Your Great Commission (Part 2, Reach Up, Reach In, Reach Out Lenten Series)

[Here is the text of the message from last night's midweek Lenten devotional worship service of Living Water Lutheran Church, as well as the live stream video of the service.]

Matthew 28:16-20

This Lenten season, we’re focusing on the mission of Christ’s Church and of this church, given to us in Jesus’ Great Commission, found in five different places in the Bible: to be and to make disciples.

Last week, we described what a disciple of Jesus is and what the life of a disciple looks like as she or he continues to receive the Word and the Sacraments as part of God’s people, the Church. Next Wednesday, we’ll start looking at the discipleship pathway of Reaching Up, Reaching In, and Reaching Out.

But tonight, I want to underscore what our mission of being and making disciples IS and, maybe more importantly, what it IS NOT.

It’s especially important to emphasize what this mission is not.

That’s because we fallen human beings have an inborn and sinful penchant for wanting to capture, constrain, systematize, routinize, and make programmatic the things of God that aren’t meant to be captured, systematized, routinized, or turned into programs.

There’s a wonderful insight into God’s character in the first book of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series. Four children from our world enter an alternative universe and are told about Aslan, the character who is the Christ-figure of those books. When told that Aslan is a lion, one of the children asks, “Is he tame?” “Of course he’s not tame,” they’re told, “but he’s good.”

That’s what Jesus is like. The Bible describes Him as “the Lion of Judah.” How dare we try to domesticate Jesus and make Him over in our image. Our call is to submit to Him so that He can make us over in His image!

We try to scale Jesus down so that we can manage Him.

On the mount of Transfiguration when Jesus’ deity was revealed to Peter, James, and John, Peter famously wanted to erect booths to honor Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, as though they were equals.

Peter envisioned a well-organized set of shrines that people could visit whenever they felt the need for goosebumps.

God the Father then said of Jesus, “This is My Son…Listen to Him.”

Peter’s impulse was to capture, organize, and tame God the Son to his preferences and his specifications. This echoes the incident that occurred not long before the Transfiguration in which Jesus asked the disciples who people said He was and Peter gave the right answer, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. But when Jesus told Peter he’d given the right answer and that, as the Messiah, He was going to suffer and died on a cross before rising from the dead, Peter shook Jesus, rebuking the Lord as if to say, “You don’t know how to do this Messiah business, Jesus.”

Peter tried to whittle Jesus down to his specifications. That’s a way of keeping the One Who came to die for our sins and to make us righteous, fit for eternity with God, at arm’s length. That’s something we try to do often, I think.

A pastoral mentor of mine once said, “The Church is forever trying to organize things because it’s afraid of the Holy Spirit.”

It’s true, I think.

We confess that Jesus Christ is our Lord and that our lives are in His hands. But we would be frightened nearly to death if God told us, as He told Abraham back in Old Testament times, “Leave the place you’ve lived for the past seventy-five years and all this property you’ve acquired and go to a place–somewhere out there–I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1)

We would want to plan everything out.

Do a cost/benefits analysis.

Demand that God answer all our questions.

Make certain our insurance would cover such a risky change of lifestyle.

Those kinds of things have their place in the lives of the Church and of individual Christians.

But in the forty-seven years since I came back to faith in Christ and in the nearly thirty-nine years since I was ordained, I have seen such so-called “practical considerations” prevent God’s people from doing what God was calling them to do.

Repeatedly, I have seen Christ’s Church opt for comfortable earthly certainties rather than stepping out by faith to where its God and Lord was calling it.

That’s because we’re afraid of where the Holy Spirit wants us to go, whether to the neighbor next door or the stranger we encounter in the store.

Even after we sinners are granted sainthood by grace through faith in Jesus, we are still recovering sinners, recovering control freaks, who want to be our own gods.

Tonight we focus on the most famous recounting of Jesus’ great commission in the New Testament.

A literal rendering of Jesus’ words in Matthew 28:19-20, might look like this: “Having gone therefore, disciple all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all the things I commanded you. And look, I am with you until the completion of the age.”

The word πορευθέντες, often translated simply as Go at the beginning of this passage, carries the idea of as you go through your life or as you live from day to day, disciple people.

Every Christian is, in Saint Paul’s phrase, an “ambassador for Christ.” But that doesn’t mean we’re all called to be foreign missionaries or pastors. Our call is to be and to disciple people right where we are: at work, at home, at stores and restaurants, ballgames and parties.

And by this word, πορευθέντες, Jesus seems to have no idea of the Church instituting evangelism campaigns, buying advertising, or creating programs to attract people to our churches–although churches may choose to do such things to augment their ministries of disciple-making. (Church advertising, based on how many people it attracts to our churches, by the way, is nearly worthless.)

What Jesus is saying in Matthew 28 though is, You Christian, worshiping regularly, reading God’s Word, receiving the Sacraments, wherever you go are disciples–My people–and wherever you go, you carry the good news that Jesus Christ has already died on a cross and already risen to save us from sin and death. You can assure the people in your life that they can trust Jesus Christ for life with God, now and forever. As you go about your day to day lives, you will be the Ones Who share Jesus with the world.

The apostle Peter writes to Christians elsewhere in the New Testament: “...in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15)

As we follow Jesus, Who has saved us from sin and death, through lives of daily repentance and renewal, we are prepared to tell others about the eternal hope we have in Jesus.

This isn’t about programs.

It’s about the grace of God we receive as we gather with His people to worship together and receive His Word and His Sacraments.

It’s about being rooted in Christ, branches from the vine, Who makes us His own and shelters us with Christ’s righteousness by grace through faith in Christ alone!

So, being and making disciples then is about following Jesus and sharing Jesus. Let’s not complicate it!

Luke’s telling of the Great Commission in the book of Acts is instructive. There, Jesus tells the first Christians that after they’ve received the Holy Spirit, Who we receive at Holy Baptism, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

Note again what Jesus is NOT saying. He doesn’t say that after we Christians have been trained in an evangelistic program, or after we’ve been called to foreign mission work, or after we’ve gotten funding from a recognized church body, then we can be His witnesses.

If the Holy Spirit has given us the faith to say Jesus is my Lord, we are His witnesses. We’re good to go, right now!

We have programs of pre-evangelism like Toddler Time, and of evangelism like our Kindness Outreaches, at Living Water, of course.

But they’re only meant to help us become more comfortable with making disciples in our everyday lives.

You, friends, already are Christ’s disciples.

You already carry Him wherever you are.

You already have the Holy Spirit.

Christ can make disciples through you tonight.

True story. A man, during the Great Depression, then in high school, told his dad, a working class immigrant, “Pop, I want to go to college.” He expected his dad to try to formulate some plan by which he could get the money for college. Instead, his father said, “So, go.”

“So, go” was his way of saying, “You have the capacity to do this and I won’t hold you back.”

I often hear Christians say, “I wish I could go and make disciples,” as though they were expressing an aspiration for some higher kind of life.

But Jesus is telling us today that we who know Him as Lord and Savior are already His witnesses.

We are the ones He has already empowered to be and to make disciples.

If we are justified, then we are qualified.

If we have been saved, then we have been sent out on the great rescue mission Christ has given His Church.

So, as you look at the troubles and craziness of the people around you and wish that someone would go to them to share the life, forgiveness, peace, and salvation God has secured for all the world through Jesus Christ, Jesus is telling you tonight in His great commission, “So, go. Live in My grace and let others in on what I have done for you and for them through My cross and My resurrection.”

The Great Commission is also your Great Commission.

Amen

When the Holy Spirit Shows Up

[This message was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, this past Sunday.]

Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost was a festival of the Jewish calendar long before the Pentecost Day we Christians commemorate today. Pentecost was a harvest festival, marking one of the two harvests that happened in Israel every year. 

But Pentecost was more than just an agricultural celebration. It happened fifty days after Passover. 

Passover, you know, celebrates how God delivered His people from the angel of death and from their slavery in Egypt after they smeared the blood of an unblemished lamb on the doorframes of their dwellings. Fifty days later on Pentecost, God came down to His people at Mount Sinai to give them His law, the Ten Commandments.

Our Christian celebration of Pentecost comes fifty days after Easter, remembering the day when Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world, rose from the dead. Ten days prior to the events described in our second lesson for today, Acts 2:1-21, the resurrected Jesus ascended to heaven. 

Even before that, as we see in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus promised that He would come to His Church again. Like God descended from heaven to give His Law to His ancient people, the Jews, Jesus would descend again to those who belong to Him. Jesus, God the Son, would send God the Holy Spirit. “[T]he Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you,” Jesus promised.” (John 14:26) Pentecost is the fulfillment of that promise.

Our lesson from Acts, too long for us to go through in detail together this morning, is divisible into three sections. 

The first section, verses 1 to 4 tells us that the Holy Spirit came to the first disciples. 

It happened when “they [the disciples] were all together in one place,” Acts 2:1 says. What were they doing at the time? Acts 1:14 gives us the answer: “They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.” 

There is nothing more important for the growth of our faith, the mission of the Church, or the usefulness of the Church to the world than helpless prayer. 

In fact, if our praying isn’t helpless, we aren’t praying. Without a clear understanding that we can do nothing without Jesus (John 15:5), we’re not praying, we’re just talking. You can be sure that as the 120 disciples of the early Church, a smaller number than gathers at Living Water each Sunday morning, prayed together on that Pentecost, they were feeling helpless. Jesus had risen from the dead, confirming that He was God the Son Who conquers sin and death for those who call out to Him as Lord. But He had also given them a huge job: “...[Y]ou will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8) The disciples were to go into the same world that had rejected and crucified Jesus and say that He had risen from the dead and that all who turn from sin and trust in Him have life with God that never ends. 

“Wait a minute,” the apostles might have thought on hearing Jesus' commission. “We have a bad track record for perseverance in the face of opposition. How are losers like us going to be Your witnesses?” 

But Jesus had told them that they would fulfill His mission for them after He sent His Holy Spirit. 

And so, helpless, not knowing anything about the Holy Spirit, they gathered together to pray. 

They trusted in Jesus’ promise, “...where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” (Matthew 18:20) 

They prayed for God to come to them in some way, much as many of you have been praying in regard to Reach Forward in recent months. 

This is when the Spirit came to them. “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” (Acts 2:4) The Holy Spirit has been empowering the Church’s witness for Christ ever since. 

We saw the Holy Spirit’s empowerment of the Church’s witness for Christ this past week, as dozens of you and other members of North American Lutheran Church congregations brought help, love, and prayer in Jesus’ name to those affected by the Dayton tornadoes.

The second section of our lesson from Acts shows the varied reactions people have when the Word about Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit, comes to people. 

Acts 2 recounts three reactions. 

The first was a positive one. This reaction is exemplified first in the praying disciples themselves. Despite their previous fears, they were emboldened to go into the streets and share Jesus with others. Later in Acts 2, we’re told that some three-thousand people also reacted positively to the disciples’ message of new life through faith in Jesus and came to believe in Him. 

The second reaction was from people who were bewildered and amazed (Acts 2:6-7). Like people trying to figure out how a special effect was accomplished in a movie, this group, drawn from around the Mediterranean Basin, pays little attention to the message the Spirit spread through those first disciples, instead wondering how the disciples were speaking in their own languages. 

Their bewilderment is matched by some people at Aldi when our Living Water young people help them load their groceries in their car or give them a quarter for a shopping cart. “Why are you doing this?” they sometimes ask. “Because God loves you,” our kids say. In a dog-eat-dog world in which there’s always a catch, people are bewildered when the free gift of new life through Christ is made known and accessible to them. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit! 

A third group had a different reaction on the first Pentecost: They wrote the whole thing off as craziness. “They have had too much wine,” they said (Acts 2:13). 

Last week, a friend re-posted on Facebook something I wrote about people who commend a perverted understanding of Christian faith. A friend of hers commented that all Christian faith is perverted. When I tried to explain how Christ has forgiven me and worked at transforming my life over the past four decades, the commenter wrote to say that she was sorry that I had been brainwashed and that Jesus hadn’t died for my sins. My prayer is that God will use me to gradually open her to Christ. But even when our witness is empowered by the Holy Spirit, the good news of Jesus will, at least at first, be written off by some who find it too good to be true.

In the third section of our lesson from Acts, Peter, who denied knowing Jesus three times after Jesus was arrested, stands up and tells the throng in Jerusalem the gospel, the good news, that every human being needs. 

Quoting the Old Testament prophet Joel, Peter says: “...everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Acts 2:21) 

We don’t have to do anything. 

We don’t have to jump through religious hoops or have it together or know the secret handshake. 

When the Holy Spirit prompts us to call on the name of the Lord Jesus to be our God and Savior and only hope, we know that we are saved. 

And so are those who come to believe in Jesus as we share this good news with them! The Holy Spirit is the One Who makes all of this possible.

“But, Pastor Mark,” some will say, “how can I receive the Holy Spirit?” If you’ve been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit and believe in Jesus, you already have the Holy Spirit. He’s the one who enables you to believe, however imperfectly, and to confess, however haltingly, that Jesus is Lord. He’s the One Who empowers you when you feel defeated by life or sin to trust that no matter what, the crucified and risen Jesus can still be trusted to give you life, forgiveness, and eternity.

Others will say, “Pastor, I feel guilty. I’ve never had an experience of the Holy Spirit like the disciples did on the first Pentecost.” Someone has pointed out that no two miracles of Jesus were precisely the same. It’s a mark of God’s infinite creativity and of the individual relationships Jesus desires with each of us, that while faith in Christ and growth in that faith are always sparked by encountering Jesus in the Word and in the sacraments (Holy Baptism and Holy Communion), God can come to people in many ways. 

On the first Pentecost, God’s Spirit came to His people on the rush of a loud and mighty wind and came to still others in the proclamation of ordinary Galileeans, filled with the Spirit, speaking good news to the Jerusalem crowds. 

God came to the Old Testament prophet Elijah not in a wind, or an earthquake, or a fire, but in a whisper. 

The apostle Paul teaches us that if we can believe in Jesus as our Lord, the Holy Spirit has come to us. “I want you to know,” he says, “that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:3)

If you call out to the God revealed in Jesus, you can trust that the Holy Spirit is living in you. 

You can trust too, that the Holy Spirit can use you to bring the good news of Jesus to others. As a Christian, you’re among God’s Pentecost people! Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

The Call to a Reckless Life (AUDIO)

Here.

You'll notice that I diverged onto what I hope was a set of relevant tangents in the delivery of the prepared message. People tell me, "I love it when you go on tangents."

Hopefuly, they're Holy Spirit-inspired ones.

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

The Call to Recklessness

[This was shared during the worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, today.]

Mark 4:26-34

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus tells two parables or stories about “the kingdom of God.” We’re going to focus today just on the first of these two parables of the kingdom.

The kingdom of God exists wherever the Holy Spirit empowers a person to believe in Jesus Christ as the only way to life with God and so, repents of sin and surrenders their whole life to Christ.

But we live in a fallen, sinful world. Sin exists within us and around us, which is why it’s so important for Christians to confess our sins, ask God’s help to resist the temptation to sin, and put our lives in the hands of Jesus every day. People tell me, “I don’t know if I’m good enough to go to heaven.” “That’s not the issue,” I tell them. “Jesus is good enough to get you and me and everyone who believes in Him into heaven.” 

And He’s good enough, perfect enough, sinless enough, to get us into His kingdom not just when we die, but right now as we trust in Him. 

Yet, given that sin has our world and often we ourselves by the throat, we may sometimes question whether the kingdom of God is present or if the world hasn't been completely overrun by evil.

In both parables today, Jesus encourages us not to give in to despair! 

The citizen of God’s kingdom has an eternity of hope. Evil is rampant in our world. Disrespect for God’s Name, thievery and murder of all kinds, injustice to the poor, sexual intimacy outside of marriage, reputation-damaging gossip, materialism, and all sorts of other sins fill our world, even the Church. Yet, the kingdom of God is still among us, still growing, and still able to usher into eternity with God anyone who dares to break with the world, repent of sin, and surrender to Jesus Christ.

Look please at Mark 4:26-29. Jesus says: “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.” 

Here, Jesus introduces us to a reckless farmer. He scatters seed. He doesn’t bother with things like watering, hoeing to remove weeds, or laying on manure. He scatters the seed and goes through his daily life. This man’s only job, apparently, is to scatter the seed and wait and presumably, pray.

Folks, that’s our job as Christians, too. 

The seed of God’s kingdom in this particular parable is our word--our witness--about the gospel. The gospel is God’s good news, which Jesus talks about in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” That’s the Gospel! 

Every person born to life on this planet is ticketed for separation from God and for hell. But because God loves us so much and wants us so much, He gave Jesus up to death on the cross. Everyone who believes in Him--everyone who trustingly gives their sins over to Jesus and entrusts their lives to Him--has what every human being was made for, eternal life with God. This happens through Jesus and only through Jesus. That is the good news of God’s kingdom. That’s the Gospel!

Today, Jesus scatters this good news through you and me, the people of His Church. We Christians are the farmers whose job it is to scatter the seed, telling others the good news about Jesus. 

Yet it seems that as we Christians interact with our spiritually-disconnected friends or fellow believers, we find it easier to scatter anything and everything but the gospel. 

That has tragic consequences. As we Christians fail to tell others the good news about Jesus, the world is walking away from God. 

And as we ourselves root our lives in money, status, and the pursuit of pleasure, much of the Church is walking away from God.

In Acts 1:8, the crucified and risen Jesus, just before He ascended into heaven, told His Church, you and me: “...you will be my witnesses...” 

If you’re a baptized believer in Jesus Christ, you are one of His witnesses, called to scatter the seed of the Gospel. 

But what if we fail to ever tell others about the Gospel? 

Imagine for a second that you’re a spectator at a murder trial, anxious to hear testimony and form your own opinion of the case based on the testimony of witnesses. What would happen if all the witnesses who could be enlightening or helpful, instead talked about the weather, their vacations, how desperately the Reds need pitching, or what they saw on Fox or MSNBC the night before, but never said a word about the case at hand. This is what would happen: You would be unable to make an informed decision. 

If we Christians, who have been called to be witnesses for Christ, fail to tell others about Christ, they are unable to make a judgment about whether to receive the new life in God’s kingdom that Jesus offers.

The stakes are high! Heaven or hell for all the people we may interact with in our lives depends on whether we Christians will be faithful witnesses for Christ or not! 

Look at what Jesus says in Mark 4:29, at the end of the first parable: “As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” 

The “He” here is not the farmer who scatters the seed in the first few verses of the parable. Look, please, at Joel 3:13. The words from this Old Testament prophet’s book lay behind Jesus’ words to us today. It says: “Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes, for the winepress is full and the vats overflow—so great is their wickedness!” 

Both this passage from Joel and the words of Jesus in Mark 4:29, are about the ultimate judgment that will come to this world. The world will hurtle along from one evil day to the next. Those who refuse to repent and believe in Jesus will keep on sinning unrepentantly and never blink an eye. According to Jesus, there will even be unrepentant sinners in the Church, people who tell themselves and those who love them and challenge them, “I’m a good person. I do my best each day.” 

Listen: Our best won’t save us from ourselves and our sins. Only Jesus can do that. Suddenly, Jesus says, the days of the world moving from one evil day to the next will end. Then God will wield His sickle. Only the seeds that have borne grain--only those who believe in Jesus Christ--will rise again. This is why you and I, if we have compassion for other human beings, must get over our fears and ask the Holy Spirit to daily present us with opportunities to scatter the seed of the gospel.

But how do we find ways to scatter the seed of the gospel so that others can come to eternal life with God? Here are a few steps you can take toward being a faithful witness for Christ.

First: Maintain intimacy with Christ. Use what we Lutherans call "the means of grace," the routes God takes to fill us with faith, to give you a closer walk with Jesus Christ. These include worship, Holy Communion, and God's Word, in which we need to immerse ourselves. They also include quiet time spent in prayer, conversation with the Lord rooted in His Word. A Living Water disciple told me recently, “Quiet time has become a wonderful part of my life.” Through each of these means, Christ draws us closer to Himself and fills us with Himself! We can’t share what we don’t have. We can’t share a relationship with Christ unless we ourselves have it to give. As we cultivate intimacy with Christ, we will have good news to share with others!

Second: Live in daily repentance and renewal. Repentance is changing our minds about our sins and turning to God for the forgiveness He offers through Christ. When others see the evidence that we are imperfect people who seek each day to orient our lives to the will of God, it will enhance the credibility of our witness for Christ. People will want the Savior we follow.

Third: Be intentional about forming friendships with spiritually-disconnected people. Jesus was always reaching out to unbelieving people. Be sure as you form such friendships, you maintain strong friendships with God and with fellow believers with whom you study Scripture, pray, and maintain accountability. Without this anchor of faith and love, you could be lured away from Christ yourself.

Fourth: Remember your own story. It’s the true story of how Christ daily impacts your life that will give you the “street cred” to scatter the seeds of the gospel among the people you know and meet.

Fifth: Be kind. Romans 2:4 says that the kindness of God is given in order to lead us (and others) to repentance. Start with kindness. God has been kind to us! Although we deserve death and condemnation, He has patiently given us time to become acquainted with His Son, repent for our sins, and believe in Jesus. I’ve never understood how people who know that they have been saved by God through faith in Christ, and not by their own goodness, could dare to be unkind to others. Being kind means being kind to people we don’t know and patient with our disbelieving friends. We need to give them the time and space to experience God's love so that God can give growth and maturity to the seeds we scatter, so that they can believe in Jesus and grow as His children too.

When the kingdom of God that Jesus came into the world to bring takes hold in a person’s life, it brings comfort, hope, and peace in the midst of even the most difficult moments in this life and unfettered peace in eternity after we, like our Lord Jesus, have risen from the dead and are in the presence of our Father. May God use us to share His kingdom--to recklessly scatter the seeds of the Gospel--with everyone we know. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]