“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 28:18–20
Our purpose on this earth is to go today and introduce more people to Jesus.
Matthew 28:18–20 Calls Us to Pray for the Nations
There is so much we could say about this passage, so how do we sum it up in a couple minutes and lead into prayer based on it? You think about, these are the last words we have from Jesus in the Book of Matthew. He’s gathered together with his disciples on this mountaintop, and he’s saying to them, “All right, I’m about to leave. I have all authority in Heaven and Earth. Like, all of it has been given to me. Jesus is Lord over everything. So go,” he says, “and make disciples.”
Matthew 28:18–20 Leads Us to Help Others Experience God’s Kindness
Like, “What I have done in your life, go and do that in others’ lives. Introduce people to me. Introduce people to the Father, his love for them. Help them to experience life in him. Go make disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Bring them into communion with me. Teach them to obey everything I’ve commanded you, all the life that is found in my commands.
Help them to experience that, and as you go and you do this all over the world, among all the nations, know I’m going to be with you, so yes, I’m about to leave you personally, physically here, but I’m going to send my spirit, my presence, to you, and I’m going to be with you wherever you go. To the nations, I’m going to be with you as you go, and you will see and experience my power and my presence in ways you never could have if I physically stayed here.”
This Verse Calls Us to Realize This is True for Us
What an awesome passage. And then to realize that this is true for us. Jesus is indeed Lord over everything. He has all authority in Heaven and Earth, and he has commanded us, as his disciples, as his followers, to go and do the same thing. Go today. This is why we’re here on the Earth, to go today, and to introduce more people to Jesus, that they might experience his love, the love of the Father, relationship with him, to lead people to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Like, this isn’t just a kind of motion we do in the church. This is people identifying in relationship with God. Bring them into relationship with God, and then teach them how to experience life in God, and Jesus’s promises to those disciples on that day is the same to us today. He is with you, that right now, Jesus is with us.
Matthew 28:18–20 Reminds Us Jesus is With Us
I don’t know where you’re listening to this, like in a car, or jogging, or walking, just to know, Christian, Jesus is with you right now, and he’s promised to give you, and me, everything we need today to carry out this command to lead others to him.
So let’s pray. God, help us to obey. God, help us to obey this command. Help us to believe your authority, Lord Jesus. Help us not to be afraid of anything, anyone in this world. Lord, help us to be bold in our lives, and as witnesses in relationship with the people we live around, the people we work with. God, help us to make disciples. Lord, help us to obey this command.
This Verse Leads Us to Make Disciples
We don’t want to get to the end of our lives. None of us do. None of us wants to get to the end of our lives, look back, and realize we’ve not done the one thing you told us to do before you left. Jesus, help us to make disciples today, this week, this month, this year in our lives. Help us to make disciples. We pray that you would use our lives to cause other people to know your love, to begin relationship with you.
And Jesus, we trust that you will empower us for this, that you will embolden us for this, and that your presence will be with us, until the day when we see your face and we will physically be with you forever. So we hold onto that promise and we pray. Help us. Help us to be faithful to your commission, from this day until that day. We pray this in the name of Jesus, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
