14th June 2026

THE GREAT COMMISSION PART I – 14/6/26 - Martin Mowat
ALL OF JESUS FOR ALL THE WORLD.

Readings;  Matthew 28:1-10 & 11-20

According to the King James version of the Bible “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.”  That’s Proverbs 29:18.

The NIV puts it quite differently, saying, “Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.”

The Message, even more differently, says. “If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.” 

Thee very different uses of the word vision.  I’m not a linguist so I can’t comment on that, but either way, the meaning is clear.  We need to be able to see what God is doing, and to understand what he want’s us to do.   

Jesus had a vision for his church, and he told it to his disciples. The best known version of it is in Matthew 28, as we just heard. Mark’s version is “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation”, and Luke’s, although in Acts rather than in his gospel is “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

That vision of Jesus’s was in the second part of today’s text, the part that Philip read to us, that his church would make disciples of ALL nations.  It’s a VERY well-known Bible passage, frequently quoted from the pulpits of churches worldwide. I’ve quoted it a few times myself.

But a month ago Lectio told us that despite the fact that the church has been working on it for 2000 years, there remain today around 4,490 unreached people groups in the world, and one in five people are still waiting for a Bible translation in their native language.

This is an enormous endeavour, and having an important role to play in the unfolding of God’s kingdom in the world is a HUGE responsibility for the church.

It’s more than a little intimidating, certainly, but it’s also extraordinarily exciting because Jesus accompanied his vision statement with the words, “I am with you”. And that changes everything. Jesus’ calms our anxiety. “I am with you.”

He, God the Son is with us, filling us and empowering us with his Holy Spirit. “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” he promises.

Even so, how can we, here in Mirepoix, a little church of relatively elderly people, play our part in “making disciples of ALL nations”?

Our vision here in Mirepoix is to be a place where people will find family and friendship as they get to know God, his love and his peace.  That’s manageable. But making disciples “of ALL nations” is altogether something else, a whole different can of worms.

And that’s why we now belong to a family of about 25,000 Christian and Missionary Alliance churches, in 88 countries, with more than 6,2 million Christians that are rooted in Jesus Christ and committed to do just that.

Their mission, and therefore ours too, is to know Jesus, exalt Him as Saviour, Sanctifier, Healer and Coming King.  We talked about all of this a few weeks ago when we were working through our own statement of faith.

The Alliance was founded by a Canadian theologian and preacher called Albert Simpson. Charlotte mentioned him at our last Bible study. He was the pastor of a prestigious Presbyterian church in New York City but he became frustrated by their reluctance to reach out to the neglected immigrant population of non-believers, the unchurched masses who felt themselves alienated from the church, and so he left that church, and its denomination, in order to follow his convictions.

Simpson felt the Holy Spirit leading him to begin a worldwide missionary movement.  The non-denominational churches that he planted were the seeds of the CMA that was founded in 1887, and which today is made up the 60 autonomous national Alliance church networks of which the AECMF (F for France) is just one.

Their vision, (we’re talking about vision, remember) and ours too by adoption I suppose, is ALL OF JESUS FOR ALL THE WORLD.

If we’re honest, most of the time, if not all of the time, we take for granted the amazing privilege we have of having heard the gospel, of knowing Jesus personally, of experiencing his love, his peace, his answers to prayer, the joy of belonging to a church community, and so on.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned earlier, more than 4000 people groups have not yet had that awesome opportunity. That includes 3,4 billion people who have no access to the gospel whatsoever, further complicated by the fact that 1 in 28 people in our world today live outside their country of origin.

This is not to mention the people on our own doorsteps who haven’t heard it either.

How can we play our part? 

Let me tell you about a couple of local examples from our sister churches in Toulouse.

Toulouse International Church, affectionately known as ‘TIC’, the church that I was telling you about last week, the one that couldn’t find a building until the owner of a defunct pharmacy rang John, my co-elder.  They bought that building quite reasonably and made it into an excellent church, and a home for its pastor. Years later Lidl took a fancy to their site and paid them many times what they had paid for it, enabling them to buy a much bigger, better situated building near Carrefour in Purpan, and the big hospital, which was much more accessible to the students who were able to get there by bus.  I was there a week ago for a pastor’s meeting and they told us that although they haven’t finished developing it, they’re now seeking God again as to whether they should move on.  But the point is that in their congregation they have people from no less than 40 different nationalities. They are LITERALLY “making disciples of ALL nations”.

EPI, where Charlotte and I were before we came here, say they are “A multicultural family, open to others, living a deep relationship that’s rooted in Jesus Christ.”  They call themselves a “house of prayer for all nations” which means both that they pray for all nations, but that people of all nations can go there and pray, seeking God for salvation.

So back to us. On 13th September we’re going to be visited by a young missionary couple, Thibaut and Naoual Moreels and their children. They were working amongst the immigrants in Marseille, but are now in Toulouse.  I want you to meet them and hear what they do, to sense their passion for Jesus and his gospel message, and for the young people that they want to reach.  Wouldn’t it be great to “adopt them” for want of a better term, and to use some of our offerings to support their ministry?

Wouldn’t that be a tangible way that we, too, could be actively involved in making disciples of all nations?   

Another thing we can do, for our friends and neighbours, is invite them to come and visit us.  We’ve printed some invitation cards that you can have handy.