Understanding the Mission of the Great Commission

We love adventure stories—whether it’s pirates or spy espionage or The Lord of the Rings trilogy. We want to go somewhere far away to experience adventure and intrigue and come back changed. Behind this desire to “do grand things” or “do big things for God” is often a baser desire for fame—to be noticed, gloried in, and admired. We can even turn good things, like sharing the gospel with others, into a project that’s about us, and so, going far away can seem more appealing to our egos. It’s not a new condition.

Consider this from St. Augustine; he writes in his Confessions of encountering a drunken beggar, and, though Augustine himself is sober, he is drunk on his dreams of glory. He concludes: “There is a world of difference between the joy of hope that comes from faith and the shallow happiness I was looking for”

Matthew 28:16–20 ESV

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The Great Commission is a Team Sport

The call to spreading the good news of Jesus starts at home. And it’s a mission for the entire church. It’s a communal call. Writing on this passage, Trevin Wax says, “A third way the Great Commission can be misconstrued is by picturing this command of Jesus as primarily individualistic rather than communal. Individual Christians are envisioned leaving home for foreign fields in order to share the Gospel. Of course, this kind of cross-cultural ministry is, indeed, a part of what it means for the Great Commission to be fulfilled. But we do well to remember that this Commission is given for all the disciples.

Luke 24:45–47 ESV

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Acts 1:6–8 ESV

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

In fact, each of the gospel commissioning texts is given to the disciples as a group. The followers of Jesus constitute a new people, and this people’s identity is constituted by this disciple-making agenda”

Its important to note this element. So many times we find our identity as a group within certain things. We relate to each other based on shared experiences or a shared purpose. When we look at Christianity, when we look at the early church through the lens of the Great Commission, it has to be viewed within the realm of the disciple making agenda. That, as a group, was and still is the call of Christ in the Great Commission. If we are not engaged in that disciple making call not just individually but as a group......ARE we a part of that GROUP??? And if that is true, are we doing what we should to further the goal of the team?

Reference a movie like The Goonies. The Goonies is the story of a band of outsider teenage kids who end up getting sucked into a mission to try to save their neighborhood from their house getting torn down by a developer. Along the way, they discover the pirate ship of OneEyed Willy, run away from a band of murdering mobsters, and find their friendships firmly established (they even welcome in Sloth, who the mobster family didn’t want). The point is that love of neighbor actually compels us toward mission. And even if we’re not discovering pirate treasure, we are sent on mission for the good of our neighborhoods—to save them from destruction.

How Do I Make a Disciple?

Grammar matters. The point in the Great Commission is not to “go”; that is not the imperative in the passage. Rather, we are to disciple as we are going. The imperative is to “disciple.” Kenny Burchard writes, “The Greek word is a verbal command, not a verb followed by a noun. In other words, the text does not say ‘make disciples’ (verb/noun) like ‘build a house’ or ‘grill a steak.’ It does not say to verb a noun. It says simply… ‘DISCIPLE!’ which is like saying ‘RUN!’ or ‘JUMP!’ In reality, you can’t ‘make’ a disciple. You can only disciple. So, in the great commission in Matthew, disciple is not an outcome (like a product that you end up with), but it is rather a process that you are doing. The grammar is not telling us to make an object. There is no noun in the text at all. There is only a single imperative verb. Only a command. Only an action word. Only something to do. And what is it? It is ‘disciple!’”

How do we act not just as “nice” people but as kingdom disciples in our neighborhoods? We can follow a few small starting points: we walk, we eat, and we pray. Block off a thirty-minute time period to walk your neighborhood. Notice who’s outside and what’s going on. As you walk, pray for the people you know and the people you don’t know, perhaps as you pass by their houses and the people pass you by. Create a walking habit and build relationships. With the neighbors you know, consider inviting them in your home for a meal. Creating a regular habit of hospitality allows you to build relationships for the kingdom of God. Pray for the Holy Spirit to help you see your neighborhood as a mission field.