Summary
"But...But...But…"
The Great Commission is not a suggestion reserved for clergy or career missionaries. When Jesus told the eleven, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you" Matthew 28:18-20, He was speaking to all who would be claimed by Him through the waters of Baptism. Every baptized child of God—CEO or student, pastor or parent—has been placed in a particular time and situation for God's purpose and glory, and called to be His missionary.
Yet the typical response sounds less like "Here am I, send me" and more like "But…but…but…" Moses serves as the Bible's classic example. Standing before the burning bush in Exodus 3, the eighty-year-old shepherd hears God's commission to bring Israel out of Egypt and immediately objects: "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?" God's answer is not a résumé of Moses' qualifications but a promise of His own presence: "I will be with you." That alone should have been enough.
It wasn't. Moses presses a second objection: what if they ask Your name? God reveals His name as I AM—the self-existent One, without beginning or end, beyond every limitation creatures might place on Him. The same I AM who sent Moses sends Christians today. We do not go on our own authority or in our own name; we are sent by the eternal God and equipped with His living Word and His Holy Spirit.
Moses' third objection—what if they don't believe me?—is met with three signs, but the deeper answer is this: it is not the messenger's job to make anyone believe. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. We are called to proclaim, not to convince. His final objection—"I am slow of speech and slow of tongue"—gets the same kind of answer. The God who made the mouth promises, "I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak." Paul echoes this in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5: the gospel comes not in lofty words of human wisdom but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that faith rests on God and not on us.
God has not called you because you are strong enough, smart enough, or smooth enough. He has called you precisely so that, in your weakness and fear, you know you can do nothing in your own strength—but Christ working through you can do everything. Do not mistake your weakness for a right to refuse. The same Lord who promised Moses, "I will be with you," promises His Church, "Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
So when the Lord says "Go," the Christian's answer is not "But…but…but…" The answer is simply: go. Proclaim forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. Baptize. Teach. The I AM who sent Moses sends you, and He goes with you.
Video citations
- “But...But...But…” 7-14-24 — For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the…