He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptised will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.”
(Mark 16:15-16 - NKJV)
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.
(Matthew 28:19-20 - NKJV)
To do something with all your heart according to the Bible involves doing it with your whole being (mind, soul, strength), it involves doing it earnestly, with diligence, and it involves doing it with the fullness of activity, doing everything you can to do the job. In regards to the Great Commission, the Bible calls Christians to minister the gospel world-wide, make disciples of the believers, and warns us that we will be persecuted for it even to the death. Therefore my definition of being wholehearted about the Great Commission includes wanting to literally proclaim the gospel to every person on the planet, wanting to make fully trained disciples of every willing believer, and being willing to give up your life to do it.
I believe the church needs to be wholehearted about the Great Commission and I will give you four good reasons for it.
First, the Great Commission ministers God’s salvation to the world.
God’s plan of salvation is the Christ. His plan has three phases to it. Phase one was preparing the way of Christ through prophecy in the Old Testament. Phase two was sending the Christ into the world to minister and die and rise from the dead for the world’s salvation. Phase three is the phase we are currently in. It is sending the church, Christ’s body, to minister that salvation together with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, through preaching the gospel, which saves people, and discipling believers, which brings believers into the fullness of that salvation, specifically everything that God has done for us through Christ and given to us in the New Covenant.
Consequently if the world is to be saved, the church must minister the gospel, and if believers are to come into the fullness of that salvation, it must disciple them.
To me this is a good reason all unto itself for Christians to be wholehearted about the Great Commission.
Second, the Great Commission is the church’s mission from God.
Truly the Great Commission is not simply a command of the Lord to Christians, but rather it is the church’s mission. The Bible says that in the same way Jesus was sent, He sends the church (John 17:18, 20:21). Jesus was sent to preach the gospel and lay down His life, which were His missions from God (Luke 4:43, Matthew 20:28). The church has been sent to minister the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15) and similarly that it is the church’s mission from God.
Missions from God are BIG things. They are not things to be taken lightly and done when you have the time and feel like it. They are things that require you, if you respect God, to stop everything you are doing and get to work on the mission He has given you and not stop working on it until you have completed it. To treat a mission from God in any other way is to show a complete lack of respect for the one giving you the mission – God.
Jesus had a mission from God to preach the gospel to the nation of Israel and He took it very seriously as seen by the fact that He preached the gospel throughout the land of Israel during His three years of ministry (Matthew 9:35, Luke 8:1). The New Testament Church also took their mission to preach the gospel and make disciples very seriously. This is seen by the fact that they took the gospel “everywhere” (Acts 8:4, 11:19, 13:4-14:21, 19:26) and spent years in some cities teaching the word of God making disciples (Acts 11:26, 18:11, 19:9-10).
Since the days of the New Testament Church, the church has not been that serious about the Great Commission. In fact for a millennium we virtually completely neglected it. Today, while many, particularly in parachurch ministries, are very serious about the Great Commission, by and large the church treats like it is an optional activity and only for those who are “led by God” to be involved in it.
It is time for the entire church to get serious about the Great Commission again, even wholeheartedly serious, even if it costs us our lives.
Anyways, to me this again is a good reason all unto itself to be wholehearted about the Great Commission.
Third, the ministry of the Great Commission is the greatest act of love the church can do for God, the world, and the church.
For one thing, it is the greatest act of love the church perform for God. The Bible teaches that the greatest command is to love God wholeheartedly and it teaches that the way we love God is by obeying Him – truly that is the way loving God is defined in the Bible (1 John 5:3, John 14:15). God has given the church many commands but of all His commands, the command of the Great Commission is the most special. It is the most special because it ministers His salvation which is at the centre of His heart. God desires everyone to be saved and this ministry ministers His salvation. He literally developed His plan of salvation even before He created the world because He knew all of this was going to happen, and He’s so committed to it He sent His Son to die for it. If the church wants to love God it must to obey Him and minister His salvation to the world.
For another thing, it is the greatest act of love the church can perform for the world. The world has many overwhelming needs, but none is greater than its need for salvation. The ministry of the Great Commission is the way through which people can be saved. If the church wants to love the world, this is the greatest thing it can do for it.
And for one more thing, it is the greatest act of love the church can perform for the church. To my judgement the church includes everyone who is a part of the church right now and everyone who in the future will join the church once they hear the gospel. The greatest thing the church can do for people who are a part of the church right now is disciple them and bring them into the fullness of God’s salvation for them including a developed relationship with God, being conformed the image of Christ, and coming to a place of healing and freedom. The greatest thing we can do for the people who in the future will join the church once they hear the gospel is preach the gospel to them. We literally need to go to the ends of the earth and preach the gospel to every person to make sure we don’t miss anyone who will repent at the preaching of the gospel, people who when they repent will become our brothers and sisters in Christ for the rest of eternity.
Truly, if the church wants to love the church, the ministry of the Great Commission is greatest thing we can do for it.
To me this again is a good reason all unto itself to be wholehearted about the Great Commission.
Fourth, the Great Commission is the way to end evil in the world.
Let me explain.
The Bible prophesises of a coming “day of the Lord”. According to the Bible the day of the Lord is the end of the world and the time period in human history when evil will be judged and destroyed for all of eternity. It is also a period of time when great supernatural and catastrophic events take place. It includes the seven years of the tribulation; the resurrection of the believers in Christ as well as the catching away of the church (also called the rapture); the physical return of Christ and His 1,000 year reign on the earth while the devil is in the bottomless pit; the final defeat of evil when the devil and his army are defeated and sinners are judged and condemned to hell; and lastly the heavens and earth being destroyed with fire.
Now the Bible says that the day of the Lord will start when the gospel has been preached in all the world as a witness to all nations (Matthew 24:14). As a result of this, through preaching the gospel world-wide we have the ability to hasten the day the Lord, something the Bible actually encourages (2 Peter 3:12). Consequently if we complete the Great Commission and hasten the start of the day of the Lord, we have the ability to hasten the end of evil and along with it all of its consequences including war, murder, rape, sickness, disease, famine, tragic accidents, abortion, injustice, slavery, and death for everyone.
To me this also is an excellent reason all unto itself to be wholehearted about the Great Commission.
So what’s the bottomline?
It is time for the church to get wholeheartedly serious about proclaiming the gospel to every person on the planet and making fully trained disciples of every willing believer, even if it costs some or even many of us our lives.
Personally I believe that people who are wholehearted about the Great Commission are people after God’s own heart, willing to do all the will that is in His heart.
Truly God’s plan of salvation is the biggest thing in His heart because He loves us and doesn’t want anyone to be condemned to hell. As I have shared it is so big in His heart that He has been working on it since before the foundation of the world and He is even willing to send His Son to die for us to provide it. Foundational to this plan is the ministry of the Great Commission, which ministers His salvation to the world. As such the Great Commission is at the centre of His heart right now and the fullness of His will for the Great Commission is that the church ministers it world-wide, preaching the gospel to every person and making fully trained disciples of all willing believers. Therefore I believe that anyone who is wholehearted about this ministry is truly a person after God’s own heart, willing to do all the will that is in His heart.
Some would say that to be wholehearted about the Great Commission is crazy, however I want to remind you that both Jesus and Paul were called crazy and it was precisely over their commitment to preach the gospel and make disciples that they were called crazy (Mark 3:20-21, Acts 26:22-25). Therefore if people call you crazy due to your commitment to minister God’s salvation to the world, a salvation that saves people from eternal damnation in hell, reconciles them to God, and brings them into the God’s awesome Kingdom, don’t worry about it. Instead take it as a compliment.
It means you’re in the centre of God’s will, following in the footsteps of Jesus and the apostle Paul!