October 21, 2012 Matthew 28:16-20 Pastor Larry Adams The Great Commission of the Risen Lord Hey, if you have you have your Bibles today, I d like you to turn with me if you would to Matthew 28, probably one of the more familiar mission passages ever given to the church because so many of us understand that this is a commission given by Jesus to go to all the nations. You know, this is the last in a series of messages on discipleship, at least the last that we re doing right now in this series. Because discipleship, calling people to make reproducing followers of Jesus, what we ve been talking about over the last couple of months, is summarized in our purpose - our purpose is to glorify God by making disciples who will impact every area of the world for Christ. We ve been sharing that if disciples are to be made, there must be within the church a process to see them made. Our process is that we believe disciples are best made when they worship, grow, and serve in the context of a Christian community like this one. But why are we making disciples? Because they are to impact the world. Some day God is gonna have around his throne in heaven people from every nation, every tribe, every language, every tongue. And you and I have been privileged to be a part of seeing those nations impacted with the gospel. Today we re gonna understand even more of our disciple-making effort and why each of us is called be a part of this Great Commission. It must ve been an incredible meeting for these 11 disciples after the resurrection to travel north again to the region of Galilee after they left Jerusalem to meet the Lord there on the mountain where he had told them after the resurrection, This is where I will meet you. And when they met him there, we pick up the story in Matthew 28 verse 16: Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Let s pray for a moment. Father, this is called the Great Commission for a reason. It is incumbent upon every believer in every age and every generation to give their lives to the fulfillment of this mission. This not just about the love of God for each person. This is about the love of God for all nations, every people, every tribe, every tongue. I am thankful today, God, that you have called us as well as every other church on this planet to be a global Page 1 of 10
mission church engaged together in the fulfillment of the Great Commission of the risen Lord. We pray today, God, that you will help us to understand our part even more clearly, and we ll thank you, God. In Jesus name, Amen. I was reading a story about a family who took a long trip in a loaded station wagon to get where they were going for their camping trip with their family. It was mom and dad, two sons, two daughters. When they arrived after this long trip, they pulled into the campsite. Immediately everyone jumps out of the car and goes to work. They unload all the gear. They set up the tent. Mom and the girls begin putting out all the food stuff, getting the camp stove ready, and everything out. The boys ran off, began gathering firewood, bringing it back, and stoking up a fire in the center of the campground. Now the other campers around there watching this display of devotion were really taken by what they saw, so they came over they said to the dad, You know, I gotta tell you, that s amazing what we just witnessed. What discipline. What military precision. How on earth do you do it? He said, I have a system. Nobody in our family gets to go to the bathroom until camp is ready. You know, the right motivation can accomplish some pretty amazing things. I was thinking about that this week as I read this Great Commission and read that story about the dad and his campground experience. The right motivation can accomplish some pretty amazing things. So I was thinking this week, What motivation would it take for us, or any individual, or any church to want to be engaged in fulfilling the Great Commission that was given to us by the Lord Jesus? What motivation would it take to actually see that done in a way that we would each be giving our lives to its fulfillment? It was that motivation that Jesus applied when he finally met his disciples in Galilee. Matthew 28 records for us the good news of Jesus resurrection and then his invitation to a very special meeting. Twice in the span of an early morning, Jesus communicates an important message to the women who came to the tomb. Through an angel, he told them, Go and tell my disciples to meet me in Galilee. There they will see me. A little later, Jesus tells the women himself, Tell my disciples to go and meet me there in Galilee. We have an appointment, a very important one which I ve told them about. There they will see me. What was so important that the disciples needed to be reminded twice to get on their way to Galilee to meet Jesus on the mountain? Well, our text today gave us the answer. It was there that they would receive the message and the motivation for the Great Commission. Verse 16: The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Page 2 of 10
Jesus wants all of us, seriously, to have a Galilee moment with him where we hear his heart and we hear his passion for what he cares about in the world. You and I are a part of that. You would not be a Christian today, if you are one; you would not be sitting here worshiping God today if other believers before you had not been disciples who are willing to go out and impact the world for Jesus. It wouldn t happen. You wouldn t be sitting here and neither would any of the other Christians who know the Lord today. This commission is still being given to all who testify and know the Lord and who have been touched by the fact of his risen life. The message is who he is. The motivation is what he said. Jesus is our only Savior, the only way for people to come to God. When that truth grips you, you realize you begin to see people as saved or lost heading to an eternity with Jesus or an eternity in hell. You begin to see them that way, and it moves you and changes you. Your motivation then to carry the message that can save them to the nations of the world is simply this: Jesus told us to. And if I need any other motivation to do anything for God other than He asked me to do it, I need to question whether I really belong to God. I don t need a lot of prompting. I don t need a lot of cajoling. I don t need a lot of other motivation other than God asked me to do this. The Great Commission is not an option for Christians. It s not easy, but it s not complex. It s a simple command. Jesus said, Therefore, go. This is not the command. It s a present participle, As you are going about in your daily business, realize that you re caring with you a message that needs to be shared with all peoples whether they live next door or across the world. I remember once going on a field trip with our daughter Kelsey riding on a BART train. She was sitting a couple rows away. She starts sharing Jesus with two people on a BART train in elementary school on the way into San Francisco. When we got back, I said, Kelsey, who are those people? She said, Oh, people I met on the train. I was telling them about Jesus, daddy. I said, I heard you. She goes, It was the best part of the field trip. I m not making that up. Somewhere that little girl got in her heart a Great Commission that the Lord gave, and she never lost it. She is still doing it. Make disciples. That s the command. As you go, make disciples. Student learners, followers, everything we ve been learning about over the last few weeks. There is no concept of a disciple of Jesus being tempted to keep the good news private. It s to be shared. And we are to make disciples of all nations, all ethnae, all people groups. Not just individuals, but nations. Within every country can be dozens or hundreds of nations, tribes, languages united by culture, language, or custom, groups of people that God has created in whom he desires to hear the message of life and the gospel of Jesus. God is not content for just some to know him but for people from every nation to know him. Page 3 of 10
What must happen to make disciples? He said, Well, first of all they gotta be saved and identified with Jesus, Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, he said. Baptism doesn t save you. Baptism is the testimony that Jesus has saved you. Baptism is the act of obedience that says, I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and rose again, and now I m being baptized in obedience to him to testify that I m truly a disciple and all of me is identified with Jesus. He said, I want you to do that amongst all nations. You cannot be a true disciple until you re baptized. You can be a Christian without baptism, but you can t be a true follower of Jesus engaged in this mission. And they must be taught to obey Jesus, Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, he said. God s word must be known and rightly handled. You cannot be a true disciple if you do not obey Jesus. It s that simple. God s command to make disciples to live for Jesus to glorify him and to impact the world is a command to be obeyed, and every disciple will. And then Jesus said, I am with you always, to the very end of the age. I hear that quoted so many times. People say, Well, God will be with you always. It s in the context of When you are living for me, when you are truly my disciple, when you are obeying me, when as you go you are declaring my glory among the nations, then I am with you always, to the very end of the age. You will not engage in that mission alone. I will be with you. One of the reasons people say when they visit our church, I can feel God s presence there. Well, I can tell you it s not the preaching or the music or any of that. That all helps I hope, but God s presence is felt among the people who are obedient and doing his work, the chief of which is they desire to fulfill the purpose of glorifying him and making disciples who will impact the world. He said, I ll be with you and you will know that presence always, to the very end of the age. True disciples are fully involved in fulfilling the Great Commission of the risen Lord. And how can we be involved in fulfilling that Great Commission? People, we ve talked about this a lot, but we re gonna do it again. We can do it by being engaged as goers. We can do it by being engaged as senders. God calls some to be involved by going to the nations. Matthew 28 verse 18, Jesus said: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit. God calls some to go. You know, my first cross-cultural mission exposure about people who go to bring the gospel to the nations was a movie. I was a very young Christian at a church in Bellevue, Washington, thankfully, a very globally-minded church. It was a Missions Sunday night Page 4 of 10
at church. That night they were showing the movie Peace Child from the book by Don Richardson. The movie chronicled the incredible missionary experiences of Don and Carol Richardson who in 1962 went to live among the headhunting cannibals of Irian Jaya called the Sawi people. I sat there mesmerized by this movie chronicling their experience amongst this tribe. I watched this couple risk life and limb in Stone Age conditions to share the love of God with a people group who never heard of Jesus and would just as soon have had Don Richardson for lunch as listen to him preach the gospel. I watched the danger. I watched the hardship. I watched their sacrifice, and I honestly sat there watching that totally unmotivated except to say, No way. In fact I asked myself the question, Why in the world would anybody do that? You d have to be insane to go live amongst headliners in Stone Age conditions, leaving your family, putting up with that kind of hardship? You d have to be crazy. So then I sat there asking myself, Why in the world would anybody do this while I m watching the movie, Don Richardson comes on answers the question. You know what he said? Listen to this: God loves the Sawi people and he wants them to know God. God has called Carol and me to go to them. That s it? You re doing all that because God loves the Sawi people? He wants them to know them, and you feel called to go there? That s it? For the first time I began to understand a new motivation. It s not what I want, it s what God wants that matters. People, that s true whether you re ever called to go to the nations overseas or whether you re called to be a sender here or go to your neighbor next door or just live a more godly life. It doesn t matter. It s what God wants, not what I want. That s what the disciples learned on the mountain in Galilee. The concept of being called, chosen, and commissioned by God to serve him and to go to the nations of the world in order that they might know him and God s Great Commission to be fulfilled, is a matter of doing what God wants. It s that simple. It was in that movie that I learned for the first time that some are called to go. You remember? If you love me, God said, you will obey my commands. We are all to share the gospel wherever we go, but some are called to go with the gospel to places where it s never been heard. This call to go to the nations has been upon God s people from the very beginning. This whole thing really got started in some sense with Abraham. You remember? Back in the book of Genesis he was called to go to the nations. Genesis 12 verse 1 The Lord had said to Abram: Leave your country, your people and your father s household and go to the land I will show you. Where are we going, God? I m going to show you. Just get walking. He had to travel the Fertile Crescent from UR of the Chaldees over to the Promised Land, a traveling trip around that Crescent of 1,300 miles on foot With your wife and your kids and your donkeys and tents and everything else. I ll show you where Page 5 of 10
we re going. Go. And I ll make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse. Listen to this, All the peoples, all the nations on earth will be blessed through you. Man, am I ever glad Abraham obeyed. He was 75 years old and called to leave his homeland and go to a land God would show him. God said, If you ll obey this, this will happen. I ll make you into a great nation. That nation is Israel. I ll bless you materially and spiritually so you ll have me and all you need to fulfill this purpose, and all peoples, all nations on earth are gonna be blessed through you. Israel was blessed so that they could be a blessing to the Gentiles, the nations. Isaiah said in Isaiah 42 verse 6: I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. You hear that? I ll be with you always. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, For the nations. 7 to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prisons and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. A light of revelation for the nation, I will make you. Abraham, I m gonna make you into a great nation and through you all the nations are gonna be blessed. Israel, your job is to go out. I m gonna reveal myself to you, and you reveal me to the nations. That s your calling. When Israel didn t do it, when they turned to idolatry and their own self-serving purposes, when they closed the nations off from that message, God judged them and sent them into captivity. So where did he send them? He sent them to the nations, to Assyria and Babylon, but then for a while in Egypt. When Jesus came, he was angry because Israel was not only failing to shine his glory to the nations, they had cut the nations off from coming to him. That s why he cleansed the temple and turned over the tables of the moneychangers. You remember that? Mark 11 verse 15: 15 On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, 16 and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. 17 And as he taught them, he said, Is it not written: My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of robbers. Page 6 of 10
Why was Jesus so mad? Because here s the temple that was established to be a centerpiece of God s glory to all the nations. In fact, the outer court of the temple was called the Court of the Gentiles, the Court of the Nations. It was to be a place where non-jews can come and get to know this God who was shining like a light from the people of Israel. When Jesus showed up, they had not only turned that into a market to rip off their fellow Jews, but they were preventing Gentiles and the nations from even coming in. Jesus was so hopping mad about it, he said, You don t even know my Father s will. You don t know what we ve sacrificed for this. I m chasing you outta here because the very people he wants to be reached, you re chasing away. Well, if Jesus came and looked at our church, or my life, or your life, or anyone s life, would he be happy with what he sees there as far as our passion for the nations? That s on the Father s heart. It s one of the reasons I m so thrilled to be a part of a church that is committed to reaching the nations. God is still calling people to go to them. You might say, Wait a minute, I m no Abraham. I m not one of the prophets. I m not Paul or Barnabas. I m a homemaker. I m an engineer. I m a machinist. I m a businessman. I m a waitress. I m married, I ve got kids. I m retired. I m only in middle school. You maybe any or all of those things well, if you re in middle school and you re retired, I need to talk to you but God may be calling you to go to the nations. He may be calling you. Do you know how thrilling it is to see this taught in all levels in our children s ministry, in youth ministry, and adult ministry? I was walking up the stairs a while ago, back out here coming up to the balcony. It was on a Sunday morning. There was a kid that was no taller than my waist. I don t know what grade he was in, but he grabbed me by the jacket. I stopped. I introduced myself, and he introduced himself. He looked up at me and you know what he said? Pastor, Larry, God s calling me to be a missionary in Guatemala. I said, God bless you, buddy. You go for it. Because God s putting this commission call upon the hearts of his people, and we expect our kids grow up with some of them desiring to go. God s gonna put it upon some of your hearts with a desire to go. He may call you to go cross culturally without moving at all. Going to the gas station today or a Quick Stop is a cross-cultural experience. Right in our neighborhoods, in our schools, where we shop and trade, God s bringing people from all the nations. Perhaps he s calling you to build relationships with the attendant from Iran, the neighbor from Senegal, the student from Japan, the people you work with from North Africa to share a life-saving message. But he may be calling you to go to the unreached peoples of the world. If you re feeling that stirring in your heart, don t you discount it. I m telling you from that day on Galilee those disciples understood the heart of God, and they went out and began to impact a world. Paul and Barnabas caught that same mission. They went out and they went to Asia; they went to Europe. Those Europeans who caught that message began to come to a new world. In that new world the gospel began to spread. A little over 30 years ago it caught up with a guy like me. It s the same commission upon my life that Jesus gave the disciples that day in Galilee. If you re Christian, it s on your life too. Page 7 of 10
God calls some to be goers, but God may call some to be involved by being senders to the nations. Do you remember in Romans Chapter 10 verse 14? I ve always been intrigued by this verse: How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! Some are called to go. Some are called to send. You know where I first learned this? Not when I went out to be a missionary, when I first said yes to God. He was calling me going into the ministry. I didn t even know what that was about. I had a job. I had a house. I had obligations, but I knew God was calling me to do it. I had no money for school, so I quit my job and then I had less money for school. I still remember the Sunday that I fully committed to God that I was gonna go do this. I didn t know where I was gonna go. I didn t know what he had in mind. I was just gonna do it. I was going to Obey you, God, and trust you. I knew I d have to work. I knew I d have to do something. I didn t know how he would provide, but I knew he would. That very Sunday that I committed to obey God to go wherever he asked me to go and do whatever he asked me to do, two people I barely knew gave me notes that morning. Inside each of those notes was a check for 50 bucks. How in the world they knew that I had made the decision to obey God that day I had no idea other than God told them. Here s what the notes basically said: We ve seen your life and believe God has called you to serve him. He s called us to help. He s called us to help. So be assured of our constant prayers and checks every month until you complete your training. Those checks and prayers came every month for three years. I learned a valuable lesson through that. When God calls you to do something you say yes. You don t have to know how it s all gonna work out. You have to know that God at that same time is gonna be putting it upon the hearts of others to be the ones who will help make it happen. That s why for every goer that God raises up out of this church, I know God is putting it on the hearts of some of you to be senders, and you do it faithfully. How are we senders? Well, there s two primary ways. We do it by praying, and we do it through giving. I would never want a missionary to go out of this church to know they weren t being prayed for as they go. A sender will be a prayer warrior for them. Many of you are doing it in your small groups and individually. Many of you are on resource teams that help provide prayer support for these teams that go out and the individuals that go out. Another way is through giving. People who go give up a lot. You never hear them complain because it s not about stuff. Do you realize God puts in your hands as a sender what s needed for them to go? God said in 2 Corinthians 9 verse 10: Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. Page 8 of 10
11 You ll be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. 12 This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13 Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. People, make no mistake about it, people who are faithful and answering the call in obedience to send through their praying and their giving, are as vitally involved in fulfilling this Great Commission as those who are willing to pack up and go. It s a team. God raises them up both. It s a matter of obedience for both. You know, when you talk about motivation, I had a great lesson on that. Some years ago in Scottsdale, Arizona, I was riding in a car with a group of pastors. We were there for a meeting on Valentine s Day. I couldn t think of a more romantic setting to be a part of with a bunch of ugly men and an old rental car traveling somewhere to have lunch. In the front seat was a friend of mine I was getting to know, Beauf Character. He was in his 70s. He was pastor in Fresno, had been there for years. We got talking and I said to him, Beauf, you re away from your wife on Valentines. What you get someone after you ve been married 50 years or more on Valentines? What do you get them? Beauf is kind of a big, kinda rough kinda guy, a man s kinda man. He said, I got her a lawnmower. I said, You got your wife a lawnmower for Valentine s Day? He said, Yeah, my wife, she loves mowing the lawn. She wanted a new mower. When you love somebody, it s about giving them what they want. It s true, isn t it? It s that simple. It doesn t matter how strange or odd it is. If you love somebody, you want to give them what they want. What does God want? In the end he wants people from every nation, tribe, language, and tongue to be gathered at his throne worshiping him with no representatives missing. I want to ask you this, can you think of anything you d rather invest your life in than having a part in bringing to God what he loves most? If you love someone, it s about giving them what they want. That s why I love the way the apostle Paul closed out his letter to the Romans. Romans 16 verse 25: Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him 27 to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen. That s why we make disciples. That s why all God s true disciple say Amen. Page 9 of 10
Thank you, God, that we are called to something bigger than ourselves. We re called to having a part in the building of a kingdom that will include people from every nation, tribe, language, and tongue. Thank you, God, for this focus we ve had over these weeks. There s not anybody who s been here who cannot know our purpose or even the process by which we must be engaged in becoming and making disciples. You are the disciple maker. You do it in churches that are committed to you and to this commission, to your glory, and to impacting the nations. So, Lord, if you are raising up goers, be they little or big, young or old, I pray, God, that you ll lay upon their hearts a willing obedience to say yes, for I know also in this church you are raising up people to be the senders, the prayer warriors, and the givers who are vitally engaged in fulfilling a Great Commission until all the nations of the world bow at your throne. God, someday when we look into your face and we see you surrounded by all the nations you love, to know that somehow we had a small part in that will be reward enough to keep us for an eternity. We thank you for it, God. May you keep that focus in the forefront now and in the days ahead and always, God. Let us say yes to the Great Commission of the risen Lord. We praise you in Jesus name, Amen. Page 10 of 10