A sermon based upon
Matthew 28: 16-20 (NIV)
Dr. Charles J. Tomlin,
Pastor
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist
Partnership
Disciple Series: Introduction, August 12, 2012
We’ve all forgotten something.
I guess “forgetting” can have a good purpose, like “forgiving and
forgetting. But most of the time forgetting can be quite frustrating. Maybe we forgot where we put our car
keys. Maybe we forgot our doctor’s
appointment. Worse of all, we
occasionally hear how someone has forgotten and left their child in their car
seat or worse.
One man told about his grandmother, who practically raised him,
while his mother worked. His grandmother
is now 96 and her short-term memory is gone.
It’s sad, but sometimes you have to laugh, he said. Recently
his grandmother had been leaving pieces of cookies around the house. She would eat a bite and then forget she was
eating it and leave it lying somewhere. On
one occasion she found the cookie and brought in back into the kitchen, where his
mother was fixing supper. “Who left
this cookie lying on the table?” The 96
year old grandmother complained. Her
daughter answered carefully, “Uhm, Mom, I believe it was you!
The grandmother responded with a gruff: “I always get blamed for
everything!”
In the Hebrew Bible, God warned his people that when they
arrived in the promise land, they could “forget
the Lord, thy God” (Deut. 8. 11-20).
“If you ever forget the Lord”,
God reminds them, “you will be destroyed” (Deut. 8.19). Those are sobering words. The recent movie
starring Denzel Washington entitled “The Book of Eli,” told of a culture in the
future where the Bible was forgotten, but later rediscovered and fought over
like people starving for bread. Are the
arts trying to tell us something?
In today’s text we encounter one of the most important passages
of Scripture in the Bible, known as The Great Commission. It’s a well-known text, but upon closer
examination, we may see “omissions”, certain specific instructions from Jesus
that we seem to have forgotten in the way we do church today.
Authority Is Given To
Jesus, Not To Us.
Before we get to this text in the last chapter, turn to the
second chapter of this Gospel, where Matthew depicts a group of mysterious
figures from the East -- the magi -- who find their way to the infant Jesus. As they present their precious gifts of gold,
frankincense and myrrh, we read: “On
coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed
down and worshiped him” (Matthew 2:11 NIV).
This is a quite stunning image written by a Jew, whose first
rule of faith was: “Hear, O Israel: The
LORD our God, the LORD is one (Deu 6:4 NIV) and “thou shalt not have any other gods before me.” But here, as Matthew opens, we find a very human
infant named Jesus receiving worship, worship that rightly belongs to God alone. Throughout Matthew’s gospel, he has stated
Jesus unique authority throughout. Jesus
taught, he tells us, “as one who had
authority” (7:29). He also claimed
that “the Son of Man has authority on
earth to forgive sins” (9:6). So, now
when the risen Jesus asserts that “all
authority in heaven and on earth is given to me,” he is making the same bold
claim he has made since his opening lines.
God has vindicated his only son and “raised him from the dead” giving Jesus “authority” not just as the
true Messiah for the Jew, but also Jesus is being clearly revealed as “Christ”
for the whole world. What Matthew says
here is made even clearer by Paul’s melodic words to the Philippians: “ And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death-- even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest
place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phi 2:8-11 NIV). Now, all of us are invited to bow before the
authority of this man Jesus----something no Jew would have ever dreamt of doing
before. This “world-wide authority, given
to Jesus the Son by God the Father, forms the basis for the missionary
commission which was given to the disciples then, and now includes us.
We should note, however, that the text does not say, “All authority is given to us;
therefore, go.” If it did, Brian
Stanley has rightly written, “we would
have a text that implied that God has handed this whole enterprise of world
mission over to us, lock, stock and barrel. It would then mean that converting the world
would then be OUR business, not God’s, and it would be A business, a simple
matter of employing the right methods with sufficient resources. Our understanding of mission should never
degenerate into that kind of business mentality. It is the greatest of omissions, to
forget that all “power” belongs to Jesus alone, not us. (
But neither does this text say, “All authority is given to me; therefore, there is no need for you
to go.” If this text said, “Jesus will do everything for us”,
then we all be hyper-Calvinist logic, which is very popular today among some
Southern Baptist. It would be a
commission which invited the church to sit on its backside and simply do
nothing, go nowhere, waiting on God to make the first move. But that kind of “misunderstanding” of the
Bible and of Calvinism, omits the fact wait God has already made the “first
move” in the sending Jesus who, when lifted up “draws all people” toward
himself. God did make the first move, but we still need
to go.
Many years ago, in 1792 William Cary wrote a historic pamphlet “An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians
to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens.” At that time, Carey, a
Missionary Baptist, was endeavoring to refute those Particular (i.e. or Calvinistic)
Baptists who believed, “That if God wants
the heathern to be converted, then let God do it
himself.” But Carey, the evangelical
Calvinist he was, had it exactly right when put the “omission” of “going” back into
the commission: “All authority is given
to me -- therefore, you go.”
But there is one more thing we must also remember, right up
front. This Jesus who has been given “authority” in heaven and on earth; who
commissions us as church to “go into the
world” and not just to “come” to church; this Jesus who already has been
given authority “in heaven” by God the Father, only has “authority” on earth when we give it to him. Just as Jesus did not “demand” authority, but
“humbled himself to death on the cross”
and waited in that tomb for the Father to raise him up and exalt him, this same
Jesus never forces himself on anyone.
Jesus will not assume “authority” over us, unless we give him authority,
by making him Lord of our hearts, our lives, our churches and our world.
And if we decide to be Church without obeying his great Commission
to “go”, we can still do church. This
can be “your” church just like you want it, but just remember that if it is
“your” church, it won’t be his church, it won’t be his body, nor will we be
part of the “bride of Christ”. Yes, we
can do our own thing as churches, but do you think it will work? Doing your own thing won’t work in any other
relationship, will it? Some have learned
that the hard way. And doing church on
our own terms will not make us the kind of church “the gates of death or hell” won’t knock down either!
So, if we omit the main part of his commission to “go”, can Christ
commit his grace and power to us? Do we even dare imagine the answer, if he Jesus
really does have “authority” to say, what Matthew has him saying “with authority” (7.29): “Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord,
Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in
your name perform many miracles?' Then I
will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away… you evildoers!' (Mat
7:22-23). If we omit the mission Jesus
has commanded us, Jesus does not have to commit himself to us either. Now, that’s authority!
We Are Also To “Make
Disciples”, Not Converts
Some people have made very bold claims about the mission Christ
gives us, when they’ve got all wrong. I
recall when I was in language school in Germany and a new pastor was being
inducted to become the pastor of the English speaking Baptist church in
Cologne. After the charge, he stood up
to give and acceptance sermon. He went on
to challenge the church, saying, that he would lead this church to “win the
whole city to Christ.” Do you think he’s
done that? The biggest problem was that
he couldn’t even speak German. Cologne
does have 10,000 English speaking citizens, but it also has over one million,
who only speak German. How does an
American, English speaking church, win a city that can’t understand its
message.
Many churches mean well when they are constituted. They have an idea of the “big picture” of the
mission of Jesus, but they often start too big. Churches would do much better taking the
gospel to the world by first focusing on the specific place and people, where
they are. Bill Hybels, the pastor of
the now famous Willow Creek outside Chicago, once suggested the best
evangelistic approach was simply “to walk across the room.”
Interestingly, however, Jesus did not tell his disciples to “win
the world” nor to “convert” people.
Jesus told his disciples simply to “make” other disciples. But
have you ever see a church with a plan to do exactly what Jesus said: “Teaching
them to observe what I commanded you?”
Church have a lot of plans and programs, but I don’t know a single
church that has a program to specifically teach and train people to follow and
obey exactly what Jesus commanded, do you?
How did we miss that?
You see, the main mission of the church is not just to “preach”,
but to “teach” people to obey what Jesus commanded. This is actually what the Great Commission
commands. And it is a “command”, not a
“suggestion”. The word “disciple” means
“one who learns from a master”. Learning what Jesus commanded does not mean
simply listening to sermons, going to Sunday School, participating a Bible
study, or even going on a mission trip, but being a disciple actually means
learning to obey Jesus in your life now, and even being held accountable for actually
obeying and living what Jesus taught.
Are we doing this? Isn’t
it here, as plan as the words on a page that we are not! One thing we have done, to make such an
omission with this Great Commission, is churches today stopped doing what the
early church did when people wanted to follow Jesus in Baptism. The early church did not immediately
“baptize”, but would first demand that candidates for baptism, called
catechumen, were instructed how to be “disciple” and how to follow Jesus,
before they were allowed to be Baptized. Baptisms were normally held only once
a year on Easter, so that people would have time to prepare, learn, and prove
they were going to “obey” Jesus.
What happened? Why did the
church and most all churches stop “making disciples” before Baptism and now we
have so few, disciples in our churches today?
There are many ways to historically analyze this. You could go into all kinds of details about
what happened in what scholars call Constantinian Christianity. But my mother had a good expression for what
happened: She would say the church simply
got “too big for its britches”. It
forgot who it was and what it was supposed to be doing as it was doing other
things. It made some great and bad omissions
from the original great commission. So,
the question for us is how can we return to being the disciple making church we
were commissioned to be?
Christ's Presence Is Promised In Doing His Mission
Do you know anything about “cat” and “dog” theology? When I was in the bookstore recently, I came
across a book with this title. Since
then, I’ve done some research on the subject.
This form of popular “theology” is the brain child of Bob Sjogren and
Gerald Robison. They do seminars in churches across the world,
helping them to strengthen a living relationship with God. Their entire
ministry is based on an old cat and dog joke that goes something like
this: A dog says, you pet me, feed me,
shelter me, and love me. You must be
God. A cat says, you pet me, feed me,
shelter me, and love me. I must be God.” The cat says, “You exist to serve me”, but
the dog says, “I exist to serve you.”
Now which one do you think is more like a true follower of Jesus?
As you can clearly see, “cat theology” has taken over too much
of the church of Jesus. But the true
nature of the mission of the church is not to be like cats who are independent,
finicky, and self-absorbed; but we are to be like dogs, obedient, faithful and
cooperative. Could such “cat theology”
be part of the reason why there are so many omissions in the great commission? Could it be why we often don’t know,
experience or sense the presence of Christ in the church? Instead of making church a place to learn
genuine discipleship so we can follow Jesus and make disciples who serve God, we
have made church a place where there are too many cats who say: pet me, feed
me, shelter me, and love me, so we can say to ourselves: It’s all about me. I’m
God.
What can we do about all this?
Nothing. We don’t have to do
anything. If we want our “house” built only
on the sand of our own opinions, whims and wishes, then we can let “whatever”
happen. The winds will come, the rains
will fall, and the waves will rise and the house will eventually fall. But if
we want to build our house on the rock, a rock that can withstand the rains,
winds and the waves of life and of death, then we must build our house on the
authority of Jesus, not our own. We must
make disciples not converts. We must know
Christ is with us, because we are with him.
We must be “doers” of the
word, not “hearers only”. We must hear the word and “put it into
practice” so we can build God’s
house “on the rock (Mat 7:24). For all other ground is sinking sand. Only when follow Christ’s mission without any
omissions, does Jesus promise to give us his presence, staying with us, as we
stay with him, until the very end. Amen.
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