The professing Church in America and beyond must be awakened to several things if it is going to seek God in truth. With the great rallying cry of the Great Commission, the professing Church has turned from seeking God to seeking itself with the name of God attached to it and with texts of Scripture that sound like they are commanding it to do what it is doing. The Great Commission is being used to justify all sorts of activities and financial expenditures in the name of evangelism. There are concerts and events that specialize in entertainment and all with the justification of evangelism. We are met with all sorts of reasons with the main idea of “if we can only save one soul.” The Great Commission is given as a text to justify all sorts and manners of so-called church growth methodologies. After all, surely if we are getting more people in the door and supporting our ministries we are carrying out the Great Commission. Professions of faith and baptismal numbers are given to support that idea in the name of the Great Commission. Many mission trips are taken by many in order to simply get people to repeat a prayer. One South African pastor recently reported that a man had prayed a prayer eight times after several mission trips by well-meaning Americans and wondered if there was anything more to Christianity than that.
What the Great Commission really teaches is very important for the Church. Evangelism is not even mentioned in it. We must wrestle with that as a fact and then with what it means. Do we ever read in the Gospels of Jesus doing evangelism? What we see Jesus doing is preaching the Kingdom (Matthew 4:17, 23; 5:3; 24:14). In teaching Nicodemus He told him that he must be born again to even see or enter the kingdom. We must remember that Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords. When Matthew 28:18 records Jesus telling the disciples that all authority had been given to Him in heaven and on earth, we must realize that Jesus is telling us that He is the supreme King. It is not just that He had some manner of rule on earth, but that He was the Supreme Ruler (Adonai of the Old Testament as in Psalm 110:1) of both heaven and earth. “The LORD says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for your feet.” In that text (Psalm 110:1) “LORD” is YAHWEH and “Lord” is Adonai. This is speaking of Christ. He also was and is the One spoken of in Daniel 7: “I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him. 14 “And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away; and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.” The Great Commission is Christ declaration that all authority was given to Him and then telling us how all peoples and nations are to serve Him.
What we must realize is that Jesus Christ is not just Lord in some nice way, He is the absolute sovereign of the universe and all beings owe complete and total obedience to Him. All beings owe complete submission to Him in all ways. When Jesus told His disciples that all authority in heaven and earth had been given to Him, He did not mean for His people to go out and beg others to honor Jesus by making Him lord of their lives. Jesus Christ is Lord of all whether we submit in love to Him or not. We must have this Lord change our hearts in order to love and obey Him rather than do Him a favor and allow Him to instruct us. He did not mean for His people to go out and beg others to save themselves or that He is wringing His hands hoping they will make a right decision or say a prayer. He commanded His disciples to go out and make true followers (disciples) of Him. It is very true that evangelism must take place in order for a person to become a follower of Christ, but it is also true that there is no true evangelism that takes place apart from those evangelized becoming a true follower of Jesus Christ.
The Gospel has many aspects to it, but one forgotten aspect is that Jesus Christ reigns and rules. Sinners are in bondage to and under the authority of the kingdom of darkness. Sinners are slaves to sin and the supreme sinner that we call “the devil.” Sinners need a King to overpower the kingdom of darkness and translate them to the kingdom of the Beloved and the kingdom of light and grace (Col 1:13). The Lord Jesus Christ does not just ask people to do themselves a favor and bow to Him, He commands all men everywhere to repent of their sin and their sins (Acts 17:30). Sin is lawlessness (I John 3:4) and all sin is an act of rebellion against the sovereign ruler and supreme Lawmaker of the universe. When a sinner is truly converted or is translated from one kingdom to another, that sinner’s debts are paid (debts are paid at the cross), the sinner is bought (redeemed) from slavery, and then the sinner is given the perfect credit of Christ’s righteousness credited to his or her account. The sinner is given a new heart and a new identification and so is a new creature in Christ (II Corinthians 5:17). In this new kingdom the sinner has a new Father and a new Lord. In this kingdom the sinner has this Lord in his or her heart and lives in the spiritual kingdom controlled and ruled by grace. The Gospel of Jesus Christ must include this or it is not the true Gospel.
The Great Commission, then, must guide what the professing Church does. It is easy to go out and get people to make self-centered decisions and pray self-centered prayers since no one really wants to go to hell. But going to hell is not the only issue involved here. The sinner must be one that is actually turned from enmity to God to actually having sorrow that s/he does not have more love for God. We can present aspects of truth to a self-centered sinner and that person will make a prayer out of self-centeredness rather than desiring God from a new heart. If a sinner only prays a prayer from a self-centered heart, then that sinner does not have a new heart and is still under a different love and lord than Christ. But the Great Commission requires us to make disciples of Christ rather than people who are followers of self. They may follow Christ in some outward way as long as it is good for themselves, but they are not in truth following Christ if they are still only doing what they want and think is good for themselves. That would still be loving self more than God and seeking the will of self rather than God.
The Great Commission as given in Matthew 28 is this: “18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.'” The first thing He pointed to was His authority. In light of the fact that all authority in heaven and earth is His, the command is to go and make disciples of all the nations. He did not limit the command to evangelize the nations, but the command is to make disciples of all the nations. The command to the Church is not to go out and give some sort of weak and effeminate message to people and then check them off of the list because those people have heard the Gospel, but to actually make disciples or followers of Christ. Of course all must hear the Gospel, but a simple hearing of the ear is not what is commanded. The command is for the Church to make disciples of all the nations.
The Church is commanded to make disciples by baptizing them and teaching them to do/obey/observe all that Christ commanded. Simply telling people a weak message and begging them to come down the aisle or to pray a prayer is opposite of the Gospel that changes the hearts of sinners and makes true followers of Christ. Local churches and denominations are using the term “Great Commission” to justify their disobedience to the Great Commission. If local churches are not truly committed to teaching people to actually do all that Christ commanded, then that local church is not committed to the Great Commission at all. That local church is in direct violation of the Great Commission and is in direct disobedience to the Lord Jesus Christ.
In our day we see many mega-church type things going on. We have fancy programs and we have all sorts of outreach programs going on. We also have many discipleship programs going on. But is a discipleship program the same thing as actually making disciples of Christ? Can we assert in all seriousness and truth that our Bible studies and classes are really aimed at making true disciples of Christ? Couldn’t we be justly accused of having discipleship programs and classes just in order to get people in the door and perhaps to keep them? Are we teaching the Bible to people in order that they would become true disciples or just to fill their heads with information and to keep them busy? We might make a just accusation of many and say that their very Bible classes, discipleship programs, Sunday School programs, preaching, and on and on are really in direct violation of the command of Christ to make disciples. Just offering the classes and programs about the Bible and doing things is not in and of itself obedience to the Great Commission as commanded by Christ.
A local church that truly wants to seek God must examine all that it is doing in light of the Great Commission. But it is not just any version of the Great Commission we must carry out; it is the one that Jesus gave. We must quit interpreting the Great Commission by what we want to happen and by the numbers we desire and quit justifying what we are doing by the numbers. We must pursue true obedience to the true Great Commission. When we interpret the Great Commission by what we want to do and justify what we are doing by the numbers, we are in direct violation of the Great Commission. The sovereign of this universe who has all power tells us what we are to do. Just like the Pharisees we are twisting the Scriptures to our own destruction by lowering them to something we can do in our own power. It is easy to run around telling people a canned message about Jesus and feeling good about ourselves as we tell ourselves we are keeping the Great Commission. The problem is that we have lowered the command of Jesus and are in disobedience to it. We are to make disciples or followers of Christ by teaching them to do and observe (not just teach the data) all that He commanded not just give a canned message. The churches must repent and begin to obey the Lord of all. If not, what can it teach others about discipleship?
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