In the Name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and may our Lord and Savior sanctify you in the truth, for His word is truth. Amen

The Holy Trinity (2011)

Observing All the Lord has Commanded Rev. Toby Byrd

Matthew 28:20 (ESV)

teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

On this Holy Trinity Sunday we celebrate the Triune God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, especially remembering the words of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who, in giving the Great Commission of the Church to His disciples, told them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV). Therefore, through these words, our Lord Jesus established the mission and educational work of the Church.

It is fitting that The Feast of the Holy Trinity should fall on Father’s Day, because it is to father’s that God grants headship. He says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4 ESV). He further instructs fathers, regarding the Ten Commandments and His holy Word, saying, “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deut. 6:7 ESV). This is why Luther begins his Small Catechism by saying, “as the head of the family should teach…his household.”

Luther knew that God had placed fathers at the spiritual head of their families. Thus father’s are in charge of and responsible for teaching the Christian faith (Scripture and doctrine) in the home by word and example. However, this instruction from Luther is less about duty and more about fathers loving their children so much that they will earnestly desire to begin feeding them with the God’s Saving Word from the crib. Thus Luther’s admonition begs fathers to sing the liturgy to their children, to pray with them, to teach them the Small Catechism, and to help and support them with a loving, sacrificial example. In this way fathers fulfill the command of Christ to ensure that their children observe all that the Lord has commanded?

This same responsibility of teaching is also given to the Church. God spoke to Aaron and said, “you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses” (Leviticus 10:11 ESV). Also, as we read in the Gospel Reading for today, Jesus instructs His apostles, and therefore the Church that when it comes to making new disciples, we are to be “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (v. 20). Thus the function of the Church is to teach God’s Commandments through Word and Sacrament, thereby leading God’s people to salvation. However, people today seem to have great difficulty conceiving of the Church as an educational agency. It’s more appealing to think of the Church as a hospital, where the sick receive healing; or to think of the Church as a reform center, where the erring can find guidance; or to think of the Church as a social organization, where the lonely can find fellowship; and to be sure, to think of the Church as a temple, where human souls can worship. However, we often find it difficult to remember that in the plan and purpose of Christ the Church is also to be a school, where young and old are to be educated in the true doctrines of Holy Scripture.

Today, most Christian churches recognize the importance and necessity of doing mission work, of making disciples. However, it is a completely different matter when it comes to the teaching responsibilities of the Church. It is a sad thing to relate that most church bodies today have forgotten that the Lord in His Great Commission immediately follows up the command to make disciples with the command to educate young and old by, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (v. 20). In addition to being a mission Church, Jesus also wanted the Church to be a teaching Church because when her people were properly trained in the doctrine and ways of the Lord, the Church would be a strong Church.

The Church of the apostolic age recognized the importance of Christian education. If you look through the New Testament in search of passages which describe the teaching activity of the early Christian Church, you will be amazed to discover how much of the early life of the Church was devoted to the task of Christian education. We read from Acts, “And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ” (Acts 5:42 ESV). Again, “And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them” (Acts 18:11 ESV), and “He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance” (Acts 28:30-31 ESV). Furthermore, this prolific teacher, St. Paul; reminds the Corinthians, “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28 ESV). Furthermore, he encouraged others to teach, “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” (1 Tim. 4:13 ESV). He warns us to be mindful of our teaching, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim. 4:16 ESV). And he provides an accurate portrait of those who would teach false doctrine, “If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain” (1 Tim. 6:3-5 ESV). The apostolic Church was a strong Church because it was a teaching Church with strong teachers, teaching the true Word of God. However, as we know, through the teaching of men, errors begin to creep into the teaching of the Church.

Satan never tires of perverting the teaching of God’s Word. Ego’s, jealousy, pride, ambition and so many other human frailties begin to influence the teaching of the Church that in due time it became difficult and sometimes impossible to find God’s Word in the teaching of the Church. The Church wanted to turn Christ into another Law giver. Rather than listening to His offer of kind, compassionate, and gracious forgiveness, the leaders of the Church turned Christ into a judge and perverted His Word so that men had to rely on their efforts rather than the effort of Christ to find salvation. They wanted rules to lead them to heaven instead of the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ. They had lost the truth of the apostolic age of the Church.

If we scan the history of the Christian Church, we would see that there is only one other era in the history of Christendom which can compare with the apostolic era of the Church and that would be the age of the Reformation. It is in this era that we find the same emphasis on teaching God’s holy Word in all its truth. Like the apostolic Church, the Reformation Church was also a teaching Church. Luther’s writings abound as to the importance of a thorough Christian education in God’s Word. Each of us are familiar with that remarkable little book, the Small Catechism, and we know what a powerful influence it had in the furtherance of the Reformation and the edifying of young minds to the ways of God. That little book was an instrument for teaching the common people God’s Word. Like a prairie fire, the Reformation swept over Europe changing hearts and minds through the Gospel truth regarding the forgiveness of sin through the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christian catechesis and the Small Catechism were instrumental in the Reformation of the Church and Europe.

Within much of the Church today we see very little of a devotion to the truth of the Word of God. In large areas of the modern Church, there is very little true teaching of the doctrines expressed in God’s Word. Therefore, it is most difficult to call such churches Christian, because the Christian religion must be taught! People must be taught the doctrine of Creation and the doctrine of the Fall; they must be taught the doctrine of original sin and the doctrine of the justice of God if they are to be led to Christ and His Gospel. People must be taught the doctrine of the incarnation and the Virgin Birth; they must be taught the doctrine of the Person of Christ; they must be taught the doctrine of the atonement; they must be taught to believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, died on the cross for their sins and rose again; they must be taught the way of salvation through faith in this crucified Savior.

Given this truth, we cannot help but wonder why, among the multitudes of modern day churches, this type of teaching is not being done. The result of this lack of teaching is a decline in members and a decline in mission work. Witness-bearing has become unfashionable, and multitudes of Church members, young and old, are incredibly ignorant of even the fundamental truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If the churches of America want to wield an effective and decisive influence in the world, and especially within her own borders, they must remember the words of our Lord, Jesus Christ; “Go and make disciples . . . . teaching them to observe all I have commanded.” The Great Commission makes it very plain that education is not incidental, but that it is fundamental to the life and work of the Church.

Happily I can say that fundamentally, the Lutheran Church –Missouri Synod is a teaching church; a church that teaches the truth of Holy Scripture that all humanity are like lost sheep, wandering in strange and dangerous pastures, uncertain of their destiny. However, there is One who will rescue humanity from their wandering and lead them to their appointed destiny; eternal life in God’s heavenly pasture. That One is Jesus Christ. However, how are they to hear the call of the Divine Shepherd; through no other means than God’s revealed Word of Holy Scripture? Thus through the efforts of the Church, teaching the Word of the Living God, the Holy Spirit calls and enlightens the lost giving them the gift of faith to believe in the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation.

To be certain there are times when we feel we are failing in our effort to meet the Lord’s command of the Great Commission. We feel that we are inadequate and our contribution to the welfare of mankind is insignificant. However, such feelings come from our sinful flesh and the prompting of Satan. He would like nothing more than for the Church to get a defeatist attitude and throw up its collective hands in surrender. When tempted with surrender, we are reminded that our Lord Jesus did not surrender; He did not succumb to His sorrow in the garden of Gethsemane. Instead, He put His trust and His life into the hands of His heavenly Father, trusting implicitly that God would see Him through His travail. This He will also do for us.

When our Lord Jesus gave the Church His Great Commission, He also gave us a wonderful promise to go with it. When He said to teach, “them to observe all that I have commanded you” He also said, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

What a marvelous truth to hold to, if we observe all that our Lord commands, He will be with us to the end of the age. What, we might ask, is observing all that our Lord commands? It is nothing more than holding fast to His means of grace; the Saving Word of the Gospel and the sin cleansing Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. However, to do so, we must be taught the truth of their efficacy; we must be taught that such are pure gifts from our heavenly Father to keep us in communion with His Son, the propitiator of our sin, we must be taught that it is not our efforts, but the sole effort of His Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ that justifies and reconciles us to His heavenly Father and saves us from our sin. We must be taught that it is the Holy Spirit who converts our stubborn hearts and graciously gives us the gift of faith to believe in the atoning sacrifice of Christ for the forgiveness of sin, and, furthermore, it is He alone who continues to sanctify us in this truth; helping us to grow in Christian faith and stature. We must be taught that when this life ends, God will graciously bring us to live with Him for eternity solely because of the life, death, and resurrection of His blessed Son, Jesus Christ who gave His life as a ransom for our souls and payment for our sins. When we observe all that our Lord commands, it is simply conforming to the truth of God’s revealed, inerrant Word of Holy Scripture. Amen.

May the Peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.