Go and make disciples

by Jacob Heyn

What is the mission of the church?  This question is simple to answer. Jesus himself gave us this mission when he said, “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).  The Lord repeats the mission when he says, through the apostle Paul, that he “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).  Now, we might ask the question that Pontius Pilate asked Jesus (John 18:38): “What is truth?”  Jesus himself answered this question (even before it was asked) when he told Pilate that “everyone on the side of truth listens to me” (John 18:37).  Truth is everything that Jesus tells us.  Everything that we read in the Bible is the truth that we are to share with the world. 

As Christians, we have heard the message of the truth, the truth that both tears us down, but also builds us back up.  The truth hurts us by telling us that we are sinners and that there is nothing we can do to be saved.  It tells us that because of our sins, God is going to punish for all eternity in hell.  And yet the truth doesn’t stop there.  It tells us that despite all of our sins, God still loved us even though we messed up his perfect creation.  He looked at us in our sin and how we failed every day trying to earn our way into heaven, and he determined to do something to help us.  He didn’t want to send us to hell for all eternity; he wants us to be with him in heaven.  He did what no one else could.  He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to be our substitute.  Jesus, though he was tempted just as we are, lived the perfect life that we could not even dream of doing (cf. Hebrews 4:15).  He then willingly took the blame for all our sins, for all the sins of those who came before us, and for all the sins of those who will come after us.  He took the punishment that was meant for us and died for all our sins.  He didn’t do this for himself so as to better himself; he did this for us so that we could be with him in paradise.

And Jesus’ story didn’t end with his death.  After being buried in a tomb on Friday, on Sunday he rose from the dead, sealing his victory for us.  Because of his resurrection, we know that we will live again with him in heaven.  This is just amazing!  A God who is perfect and demands perfection—who is just, punishing those who deserve to be punished—chose to take our punishment, the punishment that we deserved, because he loves us so much.  Words cannot describe the feeling that one gets when hearing this message.  It makes one want to just tell everyone about it!  We just want to share this feeling with everyone we meet.  Jesus’ words, “Go and make disciples of all nations,” may seem like a command that one must obey, but it’s not like that.  His words give us a commission that we want to carry out, because the love that we receive from Christ through this gospel message is something that we are eager to share with the world.