Our Responsibility in the Great Gospel Commission
(Overcomer Wu)

“ Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. ” --Matthew 28:19

It is appalling to know that very few Christians hear or heed the peculiar, singular call given by the Lord Jesus Himself as His last words before He ascended to the heavens to ALL Christians. We know the last words of any person before they pass on are most important. And yet we seemed to threat this as a commission that we can simply ignore. Some may give the excuse that: “Oh, that's not a calling for me because I'm not gifted in the gift of evangelism.” Please note that the Lord did not qualify this commission at all as a command (yes, it is a command because the tense in Greek is in the imperative tense) given only to the apostles/evangelists, but He said that before ALL the disciples that were present at His ascension and of course His timeless Word applies to ALL of us as well. It is sad that as members of the family of God, our heavenly Father calls and remind us of this commission ever so faithfully, yet He usually gets excuses rather than responses.

Even prior to this commission, there was a call that has never been rescinded down through the ages: "And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?...” (Isa 6:8). Though it was not a personal call to Isaiah in his day. It was not personally addressed, "Isaiah, will you go for us?" Yet Isaiah answered because it was a general call for help. That clarion call still resounds throughout all the ages until today and especially today when the end of the age draws near! Isaiah answered God’s call in the affirmative because he heard it. Do you hear the call? It is there; it's just a matter of whether you are either obeying or ignoring the call and the commission of God. He is calling you through His Word. "Who will go for Us?” This is God’s call to you and to me. We should not turn a deaf ear by making excuses and explanations that will hold no water when we have to give an account before the Lord as to how faithful we have been to this commission of His. Face the facts. God has called you. You, too, were considered when God appealed for help in this text. I believe God will take care of all the details and our needs if we answer, "Here am I, send me."

Now, I'm not necessarily saying that the Lord wants to send all of us as missionaries to the remotest parts of the world where the gospel has not been reached yet. Some of us may have that calling and we need to help support these faithful servants of God who are willing to lay down their career, sometimes their families, and risk their lives by going to areas where the natives are outright hostile against Christians and kill Christians for sports. For most of us, the geographical location where the Lord has placed you to serve Him is where we need to learn to answer His call, "Follow Me" and “make disciples of all the nations.” Don’t forget, where you are right now is a part of this lost world. When He called the disciples to follow Him, He didn’t give details as to where they would be ministering. It is not necessary to know where He will lead. That is His business. Our business is to faithfully follow Him. If He has not led you to go any place, then the place where you stay is the place where you need to reach out to the native countrymen, neighbors, co-workers, and fulfill this great commission.

Mark 16:15 also says, "And He said unto them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” This is significant, because this means we are not to be selective in our gospel outreach since each and “every creature” (of course referring to humans since animals are not capable of getting saved). That means if the Lord placed you in a country or neighborhood where there is predominantly Russian, Turkish, Indian, Caucasian, or any other nationality or races, you need to be faithful to reach out to these ones with the gospel of Christ! Our natural tendency is to only reach out to people we are comfortable with who can speak our mother tongue, like with most of us here Chinese. For us to practice that is both a violation of God's command that we preach the gospel to every man and woman, regardless of the fact that they may not make us feel at ease due to their differing language, race, or culture. We claim that in the Body of Christ, “... there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.” In other words, we need to be inclusive without racial preferences, cultural distinctions, cast/class classifications, but that we all need to embrace each Christian with equal love for all. Therefore, if we are to truly practice what we preach, wherever the Lord puts us, in this case I'm speaking mostly to Christians here in USA; it behooves us to make an extra effort to reach out to the Caucasians, because they are the natives here and comprised the main population of this country in which we live! If we are creating an environment in our meetings that does not attract or make the local majority population, which are the Caucasian in USA, feel more comfortable to fellowship with us; rather an environment where we cater mostly to Chinese-speaking saints; then regardless of what we may claim our standing to be... that we are standing in the ground of oneness of have a testimony of oneness, we are in fact creating a Chinese sect!

The Word of God definitely places the emphasis upon the entire lost world, that includes all races, culture, and social status! Not just on a single lost race, a lost tribe, nor a lost nation--because "the whole world lies in the Wicked one" according to 1 John 5:19. "The field is the world," as Matthew 13:38 made plain. If we focus our effort mainly on one race or one cultural clan, rather than all races and cultures in the area where the Lord has placed us, then we are no longer living in the reality of true oneness of the one New Man in Christ.

"God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” (2 Cor 5:19-20). Why is it we make so little effort in reaching out to the local majority population, not to mentioned the whole lost world? For lack of the dealings of the cross, we naturally gravitate to people of our own race and culture in our service for the Lord. We need to ask ourselves, “Is the Lord pleased with that? Is that a genuine testimony of oneness where the various races and cultures are adequately represented in our gathering? We may say that it is difficult to reach out to the locals, Caucasians, because we started out with the majority of the saints among us were Chinese; then all the more we need to bend over backwards to try to accommodate them rather than alienating them by a format of a meeting where they have to listen through translations and the main speakers are only Chinese speakers. The fact of the matter is that the churches where they truly have the testimony of oneness have separated the meetings into the various languages. For example, I have heard that there is one church where there are 4 different meetings to accommodate the 4 different language groups under one roof! This practice has proven to not only retain, but also gain more of the saints in the various languages. On the other hand, the churches where they only have one meeting, even with translations into other languages, are not able to retain, much less to gain any new members among those groups of saints and people who in the minority and are forced to listen through translation. Whether this be Chinese-speaking saints as the majority and the English-speaking saints minority having to listen through translation, or vice versa. Inevitably, the minority group who has to listen through translation who have their numbers gradually diminished and few, if any at all, new ones can be gained among the minority group(s).

If we are to truly and seriously answer to the Lord's commission , "... preach the gospel to every creature (man)" and bear the genuine testimony of oneness where there is no “Jews or Greeks, barbarian or Scythians... ,” our practice need to be more inclusive of all the different races and cultures. instead of being exclusive by having a setting where they feel uncomfortable, unwelcomed, and unable to function as a member of the Body of Christ. The principle is set by the example of the apostle Paul, who said, “... to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” In other words, we need to go out of our ways to accommodate the different groups of people in order to gain them and not do things such as have a format of meeting that alienates them.

Don’t minimize your part in reaching a lost world. God needs you! That is why He is querying, "Who will go for us?" and commanding, "Follow Me!" Satan hindered Paul from witnessing in certain places, and he will endeavor to hinder us as well not just from certain remote places in the world, but right where we are by subtly excluding certain groups of people. The Lord Jesus said, "You are the light of the world" (Matt 5:14). Paul said, "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost" (2 Cor 4:3). We need to realize that just as the Lord Jesus was the Light of the world while He was on this earth (Jn 9:5), He needs us today to be the continuation of His lights to shine in this dark world, so that souls in darkness can be led out of darkness into the light and from the authority of satan unto God (Acts 26:18)..

It seems to be the consensus of practice among Christian groups that all that is required of a Christian is loyalty to a church and not to question the practice of the church even if it is blatantly unScriptural . As a result, there are a great many church members who are ineffective as witnesses of Jesus Christ and the testimony of the church suffered due to its sectarian or denominational teachings and practices.

When God’s Word (call) is obeyed, there will not be any lost motion, overlapping or tangled fishing lines. The call of the Savior is to reach out and launch out to all races, all tribes, all tongues, all people and nations, not to be exclusive in catering to one race/culture. As I pointed out above, God’s call is a blanket one that applies to all of His people. No one will escape his responsibilities at the judgment seat of Christ for what he did, or did not do, for the lost world and His great commission given to each of us in Matthew 28:19. Even the apostles Paul said, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel” (1 Cor 9:16). Thank the Lord for the brothers and sisters in Christ who do not shirk their responsibility before the Lord, nor run from the battle.

God has called you and me! God has also commissioned you and me to make disciples of all the nations starting from where we live and in our locality. Are we being faithful to the Lord in this commission both individually in preaching the gospel and corporately in our church practices to be more inclusive rather than exclusive? What are you doing about the Lord's calling and His great commission? Don’t allow Satan to deceive you into believing that your part in world evangelism is an insignificant one. What the Lord wants is not so much our ability as our availability – a willing heart and life that is laid upon the altar as a living sacrifice can produce worldwide reverberations to the honor, glory, and majesty of the Almighty God. The Lord simply wants us to completely surrender our will and our lives to Him. Indeed, we are nothing and can do nothing apart from Christ. However, the flip-side of the coin is that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phi 4:13)! "Who will go for us?" Will you? Will you give your life to Him? Are we going to heed the great commission of Christ to make disciples of all nations not just in words but in practice?