Not Done Yet

Pastor Gary Oser

In our little corner of the world (Darke County), it is easy to lose sight of the bigger picture of the world. I was recently challenged as I read a book by David Platt, Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Behind the American Gospel to Follow Jesus Fully.

In the book, Platt suggests there are still approximately 3.4 billion lost people in our world (those who do not believe in and live for Jesus)!

Photo by Brett Zeck | Unsplash

There have been great advances in missionary work over the years. Much has been accomplished in taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, and many people have been reached. Unfortunately, the job is far from done.

According to an organization called the Joshua Project, there are 17,446 unique people groups in our world. Of those groups, 7,400 are still what we could call “unreached” with the gospel. There are some great challenges to reaching these people groups. Some of them are in hard to reach places. Some of them are in places where there is animosity and resistance to the gospel. It also takes a lot of resources to reach some of these people.

Much of the church’s missionary giving goes towards areas of the world where they already have the gospel. Understanding the bigger picture in our world should challenge us to do a number of things.

  1. First, pray! Pray according to Matthew 9:38 that “the Lord of the harvest would send out workers into the harvest” (to unreached people groups).

    Pray for organizations which do translation work like Wycliffe Bible Translators to get the Word of God (the Bible) into the languages of unreached people groups. Include prayer for specific unreached people groups in your daily prayer.

Photo by Aaron Burden | Unsplash

2. Second, give! Try to direct some of your giving to missions to organizations which specifically target taking the gospel to unreached people groups.

3. Finally, never forget! Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. We dare not become comfortable and complacent in our little corner of the world when there are so many people who still need the Lord. The song writer well wrote, “People need the Lord. People need the Lord. When will we realize that we must give our lives, for people need the Lord!”