SPEAKER_00: I just want you to know, Matt, I've had a complete change of heart.
SPEAKER_00: I'm encouraged that you want to go on an ISM mission trip, and it doesn't even matter where it's to.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us would wait and find out they were going to Myrtle Beach.
SPEAKER_00: But you, you, my friend, willing to go.
SPEAKER_00: I'm encouraged by that.
SPEAKER_00: If you have your copy of God's word, okay.
SPEAKER_00: If you have your copy of God's word, I invite you to turn to 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: Our faith is a missionary faith.
SPEAKER_00: It is part and parcel of what it means to be a Christian that we support the work of missions.
SPEAKER_00: Henry Martin, a 19th-century missionary to India and Persia, wrote this.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions.
SPEAKER_00: The nearer we get to him, the more intensely missionary we become.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that that young man who died at the age of 31 knew of what he spoke.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is a missionary faith.
SPEAKER_00: Because we worship the God who came to seek and save the lost.
SPEAKER_00: We have a missionary God, and so we have a missionary faith.
SPEAKER_00: He was a physician that sought out the sick, a liberator that pursued the captives, a husband who came to win his bride.
SPEAKER_00: It is impossible to know this Savior intimately without coming to love the very people he chose to set his love on.
SPEAKER_00: To love Christ means you love the proclamation of his salvation to the world.
SPEAKER_00: For if you care not about the latter, you must not care about the former.
SPEAKER_00: It is a missionary faith.
SPEAKER_00: Because it is faith in the one who gave us the mission.
SPEAKER_00: Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
SPEAKER_00: Even before the church is born at Pentecost, we already have our marching orders.
SPEAKER_00: Before there's ever been a worship service, no pews, no hymnals, we already know what our mission is: to go out to every corner of the world and call people to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so central is this idea of a missionary faith to the idea of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: It finds its way into the earliest creed and confession of our church that we have here in 1 Timothy chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: We've been looking these last few weeks on Sunday morning and on Sunday evening at the single verse in 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read it together now.
SPEAKER_00: Great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness.
SPEAKER_00: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up in glory.
SPEAKER_00: Jesse's mentioned already a few times how when you read that text in your Bible, you see that it's indented over to let you know that it was written as poetry.
SPEAKER_00: It's probably an early hymn that the church would sing, or maybe it was a creed that they would gather together and recite in unison, which we've been doing on Sunday mornings here.
SPEAKER_00: Reciting scripture and confessing our faith together.
SPEAKER_00: The creed itself probably predates this letter that Paul is writing to his beloved protege Timothy, since it seems to be that Paul is acknowledging this is a well-known and commonly held confession.
SPEAKER_00: Every Christian in the world, Paul says, is confessing these things.
SPEAKER_00: So what is it that they're confessing?
SPEAKER_00: Or let me ask the question this way: what's the main theme of this confession?
SPEAKER_00: What's this hymn all about?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul says it's the mystery of godliness.
SPEAKER_00: Now that is a delightfully intriguing turn of phrase, is it not?
SPEAKER_00: The mystery of godliness.
SPEAKER_00: But what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we've discussed.
SPEAKER_00: Mystery doesn't mean something that we don't know.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it means the exact opposite.
SPEAKER_00: It's something we do know.
SPEAKER_00: We've been defining mystery as something that was obscure in the Old Testament, but now it's more clearly revealed for us in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: It's something that was always there.
SPEAKER_00: It was always a part of God's plan, and it was even put forth in God's revelation, although in veiled ways, but now it's been brought out into the spotlight.
SPEAKER_00: It's taking center stage, unveiled, revealed, for all to see clearly.
SPEAKER_00: That's the mystery.
SPEAKER_00: So what is the mystery that's being unveiled here?
SPEAKER_00: What is the the cloth being pulled off of?
SPEAKER_00: Paul says it's godliness, the mystery of godliness.
SPEAKER_00: And at first glance, you see that phrase and you go, oh, I know that word.
SPEAKER_00: I know godliness.
SPEAKER_00: I can look it up in the dictionary.
SPEAKER_00: It's, you know, being righteous or pious or doing godly kind of things.
SPEAKER_00: I know that word.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not the mystery here.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly, that word does mean that elsewhere, and it is certainly a quality that we want to possess and not one we want to keep veiled.
SPEAKER_00: We want it to be obvious in our lives that we are practicing and pursuing godliness.
SPEAKER_00: But the very first line of this confession makes it very clear that we're not talking about an attitude or a lifestyle or a behavior.
SPEAKER_00: We are talking about a person.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the mystery of godliness.
SPEAKER_00: He was manifested in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: This is none other than the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The mystery being unveiled is the person of Jesus, the work of Jesus, the life of Jesus, all that he came to accomplish here on earth.
SPEAKER_00: And it is a mystery.
SPEAKER_00: Was Jesus present in the Old Testament?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, certainly.
SPEAKER_00: He was the God of the Old Testament, the God who never changes, Malachi says.
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus who's there in Genesis 1.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one creating.
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus who's there in Genesis 2 who breathes life into Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus there in Genesis 3, who's walking in the cool of the garden, who covers their sin and their shame and pronounces the curse.
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus in Genesis 12, who's making a covenant with Abraham, that he would be Abraham's God, and Abraham and his offspring would be his people.
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus who then later makes a covenant with Moses and then later makes a covenant with David.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has always been there at work and present in his creation throughout the pages of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: But the way that he would fulfill his work, the way he would bring all of these promises to culmination was in some ways hidden in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: It was veiled in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: It was a mystery.
SPEAKER_00: He shows up in promises and he shows up in prophecies.
SPEAKER_00: But he's there.
SPEAKER_00: The seed of the woman who will crush the serpent, the seed from Abraham, who will bless the nations, the seed from David who will sit on the throne, the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: But so many of the prophecies seem to conflict with one another.
SPEAKER_00: How could all of these things be true?
SPEAKER_00: Is he divine?
SPEAKER_00: Because it sounds like he's divine here.
SPEAKER_00: Is he human?
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like he's human.
SPEAKER_00: Is he gonna conquer or is he going to die?
SPEAKER_00: Is he gonna judge his people?
SPEAKER_00: Is he gonna redeem his people?
SPEAKER_00: How can all of these things be true?
SPEAKER_00: And all of these kind of prophecies are hanging in the air, lingering in the Old Testament, seemingly unsolvable until the day that Gabriel shows up and speaks to Mary.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: You've found favor.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna bear a son.
SPEAKER_00: And you will call his name Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And quickly the mystery starts to come into focus.
SPEAKER_00: Quickly, the cloth is pulled away.
SPEAKER_00: Is he divine?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: God is his father.
SPEAKER_00: Is he human?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Flesh and blood in the womb of the virgin.
SPEAKER_00: Will he conquer?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Will he die?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Will he judge his people or rescue them?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: And in this person, this divine person, all of God's promises are yes.
SPEAKER_00: All of the prophecies come true.
SPEAKER_00: All of the hope, all of the expectation, all of the advent culminates in his coming.
SPEAKER_00: The mystery is revealed.
SPEAKER_00: And then here in this short, six-phrase creed that we bump into, we find a distilled revelation of the mystery about Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Six short little phrases that are packed full of truth and insight and meaning.
SPEAKER_00: And once you prick one, a whole fountain full of theology flows out of it.
SPEAKER_00: It's the most condensed explanation of what we believe about Jesus, I think you could possibly write.
SPEAKER_00: And as we take our time to look at them in turn, slowly unfolding them word by word, our understanding of who Jesus is and what he's come to do and what he's accomplished grows deeper and deeper and deeper.
SPEAKER_00: Really, this creed is like a crash course in Christology.
SPEAKER_00: If you sit through all of these sermons, and then you go find the Apostle Paul, he will give you at least partial credit for Christology 101.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure.
SPEAKER_00: Probably.
SPEAKER_00: And we already looked at the first three together: the mystery of Christ's humanity that he was manifest in the flesh, the mystery of Christ's vindication that the Spirit testified to his full deity and his full humanity, the mystery of Christ's servants, as we looked at this morning, that he was seen by angels and testified to and ministered by angels.
SPEAKER_00: Tonight we consider the fourth of the phrases: the mystery of Christ's missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: This we confess, that he was proclaimed among the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why would that be a mystery, you may ask?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because the church's great commission wasn't as evident in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't as obvious as it is in our New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember, Israel wasn't given the command to go to missions, not like the church is given that command.
SPEAKER_00: Israel was called to separate herself from the nations, to remain holy, to remain distinct, to function effectively like a lighthouse.
SPEAKER_00: To stand alone and to shine brightly the holiness of God so that others would see it, and then they would come to Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The interested, the curious, the pious would flock to her borders.
SPEAKER_00: With very few exceptions.
SPEAKER_00: Israel never sent out missionaries to the neighboring countries.
SPEAKER_00: They certainly would not have called themselves missionaries when they went.
SPEAKER_00: Jonah went to Nineveh, but he was about as reluctant as an anthropomorphic asparagus could possibly be about it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Israel saw her role, her mission, not to go out, but to come in, to reside in the promised land, to be the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're not surprised when Jesus' first disciples are so likewise consumed with the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, is it now?
SPEAKER_00: Is now the kingdom?
SPEAKER_00: Is that when it's going to happen?
SPEAKER_00: They were a lot of things they didn't know about their Messiah, but one thing they did know, he was going to sit on David's throne.
SPEAKER_00: He was going to rule from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And with a rod of iron, Psalm 2 says, he is going to break the nations.
SPEAKER_00: That much they knew.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus reveals the mystery that it has always been God's plan to draw his people from every nation on earth, every tribe, every people, every tongue, all flocking to him.
SPEAKER_00: And even before there was an Israel, God had a plan to draw the nations to him.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 12, we saw that God calls Abraham to become the father of Israel, and he makes the promise that through Abraham, all the families on the earth will be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: There's a promise woven into the identity of Israel that everyone else will be blessed as well.
SPEAKER_00: And that promise passes through Abraham's family.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham gives it to Isaac, Isaac gives it to Jacob, and Jacob passes it to his son Judah, this little lion cub in Genesis 49, who's going to serve as the caretaker of Israel's scepter until the real king comes, the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And when he shows up, Jacob says, he will receive not just authority in Israel, but the obedience of all the nations.
SPEAKER_00: And the promise passes through Judah to a young man from the tribe of Judah, a little shepherd who slays giants and kills 10,000 enemies, a shepherd who became a king, but just like Judah, was just a placeholder king.
SPEAKER_00: Just a temporary king.
SPEAKER_00: Until one day one of his sons would inherit the promise and become the king forever and ever over all the earth.
SPEAKER_00: It's the promise that flows into the mouths of all of the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Through Isaiah, Yahweh declares, it's too light a thing for Israel alone to be my servant.
SPEAKER_00: To establish only the tribes of Jacob, to restore only the scions of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: They will become a light unto the nations to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: It has always been God's plan to rescue his people from all of the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Rebellious Egypt, unrighteous Canaan, prideful Persia, belligerent Rome, God would bring his people out of all of them.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus tells his disciples in John 10, I have other sheep that are not from this fold.
SPEAKER_00: And them also I must bring.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus calls his disciples and commissions him the way that he does.
SPEAKER_00: Peter, Andrew, James, John, your whole life you've been fishermen.
SPEAKER_00: You've lived on a boat, you stink like fish.
SPEAKER_00: Well now I'm gonna make you fishers of men.
SPEAKER_00: And when we hear that verse, we think of Luke chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: But when they heard that, what did they think of?
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 16.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, I am sending for many fishers, says Yahweh, and they shall catch them.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the mystery of missions.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, and he came to draw all men to him, not just Israel, not just the righteous, not just the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: He came to call all men to him.
SPEAKER_00: The poor, the rich, the religious, the rebellious.
SPEAKER_00: He came to Israel and to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: The salvation that he has accomplished is for the Jew, yes, but for the Greek also, Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: No nation is excluded.
SPEAKER_00: As Christians, we have to think bigger than just where we live.
SPEAKER_00: John Stott says, we must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.
SPEAKER_00: But he's here for all of it.
SPEAKER_00: And now we learn how he has planned to accomplish that work by sending his disciples out to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't tell his disciples, okay, it's been 40 days.
SPEAKER_00: I'm getting ready to go back up to my father.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to find a really nice part of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Like overlooking the sea, build a big wall, go inside.
SPEAKER_00: If somebody comes by and they look right, you can let them in.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I want you to go.
SPEAKER_00: This is our mission.
SPEAKER_00: This is our call.
SPEAKER_00: This is our task to go and to make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And that would be a monumental task.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it'd be an impossible task.
SPEAKER_00: It's a mission we can only accomplish because the tomb is empty.
SPEAKER_00: It's a mission we can only accomplish because the gospel is true.
SPEAKER_00: It's a mission we can only accomplish because God has given us the word.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what tool has he given us to accomplish this work?
SPEAKER_00: It's right here.
SPEAKER_00: Proclamation.
SPEAKER_00: Great indeed we confess, the mystery of godliness, he is proclaimed among the nations.
SPEAKER_00: We're called a preach.
SPEAKER_00: All of us are preachers.
SPEAKER_00: That word proclaimed, it's the Greek word kerusso.
SPEAKER_00: You see it all over the place in your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Normally it gets translated as preach.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ is preached to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a peculiar word when you think about it, to preach.
SPEAKER_00: It's not something that naturally we do.
SPEAKER_00: We have an idea for public speaking.
SPEAKER_00: We understand Toastmasters and we understand communications class, you know, the comms 101 class you had to take, you know, you did the how-to speech to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and you got 100% credit on it and felt good about life.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't understand preaching.
SPEAKER_00: It's a word that used to be used to describe the work of a herald.
SPEAKER_00: You know what a herald is.
SPEAKER_00: He's the town crier, the guy who was responsible to carry the king's declarations into the city.
SPEAKER_00: He'd walk out there into the middle of the town square and shout, Hear ye, hear ye, thus let it be known, the king has declared.
SPEAKER_00: And in that way, a herald's job is very different from a public speaker's.
SPEAKER_00: They're not TED talkers.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the public speaker, the uh the orator, the philosopher, we might call them the pundits today.
SPEAKER_00: Well, their job was to come up with persuasive speech.
SPEAKER_00: And they were hoping that if they were creative enough, if they were witty enough, if they were smart enough, if they were, you know, logical enough, that maybe they could maybe just convince you to go along with them.
SPEAKER_00: And you could win the crowd's approval.
SPEAKER_00: His success was found in whether or not he could find the right words to woo their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Could I craft a compelling speech and carry the day?
SPEAKER_00: But that's not how heralds operate.
SPEAKER_00: His job was simply to proclaim.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't his message.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't in charge of it.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't come up with it.
SPEAKER_00: He just carried it and spoke it.
SPEAKER_00: He's just a mouthpiece.
SPEAKER_00: And his success was found in the faithfulness he had to his words.
SPEAKER_00: So today we're being reminded the church has a unique purpose.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus Christ bought this church with his blood, and he's building this church with his spirit so that we would serve as his witnesses, so that we would go out and proclaim and tell and announce that which we have come to know to be true.
SPEAKER_00: In Acts chapter 1, Jesus says that you will be his witnesses to the ends of the world until the day of his coming.
SPEAKER_00: It will be his witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you're here to do if you're a Christian, to witness to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Witness is a cool word.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Greek word mortures, it's where we get our English word martyr from.
SPEAKER_00: And you probably already know what it means to be a witness.
SPEAKER_00: You've all watched some cop TV drama show at some point in your life.
SPEAKER_00: One time in my life, I was actually called to be a bona fide, genuine witness at a courts martial in the Marine Corps.
SPEAKER_00: It was awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Wearing my uniform, the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: It was kind of like a few good men, except instead of Tom Cruise asking me if I could handle the truth, it was some random lawyers asking me questions about some orders that one of the Marines and our units didn't obey.
SPEAKER_00: And at the risk of sounding over, you know, melodramatic, which I have been accused of, I was the star witness for the prosecution.
SPEAKER_00: It was pretty impressive, actually.
SPEAKER_00: Because I was the guy.
SPEAKER_00: I saw it all with my own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: I was the one that was there when that Marine had received the orders from our executive officer.
SPEAKER_00: And if I was the guy that typed those orders out on the paper, I have a very important job.
SPEAKER_00: I typed them up.
SPEAKER_00: And I was the guy when that guy didn't come back when he was supposed to, that reported him missing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, he wasn't a particularly bad guy.
SPEAKER_00: And there were complicated reasons for why he did what he did.
SPEAKER_00: And I genuinely sympathize with the situation, but none of those things mattered when I got on the witness stand.
SPEAKER_00: All that mattered was what was true.
SPEAKER_00: The point of a witness is that they have information, they have truth, and their job is to tell it.
SPEAKER_00: I knew what had happened, I had seen what had happened, I had heard what had happened, and now it was my job to go up there and tell the truth of what had happened to those who needed to hear it.
SPEAKER_00: And as it turns out, I could handle the truth just fine.
SPEAKER_00: Much better than the defendant could, anyway.
SPEAKER_00: That's what witnesses do.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you do.
SPEAKER_00: We bear witness, we testify, we proclaim the things that we know.
SPEAKER_00: So then what is Jesus telling the apostles and the church and you and me?
SPEAKER_00: What is the truth that we are bearing witness to?
SPEAKER_00: It's the gospel, the good news, the truth about Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus first told these apostles ten days before Pentecost that they would be his witnesses, Peter and James and John standing there on the Mount of Olives, they were privileged to see and to touch and to hear the resurrected Jesus Christ in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And not only were they eyewitnesses to his resurrection, they were first hand eyewitnesses to all of his teaching and all of his sermons and all of his miracles and all of his earthly ministry, from the baptism in the Jordan all the way to his ascension in the heavens.
SPEAKER_00: They heard it all, they saw it all.
SPEAKER_00: And they wrote it down for us so that we could see and hear and know it too.
SPEAKER_00: And now Jesus commissions them to carry that truth into the world, to take the stand, if you will, to testify to the salvation that God has accomplished through his son, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so every day of their lives from that day on was one long testimony that sin can be forgiven, that God so loved the world, he gave his one and only son, that death has been defeated, that judgment waits for those who reject his gift.
SPEAKER_00: And you and I are the same recipients of the same message that they have.
SPEAKER_00: And because we've been given the same message they have, we're given the same mission that they've been given.
SPEAKER_00: The truth hasn't changed, sin is still forgiven, God still loves the world, death is still defeated, and judgment is still looming.
SPEAKER_00: And the moment that you heard the gospel, the moment you believed it, and the Holy Spirit opened your heart to trust Him, you became a witness to that truth.
SPEAKER_00: You were sworn in on the stand, and now your job is to tell it like it is.
SPEAKER_00: And like Peter and James and John, you have the responsibility to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to a dying and darkened world, and nobody else can do it.
SPEAKER_00: No one else on the planet can do this work of proclaiming.
SPEAKER_00: Only the church can do it.
SPEAKER_00: Only Christians can do it.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're Jesus' witnesses, tasked with bringing the truth that leads to eternal life for people on their way to hell.
SPEAKER_00: And so we need to know this message we're carrying.
SPEAKER_00: We need to know what it is we're saying.
SPEAKER_00: Unlike all the other world religions and philosophies, Christianity is based on historical facts.
SPEAKER_00: And that fact is very simple: an empty tomb.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, either Jesus died or he didn't.
SPEAKER_00: Either he was buried and rose again or he didn't.
SPEAKER_00: And on that one historical fact, that ontologically real event, all of Christianity hinges.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians, if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain.
SPEAKER_00: If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you're still in your sins.
SPEAKER_00: If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we of all people are most to be pitied.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity means nothing if Jesus didn't rise from the grave.
SPEAKER_00: If Easter is a fiction, then Jesus and the Easter bunny have the same moral significance.
SPEAKER_00: And that, by the way, is why you can't reduce Christianity just to a set of doctrines or ideas or propositions.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what liberal Christianity, both historically and now, attempts to do.
SPEAKER_00: To reduce Christianity just to a set of moral rights and wrongs, do's and don'ts.
SPEAKER_00: And deny the substantive reality of Jesus, deny the miracles and the virgin birth and the crucifixion and the resurrection, and say, you know, Christianity is not really about a redemptive event.
SPEAKER_00: It's just about pure living and good life and be good to your neighbor and love your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: That's the heart of Christianity, but it's not.
SPEAKER_00: And it fails completely.
SPEAKER_00: A Jesus who's simply a moral example for you doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know why?
SPEAKER_00: Because moral examples don't bleed.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't need another example.
SPEAKER_00: You needed a savior.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't need a spiritual pace car to keep up with.
SPEAKER_00: You needed propitiation.
SPEAKER_00: If there was no cross, there's no atonement.
SPEAKER_00: If there's no atonement, there's no forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And if there's no forgiveness, what are we here to do?
SPEAKER_00: The Father sent his son not to show the world, but to save the world.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why the resurrection matters so much.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus isn't just a mouthpiece for moral teaching.
SPEAKER_00: He's not just the spokesman for loving your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Gandhi could do that.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is a rescuer, he's a redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: He was a real human person, divinely conceived, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count a quality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant.
SPEAKER_00: Like you and me.
SPEAKER_00: He was a real person, truly God and truly man, who breathed real air and bled real blood to make real atonement for your very real sin.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you deny the resurrection, you rob Christianity of its heartbeat.
SPEAKER_00: It strips the good news out of the gospel and turns Christianity into just another run-of-the-mill cookie-cutter, carbon copy, moralistic religion of people trying and failing to follow a series of rules to earn favor with God.
SPEAKER_00: There's no Christianity without a real resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: A resurrectionless Christianity makes as much sense as a vegan steakhouse.
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, if you tried to sell it, no one would come.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is a historical religion, and this one fact, the fact of the empty tomb, makes the church a fundamentally different entity.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a path to enlightenment, it's not an option on a bumper sticker, it's not a club of good people trying to do better.
SPEAKER_00: The church is the result of the one God, the one true God, who is a missionary God who sent his one and only begotten Son to be the only Savior that rescues real sinners.
SPEAKER_00: If the tomb is still full and Jesus' body is decomposing somewhere in Israel, he's just another teacher and a long line of teachers saying nice things to help us get along, then we're doomed.
SPEAKER_00: But the tomb is empty.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus isn't just another teacher.
SPEAKER_00: The church isn't founded on a philosophy, but on forgiveness, actual forgiveness, a real sacrifice from a real Savior that really makes you right before a holy God.
SPEAKER_00: And not only is the resurrection a necessary reality in redemptive history, but it's the divine guarantee that Jesus is all that he claimed to be and all that he promised to do.
SPEAKER_00: When Paul writes his letter to the Romans, he begins with these words: Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of Holiness by His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus rose from the grave, we can carry the message of forgiveness to the world.
SPEAKER_00: When the Father raised the Son by the Spirit that very first Easter Sunday morning, he proved that everything that was said about Jesus, both in the scriptures and in Jesus' own preaching, was true.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't I promise you, Eve, that someday I was going to send a seed to crush the head of the serpent?
SPEAKER_00: Here he is.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't I promise you, Abraham, that one day I was going to make a nation through your offspring that would bless all the nations?
SPEAKER_00: Here he is.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't I promise you, David, that one day I would take one of your descendants and put him on your throne forever and ever?
SPEAKER_00: Here he is.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't I promise you, Israel, that one day I would take your sins and I would cast them as far as the east is from the west?
SPEAKER_00: That I would replace your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't I promise that?
SPEAKER_00: Here he is.
SPEAKER_00: He has done all that I promised he would, and now he will do what he has promised to do.
SPEAKER_00: This is my beloved son.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to him.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we preach.
SPEAKER_00: Christ crucified.
SPEAKER_00: We preach Christ, the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: We preach Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, my friend, if you're going to carry out the Great Commission, you've got to know the Great Commissioner.
SPEAKER_00: That's just how it works.
SPEAKER_00: First, you've got to know him personally as your Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to actually feel his love and experience it to be a first-hand witness of his redemptive power.
SPEAKER_00: To be able to say, as the man in John 9 did, I once was blind and now I see.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you about it.
SPEAKER_00: But you also just need to know him as he's revealed in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: To become his disciples, to know what he commanded, so that you can then go and teach others to do the same.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be a good missionary someday when I grow up.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I ever will, but I aim for it.
SPEAKER_00: John Calvin says, a good missionary is a good theologian.
SPEAKER_00: And a good theologian is a good missionary.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to carry this message into the world.
SPEAKER_00: And we've got to open our mouths to do it.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to, it says proclaim here.
SPEAKER_00: John Piper says, there's no gospel apart from words.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody gets saved by watching your deeds.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we've been called to do as the church.
SPEAKER_00: To proclaim him to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: And I hope you know that that's the call that's been laid on you.
SPEAKER_00: I heard a story recently from H.B.
SPEAKER_00: Charles.
SPEAKER_00: A story about the SS United States.
SPEAKER_00: You ever heard of her?
SPEAKER_00: She's a beautiful ship.
SPEAKER_00: She was commissioned in 1950 and she was going to be the fastest ocean-going vessel that ever existed.
SPEAKER_00: Every part of her was specifically designed to cut through the waves and make it to her destination as quickly as possible.
SPEAKER_00: And as soon as the U.S.
SPEAKER_00: government heard about that, they said, hey, you got our attention.
SPEAKER_00: We're interested.
SPEAKER_00: We would like to invest in this project.
SPEAKER_00: So the U.S.
SPEAKER_00: government in 1950 threw$50 million into her construction.
SPEAKER_00: That's the equivalent of$600 million today.
SPEAKER_00: Your tax dollars, thrown here to the SS United States.
SPEAKER_00: I guess your grandparents' tax dollars.
SPEAKER_00: Your parents' tax dollars.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody's tax dollars.
SPEAKER_00: I just know my taxes went somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: The government was interested in this ship because she would make an excellent troop carrier, wouldn't she?
SPEAKER_00: Man, this fast boat that could carry 15,000 people, and they hoped that someday she would ferry troops across the oceans to distant battlefields in record time to turn the tide of war.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they hoped she was going to do.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the SS United States did hit water in 1952, but she was never a troop carrier.
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, she became a commercial luxury liner, catering to wealthy tourists.
SPEAKER_00: Well, she was fast, though.
SPEAKER_00: Her maiden voyage across the Atlantic broke the record for the fastest ever, and it's a record she still holds today.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, though, the SS United States became obsolete.
SPEAKER_00: Airplanes took over ocean liners as the preferred means of transportation.
SPEAKER_00: And so it seems for all of her amenities, all of her bengals and doodads and hoo-yahs, they just couldn't keep up with the changing times.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually she just turned obsolete.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, they kept her putting around for a little while and they'd ferry the wealthy and affluent around who wanted to remember the good old days.
SPEAKER_00: But even that dried up eventually.
SPEAKER_00: Now she sits in the harbor in Philadelphia rusting.
SPEAKER_00: And I agree with HB when he calls her a parable for the church.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, I want you to remember that Jesus built us to be a warship, not a luxury cruise liner.
SPEAKER_00: Local churches should be troop carriers, sending missionaries around the world to difficult and calamitous locations to wage spiritual warfare.
SPEAKER_00: But far too many of us are content to play shuffleboard and wait for the next potluck.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, buffet.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, we have a commission.
SPEAKER_00: We've been given orders.
SPEAKER_00: There's a world of lost people from every nation and every tribe and every tongue who need to hear the gospel to believe it, but how are they going to believe?
SPEAKER_00: How are they going to call on the one in whom they do not believe?
SPEAKER_00: And how are they going to believe in the one in whom they've not heard?
SPEAKER_00: And how are they going to hear unless someone preaches?
SPEAKER_00: This is the call that's been given to every one of us to be missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: The Great Commission isn't for a select few, it's for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: For some of us, that means that we should consider very strongly a life of dedicated vocational missionary work.
SPEAKER_00: I have the privilege of shepherding in our young adults' ministry here at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: It is, I mean, I'm just going to tell you, the best ministry in the church.
SPEAKER_00: No offense.
SPEAKER_00: Bill Jesus, best ministry in the church.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things I've absolutely loved is watching over the last few years how God has one by one put a call on people's hearts and sent them around the globe to be missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: Our missionary of the week this week.
SPEAKER_00: We have right now visiting back with us.
SPEAKER_00: Christine, back to do some training before she goes back across the ocean.
SPEAKER_00: Jocelyn Madrano, who's been down in South America.
SPEAKER_00: It's just been incredible.
SPEAKER_00: God calls us to be missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: That shouldn't be exceptional.
SPEAKER_00: That should be normative.
SPEAKER_00: And I think some of us here should strongly consider not pursuing a corner office so that we can pursue the corners of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And if that's you, I don't want to talk to you about it.
SPEAKER_00: Michael Connor wants to talk to you about it.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you talk to me, I'm going to pitch you to Michael Connor.
SPEAKER_00: Like a like a header from a corner kick.
SPEAKER_00: That's for you, Jesse.
SPEAKER_00: We should be sending missionaries all the time, but you wonder something that's really great about living in Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: The nations come to you.
SPEAKER_00: What an incredibly diverse and rich region.
SPEAKER_00: Literally, Embassy Roe is like 15 minutes that way.
SPEAKER_00: Nine hours if you try to go during rush hour, but it's like 15 minutes that way.
SPEAKER_00: Every tribe and nation in Tongue is flocking in here.
SPEAKER_00: You don't even have to go to go to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, who knows?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you work with an Ethiopian eunuch right now and you don't even know it.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're stationed at a base next to a centurion of the Italian cohort and you don't even know it.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have a good Samaritan neighbor right next door to you.
SPEAKER_00: They need the gospel too.
SPEAKER_00: And you're just the person to carry it to them.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you're gonna go, I don't know if you're gonna stay.
SPEAKER_00: C.T.
SPEAKER_00: Studd has a quote, I love it.
SPEAKER_00: Some wish to live within the sound of a church and a chapel bell.
SPEAKER_00: I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.
SPEAKER_00: That's a pretty cool quote.
SPEAKER_00: That makes a good bumper sticker.
SPEAKER_00: But I'll tell you a better quote.
SPEAKER_00: From William Carey.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of the grandfather of the Baptist mission movement.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm not afraid of failure, which is a very real possibility.
SPEAKER_00: Going to India.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not afraid of failure.
SPEAKER_00: I'm afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter.
SPEAKER_00: Our faith is a missionary faith.
SPEAKER_00: We go because he came.
SPEAKER_00: We speak because he declared.
SPEAKER_00: So let our feet be the beautiful feet of those who bring the good news of Jesus Christ to a world that needs to hear it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray, Almighty God.
SPEAKER_00: We do love and worship your Son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: May He be proclaimed to all of the nations that they may come and join the chorus and Revelation 5 around his throne, a multitude beyond number, singing and giving praise to him forever.
SPEAKER_00: We love you, we trust you.
SPEAKER_00: It's in Christ's name that we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_01: If you're in the Washington, DC area, I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_01: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to iBC.church.
SPEAKER_01: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_01: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_01: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.