Adapted from the talk as a book chapter, in the speaker's voice. It keeps the argument, stories and wording where possible, but it is an edited retelling, not a transcript. Tap a time in the margin to hear that moment.
Matthew 4:17 sums up the beginning of Jesus' ministry in simple terms: “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” Reading the Gospels, the miracles, signs and wonders Jesus performed draw great attention. But signs and wonders were not the focus of his ministry. Jesus, the eternally begotten Son of God, was a preacher. J. C. Ryle said that the faithful preacher of the gospel “is handling the very weapon which the Son of God was not ashamed to employ.”
At some point in each Gospel the focus shifts from Jesus' itinerant ministry to the final week of his life, and the mighty miracles fade into the background. The record of Passion Week is filled with Jesus' preaching and teaching. Then Judas betrayed him. Soldiers arrested him in Gethsemane as the disciples fled. Religious and civil authorities tried him. Condemned to death, he was crucified between two thieves, and Joseph of Arimathea laid his body in his own tomb. But on the third day God raised Jesus from the dead. The women who found the empty tomb were told to tell the disciples that he was alive and would meet them in Galilee. Matthew 28 records that reunion:
“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” (Matthew 28:16–20)
The Great Commission is the mission of the church. Hudson Taylor put it well: the Great Commission is not an option to be considered but a command to be obeyed. The Lord Jesus Christ has commissioned his disciples to make disciples of all nations. It is the unfinished task of the church, as small as your neighborhood and as large as the ends of the earth.
How is the church to fulfill it? By the ordinary means of grace, I dare say, and the primary means among them is preaching. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). Then come the critical dilemmas that keep sinners from calling on the Lord: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?” Martyn Lloyd-Jones said that the most urgent need in the Christian church today is true preaching, and that since it is the church's greatest and most urgent need, it is obviously the greatest need of the world also. The world is full of lost, dying, hell-bound sinners who desperately need to hear the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ preached. Personal evangelism is without doubt a crucial element of disciple-making, but it does not usurp the primary, defining, central role of biblical preaching in the church's local and global disciple-making.
What kind of preaching mobilizes the church to fulfill the Great Commission? Walking through the Commission itself, I offer five answers.
1. Preach with confidence in the authority of Christ
The Great Commission begins with a bold claim of sovereign authority: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Strictly speaking, verse 18 is a claim, not a commission. But if verse 18 isn't true, verses 19 and 20 are meaningless. The foundation, the fuel and the force of the Great Commission is the authority of Jesus Christ.
Authority is more than power. It is jurisdiction, freedom of action, the legal right to use power. An athlete may have world-class athleticism, and the referee has only a whistle, but the referee's authority trumps the athlete's power. That is the kind of authority Christ claims over the universe, except that no instant replay, commissioner's ruling or fan protest can overrule him.
Notice the scope of his authority: all. There is nothing on the other side of all. A few years ago I wrote a book with a paragraph on the Great Commission in which I said that if Jesus has all authority, no one else has any. The editor marked the section and wrote, “Maybe you don't want to say that.” I emailed back, “I absolutely want to say that.” Jesus unapologetically claims all authority. And we don't judge his authority by the day's breaking news. The proof that he has it is that he lived to make this claim. He was betrayed, arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced, beaten and crucified, but he rose from the dead to claim all authority in heaven and on earth. Matthew 28:18 is one of the great Christological statements of the New Testament. Jesus claims power of attorney to exercise divine sovereignty, and it permits no middle ground. As Lewis said, he is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord of all.
Notice the sphere of his authority: in heaven and on earth. Heaven means the whole realm of spirit beings; Michael and his angels, Satan and his demons, all submit to Jesus. God “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:20–21). And earth means every land and sea. Philippians 2:10–11 is true: at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
And notice the source of his authority: “has been given to me.” “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand” (John 3:35). Psalm 2:8 promised, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession,” and the Father has kept that promise. So we preach for the mobilization of the church with confidence in the authority of Jesus Christ. Picture Paul in Acts 17 boldly declaring, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
2. Preach with boldness the commission of Christ
What is the Great Commission? Consider it from three angles.
Make disciples. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”: as you are going, make disciples. Translations rightly give it the weight of a command. The church is not a building, a location or a religious institution. The church is people on the move for Jesus, a going church for a coming Christ. Some of us will be called to go across the room to tell someone about Jesus despite fear of ridicule or rejection. Others will be called across oceans to live, serve and preach in foreign lands. Either way, our job is to go and make disciples. That is the single imperative of the text, the divine command of the Lord Jesus, the gospel mission of the church. Disciples of Jesus make disciples of Jesus.
What does it look like to be a disciple? Matthew 11:29 sums it up: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” Disciples follow Jesus to learn from Jesus to become like Jesus. When a person repents and believes the gospel, he or she becomes a disciple. We believe in Jesus, we belong to Jesus, we are becoming like Jesus, and as fully devoted followers we are called to help others follow Jesus, near and far. This is the biblical way to grow the church, the proper way to advance the kingdom and, I would say, the only way to reach the next generation for Christ. And it must be said: disciple-making is not just for pastors, evangelists or missionaries. It is the duty of every Christian. If we are not making disciples, we are disobedient, rebellious, traitorous. Faithful disciples make disciples.
In Matthew 10:6 Jesus sent his disciples to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now he says, “Make disciples of all nations”: all peoples, all ethnicities. I'm glad to announce today, friends, that Jesus is an equal-opportunity Savior. He seeks disciples from every nation, tribe, people and tongue. “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The church is not a social club for insiders. It is a missions agency for outsiders.
Mark disciples. Having made disciples, we mark them: “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Baptism is no man-made tradition; Jesus commands it. The word was used for dyeing cloth. In a very real sense baptism identifies us with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is how we go public with our faith.
It says something more. James Montgomery Boice asks in one of his commentaries, “What must you believe about Jesus to be saved?” His answer: everything. Not that you must know everything about Jesus to be saved, but that you cannot be saved while denying the biblical revelation of Jesus. I think that is what is meant by baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is more than a baptismal formula. It is a statement of faith, and the singular name equates Jesus with God the Father. “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matthew 11:27). Baptism is a declaration of faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God.
“Make disciples” means bring them to Jesus. “Baptizing them” means bring them into the church. Jesus speaks directly of the church only in Matthew 16:18 and 18:17; he doesn't mention it explicitly here, but the command to baptize assumes it. The new disciple doesn't baptize himself; he is baptized by the church. The watermark of baptism identifies us with Christ and with his church, which reminds us that you cannot have a high view of Christ and a low view of the church at the same time. “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:27–28).
Mature disciples. “Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Discipleship does not allow someone to make a profession of faith and carry on in a pre-Christian lifestyle. To be saved one must turn from sin and trust Christ, and those first steps of faith begin a walk of faith. Someone who does not trust and obey Christ cannot have true assurance. “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32). Maturing disciples requires both biblical and practical teaching.
Biblical teaching: a disciple-making church is a Bible-teaching church. Music is important, programs are helpful, service is necessary, but these things don't make disciples. Spiritual transformation requires biblical teaching, for all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness. And faithful teaching is comprehensive, not selective: “all that I have commanded.” About the only thing worse than a church that doesn't teach the Bible is a church that teaches it selectively. God's word is not a buffet line where you take what you like and leave the rest. It's Big Mama's house: you eat what she cooked or you don't eat at all. As James Boice said, robust disciples are not made by watered-down teaching. Paul told the Ephesian elders, “I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all” (translation: if you die and go to hell, it's not my fault), “for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.”
Practical teaching: biblical teaching consists of doctrine and duty. Moody said the Bible was given not for our information but for our transformation. We learn the truth to live the truth. Jesus says to teach them to observe, to practice and obey, all he commanded. To be a disciple of Jesus is to obey Jesus. “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46). We must receive Jesus as Savior and Lord; we don't get a vote on that. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” We are to obey Christ personally, practically and pervasively. “So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty’” (Luke 17:10). The old Southern Baptist evangelist Vance Havner said you haven't really learned a commandment until you've obeyed it. Nothing clarifies doctrine like doing it, and every new truth learned is a millstone until it becomes a milestone.
3. Preach with faithfulness the message of Christ
“I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome,” Paul says. Why? “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:15–16). Preaching that mobilizes the church for the Great Commission must be built on unwavering confidence in the gospel of Christ. George Whitefield said that other men may preach the gospel better than he, but no man could preach a better gospel. To preach the message of Christ faithfully is to preach his person and his work.
We preach the person of Christ. Christ in you is the hope of glory, and so, Paul says, “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:27–28). The work begins with Christ and ends with Christ. “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39–40). No one finds life in the Scriptures until they meet the Life-giver in the Scriptures. We proclaim this Christ, truly God and truly man: the Word who was with God and was God, who became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, in whom the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Colossians 1:15; 2:9–10). This is the incomparable Christ we proclaim to the world.
On the first Sunday in the new Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, Charles Spurgeon announced: “I would propose that the subject of the ministry of this house, as long as this platform shall stand and as long as this house shall be frequented by worshipers, shall be the person of Jesus Christ. I am never ashamed to avow myself a Calvinist… I do not hesitate to take the name of Baptist… but if I am asked to say what is my creed, I think I must reply: ‘It is Jesus Christ.’”
May the Lord use us week in and week out to keep pointing the church to Jesus. I read of an author picking up his daughter from Sunday school one morning, only for her to announce she didn't want to go anymore. Why? “Because they never do anything new. Every week it's the same thing: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” May that childish complaint be the legitimate criticism of your church. Whenever anyone shows up, may we never be doing anything new. May it all be about Jesus.
And we preach the work of Christ. Luther hit the nail on the head when he called Christian theology a theologia crucis, a theology of the cross. Praise God for the spotless life of Christ, his matchless teaching, his astonishing miracles; but these would have availed nothing for our salvation had they not found their consummation in the cross. Christ is the central figure of history, and the cross is the central fact of history.
“Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). We are not politicians negotiating with foreign powers; we are dignitaries of the King advocating the Sovereign's agenda. And we have an urgent message for the nations: be reconciled to God. Why? “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” What a great exchange! John MacArthur put it well: on the cross God treated Jesus as if he had lived our life, so that he might treat us as if we had lived his. We are ambassadors of that message, pleading with souls near and far to be reconciled to God by the blood and righteousness of Christ. Spurgeon again: “The heart of the gospel is redemption, and the essence of redemption is the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. They who preach this truth preach the gospel in whatever else they may be mistaken; but they who preach not the atonement, whatever else they declare, have missed the soul and substance of the divine message.”
4. Preach with clarity the truth of Christ
I was a young man (honestly, still a boy) when I was called to pastor my first church. It was the height of the church growth movement, and I read everything I could get my hands on. God help those people! I chased one book after another, each promising the next new thing that would revolutionize the church. I left that first congregation eighteen years ago, but God has been kind; every year they invite me home to preach, and every year I tell them thank you and I tell them I'm sorry.
I remember going to the Whitehouse bookstore in Long Beach and sitting on the floor in the pastoral helps section, browsing the newest books, when I stumbled on one called Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. “Here we go,” I said. “This guy's got nine strategies.” I opened it to find his great plan to revolutionize the church, and I was shocked: the first mark was expositional preaching. Mark Dever wrote that it is not only the first mark but far and away the most important, because if you get it right, all the others should follow. He's right. The church is and does more than preaching, but preaching is essential to all the church is and does.
Paul's charge to Timothy as he led the gospel work in Ephesus is the Lord's charge to each of us as we mobilize our churches for the Great Commission: “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:1–5). Paul doesn't only tell Timothy to preach; he specifies what to preach, leaving nothing to assumption. We are heralds of the truth of Christ. We have no editorial authority over the content of the message.
I am a student and advocate of expository preaching. What is it? I had planned a meaty definition, but I deleted it in favor of the simplest one I've heard, again from Dever: expositional preaching is when the point of the text is the point of the sermon. It is preaching in which the God-intended meaning of the text is primary, and the message is rooted in, flows from and aligns with that meaning.
Why does that matter for church health and for mobilizing the church for the Great Commission? Because 2 Timothy 4:1–2 comes right after 2 Timothy 3:16–17: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Expository preaching is not a style of sermon. It is a view of Scripture. What a man truly believes about the Bible will inevitably be exposed by how he preaches.
The one who believes the Bible is the inspired, infallible, inerrant word of God will simply preach the word. I am reading David Jackman's Proclaiming the Word with some young men in my congregation in Jacksonville who are at the early stages of a call to preach. Jackman suggests that preachers, and those who listen to them, ask of every sermon, “Where is the Bible in the car?” In some churches the Bible is in the trunk during the sermon, like a spare tire for emergencies. In others it is in the back seat, offering unwanted directions to the driver. In others it rides shotgun: the preacher acts as if the Bible has some good things to say, and so does he. I call that life-coach preaching. The proper place for the Bible in the church's preaching is the driver's seat, guiding, governing and guarding the direction of the church's life and work.
5. Preach with assurance of the presence of Christ
G. Campbell Morgan told of visiting an eighty-five-year-old member of his congregation. He read her Matthew 28, ending with “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age,” and said, “That's a great promise, isn't it?” She replied, “That's no promise. It's a fact.” She was right. People promise to be with you and may break that promise at any moment. Matthew 28:20 is no fickle promise. It is divine assurance. Jesus does not say, “I will be with you,” but “I am with you.” That should fuel our preaching, our leadership and our mobilizing of the church. We carry out the Great Commission assured of Christ's personal, powerful and perpetual presence. That truth bookends Matthew's Gospel: it opens with “They shall call his name Immanuel, which means, God with us” (1:23), and it ends with Immanuel declaring, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Some years ago I was on a conference panel. (I get nervous on panels; bad things can happen on panels.) A question came about celebrity preachers, and the other panelists jumped at the chance to pounce on fame-seeking, platform-building preachers, rightly so. I didn't want to chime in, but when I was urged to comment, I affirmed what they had said and added that, from what I see traveling and ministering here and there, there are many more preachers starving for encouragement than preachers drunk on compliments.
I'm talking to some faithful pastor-teachers here who are starving for encouragement. As you preach to mobilize the church to make disciples at home and abroad, it will happen. Playing church is convenient; making disciples is dangerous. But hear this assurance: you are not in it by yourself. “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
I started pastoring at seventeen, a senior in high school. I'm fifty-three now, and I have served the Lord's church for decades. From the beginning I was absolutely committed to 2 Timothy 4:2: preach the word. As the years go by, I am more and more consumed with verse 5: “As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” Anybody can start fast. The question is whether you will finish strong.
Alistair Begg says he increasingly finds that verse to be the anchor point for all his days. He wakes up on Monday and asks, “What will I do now?” and answers, “I think I'll be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, and fulfill my ministry.” When he is lifted up by a little encouragement, as sometimes comes, he asks, “What shall I do?” and the answer is the same. And when the waves beat on him and he feels like running away to a hill somewhere: be watchful, endure affliction, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. Fulfill your ministry, with the assurance that the Lord is with you.
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1). “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10). “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5).
Gracious heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege of being ministers and messengers of reconciliation, for the gospel of Jesus Christ and your power at work in it, so that anyone in Christ becomes a new creation. Help the pastors here to cultivate churches mobilized for the Great Commission. Help us not to neglect prayer and the ministry of the word; to preach the word, ready in season and out of season, reproving, rebuking and exhorting with complete patience and teaching; to preach consumed with the beauty of the gospel and the glory of Christ, burdened that people need God. Keep us from compromising our calling by offering worldly substitutes. May we proclaim Christ, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. And for those carrying heavy burdens in this work, make us steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord our labor is not in vain. In Jesus' name, amen.