SPEAKER_00: Um, we study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel, and we have extra copies.
SPEAKER_00: If you didn't bring one, you'd like one to follow along, raise your hand up real high, and uh somebody will come down the aisle here and get one to you so that you can uh track along with us in the text.
SPEAKER_00: After uh last week, by the way, which was wonderful, thank you to all of you who came to Easter Sunday and brought your friends, and um what a wonderful time it was together celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: After Jesus died and rose again from the tomb, he gave his disciples what has come to be called the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: What does that term mean?
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to you?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, how does it relate uh to our role with God's mission in the world?
SPEAKER_00: And uh how does our understanding of God's mission help define who we are to be as God's people and Christ's followers?
SPEAKER_00: If Christians have been entrusted with the great news that God in Christ is restoring all of his creation, how should that impact the way we live out the Great Commission in a world that is bound by the darkness it seems to love more than it the light that it so desperately needs?
SPEAKER_00: Uh so we're gonna turn then to Matthew 28, and we're gonna read literally just five verses today, verses 16 through 20.
SPEAKER_00: I'll remind you that as we've come through the Gospel of Matthew, uh, it's 28 chapters.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we've studied 1,600 or 1,063 verses so far.
SPEAKER_00: We've got five more left.
SPEAKER_00: So there are 1,068 verses, which is a trivia fact that only geeks like me really like to know about.
SPEAKER_00: But um we've studied the person of Christ in Matthew 1 through 4.
SPEAKER_00: We've looked at the principles of Christ, especially uh focused in on the Sermon on the Mount there, Matthew 5, 6, and 7.
SPEAKER_00: The power of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We I think we studied 10 of the miracles of Jesus that are cataloged there between chapters 8 and 28, and within the context of that as well, some of the parables of Christ uh in chapters 13 through 25.
SPEAKER_00: Now we come in this last segment as we've broken it out here at the village chapel in our teaching schedule, our preaching schedule.
SPEAKER_00: We're calling this the Passion of the Christ, Matthew 21 through 28.
SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of you are used to the Passion of the Christ as a term referring to the suffering of Jesus in the week leading up to his cross, his death on the cross, and all of that.
SPEAKER_00: But I also would like to use the word passion to describe the goals, the mission, the purposes of Jesus, what motivated him to do this?
SPEAKER_00: What was he so passionate about that moved him to come?
SPEAKER_00: He did not have to.
SPEAKER_00: He did not owe that to us.
SPEAKER_00: We did not deserve him coming and dying on the cross for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: And so in this particular pericopey, the way we've broken out the passage, these five verses, we have what we call uh the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: And um that's what we'll we'll study for today.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read the text in just a moment, if you'll allow me a prayer for illumination.
SPEAKER_00: Father, as we open our hearts and minds to your word today, may your presence be our joy and delight.
SPEAKER_00: May your promises be our hope and our confidence, and may your purposes become our passion and our mission as well.
SPEAKER_00: Give us, we pray, a clearer vision of your truth, a greater faith in your power, and a more confident assurance of your love for us.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen and amen.
SPEAKER_00: So set your eyes on the page, just these five verses.
SPEAKER_00: And I realize we have a variety of different English translations here in the church, but I'll try to make some uh just just a very few comments as we go through the five verses.
SPEAKER_00: The eleven disciples now are together, and uh after they've been told that Jesus had risen from the dead, Jesus instructed, especially the women we studied in Matthew uh chapter 27.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord wanted the women to tell the disciples to go on to Galilee, and there he would meet with them.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a reference to that right here, where the disciples are proceeded to get they proceeded to Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: That's in the northern third of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And uh when Jesus rose from the grave, of course, that's down near Jerusalem in the southern third of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: In the middle, we have what we call Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: And so they are now, they've moved toward the eleven disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Judas is gone, uh, proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to do a book someday or have somebody do it.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's already been done a hundred times.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the mountains of the Bible and all the events that have taken place on mountains.
SPEAKER_00: I love it that Jesus said, go to this mountain and he designated one.
SPEAKER_00: Was it the same mountain where he taught what we call the Sermon on the Mount?
SPEAKER_00: Um, or was it perhaps the Mount of Transfiguration?
SPEAKER_00: Or uh was it perhaps uh the area which is elevated where he said, Who do you say I am to his disciples uh up there near Caesarea Philippi?
SPEAKER_00: Don't know which mountain this one is, and um, but I but I love it that we're given that kind of live-body detail as we read what clearly is a historical eyewitness account here by Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: When they saw him, verse 17 says, when these eleven saw Jesus, they worshiped him.
SPEAKER_00: And I have reflected on that all week long as well, and every time I think about getting a glimpse of Jesus, I think to myself, that's the proper response.
SPEAKER_00: Because if we really see him as he is, there's nothing but awe and astonishment and wonder that overtakes our hearts because of who he really is, that he's gentle and lowly, that he came when he didn't have to for us, for me, a sinner that I am.
SPEAKER_00: They fell down and worshipped him, and then there's this fascinating little phrase at the end of verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: Look there with me if you will.
SPEAKER_00: But some were doubtful.
SPEAKER_00: Now, my last name is Thomas, and um I'm encouraged by the fact that some of the disciples, and perhaps this is maybe, maybe by now, maybe by verse 17, Matthew's just summarizing that perhaps more than the eleven are there.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: He's certain Jesus was certainly quite popular in the northern region.
SPEAKER_00: That's where a lot of his earthly ministry took place.
SPEAKER_00: But some are there, and some are this admixture of let's bow down and worship him.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wait a minute, could this really be him?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, dead people don't get up from the grave.
SPEAKER_00: It's quite an unusual thing that he did.
SPEAKER_00: And some of them may have been in that process of kind of wrestling a little bit, asking some more questions.
SPEAKER_00: Are we just seeing things?
SPEAKER_00: Is this real?
SPEAKER_00: Could this be him?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we're not really told, but I do appreciate myself, maybe you do as well, that that at least is indicated that they're worshiping him, and at the same time they find themselves asking questions and kind of wondering.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, if you're like that, perhaps this verse will be one that will encourage you.
SPEAKER_00: Um the way Jesus responded to honest seekers is so beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: His gentle and lowly spirit, his welcoming arms.
SPEAKER_00: Um, his was not the disposition of heart of a wagging finger, but his arms were thrown open wide to receive those.
SPEAKER_00: And even when he came off the Mount of Transfiguration, the man that they encounter said to Jesus, Lord, I believe.
SPEAKER_00: Help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: And so a mixture like that, and perhaps you're like that as well, um, I know that I am.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not always 100% confident and ready to rock on everything.
SPEAKER_00: There are days when I wake up and I just go, Lord, what's wrong with this world?
SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with me?
SPEAKER_00: What's, you know, when will you just like the psalmist, you know, asking those same kind of questions.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came up then and spoke to them.
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad it doesn't say, uh, right after saying some of them were doubtful, and Jesus came up and threw lightning bolts on them.
SPEAKER_00: I'm really glad that's not what it says.
SPEAKER_00: He came up and he spoke to them, and there's a word of reassurance that's going to happen here.
SPEAKER_00: This is these last, I mean, when you think about what could Matthew have recorded as the last sort of word from Jesus to his disciples in his earthly ministry while he's here.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there are other accounts, and you can read at the end of the other three Gospels, you know, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as you can read the first chapter of the book of Acts, and you'll find some additional information.
SPEAKER_00: They don't contradict one another, they augment, they they they give us uh a whole picture of uh of what happened as Jesus' earthly ministries come to a close and he was about to ascend back on high.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus comes up and he speaks to these, and here's what Matthew remembers so beautifully that Jesus said this all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, go make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.
SPEAKER_00: And lo, I am with you all ways, even to the end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: Just so much here.
SPEAKER_00: It's only five verses, but we could go for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: I love the word all.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about that here in this church.
SPEAKER_00: It's a powerful three-letter word.
SPEAKER_00: Um and when Jesus opens the way he does here, and they're sitting there having this kind of admixture, some of them, of faith and a little bit of doubt or questions, and he comes and makes this kind of a statement.
SPEAKER_00: That's just to me, that's as if he's just read their hearts and their minds.
SPEAKER_00: He knows what they need to hear, and he says this.
SPEAKER_00: I love this uh ending uh of Matthew's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: I'm always sorry to see a book go.
SPEAKER_00: It feels to me like, as the, as we've been studying it for a year, it feels to me like we're saying farewell to a friend, a good and trusted friend, Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: And um uh, but I'm looking forward to 1, 2nd, and 3 John, which we begin next week, and I hope you will read ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Today is April 16th, on this day in 1521.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the German reformer Martin Luther arrived at the Diet of Worms.
SPEAKER_00: He was told to recant his criticisms of unbiblical church teaching and practice.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he said, Quote, I am bound by the scriptures, I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.
SPEAKER_00: Here I stand, I can do no other.
SPEAKER_00: May God help me.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder in our own day and time, our post-everything world.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's moved past the idea of wrestling now with just absolute truth.
SPEAKER_00: It's now wrestling with reality itself and questioning reality.
SPEAKER_00: No wonder we're confused.
SPEAKER_00: No wonder we're uncertain, no wonder our world gets shaken so often as we float around on the sea of uncertainty, slogging about through the mud of skepticism that assails our hearts and minds.
SPEAKER_00: Do you have trouble finding a place to stand?
SPEAKER_00: Um, is there a place that we can find that's steady, a place to stand?
SPEAKER_00: Upon what truths will we stand, even in the face of popular resistance or social rejection or criticism?
SPEAKER_00: As Matthew closes out his account of what Jesus had done and what he had said and what he accomplished, Matthew records Jesus' teaching.
SPEAKER_00: And what I'm, as I was reading through, I was trying to think of the different categories of what's written here in the last few verses of Matthew's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And it looks like a triptych to me in a way, a sort of a three-panel thing.
SPEAKER_00: There's an indicative, there is a little cluster of imperatives, and then there is this beautiful promise.
SPEAKER_00: Um, what's the indicative?
SPEAKER_00: The indicative is Jesus saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
SPEAKER_00: He's indicating something that is true, something you can count on.
SPEAKER_00: And once you stop and think about it, it's such a bold claim to have been made by really anyone ever, anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And who is this Jesus, this first century peasant, a carpenter son, living in a pass-through nation that was under the oppressive rule of the Roman Empire?
SPEAKER_00: And here he comes and he says, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.
SPEAKER_00: What does that reveal to us about the historical person Jesus and his own self-understanding?
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people have been trying to tell us that Jesus was just one among many who started a world religion, just another rabbi, just another of many.
SPEAKER_00: Some would say his disciples, you know, somehow or another over the next couple hundred years are going to come up, concoct this whole idea that he was divine.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, here we have Jesus himself in his own words, recorded by an expert record keeper, a guy who was a who was a tax collector.
SPEAKER_00: And that tax collector, who's really good with his pen keeping records, said, Jesus actually claimed this, that all authority had been given to him in heaven and on earth.
SPEAKER_00: That's mind-blowing.
SPEAKER_00: The imperatives are several.
SPEAKER_00: Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.
SPEAKER_00: So if the aforementioned indicative is true, that all authority has been given to Jesus in heaven and on earth, this makes a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_00: If the aforementioned indicative is not true, if Jesus has not been granted all power, all authority, rather, in heaven and on earth, then we should dismiss him and burn everything that was ever written about him.
SPEAKER_00: But if he really is the one to whom all authority has been given, then this set of imperatives, go, make disciples, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teach them to observe all that Jesus commanded us.
SPEAKER_00: And then this promise.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's so daunting.
SPEAKER_00: If you buy the indicative, if you embrace the imperatives, it becomes a bit daunting to think that we might be able to respond.
SPEAKER_00: And yet here's this promise.
SPEAKER_00: It's not on you, it's not on me alone.
SPEAKER_00: But we have the presence of the one who gives us the command, and he is the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth.
SPEAKER_00: His presence, I'm pretty convinced that I don't really understand even a glimmer of the beginnings of his presence in my life and perhaps in our life corporately.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the primary reasons, if not the primary reason, why we gather each week.
SPEAKER_00: I know we don't think about it necessarily when we're walking through the door.
SPEAKER_00: We might be thinking more about, okay, I wonder what songs they're gonna do today.
SPEAKER_00: Or I wonder what you know the prayer is gonna be about, what which mission organization, or I wonder how long this sermon's gonna go?
SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna go too long?
SPEAKER_00: Because we got reservations at, you know, in this restaurant or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: And and you can come in here with so many different things on your mind, but is the presence on your mind?
SPEAKER_00: Is the presence a part of what you're thinking about when you enter?
SPEAKER_00: How do I enter into his presence in this room with these people?
SPEAKER_00: I am drawn to the quiet wisdom of those humble saints who have given their lives to studying God's Word and teaching others how to study the Bible and how to teach the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And we have a good friend in England, Chris Wright, who is the global ambassador and minister, ministry director of the Langham Partnership, an organization we all support as a missions organization through our missions team here.
SPEAKER_00: And he had something to say about this very passage.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually in a book that hasn't come out yet called The Great Story and the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what uh Chris Wright has to say about this passage.
SPEAKER_00: The whole Bible is implied in the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: It is a truly comprehensive statement and a colossal vista with which Matthew ends his gospel.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's brilliant.
SPEAKER_00: Because of the indicative of what Christ's claim was about himself, what Matthew bought and himself embraced and believed and recorded for all of us, look at who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what the scriptures are all about.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you go all the way back to Genesis and the first promise of the seed that would come and crush the seed of the serpent, or you go all the way to the book of Revelation, where we read that the Lion of Judah is also the Lamb of God.
SPEAKER_00: And he is Jesus, the Lamb who was slain, but who will one day come back and set all things right.
SPEAKER_00: When you keep all of that in mind, and you see that all of Scripture points to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Chris has got it right here that the entire Bible is summarized in this kind of passage here.
SPEAKER_00: But what does it mean to be on mission with the Lord Jesus and to respond to the Great Commission?
SPEAKER_00: It means several things, and I know that it could be articulated a little bit differently, but here's just five things that I think mission involves.
SPEAKER_00: The authority of the one who sends it.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's pretty clear here, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus claiming to have all authority in heaven and earth.
SPEAKER_00: The obedience of the ones being sent.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that, okay.
SPEAKER_00: If God's great commission is going to be accomplished, we need to respond in obedience.
SPEAKER_00: The mission tasks to become engaged in.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, it's not just to make it up as you go.
SPEAKER_00: No, the Lord Jesus wants us to do certain things.
SPEAKER_00: Enabling power to accomplish those tasks is also a part of it.
SPEAKER_00: The divine plan and purposes within the framework of God's covenantal working of judgment andor redemption.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Lord is doing with human history.
SPEAKER_00: He is bringing about his plan and his purposes, and they will be accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: And as we read the book, this is one of the reasons why we're so joyful about even his judgment.
SPEAKER_00: We're not scared about that.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus has paid the price.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus took the wrath of God in my place and in your place.
SPEAKER_00: So we point to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We encourage people to trust in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's where your hope is to be found.
SPEAKER_00: And that the Lord would come in his righteous judgment to set things right.
SPEAKER_00: Means he will eradicate evil and everything that's set against the plan and purposes of God.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I look forward to him setting things right.
SPEAKER_00: I find joy in the message of him setting things right.
SPEAKER_00: To do that, he has to remove what is wrong and reverse the curse of death itself, which he has done in the person and work of Jesus in his plan of reconciliation and redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Here at the Village Chapel, on our website, and we have a missions page, you may or may not know that, but up uh on the website for the village chapel, on our missions page, we begin with a quote by John Stott.
SPEAKER_00: He said, We're sent into the world like Jesus to serve.
SPEAKER_00: For this is the natural expression of our love for our neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: We love, we go, we serve.
SPEAKER_00: And that just reminds me so much of the kind of rhythm and the kind of action that Jesus has called us to go, to make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Not just converts, but to make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And to serve them, to love them with the gospel in word and in deed.
SPEAKER_00: It isn't always easy.
SPEAKER_00: I know that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I can tell you that when I was a middle schooler, and I can actually remember that far back, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But when I was a middle schooler up in uh northern Virginia area, uh Kim and I actually met at this church we we both grew up in up there a long, you know, a long, long, long time ago.
SPEAKER_00: But the youth director used to take the middle schoolers, and um, and it would be like once a year, and it'd be like he would get a box full of these things called chick tracks, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we get these chick tracks, a couple of you're smiling, you know what I'm going with this.
SPEAKER_00: But these chick tracks were always those kind of turn or burn scare people to death, you know, you know, literally try to scare them into some kind of conversion experience or decision or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: But we as you know, little middle schoolers, I literally weighed about 85 pounds.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's hard to believe, but I laid I literally weighed about 85 pounds, and I'm like this, and they give me a stack of these tracks, and they load us up on the the youth group van and they take us to Washington National Airport, which is now called Reagan National Airport, and they would let us out and tell us to go and distribute all of these tracks to all of these big business people that were adults and had briefcases and suits, and they really looked like they knew what they were doing, and I'm 85 pounds soaking.
SPEAKER_00: Wet with tracks.
SPEAKER_00: You want to hear about Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I'm trying to get.
SPEAKER_00: Kim was smarter than me.
SPEAKER_00: She was younger too, but but you know, but several years.
SPEAKER_00: But to hear her tell this story, she used to go into the ladies' room and put the tracks in the different toilet stalls and just leave them there and never have to never have to encounter anybody.
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty smart.
SPEAKER_00: But you just got to check in the box because this is the program that the youth director thought this is evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: This is what it is.
SPEAKER_00: And it's so different now in our world.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, sort of that kind of approach, which I which I know can you can find ways of dropping them off in the in the trash can in the circular file or in the toilets or whatever, just you know, so scared that you come back with only one having gotten distributed, and that was because I sh somebody, Kim ran out of those in the toilet, and I gave her one of mine, you know, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: But but um but when Jesus says go and and and make disciples and share the gospel, it's a little scary uh for some of us for a lot of reasons.
SPEAKER_00: And I I have uh I have a little list of my top ten reasons why I think we don't share our faith.
SPEAKER_00: What keeps us, why so timid?
SPEAKER_00: Why so and I'm not gonna put them on the screen, I just thought of these literally at 6 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Lack of conviction about what's at stake.
SPEAKER_00: I think we've gone soft on our conviction about what's at stake here.
SPEAKER_00: Eternity is at stake.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, two, lack of love for others.
SPEAKER_00: If I really loved these folks, if I really cared about them as eternal souls, I would actually want to share the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Three, don't want to seem pushy.
SPEAKER_00: We've kind of bought the lie of our culture that you should compartmentalize everything that has to do with your faith.
SPEAKER_00: And we've kind of bought that, and we sort of allowed ourselves to be silenced in a way for fear of personal rejection.
SPEAKER_00: And see, that really it kind of ties into the other stuff because it really means I love me more than I love them.
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't want to be rejected.
SPEAKER_00: I love myself so much, I just don't want to be responded to in a negative way.
SPEAKER_00: Five, don't know how to start a conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how about you start a conversation with a question?
SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't, I think sometimes we we've taken on this big burden, thinking we've got to come up with something really bold to say.
SPEAKER_00: But how about a question?
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, you hear somebody say something about how dark the world is right now.
SPEAKER_00: And you ask them, why do you why do you think that's so?
SPEAKER_00: What is what is it that as you look at the world, do you see would be the top two or three reasons why the world has gotten so dark?
SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with us?
SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with the world?
SPEAKER_00: And you begin to open up a conversation that way.
SPEAKER_00: Ask questions.
SPEAKER_00: Six, mistaken notion that it will be offensive to share your faith with somebody.
SPEAKER_00: I think that again is, I don't, I don't, I think there are people who are more ready than you realize to hear from you about the hope that you have in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So don't allow that thought that uh you think it'll be offensive.
SPEAKER_00: Seven, I think we underestimate the power of the gospel of grace.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you think that your job is to go push religion, it's probably gonna be hard.
SPEAKER_00: You're right.
SPEAKER_00: But if you think that your job is to declare good news, that's a different way of looking at it.
SPEAKER_00: That's a whole different way of looking at it.
SPEAKER_00: See?
SPEAKER_00: And the great news, of course, is that God loves sinners like me in spite of my sinfulness.
SPEAKER_00: He loves me more.
SPEAKER_00: His grace reaches me right where I'm at.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't leave me where I'm at, but it reaches me right where I'm at.
SPEAKER_00: So we um we sometimes underestimate the power of the gospel of grace.
SPEAKER_00: Eight for me is overestimate the sense of how well your life might testify.
SPEAKER_00: Uh raise your hand if you're here today and you think you're holy enough that you should just live your life and let that be it.
SPEAKER_00: Good.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all are smart.
SPEAKER_00: That's really that was a trick question.
SPEAKER_00: If anybody raised their hand, we were always good.
SPEAKER_00: No, you're not.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're not.
SPEAKER_00: Your life is not that holy.
SPEAKER_00: It's not.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think any of us are.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the the old uh go out in the world and preach the gospel, use words if necessary.
SPEAKER_00: Words are necessary.
SPEAKER_00: Words are nobody's gonna get it just by you being a good southerner.
SPEAKER_00: Um, nobody's gonna get it just because you attend church.
SPEAKER_00: So use words.
SPEAKER_00: They're necessary.
SPEAKER_00: And nine in ten for me are nine, you think the results or the outcome of your sharing your faith is up to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not.
SPEAKER_00: The outcome is not up to you.
SPEAKER_00: You're not supposed to come back with you know some, you know, some re some reward or tokens of having won the victory.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think anybody ever came to the faith because they lost the argument.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's not that.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a battle between you and somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually you loving them enough to share your faith with him.
SPEAKER_00: And then the last one for me that I could think of that sometimes uh keeps us, perhaps all of us, from sharing our faith is that there's something going on in our lives that we know is completely inconsistent with what we want them to believe.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps we're living in some kind of sense, perhaps we're flirting with some kind of sin openly, repeatedly, and we just can't seem to say these words.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, that's the that's see that puts us in the perfect position to be able to say to our friends, you know, I'm a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have this all figured out.
SPEAKER_00: And let this beautiful thing Jesus has done, He loves sinners like me, he loves sinners like you.
SPEAKER_00: This is good news.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is not bad news, this is really good news.
SPEAKER_00: Because behind every person's thoughts or questions about your faith and my faith in Jesus is that one question does the God you want me to believe in love me?
SPEAKER_00: Does the God you are arguing for in Jesus is He love me?
SPEAKER_00: And man, what a great answer we have to that question.
SPEAKER_00: That's what put him on that cross.
SPEAKER_00: His great love for us.
SPEAKER_00: And on the cross we see this intersection of the love of God for sinners like us, the justice of God actually punishing sin in Christ, the mercy of God putting this grace on offer to sinners like us and the power of God to actually accomplish all of that on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It's really quite a beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_00: So is it hard?
SPEAKER_00: Sure, it can be hard, but we've got a great story to tell.
SPEAKER_00: Michael Goheen is uh uh a professor at a couple different seminaries, but one of which is Covenant Seminary that uh most of us on staff are affiliated with and been trained at.
SPEAKER_00: Um he has a book on the uh mystiology, the ecclesia, the ecclesiological mysiology of the, you know, so this the idea of the mission of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And um, and he writes, if we've been entrusted with the good news that God is restoring all of human life, how do we live in a culture with a very different story to tell?
SPEAKER_00: How do we do this?
SPEAKER_00: It's a great question.
SPEAKER_00: I love practical stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you do as well.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna propose to you that in this text we have, and briefly I'll do this, uh, these four traits that I think characterize uh great commission churches.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, they are marked by worship, and that's why Jesus begins by saying, Here's who I am.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, here's why you gather, here's why you are the church, because of who he is.
SPEAKER_00: See, without him, we got nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity without Christ is just shianity, and that's nothing.
SPEAKER_00: So Christianity is based first and foremost preeminently on Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_00: And so we begin like these folks in verse 17, worshiping him.
SPEAKER_00: They're obedient because he said, go to Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: They're obedient, they're doing that.
SPEAKER_00: They're believing him because they follow him up on that mountain, whichever mountain that was.
SPEAKER_00: And some of them stumble there with their doubts.
SPEAKER_00: And yet it begins with their recognition of who he is.
SPEAKER_00: And so I think the Great Commission begins with that.
SPEAKER_00: The opening claim of Jesus is just bodacious in verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: It really, really just continues to blow my mind the more I think about it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we're no longer taking God on our journey with us.
SPEAKER_00: We're no longer attempting to align God with our goals.
SPEAKER_00: We're no longer uh attempting to get Jesus and the Holy Spirit to fit into our political viewpoints or sociological plans.
SPEAKER_00: We're actually seeing Jesus as the one that has all authority in heaven and on earth.
SPEAKER_00: And that's all authority everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Really, really important.
SPEAKER_00: Begin with worship if you're going to be somebody who responds to the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: Piper says it this way: the essence of worship is the inner experience of treasuring the true beauty and worth of God.
SPEAKER_00: I love that definition.
SPEAKER_00: The outward forms of worship are the acts that show how much we treasure the beauty and worth of God.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God created all of life as worship because he has told us, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Do everything you do in a way that expresses your treasuring of God.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, write that in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to be mindful of whether or not this moment I'm treasuring you.
SPEAKER_00: Or I'm just demanding my rights, or just demanding some power and author, earthly power and authority over others, that they conform to what I want or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: It's it is hard being human and responding in this way that Jesus has called us to.
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
SPEAKER_00: Um after Queen Elizabeth passed, uh it was September 8th, I think it was, of last year, the eyes of the world shifted onto her son, now called King Charles III, I believe.
SPEAKER_00: A headline from uh some of you will know the name A.
SPEAKER_00: N.
SPEAKER_00: Wilson.
SPEAKER_00: He's a Brit who's a writer.
SPEAKER_00: Um, on September 16th, the headline from A.
SPEAKER_00: N.
SPEAKER_00: Wilson was it's it's too much to hope the king can save us from ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: That headline caught my eye.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_00: I got a little amen back there.
SPEAKER_00: I heard that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: It's too much to expect this king to save us from ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: That could be said of every single world leader that has ever lived.
SPEAKER_00: It can be said of every pastor that's ever preached.
SPEAKER_00: It can be said of each and every one.
SPEAKER_00: We can't save us from ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: There's really only one that can do that.
SPEAKER_00: And he has come.
SPEAKER_00: And he he did die.
SPEAKER_00: He did rise again from the grave, though.
SPEAKER_00: And he has promised to come back and to set things right.
SPEAKER_00: And the great news is that King Jesus indeed can save us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's who we've been focusing on all through our study of Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why when we think about the Great Commission, we want to bow down and worship him because of who he is.
SPEAKER_00: The second category that I really wanted to talk about is witness.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he says go and uh make disciples, and so that is indeed gonna require that we go.
SPEAKER_00: That is, that we get up.
SPEAKER_00: That is, that we move, that is, that we engage with people.
SPEAKER_00: And um, raise your hand if you're an introvert.
SPEAKER_00: We've been having conversations about introverts.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know, even the introverts don't like to raise their hands.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, look, confession is good for the soul, and I want to help you, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: My wife, my my wife is more of an introvert.
SPEAKER_00: She has to function as an extrovert.
SPEAKER_00: We were talking about this uh with our family uh the other night.
SPEAKER_00: And and it's uh it is hard sometimes to actually speak.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, we've all had those moments when somebody would say something to us out of the blue, and it really becomes a slow-pitched softball moment when it comes to your relationship with somebody, maybe that you work with, maybe somebody in your family, maybe a neighbor or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: And they say something, and you feel that tiny little nudge from the Holy Spirit to go on.
SPEAKER_00: Here it is, here's your opportunity to say something or ask a question or whoever it might be.
SPEAKER_00: And he went and you just ran for the hills, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we've all done that.
SPEAKER_00: We've we every single one of us has done that.
SPEAKER_00: And and I want to stress listen, it's not God is not limited to this clown.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So that really takes a lot of pressure off.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm so grateful that he's not limited to me.
SPEAKER_00: So he can get his message across.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm inconsistent, I'm not great at this.
SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of people out there that need more than just to hear, for instance, just the judicial side of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That is, you know, substitutionary atonement, justification by faith, all that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Very important, critical, really important.
SPEAKER_00: But if they're dying of hunger physically, and all we're concerned about is that they can somehow or another re-articulate some principle that you know that that we that we go through each and every week when we do our catechisms, uh, the questions and answers, or when we make uh when we read a creed or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: No, we've we've got to learn how whole how comprehensive the gospel is.
SPEAKER_00: And we've got to learn that it's word and deed.
SPEAKER_00: And I know this this quote is credited as Spurgeon.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure if, but I'm I'm gonna go ahead and credit it to him.
SPEAKER_00: But he says, if you give a man the gospel, wrap it in a sandwich.
SPEAKER_00: And if you give a man a sandwich, wrap it in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Uh man, if the person is hungry and you just disregard their hunger completely, how in the world do you think what you have to say is actually gonna be heard?
SPEAKER_00: It's really important for us to be about the gospel in word and in deed.
SPEAKER_00: Nubigan is big on this as well.
SPEAKER_00: He says, What God has done in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus is no private affair for a few.
SPEAKER_00: It is God's decisive action for his whole family and for his whole creation.
SPEAKER_00: It is for all the nations.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot be silent when such a tremendous secret has been entrusted to us.
SPEAKER_00: We have to tell the world.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have ever called somebody and said, You won't believe what they got on Costco today?
SPEAKER_00: Or, yeah, I mean, we're all that way.
SPEAKER_00: We we something happens to us and it's like good, and we want to make sure everybody knows.
SPEAKER_00: Man, there's a 40-pack of those, and you could get it for four dollars, you know?
SPEAKER_00: And we tell people all the time about stuff we're excited about, and and and somehow or another, though, this great news of the gospel fits into some different category, and we find ourselves timid and quiet.
SPEAKER_00: The church, that is a great commission church, is a worshiping church, and it is a witnessing church, and it is word and deed, it is both.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Jesus did the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: His words were confirmed by his works.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And his works also confirmed his word and who he was, and confirmed and reaffirmed his identity as the one who has power and authority, like he describes here, over things like disease and death and disasters like storms, and even the demonic powers at work in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has all of that, and um, we need to witness about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And I see here too the word, and that's again the idea that we need to teach disciples.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be training uh the church in ways uh uh that, as we do every single week here, studying through books of the Bible, so that we can know God's mind and learn about God's heart, and then we can align ours with his and ask the Holy Spirit to do that good, transforming work inside of us.
SPEAKER_00: Again from Stott, the greatest single uh secret of spiritual development lies in personal, humble believing, obedient response to the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: It's as God speaks to us through his word that his warnings can bring us to conviction of sin, his promises to assurance of forgiveness, and his commands to amendment of life.
SPEAKER_00: We live and grow by his word.
SPEAKER_00: Look up there, look up there for just a second.
SPEAKER_00: Are there warnings that you've read in the scriptures or heard about in the scriptures that you're disregarding?
SPEAKER_00: Are there promises that you find yourself doubting?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Are there commands that you're disregarding completely?
SPEAKER_00: I I've all week long been thinking about this quote.
SPEAKER_00: And uh Stott was such a great Bible teacher, and uh I so appreciate the way he, as a pastor, asked those kinds of questions, and I need to be doing the same kind of evaluation of my own spiritual life.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, um, not only is the Great Commission Church a worshiping, witnessing, and word-centered church, but also there's this sense of withness.
SPEAKER_00: Now, on the website, when you look up the withness part of the four Ws, it's going to be focused in on the horizontal withness, the community aspect.
SPEAKER_00: Very important, huge, huge, huge importance.
SPEAKER_00: But as I was going through this passage, um, I was uh really impressed with that promise at the end.
SPEAKER_00: Lo, I'm with you always.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought more about the withness of Jesus and of his presence among us, and going all the way back to the Old Testament and how God wanted to dwell among his people.
SPEAKER_00: And so things like the tabernacle and then later the temple are built so that they can sort of symbolize the presence of God dwelling with his people.
SPEAKER_00: And then in the New Testament, of course, Jesus literally comes to dwell among us.
SPEAKER_00: And the Gospel of Matthew opens with his name Emmanuel, and what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, God with us.
SPEAKER_00: And it close the Gospel of Matthew closes with Jesus saying, Yeah, I'm with you.
SPEAKER_00: Always.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, oh, that we would be inspired by that truth, by that simple but profound truth.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a unroll of scroll and here's all the do's and don'ts, to go off there and see how well you can do, how many of those you can keep.
SPEAKER_00: No, he's with me.
SPEAKER_00: He's with you, he's with us.
SPEAKER_00: When two or three are gathered in his name, there he is in the midst of them, and I'm so, so very grateful for when you go about your business tomorrow, whatever that might be, whatever work you do, whatever play you do, however you hang with your neighbors or interact with your family in your own home.
SPEAKER_00: Please understand, Jesus is with you.
SPEAKER_00: His presence among us.
SPEAKER_00: You might feel it more if you hike a mountain or walk the seashore, like a lot of us have when we go and we feel so small.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost a numinous experience out there, and you you kind of you feel you sense, you know, those of us who've gone to Israel, you just have a sense this really happened here, all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: But man, he is with us wherever we might be, wherever we might go.
SPEAKER_00: And to that end, we pray when we pray about missions and the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for those almost 30 million people that are caught up in human trafficking.
SPEAKER_00: God be with them today.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever they are, Lord Jesus, may your spirit, your abiding presence of your spirit be with them, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And it's really amazing to think of an infinite God being able to do that, that all authority in heaven and earth is his, that he can indeed do all of that.
SPEAKER_00: Richard Bacham is a wonderful uh biblical scholar.
SPEAKER_00: He's got a little book called Who is God?
SPEAKER_00: In that little book I highly recommend.
SPEAKER_00: He says, in a life with God, his guidance, provision, and protection are important, as Jacob and the psalmist knew, but in all such experiences, the center and source is God's presence with us.
SPEAKER_00: To discover that God is with us is probably the most important discovery anyone can make for once made, it colors all of life's experiences.
SPEAKER_00: If I know that God is with me, when I stand up here, or when I just drive home with my wife, or when I'm gone to the grocery store, or if you're going to your office, whatever, God is with you.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you gotta really i i I I think I just need it pounded into my head more.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't, but I do.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is with me in light of that.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't just mean leave this planet.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a death wish.
SPEAKER_00: I have a life wish.
SPEAKER_00: I have a life wish to live my life in the presence of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And to follow him, to deny myself, to pick up my cross and to follow him, which means to be his apprentice, his disciple, to respond to all of life the way Jesus would respond to life if he were me.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm his disciple, because I'm his apprentice in life.
SPEAKER_00: Worship as a way of life, witness as a way of life, not just an event, get dropped off of the airport.
SPEAKER_00: No, witness as a way of life.
SPEAKER_00: Worship not just on Sundays, but worship as a way of life.
SPEAKER_00: Studying the word as a way of life.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a one-year Bible, I highly recommend you get one.
SPEAKER_00: We've been doing this for 10, 15 years.
SPEAKER_00: I can't even remember how long we've been doing it.
SPEAKER_00: But it's just, it's, it's like breathing to us.
SPEAKER_00: There's not a question of whether or not we're gonna spend time in the word.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: It's a part of life for us.
SPEAKER_00: You need to make that decision too.
SPEAKER_00: To hear from God in his word as a way of life and then witness his presence as a way of life.
SPEAKER_00: I think these are four characteristics that do in some way describe a great commission church.
SPEAKER_00: And I'd like TVC to become more and more and more that way, responding to what Jesus has called us to.
SPEAKER_00: And mostly, I just want us to continue to see him as he is, because it begins right there.
SPEAKER_00: And he's done all the hard work revealing himself to us, uh, condescending to come from the comforts of heaven, this infinite Son of God becoming one of us.
SPEAKER_00: That's amazing to think about that he would do that, his mind-blowing, eye-popping, heart thumping.
SPEAKER_00: So I would love for us to respond to him, to be with him in all that he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, may the good seed of your word find fertile soil in our hearts and minds.
SPEAKER_00: May the Holy Spirit cause our study of the Word today to take root and to bear fruit in our lives as individuals, in our homes, at work, and in our lives together as your church.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, begin to live large and to love well through us, all the nations.
SPEAKER_00: No matter who you put in our path, Lord, that others would see Jesus in us, that they would hear the gospel as it flows freely from our lips, because we have such good news to tell.
SPEAKER_00: Pray this in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen and amen.