Is the Great Commission for Every Individual Christian?

00:00:04.000 | Well, Jesus, of course, delivered the Great Commission.

00:00:07.000 | "In it comes the command for all peoples of the earth to be reached with the good news."

00:00:13.000 | But who was Jesus speaking to?

00:00:15.000 | Is the Great Commission given to the original apostles only, or to the church at large,

00:00:20.000 | or to particular local churches, or to front-line missions, minded types,

00:00:25.000 | or is the Great Commission given to each and every Christian?

00:00:30.000 | That's the question from a listener named David.

00:00:32.000 | "Hi, Pastor John. A friend recently suggested to me that we should interpret the Great Commission as a command

00:00:36.000 | to make disciples for the church at large, not as a command directed to every individual believer.

00:00:43.000 | Do you think this command to reach the nations is better interpreted for apostles

00:00:48.000 | and key church leaders and even whole local churches,

00:00:52.000 | or should we take this as a personal commission from Jesus given to every individual Christ follower?"

00:00:58.000 | Let's start by analyzing the questions themselves.

00:01:05.000 | So the first one is, should we interpret the Great Commission as a command for the church at large,

00:01:13.000 | not as a command directed to every individual believer?

00:01:17.000 | Now what would that mean, to treat the Great Commission as a command for the "church at large"?

00:01:25.000 | Wouldn't that leave the very same questions for individual believers as if the command were given directly to him?

00:01:36.000 | I mean, since if you think the command is given to the church at large,

00:01:43.000 | and you don't think the whole church at large is going to reach all the peoples,

00:01:49.000 | but only individuals in that church at large,

00:01:53.000 | those individuals are the ones who are going to actually touch the unreached peoples,

00:01:57.000 | then you have to decide, well, which individuals are going to do that in the church at large?

00:02:03.000 | And that would fall on each individual with the same question as if the command were directed to him directly.

00:02:10.000 | Does this mean going personally or supporting the cause through others going personally?

00:02:19.000 | So I don't think it really solves any practical issue at all to say that the command is directed to the church at large.

00:02:28.000 | That's my analysis of the first question.

00:02:31.000 | Here's the next one.

00:02:32.000 | Same clarification is needed when he asks, "Should we take this as a personal commission from Jesus given to every individual Christ follower?"

00:02:43.000 | Well, if we say yes, then we have to clarify by asking,

00:02:48.000 | "Well, do you mean that Jesus commands every single believer to be a missionary to the nations with the gospel

00:02:57.000 | and a focus on crossing cultures and reaching all the nations, which is in fact the focus of the Great Commission, not just local evangelism?"

00:03:07.000 | And the answer to that question from the Bible is clearly no.

00:03:12.000 | He doesn't expect that or command that.

00:03:15.000 | And one evidence for that is that Romans 15 is where Paul is recruiting people from Rome not to go with him to Spain,

00:03:29.000 | but to support him as he goes to Spain.

00:03:33.000 | And he knows that all those people he's writing to in Rome, all those Christians where the gospel is already rooted,

00:03:40.000 | they have jobs and they have networks of relationship, and so he's not calling them,

00:03:46.000 | "Hey, now, all you serious Christians, everybody get on a boat and go with me to Spain."

00:03:51.000 | He's saying, "Support me as I go."

00:03:54.000 | So it's clear from the New Testament that God does not expect every person to hear the Great Commission

00:04:02.000 | and hear in it a summons to cross a culture and be a missionary.

00:04:07.000 | I do think that 1 Peter 2:9 instructs all believers to declare the excellencies of Christ in their network of relationships.

00:04:20.000 | You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession,

00:04:26.000 | that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who calls you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

00:04:34.000 | But the New Testament does not teach that every believer should be a cross-cultural missionary of Christ,

00:04:40.000 | trying to penetrate unreached peoples as a frontier missionary.

00:04:44.000 | So let's go back for just a moment to the Great Commission in Matthew 28.

00:04:48.000 | Those words, "Go make disciples of all nations," are addressed to the 11 apostles.

00:04:56.000 | We see that in verse 16. It's the 11 who are gathered.

00:05:00.000 | But the clue that Jesus intends for the command not just to be for the 11, but to some group outliving the 11?

00:05:10.000 | The clue is at the end of verse 20, where the warrant, the ground, the support for the command is the promise,

00:05:21.000 | "Behold, I am with you," and then He tells how long this warrant is going to last.

00:05:27.000 | "To the end of the age."

00:05:31.000 | So the task will last as long as God promises to help it last, namely,

00:05:38.000 | "I'm going to be with you in this task to the end of the age."

00:05:43.000 | So the question is—and every generation of believer has to ask this—

00:05:49.000 | the question is, "Who picks up the mantle in the following centuries?"

00:05:56.000 | And it's not enough to say, "Either every individual does, or the whole church does."

00:06:02.000 | It's not enough, because neither of those answers helps decide, "Well, who's going to do it?

00:06:09.000 | Who's going to actually get off their rear end and risk their life penetrating the remaining unreached peoples of the world?"

00:06:17.000 | That's the critical issue.

00:06:19.000 | Every individual doesn't do it, and the church as a whole doesn't do it.

00:06:24.000 | Specific human beings do it, hopefully supported by every individual and supported by the whole church,

00:06:31.000 | but it's individual people that take the gospel cross-cultures to other people.

00:06:38.000 | Where do they come from?

00:06:40.000 | Who are they?

00:06:42.000 | How do they come into being?

00:06:44.000 | How do they get authorized, gifted, equipped, sustained?

00:06:47.000 | Now here's my biblical pointer toward an answer.

00:06:52.000 | Jesus said in John 10, 15, and 16, "I lay down my life for the sheep, and I have other sheep that are not of this fold.

00:07:01.000 | I must bring them also.

00:07:05.000 | They will listen to my voice, so there will be one flock and one shepherd."

00:07:12.000 | In other words, Jesus shed his blood—"I lay down my life for the sheep"—

00:07:16.000 | Jesus shed his blood to gather his sheep from other folds besides this Jewish fold.

00:07:23.000 | According to John 11, 52, these sheep are scattered all over the world, and they are to be gathered in.

00:07:32.000 | He laid down his life to gather them in.

00:07:35.000 | And then he says, "They will listen to my voice."

00:07:40.000 | How will they listen to his voice?

00:07:42.000 | They will hear his voice through human voices that make known the truth of Jesus.

00:07:50.000 | So Jesus prayed in John 17, 20, "I do not ask for these only, but for all those who will believe in me through their word."

00:08:06.000 | Now, wherever the word of the apostles—through their word—wherever the word of the apostles is echoed in the mouth of emissaries of Jesus, people come to faith.

00:08:19.000 | So the answer to the question, "How will the nations and peoples be reached?" is by means of believers opening their mouths

00:08:29.000 | and telling the good news deposited by the apostles in the New Testament concerning the gospel of Jesus.

00:08:36.000 | And who are those cross-cultural emissaries? Who are they?

00:08:43.000 | And I'll just say briefly, in closing, for 33 years in pastoral ministry, carrying this burden and raising this question

00:08:53.000 | and living with this reality of unreached peoples all over the world while I sit and work here in Minneapolis,

00:09:00.000 | for 33 years it was an absolute wonder and glory and beauty to watch God appoint from among his children

00:09:15.000 | those who felt a relentless, irresistible, biblically informed, spiritually mature, church-based, miraculous calling on their lives

00:09:28.000 | to get themselves to a cross-cultural frontier for Christ's sake.

00:09:35.000 | So my answer is that the Great Commission is to be loved and supported and advocated for by all who love what Jesus loves.

00:09:46.000 | How can you not?

00:09:47.000 | And that among these, in churches where the gospel is preached and the burden of missions is lifted up,

00:09:55.000 | God mysteriously and miraculously, wonderfully calls his frontier emissaries.

00:10:05.000 | Amen. Thank you, Pastor John. And thank you for listening and continuing to support this podcast

00:10:10.000 | and listening and financially supporting us as well in these labors.

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00:10:37.000 | Well, one reason parenting is such daunting work is because of the balance required of us parents.

00:10:42.000 | We don't want to be too strict or too lenient.

00:10:45.000 | We don't want to be too consequence-driven and not so gracious as to overlook rebellion.

00:10:51.000 | Into this balancing act comes a question from a young mom who wants to be kind and who expects to be obeyed.

00:10:58.000 | And that's the question on the table when we return on Wednesday.

00:11:01.000 | Until then, I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.

00:11:04.000 | [ Silence ]

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Is the Great Commission for Every Individual Christian?

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