Sunday Sermon - May 31, 2026

This Sunday, we hear "The Great Commission" from Jesus in Matthew 28:16-20. But what does it mean to go out and disciple all nations? 

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Scripture quotations from the COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. © Copyright 2011 COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Transcript

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The holy gospel according to Matthew. Glory to you, O Lord. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him, and they 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 in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. The gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, O Christ. Would you all please pray with me? Good and gracious God, we pray that you breathe your spirit into and among us, that we don't just hear words with our ears, but hear in our hearts the message you have for us this day. Amen. So many, many, many years ago, the medical community came up with this model of learning. You might have heard of it. See one, do one, teach one. Has anyone ever heard of that? Now it's not usually literally you see one time and then you're expected to do it one time, then you teach it. It's the concept. You see it, you do it, you teach it. And the theory then is that in that practice, you internalize these skills and this learning, and you become more comfortable and confident in it, and all that kind of stuff. Now, I'm not sure who exactly came up with this model or whatnot, but I think Jesus also has something to say about this model. Because we're gonna rewind first in Matthew. So we are in chapter 28 today in Matthew. These are the last verses of the Gospel of Matthew. This is the end of his earthly ministry in the Gospel of Matthew. So to understand the end, we have to go back to the beginning. The beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry in Matthew, because that also happened on a mountain. And that was when Jesus offered the Sermon on the Mount. Now, if you recall, I don't know, three months ago, uh, when we talked about that, we have the Beatitudes, right? Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are the hungry, blessed are those who are persecuted in my name, blessed are, right, all of those. So Jesus starts off his earthly ministry by saying, This is where you're going to find me doing my thing. You're gonna find me among the poor, you're gonna find me among the hungry, you're gonna find me among those who are mourning and grieving. You are going to find me in all these places doing my thing, showing love and mercy and compassion to people, welcoming and offering kindness and food and healing. So Jesus starts it all off by saying, Okay, guys, look, pay attention. This is what you're gonna be doing. And so we do the C one at the very beginning at the Sermon on the Mount. And then for three years, for three years, Jesus and the disciples go out and they do it. They go to all these people, they find the hungry and they feed, oh, some thousand of them with a few loaves of bread and a couple fish. They find people who are lost and alone and feeling broken, and Jesus offers them life and love and community. There is healings of mental and physical ailments, there is more feeding of hungry people, there is welcoming people back into community after they've been kicked out or after they felt like they don't belong there anymore. So for three years, Jesus basically takes the disciples on something of an internship and says, Let's do this. Let's do this whole thing of living a life of love, of mercy, of compassion. And so they do this for three years. And then after the death, after the resurrection, the disciples are now feeling a little on their own. So Jesus shows up with them one more time. Today's gospel reading is actually the first time the eleven male disciples named here get mentioned or get to see the risen Jesus. They haven't yet seen the resurrection in front of them. And so they go to this mountain because the women told them to go to this mountain, so they go there to wait and see what happens. And Jesus shows up. And basically, Jesus says, You have seen what I'm about. We have done the work together. Now go out and disciple others. Teach others. Welcome others into the same community that we have spent three years building together. And as I mentioned to the kids, which we'll unpack as they continue to grow older, to be a disciple is not just to be those 11 or so people some 2,000 years ago. To be a disciple is to be a follower and a learner of Jesus. And so when we go out and we disciple others, we are not, it's not about conversion. It's not about saying Christianity is the best, because let's be honest, everyone in that scene was Jewish. Christianity was not yet a thing. So it's not about what religion or anything like that, it's not about conversion. What it's about is Jesus spent three years showing and doing the work of ministry, loving others, loving God, worshiping God, feeding others, offering healing and community and restoration to others, showing mercy and compassion and kindness. For three years Jesus did that with the disciples. And now, as they go out and disciple others, they are to do the same thing: to show love and compassion and mercy and kindness, to offer community and restoration to community, to offer food to the hungry, to bring people to places of healing. They go out and they do that. And how do they do that? By baptizing and by teaching. Because when we are baptized, we are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are baptized into relationship because the Trinity is not some static single identity. So I love our gathering song. The Trinity is a dance. It is poetry in motion, it is relationship and love in action. And that is what we are baptized into. We are baptized into relationship and love in action. Love in poetry and dance. And we are brought into that community within the scope of this community of people gathered together. And so when we go out and we disciple others, part of that baptizing is about the community. It's about welcoming them into the community of the Trinity and also the community of the followers, into those intentional relationships that don't happen by accident, but happen when we choose to show love, mercy, compassion, and kindness. And it's not just about that, too. Don't forget, there's a second part. To disciple others is to baptize and also to teach. Because we have this moment of baptism, right? We come to this font and we we stand here and we pour the water over the person and we tell them that they are called to live among God's faithful people, to hear the word of God, share in the Lord's Supper, proclaim the good news of God and Christ the word indeed, serve all people, following the example of Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth, signed, sealed, delivered. And that's the baptism, right? We welcome people into the community, we say, you are now in the community of the Trinity, you are now in the community of the church. But as you all know, it does not end there. Because you also, we also have to teach. We have to explore, we have to learn, we have to grow, we have to figure out that whole list of things that we just promised we would do or we would teach on behalf of our children. We have to figure out what that means and what that looks like. And so we teach, we teach about Jesus, we teach about the way Jesus lived and served in this world. We teach what it is to live in the way of Jesus. The way of love, mercy, kindness, and compassion, the way of feeding the hungry, loving the lonely, healing the sick. And that is what the disciples and we are sent out to do. Jesus parting words to the disciples says, go, go and teach. You have seen, you have done, no, go baptize, go disciple, go teach. Go not just to the next neighborhood, but go to all the nations. Enter their worlds, enter their cultures, enter where they are, and bring God's love and mercy into that space. Because it's not about taking our culture, our Christianity into those spaces. It is about going there and saying, God's love is for you. It is about showing love, mercy, compassion, and kindness in those spaces where people already are. Because the Holy Spirit, as we talked about last week, is already there doing Holy Spirit things. And we get to participate in that. And that is when we get to Jesus' actual final words to the disciples in the gospel of Matthew. For I am with you always, to the end of the age. So as far as you can imagine into the future, and then further, Jesus says, I am with you. And you may doubt that. After all, those 11 disciples on that mountain, what did they do? They worshiped and they doubted. There was a level of uncertainty. There was a level of, but how? And Jesus does not chastise them for that. Jesus expects it on some level. Jesus welcomes it on some level and sees that doubt, sees that questioning, sees that uncertainty of what to do, and tells them, go, go and disciple all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them what it is to live in the way of Jesus. So as you go out, if you are feeling like, I don't know how to do this, I don't know how to go disciple others, I don't know what it how to teach, I don't know, you're in good company because all 11 disciples were right there with you. But Jesus doesn't expect us to have all our ducks in a row. He doesn't expect us all to have masters of divinity before we go out. Instead, Jesus says, You have heard my teaching, you have seen my teaching, we have done the work of ministry together. Now go out, knowing that I am with you always to the end of the age. Even when you feel lost and alone, even when you feel like the work is too big for you, even when you don't know what to do, Jesus says, I am with you always to the end of the age. And with that promise, with that assurance, you are now called. You are now sent to go out, created in the image of our great Creator, filled with the Holy Spirit and nourished at Christ's table to go and disciple others, baptizing them and teaching them, knowing full well that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit is with you now and always. Amen.