Why Are We Here?

Matthew 28:18–20 ESV

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Why are we here? - philosophers, we all ask it searching for ultimate meaning

I am talking about the church

Universal - why not right to heave?

MCC - why are we here?

Area churches - vision/mission/purpose statements

[Our Church] aims to be a community centered on and propelled by the gospel of Jesus Christ to serve Montclair and the surrounding communities in word and deed.

[We are] a distinct and diverse community of Christians that come together as one church to join faith and action.  [We] serve God in the co-creation of a just and sustainable world…We are a church of extravagant welcome, and a church where "…they may all be one" (John 17:21).... [Our} commitment to social justice and the radical welcome of Jesus continues…

We’re here...to be a church that passionately seeks to encounter God's grace, experience true community, and ultimately engage the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

[Our church] has long been a multi-generational, family-oriented community and a pioneer of inclusion. Families and individuals come from “many paths” to [us] but are attracted by the opportunity to grow spiritually on our “one journey” to God.

[We] love one another, serve the…community, and grow in God together.

We are committed to helping each person discover…fulfillment and nurture within our community of faith, and have crafted a multitude of ministries to address the varied needs of our congregation and community at large.

Now, we all may have an idea of which of these we believe is the best mission or purpose for a local church.

But here is the question: what does the Bible say is the purpose of the church? Do our ideas align with what Christ said is the purpose or mission of His church - with how He answers the question: why are we here?

Well, I want to consider that, and we are going to do that in my next few sermons.

Because I want us to see what Jesus said about this. I want us to see what He says our purpose is. I want us to see why we are here. Why the church universal is here. And why we, Montclair Community Church, are here.

And today, we will begin with the logical starting point and consider what is known as the Great Commission. I believe that this is the first step to achieving our purpose as the church.

But before we get into the meat of what Jesus tells us what to do here, I want us to understand two things.

First, this commission is for the whole church. It is our purpose, together. It is not something we each do. It isn’t for every individual Christian. Not everyone is called or gifted to teach. Not everyone has to baptize people.

This is for the church - the whole church universal of all time. We each take part by using our gifts and calling to serve the church and sustain the church and grow the church, so we can all together fulfill our commission.

That’s first.

Second, this is not our work, it’s Christ’s work.

What do I mean by that?

Well, Jesus doesn’t send us on our way with instructions and say “good luck guys.” He says, “I am going to do this. Follow me and let me do it through you.”

Consider how he frames the Great Commission. Before He tells us to do anything, He begins with this:

Matthew 28:18 (ESV)

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

As we have seen, God has all the power. He has all the authority. Any power and any authority any created being has, only has it because it is given by God. But it is still God’s. He works that power and that authority in and through us.

But what is striking is what Jesus doesn’t say here.

When He calls His 12 Apostles as Apostles, Jesus immediately sends them out on a mission. You can read about this in Luke chapter 9, where we read this:

Luke 9:1–2 ESV

And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.

Note here that Jesus gave them authority. And He sends them on their mission, and we read:

Luke 9:10 (ESV)

On their return the apostles told him all that they had done.

They return to Jesus, and as if He didn’t already know, they tell Jesus all they did while they were away from Him - all they did in the power and authority He gave them.

In the next chapter, we read of the sending of the seventy-two, and we read:

Luke 10:1 ESV

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go.

And we know He gave them the same power and authority, because upon their return, we read this:

Luke 10:17 ESV

The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!”

So in both cases, Jesus gives these men their instructions, and sends them out without Him. He gives them power and authority to complete their mission, and sends them on their way to do so.

But in the Great Commission, Jesus doesn’t tell us He is giving us any authority. Rather, He makes sure to be clear about this. He says:

Matthew 28:18 (ESV)

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

He doesn’t say: “and this authority I give to you” here. He tells us He has the authority. He starts with this. All authority is His.

So then, how are we supposed to fulfill our purpose? How do we fulfill this Great Commission if we do not have authority given to us?

Well, Jesus tells us at the end of the Commission, when He says:

Matthew 28:20 (ESV)

behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

The difference between our mission, and that of the Apostles and of the 72, is that Christ is on this mission with us. It is done with His authority and in His presence. He is doing this.

He is present within the church - in each of us and all of us - by His Holy Spirit.

Jesus promised this to His disciples. He said He was going to the Father:

John 14:16–20 ESV

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

Christ is with us by His Spirit. And He told His disciples that this is better - that how He is with us now is better than when He was physically with them and they didn’t have the Spirit.

Brothers and sisters, Christ is with us. He is here with us. We come together to worship Him on Sundays not in some abstract, ethereal sense. Like God is somewhere far off and accepts our worship from here. We come together to worship our God Who is in our very midst.

We are not orphans, loyal to a God that is somewhere “out there” or “up there” Who we look forward to being with someday. He is with us now.

And that is why the Great Commission is a different mission altogether from those two we read about in Luke’s Gospel. Christ doesn’t give us authority and say: “go do this and then return to me” like He did with those first disciples.

He says, “I have all the authority and I am with you until the end.” He is with us by the Spirit until the end of the age when He will come to be with us physically. This time, He sends us on our mission, and says “I will do this, and then I will return to you.”

So what He tells us to do, It is done in His authority and by Him Who is with us. He leads the mission, He accomplishes the mission - all we can do is follow Him and do what He calls us to do by being what He calls us to be.

In fact, because He is with us and has all authority - that is why we go on this mission. That is why He sends us. He says:

Matthew 28:18–19 (ESV)

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore…

Note the “therefore” - it’s important. Jesus draws a conclusion based on the fact that He has all authority. Since He does, “therefore”, we go. Because He is sovereign over all - because He has all authority and power - because He is God - because He is the God that is with us - therefore we go.

Do you see what this “therefore” means? We go on this mission, because we can’t fail. He has all authority. He is sovereign over it all. Nothing is outside of His perfect, sovereign, control.

And He is doing this.

So if we do what He tells us to do here, we cannot fail! If we follow Him in this, we cannot fail! If we rely on Him and do things His way, we cannot fail!

Montclair Community Church, do we believe that?

So then what do we do? What is Jesus telling us to do here in the Great Commission?

Matthew 28:19–20 (ESV)

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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

Well, when we Christians talk about the Great Commission, we tend to focus on the “go”. I mean, it is the first thing Jesus says after telling us about His authority. And since we are to go and do what Jesus tells us here for “all nations”, we tend to think of the Great Commission as a purely missionary command.

We take from this “go to all nations.”

We think of it as: we - the church - are to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. And that is true, we are commanded to do that. But is that what Jesus is saying here?

That is the conclusion we tend to draw from this, especially when we assume Mark 16:15 parallels this. But not only does Mark 16:15 not even belong in our Bibles - that is not what Christ is saying here.

Even when we look at the command in Luke 24 - which we will in a few weeks - this is not parallel to that. Or the instructions given in Acts 1 - which we will look at in a few weeks - this is not saying the same thing. Christ gave His church multiple instructions. These don’t all say the same thing.

And yes, the church is here because without us the world will not see Christ. We are here to spread the Gospel so God can save souls.

But when when a soldier is drafted into the army, they don’t immediately hand him his gun and send him to the front line, do they?

So I want to challenge our understanding of the Great Commission a little this morning. Of this passage we are considering today. Because we tend to limit the scope of what Jesus tells us to do when we understand this solely as a call to missions.

Look at what Christ tells us here:

Matthew 28:19–20 (ESV)

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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

How many instructions does Christ give us here?

Well, we have four verbs in the Great Commission: go, make, baptize, and teach.

So how many instructions is that?

One.

Let’s examine these verbs - these actions we are called to.

Let’s start with “go.” Even though we tend to focus on this, It isn’t really saying anything on its own. The form of the verb used here means that it compliments the main verb in the clause. It kind of tags along with it and rides its coattails to say something more about that action.

I won’t bore you all with too much grammar, but this verb in the Greek is not in the imperative. It is a participle. We have participles in English. They are not usually used to communicate the main action of the subject of the verb.

Like in the sentence: “Driving to church this morning, Lee engaged in a little road rage.” Driving is a participle, and engaged is the action which is the focus of the sentence. I am not trying to communicate that I drove to church, I am talking about my road rage incident.

Don’t worry. This is a fictional scenario…today.

Well here in the Great Commission, “go” is a participle. And, as I said, this doesn’t say anything on its own. This specific verb form requires another verb to have any meaning. It literally means nothing until you have the verb it describes, because this verb takes on the qualities of that other verb.

And that other verb here, is “make.” “Make” is an imperative. It is a command. So “go” becomes an imperative that enhances the “make”. The better translation would be, “therefore, go and make disciples.” The point isn’t the going, it’s the making.

Like when Jesus says to the religious elite in Matthew 9: “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’” It is the same verb structure there, where the “go” isn’t what Jesus is commanding, but the learning is what He is commanding.

Here, the “go” is not the point. The “make disciples” is. This entire commission is about discipleship. It is the only command in the entire Great Commission.

“Go and make disciples.”

Well, what about the other verbs: baptizing and teaching. Well, these are also participles - different forms than the “go” - and they are part of how we go and make disciples. This is all one command to make disciples, and Jesus tells us in part what we must do to make disciples.

First, disciples must be baptized. If you’ll remember back to my sermon on baptism last summer, which I am sure you all have memorized, we saw that baptism is the outward covenant sign of the New Covenant. The Old Covenant had circumcision, the New Covenant has baptism.

And we saw that by following the progressive history of redemption we have to conclude that baptism is to be reserved for believers, because it is a spiritual sign for God’s spiritual people. It is meant to be a public profession of their faith, a sign that they are in the covenant community, and an identifying with Christ in His death and resurrection.

And here, if it is not believers baptism that Jesus is talking about, then it’s difficult to understand how baptism is in any way a part of Christian discipleship. But this is talking about believer’s baptism.

Because to make someone a disciple - for them to be part of the Great Commission - they have to enter into the covenant community. They have to commit to the covenant community. They have to be part of the church who was given this Commission.

Because discipleship is done a number of ways:

It is done one on a hundred during the Sunday sermon

One on ten or twenty in a Bible study

5 on the same 5 during fellowship or when praying together in a small group

One on one when a more mature brother or sister in Christ helps a newer believer along in their faith, or two mature believers sharpen each other like iron sharpens iron.

It is done:

Through serving each other

By serving others side by side with your brothers and sisters

Through praying with and for each other

And we need all of these in order to be discipled. Corporate worship, small group, one on one, prayer, service to the church and with the church.

Discipleship, however, is never done one on none.

There is no such thing as a solo Christian in the Bible. You can say “all I need is my Bible”, and you can say “relationship not organized religion”, and you can say “I have Christ I don’t need the church.”

You can say that, but you’d be wrong. You are not following the Christ of the Bible then, and you are ignoring the Great Commission. You are saying you love and follow someone you will not commit to or obey.

As R.C. Sproul wrote:

One cannot be awakened [to a holy God] without seeing the church as the people of God who are summoned to worship Him, serve Him, and obey Him. To worship God means chiefly to join with the corporate body. To serve and obey Him is to serve and obey Him by serving His church.

You need to be in the covenant community. This is part of following Jesus, part of discipleship, and how we fulfill the purpose He has established for us.

You need to be baptized in, or into, the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. You need to identify yourself with the triune God. You need to be part of the church, who Christ - and the full Godhead - is with to fulfill His purpose for us.

And it is part of discipleship.

You need to be baptized, and you need to be part of fulfilling the Commission. Why? Because Christ said so. He said this is what His followers do. This is part of why we’re here.

That’s the first way we make disciples. We bring them into the community of the church.

Second, Christ says we make disciples by teaching them to observe all that He has commanded us.

Well, this has a few elements to it. Christ wants us teach people how to observe - how to obey, to keep, to fulfill, to conform to - all that He has commanded us.

And in order to teach someone how to obey, we first need to teach them what to obey. Christ assumes the “what” here. Christ assumes that disciples will be taught all He has commanded.

This is why I much prefer to preach through books of the Bible. That is how we learn the whole counsel of God. And Jesus says to teach them to obey all that He has commanded, which means they need to know all that He has commanded.

And this assumes, of course, that we who are called to make disciples know all that Christ has commanded. So we as the church have a responsibility to know all that Christ has commanded.

And while the command to know your Bible - to read your Bible - to seek to understand your Bible - to learn from teachers of the Bible - while this is not commanded in this passage, it too is assumed. It is the necessary prerequisite for the church to make disciples.

Because part of making disciples is teaching them to observe all that Christ has commanded.

And note again that we are not just teaching what He commanded, but how to obey what He has commanded. The obeying - the observing - is the point here.

We can’t know our Bibles in a purely intellectual sense. Knowing what it says is not the point. It is necessary to get to the point, but it is not the point. It is a means, not an end.

Because, like we have seen the last six weeks, we are not purely intellectual creatures, are we. We are whole creatures with intellect, and will, and emotion, and bodies, and a need for relationship, and with spirits. So the Word of God isn’t just about the mind. It is about all of who we are - the whole person.

So to know the Bible is different than to know what it says. Satan knows what the Bible says. Many unbelievers know what the Bible says.

But we need to know the Bible, as in: in our heads, in our hearts, and through our lives. It must affect how we think, how we love, how we work that out in action.

It has to affect our spirit, our mind, our relationships, our emotions, and how we use our bodies.

This is knowing the Word of God.

And if it doesn’t affect the whole person, we will not get to the observing part of this. To the obeying. And part of teaching obedience is modeling obedience. This assumes that those discipling others and teaching them to obey will themselves be obedient.

In other words: Christ assumes an obedient church.

“Do as I say, not as I do” may have worked for the Pharisees. But it doesn’t work for us. Christ said “do what I do.” How can we do any different?

So we need to obey the Word of God to fulfill the Great Commission.

Because all of that together is what “making disciples” is. It is teaching, leading, modeling, encouraging - it is knowledge of, and commitment and obedience to, Christ’s Word.

This is the second thing Christ calls us to do.

We are to bring people into the covenant community, and we are to teach them to obey Christ, do that they may be disciples.

This is what we are to do for all nations.

Let’s consider that for a moment.

Here is where translation can’t avoid interpretation. Because there are a number of ways the Greek word here can be translated. For those of you who come to the Tuesday night Bible study, you know the nuance of this word, because it is the Greek word ἔθνος. It is where we get our English word “ethnic” or “ethnicity”.

The word is translated in the New Testament most often as “Gentiles”. It is also translated as “nations”, “people”, and even as “pagans”.

The word was used outside the Bible to talk about groups of people or even of animals. It is used in Christian writings to refer to non-Jewish Christians and sometimes, non-Christians. It is a very flexible word.

And there is another word in Greek that means “nation” as we would understand it in modern English - a sovereign political entity with geographic boundaries. And if our word here is meant to refer to "nations” in that sense, is Jesus talking about the nations that existed in the 1st century? 10th century? 21st century?

So I don’t know that “nations” is a the best translation for our modern Bibles.

And let’s complicate this a little more - you’re welcome - and consider the fact that Jesus did not give this commission to the eleven remaining Apostles in Greek. The New Testament is written in Greek, but in most cases, when it is quoting someone, it is recording things that were said in other languages - like Aramaic or Hebrew.

So Matthew - carried along by the Holy Spirit - chose this word to reflect what he understood Jesus to mean. And if you are following along in our daily reading plan and are caught up, you know that Matthew throughout his Gospel shows - through the words and works of Jesus - that though Christ was sent to Israel in order to fulfill the promises God made to them, the salvation He provided, from the very beginning. was meant for the whole world. Jew and Gentile alike.

In other words, it’s for all people.

Matthew begins with “the son of Abraham”

"All people” here fulfills the promise to Abraham that all the families of the earth would be blessed through him, and his offspring, Who is Christ.

So the church is to go and make disciples of all people. Of all the families of the earth. Of all people groups - whether you want to divide them ethnically or religiously or nationally.

The church needs to make disciples of people from America, from Russia, from Kenya, and from China.

The church needs to make disciples of Asian, of African, and of European ethnic groups.

The church needs to make disciples of those who are coming from Buddhism, Islam, Scientology, and atheism.

We are called to go and make disciples of all people.

In other words, Jesus is saying that everyone is included in this. No one is excluded from being discipled in the name of Christ based on worldly distinctions.

In the church Christ has built and is still building, no worldly distinctions matter.

OK, so now we know Who is doing the work. It’s Christ. It is Christ working through His church that He is building. He has all the authority, and He is with us.

Now we know what we’re supposed to do. The focus of this commission is the discipleship. We do that through bringing people into the covenant community and we help them learn the Bible, and we teach and model obedience to it.

Now we know who our target audience is: everyone!

This is the Great Commission that Christ gave His church.

And now is where I want to challenge the common understanding of the Great Commission. Since we know not to focus on the go, and since we know this is not an exclusively missionary endeavor Christ is commanding here, and since we know everyone is included in this…

…I want us to stop thinking about the Great Commission as something the church goes and does only “out there” - outside our doors. Trying to convert the unsaved in other countries. That this is for other people out in the missions field.

And I want us to think of this as something that we first have to do “in here.” At MCC.

Like I said: teaching assumes that we know what it is we are to teach. It assumes that we have been taught to observe all Jesus commanded. It assumes that we know what His Word says and that we have been sanctified by His Spirit in order to obey.

Otherwise, we can’t teach others to observe all Jesus has commanded.

So too, “make disciples” assumes we are disciples. It assumes we ourselves - us here - are being discipled.

It assumes that we here have been baptized into the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and are members of the covenant community. It assumes that we are being discipled by taking part in the mission of the church. By seeking God in His word together. By worshiping Him together. By being in fellowship together. By serving together.

It assumes we are being taught the whole counsel of God. It assumes that we seek to know what Christ has commanded so that we can model obedience to it. It assumes we are doing this: 1 on 100, 1 on 10, 5 on 5, and one on one.

In other words, before the Great Commission is about what we do for those outside the church, it is about what we do inside the church. Before it is about what we do for others, it is about what we do for each other.

It is about being intentional to be discipled here our the church, and to make disciples here in our church.

You don’t ask someone to teach on a subject they’ve not learned themselves

You don’t ask someone who has never been to war to recruit and train soldiers.

You don’t ask someone to model something they’ve never done.

The point is, the church cannot make disciples, if the church is not made up of disciples.

Not people who believe in God. Not people who agree that the Bible is the Word of God and it should be followed. Disciples.

And here’s the thing: once we are brought into this mission. we never stop being disciples. Unlike the Apostles who were given authority and sent out for a time, we never reach the end of the Great Commission in this life. It ends when Christ comes back.

So we are never done being discipled. It graciously never ends.

So you need to be discipled. I need to be discipled. We all need to be discipled.

And then we need to disciple others. We don’t get to a point where we say, “OK, now I stop being discipled and I can start to disciple.” No. Both are to continue until we each finish our race or the Lord returns.

According to the Great Commission, this is why we’re here. Let’s not lose sight of that.

We - MCC - we are not here to meet budgets. We are not here to meet quotas. We are not here to increase the membership of MCC. We are not here to run programs - to have more or better ministries than our brothers and sisters who labor at all the other churches around us. We are not in competition with them.

We are not here to meet minimum requirements. To fulfill set obligations. To make sure we pray for 15 minutes a day, read four chapters of the Bible a day, go to church on Sunday, and give 10% or whatever you feel called to give.

Those are not goals. Those are not ends.

We do many of these things, because they are means to the end, but they are not themselves the end - they are not the goal.

Because we will not meet our goal in this world.

And this is hard for us to grasp, because we are such a goal oriented society. For the last 60 years, American culture has taught us that you always need to be advancing - moving up the ladder, achieving more, doing more, finding something better.

We are a society all about the “next best thing.” We strive for promotions and titles. We covet awards and certificates that let everyone know what we have done and completed.

And so in our society, “success” is achieving goal after goal after goal.

This is not why we are here. Now, this kind of thinking has certainly sneaked into the church. We are all guilty of thinking like that at times, probably very often.

But the truth is: we cannot attain our goal. Christ will do that for us when He returns in glory and completes our salvation at the end of the age.

So we are not here to meet goals. We are here to grow in Christ. We are here to seek Him, to know Him, and to serve Him so we can share Him. And we never seek Him enough. We never know Him enough. We never serve Him enough. We never share Him enough.

We never reach the goal and then move on to the next thing. Our next thing is glory!

And until then, we have only one thing - this is why we’re here: to make disciples of all people - to accept them regardless of earthly distinction, and to incorporate them into the body of Christ as functioning members of the body - to teach them what Christ has said and model obedience to it as an example…

…So they can then join us in doing that for all people.

Matthew 28:18–20 ESV

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

And as I said at the outset, this is Christ’s work. He will do this. And that means that we cannot fail, if we will only follow and obey.

So we have no excuse not to follow. We have no reason not to be part of the Great Commission, starting with being intentional about our own discipleship.

And as I said, this is for everybody. That means this applies to the new believer and the mature believer of 50 years. We all need to be disciples if we - the church - are to make disciples.

And I want to back up a couple verses so we can see something. Here are verses 16 and 17:

Matthew 28:16–17 ESV

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.

Some doubted. Among the eleven remaining Apostles, there was doubt. After Christ’s resurrection. After He had done all He said He would. Some doubted.

And yet Christ gave them this Commission, and He used them to grow His church.

So this is not about how great your faith is. This is not about where in your walk you are.

This is about observing Christ’s command to be disciples so that we can make disciples.

So that means, if you are here this morning, and you have placed your faith - no matter how small it seems to you at times - if your faith is in Christ, then you are called to be part of this Great Commission. It is why you’re here.

Because this is not about your faith - it is about the object of your faith. It’s about Jesus.

Because this is not about what you do - it is about what Christ wants to do in and through you.

Thank God this is His work!

We just need to obey.

So we need to be discipled. And sitting in a seat every Sunday morning to hear a sermon is not discipleship. That is not doing your part to fulfill the Great Commission. Christ calls all of us to more. He calls us to serve. He calls us into fellowship. He calls us to learn His Word together. He calls us to commit to the covenant community in word and deed.

Because He calls us to make disciples: here first, so we can do it out there.

So we need to follow Christ - each of us - and all of us together.

I encourage you, if the extent of your discipleship is showing up most Sunday mornings to worship service - while that is so important - that is not enough. Join a community group. Come to Bible study Sunday mornings or Tuesday nights. Come to the Thursday prayer meeting. Start the reading plan. If you don’t already, stay for fellowship after service. Get involved. Serve in one of our ministries, many of which run while you’re going to be here anyway.

Seek out one on one discipleship. Speak to an Elder - it’s why were here. Speak to a more mature brother or sister in Christ. Come ask me any question you have about the Bible. If I don’t have the answer, we’ll find it together. Call me. Email me. Walk into my office during the week. I’ll give you my home address if you want it.

But realize, you are included in the Great Commission. So you need to be a disciple. Because we - the universal church…and we - Montclair Community Church - are here to make disciples of all people.

Let’s thank God that if we only try, we cannot fail.