Let's pray. Ask for God to help us in the study. Father, we have heard tonight that you are the God of life. We cherish that because we are saved from eternal death, because you have given life to our souls. And because of that, we rejoice, we worship you, we thank you. Thank you that we have heard from Mike and Dorothy about their desire and passion for proclamation of the gospel and missions in evangelism. We pray that you will teach us as we look into your word, even a small portion of your word, but so rich, such a big and global and all-encompassing message. We pray that you'd be glorified. Prepare us for the prayer meeting. In Jesus' name, amen. Psalm 117. Praise the Lord, all nations. Laud Him, all peoples. For His lovingkindness is great toward us, and the truth of the Lord is everlasting. Praise the Lord. John Piper, in his great book, I would almost call it a must-read book. It's called Let the Nations Be Glad. He says this, missions exist because worship does not. Missions exist because worship does not. does not. He wrote those words years ago. It's a famous John Piperism line, and it's spot on. It's exactly right. This whole enterprise of global missions, of worldwide missions, of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, that exists because worship of God doesn't. It doesn't. And Psalm 117 is gonna prove that very point to be true tonight. Now, Psalm 117 is a mission psalm. You heard it and probably gleaned, as Dorothy and Mike shared, oh, we're gonna talk about missions tonight. That's the theme of the evening. What is missions? Well, really, quite simply, missions is the sending of godly messengers. That's what it is. It's the sending of godly messengers to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and salvation through faith in his name. It's the sending of godly messengers to proclaim the gospel near and far to the ends of the earth. When you think about missions, you think about biblical missions, this is something that really brings us right to the very heartbeat of God. The nearer that we become to God, the more missions-minded we will become. And the more missions-minded we become, the more near to the heart of God we will become. C.T. Studd was a missionary, and he said this, the Lord Jesus Christ wants not nibblers of the possible, but he wants grabbers of the impossible. Let me say that again. Missionary C.T. Studd said Christ wants not nibblers of the possible, but he wants grabbers of the impossible. Think of the most impossible prayer, something beyond your wildest imagination, and we might think in our flesh, oh, that'll never happen. Pray that in faith. Pray that in faith and see God work. Then C.T. Studd went on to say, some people want to live near the sound of a chapel bell, but he said, but I want to run a gospel preaching mission within a yard of hell. I love that attitude. There's a time and place where God has put you to be a gospel proclaimer, but he said, put me within a yard of hell, and I want to be a gospel proclaimer there. And God used him in such a great way. What urgency, what passion for the Lord Jesus Christ. But how do we cultivate a heart of missions? How do we foster that? Maybe you and I think, well, I want that. I want that missionary heart. I want to grow in my missionary zeal. I want to be that kind of person. I think, number one, it begins with savoring the Lord. It all begins with worshiping God. It has to begin there because everything else is going to burn out. Oh, I love people. Well, they're not going to like you, and they're going to kick you out. You're going to need a greater purpose. Well, I want to go and give my life away. Well, they're going to take your life, so you need something bigger than that. I want to go because I want to glorify God. I want to see Christ magnified. Ah, that's the purpose to go. Savor God. Second of all, we want to see the need, and more on that in a little bit as I preach through this psalm. And then when we savor God, we see the need, and then the only optional thing after that, the only necessary thing, is to proclaim the Word, speak forth the great wonders of our God. And if we need any proof that our God is a missionary God, Look at your own salvation. God is the missionary God. He is the one who sought you. He is the one who found you. He's the one who went after you. He's the one who bought you. He's the one who provided for you and for me to be saved. It wasn't us going after him. It was God initiating and seeking and pursuing us. God deserves all praise. Our God is a missionary God. In fact, in the missionary books that I've read, very few of them have stated or begun with this. The most missionary person in all of the universe is God. is God. Before we read about Hudson Taylor, before we read about Adoniram Judson, and William Carey, and all these are great missionaries, and Amy Carmichael, and we could, we could go on and on of these men and women of God that have been youths of God. Before we go there, God is the most missionary person in the world. He says, come to me and I will give you rest. He said, turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth. The Lord Jesus said, whoever believes will have eternal life. The strong, saving arms of God are open wide and they are inviting any and all to come. Any and all to come. Now, we come to Psalm 117. Now, look at it in your Bible. Just look how short that little thing is. It's tiny. It is the briefest, the shortest chapter in the whole Bible. There are a few Psalms that are three verses, and we'll get there in a few months, but this is the shortest chapter in the entire Bible. It is also, by the way, the middle chapter in the entire Bible. Out of the 1,189 chapters, Revelation 1 to, or Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, this is the middle chapter in the whole Bible, and it's a missions chapter. It's all about God receiving praise from the nations. It is in that cluster of Psalms that we call the Egyptian Hallel Psalms, God delivering his people out of Egypt. Psalm 117, why is this little thing here? Why are the two verses here? Why this psalm? It's so short, it's so brief. It is a call to all to praise the Lord. It is a call to all to praise the Lord. Oh, I could, we could go on for hours talking about this psalm. It would be so great to do. This psalm uses the Bible in some really neat ways. This psalm goes back to Exodus, the character of God, and brings that in, the love of God and the truth of God. The Apostle Paul, later in Romans, is going to quote from our psalm. So the whole Bible is threaded together with Psalm 117 coming up because God is worthy of praise from the nations, from all of the nations. I suppose, in your outline, you see this. If I could give you the entire two verses in one main point, it's this. Everyone everywhere must praise the Lord. Did you hear that? Everyone everywhere must praise the Lord. Men and women, praise the Lord. Boys and girls, praise the Lord. Young and old, praise the Lord. Rich and poor, praise the Lord. Employed and unemployed, praise the Lord. Praise God, everyone, everywhere. Now, in your notes, I began my sermon with 10 points. I quickly deleted that, although I kept it in your outline. I was gonna preach 10 points on praising God from the two verses here. Praising God is commanded, it's communal, it's global, invitational, instrumental, beneficial, purposeful, celestial, and scriptural, and impartial. But then I quickly realized I won't have time to preach 10 points. So I have two. I want you to know this. I want to give you the summons to praise God and the reasons to praise God. Everyone, everywhere, praise the Lord. Everyone, everywhere. And we're going to see the summons to do it and the reasons to do it. Look at verse 1. Here's the summons to praise the Lord. It is the beginning and the end of the psalm, like bookends, praise God. Hallelujah is the Hebrew. Hallelujah. Notice the two commands in verse one, praise and laud. Or maybe in your translation, you have the word extol or maybe glorify, you might have in your translation. We are commanded to praise God and laud. That second command for laud or extol or glorify, it is the Hebrew word to boast. and say praiseworthy things. That's what we are to do. We are to brag on our God. We are to make much of someone. Now, brothers and sisters, this happens all the time in our world. A new movie comes out, a new show on Netflix comes out, and everybody's talking about it. A new popular band comes out with an album, and all the people are talking about it. Everybody's excited, and they're bragging about it, and they're talking about it, and they want to talk like it, and they want to go see it, and they want to emulate it. That's the idea of this verb. Not with a band or a movie, but with the God of the world. Brag on God. Laud this God. Magnify this God. That is the command. Praise the Lord, all nations. Laud Him, all peoples. Who? Who is the summons given to? You see in verse one, praise Him, all nations. That's all the nations of the world. It's all the goyim, the non-Jewish nations. But then that second word in verse one, laud him all peoples. It's actually a rare Hebrew word for people groups, people groups. No, not the Chinese and the Russians and not that. No. These are the particular Indian tribes, the unreached tribes, all of the different, the Hittites, the Girgashites, all the different peoples, all the tribals, all of the particular people groups and tribes of the world. The call is to all to praise God. And it brings us right to missiology, right to missiology, the doctrine of missions. What is an unreached people group? Let me talk about people groups for a minute because there's a lot of people groups in the world and a lot of unreached people groups in the world. And you see it there in the box on the right side of your page. An unreached people group is a society among which there is no established local community of believers. and there are thousands of unreached people groups. There are thousands of them. I mean, we need to ponder that. That means there's no Christian community there. There's no believers who are present in a church there. There might be a believer, but there's not an established church with a gospel-proclaiming witness there. And if we go one step farther, there's something called an unreached, unengaged people group. It's not just about lostness. This is about access. No Christian, no church, no Bible, no gospel, no Christ. And amazingly, there are thousands of unengaged, unreached people groups. Let that sink in. Thousands of people groups. that have never heard of the name of Christ. Why are there, why are there of the 12,000 plus unique people groups in the world, why are there 7,000 peoples that are unreached? And I think for two reasons. Number one, because of physical barriers, it's hard to get to them. And number two, because of the spiritual barriers, they don't want you and they don't want me. And they're happy where they are. And they don't want us to invade their lives. The unreached and the unengaged are mostly in the Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist areas. And they're unreached for a reason out of the many, many, many thousands of missionaries that go out. And they do great work and great needs for God and the gospel. Very few go to the unreached. Very few go to these particular people groups. Ponder this with me for a moment in the 1040 window, mainly the Middle East, Northern Africa window, where there's heavy persecution. There are more than a thousand unreached, unengaged Muslim groups with more than a million people in their populations. That's a lot of people. It's a lot of people, real people with no Christ, no hope, no Bible, no Christian, no church, no witness, no light, no life. Thousands of these people groups. And on top of that, there are 2,400 languages and dialects in the world that still don't have scripture complete in their language. What do I do? I mean, the need is so big, we might say. I mean, here we are, verse 1. Praise God, but the need is so big. All the peoples, all the nations, all the tribes. What can I do? What can you do? And the answer is found from the lips of our Savior in Matthew chapter 9. He said, beseech the Lord of the harvest. He didn't say just give more money. There's a place to give. But before we give, he said, pray. But he didn't just say pray. There's a Greek word that means beg. You beg God to send out laborers into his harvest in Matthew chapter nine. What a great God. That our Christian theology teaches this. That God saves all. Now hear me. I'm not teaching universalism that everybody is going to be saved. But when we say that God saves all, it's not that every person will be saved, but it's that anyone can be saved if they come to God through Christ. He will save anyone and everyone who comes through Christ by faith alone. What is really neat about verse 1 of our psalm, if you look at it again, praise God and laud him are imperatives. God is giving a command to all peoples in the world. Real quick footnote, just to let you know, kind of in the academic world, in the seminary world, technically in the missiological world, missions world, the most hot button topic debated now is this, is Jesus the only way? I can't even believe that's a topic of debate, but it is the debated topic among missions organizations and missionaries in seminaries nowadays. Why? Because there's a lot of people groups that are perishing and well, maybe God will have mercy. No, you have to come through Christ. He's the only way of salvation. One more point on this as we clarify verse 1. When we talk about God being passionate about missions, telling people to praise God and worship him, please hear me out. God is not lacking. And God does not need people like us to worship him. God is not wishing and lacking and incomplete. and longing for heaven to be with me so I will make it complete with him. That's not it at all. God is so passionate about heaven because he knows we won't be happy until we give praise to our God. That's what God is so passionate about. Missions is calling the world to do what they were created to do, and that's worship God. God is all about his glory. He's all about his fame. He's all about the nations worshiping him. Why? Because that's what brings the greatest glory to God and the joy to people that he made. What a great God. God does not desperately need us. We desperately need God. And God is passionately, passionately committed to his own glory being put on display. What a reason we have to praise our God because he has summoned us, verse one. Now, quickly, let me go to verse two in the psalm. Yes, we have the summons to praise him. Now, number two, the reasons to praise God. For. For. It gives the reason. Verse two, for his love is great and the truth of God is everlasting, the greatness of His love and the eternality of His truth. You know what's fascinating? This is not contingent upon our feelings, our comfort, our emotions, how we feel. If we're persecuted, if we're pursued, if we're martyred, if we're threatened, if we feel good or if we don't, the praising of God, and the glory of God, and the passionate pursuit of missions, the reason, verse 2, is because of who God is. His love is great, and his truth is eternal. That word love is the covenant-keeping love of God. When the Bible says the love of God is great, If you take notes, maybe in your Bible or in your outline there, you may want to jot this down. The Hebrew word for great is not, oh, what an extensive love. That's true, but that's not the word. The word is a powerful love. It's a mighty love. The word is like a warrior-like love. Let me give you a theology and connect some dots. How do we know missions will be successful? How do we know the Lamb will bring in all of those for whom he died? Here's the answer right here. God's covenant love is a mighty and a powerful love. He will see to it that all of his redeeming work is complete and all of those for whom he died will come to him. We praise God for his love. Believer, can't we do that? For God so loved the world that he gave, that God has showered mercy upon me and you, that God, being rich in love, had mercy upon our souls, that we who were once darkness, we are now light in the Lord. We have every reason to worship God. We have come to Christ. He has died for us. He has been raised for our justification. We worship him, not only for his love, but second, for his truth. Verse two, and the truth of the Lord is everlasting. The truth of the Lord is everlasting. It'll never end. The certain promises of God, the character of God is reliable. God is unfailing and it's everlasting. So maybe to sort of draw this a little bit to a close, if we have big God theology, That would be Calvinistic theology, but I don't like using that word. I love John Calvin and I respect John Calvin, but he wouldn't like us to have a system around him. He would say, have big God theology. I like that better. A big God theology will lead to confident global evangelization. If we really believe that God is commanding all nations to praise Him, if we really believe that God's love is mighty and powerful and strong and He will save His own people, and if we believe that the truth of God is eternal and His character is reliable, that gives confidence when we share the gospel. That's what fuels missions. That's what gives the guarantee to the success of global missions. What a God we have. That we have been saved and loved by this God. That we have been saved from hell by this God. that we have been recipients of the love of God, that we are those who know the truth of God, and all of that embodied in the incarnate Christ. John 1, full of grace and truth. Same idea, full of grace and truth. So what do we do? We who believe on Christ, We who know that God has pursued us, and He is a seeking God, and He is a saving God, and He will call upon anyone to save in His perfect plan, and He'll save those who do call upon God. What a God of mercy. And we get to proclaim Him. We get to announce Him. We get to declare Him. We get to call others. to worship this God. So we go. Oh, if we could do a part two, I would preach this. Psalm 96, God tells you what to say to the nations. The Lord reigns. That's what you tell them. There's no option. We're not going to talk about Allah. We're not, we're not going to talk about Buddha. We're not going to talk about Joseph Smith. We're not going to talk about the Pope and Mary. We're going to talk about Yahweh, the Lord, Jehovah, the true and living God, the only one. And He reigns. He's the King. He's the Lord over all and the Savior. Come to Him and worship Him. Really quick, before we close and then pray, I want you to take your Bible. I want you to turn with me to Revelation 5 verse 9. And what I want to do, I want to encourage you so that we can pray here in a moment. And I want to encourage you on the absolute guarantee that all true missions will be successful. Revelation 5, 9, it is impossible for biblical missions to be a failure. It's impossible. It is absolutely guaranteed by God to be a success. Look at Revelation 5, verse 9, and in heaven, they are singing a new song saying, worthy are you to take the book and to break the seals for you, speaking of the lamb, Jesus, you were slain and you purchased for God with your blood men from every tribe, tongue, people and nation. Praise him all nations, laud him all you tribal people groups. All those for whom Jesus died will make it to heaven. Every single one of them. And then you can turn the page, Revelation 7, verse 9, same thing. Revelation 7, maybe even a little bit clearer here. Verse 9, after these things, John says in Revelation 7, 9, after these things, I looked and behold a great multitude, which no one could count from every nation and tribes and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed in white robes and palm branches in their hands. And they cried out with a loud voice saying, Salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. The tribes, peoples, tongues, languages. That's what we do. We go to the nations and we tell them, praise God. Here's what the Lamb has done. And all of God's people will come and they will hear and they will worship. That's a motivation for global missions. That is God's passion for global missions. Praise the Lord. Let's praise Him. Father, thank You that we can praise You together. Briefly, looking into the Word, we have been taught, even so briefly, and yet from Your true Word, that You deserve praise, You deserve worship, You deserve honor, You will receive blessing and praise from all of those for whom you have died. You deserve it from all nations. You have called and summoned and commanded all nations and all peoples and all tribes and all languages to worship you. And that's our motivation to go. So we thank you, Lord, that we can play a part in your plan, a very real part, and a very essential part, and that is praying. So meet with us now in our prayer meeting. Help us, empower us, and bring good out of this. In Jesus' name, amen.