The vast body of apostolic instruction to the church is focused on living out daily
lives in the character and the ways of Christ.
Welcome back to Kingship Reformation. This is class number seven and the title is The Greater
Commission. So in the last class we talked about greater people and greater works and,
you know, taking that from greater people from Jesus's incredible statement in Matthew 11 11
where he basically says that anybody who's born into the kingdom, whoever's least in the kingdom,
so that qualifies me because I know I'm down there near the bottom somewhere, I'm at least
the least in the kingdom, he said is greater than John who he had just said was greater than anyone
ever born of a woman prior to John. So I hope you will take time to really meditate on that and ask
the Holy Spirit to shine some light on exactly what Jesus means by this greatness. But let's
spend the rest of our lives mining that out. And then the greater works, Jesus said that
we would do great, we would do the works that he did, but then even greater works would we do
because he goes to the Father. And again, my premise there is because when he went to the
Father, it was to be coronated as the king. He didn't walk the earth as a king, he walked as
the sacrificial lamb. But when he defeated the devil at the cross and resurrection, he went and
ascended into heaven and received his kingdom there. You can see that in Daniel 7 that he
comes up to the Ancient of Days and he's given a kingdom and a dominion that will never end.
So it was when he was king that we were kinged. So we are seated with him in heavenly places and
that's on thrones. We have a place of reigning and ruling on the earth. So today I want to
talk about the greater commission. So we'll start with, I'll just read from Matthew 28,
and I'm going to not read the whole passage, but 16 through 20. And this is what we call
typically the great commission. It might even say that in your Bible above that passage.
Of course, that's not scripture itself, but it's codifying that part of scripture. So it says,
then the 11 disciples went away into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them.
It goes on to say, and Jesus came and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me
in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
And there's so much in that. So we'll start off. So what I'll do is I'll talk about the
great apostolic commission, because this really was a commission to Jesus' apostles, literally
his 11 commissioned apostles. And Jesus instructed them to go make disciples and specifically
through gospel conversion, that's where he says baptizing them, and then by teaching them how to
live as followers of Christ. So teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.
So it's also an implied ongoing apostolic commission, because obviously we still
have people going and planting and sent ones or apostles that go into different geographies
and establish kingdom outposts there. So he gave it to these original 11 apostles,
but then of course Saul later got commissioned into that gig. And then the apostolic ministry
continues. So I think we're all pretty square on that. So that's what we call the great commission.
But drawing from Jesus' parable of the wheat and tares, what he essentially commissioned
these apostles to do was to begin planting the sons of the kingdom. Remember, Jesus said that
the wheat or the good seed are the sons of the kingdom that Jesus was planting in the field,
which was the world. So this commissioning was a planting, a sending and planting commission.
It was and is an apostolic commission in that the apostles are the sent ones who do the planting.
So I would challenge you to read through the epistles that were written to the general
church body. Now I'm not talking about the pastoral letters like to Timothy, but the epistles
that were written to the general church body and list all the times that they or we are instructed
to go somewhere or even to preach the gospel. The vast body of apostolic instruction to the church
is focused on living out daily lives in the character and the ways of Christ. For instance,
in Ephesians, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. It's a very practical teaching
on living out the kingdom. And I think we get, we've gotten a little bit tripped up at times,
and especially with young people, we get them, maybe this has been in the last several decades,
we get people.
saved or born into the kingdom.
And the first thing we want to do is send them out to the nations and say,
well, if you want to be a great commission, a saint, this is what you have to do.
And the reality is very few people are actually called and commissioned in the
apostolic way, or even as evangelists, but we all as disciples of Jesus are
commissioned to live out that, that, uh, discipled life.
So, um, so what I want to say is there, there is another commission that's
hidden between the lines of what we call the great commission.
And it's wrapped up in the instruction, teaching them to observe all
things that I have commanded you.
So I call this the great all saints commission.
So we have the great apostolic commission, which again was to the
apostles and continues to be to the apostolic ministries, but then we have
the all saints or the disciples commission.
And what would that commission be?
So, so that the apostles were instructed to teach them or us to
obey or observe certain things.
Well, what are those things that the disciples instructed us?
I mean, it makes sense to me that we would find those in
the apostolic writings, right?
So again, back to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Galatians,
the instructions to the church at large.
These are the things that the apostles were teaching these new
converts to observe or to obey.
So I was meditating on this one day and it brought me back to Acts chapter
one, where it mentions that in the 40 days between Jesus's resurrection
and his ascending to the throne, ascending to the right hand of the
father, it says that he gave the apostles commandments and he also spoke of
things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
And I, it's just one of my, I can't wait to, to maybe they, maybe they
videotaped these things, these 40 days, but we're given very little information
about exactly what Jesus taught them.
But by implication, I would say that the things that he, that he taught them
about the kingdom were then what he gave them to teach the disciples to observe.
So if you think about this from a kingdom perspective, Jesus was launching
this outpost of earth called earth.
He was launching his kingdom blueprint on planet earth.
And so the way that, that he came up with to do this was I'm going to take
these apostles, these sent ones, these, these planters, and I'm going to tell
them to go into these different geographies and to start winning converts
and then discipling them and teaching them to observe a certain way of living
that then if those individuals, and that's all of us, would begin to live
that way, the leaven of the kingdom would spread in all of these different,
not only geographies, but, but spheres of life as well.
So I believe it was Jesus's worldwide kingdom expansion blueprint that, that
was what he launched with the great commission.
So the bottom line is that as we, the disciples of Jesus live out our lives
according to Jesus's kingdom blueprint, where we're planted and in every place
and sphere of influence, the leavening power of the kingdom
will transform the whole world.
I believe that was, that's Jesus's takeover plan.
Again, I've said it in previous classes that Jesus did not come
primarily as a rescue mission.
He came as a transformation.
He came to redeem us, to make us kings and priests, to reign on the earth.
It really was regime change when he, when he disarmed the principalities
and powers and he bound Satan.
And then he, he put all things under his feet and he's given his head
over all things to us as church.
So this is why I call it the greater commission.
I'm not trying to be irreverent to take anything away from the apostles.
But I think, again, it's, it's like we can be so focused on the big and the
high and the mighty and the lofty that we, that we forget the everyday power
of the commissioning of we as disciples.
So I believe, I believe it's the greater commission for two reasons.
One, it's given to every Christian.
It isn't just for the select few.
We are each and all commissioned to live out our daily lives as
disciples of Jesus in an intentional and a missional way with faith.
So again, we go back to the teachings of Jesus.
He says, we are the salt of the earth.
We are the light of the world.
We're the leavening agent that's been mixed into the dough
of the world to affect change.
This commissioning includes doing the works that Jesus did.
You can remember from, from John 14, 12, that Jesus said that
the works that he did, we will do.
He says, but then greater works we will do because he goes to the father.
So, but the commissioning includes doing the works Jesus did under the anointing
and the power of the Holy Spirit.
But then the second reason I call it the greater commission, and I just kind of
tip, tip my hand on that one is because we're called to do the greater works,
which Jesus did not do.
Again, he did not do those, he didn't do the works of reformation.
These are the works of cultural reformation, which we read about in Isaiah 61, 3-4, that
we spoke of in a previous class, and it talks about the rebuilding, restoring, and repairing
of the ruined cities.
This really is a greater commission, and when we embrace it with faith and an expectation
that it's really going to work, I mean, I don't think Jesus came to launch a failing
enterprise that he would have to once again come back and give us an upgrade.
So I like to refer to us that are sons of the kingdom, daughters of the kingdom, that
we who have been born into the kingdom of God, born of the spirit of God, I call it
human 2.0, just like there was Adam 1.0, and Jesus was the last Adam, so he's Adam 2.0,
and the final Adam, we are human 2.0.
We have been redeemed and elevated to this place of reigning and ruling on the earth,
and anything that Adam was given to do, I can't imagine us being commissioned to do
anything less considering the price that Jesus paid to establish his kingdom on the earth.
So I'll just close with a little story, or a little way, a metaphor maybe, of thinking
about this kingdom, this greater commission.
It's a teacher that I used to listen to a lot, and I just want to give him a shout-out.
His name is Dennis Peacock, and he was one of the early pioneers, first talking about
things like the kingdom of God outside of the walls of the church, and marketplace ministries,
and really kingship in so many words.
But he referenced this plan, this kingdom expansion plan, and again, he was addressing
business people in this context.
So just like Jesus, when Jesus gave parables, and he was addressing an agricultural society,
so a lot of his parables are agricultural, we Western 21st century Christians, sometimes
we have to learn a little bit about agriculture to be able to really get the gist of some
of his parables.
So Dennis Peacock gave, he didn't call it a parable, but I will, to business people
or marketplace people, and he dubbed it Almighty and Sons, and he spoke of the kingdom of God
as being like a franchise, okay?
And so the franchisor, or the owner of this company, he's the one who has, who's developed
and has the goods and the services that this franchise is going to bring to the earth.
And so the products of the franchise, the kingdom of God franchise, the products would
be righteousness, justice, peace on earth, you know, these kinds of things that the whole
world wants.
The marketplace wants these things, whether they know it or not.
But so he's the one that designed the product, he gave us the product and described it and
defined it, and then he gave us the operating system because a franchise does that.
A franchise says, okay, we've got this recipe, we've got this product that we believe the
earth people are really going to want, and so also there's an operating manual and there's
an operating system.
And so the franchisor provides all of those things, the products, the goods and services,
and the operating system, and the brand name, and then we, the franchisee, we provide the
local outlet.
So we're the planting of the Lord.
So if you are born of the Spirit of God and you live in Colorado Springs, Colorado, you
have a kingdom of God franchise, and you don't have to go create or invent the product and
service.
You just have to live the life per the operating manual, the way it instructs, again, those
apostolic teachings.
And if you live your life in faith, in your local community, and in your spheres of influence,
your product will be desirable by the people around you.
People really do want to live good lives.
People are in a quest to find rest in their soul, and the psalmist said, only in God is
my soul at rest.
Well, the world doesn't know that, and they don't know how life works, and there's a lot
of confusion out there today, and there's a lot of all the wrong voices trying to teach
people.
It's an inferior product.
It's a franchise that's declining.
That's the world system franchise.
It's really bad ideas, some of the really bad ideas about gender and things like that.
Think about it.
They're not sustainable.
They won't last very long.
But the kingdom of God product and service is real peace and real joy on the inside.
It's the way life works.
And if we'll live that out, if we'll establish that franchise, our product, our Father's
brand will grow until it ultimately fills the earth.
So this is kingship reformation, guys.
This is what we are signed up for.
This is what we've been redeemed for.
We get to be the franchisees.
We get to be the ones that go into our communities, our families, our spheres of influence, and
bring the character, the ways, the praises.
This is an unbeatable, undefeatable franchise,
an undefeatable commission that we've been given.
So embrace it and go for it with faith.
Until next time, we'll see you in the next Kingship Reformation class.
Thank you.