When it comes to talking with others about Jesus, a lot of us treat it like a spectator

sport. We leave it to the professionals, the pastors, evangelists and missionaries, but

Jesus' great commission applies to all of us as believers. And today on Truth for Life,

Alistair beg challenges us to get out of the stands and onto the field of play. He's

teaching from Matthew, chapter 28, verses 18 through 20.

Notice the great commission as it's given to us here at the end of Matthew. I'm going

to make three statements from the text and I think that they are easily understood and

hopefully by God's goodness we'll be carefully applied. The first is this, that what we

find here is a claim that only Christ can make. Secondly, we find in this a command that

only Christ can give. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on

earth has been given to me, go therefore. It is the authority of Jesus that gives us the

responsibility to evangelize. That's the reason for that, therefore, all authority in heaven

and on earth has been given to me. Now you go therefore you go to tell the world, to tell

the world, the whole world that God will forgive and reconcile sinners to himself through

Jesus. That's the good news. But although we're bent, crooked, messed up and apparently

unfixable, the good news is that despite our rejection of God, our rebellion against this

commands, our disinterest in his authority and so on, he loves us with a pursuing passion

and he comes to us and speaks to us because God loves saving people. So much so that he unleashes

his church to be about the business of doing that very thing. Now there's a logic in this,

isn't there? And it helps us to answer the kind of question that is inevitably put to us.

This is what people will say, what right do you have or worse? What right do you think you have

to interfere in the religion of another country or of another culture or of another classroom?

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