Easier said than done when it comes to The Great Commission
by Tim Challies
Keith Green told us, “Jesus commands us to go. It should be the exception if we stay. It’s no wonder we’re moving so slow, When His church refuse to obey.” I used to think that if Green had been allotted a few more years, he probably would have walked away from his career as a musician to be a missionary. He had such passion for missions that it seemed inevitable. But that was when I was young and idealistic, before I realized this is not the way these things work. Not usually, anyway.
One of the unexpectedly difficult things about preaching, at least in my experience, is when I encounter one of those commands or applications in which I am far from exemplary. I need to preach that passage and I need to preach it as it is, yet all the while I carry this deep awareness of my own failings. But I still have to preach it. If I could only preach those areas in which I am excelling, well, an awful lot of the Bible would remain out-of-bounds.
I both love and hate to preach passages that speak to evangelism, and especially mission, to taking the gospel to the nations. When I preach those passages I come up against one of my observations and one of my frustrations in the Christian world. It used to be a frustration with others. Now it’s a frustration with myself.
You’ve probably heard it said that when it comes to missions, there are the goers and the senders. There are the few who go, and there are the many who send them. We can’t all go, or we would have no one to resource the work that needs to be done. Well and good. I am fully aware that even while the New Testament tells us to take the gospel to the farthest reaches of the world, it also commends a quiet life right where we are. God does not require all of us to be foreign missionaries.
What jumps out at me as I look at the Evangelical world, is that the voices screaming “Go!” the loudest are not people who have gone, but people who have stayed…(continue reading at Challies.com)
