“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.” -Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV)
Most of you know the passage above by heart. It is known as The Great Commission and is, in many ways, the purpose statement for the church. Here Jesus gives his disciples their task in one sentence: “Go, make, baptize, teach.” After the disciples have gone and made, they are to baptize new converts and teach them what it means to be a convert to Christianity. Although the sentence is packed with action verbs that seem distinct, it is all part of one seamless pattern – the work of missions, evangelism and discipleship that will continue until Christ returns.
Making Disciples
Evangelism is fruitless if it is not followed by discipleship and training; and discipleship is meaningless if it is not preceded by evangelism. Moreover, the Great Commission is in many ways the continuation of the great commandment given by Jesus to love God, neighbor, and self. Without that love, evangelism would be cold and would tend to push people away from Christ rather than draw people to him. Discipleship, in turn, begins the hard work of teaching others what we have been taught, in itself an act of worship and love, because it brings people into a proper relationship with the God who saved them.
Here is our great task at hand – to make disciples and to teach disciples. God is still the center of this work, of course,because the making of disciples is God’s exclusive work (Jonah 2:9) by which we are the means – he draws, we tell – and even the work of discipleship is a partnership with the Holy Spirit who illumines as we teach.
Over the next three weeks we will focus on our call to impact this world for the sake of the gospel. We call it our annual Missions Emphasis. We jump-started the short series last Sunday with a message from Acts 11 entitled “Antioch: Missions Central.” We focused on the example that Barnabas and the church in Antioch laid out for us in the earliest stage of the church. This Sunday Bob Fetherlin, president of One Mission Society, shares with us about the call of Abram in Genesis 12 and God’s promise to him to bless the nations through his descendants. I will follow up on Sunday, September 22 with a final message in the series and we will take up our annual Faith Promise for missions.
For the Sake of the Name
The ultimate goal in evangelism and discipleship is not saving sinners and equipping saints, as important as both of those tasks are. And the most important of the missionary motives is not obedience to the Great Commission, as powerful and motivating as that commission is. The overarching goal and motive of evangelism, missions, and discipleship is to bring about obedience of faith for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ (Romans 1:5). The earliest disciples went out for the very same purpose, what both John and Paul called “the sake of the name” (3 John 7). This is why we continue to go, make disciples, baptize and teach; that the name of Jesus might be named in every tribe, tongue, nation and people group in the world, and that it should be praised and honored, as it will be throughout eternity.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Jym