SPEAKER_00: Matthew 28, verse 16 to 20.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it reads, Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.
SPEAKER_00: When they saw him, they worship him, but some doubted.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely I am with you always to the very end of age.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the context of Matthew 28, specifically where we are now, uh, there's a dead man uh in uh just the previous chapter who is now alive and kicking.
SPEAKER_01: There's a dead man who is alive and what?
SPEAKER_01: And kicking.
SPEAKER_01: He has revealed himself.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a nice chorus alike, yes, e Kaliles Jesus giving that instruction that we're gonna meet uh by Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: That's the dead man.
SPEAKER_01: Now the question is Jesus is alive, he has risen now.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever asked yourself that?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is alive, he has risen now.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we live in a city of uh specifically Johannesburg Metro, 5.4 million people.
SPEAKER_01: Glass towers, coffee shops, nine yards, in Dibalantonina.
SPEAKER_01: Uh basically a city where they are running clubs, there's fancy apartments, there's fast cars, as Tracy Chapman would say, and uh people who are very ambitious and always looking for a new opportunity.
SPEAKER_01: We have creatives all around our city.
SPEAKER_01: Johnisburg Friends is the wealthiest uh city or metro in the continent.
SPEAKER_01: Some will argue Cape Town, but no, actually, this is where it's happening.
SPEAKER_01: This is the economic hub of Africa.
SPEAKER_01: It's busy, it's buzzing, yet perhaps it's one of the loneliest places as well.
SPEAKER_01: Every day, people arrive from every corner of South Africa, from around the world, as it were, carrying suitcases, dreams, and ambitions with them.
SPEAKER_01: Every evening they return to their apartments, houses, and shared spaces feeling pretty much exhausted.
SPEAKER_01: Wondering if all this striving is gonna lead anywhere.
SPEAKER_01: They are highly skilled, they are highly connected, yet they are quietly wondering where they belong.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, this is where Jesus Christ has placed us.
SPEAKER_01: He's placed us in Jobak.
SPEAKER_01: Oskiro would say, bang shay at Jozi, bang collisera.
SPEAKER_01: But the point is here, friends, this commissioning that Jesus gives us is not an abstract thing, it's not an uh an abstract idea.
SPEAKER_01: When he gives the commission in uh Matthew 28, he's speaking to a people, sending them to a place.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus never sends disciples into an idea, he sends them into places, he never sends them into a podcast.
SPEAKER_01: There's no podcast for the apostles, it's it's the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_01: Not podcast preach.
SPEAKER_01: Although you can use the podcast for preaching, but we're not in the podcast conversation.
SPEAKER_01: The point here is that, friends, this story began in Galilee and stretched out to many nations.
SPEAKER_01: And it has landed in Rosebank.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, what a privilege, friends.
SPEAKER_01: Jones, Jersey is a city where there are more arrivals than there are departures.
SPEAKER_01: People come here chasing opportunities only to discover that building a life is not the same as finding a home.
SPEAKER_01: When I say that again, building a life is not the same as finding a home.
SPEAKER_01: They've left home.
SPEAKER_01: They've come to build a life here.
SPEAKER_01: They may have escaped the rules of home, the set expectations of Ezilalini, only to inherit another set of expectations in the city.
SPEAKER_01: These ones are exhausting, these ones are burdensome, these ones are uh expectations of you building an identity, expectations of you starting a family, a community, a place to belong.
SPEAKER_01: Because you've left belonging to be here in Joburg.
SPEAKER_01: Now, friends, before Christ sends us into the world, there's a sense in which the gospel then sets us into a trajectory of a different story.
SPEAKER_01: The story is this: before Jesus sends us into the world, he brings us home.
SPEAKER_01: And the church becomes, friends, a people who welcome strangers because they were first welcomed by Jesus Himself.
SPEAKER_01: Ah, that's beautiful, friends.
SPEAKER_01: That there's there's this idea then that this story is a welcoming of strangers, becoming a home, becoming a family who were coming from different corners, from Kenya to Nairobi.
SPEAKER_01: Oh Nairobi is in Kenya, yes, to to to to to Kinshasa and and and Lisu to Mabupane, to Northwest, to every corner of the world, friends, can be represented in one room.
SPEAKER_01: The most unlikely, uncommon, unguang Muzusisi person could be then your friend, your actually not even your friend, your brother and your sister.
SPEAKER_01: And what puts you together, what makes you a home, what makes you a family is Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And friends, there's trouble in this framework then that if if you miss this framework, we will naturally then shrink Christianity into something smaller than what Christ had intended it to be.
SPEAKER_01: We make it personal, private, preferential, as it were.
SPEAKER_01: We make it comfortable.
SPEAKER_01: I want the best seeds, I want a church with some aircon.
SPEAKER_01: The slides better not have spelling mistakes.
SPEAKER_01: No, what is that?
SPEAKER_01: Friends, Matthew won't let us have that imagination.
SPEAKER_01: Enos is laughing.
SPEAKER_01: The disciples think they have reached the climax, as it were.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has risen, we've arrived.
SPEAKER_01: But there's more, friends.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is alive, death has been defeated.
SPEAKER_01: Surely this looks like the finish line, but Jesus says, No.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection is not simply, friends, the happy ending of the gospel story.
SPEAKER_01: It basically is, friends, factually the launching pad.
SPEAKER_01: It is the beginning of the church's mission.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not a Christian this morning, I want you to genuinely interrogate that.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to do that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying this if you're a Christian with a sense of gladness that you are here.
SPEAKER_01: Because once again you have the opportunity to really interrogate even this passage of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: No one is gonna, as Nompilo said, we're not gonna bombard you, no one's gonna force you to sign anything.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps you've been asking, oh yeah, this guy was sobbing for people joining a church.
SPEAKER_01: What is that?
SPEAKER_01: I want you to interrogate that.
SPEAKER_01: No one here, friends, uh has all the answers as it were, but but Jesus isn't intimidated by our doubts and our questions.
SPEAKER_01: So before we ask what Christians ought to do, I want you to ask whether Christianity is true.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps you are a Christian, you haven't asked yourself that.
SPEAKER_01: I really want you to ask yourself that this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Is this true?
SPEAKER_01: Because, friends, Christianity, as it were, in this passage of scripture, this is where it all stands.
SPEAKER_01: This is where the stakes lie, friends.
SPEAKER_01: That that if this one historical claim is not true, then as Paul would say, we are the most to be pitied.
SPEAKER_01: That that the historical claim is this that Jesus Christ of Nazareth was publicly executed, he was buried, and on the third day he rose again.
SPEAKER_01: On the third day, the tomb was empty.
SPEAKER_01: And and if Christ, as Paul's words say, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.
SPEAKER_01: It's empty.
SPEAKER_01: That's 1 Corinthians 15, verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: So, friends, Christians are to be pitied out of all if this is not true.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew even records, friends, the alternative explanation.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it quickly.
SPEAKER_01: It's in verse uh 11 to 15.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, yeah, it says, While they were going, behold, some of the god went into the city and told the chief priest all that had happened.
SPEAKER_01: What had happened, Jesus has risen from the dead, right?
SPEAKER_01: And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers.
SPEAKER_01: The antichrist mission was being funded.
SPEAKER_01: They bribed the soldiers, they funded misinformation, as it were.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 13 and said, Tell people his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.
SPEAKER_01: And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.
SPEAKER_01: So they took the money, corruption, and did as they were directed.
SPEAKER_01: And friends, this story has been spread among Jews to this day.
SPEAKER_01: So, friends, this idea is called the stolen body theory.
SPEAKER_01: This other theory is the hallucination theory, the the swoon theory.
SPEAKER_01: Um, there are different theories around discrediting the truth of the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That here's one, the gods were bribed to say that disciples stole the body while they were asleep.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to think about that.
SPEAKER_01: If they were asleep, how could they possibly know?
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Matthew does the opposite of what we would expect.
SPEAKER_01: When the risen Jesus finally appears, he tells us that some worshiped and some hesitated.
SPEAKER_01: That's verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: The word here is doubted.
SPEAKER_01: So if you were going to fabricate something, I wouldn't necessarily put that in there.
SPEAKER_01: Fabricate a movement, I wouldn't write these sentences there.
SPEAKER_01: So before Matthew tells us what the reason King sent his church to do, he first asking, he's first asking this main question: is the tomb empty?
SPEAKER_01: Because everything else in the chapter is irrelevant.
SPEAKER_01: If Jesus did not rise from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: Everything about Christianity depends on how or what you answer the question, how you answer that question, is the tomb empty?
SPEAKER_01: Lord, thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for your kindness, thank you for your grace.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Lord, that you've called us to be missionaries where we are.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, would you give us the confidence to live boldly so?
SPEAKER_01: To live, as I used to say, a life worth living and dying for, the life of Christ, the gospel, the cause worth living and dying for.
SPEAKER_01: Would you help us have that posture because, Lord, we no longer are afraid of death?
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus has conquered it.
SPEAKER_01: He's the first fruit of our resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: Would you help those who are afraid, those who are doubting, to be encouraged this morning?
SPEAKER_01: And would you humble us, Lord, those who are self-confident?
SPEAKER_01: Would you place our trust in your presence?
SPEAKER_01: In the name of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Point number one: the worshiping and the wondering.
SPEAKER_01: Wow, was this just like what were we doing all this time?
SPEAKER_01: We're here now, the worshiping and the wandering.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it quickly in verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: Now the disciples uh went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them, and when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew, friends, I I wrote this into the sermon, it's a joke.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew loves mountains.
SPEAKER_01: It's not funny, I know, but the irony of the joke is that we are on a mountain.
SPEAKER_01: We are in Joburg, you know, like Johannesburg is a mountain.
SPEAKER_01: But the point here, Matthew loves mountains.
SPEAKER_01: Um, if you look at the whole book of Matthew, in chapter 5, we see what the next series actually gonna be doing is the Sermon on the Mount, where some of it we read this morning, where he kind of shows us what the kingdom looks like, right?
SPEAKER_01: On another chapter, which I really love, but it's quite confusing, is in Matthew 17, another mountain, the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus Christ basically reveals his glory as the king, as the king, a precursor, as it were, when he goes down the mountain, he's going to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: He shows them something of his glory.
SPEAKER_01: And what does um John and Peter and who else?
SPEAKER_01: I forgot the third one.
SPEAKER_01: James.
SPEAKER_01: John, Peter, and James want to build little tabernacles.
SPEAKER_01: They want to be, we wanna do a whole night, no, in fact, a whole life worship service here, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want to move here.
SPEAKER_01: We've tasted your glory.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is like, this is nothing compared to what you'll see.
SPEAKER_01: But hang on, I have to die first.
SPEAKER_01: What precedes glory, what precedes, as it were, glory, even in our lives, is suffering.
SPEAKER_01: We have to go through the most.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus embodies that, he shows us that.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I'm not preaching on the Mount Transfiguration, I could go on the whole day on that.
SPEAKER_01: But the point here is that, friends, that when they saw him, some of them, when they saw him, they wanted to continue in what?
SPEAKER_01: In worship.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew also wants us to um kind of notice the response to Jesus, the risen king.
SPEAKER_01: And there's nothing wrong with this response.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see it, friends, in verse uh 17?
SPEAKER_01: What's the beauty of the response is that when you behold the king, what do you do?
SPEAKER_01: You worship.
SPEAKER_01: When they saw him, they worship.
SPEAKER_01: That's the natural response to the revelation of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's what, friends?
SPEAKER_01: Worship.
SPEAKER_01: It's acknowledging his worth.
SPEAKER_01: They had seen the miracles, they had heard the sermon on the mount, they had watched him die.
SPEAKER_01: But now they see the risen king, and Matthew records the fitting response, which is what they worship.
SPEAKER_01: And then Matthew ruins the moment.
SPEAKER_01: Spoiler alert.
SPEAKER_01: And some doubted.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, he says, but some doubted.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, friends, we can't romanticize our encounters with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: There's a picture here of this word doubted.
SPEAKER_01: It appears only once here, one more time actually, in in Matthew chapter 14, when Peter he's walking on water.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, he's looking to Jesus, and then he looks at the water and he basically fell in, he sunk.
SPEAKER_01: Peter sinking in the water, friends, Jesus responds to him and says, Oh, ye of little faith, why do you doubt?
SPEAKER_01: That's the other time the word doubted is used.
SPEAKER_01: But friends, immediately after that encounter as well, Jesus was worshipped.
SPEAKER_01: So, friends, there's a juxtaposition, not even a juxtaposition.
SPEAKER_01: There's this tension, these polar things that are happening.
SPEAKER_01: There's there's a sense of like my my daughter loves using using the word uh wiggly, my tooth is wiggly, but it's actually wobbly.
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's there's there's the wobbling happening and there's the worshiping happening at the same time sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: On the same mountain, some are doubting and some are what?
SPEAKER_01: Are worshiping, and some it's just like both and.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, friends, this is not a sense of a settled, hardened heart of unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: This is a trembling hesitation as someone walking on water.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I doubt.
SPEAKER_01: Is this really happening?
SPEAKER_01: Is this really like I'd be I'd be scared out of my mind.
SPEAKER_01: Oh Jesus, are you sure?
SPEAKER_01: And then I'll Namuzwati, oh yeah of little faith.
SPEAKER_01: Why do you doubt?
SPEAKER_01: In other words, friends, sometimes standing before a reality that is too glorious for us, we we don't have a category of how to respond.
SPEAKER_01: And the best thing or the thing we usually do is drift towards doubt.
SPEAKER_01: They are seeing in their faces a man whom they just saw die.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, you doubt.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew does not tell us Jesus kind of says, hey, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: The doubters on the left and the worshippers on the right.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you worshippers are ready for the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 19.
SPEAKER_01: It says, uh, go therefore.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it says, and Jesus came to them in verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: He came to who?
SPEAKER_01: The doubters, the wanderers, the wobbly ones, and the worshiping ones.
SPEAKER_01: He he came to both of them.
SPEAKER_01: And he speaks simply.
SPEAKER_01: He he does not wait for the doubt to clear.
SPEAKER_01: He actually commissions them.
SPEAKER_01: He does not say, come back when your faith is stronger.
SPEAKER_01: He commissions uh uh those who are worshiping and those who are wavering as disciples.
SPEAKER_01: The very man who who abandoned him is there amongst them.
SPEAKER_01: The one who uh uh the men uh abandoned him, and there's one who denied him, he's also there.
SPEAKER_01: This is this is the gospel picture, friends.
SPEAKER_01: That the reason king is entrusting his mission to messy people.
SPEAKER_01: He's entrusting his mission to you and me.
SPEAKER_01: His mission.
SPEAKER_01: His mission, he's entrusting to failures.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's never dependent, friends, in the first place, on our strength.
SPEAKER_01: It's never dependent on on our strength at all, friends.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are here this morning, your your your your eyes, one of your eyes, maybe like one of one eye fixed on Jesus, one eye fixed on your fears.
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01: Like, you're not sure.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, yeah, Lord, I I I I believe you, but sometimes I'm I'm just not sure.
SPEAKER_01: Unsure what what what tomorrow holds, unsure that what feels so real on Sunday morning easily fades away on Tuesday.
SPEAKER_01: We are weak people, friends, with a strong savior.
SPEAKER_01: Church, if the if if the mission depended on the strength of these 11 men that are mentioned here, it would have died on that very mountain.
SPEAKER_01: I can't believe it.
SPEAKER_01: It would have died on that very mountain.
SPEAKER_01: Peter would never have stood up to preach in the book of Acts, which is precisely why Jesus, friends, in his next words, uh gives these words which are so so important.
SPEAKER_01: He begins with his own authority.
SPEAKER_01: Point number two, Jesus announces his authority.
SPEAKER_01: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: Church, this this is Jesus speaking, and and you need to understand who is speaking.
SPEAKER_01: It is not merely a teacher from Galilee, it is not merely a man, a man who who fed 5,000 and who healed people by the hillside.
SPEAKER_01: It's not merely one who opened blind eyes and cleansed lepers.
SPEAKER_01: This is the one whose heart had stopped beating.
SPEAKER_01: This is the man who died, whose body was taken down from that Roman cross, who who was wrapped in linen and and and and and Mary was ready to put on those spices, who was laid in in uh Joseph of um Joseph of Arameth Aramethea.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, it's long less or uh it's Hebrew actually.
SPEAKER_01: Joseph of Arimathea.
SPEAKER_01: He was laid in his tomb, he did not have a tomb of his own.
SPEAKER_01: It's the man, friends, that on that third day the stone had rolled away.
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, everyone who Who had believed it was over went home.
SPEAKER_01: They had gone home.
SPEAKER_01: They had no courage in and of themselves.
SPEAKER_01: Yet now he stands on that mountain and he says, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing in heaven above Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing on earth above Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: No government, no economy, no university, no business, no neighborhood, no authority that exists outside the rule of the risen king.
SPEAKER_01: There's no square inch, no square mile, as Abraham Caper would say, that Jesus does not cry, mine.
SPEAKER_01: Notice the word he says here.
SPEAKER_01: Says given.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus did not seize the authority.
SPEAKER_01: I like it.
SPEAKER_01: We did not vote for him.
SPEAKER_01: Did you register, by the way?
SPEAKER_01: We still have time, right?
SPEAKER_01: But we did not vote for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The Father in heaven has bestowed this authority upon his son.
SPEAKER_01: That's the beauty here, friends, that the Father in heaven has bestowed what?
SPEAKER_01: This authority upon his son.
SPEAKER_01: And the resurrection is what makes, friends, this declaration uh even possible.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a dead teacher.
SPEAKER_01: No dead teacher can say that.
SPEAKER_01: No dead prophet can say that.
SPEAKER_01: That all authority.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing above me.
SPEAKER_01: A risen king has authority, friends, over everything.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see it, friends?
SPEAKER_01: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
SPEAKER_01: People reading this text, the original text, the readers or the audience of Matthew would understand and hear the book of Daniel, chapter 7.
SPEAKER_01: The Son of Man comes before the ancient of days, and to him is given dominion, glory, and an everlasting kingdom, so that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.
SPEAKER_01: This is not a new plan, friends.
SPEAKER_01: This is a climax of God's holy, eternal story.
SPEAKER_01: All authority belongs to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: From Abraham to Isaiah to Daniel to Galilee to Joburg.
SPEAKER_01: All authority belongs to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And friends, this morning Jesus Christ is handing us uh basically our our our food in that story.
SPEAKER_01: He's giving us a place in that story.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, in Matthew 4, he was promised that authority, he was tempted with it.
SPEAKER_01: He was offered a shortcut, a bribe.
SPEAKER_01: Just just bow.
SPEAKER_01: Just bow and and all this is yours.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus refused.
SPEAKER_01: He chose the cross.
SPEAKER_01: He chose Kolkota, he chose Khizamani, he chose the grave.
SPEAKER_01: He chose me and you.
SPEAKER_01: Now he possesses everything Satan had offered.
SPEAKER_01: But through the obedience to the Father with nail-scarred hands.
SPEAKER_01: And friends, everything then flows from that word, authority.
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean?
SPEAKER_01: Because, friends, if Jesus possesses all true authority, then what he says next is not merely inspirational, it's not a suggestion, it's decisive.
SPEAKER_01: I've preached Matthew 28 a couple of times, and I I prayed that I don't use this illustration.
SPEAKER_01: I guess God didn't answer my prayer because I'm using it.
SPEAKER_01: If a traffic cop stops you, no matter how skinny they are, I'm sorry, Gabello, no matter even if they can be as tiny as Gabelo, you know.
SPEAKER_01: If Gabelo or a traffic cop and were to stop you, or to stop you, Sean, you're gonna stop.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna stop not because you're afraid of her, it's the authority she carries, it's the authority she represents.
SPEAKER_01: Now, friends, our confidence in mission is not based on our own posture, it's not based on our own fears, our own comforts and discomforts and our own phobias.
SPEAKER_01: It's based on the authority of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's what gives us the confidence to go.
SPEAKER_01: Says, all authority has been given to me.
SPEAKER_01: Go, therefore.
SPEAKER_01: Not in light of your posture, not in light of your fears, not in light of whether you can do it or not.
SPEAKER_01: No, in light of my authority, Jesus says, Go.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus commissions his church.
SPEAKER_01: That's point number three.
SPEAKER_01: And what's the commission?
SPEAKER_01: It says make disciples.
SPEAKER_01: That's verse 19 to 20.
SPEAKER_01: Make disciples.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the one word that carries the weight of this commission.
SPEAKER_01: It's not go, it's not preach, it's not grow a church, it's not uh even make converts.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus gives one command.
SPEAKER_01: What it is, what is it, friends?
SPEAKER_01: Guess it, guess, guess, guess.
SPEAKER_01: What is it?
SPEAKER_01: Make disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Make disciples, and everything else explains how.
SPEAKER_01: We make disciples by going, we make disciples by baptizing, we make disciples by teaching.
SPEAKER_01: Those are not separate commands, friends.
SPEAKER_01: They are the means by which disciples are made.
SPEAKER_01: And Matthew's gospel, friends, is very clear on this.
SPEAKER_01: A disciple is never merely someone who agrees with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: A disciple learns from him, a disciple follows him, a disciple obeys him, a disciple increasingly becomes like him.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the goal, friends, is not simply that people meet Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That's beautiful, but that they are shaped by Jesus until they help others follow him too.
SPEAKER_01: So let me be clear here, friends.
SPEAKER_01: And you need to hold me to it from a pastoral point.
SPEAKER_01: Plain City Church is not trying to build a big church.
SPEAKER_01: We are not.
SPEAKER_01: We are trying to make disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, if we get a thousand people, great, we'll celebrate.
SPEAKER_01: I see uh Emmanuel is chuckling there.
SPEAKER_01: We'll we'll praise God, we'll celebrate.
SPEAKER_01: If we get a hundred people, a hundred and one, a thousand and one, we'll celebrate.
SPEAKER_01: We will praise God because success, friends, yes, it's not measured by attendance, but by one more disciple.
SPEAKER_01: There's always room, friends, for one more.
SPEAKER_01: One more disciple.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the measure of our obedience as a church.
SPEAKER_01: It's to make what disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Now Jesus then tells us how we do that.
SPEAKER_01: Like I said first, we go.
SPEAKER_01: Not go among the Gentiles, but now he says to all nations.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, the mission is no longer, as it were, geographically limited.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's basically wherever God has already placed you.
SPEAKER_01: That's where your mission is.
SPEAKER_01: That means your mission is in the office, your mission is is your lecture hall, your mission is your res, students, your mission is your running club.
SPEAKER_01: Your mission is your family WhatsApp group.
SPEAKER_01: Your mission is your neighbor across across the passage, across the complex.
SPEAKER_01: Your mission is your TikTok account, your mission is your Instagram.
SPEAKER_01: You do not have to cross an ocean, friends, to obey the scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Would you read it with me again and and think through it?
SPEAKER_01: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: That's the great commission.
SPEAKER_01: I like Madlanga commission because authority is thrown apart about there.
SPEAKER_01: There's subpoenas, and if you get a subpoena, you better show up.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the beauty of this: this is not the great suggestion.
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's that's nice night.
SPEAKER_01: Of course.
SPEAKER_01: Why why not?
SPEAKER_01: No, this is not the the the great suggestion.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine for a second, your your CEO sends you an email or a message.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to see, I want to see you first thing in the morning at eight o'clock.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, you will make sure that you are there 5 to 8.
SPEAKER_01: It's your it's your MT, your managing director is calling you.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, can you can you lead this important project?
SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna walk out of that room thinking, oh, that was a great suggestion.
SPEAKER_01: That was curious, that's nice.
SPEAKER_01: Why me?
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna you're gonna rearrange your life.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna rearrange your diary, you're gonna cancel some meetings, you you you you're gonna you're gonna make sure that this request is honored.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because, friends, that's your CEO, right?
SPEAKER_01: But who is calling you to go?
SPEAKER_01: Who is calling you to go, friends?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, the one who is far more infinitely greater than your CEO.
SPEAKER_01: The reason Lord of the heaven and earth has entrusted his church with his own work.
SPEAKER_01: And friends, this is not a kind of like a one-man show thing here.
SPEAKER_01: This is not even one ministry among many.
SPEAKER_01: This is very the very reason the church exists.
SPEAKER_01: Mission exists because worship doesn't, you know.
SPEAKER_01: Those are John Piper's words.
SPEAKER_01: But the the idea here is this friends that we we we we go because Jesus has commanded us to go.
SPEAKER_01: Didn't give us a proposal, a presentation.
SPEAKER_01: This is my vision, theological vision, go.
SPEAKER_01: No, he says, I have all authority.
SPEAKER_01: You are mine.
SPEAKER_01: Go.
SPEAKER_01: And friends, it didn't leave you to figure it all out on your own.
SPEAKER_01: I would have loved to spend time just unpacking what that looks like in terms of going, teaching, observing, in other words, but I do want to make this point that as you go, as you make disciples, the objective is this that people are being transformed, people are growing into the likeness of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And and that, friends, is is what we call discipleship.
SPEAKER_01: It does not happen uh in rows, it happens in circles, it happens on living rooms in living rooms, it happens over coffees, it happens over conversations, it's Bibles opened, it's it's people praying together, it's people carrying one another's burdens.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're committing to as we go, as we preach, as we call people in.
SPEAKER_01: It's to share and pour out our lives in light of that.
SPEAKER_01: And what Jesus says is profoundly mind-boggling.
SPEAKER_01: As you go, you're not going alone.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it in verse 20b.
SPEAKER_01: He Jesus promises his presence.
SPEAKER_01: Says, and behold, I'm with you always to the end of age.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, before we imagine anything about the future, notice what Jesus actually promises us.
SPEAKER_01: He does not say, Go, you're on your own because I said so.
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm I'm your master and king.
SPEAKER_01: Go because I said so.
SPEAKER_01: No, it says, Go and make disciples and know this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm with you.
SPEAKER_01: I am I am with you.
SPEAKER_01: I will be with you.
SPEAKER_01: I I no no, he's not saying I will be.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I am with you.
SPEAKER_01: I am with you always.
SPEAKER_01: In the in the Greek, it's so beautiful, friends.
SPEAKER_01: He's kind of saying, he's giving that emphasis of I, I myself, no less than I.
SPEAKER_01: You you I am with you.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, what a privilege, friends! That as we go, we go with God with us, Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps you live in life as a non-Christian and you think, man, what are these people calling me to a mission far greater than my imagination?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, but we're calling you to someone more significant, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: As you go, He's with you.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel begins, friends, again with God coming to us.
SPEAKER_01: And the gospel continues with God remaining with us.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, everything else in between that it's telling us about the cost, yes.
SPEAKER_01: It's telling us about the difficulties, yes.
SPEAKER_01: But Matthew doesn't end this this whole picture with Jesus leaving and ascending.
SPEAKER_01: He ends it with Jesus staying, remaining, promising that look, there's all authority, Jesus is authority, and I'm calling you to all nations.
SPEAKER_01: No xenophobia here, all nations, Zulus, Tossas, Nyasas, everyone, Chinese, Koreans, everyone.
SPEAKER_01: 5.4 million people in Joburg.
SPEAKER_01: What you are called to everyone, all people groups, and he says, All that I've commanded you.
SPEAKER_01: There's no like, okay, Lord, let's make a compromise here.
SPEAKER_01: Let me draw a boundary around my life, around this area.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not really a people person, so I I know everyone, all things, obey all things.
SPEAKER_01: And I I'm I'm I'm challenging you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: It starts just with that one more person praying for them, committing your life to checking on them.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps it's your colleague who's going through stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Commit to praying for them and let them know.
SPEAKER_01: Hey man, I'm I'm praying for you.
SPEAKER_01: Hey man, you may earn my thoughts.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps it starts with you inviting someone to church.
SPEAKER_01: It starts somewhere, but there's no excuse, friends.
SPEAKER_01: We go.
SPEAKER_01: And the last thing is that Jesus says, I will be with you always.
SPEAKER_01: I want to close this sermon, friends, with a picture.
SPEAKER_01: A picture that the book of the Bible closes with.
SPEAKER_01: You need to take your time as you read through Matthew and be careful that you don't miss the fact that the risen king is calling you to a mission bigger than yourself.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this week I saw a clip of John Piper speaking about uh seashells, it's a classic sermon.
SPEAKER_01: That your life cannot just amount to you having a retirement plan and dying, and that's it.
SPEAKER_01: Your life cannot amount to you just just uh securing the bag and dying.
SPEAKER_01: Your life cannot amount to that.
SPEAKER_01: There's so there's so much more, and and and and here's the picture that I want to show you in John.
SPEAKER_01: John says, a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the Lamb.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what God is calling you is to populate a heavenly city.
SPEAKER_01: As you share the gospel, there'll be people in eternity standing before the throne because you shared the message with them.
SPEAKER_01: How about that for a retirement plan?
SPEAKER_01: A plan that speaks to eternity, pouring your life out for those kids, to pouring your life out for your colleagues in prayer and thought.
SPEAKER_01: It sounds exhausting.
SPEAKER_01: No, friends, it's one more person, one small step.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's just you this year saying, Hey, I'm just gonna be not nice to that person.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be a gospel person to that person.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna pray for them.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna encourage them.
SPEAKER_01: I say, Oh, girl, you look nice today.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna I'm gonna do everything to encourage them.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna create a safe space for them to have conversations with me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna pray with them, I'm gonna share Jesus with them.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna hope that this picture that John speaks about, a populated city of many nations, that that tub or that mark, that that shapir, whoever it is, will be standing right next to you in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: That's the that's the theological vision.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we do, friends in Joburg.
SPEAKER_01: We are populating that city, that heavenly city, with more than 5.4 million people.
SPEAKER_01: So, therefore, friends, go and know he's with you always to the very end of age.
SPEAKER_01: Let me pray for us.