Trinity
Today is Trinity Sunday, in our reading we hear the instruction to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. That wasn’t the part of the passage that stood out to me when I first read it, so I’m sure that you’ll be pleased to hear that I’m not going to talk about the Trinity. It’s an important concept, but the passage speaks about something much more important.Make disciples
The phrase that stood out was “make disciples”. Jesus says to his disciples that they should “go and make disciples of all nations”. This is a new commandment. In other places in the Gospels, Jesus reminds his followers that none of the commandments in the scriptures are to be superseded, he repeats them in different forms in various places. He summarises them, down to simple sentences that are easy to remember:- ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
- ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’
I can only find two commandments that are really new:
- “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” from John 13, where the quality of love for our fellow Christians is to be so different and so far on a higher level that we stand out to the world and they recognise who we are.
- The other is “Make Disciples”, which we are looking at this morning.
Making Disciples
Each of the eleven who received this command from Jesus did exactly that. They went, eventually to all sorts of places, Europe, Russia, and India. It is a dangerous job, making disciples, at least 10 of them were martyred for what they were doing. We also know the the apostle Paul suffered the same fate.How to Make Disciples
There are plenty of clues in the gospels and in other places about how we should go about making disciples. Paul is an excellent example to follow, because so much of what he did is written down and we still have it.I’ve tried to extract the basic principles, here they are as 3 ‘T’s.
Tell
The first thing disciples must do if they are to make new disciples is tell anyone and everyone about what they have experienced with Jesus. We are His witnesses, we just have to give an accurate report. Paul, in Romans 10:14 says: “how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” Opportunities will present themselves all the time, it’s simply part of life. We should be like an open Wi-Fi connection, willing and prepared to let anyone access our network and discover the great message we have.There are times though when the opportunity is not there, and Matthew warns us to ‘not cast our pearls before swine’, so that our message is not crushed underfoot and lost to those who need to hear it.
There are also times when I am appalled by the church as it seeks to prevent the message being told. Samaritan's Purse delivers Christmas presents to needy children all over the world, they include books with bible stories, and I regularly hear clerys - yes clergy - saying that we mustn’t do that because it might brainwash the children. Well better they are brainwashed into the kingdom, rather than out of it.
Teach
Telling is one thing, that is the easy part. The harder part is the teaching. Jesus said - ‘teach them to obey everything I have commanded you’. There’s a lot to teach, and much of it is unpopular in our world. The primary lesson though must be about love. We know that Paul spent years living with the churches he established, teaching them the commands Jesus left, and teaching them to love one another. If we are teaching someone we must be there for the long haul. Teaching love may have some hard lessons. When Peter got things wrong Jesus had stern words for him - “Get behind me Satan”. That must have hurt, but by this time Peter already trusted and respected Jesus, and Jesus didn’t give up on Peter. He would make worse mistakes later, even when he abandoned Jesus, Jesus still didn’t give up on him, and restored him to the position he had been promised.Try / Trial
When people are learning the new faith, they will have to be given opportunities to try out what they have learnt. Luke 10 records a trial for 72 of the disciples that were following Jesus at the time. They were given strict instructions and limited in what they could do. “3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.” Wouldn’t suit me - I like my sandals! - But the restrictions didn’t end there. After the try out verse 17 reports: ‘The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”’Years ago, Warner took me on a weekend of evangelism training. The idea was that at the end of it we would go into the local pub, with very limited funds and try to engage people in conversation. Warner, of course, was a natural, I was even more terrible at it than I thought I would be. Those who did end up having conversations mostly reported amazing results, although no-one came to faith that evening.
We need these experiences to help us to understand our calling, it doesn’t matter how they go, so long as we learn more about ourselves and our relationship with Jesus.
Go out … Spread the infection … Save the World.
For my title I used the phrase “Go out … spread the infection … Save the World”. Obviously the amount of going out we can do is limited - for some of us very limited. We don’t need to necessarily physically go out, but we do have to be out there with our faith. The infection that we have to spread, is an idea, a truth that is hidden from the world, that Jesus came to die for our sins and through His resurrection restore our relationship with God, and gain us eternal life. A promise that is sealed by the giving of the Holy Spirit - God in us. Our infection also requires a R number of greater than one, or it will die out. It spreads at different rates in different generations. We can see through the history of the last 2000 years how it has slowly made the world a better place to live in.Be a super spreader!
Amen.
References
https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-great-commission-bruce-shields-sermon-on-great-commission-126147?ref=SermonSerps
https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-great-commission-davon-huss-sermon-on-sharing-my-testimony-49709?ref=SermonSerps
http://www.clker.com/cliparts/9/p/9/h/t/P/free-wifi-sign-hi.png
https://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201407/r1308729_17984331.pdf
https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1-300/whatever-happened-to-the-twelve-apostles-11629558.html
https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-great-commission-davon-huss-sermon-on-sharing-my-testimony-49709?ref=SermonSerps
http://www.clker.com/cliparts/9/p/9/h/t/P/free-wifi-sign-hi.png
https://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201407/r1308729_17984331.pdf
https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1-300/whatever-happened-to-the-twelve-apostles-11629558.html
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