Pastor Thanael Certa-Werner
Scripture | Matthew 28:16-20 (NIV)
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Today, we’re finishing our sermon series: Making Disciples. Throughout this sermon series, we’re taking a close look at the first part of our mission statement and asking the question, what does it actually mean to make disciples? To ask this, we’ve also been exploring what a disciple even is. We started with ourselves because discipleship begins with us. Being Christian means constantly working on knowing Christ more, knowing God more leads to faith, and faith brings salvation and discipleship. As Christians, we have to work on ourselves as we work to help others.
In week two, Dr. Teasdale talked about sharing our stories as Christians. He talked about what it means to share what we have found in Christ with those around us, whether they be friends, family, or our neighbors. He also talked about how testimony, and witnessing to how Christ has changed our lives is an essential aspect of our faith.
In week three, we explored what it looks like when our cities are discipled. Paul calls out asking, how can people call out to someone who they do not believe in? How can people believe in someone who they’ve not heard of? How can people hear of someone if no one has preached to them? We were reminded that our cities’ changes begin with us. The Holy Spirit has equipped and sent us, now we must be bold enough to preach to those who have not heard, so they can know, so they can believe, so they can call out to Christ. Finally, we come to our last week, in which we ask ourselves what does it look like to make disciples of our world?
To begin, we have to start with the most important question when talking about this subject: what is the greatest movie franchise to ever exist? For me, it’s Star Wars! In case you’ve missed the many times I’ve preached on this before, let me tell you that I love these movies and shows! The movies have just a fantastic plot which sucks you in from the beginning. If we look at the original trilogy, we find a group of rebels fleeing from an evil empire with the stolen plans of an ultimate weapon which can destroy entire planets. Of course, the Empire wants these plans back, and so they ruthlessly pursue after those who have taken them.
In the midst of this pursuit and battle, the plans land in the care of a droid which rockets down to a no-where planet and ends up in the service of a bunch of no-one farmers. Luke, one of the farmers, gets tangled up in the conflict and after his only realities are killed by the Empire, he devotes himself to being like his father, to fight the Empire, and become a Jedi. By the end of the first movie, Luke along with the rest of the rebels are successful at destroying that ultimate weapon, the Death Star. But anyone who has watched beyond the first movie knows that, that is not where the story ends.
While they may have destroyed the battle station, the Empire is still plenty powerful. Yet, something has changed. The rebellion has found all kinds of new support, whether it be through money, or people. People looked to what happened at the Death Star and they saw a no-one farm boy, from a nowhere planet destroy with a single shot the most powerful weapon of destruction in the galaxy. The people living throughout the Star Wars galaxy found hope in that farmer who helped to change the story and the fate of the rebellion.
Sometimes, I look up at the moon and imagine what it would look like to see the Death Star hovering over our small planet here on Earth. How terrifying it would be to see it looming there, and then to watch as the green light glowed, shooting its planet destroying laser at our precious world. In some ways, I don’t have to imagine the destruction of this world. The devastation of starvation, of hunger, of war and violence, of addiction and abuse. These weapons ravage the Earth. These are the weapons of another evil Empire – the Empire of Sin. But differently, this empire is an empire of rebellion and of ignorance. It is built upon the idea that God’s ways are not the best ways; that humanity knows what is best for its own self and that it is not worth knowing Who God is or what God is calling us to.
This Empire, much like the one in Star Wars, does not care what lives it destroys, what planets it blows to smithereens, what people it enslaves – all it cares about is power and control. This same empire has been working in the background for the whole of human history. Even when Jesus, God from God, Light from Light, came to teach humanity how to leave this Empire, it was working to thwart Him. But Jesus has given us an incredible tool to not only save ourselves from this evil Empire, but to save the world too.
This tool is discipleship. It is the reality of turning yourself over from one master to another because the reality is that we all serve something. Whether it be money or power or food or sex or addiction, we all have a master to serve. But what Jesus taught His disciples is that when we decide to follow a master, a King, a leader who is good and loving – our service is no longer service but freedom. This is what it means to be a disciple: to choose to serve God and know freedom. This is at the root of what we have been talking about for the last four weeks. But the story gets better!
In our scripture for today, we find the disciples talking with Jesus for one last time while He is on earth. “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Have you ever noticed that sometimes they are called the Disciples and sometimes they are called the Apostles? A disciple is one who stays and learns. An apostle is one who is sent to teach and tell. Here, the disciples are called beyond discipleship and on to apostleship. No longer are they just to learn from Jesus, they are to go and tell others, to inspire them with their experiences, to comfort them with their reason, to illuminate them with the teachings of the church, and to guide them by God’s Word. This is the primary tool the Kingdom of God uses to combat the evil of the Empire – us. People who have been filled and guided by the Holy Spirit are the special forces through which the Empire is toppled.
Furthermore, it is through people that the world can be changed, despite the continuing power of the Empire. Even after the Death Star was destroyed, the Empire was still full of power. It commanded thousands of starships with billions of troops across the galaxy. So one might well ask, did blowing up the Death Star do anything? The answer is, yes! Not only did it give hope to the galaxy, but it showed what unprepared, unorthodox, unimportant people can do. Together, the rebels were able to do what no one ever thought possible. Just like small groups of Christians have been regularly destroying the battle stations of the Empire around the world throughout history. When we decide to be bold enough and brave enough to share our stories, to work on dismantling the evil Empire through our actions, our thoughts, our knowledge, and our very lives, Death Stars can be destroyed.
While that doesn’t mean that the Empire is gone overnight because a battle station is destroyed, the way in which the world is changed is the same as how the galaxy was changed with the Death Star was defeated. People looked to that event and found hope for tomorrow. They saw how the average, everyday people were breaking free from slavery to the Empire. They saw how a group of farmers became starship fighters who took on the greatest weapon in the galaxy. The same reason we love the story is the reason it gave people hope.
For us, the story is the same. When we band together and decide to take on the Empire, even though we might not feel qualified, even when others say we can never do anything to change the reality of the world, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can become starfighters. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we can become ground troops, and tacticians – we can become who God has called us to be and whenever we defeat a battle station, whenever we claim another soul for Jesus we give hope to a world with little hope. We give people something to believe in and the chance to choose real freedom rather than slavery to the Empire.
Jesus has not only called us to sit and learn at His feet, He has sent us into the world to be His rebellion against the Empire. We may be up against incredible odds, but if Star Wars and the Bible have taught us anything, it’s that incredible odds lift up incredible people to do incredible things. We have been lifted up by the Holy Spirit for such a time as this. If we choose to, we can be the instrument which God uses to fundamentally change the world. All we have to do is say yes. The rest of the work is up to the Holy Spirit. So let’s do that. Let’s say yes, take on the challenge and change the world just by our saying yes.