The Purpose of Missions

Missions is not the purpose of the Church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.— John Piper

I must have gotten to the point by now where I’m wondering why I’m still here. It keeps me up some nights, it is the subject of many conversations, it is the bright burning painful question that has seared itself into the back of my mind. I remember why I first came, it is because I thought I had something good to offer God, something that He needed, a service or an attitude. I remember how good it felt to serve Him at first, how joyfully I bore challenges and how unquestioningly I accepted teachings. What I didn’t realize was how hard it would become. I couldn’t imagine leaving people that I loved, an environment that I thrived, or ministry that I found purpose in. But what happens when your loved ones leave, when the very air surrounding you is thick with mistrust, and you are beginning to understand the real harm American missions can bring to struggling communities? What happens when truly all you have is God, because all the plans you put your hope in turn out to be just that: open-ended, man-made plans, not realities. 

I came here to do mission work. That’s what I wanted. That’s what I believed God wanted for me. But is it really how this life was meant to be led?

Let’s go back to the Garden of Eden. Perfection. Man and God walked side by side. There was no shortage of intimacy with the Father, humanity had everything we needed. But there was a problem that ran deeper than innocent curiosity. Idolatry infiltrated paradise. Even though infinite knowledge of God was at our fingertips, we desired knowledge of good and evil, to be on the same level as Him instead of content worshippers of Him. Sin came, dividing us from the intimacy with God that we need to fulfill us. Worship was always the goal, worship is our purpose of human beings. But just as Idolatry flooded the garden, it also floods every human heart, deceiving us, telling us we can be filled with something other than God. So this world is filled with misplaced worship, and empty worshippers. 

But the Good News is this: God HIMSELF is a missionary. He came into a world that was not His home, He wrapped Himself in the costume of the inhabitants, disguising His glory in flesh, and lived among the people. We were not able to come to God by our own effort or desire, so He came to us, and lived in the murkiest corners of our world. Because we hold this knowledge of God and are able to freely worship Him through the sacrifice of His son, we are given this ministry. Jesus’ life on earth was about making disciples and bringing people to the knowledge of the enjoyment of God, and so we follow Him in that pursuit. 

God doesn’t want me to be a missionary if I’m not a worshipper first. He doesn’t want me to preach something that I haven’t experienced. The truth is, salvation is given freely, but living a life worshipping Him costs everything you have. But I know that even if I don’t receive reward or recognition on this earth, my heavenly reward is waiting for me to claim it. My heavenly reward is Himself, that I might walk alongside my Father and never stop this great employment of enjoying Him.