The Final Sprint - The Gospel Of The Kingdom

The Bible reveals in the gospels that the kingdom is the crowning message we are to proclaim. Salvation should not be presented as the end goal. Inheriting the kingdom should be. Salvation is the means to the kingdom. The king wants the big picture of the kingdom revealed first to give us a prize to run after. Luke 4:43, & 13:18-20, Mark 4:8, Revelation 3:21. Hebrews 12:1 says we have a race to run with an audience cheering us on. "this gospel of the kingdom" in Matthew 24:14, is directly connected to the great commission. It was the last message Jesus gave to his disciples just moments before he ascended into Heaven. You may be saved from destruction but there is no good news of the Kingdom for you if you are not taking part in the expansion of it! Therefore go into all the world and make disciples of all nations... Matthew 28:19

If you are not spreading the good news of the kingdom by participating in some way to make disciples of all nations (promoting the knowledge of God by turning the few minas God gave you into many Luke 19:11-27 ) you will not inherit the rewards of the kingdom. You may have some treasures in Heaven but you will not inherit the kingdom. If you believe in Jesus Christ you are called to participate. But if you do not participate, you simply are not living a full gospel life. You are living in 1 Corinthians 3:14 salvation. The thief on the cross was saved but did he have an inheritance in the kingdom? A lot of Christians don't understand this and that is why the gospel is referred to as a "mystery".

The gospel of the kingdom is about the salvation of the nations. That is the gospel we are called to preach first not "the gospel of your salvation" Ephesians 1:13. You can have salvation without inheriting the kingdom but you cannot inherit the kingdom without having salvation. Without the kingdom you will have a gown of salvation but not be arrayed in a robe of righteousness. Isaiah 61:10. The message of the kingdom is all about the expansion of it and your participation. Look at the kingdom parables in Matthew 13. They are all concerning different aspects of evangelistic work. They reveal 7 different ways the kingdom is established; scattering, planting, growing, mixing, discovering, evaluating & separating.

When you keep the greatest commandment first, Mark 12:30, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength, you will naturally follow with the second greatest commandment. "Love your neighbor as yourself" Which is to fulfill the great commission, but people seem to think the second greatest commandment is not really a commandment but a great suggestion. Not true. Jesus said if you love me you will obey my commands. John 14:15. Loving your neighbor as yourself is tied to fulfilling the great commission.

When you look closely at the parable of the minas you will see that God expects a return on his investment in you. Luke 19:11-27. Is it really money (minas) that God is expecting you to multiply? Not necessarily. It is the expansion of the kingdom by using whatever resources God has given you to making disciples of all nations. The servant who didn't produce a return was rebuked and demoted. Has God given you some minas you can put to work? If you are not doing kingdom work directly yourself then you should be supporting others who do. I believe that is what is meant in Luke 19:23 'Why then didn’t you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?’

Are you a "World Christian"?

Perhaps you have never heard that term before. I first heard it in 2014 at a "Perspectives On The World Christian Movement" course. Once I read more about it, the idea resonated in my spirit. I decided yes, I am a World Christian and I am determined to do something about it!

Key Characteristics of a World Christian

Global Vision: Sees the Christian mission from God's perspective, understanding His plan for all nations.
Strategic Obedience: Intentionally aligns life, resources (time, money), and actions to fulfill God's global purpose.
Cross-Cultural Engagement: Prioritizes unity with believers globally over cultural ties, recognizing themselves as sojourners with a heavenly home.
Active Participation: May involve physically going on mission, supporting missionaries, praying for the world, or advocating for the unreached.

Great commission statistics. What will it take to complete it?

To completely fund the completion of the Great Commission, missiologists estimate that a reallocation shift of less than 1% of total Christian income, or a redistribution of roughly 15% to 20% of existing global mission budgets, is required.

Because global Christians collectively earn trillions of dollars annually, the financial "gap" to fund frontier missions is surprisingly small. Research from the Joshua Project, The Traveling Team, and Radical breaks down the specific shifts needed across different giving metrics:

1. Shift Within the Existing Missions Budget

The Current State: Out of roughly $45 billion to $75 billion spent globally on "foreign missions," only about 1.7% ($1.4 billion) goes to Unreached People Groups (UPGs). The other 98.3% stays in areas that are already heavily evangelized.
The Required Shift: Missiologists estimate that the baseline cost to deploy enough frontier workers to establish a self-sustaining church network in every UPG is roughly $4 billion to $5 billion annually.
The Needed Percentage Shift: Churches and mission agencies would only need to reallocate roughly 6% to 10% of existing global mission funds away from reached countries and directly into frontier, unreached areas.

2. Shift Within Total Church Giving

The Current State: Out of every dollar a believer puts into a church basket, about 82% stays within the four walls of the local building (salaries, facilities, utilities). Only 0.1% to 1% of total church budgets ever reaches a UPG.
The Required Shift: To cover the $4+ billion baseline without touching local staff salaries, local churches would need to adjust their internal budgets so that just 4% to 5% of total church giving is intentionally locked for UPGs.

3. Shift Within Total Christian Income

The Current State: Global Christians earn over $42 trillion annually, yet give only a fraction of a percent of their total earnings to unreached fields (about $1 out of every $100,000 earned).
The Required Shift: Data published via Bethany Global University indicates that if evangelical Christians shifted just 0.03% of their total personal income specifically toward church planting in UPGs, the Great Commission would be fully funded. Put another way, it requires an extra $6.63 for every $10,000 a Christian earns to fully back the necessary workforce.

The consensus among global missions strategists is that finishing the Great Commission does not require a financial miracle; the global church already holds roughly 14,000 times the resources needed. It simply requires a strategic awareness shift to fix the distribution bottleneck.

If you are interested, we can look closer at how the missionary workforce itself is split between reached and unreached areas, or explore strategic giving models used by modern networks to fund native church planters directly.

The Kingdom of God https://youtu.be/hZqkFGBcZDA?si=MrrYmkzirFe7hVtO