Noah had no concept of what it meant to serve internationally when he moved home to Austin and started attending The Austin Stone. “I never knew about missions, never thought about missions. I didn’t know what an unreached people group was,” Noah said.
Upon hearing a recommendation, he began reading Let the Nations Be Glad John Piper and the first paragraph hit him hard. It said:
Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.
This thought, this concept of worship, compelled Noah to leave his hometown in order to serve his Lord. In addition to worshipping the Lord through his obedience, Noah also finds sustenance in the promises of God.
If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (John 14:23)
And that’s exactly what Noah and his team are doing in North Africa. “We’re going there to gather God’s children. I have brothers and sisters there, and my job is to go over and find them,” Noah proclaimed. “I know God’s promises; He will bring them to Him.”
The freedom that Noah found in those promises has begun to put his personal idols to death. Before he answered the call to overseas missions, Noah struggled with seeking the approval of others. “I was the last person to look for an opportunity to share my faith with my friends,” he confessed. “I was just really cowardly.”
Once Noah committed to serving in North Africa, he found that God would sanctify him through his obedience, and he started to see victory over his idol of approval. “Now, by God’s grace, I am always talking about Jesus,” he said. “I look back just nine months ago and think about the person I was and how God has used this to bring me to where I am today.”
(continued…)