May 10, 2005
By Michael McCormack
NEW ORLEANS -- Go.
According to John Marshall, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Springfield, Mo., the word “go” is often deemphasized in the Great Commission. Going disrupts retirement, he said. Going threatens sought-after comfort and ease. But the Great Commission can be fulfilled only by all Christians obediently going, Marshall said.
Marshall’s comments came during the Mission Commissioning Chapel Service at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary May 4. During the service more than 100 members of the seminary family were commissioned to serve in long-term and short-term mission assignments. Those being commissioned included students and faculty members participating in the school’s partnership with International Mission Board representatives in Moscow, Russia and a number of career missionary appointments with NOBTS ties.
That principle of going, Marshall said, was first modeled by the disciples.
“For the 12, go became the manifesto governing their lives,” he said. “These were folks just like you and me. They had jobs, interests and hobbies.”
Two thousand years later, the manifesto to go still governs the lives of believers.
“The directive is still the marching order for all believers,” he said. “It is the defining edict of our lives. We are not afforded the luxury of influencing only those people who happen to come our way.”
Marshall compared the idea of exchanging “go” for “come” to a hunter waiting in his or her kitchen waiting for a duck to fly through. Expecting non-believers to come instead of Christians to go and tell the good news, Marshall said, is also like a farmer standing at the fence summoning the crop to pick itself. Both hunters and farmers will have little success unless they pursue and engage their harvest.
“We too have to move, overcome inertia and draw near to sinners where they are. The gospel is not carried by ‘come’ or by osmosis,” Marshall said. “It is only carried by ‘go’. The picture is almost as if it is a parcel that has to be picked up, carried and delivered, not only locally but also globally.”
For that reason, Marshall said, geography must matter to each Christian. He suggested that Christians keep a map of their city, state, country and world and that they organize a way to learn more about and pray for those areas.
Most Christians run into problems at the point of fostering a concern and burden non-Christians around the world, Marshall said. The first problem involves misunderstanding the call to go.
“I promise you, when you preach the Great Commission or you stand and talk about it, 95 percent of the people in your pews – and I’m being conservative with 95 percent – interpret go as meaning go and stay,” he said.
Marshall said hearers immediately tune out the message because they think to themselves “Oh, he’s talking about missionaries.” However, that is a misinterpretation of the mandate to go. While very few Christians are called to go and stay on the mission field, Marshall said to those present that all Christians are called to go on short-term mission trips.
“The Great Commission is not given to mission boards. It is not given to conventions. It is not given to associations. It is not given to the local churches. It is not given to Sunday school classes,” said Marshall. “These are all support groups existing to help individuals, including pastors and staff members, to whom the Great Commission is given.”
He used his own church as an example. For Second Baptist Church, true change came eight years ago when members began to realize that the Great Commission was given to them as individuals and not just to the church staff or a few leaders. From this foundational realization, SecondChurch has grown into a remarkably mission-minded church.
Christian obedience to the Great Commission also breaks down when believers develop a worldly hunger for comfort and ease.
“Most believers, taking their cue from unbelievers, think superficially,” Marshall said. “It is incredible how the people in our pews actually think they want comfort and ease. They really believe that the reason you retire is so you can take it easy. Where did that come from? That’s a secular, worldly idea.”
The pursuit of happiness and an easy retirement rises to the top of the priority list. Going on a short-term mission trip to China, South America, another state or across town defies the rules of comfort, but Marshall pointed to several cases in the Bible where people found their life purpose in doing what seemed most dreadful.
“The life you’ve always dreamed of lies in the mission you’ve always dreaded,” he said. “Before the Damascus Road experience, what do you think the one thing Saul of Tarsus would have said would be the last thing he’d ever do? Become a Christian.”
Before Peter’s vision of the animals coming down from heaven, he would have never considered associating with Gentiles. Paul, Peter and many others found fulfillment only when they surrendered everything to God.
“As long as you have something in your life that you’ll never do, you’re not yielded to God and God cannot bless you,” Marshall said. “Life has to be yielded totally and completely.”
He also told the pastors in attendance that it is their responsibility to remind church members that worldly comfort should not be their goal.
“We must get in their faces and say to them, ‘You were not made for contentment. You were not made to be happy. You were not made to rest on your laurels. You were made to go, and in that you will find your contentment and your joy,’” he said.
The only way for Southern Baptists to prove their concern for lost people around the world and across the street, Marshall said, is to systematically and constantly go on short-term mission trips.
“We’ve got to deliver the living water in person,” he said.
-30-