God’s Mission to Save People from Every Nation
Peace Lutheran Church, Fresno, CA
May 24, 2026, Day of Pentecost
Text: Acts 2:1–21, Genesis 11:1-9
In the name of Jesus, Amen!
As we are traveling from place to place in the United States to visit congregations, I have been preaching in a series of sermons about the Mission of God, because Christian Mission is God’s Mission to save sinners. The Mission of God comes from the loving heart of God, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”. We talked about God’s salvation history and the overall picture of how God carries out His mission by His Son and through His people. We talked about why Jesus’ overcoming the temptations is an important part of the mission of God. We talked about how declaring sinners righteous and granting us a new life that shall never die are the work of God, not work of man, nor work of the Law, and thus are the core of His mission to save sinners through Jesus Christ. Today, through the texts of the first and second readings, we’ll talk about why one of the goals of God’s mission is to save people from every nation in every tongue.
Recently, I read a news article about the relationship between President Trump and King Charles. The article says they are relatives. They share the same Scottish noble ancestry about 500 years ago. Some people may dismiss it by saying that the 15th generation is too far away to say they are relatives. But for the Chinese, they would be proud of something like this. There is a Chinese saying that if only two persons share the same last name, it’s very likely that they were of the same family 500 years ago. The other side would counter that by this token all human beings are relatives for we all share the same ancestor of Adam or Noah. The point that I am trying to make is that all human beings who came from different generations in history and in different nations that speak in different tongues, we are more closely related than we commonly think, as Paul says in Acts 17 that God “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place”. The reason that God’s mission is to save people from every nation in every tongue is that we all share the same ancestor having the same inherited problem of sin and death, and therefore need the same salvation that Jesus has accomplished for all humanity.
After Noah and his family of 8 came out of the ark when the waters of the flood subsided, people became populous again. They migrated from the east and found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. Our Genesis text tells us that “Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.” What did they say and do with that one language and the same words. They said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” They wanted to live together and to be united as one people to sin against God, to proclaim their own name instead of God’s name, and to go against God’s will and command for humanity to fill the earth and subdue it, which was repeated by God after the flood. They wanted to see the tower of Babel even from afar, and could always go back to the center of this cultic symbol of human power and pride. Language and words are powerful. But when they are used to sin and go against God, they can become really, really dangerous. When the LORD said, “behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them;” it’s not that God was afraid that the future work of men would hurt or defeat Him in some way. No. God is all-powerful. God didn’t want to see humanity become exceedingly wicked again such that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, just as men were before the flood. Thus, God confused their language. It’s not just a punishment for pride and idolatry, but a loving constraint or curb that prevented people from eventually destroying themselves.
Nowadays, there are 195 countries in the world and 7,170 living languages spoken worldwide. People cannot understand one another’s speech without a common language. For example, in the southern part of China, people from one village cannot understand those from another village just a mile away separated by a small river. Combined with unbelief and pride, people’s selfish desires make misunderstandings and conflicts with one another worse and bring wars between nations and the destruction of civilizations throughout human history. Romans chapter 5 says, “because of one man (that is Adam)’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” The Second Adam, Jesus Christ, reverses sin and death and gives life and salvation to every nation in every tongue regardless of being Jews or gentiles, Americans or Chinese. We are all united in Jesus. I was born in China and my wife in Taiwan. We always joke that in Christ we are already peacefully reunited.
After Jesus resurrected from the dead and ascended into Heaven, on the first Pentecost, His Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples and established the church to continue the mission of God to save sinners by spreading the Gospel around the world to every nation in every language. Today’s second reading, Acts 2 tells us, when the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples, “divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.” And they “were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance,” “telling the mighty works of God” in Christ Jesus. Notice that the disciples who came from Galilee and spoke Galilean as their mother tongue, all of a sudden began to speak a foreign language so that the people who came “from every nation under heaven” to Jerusalem for the Passover heard the message from these Galileans of the saving grace of God in Christ Jesus in their own language. If you analyze the countries or regions listed in verses 9 through 11, you would find no certain order. It’s totally random and all over the map. “What does this mean?” It means that the Good News of God’s mission to save sinners will spread all over the place in the world in every human language. Through Christ and His Holy Spirit, the consequences and the effect of the tower of Babel are reversed. The Holy Spirit has given the church the gift of language – the ability to speak other languages so that people who live all over the world can communicate with one another in one language and the same words of the Holy Spirit and of the Bible.
My wife and I have been translating some Lutheran hymns and theological books and materials into Chinese in our spare time. There are many teams of Christian organizations translating the Bible in all languages of the world, and many, many missionaries sharing the Gospel around the world so that people living in different parts of the world can come to the same “place” called the church to be united again, not by the cultic symbol of the tower of Babel, but by the Word and Sacraments of Jesus Christ who forgives our sins and gives us a life that shall never die. People who are called and gathered in one holy Christian church humbly and joyfully worship God everywhere on the earth in every nation and in every tongue, as well as in heaven, just as described in Revelation, “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, cry out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Rev. 7:9-11) As a fellow forgiven sinner and a child of God, I pray that you will be part of this exciting journey of the mission of God to save people from every nation in every tongue. Amen!
In the Name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen!
