#6 The Great Commission

I. Introduction
A. Final sermon in this series
B. Matthew 28:18–20 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
C. Three parts, beginning with 18-19a
II. 18-19a “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations...”
A. The first thing to notice is how ‘every nation’ is connected to the ‘all authority.’
B. You see, up until this point Jesus had been charged by God to go to the Jews. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 15:24)
1. But remember what we read at advent in Ps.2:8, when God said to His Son, the Messiah, “I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.”
2. God bestowed upon Jesus authority over all the nations.
3. As it turns out, He wasn’t sent only to the Jews; He was sent to the Jews FIRST.
4. And then, after His resurrection, having been given authority over every nation, He commands His disciples to go to every place on earth to claim those who have been given to Him from every people.
5. Remember last week we talked about how there’s a group of people who have been given to Christ by the Father?
C. Well, those people weren’t just Jews (like He was). They were Jews and people from every other people group on earth.
1. In Rev.5:9 they sing to the Lamb who was slain, “...you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation." (Cf. Rev. 7:9-10)
2. What Jesus came to do was so great that it is not enough that the Israelites worship Him. It must be worldwide/international/universal. It must apply to every place and every people on earth.
a. This is what God the Father says to the Messiah in Is.49:6, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
D. So, which nation does God really love? Which nation is His favorite? My friends, every nation is the Lord’s. He no longer has one nation, He has claimed them all! Christ has been given ALL authority in heaven and on earth!
1. Just like Israel, the United States is far too small a nation to be God’s special nation.
2. “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. 16 Lebanon would not suffice for fuel... 17 All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.” (Isaiah 40:15-17)
3. The whole world is His. Every nation is His.
4. I love Psalm 108:8-9: “Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine; Ephraim is my helmet, Judah my scepter. Moab is my washbasin; upon Edom I cast my shoe; over Philistia I shout in triumph.”
5. The Great Commission is an international commission. The Lord calls us to love and to serve and to reach out to and to claim His authority over EVERY nation, EVERY people on earth: people who are like us and people who are not like us, people who speak our language and people who speak other languages, people who are modern, people who seem backward.
6. Jesus didn’t say go into all the world and make disciples who look like you and do things like you. He said, “Go into all the world and make disciples of every people group.”
7. If we have disdain for another culture or nation, how is that going to work with the Great Commission? Yes, maybe they don’t deserve it. Maybe they’re wicked and violent and worship false gods. But are they really any worse than us? Aren’t we wicked and violent and don’t we worship false gods – just in different ways, perhaps?
8. He’s not chosen us because of who we are, He’s chosen us because of His grace!
E. Think about how audacious this is for Jesus to say, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”
1. Think about the absurdity of sending out eleven bumbling, doubting disciples to change the whole world by winning followers from every nation and people group on earth, even places way beyond what these men even realize is there. It looked ridiculous! Absurd!
2. But here we are 2000 years later, and in spite of all kinds of opposition, billions of people from most of the people groups on earth have heard the gospel of Christ, and many have become His disciples. And the process is continuing; progress is still being made. It’s downright miraculous!
F. And it’s going to get even larger! There are still unreached people groups. And it all started right here with Jesus commissioning eleven not-very-impressive men.
1. Such a humble beginning, but such a grand finale!
2. As Jesus Himself said, “The kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed that a man sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” Luke 13:18-19 (cf. Luke 13:20-21; Daniel 2:34-35)
G. This is not just about sending out missionaries to foreign lands; this includes us!
1. Every nation includes one’s own nation. (Remember that a few days later in Jerusalem Jesus put it this way: “You shall be My witness both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” – Acts 1:8)
2. All of us are missionaries, playing part in this grand project which Jesus assigns to His people.
3. I know that everyone agrees with this, but I also know that it’s easy in our busy lives for this to drop off our radar, to not carry a burden for the salvation of our neighbors, our relatives, our work associates, our community.
4. Remember the story of the four lepers in Samaria in 2Kings 7.
a. All the people in the city were starving, but the four lepers stumbled upon an abundance of food and supplies outside the city. After they stuff themselves, they say to each other, in 2Kings 7:9, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, but we are keeping silent; if we wait until morning to tell the others, God will punish us. Therefore come, let us go tell everyone.”
b. Brothers and Sisters, if we want to keep this Treasure to ourselves, if we don’t feel a responsibility to share it with others, if we don’t look for opportunities to share it, if we don’t pray for the salvation of those around us, then we also are not doing right. This is a day of good news, not a day for keeping silent.
c. The good news of Christ is too good to sit on. He’s too good a Savior to keep to ourselves.
d. He is too good a Savior to be worshiped by just us. He is worthy of far more praise than we can give Him. Many more worshipers need to be recruited to give Him glory. O for 1000 tongues to sing our great Redeemer’s praise!
H. But it also necessitates going, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” (And this is a proper translation. Even though it is the participle form of the verb in Greek, a participle often carries an imperative meaning, as it does in English.“Taking your little brother with you, go get in the car.” And it clearly does here.)
1. And it includes sending: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? (Romans 10:13b-15a)
2. Here we see that going involves a team, a sending team. We are all involved in the going.
I. But before the sending and before the going is the going of the heart.
1. First, we identify with them, we love them, we long for their salvation. Then comes the sending and the going. But it begins in the heart.
2. We see this in John 3:16: “God so loved the world that He gave His Son.” He embraced the world in His heart and it led to saving action.
3. And that’s the way it’s supposed to happen with us. God wants us to have hearts that go out to the world, as His did. Our hearts go first, then our bodies go into the world, or we send someone out to the mission field. And we not only send them out with our prayers and our love for them, but with our prayers and love for the people they go to serve.
4. If we really want to love and support missionaries, you must love not only them, you must love the people over there to whom they are going, the people they have come to love.
III. 19b-20a “Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
A. There are many facets to this command.
B. It’s not about making converts, it’s about making disciples, followers of Christ.
1. This means engaging with people, getting to know people, working with people where they are.
C. It involves teaching, but it’s not teaching them our own ideas or our own wisdom or philosophy of life. It is teaching them what Christ taught. That means knowing what Christ taught.
1. And it’s not just academic. We are supposed to not only teach people the things Jesus taught, but teach them to obey the things Jesus taught: “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
D. And it involves baptizing.
1. This shows that there is an official side of the process, not just a spiritual side and a intellectual side.
2. Baptism into the name of the Trinity is the act of being incorporated the kingdom of Christ and into His church.
E. So, there is the proclamation of the gospel and leading a person to Christ. There is the baptizing them into Christ and the church. There is the teaching them what Christ commanded. And there is the training them to do it. And this is to be done to people from every people group on earth.
F. This command is clearly too big a task for just the apostles. It is a bigger job than any one group or church or even one generation can do.
1. This is a project which requires the efforts of all.
2. There’s a role for every individual Christian, for every church, for every generation.
G. It is one of those ways where we see that we are a small part of a much bigger reality, united with the rest of the church, in all places, at all times.
1. Nehemiah: each group building it’s little part of the wall
2. “the proper functioning of each individual part” – Eph.4:16
IV. 20b “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
A. This is such an important part of the great commission!
B. The verse right before the Great Commission says, “When they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.” – Matthew 28:17
C. Even here right before Jesus ascends to heaven, these guys are far from being movers and shakers who are ready to change the world. Up to this point they have been failures more than winners.
D. How in the world are these doubters – including us – ever going to accomplish this monumental task?
E. That question is answered by Jesus’ final statement: “I am with you always.”
F. And the fact that we are included in this is made clear in the last phrase, “I am with you TO THE END OF THE AGE.”
G. This isn’t a general promise that Jesus is with His people, it’s specifically focused on His presence with them as they work to fulfill the Great Commission.
1. He is with us AS WE DO THIS. That’s the only way it’s going to happen!
2. He is, after all, the One building His church (Matt.16:18).
H. And how did He plan to build His church?
1. First, by His life here on earth: by entering into human flesh: proclaiming the good news, doing mighty miracles, calling out disciples to train.
2. Then by dying for sin, and being raised from the dead.
3. Then by pouring out His Spirit upon His people to move them to carry on His mission.
I. This last stage is so important! It is the present stage of this great project.
1. What Jesus began in His flesh, He is carrying on through His church.
2. Acts’ intro — Acts 1:1-2 “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.”
3. It’s not merely that Jesus did something, but that Jesus started something.
4. Jesus did it Himself, then He did it through the apostles, now He does it through us.
5. And this was the plan all along (John 17:20).
a. “I am the light of the world.” (John 8:12; 9:5) “You are the light of the world.” (Matt.5:14)
b. John 14:12 “Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.”
J. The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, about two weeks after Jesus gave the Great Commission. The coming of the Spirit is primarily what He had in mind when He promised to be present with them. He was to be with them through His Spirit.
1. A few days later, in His final moments with them, just before He ascended, He told them, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witness both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
K. You see, the ministry of gospel proclamation and church building is always done in the power of the Spirit.
1. God doesn’t just empower us to enjoy His salvation. He empowers us to spread His salvation.
2. For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. – 2Tim.1:7
3. And listen to what happened in Acts 4:29-31. They prayed, “And now, Lord, ...grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence,” ... 31 And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak the word of God with boldness.
L. Without Christ’s presence and power through the Spirit, our mission is preposterous!
1. Jesus said, “I send you out as sheep among wolves.” (Matt.10:16)
a. What kind of mission is that? That’s not a plan for international success, that’s suicide!
b. EXCEPT...that He is with us.
2. He uses weak tools to do mighty work!
3. That’s why our job begins by realizing this is way beyond us, but also that He wants to use us in spite of our weakness, and by praying for the Holy Spirit to help us.
M. And notice that there is a connection between the project and the age.
1. “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
2. The gathering of disciples from every nation is tied to the end of the age.
3. As Jesus said in Matthew 24:14, “This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
4. This is not just a command. It’s not just the job Jesus has given to every believer and every church. This is the redemption of the world. This is arguably the main purpose of this age/era.
5. It is certainly the calling of every church.
6. BCO 1:2 tells us that the church has been erected in this world for the gathering and perfecting of the saints. That’s the Great Commission: the gathering and the perfecting of the saints of God.