Verse: Matthew 28:18-20
“18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Devotional Thoughts:
We serve a God that sends us out. We’re called to go.
A couple years back, when I was a student at Bethel University, I had some friends who were discussing the Great Commission. They began talking about the Greek layout of this verse – and they concluded that since “Go” is a participle followed by the imperative “make disciples,” then Jesus isn’t saying “Go and make disciples” as it is often understood. Instead, based on the grammar, he’s saying, “As you go, make disciples…”
Friends, this simply isn’t true. Not only is it not true, but the structure Jesus uses actually points to the urgency of the Great Commission.
The angel of the Lord uses the same kind of sentence structure in his command to Joseph. He said,
“Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”
– Matthew 2:13b
In this command, the angel is not saying, “As you rise – you know, as you get up, get around, maybe fry some eggs and eat some breakfast – get Jesus and Mary and start kind of heading toward Egypt. He’s not saying that at all. You can almost hear the urgency in his voice. It’s time to get up! It’s time to go! You gotta get out of Dodge!
The Great Commission is an urgent matter. We have to go, and we have to go now.
The apostle Paul understood this. A couple of weeks ago, I read a story in Acts 14:19-22 that is just amazing. Paul was in Lystra preaching, and Jews came from Antioch and Iconium. They stoned Paul there in Lystra and the verses say they drug him out of the city. Now stoning was used to put someone to death, so Paul was in bad enough shape that they thought he was dead. He wasn’t dead though, and the disciples there helped him back into the city.
And here’s the crazy thing- the passage says the next day, he got up to go to Derbe to preach the Gospel. Get this: Derbe is 58 miles away from Lystra. The next day! Surely being stoned would mean he could take a day off? Surely we could put off our 58 mile journey until the first of the week, right?
Points to Ponder:
Paul understood the urgency of the Great Commission. Do we?
I think many of us would say yes, of course we do.
At least, we do until it means actually befriending an unbeliever.
We do, until it actually means giving up some vacation time.
We do, until it actually means stepping out of my routine and out of my comfort zone.
Side note – Pray, but do more than pray. Prayer is important, but too often the church treats prayer like the stopping point when it actually should be the starting point. Did you know that prayer isn’t mentioned in the Great Commission?
A couple questions to ask ourselves:
1 – Do we as a church understand the urgency of the Great Commission? Why did I arrive at that answer?
2 – Do I as a believer understand the urgency of the Great Commission? Why did I arrive at that answer?
