Great Commission – Matthew 28:16-20

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment of God was, he answered with two commands (Matthew 22:36-40): Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. We have labeled this the Great Commandment. Before Jesus ascended into heaven he gave his disciples a command to preach the gospel to all nations. We call this the Great Commission. The Great Commandment and the Great Commission are the divine mandates from Jesus for the Church. They describe how and why we exist. They are our relational and marching orders.

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.” (Matthew 28:16-20 ESV)

Jesus meets with the apostles on a mountain in Galilee and elicits worship from some but doubt from others.  There is no way you admit this in a document if you are trying to convince someone of something you made up.  Matthew doesn’t hesitate to acknowledge that some of Jesus’ most trusted leaders had doubts.  And we should not be surprised if we have doubts.  What happened is so outside the realm of what we are used to or expect, that our faith is stretched.  But there was Jesus right in front of them and he had a commission for them, what we call the Great Commission.

As the resurrected Messiah he had all authority in heaven and earth to send them out to make disciples of all nations.  They were not to preach exclusively to Jews but to reach out to every nation.  Baptism, the symbol of conversion and entrance into a kingdom relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, was to be administered to all who believed the message.  And the apostles were to teach all who believed and became followers of Jesus, just how to obey him and what to believe in contrast to the falsehoods of the world.  Until the kingdom, the end of the age, came, Jesus would be with them, not physically as he had been before, but as God he would be with them in every other sense.

Matthew does not tell us Jesus ascended to the Father.  He leaves us with the necessity of completing Jesus’ task of reaching the nations.  God has entrusted us with the job of telling the world about Him and about how to have a right relationship with him in anticipation of His coming kingdom.  The mission has never been retracted. Is it the controlling purpose of your life?