Matthew 28:16-20 Genesis 1:26-28; 2:1-4.
Some people do not really enjoy doctrinal teachings. They think they are boring and do not understand or relate to them. As a matter of fact, theology is nothing more than what you think about God. If someone shouts that he doesn’t believe in God, then, that is his theology. He is expressing his thought about God, that he doesn’t think exist in his world. Whether they believe or don’t believe, they all point to one thing. Is God real or not?
We, as a Uniting Church, honour the lectionary readings and the seasons of the church year because those lectionary readings and the church calendar have been carefully and practically organised based on the three-year basis and they all point to one thing: ‘God lives in your life’.
Today is Trinity Sunday. Matthew gospel reading today is often called ‘the final commission’, which means there would be no more commission other than this that Jesus has given us. It reads, “Go to all peoples everywhere and make them my followers. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to keep and practice everything I have commanded you.”
Trinity is about God in three persons–Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Do we fully understand this wonderful doctrine? Someone once asked Mrs. Albert Einstein if she understood her husband’s theory of relativity. “No”, she said, “but I know my husband.”
We cannot understand fully the incomprehensible mysteries of God, but that does not mean that we cannot know God. Maybe, we don’t even need to fully understand the theology of Trinity God, but that does not mean we cannot know of God.
Again, is God real to you? Is he more real to you than your breakfast and everything you do in your daily life. Even when some unfortunate things happen to you and your loved ones, would you still claim that God is real to you?
In the 2006 film Blood Diamond, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a cynical diamond smuggler operating against the horrific backdrop of Sierra Leone’s years’ civil war. And the main character has lost his own parents to violence at a young age, he has grown numb to a world consumed by corruption, slaughter, and the abduction of children. Witnessing the devastation around him, he utters a haunting line: “God left this place a long time ago.” Simply put, there once was God here, but not anymore.
He is not alone in that sentiment. In our twenty-first-century world, when people witness the relentless march of war, terrors and mass casualties, they frequently become numb but deep inside them, they still ask: “Where is God in all this? If God really exists, how could He allow such evil things to continue?”
The violence in Sierra Leone decades ago—and the conflicts still raging across the world today—they are not a reflection of God’s absence. They reflect human choices. It is human greed, corporate exploitation, and relentless political ambition that seek power over others whatever it takes.
We see this play out on a global scale all the time. When nations focus exclusively on their own prosperity, pursuing economic dominance in this competitive world, their “winning” inevitably creates losers. For instance, when a superpower demands to “Make America Great Again,” that national greatness often comes at the expense of vulnerable, developing nations that simply cannot keep up.
As Christians, we frequently proclaim the commandment to “love our neighbours as ourselves” within our churches, homes, and schools. Yet, we rarely demand that same standard of love in international relations or global politics. This greedy, narrow worldview is the exact opposite of what God wants for His Kingdom.
In Genesis chapter 1, God created the universe and everything in it. The creation story beautifully claims that when God made human beings, He created them in His own image and likeness. Simply put, every single human being carries a piece of God’s image inside them, regardless of their race, culture, or religion.
For some people, that divine image might be broken or deeply damaged, but they still have some portion of God’s image somewhere inside them even though they don’t realise it.
It is very much like family. We cannot easily disown or hate our own family members, even when they make terrible mistakes or behave badly. Why? Because we share the same DNA; we carry a common likeness that binds us together. Our shared blood makes it almost impossible to completely turn our backs on them.
The same is true for the human family. If we truly believe that God created humanity in His own divine image, then we must remember that every single person across this world still carries a piece of God inside them.
No individual and no nation in this global village has the right to use their power to dominate others just to make themselves greater. In the eyes of God, that is completely a sin, that makes the death of Jesus on the cross two thousand years ago seem entirely in vain.
Very unfortunately, Jesus’ final commission that ‘Go and make disciples of all nations. Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you’ has been misunderstood by many Christian communities around the world. In the past, some Christian groups even believed they had the right to force their ways on others, thinking they were doing ‘evangelism’.
I don’t believe that is right at all. When Jesus tells us to “teach” people in the Great Commission, we need to be careful not to use our modern, Western definition of teaching. Today, we usually picture a teacher standing at a whiteboard in a classroom, passing facts down to students who sit at desks taking notes and obeying.
The original word for “teach” is lamad. In the ancient world, this word was actually a farming term. It comes from the word for an “ox goad or stick”—which was simply a long wooden rod a farmer used to gently keep a young ox walking in a straight line while plowing a field.
In this context, to the people listening to Jesus at Jesus’ time, “teaching” didn’t mean filling someone’s head with information. It meant walking right alongside someone and gently guiding their steps.
This is exactly how Jesus lived with His disciples for three long years. He loved them, shared His life with them, and ultimately sacrificed His own life for them. It was never a classroom lecture; it was hands-on, daily life training. They walked together, wept together, laughed together, and simply lived life together.
Today, Jesus is asking you to do the exact same thing for others—especially for those who say they do not believe in God. God wants you to build real friendships with them, to walk alongside them, and to share in their daily lives. Through this living training, they might begin to see that God is real.
Among others, Jesus asks us to do this in the name of the Triune God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is not trying to teach us the doctrine of Trinity of God. God means that in this life-changing mission, you are never on your own. The Father who created you, the Son who redeemed you, and the mysterious fellowship of the Holy Spirit are living and working within you every step of the way.
With all of this in mind, I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to hear Jesus’ final commission in a fresh way today: “He is asking us to go out into the entire world—not to demand that people become just like us, and not to lecture them like schoolteachers. Instead, He calls us to love them as our very own family and friends. We aren’t sent to force a new religion upon anyone, but rather to invite them onto a shared journey where we discover God together.”
Our new evangelism in this post-Christendom world is to walk side-by-side with people just as Christ walks with us. It is to help them gently back to the right path when they stumble, laugh with them, weep with them, and live together until God becomes real to them.
Remember! You are never walking alone. The Triune God is with you always in this new and final commission to the very end of the age. Friends! God is real. God came and lived, among you. He is already in your life. So, enjoy Him, and share Him with others until you leave this planet earth.
