“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations… surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

Fundamental to The Great Commission is the command to “go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:18).  This obviously involves bringing new people into the fellowship we have with one another.  We are to “go” out from our group and “make” new followers of Jesus to join with us.  There are few hard and fast rules about how to do this other than the clear command to ‘witness’ (Acts 1:8; cf. Isaiah 43:12).  We must speak a message to other people.

Our sovereign God has put us in a certain family, work place, neighborhood, community, etc. (cf. Acts 17:26) and that’s where this witness will usually happen.  As salt and light in unsavory and dark places, it is our good deeds that stand out vividly for others to see.  The result is that unbelievers praise God (Matthew 5:13-16).  Our good deeds include treating people with undeserved favor and doing our best to live at peace with them (Romans 12:9-21).  This was a lesson the prophet Jonah may have learned (Jonah 4 ends with a question – how would you answer it?).

^9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?”

“I do,” he said. “I am angry enough to die.”

^10 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. ^11 But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

Jonah 4:9-11 (NIV)

The people that we eat, work, play, and shop with have infinite value in the eyes of God no matter how wicked and sinful they are.  They are of tremendous value to God and inherently no different and no less worthy than us before we were called by God’s grace.  A better way to put it is: they are exactly as worthy as us for they are totally unworthy like us (1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Ephesians 2:1-10; Titus 3:3-7).

We never know who the sovereign Lord will effectually call.  It may be a murderer of the saints like the apostle Paul or many of the Auca who killed Jim Eliot and friends.  It may be the annoying neighbor who asks why you continue to smile at her when she doesn’t like you.  It may be the stranger who asks why you give back the extra change the cashier inadvertently gave you at Taco Bell.  It may be anyone.

Whoever they are, they are someone.  They need to hear from a witness.

Thankfully, every believer is commissioned as a witness of Jesus Christ and that commission brings significant benefits.  Jesus promises to be with his witnesses ‘to the very end of the age’ (Matthew 28:20).  As we speak the good news of Jesus, the Christ, we are confident that the crucified one is not only living and able to offer forgiveness (Acts 2:36-39), but he is also with us.

Yet it’s not just Jesus and it’s not just his presence.  The Gospel (‘good news’) which we bring is the power of God that brings righteousness from God (Romans 1:16; cf. Acts 1:8).  That righteousness, or ‘right standing,’ with God comes through the working of the Holy Spirit who revives dead hearts (Ezekiel 36:27; Joel 2:28-29; Acts 2:17ff.).  The whole trinity is involved in our witness.

The power of Almighty God goes with us as we merely speak his message.

…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:8