Teaching Them to Observe All I Have Commanded

Is it possible that in our attempt to fulfill the Great Commission, going and making disciples of all nations, that we've neglected our own nation? Many churches and many pulpits that used to herald the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ no longer do so. And so we are, in essence, re-evangelizing the unchurched and the de-churched and those who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's underscored in Ligonier Ministries' most recent State of Theology survey. We were disheartened to learn that more than 60 percent of professing evangelicals believe that God accepts the worship of all religions. Forty percent believe that the Bible has no authority to tell us what to do.

Overall, the survey shows us that self-identified evangelicals are losing their once strongly held convictions. It's with that in mind that today on Renewing Your Mind, we continue Dr. Burke Parson's series on the Great Commission. Now before looking at the first portion of verse 20, I want us to consider just briefly the significance of Christ's call to the nations. Now we've already established and considered how it is that we are to go to the nations. Well, we also need to consider that in many parts of the world today, the nations have come to us. Even for us here in Central Florida, we have the nations all around us.

We have people from every tribe, tongue, and nation here at our doorstep, and they're coming by the droves. And so while we still need to be about sending and supporting and mobilizing and training and equipping people to go to be sent to the nations, to unreached people groups, we also need to consider that in many ways, the nations are all around us. And so while we need to be about the business of both, we also need to recognize that for those of us in major metropolitan areas, even quite frankly, in many small towns throughout Europe and throughout these United States, there are many foreigners and many people who have never heard the gospel. It's also very significant for those of us in the United States where there are churches on just about every corner for us to recognize that just because there is a church on every corner doesn't mean the gospel is proclaimed on every corner, especially today. Many places, many churches, and many pulpits that used to herald the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ that taught the whole counsel of God no longer do so. And so we are in essence re-evangelizing the unchurched and the de-churched and those who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I'm constantly amazed, even in the past 10 to 20 years, as so much has changed in America, how when we go to people, we can no longer assume they know who Jesus is. We can no longer assume they know what the gospel is, even for those people who attend church. They may not actually understand the gospel. They may have actually never heard the gospel.

Sure, they've heard stories about Jesus, perhaps they've heard teaching about Jesus, perhaps of his morals, perhaps some of his teaching, but they've never actually perhaps heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. That victorious announcement and proclamation of all that our triune God has done through Christ by the power of the Spirit. And so while we are always to be about going to the nations, going to the unreached peoples, we are also called to go to those around us, to our neighbors, even to those so-called churches that are no longer proclaiming the unvarnished truth of God's word. And so as we consider the nations, it's also important that we see how Christ is the fulfillment of what the Scriptures have foretold as it pertains to the covenant that God made with Abraham and the Lord's promise to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. And so turn there with me just briefly, we'll see in Genesis chapter 12 at the outset of the chapter is the Lord calls Abram. Don't forget Abram was a pagan from Ur of the Chaldeans. Abram wasn't seeking God. He wasn't going after God. He wasn't seeking the things of God. Abram was a rebellious enemy of God among a pagan people and the Lord, as He always does, calls to Abram.

He is the one who initiated this. He is the one who reached out and saved Abram. Look at what we read in Genesis 12 verses one through three. Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you. I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Isn't that beautiful? You know those who look at the Bible and think that God is only concerned about the nations in the New Testament haven't really read and studied the Old Testament. We see from beginning to end in the Old Testament how the Lord is concerned for the nations. He calls Abram out and He tells him to do what?

Go. He tells him that through Abram the Lord is going to make him into a nation and that through him all the nations and all the families of the earth will be blessed. Now it's not for no reason that Matthew in his gospel account begins his gospel with a genealogy. And notice where Matthew takes us in that genealogy. Under the superintendence of the Holy Spirit, Matthew takes us not only back to David, but back to Abraham. Reminding us that Jesus, the long-awaited Messiah, comes from the seed of Abraham. And it's also no mistake that Matthew's gospel ends with a great commission that is strikingly familiar to the same commission that the Lord gave Abram in his call in Genesis 12.

Go. The nations, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Matthew, a very studied and careful Jewish historian of the Scriptures, shows us how it is that Christ is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. How He is the true and greater Abraham. That in Christ the nations will be reached in Christ and through this fulfillment of the great commission all the families of the earth will be blessed.

Isn't that amazing? How God uses us and calls us to take part in this great commission to go and in one sense to extend and fulfill that early promise and that covenant that the Lord made to Abram. That we are a part in our going and our sending and our mobilizing and our supporting and our raising up and our setting forth and our being sacrificial and our giving. We are taking part in that original promise that the Lord gave to Abraham to bless the families of the earth. We are part of that nation going forth into all the world, even as the world comes to us as God's people, as we are that nation that God has saved and redeemed and called His own.

We are those who are going forth into all the world to proclaim the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's also significant that we point out that in calling them to go, Jesus is very clear as we read about at the end of Luke's gospel and a parallel account of the great commission wherein Jesus tells them to go. But before they go, He tells them to wait, to wait in the city, that is to wait in Jerusalem until they have been clothed with power from on high. That is, go when I have poured out My Spirit upon you. Fulfilling the prophecy of Joel, reversing Babel, the Lord pours out His Spirit on the church, and that is the time when the disciples and when the church is to go to every nation, when they have received the empowering work of the Holy Spirit to do their work.

When they have been clothed with power from on high. You see, dearly beloved, we cannot go in our own power, we must go in the power of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who enables us and empowers us. He is the one who enlivens us.

He is the one who gives us that constant motivation to go. He is the one who goes before us and prepares hearts and minds to be receptive to the gospel so that when we proclaim it, that in time, according to God's will and God's timing and not ours, the Spirit regenerates. The Spirit makes those who belong to the Lord His own. And the Spirit is going before us as we go. Another thing that's important to keep in mind that Jesus calls us to go and He calls each of us to go in some measure, not only locally, but some of us into international territories and to some of us into the farthest reaches of the world, into the remotest villages where the Word of Christ and the Word of God has not been known. But it's important that we keep in mind that every Christian is called out of darkness and into the marvelous light of our Lord. And as soon as the Lord calls us in, as soon as the Lord brings us in, what does He tell us to do? He tells us to go back into the darkness and shine. And what do we shine with?

We shine with the gospel of God, the teaching of God's Word. And that's what Jesus tells us in chapter 28 and verse 20 of Matthew, that making disciples entails baptizing and it entails teaching. Teaching is one of those other subordinate clauses that we considered earlier. Teaching is part and parcel of what it means to make disciples.

Look at what Jesus says there in Matthew 28 and verse 20, we read, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Teaching. James tells us and warns us in James 3, 1, let there not be so many teachers among you, brothers. As such, teachers will incur a stricter judgment. Teachers will be held to a higher account.

Now, James has in mind there the office of teacher. Even as Paul makes clear in Ephesians chapter 4 that those who are called to be pastors or shepherds are also teachers. That phrase, shepherds and teachers or pastors and teachers is a Hindi, it is two names speaking of the same title. And so pastors are teachers. Teaching and preaching is one aspect of what we do as pastors. It is a vital aspect.

It is a significant aspect of what we do, but it must be mentioned that it is only one aspect of what we do. We are first and foremost shepherds. We're not first and foremost lecturers. We're not even first and foremost preachers. Preaching and teaching is part of what we do, but it is not the sum total of what we do. We are called to shepherd. We are called to serve. We are called to listen. We are called to counsel. We are called to come alongside. We're called to be involved in church discipline. We're called to administer the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper.

We're called to pray. Teaching and preaching is one aspect of that, but it's a vital aspect of it. And so we need teachers that are apt to teach.

We need teachers that are qualified to teach. We need teachers that are trained not by going to seminary and simply getting a degree, but going to seminary and learning and studying to show themselves approved and not trying to get in and out of seminary as quickly as they possibly can, simply so that they can get a piece of paper to hang on their wall, but rather taking their time and studying and examining the teaching of Scripture, the doctrine of Scripture, the languages of Scripture, the history of Scripture, and the history of the church that men of God would be equipped so that they would be able to teach, that they would be held to that higher account. But in one sense, every Christian is involved in teaching. Every Christian is involved in teaching one another. Every Christian is involved in teaching within the home and sometimes within the church, whether it's in Bible studies or whether it's in study school classes or even if it's one-on-one mentoring and discipling. Every Christian in some measure is teaching.

And notice that Jesus says, teaching. He didn't say giving our testimonies, although that can be helpful and often important as we teach and as we share the gospel, but our testimony is not the gospel. We're called to teach, not give stories, not simply fill our messages or our Bible studies with sociocultural or pop psychological anecdotes.

We're not called to fill our messages and our teachings simply with conversation. We are called to teach. We don't go into the worship service or into a Bible study reading a passage and simply asking everyone, well, what does this mean to you? We go in prepared to teach, studied, equipped, ready to give people the Word of God according to what God's Word teaches and not according to our own fancies. So we are called to teach. We are called to instruct. We are called to help people understand.

And that means we need to study so well so that we are equipped not to impress other people, not to use big words simply so that others might think highly of us or that we're extra intelligent, but rather that we would study in the greatest depth that we possibly can so that we can boil things down in simple ways so that people can grasp what we're teaching. We do that with children, and we do that with one another, just as Christ did it with His disciples. But notice Jesus says not just to teach them, and He tells us what to teach, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Now many people when they quote the Great Commission, typically they'll come to this portion of the Great Commission, and you'll listen. I heard it just a few weeks ago, in fact, where people will quote the Great Commission, and they'll leave out a certain portion of it.

See if you can notice it. Teaching them all that I have commanded you. Well, what part did I leave out? One of the most important parts of the Great Commission. But so often when we hear the Great Commission recited or quoted, that's what we hear. But Jesus didn't just say, teach them all that I've commanded.

He said, teach them to observe. Now that word is a very significant word. Some of your translations translate that word, not observe, but keep or obey even. And those are all appropriate nuances of that term in the Greek language. Well, there's another important nuance in that word in the Greek, wherein we are to understand the word to mean guard. In fact, it's translated that way in other portions of the New Testament, even in Acts where they set a guard over the prison. And so that term to observe, to keep, to obey, also has this nuance of guarding something.

Paul tells Timothy to guard the deposit that it's entrusted to you. In teaching the nations to observe, we are teaching them to obey. We are teaching them to keep these things, to know these things, and carry out these things in all of life. We're not just teaching them things that they have big heads. We're teaching them things that they might have big hearts and lives full of living out their doctrine and all that they've been taught. We're not just teaching them to give lip service to these things. We're teaching them to live these things out in all of life.

And so the Word of God is clear. We are to teach the people of God to keep and to observe. A disciple is not simply one who believes. A disciple is one who believes, and that belief, that true faith, leads to a life of fruitfulness and following the Lord Jesus Christ.

But that second nuance of that term is very significant, isn't it? Teaching them to guard, teaching them to keep and guard. The Bible tells us that we are to understand the Word of God and the doctrine of God. It tells us we are to learn that faith that has been passed down to us. And it also tells us that we're to contend for that faith, the faith once delivered to the saints, as Jude writes in Jude 3.

That we're to contend earnestly for it. We are to guard it. We are to draw certain lines in the sand and build necessary walls and necessary fences. We are to guard that which God has preserved for us. One of the ways we do that is through creeds and confessions, is we are setting parameters. We are saying, this is what we believe the Word of God teaches, and we are going to guard it.

We are going to keep it. We are going to put parameters around it so that no false teaching, no error, no heresy can creep in. And that we must be willing also to even give our lives for it. We are called to guard, to keep, to preserve the Word of God and the doctrine of God, not just for our sakes, not just for our salvation, but for the next generation. So Jesus says, teach them to observe, to obey, and to guard, if you will, all that I have commanded. Not just some of what I have commanded, He says, but all that I have commanded.

Teach them to observe everything I have given you, everything I have taught. Now, what did Jesus teach? What did Jesus command? Well, He commanded not only what's recorded for us in Matthew, not only what's recorded for us in all the gospels, but what's recorded in one sense in all of Scripture. Because Jesus is the fulfillment of all Scripture. He is the yes and amen to every promise of God in Scripture.

Jesus did not abolish the law or the prophets, He came to fulfill them. And so we are called to go forth and to teach, not merely the gospel, and not merely the account of the gospels, and not merely what we want to pick and choose from in the gospels, but rather we are to go forth and to teach the nations to observe all that Christ commanded in all of Scripture. That's why preaching the whole counsel of God is absolutely vital. We are called to go forth and to give people the Word of God. We are to remind them regularly of the gospel of God as we see that gospel of God highlighted and foreshadowed and pointed to and fulfilled throughout all of Scripture. Jesus said, these are things I've commanded, not things I've suggested, not options, but things that I've commanded. Now the hard part for most of us and for most Christians and for most churches is that we're called to be faithful in teaching the nations to observe everything that Christ commanded. The literal language there is interesting. It's all things whatever I've commanded.

It's this all-encapsulating, all-encompassing thing. Well, did Jesus only teach the gospel? Did He only teach the good news about what He came to do?

No. He taught the fullness of the Word of God. Teaching the nations to observe all that Christ commanded means also teaching them to love their neighbor.

It means to love their enemies, to pray for those who are persecuted. It means that we would teach the nations how to be pure and chaste in not only outward expressions but also of the heart, that we're to go forth and teach and disciple the nations in all that Christ commanded, and that includes how He also exemplified the Word of God, the law of God, and all the teaching of Scripture, that we would go forth and walk in His footsteps as we go to the nations shining as a light to the world reflecting the light of Christ, going forth and teaching all that He commanded, teaching people to observe it, to keep it, so that they might pass it on to their children. The problem that has occurred for many decades and even in many centuries is that many people have gone and they have taught certain elements of Scripture or they have simply taught the gospel. And in doing so in other nations and even here in the United States, if they've not taught all that Christ commanded, if they've not taught the whole, the entirety of Scripture, then what happens is that people go away having only tasted of certain elements of the truth of God, but we are called to go and give them the entirety of the Word of God. We don't just give them a New Testament.

We don't just give them a book, but rather we strive to give them resources and commentaries and exegetical guides and studies in the original languages, translating these things and making them available in every language on earth so that generations from now, if the Lord tarries, and we hope He doesn't, that they might have these same tools and resources and books, that they might continue to teach and to train all nations to observe all that Christ has commanded. Now, this is indeed a great and high calling, but it also helps us to recognize the full-orbed nature of the Great Commission, that we're not just called to go and make converts, that we're not just called to go and evangelize. We are called to go and to teach. And what are we to teach? The Word of God, Scripture that is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching.

When a significant number of professing Christians fail to understand a sensual biblical truth, the gospel itself is at stake, and the church's witness is jeopardized. Dr. Burke Parsons has been providing us with an in-depth study of the Great Commission this week here on Renewing Your Mind. In his five-part video teaching series, he walks us through this command verse by verse, verse by verse. We'll send you all five lessons on a single DVD when you contact us today with a donation of any amount.

Make your request at renewingyourmind.org, or call us at 800-435-4343. You know, in line with what we just heard from Dr. Parsons, our president and CEO, Chris Larson, wrote a letter to Friends of Ligonier Ministries, and he said this, Unless we have a firm grasp of the truth that God has revealed in His Word, we will not understand who He is, who we are, or what is the purpose of our lives. More serious still, if people don't know their Bibles, they cannot have a saving knowledge of God. And as we heard from Burke Parsons today, part of the Great Commission is to go out, literally, and teach these truths. Your gifts to this ministry help sustain and expand Ligonier's Scripture-centered outreach. So on behalf of all of my colleagues here at Ligonier Ministries, thank you. Renewing Your Mind is the listener-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Thank you for joining us. I hope you'll make plans to be with us again tomorrow. Thank you.