I did not go to the semi-nomadic Arabs of the Sahara because I loved them. I was not drawn to their culture. I certainly didn’t like their food. There wasn’t much of anything that I found beautiful in their land. The idea of transplanting myself into an impoverished city on the edge of the desert held little appeal for me.
So, why did I go? What kept me there for almost six years?
I went because God is worthy of the passionate worship of all peoples and nations. “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you (Psalm 67:3)!”
God’s heart for the nations is compelling. With an infinite capacity for mercy and love, His heart beats for those tribes and peoples who have yet to worship Him in all His goodness and glory.
Pastor John Piper said it best in Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions:
“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exist because worship does not. 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. However, worship abides forever.”
The task of the Christian mission is to point lost people to God so that all would know Him and enjoy Him in worship.
When God first called me to the nations, I had my ideas about where and to whom I would go. The region of the world that I had my eyes set on had plenty of thriving churches. This was a people group already reached by the Gospel; they no longer needed cross-cultural workers to come to them. Moreover, they were sending out their missionaries to make disciples among the unreached, to lands where the Gospel was not yet being preached.
God turned my attention to the Muslim world, where there is only one worker for every 100,000 Muslims. There are 1,108 Muslim people groups that still have no one reaching them with the Gospel. While 94% of mission work focuses on already reached peoples, most Muslims will never have a chance to meet a follower of Jesus. These are troubling statistics. If we take the Great Commission seriously, we should consider those who have the least chance to hear about Jesus.
In the Kingdom of God, Muslims remain critically underrepresented. These underserved people, whom the Father loves passionately, merit our preferential attention as we seek to obey Jesus’ command to make disciples of all nations. As I examined the facts, the problem stared me in the face: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few (Luke 10:2).” God had my attention. “Will you go to the harvest, to the Muslim world?” He asked me. Eventually, it was an easy decision to settle myself among the people I could not love out of my own strength. In the end, it did not matter how I felt about the people or the place. What mattered is that God desires the Arabs of the Sahara to flood into His kingdom.
In my years living with and working alongside these desert dwellers, God’s heart rubbed off on me. He increased my capacity to love my friends and neighbors and, in the process, I discovered that Muslim peoples have a vast wealth to offer the church, the bride of Christ.
The Apostle Paul knew this when he said, “For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all that I might win more of them…I have become all things to all people that by all means I might save some (1 Cor. 9:19, 22b).” Paul willingly took on other peoples’ preferences and practices by laying down his own for the sake of the Gospel. With this attitude of submission, my teammates and I did all that was realistically possible in order to win Muslims to Christ. We learned their language, studied their proverbs, and told their jokes. We dressed as they did and furnished our homes like theirs (which, incidentally, meant no furniture). Moreover, we kept our doors open whenever we were home, to communicate our eagerness to welcome neighbors and friends into our houses.
The bride of Christ grows in beauty as she welcomes all peoples and their redeemed cultures. My Saharan hosts demonstrated hospitality, community-centeredness, and material simplicity. Familiarity with their culture also offered invaluable insights into my understanding of Scripture. The Bible came to life in new ways as I viewed it through the unique lens of my hosts’ nomadic and pastoral lifestyles.
However, there’s another gift that Muslim peoples will bring into the Kingdom, and that is worship of the King.
When the great multitude of redeemed peoples gather before the throne of God, the air will be filled with new songs of praise. As David said, “He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God (Psalm 40:3).”
I have heard the traditional songs of the Saharan Arabs; I did not find it a pleasant experience. A teammate suggested that their songs resembled the sound of wailing felines.
No matter our reaction to the traditional music of different cultures, the new song of praise being written for this people to sing is worthy of eternity. It is an offering that will bless the Lord like no other song can. The choir that assembles before His throne is not complete until this Saharan tribe is represented in the Kingdom of God, until they come bearing their new song.
One day, missions will cease to be necessary. On that day, there will be no such thing as unreached people groups. Disciples from all nations will find their place before the throne of God, worshipping and enjoying Him—the God of all peoples for eternity. “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you (Psalm 67:4—5)!”
Original article: www.godofall.org/six-years
