Authority and Discipleship

Scripture Reading

over in your Bibles with me to the book of Matthew. Matthew chapter 28. And we'll be looking this morning at verses 18 through 20. Matthew chapter 28 verses 18 through 20. If you're using your pew bibles, you'll be able to find Matthew chapter 28 verses 18 through 20 on page 881. Hear now God's word.

Prayer for Illumination

And Jesus came and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the ends of the age. Amen. Let's pray.

Sermon

Father, we thank you. that Your Word abides forever. And Father, we pray now that as we have read Your Word, that Your Spirit work in such a way that we would not just be taught intellectually by these things, but Lord, they would move from our heads to our hearts. And that, Father, we would be so instructed by them, so enlivened by them because of the work of Your Holy Spirit, that we would go and obey this commission. Please, Lord, help us. We need you. It's only by your Spirit that these things actually happen. And so we entrust it to you in Jesus' name.

Amen. This is a passage that really stands at the crux, at the heart of why the church exists and what we're supposed to be doing. Right? What are we supposed to be doing as a church? We don't get to just make things up. As Christians, we have a guide, a standard by which somebody else sets the mission.

If you've ever been a part of a company that loses its sight on why it exists, It's kind of difficult to work there. It doesn't matter if it's a school or if it's a Fortune 500 company. When a company loses its vision, when an organization loses where it's going and why it exists, it leads to either listlessness or chaos. People are going in all sorts of different directions or people aren't going anywhere and they don't know even why they're there. That's what will happen to any church if this passage fades into the background.

This is part, in parcel, of even the mission statement the session has written for this congregation, that we are about mission and discipleship. We are about evangelism and training up, equipping Christians to go live out the faith and make disciples of all the nations. Every church must hear our Commander-in-Chief, Jesus Christ, and base everything we do on this commission He's given us. So let's begin looking at this Great Commission at verse 18, because it's based on who Jesus is. Verse 18, And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

Now, this is one of the interesting things. Why wouldn't you just start the Great Commission at verse 19, right, where the commands are? Well, it's because verse 19 actually starts with what word? Go ahead and look at it. It starts with the word go, but why are you to go?

Therefore. Therefore, therefore always means you gotta read above it. There's something that hinges on this. Before you can get to that, you need to look at what's before. And verse 18 is what Jesus said. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. I need to just ask you a very simple question.

Sometimes we take Christian vocabulary for granted. Why do you call Jesus Lord? Why do you call Jesus Lord? Is it just tradition? Is it just parlance? Is it just what we say, right? Jesus Christ our Lord? What does that mean that Jesus is Lord? Well, it means that Jesus is our master. It means that the Lord is the one who owns something And that has authority over the something he owns. This is what Jesus talks about when he talks about the Lord of the vineyard.

Right? Who sends out his servants to go work in it. He has authority of both the servants in the vineyard and the vineyard. Why? Because the Lord owns the vineyard. This means that a Lord is someone who has full control over the thing that they own. They have a right to rule it. They have an inherent ability to set the rules and to say what goes on in their realm.

And this is exactly what Jesus spoke time and time and time again in His earthly ministry. In Matthew chapter 9 verse 6, Jesus said that He had authority to forgive sins in heaven and on earth. Jesus said that all things had been delivered over to Him by His Father. The point of what's going on here is that Jesus is the promised Messiah and Lord. When Daniel spoke in his prophetic book in Daniel chapter 7 verse 13, he said this, I was watching in the night vision, and behold, one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven.

He came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom. that all peoples, nations, and languages would serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away. And His kingdom, the one which shall not be destroyed." Do you see, Jesus came and He preached that the kingdom of God was at hand. And He was the king of that kingdom.

Jesus came as Lord and King. Jesus came as the One with universal authority because of who He was in His person as the very Son of God, the second member of the Trinity, but also by His works. Jesus earned His crown of authority. Jesus earned His crown of authority by doing every single thing that His Father ever commanded Him.

This is the key for me that was missing. For me to actually have life as a Christian. I mean, when I was a kid, I was... I heard the gospel when I was, you know, had a wanus, when I was just a little tyke. And I remember having sorrow over sin, and every time there was some type of altar call or something like that going on at church, I would feel bad for my sin and think, oh God, I need you to get me out of this trouble that I've gotten myself in.

But nothing ever actually changed. There was never any substantial difference that happened that you could point to my life and say, oh look, look right there, that's the good fruit that He's bearing in His life. Because contrition did not equal discipleship. Feeling bad about my sin didn't mean that I was willing to actually follow Jesus.

And it wasn't until I was in my twenties that my Master Chief came and told me the Gospel when I had made a wreck of my life, And after he had pointed out my sin, he just asked me, when is Jesus actually going to be Lord? When is Jesus actually going to be Lord?

See, I wanted all the benefits of salvation, but I didn't want Jesus as my master. I wanted to be the master. I wanted to call the shots. I wanted to do what Brian wanted to do. I had zero clue what it meant for Jesus to be Lord. Until that day that Master Chief Phillips shared the gospel with me, asked me when Jesus is going to be my Lord. And this is what started to rule my desires. This is what started to change what I thought was good, what I thought was right, what I thought I should live for.

I'm telling you, if you want to become a disciple of Jesus Christ, it means you're going to have to give up the things that you may like. or the things that you may want, because you can't serve yourself anymore. So I need to ask you, are you under Jesus' authority? Are you actually under Jesus' authority? Does He call the shots in your life and in your heart? Or do you do whatever you want? Do you confess with your own mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead? Is that your confession? From your own desire that Jesus would be Lord of your life?

That Jesus has authority both in heaven and on earth and over you today? This is why Abraham Kuyper would say, there is not one square inch of all creation which Jesus Christ does not declare mine. Maybe you found yourself in that place in your life where you know intellectually that Jesus has authority in heaven and on earth, but you don't actually want to give him that authority in this pet area of your life that you really like holding on to your own desires, your own sin, your own ways of thinking possibly. But to be a disciple of Jesus means the absolute foundation of everything is Jesus's authority. So is Jesus the master of your life? Does Jesus have authority over your desires? Does Jesus have authority? Oh boy, this is a big one in our culture. Is Jesus master over even your body? I mean, this is a big one, right?

We want to think we have all sorts of bodily autonomy, like I am my own, but the scriptures come in and Jesus says, oh no, no, no, you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God with your body. Do you believe that Jesus Christ's blood actually paid not just for your sins, but for your whole person? This is what it means for Jesus to say that He has all authority on heaven and on earth, and what it means for us to be His disciples, which is why the Heidelberg Catechism starts with the question, what is your only comfort in life and death? The answer of the first part, I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. The very first thing the Dutch people teach their kids in Sunday school. I'm not my own. I belong to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Is Jesus the one who gets the call, the shots in your marriage, in your job, in your child rearing, in your obeying your parents, in how you do your work, in how you do your schoolwork, in how you run your money, in how much food you eat? Does Jesus have authority over you? You need to just be honest with yourself. Does he, is he actually king over you? Or have you taken this concept of Jesus and he's a get out of hell free card, but he's not actually your Lord. That's a false Jesus, it's a false gospel. It's not New Testament Christianity.

And I gotta tell you, there are people who followed even Jesus when he was here on earth for different reasons. Jesus had a whole bunch of disciples. He didn't just have these 11 here that he's talking to. Jesus had all sorts of disciples who followed him at various times, sometimes huge crowds of disciples. We find one of these examples in John chapter 6, when Jesus is fed the 5,000 and he's teaching all these thousands of people.

And then he comes to a statement where he says, unless you eat my body and drink my blood, and people get, whoa, what? This is a hard saying, Jesus. We're not sure we like this. And John says that many disciples went back and walked with Him no more. See, some people wanted miracles. Some people were willing to follow Jesus when He was handing out a free lunch. That was cool. But once He starts teaching on hard things, forget it.

I don't want to be here anymore. And Jesus turned and He asked His disciples, Are you going to leave too? Do you want to also go away? Simon Peter answered him in verse 68 of John 6, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Is that your heart cry? Where else are you going to go? Where else are you going to go? Are you going to turn away from Him because I've told you hard things this morning?

Or will you recognize that it's only in Jesus Christ that we have the words of eternal life? That we have hope for our souls? Peter goes on in verse 69, Also we have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Do you accept the Jesus of the Scriptures? As He's presented here for us? Or is Jesus a small little Jesus that you want to just keep Him in your pocket and pull Him out whenever you feel bad about yourself? Is Jesus your Lord?

Does He have all authority? Because I hate to tell you whether you like it or not, He's got that authority. But if you're one of His disciples, we get to now turn to verse 19. If you're one who recognizes and believes, yes, Jesus is my Lord, Jesus is my Master, Jesus is who He says He is, the one with all authority in heaven and on earth, then God gives us a command.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. What does it mean to be a disciple? What does it mean to even be a disciple? We have to understand what it means to be a disciple before we can go and make disciples. Again, we have all sorts of Christian lingo that's kind of like insider language. Disciple and discipleship is one of those, right? You don't find very many people talking about discipleship in the business world. It just doesn't happen very frequently. But in the church we talk a lot about it because it's a biblical word. But it's actually a Hellenistic word. It's a word that Greek people used a lot. It wasn't just regarding Christians either.

Actually, the Pharisees had their disciples. John the Baptizer had his disciples. Plato had his disciples. Socrates had his disciples. Epicurus had his disciples. There was a whole bunch of different people following different people. So what was a disciple during this time?

Well a disciple is to be a discipleship is a commitment to the discipline to the master and to the particular teaching or mission and the relationship extended to imitation of the conduct of the master and it's impacted the personal life of the disciple.

That's a very technical definition but I think it's very helpful. Notice. a commitment of the disciple to the master. Number one, a commitment. Number two, it is a commitment to the particular teaching or mission of that master. Number three, it is a relationship extended to imitation of the conduct of the master. It's not just saying, okay, I believe your teaching, but I'm going to do whatever I want. It's an imitation even of the life and the teaching of the master. A disciple is someone who learns, follows, and imitates their master, their teacher.

And as Jesus is talking to the 11, we know that Jesus himself was the one who called them. He called Peter, James, Andrew, and John when they were fishing in the boats, right? Come, follow after me and I will make you a fisher of men. And immediately they dropped their nets and went and followed Him. We know that that's what happened with Matthew, the tax collector as well, when Jesus saw him sitting at the tax collector's booth and He said, come and follow me. And he left all of his greedy business and went and followed Jesus.

We know that that's what happened with Philip and Nathanael also in John chapter 1. When he calls them, I'm just gonna actually read this one to you. I love this account of how Jesus calls his disciples. The following day Jesus went to, this is John 1 verse 43. Then the following day Jesus went up to Galilee and he found Philip and said to him, follow me.

Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, Come on and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him and said to him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit. Nathanael said to him, How do you know me?

Jesus answered and said to him, Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Nathanael answered and said to him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel. Jesus answered and said to him, because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe me?

You're gonna see greater things than these. And he said to him, most assuredly, I say to you hereafter, you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. Jesus calls his disciples, sometimes in ordinary ways, sometimes in miraculous ways, calling them to himself. And what happens time and time again is they do follow him, literally. The word literally means Jesus walked and they walked at his steps after him, right? It's not just like intellectually they were following him. No, it meant that where Jesus went, they went. And when Jesus said, no, you can't go with me, they freaked out. What do you mean we can't go with you? Where are you going? How are we supposed to know where you're going? How are we supposed to know what to do?

Right, because Jesus was their rabbi. Jesus was their teacher. This is why they called Jesus Kyrios, Lord. When Jesus taught in parables, they had the blessing of going to Jesus and saying, hey, what did that parable mean? Not everybody got that blessing, but the twelve got that blessing. When Jesus did things, they took notice of it. When Jesus even taught them in object lessons, they were intended to imitate Him.

Remember what happened when Jesus washed His disciples' feet? We often remember that story, don't we? Jesus in the upper room, they have nasty, dirty, stinky feet, right? My kids came back from International Conference, we had to wash their shoes. You understand, stinky, dirty feet, right? They come in and they're... Nobody's washed the disciples' feet. Muddy, gross, dirty. Jesus takes off his outer garment, girds his waist, gets down, and he washes their feet. But notice what he told them in that object lesson.

Do you know what I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you say so well, for so I am. If then, I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you." Do you notice the example, the expected imitation, the master doing the disciples expected to imitate and follow in their lives? Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant, that's just being used here as a synonym for disciple, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

The disciples had these three years with Jesus. Before we get to verse 19, they have spent years following Jesus, watching Jesus, listening to Jesus, absorbing His teaching. And even at times, Jesus sent them away on little missions. Go two by two and go and preach the gospel. Kind of training grounds. And when they came back, asking them questions and Him instructing them even more. Because you see, discipleship, being a discipleship is about doing something. Discipleship is about doing.

I got a friend who, he took, I'm sure Terry's going to not like this illustration, but that's fine. I have a friend who took trigonometry when he was in high school. Now this man is retired now. But every single year I got an email for this, and he would let you know, he loves this tagline in his emails, Mark Sampson, in his emails every single year, he writes, I have been out of trigonometry class, I think the last email I got from him was something like 46 years, and I have not yet used trigonometry. Every year he would update that on his email, right? I've not used it yet. I've not used it yet. I've not used it yet. I've not used it yet.

If you have not used the things that Jesus Christ has taught you, you're not a disciple of Jesus. If you have not done the things that Jesus did, that were meant to be imitated, I'm not talking about going to the cross, right? That's not the type of thing you are to do, although you are to bear your cross daily. But you'll never make atonement for somebody else's sin. No, discipleship is about doing.

Jesus didn't just call them to be students. You know the type of students who get a C in a class just because they need to pass the class, but they don't ever want to become practitioners. And this is the difference between going to a trade school and going to a university. If you go to a trade school and you become an apprentice, you better make sure that you actually want to do what the teacher is teaching you.

Jesus was training up apprentices to go and to do the things he commanded them and showed them. They were learning with an eye toward doing. They were learning from Jesus the realities of heaven and earth. They were learning from Jesus what the world and heaven were really like. They were to learn from Jesus what walking in righteousness looked like. They were learning from Jesus how to follow in His teachings. Disciples hear, understand, obey, and imitate. That's what discipleship is about. It's about the art of learning and putting into practice.

We find this all over the New Testament. And there's times where you can get a little bit squirrelly, uncomfortable with some of the things that Paul says because you're like, whoa, really? Hear me out here, 1 Corinthians 11, verse 1. Ready for it? Imitate me as I imitate Christ Jesus.

Paul took this seriously about going and making disciples of all nations. He went to Corinth, he shared the gospel with them. He lived out the gospel amongst them in such a consistent way that he said, look guys, I'm not perfect. But I'm trying to follow Jesus, and as you see me mirroring and lining up with what Jesus taught, you need to walk in that way also. But it wasn't just in Corinth, even in Philippians, he says, Philippians 4, 9.

The things which you learned and received and heard, right, that's all good, right? It's like me standing up here and preaching and then walking out of the room. But the last clause is the more difficult one. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.

Paul understood he needed to imitate Christ. He needed to model Christ that the early church then, as he went on his missionary journeys, would then imitate him because he was the closest relationship that they had to Jesus. Because, see, disciples make disciples. Disciples are expected to make disciples.

There's even this academic notion. I want you to just brush it away like the fly that keeps coming around me up here. Where it's like, well, Jesus was just talking to the 11 disciples here. That's not actually for the normal Christian. That's absolute bogus when you consider the rest of the testimony of the New Testament is disciples making disciples. Even Paul, when he writes to Timothy, Paul learns from Jesus. Paul then teaches Timothy. And then what does Paul command Timothy, who's now the pastor in Ephesus? 2 Timothy 2, verses 1 and 2. You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Here we go. You ready for it? And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also."

Paul was not given revelation by Jesus Christ to hold it in just for himself. or even to take that knowledge and then pass it on to the first century Christians and say, okay, but guys, it needs to end with you. No more disciple making after this, guys. Nope, remember, Jesus only gave this to us, the eleven, and me, one born out of season, the twelfth.

No, the expectation was that this was going to continue and to grow in perpetuity and multiply and spread. It's not that Paul was trying to make himself to be the master, but that he was trying to point to Jesus Christ as the master. And so it's at this point, right? Oh man, I've been just explaining and talking at you for a long time, for a while now, about what is a disciple. I need to ask you, if part of discipleship is making disciples yourself, who are you teaching?

Who are you investing in? Who are you passing down the knowledge that you have received of the Lord Jesus Christ to? Would people be proud to walk in the way in which you have followed? Could somebody look at you in your life and say, you know what? My mom, she taught me about Jesus Christ. And she knew the gospel and lived it. Would somebody be able to look at you, one of your grandkids, and say, you know what? I knew my grandpa walked with Jesus. And he taught me how to walk like Jesus. I thank God that he gave me a grandpa like that. Are you? Are you discipling the next generation? Are you pouring out your life for those who you can teach and pass things down to?

We're not gonna get through this whole passage. I told the elders this morning, never tinker with a sermon at five o'clock in the morning. This was supposed to be a one-part sermon. It's gonna turn into a three-part, that's okay. My question to you is, is Jesus your Lord? And if he's your Lord and he's commanded you to make disciples, are you doing it? I hope it's a reality check for you. I hope you wrestle in your heart, do I love Jesus that much? Do I love his word that much? Do I have such desire to see other people come to know Jesus Christ and to walk in his ways that you're actually doing it in your life?

You don't have to be perfect to do this. Go read Romans chapter 7 and you know Paul is not perfect. Oh wretched man that I am. There's things I want to do. I don't do those good things. There's things that I don't want to do. And yet I do those bad things. What hope is there for me? And what's Paul's only hope?

Closing Prayer

Thanks be to God for our Lord Jesus Christ. You're not expected to be Jesus. But you are expected to imitate Jesus. And so far as you imitate Christ, Could you tell others around you, maybe it's your children, your grandchildren, your students, your co-workers, your proteges who are working in you, your community that you talk with, who is it that you're training up to be a disciple, to imitate Christ, to know His commands, to love Him and walk in His ways? Let's pray.

Father, You are an amazing God. You have blessed us and you have blessed us and you have blessed us. You have given us your Son. You have given us our Lord. And Father, we confess to you that there's times that we are unfaithful servants. But Lord, we thank you that you remember us in your mercy because of your Son and our Lord, our Master, Jesus Christ.

Father, we pray that you would make us imitators of Him And Lord, we pray that we would be those who would not just walk out of this room today forgetting the call that you have placed upon us. Lord, but we pray that you would make us a congregation of disciple makers. That we would not point people to ourselves, but Lord, that we would be those who would disciple people to follow our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, please help put it into the DNA of our faith. into the culture of our congregation. Please, Lord, help us. We pray in Jesus' name.