The Standing Order of the Savior

There is a song which declares,

“These are the days of Elijah declaring the word of the Lord

and these are the days of Your servant Moses righteousness being restored. And though these are days of great trial, of famine and darkness and sword” how does the rest go; anyone know?

“Still, we are the voice in the desert crying, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord!’”

Why?  Because He is coming and His coming is nearer than it has ever been before.

There is no need to rewind and review the news reels of recent weeks, the contents of those reels present clear evidence of the moral, spiritual and social decline of our world. They reveal the abounding iniquity or lawlessness of our day, lawlessness which is producing in some people, even some of God’s people a dying love, a lack of compassion, mercy, empathy and replacing it with a seething bitterness.

When Jesus declared in [Matt. 24:12] that “the love of many will grow cold” in the last days He was making a statement of fact rather than approval. Jesus saw that such a departure from the love which His followers ought to have for friends and enemies alike was actually a departure from the mission He set every one who believes in Him out to accomplish. What is that mission?

Look in [Matt 28:19-20]; the great commission has we have it here was first given to the remaining eleven disciples (apostles) and it reads as follows:

“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.” Amen.”

From those days to these days that commission has been applied to every Christ follower from every age as our mission both in a global sense and more importantly in a local sense; it is our standing order from Jesus. We can be as creative as the Lord leads us to be in the accomplishing of our part in the mission but we no less must be constantly engaged with the goal of accomplishing it as doing so hastens (Peter declared in 2 Peter 3:12) “the coming of the day of the Lord.”

In our remaining time today, I’d like for us to review this well-known passage of scripture as we consider that in the “post covid,” “postmodern,” and anti-Christian world in which we live today, our part in the mission is not yet finished. In fact, it has arguably never been more essential as we truly near, in my mind at least, the conclusion of this age and the coming of our King, Jesus Christ.

We Never Go Alone

First of all, Jesus wrapped His marching orders between the two matching book ends of power and presence.  He said, “all authority is given to Me in Heaven and on earth” and “I will be with you always;” in so saying, He reminds us all that He has all power to send us. This was the risen Savior of the world speaking. He had conquered death. He had defeated the power of Satan. He had made the way of escape from the power of sin as well as the forgiveness for sin available to all who turn to Him in faith. The One who was sending them was no longer the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world only: He was and is the risen and conquering King of kings and Lord of lords. The authority by which He commands us comes from His Father – and it was by that authority that we are to go.

Along with a reminder of His authority, Jesus Christ gave those who undertake the mission an assurance that He would always be with them; not in the physical sense that they had come to enjoy for the previous three and a half years nevertheless in an unmistakable and new way. His promise finds fulfillment (in Acts 2) at Pentecost when, after He had returned to Heaven and to His Father, the Holy Spirit came to ignite a fire in both those who preach the gospel and those who hear it. That same Spirit which overshadowed Mary the day she conceived within her the Holy Son of God at that moment overshadowed a group of men and birthed the body of Christ. I suggest to you that when you and I undertake the commission the Lord has left us we too go in the power and presence of the Lord – we never go alone.

We Are to Go to All People

The (Greek) word pŏrĕuŏmai and translated to the English word “go” implies more than one might think. When Jesus said, “go therefore and make disciples of all nations” He was not speaking of the one-time act of going from their meeting on that mountain in Galilee back to their homes, rather the word is a command to return to their journey of life with a deliberate purpose – making disciples was to be their life’s work. On this point my mind goes back to the instruction which Moses left to the people of Israel before he died [Deuteronomy 6:6-9]:

“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

In the same way that the father figure in that OT passage was to be diligent about teaching his children, no matter what they might be do, where they may be or who they might meet along the way (the word ethnos here translated nations meaning all people) those on mission for Jesus we’re to be about making disciples. With this understanding as a guideline, we will never pick and choose who to be Christ to, in fact, if we are modeling Christ well in our own lives, we won’t even have to choose them, they will choose us. Recall if you will the words Jesus spoke in His sermon on the mount, specifically these found in [Matt. 5:16]:

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Over and over, we are instructed in the scriptures, as one man said, to be “the perceptible presence of Christ in our world, appealing to every sense – sight, taste, smell, hearing and touch.” We are to be the “salt of the earth” (Matt 5:18) which changes the taste of the world around us. We are to be the “light of the world” (Matt. 5:14) lighting the way to Christ by declaring and modeling His truth. We are not only to be “the fragrance of Christ” (2 Cor. 2:15) with regard to our worship towards God but also with regard to our dealing with all people (v17) “for we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as from God.” We are “ambassadors for Christ” (2 Cor. 5:20) pleading with those we meet: “be reconciled to God!” To be frank, our mission requires us to earn the right to be heard through a lifestyle that preaches Christ to those around us even before we open our mouths. It does not require perfection – it requires authenticity and integrity and submission to the Holy Spirit of God who indwells EVERY follower of Christ. [Acts 2:44-47] concerning the growth of the body of Christ from its earliest days makes my point:

“Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart,

…praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”

As believers practiced their new found faith, like a light to moths, their practices and their message drew others to the One who had saved them and “the Lord” added to their numbers daily.

Since our journey through life involves more than the time we spend in fellowship and worship together in God’s house it should also be clear to us that our mission is more about us going to “them” than it is expecting them to come to us. Philip went to Nathanael (John 1:45-46) and invited him to come and see the One about whom Moses and the prophets wrote. Later, Philip went to the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26>>) and explained the word of God to him which led to the man’s conversion to faith in Jesus Christ; likewise, Andrew went to his brother, Simon Peter (John 1:40-42) and told him that they had “found the Messiah” and then he brought his brother to Jesus. The Samaritan woman at the well went to her neighbors after having met Jesus and invited them to “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”” (John 4:29) I dare say that since most of us live out our lives away from the church building that our greatest opportunities to lead others to faith in Jesus Christ and then to disciple them will also occur on the outside of these four walls; again, our mission is to go.

We Are to Baptize and Instruct

This may startle some of you but I’m not sure that a person’s baptism after conversion MUST take place within a house of worship and I’d again like to refer to the exchange between Philip and the eunuch of (Acts 8) in [v.36] the eunuch asks after believing, “what now hinders me from being baptized?” Alone, in the desert, far from the eyes of anyone but God and Philip the man was baptized. We have made baptism a public spectacle because it illustrates the exchange made upon our conversion: our death with Christ and our resurrection to new life in Him and often churches use the ordinance of baptism to bring the new believer into fellowship with that local assembly but I would suggest that as believers we may baptize a new believer anywhere and at any time after they have believed. If a fellowship of believers is baptizing a new believer, then by all means, the pastor or other ordained minister should be the one to baptize the person but if, as the situation was for Philip and the eunuch the need for baptism arises away from the local fellowship then I think we have some precedent to baptize as the need presents itself and frankly anything else seems to be leaning more on ritual than on the redeemer.

We have seen that the making of a disciple does not always begin or continue within the four walls of the local church in fact the commission of Jesus in our passage implies the exact opposite; that far from being a corporate thing to start off with it is a personal, one on one thing. Likewise, while the only setting suitable for baptism may not be limited to the structure of a local fellowships meeting place, the ultimate goal after a person becomes a Christian is to bring him or her into the larger fellowship of believers found in the local church. There they will continue to be instructed through sound preaching and teaching from the word of God while also coming to learn how to do life as a follower of Christ. So, this work of evangelism is not one or the other: either done by the church in the church or by believers away from the church, rather God uses both means to accomplish His ends and mission in the lives of people.

As I wrap it up, I must stress that the end game of evangelism is not getting them into the church, rather, the endgame of evangelism is to take the gospel message to all people.  The words of Jesus found in the great commission are His standing orders to every Christian man, woman and child; in a word the order is to go and do. The reaction of our society as a whole has had a impact on the church as well. “Staying home and staying safe” has made some believers and churches less impactful and more willing to relax our efforts with regard not only to our fellowship and worship as believers but to evangelism as well. Let the words of the Lord in this familiar passage challenge you to press in and continue the mission – the work is not yet finished.