Tom Pennington
The Mission of the Church
What is our primary mission?
We have multiple categories of responsibility.
To God
To the church
To the world
What is the primary task that Christ assigned the church when it comes to the world?
This question has become more clouded over the past century or two.
Liberalism removed a belief in the need for salvation.
Liberal Protestantism believed the church’s mission is the salvation of society, not of individuals.
Fundamentalism knew this was not our goal.
Stott said that mission is the whole Christian lifestyle, including evangelism and social responsibility.
Emergent church tried to combine the social and individual spheres.
Social gospel became social justice, a rebranding of the ethics of liberalism.
Chan, Keller, and N. T. Wright also promote social justice.
As believers, we cannot be indifferent to the needs of those around us.
We ought to do what we can to alleviate the suffering of those whom God brings across our paths.
Is this redefinition of mission a biblical definition?
Is social justice part of, or all of, the primary mission of the church?
Matthew 28:16-20
Familiar text.
What it actually says may be different than what many think it says.
This is our primary mission.
4 crucial truths about our mission in these verses
Truth 1: Its singular importance.
Why do we consider this command to be so important?
Because of Matthew’s placement of it in his gospel
Matthew did not record the ascension or other teachings of that month.
Jesus made this Jesus’ last words he recorded.
Because of Jesus’ emphasis on this particular meeting.
The NT records multiple meetings between the resurrected Jesus and his disciples.
Multiple meetings on Resurrection Sunday.
One meeting 8 days later.
But Matthew focuses on this meeting.
About 9 days after the resurrection, the 11 left for Galilee.
Jesus gave them this command to go to Galilee several times.
The trip would have taken at least 3 days.
7 of them went fishing after they arrived.
After that, Jesus met them on the mountain in Galilee.
Jesus clearly considered this meeting strategic.
Because of the disciples to whom he gave it
Jesus directed this command to the 11.
But he gave it to others as well.
In verse 10 of Mat 28, Jesus’ brethren were told to go to Galilee.
That refers to more than the 11.
Jesus plans to speak to a larger group in Galilee.
In 1 Cor 15, Jesus appeared to more than 500 at once.
Many think this would have been the crowd when the Commission was given.
Most of Jesus’ disciples were in Galilee.
Verse 17 says that some doubted while others worshipped.
The 11 had already come to confidence that Jesus was raised.
It is others, Galilean disciples, who struggled to believe.
Jesus gave the commission to all who had come to believe in him.
Thus, this is for us too.
Because of the deliberate comprehensiveness of this command.
Jesus uses the word all 4 times.
All authority
All nations
All things I have commanded you
I am with you all the days.
Because of the repetition of the commission
This same basic command is repeated 3 other times.
Luke 24, John 20, Acts 1
Mark 16 in the long ending shows us that the early church knew this was important.
It is impossible to overstate the singular importance of this commission and command outlined here.
Truth 2: Its supreme authority
Jesus makes a great claim.
Verse 18
All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
Jesus had always possessed supreme authority.
Jesus had authority on earth even before his death.
Matthew 7:29; 9:6; 10:8; 11:25-ff.
In Matthew 11:25-ff, all things have been handed over to me by my Father.
Everything necessary for Jesus to accomplish his ministry is under his authority.
After the resurrection, the sphere of his authority is absolute.
All authority is his.
Eph 1:20
The Father seated Jesus in the supreme place of authority.
Philippians 2, Jesus is exalted to the highest place.
Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth.
He rules everything in the universe.
That was prophesied of the messiah.
Daniel 7:13-ff
Jesus had already claimed that passage to himself.
His dominion is everlasting, over all, never destroyed.
Why point this out?
Jesus is about to give his church an audacious mission.
Jesus has supreme authority.
He has the authority to establish the mission of your church.
He has the right to define the mission and the power to carry it out.
Christ will build his church.
Truth 3: Its specific orders
Verse 19
Therefore, because Jesus has the right to rule the church, he gives us our marching orders.
These orders have not changed over 2,000 years.
Go
This is a contrast to the command of chapter 10:5.
Do not go in the way of gentiles in chapter 10.
Now Jesus says to go to the nations.
Go is a participle
Having gone, make disciples.
Is this a command to go?
Yes it is.
This participle is an attendant circumstance.
It ties to the main verb.
It is right for translations to translate the participle as an imperative.
You could not make disciples of the nations if you stayed in Israel.
Of course Jesus intended that some of his disciples were to relocate to carry out the mission.
Peter went to Italy.
Thomas when to India.
The stoning of Stephen sent others out.
Jesus wanted some of those who heard him to leave home and go.
He still expects some of our church members to go too.
We should pray that God will raise up people in our churches and families to go.
We need to challenge our people to go.
We need to consider going ourselves.
But Jesus did not intend that all 500 would relocate.
Many, think James, remained in Israel for the rest of their lives.
All nations included their nation.
We are called to carry out the Great Commission.
We may do so in our neighborhood or around the world.
But we do not get a pass from this Commission.
Every disciple and every church must own the world-wide mission of the church.
Jesus says go.
Make disciples
This is the main verb of the sentence.
It is not optional.
What does it mean?
Carson – disciples are those who hear, understand, and obey Jesus’ teaching.
Acts 11:26 – the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch
To be a Christian is to be a disciple.
The mission is making disciples.
We do not call people to ourselves or to a cause.
We call people to follow a person, our Lord Jesus Christ.
The goal is not decisions, but disciples.
What is the nature of a spiritual relationship with Jesus?
Call Jesus teacher and Lord, John 13.
He is our teacher, we are the students.
We are the slaves, he is the master.
This is not about a simple prayer or momentary faith.
It is not about a simple acceptance of facts.
It is a call to follow Jesus as Master and Teacher.
Acts 14:21
They preached the gospel and made many disciples.
Acts 13:48 – The ones appointed to eternal life believed.
Preach the gospel, proclaim the word, and that is how you make disciples.
Let us not get so excited in our goals to help people and fix the city that we lose track of what makes Christian mission Christian.
All the nations
Jesus means all nations, including Israel.
Luke 24:47, repentance is proclaimed to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.
Ephesians 3:11, the eternal plan.
Jesus says he came to seek and save the lost.
The theme of the Bible: God is redeeming a people by his Son, for his Son, to his own glory.
What does the command to make disciples of all nations mean?
Some leave and go to other nations.
For others, this command may be a call to take vacation, travel overseas, and help missionaries.
Even if you do not go to the nations, you are responsible for the nations.
Pray, give, care for missionaries.
Do the people in our churches understand that every believer must actively support Christ’s international mission.
What always accompanies true disciple-making?
Baptizing
We baptize into the name (singular) of the one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Jesus puts himself in the middle of the trinity.
Jesus claims deity right here.
Baptize means to dip or plunge under water.
It was often accompanied by the verbal affirmation that Jesus is Lord.
True disciples profess submission to Jesus’ authority.
Baptism is important.
Do not downplay it if Jesus put it right here in the commission.
1 Corinthians 12:13
All believers are baptized into the body of Christ.
Acts 2:41, water baptism serves as a picture of that spiritual reality and as initiation to the church.
Teach
Every disciple is to be taught all Jesus has commanded.
There is a demand that preachers have a biblically-centered teaching ministry.
We do not teach our own ideas, we teach all Jesus has commanded.
If you do not teach all Jesus has commanded, you do not fulfill the Great Commission.
Teach them to obey.
Our goal is not information but transformation.
We help saved sinners move toward being sanctified saints.
True disciples practice what they have heard.
John 8:31
The Bible knows nothing of a believer who glories in justification and ignores sanctification.
That Jesus includes baptism and instruction should transform our understanding of the Commission.
This happens in the local church.
The mission is only accomplished when we have made true disciples and when they are baptized and when they are taught the Scriptures and when they are taught to obey.
We send people to make disciples.
Truth 4: Its sustaining promise
Verse 20
I am with you always.
Surely, for certain, I am with you.
The pronoun is included interestingly in the original.
Certainly, I myself am with you.
Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us.
He is still God with us.
Always, in all days, all the time, in the whole of every day
He is with us through the end of every age.
The end of our mission is when He determines human history will end.
The promise is for us.
The Commission is for us.
How inadequate do you feel?
We are never alone.
This is our hope.
Acts 18:9-11 – Jesus told Paul he was with him.
Paul settled there for a year and a half.
Settle down in the ministry and be faithful.
He is with you.
3 implications
First, commit yourself and your church to this mission.
Pray for global missions and our own missionaries.
Pray for God to raise up missionaries from our own church.
Support generously our missionaries.
Second, don’t let yourself or your church be distracted from the mission that Jesus assigned the church.
Do not give a higher priority to social issues or culture.
Third, Don’t forget or let your church forget that this mission is the main reason that Christ has left us here.
Go and report what great things the Lord has done for you.
We want to be with Jesus, but we are still here.
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