26.4.09 THE GREAT ‘OMMISSION’ Mtt 28:19-20 Acts 1 1-8
NOTE: It will be helpful to listeners if a simple Powerpoint presentation is put together as follows:
1. The Great Ommission 2. The Great Commission
Matthew 28:19-20 Matthew 28:19-20
3. Missing (Then prepare slides that gradually 9.Missing the Point
C reveal the outline that finally Commanded
Missing looks like slide 9. Missing the Scope
C Comprehensive
Missing Missing the Response
C Commitment
INTRO
Understandably the themes of life and of death have been much in my thoughts over the last couple of weeks – not only because of personal circumstances, with the death of my father, but also because we have just come through what can be argued to be the highest point in our Christian calendar as we have remembered not only the death but also the resurrection of our Lord.
ILLUSTR
This week another death was announced – that of one of the most influential Trade Union leaders of last century. Jack Jones, General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union in the 1970’s died at the age of 96 in a Care Home in Peckham, London.
Norman Willis said of him:
Jack Jones was a great fighter for ordinary people whether they were at work or unemployed or later as pensioners. He never forgot the underdog and will be remembered with affection."
POINT
But of all the people who have died – and however admirable their lives may have been lived – No person’s life can compare to that of Jesus who died and rose and commissioned his disciples with the words:
go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. Matthew 28:19-20
My theme this morning is the theme of THE GREAT COMMISSION SLIDE 1
(Show first slide that reads THE GREAT OMMISSION)
(Pretend not to notice what some will think is a mistake)
POINT
Did you spot the deliberate mistake.
Yes, this one is deliberate – a deliberate omission. The letter C makes all the difference in the world to the meaning of the statement.
SLIDE 2
POINT
But how true might it be that we read the text as though it were the great omission rather than the great commission?
What might the C stand for?
There are several aspects to the Great Commission that some of us as Christians fail to appreciate:
SLIDE 3
WHAT MIGHT WE BE MISSING IN OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THIS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT STATEMENT BY JESUS?
SLIDE 4 AND 5
1. MISSING THE POINT – WE ARE COMMANDED
POINT
This is not the great ‘suggestion’ or even the great ‘option’ for Christians. It is a mandate – a command.
QUESTION
How well do you get on with commands?
If you have ever served in the armed forces you will have learned that commands are there to be obeyed.
POINT
Having said that, we always have the option to disobey a command. As Christians, God does not force our willing obedience. But neither does God present his commands as though they were options.
COMMANDED TO WHAT?
i. Make disciples
This is more than making converts.
• It is a description of our interpersonal activity as Christians, supporting, mentoring, apprenticing and encouraging one another to become mature and Christ-like as we grow up in our faith together.
• It includes witness and evangelism leading to the baptizing of believers.
• It includes ‘teaching .. to obey’. The bar to which we must all aspire as Christians is that of obedience to God’s commands. Not as a means to salvation but because we have been saved.
The Lord himself has not only commissioned you and I to be a part of this, he has also given us authority to do so, and his promise is to be with us always as we go about it.
APPLIC/CHALLENGE
Do you read the Great Commission as though it were an option for you as a Christian?
I wonder how far you would get in the Marines if you were to question a command and say ‘Now let me just think about this for a moment…. I’ve made other plans for this morning, so I’m not sure if I can turn up for duty.’
POINT
It is a ‘great omission’ if we look at this text as though it were an option suggested rather than a command to be obeyed.
But what exactly is it that the Lord has commanded us to do? It is far easier to obey a command if we understand clearly what the order is.
SLIDES 6 and 7
2. MISSING THE SCOPE – IT IS COMPREHENSIVE
POINT
Hearing the word ‘go’ can feel so paralyzing.
And if we don’t understand what Jesus meant by this we are likely not to respond or to think that Jesus is speaking to someone else rather than ourselves.
ILLUSTR
This text has often been preached as ‘a call to mission’.
A missions rep comes along and preaches from Matthew 28 and leaves the congregation with the impression that the call is to sell up house and home and go to some far-off land, and that this is the only way to obey the command.
POINT
This is only one small way in which the text applies to the few.
But the text applies in far greater ways to every believer.
THE TEXT
The command is better translated “Wherever we go"
It is a commission to be PRO-ACTIVE as a disciple maker in our own nation as well as other nations. And who better to be the missionaries to our nation than the people of this nation who know both the language and the culture.
POINT
The command could also be understood as STAY as well as GO.
• By this I do not mean that we should stay on one location when God has called us to go to another.
• What I do mean is that sometimes God calls upon us to remain and be disciples who make disciples where God has placed us.
POINT
Not every disciple of Jesus went with him. There is a whole list of those in the New Testament who, as disciples of Christ, did not travel with him – such as Martha, Mary and Lazarus, Zacchaeus, Nicodemus, Jairus and the woman of Samaria. But they were called to be disciple-makers where God had placed them.
APPLIC
Some of us are called to be disciple-makers as parents. Others through the organizations of the church.
And we are all commissioned to BE disciples of Christ wherever we go.
APPLIC
Do we appreciate that the great commission is to be pro-active as a disciple-making disciple wherever God either places us or calls us to be?
THE SCOPE
The call to make disciples is comprehensive. From the very beginnings of the Church the greatest need was the spread of the Gospel.
Jesus told the first disciples:
Acts 1:8
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
It involves being a disciple-making disciple, interpersonally connected with other believers
• In our own culture and community
• Or to peoples of other cultures
• And sometimes to people of other lands
But we are all called, commanded, and commissioned to make disciples wherever we go and wherever we stay.
What other ‘C’ might be missing from the Great Commission?
SLIDES 8 and 9
3 MISSING THE RESPONSE - COMMITMENT
POINT
When a person’s life comes to an end there is a sense of something final as far as this world is concerned.
The words of 1 Peter 1:24in the King James Bible, often prayed during a prayer of committal read:
For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away
Are so true.
There are many people who have lived remarkable lives, some of whom have made a remarkable impact on society such as Lord Shaftesbury, William Wilberforce or Robert Owen.
These are people whose accomplishments we admire.
But JESUS US UNIQUE! We are not just to admire his accomplishments.
• We are not only to benefit from his CROSS .
• We are to respond to his COMMISSION.
POINT
As a child of our culture you may have an aversion to committing to anything. But there is one commitment that is not option for you as a Christian and it is that of surrendering to Jesus Christ as Lord.
