Theological term
Missionary Enterprise
2 sermons · All terms
The Hope of the Nations
Psalm 67 frames both the church's need for God's mercy and the church's missionary calling to the nations as inseparable realities. The psalmist's threefold petition — mercy, blessing, and communion with God for the church — is the ground from which prayer for the salvation, worship, and righteous governance of the nations flows. Drawing on the Aaronic blessing, the Abrahamic covenant, and the New Testament's Great Commission, the sermon argues that the church's received grace creates an inescapable obligation to proclaim that grace to the ends of the earth. The closing application calls the congregation to corporate prayer, support of the missionary enterprise, and fidelity to the gospel message as the only means God has ordained for the hope of the nations to be realized.
The Missionary Enterprise
Psalm 67 is a missionary psalm that moves from petitions for the church to petitions for the world, grounding the entire missionary enterprise in the mercy, blessing, and presence of God. The psalmist prays first that God's people would know his mercy and communion so that they might then be a vehicle for publishing his salvation to the nations. Worship — not missions itself — is the ultimate end of gospel proclamation, for missions is a temporary necessity that ceases when the redeemed fall before the throne. The sermon calls the church to lift its eyes to the grand promises of Scripture, to pray earnestly for the nations, and to go forth in the authority and presence of the risen Christ.