From the very first page of Scripture to the very last, one thing is unmistakably clear: God has always had a heart for the entire world. Not just your neighborhood. Not just your country. Not just the people who look, talk, and worship like you. From Genesis to Revelation, God’s heart for all nations unfolds through story after story after story. The question He keeps asking His people is the same one He is asking you today: Will you join Me?
If you have never thought much about unreached people groups—people groups that are less than 2% Christian and without any ability to sustain Kingdom movement or discipleship without outside help—this post is for you. God’s heart for the nations is not a niche calling reserved for full-time missionaries. It is the heartbeat of God Himself, woven into every page of Scripture, and it belongs to every follower of Christ.
You Were Chosen for This
In Exodus 19:6, God tells His people that He has chosen them as “a kingdom of priests, for all nations.” Not one priest… every person in Israel was chosen to be a priest to the rest of the world—to reveal who the one true God is and to represent all people before Him.
They were not chosen just to keep God to themselves. They were chosen for a mission. As the story unfolds, Israel keeps missing it. God said, I have chosen you for this—but they got distracted.
Then Jesus shows up. In Mark 11:15-17, He walks into the temple and finds the outer court—the very place where Gentiles and foreigners came to seek God—completely overtaken by merchants and money changers. The local Jews had set up tables right in the space designated for Gentile worship. The exchange rates were inflated. There was no room left for the nations to pray. Jesus is furious. He flips the tables, drives everyone out, and quotes Isaiah 56:7 directly: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations” (NIV).
God’s heart for the nations made Jesus angry enough to flip tables. Let that sink in.
Now look at 1 Peter 2:9: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (NASB).
Just as God chose ancient Israel to be His representatives to all people in all places, He has chosen us as Christians to do the exact same thing. We have been chosen—not to sit back and keep God to ourselves, but to carry His name to every tribe, tongue, and nation.
What “Nations” Actually Means
Here is something worth understanding. When Scripture talks about “nations,” it is not referring to geopolitical countries like the United States, Kenya, or China; it is talking about ethno-linguistic people groups—people with their own distinct language and culture. Tribes might be a better word.
There are many tribes throughout Mexico (Aztec, Mayan, and others). There are various Native American tribes. There are Maasai, Hadzabe, Irak, and numerous Somali tribes across East Africa. There are thousands of distinct people groups scattered across the globe.
Many of them have never had any access to the name of Jesus—not because they rejected Him, but because no one has ever reached them.
The Weight of the Numbers
The statistics are staggering, and they are meant to move us towards God’s heart for the nations.
Over 3 billion people, roughly 42% of the world’s population, live in unreached or unengaged people groups. Five out of six non-Christians in the world have no opportunity to hear the Gospel—even if they wanted to. There is no church in their language, no Bible they can get their hands on, and no believer living near them. Zero access.
And yet, of 400,000 cross-cultural missionaries, only 3% go to the unreached. Roughly thirty times as many missionaries go to reached people groups to work with Christians as go to unreached people groups.
We have 900 churches and 78,000 evangelical Christians for every single unreached people group on the planet. Imagine what we could do if even a fraction of those churches and believers teamed up to finish the mission. We actually have what it takes. The question is whether we will use it.
Jesus said it plainly 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” (ESV). And in Revelation 7:9, we get a glimpse of that finish line—people from every tribe, tongue, and nation worshiping before the throne of God for all of eternity.
That future is coming, but we have work to do.
What Happens When Someone Goes
I want to tell you about a man named Onwas.
Onwas was a Hadzabe elder in East Africa. The Hadzabe are one of the last true hunter-gatherer tribes on earth. They live in grass huts, hunt with bows and arrows, and gather whatever food they can find. Until recently, they were completely unreached. There was no Bible in their language, no church, no discipleship. Very few of them had ever heard the message of Jesus.
We drove into Onwas’ village one evening as the sun was going down over the horizon and cooking fires were just starting to burn. We walked over to one of the huts and sat down across from him. We struck up a conversation and asked how village life was going. He asked why we had shown up, and eventually, we began to share the message of Jesus with him. Right there, around that campfire, Onwas decided to follow Christ.
In the years that followed, Onwas proved the genuineness of his faith by how he lived acted, and how the fruit of the Spirit burst out of his life in all sorts of directions. I watched this man, who for most of his life had worshipped the sun, raise his hands in worship to the one true living God. My soul was filled with joy.
Then one day we received a message from Mary, our key indigenous partner among the Hadzabe: Onwas had passed away. I immediately felt like a ton of bricks had fallen on my heart. Over the years of ministering to Onwas and serving alongside him, he had become like a Hadzabe grandfather to us. We had inside jokes. We cared about him. We loved him. Hearing that he had passed was heartbreaking.
But as I sat with that grief and prayed, an image came to my mind: Onwas dancing in front of the throne of Jesus, praising and worshiping Him as I had so often seen him doing in the East African bush.
And I keep coming back to this question: What if we had never gone? What if we had never chosen to embrace God’s heart for the nations? Where would Onwas be?
The Call Is Yours
God’s heart for the nations is not background noise in Scripture; it is the whole story. And here is the uncomfortable truth: you now know too much to look away.
83% of church attendees in the United States are unfamiliar with the term, “Great Commission.” Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China in the 1800s, said it this way: “The Great Commission is not an option to be considered, but a command to be obeyed.”
God’s heart burns for every tribe and every people: for the Maasai, the Hadzabe, the unreached people groups in closed countries, and the billions who have no access to the Gospel. And He has chosen ordinary people to be part of how they hear.
Will you?
Want to go deeper? Multiplying Movements is Forge’s flagship 12-part discipleship resource designed to equip ordinary people to live on mission—right where you are and around the world. Explore Multiplying Movements here.
