Bring Gospel to People OR Bring People to Gospel?
Lately I’ve been pondering a whole slew of things. Among them has been the evangelistic impulse of the church that calls us all to share the gospel and bring the life-saving message of Jesus to those around us. The impetus for such a grand movement of God’s people flows of out Jesus’ words, post-Resurrection, found in the final moments of Matthew’s Gospel:
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (18-20, NIV).
Right now, you may be asking, where is he going with this post? The reality is that this message is foundational to the life of many churches, especially evangelical churches, and rightfully so I would argue!
I just feel that many times the church is not fully obedient to the words of Jesus. We read the “go” and announce that people need to get out of their spiritual laziness and hit the streets sharing the good news. But, if you’re like me, you may have felt like the messengers of this glorious news need a little work?
This little slice of Matthew’s Gospel has a lot to teach us about what it truly means to be a missional follower (read disciple) of Jesus, one whose life is captured by the mission of God.
1. Jesus messianic authority. The verb translated “given” is understood as divine action in which God placed authority over all existence into the hands of Christ. Jesus is the King and we are His subjects. It’s not about what can the church do for me or whiny attitudes about whether the church is feeding me. It is about the Kingship of Jesus and announcing that to the world!
2. The charge to make disciples. The controlling imperative of the Great Commission is the simple charge to make disciples. This is the only verb in the entire commission that is actually a command. The central motif of this commission is disciplemaking. In fact, the rest is merely three participles that explain how the making of disciples is to be carried out – going, baptizing, and teaching. What do I mean? Where we read “go”, the Greek is actually saying, “while going“. While we are going we are to make disciples. Large numbers at a church service does not equate with discipleship. Disciplemaking takes time, a commodity that is in scarce resource in our culture.
3. The charge to go. The word apostle implies one who is sent or commissioned to go on behalf of the sender. The tendency for a Jew during this period would be to stay in Jerusalem where it is safe. That tendency still resonates with us today. But apostleship transforms one’s identity. These disciples were no longer just living life for themselves. The radical call of the Messiah mandated that they go to all nations. Just because followers of Jesus don’t like something doesn’t mean that they must stay away. We may not like drug addicts, crack moms, drunkards, porn lookers, etc, but God does and we’re called to show His love to even “the least of these”.
4. The charge to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Disciples become disciples by being united with Jesus. In the Christian community, we join, are united to, Jesus through baptism. Baptism is the public declaration of our allegiance to the kingdom of God. Baptism has been trivialized to simply become a membership development issue in some churches and denominations; I join the church through being baptized. In the ancient world, and much of the world today, baptism could, and does, mean physical death. When a believer is baptized they announce to the gathering that they have truly counted the cost of their discipleship with Jesus. Do the waters of baptism signify to us to count the cost of our allegiance to Christ?
5. The charge to teach them to observe all that Jesus had commanded. Disciples need to be taught what the life of a disciple is all about: the character of the disciple, the ministry of the disciple, the meaning of kingdom membership, how to live as disciples in a Christian community, and where to fix their hope. This teaching and training are ongoing and unending. There are always new challenges for disciples. In the context of Matthew’s Gospel, the expression translated “all that I have commanded you” refers to the teaching/training Jesus did with His group of disciples. My fear for Christianity in America is that it has become a head game. Theology, Bible, and faith have all become things to study. Orthodoxy and orthopraxy have been forced to stand alone in separate corners while denominations bicker about why the other is wrong for their choice.
6. “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (28:20). This mission is ongoing. Even with high times and low times, tragedy and triumph, event or no event…the mission of God moves on. The hope through it all is that the rabbi, Jesus Himself, journeys with us every step along the way.
In the end, I’m left with a question, how am I, how are we, doing in this mission of disciplemaking? Are we picking and choosing which parts of the Great Commission we desire to follow?
We’re not called to effectiveness, we’re called to obedience. Paul declares that we’re not even called to win the race but to finish it. My fear is that we’ve learned to associate big numbers, events, worship services, and buildings with how we live out the life of a disciple. We wait for the church to create a program or event so we can plug and play into whatever we want. This week the church is having a community outreach project, I’ll plug into that and check community service off my list.
The life of a disciple is more involved than that. It’s more beautiful and more heart-wrenching, all at the same time. In the delicate tension of already and not yet, Spirit and flesh, Word and Spirit, sacred and secular, big and small, deep and wide, in the world and not of the world, we find the pathway to which God has called His disciples.
We can bring the gospel to the world! I hope that we never lose this missional impulse in the Body of Christ. But, as we encounter people and as we examine the churches in which we find ourselves, are we also bringing people to the gospel. Simultaneous to our evangelistic stream should be one of sanctification. As people are reached for the gospel of Christ, are people meeting the gospel in a transformative way? As the good news goes forth is it also going within and manifesting lives of purity and holiness. As we follow the Rabbi are we getting some of the dust kicked up by His sandals on our face?
Tags: America, central motif, charge, Christ, Christian, church, God, Jerusalem, Jesus, jesus is the king, Matthew, the Holy Spirit