Posts
Having left on Wednesday, we finally reached Siem Reap on Friday afternoon. Granted that is a lot of time to sleep, eat, think, read, pray, or, in my case, to do all of the aforementioned.
While i finished up reading "The Gospel for Real Life" by Jerry Bridges i started to think about my relationship with the gospel and this trip to Cambodia. What is missions? What can i even do here in Cambodia? And of course there are textbook answers to these questions but we all know how that goes. Answers to our questions require more than just brute theory and cold facts from the Bible. What i was looking for was something substantial where knowledge of the gospel not only lived dormant in the mind but took life in the heart. (Biblically speaking the mind and heart are suppose to be synonymous)
Missions is not just an effort to go overseas to fulfill humanitarian duties laced with subtle hints of the gospel. Missions is not even exclusively going overseas on ventures to foreign lands to explicitly share the gospel without any guise. For if it were the case, missions would have started with William Carey and his journey to India in 1793; however, we know that missions began with God's promise to bless all peoples on earth through the extending reign of Christ. The point of this discourse is to show that our conception of missions, regardless of what it may be, is and in some sense always will be deficient if we depend on our own understanding. Missions will always be much bigger than we can imagine and define it to be because our God is much bigger and greater than we could ever possibly imagine. Case in point, consider Peter and his misconception of Christ role as the Messiah in his denial of Jesus' impending death and resurrection (Matthew 16:21-23). Because our finite minds are unable to naturally grasps the full beauty of the truth of Scripture, it is imperative that we seeks its guidance in junction with the Holy Spirit for illumination.
And it is in realizing my inability to fully grasp the "perfect" answer that i realized that even in our limitation the gospel is active and evident. Though we are incapable of fully understanding, in this case, what missions is; we need not despair because we have reason for hope. This hope is a hope in the gospel; namely, that in our inability God is sufficiently able to reveal to us his glorious truth.
The last chapter of Bridges book turned me to Revelations 7:9 "After this i looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands." Missions isn't just about reaching the 10-40 window or the minority population, nor was it reaching your local community and direct sphere of influence but rather missions was about extending the gospel to the entire world. And this world is defined for us in the scripture as "a great multitude that no one could count." Could you imagine that? (Rhetorical) Though the number be vast and seemingly endless, hope is not lost. The promise of God ensures that the gospel will surely reach to the ends of the earth. This truth calls us to respond in prayer. Each of us play a unique and different role in the scope of the big picture; however, what we all share is the responsibility to pray for the advancement of God's name to the ends of the earth. And as with all things God is sovereign and so we must live faithfully in and through prayer. In the end this is what missions is and what we can do about it: Missions simply is the gospel and we are to respond to this in prayer.
It has been a blessed and full day here in Cambodia. Thank you for all your support and prayer. Continue to pray for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. And whether it is for our salvation, sanctification, or understanding, in all things let us live faithfully fully depending on our sovereign God.
I am excited to see how God will reveal Himself and His glorious message of the gospel in Cambodia!
God bless.
Phil
