love World

In our study over these last several weeks, we have been examining our core values as a church.

We have seen how God defines and displays love as sacrificially, actively, intentionally getting involved in someone else’s life.

Since He loved us this way, our love is simply a reflection of His love.

We cannot reflect what we do not know, so the first part of reaching our goal of love is to grow in our own understanding of God’s love for us, and then turning that love back to Him.

From there, we seek to love others, taking time to notice their needs, care about them, and invest our time, energy, and money to love them to Christ.

We do that for our families, helping meet all their needs, including their spiritual need to know Jesus.

We do that for our church family, developing caring, Christ-centered relationships with each other so we can encourage each other to grow to look more like Jesus.

Beyond that, we are called to love our community, helping those around us find a relationship with Christ by investing in their lives and telling them about Jesus.

That brings us to the final aspect of our goal, which is to love our world.

That brings us to the final aspect of our goal, which is to love our world.

When we say love our world, we are talking about those beyond our community, and as we will see today, it extends to all 7 billion people alive on earth today.

Here’s how we have defined loving our world:

We pray for God’s activity around the world.

We give to support those serving Him.

We go wherever He leads.

There are clear passages throughout the New Testament that demonstrate God’s desire for us to reach the nations.

This morning, we are going to focus our attention on perhaps the most well-known: The Great Commission, found in .

These verses are familiar to most of us, and because of that, it is easy to lose sight of their importance.

We are going to spend some time fleshing out the command God gives us here, but in a nutshell, here it is:

We are commanded to teach the world how to follow Jesus.

Read the passage with me…

It is as simple and straightforward as that.

However, there are some nuances we cannot miss, so let’s take some time to unpack this.

I love the way Jesus puts it together.

He bookends the command of the passage with two incredible statements.

The first part of that command is in verse 18.

Some of you have served in the military, and you understand chain of command. You can’t go to a superior officer and tell them what to do, because you don’t have the authority.

You may have had this in your job. Your manager or your supervisor has every right to tell you how to do your job, but it doesn’t work both ways!

Think about it…how far would I get if I went over across from Dairy Queen where they are grading the land and started ordering the crew around? Not far at all! Why? Because I have no authority over them.

So, before Jesus commands us to teach the world about Him, He reminds us that He has absolute authority.

Although He had that authority as God, He proved that He deserves it through dying in obedience to the Father and being raised from the dead:

Philippians 2:9–11 CSB

For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (, NASB95)

Because Jesus has ultimate authority, He can command us to do something that may seem impossible.

Because Jesus has ultimate authority, He can command us to do something that may seem impossible.

Not only does He have the right, but because He has the authority, He also has the ability to make it happen!

Let’s look at the actual command again in verse 19…

From this verse, let’s draw out the three different aspects of Jesus’ command:

1) Make disciples everywhere.

There is a lot of discussion over the first word in this verse.

Most translations simply translate it as “go”, which fits with the way Matthew starts sentences.

Other commentators have taken note of the fact that this is actually a participle, so it could have the sense of “as you go”.

They then make the point that we are supposed to be making disciples everywhere we go.

However, if you notice a few words later, Jesus tells us that we are to make disciples of all the nations.

If we are going to accomplish that, then we have to go, because we don’t encounter people from all the nations in our daily routine.

So which is it? “As you go” or “Go”?

Yes!

Isn’t that the point of what we have said so far about loving others? I am supposed to love my family, church, and community to Christ. Here, Jesus adds “all nations”, so that adds one more layer to this.

We are called to make disciples as we go and when we go!

Isn’t that what we see in possibly the most famous verse in the Bible?

John 3:16 CSB

For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. (, CSB)

God didn’t just love us, but He loved the entire world!

God didn’t just love us, but He loved the entire world!

Jesus didn’t just come to save the Jews or save the Americans. He came to make the way available for the entire world to be saved:

2 Corinthians 5:18–20 CSB

Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf: “Be reconciled to God.”

Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf: “Be reconciled to God.” (, CSB)

He is reconciling the world, and He has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

He is reconciling the world, and He has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

We are His ambassadors, His representatives, and we are commissioned to take the message of the cross to every person under all creation!

That’s why Jesus also told His disciples:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (, CSB)

Acts 1:8 CSB

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Now, unlike any time in history, we have access to take the Gospel to the remotest parts of the world.

In less than 24 hours, you can be almost anywhere in the world.

Thanks to the internet, we have accurate, up-to-date information about what is happening in every corner of the globe.

Think about it: there was a time when taking the Gospel to the nations meant buying a one way ticket on a boat, traveling across open ocean for months, and then landing with no training, contacts, or help. You left knowing that you likely would never come back to see your family again.

And yet, people answered the call.

Here’s the hard part: people still need us to go!

Here’s the hard part: people still need us to go!

Let’s make it visual this morning: Using rough figures, only about 5% of the world’s population lives in North America.

However, American churches spend 95% of our resources on that 5%...

You might say, “Well, there are lots of Christians in other parts of the world.” You’re right, but here are the statistics:

<<UUPG Slides>>

There are currently 7,457,237,525 people in the world.

Of those 4,364,650,345 live somewhere where less than 2% of the population professes to know Christ.[1]

Do you see the problem?

You need to be praying about what God is doing in the world, giving to support Him at work, and when He calls, go across the street or around the globe.

God has called us to love the world!

The command, though, is that we would make disciples as we go.

How do we make disciples?

That’s what He explains in verse 19…

2) Lead them to identify with Christ.

The first aspect of making disciples is to lead them to be baptized.

Jesus gave this command because baptism is the way we publically identify with Jesus.

It is the outward symbol that we have turned from sin and turned towards following Christ.

That’s the picture of the actual event, and that is why we believe baptism should be done by immersion.

That means you come up here, we put you in this tub of water, and we lay you down and bring you back up.

That symbolizes the fact that Jesus died for you, was buried, and was raised from the dead.

It also shows that you are dying to your old way of living and being raised to live the new life God gives you.

Baptism, then, is how the Bible says we are to show the world that we are not living for ourselves anymore but are living for Jesus.

It is like my wedding ring: my wedding ring doesn’t make me married, but it demonstrates that I am married.

I want to wear my wedding ring because I want the world to know that my heart belongs to this beautiful woman!

Likewise, baptism doesn’t save us, but it does show the world that our heart belongs to Jesus now, and we won’t do the same things we used to.

In other cultures, they baptize publically so all the village or all the town knows that person has identified with Christ.

In fact, baptism is often the defining moment where a person gets rejected by their family for following Jesus.

Jesus said that making disciples was more than simply teaching people that Jesus died for them.

To truly make disciples, we must be showing people that they have to change their lives and reorient them around Christ.

As you pray for missionaries, pray that God will give them the ability to clearly communicate this truth.

Pray that God will help people see that they can’t simply add Jesus to their list of idols, but instead, must identify with His death and resurrection, forsaking everything else.

As an aside, have you been baptized? If you claim to know Christ, then there should be a time when you have shown that publically as He commands!

Baptism is the first step of obedience for the believer, so you should want to demonstrate that.

Go back to the wedding ring example: I understand that there are workplaces that won’t let you and all, but don’t you think you ought to want to let the world know you’re married? In our culture, that is with a wedding ring. Shouldn’t you want people to see that?

If not, there might be something wrong.

Same goes for baptism. If you’ve never been baptized, why not? What is keeping you from being obedient to Jesus?

Disciples of Christ are willing to identify with Him, so if we are going to fulfill the command Jesus gives, we must lead people to be baptized.

It doesn’t stop there, though:

3) Teach them to obey Christ.

Look again at verse 20…

Jesus says that we are to teach them to observe all He has commanded us.

That is a huge statement with heavy implications for us.

At the very least, this continues to reinforce that reaching our goal of loving the world is not simply telling people about Jesus and getting them to pray a prayer.

No; if we genuinely love the world, we are going to pray and give and go to help people across the globe learn how to live the life that God has called us to live.

That’s why the primary ways we have been involved in the world is through our work with the Ndau in Zimbabwe. We are partnering with GraceLife Baptist, taking repeat trips into the same villages, to take the Word of God in and teach them to observe everything Jesus commanded.

Making disciples is a difficult process that requires investing our time, treasure, and talents in what is going on around the world.

Honestly, it is way too difficult a task for us to do. That’s why we have the other bookend of this passage in verse 20.

Jesus, who is reconciling the world to Himself, is with us every step of the way.

He is not going to abandon us, He is not going to leave us out to dry.

How can He make that promise? Because He has already died and been raised, proving that there is no obstacle that would take Him away from you.

As we wrap up our formal teaching time through our core values, I can’t really think of a greater passage to end on.

Loving God and others in our family, church, community, and world is, frankly, impossible.

Yet, Jesus commands us to do it, loving others and challenging them to follow Him with everything they have and everything they are.

The only way we can accomplish this is through His presence, which never goes away.

Resources Used:

http://grd.imb.org/wp-content/uploads/documents/gsec-files/2018-04_GSEC_Overview.pdf. Accessed 13 June 2018.