CROSS CULTURAL MINISTRY CM 3303

1. CROSS CULTURAL MINISTRYCM 3303 Let The Nations Be Glad

2. Let the Nations Be Glad The Supremacy of God in Missions Through Worship

3. Author • John Piper • Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church; Minneapolis, Minnesota • Head of Desiring God Ministries • www.desiringgod.org

4. Preface “If this book inspires missionaries to go and sing of God among the nations, I will be glad. Believing that my life counts for this, is one of the main ways God keeps me going in the pastorate in America…I have said to the missionaries out of our church, “Your devotion has a tremendous power in my life. Your leaving is a means of my staying.”

5. The Supremacy of God in Missions Through Worship

6. Worship • Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exist because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man.

7. Worship • Worship is the fuel and goal in missions. It is the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory.

8. Worship • The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. • Psalm 97:1 The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof. • Psalm 67:3-4 3 Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee. 4 O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth.

9. Worship • Passion for god in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you do not cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad,” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord…I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High.”

10. Worship • If the pursuit of God’s glory is not ordered above the pursuit of man’s good in the affections of the heart and the priorities of the church, man will not be well-served and God will not be duly honored. • I [Piper] am not calling for the diminishment of missions, but a magnifying of God.

11. Worship • When the flame of worship burns with the heart of God’s true worth, the light of missions will shine to the most remote peoples on earth.

12. Worship • Albert Einstein’s skepticism • “The design of the universe…is very magnificent and shouldn’t be taken for granted. In fact, I believe that is why Einstein had so little use for organized religion…He must have looked at what the preachers said about God and felt that they were blaspheming. He had seen much more majesty than they had ever imagined, and they were just not talking about the real thing.” – Charles Misner

13. Worship • In our worship services God simply doesn’t come through for who he is. He is unwittingly belittled. • For those who are stunned by the indescribable magnitude of what God has made, the steady diet on Sunday morning of practical “how-to’s” and psychological soothing and relational therapy seem dramatically out of touch with Reality – the God of overwhelming greatness.

14. Worship • It is possible to be distracted from God in trying to serve God. • “We commonly represent God as a busy, eager, somewhat frustrated Father hurrying about seeking help to carry out His benevolent plan to bring peace and salvation to the world…Too many missionary appeals are based upon this fancied frustration of God.” – Tom Wells

15. What Scientist See

16. Worship • Isaiah 40:25-26 25 To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.

17. Worship • Every one of the billions of stars in the universe is there by God’s specific appointment. He knows their number. And, most astonishingly of all, he knows them by name.

18. Worship • To ignore God or belittle God is unintelligible and suicidal folly. How shall one ever be the emissary of this great God who has not trembled before him with joyful wonder?

19. Worship • The most crucial issue in missions is the centrality of God in the life of the church. Where people are not stunned by the greatness of God, how can they be sent with the ringing message?

20. Worship • A vision of triumphant God has moved missionaries for centuries. That vision must come first. Savoring it in worship precedes spreading it in missions.

21. Worship • All of history is moving toward one great goal, the white-hot worship of God and his Son among all the poeples of the earth. Missions is not that goal. It is the means. And for that reason, missions is the second greatest human activity in the world.

22. Worship • Mission’s is not God’s ultimate goal – worship is. When this sinks into a person’s heart everything changes. Everything looks different – including the missionary enterprise.

23. Worship • The ultimate foundation for our passion is to see God glorified is his own passion to be glorified. God is central and supreme in his own affections. • This truth seals the conviction that worship is the fuel and goal of missions.

24. Worship • The deepest reason why our passion for God should fuel missions. Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God’s delight in being God.

25. Worship • The Westminster Confession • What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. • What is the chief end of God? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

26. Worship • God is righteous. The opposite of righteousness is to value and enjoy what is not truly valuable or rewarding. • God’s righteous passion and delight is to display and uphold his infinitely valuable glory

27. Worship • Isaiah 48:9-11 9 For my name's sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. 10 Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. 11 For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.

28. Worship • In our wickedness we suppress the truth that God is our Sovereign and worthy of all our allegiance and affection. By nature we exchange the glory of the immortal God for dim images of it in creation.

29. Worship • The infinite horrors of hell are intended by God to be a vivid demonstration of the infinite value of the glory of God. • The Biblical assumption of the justice of Hell is a clear testimony to the infiniteness of the sin of failing to glorify God. • The weight of infinite guilt rests on every human head because of our failure to cherish the glory of God.

30. Worship • How can self-exaltation be love? • 1 Corinthians 13:5 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; • How can self-exalation be love? • Answering this question will show how the supremacy of God in the heart of God is the spring of mercy and kindness and love – which means the spring of missions.

31. Worship • Love seeks its own joy in the joy of others • God is calling for the radical transformation of heart that finds its joy in the act of love and all the goodness that comes from it

32. Worship • The reason we are not to our own glory, but God’s, is because he is God and we are not. • Humans have no right to be independent of God • It is a mistake to think that God does not have some rights that we do not have.

33. Worship • God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him • This is the most important thought in Piper’s Theology • Delight confers more honor than duty does

34. Worship • God’s self-exaltation: Signpost to Human Satisfaction • Love is helping people toward the greatest beauty and the highest value and the deepest satisfaction and the most lasting joy and the biggest reward and the most wonderful friendship and the most overwhelming worship – love is helping people toward God

35. Worship • God Exalts Himself in Mercy • Another way to see how God’s passion for his own glory is loving and here the connection between the supremacy of God is found in this sentence – the glory God seeks to magnify is supremely the glory of his mercy

36. Worship • Romans 15:8-9 8 Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: 9 And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name.

37. Worship • Zeal for the glory of God motivates world missions - Christ was on a mission to glorify God • A servant spirit and a heart of mercy motivates world missions – Christ became a servant • Both of these truths are one and the same truth

38. Worship • Mercy is the apex of God’s glory the way the overflow of a fountain is the apex of the fountain’s fulfillment • A heart for the glory of God and a heart of mercy for the nations make a Christ-like missionary

39. Worship • The Power of Missions is Worship • Only One God Works for People who Wait for Him • The Most Shareable Message in the World is that People everywhere should seek their own best interest – which is God

40. Worship • The most exhilarating thought in the world is that God’s inexorable purpose to display his glory in the mission of the church is virtually the same as his purpose to give his people infinite delight

41. Worship • Psalm 96:3 3 Declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all people. • Isaiah 12:4 4 And in that day shall ye say, Praise the LORD, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted.

42. Worship • Matthew 6:9-10 9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. • This is a missionary prayer

43. Worship • Romans 1:5 5 By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name:

44. Worship • “My soul was this day, at turns, sweetly set on God: I longed to be “with him” that I might “behold his glory.”…Oh, that his kingdom might come in the world; that they might all love and glorify him for what he is in himself; and that the blessed Redeemer might “see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied.” Oh, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!” Amen • Last Words of David Brainerd (1747)

45. Worship • The motive of compassion and the motive of zeal for the glory of God are not separate. The weeping of compassion is the weeping of joy in God impeded in the extension of itself to another

46. Worship • God is calling us above all else to be the kind of people whose theme and passion is the supremacy of God in all of life • There will be no passion to draw others into our worship where there is no passion for worship

47. Worship • God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation • Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. • Mission exist because worship doesn’t.

48. Worship • Revelation 15:3-4 3 And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. 4 Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.