Discipleship: The Universal King's Universal Mission
Notes
Transcript
Prayer
Announcements - New Group, Christmas parties
Scripture
Intro
When you hear the words “Go and make disciples” what comes to mind?
Maybe it sounds similar to, “Go make your bed!” Why? Because I told you so.
Maybe it’s like if I asked you to “Go and make chicken cordon bleu.” You’re like I kind of know what that is…I’ve eaten it a few times. It’s really good. I know Costco sells those prepackaged ones but how do I make it myself?
How do I make a disciple and how do I know when I’ve made one?
Maybe you picture street evangelism. You hear the phrase and your heart starts racing because you picture Jesus asking us to go to Fred Meyer today and tell strangers about Jesus.
Maybe you picture two people at Electric Coffee reading their Bibles or a devotional book or a theology book or a discipleship workbook. When we hear go and make disciples maybe we hear go and buy coffee.
Or maybe you push back against anything structured and when you hear go and make disciples you hear just love people…go and live your life and along the way point people to Jesus.
You might hear the phrase and be excited…maybe you hear the phrase and you feel guilt and shame. I haven’t bought anyone coffee this year…I’m not reading a Tim Keller book with anyone…am I failing God?
When the disciples heard Jesus say, “Go and make disciples” what did they think and feel?
What would they imagine Jesus is asking them to do? Jesus doesn’t give many details. It’s crazy that he gives a small group of Jewish men the task of making disciples of men and women of every nation.
Perhaps they were worried, intimidated, but perhaps excited, intrigued, inspired...
Matthew 28:16-20 is one of the most well known passages in Scripture
It’s preached all the time.
It’s so clear! This is what we ought to be doing. Go and do it!
And yet I wonder if we miss Matthew’s intended emphasis.
I want to argue this morning that Discipleship is the Universal King’s Universal Mission.
Discipleship is about Jesus and what he’s up to even more than it’s about us and what we should be doing.
Discipleship is the Universal King’s Universal Mission.
In our passage we’ll see Jesus as the Universal King with a Universal Mission.
We’ll walk thru the passage together, and then this is the last Sunday of our Matthew series. And I want to give us some space to reflect at the end.
So at the end of our time, as we go into communion, I want to give you space to reflect on Matthew as a whole - and to think, What stood out to you? What did you notice? What did you learn? What are you taking away from this year spent in Matthew’s gospel?
16 But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated.
17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful.
18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
Here we see Jesus as the Universal King.
Over the last few weeks we’ve read Matthew 26-28 which lay out the story of Jesus’ last moments before his death, burial, and resurrection.
And last week we saw that He is really risen.
Matthew’s story of the women finding Jesus proves that this is no fabrication, but the reality that Jesus of Nazareth really was God in the flesh. He really did die a sacrificial death for the forgiveness of sins. He really did make a new covenant between God and man not based on ethnicity or on the continual sacrificial blood of animals, but on faith in Him and on his blood poured out once and for all.
And yet, Jesus’ enemies - although rendered like dead men - are still active and the guards, bribed by the religious leaders, spread a lie that Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead, his disciples just stole his body from the tomb.
And so that’s where we jump in at verse 16.
But…the disciples do not fall for this lie. They go to Galilee where Jesus directed them to go in chapter 26 at the last Supper and as the angel reminded the women in verse 10 of chapter 28.
Notice Matthew says eleven disciples - this is a reminder of Judas who betrayed Jesus. And a reminder that even in the middle of what looks like the worst possible scenario, the betrayal and murder of the Son of God, Jesus is still in control.
Why does Jesus tell them to go to Galilee? Well that’s near Jesus’ ministry HQ, but also
15 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
That word Gentiles is the same word as nations....so The King of all nations is going to launch his new mission for all nations at Galilee of the nations.
Jesus is the Universal King.
And so the disciples arrive at this mountain - a favorite location of Jesus to speak...
And they see him. Their Rabbi, their master, their friend, their God…the very same one who just hours before was dead and buried, who was betrayed and abandoned by them, who had no heartbeat, no blood pumping in his veins, no brain activity, no breath in his lungs, now they see Him. They see the wounds on his palms and on his feet, maybe you can tell where he was beaten, but perhaps he looks also like a human, but more than a human, the God-man.
Because when they see him, they worship him. And for Jews, you don’t worship ANYONE but God.
25 When Peter entered, Cornelius met him, and fell at his feet and worshiped him.
26 But Peter raised him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am just a man.”
And so for these men to worship him is telling. He is not just a man. This is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - God with us. Risen from the dead!
But some doubted.
One commentary I read said this is not a firm decision - like cynicism - but more like hesitation. Some of them hesitated to worship. Could this really be him? There’s no way…maybe I’m just imagining things. You were dead!!
What a helpful picture of being a disciple.
Being a disciple sometimes means seeing Jesus and worshiping him.
And other times, we hesitate. Is this for real? Am I just crazy? I can’t even see Jesus. There are so many other religions in the world, how do I know Christianity has the truth?
Perhaps there is hesitation because they’re afraid Jesus is going to be ticked off.
It’s like in Harry Potter when Voldemort comes back and he tells his followers, “Where were you when I went away?”
Now I don’t recommend comparing Jesus to Voldemort.
"How could you abandon me, fools? Now that I’m really king, I’ll make you pay.”
18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
Jesus here is clearly referencing Daniel chapter 7.
13 “I kept looking in the night visions,
And behold, with the clouds of heaven
One like a Son of Man was coming,
And He came up to the Ancient of Days
And was presented before Him.
14 “And to Him was given dominion,
Glory and a kingdom,
That all the peoples, nations and men of every language
Might serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away;
And His kingdom is one
Which will not be destroyed.
What was Jesus’ favorite title for himself?
Son of Man. He said it dozens of times in Matthew. And now, risen from the dead, he tells disciples, “I told you so.”
All authority has been given to me - it was mine when Daniel prophesied this hundreds of years ago, and it is fully mine now that I’m the risen King.
I am king of the universe.
Not just of the physical realm, but the spiritual realm and the powers of light and darkness.
I am king of the universe. Not just of the living, but of the dead.
I am the author of life and the one with authority over life and death.
I am king of the universe. Not just of the Jews, but of all nations. Notice what it says in verse 14 of Daniel 7...
14 “And to Him was given dominion,
Glory and a kingdom,
That all the peoples, nations and men of every language
Might serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away;
And His kingdom is one
Which will not be destroyed.
Matthew is a Jew. Jesus is a Jew. His ministry was primarily to Jews.
5 These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: “Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans;
6 but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
But now, Jesus has beaten death and beaten the spiritual powers who had enslaved all the people of the world since the Fall in Genesis 3.
And the good news is through faith in Jesus, we can be free! Go now and tell the world, I’m the Universal King.
Jesus is the Universal King.
When we hear ‘go and make disciples’ we have to remember that step 1 is to remember who says those words - the king of the universe. And what is the disciples response? Worship.
Discipleship happens as we encounter the risen Jesus and give him our worship.
What does the universal king tell his disciples?
19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Discipleship is the Universal King’s Universal Mission.
One thing that stood out to me is the use of the word ‘all’
All authority
All nations
All that Jesus has commanded
I will be with you “all the days”
Matthew begins small…a little baby in a little town in a small country…and it ends big.
In verses 19 and 20 we have two commands and a promise...
The first command is to go!
Discipleship is active. It’s an adventure. It’s not static. There’s movement.
Jesus is saying my mission is going somewhere.
I think Matthew is telling us, too, that even though this is the end of his text, it’s not the end of the story. It’s going!
The second command is make disciples
How do you ‘make’ someone?
Now if Jesus said go ‘make babies’ they’d have a decent idea where to start.
Remember a disciple is like an apprentice. It had a very clear picture in the Jewish context of a student following the teaching of a Rabbi. And you would literally follow around that Rabbi, learn their teachings, and spread their teaching as you learned from them. It’s a picture of trust and allegiance and loyalty. It’s not a casual relationship but almost contractual, deep commitment and devotion.
But what does it mean to make disciples? Jesus isn’t saying, “Go and be Rabbis and get 12 disciples like I did...”
There are two phrases that underlie the command make disciples and the first is
Baptizing them
In the NAME of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
How many names? One name. But how many names? Three names. One name is three names and three names are one name.
If someone says to you, “The Bible never says the word trinity it was made up by the church.” That’s just not the case...
I don’t think Jesus is saying, “Now’s a really good time for you to understand the doctrine of the Trinity” but rather Jesus is saying when someone follows me they aren’t just following the Jewish Rabbi from Nazareth but the God of the Universe who is Father, Son, and Spirit.
Last week we baptized Esther...
It was awesome!
What was going on there?
Esther was saying, I’m a disciple! Baptism is an outward symbol of the inward reality that Esther is with Jesus. She is giving her allegiance to Him. She’s not walking around following a Rabbi, but through the Spirit, she wants to be someone who lets Jesus teach her how to live.
Baptism is a symbol that something has changed.
So being a disciple means you’re not the same person.
Making disciples does involve conversion, evangelism, getting people to encounter Jesus and say before God, friends, and family, I am not the same. I’m with Jesus.
But discipleship is more than conversion, more than a one time thing, it’s also about obeying all that he commanded.
What all did Jesus command?
Matthew is organized very neatly so we can remember what Jesus taught. He had 5 teachings.
Sermon on the Mount - the ultimate ethical manifesto of how to live in the Kingdom
Matthew 10 - how to be messengers of the kingdom
Parables in chapter 13 and 14 - what the kingdom is like
Chapters 18-20 - relationships in the kingdom
Chapters 24-25 - what to do as we await His return
So making disciples is more than getting people to make decisions, but to help people live completely different lives.
Notice, too, Jesus didn’t just give information. He taught about relationships. Here’s not just stuff you should know, but a whole new way of life.
The Garden of Eden was good not because Adam and Eve read all the right books and knew all the right stuff, but they were right with God and with each other and their world. That’s what it’s like to learn from Jesus…living in a right way with others.
Informationalism is not discipleship. I forget this often. We are not transformed by information, but through relationships. So even with this sermon my hope is it’s not more information but you are engaging with the words that Jesus is speaking.
That’s why I say take notes not so you can pass the test but that you can chew on the words of Jesus and interact with Him and speak with you and teach you how to live.
Go and make disciples of not just Jews…but with all nations. Matthew is showing us this is how the church spread…it’s the mission of the Universal King for all the Universe.
Go and make disciples.
Is it wise to give such a massive task to this group of disciples?
They’ve failed big time!
Two commands and a promise.
Matthew 28:20 (NASB95)
20...and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Literally, “look, I am with you all of the days”
There is not a day that goes by as we go and partner with Jesus to bring people to love God and live in light of the teachings of Jesus, there’s not a single day where Jesus is not with us.
Matthew began with
23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”
And now he truly is GOD with us.
What does that even mean?
2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord;
3 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.
4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
Discipleship is the Universal King’s Universal Mission.
I’m chewing on this right now.
Each Wednesday I meet on zoom with Gene and Dave and we talk through the sermon and I had an outline but they kinda blew it apart. For good reason!
So I’m still thinking about stuff...
Difficulties with this passage
Discipleship has become in the church the ultimate thing. We talk about making disciples more than we talk about worship or loving God and loving each other.
Discipleship is also a really big thing. It’s evangelistic and many of us are terrified of evangelism and anytime we think about sharing our faith we either get bummed out or guilty or full of shame.
It’s also clearly a command and I don’t know about you but I don’t know the last time anyone commanded me to do something and if they did I would probably not want to do that thing almost solely because it was a command.
But I can’t escape the fact that Jesus says, “This is what I want you to do.”
We can’t just drop it because it’s hard.
So I’m at a bit of a loss...
But as I thought about it here’s what I came to...
We’re done with Matthew. What’s Matthew about?
Is Matthew mostly about us?
Is Matthew’s main point, here is a text I wrote to command you to do some things.
Matthew is about Jesus. Who he is. What he’s like. What he’s up to. What it means that he came and lived and taught and died and rose again.
And the people in the story are not there so much to tell us what to do, but to show us what he’s like as they interact with him.
What does all that mean?
Discipleship is more about Jesus than it is about us.
Making disciples is what Jesus did during his ministry, it’s what he said he would do with the disciples after he left, and it’s what he’s doing now.
“William Carey’s groundbreaking book, An Enquiry, focused on the importance of obeying the text of the Great Commission. The subsequent missions literature of the nineteenth century is filled with motivating calls to obey this final command of our Lord. There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with this. Nevertheless, it should be noted that while the Great Commission is never less than the command of Scripture, it is certainly more than the command of Scripture. Remarkably, Matthew 28:18-20 (or any of the other commissioning texts that conclude the public ministry of Christ) is never cited a single time in Acts as the motivation for their witness. Instead, the Great Commission was not so much a text to be obeyed as the living Christ who went before them and the Holy Spirit who bore witness to Christ through them…It is not merely that God gave us a missionary command; God is, by nature, a missionary God!..The point is merely that ultimately Jesus embodies the Great Commission and we are, in the final analysis, confronted not by a command but by Jesus himself.” - Timothy C. Tennent, Theology in the Context of World Christianity, p. 184
Discipleship is more than a command, it’s about who Jesus is and what he does. He’s the Universal King with a Universal Mission.
And yet still, there is a call to do something.
And yet there’s no formula.
And not much information at all.
Jesus doesn’t say, “Go hit the streets or go buy coffee with a small group of people...”
Where does discipleship occur after Jesus sends the Spirit?
In the church! In large groups of people in specific places who gather regularly for worship, teaching, prayer, and fellowship. It doesn’t say they had discipleship triads or a certain program. They just were the church and the gospel spread and people followed Jesus.
And so I want to alleviate the burden to think that if you’re not meeting with someone for coffee to talk through theology, that doesn’t mean you’re not making disciples.
But I think the question we ask is this, “What is Jesus up to in my life? Specifically in the church, how can I partner with him to help people know him?”
How do I make disciples?
How do you make disciples? What do you like to do? What is Jesus up to in your life and in the people around you? How could you use what you have partner with Jesus in his mission to help all people see that He is the good king?
Discipleship is the Universal King’s Universal Mission.
When we hear the phrase, ‘make disciples’ maybe we can shift our focus from what we need to do to what Jesus is already up to.
Reflect -
What stood out to you in Matthew?
Communion
Benediction
20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,
21 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.