Our One Job

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This morning I want to show you some photos as we begin the message. And I think they’ll be up on the screen. There we go.

A lot of people will go on Pinterest and they’ll learn how to do things like make salad in mason jars or make honey-do lists for their husband. Not that I know anything about that. I like to go on Pinterest and look for funny things.

I have kind of a warped sense of humor. So I laugh at things like this. There’s a whole genre of things on there where they’re labeled you had one job and then they show how some people did those jobs spectacularly badly okay so what we see here is a picture of someone who built stairs up to a house to the window and not to the door if we can go back to that for just a second not quite through I’m not sure what happened here I’m sure that see and I love to try to figure out what the story was that led to these things I don’t I can’t figure out what the story was, but already I can hear Max’s voice saying, don’t buy that house.

That will negatively affect the resale value. Okay. I’ve heard him say that enough times.

So I, yeah, I don’t know what’s happened with that house. We can go to the next one. See the problem here?

So easy to just drive around the gate. I can’t figure out the answer to this one, but I imagine it’s got to be some kind of government project, right? All right.

We can go to the next one. This one, I can’t even make a joke about because I just feel so bad for them. They have spent millions of dollars, I’m sure, trying to build this bridge.

And they’re only off about 10 feet, right? That’s going to be a problem. And this one, the stripes are supposed to go straight on the road, right?

All I can figure out is maybe there were bees inside the truck. That’s about the only thing that makes that make sense. I like to look at these and try to figure out what happened, and they make me laugh.

Sometimes they make me cringe. These can be entertaining as long as you’re not the one who had the one job and failed, right? So if any of you were like, that was me and my company, I’m sorry.

Don’t tell us. We’ll never know. It’s entertaining as long as you’re not the one who had the one job and failed.

But I was looking at some of these this week and thinking about how we as Christians have one job, one main job. You may say there’s a lot of things we’re supposed to do. They all fall under the heading of this one main job that we have.

And it’s far more important than building steps or striping roads. And it’s far more important that we not fail at our job. And Jesus explained what this job was in Matthew chapter 28.

If you’ll turn with me this morning to Matthew chapter 28, we’ll be at the very end of Matthew. If you’re not familiar, it’s the first book of the New Testament. And it’s the last chapter of that first book.

So we’re going to go to Matthew chapter 28. And if you would stand with me as we read from the very end of that chapter, we’re going to start in verse 16 and read through verse 20 this morning. It says, then the 11 disciples went away into Galilee to the mountain, which Jesus had appointed for them.

When they saw him, they worshiped, but some doubted. 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 end of the age. You may be seated. So Jesus met with his disciples one last time.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about some of the final words that Jesus spoke to his disciples between the time that he rose from the dead and the time that he ascended to the right hand of the Father. We’ve talked about several of the things that he told them. And in this passage, we see that Jesus met with them one last time before he ascended to heaven.

And they all gathered near the Sea of Galilee on top of, tradition says it was Mount Tabor. We don’t know for sure. The Bible doesn’t tell us, but tradition has identified this one particular mountain.

And there were the 11 remaining disciples. So why were there 11? Because Judas was no longer with them.

The 11 were there. And 1 Corinthians chapter 15 tells us that there were also at least 500 other believers who were there in attendance on this day. So the 11 were there, but there were others beside the 11, apparently.

And so Jesus appeared to this massive crowd. And when he did, even though it was not the first time that he had appeared to the people, Some of them, very likely, some in this massive crowd had just heard the stories. And for some of them, I’m sure it was the first time they were seeing with their own eyes that Jesus had risen from the dead.

And so he appears to this massive crowd and some of them were so overwhelmed by what they saw that verse 17 tells us they fell and worshipped him. Have you ever been so overwhelmed by something that it just drives you to the floor? Just me?

It’s usually my wife or one of my children coming around a corner I didn’t expect, and I hit the ground out of fear. They did this out of a sense of awe. That really happens, by the way.

They did this out of a sense of awe, and they fell and they worshiped Jesus because they were just so overwhelmed at what they were seeing. But verse 17 also tells us there were still some who were weak in their faith. When it says they doubted, we’re not talking here about hardened skeptics, saying, no, it’s a trick, it’s a hologram, I’m going to figure out how he’s doing that.

It’s just saying there were people who in their minds were going back and forth and saying, am I really seeing what I’m seeing? I mean, they were not completely convinced. And so there were some there overwhelmed, some on the fence.

There was a broad spectrum of people where they were in their spiritual walk. And Jesus spoke to this crowd, including his 11 remaining disciples, and he brought them some final instructions. These were words that he intended them to hold close and to live their lives by from then on.

In this passage, he gave them one job. One job to do. He spells out one job.

From that point forward, their one job was to make disciples. Their one job was to make disciples. Now, we read this passage, and for a lot of you, it’ll be familiar.

It’ll be something you’ve heard. It’ll be something you memorize. At one point, I was told I quoted this passage in every Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night message just because it was applicable.

It’s probably one that a lot of you are familiar with. And we read this passage and we think of it as it relates to foreign missions a lot of times because the way it’s translated in English is there’s a command here that says go. And so we think of it as our missionaries.

We think of people being sent to Africa or being sent to China. But I want to take you through what the Greek says, and I’m not going to quote the Greek words to you. I learned to read a little bit but not pronounce it, okay?

So it would be a train wreck. But that word that’s translated there as go is a participle. And this is not a grammar lesson either.

Let’s just suffice it to say participles are very difficult to translate. As a matter of fact, I joked when I was taking Greek that the fact that they spent so much time on participles and word endings is the reason why the Romans were able to overthrow them. The Greeks were too distracted.

Okay, participles are difficult to translate. So I don’t fault the translators here that they said go but it means something more like going or having gone okay the command there is not go as a matter of fact it assumes in this verse that you’re already going as believers we’re supposed to be going already go in the greek is a participle so jesus wasn’t telling them so much to go as he was telling them to do something else while they were going as they were going about their daily lives, as they were just going through the everyday habits of living for Christ in this world, there was something that they were supposed to do. There’s one command in this passage, and it’s not the word go, it’s where you see the word disciple, or some translations say teach.

In Greek, it’s actually a command. Their command was to make disciples. As you are going, make disciples.

As you are going, in verse 19, it says make disciples of all nations, not just Make disciples of the people in your family, although that’s important. Not just make disciples at church, although that’s important. And going to all nations doesn’t necessarily mean you can only do this by going to Africa or China.

As we’re going about our daily lives, we’re supposed to be making disciples. And that phrase, of all nations, means of all kinds of people. Means of every group, every nation, tribe, and tongue.

So as we’re going about our daily lives, we’re interacting with all kinds of people. We meet lots of people every day, most of us, right? Some of them are different, aren’t they?

Some of them are very different. But we’re supposed to be, as we’re interacting with those people, we’re not thinking about how irritating they are. We’re not thinking about what can they do for us.

We’re not thinking, I wish this cashier would hurry up. We’re thinking about making disciples as we’re interacting with all kinds of people. As we’re going about our daily life, we should be making disciples.

Making disciples means to help others become faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Now, I say that because a lot of times we think of discipleship as a class. There’s been a habit in a lot of Southern Baptist churches that we have discipleship training, and it’s usually like a Sunday evening Sunday school. We meet at five o’clock.

We read out of a quarterly. We have class. We call it discipleship.

I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I’m not saying those classes are a bad thing. I’m saying I wish they were named something different.

Because discipleship happens more often, I think, in the context of a relationship. Walking together. Jesus spent time with the 12, making them disciples.

It wasn’t come together once a week and we’ll have a class. They were together daily. Jesus was showing them by the way he lived and the things he taught, what it meant to follow him.

And that’s what we’re called to do as well. So I want to make that very clear because when we hear discipleship, a lot of times, especially if you’ve spent a lot of time in church, in our minds we hear teach a class. And some of you are already saying, I can’t do that.

Some of you already are saying, I would rather die than have to stand up in front of people and teach a class. I would rather have dental surgery. I’d rather have any number of things.

You know, bring in the snakes, bring in the electricity. I’m not teaching a class. That doesn’t mean that you’re out of the work of making disciples because it’s not teaching a class.

It’s simply helping people become faithful followers of Jesus Christ. You can do that in a class, but you also do that in one-on-one relationships with people around you. And this, this calling to make disciples, has been the main job description of his church since the very beginning. It’s our one job.

Yes, I know we’re supposed to worship, but disciples worship. So if we’re producing disciples, we’re going to worship, right? We’re supposed to teach, but disciples teach and disciples want to be taught.

And so if we’re making disciples, those things are going to happen. We’re supposed to glorify Jesus Christ as a church. Well, what glorifies him more than when we fulfill God’s design that he redeem us and conform us to the image of his son, that we become more like Jesus Christ following him?

See all these things that we think of the church is supposed to do all these things They really fall under the heading of making disciples Helping people follow jesus christ That has been the main job description of the church since the very beginning Now, how were they supposed to do that? How were they supposed to make disciples?

There are two more phrases Here in verses verses 19 and 20 That give us some additional information that these two these two phrases tell us three things there’s this phrase in verse 19 baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit okay that word baptizing is another participle it describes what we do with the command then he says in verse 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you it’s another participle it describes what the command is again I don’t want to get too much into a grammar lesson just remember the command is make disciples these things describe how baptism was not just a ritual that we sometimes think of.

Baptism for them was something that carried over from Judaism that at that time was an initiation ritual into their community, into their faith community, and it was also a sign of the cleansing work that God had done in the life of a convert. And so when that was carried over into Christianity at the command of Jesus Christ, it was doing a couple of things here. It was assuming that these people had already been brought to faith in Jesus Christ because nowhere in the New Testament do we see a command to baptize anybody who has not made a profession of faith in Christ. So when Jesus tells them baptize, he’s assuming that these are people who have been born again, but also it’s welcoming them into the church.

This baptism is the sign of the cleansing that takes place. It’s a picture of the cleansing that takes place that God does in us through Jesus Christ, but it’s also that welcome, that initiation into the community of faith. So when he tells them to do this by baptizing, we’re talking about leading them to faith and we’re talking about welcoming them into the church.

And then there’s this idea of teaching. And again, it didn’t take place necessarily in a classroom like we think of, but it was in the context of relationships where people walked together, they spent time together, and they taught others and were taught by word and by example how to follow Jesus. I’ve done lots of things as far as discipleship training in my career as a pastor, but the ones I’m most excited about are my children, because I get to spend every day with Benjamin and Madeline, and hopefully, you know, eventually the younger two, but I spend every day with Benjamin and Madeline, and yes, as part of homeschooling, we do have a Bible class, but we also have discussions just driving down the road in the truck.

We have discussions as we’re working on stuff in the garage. They ask questions. And just doing life together, I get to teach them what it means to follow Jesus Christ. And let me tell you, that is the most effective discipleship you will ever do, is spending time with people one-on-one, just living your lives together for Christ, them teaching you or you teaching them.

So in these two things where he talks about baptizing and teaching, it answers the question, how are you supposed to make disciples? First, bringing non-believers to faith in Christ. Second, integrating new believers into the body of Christ. And third, equipping fellow believers to obey Christ. Somebody can’t be a disciple until they’ve trusted Christ as their Savior because they can’t follow him unless they know him. And in terms of the church, the church isn’t just here for us to show up on Sundays and make an appearance, make our presence known and go home and feel better about ourselves and ignore everything the rest of the week.

The church is here as a body of believers where we are supposed to have relationships, be part of each other’s lives, to encourage each other, to challenge one another. And so it’s vitally important that new believers be integrated into the church, that they be given a warm welcome, that they be brought into the fellowship that we take them under our wing to help them learn, to help them grow. We all need that.

And the church is here to provide that.

you know the bible describes this this event of coming to christ as being born again that and it describes us as new believers as being babes in christ so leading someone to faith in christ without bringing them into the church bringing them into that fellowship into that family of god for growth and encouragement is like giving birth to a baby and then saying good luck hope you can learn to feed yourself I mean if heaven had a dhs so many churches would be under investigation for abandonment right we need the church and the church needs to be busy about the the bringing new believers in to be trained and to be loved and to be challenged and nurtured and all these things and then equipping fellow believers to obey christ that’s that’s what we did for example this morning in sunday school listen to a great great lesson by brother bill and I got some things out of it.

So I told those who were here Wednesday night, I plan on rotating through the Sunday school classes, not to check up on you, but to spend time with each group and get to hear each of you. And some of you are already thinking, some of you may be thinking, how can I teach when the pastor’s in there? Because I want to learn from you.

All right, I still have things to learn. We should be encouraging and equipping each other. It’s not just top down.

So the problem here is that you and I can’t even grow ourselves spiritually. Here we’ve been given this tall task of we’re supposed to help others grow to follow Jesus Christ. We can’t even grow ourselves spiritually, let alone someone else. That’s why it’s so important that verse 18 tells us that we as Christians are sent out with Jesus’s authority.

He said, all authority under heaven is given to me. Therefore, you go and make disciples. We’re going in his authority, not on our own.

This means he’s in charge of making this work. All we have to do is be obedient and let him use us. We don’t have to figure it out.

We don’t have to sit there and plan. Now, how can I make so-and-so grow? How can I make them more spiritual?

You can’t. You can’t. We can’t even do that with ourselves.

All we can do is be obedient to what he’s called us to do, have that relationship with them, encourage them, equip them the best we can, and let God work through that because that’s what he’s designed to use that for. so christians were sent out with jesus’s authority in verse 18 and in verse 20 it tells us that we were sent out with jesus’s presence he told us he would never leave us or forsake us he said here as we were going about our lives making disciples everywhere we could he said lo I am with you always even until the end of the age he said I’m going with you from now on and I know he’s not physically present with us, but he sent his spirit. We talked about this last week, I think it was.

As a matter of fact, he told them not to leave Jerusalem, not to go out and try to do this on their own until they had that Holy Spirit. So it was some 40 days later that the Holy Spirit came on them and then they went out. So we need to understand today that this great commission to make disciples did not come with an expiration date.

When he said, as you’re going, make disciples of all nations, of all kinds of people, baptizing them, teaching them to obey me, and I’m with you always. That did not come with an expiration date. This job, this one job we’ve been given, it belongs as much to Central Baptist Church in Lawton today in 2020, belongs to us every bit as much as it belonged to First Baptist Church in Jerusalem in the 30s AD.

It’s every bit as much our job description as it was their job description. We still have one job. They had one job.

We still have one job. And it means it should be our first priority in everything that we do. It should become a second nature to us.

Again, he said, as we are going, as you’re going, do these things. As we’re going, we should be telling others about Jesus. As we’re going, we should be building genuine relationships with other believers that are going to encourage and strengthen our walk with Christ. As we’re going, we should be taking newer believers under our wing and showing them what it means to follow him.

I’ve got this in my notes again. I know I’ve already said this several times, but I want to make sure it connects. Discipleship is not necessarily a class.

It is the relationships that we use to point people to Christ and help them grow. So we should be taking newer believers under our wing and showing them as well as telling them what it means to follow Christ. And then we as a church, with the understanding we have one job, we should understand that before we commit significant time or energy or resources to any project or any kind of event, that we should ask how we can use it to help with that one job, with making disciples. Does what we’re doing help with that?

And if not, how do we tweak it? How do we repurpose it to make us more effective at making disciples? How does what we’re doing help us bring people to faith in Christ?

how does what we’re doing help us integrate people into the body of Christ how does what we’re doing help us equip them to follow Christ these are questions that should be at the forefront of our mind with everything that we do we’ve got to ask ourselves constantly how God wants us how God wants to use our church to raise up faithful followers of Jesus Christ and whatever those things are however those methods are that God wants to to use that God wants to work through us to make disciples those things should be central to what we do. Now, following Jesus Christ, being a disciple, following him faithfully, it is the most important thing that we can do with our lives. I know there are other things that in the moment from our earthly perspective, they seem like they’d be so much more important.

But all the other things that we put our focus on, our time on, our energy on, those things pass away. I give the example all the time that, you know, it’s hard to drive through a small town here in Oklahoma and not see a junkyard, either an official one or an unofficial one, right? And I look sometimes at the vehicles that’ll be rusted out and up on blocks and they’ve got no windows in them.

And I think at some point that was high dollar and that was somebody’s baby. All that stuff fades, all that stuff passes away. There’s one thing that’s going to matter in eternity and that’s where we stood with Jesus Christ. The most important way we can spend the limited time that we have on this earth is in following him and preparing for what’s to come.

But let me tell you this, we cannot follow him if we don’t know him. We can’t follow him if we don’t start with a relationship with him as savior first. And the reason why that’s so important is that you and I were created. We were created by God to have a perfect fellowship with him.

We were created to enjoy him and glorify him and exist in harmony with him. But we chose to sin instead. We chose disobedience.

Adam and Eve chose it. And every generation since then has chosen it on down to us. And you and I are sinners by nature.

And we’re sinners by action and by choice. And that sin separates us from God. Sometimes people will ask the question, well, why is God so sensitive to that?

Why can’t God just let things go? because he is holy. It’s not, holiness is not something he does.

It’s who he is. So if somebody looked at you and said, I hate the very essence of everything you are and I want to choose the opposite, wouldn’t it kind of offend you? God is holy.

God is sinless. And so when we sin, it’s an offense, not just against his law, but against him. So that sin separates us from him.

We’re separated from him here in this world and we’re separated from him in eternity. And there’s not a thing we can do about it. You see, if I just say, well, from here on out, I’m going to do good things and I’m going to be sinless.

Number one, no, not going to work. You wake up in the morning by the time, if you’re anything like me, by the time your feet have hit the floor, there’s already sin. But even if we could, all the good we could do from now on is just doing what he requires.

It’s not extra credit that makes up for the wrong that we’ve done. You and I can never do enough good to make ourselves sinless, to erase the sin that we’ve committed to make ourselves acceptable to God. That sin had to be punished.

That sin had to be paid for, not because God is harsh, but because God is just. And so we were faced with a dilemma. We can’t save ourselves. We could do nothing to save ourselves.

And yet God said, I love them and I’d rather not see them in hell. Had to be one or the other, except that God made another plan. God sent Jesus Christ, His Son, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, to become a man, to take on a human nature without giving up being God at all, to come and live a perfect sinless life, no sin of His own, so that He could be the perfect sacrifice to bear the responsibility for our sins.

And He was nailed to the cross, and He shed His blood there to take responsibility for every wicked thing I’ve ever done, every wicked thought I’ve ever thought, And to suffer, bleed, and die there in my place, paying for it in full. And because of that, God looks at us, and not because we’ve earned it, not because we’ve done anything good to deserve it, but because Jesus paid for it, God looks at us and makes an offer of salvation. He says he promises to forgive us when we don’t deserve it.

He promises to save us. He promises us eternal life with him. He promises us a relationship with him, not only in heaven, but right now our relationship with him because Jesus paid for it.

If we will simply believe that we’ve sinned and need a savior, believe that Jesus Christ died to be that savior to pay for our sins in full, if we’ll ask for it. This morning, the most important thing you can do with your life is to follow Jesus Christ, but following him has to start with knowing him as your savior.