Welcome to The Commission. God calls all of us to give everything in us for his cause. We’re so thankful that you’re joining us in this newsletter to learn with us how others are seeking to honor that call, that commission, right where they are, and to the ends of the earth.

In today’s edition:

• What we mean by “Make Your Life Count”

• How to pray for the 15 million people visiting France for the Olympics

• The reason why we make documentaries

🇫🇷 Gospel Conversations of Olympic Proportions

Somewhere around 15 million people from all over the world are estimated to have traveled to Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics. Just imagine all the religions and cultures mixed together in one of the most visited places in the world.

Why France needs the gospel: Only 1% of its population identify as evangelical Christians. Not only is France becoming more and more secular, but it also has the largest population of Muslims in Europe, with an increasing immigrant population. 

How To Pray: As people from all over the world gather in Paris, pray that believers—tourists and locals—have opportunities for gospel conversations. Pray for God to open hearts and minds to the gospel and for more disciples to be made.

⏳ Make Your Life Count

I have two questions for you:

1. What is the greatest need in the world?

2. How do we make our lives count in the world?

What a welcome to The Commission, huh? Two super light, very easy questions to answer, aren’t they? Before you continue reading, do give yourself a couple of minutes to answer these.

Here’s how I would answer the first question, and I’m going to go ahead and risk being accused of being overly simplistic or spiritual, but I believe the answer is clear. 

The greatest need in the world is: Jesus.

The greatest problem in the world is sin, which leads to separation from God and all kinds of evil, injustice, conflict, suffering, disease, and death in the world. And the only One who can take away our sin problem is Jesus. The only One who can reconcile us to God is Jesus. He is the only One who is completely good and perfectly just, and he is the only One who has the power to bring perfect peace, unshakable joy, complete healing, and everlasting life in this world.

And we know that this world is not all there is. Everyone in this world is on a road that leads to either heaven or hell, everlasting joy or never-ending suffering, and the only way to experience everlasting joy is through Jesus.

That leads to our second question, and my assumption is that we all want to answer this question well. 

How do we make our lives count in the world? 

None of us want to get to the end of our lives, look back, and say, “I missed the point.” We want to make our lives count. So how do we do that?

Here's how we, at Radical, would answer that question.

The life that counts follows Jesus…

It only makes sense, doesn’t it? If Jesus is the greatest need in the world, then Jesus is the greatest need in our lives. That means if we don’t follow Jesus, we miss the whole point of our lives.

It’s no coincidence, then, that Jesus’s first words to his followers in Matthew 4:19 were, “Follow me.” This is where life is found: in following Jesus, the Author of all life and the One who is worthy of your life. Life is found in walking with Jesus, worshiping him, hearing and obeying his word, and enjoying him to the full.

But interestingly, Jesus’s words to his initial followers didn’t stop with, “Follow me.” There was an “and” after that.

“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19)

Jesus takes this imagery familiar to these disciples’ vocation and tells them, “Instead of searching for fish all over the water, you’re going to spread my love all over the world.”

These were Jesus’s first words to his followers, and his last sounded very similar: “Go and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19).

Apparently, the life that counts doesn’t just follow Jesus.

The life that counts follows Jesus and makes him known in the world.

This also just makes sense, doesn’t it? The life that counts doesn’t keep life to yourself. It’d be like having a cure to cancer and sharing it with no one. If you did that (kept the cure to cancer to yourself), then surely you wouldn’t come to the end of your life and say, “I made it count.” No, that would be missing the point.

Most people are missing the point. Non-Christians are missing the point of life because life is only possible in Jesus. But sadly, many Christians are also missing the point. They’re settling for routine religion devoid of personal passion for Jesus, evident in how little we share about him with others. 

In other words, we’re keeping the cure to sin and death to ourselves. And the result is a world where so many of our neighbors don’t know Jesus and over 3 billion people haven’t even heard the truth about who he is and how much he loves them. 

At Radical, we’re on a mission to help Christians make their lives count. The Commission is another tool we’ve crafted to help you follow Jesus and make him known, regardless of who you are, where you live, or what God calls you to do.

I pray that every issue ignites your faith and encourages you to follow Jesus passionately and fearlessly as you make him known in your neighborhood and all nations.

— David Platt

🇰🇵 Christians multiply in spite of being outlawed

Little is actually known about life inside North Korea by the outside world. But we do know some about the hardships Christians face in North Korea.

The Details: Since North Korea was formed, the Kim regime has treated Christianity as an issue of national security. Christians are to be sentenced to life in political prison camps where they face the harshest conditions. Owning a Bible, meeting for church, or praying are all outlawed. This has made North Korea be at the top of persecution watch lists for decades.

The Takeaways: In a place that seems so far away from the gospel and hopeless to reach, we know that God is still at work. Today, estimates are that there are anywhere between 100,000 and 400,000 Christians. Tens of thousands of those Christians are in prison, but the cost of the cross is worth it for them, and we can pray for more and more North Koreans to learn about the hope of Christ.

Next Steps: Learn more about the persecuted church in North Korea by watching our documentary Hard to Reach: North Korea.

🎥 Why do we make documentaries?

If you’ve been around Radical for a minute, you may have noticed that in the last two years our team has produced several documentaries exploring the stories of the global church, particularly in places where Christianity is not widely accepted or difficult to embrace. We’ve traveled all over the world—Iran, Japan, Morocco, Turkey and many more—and published these documentaries for free on our YouTube channel.

Long-form travel documentaries that explore church history and highlight urgent spiritual and physical needs isn’t the most traditional genre for church resources, so why do it?

The idea was born out of a realization. Sitting in an auditorium listening to David Platt speak on the nation’s greatest needs while pointing to a map of areas marked in red made me realize how little I actually knew about my persecuted brothers and sisters or the regions of the world they lived in. Or how little I knew of the opportunities available to us to actually do something about it.

How can we pray or serve those about whom we know little or nothing?

This is how Neighborhoods & Nations was born. To understand the needs and opportunities for the gospel to reach the world, we need more than quick bullet points in a newsletter or short videos on TikTok or Instagram. And our hope is that these documentaries will serve the church in this way. 

We hope you will join us as we explore how to follow Jesus and make him known in your neighborhood and all nations across the world.

– Steven Morales

📌 Attention Worthy

• The idea of “living my truth” can undermine God’s truth. In an age of privatized religion, Trevin Wax urges us to pursue a bold and distinct gospel witness.

• Should Muslim-background believers change their Islamic names? This Oak Hill College’s blog post argues the answer is not as straightforward as you might think.

• The Chalmers Center put together these Social Media Guidelines for Short-Term Missions, encouraging us to be aware of the impact of our posting during these events.

_{THIS WEEK’S COLLABORATORS:}

_{David Platt, Steven Morales, Jairo Namnún, Selah Lipsey, David Burnette}

_{MAKE YOUR LIFE COUNT!}