Go, Tell

In what’s become known as The Great Commission, Jesus instructs his disciples (and thus all believers) to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Christians should go, therefore, into the world-- into our schools and studios and offices—with the news of the risen Jesus that makes sinners into new creations.

I know this. But I am hesitant, dismissive, and even arrogant regarding evangelism. I have seen too many coercive commitments, too many cheap conversions. Pressure to pray the prayer, but no real fulfillment of Jesus’ command to make disciples and to teach.

I can recall times in my life where I have witnessed the miraculous, humbling power of the Spirit of Grace to transform a life and bring someone from darkness to light. Of course, my own story includes this event of eternal significance, when I heard the gospel and obeyed the call to follow Christ. But these moments, wonderful as they are, have been relatively rare in my personal experience. They are also, embarrassingly, increasingly atypical as I tend to ensconce myself with other Christians. We tell of “the hour I first believed” and remember being “born again” (truly, a beautiful, if now loaded, phrase), but I haven’t really felt compelled to evangelize much.

I could say that I don’t have the ‘gift’ of evangelism, and that may be true. But fundamentally, I don’t share the gospel because I don’t actually believe it’s good news. If Jesus rose from the dead, if there is full forgiveness of sins, if we have a living hope and real peace with God, isn’t that good news for everyone? It’s good news for the self-righteous Vanderbilt student who has every conceivable privilege. It’s good news for the felon spending a life in prison for a crime he did or didn’t commit. It’s good news for the lost, scared twenty-something trying to make ends meet. It’s good news for the brilliant and scattered professor who wonders if his life has meaning. It’s good news for me and for you, whoever you are.

If I truly believed this good news, I couldn’t help but tell those I love, and no shame or awkwardness or fear of mockery would inhibit me from telling everyone. And not simply so that the unsaved would receive salvation and spend eternity in heaven (though that certainly is part of it), but so that life in the here and now could be viewed redemptively and purposefully. Suddenly, if the gospel is true, our days and moments matter, suffering has meaning, and we can experience real rest and peace.

Nothing anybody ever says or does ever brings someone to faith, it is only by the Spirit of God. We merely participate in His sovereign and loving design to restore and redeem and “bring many sons to glory.” This is a profound privilege. Let us all pray that the irresistible grace of God would go forth in our lives and that the God of all grace would deign to use sinners like us in the telling of the gospel.

And when I begin to worry that I don’t know the words to speak or that my own sin should prevent me from sharing, I remember these sweet words of Jesus after He gives the Great Commission: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”