The Great Commision in practice. Matthew 28:18-20.

Intro

Good morning church and thank you for being here to worship with us this morning.

As we’ve walked through Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church this year, one of the backdrops of this for us was to consider disciple making as a process. So, yes, we would preach the word of God and listen to the truth in its context, but we would also try and analyze those truths as we considered how to apply them in our own life and help others do the same.

Tension

Easier said than done, right? I mean some things can be done easily with litter extra from us because they aren’t areas of much resistance or struggle but then we have our pet problems that seem to follow us around like a vulture.

Well today, my goal is to take our year, cover it with whipped cream and place the last cherry on top to make the sundae pop. Today we are going to analyze disciple-making against another passage that is extremely known and taught throughout the church. So read with me and lets get started this morning, Matthew the 28th Chapter, verses 18-20.

Truth

Matthew 28:18–20 (ESV)

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

19 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,

20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Pray

Exposition

Now we all have heard, taught, preached, or listed to at least 4500 sermons over probably the 2nd most famous passage in the Bible, behind only John 3:16. And for good reason. This is the culmination of Jesus preaching and teaching ministry, but also his finished work on the cross. Now the disciples have both pieces of the puzzle to work from. all of the once scattered and obscured pieces seems to be clicking into place for them in real time. Now they see their resurrected Christ put the icing on top.

Matthew 28:18–20 (ESV)

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Not some authority, not alot of it, not a new title or job description or promotion. All of the authority that exists in heaven and in earth has been given to Jesus. This authority is the same kind and substance that when God says “let their be light it comes screaming out of his mouth at 186,000 miles per second just because he said so. So that creative power and authority is His. Secondly all authority over and in the Earth. That includes power over the created structures that govern on Earth such as physics, biology, science. but also, authorities that are invented over the Earth such as governments, nations, and rulers. He stands in authority over it all. Now in that authority, with that power, with that status, he says the following words.

It’s kind of like how a man carrying the king’s seal was to be treated as he was carrying the king’s authority himself. The herald was to be honored, respected, and when he spoke it was as if the king was there speaking to you himself. In this case however, the king and the herald are one. With this authority and power, what message does he bring?

19 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,

He tells his faithful 11 to go do the work. He commissions them to make, mark, and multiply disciples among the nations. I do think a couple things pop off this page to us a little more each time we read and study it.

First, I notice today what Jesus didn’t say. Notice he could have told them to stay in Jerusalem and work together to build a megachurch of sorts. I mean if each of the disciples did what they did among the nations can you imagine the fever pitch that would have occured with all of them working as staff in the same place at the same time? That church would have blown up like wildfire. Think about it. Peter preaches every Sunday and 3000 people get saved. The rest of the guys work on developing the new converts and making more and more. Jerusalem would have never been the same. They then could have created critical mass that saw their influence spread over the surrounding areas. Without expanding my make-believe more, Jesus didn’t do that. He sent his guys immediately around the area to start churches, not to stay and make one large one. They were told to go not to stay.

Also, notice they weren’t prepared for what would happen? No classes, no languages or culture seminars or trainings. They we called by, led by, and trusted in the Holy Spirit. Jesus had been prepping and leading them towards this for the last couple years. Remember when he sent them out in 2’s with no provisions and told them that they would be provided for. I mean who does that. “Juston, you are going to walk down to Nixa, then to Holister, then to Ozark and you’re not allowed to take even another change of clothes with you. Go, preach the stuff you’ve heard me preach, and trust that God will provide the rest. What will I eat? Doesn’t matter God will take care of it? Where will I stay? Doesn’t matter God will provide? What will I wear? Again, God will take care of it.

Yet they did. Disicples, you’ll remember are not just learners of a teacher but a person who has committed themselves to not only learn his lessons but to emulate their teacher himself. They wanted to become like their teacher. So, the disciples were called to the outer edges of the map to make more like them. To take the investment Jesus had put into them through education, coaching, salvation, and training, and pour those lessons into their new pupils. Jesus was their rabbi and now they would become the rabbi's to others.

20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

And now we come to the meat of the passage I want to focus on this morning in the greater context of 1 Corinthians. In fact, one word in particular.

“Observe” “tereo” (tay-ray-o). Is used 71 times in the NT to describe “observing, guarding, reserving, establishing, holding, maintaining, and protecting.” You’ll notice the them of this word is that we know a thing and then guard it. We are to keep watch over it. However, in over half of its occurrences the context translates the word as “keep”. Keep, keeping, keeps, has kept, these all introduce a tone not only of vigilance and guarding something of importance but in the seeing it done. So, we see here that Jesus is letting them know that of all the things he has commanded them, taught them, shown to them and given them imperative to do, these things are to be closely watched and guarded, but not that only. They are to be kept and lived by yourselves while you teach the next generation how to live them out as well. You see, teaching them is not enough, we have to show them how to put these things in practice and coach them until they are able to do it themselves.

Think of it like helping a baby learn to walk. For some kids it quick and they take off in no time. For others is a process of months. Yet they get it and they aren’t good at it at first. Or they are really good they just don’t realize their head is the same height as a coffee table. So they might get how some of it works but don’t see all the things that bump up against their progress. Insert a parent who “observes, guards, establishes, protects” them while they are learning these new skills. We don’t just read them a book on how to walk and hope they get it. We show the, we encourage them, we watch out for them, we applaud them, we pick up the things that are going to impede their progress. We teach them about things they didn’t know to even look out for.

You see, Jesus’ command was that these men would teach disciples who would observe and keep his commands. In essence, put them into deep practice until they became not a part of who they were but BECAME who they were.

I want to bring this to bear on the this year with a couple of observations about disciple making.

Disciple-making is not just lessons and classes.

Disciple-making is not the work of the pastors but the work of the church.

It is not optional. You don’t get to opt out.

It’s a lot more hands on than we’ve made it.

It assumes action on their part and on our part

Your role is a coach/parent

So, let me cut straight to the chase and not pastor this up anymore. Lets just ask some questions.

How many disciples have you made this year?

How many times have you met with another believer who needed your investment this year?

How many times this year have you shared the gospel with a person?

Would you be willing to say that your answer to these 3 questions was because you didn’t have the time?

Could you really look at a whole year and declare that inside of it you didn’t have the time or would we have to concede its not a matter of time but a matter of priority?

Friends, we don’t prioritize making disciples, even though its THE thing Jesus told us to prioritize. We’ve unfortunately declared it to be a thing that will happen through the course of time passively. We think you can go to church once a week and attend a Sunday school class and that, eventually, you will over time have been morphed into a sold out on fire follower of Jesus. And friends, if you feel yourself disquieted by these statements thinking, “Well juston, that is what happens and we have been making disciples” might I ask then why is the church not growing? Why are the segments of the population that declare themselves “de-churched” growing and 18-25’s leaving their faith faster than we can count? Let me cut to the chase and make my point.

It’s not a 4 week study, a book, or a conference. Its not a class or a series of classes. Its not various tests or going on mission trips or participating in revivals. These things or the lack of them are not our issue.

Our issue is that we have grown so passive in making disciples that we have literally forgotten how. Its not fully your fault either. We’ve made ministry a professional game where you should have degrees and schooling to even participate. Bologna. We’ve convinced and been convinced that we don’t know enough about Christ or the bible to teach anyone anything. Bologna. We’ve created programs inside of the church that do it all for you like a microwave Christian service. You can bring you kids to Awana, you teens to youth, yourself to a bible study, and you all come out the other side warmed to perfection in the course of 2 hours a week.

Friends, we’ve made the Christian walk into a course on a 4-year college were we learn about theoretical concepts and practices in a safe classroom. Instead it needs to be thought of and taught as a 1 year crash course in a tradeschool where you are picking up tools and getting to work. Everything you are taught has real world application right now. You practice what you will be doing in a couple days. You learn the tools, you touch them. You do jobs. You fail. You pick up and do better next time. Your teacher is a man or woman who has done the job themselves. They have experience and they are teaching you out of their personal experience. They didn’t study power drills and write a dissertation on the theory of electricity, they’ve used them and have been shocked because they are electricians.

So here is my whole point in a nutshell: We are seeing waning numbers of disciples because our disciple-making doesn’t make disciples. Programs are not enough and even if you participated in all that we have to offer, you would not be a disciple. We need men and women to relearn the trade of making disciples.

It takes time and diligence and you have to be hands on. We pick apart each other’s lives and bring “all the things I have commanded you” to bear on them.

4 things:

Knowledge: fill in ignorance (what I don’t know) with truth. Ignorance isn’t a bad thing. Its just not knowing. We can cure ignorance. but knowledge that doesn’t work is nothing.

Understanding: articulate and own knowledge and put it in it’s proper place in my life. We ask probing questions that stretch and reveal insight into who we really are and who we are becoming.

Attitude: to help us integrate truth into who we are and how we see ourselves, God, and, the world around us. think-Jello cake. these things have begun to flavor all of the ways you see yourself.

Skill: How to get good at using tools to do jobs. We are all terrible on a bike at first but we build up skill. We are all terrible of using a chainsaw at first because the risk is huge. Yet, you can learn to do even dangerous things with skill and safety and competence.

To put this in perspective first then practice.

First, I would say the church has a good grasp on the knowledge associated with discipleship. We should because we largely distilled disciple-making down to schooling and knowledge acquisition for years now. We are even good in most areas of understanding because we have largely added conversations and discussions into those classes and programs that allow up to play with the play dough a little bit. It can even be fun and often is to people.

But attitude and skill are drastically lacking in our spiritual formation and our disciple making toolkit as the church today.

Attitude requires us to poke and prod and observe people in a way that we’ve largely given up on because we value privacy more than we do honesty in our culture. We trust that people will do their personal work throughout the week and take the time to think on, study on, and integrate these lessons into their heart so we leave it at that. We don’t ask questions later about what we’ve done with it. We don’t call each other out on blatant sin or disobedience. We don’t hold each other to accountability, because if we were fully honest, we don’t want to be. Its awkward. Its painful. It takes time and investment and I’m already so busy. To know someone that deeply and that intimately that when they lie to you and themselves, you can tell, takes time. This is the real WORK of disciple-making. To help a person apply this and work with them to let it soak into every fiber of who they are and how they see themselves. Its not a class or a program. And it takes you and me to fully invest ourselves into this calling that Jesus told us to be about. Its not teaching a class of 30 6th graders a lesson for a semester. Its teaching your own children, whom you love and have invested your life into, how to walk, talk, think, talk, learn, and grown. Its giving them who you are and helping them to figure out who they are.

And the skills portion has gone by the wayside because its really hard to teach someone to build a house when you never learned. Sure we teach how to study the bible, how to pray, what church is and how to serve (well kinda), but we don’t teach you how to build disciples because we don’t know ourselves.

Does that all make sense? Now, I’ve discussed the problems and the weaknesses. I’ve done enough to become a politician already. All they have to do is say how broken things are and then try to attach the blame to an opponent. But I’m going to go one step further into unknown territory. I’m going to provide the solution.

Knowledge, understanding, attitude, skill. This is how we learn and grow and how others do too. So, a whole year of 1 Corinthians, lets take one of these lessons and walk it all the way out.

We are going to go familiar and difficult.

1 Corinthians 13 (ESV)

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant

5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,

10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I’m going to put me on the couch and show you this process walked out. I want you to see me use the power drill, then you will know how to use it.

First up, if I’m shooting for knowledge and to cure ignorance a couple lessons jump off the page right off the bat.

Love is clearly and definitely spelled out here. I could likely work with a person to memorize this verse and in doing so we get a real, biblical definition of what love is and does. It also does a great job of setting up another lesson of how God is love and what does that mean in a culture that declares that because God is love it looks like him endorsing all the things I want him too. This could happen in a class, in a small group, at a coffee shop once a week for a while. All of these would set me up to aquire knowledge.

In order to fully understand this I need to play with it. That will likely look like comparing and contrasting all the things I’ve been told love was/is versus what I have taken to believe it to be. And obvious cultural one is that we “fall in and out of” love. How does that idea conflict with these truths? Then the extra work requires another person to backboard these ideas off of. “Am I loving Like this? How do I see God’s love exemplifying these attributes? How would I explain this verse to another person in my own words so they understand what God’s desire is for their love lived out?” As you can imagine this is informational but also has the potential to get personal fast. This isn’t just skin deep stuff but requires me to face some of the ways i’ve been wrong before. I might have to own things that I still want to beleive about love that conflict with the bible. I will need a trusted friend to guide me through the weeds if I’m going to succeed. It might take them to share some of the ways they've gotten this wrong or to help me clarify with other passages that help me shore up my beliefs. It all ends with me being able to articulate this so that I could teach it to another person. Again, a classroom, a small group, but the deeper we get and the more personal we hope to get, requires intimacy and honesty. Both will go up when the group gets smaller and the trust goes up because I trust the person I’m talking with.

Attitude is the hard part. I need someone who knows me well enough to call me on what I’m really thinking and how I’m really acting. This requires more than just skin deep relationship. I can put on a mask as good as anyone and this requires you to know me enough to see past what I’m saying to what I’m leaving out or, in some cases how I’m lying to you or even myself. You don’t have to be harsh or cruel but this level of change requires honesty and love. “Juston, you say you love your wife but I’ve noticed you’re not very patient with her? What do you think the difference is between being arrogant and rude and how you treated Doug last night in group? You’re having a hard time right now and I get it but if love really does bear all things and endure all things, why do you feel so defeated by everything right now? Is there a lack of love making its way to the surface? Why do you think that is?” Friends these conversations and people that love you enough to have them with you is one of the hallmarks of all of Jesus’ preaching, teaching, and healing. He cut through the fog of the moment and told people, “you’re right, you don’t have a husband you’ve had 5.” Again, he didn’t do this because he hated the woman but because her attitude of righteousness and seeing him as a jew needed to shift to seeing him as the son of God ready to save sinners. And her view of herself as a sinner who needed his saving. It is awkward. It is hard. It is costly. It is uncomfortable. But it is transformative. This cannot really happen in a classroom. This can happen in a small group but only if trust is paramount. this requires honest to be open and a person to have invested highly into you.

Skills- Do you know I asked you that question that way? Hey lets read through Jude this week and I want you to teach me that book as we work through it. Hey you are helping me on Saturday, we are helping Kelly move and then have lunch. All the while I’m giving you the tools you need when I release you to do this in someone else’s life. You are done with me, when you’re ready to do this for someone else. And until you are, we are tight.

Landing

this takes time and it take me being personally invested in the process at a father child level. Your maturation and growth become my problem and my calling. And btw this is an all of us thing. We are all called to this, not just teachers, preachers, or parents. But we need to learn how to be practitioners again. We need to be those that get our hands dirty and practice our trade of making disciples again. Dad taught me all the time “measure twice cut once.” Guess how many times I’ve had to relearn that lesson over the years. We forget, we get it wrong, we adjust and we do better next time. You won’t win perfectly the first time out, or even the second time but you can grow and get better each time so that you feel confident in your competence. So that we can work on building better disciples for the glory of God. Let’s pray to that end.