Matthew 28 - Jesus Gave the Church Only One Commission And It is GREAT!

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Jesus has fulfilled hundreds of prophecies proving He was and is the Messiah by rising from the dead, as he said he would numerous times while he was on earth.  We know post-resurrection Jesus made several appearances to his disciples for 40 days before He ascended to the right hand of the Father. Matthew ends his gospel by revealing how Jesus' revealed himself to some his disciples who were women. He also records how the soldiers went to chief priests, who hatched a plan to discredit Jesus' resurrection. Finally, Matthew ends with what is known as the "Great Commission". It is as clear and concise mission statement the church will ever get or need. The Great Commission is the church's marching orders until Jesus returns. 

Jesus Has Risen

Jesus' disciples were men who had by and large deserted him and went into hiding, but we saw yesterday that the woman had stuck around perhaps hoping to see Jesus raised from the dead as he said when he was with them.  

At dawn on what would be Sunday, the day after the Sabbath, the women came to the tomb. They wanted give Jesus an honorable burial and resting place and be by his side even though he had died. 

At that time a violent earthquake struck, and an angel came down, rolled away the heavy stone sealing the tomb, and sat on it. The angel was so mesmerizing that his face looked like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. The angel's appearance was so AWE-SOME they shook like dead men. These are tough soldiers, yet they grew weak in the knees when they encountered this powerful angel.

The word "angel" means "messenger". The message the angel gave to the women was that Jesus' grave was empty, because Jesus had risen form the dead. Note the stone had not been moved before so it leads us to believe that Jesus was supernaturally taken from the Tomb. After the women looked into the tomb, the angel told them to go and tell the disciples that Jesus was going ahead of them to Galilee, where they would see him. 

Can you imagine what the women must have been thinking? They were probably experiencing a mixture of shock, elation, and anticipation of being reunited with their Lord.

The woman ran from the tomb afraid, yet filled with joy until they ran into the Risen Jesus. Immediately they knelt down and worshipped Jesus. We can assume they recognized him, so that he must have resembled his earthly appearance. Jesus told them not to be afraid but to go tell the others that he had risen. 

It is quite amazing that Jesus first appears first to the women. If anybody questions women being qualified for ministry, obviously Jesus thought enough of them to be the first evangelists in the church.  In obedience, they went to tell the disciples. 

The stone was not rolled away to let Jesus out. John 20:19 tells us that Jesus, in His resurrection body, could pass through material barriers. It was rolled away so that others could see in and be persuaded that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. - Guzik

The angel commanded them to be the first messengers of the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. Since these women were some of the few people courageous enough to publicly identify themselves with Jesus, it was an appropriate honor. - Guzik

The angel commanded them to be the first messengers of the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. Since these women were some of the few people courageous enough to publicly identify themselves with Jesus, it was an appropriate honor. - Guzik

The Guards’ Report

The guards went to the chief priests with the news, most likely fearful of what their punishment would be. Instead of coming to faith and realizing that Jesus was who he said he was, they immediately tried a figure out a way to cover the whole thing up. Remember these are supposed the religious leaders and spiritual shepherds appointed by God over the people of Israel. Pretty shocking! 

Instead of rebuking the soldiers, the chief priests and elders cooked up a plan and were willing to pay the soldiers "big bucks" to make it happen. After all, who could argue with Roman soldiers. The story was that the disciples came and stole the body while their asleep. Remember these soldiers were told to guard to the tomb with their lives on the line. Remember the stone rolled into the tomb was massive. There was no way Jesus' disciples could have rolled away the stone. So it is a pretty lame story. 

But the greedy soldiers were more worried about their own jobs on the line. The money wasn't bad either. So they spread this story, and Matthew records that this same story had circulated among the Jews until this day! Since Matthew wrote his gospel around 70 A.D. some 40 years after Jesus rose from the dead, this hoax stayed alive even though it was so illogical. It shows when someone really wants to believe something, they will believe anything. 

Guzik writes of the absurdity of these claims, 

The cover-up also shows their foolishness. If it was true that the guards were asleep, they could not know that it was His disciples that stole the body of Jesus.

i. To believe this, we have to believe:

· All the soldiers were asleep – all of them!

· All the soldiers violated the strict law of the Roman military against sleeping on watch, punishable by death.

· All the soldiers slept so deeply that none of them were awakened by the work and exertion and noise necessary to roll away the stone and carry out the body.

· All the soldiers were so soundly asleep – yet they knew who it was who did this.

Clarke rightly comments, “Here is a whole heap of absurdities.”

Through the years, there have been many objections suggested to the resurrection of Jesus. Some say He didn’t die at all, but just swooned or fainted on the cross and spontaneously revived in the tomb. Others say He really died, but His body was stolen. Still others suggest He really died, but His desperate followers hallucinated His resurrection. A plain, simple understanding of these evidences of the resurrection of Jesus answers all of these theories, and shows they take far more faith to believe than the Biblical account does.

As someone has said, "If the resurrection wasn't true, who could have invented it! And Jesus never would have showed himself to women first if they were really making all of this up, as their testimony was not even allowed in court. 

The Great Commission

Matthew's gospel ends with his final words and instruction to his disciples. Matthew doesn't get into the response of the 11 disciples but simply says, "Some believed and some doubted". We learn more about their responsdes from the other gospels, especially the gospel of John. 

Most importantly Jesus gives them a very specific mandate which we call the Great Commission, 

The Great Commission

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.”

These verses have shaped my 30 years of pastoral ministry. I believe this is a clear statement about what the church needs to be focused on until Jesus' returns. We need to be relentless about our mission to "make disciples, who make disciples!" 

Importantly we need to understand what these words and phrases mean. We need to ask questions like, "How do we know if we are to succeed at fulfilling the only Commission Jesus gave to his disciples and hence the whole church for the last 2,000 years?" 

Here are some important observations I have learned over the years. 

1. Jesus said all authority had been given to him and then authorized the disciples to go and make disciples. This is important because the word "authority" means the "right to use or execute power". When we are "making disciples who make disciples", we do it in the power of authority of Jesus, the highest authority that exists. 

2. Go. Disciple making isn't passive. It is intentional and willful. If the church is sitting in the pews waiting for disciples to come, it isn't gonna happen. As disciples, we are always "going and making disciples". The grammar in the Greek matters. These are "participles", which mean an "ongoing action". I.e. We make disciples as we are going along, or along the way. 

3. Make Like anything you "make", there is a process to make sure it is made correctly. Most churches don't fail because they don't want to make disciples, but they have no coherent plan to do so. We don't plan to fail, but we fail to plan. You would think the most important conversation at any board meeting would be, "How are we doing at making disciples?" "Is our plan working?" How will you know if you have made something unless you know what it looks like when you are done?

4. Disciples There is a lot of talk about what this word means but it simply means "learner", or a more aptly "apprentice". Please Read This Article by Dallas Willard If You Would Like to Know What This Means!

A disciple in Jesus' day learned to be like his master by following him around and learning to do the same things his master would do until one day he was fully trained to be like his master. This is exactly what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. We learn from how to live our lives like Jesus would if he were us . 

5. Of All Nations - The Greek for these words is,  "Panta te ethnos".  You can see the word for "ethnicity" in there. To make disciples of all nations is to make disciples of every ethnicity on the planet. We also call them "nations" or all "people groups". People groups have its own distinct language, mores, and culture. In the Old Testament God called to Abram and blessed him to be a blessing to nations not just his own people. God's plan all along was to reach all people. 

The bottom line is that our job as disciple makers is not done until every people group has been discipled. The best people to make disciples in any culture are the people who live there.  That is a mistake some very well meaning Christian missionaries have made by trying to import their own culture into a foreign culture. This is why it is so important for missionaries to do "cultural immersion" before they go into a particular mission field, so they can translate the gospel message in a way that makes sense in that culture and honors its cultural norms. 

6. Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded. The course curriculum for disciples is everything Jesus taught over his three years of public ministry, which are recorded in the gospels. Importantly this is not just "head knowledge" but also "heart knowledge". It is doing the right things for the right reasons. Of course, we all fall short of completely obeying all of Jesus' commands all of the time, but this is what we strive for as His disciples. 

7. Baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For anyone who says the doctrine of the Trinity is not taught in the bible, I wonder if they have read this verse. Simply said the Trinity is the doctrine of One God who reveals Himself in Three Persons. God the Father, who created us. Jesus the Son, who saved us. God the Holy Spirit, who sustains and empowers us. 

The word baptism means "to immerse" or "completely cover". Therefore, when one is baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they are fully immersed and covered by all of who God is. God choses us in our baptism to become His sons and daughters and dwells in and with us. This is why the church is called the body of Christ!

Notice making disciples is both teaching and baptizing. It doesn't matter what the order is. If someone is baptized as an infant, then teaching them to be a disciple of Jesus happens for the rest of their lives. If someone is taught first and then decides to be baptized it is the same thing, just in different order. 

There has been tons of debate and division over the years re: infant vs adult baptism, which I won't get into now, but suffice to say we fulfill the Great Commission when we both baptize AND teach! 

8. And I am with you until the end of the age. We might call it the Great Co-Mission. We are on a Co-Mission with Jesus. We don't go it alone. When we are making disciples, who are making disciples, Jesus promises always to be with us. I know from experience it is very hard to make disciples who make disciples, but it is the only thing Jesus asked us to do. Therefore it is better to do it poorly than not do it at all.  

The fact that He does it with us gives us the strength, power, and perseverance to do what He has called us to do. As we offer our lives back to Jesus in gratitude for what he has done for us, I long to hear the words at the end of my life,  

Well done good and faithful servant. You gave everything you had to obey my most important command to become a disciple and then make others disciples of all people! Come and receive your reward, which is to dwell in the house of the Lord forever!