The Rest of the Story
This passage is one of the most well known passages out of the whole bible. It ranks right up there with John 3:16 in popularity and notoriety. This passage from Matthew, often called The Great Commission, has been used by evangelicals all over the world to convey the importance of reaching out beyond the walls of the church and sharing our faith in Christ. And rightly so. This passage does indeed speak to that. And with faithful Christians constantly holding this passage in front of us, it easily gets stuck in our minds, just waiting for the right moment for us to recall it.
Perhaps another reason this passage is so well known is because it is so clear and concise. This is one of those times where Jesus doesn’t beat around the bush. There’s no telling a parable or a story, no metaphors, or complicated language and symbolism to wade through. There’s just clear concise directions. Finally! Finally, Jesus is just giving us straight and specific directions.
Whatever the reasons, whether it’s the clarity of the message, or it’s prominent use by many Christians, this passage is one of the most well known passages in the bible. In fact, this passage is so well known that I would guess most of you could probably recite it from memory. I’m guessing that if I asked you all to recite this passage right now it would go something like this: everyone together would say “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”There would probably be some people who wouldn’t quite remember all of that but my guess is most people would be able to recite that much of the great commission. And it’s wonderful that so many people know and can recite that verse.
But there’s more to The Great Commission than that one verse. So today, we’re going to relive the days of Paul Harvey a little bit and talk about the rest of the story.
So let’s look again at this passage. Verses 19 and 20 say, “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.”
Most of us remember the part about going and making disciples and baptizing them but most people forget the second half of this passage. Often when you hear The Great Commission recited, you don’t hear anything about teaching disciples. And yet teaching is integral to what Jesus is commanding us to do. It is absolutely correct that we have been commissioned and commanded by God to go and make disciples of all nations, but to lose sight of the last half of this passage, is missing a large part of what Jesus is telling us to do.
This second part of The Great Commission is so integral to the command to make disciples of Christ because none of us innately know how to be disciples of Christ. None of us are born knowing exactly how to follow God and live a Christian life. Instead all of us have learned along the way from family, friends, and the community of faith what it means to be a Christian, what it means to be Christ’s disciple.
That’s why we have Sunday school classes, confirmation classes, Disciple class, and adult bible study classes. If we all knew what it was to be a disciple of Christ, these classes wouldn’t be necessary, and we’d all already know what’s being taught. But we don’t already know. So the community of faith together has been given the responsibility of teaching one another and new believers about God.
Which, by the way, is why we have been having such a big push to fill the TREK volunteer slots, because we all have been given the Great Commission to raise up disciples of Christ and that means teaching those in our midst. This is the same reason that each year we have a confirmation class. The youth need to be taught what it means to take responsibility for their life as a disciple of Christ. It’s our responsibility to do that. If we don’t, no one else will.
But learning is not something that is reserved for the children and youth. Discipleship is a life-long journey. It’s a journey in which we continue to grow into the image of God in us. A few minutes ago we heard a wonderful testimony from Alex Eckard. He spoke to us briefly about part of his discipleship journey. Alex, I want to thank you for sharing your story with us. It’s quite moving and I think there’s a lot we can all learn from your story. Alex shared with us a couple different things that have helped him grow in his faith.
In his testimony, Alex told us that he felt like something was missing so he started coming to church regularly. But Alex did more than just come to worship every week. He began studying the bible everyday and by doing so Alex effectively made a commitment to learning. Alex shared with us how reading God’s word helped him learn that he needed to make some changes in his life. And I would guess that if we all spend more time study God’s word, we would discover the same thing. We would discover we have some things we could be doing better, or shouldn’t be doing at all.
One of the things that Alex’s testimony can teach us is that continuing to learn is vital to our continued growth as disciples of Christ. Growth happens as a direct result of learning. Studying the scriptures on our own can be a wonderful way to learn what God is saying to us today. But studying the bible in a group setting is usually even more informative, and together we learn even more. Here at Calvary we offer a wide range of adult education classes for just that reason. We want to help everyone here continue to learn more about God and how God wants us to live.
Disciples continue to grow by continuing to learn what Jesus has taught us. But disciples also teach other disciples. It’s a two way process. Just as Jesus commands us to make disciples, Jesus also commands us to teach one another. That’s part of the gift of the community of faith. We learn from one another and we teach one another.
The Great Commission definitely calls us to reach out to those who do not yet know the love and grace of God. It calls us to reach out beyond the walls of the church to all the nations and to make disciples. But The Great Commission also calls us to teach one another what it means to be a disciple of Christ.
We are attempting to end services 10 minutes early today so you have the opportunity to go up to the Good Shepherd Hall and sign up to help teach a class, or to take a class, or both. That way if you have children in the Nursery or Sunday school, you have 10 minutes to look around at the options and decide what you would like to be a apart of before you need to go pick up your child. So enjoy this brief opportunity to be foot-loose and fancy free for a few minutes. But more importantly, use this opportunity to consider how you will fulfill The Great Commission. How is it that you will be active in teaching disciples this year? That could mean allowing yourself to be taught, it could mean teaching others. How is it that you will be active in teaching disciples?
Amen.
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