Hello, and welcome back to Nations 4 Jesus. Today I want to talk about something that's at the very heart of God's purposes for the world—something that appears throughout Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. It's captured beautifully in the shortest chapter in the entire Bible: Psalm 117.
Let me read it to you—all two verses:
"Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples! For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD!"
This tiny psalm contains a massive vision: ALL nations praising the Lord. ALL peoples extolling Him. Not some. Not many. ALL. And today, I want to unpack what that means, why it matters, and what it calls us to do. Much of what I'm sharing comes from a powerful sermon by John Piper called "Everlasting Truth for the Joy of All Peoples," and it's challenged me deeply.
[Defining the terms - what are "nations" and "peoples"?]
First, we need to understand what the Bible means by "nations" and "peoples." When Psalm 117 says "all nations" and "all peoples," it's not talking about political states like America, Spain, Brazil, or China. It's referring to ethnic, language, or cultural groupings within these political states.
For example, if you look at China, there aren't just "Chinese people." There are the Hui, the Dulong, the Li, the Lisu, the Shui, the Salar, the Yao, and dozens more distinct people groups—each with their own language, culture, and identity. In the Bible, you read about "the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites" (Genesis 10:16-18).
So when Psalm 117:1 says, "Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples!" it means: "Praise the Lord, Hui of China! Praise the Lord, Bahing of Nepal! Praise the Lord, Baluch of Pakistan! Praise the Lord, Maninka of Guinea! Praise the Lord, Saluwan of Indonesia! Praise the Lord, Dakota of South Dakota!"
[Jesus and the nations - the Great Commission]
These are the kinds of groups Jesus was referring to when He said after His resurrection in Matthew 28:18-19: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations"—literally "panta ta ethne," all the ethnic groups, all the people groups. This is the same phrase used in Psalm 117:1.
And these are the groups Jesus meant when He said in Matthew 24:14: "This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." Not just all countries. All peoples. All ethnic groups. All language groups. All distinct cultures.
[The crucial question - how many remain unreached?]
So here's the huge question for followers of Jesus today—and it should be on our minds constantly: How many peoples are there, and how many of them are still unreached with the gospel of the kingdom? How many still have no church that obeys Psalm 117 and praises the Lord?
Let me give you some current statistics from Joshua Project, one of the most reliable research organizations tracking unreached peoples. As of 2025, there are approximately 17,446 distinct people groups in the world. Of these, about 7,401 are considered unreached—meaning they have little to no access to the Gospel, with less than 2% evangelical Christians among them.
These unreached people groups represent approximately 3.4 billion individuals—that's 42% of the world's population! Think about that: Nearly half of all people alive today belong to people groups where there's virtually no Christian witness, no churches, no believers who could share the Gospel with them in their own language and cultural context.
Let me break this down further. Among these unreached groups, 243 have populations over 1 million people. Some mega-peoples are still largely unreached: the Shaikh of Bangladesh (150 million), the Yadav of India (50 million), the Pashtun of Afghanistan and Pakistan (49 million), the Japanese (123 million). These aren't small, isolated tribes hidden in jungles—these are massive people groups that have somehow been overlooked or proven resistant to the Gospel.
[The myth of "missions is over" - addressing wrong thinking]
Now, if you hear someone say that the day of Western missions is over, you know something is amiss in their head or in their heart. Let me be direct about this because I hear this sentiment sometimes, and it's deeply troubling. When people say Western missions is over, they may not believe that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus is to be praised by all peoples. Or they may not believe that anyone is really perishing without the Gospel. Or they may believe that local people can do a better job than Western people.
But here's what that last argument misunderstands: The very definition of "unreached" means there aren't any—or aren't strong enough—local people capable of doing the work. That's what unreached means! And nearby reached peoples may actually be less culturally acceptable than Westerners in many contexts. For example, Chinese Christians may have an easier time reaching certain Muslim peoples than Arab Christians would, simply because there's no historical religious conflict between Chinese and Muslims.
The day of Western missions is not over. And the day we think it is will be the day you can write "forsaken" over the doors of our churches. God means for us to engage with Him to bring about Psalm 117: "Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples!"
[Teaching the next generation - practical application]
If you have children who don't know about the "nations," let me give you some practical suggestions. Subscribe to resources like the Global Prayer Digest or visit websites like Joshua Project's "Unreached of the Day." Read a story to your children about a different unreached people group each day and pray for them.
In our homeschool, we've made this a regular part of our routine. We'll learn about a people group—where they live, what they believe, how they live, why they haven't heard the Gospel—and then we pray specifically for them. They're growing up with a God-sized vision of the world, not a me-sized vision of their own comfort.
[Breaking free from small worlds - the call to bigger vision]
John Piper writes: "Oh, that children and teenagers and adults in Christ's Church would break free from our tiny little worlds of family and friends and church and Western culture! Jesus Christ is building His church around the world. We are meant to think and feel and work with Him in this cause."
Then he says something that really convicted me: "Who knows how many of our personal problems are owing to narrowness of thinking and smallness of affections in relation to God's global purposes."
Think about that! How many of our anxieties, our discontent, our sense of purposelessness stem from the fact that we're focused only on our small circle? We're worried about our comfort, our plans, our preferences, our problems—when God is orchestrating the greatest movement in history: bringing worshipers from every tribe, tongue, and nation to His throne!
When we expand our vision to include God's global purposes, our personal problems often shrink to their proper size. When we're praying for unreached Buddhists in Mongolia or persecuted Christians in Nigeria or hidden believers in North Korea, suddenly our complaint about the worship style at church or frustration about our schedule seems petty.
[The dramatic shift - Christianity's new center]
Now, here's something crucial we need to understand: The world and the church have changed dramatically in the last 100 years—truly the greatest missionary century in history. Listen to what missiologist Andrew Walls wrote in his book "The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History":
"[The twentieth century] has seen this great recession from the Christian faith in the West, there has been an equally massive accession to that faith in the non-Western world. [At the beginning of the century] well over 80 percent of those who professed Christianity lived in Europe or North America. Now, approaching 60 percent live in the southern continents of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific, and that proportion grows annually. Christianity began the twentieth century as a Western religion, and indeed, the Western religion; it ended the century as a non-Western religion, on track to become progressively more so."
Updated statistics for 2025 show this trend has accelerated. Today, approximately 67% of Christians live in the Global South—Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania. Only 33% live in Europe and North America. The church's center of gravity has shifted dramatically southward and eastward.
[We are not the center - humility and rejoicing]
Here's what this means: We in the West are not at the center anymore. God may or may not be done with us in our self-absorbed prosperity in America. But He certainly is putting others on the Christian map to humble us and call us to confess and rejoice that others may be far more effective in finishing the Great Commission than we are.
The dynamics of church and missions will never be the same. And that's not something to mourn—it's something to celebrate! God is raising up missionary movements in South Korea, Brazil, Nigeria, India, and China. Korean missionaries are reaching Central Asia. Brazilian missionaries are reaching North Africa. Nigerian missionaries are reaching unreached peoples across West Africa. Chinese believers are taking the Gospel along the Belt and Road Initiative.
John Piper gives a small example of this shift: "There are more Anglicans in Nigeria than in England and America put together. Their bishops are biblically conservative, and they vote. Who would have dreamed just thirty years ago that powerful, liberal Western bishops would be called to account biblically by the churches they planted in Africa?"
This is the new world we live in. It is the world that God is guiding and shaping for His glory. And we need to adjust our thinking accordingly. We're not the only ones reaching the unreached anymore—and that's wonderful! But it doesn't mean our job is done.
[The ongoing call - goers and senders]
So let's join God in His great global purpose and not be limited in our thinking, feeling, and acting to our local concerns. Let's give ourselves to missions—either as goers or as senders. Because here's what Psalm 117 makes crystal clear: God will not be satisfied until every people group on earth praises Him. Not just some. Not just the easy-to-reach ones. ALL.
[The ultimate purpose - God's glory among all peoples]
Here's what we need to understand at the deepest level: Missions isn't ultimately about helping poor people or making the world a better place or even saving souls—as important as all those things are. Missions is ultimately about God's glory being displayed among all peoples. It's about Psalm 117 being fulfilled. It's about every tribe, tongue, and nation gathered around the throne in Revelation 7:9 worshiping the Lamb.
God created diversity—different languages, cultures, peoples—not as a problem to be overcome, but as a canvas on which to display the infinite beauty of His glory. When a Mongolian nomad worships Jesus, it reveals something about God's character that an American suburban worshiper can't reveal. When a Fulani herdsman sings praise to Jesus, it displays God's glory in a way that a Brazilian city-dweller can't. God wants all the colors, all the sounds, all the cultural expressions of humanity praising Him—because only then is His glory fully displayed.
[Closing challenge and prayer]
So I want to challenge you: Don't be satisfied with a faith that's focused only on your personal salvation and comfort. Don't be content with a Christianity that's all about your needs being met and your problems being solved. Expand your heart to embrace God's passion for all peoples!
Ask yourself: When was the last time I prayed for an unreached people group? When was the last time I gave money specifically to reach the unreached? Have I ever seriously considered whether God might be calling me to go? Am I raising my children with a vision for all nations, or just a vision for their own success?
God is building His church among all peoples. The question is: Will we join Him in that work, or will we stay focused on our tiny worlds while billions remain unreached?
Let me pray:
Thank you for joining me today. Until next time, remember—keep your eyes on the nations and live for the fulfillment of Psalm 117!
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