Over 3 billion people in the world today have little or no access to the gospel—we refer to them as the unreached. It’s easy to look at this staggering number of unreached people and label it as a missions problem, but this is a problem that actually runs deeper. This is a discipleship problem. In this message from David Platt based on Matthew 28:18–20 and Revelation 7:9–10, David Platt helps us see the massive number of unreached people as a discipleship problem. Every follower of Christ should desire to obey Jesus, and this obedience involves living our lives and using our resources for the sake of making disciples among every people group on the planet. This message was given at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. For more resources from Radical, go to radical.net.
Over 3 billion people in the world today have little or no access to the gospel—we refer to them as the unreached. It’s easy to look at this staggering number of unreached people and label it as a missions problem, but this is a problem that actually runs deeper. This is a discipleship problem. In this message from David Platt based on Matthew 28:18–20 and Revelation 7:9–10, David Platt helps us see the massive number of unreached people as a discipleship problem. Every follower of Christ should desire to obey Jesus, and this obedience involves living our lives and using our resources for the sake of making disciples among every people group on the planet. This message was given at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. For more resources from Radical, go to radical.net.
You are listening to Radical with David Platt, a weekly podcast with sermons and messages from pastor, author and teacher David Platt. Before we dive into the word, I would just say it's pure joy to get up early in the morning and come to Southeastern Seminary. I am so thankful for this place. I'm so thankful for Dr Aiken, for numerous faculty and staff here who are friends of mine and have had profound influence in my life, including, as he mentioned, my spiritual father in ministry, jim Shavik. So I love the faculty, staff and students of this school and I'm honored to be back here today. If you have a Bible and I hope you or somebody around you does I invite you to open with me to Matthew, chapter 28. Matthew, chapter 28. So I hope you have this passage memorized and just as a heads up, I don't intend to do an exposition of this entire passage. Instead, I intend to focus on three words and their development over the rest of the New Testament and through these words, I hope to lift your eyes to people in places far from where we are right now in the world, which is admittedly hard for us to do for many reasons. One, we have a lot going on in our lives and our families and just this room. How many of us are walking through something in our lives or our families right now? That's really heavy, maybe even to the point of it's hard to get up on some mornings and, without going into details, I would just say I'm there, and then we have a lot going on in our churches and our communities or in school. How many of us are walking through challenges and school studies, church, community that feel overwhelming? I'm guessing that's a lot of us too, which means it's hard in a day to day to lift our eyes to people and places far from our lives and our families and our churches and our communities, our world right around us. But I want to encourage you that, amidst all of those needs in your life and your family, your church, your community, your world, praise God, you have the gospel and the gospel is good. The grace of God is sufficient for every single need in your lives and your family and your church and your community. Over the next few minutes I want to lift your eyes to over 3 billion people in the world who right now don't have that gospel, who are walking through the same hurts and heartaches in many ways deeper hurts and heartaches, but they don't have the gospel. They've never heard the good news of who Jesus is and how much he loves them. So we're not talking about people who have heard of Jesus and rejected him. We're talking about the more than 3 billion people who haven't even heard of them and who currently don't have access to the good news about them. They don't have a Christian or a church near them who can share the gospel with them. We call them unreached. And here's the other reason I think this is hard and will be hard in the next few minutes, because as soon as I mentioned unreached in the world, what happens is we immediately think about missions and missionaries and we put this conversation, even sermon like this, in a category of a mission sermon. And we do this subtly, almost unknowingly, in a way that allows us to excuse ourselves from its implications. This kind of thinking is not good for us and ultimately, this kind of thinking is damning for the nations. I want you to think about this with me. Luzon Conference on World Evangelization. In 1974, almost 50 years ago, a man named Ralph Winter trumpeted the need for focus on unreached people groups, and in the 50 years since that, we have talked about unreached people, researched unreached people, held innumerable conferences on unreached people, turned entire mission organizations upside down to focus on unreached people and, 50 years later, there are more unreached people in the world today than when all of that started. Do you realize this? There are more unreached people in the world today than not just 50 years ago. There are more unreached people in the world today than ever before in history. This is happening on our watch. More population is increasing, including the number of unreached people, and the church is nowhere close to keeping up with what it will take to reach them, which should clue us in. Maybe something is seriously wrong with the way we're thinking and talking about missions and doing it. I want to try to show you a map on the screen. I'm not sure if this is working or not. We'll see. Can you guys see it? No, okay, well, imagine, it's really unfortunate. There's a lot that hinges on showing you a couple things. Oh, yes, okay, here, boom, okay, freeze Scott, okay, and the sermon would have gone on without the technology, just to be clear, but it was going to involve some adjustments. All right, I hope this is a map that you're familiar with. So the green areas of this map represent areas in the world that are reached by the Gospel. So obviously it doesn't mean that everybody in those places is a Christian. We know that. But these are places where the Gospel has gone, where Christians and churches live. Churches have been planted. The Gospel is able to spread. People have access to the Gospel in these green areas. The yellow areas represent places in the world that are less reached by the Gospel. Usually it's going in one of two directions Either there used to be a lot of Gospel access in that place, but the church has weakened in its influence. There's less Gospel access. So you see parts of Europe like that, or it's going the other way. Maybe the Gospel has more recently come there, but it's still a weak church with still relatively little Gospel access around it. Then you have the red areas in the world, which is where the most unreached people in the world live. No map like this is perfect, but that area represents the approximately so let's just put this, make sure we're on the same page approximately 3.2 billion people. See what it means. If you live in one of those red areas, the likelihood is you'll be born, you'll live and you'll die, and you'll never even hear the Gospel. Remember. This is why we don't say I don't know why. We're talking about unreached people around the world. There's unreached people in my office or unreached people in my neighborhood. Those people are not unreached and so how do you know? Because they're in your office or your neighborhood, they have access to the Gospel. You're it. They're unreached here. People are lost here in North Carolina and Metro Washington DC just like they are in Saudi Arabia or Somalia. The difference is there's a few churches in North Carolina, metro Washington DC, there aren't Christians in churches, and most parts of Saudi or Somalia and, as a result, if you live in a place like that in the red, the likelihood is you'll be born, you'll live and die without ever even hearing the Gospel. So we feel the weight of what that means. We're talking about three billion people, just like you and me, who are being born, living, dying without ever hearing the Gospel, and we know from God's Word that they cannot be saved from their sin if they don't hear the Gospel. This is Romans 10. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of Christ, and they won't hear the Word of Christ if somebody doesn't go and share it with them. And we, as the Church of Jesus Christ, in our day, on our watch, are practically ignoring them. I believe this is true anecdotally. Most Christians have not prayed for unreached people. This week, in your time alone with the Lord, most Christians, if they've never been to Southeastern Seminary, may not even know about unreached people in the world. And if they do know about them, we don't really think about them. We don't talk about them a lot in most churches. We don't pray for them. In our church gatherings. We don't give resources to reach them. Only a tiny percentage of Christians consider going to them, and that's not just anecdotal. There's data that makes that clear. Jesus says where your treasure is there your heart will be also. Well, where is our treasure as Christians? In our country we spend most of our treasure on ourselves. We give a small percentage of our treasure to churches or ministries and most of that we spend on making church comfortable for ourselves. And then a small percentage of what we give to churches and ministries goes to well, a line item we call missions. Did you know that? This is, speaking broadly, the church in our country. Out of the amount we give to missions, approximately 98% to 99% of that money actually goes to green areas in the world Latin America, sub-saharan Africa, parts of Europe and even parts of Asia. Over here we give to missions and in the name of missions we ignore the people who most need the gospel and we've created a whole church culture that's content to practically ignore 3 billion people who've never heard it. That's content to focus on our lives and our families and our churches where we have the gospel, while we throw relative pennies, send a small number of people to those who've never heard the gospel and we celebrate that as missions. I do want to be really careful and clear here. I praise God specifically for the IMB, all that goes toward the unreached through the IMB, and all the missionaries, brothers and sisters I know and love who are serving with the IMB. At the same time, I'm convinced that the way we have talked and I include myself in this the way I have talked about missions, has contributed to this problem, because the reality of unreached people is not ultimately a missions problem. The reality of unreached people is ultimately a discipleship problem. Three billion people in the world are unreached by the gospel still, not because we don't have enough missionaries. Three billion people in the world are unreached by the gospel today because we don't have enough Christians who are actually following Jesus. Maybe another way to put that what unreached people need are not hundreds or thousands more missionaries working to get the gospel to them. Reached people need hundreds of thousands, millions upon millions of Christians working to get the gospel to them. Do you see the difference? And until the church of Jesus Christ wakes up and realizes this is what it means to be a follower of Jesus, to be a disciple maker for the nations, until the church of Jesus Christ and every Christian in it realizes this is what we're all here for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. Until we wake up and realize that, then more and more people, multitudes more, will plunge into everlasting suffering without ever even hearing of the one who gives eternal life. We need a total reorientation in our day around what it means to follow Jesus in the world. Let me show you this straight from the mouth of Jesus and in the story of the church in the Bible. So first, straight from the mouth of Jesus. We know these words Jesus last words to his disciples in the book of Matthew. He tells them all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Of all nations, panta, ta, ethne, of all the ethnic groups. So not nations, like we think of geopolitical entities, countries today Talking about all the ethnic groups of the world, tribes, languages, peoples, the Berber of Morocco, the Fulani of Nigeria, the Pashtun of Afghanistan, and on and on and on. Thousands of them. Some say over 11,000 distinct people groups in the world, others say over 16,000 distinct people groups in the world. And Jesus said make disciples of all of them. It's not a general command to make disciples among a lot of people, that's a specific command to make disciples among all the peoples and places in the world. Then Mark 16, 15, which I realize it's debated about this inclusion in the book of Mark, but these words certainly echo Matthew 28. Jesus said to them go in all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Then Luke 24, verse 45, he opened their minds to understand the scripture. Said to them Thus it's written, that the Christ should suffer on the third day, rise from the dead and the repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Do you see this? This is part of the essence of the gospel itself. This is good news for all the nations that must be proclaimed to all of them, which is why Luke picks this up and acts one which Jesus says to his disciples. We read it earlier you will receive power when the Holy Spirit come upon you. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Jesus made it clear my disciples will all have every one of them have supernatural power to be disciples among the nations, among all the peoples and places, to the ends of the earth, which then leads to the whole story of the church in the book of Acts. We know the gospel spreads in Jerusalem. For the first seven chapters of Acts, stephen is stoned, which then leads to what A scattering of disciples into where Judea and Samaria. Acts chapter 8, verse 1,. There arose on that day great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. They were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles, and those who were scattered went about preaching the word. You see that the gospel spreads to Judea and Samaria, not through a special group of missionaries, but through everyday Christians proclaiming the word wherever they go in Judea and Samaria. Which then leads to Acts, chapter 11, verse 19, where we read those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch speaking the word. There they are scattering, spreading the word, because this is what Christians do scattering, speaking the word to all these different people. But specifically, you know what? Except Jews, until some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene who, when coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, also preaching the Lord Jesus and the Hannah Lord was with them in, a great number of believed turned to the Lord. Now the word is spreading to the nations beyond the Jewish people, as Hellenists, greeks believe and turn to the Lord, and it's happening through Christians preaching Jesus. Then what happens in Antioch Just a couple of chapters later, chapter 13, verse 1,. They were in the church in Antioch, prophets and teachers Barnabas, simeon, who was called Niger, lucius of Cyrene, manan, a lifelong friend, herod the tetrarch and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said set apart from me, barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I have called them. Then, after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and said them off, being sent out by the Holy Spirit. They went down to Seleucia. From there they sailed to Cyprus. When they arrived in Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God. Now, yes, here in Acts 13, god specifically calls Paul and Barnabas to go out from Antioch. But the narrative is clearly written to show us the whole church was involved in this thing and what happens as a result. Well, this is the story of the church. They leave Antioch. These red arrows are them going out. They go down to Cyprus. Once they get there, they proclaim the word, they make disciples, they gather them together in a church and then they move on up to Pasidon, antioch in the north, down to Econium, lystra, derby and all these places. Everywhere they're going, they're making disciples and gather them together in the churches. New places, new people coming to know Christ. Then the blue arrows are them coming back. They're encouraging the church. They come back to Antioch at the end of Acts chapter 14 and encourage the church there. Then you have the Council of Jerusalem in Acts chapter 15, then in Acts chapter 16 you have another journey, this time a little conflict in the church. So now we've got two missionary teams and Paul takes Silas with him and they pick up Timothy along the way and they go to some of the same places they've been before and they're encouraging the church. What happens? Acts, chapter 16, 6 through 10, paul starts to go one direction. The sphere stops him. He starts to go another direction. The sphere stops him. He has a vision from Macedonia saying come over here and help us. So he concludes God's calling us to go to more places where the gospel hasn't gone yet. So they go up into Philippi, thessalonica, berea, down into Athens, corinth, ephesus, all these places we recognize from the New Testament. They're making disciples and planting churches in all these places. New people, new places, the churches keeping pressing on where the gospel hasn't gone. Then they head down, encourage the church of Jerusalem and back up to Antioch. That sets the stage for third journey, leaving Antioch again. But you'll notice, on this third journey Paul doesn't cover any new territory, just encouraging the same people, until he gets to Corinth and he writes a letter. And the letter he writes there is Not Corinthians, because he's in Corinth, like he doesn't have to write a letter to him, he's with him. So he writes Romans here, romans. New Testament professors really discouraged right now. So no, he writes Romans here. Why Romans when he's in Corinth? Well, I'm glad you asked. He doesn't write it just to get, I mean, this glorious picture of the gospel. Is it just for that? No, it's more than that. It's more than just a glorious picture of the gospel. He says I'm on my way. Look at the end of Romans, he tells us why he wrote the letter. I'm on my way down to Jerusalem. I'm offering that I'm taken there, and once I go take the offering there for these starving saints in Jerusalem, I'm coming to you. Why write Romans? Why am I coming to you at this point? Well, look at what he says, then I'll show you the map. Here we go From Jerusalem this is Romans 15, verse 19, all the way around to Illyricum. I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ, and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written. Those who've never been told of him will see. Those who've never heard will understand. This is the reason why I've so often been hindered from coming to you, but now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions. Since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain and to be helped on my journey there by you. So here's a bigger map. Here's Paul at Corinth. He's headed to Jerusalem. He says after I go there, I'm coming to you in Rome. But my goal is not to stop in Rome. I'm coming to you in Rome because I need you to help me get where, to Spain. Why Spain? Because there's no gospel in Spain, there's not Christians and churches in Spain. And Paul knows the command of Jesus is to keep pressing on where the gospel hasn't gone. No-transcript. He says a pretty outlandish statement, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions. Are you serious? No work to be done there. He's in Corinth for crying out loud like the place is messed up. There's so much need for work. But what's Paul saying? He's saying the gospel's there, there's churches there, there's Christians there. We, as the body of Christ, don't have the option of staying in places where the gospel has gone. We gotta keep pressing on, working together to get the gospel where it has not gone. We wanna go where Christ has not been named, so that those who have never been told of Him will see, those who have never heard will understand. That's what the command is that we've been given. Are you seeing this? The Great Commission from Jesus was not a general command to just make a lot of disciples in the world. It was a specific command to make disciples among all the nations, all the peoples, all the places. It's not a perfect illustration, but I do think it's helpful. Imagine, so you know the difference between a hurricane or a tornado. Hurricane hits a large swath of land and everything in its path. Tornado is much more selective can come through and hit one house and not the house right next to it, one neighborhood, not the neighborhood right next to it. Well, imagine a tornado comes through a particular region and ravages this community right here, just totally ravages it, and then keeps going and ravages another community here and then keeps going and does the same thing with the community way over here. And imagine you're head of rescue operations on the ground and you and your team get to this first community and you realize there are more needs in that community than you can even begin to address, like you're not gonna be able to rescue everybody here. And then you start to think well, if I send some of our team there, it's gonna take them time to travel. I don't know how they're gonna get there, there's gonna be challenges, and that's time when we could be rescuing people here. And then you think about this community way over here. Not only will it take time, imagine that you hear that the people in this community, there are some who will try to keep you from bringing rescue here, who will kill you if you try to bring rescue here. Well, if you're just using common sense, then what do you do? You stay right here. You work to rescue as many people as possible. The only reason you would split up and send some here and some there is if you're a commanding officer said I want people rescued from every single community. And if he said that, then you don't have the option of just focusing here. No, you're focused on all these and you're saying, okay, who's going here and who's gonna risk their lives to go here? This is Paul saying we gotta keep pressing on where the gospel hasn't gone. It's not tolerable to Paul that there are people who've not heard the name and the truths about Jesus. It's not tolerable to Christians. It's not tolerable to Christians for that to be the case in the world. We work together to change that. And this is where the New Testament ends. Paul makes it to Rome out the way he'd planned. He makes it there in chains and he doesn't. Well, we know. We get to Spain and the story of Acts ends there and we have John and the end of the Bible and the end of the Bible and John island exiled. And what is he right as part of his last words to Christians. See this I've locked a ball to grade multa to the known conumbra from every nation, from all the tribes, all the peoples, all the languages, standing before the throne, before the lamb, clothed in white probes. Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the lamb, in other words, church. Don't take your eyes off this vision. All the nations, all the tribes, all the peoples, all the languages, keep working, keep working, all of you, until the gospel goes to all of them, until they're all singing this song. Is this not the clear message of the Bible? That every follower of Jesus is to live with this vision in mind, that every follower of Jesus is to scatter into this world wherever the Holy Spirit leads, making disciples who make disciples, until all the nations, tribes, peoples and languages are brought into the kingdom. So why are we not doing this today? Why is this goal not consuming us today? Why are we saying, with three billion unreach people in the world, we'll send a few hundred or a few thousand missionaries to them, by the way, in a narrow, predominantly white, western, wealthy model of sending them? And again, to be clear, that's not intended to denigrate what God has done and is doing right now in the world, but surely more is needed than what this kind of model can support. Surely there's a better, a fuller answer to this, and there is. There's a biblical answer to this. We all need to start following Jesus for the sake of His name among all of the nations. We all need to realize this is why we have breath To pray, like Jesus taught us to pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name in all the earth, among all the people. It's called your name to be known and enjoyed and exalted as holy among the Berber and among the Fulani and among the Pashtun and thousands of other people groups who don't know the name of Jesus right now. This is how not just a few people pray. This is how Christians pray. This is how churches pray. We gather together to plead for more workers to go into the harvest field for salvation to come to the ends of the earth. Is the spread of the gospel and the glory of God among specific unreached people, groups and places in the world a constant part of your prayer life, a constant part of your family's prayer life? If not, let today be the day that changes for you, that your Christianity changes to revolve around praying for what God has called us to pray for and told us as the ultimate goal in all of history. Become an intercessor for the nations, because you're a follower of the intercessor, capital I for the nations and then, to the extent God gives you influence, leadership in his church, lead his people to pray for the nations. And as we pray, let's put our treasure toward the nations. God help us. We live in one of the wealthiest societies ever to exist on planet earth. Let's not waste it on earthly pleasures that are all gonna burn up. Let's spend our resources on eternal treasure that will never, ever, ever end. Personally, in our churches, alongside brothers and sisters in Christ and the red who are doing this work. Let's make this our Christianity. We're praying like this, we're giving ladies and we're going like this. We're making disciples of the nation, starting right where we live. We are disciple makers for the nations in our spheres of influence, every disciple, a disciple maker for Jesus. God, deliver us from a spectator mentality in the church. Raise up businessmen and women and teachers and engineers and factory workers and entrepreneurs and work at home, moms and dads, who are all disciple makers for the nations wherever we live. Which means, by the way, that we don't just make disciples and grow churches with people filled with people who look like us. Let us not be content with the segregation of churches in our country by the color of our skin, when we've been given a clear command to cross ethnic and racial boundaries with the blood of Jesus Christ and God opened our eyes specifically to how you're sovereignly bringing the nations to us. God is bringing the red to our front doors, and yet I want to step carefully here too, having pastored for years now in Metro DC even. Why is it that, statistically, evangelical Christians are the most resistant to people coming to our country from red nations in the world? What do we want more the preservation of our nation or the proclamation of the gospel and the glory of our God among all the nations. What is driving us? Let's be disciple. God has brought people who have never heard the gospel right outside our front doors. Let's step into that fully. The opportunities God has given us, right where we live and then wherever he leaves us. And this is where we realize that, yes, yes, there are more unreached people today than ever before in history and there are more opportunities to reach them than ever before in history. Do you realize the time and place we are living in right now? Paul never could have imagined I mean, it took him how long to travel from one city to the next, and by Bowdoin didn't always go very well. Like he never could have found a machine that can pick you up and take you through the air just about anywhere in the world in a day, maybe not, are you serious? It just will take you like through the sky. Yes, we could do that. How long did it take him to write a letter or dictate it, have it sent, be delivered, have people respond here and respond to it, send a response back? He never could have fathomed a world in which we can communicate with people anywhere, just about anywhere on the planet, in real time, in multiple languages, through a device in our pockets. You could do all that from right there. It's amazing, and we haven't even gotten into goggles yet. Everything else that's coming, like the opportunities we have travel, technology, urbanization. We realize that just two centuries ago, like a tiny percentage of the world lived in cities. A century ago, just a little bit big. Now over half the world. God has brought the people's two cities, two places where they've come and are able the gospel is able to spread from cities to all kinds of different places like never before. Urbanization, the globalization of today's marketplace, the opportunities that are for work around the world, the opportunities we have from the church in our country for people in reddit countries do we realize this? There are people in red areas who will pay Christians to come spread the gospel there. Now they don't know they're paying you for that purpose, but that's the point. They just go, get a job and be a Christian, be a disciple maker for the nations, not by leaving your job, but by leveraging your job. Now you start to realize all the opportunities we have short-term, mid-term, long-term to go to the red, more opportunities than ever before in history to get the gospel to them. What are we going to do with that? Let's steward it to the full in our lives. Let's raise our kids to steward this to the full. Tell our kids about unreached people in the world and tell them this is what you're made for. For the stunt coast things down in a nice, comfortable Christian-style and the American dream. No, you're made for so much more than that. You're made for the glory of God among the nations and you're going to be able to get degrees and open doors for the spread of the gospel among the nations. And you're going to think through what does that look like in your life? Let's pray, let's like. This is the kind of Christianity we want kids to grow up in, where their heart beats for the spread of Jesus' fame among all the peoples of the world in such a way. So when I, when I see a 17-year-old, 17 or 18, mormon high school graduate, I'm going to say and she's on an iPhone video and she's reading this letter that's telling her where she's going to spend the next two years of her life on mission and she reads it. She gets to the point where she says where she's going. She's shaking with nervous excitement. She's smiling, she reads where she's going and the camera pans out, pans out, pans out and all of her friends and her family are there and they start jumping up and down. They're like rejoicing where they're celebrating. She's going to spend the next two years spreading a false gospel that condemns, and there's a whole culture that's built to celebrate that. When I spend time on college campuses and I talk with Christian students about the opportunities among the nations, one of the most prevalent things I hear is my Christian parents would not be supportive of that. That's what I mean by we need a total reorientation of what it means to be followers of Jesus. We're disciple makers for the nations. That's who we are. So let's be finished and done with a brand of Christianity that turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to three billion people who haven't even heard the gospel. Brothers and sisters, if they're going to be reached, it's not going to be because we changed our approach to missions. It's going to be because we changed our approach to discipleship. It's going to be because we realize this is actually Christianity. It's living to be a disciple maker for the nations. It's believing that God has not saved any one of his children to sideline them in the accomplishment of his ultimate purpose in the world. It's believing that the grace of Jesus Christ isn't just for people like us, with all we have going on in our lives and our families and our churches. It's believing that the gospel we hold dear is for all the peoples of the world and we reorient our entire lives, our families, our churches. We reorient the entire Christian faith around the enjoyment and exaltation of Jesus Christ and all of His glory among all of the nations, and we see this not as missions, we see this as following Jesus. So that's where I want to leave us for the question. There are actually two One that's focused on you personally and then one that's focused on your leadership in the church. I just want to ask these questions and then lead us into prayer. First, for you personally what needs to change in your life in order for you to be a disciple maker for all the nations? What needs to change in your prayer life? What needs to change in your use of treasure, in your priorities, your perspective? How is God calling you to be a disciple maker for all the nations, right where you live right now and wherever he might lead through opportunities? You have to go short term, mid term, long term to the red. Just put it out there Our churches won't go to the nations if their leaders aren't showing them what it looks like to be disciple makers for the nations. So what needs to change personally in you? And then second, as you steward the leadership position and opportunities God has entrusted to you, what needs to change in your leadership in order to mobilize disciple makers for all the nations? And whatever influence God has given you in his church, how can you steward that influence to mobilize and equip and raise up and encourage and activate and unleash disciple makers for all the nations? Can I give you just a moment just to prayerfully reflect on these questions and then I'll pray for us. I promise you that prayer is the privilege of being reached with the gospel. We praise you for your mercy and our lives. We praise you for the hope we have amidst the hurt and heartaches of this world. We praise you, jesus, we really love you, jesus, and we praise you for the invitation and your command to make disciples of all the nations to join with you in what you are doing for the spread of this hope people right around us and far from us, god, we pray that you would turn the tide in our day, on our watch. God would pray that you would mobilize us as your church, all your church, to do what you have commanded us to do. We don't want to miss out on this invitation, this mission. So help us. We pray in each of our lives and in the leadership positions that you put us in. God, we pray, spend us however. You desire for the spread of your love, lord Jesus, to come on all the peoples of the earth and all the places of the earth. We pray. We pray for your blessing, as we've already prayed today on those who are living and working among the red, some who have moved there, some who live there. God bless them, cause the gospel to spread through them today. Bring Berber and Pashtun and Fulani men and women and children to yourself and, god, we pray that you would awaken hundreds of thousands, millions more to join them in that effort. All for the glory of your name, we pray Amen. We hope you've enjoyed this week's episode of Radical with David Platt. For more resources from David Platt, we invite you to visit radicalnet.