The Big Picture

 The Big Picture

Praise the LORD, all you nations. Praise him, all you people of the earth.

PSALM 117.1

The Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come.

MATTHEW 24.14

Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

MATTHEW 28.19

Have you ever seen a mosaic picture? When you look at one closely, you see hundreds or thousands of smaller pictures or photographs. But when you step back and take in the big picture, these smaller images come together to make one main image.

When we read Jesus’ final teaching, called the great commission (Mt 28.19), we hear his instruction to make disciples of all nations, and we see in our minds all the individuals who will come to Christ. But there is a bigger picture that emerges in Revelation 5.9 of Jesus’ role in all of human history, “You were slaughtered, and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

This is the big picture that all of history is moving toward. This is the big plan of God for the whole world  — that people from all nations and tribes and languages will come to worship God through Jesus Christ. Jesus cares for all ethnic groups and will have disciples from every nation.

We sometimes think that the purpose of the gospel is individuals finding forgiveness and gaining the hope of eternal life. And it is. But that is not all it is. Making disciples is not just about winning individuals to Christ but about making communities of believers among all people groups, all around the world.