Before He returned to the Father, Christ commissioned His church to “go … and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:18). That day, the church received its commission, but it was on a later day—after Christ had ascended, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came on the gathering of disciples—that the church began its mission. Only then, under the Spirit’s power, did they at last begin to preach the Gospel to “devout men from every nation under heaven” who were gathered in Jerusalem (Acts 2:4–5).
Why was there this delay between the commission and the mission? It was actually what the Lord had commanded! Prior to Christ’s ascension, we read that “he ordered [the apostles] not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4)—that is, the Holy Spirit. It was Christ’s purpose that the Gospel should go to all the nations, but it was the Holy Spirit’s power that would make this possible. The evangelization of the world, in short, is a work of God’s Spirit through His church.
With such a great resource as the Holy Spirit Himself at hand, we ought to wonder why it is that so many churches today are not at work fulfilling the Great Commission. Jesus said, “Go,” yet so many of us are tempted to think that that command was for someone else. The Spirit’s power was given not so we could build up our own bunkers in our own lands but so that we would see the Gospel proclaimed “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Since God has given us this great gift to do His great work, how can we faithfully do anything other than join in?
“Will You … Restore the Kingdom to Israel?”
As we’ve already noted, Jesus did not go immediately to the right hand of the Father after He was raised. Right up to the last minute, the disciples needed His instruction. Even after all their time with Him, their expectations were flawed, as they revealed with their question in Acts 1:6: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” In contemporary terms, they were asking, “Are we going to have a big convention here in Jerusalem, Jesus? Are we going to have the best congregation that the religious world has ever seen? Are all the nations of the world now going to come here to Jerusalem?”
Their question was understandable, but it was wrong. It was wrong chronologically: the kingdom would not yet be coming in its fullness. And it was wrong geographically: Israel would not be the extent of the Messiah’s rule. They hadn’t understood yet that where the Spirit of God was, there the worship of God would be (John 4:23–24). And Jesus’ answer established that the kingdom would come through the preaching of the Gospel in all the world by the power of the Holy Spirit: “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” (Acts 1:8).
A Spirit-empowered church is a going, sending, mission-minded church.
The disciples’ expectations had been fairly straightforward for members of the Jewish community at that time. Yes, they had read of God’s glory being for all the nations in Isaiah 2:1–4, Zechariah 8:20–23, Psalm 2:8, and so on. But they took this to mean that His kingdom would be established in Jerusalem, the gentiles would be overturned, and the temple would be restored to its former glory. They thought the kingdom would appear as a political reality with Jerusalem at the center.
Yet that’s not why Jesus sent us the Spirit. Christ’s scepter is to be established not by Him setting down His throne here and now, either on the Temple Mount or on Capitol Hill. He intends to rule in and beyond Jerusalem, to the very ends of the earth and to the very depths of men and women’s hearts—and the good news of His reign spreads through the preaching and missionary endeavor of His people.
So when the disciples asked, “Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus’ answer was, in effect, “No.” Why not? Because the disciples were to “go … and make disciples.” And as we today still feel the temptation to huddle up in our own places and establish the kingdom of God without any thought for the unreached, we, too, need the Lord’s command coming to us: “Go!”
A Spirit-empowered church is a going, sending, mission-minded church. It is not a church of “us four, no more, shut the door.” God did not send the Spirit simply so that we might all school our children adequately, think the same way, sing the same songs, and be comfortable in our own little circumstances. He sent the Spirit to bring glory to God by proclaiming the Gospel to all the nations.
No Sacrifice Is Too Great
Revelation 7:9–10 describes “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb,” singing, “Salvation belongs to our God … and to the Lamb!” That gathering will happen according to God’s purpose, but it won’t happen apart from God’s means—that is, apart from the work of those He has commanded to go. God ordains that men and women will come to salvation as His people empowered by His Spirit proclaim His Gospel to His world.
In the Western church today, missionary zeal seems to be in a lull. Few Christians can imagine leaving all they know to go and serve the Lord abroad. Instead, we tend to regard even a four-year commitment as akin to a lifetime of service. A quick flight from Miami to San Juan and back again by Monday may go on a résumé as short-term missions experience. Technology has made it possible for people to go further abroad with less commitment and congratulate themselves more enthusiastically—but at what cost to the mission Christ gave us?
Today’s world is vastly different from the one in which C. T. Studd wrote in his journal, “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.”1 Most are a long way removed from Jim Elliot’s assertion that “he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”2 What has changed? Is it no longer the age of the Holy Spirit? Does God no longer call us to the ends of the earth to lose ourselves in His service?
God ordains that men and women will come to salvation as His people empowered by His Spirit proclaim His Gospel to His world.
It’s time for us to give up our small ambitions. If this is indeed the age of the Spirit (and it is!), then we have no excuse not to cry out to God to revive His work in the midst of the years (Hab. 3:2). What God did in terms of the sudden outpouring manifested in the speaking in tongues at Pentecost was a distinctive and unrepeatable event, but it launched a mission in the power of the Spirit that continues today.
The calling is the same as it has been, and the calling is ours. If we are content that the Gospel should be established in our church, in our neighborhood, and among our friends, and that’s enough; if we are convinced that the spiritually hungry should come to the kingdom we’ve established here and now, and not to Christ’s eternal throne; if we feel assured that whatever God might ask of us for the sake of the Gospel, He would not ask us to leave all we know and all we’re comfortable with behind—then it’s time to repent.
All of us today must come to God with childlike, humble expectations of what He may choose to do in us and through us for His glory. Not all of us will go abroad. Not all of us will proclaim the Gospel from the pulpits. Not all can be great funders of missionary endeavors. But all of us must “pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matt. 9:38).
The Spirit can do through His people what they are unable to do themselves: give new life (John 6:63). Trusting that, as we pray, we must be ready to heed the Lord’s call ourselves, should it come, to leave all we know behind and go out—whether down the street or across the globe—in the Spirit’s power.
This article was adapted from the sermon “The Age of the Spirit” by Alistair Begg. Subscribe to get weekly blog updates.
