It’s Time…to Have a Passion for the Great Commission
Matthew 28:16-20
February 27, 2005
First Baptist Church, Wilson, NC

Imagine you are eight years old, and you are out on the school playground. You and your friends decide to play some softball, so you choose up teams. Two older kids are the captains. They line the rest of you up, and then they take turns choosing their teams. "Please, pick me, pick me, pick me!" you whisper to yourself under your breath. Of course their first picks are the older, bigger, better players. They’ve seen you play. They know your weaknesses. Still, you whisper, "Please, pick me, pick me, pick me!" Then suddenly one of the captains calls your name, and you run over and join the team. You’ve been picked!

Nothing electrifies like the joy of being chosen: to be picked, to be included, to be set apart. Even more exciting is to be chosen for something truly great. That was what happened to the disciples at the end of the gospel of Matthew. Jesus had been crucified, buried, and then raised from the dead. He had sent word to his followers to meet him on a mountain in Galilee, back where their whole journey with him had begun. There he appeared to them.

At that point, the text reports a very curious event: "When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted." (Matthew 28:17) Imagine that. After all they have been through with Jesus. After even the resurrection and with Jesus standing right there with them, some doubted. So there the disciples stood before Jesus in all their wonder and in all their weakness, and what did Jesus do with them? Jesus picked them -- Jesus commissioned them -- to do something great: go, make disciples of all peoples, baptizing them, teaching them. In short, Jesus commissioned them to do his own mission in the world. The disciples, as flawed as they were, knew the joy of being chosen for a great endeavor.

They were chosen for something all-encompassing. Note how many times the word "all" appears:

• ALL authority has been given to Jesus. By that authority we have been picked for a great mission.

• We have been picked to go make disciples of ALL nations, meaning all peoples, or as missionaries say today, all ethno-linguistic groups. The invitation of Jesus — "follow me" -- that first went to his disciples and then to his people is now offered to every people.

• We have been picked to do this in the name of God in ALL God’s fullness -- in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

• We have been given authority to teach them ALL that Jesus has commanded. So we teach all of it: the story of Jesus, his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, his brilliant parables, the example of the living parable of his own life. ALL of that we are to teach to new followers.

• And there is one more "all." Jesus promised, "I am with you ALL-ways."

All authority, all nations, all of who God is, all that was commanded, always. When Jesus picked his disciples to continue his mission, he gave to them an all encompassing mission.

And now that mission falls to us. Christ has picked us even though he knows us even better than our softball captains on the playground. Jesus knows how often we drop the ball. He knows our little faith and our big doubts. He knows we are no different from those first disciples who stood before him worshiping and doubting all at the same time. But he picked them anyway, and he picks us anyway, to receive his all-encompassing great commission.

How do we do it? How do we go make disciples of every people? I hope that in your Bible Study Groups this morning you struggled with some of Dan Vestal’s words:

I hope you struggled with that, because one of the ideas in our Vision 2007 is to hold a series of revival services later this year. Is the culture of revival evangelism past? We will have to wrestle with that. That’s why I have been putting out the challenge that before I start planning a revival series, I want 6-12 souls to come forward and to say, "I feel a calling to work on that." If we have a revival series here, it is not going to be a matter of "It’s time for another revival, Pastor. You go make it happen." I’ve been there and done that, and never again. If there is to truly be a revival among us, you will need to want it, you will need to work for it, and you will need to wrestle with whether we should prepare for it in the traditional way we have always done it since 1905, or whether we need to do it in a different way in 2005.

In other words, how can we carry out the Great Commission in 2005 in a way that has authority, that goes to all peoples, and that teaches them all that Christ has commanded? I hope you will struggle with that.

Eddie Hammett has been traveling among Baptist churches in North Carolina asking this question: How can churches reach people under forty while keeping people over sixty? He says most churches fail to do this because they have re-written the Great Commission. Jesus said to the disciples "Y’all go." (Southern translation) But what we end up doing is "Y’all come." We expect people to come to us on our own terms. We open the doors and wait and see if anybody comes. And if anybody comes, we watch and wait and see if they can fit in. But the strategy of Christ is not, "Y’all come." The strategy of Christ is, "Y’all go."

Eddie Hammett tells of one small church in a small town in the Smoky Mountains that took that seriously. They didn’t ask, "How can we get more people to come to our services?" They asked instead: "Where in town do young people go? Is there a way we can go to them?" In their town, the answer was that young people went to the skating rink. So what they did was start a Bible study that met at the rink early before skating time. They went there, and made a lot of new friends, and made disciples -- new followers of Christ. In Wilson, how can we move from "Y’all come" to "Y’all go?"

For five weeks our Baptist Men have been going to a house in Sims that desperately needed major repair. To that family and to all in the community who have heard about it, those men have teaching what Jesus commanded. They have been teaching through their going.

Another way to make the move from "Y’all come" to "Y’all go" is to reach out to new people and make room for them in our lives. Susan Liles called me up once and said, "While I was walking around our neighborhood I met your neighbor down the street from you. He’s having a tough time. You might want to meet him." I went down the street and knocked on his door, and Susan was right. If I had waited here in this sanctuary for him I might never have met him. But the Word came through Susan: "Y’all go…down the street." Now the question is: will I make room for this neighbor in my life? Will I extend hospitality to him? That story is still unfolding.

We fulfill the Great Commission by going to folks, by making room for them in our lives, and by practicing basic hospitality. And eventually, somewhere along the way, we tell them about the story of our experience with Christ. There is a power in your story. It doesn’t have to be dramatic. It doesn’t have to be unusual. It just has to be yours. For example, today I’d like you to hear Melodye’s story. Melodye Tomlin and her husband Lewis and their children Katherine and Steven joined our church a couple of months ago. Their oldest daughter Sarah is in college in Virginia. I’ve asked Melodye to come tell her story. It is all her own. It is unique. And I appreciate her willingness today to tell it to us….

(Melodye’s story)

What we’ve just heard is a living parable of the Great Commission of Christ. We’ve heard Melodye’s story of how she was made a disciple and baptized, how she was taught all that Jesus commanded, and how know that Christ will be with her always. This is what evangelism is. It’s not some big program. It is simply the contagious passion of a people that have experienced profound change, like Melodye.

And like us. God has picked you and me, with all our strengths and all our weaknesses. With all our faith and even all our doubt, God has chosen us, commissioned us, sent us. That is our story too. And every now and then comes the time to tell someone that story. Who will God place in your path to hear your story? And when that time comes, will you tell it?

-- Douglas E. Murray