The Four I’s:
Jesus did not step down from heaven,
endure the shame, ridicule, and sin of the Cross, and die for your individual benefit - not entirely.
He did it out of obedient love for the Father and for His Bride – the Church. Before returning to heaven Jesus left no
uncertainty regarding what it meant to love Him. He said that it looks like this IMITATION,
IDENTIFICATION, INSTRUCTION, and IMMANUEL.
“Having gone, therefore disciple all
the people groups; 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 know I am with you always to the consummation of the age.”
-Matthew 28:19-20
This passage of Scripture is
frequently referred to as “The Great Commission.” In verse 18 Jesus states that
He has been given “all authority,” and with that divine authority King Jesus
commissions His true followers to disciple, baptize, teach, and know.
We will use those four I-words:
IMITATION, IDENTIFICATION, INSTRUCTION, and IMMANUEL to help us dig into this
passage and hopefully illuminate God’s revelation. The goal is not more
biblical knowledge, but transformative obedient application to the eternal praise
and glory of God.
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IMITATION:
“Having gone, therefore disciple all
the people groups…”
Jesus stepped down from heaven and
was born in an animal pen, i.e. manger. He deprived Himself of His heavenly
entitlements as God and took the form of
a servant in human likeness. The Son
has always been the fullness of perfect obedience and altruistic service within
the context of eternal Holy Trinity. His
first experience as a ‘servant’ was NOT His incarnation. The meaning of Philippians
2:7 “…but deprived himself having taken the form of a servant in human likeness”
is that at Jesus’ birth, advent, and incarnation God’s servantship occurred in
truly and fully human for the first time. The emphasis is NOT on the Son’s
altruistic character as a servant, but rather on the fact that the Son stepped down
willingly, joyfully, graciously and put on full humanity for both the glory of
God and for our benefit.
“Having gone” means that nothing can
be done by a disciple until one IMITATES, replicates, models, borrows, and in
fact HAS, the humility of Christ. The humility of Christ means laying aside all
our comforts and entitlements as an essential prerequisite to servantship (ministry)
as a disciple/follower of King Jesus for both the glory of God and benefit of
humanity.
To truly “disciple” is not merely
doing the ‘stuff’ Jesus did: leading, baptizing, teaching, serving, caring,
loving… but requires our imitating, replicating, and truly having Christ alive
in us – thus naturally possessing the humility of Christ.
Doing the same ‘stuff’
Jesus did apart from being redeemed by His blood through the Cross is in fact
sin in the eyes of God. Romans 14:23 states, “…and everything that does not
come through faith is sin.”
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IDENTIFICATION:
“baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…”
Identification is synonymous with baptism
and is past, present, and future in scope. Identification is frequently
articulated as types of sanctification: 1. POSITIONAL sanctification – aka
justification, is one’s being made righteous, saved, redeemed in/by Christ, 2. PROGRESSIVE
sanctification – the ongoing work of God in and through us prior to Christ’s
return via our voluntary obedient participation, 3. PERFECTED sanctification – aka
glorification, at Christ’s return we will be transformed into glorified
resurrected humanity.
After “having gone” Jesus now
explains what it means to “disciple all the people groups.” The first step is
IDENTIFICATION: “…baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit.” I’ve written extensively on what baptism means so I won’t
go into again here. Suffice it to say that while baptism is a one-time symbolic
event of full immersion in water to indicate one’s full identification with the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as a member of the Bride of Christ (the Church) –
of deeper significance is what that symbolic event points to:
“in the name of the Father” – we willingly
submit to the authority/will of the Father
“and of the Son” – having the same selfless
attitude, obedience, and servantship of the Son
“and of the Holy Spirit” –
submission and servantship through the power/presence of the Holy Spirit
Jesus is not ‘commissioning’ His
disciples to merely get people to participate in some mystical ceremony of salvation in water,
but rather to 100% real, authentic, and practical IDENTIFICATION with the
authority of the Father, the selfless service of the Son, and with the power
and presence of the Holy Spirit as authentic members of the Bride of Christ. IDENTIFICATION, i.e. being a disciple of
Christ, inherently includes cultivating and producing other self-replicating disciples
of Christ.
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INSTRUCTION:
“…and teaching them to obey
everything I have commanded you…”
In the United States we’re big on
teaching. The irony is that we frequently miss the point of INSTRUCTION, which
is IMITATION, IDENTIFICATION, and IMMANUEL.
The religious leaders of the New Testament, i.e. the Pharisees,
Sadducees, and Scribes, were BIG BIG BIG on instruction too. In Mark 7:6 Jesus
addressed this very thing in saying, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about
you hypocrites; as it is written: 'These people honor me with their lips, but
their hearts are far from me.’” We can either be hypocrites (actors) like them - OR - we can be authentic self-replicating disciples.
Rick Warren notes in his best
seller, The Purpose Driven Life, “the
last thing many believers need today is to go to another Bible study.” I
believe pastor Warren’s point is that you don’t need more information if what
you already know doesn’t translate into simple obedience. That's the point of the parable of the wise and foolish builders in Matthew 7:24-27. Both men heard the information, but only one put it into practice. Jesus said the one who hears and "puts them it into practice" was the wise man whose house withstood the flood of judgment.
The Sunday School model was made
popular during a time of illiteracy and poor public education. There is still great value in teaching people
about the authority, meaning, and significance of God’s Word, but teaching –
INSTRUCTION – is not the goal. In 1
Corinthians 8:1 the Apostle Paul wrote, “…knowledge puffs up
while love builds up.”
Scripture tells us
that the goal prior to Christ’s second advent is to bring the Good News, the
gospel of Jesus Christ, to all the peoples on earth to make disciples. If you’re not actively invested and
identified with that in a very real and practical way that goes well beyond
attending church when you feel like it and dropping the occasional check in the
basket… then you don’t need more
INSTRUCTION. What you need is IMITATION and IDENTIFICATION to truly know IMMANUEL.
If you’re
intimidated and overwhelmed by the word EVERYTHING in Jesus commission, “…and
teaching them to obey EVERYTHING I have commanded you…” relax and take a
breath. We’re not talking about MORE
information, because in Galatians 5:14 Paul gave us a super simple Cliff’s
Notes summary of EVERYTHING Jesus commanded:
“For the entire law is fulfilled in
keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
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IMMANUEL:
“…and know I am with you always to
the consummation of the age.”
The sign of IMMANUEL, God with us,
was given in Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself will
give you
a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call
him Immanuel.” This was partially fulfilled in Jesus’ incarnation, but
as Jesus indicates in the Great Commission, our LORD truly becomes IMMANUEL –
God with us – as we submit to the authority and will of the Father in obedient
sonship through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in “having gone” to
disciple, baptize, and teach.
So let's be authentic disciples who imitate, identify, and instruct for the glory of our Immanuel - God with us!
Blessings,
-Kevin
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