Becoming Intensely Missionary

UNSHAKEABLE: What does God care most about? I would contend that in the most powerful and profound sense, God desires that everyone on Planet Earth would have the chance to hear the Good News of his plan of eternal salvation that he offers through placing saving faith in his Son, Jesus Christ. Whether people accept the message or not, God still wants everyone to have the chance to hear and either reject or accept his gospel. And I would further contend that when you dedicate your life—your time, talent, energy, and resources—to reaching those who have never heard this Good News, God will devote himself to caring for what you most care about. What a deal! That, my friend, is an offer you shouldn’t refuse.

Unshakeable Living // Romans 15:20-21

My ambition has always been to preach the Good News where the name of Christ has never been heard, rather than where a church has already been started by someone else. I have been following the plan spoken of in the Scriptures, where it says, “Those who have never been told about him will see, and those who have never heard of him will understand.”

Are you a missions-minded Christian? Put another way, are you intensely missionary — especially about reaching those who have never heard the Good News of God’s saving plan through placing faith in his Son, Jesus Christ?

I thought I was intensely missionary. I grew up in the church where the occasional missionary would come and, if we were lucky, show slides of his work in Africa or some other far-off place that I had only heard about in geography lessons at school. Then I grew up and became a pastor, and again, the occasional missionary would come and tell the church what God was doing somewhere far away, and I would feel good that we were a missions church. I would even give regularly to support the church’s missions effort around the world. I was content that I was a missions-minded Christian.

But that began to change. Periodically, I was sent overseas for short-term missions projects by the various churches I served, and my heart begin to get reshaped by what I saw God doing among people who had never heard the name of Jesus before. The signs, wonders, and miracles in the context of the mission (Paul talks about that very same mission-laden context: “by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God.” Rom 15:19) blew my mind. I had never seen such things in the U.S., and experiencing it abroad, I longed to see the supernatural back home in my church, too. God was disturbing my contentedness and reshaping my heart for missions.

Then God completely dislocated my heart and gave me a real passion for missions, for reaching people who had never heard the Gospel of Christ. I have a notion now that I have become a missions-minded Christian, and I grow more intensely missionary as the days go by.

It all happened when I reluctantly got involved in a church-planting project in a remote, unreached African region in 2004. I was reluctant because I knew that my involvement would require a lot of my own personal resources, and to be successful, it would require significant resources from my church. Figuring our resource pie was already stretched and limited, I secretly feared that the finances we dedicated to this project would flow away from other worthy projects and that we would simply be “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

Then, as I was stressing over this likely outcome, something wonderful happened. God spoke to me. Not in an audible voice or through writing on the wall or some other sensational sort of way (that would have been really cool). He simply and clearly spoke to me through an undeniable and unmistakable inner impression in my spirit. Addressing my stress, he simply said, “Ray, if you will take care of the things I care about, then I will take care of the things you care about. I care about a lost world. I care about people who have never heard my name. And I want you to care about them too!” Let me say that again, for it was not only for Ray Noah, it is God’s message to you, too:

If you will take care of the things I care about, then I will take care of the things you care about. I care about a lost world. I care about people who have never heard my name. And I want you to care about them too!

That was good enough for me. I jumped into this project up to my eyeballs, and true to his word, God turned on a miraculous flow of resources for this church planting project and those other projects I had been so concerned about. Best of all, my obedience and those who joined me keyed a revival in this region of Africa that was beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. Now, twenty years later, the gospel has spread to unreached villages in several nations, and over 1.5 million lost souls have come to know Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior! And this modern-day revival is showing no signs of slowing.

What God has done in Africa through this act of obedience changed my heart forever and has given me an ever-growing, all-consuming passion for missions. I still have a passion for the local church and reaching the lost in my community (that’s missions, too), but I have an added ambition now: To keep God’s people focused on reaching people who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ. You see, just because a person happens to be born in an unreached part of the world shouldn’t limit their access to Jesus and the blessings of his kingdom.

Reaching the unreached — that was Paul’s ambition, according to Romans 15:20, way before it was mine. That is God’s ambition, according to Romans 15:21, that “those who have never been told about him will see, and those who have never heard of him will understand.”

I pray that you will open your heart and let God make it your ambition as well. I hope that you will travel with me down the path to becoming an intensely missionary Christian. If you will, I will make you the same promise God made me:

If you will take care of the things God cares about—a lost world, God will take care of the things you care about—your world.

What a deal! That is an offer you shouldn’t refuse.