By Russ Mitchell
Russ is the field director for One Challenge (OC International) in Romania – www.oci.ro.
Psalm 96 highlights two ways by which we can become involved in God’s mission. Let’s take a look at these.
Share the message locally
“Proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day.” Psalm 96:2
This is something we can do right now, locally, where we are. Each one of us should strive to declare every day the glad tidings of God’s salvation.
Consider too the opportunities you have to share the wonderful news of God’s salvation with other peoples in your area. You need not to go far to tell another people about God’s wonderful deeds!
Share the message globally
Ps 96:3 Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples.
Psalm 96:7 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns”
These two commandments stress the necessity of telling the message of God’s wonderful deeds to those outside our particular people group. Twice we see that “the nations” must hear. More so, “all the peoples” are mentioned.
Having this in view, we can only conclude that we have the responsibility to share the message of God’s wonderful deeds with all peoples everywhere. We have a message for the nations! We have to tell all peoples! In order to do this, message bearers must cross cultural, linguistic and/or geographical boundaries to take the wonderful news of God’s salvation to all peoples.
Go, Send or Disobey
Being realistic, not every true believer is able to cross cultural, linguistic and/or geographical boundaries to take the glad tidings of God’s salvation to another people. But every true believer can be involved in process of sending those who can go.
So there are two important roles or parts in sharing the message globally: there are those who go; and there are those who send. Both of roles are valid and necessary parts of our involvement in God’s global mission.
We can think of these two complimentary roles in terms of soldiers involved in war. There are those on the front line, and there are those who support the soldiers at the front. Those on the front can not remain there long without support from the rear lines.
WWII about 15 people supported one soldier on the front line. Today it takes approximately 50 people to support a front line soldier. So the role of the sender is very important.
Those who “send” do so by encouragement, prayer, financial support, and mobilizing new message bearers. Those who are willing can not go unless they are sent.
So every true believer, whether a goer or a sender, can play an important part in God’s mission. You can go or you can send. The only other option is to disobey. The Message Bearer Mandate enjoins us all to become involved in God’s mission. What is your part?
Just how many peoples are there today?
The Message Bearer Mandate has in view sharing the message with all peoples everywhere. If we are to tell of his wonderful deeds among all the peoples, this raises the question: how many peoples are there today? How many have already heard of God’s wonderful deeds?
The Joshua Project lists 16,351 people groups in the world (www.joshuaproject.net). In 6,646 people groups less than 2% are Christ followers. These represent the least reached peoples in our world today. The least reached people groups total some 2.75 billion people or 40.7% of the world’s population.
Another way to look at this is to say that four out of ten people in the world today are least reached. If all true Christians would witness to those in their area of influence (locally), it is likely that four out of ten people in the world still would not hear the message.
This gives us a general impression of the task before us and the importance of cross-cultural work. Without cross cultural message bearers, four out of ten people will most likely never hear the wonderful news of God’s salvation.
“Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples” (Psalm 96:3). If we take the Message Bearer Mandate seriously, we must give special attention to the least reached peoples.
Tens of thousands of new message bearers are needed to reach the least reached. God desires that these least reached peoples know and worship him. Yet how shall they know of God’s salvation if no one goes and tells them?
The Nations are Declaring His Glory! What about you?
We live in an exciting time when true believers everywhere are getting involved in God’s mission. Tens of thousands are joining God in his mission by going forth as message bearers; many more are involved as senders.
It is exciting to see the emerging missions sending movements from Asia, India, Africa and Latin America. They have caught the global vision! Countries like China, the Philippines, South Korea, Brazil and Nigeria are already sending thousands with future goals of sending tens of thousands more.
True believers in the Asia, India, Africa and Latin America are also sharing the wonderful news of God’s salvation locally. For every 30 new believers in the world, 29 are from these parts of the world. The believers in Asia, India, Africa and Latin America are sharing the message locally and globally. Thus we live in a time when the whole church, is involved in taking the glad tidings to the whole world.
What about you? What is your part in God’s plan to glorify his name among all peoples? Are you involved in God’s mission? Don’t miss out on what God is doing! Don’t just stand on the side lines watching what is going on – for to do nothing is to disobey. Share the message locally day by day.
Discover your role in sharing the message globally and do your part. Be diligent in your role as a goer or a sender. Wherever you are, whoever you are, you can be involved in God’s mission.
