism, but teaching and training people until churches are healthy. What do we mean by healthy? What does it look like to be mature? The writer of Hebrew says this, everyone who lives on milk, think about a baby, everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he’s but a child. I long to see everyone in this room grow up and not be children forever. Those who drink milk are but children, but solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good and evil. Good and evil, where have you heard that pair before? It’s connected to a tree in a garden. Humans are mature when they function as God intended them to function from the beginning. To be mature means to image God discerning good and evil. The mature are those whose words and thoughts and deeds reflect, resemble and represent God rightly, displaying His worth, His greatness, His values, His kingship in the world. When you and I pray, “Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.” What are we praying? That the holiness of God would be realized on earth, including in our souls, and that the reign of God would go global on earth as it is in heaven. It’s a missionary prayer. To every believer, God has given the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus. And as we encounter God’s glory in the face of Christ, seeing Him, celebrating Him, savoring Him, we are being transformed increasingly into His likeness from one degree of glory to the next, 2 Corinthians 3:18. To the level at which we display Christ’s worth and live hating what He hates and loving what He loves, we are living as mature Christians. When you walk through the aisle in Target, do you let your eyes, young men, just look over at those magazines that you should not be looking at, where women are objectified and not treated with value? Do you guard your heart and your mind at what you look at on the Internet? What do you value? What do you treasure? What’s guiding your actions? Missionaries must be those who treasure Christ and who seek to make him known. That is maturity. That is holiness. Our goal of Missions is to help people become mature. So are you drinking milk or eating solid food today? Missions seeks maturity.

So here’s the conclusion today, this morning. For Paul to say Missions seeks to present people mature really means the same thing as helping people value Christ as their greatest treasure. And it’s only when this happens that God’s word, long promised, is fulfilled in this world. So in this passage, we’ve seen that Missions has three goals, but actually all those goals are the same goal. So here’s how I summarize it, and it’s on the bottom of your paper. God’s purpose that the church engage in missions. Why? To fulfill his word by helping people value Christ as their greatest treasure, which indeed is the mark of Christian maturity. To have a world filled with worshipers who treasure Jesus and are satisfied in Jesus. God is not wanting to take away your satisfactions, your joys, your delights. You’re just too easily satisfied. When in Christ are pleasures forevermore, at his right hand, endless joy for the longest amount of time. People can enjoy, cherish, treasure a living hope today when they see, celebrate, and savor Christ as glorious and valuable, more precious than things of earth. And God is calling each of you, whether you will be a goer or whether you will be a sender, don’t be disobedient. God is calling each of you to this great cause, proclaiming light to those living in darkness, hope to the hopeless, to proclaim Christ as the treasure that will last forever. God desired, verse 27, to make known among the nations, what is this wealth of this mystery’s glory, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Will you answer this call? Will you answer this call? Father, I thank you for your mercy to save sinners like us. When you could have wiped us out, someone proclaimed the word, could have been a parent or a pastor, a friend. And so many of us in this room have experienced that new life that you give. But I am confident there are some who do not even have a grasp of what it means to encounter the greatest treasure in the universe. Do a work by your spirit, overcoming darkness, fulfilling your word, and helping these students learn what it means to treasure Jesus. That they might become increasingly mature for the sake of your name. Amen.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. Next week, we continue this series on missions with a message titled How Missions.