Why should the church of Jesus Christ bother with evangelism and mission? 

 The most common answers include: because of the need – the vast emotional, relational need that is bound up in the lostness of sin.  This world is a violent place – many parts of the world need Christians to help in a vast span of things – Christians to help with orphans, with violent neighbourhoods – who’s going to go there? Or are we called to comfortable parishes?  So it’s all because of the need. 

Then again, we argue because we are debtors, because we are saved by grace, so we have gratitude for our salvation – a sense of obligation, indebtedness – we’re like poor beggars telling other poor beggars where there is bread.  Shall we hoard the bread and not tell others where it is? 

Then again others suggest that it’s a command of the great commission, not a suggestion or an optional extra for the super-sanctified.  At least obey the command. 

Others say again, because of the opportunities – for every kind of skill, etc in church planting, uni work, medical work.  Are not these the things that are said all the time? 

These points are those that are most commonly raised when asked why the church should bother with evangelism and mission. 

One of the most striking realities about the book of Acts and you ask yourself what are the evidences for Christian motivations?  Where is the evidence that Christians in Jerusalem had a committee meeting to discuss where they should go on mission?  The fact is that they started moving when the Lord hit them with the hammer blows of persecution – like a big blob of mercury ‘splat!’ and then there are big blobs of mercury everywhere.  Christians just scatted everywhere gossiping the gospel.  This wasn’t the fruit of ‘strategic thinking’.  Hadn’t been invented yet! 

Then at Antioch, the spirit specifically says to the elders whilst fasting, “separate out me these two, I have some mission work for them to do”.  There was no strategic thinking back then – the simple fact is that they seemed as though they were so bubbling over what it meant to be a Christian that they were irrepressible.  There was an entire context in that they thought about the Lord…it wasn’t so much a conscious obeying the great commission, it was just a sheer gossiping the gospel.  Our most telling overflow towards personal evangelism and mission will emerge most naturally from our most deepest grasp of and experience of the gospel.  You show me Christians who have very little sense of mission, and I’ll show you Christians who don’t know much about the Lord.  Show me Christians who’re really hungry for the Lord Jesus, and I’ll show you Christians who’re concerned about mission.   

Neglected features of the Great Commission as found in Matthew: 

1) The Great Commission in Matthew is part of a sustained, developing theme throughout the book. 

It isn’t something tacked on at the end of the book.  The book begins with the origin of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.  In the time of Jesus, sons and daughters ended up doing what their parents did.  Thus, your self-identity was bound up with their family in a way that we don’t understand today. Therefore you were identified by your father’s name and your vocation.   

In Matthew 5, “blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God”.  The idea is that God himself is the supreme peacemaker, so if we make peace, we’re acting like God.  So it’s a functional category, but it works the other way too.   

In John 8, the Pharisees say that they’re really the children of Abraham and then the sons of God.  Jesus replies no you can’t, because you just want to write me off, you’re really the sons of the devil, after all he was a liar and murderer and you’re lying and you want to kill be so you want to kill me.  So it’s also in the functional sense.  Therefore, Paul can ask who are the real sons of Abraham?  Answer – those who have Abraham’s faith.   

Matthew 3:9 – God can raise up children for Abraham out of stones – it’s not genetics that’s the problem.  Matthew 8:11 – the real offspring of Abraham thus are those who have Abraham’s faith, not the genetic line.  In a sense, Matthew is laying the foundations for global mission!   

Matthew 11:2-19 – Do you ever think of yourself as greater than King David, Isaiah etc?  If you said no, then you are deeply unbiblical.  “He who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he”.  So John the Baptist in Jesus’ estimation is greater than Isaiah, Abraham etc…sooo if the least in the kingdom greater than John, and John is greater than Isaiah, then you who are least in the kingdom is greater than Isaiah. 

v2 onwards, you find a PORTRAIT OF A DISCOURAGED BAPTIST.  When John the Baptist in prison heard what Christ was doing, he had second thoughts.  Why?  Because John’s own expectations of the Messiah were not being met.  He was expecting Christ to come and judgement would come etc etc…but instead Jesus is going around healing etc.  Therefore John had second thoughts.  In vv5-6, Jesus describes his own ministry as from Isaiah, in terms that John would know and understand (paraphrased from Is 35,61).  Both these OT texts in their context also picture judgment.  And John the Baptist must have known this, he must have known that Jesus didn’t quote the judgment bits of those Isaiah passages because he would’ve known his scriptures very, very well.  What is Jesus doing?  In effect, Jesus is saying: look carefully, the promised blessings of the kingdom are already here.  If the judgment hasn’t come yet, be faithful, persevere. 

v7 and following, you see a PORTRAIT OF A DEFENDANT BAPTIST.  As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began thinking about John – it was almost like Jesus was defending John.  Jesus reinforces to John’s disciples that John was a prophet, and more than a prophet, because John introduced Jesus.  He is more than a prophet in the sense that he was himself a subject of prophecy, who introduces Jesus to the world.  Thus in that context, Jesus declares: among those born of women there is none that is greater than John the Baptist.  Therefore, John was the greatest man who ever lived up to this point because he introduced Jesus – there is only one man in the whole stream of redemptive history who pointed directly to Jesus. 

Then…Jesus gives a PORTRAIT OF AN ECCLIPSED BAPTIST, from v11 onwards.  John is greater than everyone before because it was given to him to point out Jesus most immediately.  When you say A is greater than B and C is greater than B, you need a point of comparison.  Thus the least in the kingdom is greater than John because it is given to us, the least in the kingdom, to point out Jesus more immediately and tellingly than John the Baptist.  

For Jesus to talk this way presupposes that mission is built into the very nature of things. What does your greatness consist?  That you have three pHDs from USYD?  Etc.  Our significance as men and women made in the image of God is bound up in our ability to point out who Jesus is – that’s who we are, we’re Christians.  A Christian whose been a Christian for 3 weeks can say more comprehensive things about Jesus than John the Baptist could.  Thus to escape the entailment of the Great Commission is to escape our very own identity as Christians.  The Great Commission is built into the very structure of what the gospel is about – bound up in what Jesus came to be and do. 

2) The Great Commission in Matthew is bound up with the authority of Christ.  Matt 28:18 "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

This authority builds confidence.  Jesus is now the mediatory King (1 Cor 15) – all God’s authority is now mediated to Jesus, therefore GO.  

That’s why the doctrine of election in scripture is an incentive to evangelism.  Don recalls something from his past, when he was a teenager he asked of pastors who gave up and moved out of French Canada (where he lived) “why don’t they stay? Why can’t they tough it out?  Aren’t they good enough?”  Don Carson Snr replies “well, they’ve been in areas where they’ve seen a lot of growth, and when they come to an area like this, and see despair, they move out because they conclude therefore that this isn’t really where God wants them, so they withdraw.”  Don asks his father then “why don’t you go some place fruitful and make something more of your life?”  (on the CD everyone laughs hysterically at this point) His father rounds on him: “I stay because I believe God has many people in this city” 

It was because he believed in God’s sovereignty in election that he persevered.  After all, he served Jesus who said ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore GO.’ 

This authority is without geographical limits.  Might cost you your life, but small price.  Indeed, this authority presupposes that Christ is worthy to be worshipped by all.  If there is but one God, then he is God of all, whether he is worshipped by all or not.  The nature of all idolatry is the defiance of that God.  If it’s true that Christ has all authority, you start out with that assumption that you must acknowledge him as Lord.  Mission is simply the entailment of a Christian creed.  

3) The Great Commission is bound up with ongoing discipleship.

Jesus tells them to make disciples of all nations – firstly to baptise them.  In the NT, baptism is bound up with your conversion.  Back in the 1920’s there was a baseball player named Billy Sunday(?).  He was the most foul-mouthed player ever…then he got converted, lost almost half his vocabulary.  He became an evangelist, travelling the States and having meetings in a big dirt-floor tent not unlike the Katoomba one.  At the end of each meeting, people would shuffle down to the front, and the dirt and dust on the floor would be stirred into a cloud of dust and smoke.  So they began laying sawdust on the ground.  Soon, came the expression, ‘to hit the sawdust trail’ – something that became attached with conversion.  Eg. “’Oh, when were u converted?’ ‘Oh I hit the sawdust trail in Cincinnati in ‘27”  Likewise, in the NT period, the question might be asked: ‘when were you converted?’, answer: ‘oh, I was baptised in Corinth in ‘51’.  

Then after you baptise/bring them to Christ, then the next part of the Great Commission commands us to go and teach them to obey what Christ has commanded them – to go and make disciples and teach them all that he has commanded.  Thus the Great Commission is bound up in Christian discipleship.  You can’t be a privatised, individualised, closet Christian – you can’t be a Christian and not think in terms of teaching others to obey what Christ has commanded including the commission – to do so would simply be a denial of what it means to be a Christian, it’s virtually inconceivable!  It happens, but it’s inconceivable.  Thus the first issue isn’t where are you going?  It’s make disciples – to teach them to obey all the Christ has commanded, and in that framework, to make disciples of all nations. 

4) The Great Commission is bound up with Christ’s continued presence.  Notice the end of the text – “and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age”.  V20 isn’t issued as a conditional threat or as a kind of incentive, instead the whole verse works as a whole in that our obedience to the Great Commission should ideally flow out of and contribute toward our sense of the Lord’s presence with us.  His presence with us becomes an incentive to go, but it is also the matrix in which we go.  Eg. When you’ve been involved in personal evangelism – mission, testimony, etc, has it not been your experience that you feel like you’ve got one leg in eternity?  You become more self-conscious of Christ’s presence with you.  But it’s also Christ’s presence with you that enables you to go – it’s the entire framework of our being.  

That’s the danger of a merely cerebral Christianity.  It’s possible to reduce the gospel to a form of teaching that a parrot could learn!  Christian witness is more than that – it’s the ability to say once I was blind, but now I see; and Christ is with me to the end of the age etc…  

Carson gives a story of a medical doctor in a muslim country who’s been extraordinarily fruitful in his evangelism.  One day a woman came with her son who had a deep gash in his leg – as a doctor he needed to clean out the wound or else it would become infected and dirty etc.  When he was cleaning the wound, the woman suddenly offered: “sometimes I feel like my heart is dirty”.  How do you respond to that?  Would you say: well, lady, that’s because Islam doesn’t have the doctrine of atonement…Jesus is the Messiah, let me tell you about two ways to live…”  (haha!!)  No, the doctor instead offered: “Oh I know just what you mean - my heart was so dirty, but one day someone came along and cleaned it all out.  Would you like to know how he did it?”  What’s the difference between the doctor’s answer and the other one?  The doctor was not just explaining the gospel, he was bearing witness, speaking out of the overflow of his Christian experience and articulates the truth. 

“Brothers and Sisters in Christ, hear the word of the Lord: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."  Give up your small ambitions, in the first instance, bear witness, identify yourself as someone greater than Isaiah, walk in the consciousness of Jesus being with you to the end of the age, bear witness, and from this crowd will come countless of you who will go to the ends of the earth.” 

Have mercy upon us Lord God, forgive us our sins of small-mindedness and narrow comprehension, open our eyes to see how you are across the sweep of redemptive history pursuing a lost race and promising to bring to yourself men and women from every tongue and tribe and people and nation and most commonly doing so by the most ordinary of means – Christians learning to teach others to obey all that Jesus himself has commanded, Christians empowered by the Jesus who said that all authority has been given to me on heaven and on earth, Christians delighting in the consciousness that He is with them to the end of the age…so draw us too we pray, that whatever we become, our whole desire will be to bring glory to Christ, strength to the people for whom he shed his life’s blood, and the passion to declare the gospel to all the nations, for Jesus’ sake.  Amen.