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Go And Make Disicples
2 Cor 13:11-13, Matthew 28:16-20
May 22, 2005 (Trinity Sunday)
The Rev. Kong Namkung

Today’s gospel lesson is about the last words of Jesus. What was the reason for the disciples going out into the world? Rather than Jesus asking them to go out and raise as much money as they could and to fill the church rolls by using all different secular methods, Jesus wanted his disciples to go out and make disciples, which we call this passage,  “Great Commission.”  “Make disciples of all nations” is what Jesus wants us to do and this is His will for us.  What is a disciple?  

Disciple is “mathetes” in Greek, which means “pupil, student, ” or “a learner.” In its most intense sense discipleship suggests a total commitment to stay close to his/her teacher and to obey the person chosen as his/her teacher.  So, in order to be disciples of Jesus Christ there should be a teacher, learning objects, and a learner.  The teacher is Jesus Christ.  In John 3: 1- 10 Jesus talks about the birth from the above or regeneration to Nicodemus, who was a leader of Jews and a teacher.  The teacher of Israel, Nicodemus, came to Jesus by night and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher, who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” (John 3:2)  Jesus is not only teaching, but also living with what he teaches.  In other words, Jesus’ teaching and his works go always together.  There is no separation between Jesus’ teachings and his works because Jesus did the will of God.  Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to complete His work.”  (John 4:34)

Who are teachers today?  Teachers today can be parents, older women, Sunday schools, or all of us.  In other words, all of you are teachers! 

However, there are some teachers, who teach one thing and do the opposite thing. Do you know why their teaching and their life style do not match with one another?  One of the reasons is that they do not learn from Jesus Christ.   Isaiah 54: 13 says, “All your children shall be taught by the Lord.”  If you want to be a good teacher, you need to learn from Jesus Christ, who teaches us with faithfulness, sincerity, integrity, and love, and who lives what He teaches us.  Matthew 11:28, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.”

If there is a huge gap between someone’s teaching and life style, then we call that person “hypocrite.”  Jesus said, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness, … Woe also to you lawyers, for you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourself do not lift a finger to ease them.”   (Luke 11: 39- 46)

A crab’s parents went out to see other sea creatures.  They saw all of the fish, whales, and shrimp, moved forward and they came back to their home and found out that their child was walking side ways.  So the parents said to their child, “You need to walk forward.”  The child said, “I cannot do it.”  The father crab said, “I will show you how do it and do exactly like I do.”  Then the father crab walked side to side.  See,  he was teaching one thing and doing other thing. 

Parents!  Mothers and fathers, Men and women!  Do not forget you are chosen to be a teacher for Christ and for the furtherance of God’s kingdom for others.  Jesus Christ is The Teacher and you are a teacher. Your children will learn from what you do rather than what you ask them to do.  So, you teach your children with your words and actions.  When you are in the church building, you have a soft voice with dazzling smile on your face, but when you are at home, you speak about your negativism to Cornerstone United Methodist Church and its congregation, then your children know you are a hypocrite, and they will learn how to be a hypocrite from you. Please, do not expect compassionate and loving attitude from your children while you criticize the church and others. Then, you are like a farmer who expects grapes after he plants a fig tree on the ground.

To be a disciple means to have willingness to learn.  In the book of Acts 18:24-28 Apollos’ preaching was based on the Old Testament and John the Baptist’s message. Priscilla and Aquila told him of the life of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Apollos must have seen Scripture after Scripture become clear. He was filled with new energy and boldness now that he had the complete gospel.  Apollos proved himself willing to learn. Apollos did not hesitate to be a learner or student; he became an even better teacher later. How much does your willingness to learn affect God’s efforts to help you become all God wants you to be?

The willingness of learning has an important aspect of spiritual growth.  The spiritual growth requires commitment.   Deuteronomy 5:1, “Moses summoned all Israel and said: Hear, O Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them.”   The Israelites had entered into a covenant with God, and Moses commanded them to hear, learn, and follow God’s statutes. Can you see the verbs such as hearing, learning, and following for spiritual growth?  Christians also have entered into a covenant with God through Jesus Christ and should be responsive to what God expects. Moses’ threefold command to the Israelites is excellent advice for all God’s followers.

1.                Hearing is absorbing and accepting information about God.

2.                Learning is understanding its meaning and implications of God’s Word.

3.                Following is putting into action all we have learned and understood.

All three parts, hearing, learning, and following, of commitment are essential to a growing relationship with God, which is a spiritual growth. So you commit yourself to hear, learn, and follow the word of God and God’s direction. 

What does true learning involve in?    Lament. 3:27-29, “It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. [28] Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him. [29] Let him bury his face in the dust--there may yet be hope.  To “bear the yoke” means to willingly come under God’s discipline and learn what he wants to teach. “To bear yokes” involves several important factors:

1.                Silent reflection on what God wants,

2.                Repentant humility

3.                Self-control in the face of adversity

4.                Confident patience, depending on the divine Teacher to bring about loving lessons in our lives.

God has several long-term and short-term lessons for you right now. Are you doing your homework I order to be a true learner?  Jesus tells us about our attitude saying, “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3) Do not rebuke your children because they do not do their homework while you do not “bear yokes” for being a student and learning from God.  When your children do not know how to solve problems, aren’t you willing to help them?  Likewise I am a spiritual leader for all of you, if you have any spiritual concerns or need any counseling, please, come to the pastor because  God ordained me to teach you what God wants you to be and do.  God anointed me and I am willing to serve you with all that I can and with all that I have. 

The book of Proverbs provides enormous and countless wisdom and knowledge.  When you meditate the words in Proverbs, you become a great student because it has more to say to students than to teachers. The book makes it clear that there are no good alternatives to learning wisdom. We are either becoming wise learners or refusing to learn and becoming foolish failures. I want you to find out yourself either you are a wise leaner or a foolish failure.  For example, Proverbs 10:8, “The wise of heart will heed commandments, but a babbling fool will come to ruin.” Wise learners quietly accept instruction and criticism while foolish Failures ignore instruction.

Proverbs 10:17, “Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but one who rejects a rebuke goes astray.”  Wise learners lead others to life while foolish failures lead others astray.

Proverbs 12:1, “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but those who hate to be rebuked are stupid.” Wise learners love discipline while foolish failures hate correction.

Proverbs 21:11, “When a scoffer is punished, the simple become wiser; when the wise are instructed, they increase in knowledge.” Wise learners listen to advice while foolish failures think they need no advice.

Finally, there is a difference between wise learners and foolish failures. 

Proverbs 13:18, “Poverty and disgrace are for the one who ignores instruction, but one who heeds reproof is honored.” Wise learners receive honor while foolish failures End in poverty and shame.

So, if you want to be a disciple, the very first thing that you need is to learn with humble heart.  You have the greatest teacher and His words and you learn from him.  After you become a student, you become a teacher like Apollos, who learned from Priscilla and Aquila, who became a good teacher.

Let us go back to today’s text.  Jesus said in Matthew 28:20, “Teaching them to observe all (everything) that I have commanded you.” The disciples are not only students, but also teachers.   They express allegiance to his King through obedience by teaching others.  Christ’s instructions to His disciples about their own lifestyles are to be communicated to each new generation of believers. What is the word “all” or “everything?”  2 Corinthians 13:11-13 talks about grace, love and communion in God.  The Great Commandment is found in Matthew 22:37-39, “You shall love the Lord with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  This is the greatest and first commandment, and the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Cannot you see the Great Commission cannot be separated from the Great Commandment?  They are like the tail and the head of a coin. Making disciples with the love of God and others is essential.

What I have been talking about is that you have to be a student to become a teacher.  Lastly, you make disciples.   Jesus’ command to us as servants, left in charge of our Lord’s possessions while He is away, is very specific. When Jesus returns and sits on His glorious throne, Christ will impose righteousness on the whole world. Until then, the kingdom continues as a hidden thing, revealed only to the eyes of faith, and experienced only by those who follow in the footsteps of the King.

Who are our targets?  The Bible says, “All nations.”  The kingdom of God in its present form cuts across all languages, all colors of skins, all cultures, boundaries, and societies.  People of every culture are called, not to become like those of some other nation, but to become like Jesus and to reflect Him in their own lands. Baptism, which speaks of identification, is to be into the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—not into the “Western world” or into America’s idea of the church, not into Cornerstone UMC, or not into Pastor Kong’s belief.

Thus, Christ’s kingdom is universal, and the Sermon on the Mount is a unique expression of a reality that cuts across all cultures and all races. Unlike the coming kingdom, which will shatter the kingdoms and the cultures of this world, the kingdom today infuses. God’s kingdom today touches you and me, shaping within them Christ’s unique concern and love for others. Individuals from every land and age respond, and, in becoming followers of the King, demonstrate the transforming power of Christ in fresh and ever-living ways.

What are your values? What is your life built on? What is your identity? “Successful businessman?” “Social leader?” “Popular personality? Sergeant Major or General” To the extent that what is important to you is not important to God, to just that extent discipleship will cost you. You will give up what is important to you in exchange for what is important to Him. This doesn’t mean, by the way, that you will necessarily stop being successful, or pretty, or popular. All it means is that these things will stop being so important. You will be different.

Remember! Salvation is free. But discipleship is costly.  When you read the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10, you will find the cost of being disciples.  What did the disciple decision cost Zacchaeus? Everything! His life had been built on money. His goals, his purposes, his very identity as a person were built on the importance to him of wealth and material success. But suddenly Jesus came and brought life. And Zacchaeus responded; he chose. He gave away half of all that he had to the poor, and repaid four times over any he had defrauded. The core of his personality, the values that had given him direction in life, had suddenly shifted. Shockingly, people became more important than dollars. Honesty became more important than gain. Above all, Jesus Christ became more important than his socioeconomic status.  Zacchaeus had become a different, new man! This is what discipleship will cost you and me.  Being a disciple means we choose that which is important to Christ to become important to us too. Being a disciple is not an easy task like you sit at the movie theater watching a movie, eating popcorn, and drinking soda. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer talks about cheap grace and costly discipleship.  A Christian does not give commitment to Christ Jesus and s/he is not asked to be a disciple, but s/he is asked to be baptized, then it is a cheap grace.  But costly discipleship is to press oneself on the heavenly prize in heaven and commits him/herself to Christ Jesus.  So to be a disciple is demanding and committing.  

Here is the good news.  As Jesus commanded his disciples to make disciples of all nations, Jesus let his disciples be known that all authority in heaven and on earth was given to Him.  Do you remember the children’s song; “He’s got the whole world in his hands?”  Yes.  Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth.  His kingdom exists alongside and within human cultures and societies, focused in the men and women in whom Jesus’ Spirit dwells. His quiet, unobtrusive rule is nevertheless totally real. Nothing can happen in heaven or on earth except by His will.  We are his beloved brothers and sisters.  He is in our hearts. 

Other good news from Jesus to us is that Jesus is with us always, Emmanuel.  Matthew in 1:22-23 begins its story with the birth of Jesus Christ, which is Emmanuel and it ends with Emmanuel again in Matthew 28:20.

Emmanuel is the name of son to be born in Isaiah’s prophecy to King Ahaz. Isaiah 7:14, “Look the young woman is with a child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”  When King Ahaz refused to show his faith by asking God for a sign in Isaiah 7:10-12, Isaiah gave him a sign of the birth of Immanuel.  Ahaz’s wife as the woman expected to bear the child and show that God was still with the Davidic royal dynasty even in the midst of severe threat from Assyria. Such a sign would give hope to a king who trusted God, but would be a constant threat to one who followed his own strategy.

As you go out and make disciples of all nations, you will embrace some uncomfortableness, difficulties, troubles, tribulations, and even threats, there will be times when you feel that there is no one beside you.  But do not forget God is with you always.  The God, who showed a sign to Ahaz, is the same God, who is with us always. 

When you have difficulties in making disciples, do not forget it is Satan’s attack.  You cannot win the battle with your own strength, but remember that Jesus Christ, who defeated Satan, is with you.  Trust him and hold steadfast.  Christ is present today in the life of every believer.

Jesus’ birth showed all humanity that God is faithful to fulfill His promises in ways far beyond human expectations; for Jesus was not just a sign of God with us. Jesus was God in flesh, God incarnate, God with us in Person.  So, go out and make disciple of all nations and teach them the love of God.  Remember Jesus has all authority and power and he is with you always.  Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

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2 Corinthians 13:11-13

11 Finally, brothers, good-by. Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

12 Greet one another with a holy kiss. 13 All the saints send their greetings.
NIV

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Matthew 28:16-20

16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
NIV

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