A Common Purpose
Do you know that Jesus has left us with a grand purpose in this life? In Matthew's gospel, it is the last thing Jesus says to us. “Go into the world and make disciples of all nations”. Since this phrase, both holds a place of priority at the end of the gospel and as the last thing Jesus says, it should tell us that it is great importance and meant for all of us. We are all to go out and make disciples for Jesus.
Whenever I talk about evangelism or sharing our faith, the most common thing I hear is something like, “I don’t know enough. I won’t know what to say. I don’t know the bible well enough”. First, that may be true, but our knowledge isn’t what is central to making disciples of Jesus. If we were making disciples that were following us as the teacher then our knowledge and capacity would be of absolute importance, but we aren’t making disciples of ourselves, we are making disciples of Jesus. Think about it this way, if we were praising and introducing someone to a teacher we would talk about his wisdom, his goodness, and his way. As disciples, followers, and students ourselves we wouldn’t have to know anything, but what we would want to communicate is what we have been experiencing and learning. I hope that all of us can share our experiences and what we have been learning. If you can’t, that’s okay, its just a sign that we need to spend more time in contemplation meditating on Jesus and his words - learning from our teacher. In fact, any spurring thought that we don’t know enough, should push us to learn more and so direct us even more to our great master.
Now, I need to clarify something. Jesus is not just a teacher in the most basic sense. He is not just a communicator of information. He is even more than a communicator of knowledge. A disciple in Jesus’ day, would follow their teacher everywhere, watching them at every moment to see how they eat, how they relate to strangers, friends, family, to the broken and able, how they explore Scripture or entertainment and more. A disciple is meant to learn everything from their master. So are we, but Jesus is also the book we study from, he is the source material - that means that he is the source of our new way and the one who shows us the way.
His discipleship is even more still, because Jesus links it to baptism. Baptism has a lot of symbolism. We will hear this in our baptism service next week. One of the great things we hear is that baptism is our dying to our old self and being reborn, so in Jesus we find a new core identity and life, but what are we being reborn into? That is perhaps one of the grandest things Jesus says about this new reality. Jesus says that we are to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Sure, we are being marked by God in the fullness of his identity, but since we are being reborn we are being reborn into the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Our life is no longer stored up in this earth, it is no longer a thing bound by the brokenness of the world, we are no longer lost to what otherwise befalls all humanity. Our lives through baptism now purposefully have their foundation, their sustenance, their whole existence within the community of God. Becoming a disciple of Jesus isn’t just learning from a good teacher, or even finding the greatest source of wisdom, it is about finding a new and eternal life in the source of all life as we follow him to all goodness and wisdom.
This should transform our every moment. We are not just Sunday Christians. We know that Christian joy and peace are meant to be incorporated into everyone moment of our lives, so we should know that our faith, our worship, our hope, our thanks is also meant for every moment. Paul is trying to point the Roman Church to this fact from the opposite side. “those who eat, eat in honour of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honour of the Lord and give thanks to God”. These two seemingly opposite realities in our life can and should be done in honour of the Lord and we should give thanks to God through both. This is a real life example that the Roman church is struggling with, but Paul is using it as an example to direct their whole lives to honouring God and giving him thanks and our lives should also be so directed. As Paul goes on “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s”. We are meant to be these complete and utter disciples that live and die to the honour and thanks of the Lord, so at all times.
Feasting and fasting are interesting examples for the early believers because these are both examples of things that have a long history of practice in how to dedicate them to God. Celebrating God’s festivals, work and salvation through food was built into the Jewish culture - Greeks would have an idea of this too. Fasting was a practice of devoting ourselves body and trust on the sustenance of God. These are good examples that Paul uses, because they direct us to an important idea, “How do we transform every act to be dedicated to and good for the building of faith? ours and others?” How can our work be in honour of God and not just in spirit but in practice, word and action? How can our rest, our reading, our watching, our socializing be dedicated to God? It is important to discern and slowly work on this because God wants all lives and places to be his temple of holiness, his gardens of bounty, and his Kingdoms of justice and peace. He also wants all moments to be celebrations filled with joy, moments of trust and hope, dedicated to God’s way. God’s hope is not just a few more nice things, or kind people, he is looking to the complete transformation of our lives and world.
This leads me to an important part of making disciples. We can announce our faith on street corners, or look to those great evangelists like Billy Graham, but for the majority of people the way we evangelize, share the good news, and make disciples of Jesus is by showing the difference it has made and telling people what it means to follow Jesus. It's not enough to just be good, the bible and our lives are full of examples where our ideas of goodness aren’t good at all - or think about it this way unless our goodness purposefully and directly points to Jesus it isn’t actually pointing at goodness itself. And if it isn’t directed toward goodness, is it actually good? Jesus tries to remind us of this when he says, “Why do you call me good? Only God is good”. Something we do might be better than an alternative, but again God’s hope for us is not just that we will be a little better, it is that we might be reflections of his goodness in image and word.
Now if God is goodness itself, we should realize something else about directing people to him: directing people toward God is caring for them, it is what is truly loving. If I saw you struggling to get over a fence and I knew there was a gate, would it be the loving thing to let you struggle, or would it be to lead you to the gate? Many modern versions of service love, are more like trying to give someone a boost to climb the fence we know they can’t. Again, is this truly loving if we know the gate is right there?
The problem is that leading people to Jesus or talking about God doesn’t always feel like love, because it makes people uncomfortable or is not what they want. I’m sure these are some of the same realities that lead the soldiers and religious leaders to lie about Jesus’ resurrection. They didnt want a resurrected king that would challenge their authority or ideas. Sadly, we should all recognize in our lives the reality of this discomfort and lacking desire for Jesus:
Comfort is not equal to goodness and love. We all know love that is good, that is not comfortable. We all know of a moment in our lives that was uncomfortable, but deeply needed. There are many points in my faith life, almost daily. A great example of this is an intervention. You can imagine how uncomfortable the one is walking in and being faced with the harm their actions are doing, but those family and friends know it is important to help this person to a better life.
Just because we don’t want something doesn’t mean we don’t need it. I’ve learned this all too often about my prayer life. I also remember it very clearly when it came to reading with dyslexia or eating my vegetables as a kid. There are plenty of things we need, even if we don’t want it at first.
The beautiful thing about both cases is that it doesn’t stay there. If someone comes to know Jesus that discomfort is settled and that need is filled. I think if we all we really understood and believed this we would realize that our hesitancy to share Jesus isn’t actually love - it is likely a few negative qualities in us that I won’t go into now.
The last thing I just want to touch on is that Jesus doesn’t just give us a shared purpose, he empowers it. In Matthew 28 Jesus bookends this command to make disciples and baptize with two statements, “All authority on heaven and earth have been given to me, therefore” and “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age”. This should tell us something huge about our capacity and support as we share Jesus. It tells us: 1) There is nothing we face that is not under Jesus’ authority. 2) Our mission to bring people to Jesus is being supported by the greatest authority and power there is and ever will be. 3) He has called us to an immensely important purpose in the creation of his Kingdom 4) We never go alone. 5) Every time we introduce someone to Jesus, he is literally right there ready to be met and known
I am saying all of this to encourage and empower you to realize and practice our common purpose, given to us by Jesus in his last days. We all know the power and goodness Jesus has worked in our lives. We all want others to know that too. Yet, we have too often let other things stand in the way of giving the greatest gift to others that we could ever give. In prayer put those excuses to the side and work with God, the greatest power and love ever known, to bring faith and invitation into every moment and every relationship in your life. He has the power to save and we are called to bring people to him. AMEN
