When I was finishing my university studies many years ago, God started to speak to me about those who had no access to the Gospel.
Initially, I was not willing to alter my plans. Movies, messages, and even a dream could not move me. I felt I had done my part in fulfilling the Great Commission by moving to another Latin American country and getting involved in student ministry. I thought all these new ideas about far away nations were fancy imaginations.
But one day, as I was reading Isaiah 49, I had a paradigm shift that would change the rest of my life.
“It is too light a thing,” God speaks to His servant in Isaiah 49:6, “that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
I prayed within my soul, “Lord, if You care so much about reaching the ends of the earth, so do I.” On that day, I committed my life to take the Gospel to the unengaged.
Somebody might tell me that the context of this passage talks about the true Israel, the Messiah of God, who was going to bring salvation to all nations. I agree with this interpretation. However, to fail to see how it relates to the church is to misunderstand the mission of the Messiah and the presence of the Holy Spirit in us. Yes, the Messiah is the true Israel fulfilling God’s purpose, but so are we who are in Him.
Paul quoted this very verse as a motivation for his ministry to those who have not heard:
For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 13:47)
Paul didn’t shy away from the practical implications of accepting this commission. He wrote to the Romans,
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 have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.” (Romans 15:20-21)
It’s amazing to me that it is often assumed that the effort to engage the unengaged is only due to practical missiological considerations or a certain suspicious eschatology that assumes that the return of the Lord depends on human effort. Engaging the unengaged is a biblical priority—from Genesis to Revelation. It is all about worship and God’s kingdom and His revealed glory—not just about counting numbers.
Engaging the unengaged is a biblical priority—from Genesis to Revelation. It is all about worship and God’s kingdom and His revealed glory—not just about counting numbers.
It was God who, from the beginning, commanded men and women to fill the earth as His image bearers. It was He who commanded the same to Noah and his family when they restarted God’s project. It was He who chose an elderly couple in Mesopotamia and called them to be His people and bless all the clans of the earth. This blessing and this calling was passed from parents to children from generation to generation, and God was intimately involved.
That very blessing was fulfilled in the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of the promised ruler of all nations, our Lord Jesus Christ. So what exactly did Jesus Christ do before returning to His Father? He reiterated His commandment to His image bearers to disciple all the nations of the earth.
In case we missed the fact that He was serious about the inclusiveness of the Good News, the last chapter of the story—the book of Revelation—describes God’s will realized on earth with lots of details:
Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. … After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 5:9-10, 7:9-10)
The apostle Paul had said the same thing. In Romans 15:8-12, before Paul explains his priority of taking the Gospel where Jesus was not being proclaimed, he shows us how the awesome musical theme of “all nations” is played throughout the Bible from the beginning. “Thus,” Paul made it his ambition to preach Christ where He is still unknown.
Of course, Paul valued not only what we would call “engaging the unengaged” but also presenting perfect in Christ all mankind (Colossians 1:28). Christ Himself didn’t just ask us to “disciple all nations” but to do so “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20, NIV). God’s will is for us to make disciples as well as to pioneer.
As we engage to take the Gospel to the neediest unengaged peoples, places, and populations of the Muslim world, we do so as servants deeply rooted in our vocation to be the light of the nations—the body of the merciful servant of God who deserves the worship, praise, and honor of all peoples, languages, tribes, and tongues so that the Father will be fully glorified.
May we see ourselves as little Paul did—as incredibly fragile but bold ambassadors of another Kingdom in order to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of Christ’s name among all nations.
Discover God’s desire to use us in completing the Great Commission in this 30-Day Bible Reading Plan.
**Abraham Duran is a Frontiers field worker with decades of experience planting churches in the Muslim world. He serves Frontiers’ international offices in Latin America.**
Original article: FrontiersUSA.org/blog/article/the-biblical-priority-of-the-unengaged
