Tag: John Piper

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Missions and Worship

“*Missions is not the ultimate goal 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.
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Design: Emi Negron

 

“Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions.It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God.

“The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!” (Ps 97:1). “Let the peoples praise thee, O God; let all the peoples praise thee! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Ps 67:3-4).
“But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t 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” (Ps 104:34, 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.”……
Read the rest of the article Let The Nations Be Glad by John Piper
Let the Nations Be Glad!
*This Excerpt is from John Piper’s 1993 book Let The Nations Be Glad
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Sacrifice, Joy and Glory from David Livingstone

On December 4, 1857, David Livingstone, the great pioneer missionary to Africa, made a stirring appeal to the students of
Cambridge University, showing that he had learned through the years of experience what Jesus was trying to teach Peter:

“For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice
I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice, which is simply paid back as a small
part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in
healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter?

Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say, rather, it is a privilege.
Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this
life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these
are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.”

“The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.”
May this be your joy in all of life, in whatever you do – that where God has placed you is a privilege and a pleasure, because “the chief end of man is to glorify God by ENJOYING Him forever!”

–From Desiring God by John Piper