LIVING THE LAST WORDS OF JESUS ("YOU SHALL BE MY WITNESSES"): ESSENTIAL, EFFECTIVE, AND EASY EVANGELISM (WITNESSING) FOR EVERY CHRISTIAN (INCLUDING US INTROVERTS)

By Michael Bussen

Living the last words of Jesus is about essential, effective, and easy (or at least easier) evangelism for every Christian (including us introverts). This book seeks to help followers of Jesus become ongoingly good and faithful and fruitful witnesses for Jesus, making Him and all in heaven happier and happier (as in Luke 15). Also reaching more and more lost souls will bring eternal joys to them, and more happiness to you as well as we enter into the joyful heavenly rewards of our wonderful Savior God! So hopefully this book helps to make everybody it touches happier, especially the Lord!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886443820

Book preview

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1: THE GREAT COMMISSION PRIORITY MINDSET (FOR LIVING THE LAST WORDS OF JESUS)

CHAPTER 2: THE GREAT COMMUNICATION PARTICULAR MESSAGE (FOR LIVING THE LAST WORDS OF JESUS)

CHAPTER 3: THE GREAT CONCERN—PRACTICAL METHODS (FOR LIVING THE LAST WORDS OF JESUS)

CHAPTER 4: THE GREAT CONNECTION POWER MEANS (FOR LIVING THE LAST WORDS OF JESUS)

CHAPTER 5: THE GREAT COMMANDMENT PASSIONATE HEART MOTIVATION (FOR THE LIVING THE LAST WORDS OF JESUS)

CONCLUSION

APPENDIXES 1–7

About the Author

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LIVING THE LAST WORDS OF JESUS (YOU SHALL BE MY WITNESSES)

ESSENTIAL, EFFECTIVE, AND EASY EVANGELISM (WITNESSING) FOR EVERY CHRISTIAN (INCLUDING US INTROVERTS)

Michael Bussen

ISBN 979-8-88644-381-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88644-382-0 (Digital)

Copyright © 2023 Michael Bussen

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

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www.covenantbooks.com

Idedicate this book with eternal thanks to my great Creator God and King of everything, including my wonderful heavenly Father, my Lord and Savior, and my friend, Jesus Christ, and my Counselor-Empowerer, the Holy Spirit, to whom all the glory for any good that comes from my life belongs, including this book! Big thanks also go to those who led me to Christ for salvation and helped with my foundational discipleship, Pat R., Terry M., Jim G., Danny K., Burl B., and Pastor John V. Thanks also to a whole host of my first Christian friends, including my wonderful wife, Renae, who all helped me to get well-founded and well-grounded and rounded in God's Word and led me to a Spirit-led and Spirit-filled life and the great commission kingdom cause!

INTRODUCTION

In my early Christian life (as a young adult, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, circa 1970s), I was encouraged by numerous mentors to choose a Bible verse to adopt as my LIFE VERSE that would help motivate me toward living out a great Christian life in God's eyes. As I had been focusing mainly on reading through the Gospel books on the life of Jesus initially, I surmised that there was no better verse for my life verse than Matthew 25:21, from Jesus's parable of the talents, where the master commended his greatly profitable servant/stewards with these words upon his return:

Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!

I figured there could be nothing greater as a Christian than to hear those words upon entering eternity, and so I made it my life goal to hope to hear them for myself, by endeavoring to live out a great Christian life in God's eyes and estimation!

Thankfully I had some great godly and biblical mentors and resources right away in my foundational discipleship so that I would learn all the basics of how to progress toward great consecrated sanctification (unto Christlikeness of mindset and character) and great stewardship (of life and Kingdom responsibilities and focus and calling and motivation to courageous faithfulness and fruitfulness for the King and Kingdom cause).

As such, I absorbed from my earliest days and formation of my Christian life DNA that in order to live a great Christian life, I was going to need to align myself with and be fully invested and engaged in the top five GREATS of God from the Scriptures:

THE GREAT COMMISSION

THE GREAT COMMUNICATION

THE GREAT CONCERN

THE GREAT CONNECTION, and of course,

THE GREAT COMMANDMENT

That is the great stuff of a great Christian life! Though I necessarily had to list them in a numerical order, that is not meant to communicate a priority order as they all, equally, need to be incorporated into our mindset and life, lived out in a combined way to make a great life. It is like the necessary blending of various amounts of different but compatible ingredients in a recipe to make some great cake (like for a wedding, like the marriage supper of the Lamb perhaps, as in Revelation 19:9) or whatever, which, without one of the key ingredients, would be incomplete and not so great.

As such, whereas the great commandment to love God supremely surely includes a priority of passionate personal and corporate worship, and other things, it certainly must also include caring about the greatest thing on the heart of God (which He has already done for us), that He wants to do for others who are lost from Him. Thus, it is absolutely essential that we must incorporate Great Commission and Great Communication of God (the great Gospel news) outreach into the mix of our life to make it complete and great. As a practical matter, the Great Concern and the Great Connection provide the balance of what needs to be baked in to our Christian life for making sure it turns out truly great. I have endeavored to spell them out in this book in an order that I hope is helpful, and I saved the best for last, to end on a high note of a triple-powerful motivation to hopefully launch your life out into the deep, headed for accomplishing a truly, divinely commendable and rewardable Christian life and witness (as Jesus's last words on earth commissioned us to be for Him, as per Acts 1:8, which we will explore in depth coming up)!

So a main focus of this book is on why Christians need (for themselves and others) to be involved in Gospel witnessing outreach and how to make that easier on yourself, as well as about the means to living out a Christlike demeanor and life that is a great adornment for the Gospel (as in Philippians 1:27 and Titus 2:7–12) and which you can use as a resource to pass on to other converts for Christ! What that means is, we should be so powerfully motivated by how the Gospel message of Christ and salvation and the love and grace of God has benefitted and blessed us, so as to be all in with the Lord Jesus and to live all out for Him and His Kingdom cause. Being so motivated by the Gospel then also MAJORLY includes going all out for getting the Gospel out to others who have not benefitted from it yet. Colossians 1:10 says we are to bear fruit in every good work, and just priorly in verses 5–6 it identifies that a primary fruit is that which Gospel outreach produces, in making more convert-disciples of Jesus, to the glory and pleasure of God. The first chapter is meant to establish just how important and significant a priority that should be for every Christian (so that includes you)! If we can receive such a vision and have it spread virally throughout the contemporary church of our day, then perhaps our generations of Christ-followers won't end up on the trash heap of Christian Church history, as it seems rapidly headed toward presently. But rather, I have hope that we can become a generation of Christian history heroes who get the Kingdom-cause job done for King Jesus and then be installed as part of Heaven's Hall of Fame Heroes, hearing those eternally coveted words, Well done, good and faithful servant. Again, for any of us to experience that eternal reality, we who have benefitted from the Gospel good news of Jesus Christ absolutely need to be motivated by that Gospel for the promoting, proclaiming, presenting, and passing on of that Gospel (also known as evangelism, or witnessing) to the unsaved. This book will show you why as well as how to do that a lot more readily and easily (even if you are an introvert with evange-phobia, like me).

So I am very excited to consider the potential impact for the advancement of God's Kingdom from motivated believer/disciples like you, if you will take what you learn and run with it. In fact, the Scriptures encourage me in that regard, as Habakkuk 2:2 says,

And the LORD answered me: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.

Actually, there are two different variations of the translation of that verse. The ESV translation above can relate to evangelism DOING—where a believer spells out the message of God's judgment and means of salvation to a receptive lost person or audience so that they can flee from the wrath of God into the saving arms of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Another possible translation emphasis however, is represented by the NIV version:

Then the LORD replied: Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.

That version could relate more to evangelism TRAINING, where believers are receiving evangelism equipping and tools to then be able to go share the Gospel good news with the lost.

Apparently, it is hard to know which focus the original language meant to convey, and in any case, there is other scriptural support for both aspects. The intent of this book covers both aspects, hoping to help you be equipped and sent forth so that then, by your spreading of and spelling out the G-O-S-P-E-L (in verbal and/or visual ways), many lost people may receptively run into the saving arms of the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior!

Let me share with you one of the reasons for my passion and burden for the ministry of Gospel evangelism (and follow-through discipleship, explained later). Many Christians in biblical churches (the majority actually) became Christians by growing up in the church and having an easy and immediate access to the Gospel. They had all the basic foundational, revelational knowledge about God imparted to them from their earliest babyhood and onward, so that it was ingrained in their understanding (and they were thoroughly prayed over). The result was that at some point while still in childhood or adolescence, it culminated in convicting them and drawing them to Christ for salvation, seemingly almost automatically as a matter of course (though we should never take this for granted or assume anything will be automatic, as many such kids have fallen through some cracks or perhaps just assumed they became saved by osmosis somehow along the way, when in fact they are only unsaved cultural Churchians and not truly converted Christians). My own kids' experience and conversions were much like that, all having profound conversion experiences as preschoolers, when we, their parents, were not expecting nor pushing for that. With such an experience, many church-raised Christians may not have the sense of necessity and urgency that is needed and apropos regarding lost sinner-outsiders' need to get the Gospel from them. Such Christians may not understand the depth of ignorance or confusion about basic Bible knowledge that many nearby outsiders have and their need for someone to care enough to reach out to them and explain it all to them. Christians can erroneously feel that the Gospel is just so readily and easily accessible and so obviously understandable in America, Canada, or wherever (in Western civilization) that it is no big deal if they don't get all involved in evangelism outreach. Besides, there are pastors and evangelist missionaries for that kind of thing, right? Well…

As I grew up (in America), I never heard or knew of the true Gospel (even though it turns out we had a biblical born-again family as immediate next-door neighbors for years, but I never knew that until after I got saved by Jesus as a young adult). Instead, I received a misconceived counterfeit version that I call Churchianity, from a massive traditional church denomination that had gotten off the biblical track. In any case, I was not that spiritually, religiously motivated. I was growing up in the middle of the 1960s and '70s with its sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll hippie revolution, and I was fully in tune with that. I was a somewhat religious heathen-hedonist who seriously embraced the American pursuit of happiness dream idea (or at least what I thought that was about). I was sure that meant the pursuit of pleasures, kicks, thrills, and artificial highs, and I didn't consider if happiness had anything to do with a pursuit of our Creator, who gave us such inalienable human rights. Oh sure, I put in my obligatory religious time, punching the liturgical church clock in tow with my parents. But God seemed a million miles away and very scary, mysterious, and untouchable. So I held Him out at arm's length and focused my interests on pursuing fun (drunken partying mainly), football, females, and hopefully some fame and fortune in the NFL someday (and I was not above shoplifting to get things I wanted back then, even though I thought of myself as a pretty good guy). I didn't really have any career or life ambition beyond that, and so I became very much like a song that the most popular band in the world sang about at that time. Ever heard of the Beatles? The Fab Four had a song called Nowhere Man and it went like this:

He's a real nowhere man,

living in his nowhere land,

making all his nowhere plans for nobody.

Doesn't have a point of view,

knows not where he's going to.

Isn't he a bit like you and me?

Well, that was a lot like me, as I was going nowhere fast. Of course, the motto of the day was Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse. I had an older brother who did just that—dying at age seventeen from drugs. As for me, I finally started going somewhere in college, and that was right down the tubes. My drug of choice was beer and booze by the bowlful (and I wasn't completely averse to a pill or puff for a high, though a couple bad trips made me reticent of those). Party hearty was my mantra, and so I tanked academically in college, and at the close of my sophomore year, I was about to be thrown out (suspended), and my football fantasy was being dashed along with that. At the same time a girlfriend announced that she was leaving me and moving to a different state. Also, right at the end of that same school year, my mom suddenly separated from my adopted father because of his abusive temper issues (which had also caused me to fear and hate him and avoid him as much as possible). I came home from college that summer to that surprise, as my mom had disappeared to who knows where, and I wasn't going to stick around to deal with my dad. So I hitchhiked back to my college town to stay with friends for the summer. It seemed my whole life had hit bottom, but then suddenly it bounced back up. My college coach got a hold of me to say he intended for me to be the starting fullback in the fall (unbeknown to me), and so he finagled a deal with the university president to allow me to be reinstated if I took a summer school class and did well enough, which I did. That summer my parents reconciled through counseling, and the counselor asked for a special session with just us kids. Interestingly he appealed to our belief in God and to God's love needing to be reciprocated by us in order to have a real relationship with Him, otherwise He would maintain a kind of tough love separation from us (which the counselor then said was analogous to the situation with our mom and dad). That sparked something in me, which with my bouncing ball circumstances made me wonder if somebody up there was trying to tell me something (to get through to me before I crashed down again). Well, it turns out He was, and because I had gotten back in school and on the team, my life that fall intersected with three very important people that would completely change the direction and trajectory of my life (from down to up). One was a teammate (Pat) who was also a student leader with Campus Crusade for Christ (now CRU). The second was the campus director (Terry) of the CRU ministry at our college that year. Pat had a goal of trying to share the Gospel with every member of the football team that season (as it was his last, and he was a well-liked senior leader on the team). He eventually got around to me and thought I would be the least likely to be interested (because of my worldly partier reputation), but because of my summer circumstances, I was interested. The Gospel didn't click for me immediately (because of confusion with my religious background), but he introduced me to Terry and invited me to a team Bible study with them both, and the witness of both and the Bible eventually led me to receive the third person (who has had the most powerful, profound effect on me), Jesus Christ and His grace gift of salvation by faith. After that I met many CRU staff and students and got connected to a biblical church and pastor (John), who all helped to set a firm foundation for consecrated discipleship in my life. I will be eternally grateful for and to those people.

I am so glad that God sent missionaries to my campus to train students to take their Great Commission Gospel sharing responsibility seriously, because there I was, at a USA University, as lost as any pagan, heathen person in some remote jungle tribe in Africa or on some remote primitive island somewhere in the South Pacific.

Well, suffice it to say here that God/Christ completely changed my life and put a new song in my heart. My life went from the reality of that Nowhere Man song to that of a song I learned back then entitled Something Beautiful, which goes,

Something beautiful, something good,

all my confusion He understood.

All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife,

but He made something…something beautiful, out of my life.

This something included changing my heart toward my adopted abusive dad, to really forgive and love him (and to say so for the first time, and many times subsequently), and to pray for him all the rest of his life. Though he never was receptive to my biblical faith and witness, and bitterly contested my leaving the family church, and things did not end well with him, but I leave that in the Lord's hands.

Of course, one of the most BEAUTIFUL things the Lord did in my life was to give me my beautiful wife, Renae. She has been with me all the way since those seventies college and CRU days and married me in 1981. Renae has a similar testimony of being lost in so-called Christian America. Thankfully, a high school Christian friend took her Gospel-sharing stewardship responsibility seriously and led Renae to saving faith in the Lord during her senior high school year, and just in the nick of time, as Renae was feeling suicidal. We met at CRU in college, and later God called us to transfer to a Bible college (Moody Bible Institute in Chicago) and to go into a vocation of missionary evangelism, both in the USA and abroad. We eventually came across the Open Air Campaigners mission in 1984 (taking their tremendous and creative training course) and then eventually joined them as a missionary evangelist to Canada in 1990 (through summer 2008), and from 2008 to the present (as of 2023), in the OAC USA HQ Office and Eastern regional area ministry. The motto of OAC is Presenting Christ by all means everywhere, and since those college days (even before OAC), that is basically what we have been up to for over forty years now (along with raising four kids and now some grandkids).

I hope our testimonies will help you realize the reality that Western (formerly predominantly Christian) countries like America and Canada have become very needy mission fields themselves (even though they are sending out the most missionaries elsewhere). It has been several decades now since back in my childhood, when some rogue Supreme judges in the early 1960s eliminated from public schools the traditional prayer and Bible reading (which had been standard for over two hundred years since before the founding), as well as the Pledge of Allegiance to one nation under God, in whom We Trust (as per our official national motto). Thus, the majority of American kids since then have been subjected to a secular-humanism immersion education (and entertainment deluge), so that now we are into a major generational moral and spiritual free-for-all and free fall in our society. In a recent Canadian survey, it was shockingly discovered that whereas professed Christians used to make up a predominant majority of the population, now a full 50 percent identified as either agnostic or atheist or just nothings (no religious association), and only 11 percent regularly attend services of any religion. Also upwards of 87 percent of those that attended some church as a child had in early adulthood left the church behind and no longer attend any services. Those identifying as evangelical dropped from 12 percent in the 1990s to only 6 percent presently (and many of those attend only sporadically and seldom read the Bible on their own). Most of Western civilization in Europe has also followed this secularization trend, and America is bringing up the rear and not far behind in its decline (see www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=3912).

This hit home in an interesting way when I took Renae out on a local restaurant date awhile back. The menu included various kinds of sandwich wraps, one of which was entitled the Adam and Eve Wrap. That made me laugh, and I humorously inquired of the teenage waitress if that meant it was just full of leaves. She looked at me dumbfounded, not knowing why I would think that (thinking my question was serious). You know, Adam and Eve and leaves, I said. She shook her head, not knowing what I was talking about. So I asked, Have you never heard of Adam and Eve? Nope, she hadn't (she wouldn't have known them from…well…Adam…or Eve). WOW! Really? Her dad owned and ran the restaurant and had bragged to us previously how she was a top A student graduating from the local public high school and was very smart! Yet here she was in America not knowing a very basic Bible fact about where she came from and who her main ancestors were. Unbelievable but true!

Speaking of Adam and Eve, did you hear why Eve would always get so frustrated at Adam during the first fall season? Well, because she was always having to pick up his clothes scattered all over the ground (Get it? Leaves. Okay, never mind.)

Now understand, as old King Solomon said, that there is nothing new under the sun. So I have to give credit to a great multitude of evangelists, pastors, teachers, and books/authors I have learned from! I could not have done this without my wonderful helpmate-wife, Renae, who has been a tremendous partner in our missionary adventures and also helped greatly in putting this book together (including, along with our son, Johnny, producing the artistic illustrations that are so much better than words in helping convey these truths). Also, I give the main credit and all the GLORY TO GOD for giving me these things to share with His church/people!

This book is intended to give you a solid biblical and well-balanced theological and motivational foundation for your evangelism and discipleship stewardship, as well as some practical tips and tools of the trade to make it much easier than the somewhat daunting task that it seems to be to most Christians.

Let me end this introduction with the first step toward making evangelism easier, which is to understand:

THE POSITIVE MEANING OF EVANGELISM

Evangelism often gets a bad rap and reputation as a rather negative confrontation, buttonholing, or cornering people and yelling at them about their sins and scaring them with threats of hell.

But actually, the word evangelism comes from the New Testament Greek, which means to herald good news.

A great example of this comes from an angel in the Christmas story in Luke 2:10–11. The angel appeared to the shepherds outside of Bethlehem, and though that seemed pretty scary to them, the angel's first words were Do not be afraid. He wasn't there to yell at or threaten them but rather to bring them Good News of Great Joy, which will be for all the people (about the Christ-Savior who had just arrived on earth).

So one good definition of evangelism is simply Sharing (or announcing) some really GOOD NEWS! Of course, it is the good news in reference to the bad news of sin-caused estrangement toward and judgment from God, so that gives it a bit of an edge. But it is like a doctor telling you that you have a terminal disease but then saying not to worry because there is a cure for that if you will but sign off on receiving the medical treatment necessary (in this case receiving the Gos-Pill).

So in accordance with giving out the good news, we need to and should have a good demeanor in doing that—that of GENTLENESS and RESPECT, as it is spelled out to us in 1 Peter 3:15.

Also, 2 Timothy 2:24–26 instructs the following:

Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

As I heard from someone along the way, If you want to win some [to Christ], you need to be winsome. So be a happy witness or preacher in demeanor and good humor, all the while giving out the straight truth, and you will elicit a much better receptivity to your Gospel witness. The balance of the Gospel message is meant to be much more toward the positive rather than the negative. People may have negative reactions to it nonetheless, but that does not need to affect our attitude and demeanor. The cross and exclusivity of the gospel of Christ might be offensive to some, but that does not mean we should be offensive in our manner, demeanor, attitude, or language in presenting it or in our reaction to someone's negative reaction. In fact, when we keep our positive composure, that is a further testimony to them of the reality of Jesus in our life. As the book of Proverbs says, A soft answer turns away wrath (Proverbs 15:1).

In any case it is true that when you are smiling, then other people around you are more apt to smile with you. As the old adage goes, you can catch much more flies with sugar than with vinegar, so don't be a sourpuss preacher-presenter of the Gospel.

One other thing before we dive into the main points about essential, effective, and easy evangelism: the biblical concept of STEWARDSHIP is often underrepresented or misunderstood as just being about our responsibility of giving a certain amount of money to our local church. That is certainly one important aspect of that concept, but it is very much broader than that. A steward in Bible times was like a manager of a wealthy person's estate and affairs. That could have included many different responsibilities. In reference to the Christian life (as in Matthew 6:33 and Ephesians 2:10), our stewardship includes how we manage all our life resources and responsibilities for the purpose of accomplishing all that God wants us to accomplish. As we will see, a huge part of that stewardship has to do with sharing and spreading the Gospel as far and wide in the world as we are able. In other words, evangelism is essential for good stewardship (which we all are responsible for and will have to face an accounting of at the judgment seat of Christ evaluating how we lived our Christian life).

So again, as such, here are the top five great things (with a little more flesh on their bones) that we need to understand and embrace in order to be faithful and fruitful in our gospel evangelism stewardship.

TO LIVE A TRULY GREAT, GOSPEL-MOTIVATED LIFE, WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND

THE GREAT COMMISSION—THE PRIORITY MANDATE MINDSET (regarding evangelism)

THE GREAT COMMUNICATION—THE PARTICULAR MESSAGE (of evangelism)

THE GREAT CONCERN—SOME PRACTICAL METHODS (to get the world evangelization job done)

THE GREAT CONNECTION—THE POWER MEANS (for effective evangelism stewardship)

THE GREAT COMMANDMENT—THE PASSIONATE HEART MOTIVATION (for evangelism)

CHAPTER 1

THE GREAT COMMISSION PRIORITY MINDSET (FOR LIVING THE LAST WORDS OF JESUS)

(We need to understand the biblical mandate mindset for gospel evangelism.)

Back in my secular college days, the student government came up with a really good and popular idea for an event series to get students and faculty to have a broader interaction with each other than just in the classroom. They called it The Last Lecture Series. Different popular profs or prominent administrators were asked to come to the student lounge and deliver what, at that time, they would want to say to the student body if they knew this was going to be their last lecture (as if they were on the brink of retiring or dying). Of course, the idea was that they would want to share a challenge to students to focus on what they would consider to be the matters of greatest import, significance, and priority in life. Well, along the way, the president of the university agreed to come and share such with us. The campus was all abuzz wondering and speculating about what he would have to say. I mean, he was one of the elite academics in the country, having reached a pinnacle of his profession as an American university president. So do you know what it was that he had to say as the main thing of greatest significance that our life should be about? NO, you don't, because you were not there, and sadly I missed it too, so I couldn't tell you—sorry!

Oh well, that doesn't matter because I do know and can tell you what was essentially the last lecture series of the most important person of all time and human history, the last message and instruction, commands of the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of all Kings! During the forty days between Jesus's resurrection and His ascension back up to heaven, Jesus gave what could be described as His Last Lecture Series. We have accounts in all four Gospels and in the book of Acts of what He considered to be the thing of greatest import, significance, and priority that we disciple-follower-servant-kids of His Kingdom are supposed to be focusing on and doing while He is away! This is what has been dubbed THE GREAT COMMISSION OF CHRIST (His major mandate assignment for all churches and Christians).

DICTIONARY DEFINITION OF A COMMISSION (from Dictionary.com)

The act of committing or entrusting a person, group, etc., with supervisory power or authority (usually by a Governing Authority).

An authoritative order, charge, or direction.

Authority granted for a particular action.

A document granting such authority.

The definition for Commission is very similar to that for the word mandate. (an authoritative order or command), and so we can say Christ's commission is our command (mandate).

With all that background, let us now take a quick tour through the Great Commission passages:

MATTHEW 28:18–20: "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.'"

Within this small passage is a summation of the whole Christian life (obeying everything Christ has commanded, including and especially this commission-command itself), and it entails the whole program of church teaching and preaching and fellowshipping, etc. in a nutshell. However, I want to highlight and focus on one particular priority here, which is encompassed in the very first word: GO!

No matter all the other aspects that the Great Commission involves, it always and ever must include the priority of GO-ing to people who are not disciples yet and making them into believers, followers, worshippers, and obeyers of Christ and the Gospel—explaining and inviting and urging them to enter into a submissive saving relationship with Christ. In other words, the Great Commission is the great GO-mission of GOspel evangelism, or GOspel outreach (where you GO and spell it out to lost people), also known as (AKA) witnessing, or sharing your faith, or soul-winning. This is an absolute imperative of the Great Commission and of the Christian life, as well as for church survival (biological growth of church membership is just not cutting it anymore, especially, as we shall hear of later, with the church youth crisis we face).

Also, we need to be concerned with the kind of country our kids and grandkids are going to have to grow up in and live and deal with. If we do not keep getting the Gospel out and keep recirculating it constantly through the arteries of our society (like blood circulation, in this case the blood of Christ, as it were), then the salt and light influence of truth and righteousness will inevitably drain further and further down societally. Along with that, more and more severe aspects of evil will become manifest in our society, including government corruption and increasing tyrannical contrariness and hostility toward biblical Christians and churches. America (and Canada et al.) needs a new great revival and awakening again, and fast, as we have already slidden down the slippery slope and are just hanging on to our liberty by a thin branch. Mercifully, we caught hold of that branch at the edge of a fearful precipice plunge into a predominantly secular-humanistic totalitarianism, which would persecute Christianity (as happened in many formerly Christian countries of Europe in the twentieth century).

The Billy Graham ministry reports that out of every one hundred Americans, sixty do not profess to be born again (BA). Also, of the forty who claim to be BA Christians, it is evident that many of those are ignorant of what that really means and entails. The fastest-growing group in America are the ranks of the agnostic, unreligious, and atheistic irreligious (nearing 26 percent, a historical all-time high).

Anyway, to make sure we would know that Gospel evangelism outreach is THE TOP PRIORITY of the Great Commission, all the other passages of Jesus's last words are focused on just that:

MARK 16:15: [Jesus] told them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.'

LUKE 24:47–49 (Here Jesus even gives them the core content of the Gospel): Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.'

JOHN 20:21 (along with Luke 19:10, 1 Jn. 4:14, and 1 Tim. 1:15): Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.'

So what was Jesus sent for? Consider the following:

Luke 19:10: Jesus said, ‘For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.'

1 John 4:14: The Apostle John said, ‘And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.'

1 Timothy 1:15: The Apostle Paul said, ‘The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.'

So it is obviously evident then that Jesus is sending His people to seek the salvation of sinners by sharing the Gospel of the Savior! Obeying the Great Commission must begin and continue with Gospel evangelism outreach (and then follow-through discipleship).

ACTS 1:8 (Here we see Jesus's very last words before lifting off for heaven): ‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.' And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

These are truly the most famous last words ever, and it is our privilege, prerogative, and primary priority responsibility to live out these last words of our Savior King Jesus!

I like the Word of Life Mission's motto: Jesus's last command is our first concern!

So as I heard from a Christian radio preacher recently, the Lord Jesus Christ (the highest authority in all the universe and earth) is giving us both THE RIGHT (authority) and THE MIGHT (power) to carry out His Great Commission everywhere and regarding everyone. We are fully authorized to do this on Jesus's behalf (in His name) and through the indwelling, in-filling, empowering help of the Holy Spirit and the teamwork support of the church. He will provide the resource that we will personally need to do our part, if we will only be obediently motivated and equipped (as we shall cover later) to live these last words of Jesus.

Also from Jesus, earlier in His ministry:

MATTHEW 4:19 (Evangelism was not only his last command but also his first instructional command and concern to his first chosen disciples): Jesus told some fishermen, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men (people).

JOHN 4:35 AND MATTHEW 9:36–38: Jesus speaks of a plentiful harvest of lost but receptive souls that needs to be brought in and then shares His main prayer request and concern: pray for the more laborers that are needed to bring in the harvest! We all need to become part of the answer to that prayer request.

LUKE 14:21–23: Jesus spells out who and how to invite–go invite everyone and compel them to get in on eternal salvation.

When the Bible says something once, it is important! When it is a direct quote of Jesus, in my estimation it takes on an even more profound sense of significance, especially when it is His very last words, and when it is repeated over and over and over and over and over again, we can be absolutely sure it is a superimperative, important priority for our Christian lives! This is the great GO-mission cause of Christ!

We need to keep our eye on the ball (and not keep dropping it, with unsaved people whom we may have an opportunity to help).

Dr. George Sweeting (the president of Moody Bible Institute while I was a student there) often said, The main thing [of his message to us] is to always keep the main thing the main thing! And Jesus's last words (His Great Commission) are His main thing (task, responsibility, stewardship, calling) for all His people (us)!

Also, sharing the Gospel keeps us grounded in the Gospel truths (kind of similar to how communion is supposed to prompt and affect us that same way), to help maintain our ongoing need for humility and repentance (regarding our own sin proneness and condemnable unworthiness) and to maintain an appropriate ongoing level of grateful praise and worship toward God for his mercy, grace, and love atonement of our lives. It is the gift that just keeps on giving eternally forevermore. We are always and ever just sinners saved by grace. Oftentimes when again reviewing Christ's experience at the cross, I earnestly pray, Lord, I am so sorry for your suffering (that our/my sins caused), but I am so thankful for your sacrifice!

There are also other New Testament apostolic evangelism passages concurring with the Great Commission:

ROMANS 1:14–16: We are debtors. We owe it to other terminally sin, sick fellow humans to share with them the salvation-cure we have found.

ROMANS 10:13–15: People cannot be saved unless they hear the Gospel from someone else who can spell it out to them. Are your feet beautiful for bringing the Gospel to others?

1 CORINTHIANS 1:18, 20: Be a fool for God-Christ, sharing the seeming foolishness of the Gospel! We who are reached are God's main means to reach others. It has been said that there is no better salesman than a satisfied customer (same with promoting the Gospel).

2 CORINTHIANS 5:17–21: Paul's version of the GC. Every new creature in Christ is an appointed ambassador for Christ and entrusted with the word and ministry of helping others get reconciled to God!

Also, there is the Old Testament example of God's blessing to Abraham in Genesis 12:1–3. This blessing was not something old Abe and his Israelite descendants were just supposed to keep for themselves, but rather, they were to be the fountainhead to bless the whole worldwide human race, through the main message of the Bible and the coming of Christ (descended from Abe) for salvation. Missionary statesman and author Don Robertson has stated that the Great Commission was not just an afterthought of Jesus, given to keep some hyperactive Christians busy while he was away. No, it was the main plan of God all along, even promised to Adam and Eve to pass on to their children, and from them (and the Genesis record) to pass on to the whole human race. For many lost people in and around our lives, we may be the only Bible-Gospel witness (or representation of Jesus) that they will ever see and hear. It is incumbent upon us to care for their souls and to try to reach them.

My Canadian evangelist friend (Kirk) often says we are told in the Bible to keep the faith, but also, don't just keep it for yourself and to yourself, but also to share it, as freely and as broadly as you can.

This is the main reason God leaves us here on earth after our salvation. Like the thief on the cross, Christ could just take us immediately to heaven the very day we get saved. Certainly, Jesus could take care of everything else much better in heaven—discipleship, fellowship, worship, etc., etc. But the one thing we could not do from heaven is lead anybody to Christ.

God doesn't leave His kids in this lousy, messed-up world because He loves