There is a strong and clear connection between the Mission of Jesus Christ and the Co-Mission of Jesus Christ. The Mission of Jesus Christ is crystallized in one verse, Luke 19:10:
10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10
Jesus is on a search and rescue mission to search for the lost and to bring them to the salvation that only He can provide. His Great Commission is a bit more wordy, but says essentially instructs us to do the same thing:
19 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, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20
We are to be on that same search and rescue mission with Jesus, for Jesus and empowered by Jesus who is with us. This is so abundantly clear that it baffles me as to why search and rescue, outreach and evangelism, are such a hard sell, even among evangelicals. It seems that the definition of “evangelism” these days is, “I have no objection to anyone’s coming to Christ.”
Church leader after church leader with whom I am engaged in my training and consulting ministry is perfectly content with his or her church’s “health” while reaching virtually no one with the Gospel. A congregation should be embarrassed to call itself a church if it isn’t making every possible effort to connect lost people with the life-saving and life-giving Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We seem to love our preaching, our worship, our discipleship, our fellowship, and our feeling of self-satisfaction when we send money to missionaries overseas. But we don’t seem to love the lost in our own communities, failing to penetrate, failing to engage.
Lord, give us a heart for the lost and the guts to do something about it!
