The Sovereignty of God and the Great Commission

by Pastor Mark Cowart

Remembering the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, as recently celebrated, creates a genuine tension and responsibility. It confronts passive Christianity like nothing else can. It calls believers into their post-resurrection identity and authority. It calls us to action, to the mission that is ours. When enough of us step into this identity, we will see an unprecedented, manifest move of God.

Essential to this awakening is to recognize the sovereignty of God. I’m not talking about predestination, that He chooses who goes to hell and who gets into heaven. That’s not true. God created you and me as free moral agents. That means He protects our right to choose and to decide, and He will not violate that.

At the same time, He is sovereign, meaning He can do whatever He wants. He needs nobody’s permission. He is Almighty God, Creator of the universe. No one is above or before Him. He simply is.

Within His sovereignty, He has chosen to give us promises.

The love of God is unconditional. His promises are not. If we choose to act outside of His conditions for the blessing, we will not get it. Although He wants to bless us out His love for us, He will not force us to choose obedience.

The Acts of the Apostles, the book in the New Testament right after the four Gospels, could more rightly be called The Acts of the Holy Spirit through the Followers of Jesus. You find in the scriptures that, after the resurrection, the Lord went with them, working with them, “confirming the word with signs following”.

When Jesus said from the cross, “It is finished,” He was referring to the Abrahamic covenant. The rest of His work on earth was just beginning and will now be carried out through His Church, His “ekklesia”, his called-out and assembled ones. Hence, His commandment, what we call The Great Commission, to go everywhere and make disciples. It is the most important thing that should be happening right now.

We must remember, though, that we cannot accomplish this great CO-mission by ourselves. Neither will the Lord, as He has chosen to include us in His eternal plan. The resurrection makes it possible for us to do our part in this assignment. It marks a transfer of authority, which Jesus communicated to his disciples in his final address before He left the earth in His glorified body. He said “all power has been given….therefore go….”

The empty tomb demands a full response.

We not only celebrate the power of God to confirm the Lord Jesus Christ as His Messiah by resurrecting Him. We must also comprehend and access the Holy Spirit enabling that comes to us through this event. Only then are we equipped to obey the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

Do you realize that every one of the estimated 3.3 billion people on this planet who do not know the Lord have a hole in their hearts, and they are trying to fill it with all sorts of false gods? Or they are trying to earn their salvation by whatever means has been sold to them. The price has already been paid! And we have been tasked with making sure they get that message.

When we are not busy about our Father’s business, planting or watering or harvesting the seed of God’s Word in people’s lives, we are not following Christ. Our churches, as a result, are dead empty tombs, without the life of the resurrection. Like when Jesus cleared the temple of the ungodly business being done there just before His arrest, saying it was to be a house of prayer for all nations, He is now visiting and inspecting the churches in America.

We should be primarily focused on reaching the unreached people groups in the world. He said we would be His witnesses, “martys” in the Greek, which means even if we must give our lives for our testimony. In the last verses of the book of Acts it is recorded that Paul stayed in his own rented house in Rome after his arrest for two years, and he “proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!” We can do that now.

The Book of Acts is not finished. Those walking in resurrection life and power, who have chosen to respond to the Lord’s visitation of correction, will live the next verses of God’s sovereign plan.

DIG DEEPER

Genesis 5:1
Exodus 3:14
John 3:16
Acts 1:1-3
Galatians 3:8
Matthew 28:18-20
Ecclesiastes 3:11
Mark 11:15-17
Acts 28:30-31

PRAY

Thank God for His sovereign plan to save you and all who will believe, and for its fulfillment in Christ.
Ask Holy Spirit for ears to hear, eyes to see and a heart to perceive, as He continues to reveal His plan for you to participate in the Great Commission.
Thank God for the powerful enabling that is already yours to walk this out.

REFLECT