The words in Matthew 28:16-20 were spoken from a mouth that was once dead. After Jesus leapt back in his body at his resurrection, he gave specific preparations to organize his Kingdom Army. He wanted them to invade the world with the Gospel. Jesus outlined his plan for the disciples. If they were going to transition their thinking from following a mere human rabbi to the divine second person of the Trinity, they must worship him. A main part of their obedient worship was to go into all the world preaching, teaching, and baptizing. They must change their perspective from a student/disciple of a rabbi to become the representative of God to everyone they met. Their last experiences with Christ transformed them into fanatics. Their worship became intense. The devotion of the disciples transcended family, job, even religion.
A basic element of their transition was to fulfill the instructions of our text. Jesus said they should go. The Greek word used is better understood to say, “as you are going.” The rest of their lives in their future was to be a witness after having a relationship with God themselves. It was not their intention to reform the Jewish religion. Nor was it necessarily an intention to create a new religion. Jesus told him as they went from here to there, they should share their personal experiences with Christ. He told them to teach. That did not mean they should be some higher proud intellectual spouting technical terms. They were to teach by example. They were to allow the Holy Spirit to speak through them with the intensity of what Jesus taught. The disciples were teachers because they had a great message to share. After they won somebody to Christ in a personal relationship, they were to baptize a person. This was not a baptism to become a church member. It was a profession of faith before all who witnessed the event telling them that the new convert was beginning a new life. The person who accepted Christ as Savior was being baptized as a means to show their dedication to a new life with the excitement of a new adventure that would disperse them to the known world. Their time was not their own. Their talents were not their own. They became the text of the Bible before it was ever written on paper.
During the ministry of Christ there were people who made artificial professions of faith. They claimed a willingness to follow him with certain stipulations. In one case the man said he had to bury his father. In another case a man said he would follow Christ second to fulfilling his wedding vows. Thirdly, a man said he had purchased land recently and had to confirm it, check it out before following Christ. These excuses are not so unusual for today’s world. There are those who claim to be worshipers but are not obedient. Why is that? They never had a real experience with Christ. They never caught on to the wonderment of who Christ was and what he did for them resulting in every dedication to put God first. They never truly gave up their old life but wanted to have the benefits of the Christian life while at the same time enjoying the pleasures of the old life. All of these experiences betrayed a lack of true worship. We can go to church, sit in the pew, sing songs, recite texts, yet only perform the rudiments of ritual because it did not flourish from a relationship with Christ. He was not interested in people being religious. His concern was for people to have a relationship with him and the Heavenly Father.
We now know our challenge. We now know how easy it is for us to allow our challenge to go unheeded. Therefore, we must realize the changes in what we call our spiritual life that must occur, that is beyond instructions, beyond church services. Our challenge is to sweep away whatever could interfere with a personal relationship with God so that when we go to church, when we sing, when we read texts there is a vitality and a reality to it beyond ritualistic performance. Some people act like they think it is possible to wait God out. Or they act like they can build up time off days from the job of living so they may take liberty away from their spiritual profession. If the words that Jesus spoke in Matthew changes in application to our personal lives, then it is unreliable. It is unreliable for the past. It is unreliable for the future of whatever manner we think to display our spiritual condition. Our challenge is to turn away from our natural person and become a spirit person. Our challenge is to take the words of Christ seriously incorporating them into our attitude and our daily walk.
Christian Writer 