David Platt: Commission a Command
WAKE FOREST — At first glance, the 30-year-old senior pastor of a thriving Birmingham congregation looked like one of the college students he laughed and talked with following the recent Baptist State Convention of North Carolina state evangelism conference. With his quick smile and approachable nature, David Platt has endeared himself to the thousands who hear him preach from God’s Word. When meeting someone new, he offers his hand and a smile and simply says, “Hi! I’m David.”
Platt joked about his youth and inexperience during a recent chapel service at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Talking about his role as senior pastor at The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., he told his audience, “I don’t have a clue what I am doing.” Anyone who hears the passion, urgency and fire with which he shares the Gospel from the pulpit would disagree with him. Anyone who hears the Atlanta native preach can be assured that they will be convicted of their sinfulness, amazed at the magnitude of wisdom in such a young man and filled with truth from Holy Scripture.
Platt earned two master’s degrees and a doctorate from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. During his time in Louisiana, he served as the dean of chapel and assistant professor of expository preaching and apologetics at the seminary and as staff evangelist at Edgewater Baptist Church in New Orleans. Platt and his wife Heather and their two sons, Caleb and Joshua, have been at the church in Birmingham about three years. In addition to the ministry at home, Platt has preached and taught all over the world.
Platt says this on Brook Hills’ Web site: “I believe that God has uniquely created every one of His people to impact the world. Some may count it as idealistic, but I believe it is thoroughly biblical, rooted in Psalm 67:1-2, yet covering Scripture from beginning to end. God is in the business of blessing His people so that His ways and His salvation might be made known among all people.” He brought this conviction to his message during the final session of the conference. Speaking on Luke 9:57-62, Platt asked those in attendance three questions: “Will we choose comfort or will we choose the cross? Will we settle for maintenance or will we sacrifice for mission? Will our generation be marked by indecisive minds or undivided hearts?”
He began by exalting Jesus Christ and using many of the glorious names found in scripture, such as Alpha and Omega and the Great Shepherd. “And we have reduced Him to a poor, puny savior who is just begging for us to accept Him. Accept Him – as if Jesus needed our acceptance. He is infinitely worthy of all glory in all the world. He doesn’t need us; we desperately need Him,” Platt said.
He went on to share a recent struggle in his own heart. He said that he had been questioning his belief in the Bible, not based on any scholarly queries or uncertainty of the book’s authenticity. This doubt is based on his lack of caring that only one-third of the world’s population of 6.7 billion claim to be Christians. To put it another way, Platt said roughly 4.5 billion people in the world are lost. “We have a master who demands radical obedience and a mission that demands radical urgency,” he said.
As Platt dove into the text, he showed how Christ seemingly attempted to drive people away from Himself. However, Platt pointed out that Jesus was telling those seeking to follow Him that a life in His footsteps was not easy. Christ was on His way to the cross where He took on all the wrath of God against sin. His way was anything but simple. “Will we choose the easy way or the hard way? Will we choose to advance ourselves or deny ourselves? Do we realize that the danger of our lives increases with the depth of our relationship with Christ?” Platt asked.
He shared stories of missionaries who, often against the advice of their own churches, went to impossible lands to share God’s Word with people who had never heard. Platt described the need of the lost people, the persecution and great earthly loss of the missionaries and the beauty that shone when each of those lost people who had once persecuted the missionaries received Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.
He implored the audience to realize that believers have an “obligation” to tell others about Christ. “Where did we get the idea that the Great Commission is a calling? It’s not a calling; it’s a command,” Platt said. “Every saved person this side of heaven owes the Gospel to every lost person this side of heaven.”
Platt encouraged people to stop asking, “What is God’s will for my life?” because God’s will is set forth in the Great Commission found in Matthew 28:19-20: “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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
He closed the message by noting that the three men who said they wanted to follow Christ in the Luke passage likely did not do so because they chose comfort over the cross and maintenance over mission while giving into their indecisive minds. “The reality is God involves us in His mission not because He needs us, but because he loves us,” Platt said.
Joy E. Rancatore is a freelance writer in Wake Forest, N.C.
Photos courtesy Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
