Ian Hamilton - Staying Focused on the Great Commission #RMC2020

it's my great privilege to be with you at this radius international conference one of the great privileges of my Christian life in these past years was being introduced to the work of radius about three years ago and since then not only do I seek to pray regularly for the work I'm just so thankful to God that he has raised it up and is using it as significantly as he clearly is doing here and in many different parts of the world I'd like to thank the organizers for their kind and generous invitation albeit I'm here in the north of Scotland and the conference should have been in San Diego let me first of all read in to passages in the Word of God first of all these very familiar words at the end of Matthew's Gospel now the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them and when they saw him they worshiped him but some doubted and Jesus came and said to them all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold I am with you always to the end of the age and then secondly these no less familiar words in the seventh chapter of Revelation after this I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb and all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God saying amen blessing and glory and wisdom and Thanksgiving and honor and power be to our God for ever and ever amen I've been asked in this address to speak to the subject keeping focused keeping the Great Commission central to the life of the church when I was first given this address title I was a little intrigued my immediate thought was why on earth would we need to keep the church focused on the Great Commission didn't our Lord Jesus Christ issue a command for the church to go didn't the one who is king of all kings and Lord of all Lords the the regnant God man Jesus Christ unequivocally without qualification command his church to go and make disciples of all the peoples he wasn't issuing to us a suggestion to consider he was issuing a command for us to obey and so my initial thought was why on earth would we need to keep such a command central in the life of the church surely it is at the heart of the church's life then I realized how wise the organizers of the conference we're in giving this title because the command is unequivocal it is clear it's unambiguous but the reality is that the church so often drifts from the commands of God the reality is the church often finds itself politely ignoring the commands of God and so in this address I want first of all to reflect with you on the hindrances that dissipate and divert the focus of the church from keeping the Great Commission central to its life and then secondly and maybe a little more briefly to highlight how we can guard our hearts and our minds and our congregations from these dissipating diverting influences and so keep ourselves and our congregations focused on the Great Commission what I've tried to do simply is to look at my own heart because I see that in my own heart and life hindrances dissipations abound and I would guess that most of you are much like me so perhaps as I share the hindrances that touch my life you may find that they are the very same influences that touch your life let me highlight perhaps seven hindrances that dissipates and diverts the church from keeping the Great Commission central in its life first of all and perhaps this may seem a little surprising first of all thinking we understand the Great Commission when we don't I'd like to make two points here first of all as we can see from our text in Matthew 28 the Great Commission is a command for the church to go but to go and do what well to go and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them into the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit it's a commission to go to all the language groups the people groups of this world it's often said that the command is not to go and simply make converts well actually I think that's exactly what the command is it's a command to go into all the nations the people groups the language groups the ethnicities of this world and to make converts but in saying that you need to understand what the New Testament means by a convert a convert isn't simply someone who confesses Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior a convert in the New Testament is a disciple believer who has been baptized into the one name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and having been baptized into that one name they are baptized into the community of faith that has united to that one name you see in the New Testament there is no such thing as an unbaptized Christian who is not vitally joined with other believers to a local body of Jesus Christ sharing in its worship and enjoying its pastoral care that's what a convertors we think too lightly and loosely about converts if we read the New Testament carefully we realize very quickly that credibility and conversion is seen in someone being baptized into the one name of the triune God and in that baptism coming into ecclesial fellowship with all who have been baptized into that one name we are baptized 1 Corinthians 12:12 by one spirit into one body atomised christianity is absolutely foreign to the New Testament indeed atomized believers is foreign to the whole Bible itself and so what we have here in Matthew 28 is a command for the church to go and to make disciples of all the people groups in this world baptism belongs to the church's mission and it's not simply where the believer confesses their faith that would be to misunderstand baptism that's an element but it's a minor element a secondary element in baptism God places his name upon us identifies himself with us and embraces us in the communion of the saints it's a command it's not something that's negotiable nowhere in the Bible do we read of God's people being creative as we'll see in a few moments with God's commands as commands are there not for us to equivocate not for us to be creative with they are there for us to obey the obedience may be daunting can you imagine these eleven disciples looking at one another wondering what on earth Jesus could possibly be meaning that they were to go to the ends of the earth to make disciples baptizing them into the name the one name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit but of course the Lord says and behold I am with you always to the end of the age so we first of all need to understand exactly what it is the church is being commanded to do but secondly in that regard it seems to me that in increasingly in these past years there has been a confusion of understanding regarding this Great Commission perhaps you've heard people say something like this well actually Jesus doesn't say go and make disciples actually the verb is a participle and what Jesus means so we hear is that as you are going as you go about your daily life as a husband a wife a son the daughter as you go about your work your daily work you are to bear witness to Christ and make disciples it's a participle as you are going well that's completely raw a little knowledge we are told is a dangerous thing it is a participle but here's a bit of grammar is an arrest participle if Matthew had wanted to say as you are going he would have used a present participle and not an Arras participle actually in every instance in Matthew's Gospel I think there are 9 and all every time there is an Arras participle it is followed by an Arras temperate earth and what that simply means here you can read this yourself take your time leisure later in the day what that means is that where you have an Arras participle preceding a nearest imperative the participle takes on the form of an imperative the command to go is a necessary prerequisite fulfilling for fulfilling the main injunction in the sentence make disciples that's the imperative and the form of the grammar is saying go not as you are going but go and make disciples he's speaking about the church deliberately giving itself to going to the unreached people groups of the world the Lord Jesus Christ is summoning by commandment his church deliberately to decide to go and in a unique way to go to the ends of the earth to the unreached corners of this world with the gospel of His grace so I think the first hindrance that dissipates and diverts the church from the Great Commission is a failure to really understand what the Great Commission actually is there is a second hindrance I think and we've seen this in recent decades preaching a truncated gospel preaching a truncated gospel one of the great notes that was sounded at the 16th century Reformation was that the gospel gave to us a whole Christ not simply Jesus Christ as a savior but Jesus Christ as a Sanctifier he is a whole Christ when someone receives Jesus Christ they don't receive him in parcels they receive him in totus Christos and what that means is that when we proclaim the gospel we are not simply summoning people to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ we're summing summoning them to believe into Christ as Savior and Lord coming to faith in Jesus Christ is coming to Jesus Christ and giving all that you are to him and having all that you are sanctified to him and by him and for him I think Jesus himself puts it that is starkly in Luke chapter 9 verse 23 when he says if anyone would come after me let him die daily take up his cross daily and follow me Jesus was saying to would-be disciples to Enquirer's if you're going to give yourself to me and to my service you will need to understand that you are giving yourself unto death Jesus wasn't simply saying that there will be inconvenience as to bear we talked about Oh everyone's got his cross to be and that's not what Jesus was saying he was saying if you want to be a Christian are you ready to die are you ready to take up your cross that instrument of execution and die you see sacrificial services not for a spiritual elite it's the basic condition of authentic Christian discipleship remember how at the end of Galatians all could say let no man trouble me I bear in my body the marks of Jesus Christ and of course he's not speaking about physical stigmata he's speaking about the costs that he had to bear which perhaps were evidenced in some way in his body but he was speaking about those deep deep spiritual costs that authentic Christian discipleship encounters and embraces I remember reading something a few months back from from Brad I think it was who said we speak from our scars and when I read that I was reminded of the first time that I recollect actually hearing or reading anything from Amy Carmichael it was her poem hast thou no scar perhaps you know it as though no scar no scar on hand or wound or side I hear the song as mighty in the land I hear them hail thy bright ascendant star as though no scar no wound no scar but as the master shall the servant be and pierced of the feet that follow me but Viner hole can he have followed far who has no wound no scar I wonder what you might say if someone came up to you at the end of today and and said I know you're a Christian what do I need to know to be a Christian a follower of Jesus Christ I wondered if it would ever cross your mind to say to them you need to be ready to die but that's what Jesus is saying if anyone would come after me he must deny himself take up his cross and follow me that's authentic Christianity that's what the Reformers called the duplex gratia the double grace we receive Christ not only as Savior but as Sanctifier our lives are devoted wholly to him they are presented to him as living sacrifices this is not what the spiritual elite arrive at this is where authentic Christianity begins and I think one of the hindrances and keeping the Great Commission central to the life of the churches that we have departed at times very far from the duplex gratia of the gospel but a third reason a third hindrance for keeping the Great Commission central to the life of the church is the potential soul chilling influence of material comfort you remember in our Lord Jesus parable of the sower and the soils he speaks of one's sown among thorns they are those who hear the word but the cares of the world the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in choke the word and it proves unfruitful it's not easy to be blessed with material abundance and not grip it tightly money is a great servant but it's a bad master remember how Jesus brought that out somewhat enigmatic Li but dramatically in his parable of the dishonest manager in Luke chapter 16 we don't have time to read the whole passage but you know the passage well and Jesus of the shrewdness the farsightedness of the dishonest manager he's not commanding dishonesty but he's he's using this figure this parable to highlight the farsightedness the shrewdness of the dishonest manager and then at the climax Jesus says the sons of this world are more shrewd or farsighted in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light and I tell you sir Jesus listen to this make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings this is a very striking parable of our Lord make friends of unrighteous mammon unrighteous wealth so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings it's not straightforward I think to precisely know what Jesus is saying but I've little doubt that at heart he's saying this to his disciples be farsighted see beyond the now consider the Eternity that lies before you how are you going to use your resources here and now are you going to expand them on yourselves or are you going to use them so that you will be welcomed into the eternal dwellings I think our Lord is saying we live in a fallen world everything we touch is tainted but God is able to use whatever we have for his glory therefore use what God has given you so that when it all ends and you leave this life there will be people receiving you welcoming you cheering you into glory because you used your resources to bring them the gospel how will that look like and practice well you will invest and those who preach the gospel and and those who teach people to preach the gospel you will invest in missionaries and those who send missionaries you will invest then every gospel enterprises that multiply teachers and preachers and evangelists and the spread of the word and the spread of truth around the world you will be if I can paraphrase our Lord here you will be purchasing friends for eternity wouldn't it be a an unimaginably great thing to enter eternity and to find a line of people waiting to welcome you you've never met them you've never heard of them you wonder why on earth they are there to greet you and they'll say well you gave this and you did that and through this and through that the Lord brought the gospel of the grace of his son to me and I find myself here because you did not simply accumulate your possessions meaninglessly you expanded them you use them my brother's life is short and none of us knows how short so don't waste it a fourth hindrance to the church keeping the Great Commission central as the loss of the supernatural in the church benjamin warfield great princeton theologian once wrote Christianity is unembarrassed supernaturalism and this is what Matthew 28 is saying to us how were these eleven rehabilitated failures to impact the world they were to go from later we would find an axe one Jerusalem Judea Samaria to the ends of the earth how on earth were they to do that law I am with you to the ends of the world the Lord Jesus is impressing on them the essential supernaturalism of the Christian life and of the gospel of the grace of God Martin Luther had an interesting and very striking debate with Desiderius Erasmus in the 1520's 15 24 1525 a time of the Reformation it seemed for a time that Erasmus the greatest Greek scholar of the day would throw in his life and lot with the Reformation but he didn't he remained within the roman church and amongst the many things luther said to him one stanza he said to Erasmus your God is too small you have a diminutive God when the God of the Bible is glorious and great and unimaginable and infinite and eternal but in the church there is a loss of the supernatural we we expect little remember hope all at the end of Ephesians 3 writes that great doxology go to him who is able to do far more exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or even imagine or even imagine to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all the generations you see my brothers and sisters the Bible in this sense isn't enough that might seem a strange thing coming from someone who's a reformed Christian and who's involved in the work of the banner of truth but the Bible isn't enough John Owen the great English Puritan put it very dramatically without the Holy Spirit we may as well burn our Bibles it's the Holy Spirit who comes he doesn't make the Bible the Word of God but he awakens sin dead men and women to the truth and the authority and the sufficiency of Holy Scripture and the Christ who is presented to them and placarded to them and offer to them in the Holy Scripture without the Holy Spirit we may as well burn our Bibles we need to take the holy spirit far more seriously than we do John Knox the great best known Scottish reformer was once asked why the Reformation happens so rapidly and suddenly in Scotland and he simply replied God gave His Holy Spirit in great abundance to simple man we need to recover the supernatural in our expectations in the life of the church howdy is we re on number 5 a fifth hindrance the subtle influence of liberal theology in our churches in my half-century as a Christian I came to Christ and my mid-teens with no background whatsoever didn't possess a Bible didn't know anything about the Bible but a boy at school faithfully witnessed to me but in the half century or so from then until now it's been very remarkable to see the infecting of evangelical Christianity with such unbiblical ungodly doctrines as universalism and annihilationism and that seeps its way into the life of the church that liberal theology can infect the church in less obviously dramatic ways than that what I mean is this when the Bible God's enduring transcultural transgenerational word is sidelined when it comes to how we should worship God and how we should do mission in the name of God the fundamental premise of liberalism shines through and what's the fundamental premise of liberalism we know better than God now don't misunderstand me I'm not saying that we should ignore or dismiss without thought any new strategy for mission for example far from it but we need to learn to test everything by the word of the Lord to to the law and to the testimony Isaiah wrote if they speak not according to this word they have no light of dawn in that sense the Word of God is sufficient sufficient to direct us how we are to worship God and sufficient to tell us how we are to bear witness to our Savior Jesus Christ a six hindrance the marginalizing of corporate prayer in the life of the church I was a young divinity student when I first heard these words from a little pamphlet written by en bounds an American Presbyterian minister who served I think in the latter days of the Civil War or the War of Northern Aggression depending on where you're wrong listen to these words of Yen bounds what the church needs today is not more machinery or better not new organizations or more a novel myth but men whom the Holy Ghost can use men of Prayer men mighty in prayer the Holy Ghost does not flow through methods but through men he does not count does not come on machinery but on man he does not anoint plans but men men of prayer I find it remarkable that churches rarely today evangelical conservative churches rarely today set aside time corporately to unitedly cry to God and to bring to him our concerns our cares or hopes or fears and to pray his promises before him corporately as a church some years ago I remember maybe 20 I was asked to candidate for a large Presbyterian Church in the USA they sent me this massive folder 28 pages are so full of the activities of the church and this church had everything it's a conservative Church it had every conceivable activity he even had an evangelistic Valentine's dinner but it didn't have a corporate gathering for prayer and then a final hindrance ignoring our unseen but powerful enemy the devil when Paul comes to the end of his great exposition of the gospel and his letter to the Ephesians he says finally finally and you could imagine these Ephesians hearing this for the first time wondering well what's the Apostles last words to us your warfare is not with flesh and blood he says but with principalities and powers with your unseen enemy the devil therefore take up the whole armour of God from the very outset of his public ministry the Lord Jesus Christ was confronted with the devil he was relentlessly or paused and tempted by the evil one who sought to divert the Lord Jesus Christ from his mission and one of the ways the devil has so infiltrated the life of the church is that he has absorbed as in a multitude of good things and we have left off the great things we have a powerful enemy our warfare is not with flesh and blood there is an enemy who wants to hold captive the multitudes that he has in his Dominion and he will do all he can to divert the church absorb the church in multitudes of ministries which in themselves are good but the great mission of the church is to go to go and make disciples baptizing them into the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit seeing them come to faith nurtured in the faith come under the care and oversight and discipline of of pastors and elders this is what the church is called to well I've spent more time than I intended on the hindrances let me simply mention more positively how we can keep the church focused on the Great Commission let me just simply mention them first of all we need to be confronted every day and especially every Lord's day with the gospel of the god of grace that might seem the most obvious thing to say but one of the things that I find to be so tragically and increasingly true of the church in these times is that most it would seem most evangelical Christians think that an hour set apart on a Sunday for the worship of God it really all that's needed the rest of the day the rest of the week they can do as they please nothing is more vital to the health of the church the nor during the Sabbath day and keeping it holy setting it apart not in part but setting it apart all of it morning afternoon evening to the worship of God to waiting on God to reading the Word of God to spending time reading good Christian biographies I remember the very first biography I ever read a young Christian on you nothing was the biography of John G Peyton and I couldn't put it down we need to recover the significance of the Lord's Day for the church we need secondly to boldly reaffirm the uniqueness of our Lord Jesus Christ his person and his salvation because there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved and brothers and sisters this is not a West and Anglo Saxon idiosyncrasy it is God's transcultural transgenerational truth and this may well be the great battleground but until we are absolutely persuaded that his is the only name under heaven by which we must be saved the Great Commission will never have its desired and divinely ordained effect on the life of the church thirdly I think we need to engage daily in the spiritual grace of motive occasion if by the spirit woman's 813 you put to death the deeds of the body you will live for those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God the Apostle Paul was so aware of how how sin can cling so closely how the soul chilling influences of a variety of sins can seep their way into the life of the believer and so he sells us that we are to engage in the spiritual grace of mortification to be killing sin lessen be killing us and the Lord Jesus speaks about that in the Sermon on the Mount doesn't he about if your eye offends you pluck it out if your hand offends you cut it off be radical and Paula seeing if you want to live and I think he's saying more than if you want to live a fulfilled life I think he's saying if you want to live eternally then you need to take sin seriously you need to engage in the grace the spiritual grace of mortification would it be a time to to expand on that but if you want to think more about it read John Owens great work on mortification volume 6 in his writings fourthly almost there we need to see men and women as God sees them I can never get over how cold my heart is towards the lost I'm not sure there's a day I don't lament and ask the Lord to forgive my coldness of heart remember our Lord Jesus the end of Matthew 9 when he saw the multitudes he was filled with compassion and and the very words black knit so my his whole inward being was convulsed with pity he was moved to action if the lostness of men and women without Christ has only confessed but not felt mission will always be acknowledged but never embraced we need to see men and women as God sees them we need to see the outside of Christ people are heading for a lost a ruined a damned eternity we need to feel the weight of that our times really gone I remember as a young Christian reading the life of William Chalmers Barnes if you don't know that name let me encourage you to find out about him he's one of my two great heroes he went to China God used him remarkably but when he was still a divinity student in Scotland he was walking through the throng streets of Glasgow in the 1830s and his mother saw him approaching her but then he disappeared up an alleyway and his mother found him breaking his heart he was pouring out his heart to God and his mother said William Howe ails you and he said Oh mother when I saw the multitudes posting hither and thither most heading for a lost eternity I had to turn aside and cry unto the Lord that in wrath he would remember mercy one last word if any one thing will keep the Great Commission central to the life of the church it will be when the church is captivated by the cross of Jesus Christ God had one son and that one son expended his life missionary service to the father and all Christian mission is sharing in the mission of the prototypical missionary Jesus Christ and why did Jesus Christ give himself to the death of a cross well you say well in that's a no-brainer it was to save us from a lost eternity no it wasn't no it wasn't that may have been the proximate purpose but not the ultimate purpose he gave himself to the death of a cross that God might have worshipers that God might have people redeemed who will live to the praise of his glory well much more no doubt could be said but may the Lord bless to us his word and give us a greater heart for his glory which will be translated in a greater desire to go to the ends of the earth to the unreached people groups of this world to tell them of a God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son amen you you

Channel: Radius International

Views: 633

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Radius International, Missions, People Groups, Great Commission, Chruch, Radius, upgs, unreached, Church planting, Missiology, Conference, language, culture, unreached people groups, unengaged, DMM, CPM, Discipleship Making Movements, Banner of truth, Presbyterian, Edinburgh

Id: a97kH1tVr_Q

Length: 46min 13sec (2773 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 25 2020