Latest / Reformed Thinking / Is God Calling Me to Missions? Do You Understand the Task before You?

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Is God Calling Me to Missions? Do You Understand the Task before You? · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to reform thinking. I mean, I want you to imagine
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sitting down for a job interview, right?
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And the hiring manager slides your contract across the table
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and basically says, here is your assignment.
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You will work tirelessly for decades.
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Your target audience will absolutely hate your
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presentations. Oh wow, that sounds terrible.
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It gets worse, he says. In fact, your work will actively
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cause them to become more stubborn, more blind and more
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hostile, and eventually your department will be burned to the
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ground. By all human metrics, your
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entire career will look like an absolute, unmitigated failure.
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Yeah, I am pretty sure nobody is signing that contract.
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Right. Will you take the job?
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I mean, that is not a hypothetical scenario.
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That was the actual job description handed to the
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prophet Isaiah. It really wise.
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And if you were joining today, we were taking a massive deep
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dive into a collection of theological sources analyzing
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Isaiah chapter 6. Yeah, and the mission for this
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deep dive is to basically completely dismantle the pastel
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colored, sentimental modern view of global missions.
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Spot on. We are stripping away the whole
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humanitarian adventure branding. We want to look at the
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terrifying, majestic biblical reality of being sent by the
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sovereign God. Right, because if you have ever,
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you know, donated to a missionary or maybe considered
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going overseas yourself. Or even if you just sit in a
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church Pew on a Sunday. Yeah, exactly.
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This text completely flips the script on what you were actually
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signing up for. So to really grasp the gravity
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of that job description, we have to look at the historical moment
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this takes place. We do.
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The text roots Isaiah's vision in a very specific temporal
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marker. It is the year 740 BC and that
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is identified specifically as the year King Isaiah died.
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Which is not just a. No, not at all.
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I mean, for the people of Judah, King Uzziah was an institution.
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He reigned for 52 years. Wow. 52 years.
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Yeah, just think about that. To put that in perspective for
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you, imagine a single political leader overseeing your country
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for over half a century of uninterrupted success, that is.
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Essentially an entire lifetime for most people back then, right
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under Uzziah, Judah experienced a staggering economic and
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military boom. He built powers in Jerusalem,
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fortified the walls and constructed these massive
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agricultural infrastructures out in the desert.
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He really built the nation up. He did.
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He had a standing army of hundreds of thousands of men.
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They were equipped with the latest ancient military
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technology. Shields, Spears, helmets.
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They even had these newly invented siege engines capable
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of shooting massive stones. It was basically a golden age.
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Yeah, it rivaled the glory days of King Solomon, but that reign
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ended in catastrophic judgment, right?
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The historical record shows that Uzziah's massive success bred A
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fatal, blinding arrogance. Which happens so often.
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It does. He decided that being the
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supreme political ruler was not enough.
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He wanted supreme religious authority as well.
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So he presumptuously just marched right into the temple to
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burn incense on the altar. Which was a massive violation of
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law. Huge violation.
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Burning incense was a duty strictly reserved for the
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consecrated priests. You know, the descendants of
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Aaron. The audacity of Uzziah there is
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just staggering to me. Yeah, it is wild.
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He is the most successful CEO in the entire region basically, and
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he suddenly decides he is also the high priest.
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The ego required to breach the holy place is terrifying.
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Absolutely terrifying and God responds instantly.
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Right. The text says that while the
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sensor was right there in his hand, God struck him with
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leprosy. Just like that.
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Just like that, this great victorious king is immediately
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rushed out of the temple, his skin decaying, and he is forced
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to live in utter isolation for the rest of his life.
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It is such a tragic end. He is cut off from the temple,
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he is cut off from his family and cut off from his own throne.
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So when the text says in the year that King Uzziah died, it
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is describing a massive national psychological shock.
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Right, because the earthly throne, which had represented
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all their security and invincibility for half a
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century, is suddenly sitting empty.
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The man who built their economy and their military is dead in a
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leper colony. And that vacuum of security,
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that is the precise context for this vision.
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And the timing is terrifying. Right as Judah's political and
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military structure fractures, a massive geopolitical threat is
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rising up in the North. Yeah, Syrians.
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Yes, the Assyrian Empire, under the brutal leadership of Tiglath
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Pillaz of the Third, is beginning to sweep across the
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ancient Near East. And they were vicious.
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Oh, they were not just conquerors.
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They utilized psychological warfare.
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I mean, historical records detail their practice of flaying
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their enemies alive. Unbelievable.
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They would impale city leaders on poles outside the city gates.
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And they implemented mass deportations to break the
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national identity of the people they conquered.
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So they were a terrifying violence machine just looming on
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the horizon, ready to swallow up the smaller kingdoms like Judah.
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Exactly. And yet the sources we are
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looking at point out that the external threat of Assyria was
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actually secondary to the internal spiritual decay of
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Judah. The real rot was on the inside.
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Yeah, the nation was sick. From head to fit, they
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maintained A formalistic dead religion.
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Right. They showed up at the temple,
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they offered the sacrifices, they kept the outward ceremonies
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of the covenant. But their hearts were full of
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oppression, injustice and blatant idolatry.
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I look at modern evangelicalism's aroach to
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missions today and honestly, it looks remarkably like a cororate
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startu culture. Oh. 100.
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We obsess over quarterly growth, user friendly relevance,
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positive feedback loop's and market penetration.
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It is all about the metrics. Right.
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We assume that if we just have the right strategy, the slickest
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presentation and enough funding, we will see immediate upward
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momentum. We expect the culture to applaud
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us for a humanitarian efforts. Yeah, but setting Isaiah's
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calling right in the middle of this period of national decay,
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dead religion, and impending doom, how does that completely
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shatter the modern expectation? Well, it shatters it by forcing
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us to realize that Isaiah is not being sent into a neutral
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environment, right? Nor is he being sent to a
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receptive audience. If you look at the opening
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chapters of the book of Isaiah, chapters one through 5, they
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operate as a devastating covenant lawsuit against a
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rebellious people. So God is basically taking them
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to court. Yes, God is acting as the
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prosecuting attorney, indicting Judah for their empty ritualism
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and their moral inversion. He pronounces 6 terrifying
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judgments against them. Wow.
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So when Isaiah is called in chapter 6, his mission is not a
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cheerful errand to pass out aid to an innocent waiting
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population. Oh, definitely not.
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His mission is a prophetic warning delivered to a hardened,
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privileged population that has already heard the truth and
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willfully rejected it. Because they had everything
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right. They had the temple, the
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priesthood, the law, the covenant promises.
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Yeah, they had all of it, yet they were entirely bankrupt.
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This historical context proves that biblical missions cannot be
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built on the assumption of a receptive audience.
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The messenger is often sent to a people who will violently resist
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the message. Exactly the timing of this call
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demonstrates that the primary duty of the Herald is faithful
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proclamation of the King's decree, regardless of whether
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the culture applauds or persecutes.
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And regardless of whether the geopolitical environment is
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stable or collapsing, so we have the earthly king dead, the
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economy threatened, A brutal foreign army on the horizon in a
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spiritually dead culture. That is the setup.
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And that brings us to the actual vision in the temple.
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This is one of the most staggering scenes in all of
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scripture. It really is.
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And there's a specific detail concerning the posture of God
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that completely reframes the chaos.
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What is that? Well, while earthly kings die,
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and while the political structures are crumbling in
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panic, Yahweh is described as sitting on a throne high and
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lifted up. The Hebrew title used here is
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Adonai, highlighting his supreme, unquestionable
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Lordship. Right.
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He is not pacing the floors of heaven in panic over the
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Assyrian army. No, he is not wringing his hands
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over the spiritual decay of Judah.
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He is an absolute, undisturbed sovereign rest.
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That is such a vital point. And the text says the train of
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his royal robe fills the entire temple.
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Yeah, and in the ancient world, the length of a King's robe
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indicated her status and his victories.
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Right, so the fact that just the fringe, the smallest margin of
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His Majesty, is too massive for any created space to contain it
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shows that earthly chaos is entirely subordinate to this
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heavenly reality. The visual elements surrounding
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that seated king amplify his transcendence even further.
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Yeah, the seraphim. Yeah, above the throne we see
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the seraphim. The word translates literally to
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burning ones. Burning ones.
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Yes, these are majestic, blazing, unfallen, angelic
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creatures. Yet even in their unfallen
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purity, they must cover their faces and their feet with their
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wings. Because they cannot look
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directly at the blazing, unshielded purity of God.
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Right. They have to hide their
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creaturely extremities from His presence.
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As they fly in constant readiness to execute His
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decrees, they engage in an eternal antiphonal liturgy.
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Calling back and forth. Yes, holy, holy, holy is the
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Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His
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glory. That repetition is so key.
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It is in Hebrew grammar. Repeating a word three times
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forms a superlative. It indicates the absolute zenith
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of reality. It means God is infinitely set
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apart, entirely distinct from everything he has created.
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Think about the distance between the sun and a matchstick.
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Okay, that is not even close to the distance between the
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holiness of God and the highest, most pure angelic creature.
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Wow. And notice that they declare the
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whole earth is full of his glory.
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Yeah, His glory is the visible manifestation of His invisible
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holiness. And it permeates the entire
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created order, acting as an undeniable active reality.
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If we connect that divine vision directly to the motivation for
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missions, this gets incredibly practical for you listening
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right now. Very practical, because if a
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missionary candidate begins their preparation by looking
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first at anthropology. Meaning focusing solely on human
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need, poverty or societal brokenness.
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Right. If they start there, their
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mission will inevitably collapse into mere social work or
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political activism. Which human need is vast and
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heartbreaking without question. Oh, absolutely.
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But it cannot be the burning center of the missionary man,
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no. It cannot.
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The mandate must begin with theology.
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It must begin with God's supreme holiness, when the Seraphim cry
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out the foundations of the threshold, shake at the voice of
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him who called, and the house fills with smoke.
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That physical shaking and that smoke prove that God's glory is
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not a passive philosophical concept.
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No, it is an active, terrifying reality.
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If a missionary goes to the field without having first stood
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in awe of that shaking threshold, without being
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captivated by the absolute holiness of God, they will have
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nothing of true eternal substance to offer a dying
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world. They will just carry a fragile
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domesticated deity who needs defending rather than declaring
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the unalterable decrees of the sovereign King.
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And that confrontation with absolute holiness inevitably
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produces a devastating psychological and spiritual
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reaction in the human. Heart, it definitely does.
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Encountering the purity of God does not boost Isaiah's self
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esteem. It does not actualize his
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personal potential or validate his career goals.
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Not at all. Instead, it results in a total
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existential collapse. Isaiah cries out.
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Woe is me, for I am undone. The Hebrew verb used there,
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dama, is so intense. It really is.
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It means to be silenced, cut off, or completely annihilated.
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So in the presence of the Holy, Isaiah realizes that by the
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standard of absolute divine justice, he has no right to
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exist. He is not confessing a minor
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flaw or a slight moral misstep. No, he is recognizing his
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structural ruin. A true encounter with God's
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holiness exposes the absolute depth of human depravity.
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The missionary must be undone before he can be useful.
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He cannot view himself as a clean savior bringing solutions
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to dirty people. Exactly.
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He must view himself as a ruined man who desperately needs the
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very same mercy he is being sent to proclaim.
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I want to unpack why Isaiah focuses specifically on his lips
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in that moment of existential collapse.
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He says I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst
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of a people of unclean lips. Why do you think he singles out
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the lips? Well, it is because his calling
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as a prophet is going to be intensely verbal, the very
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instrument of his mission. His mouth is completely polluted
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by sin. He is structurally corrupted.
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Right. He stands entirely ruined in the
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courtroom of heaven, utterly unable to fix himself.
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He cannot scrub his own lips clean.
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He cannot negotiate his way into a state of purity.
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He is bankrupt. And that is when the grace of
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God intervenes in a highly physical, vivid manner.
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Yes, we see one of the seraphim fly to him holding a burning
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coal that was taken with tongs straight from the altar.
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The theological weight of that altar cannot be overstated.
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Let's talk about that. In the biblical framework, the
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altar is the specific location of blood sacrifice.
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It is the place of penal substitution.
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And just to clarify, penal substitution means that a
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penalty is owed for sin and a substitute takes that penalty in
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place of the guilty party. Exactly.
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The wrath of God is satisfied by the death of that substitute on
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the altar, right? So when the serif brings the
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coal from the altar, he is bringing the application of that
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sacrificial work directly to Isaiah's point of corruption.
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The serif touches Isaiah's mouth and says, behold, this is
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touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, and your sin is
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atoned for. The grammar used in this
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pronouncement is vital. The verbs used are passive.
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Isaiah's guilt is taken away and his sin is covered or atoned
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for. He isn't doing the taking or the
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covering. Right.
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This is a breathtaking display of pure monarchistic grace.
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Can you explain monarchism for the listener?
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Sure. Let me use an analogy.
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Think of a patient flatlining on an operating table.
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The patient does not assist the surgeon in restarting their own
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heart. Right, the patient is basically
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dead. Exactly, the surgeon does 100%
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of the work. That is monarchism.
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God is the sole worker in salvation.
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Isaiah does nothing to initiate the cleansing.
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He does not provide the sacrifice.
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He does not walk to the altar. God initiates the remedy, God
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applies the burning coal, and God pronounces the legal
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acquittal. The lips that were polluted are
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judicially declared clean. This establishes A baseline
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reality for the missionary task. No one can preach the
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substitutionary atonement of Christ unless they are first a
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shattered debtor to that exact same mercy.
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The gospel, the Herald proclaims, must be the gospel
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that has already conquered their own soul.
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So Isaiah has just had the cosmic weight of his own ruin
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lifted off his shoulders. He is breathing free air for the
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first time. And that psychological relief
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completely rewires his posture toward.
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God, he is no longer cowering in terror.
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He is listening. And what does he hear?
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Well, only after objective legal justification is Isaiah able to
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hear the divine counsel. He hears the Lord asking, Whom
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shall I send and who will go? For us, that shift from the
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singular eye to the plural us is a stunning Old Testament
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intimation of the Trinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit
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holding royal counsel regarding the redemption of the world.
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And Isaiah, having been structurally remade by
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monarchistic grace, responds eagerly.
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Here am I send me. Now the first requirement of the
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the task God gives him is physical spatial displacement.
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The Lord tells him to go. Yes, we see this requirement of
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physical movement throughout all of redemptive history.
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Like with Abraham. Right.
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Abraham was commanded to leave the economic and tribal security
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of Herb to go to a land God would show him.
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That physical relocation was a visible sermon declaring his
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separation from ideology. Even more dramatically, we see
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this in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
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He did not just broadcast a message from heaven.
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He took on human flesh and physically tabernacled among us.
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Yeah, this challenge is a huge temptation.
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Today we live in a hyper connected digital age where we
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think we can substitute physical missions with digital campaigns.
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Sending video streams instead of human beings.
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Right? But I want to push back on that.
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Why is packing up your family and moving to a hostile
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territory still a theological necessity today?
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Why isn't it just an old fashioned logistical choice that
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we can optimize away with our current technology?
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Well, the necessity of physical displacement is rooted in the
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incarnational trajectory established by Christ himself.
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Digital tools are certainly helpful for distributing
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information. Sure, they have their place.
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But they cannot breathe the air of the unreached, they cannot
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sit across a table and hear the griefs of a culture, and they
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cannot dwell as living, breathing monuments of Divine
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Mercy in a specific geographical space.
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The physical presence matters. It does.
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The act of going is a public, covenantal declaration of
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spatial and spiritual separation.
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It demands that the messenger turn their back on familiar
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cultural security to push the visible borders of Christ's
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Kingdom into domains that are actively hostile to the reign of
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Yahweh. And this going is never an
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isolated individualistic endeavor, is it?
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No, it requires an ecclesiastical anchor.
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The sources route this firmly in the visible local church,
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pointing to the model of Antioch in Acts chapter 13.
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Right. The Holy Spirit called Barnabas
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and Saul, but the Spirit used the prophets and teachers of the
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local church to test them, fast, pray, lay hands on them, and
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officially send them off. A missionary calling is never a
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private, mystical impulse that bypasses church authority.
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It requires the protective barrier of elders testing a
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candidate's doctrine, their personal holiness, and their
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practical aptitude. The Westminster Standards
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reflect this biblical order by placing the government of the
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church on or ordained officers who are responsible for
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preventing structural instability and the spread of
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heresy. There are no theological free
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agents on the mission field. The Messenger is an official,
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accredited ambassador of a localized, visible body of
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Christ. So once that physical
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displacement has occurred, the supreme non negotiable
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assignment of the missionary is to speak.
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The missionary is a Korox. Which is the Greek word for an
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official herald of the king. Think about what a herald
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actually does. Right.
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A herald is not a diplomat sent to negotiate terms of a treaty
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trying to find middle ground between two parties.
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And they are not a humanitarian technician sent to optimize
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local agriculture or build dwells, as good as those things
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are. A herald is an authoritative
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truth communicator carrying an unalterable decree from the
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throne. The Apostle Paul makes this
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remarkably clear in Romans 10.15.
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He asks how anyone can believe in him of whom they have never
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heard, and how they can hear without someone preaching.
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Saving faith is not a mystical, nonverbal feeling that
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stontaneously bubbles up inside someone.
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It is the direct product of hearing specific historical
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propositional truths. And conveying those
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propositional truths requires an immense sacrificial labor when
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it comes to language acquisition.
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You. Cannot just rely on a
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superficial transactional vocabulary.
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No, the kind of language skills you use to buy groceries in a
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foreign market or ask for directions will not cut it.
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Precisely to communicate the massive theological realities of
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the Gospel, the missionary must devote thousands of hours to
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mastering the target. Language.
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Think about the mechanics of trying to explain justification,
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imputation, or penal substitution to a culture that
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might not even have words for those concepts.
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It takes immense work. The missionary must capture the
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idioms, the nuances, and the emotional depths of the culture.
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Language is the pipeline of the Gospel.
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And if that pipeline is clogged by linguistic laziness, the
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message is distorted and the sheep are left malnourished.
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And the content of that message must be the fearless
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proclamation of the dual edged sword of the law and the Gospel.
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The Herald must explicitly expose the total depravity of
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the human heart, the terrifying reality of divine wrath, and the
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absolute demand for repentance. Because only against that dark
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background can the glorious light of the Gospel be seen.
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The substitutionary atonement of Christ, His physical
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resurrection, and the free imputation of His perfect
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righteousness to the center through faith alone.
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This complete, robust proclamation overthrows the
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seeker sensitive pragmatism that infects so much of the modern
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church. The Herald has no authority to
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hide the offensive truths of Scripture to make the message
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more palatable to the culture. They must declare the whole
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counsel of God with Apostolic clarity, commanding all people
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everywhere to repent. Wait, pause right there.
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I need to push back part on this because we are about to hit the
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most shocking part of our source of material today.
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It is a heavy section. In Isaiah 6 verses 9 and 10, God
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gives Isaiah his Commission and it is a devastating mandate.
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Utterly devastated. Listen to this specific command
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God gives, He says. Make the heart of this people
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dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes, lest they see
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with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with
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their hearts, and turn and be healed.
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I mean, this is a mandate to preach a message that will
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intentionally cause spiritual callousness.
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It is. You are telling me God actively
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sent a missionary to make people more blind.
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That sounds completely antithetical to the entire
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concept of a loving God trying to save people.
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He is a tough pill to swallow. How do you possibly reconcile
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that without making God the author of evil?
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How can a loving God send a messenger to intentionally
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deliver a decree that results in judicial hardening and divine
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condemnation? It is a terrifying reality, and
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to understand it we have to look at the doctrine of reprobation
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and its mechanism. OK, lay that out for us.
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Let. Me, use an analogy.
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Think of the sun shining down on the earth, right?
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The exact same sun shines on a piece of wax and a piece of
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clay. The sun melts the wax, but it
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bakes and hardens the clay. So the source of the heat is the
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same. Yes, the sun is doing the exact
22:04
same thing in both instances. The difference is the nature of
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the material receiving the heat. That makes sense.
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The preaching of the Word of God is never a neutral event.
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The Apostle Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians 2.16 that the
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faithful preaching of the cross is a fragrance of life to those
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who are being saved. But it is a fragrance of death
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to those who are perishing. Exactly when the unadulterated
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truth of God is preached to a people who persistently,
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willfully rebel against it, that very truth acts as a judicial
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weight. It seals them in their
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rebellion. The preacher just brings the
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heat. The condition of the soil
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determines the result. So the light of the gospel,
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blind eyes that refuse, refused to see, and the heat of the
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gospel bakes and hardens clay hearts that refuse to yield.
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This is God judging persistent unbelief by giving rebels over
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to the very blindness they desire.
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And Isaiah is commissioned to be an instrument of this judgment.
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By human metrics, his ministry is designed to be a failure.
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And this connects directly to the staggering crisis of
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attrition we see on the mission field today.
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The turnover rate is massive. Statistics show that nearly half
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of all new missionaries abandoned the field within their
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first five years. Half that is tragic.
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Why is that happening? Because they have embraced and
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Arminianized theology of success.
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Let's define that term for the listener.
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It means they operate under the assumption that human free will
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is the deciding factor in salvation.
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OK. And therefore, if they just use
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the right methods, pray hard enough and remain culturally
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relevant, they can persuade people to believe.
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They assume that their faithfulness guarantees
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numerical growth and soft hearted responses.
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And when that growth fails to materialize, When the culture
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responds with apathy or outright hostility.
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They experience deep disillusionment and vocational
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collapse. Right.
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They look at the baked clay and think they used the wrong kind
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of sun. They think they have failed, or
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worse, they think God has failed them.
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But the sources provide a massive theological corrective
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here. True success in missions is
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measured strictly by theological accuracy, biblical holiness, and
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faithful proclamation. It rests entirely in God's
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sovereign. Decree success is not measured
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by the number of hands raised, the size of the church role, or
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the amount of cultural influence achieved.
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If a missionary goes out with a high view of divine sovereignty,
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they know their labor is never wasted.
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Even if they preach for decades to harden hearts, they are
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faithfully executing the decree of the King.
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They are freed from the slavery of visible metrics.
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They do not have to manipulate the message to force a response,
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because the results belong entirely to God.
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And that freedom is essential for survival on the field.
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Which brings us to the final movement of the text regarding
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the duration of this judgement. Isaiah, stunned by the severity
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of the hardening Commission, asks a desperate question out of
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deep pastoral grief. How long, O Lord?
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He wants to know the temporal of this devastating judgment.
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And the Lord answers that the judgment will continue until the
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cities lie waste without inhabitant, the houses are
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without people, and the land is a desolate waste.
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This is a terrifying prophecy, anticipating the total
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devastation of the Assyrian invasion and the later
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Babylonian exile. The Covenant blessings will be
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completely withdrawn and the physical land will be reduced to
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ruins. It is a bleak, overwhelming
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historical reality. The people of Judah are going to
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be stripped of everything they trusted in.
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But it does not end in total darkness.
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No it does not. There is a glorious light at the
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end of the text. The Lord reveals the promise of
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the stump and the holy seed. He says that even though a 10th
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remains, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an
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oak whose stump remains when it is felled.
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The holy seed is its stump. Even when the mighty oak of the
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nation of Israel is chopped down by foreign empires and burned
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ash, a stump remains in the ground.
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And that stump contains indestructible life.
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It contains the elect remnant of God's people, preserved entirely
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by His sovereign grace. And we must read that promise
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through the lens of Christological fulfillment.
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Yes. Who is the king that Isaiah saw
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on the throne? The Apostle John answers this
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unambiguously in John 12.41. After quoting this very passage
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about judicial hardening, John says Isaiah said these things
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because he saw His glory and spoke of Him.
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The King sitting on the throne in Isaiah 6 is the pre Incarnate
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Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the ultimate
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fulfillment of every shadow in this text.
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He is the ultimate spotless sacrifice on the altar of
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Calvary, providing the burning coal of atonement that cleanses
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our guilt. He is the ultimate scent 1, the
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archetypal missionary who came from the Father into a hostile
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world and endured the ultimate rejection.
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And he is the true Israel, the righteous branch who emerges
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from the dead stump of Jesse. Because Jesus Christ reigns with
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all authority in heaven and on earth, the missionary's labor is
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guaranteed to bear the exact fruit God intends.
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The elect will be gathered from every tribe, tongue and nation.
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The gates of hell cannot withstand the advancement of his
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church. This changes everything we think
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about missions. It really does to synthesize
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everything we have unpacked today.
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True biblical missions requires a person to be utterly shattered
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by the holiness of God. Cleansed by pure monarchistic
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grace. Officially tested and sent by a
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local church. And sustained by a high,
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unyielding view of divine sovereignty that frees the
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herald from the crushing burden of producing human results.
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It is a severe, majestic and glorious calling.
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But as we close, I want to leave you, the listener, with a final
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searching thought. We have spent this time talking
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about missionaries going to the nation's, but the sources issue
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a severe warning to those of us sitting right here at home.
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If you sit in a Pew week after week hearing the faithful
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preaching of the unadulterated Word of God with a cold and
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different heart, you are actively experiencing the very
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judicial hardening that Isaiah was commissioned to execute.
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The Word of God is never neutral.
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So I ask you to consider your own hearing this coming Sunday.
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When the word is preached, is it softening your heart to the
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cross, driving you to the mercy of the altar?
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Or are your ears quietly, tragically growing heavier?
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Thank you so much for joining us on this deep dive on reformed
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thinking. Until next time, farewell.