I love the Great Commission: “Go and make disciples…”
My work is centered on helping churches prioritize it. I believe deeply in making disciples, sharing the gospel, and seeing lives transformed by Jesus—because that is what changed my life.
And for decades as a pastor, the Great Commission became the driving verse behind all that I did—as it should. Week after week, I’ve worked with church leaders to help them make Christ’s final words their first work.
But over the last several years, I’ve begun to wrestle with a question that initially made me uncomfortable:
What if there is more than just the Great Commission? What if there is more to God’s mission—to ministry, to work, to our calling—than soul-work?
What I’ve come to realize is that in my zeal for fulfilling the Great Commission, I unintentionally limited what ministry could look like. I began to see ministry only in moments when I was directly working with people—sharing my faith, discipling someone, or helping another person grow spiritually. Consequently, I began to devalue things that didn’t fall into direct “soul work.”
Those moments matter deeply. But they aren’t the only moments that matter.
While the mission God is on—and the partnership He invites us into—is never less than the Great Commission, it is more than that. God is up to something even bigger.
To see this, we have to zoom out.
We have to remember the Kingdom Storyline—specifically, the beginning and the end of the story. Because when we see how God’s story starts and how it ends, the current scene we are in comes into focus with greater clarity.
If you’ve ever started a movie in the middle, you know how disorienting it can be. Without knowing what came before or where the story is headed, a scene can feel confusing—or even be misinterpreted entirely.
That’s exactly what happens when we try to understand our calling, our work, and our lives without knowing the beginning and the end of God’s story.
The Beginning: God Created the World Good—But Not Finished
In Genesis 1–2, God creates the world and gives it purpose. Each day, God creates something new—the heavens and the earth, the land and the sea, animals and humans—and at the end of each day, God looks back at His work and says, “It is good.”
That word choice bothered me for many years.
This is literally the creation of the world. It is created by a perfect God. It is the greatest creation ever—and God’s summary of it is, “It’s good.”
I always wondered why He didn’t say it was complete, finished, or perfect.
The reason? Because it wasn’t.
After the six days, the creative work isn’t finished—it’s just beginning. God creates the world in an unfinished form and then invites mankind to join Him in the creation process. In this moment, God invites us into the first co-mission with him.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the seas, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.’
So God created man in His own image; He created them male and female. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.’”
— Genesis 1:26–28
God invites mankind to join Him as a co-creator. He commands them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.
At first glance, this command can sound like a simple charge to have babies. And while it certainly includes that, it moves far beyond it. The call to fill the earth and subdue it goes beyond population—it speaks to civilization and culture creation.
God created the world in an unfinished form. Mankind’s job is to work the land in a way that builds civilization and brings order to it. Wayne Grudem explains the word subdue as “to make the earth useful for human beings’ benefit and enjoyment.” Another scholar explains the word rule to mean “to actively partner with God in taking the world somewhere.”
At the beginning of time, God created the world good, not complete. It wasn’t His finished product—it was His starting point.
Creation included all the ingredients needed for the Kingdom God wanted to build, but it wasn’t yet in its finished form. At the end of creation, God partners with mankind to take what He has made and co-create with Him—to build something together.
Jordan Raynor captures the creation account this way:
“God never intended creation to be a product we passively consume. He intended it to be a project we actively participate in.”
Before the Great Commission, there was the Cultural Commission—a call to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over creation with God.
From the very beginning, God was building a Kingdom—and He created us to be Kingdom builders.
The End: Not a Garden, But a Kingdom
How the story ends matters just as much as how it begins. The end of the story is a scene that God has been foreshadowing all throughout history.
God hasgiven his people hope of returning to a utopian state, much like God’s creation began. A place where there is no more sin, no more death, no more pain. A place where God and man walk together in perfect harmony.
As the final scene unfolds in Revelation 21-22, we see the long awaited resolution of the story. Finally, things return back to the way God intended it.
But the Bible doesn’t end with a return to a garden. It ends with a city.
The writer of Revelation describes the New Jerusalem—filled with culture, structure, beauty, and the “wealth of the nations.” Something has been built. Developed. Brought to fullness.
This vision looks much different than the floating in the clouds “choir practice” that I envisioned as a kid. It isn’t a material-less world only filled with the souls of men and women. Instead, heaven comes to earth and God’s Kingdom is established—streets of gold, jewels, and more. Isaiah and John would describe the “wealth of the nations” being on display.
If God’s plan were simply restoration to the original state, the story would end where it began.in a garden.
But it doesn’t.
The end of the story reveals that God’s goal was never just preservation. It was development. Revelation 21-22 is the fulfillment not just of the Great Commission, but the Cultural Commission that God gave mankind’s at creation.
The Current Scene: God Is Renewing All Things
This brings us to the scene we’re living in now.
Scripture describes it as the “already, not yet.”
Jesus has already secured the victory through His life, death, and resurrection—but the Kingdom has not yet been fully realized.
Brokenness remains. Creation still groans. Work can still be frustrating. But, like the fourth act of a movie, all things are falling into place. The Bible would say it this way, God is renewing all things to Himself.
All things.
He isn’t just redeeming souls. He’s restoring creation. He’s renewing us back not to how things were at creation, but to how things were meant to be in the Kingdom.
This means more than just seeing the lost saved and the saved matured. It means seeing systems, structures, culture, communities represent the traits of God’s character and His Kingdom.
In this season, we are to continue as Kingdom Builders with God as together we renew all things. This includes living out the Great Commission and the Cultural Commission. It includes making disciples and it includes contributing to human flourishing so that the world we live in today looks more and more like the Kingdom of God.
Why This Matters For Your Work
When we reduce our mission down to only the Great Commission it does two things:
- We unintentionally treat most of life—and most work—as spiritually neutral.
- We shrink our understanding of Kingdom impact to moments of evangelism and discipleship only.
Sharing the gospel matters deeply. Discipling others is essential. But if that’s all we emphasize, we miss half the story.
Before Jesus said “Go and make disciples,” God said “Go and cultivate, steward, and build.”
The Great Commission and the Cultural Commission were meant to work together to advance the Kingdom.
This is where work takes on a whole new meaning.
As Jordan Raynor explains, work doesn’t just have instrumental value—it has intrinsic value.
Your work isn’t only a platform to share the gospel.
It is a calling in itself.
The work you do as you lead teams, build systems, create products, improve processes, design technology, and serve customers all matter to God.
Not just because it can support ministry—but because it participates in God’s renewing work in the world.
When you understand this, you begin to see that integrating your faith at work is far more than the limited moments you have to share your faith with a co-worker, pray with a customer, or lead a Bible study in the break room.
Integrating your faith isn’t just something that applies to 1% of your work week, but something that applies to 100% of your work week.
What’s next?
In the next blog, I will share four practical ways you can integrate your faith that fits any industry or role.
Additionally, two reads that have greatly shaped the Kingdom Storyline tool and my marketplace philosophy are “Every Good Endeavor” by Tim Keller and “Sacredness of Secular Work” by Jordan Raynor.
Want to lead from Significance? Let’s connect
If you are wanting to get clear on how you can lead from significance, let’s jump on a call. I offer a free Zoom call for leaders to get clear on their vision for their work and family.
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