Some weeks ago, I started on a study, as it were, of missions. We didn't get very far, because the time ran away from us. And I wanted just to remind you of the background, of the basic points that we looked at then, and then proceed from there. I realize you can do almost anything with statistics. It's a dangerous thing to get involved in. But I told you then how many languages were spoken in the world. Actually, it's really roughly spoken because there are two different ideas as to how many there are. But in round figures, I told you. Do you remember? That's why I'm repeating some of the things that I did a few weeks ago. 7,360 languages. That's distinct languages. We're not talking about dialects, OK? In Papua New Guinea alone there are 800 or so different languages. Again not dialects but different distinct languages. Something more important than that may be, it's reckoned that about 3,945, 3,945 languages have no scripture in their own language. Not a word. 3,945. And the United States Bible Society reckoned, and this is something that almost blows the mind, Bearing in mind 3,945 languages with no scripture at all, there are more than 900 versions of the scriptures in English. What a contrast and what a difference. And we're going to consider the unreached, some of those peoples that live in areas and speak a language then that have no scripture in their own language at all. Now it's difficult again to identify who is unreached. It depends how you divide them. There are people that reckon that there are a hundred plus different languages spoken, unreached, in the United Kingdom. A hundred distinct people, groups of people, but that depends, as I say, how you identify them. But I'm identifying our unreached groups of people. These are the people we're considering about. this morning. They're people who have no opportunity to hear the gospel because it's not available to them in their own language. And also they have no access to the gospel because of geography, because they're so far away from anybody. When we went to the Cannemaries back there in 1960-something, they'd never heard the word Jesus. Never. Nobody had ever been to them because they were so isolated up in the jungle. It was kind of difficult to get there. So nobody went. And they're the sort of unreached people that we're thinking about. Now who is it that goes to such groups of people to serve God as a missionary? Who goes there? Well, we're told in Acts, not the portion that we read together, but another portion of scripture which tells us about when Paul and Barnabas first went out on their first missionary journey. The church sent them. I wonder what would happen in the average church, and ours and anybody else's church at all, if the church were to get together and say to somebody, we want you to go to the mission field. I suspect the response might be something to the effect of mind your own business. Maybe not quite as baldly as that but nevertheless. But who is it that goes, at least there's a principle and practice within the New Testament of the local church where Paul and Barnabas went to and they told them that the Holy Spirit had indicated to them that they wanted them to go to the mission field. So the local church has a part in playing, not a unique part, not an only part, but has a part of playing in this area of reaching a world with the gospel. You have no idea what church we went to, but if we'd waited for our church to tell us to go to the mission field, or suggest that we might go, we'd still be waiting. And that I suspect is true in many parts of the world of the church. That's who goes. Where do they go? Well, we know full well, don't we, a couple of verses of scripture at least. Mark, 16, Jesus told his disciples to go into all the world. And in that famous portion there in Matthew's Gospel, right at the end of course, they were told to go to all nations. All nations, that word nations there is the word, we should get a word, ethnic. They were to go to all ethnic people. An ethnic group of people is a group of people who have a common culture and a common language. And we see that there are some 7,000 of those in the world today. There's still a lot to be done. Well, there are 3,945 languages with no scripture. But on the other hand, there's some 1,600 projects in hand where scripture is being worked on to be translated and language to be learned. So it sounds good. But then that leaves some 2,300 groups of people with nothing, not a word of scripture, nobody to tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the reasons why I joined, and this is not a plug as it were for new tries, but one of the reasons we sort of went in that direction was as a motto that we came across that they had, which was to fill in the gaps where the gospel hasn't reached. And then a more famous saying was, reaching tribes until we've reached the last tribe. And that was 40, 50 years ago, whatever it was, and now there are still thousands still waiting to be reached. We talked about Paul's commitment to the task that he had here in Corinthians, that well-known cry from his heart, as it were, where he says, woe is me if I preach not the gospel of Christ. Woe is me. And I find that that's not quite the weight of my heart very often. We need people with that same desire, that same get up and go as it were that Paul had. Woe is me if I preach not the gospel of Christ. And then of particular significance to us this morning as we think of these things, in Romans 15 you remember Paul said that his ambition was to go not where Christ was preached. And you would think that would be pretty difficult to find some 2,000 years after the Lord was here. But as we see it still is not. There are still many areas that are unreached. It's estimated, and I want to be careful in saying this because I'm not knocking anybody, whatever they've done, anything like that at all, but it is estimated that 99% of missionaries work where the gospel has already been. Now, of course, there are myriad legitimate reasons for many of them to do that, but the balance seems to be a little bit out of kilter. So we saw Paul's commitment to taking the Gospel. Where did he go? Well, we know he went to Macedonia, of course, but he went to Macedonia because the Holy Spirit had stopped him going elsewhere. He didn't know where to go. He was out there in Asia and he wasn't sure what to do, so he planned on going to one of the nearest towns and the Holy Spirit stopped him. Sometimes we have to push doors to see which door God will open. How do we decide what God's will is, not just as far as missionary work is concerned, but just in general in our lives? Well, those famous verses in Romans chapter 12, 1 and 2 particularly, tell us that as we deny ourselves, as we are not conformed to this world, we will know, we'll prove what is that good and perfect will of God. We want to know God's will and we have to have a heart which is not attached to this world and so on and then we will begin to see what God's will is for us. We also saw what the aim of mission is. Well, Matthew 28, that last couple of verses there, Paul, excuse me, Jesus told his disciples they were to go and they were to make disciples. They were to teach them, they were to baptize them, and so on. And it seems to me that those instructions to those disciples was in effect of telling them to go out and establish a local church, or establish local churches. I do believe, as we look through the scriptures, It's very obvious the task of the outreach of the church is to establish local churches from which the gospel will go out. In Romans, Paul said this, he said he had fully preached the gospel from Jerusalem unto Illyricum. Where's Illyricum? Albania. He said, he didn't just say he had preached the gospel there, he said, I have fully preached the gospel. But he didn't mean he preached to everybody and every town and so on. But he had, where he'd been, he had established local churches from which the gospel had gone. He told the Thessalonians there was no need for him to come anymore to proclaim the gospel because their witness was known throughout the whole area. local church, and I believe that the scriptures are very much local church oriented. So that's sort of background as it were as to what we're involved in. We need people who respond to the calling of God, the involvement of the local church, and who are committed to taking the gospel where it hasn't been. Well, when you get there, what do you do? Where do you start teaching? Just imagine yourself in a group of people that have never heard of Jesus, who know nothing of scripture and so on. Where are you going to start? One of the initial problems is you're going to be telling them about God. But who is this God? One of the problems for some people working amongst Islamic areas is do they refer to God as Allah or do they find another name? When we were with the Qanamari, we decided to use their name for God, Tamakori, and I remember talking to one of our colleagues who was working with another tribe in the same area and I told him that's what we were doing and he said, because they already have concepts of their God. And so you've got to be careful that what you're communicating isn't their God as it were, the concepts of the teachings and so on of their God, but it's of the God of the Bible. So are you going to use their name or are you going to use a new name? There's another reason, another sort of pointer to where you're going to begin your teaching, which is going to be the cultural life of the people themselves. Now we began to learn about the Cana Maris and so on, and one of the things that was stuck out to us, it was so obvious, was there what we would consider, what Bible considers of course, absolute immorality. I remember once I got so frustrated with them that I, maybe I probably shouldn't have said it, but I said, you're living like the dogs in the village. But that was literally how And they lived together. And so we thought, well, that's a good place to start. Tell them what the Bible says about that. So we started with the first Bible story ever told in Canamari was David and Bathsheba. But it's not a good idea because that's not where scripture starts. There are not many examples, I guess, in scripture to give you an idea as to where to start in a completely unreached sort of location. But when Paul was on his journeys, when he was seeking to reach Jews, then he started with Jewish history. He says he went to the synagogue as his manner was. When he was with Gentiles, and that's what you and I are working with here, and working on the mission world as well, then Paul started with creation, the God who created the world. And so there's an indication of where your mission is going to start. There's a good book, some of you know, Stranger on the Road to Emmaus, which follows that sort of pattern. And if you really want to get a good feeling of But Progress in Scripture is a good book to get hold of. The best place to start then is where Paul started at least and that's, as I say, right with creation. Where does creation start? With Genesis chapter 1 and verse 1, a good place to start. And as you look at those first chapters of Genesis, so many different things are covered, introductions to the gospel. get a relationship with God, that God speaks to them. One of the things that struck me was when it says God came in the cool of the evening. If any of you have lived in a tropical situation, you know full well what it's like when the sun goes down and the temperature drops and it's quiet and you feel quite refreshed in the cool of the evening. And that's when God came down, came to talk to Adam and Eve. So, a good place to start. Rules. God has rules. He expects you to do, to obey. Results from breaking those rules. The effect of sin. Suddenly Adam and Eve realised that they were naked. And so they made themselves clothes. Indicates how impossible it is for us to deal with the result of our sin. You know, they made aprons out of fig leaves. You know what happens with those? You drive an apron out of fig trees in two or three days and it gradually kind of dries out and one fig leaf dropped off and another one dropped off and another one dropped off. And so it is. You cannot deal with your own sin, neither can I, and neither can these people. And Genesis is one of the reminders of that. One of the principal things that appears in those first three chapters of Genesis is the matter of sacrifice. God sacrificed an animal to make clothing for those people. I'm just underlining these things or telling you these things so that you have an idea when you're thinking about somebody who's serving God on the mission field, what are they doing? How are they doing it? What's involved? What's happening out there? I'll give you some sort of idea about that. And then of course the sacrifice leads finally to Jesus, the Lamb of God. I think I showed a video here some years ago now of one of the groups in Papua New Guinea, and they'd finally got, they'd been teaching chronologically through scriptures, and they'd finally got to the crucifixion, or just before the crucifixion of Christ, where John says to the people, Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. And there's a picture of an elderly gentleman there, he takes a deep breath in, His face all lit up as if he finally understood. Ah, he said, I knew it! Jesus, the Lamb of God. And so that basic fundamental teaching, down over a period of time, helps people to understand the Gospel. The endaim. What are you seeking to do? Well, we're seeking to get people converted, as it were. We're seeking to get people forgiven in that position where because of the Lord Jesus Christ their sins can be forgiven, they're brought into the family of God and so on. That certainly of course is absolutely true. But the aim of the missionary out there amongst these people is not just to see individuals converted, but is to see a church established. And from that church then goes out not only the truth of the gospel, but also the opportunities for the church to to help people in the society. It gives them an opportunity to be able to demonstrate God's love and God's concern for them. And so the church is a very effective way of doing that, of course, and a very effective way of the proclamation of the gospel. Your missionary then is not the pastor of the church. Your missionary is there to teach and to evangelize and to see people come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and that local church established. I am sold on the value of the local church. There's nothing that compares to it, I think, in the outreach of the gospel. There are too many people, groups, however you want to put it, I guess, that are aimed at getting people into their group, as it were. But it's the local church that is so vitally important. It's the local church which is the source of the proclamation of the gospel. It's the local churches where the believers get encouraged, where they get taught, where they get disciplined. The local church has all sorts of basic, vitally important aspects of the Christian life. And so your missionaries, that's what he's doing. And you might be thinking to yourself, maybe you know somebody who's been out there for quite a long time, and you wonder what's happening. Well, he's trying to learn the language. He's trying to translate scriptures and he's trying to get our church established and that takes generally, at any rate, a lot of time. Well, we saw from the very beginning that statistics show us and tell us that there are, there's still a lot of work to be done. it's going to take people. The trouble is that we live in a society nowadays where we're pretty soft on things. I was talking to the leader of another mission some time ago and they'd got a location where they'd been invited by a group of people to send a missionary. So the organization had approached a couple And the people, the couple wanted to know before they say whether they go or not go, was there an airstrip there they could get in and out by plane? Well, there are places where there are airstrips. There are lots of places that aren't. And sometimes it takes a lot of hard work. But can I tell you this? It struck me when I read it, not that long ago actually. It's estimated that Paul travelled 10,000 miles on his missionary journeys. walking on a ship, on the back of a donkey maybe, but it was pretty rough time. And God is looking, I do believe, in these days for men and women who are prepared to sacrifice if necessary. Not everybody's going to have to go through it in difficult situations, but these men and women whose heart is such to serve God as, woe is me if I preach not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's worth it. Can I remind you, just a couple of verses of scripture. We've been looking at revelation on our Bible studies. Well in chapter 7, John writes this, he says, After this I beheld and lo a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands, and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sits upon the throne and unto the Lamb. Can you think of a better motivation than that? for serving God, for going out to areas where men and women still are in darkness, don't have any opportunity to worship God, to know their sins forgiven, to be part of a local church. One of these days, when God brings everything all together, there's going to be such a vast multitude of men and women, kids up in there in glory, worshipping God. And I just want to be part of that workforce that's taking the gospel to those who haven't heard. And we need a vision for that. That's what our last hymn tells us. Ask God to give us a vision. Nothing else will work. No sense of do-gooding. No sense of excitement, no plan that we can make will ever get us out there into areas where the gospel isn't known. And can I just remind us too that there are whole areas in our own country where the name of Jesus is known, but the gospel is unknown. And it needs men and women who God has given a vision to serve him and to proclaim that gospel.