Rummage: Is there a beating heart?
By Melissa Lilley
GREENSBORO (BSCNC Communications) - When Chris Brady met Bill Wohl for the first time he brought with him a stethoscope and asked if he could put it against Bill’s chest and hear his heart beat. Brady wanted to hear the beating heart of his brother, Michael, one more time. Michael, a stuntman for Universal Studios, fell from a ladder and hit his head, dying instantly. Michael was 36 years old. After being kept alive 159 days on an artificial heart, Bill received Michael’s heart. Bill tells people, “Every day, all day, I thank God for Michael Brady. When I ride, when I work out . . . the biggest thing is to honor him.”
Stephen Rummage opened his message Tuesday evening during the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina annual session with this story and the Convention Sermon centered on this question: is the heart of Jesus beating inside your chest? “For every believer in Jesus Christ, His heartbeat is our heartbeat,” Rummage said. With Matthew 28:18-20 as his text, Rummage walked North Carolina Baptists through these three verses, demonstrating that the heartbeat of Jesus is about the Great Commission – seeing people come to faith in Him.
Rummage, pastor of Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Fla., presented what he calls the four universals of the Great Commission, and he started with the authority of Jesus Christ. The text from Matthew says that Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth. When the religious leaders asked Jesus by what authority he performed miracles, “Jesus basically said, ‘I’m not going to tell you,’” Rummage told the crowd. “Do you know why He didn’t have to tell them? Because when you’ve got that kind of authority you don’t have to tell them.”
Even in death Jesus demonstrated His authority, because “the Lord Jesus laid down His life willingly. He laid down His life by His own authority,” Rummage said. Jesus’ authority knows no boundaries, and one day every person will stand before Him and be judged based on that authority. Knowing the kind of authority Jesus has should bring hope to every believer, for this means believers can witness with authority.
Believers are not just to witness, but they are to make disciples. Not just disciples in the neighborhood or across the street, but disciples of all nations. In Matthew 28:18-20, the main command is not to baptize or to go, but to make disciples. “There is only one imperative in the Great Commission: make disciples,” Rummage said. “A disciple is a follower. A disciple is someone who follows the master until he becomes like the master. I want you to go to all kinds of people and make them into followers of Jesus. Why does Jesus want followers? Because He loves people. Do you love people enough to go?”
Making disciples of all nations is the second universal in the Great Commission. Rummage pointed out that the word “go” in the text does not mean “as you go” or “since you are going” – it is a command with much more urgency than that. Every day people are dying and going to hell because they do not know Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior. The command to go is “urgent, it’s dangerous, and you’ve got to get up and go out. He has sent us to go,” Rummage said. Eighty-two percent of people are open to an invitation to come to church, yet most have never been invited because people in the church don’t care enough to ask them. Rummage challenged North Carolina Baptists to take a risk and go. “If we are standing still we are backing up,” he said.
The process of making disciples, the third universal in the Great Commission, requires believers to teach people to obey all Jesus commanded. Rummage made the distinction between an event and a process, and noted that making disciples involves both. Baptism is an event, as it symbolizes a spiritual reality. Salvation is also an event, “the greatest event I’ve ever known about in all my life,” Rummage said. Yet, “Jesus goes beyond the event of baptizing disciples to talk about the process of growing disciples. If the process is not what it should be, the event never becomes all it should be.” For example, a wedding ceremony is an event. But no matter how beautiful the dress, or wonderful the music, if the couple does not commit themselves to a godly marriage, the process means nothing. “Too many couples have beautiful weddings followed by ugly marriages,” Rummage said. “If a wedding ceremony is not followed by a process called a godly marriage, the event is going to fall apart.”
Rummage closed by speaking to the promise of the mission. As believers in Jesus Christ go and make disciples, they go in His power and with His presence. “Nothing can separate us from that promise,” he said. “He’s with us.”
