Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go thereforeand make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,20 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.” Amen.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. —Deuteronomy 6:4-5

Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD. —Leviticus 19:18

The Great Commission, the call for the Gospel to be preached throughout the nations has reached the last nation on earth, the Rainbow Nation.

The Great Commission at its heart is the Gospel Good news of God's redemption on earth and in heaven. It will be a grave sin if we reduce the Good News to nothing more than the Old Testament law to love God and to love each another. 

It was not business as usual for Jesus changed it all. Yet, we faced a great mountain, for the GLBT tribe has faced the brunt of condemnation and bondage via the law that Christians has put on them. They would have nothing to do with the church nor the Gospel message. That is why GLBT churches remains generally small even if they were the only Gay church in the entire city. For the Law has been the wall of bondage.

When we preach the law, in the guise of the Love Comandments, we are no different than the likes of Love Singapore. People Come, people Go. We are bringing our Egypt, our Mt Sinai into the promised land, when we should be looking upwards to Mt Zion.

Loving God and loving others as ourselves is not enough. In Acts 10, the Roman Centurion Cornelius was a God fearer and gave alms to the poor. He prayed and worshiped the God of Israel. But he still needed to be born again. The Apostle Peter was called to preach the Gospel of redemption in Christ Jesus to the good Centurion.

Hitherto, the call was to follow the law, to love God and to love each other. But we were doomed to fail. Humanity could never fulfill the Law. Indeed the law was a curse and a bad news.  The Law was the very reason why Gays were persecuted by zealous Christians in the first place. Why are we still proclaiming in Law, albeit, in the form of the love commandments?

Hence, the Great Commission was instead to baptise people into the Kingdom of God by faith that Jesus is God, and that He died and rose again for our sins. It is no longer about us, it is all about Jesus Christ.

The call for the Great Commission was proclaimed after Jesus had been resurrected. Now sitting at the right hand of the Father, ALL authority was given to Him.  There was power given, to baptise in the name of Jesus, to be able to go out to preach the Gospel of Salvation, heal the sick and wounded, and bind the works of the devil.

Many Christians have changed the Great Commission to either

a) The Great Defence to be moral defenders against Gays in keeping ourselves clean and holy wearing white garments.

b) The Great Commandment to Love God, and to Love one another in doing good works

Both are still the law, about doing, about our own holiness and righteousness and not God's. The law will fail. The great commandment had failed for the Pharisees ended up killing Jesus, they ended up killing God instead of loving God.

We shouldn't reduce the Gospel as if the resurrection never occured. We are commissioned to proclaim the Gospel Good news and not the old and failed bad news of the law which we never fulfilled. When we fall back to the love commandments, it becomes the Great Ommission.

When our Great Commission is based on the old commission and remained exalting the law, we end up being greater sinners as moral crusaders, or continually repenting for not loving enough. We will missed out on the presence and resurrected power of God. Our faith is in vain if in remains in the law.

When churches refrained from preaching the Good news and only proclaimed universal love for humanity and acknowledgement of God only as a mysterious higher power, they ended up declining rapidly in church growth. This is no miracle but a recipe for conflicts and strive because we don't bring God and faith in. Jesus is not with us, for He is at the door asking to come in whilst we play church inside being lovy duvy.

When we follow the Great Comandment of love, we may end up denying God, just as the Pharisees and peter did. Many Christians don't see Jesus as God. They called God a mystery and a God of many names, and proclaiming that there are many ways to God. There is only one Name above all names. His name is Jesus, whom dwells the fullness of the Godhead. When we see Jesus, we see God.

There is power and glory given to this name of Jesus for which mankind are to be baptised and to be saved. Prior to resurrection, there was no power, only the demand to "Better follow the Law!". We are leveraging on the power of the risen Lord, having the right to be family with God after being baptised into the Kingdom of God.

The purpose of the Great Comission was not about the Law or the Love Commandments. For that, Jesus needn't have come to earth because it was already recited by the Jews day and night.

The Great Commandment of Love was not a teaching to the baptised but a play of words and a sarcastic reply to the Jewish Pharisees. The Jews would have laughed at the Pharisees for Jesus was putting them in a tight spot, whether they have shown God's Grace and mercy. They being experts of the Law and reciting daily were not following the law. 

Shema Yisrael of loving God (Deut 6:4-5) is about faithfullness to God. How the Isralites failed to love God was their tendency to worship other gods! Lev 19:18 are commandments of kindness.

 The Pharisees failed both laws - they rejected God when they rejected Jesus. They were harsh and demanding without any kindness in executing the law, even adding many additional laws to put people in bondage. They insisted on crucifying Jesus. There was no grace nor mercy in their religious hearts. But they knew it not.

The Pharisees were so dedicated to the Love Commandments, yet they failed and dont even realised they had failed. The harder the church tries to follow the law, the greater failure it will be. The more FCBC and Love Singapore insist on the law, the more harm and injustice are done.

The power of the law is to show us that our common humanity is innately sinful. Mankind are sinners after the first Adam.

The resurrection power, the power to be baptised into the body of Jesus, is to receive a new body that is clean within. The first Adam was tainted with a sin nature. We will have a confessing church each Sunday asking for forgiveness of failing to love, or failing to persecute gays.

The second Adam, is Jesus Christ, who is totally righteous, and whose righteosness will be imputed to us. ie we do the works of compassion and love because it is our nature and not because we are commanded to do so.

The Power of love is come from within, because there is now no need for self justification. Our righteousness is in Jesus Christ. There is no place for self righteousness. We bring nothing to the table except a sinful old creation to be exchanged for a new creation. We don't bring bread and wine to the table, for it is already a given at the table for us to partake. The bring the main dish of bread and wine is to insult the host.

The Jewish Christians like some Christians did not understand the Great Commission because they were law minded. Many stayed in Jerusalem and did not go out to the nations. They became comfortable.

 We should tarry in prayer that all the power and authority will be given to us to bind the strong man, the devil of old. For just like Paul and Barnabas, the Holy Spirit will send us out in to the last nation on earth, the Rainbow Nation.  There is a call to redeem the Rainbow. We can't do it by power or might, but by resting in the Holy Spirit of God. It starts first by coming Home to the Father heart of God.

As we GLBT Christians go Home from the harsh desert of religious condemnation under the Law into the new promised land of freedom in many nations and cities where they are coming out of the closet, let us not be remained entangled in the law. We don't bring the law into the new covenant of grace.

Let us GO into the promised land that God has given us, no by law, not our might, nor power, but by God's Grace, by the Spirit of God in the power of the resurrected Christ. The Rainbow Harvest awaits us.

Zec 4:2 And he said to me, “What do you see?” So I said, “I am looking, and there is a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it, and on thestand seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps. 3 Two olive trees are by it, one at the right of the bowl and the other at its left.” 

Zec 4:4 So I answered and spoke to the angel who talked with me, saying, “What are these, my lord?” 5 Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, “Do you not know what these are?” And I said, “No, my lord.” 6 So he answered and said to me: “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the Lord of hosts.

Zec 4:7 ‘Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain! And he shall bring forth the capstone With shouts of “Grace, grace to it!”’”

Today, we shout Grace, Grace to the mountain before us as we enter into the Promised land where God is proclaimed to the Rainbow nation resting on the finished work of the Cross of Calvary.