Our Marching Orders: Matthew 28:16-20
At some point in my life I heard the phrase, “When you’re up to your neck in alligators it is hard to remember that the objective is to drain the swamp.” In life, event after event comes flying at us and it is very easy for us to forget what we are doing or where we are going. And, the same goes for the local church.
Many, many things occur in the life of a church. And it’s easy to forget what we are doing and where we are going. So today I want to look at our marching orders, given to us by Jesus. It is my hope that we will use this moment to realign ourselves to the mission that Jesus gave us.
We make disciples because Jesus our King commands it and He promised He would be with us.
Read Matthew 28:16-20
It is very likely that this meeting was the meeting that Paul mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:6 that had over 500 people in attendance to witness the resurrected Jesus. We can’t be sure, but it is probably the case. But Matthew does not focus our attention on the mass of people that are there. He focuses on the 11. And there were some that still doubted among the 11. I am not sure what they doubted after seeing Jesus raised from the dead, but there were doubts. Maybe they doubted that He was the Messiah still, I don’t know. But they had doubts. Those doubts were washed away in a moment when they saw Jesus there on that mountain and they worshipped.
And here on a mountain top that Jesus had designated, for He loved to announce big things while on top of mountains, Jesus gave what we now call the Great Commission.
We make disciples because Jesus our King commands it and promised He would be with us.
Jesus Is King, So We Go In Power and Confidence (V. 18)
There is an important bit of background information before thinking about Jesus’s declaration of Universal Lordship. The disciples had not been the greatest of followers in the lead up to this event. When Jesus was on the cross only John was to be found. Peter had denied Jesus three times and the rest had fled for their lives. A confident lot these were not. Though they had to be heartened by seeing Jesus resurrected it was not enough. Jesus was about to give them an impossible task and declare it to be their mission. He is going to tell them to go into all the world and make disciples. This mission is going to reach far beyond the borders of the Old Testament prophets. What could motivate these men who had abandoned Jesus in His time of need to go into all the world?
We tend to start the Great Commission with what we are to do, but that misses a rather large point of the whole matter. Jesus doesn’t just send His disciples out into the world. He sends them out in power and confidence into the world.
Notice how Jesus begins to give us our marching orders. He begins with a declaration of His reign over all things. He says, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” (Matthew 28:18 NASB)
Satan is more cunning than some give him credit for. Satan offered Jesus all authority on Earth in the desert. The crafty serpent who had caused the downfall of Adam, Eve, and the rest of mankind worked to bring Jesus down as well. But Jesus overcame Satan all the way through the desert, through the cross and through the grave where He rose victorious. There He delivered the death blow to that ancient serpent. And after He rose Jesus looked at His disciples and said, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.” (Matthew 28:18 NASB)
Jesus is victorious and everything is His. His reign is universal. There is not some part of the world that escapes the reign of Christ. It is all His. As Abraham Kuyper famously said,
“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence to which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry “Mine!”—Abraham Kuyper
And so, the call to repentance is not one of begging and pleading for you to trust in Jesus, though we do beg and plead for you to do so. It is a command from the Sovereign Lord of the Universe. Jesus is King over all. God the Son came to Earth and lived a perfect life, the life that you should have lived. He then went to the cross, paying the punishment that was due you. And He was raised from the dead three days later victorious. And we announce to you who do not know Jesus today that Jesus is Lord over all.
Turn to Him. Trust in Him. Stop ruling your own life and earning your own right standing with God and trust in Jesus. He lived perfectly, died sacrificially, and rose victoriously. Now, we plead with you to turn to Him.
Christians, we are the redeemed. God brought us to an understanding of our failures, our sinfulness, our rebellion, our separation from God and we have submitted to Christ. We are the sinners who abandoned all hope in saving our selves and trusted Christ. And now we are the messengers of the Great King.
Why can the Christian go with boldness and courage to deliver the message of our victorious Serpent Slaying King? Well, because my Lord is the victorious Lord over all. Everything is His.
And why do I have the right to talk with my neighbor about Jesus? Why do I have the right to talk with my coworker, my parents, my friends, even when it seems that everything is telling me that it is not okay? Because Jesus, my Lord, is the Victorious Serpent Slaying King who is ruler over the entire universe.
And why do I have the right and the imperative to teach my children about Jesus at home while the world calls it brainwashing? Because Jesus, my Lord, said it is good and right. And those people are following the Serpent that my Lord has already defeated.
And here we are, Victory Baptist Church. A church that once lived on the outskirts of town now sits amid hundreds of homes being built around it. Here we are, an outpost of those who have trusted in the Great King with a message to deliver from Him to everyone that surrounds us. It’s the message of salvation from our Lord. There are a lot of reasons that we would be afraid to walk out of these doors and be faithful witnesses for our Lord. Some of them may be rattling around in your head right now. But why is it that we can live and work in confidence? Because Jesus is King.
The disciples doubted. I’m sure they had fears. But when they grasped the Lordship of Christ and were filled with the Holy Spirit they began going into all the world and making disciples.
We make disciples because Jesus our King commands it and promised He would be with us.
We Make Disciples (V. 19-20)
After declaring His Lordship over all things Jesus tells His disciples what they are to do.
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I command you;”—Matthew 28:16-20 NASB
A disciple is a person who learns and follows the teaching of another. Our mission is to make people who learn and follow the teachings of Jesus.
We are to “go”. You have likely heard it said that the Greek tense means “as you are going”, but the context of that does not make any sense at all. It does mean to go. It may mean that we go to a faraway land. Or it may mean that we support those who do go to a far away land and are ourselves willing to go if God so calls. And we are blessed to be a part of the Southern Baptist Convention and have the ability to support those called to far away lands through the Cooperative Program. But whether we remain here and support those going or go somewhere else we are to be making disciples. We are to go “and make disciples”.
Jesus doesn’t just leave us to figure out how this is to be done. He tells us that as well. We are to “make disciples of all the nations” by “baptizing them” and “teaching them”.
We Make Disciples By Baptizing
Baptism is the first thing we are to do in the process of making disciples. When people come to faith in Christ they are to be baptized. We deliver the message of our Lord’s victory over sin, death, and Satan to a lost and dying world and call them to stop trusting in their selves and trust in the Savior. And when they believe, we baptize them. They have crossed over from death to life and we administer the sign of that occurrence, being buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life.
And there is a particular manner in which this baptism is to be done. We are Baptists and we believe that the person baptized is to be immersed. Baptitzo does mean immersed and according to early writings it was the normal way that baptisms were administered. And this baptism is to be done in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for all three persons of the Trinity are responsible for your salvation.
It was God the Father who sent His only Son into the world (John 3:16). It was the Son who came and accomplished our salvation for us. And it is the Holy Spirit who applies that salvation to us, makes us new, and works in us throughout our entire lives making us more and more like Christ.
So, the first thing we do to make disciples is declare to them the gospel and when they believe, baptize them.
We Make Disciples By Teaching
And that is not all we are to do. There is much more, for a disciple is a life long learner and follower of Jesus. We also teach people to follow all that Jesus commanded.
Jesus is King over all. He is King over every part of our lives. And we teach and work to submit every part of their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
The Mission Molds Us
It is clear from all this that we are to be about the work of making disciples. It is to inform what we do and affect everything we do.
I have heard of a few different luxury ships through the years that were converted during war efforts. These huge and beautiful luxury ships were outfitted with beautiful furniture, paintings, pianos, nice dinnerware, beautiful tables and chairs, among other nice items. All of which were gutted from the ship in order for it to carry out its new mission. It was not going to carry passengers looking for a comfortable ride across the ocean. It was going to carry as many passengers as it could to war. Guns were added, the nice paint job was replaced with a sort of camouflage that obscured the size of the ship as it moved in the water, and the luxury items were replaced with things that would care for as many passengers as possible.
For those boats, the mission changed everything. And for the Christian, the mission affects everything.
Christian, it is clear that we are to be about making disciples. In the home make disciples. Follow the pattern laid out for this in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and constantly be making disciples of your children. If you are a grandparent, make disciples of your grandchildren. If your hair is gray then you are supposed to be making disciples of younger believers according to Titus 2. You are to live exemplary lives and make disciples of those younger than you.
And tell people about Jesus. Coworkers, neighbors, relatives need to hear of our victorious Lord and the salvation that He brings. We are God’s plan A for the message of His grace and mercy getting out to a lost and dying world and there is no plan B.
If this is our mission, and it is, then everything we do should be informed by it. Everything should be considered through the lens of our mission. Here are the marching orders from our Lord. We are to be bringing people to faith in Christ through the declaration of God’s Word and power of the Holy Spirit. We are to be making disciples. When deciding what to do and what not to do as a church, this question should run through our mind. “Jesus gave us a mission, does this help the mission?”
Coronavirus has not changed our mission. It has brought difficulties and changes to how everything works out, but we dare not change the mission or decide to do something else. This is still what we are to be about. We are to make disciples of all nations for our Lord the King of all the nations has commanded it.
Christ Is With Us, We Depend Upon Him (V. 20)
The task is huge. Well, it is impossible. I can only imagine the looks on the disciples’ faces as Jesus said this to them. Prophets through the Old Testament were confined to the small plot of land that Israel sits on, but they were told to go out into the whole world.
Then Jesus delivers beautiful words of comfort and encouragement. Here is our only hope of doing what God has called us to do. He began by declaring His Lordship over all. And now He promises to be with us in the endeavor.
And we are completely dependent upon Him.
The mission is too big, it is impossible for us to complete. We can’t bring people to faith in Christ on our own with the best sales plan like some slick salesmen. We need the power of Christ to do that. We don’t have the ability to bring people to faith in Christ and see this baptismal be filled up week after week because so many people are being baptized. Only God can do that kind of work.
And so, we work in dependence upon God.
An Illustration From A Time Of Failure And Correction
I’m going to tell you a very personal story from my ministry.
I was working at a church. The student ministry was going okay. I had learned a lot about the mechanics of putting together a program that would appeal to students and applied those things well but I wasn’t doing it in a spirit of prayer and dependence upon God. I was being the best salesman I could be.
One day a person in the congregation talked about another person in the congregation and it led to a church split and those members made a new church about three minutes down the road. I was the student pastor who had around 18-25 students on a Wednesday whose student ministry had a grand total of three people in it. I was distraught. The parents who had children and youth had moved down the road.
The next Wednesday Night I had three students, one in High School and two in middle school. And at that moment I knew that I could not do this on my own.
My prayers became fervent. And I focused my attention on making disciples of these young men. I would escape into a prayer room at the church where no one would find me and I prayed for those young men and I prayed for God to move powerfully in them.
And God moved. Students started coming to church. We were baptizing students with regularity. At one point we had baptized seven students in two months. And one day, at a graduation I realized that I had baptized ¼ of the Senior class and about 2/3 of the Senior class had heard the gospel at our church. It was a small school, but man, that was astounding. And why did it all happen? It happened because God did it. It happened because God worked in a few students lives and then a few more students lives and a few more students lives until the baptismal was busy with students who had given their lives to Christ.
I tell you that story because I want to tell you this. If we decide to trust in our own craftiness and slick ideas then God is not going to do a thing in this church. I am sure of it. God is the One who saves and He will not give His glory to another. But if we work in complete dependence upon God I believe He will do wonderful things here at Victory Baptist Church.
So, pray for your coworker, neighbor, your relatives, and the hundreds of people who recently became our neighbors. Understand that God is the one who saves, but He has graciously allowed us to be a part. And, what a joy it is to be a part.
We don’t trust in our witness, some big event that we cleverly put together, our technology, our selves. We live and work trusting God.
We pray. We fast, if we can. We weep for the many neighbors that God has given us and we plead with Him to do a mighty work among us. And we go, trusting that He will bring about a harvest because Jesus, the King over all goes with us.
Conclusion
I want to end by reading a prayer from the Valley of Vision. The Valley of Vision is a collection of Puritan prayers and devotionals. This prayer gets right to the heart of what we’ve discussed today. We make disciples because Jesus our King commands it and He promised He would be with us. This is what we hope for, pray for, and strive for as a church.
“Sovereign God,
Thy cause, not my own, engages my heart, and I appeal to thee with greatest freedom to set up thy kingdom in every place where Satan reigns;
Glorify thyself and I shall rejoice, for to bring honour to Thy name is my sole desire.
I adore Thee that Thou art God, and long that others should know it, feel it, and rejoice in it.
O that all men might love and praise Thee, that Thou mightiest have all glory from the intelligent world!
Let sinners be brought to Thee for Thy dear name!
To the eye of reason everything respecting the conversion of others is as dark as midnight,
But Thou canst accomplish great things; the cause is Thine, and it is to Thy glory that men should be saved.
Lord, use me as Thou wilt, do with me what thou wilt; but, O, promote Thy cause, let Thy kingdom come, let Thy blessed interest be advanced in this world!
O do Thou bring in great numbers to Jesus! Let me see that glorious day, and give me to grasp for multitudes of souls; let me be willing to die to that end; and while I live let me labour for Thee to the utmost of my strength, spending time profitably in this work, both in health and in weakness.
It is Thy cause and kingdom I long for, not my own.
O, answer Thou my request!
–Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions, Ed. Arthur Bennet, 2015, Banner of Truth Trust, p. 175
R. Dwain Minor