Missions: The Messiah’s Mandate
Matthew 12:21; 28:18-20
©Larry L. Thompson (2003)
Matthew 12:21
“In His name the nations will put their hope.”
“Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19] Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing 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. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Introduction: Begin by reading Matthew 12:21 and Matthew 28:18-20
The greatest sin that most Christians make is the sin of omission. Today, we should examine both personally and corporately as a church family if we have committed the sin of omission in regards to the GREAT COMMISSION. It has been referred to as the GREAT COMMISSION through the centuries because of the implicit and emphatic directive that escaped the lips of our Savior. It is obvious that our God has given us our marching orders. We have the MESSIAH’S MANDATE. Today as we begin this month of missions we are celebrating the theme: “JESUS, HOPE OF ALL NATIONS!” Today, we will examine how best to live in obedience to this scripture while carrying out the Messiah’s Mission Mandate that we call the GREAT COMMISSION.
Illustration:
It is easy to determine when something is aflame. It ignites other material in which it comes into contact. Any fire that does not spread will eventually go out. A church without a heart for missions and a mission’s strategy that uses the Great Commission as the mandate is a contradiction in terms; it is nothing more than simply a fire that never burns; and that is a contradiction.
Let’s examine the biblical principles that must be applied in the power of the Holy Spirit if we are to be a true NEW TESTAMENT church in our response to THE MESSIAH’S MISSION MANDATE!
I. THE MESSIAH’S CLAIM (Matt. 12:21; Matt. 28:18)
“In His name the nations will put their hope.”
“Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
The key word in verse 18 is “authority” the Greek is exousia, (ex-oo-see’-ah) meaning, “the privilege, force, capacity, competency, freedom, delegated influence of complete authority, power, right, strength.”
In order to understand the implication of the Messiah’s Mission Mandate you must understand this claim of Christ!
1. IT IS AN AUTHORITY THAT HAS BEEN GIVEN BY GOD THE FATHER!
“And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross! [9] Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.” (Phil. 2:8-9)
2. JESUS’ POWER IS ABOVE AND OVER ALL THAT IS IN HEAVEN AND IN EARTH. HIS AUTHORITY IS OVER THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE.
3. JESUS’ POWER ASSURES THE BELIEVER OF DELIVERANCE. Notice when Jesus told the disciples of His power: immediately following when some were doubting and immediately before charging His disciples to go into a hostile world. He proclaimed His AUTHORITY in order to erase doubt and to strengthen His disciples in going forth with the MESSIAH’S MANDATE. His authority was the disciples’ assurance of victory.
What we must see today in order to capture the essence of this scripture is God the Father gave Jesus Christ ALL AUTHORITY, SUPREME AUTHORITY, and the claim to authority that allows Him to do whatever He pleases.
II. THE MESSIAH’S COMMAND
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing 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…”
Listen carefully to the command of Christ! It was impossible for that generation to reach the whole world in its lifetime. Therefore, the commission given to the first generation of believers extends beyond to all generations of believers until the mission is accomplished. The very charge given to them is given to us. Our Lord charges us with the very same words, “Go and make disciples of all nations....”
It is amazing that Jesus not only gave us this Missions Mandate but he also provided us with the methodology that we should incorporate to so the scripture can and will become a reality!
“In His name the nations will put their hope.”
Examine with me the methodology of His Missions Mandate:
• GO, MAKE DISCIPLES; Teaching and baptizing are not enough in our missions efforts if we are to reach the world for Christ. Both are important, and Christ commissions both; but He says something else must precede both: “Go and make (matheteuo, math-ayt-yoo’-o) all nations” Means to make them a pupil, a disciple, “making them aware of Jesus!” and the way He commanded us to do that is to GO! What does our Lord mean by “make disciples”? It means we are to do what He did: make disciples and do things with them as He did. Is He not telling us to simply follow His example? What did He do? Christ “came to seek and save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). He sought the lost, those who were willing to commit their lives to Him. When Christ found a person who was willing to commit his life, Christ attached Himself to that person. Christ began to mold and make that person into His image. The word attach is the key word. It is probably the word that best describes discipleship. Christ made disciples of men by attaching Himself to them; and through that personal attachment, they were able to observe His life and conversation; and in seeing and hearing, they began to absorb and assimilate His very character and behavior. They began to follow Him and to serve Him more closely. In simple terms this is what our Lord did. This is the way He made disciples. He made them aware of HIS LIFE! This was His mission and His method, His obsession: to attach Himself to willing believers. It doesn’t happen until we hear the command to “GO!”
• I’m proud to be a part of our denominational mission’s strategy that has been the envy of most every mission organization in the world. We call it the Cooperative Program. Let me do some education in our church family concerning this effective tool of ministry for missions:
In 1919, the leaders of the SBC proposed a budget that would include everything—all of the missions and ministries of all the state conventions as well as that of the Southern Baptist Convention. Since its launch in 1925, the effectiveness of CP has been dependent upon individuals, churches, state conventions, and SBC entities cooperating, working toward a common goal of sharing the gospel with every person on the planet. Every year our church prayerfully decides how much of its undesignated budget gifts will be committed to reaching people in our state and around the world through Cooperative Program (CP) Missions. In this way all 42,000 SBC churches in AMERICA cooperate together to put together one of the world’s most effective Mission’s Organization. Through the International Mission Board, Southern Baptists support over 5,380 missionaries who are engaging more than 1,497 different people groups around the world. SBC is supporting 73, 904 overseas churches with a membership of 6.2 overseas and 16 million members in the USA. SBC reported 26,767 volunteers in 2002. In spite of all these efforts there are still more than 3,500 people groups that have not heard the Gospel. That means of the 6.2 billion people on this planet there are 1.5 billion who have yet to hear of the GOOD NEWS of ETERNAL LIFE through Jesus Christ.
In the United States alone our SBC mission’s organization began 1,788 new church starts and has more than 5,204 North American Missionaries, whose efforts are coordinated through your North American Mission Board. Working together, Southern Baptists saw 816,436 new believers baptized in 2002!
This is why our Church Mission’s Strategy has been a threefold approach:
• EDUCATE: Instruct our people with the biblical model for missions. From the earliest ages, we’re instructing our children about the world and its need to know Jesus. Even in the twilight of life, our Women on Mission meet every month to learn about and pray for our missionaries in nearly 200 nations. From our youngest to our oldest, we’re providing meaningful, practical instruction about the Messiah’s mandate. Within our Community Orientation process, through Going Avenue, we make sure our newest members know that we each have a Biblical responsibility to take the hope of Jesus to all nations.
• EXPERIENCE: Allow God to call out our people to commit to missions either through a life vocational call to the mission field or to participate in one of our short term mission projects offered each year by our mission’s committee and under the direction of our mission’s pastor. Each year, more than a hundred people participate in hands-on mission projects as members of our church’s short-term mission’s teams. Next year, medical personnel and construction workers will continue to build a hospital in Nicaragua. Adults and high school students will teach at an evangelistic, peer-based conversational English camp in Moscow. Our worship leaders will travel to Hungary, to lead emerging evangelical churches in understanding the priority of praise to God. And a team of business leaders will work in a closed country, teaching Christian principles to workers in a nation where it’s illegal to share the Gospel.
• ENCOURAGE: Using the local church we are reminded of our responsibility to encourage those men and women whom have gone out from us and are now serving on the mission field. We have 23 missionary families on the field, from our church, in addition to 5,510 missionaries who served as part of the SBC International Mission Board. Our encouragement comes in giving of our treasure to invest in this mandated call for Missions from our Messiah. Tragically, it is appalling how little we give in obedience to this great mandate from Christ. For example: Last year Americans give $700 million to evangelical mission agencies. However, they paid that much for pet food every 52 days. Our Goal this month for missions is to raise $50,000. In order to accomplish this goal we MUST ALL UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MESSIAH’S MISSION MANDATE.
Jesus knew that if we accepted this MISSIONS MANDATE then we would begin to see people from every nation become an extension of Himself, an extension of His very being, and an extension of His mission and method. The way He chose to extend Himself was through this MISSION METHODOLOGY, attaching Himself to committed persons, and through attachment, the persons absorbed and assimilated the Lord’s very character and mission. They in turn attached themselves to others and discipled them. This is the very way NATIONS can be won! However, nations can not be won until there is ONE who will answer the call of Christ, the Mandate of the Messiah.
The fact that Christ said “GO” indicates He has given us an offensive directive; “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…” God would now give us that directive without giving us the power to accomplish this directive and HE does give us power to go throughout the 228 nations of the world and the 18,800 ethnic groups on our planet. It is HIS plan to offensively and effectively take the gospel to people who are yet to receive Christ as their Savior.
We are to GO and make all nations aware of Jesus Christ. We must be the extension of HIS life and introduce this world to our Messiah. Your mission begins in your home and then you work out from there. This means that if we are to be a mission church under the mandate of the Messiah that we will TALK Jesus, WALK Jesus, LIVE Jesus, BREATH Jesus, everywhere we go we must have the goal in our lives to make this world aware of Jesus!
The Holy Spirit directs us through the power of God’s word to understand we are to “MAKE” disciples. Our Messiah’s Missions Mandate is to be HARVEST FOCUSED not simply maintaining the field. A MISSION STRATEGY THAT SIMPLY MAINTAINS THE WORLD FIELD IS A MISSION’S STRATEGY THAT IS DOOMED TO FAIL IN RESPONSE TO THE GREAT COMMISSION. We must focus our people toward this word “GO” and become harvesters in the fields of souls throughout this world instead of maintenance ministers who merely seek to preserve and fatten the sheep that are already a part of God’s flock throughout the world! We should be obedient to this command of Christ:
“Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Illustration: Missionary Bill Hyde was a personal friend of one of our church’s own missionaries, Lisa Farrow, who worked with Bill in the Western Pacific region.
25-year veteran missionary Bill Hyde, was killed during a terrorist bombing of a small airport on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines: When the mother of this life long missionary was notified of her son’s death she said, “Well, I would rather have had Bill GO to the Philippines and die there in response of God’s call, than have him home today, living in disobedience to God’s call on his life.”
That is a family who understands the MISSIONS MANDATE; a family who has responded by faith to Great Commission.
• GO, MARK DISCIPLES: “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”
Once a person is made aware of Jesus Christ and has committed their lives to Christ then the Messiah’s Mission Mandate calls for the new believer to follow Him in baptism. Baptism is the “marking” the identification with the Messiah. It is the testimony to the world that God uses to help “set you apart” for His glory.
• GO, MATURE DISCIPLES: “and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
His missions mandate instructs us to teach all that Christ had commanded. Teaching is just as essential as making disciples and marking disciples in baptism. One is not to be emphasized over the other. All are part of the Mission Strategy of our Lord. Notice what is to be taught (edidaske): “everything I have commanded you.”
We have the responsibility to clearly and directly instruct this world in the teachings of Jesus Christ. He didn’t tell us to create a religion, He called us to understand our MISSION is to make disciples and disciples have a relationship with the ONE who mentors them in truth. HIS NAME IS Jesus. EVERYTHING WE DO IN MISSIONS MUST BE MOTIVATED BY HIS LIVE AND HIS LOVE!
Illustration:
When Hudson Taylor was director of the China Inland Mission, he often interviewed candidates for the mission field. On one occasion, he met with a group of applicants to determine their motivations for service. “And why do you wish to be considered as a missionary?” he would ask. “I want to go because Christ has commanded us to go into the entire world and preach the gospel to every creature,” was the reply. Another said, “I want to go because millions are perishing without Christ.” Others gave different answers. Then Hudson Taylor said, “All of these motives, however good, will fail you in times of testing, trials, tribulations, and possible death. There is but one motive that will sustain you in the midst of your battle; namely, you are always aggressively to GO, taking to this world the love of Christ.”
Our offensive strategy must always have as the catalyst for our work the impassioned love of Jesus Christ and our desire to take His love into this sin darkened world.
III. THE MESSIAH’S COMMITMENT
“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
I want you to understand something very carefully as you examine this final piece to the Messiah’s Mission Mandate…you should circle the words, “I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS.”
Jesus made a commitment to those who understand, respond to and accept the MESSIAH’S MISSION MANDATE!
1. Notice the word “surely.” Christ used this striking word to get the attention of His followers, to startle them to wake them up and to listen. He was about to encourage them in this great mandate for world missions. What He was getting ready to say next was absolutely essential if this mandate were to be a success.
2. The commitment: “I am with you.” He gave emphatic assurance: not “I will be with you,” but “I am with you.” Christ is with the believer and the believer has every right to go with the absolute assurance and confidence of the presence of the Messiah as the believer goes forth in obedience to the Messiah’s Missions Mandate. “to make disciples of all nations!”
3. The reach of this commitment: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” There is not a moment when Christ is not with the believer to help him in this mission, even if the mission means abuse, persecution, and martyrdom. Who is with us? THE GREAT I AM!
If we understand our Messiah’s Mission Mandate and we live in obedience to HIS call to GO and make this world aware of Jesus then we don’t even have to pray for His protection, we have every right to claim by the authority of scripture that the GREAT I AM of this UNIVERSE IS WITH ME…even to the end of the age.”
By the same reasoning, if the Christian or church is NOT engaged in the Messiah’s Mission Mandate then do we really have the right to claim His presence, His anointing, His blessing on our lives and church?
Conclusion:
A one-legged school teacher from Scotland came to J. Hudson Taylor to offer himself for service in China Mission. Taylor looked at his handicap and said, “With only one leg, what makes you think you can go as a missionary?”
“Sir, because I do not see those with two legs going,” replied George Scott. He was accepted.
It is true: “In His name the nations will put their hope.” However, that truth is contingent upon GOD’S PEOPLE understanding the Messiah’s Mandate for Missions and then acting by faith in obedience to His Great Commission.
