Matthew 28:16-20
Starting around twenty years ago a lot of people in this country were involved in writing charters for various organisations and institutions. Schools, preschools, companies, corporations, S.O.Es, churches, etc, wrote mission statements to set out who they are, what they are about, where they are going and how they will get there. Somewhere along the way this church and most others wrote themselves a mission statement. For a while it was quite a preoccupation; now it’s pretty much normal and everyone has a mission statement. Even individual people are encouraged to set out their personal mission goals
We have before us the Church’s Charter or Mission Statement. It is very succinct and yet very comprehensive. Everything is included – the objective, the context and the method, or what to do, where and when to do it and how to go about it.
The objective – what we are to do – can be summed up in one word: make disciples. (It’s one word in Greek!) As I’ve said before, this is in fact the only command there. ‘Go’ gives the context; the where and when of making disciples, and baptizing and teaching are all to do with the process or method – the how-to – of making disciples. So the Charter, the Mission, often called the Great Commission, is to make disciples.
So what are disciples?
Disciples are people who learn from Jesus; who follow Jesus’ way of life; who live for Jesus. Disciples are those who live under the Lordship of Christ; who are citizens in the kingdom of God.
How do people become disciples of Jesus? They turn from whatever path they are following and they follow Jesus. This involves them in repentance. That is the turning. It involves saying I have been going the wrong way and now I am going to go the right way. I have been trying to please a false god but I give that up and accept the gift offered my by the true God, which is life abundant, free and everlasting through Jesus the Christ who opened the way for me to know God by his death and resurrection.
Repentance or turning to follow Jesus can happen in a moment or over a period of time and it is the Holy Spirit who enables a person to do that. We cannot do that for someone else, only for ourselves. So how do we make disciples?
Well, before anyone can make the repentance turn they have to know there’s a turn to be made and what turning involves. People have two sources from which they can find out – the Bible and people who are already Jesus’ disciples. People ideally need both but, for many people we are the only Bible they will read, at least in the early stages. I hope that makes it easier to see that we are making disciples from the time we meet people and they begin observing our lives.
As well as people observing our lives we also have a message for them and this will come out in our actions and our words. They will hear ‘God loves you’. We will tell them, you need to follow Jesus, to put him in charge of your life; put him before your self, ambition, popularity, prosperity – whatever is your god – and tell Jesus, “I’ll not do what I want, but what you want.”
For anyone who is more used to church language, let me clarify that the pre-repentance phase of making disciples we call evangelism, the turning we call conversion and the life following conversion we call discipleship.
It’s interesting that this sermon is a re-working of one I wrote more than 15 years ago. I have not changed what I am saying but I have changed the way I say it. This is what I said back then.
‘Evangelism consists in the proclamation of salvation in Christ to non-believers, in announcing forgiveness of sins, in calling people to repentance and faith in Christ, in inviting them to become living members of Christ’s earthly community and to begin a life in the power of the Holy Spirit.’
And I went on: ‘So how do we get that message across? Much has been said and the discussion continues. I have a week of it coming up. Will I be any wiser at the end of it? I hope so.’ What that week of it was I don’t recall now but I have 6 weeks of it programmed into this year as I study making disciples in the context we’re in today. What I said then still stands: ‘I know now that to get the message across involves my being a Christian in this world so that people can see what I do and hear what I say and come to understand that God loves them and invites them to love him. He offers them a relationship with himself that is for the taking, that is the way life was meant to be and that is for ever.’
Years ago I used words like proclaim, announce, call, but I didn’t rely on words alone nor words from a distance. I’ve always known the adage, actions speak louder than words, and believed the two must go together. ‘So I act and I speak. Either on its own is insufficient. We who accept and develop a love relationship with Jesus Christ are transformed by him. Our witness, then, is the expression of our new nature in Christ. All too often our ideas about witnessing are too driven, too complicated, too overloaded with secondary factors which take us away from the primacy of love – a love that reflects Christ. We don’t become witnesses or evangelists or disciplemakers through se1f-denial, but through self-surrender to what God is doing in us.’
Francis of Assisi once said, “Go unto all the world and preach the gospel, and use words if you have to.” But we do have to use words as well as deeds, proclamation as well as presence, explanation as well as example. The verbal witness is indispensible, not least because our deeds and conduct are ambiguous; they need explaining. The best we can hope for is that people will figure out from what we do that we have ’a hope within us’ and ask about it. Our lives are not sufficiently transparent for people to be able, by observation alone, to tell where our hope comes from. So we have to name the Name of Him in whom we believe.
All this is in the ’going’ component of our Charter. Jesus wants the whole world to know and if disciples are to be made in all people groups of the world then his disciples must move to do it. In the past the ’go’ has been emphasised to the extent that many have seen evangelism as something one does somewhere else. It isn’t that; it is something we do everywhere, wherever we go. While it has been said – and I’ve said it too – that the word ‘go’ in this passage is a participle not an imperative, going is still part of the commission. Jesus expects us to take the message to those who need it. So mission always involves Jesus’ people going to others even if it’s to the neighbour next door or a co-worker or a family member. The principle is that we have to take the message, we don’t wait for people to come to us for it.
So we come to the second stage of making disciples and it begins with baptizing. This represents the point of entry into the body of believers, and of incorporating new disciples into the community of faith.
And with that goes teaching. Teaching is necessary so that people know what to believe and how to live. ’Everything I have told you’ includes making disciples. Making disciples is not merely converting people or getting people to come to church or teaching people certain information or behaviours. Properly taught, Christianity is self-perpetuating. Be a disciple; make disciples.
In summary we can say that disciples are being made as the church offers each person a valid opportunity to be directly challenged by the explicit Gospel of explicit faith in Jesus Christ, with a view to embracing him as Saviour, becoming a living member of his community, and being enlisted in his service of reconciliation, peace and justice on earth.
This, says our charter, is our primary purpose and there is no greater fulfillment to be found anywhere than in aiding others in their Christian life and growth, which is to make disciples.
And because it is our primary purpose we have God’s authority, God’s empowering and God’s presence giving direction and enabling to us to carry out his work. This will continue until the world ends.
Prayer: Father, may the Holy Spirit continually speak to us, strengthen us, and teach us what to be and to do in the service of your kingdom, through Jesus Christ, our Lord and King.