Study
Read Romans 1:18–23
What happens to a person in an unreached people group, who dies without ever hearing the gospel? Does someone who did not encounter the gospel while alive, spend eternity apart from God after they die? Explain.
Respond to this question. Then look at the end of this lesson for an answer.
Resource:
What happens to a person in an unreached people group, who dies without ever hearing the gospel? Does someone who did not encounter the gospel while alive, spend eternity apart from God after they die? Explain.
Respond to this question. Then look at the end of this lesson for an answer.
Resource:
- Watch: What Happens to Those Who Never Hear the Gospel?
- Short Version (9:35)
- Long version (57:08)
Watch
What is a UPG? (2:59)
- “An unreached people group has too few believers to evangelize and disciple the rest of their people group. Almost three billion people fall into this category.”
What three words describe what your life would be like today if no one had been present to evangelize or disciple you.
Now take thirty seconds and imagine millions of unreached people experiencing these things for their entire life. - “Over three thousand of the seven thousand unreached people groups are unengaged, unreached people groups...these people groups have no one actively engaged in reaching them.”
Author David Platt said, "The only thing worse than being lost is being lost, and no one is looking for you."
Imagine you have been tasked by your church to create a strategy to bring the gospel to an unengaged, unreached people group. What four words (or phrases) summarize your plan? - What else stood out to you from the video?
Discuss
All excerpts are from The Abrahamic Revolution by Todd Ahrends.
- “God was not interested in me Christianizing my life; He was interested in me crucifying my life.” (location 182–83).
What’s the difference?
- “Salvation has come to us because it’s on its way to someone else.” (location 1106–7).
Do you see the gospel as a baton that's been passed to you, to hand off an unreached people group? Explain.
Learn
View
SOGY. Become familiar with the concept of Supporting Others or Going Yourself.
Pray
Share the most important thing you learned in this meeting, and let it serve as a guide as your group prays together.
Closing video
- Watch The World (4:38)
Answer
Through creation, God holds everyone accountable for what is knowable about Him. Namely, that He is immeasurably glorious, infinitely powerful, eternally existent, and inherently good. Read Romans 1:18-20, Psalm 19:1-6, Acts 14:17 However, everyone suppresses these clear and understandable truths. "Every person has a built-in, natural, compelling desire to oppose God's truth."1 Even though this basic information about God is available to all of us, everyone chooses not to obey Him as our Creator, worship Him for His eternal power, or thank Him for His goodness. We decide to live independently of Him. We substitute the truth about who He is and what He is like with our version. Depravity ensues as we continue to create our warped theology about God. We ignore His eternal glory and worship what He has made instead of the maker Himself. This is true for everyone throughout the world, including unreached peoples. Rejecting the gospel is not the basis of their condemnation. That would be unjust. It is based on sinning against the light they have. That is just and is why getting the gospel to the unreached is such an urgent priority. Because without it, they face eternity apart from Christ.
1 John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Romans 1-8 (Chicago: Moody, 1991), Olive Tree Bible Study App, Ver. 6.5.4 (2019) Notes on Romans 1:18