John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books , including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Coronavirus and Christ

John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books , including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Coronavirus and Christ

Cross is a new student conference on missions. It begins this evening.

This conference is a dream come true for me. I give four reasons for why in my message tonight. So I won’t give them here.

The premise of the conference is that biblical Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering. We believe that God sent his eternal Son into the world to bear sin’s penalty for his people and to rescue them from eternal suffering, and to give them ever-increasing and everlasting joy in the glory of redeemed bodies, on a redeemed earth, free from all misery and all sin. Everyone who receives this gift through faith in Christ will have it. It is offered to all, and free for all.

Focusing on the Unreached

God’s purpose is to gather this redeemed people from all the peoples and tribes and languages of the world. Frontier missions is the heralding of this news to the remaining unreached peoples of the world. That’s our focus at Cross.

It is not a conference about evangelizing people in general. It’s a conference about the peculiar task of missions: the task of crossing cultures, and learning languages, and, by the miracle-working grace of God, establishing biblically faithful churches among the unreached peoples.

Radiant with Hope

Cross is radiant with hope, because it is built on the absolute sovereignty of God in the salvation of the hardest sinners. If sinners were decisive in saving themselves, the outcome of missions would be up for grabs. It’s not.

The “musts” and “wills” and “shalls” of God are inviolable.

“I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16).

“This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).

“All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you” (Psalm 22:27).

Christ has ransomed a people among all the peoples of the world. “By your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).

Missions Cannot Fail

They are his, and he will have them. He has chosen and destined them for adoption from the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4–5).“Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). None will be lost.

The way he calls his sheep is missions. And it cannot fail. When a people group seems distant, hidden, resistant, hostile, Jesus has a word to say about that. When the skeptic, and the doubter say, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus responds, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:25–27).

God’s Unstoppable Gospel

Cross aims to kindle a confidence in God’s unstoppable gospel built on the absolute sovereignty of God in calling workers, raising funds, ruling nations, turning the hearts of kings, opening doors, arranging marriages, sustaining singles, healing diseases, giving courage, throwing Satan down like lightening, taking out hearts of stone, removing spiritual blindness, conquering unbelief, creating death-defying faith, gathering worshiping saints, turning all sacrifices into seeds of triumph, and making every martyr a catalyst for thousands more, until the task of missions gives way to the coming King who says, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isaiah 46:10).

You can tell I love what this is about. If you are not coming, please pray. If you are coming, please pray. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.” (Zechariah 4:6).