Sunday message · Jesus Changes Everything series
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Message Summary
In this message, Pastor Phillip Santillan asks what the meaning and purpose of life is. Online answers range from a psychologist’s claim that we exist to keep existing to Stephen Hawking’s view that work gives life meaning, which Phil finds about as helpful as the answer 42 from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Jesus reveals a purpose unlike anything the world offers, one we don’t embrace by default, which is why Clarity keeps talking about it.
For generations, followers of Jesus have built their purpose on the Great Commandments and the Great Commission. Jesus named the greatest commandments: love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37–40). Ralph Waldo Emerson’s call to be useful, honorable and compassionate borrows Christian values, but transcendentalism is not Christianity, Phil says, and Jesus’ commands can’t be reduced to loving others and making a difference. Followers must also love God, which Scripture defines as obedience (1 John 2:5). Jesus said, “If you love me, obey my commandments” (John 14:15). Obedience, Phil jokes, is God’s love language.
Rather than unpack love in a polarizing age, Phil cites Kathy Keller, who calls the Great Commission our guide in such times: the gospel of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection carries the Spirit’s power to change hearts, minds, lives and communities, and taking it to the world is our privilege. The Great Commission, Phil says, is both the foundation for why we love others and a tangible way to show love for God and others. Thom Rainer notes that thriving churches center their vision on it while dying churches forget it, and Phil has never seen a dying church wholeheartedly making disciples of all nations.
In Matthew 28, Jesus declares that all authority in heaven and on earth is his, and the first thing he says with it is go and make disciples; his last words promised the Spirit’s power to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. Those still exploring faith are off the hook, Phil says, but believers must ask whether they are living out the commandments and the commission or hiding behind what he playfully calls “big buts”: but my kids have practice, but they won’t like me if I talk about Jesus, but isn’t that the pastor’s job? If our buts are bigger than our why, it’s time to shrink them.
Phil dislikes using guilt, so he speaks to the church as a whole. COVID, its aftermath, hard finances, a change of location and people relocating all handed the church excuses, and he believes now is the time to set them aside and reach more people for Jesus. Jesus has been changing him since he gave his life to Christ at fifteen; why keep that to ourselves? The work of Jesus in our lives is most evident, Phil concludes, when our purpose is reoriented around the Great Commission, which is great not only for the commitment it takes but for the change it makes in disciples who make disciples everywhere they go.
