Sermon Tone Analysis

*/What’s So Great About the Great Commission?/*

The well-know comic actor WC Fields was once found by a friend reading the Bible.

Asked what he was doing, Fields replied, “Looking for loopholes.”

As we look across the landscape of American Christendom today, we find that only a small number of Christians are engaged in personal evangelism.

An even smaller number are engaged in making disciples.

Why is this so?

Have people found a loophole in Scripture?

Have they discovered a legal way to free themselves from the obligation to make disciples found in the Word of God?  Certainly this is not the case, for the Bible is inerrant and infallible.

Therefore any failure to adhere to the commands of Scripture, including the imperative to make disciples, is sin.

As we look this morning at the Great Commission, and in light of the broad apathy towards personal evangelism, we must ask “What’s so great about the Great Commission?”

Is it really a mandate from Christ, or simply a request that we may or may not perform, at our discretion?

Does it command us to make disciples, or does it merely suggest that we do so if it pleases us?

If the Great Commission doesn’t compel us, if it doesn’t obligate us to be engaged in disciple-making, then it may be a good suggestion, but certainly not a great commission.

So what’s so great about the Great Commission?

We’ll look at three things that make the Great Commission truly great:  Great authority, great purpose, and great promise.

*/Great Authority/*

The disciples understood authority.

They had lived under the rule of the Roman government most of their lives.

They understood what it meant to be subject to a higher power.

The Roman government had the authority to rule the people because it had the power to enforce that authority.

Authority without a backing power is no authority at all.

But authority built on great power demands that those under it live in submission to it, or suffer the consequences.

The disciples knew this well, for they had seen the Roman crucifixions, and they knew what it meant to go against Rome’s authority.

But they had seen another with great authority.

They saw Him cast out demons, heal the blind, the lame, and the sick.

They watched as He spoke to the wind and the waves, turning a raging storm into a sea of glass.

They heard Him forgive sins, which only God could do, and saw Him feed five thousand people with five loaves and two fish.

They watched Him submit Himself to a lesser authority, as He laid down His life for them, being nailed to a cross.

And they saw this same Jesus now standing before them, once dead and now alive forevermore.

As Jesus spoke to them, He told them that all authority, in heaven and earth, had been given to Him.

And as He gave the imperative to make disciples, those words, carrying the substantive force of His authority, weighed heavily upon those heard them.

As we hear these words 2000 years later, do we feel the weight of the authoritative word of Jesus Christ?

* *

*Source of Authority*

*      *We live in a society that disdains authority.

We don’t believe that anyone has the right to tell us what we can or cannot do.

Our society is becoming increasingly postmodern, rejecting any kind of absolute truth, insisting that everyone should do what’s right for themselves.

Therefore, it is beneficial for us to examine the source of Christ’s authority, for if we catch a glimpse of the power behind it, we will feel the true weight of His commands.

Let’s start with a look at the Trinity.

Our God is a triune God, meaning our God is three in persons, one in essence; a mystery, but not a contradiction.

These three persons are co-equal, yet as they relate to one another, there is a submission of the Spirit to the Father and the Son, and a submission of the Son to the Father.

We see this submission, for example, in passages where Jesus speaks of being sent by the Father.

So while Jesus is God in essence, He submits to the will of the Father in His person.

In Daniel 7:13-14, Daniel sees a vision of the Son of Man, who is Jesus Christ.

Daniel says:

 

*13 *I saw in the night visions,

     and behold, with the clouds of heaven

          there came one like a son of man,

     and he came to the Ancient of Days

          and was presented before him.

*14*    And to him was given dominion

          and glory and a kingdom,

     that all peoples, nations, and languages

          should serve him;

    his dominion is an everlasting dominion,

          which shall not pass away,

     and his kingdom one

          that shall not be destroyed.

Jesus, the Son of Man, was given an everlasting dominion over all peoples, nations, and languages.

The kingdom that He received was an everlasting kingdom.

His dominion was such that all peoples, nations, and languages were to serve Him, that is, be under His authority.

All this authority, all this dominion was given the Son of Man upon being presented before the Ancient of Days.

The Ancient of Days was the one who gave dominion over all things to the Son of Man.

He had the power to give such dominion because He is God Almighty.

In the New Testament, Matthew 11:27 tells us that the Son is handed all things by the Father:

 

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

And again in John 3:35:

 

The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.

And once more in 1 Corinthians 15:27-28:

 

For “God// has put all things in subjection under his feet.”

But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him.

When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

So we see that the Father, who submits to no one, places all things in subjection under Jesus, who Himself will be in subjection under the Father in the end.

So the power behind Jesus’ all-encompassing authority is God Almighty.

No one resists Him; no one stays His hand.

He is the source of all things, and there is no one above Him.

And this authority, backed by this power, is given to Jesus Christ; he is ruler of heaven and earth, and all creation is subject to Him.

 

*Scope of Authority*

*      *Now if the source of Jesus’ authority is the power of God, it is can be easily understood that the scope of His authority is all creation.

This is exactly what Jesus says, and this is exactly what the following verses confirm:

 

!! Philippians 2:9-11

*9 *Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, *10 *so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, *11 *and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

!! Colossians 1:16-19

*16 *For by// him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

*17 *And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

*18 *And he is the head of the body, the church.

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

*19 *For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

 

Every knee is to bow at His name; all things were created through him and for him; he is before all things; in all things he is preeminent.

All of creation is subject to Him, that which is alive, and that which is dead:

 

!! Romans 14:9

*9 *For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

When we begin to grasp the source and the scope of Christ’s authority, we begin to feel the weight of His commands.

And with His authority, He gives the imperative, ‘make disciples.’

The trend in our society is to defy authority.

However, we as Christians are called to be transformed rather than to conform.

While our society shudders at the thought of submission, we as Christians are to submit to those in authority over us, including Christ.

And we would do well to obey the command of Christ to ‘make disciples,’ lest we be accused of raising a defiant fist to the authority of Christ, and bring upon ourselves the chastening rod of the all-powerful, Almighty God.

     

*/Great Purpose/* – “make disciples of all nations”

To make disciples of all nations is the stated purpose of the Great Commission.

Jesus had worked with the eleven for roughly three years; now it was time for them to take what they had learned and go into all parts of the earth, sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, calling people to repentance, reconciling them to God, and teaching them to walk in the ways of the Lord.