The Nations and Kobra

I’ve been reading John Piper’s Let the Nations Be Glad! It’s a great read. It makes a lot of solid and challenging points. Basically, I suggest reading it if you’re looking for a good book on missions (and if you didn’t know this: you are).

One of his seven chapters is dedicated to examining the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

What does Jesus mean when he says, “all nations”? Piper writes about nations as people groups with unique characteristics. I won’t go into super deep detail (because I’m not Piper and I still want you to consider reading his book), but basically, the nations are oodles of people groups. No surprise there, but it gets more interesting.

Jesus is waiting for disciples to be made in all nations. That’s why Paul never stayed in one place. He planted a church, and once that church was able to reach that nation, he moved. Paul was called to continue going to new people groups. Paul was called to go to all nations (or as many as he could get to before his death).

After reading about Paul’s heart to continue moving on rather than stay to convert everyone in one nation/people group, I was convicted. Here I am in Ghana where Jesus is everywhere. The churches evangelize 23/7. Christians here are all about spreading the gospel throughout Ghana. It’s a gospel-saturated nation (even though that saturation doesn’t have much depth with it). Why am I here when there are people groups in North Africa and other areas of the world where people have not even heard the name of Jesus Christ? Then my conviction ended, and my confusion began. I didn’t want to come to Ghana; God called me to Ghana. And he was gracious enough to make this calling overwhelmingly clear. I was confused because God calls us to go to all nations, all people groups so that they know Christ, but he brought me to an area where it appears that everyone knows about Christ. What the heck?

[Now is the awkward transition to a story that appears to be unrelated but at the end of this post, the connection will be made. Please ignore the seemingly irrelevance of the following story and trust that it really is relevant and worth the read.]

I’m not one who enjoys cooking. Really, it’s not my thing. Thankfully, quite a few of my teammates share in my lack of joy for cooking. Therefore, we buy food frequently. In our neighborhood, we buy egg sandwiches from one stand run by Akos and Esther, and we buy rice and chicken (or chips and chicken) from Elizabeth and her family. Sometimes, we have to wait for quite some time before the chicken, rice, or chips are ready. This family is so gracious that they pull up chairs for us to sit around by them while we wait. The best part is that this family has two precious little girls. Mooti is about 2, and Kobra is still an infant. [Please understand that I may have butchered the spelling of their names.] We go around so frequently that the family lets us hold Kobra, and Mooti will play with us. Yay!

After we developed a decent relationship with this family, we realized that they’re Muslim. We have no idea to what extent they’re involved in Islam, but we caught on after acknowledging that the women always wear headwraps. Little Kobra even wears one on occasion. And she pulls it off well. See?

Last night, we were able to sit there for quite some time. I got to hold Kobra for the first time. She is so precious. Whenever I see those little girls, my heart breaks. Right now, they don’t know the truth about Jesus, and their extended family doesn’t know the truth about Jesus.

Last night, I realized why we’re in Ghana. Even though this culture is saturated with the gospel message, there is at least one people group here that hasn’t been discipled. The Muslims of Ghana are unreached. The churches don’t seem to know how to reach them. Little Mooti and Kobra are part of an unreached people group. Their parents are part of an unreached people group. My team has been blessed with the opportunity to live amongst this family. We have the opportunity to live out the gospel with this family. We know these little girls will hear about Jesus someday. We know that the Muslims in Ghana will be a nation from which disciples are made. We’re here to help reach this people group. We’re here to help fulfill the Great Commission by making disciples of this nation.