Back to the Basics

Intro BAPTISM, invite all to 2nd service

Baseball team struggles opener

sports analyst: “Teams get so caught up chasing the big plays and the numbers…but there are fundamentals to this game that night after night win and lose you ball games.”

Championship teams master the fundamentals! The best teams execute the little things.  To perform well, you need to go back to the basics. That’s not just true in baseball—it’s true in life and in the church.

New seasons, transitions — great time to refocus and ask: What is the church really all about?

Matthew 28, Jesus: “be disciples who make disciples.”

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The last chapter of Matthew begins on the Sunday of the Resurrection. Two women – both named Mary—came to the tomb. Not sure what they expected to find. After all, a tomb is a tomb. Not much going on. Maybe just came to grieve, sit quietly with their sorrow and memories.

Didn’t expect earthquake, an angel, two guards lying there passed out, and an empty hole in the rock! After their initial shock and the angel’s announcement that Jesus had risen–and still a bit rattled out, they run to tell the disciples. Jesus himself appears to them. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, “go and tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee.”

Thus, a week or two later, his disciples gather on a mountain in Galilee. I can imagine their frame of mind, still in shock that their dead friend and teacher is there alive in front of them. Then Jesus gives them what we call the Great Commission: “Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

And that’s the how the Gospel of Matthew ends.

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Someone has said, "Familiarity doesn’t breed contempt—it breeds invisibility." This is a familiar passage; we might be tempted to think we’ve heard it before. But if we’ll pay attention, I think we can hear something else in this text.

Countless sermons have been preached from here, many, I daresay, focused on go and all nations—the call to missions and evangelism is important. But when we look closer, the most significant words are disciples and obey.

Here’s the issue: If the Church is to fulfill the Great Commission, we need to know what it means to be a disciple. Because we cannot make what we are not.

There’s the question: What is a disciple?

A crucial step to understand any passage of Scripture is to ask: How would the original audience have heard this?

There’s more going on here than just a set of marching orders. The Great Commission isn’t a new lesson; it was the climax of a bigger story—it’s a key part of the plot. Matthew carefully crafted his Gospel to point to this statement, so we need to explore its context to understand more deeply what Jesus is asking of us today.

So, to do that, I want us to look at two mountains and a Rabbi.

Observation 1: Sermon on the Mount

Back start of chapter 28. Jesus’s instructions to the women are rather unexpected: “Tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee.”

Why Galilee?

Nearly 100 miles north of Jerusalem, like going to Dalton. 6 days of arduous, dusty travel. After all the drama of the week—His arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection—we might expect Jesus to stay in the city where it all unfolded. Why send disciples on long journey back north?

Because Galilee wasn’t random—it was the hills outside of the town of Capernaum, center of Jesus’s ministry and hometown of many of the disciples. He’s calling them back to where it all began. Back to the hillside overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Back to where Jesus stood up one morning and preached, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…”

While the text doesn’t name this mountain specifically, many scholars believe it to be the Mount of Beatitudes – the same place where Jesus had preached the Sermon on the Mount three years earlier.

The setting matters. It’s not just geography but theology in landscape.

Matthew’s Gospel bookends Jesus’s ministry with two mountain moments: the Sermon on the Mount and the Great Commission. One launches Jesus’s ministry, the other concludes it. This is symbolic because the messages of the two gatherings are connected to one another in a profound way.

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Look at the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5-7, longest recorded teaching of Jesus. Blueprint for discipleship, a manifesto for kingdom living. Jesus doesn’t just say “repent…believe.” Shows what it looks like to live in his kingdom..

If someone becomes a U.S. citizen, they don’t just move in and get a passport. They learn the history, values, rights and responsibilities; study the Constitution, the government. Pass a test! Citizenship isn’t just about location—it’s about allegiance.

It's the same with the kingdom of God. It’s not just a matter of belief. A disciple in this kingdom embarks on a radically different life with a new identity. The values, priorities, desires – they are all new.

TRANSITION: Jesus isn’t inventing something new here; he’s fulfilling something old. This mountain in Galilee points back in time to another mountain where God first taught His people what it meant to follow to him.

Observation 2: Covenant at Sinai

Let’s shift the scene to the Sinai wilderness. The people of Israel have just escaped Egypt. Dusty, exhausted, and unsure of what’s next, they arrive at Mt. Sinai and set up camp. They’ll spend the next year there as the events in the book of Exodus unfold.

There, at the foot of this mountain, their identity as a nation begins to be formed. In Exodus 19, from the smoke-shrouded mountain, God forms a covenant with them, saying, “If you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure… my kingdom of priests, my holy nation” (Exodus 19:6).

This is where the meaning of a disciple starts: as covenant people called to be set apart, as God commanded in Leviticus 19:2: “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.”

A covenant in ancient world was a formal bond between a King and His people, stipulating what each party would do for the other and “blessings” and “curses”, the consequences of keeping or breaking the agreement. The stipulations were the Law—Ten Commandments and rules in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers.

Without understanding the context of what’s happening, we might see the Law as this list of arbitrary and weird rules. But they’re not that at all. Instead, they’re a relational blueprint for how Israel was to live distinctively as God’s special people. Obedience to these laws was how the Israelites remained faithful to the covenant.

A handful of the laws were central and permanent – don’t murder, don’t lie, be pure, be faithful, no idols, care for the poor, love God and your neighbor. Most the laws, of however, like dietary restrictions (eating shrimp) clothing rules, or the sacrificial system functioned differently.

They were object lessons to train the people’s hearts toward holiness; temporary training wheels to point people to a deeper reality.

It’s like trying to teach a 2-year-old the meaning of generosity. You can’t teach them something that abstract. You must be very concrete, teaching them actions like sharing their toys and how to take turns. In time, you hope they get it.

Of course, sharing isn’t the same as generosity, is it? Kids can share with a bad attitude. Ever notice how we don’t need to be taught how to say “mine!”—that one comes naturally to all of us.

2 Corinthians 9:7 says, “God loves a cheerful giver!” One word makes a big difference! Giving is what a generous person does joyfully, voluntarily—no coercion. Generosity is heart posture not just a behavior. That’s what’s going on here. Like with kids, you train the hands so the heart can learn.

That’s what the law did. Holiness is an abstraction—it’s was not self-evident what it meant to obey and be holy like God. The Law provided concrete ways to practice covenant faithfulness, teaching the people to obey God’s heart by being distinctive and different from the world around them.

Let me explain it this way: If I go to a ball game wearing my Braves jersey and my Braves hat, people know who I belong to. That jersey declares my loyalty, my team. But imagine someone wearing a Braves jersey and screaming for the Phillies. You’d say, “Hold on—who are you with?” That’s confusion. It sends mixed signals.

The covenant works the same way. God called his people to wear His jersey—to live in such a way that people would clearly know to whom they belonged. That distinction identified their allegiance.

That’s what God was doing with Israel at Sinai. He was saying, “You’re my people now—so live like it. Let your obedience tell the world that you are mine.”

TRANSITION: Disciples are called to be set apart, to be holy, to live in obedience to God—that was the spiritual identity the disciples carried with them that morning as they listened to Jesus preaching on the mountainside.

Observation 3 - Rabbi

Let’s shift the scene back to Galilee. Jesus is frequently called “Rabbi,” which was a teacher who modeled Torah living. Rabbis would select a group of elite young men – disciples – who would literally follow the rabbi everywhere, listening and learning.

But the disciples weren’t there just to learn what the rabbi knew; the goal was to become just like the rabbi. You could identify a rabbi just from how his disciples acted and talked. Well-known blessing: “May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi.”

When Jesus calls his disciples, he’s using this familiar social practice. If you’ve watched The Chosen TV show, this is a great portrayal of that system. The disciples follow Jesus to become like Jesus.

But what kind of Rabbi is Jesus? When he stands up to preach the Sermon on the Mount, it mirrors the covenant being given at Sinai. Just as in the past God spoke from that mountain, now Jesus – the Incarnated Holy God – speaks from a mountain explaining again what it means to be God’s people.

But something new is happening. The old covenant from Sinai is being refined here on the Galilean Mountain—not changed but taken to its full meaning.

Jesus begins with the blessings of obedience and the necessity of obeying the law. He told them that he had not come to get rid of the law but to fulfill it. And then he says something that shocks the crowd: “Your righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees!”

Right then, all jaws hit the floor. What?! James turns to his brother with this incredulous look: “There’s no way!”

The Pharisees were the gold standard of following the rules. They were the religious leaders obsessed with meticulously keeping the external rules of the Torah, believing that perfect adherence to these laws was what it meant to be holy. So how you be more righteous than the Pharisees?

They missed the point. Jesus refocuses from behavior to the heart: “You’ve heard it said...but I say to you…” Don't just avoid murder—control your anger. Don’t just avoid adultery—have pure desires.

Obedience isn't just about conduct—it’s about character.

True obedience isn’t just following rules—it’s becoming like Him. True holiness is not outward compliance, but inward change. That’s what it means to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees.

But here’s the problem: we can’t get there on our own.

We can’t act our way into being holy because our hearts are everything but holy. They resist holiness. We want to be in charge, to look good, not be good. Like stubborn kids, we might follow the rules—with gritted teeth: “I’ll do it. But I’m not gonna like it!”

I grew up in a conservative holiness tradition. No TV, no jewelry, long skirts, hair in buns—lots of outward signs of separation from the world—that was holiness in my mind. There were sincere, godly people there, I know. But as a kid, I remember thinking some folks looked holy on the outside, by that measure—but they forgot to tell their face. Some grumbled and complained about nearly everything, but they’d sing all seven verses of “Just as I Am,” and it felt like they were determined to stay that way. Some would give the same testimony every Sunday night and I never could quite tell whether they were thankful or resentful about it. They didn’t seem happy, kind, or joyful. They were holy…and miserable, making everybody around them miserable, as well.

But not my grandmother. She and my grandfather were in the same tradition, same outward lifestyle—Granddaddy was a pastor—but her spirit radiated genuine holiness—it wasn’t manufactured. It was the real thing.  She was the poster child for the Fruit of the Spirit, full of something altogether different. Because decades earlier as a young girl in the Methodist church, God had radically changed her heart; she walked intimately with the Holy Spirit the rest of her life.

My grandmother’s sweetness wasn’t just her personality—it was the work of God’s Spirit. This kind of heart change was always God’s intention for us.

It goes all the way back to the time of Moses and the Exodus where God promised a deeper kind of obedience. In Deuteronomy 30:6, Moses told the people that “the Lord your God will circumcise your hearts…so that you may love Him with all your heart and soul.” God wanted to cut away selfishness and sin, creating hearts that freely obey.

Centuries later, God told Jeremiah: “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33). This was a promise of a new covenant, where obedience would flow from within.

Then, through Ezekiel, God declared: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). A new heart, a new spirit—God’s plan was not just better behavior, but complete transformation.

Jesus came to fulfill that promise. He is the rabbi who doesn’t just teach righteousness—He makes it possible through the Holy Spirit who writes God’s law on our hearts. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that when we follow Christ, we become a new creation.

Holiness was always the expectation, but now it becomes the invitation. Obedience is no longer just a requirement God imposes on us; it becomes an offering we give freely out of love. A disciple follows Jesus to become like Jesus. That’s the heart of it.

[PAUSE]    Think about your life—how you react when you’re upset, hurt, or disappointed; when someone cuts you off in traffic, when things don’t go how you want; how you speak to your family after a tough day. How you deal with stress, conflict, temptation, or anxiety.

The Holy Spirit can change us so we’re like Jesus in those moments. And what freedom, joy, peace, and hope comes to us when we say yes!

TRANSITION: So, when Jesus says, “Go make disciples, teaching them to obey,” he’s calling us to lead others into this transformed life—loving as He loves, living as He lives, serving as he serves, all the while shining with God’s holiness. Is that us today?

CLOSING

In a pastoral search, it is common to ask: What do we want in a pastor? But I think a more important question is: What does God want in us?

The Catholic Church just elected Cardinal Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV. In his first sermon, Pope Leo XIV said the Church is “a city set on a hill, an ark of salvation sailing through the waters of history… a beacon that illumines the dark nights of this world. This is not because of the grandeur of her buildings or the monuments among which we find ourselves—but through the holiness of her members. For we are the people God has chosen to declare the wonderful deeds of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

The church is a holy community of people transformed by the Spirit, radiating His love. To make disciples, we must be disciples—hungry for holiness, eager for transformation, joyful in our obedience, ready to say yes to Jesus. A disciple follows Jesus to become like Jesus.

INVITATION

Let me ask plainly: Is that us today? Are we becoming like Jesus…or just “doing” church?

Let all our business be to know God; the more one knows Him, the more one desires to know Him.

Brother Lawrence

Some of you may have never said yes to Jesus. You’ve been near Him, hanging out on the edges, but never surrendered. Today, He calls you to follow for the first time.

Maybe you once walked with Jesus, but life just got in the way, you drifted. He’s calling you, too. Jesus is a loving Father who welcomes us back home.

Some of you have been faithful disciples, but you’re weary, and faith has grown stale or stagnant. Jesus offers new strength and vitality.

Maybe you hunger for more—more of His love, His purpose, His power in your life and circumstance. Maybe Jesus is calling you deeper.

As we sing and pray, the altars are open.

Wherever you are, will you say yes to being a disciple of Jesus?

This is a moment to respond. If that’s you this morning, then come as we pray and sing.

[PRAY]