Book Review: Finish the Mission

Finish the Mission: Bringing the Gospel to the Unreached and Unengaged by John Piper and David Mathis is a great series of essays for anyone that desires to truly live a missional life dedicated to sharing the gospel with everyone they come in contact with…both at home and away.

This book comes from a series of messages given by Louie Giglio, John Piper, David Platt, Ed Stetzer, Michael Oh, and others at a recent Desiring God conference.  I appreciate the way this book is set up to meet a Christ-follower wherever they are at.  There are no beatdowns or lectures, this is simply a reminder to embrace the moment and join God where He is already at work.  Not because He needs us, but because He lets us.

Below I have pasted several things that I highlighted while reading…

  • Jesus himself has promised–just as surely as he declares over his work of redemption, “It is finished” (John 19:30)–that also his one-day-soon triumphant bride will declare with him over the application of that work in global missions, “It is finished.” The Commission will be completed.
  • “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:18
  • The goal of missions is the worldwide worship of the God-man by his redeemed people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.  The outcome of missions is all peoples delighting to praise Jesus.  And the motivation for missions is the enjoyment that his people have in him.
  • Discipling means not merely the pursuit of our own spiritual maturity but getting outside ourselves for personal connection and substantial, intentional investment of time in a few others–the kind of investment for which there must be going to accomplish among the nations.
  • “This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations.”  Matthew 24:14
  • It doesn’t matter how much a church may say that she is being missional; she is not fully missional in the biblical sense if she is not pursuing mission at home (traditionally called evangelism) among her native reached people as well as being an engaged sender in support of missionaries to the unreached.
  • Worship happens wherever God is present.
  • Inherent in our being redeemed is that we are now a part of God’s redemption plan.
  • So who’s asking?  The one asking is a God who doesn’t need us but who’s inviting us, out of kindness and generosity and love, to get onboard with the thing He’s doing in the world right now, and until the end of time.  He’s inviting us to walk with him as we share a role in his glorious plan.
  • God’s holiness is terrifying, and his sovereignty is total.  Let this humbling reality grip your soul: we worship an incomprehensibly great God.
  • We have a scandalously merciful Savior.  And if this is all true–if we have an incomprehensibly glorious God, if we are a sinfully lost people, and if we have a scandalously merciful Savior–then only one conclusion remains.  Brother or sister, we have an indescribably urgent mission.
  • We must take the gospel to unreached people groups because their knowledge of God is only enough to damn them to hell, and the gospel of God is powerful enough to save them for heaven.
  • God’s people should have a holy dissatisfaction with the worshiplessness of the world, a holy dissatisfaction that more than two billion people in the world have little or no access to the gospel of Jesus–and those two billion do not worship or hallow the blessed and worthy name of the God who created them.
  • Passionately pray for and pursue the global and eternal worship of and living for God.
  • As Randy Alcorn says, “God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but to raise my standard of giving.”
  • The reality is that all of God’s people are redeemed by the power of Christ, made new in relationship with him, and are now called to live sent.
  • Christians trend toward two paths.  One path is the path of sent-ness, the missional path.  The other is the path of the nations, the missions path.  But we don’t need merely one or the other.  We need both.
  • Christians need a heart for the nations because God has a heart for the nations.  The Great Commission with a “nations” focus is missing its historic context and the place it holds in the mission of God.
  • If the posture of mission is one of sent-ness, then the promise of mission is power from the Holy Spirit.

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