It's Time To Go!

Tomorrow (Friday, April 1st 2011) I will be on the radio! A friend of mine from my church, Connection Ministries, has a program on 1330 AM every Friday at 5:00, and he asked me to be a guest. So I thought I would invite all of you, who are in the area, to listen. If you are not in the area you can also listen online at radiotime.com. I also thought I would give you a sneak preview of what we are going to talk about.

Matthew 28:18-20 and Mark 16:15-20 are both popular scriptures. They are the two most commonly referred to scriptures when talking about 'The Great Commission', the last thing that Jesus commanded His disciples before ascending to heaven. Here they are for comparison:

"And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 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, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen."     Matthew 28:19-20

And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.     Mark 16:15-20

In reviewing these two sections there are a lot of differences but two major similarities stick out to me. One is how they start and the other is how they end. They both start with the command to "Go" and end with the Lord being with them. Today I want to focus on the command to "go".

Our churches today often seem to have more of a policy of 'come'. We invite people to come to our building, to our meetings, to our programs, and we think that we are fulfilling the great commission. We want to create a nice, comfortable Christian community and hope that a non-Christian happens upon it so that we can tell them about Jesus, and we think that we are fulfilling the great commission. This is not what Jesus said to do! Jesus told us to go out to the people.

Going takes action, initiative, and creativity. We need to do something! We can't be lazy and sit back in our nice, Christian community. We need to get out, find the hurting, and help! It's time to go! When we do that we then have the promise that Jesus will go with us! This means if you go you won't be alone. In fact in Mark it says He went with them and confirmed the Word with signs and wonders. Charismatics always seem to be seeking manifestations of the spirt. They want to see miracles, well it seems simple to me. If you go out and preach the Word, the Word will be confirmed with signs and wonders!