EYES on the NATIONS: A 5-Day Journey Exploring God’s Unchanging Heart for the NationsExemplo

Commissioned on Behalf of the Nations

During his life and ministry, Jesus was the flesh and blood, living and breathing expression of God’s mission to humanity. He was fully human—a human being doing what humans were always designed to do; he was the image-bearer and kingdom-bringer par excellence. He was also fully God—doing what only God can do, repairing fully the breach that sin had made, so that the kingdom can come in fullness and the tarnished, distorted image of God can be restored to beauty in human beings.

At key moments in his life and ministry, Jesus does and says things to remind his Jewish followers that God’s redemptive purposes are still being carried out with an eye on the nations. He goes intentionally to people on the fringes of Jewish identity (like Samaritans) and welcomes with healing grace those who are outside the ethnic and cultural barriers of his people (like the Gerasene demoniac in Mark 5 or the Syro-Phoenician woman in Mark 7). He didn’t turn these encounters into overt teaching points for his disciples, but he lived out before them the boundary-breaking reach of his mission. The explicit link between what he did and what he will ask them to do comes only after the resurrection.

When Jesus is about to return to his Father and to take his place on the throne of the universe, he leaves his followers with an explicit commission. This mission statement is given, in different forms, in all four of the New Testament Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), but Matthew’s version is the most detailed. The central imperative, the heart of the mission, is to make disciples. How will they do that? By going. Where will they go and who will these new disciples be? All nations. What strategy will they use? Teaching the new disciples—in all nations—to obey all that Jesus has commanded. Two things stand out about this final line in their mission. First, there’s no distinction between the original Jewish disciples and those who will join them in all the nations; the expectation is the same, obedience. Second, obeying all that Jesus commanded will include obeying his command to make disciples, so the followers of Jesus in all nations will also become disciple-makers.

The central task of Jesus for his followers is to make disciples of all nations. In our historical moment, that may involve both going and receiving. The mandate to GO to the nations is still valid, but in many places around the world, the nations are arriving on our doorstep, meaning our call is to receive them. Going or receiving, the commission is the same—to be disciples who make disciples who make disciples.