Turn over to Matthew 28. This is a house church conference, but I guess you probably noticed the Bible never once commands us to start churches. Did you know that? But I believe in churches. I think we ought to start them. It really doesn't say all that much about evangelism, although I believe that too. What Jesus did command us to do is what's on the board here. He commanded us to make disciples of all nations. A lot of people feel like this is the prime directive for Christians and churches. So that's what he commanded us to do. Well, why do we evangelize? Well, you've got to evangelize before you can make a disciple, don't you? and so what you aim at matters. you don't aim at evangelism and stop there. that's a mistake. you aim at making disciples. that's the goal. before that though, you've got to evangelize. so your perspective matters. and he didn't say to start churches. but why do we start churches? well that's part of the process of making disciples which involves teaching people to obey all that jesus commanded. so we're back to making disciples. in matthew 28, chapter 27 is all about the crucifixion, the burial, the resurrection of jesus, and then in chapter 28, the resurrected lord jesus appears to the women at the tomb in the garden. he tells them right at the end of his discussion with these women, he says to these women, he says, well go tell my brothers to go to Galilee. there they will see me so that's what he asked those ladies to do and that's what they did so now let's look at the next paragraph right after that so we're gonna start today and we're gonna look at verses 16 and 17 it says now the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them and when they saw him they worshiped him but some doubted so here they see the resurrected Jesus up on this mountain and and they worshipped, although some doubt it. now talk to me just a minute, how does the fact that they worshipped Jesus reveal that they understood Jesus to be God? thank you. they were Jews and they knew very well it would have been blasphemous to worship anyone other than God. going back to Moses, you shall worship no other God. why is it all capital letters? when you see that, what is that in the Hebrew? Jehovah, for Jehovah, whose name is Jealous, his name is also Jehovah, is a Jealous God. So, obviously, that's good Jewish theology, and Jesus himself said, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. There's a lot of examples in the Old Testament of an angel showing up, and the person is so awed, he falls down to worship the angel, and what does the angel always do? Stop that. Worship only God. So they put a quick end to it. Another example is after doubting Thomas finally figured out Jesus really had resurrected, look at his response. He says, my Lord and my God. So they had that figured out. That's what they did. They worshiped Jesus. So just as kind of a philosophical starting point to making disciples, it involves first is orthodoxy. If you're going to be making disciples the right way, you need a correct understanding of who Jesus is. he's God in human form. More than that, you also need a proper response to that, and that's worship. So it's possible to be just as straight as a gun barrel theologically and just as empty. So you need both orthodoxy and worship. you don't want an untheological devotion, but neither do you want an undevotional theology. you've got to wed the two together. so i'm just saying as a starting point, foundational, to have the right fire in your bones to make the right kind of disciples, you've got to understand who jesus is and have yielded to him as lord in worship. now the devil's got pretty good theology i reckon. But he doesn't worship. He shakes a lot, he shudders, James says. There's a demonic kind of faith. You know exactly who Jesus is, but you're not yielding to that. Okay, well, these guys are beyond that. They understood not only who he was, he's God, but they're worshiping him as God. So, that's just a good starting point. That's going to give you the passion to do it right. It does say some of them doubted. What do you think that was about? What was there to doubt? There he stood. What was there to doubt? One thing I like about the New Testament, it doesn't try to hide anything. You know, if I was writing this, I might kind of leave that part out. What was there to doubt? Well, it does say in the next verse, verse 18, it says, some of them doubted, verse 18, and Jesus came. A lot of the commentaries think, now this is the 11. They all did finally believe it. It sounds like he was a long way away. And a bunch of them saw him and started worshiping right then, but others were a little bit more cautious, and it sounds like Jesus came in the sense of came closer and then they were fully convinced that yeah, it really was him. It sounds like what's happening here. Either way, a third requirement, not only do you have right orthodoxy and proper worship, but a third requirement is you really do need a genuine faith in the resurrection of Jesus. If there's any doubt in your mind that that tomb was empty, you've got no business making disciples. In fact, you're not going to have a real desire to do it. In fact, if you're not convinced that he really rose from the dead, you might not be a Christian because it says if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. So this again is a requirement for Christianity. It's not easy to believe that, is it? I wouldn't call that easy-believism. If I told you Kennedy rose from the dead, John Kennedy, or you can make that other Kennedy from Massachusetts that just died, what's his name? Ted, well you wouldn't believe me, why should you? Why do you believe Jesus rose from the dead? See, it's not easy to believe. When you ask somebody to believe that, the fact that they do is, that's a supernatural thing. That's a work of God that somebody believes in. In fact, they asked Jesus what we may do that we may work the works of God. Remember what he said? This is the work of God. What'd he say? That you believe in the one he said. That's the work of God when somebody comes to faith. Boy, you can't go wrong with that. don't get discouraged being in New England, ah, nobody believes. look, that's God's business, he can knock the enmity, that's the power of the gospel, he just knocks the enmity out of people's hearts. so what they believe here, they really believe, and that's the point. so you've got to really believe it, you've got to understand who Jesus is, and you've got to yield to him in worship as Lord. so these are prerequisites to getting the commission that he's about to give. Jesus says, he who has my commands and keeps them, he it is who loves me. Now this is touching again on the command he's about to give. How do you know if somebody loves Jesus or not? How do you know? Well, he's going to obey his commands. Well, that's tough. So if you work with a guy, a single fellow, I love Jesus, but then he's shacking up with his girlfriend, and you've talked to him about shacking up with his girlfriend, you know, that's not right, and he still does it, what should you wonder about that fellow? Is that keeping the commands of Jesus? No. Now I know we all sin and we're all prone to sin, but the idea is if you really love Jesus and you're in sin and your brothers start talking to you, you're going to want to obey his commands. This is the fruit of true faith. So I'm just talking, if you're going to make disciples, this has got to be true of you. This is the starting point for it. Now tell me again where all this took place. Where's this happening? yes that's right, galilee is exactly right. jesus instructed them to meet him in galilee and they obeyed and they went there. so another requirement for making disciples is you've got to be where the lord wants you to be. now i don't know where the lord wants you, but if he's going to use you, you've got to be where he wants you to be. he might want you in china. i said might, i don't know, god is well for your life, but i don't know where he wants you. Well, okay, amen! It has been said your greatest ability is availability. I don't think that's just cute. If you want to make disciples, it starts with being available to God. So, where does the Lord want you to be? Some of you might be miserable right now because he's working something in you. Okay, what if you're so busy with your career that you don't have time to disciple your own family? Is that where he wants you to be? You don't have to go off to China. What about your own family? Are you ever home to disciple? You know, husbands should disciple their own wives. Parents should disciple their own children. Maybe you're an elder in a house church. Perhaps he wants you to retire early or maybe work part-time so you have more time to devote to the ministry, to preparing, to study, to counsel, to meet with people, to do evangelism. That's all part of it too. One of the requirements for an elder. doesn't it say he's not greedy for money? doesn't it say that or does Peter say that? Peter's talking to the elders there in 1 Peter 5 and he says, not for sordid gain, not be eager for that. I think probably the churches did support some elders, it's not that that was such a lucrative thing to do, he's warning them against it, don't be in it for the money, I think it's the other way around. Your elders, a lot of times they're at the pinnacle of their earning potential in their lives. and this is the time you wouldn't want to quit early because you get all that money. and he's saying some elders, clearly God wants them to retire early or to not work so much so they can serve the church. it means a pay cut. he's saying don't be greedy for money. y'all see that? so that could be part of it. so I'm just saying availability. we're going to study about making disciples today, right? if you don't have the time to do it, because you're so busy, if you're not where God wants you to be, you can't do this. i'm just raising that issue. so now let's bumble on over to where we're going to be. matthew chapter 28 verses 18 through 20. after they've seen jesus with their own eyes, after they've worshipped, now he gives them this great commission. and here it is, 18 through 20. jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." So what's the commission? What did he tell them to do? The first thing he told them to do was get into the forward motion mode, not the stay still mode. Okay, y'all hear that? First thing he told them to do is get in forward motion mode, not the stay still mode. It's intentionality here, it's not just potential. Man, we got current flow, now what? Then what? What else? Y'all act like you're not sure you believe it. Make disciples, maybe? Okay, make disciples! What else? Okay, and you gotta be teaching them what Jesus taught, and what else? Make Baptist out of all of them. Y'all see that? That's all important. What I want you to understand from this, there's only one command here. Now there's four verbs, go, make disciples, baptize, teach. Four verbs, one command. Want to guess? That's the command. Make disciples. The only imperative command, you know they have imperative verbs and you can identify them in these ancient languages because they've changed the endings, this is a command. The command here is make disciples. the other verbs there, he tells them to go, but that's not a command. he tells them to baptize, but it's not a command. he tells them to teach, but that's not a command. in the greek, those are participles. these three words, go, baptize, and teach, are participles. that's like a verbal adjective. they all are subservient to the command. make disciples. in english, you don't want to put the emphasis on the wrong syllable, right? or you won't be understood. So, when you read the Bible, the driving thing here is make disciples. This is all how to do it. He's not commanding you to go, he's commanding you to make disciples. He's not commanding you to baptize, he's commanding you to make disciples. He's not commanding you to teach, he's commanding you to make disciples. This stuff tells you how to do it. Did I see a hand back there? Yes brother, I see that hand. You want to walk down, come on down, counselors will be waiting for you. Oh, how does it read it? How does it say it? It says, go ye therefore and teach all nations. Yeah, keep reading it. I want to hear it. Does it use the word again? Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. Teaching them. So it uses the word teach twice. Yes, the reason for that is, the Greek word for teach is teach. No, it's didosko, and that's what, this word make disciples, that they translate teach as actually a different Greek word. That's right. Well, it is confusing. So, realize that even though it's the same English word twice, there's two different Greek words. And we'll talk about that whenever I get around to it. But before the command, okay, let's go back, let's back up just one minute. Before the command to make disciples, what did he say right up here before he said make disciples? What was it Jesus said before that? Look in your Bibles. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus. Why did he say that? And we understand Jesus has the authority to give this command. Was there any doubt about that? Would they not have done it if he hadn't said it? So yes, you're right Gary, so what? I don't mean so what, I mean so what? Jesus has this authority, therefore, what should that do to us? What impact should that have on you? You obey. And what did you say Paul? Okay, this should move you to action. It says in Daniel, he saw a vision about Jesus, he says, behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, and peoples and nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away. And this kingdom one that shall not be destroyed, that's from Daniel 7, 13 and 14, was fulfilled when Jesus came, that came true. And so, probably with reference to this verse, Jesus is saying, now look, all authority, just like Daniel predicted, has been given to me, and I have been given people and kingdoms and languages and nations, and now guys, I'm sending you out to take possession of what is mine. Remember Paul said, I endure all things for sake of the elect that they may be saved. Why did Paul endure all the shipwrecks and the beatings and the stonings and getting run out of town? He said, those people are mean. Yeah, but Jesus has people everywhere, and you just got to go find them. That's your commission. You know what that says to me? First, it's a reminder, guy's got sovereign, go. But it's scary out there. Go. Second thing is, it is scary out there. I mean, you guys ever do door-to-door evangelism? You like getting doors slammed in your face all day and people spit on you and cussing at you? That's great fun, isn't it? Go, he said. Why? Because those elect are out there. Some of those people spitting on you might be the elect, they just don't know it yet. But God could use you in the process of bringing them to salvation. I think it was Spurgeon who said if the elect had a letter E on their forehead, he would only witness to those people. But since they don't, he has to witness to everybody because you don't know. you really don't. it is scary to make disciples. i don't know how john felt the first time he went to china. i wasn't too comfortable with it when i went. it's scary to go someplace like that. it's scary to go to russia. I'm not especially looking forward to going to Sri Lanka. Merle has been beaten to within an inch of his life by an angry Hindu mob. You know, he was there making disciples. They didn't like it. That's scary, but Jesus said, this is a command, you go. The man with authority is telling you to go, but at the same time on the other side of that, this same man, the same God man, has people everywhere and we've got to go get them out. call him out of the kingdom of darkness. god predestined the end, which is salvation, but he predestined the means too, which is the foolishness of preaching the gospel. go! so he never says to evangelize, but how are you going to make a disciple unless you do? again, what you aim at is important. don't stop with evangelism. your goal is making disciples, but it involves evangelism. the fact that jesus prefaces the command with that, this is a big deal, and it's scary, and yet god's with you in it. another factor in making disciples is you have to yield to the authority of Jesus. It's not Frank Sinatra missions where I did it my way. No, you do it his way. What is the boss telling you to do? So you have to recognize the authority of Jesus and yield to that, which means being uncomfortable sometimes. Now as an aside, look at verse 16 and verse 18 again. To whom did Jesus give this command? Who's he talking to? It says to his disciples, and specifically it says to the 11, it used to be the 12, to the 11. I do believe this applies to all believers. but it started the core group with them. so i just want to make the point that the word missionary is not in the bible, but i hope you all believe in missionaries. well what word is in the bible? well it's the word apostle. missionary is the latin translation of the greek word apostle, that's how it came to us in english. so there are still people, we call them little a apostles, they don't write the bible like the twelve did, but they're people sent. to foreign places, sent outside their local areas to do this. That's what the apostles did. Did they go all over the world? They went all over the known world of their time. They went everywhere. These guys did it. God might not call you to do that, but he does call some people to do that. In this case, of course, as I said, he is talking to the eleven. The Bible says in Ephesians 4 that Christ gave the apostles, missionaries, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry. So, the existence of some Christians that are especially called to go is very biblical. if you're one of those people, then, like that airline commercial, go, there's nothing stopping you, you need to go. but if you're not one of those people, then the scripture does say that we are to support these types of people, and there's a lot of ways you can support them. you can pray for them, you can talk to them on skype, you can send them things to encourage them, you can give them money, So, this is a division of labor in that sense. If God hasn't told you uniquely to be a modern-day version of an apostle, a missionary, then Jesus did say those who preach the gospel should get their living from the gospel. So, I'm going to challenge you on that front, too. Is your church supporting missionaries? Are you individually supporting missionaries? Now, that ought to be based on relationships. Are you going to meet Murilee today? It gets annoying. Maybe he's somebody the Lord would have you and your church to support. John's doing stuff in missionary fields. Y'all gonna know John? Maybe God would have you to support what John's doing. This is part of it. It's not directly dealt with here, but since he is speaking to the eleven and they did leave Galilee and go all over the world of their day. there are still people that do that, and they deserve our support. and so one thing house churches are weak on, seems to me, is they've got financial constipation when it comes to giving. and so, i don't know why they don't trust anybody. look, i'd rather be the guy that bought the brooklyn bridge than the one that sold it. if you've got to err, err on the side of giving to somebody that doesn't deserve it, then just not giving at all. when you have a relationship with somebody that's in one of these categories, maybe God would have you to give money to them and pray for them and go see them wherever they live. you see what I'm saying? so I challenge you A guy named Moody had a lot of gimmicks, D.L. Moody in Chicago, a lot of gimmicks in the way he did evangelism. And over in England, they didn't like that. And Spurgeon didn't like it. They called it Moodyism. Well, Moody came to England and was evangelizing and some of the people in Spurgeon's church were upset that he was there and they complained to Spurgeon about it. And Spurgeon said, well, I like his way of doing evangelism better than our way of not doing evangelism. sometimes house church people throw rocks at the denominations and they throw rocks, well that's terrible, but then they don't give anything. Praise God for the Southern Baptists, 4,000 missionaries, especially compared to house churches that sometimes don't give anything. You're not spending your money on buildings probably, well what are you doing with it? these people have the authority of Jesus to do what they're doing, and there's a lot of other places in the Bible that it talks about we should support them. if God hasn't called you to go transcultural, then give! another thing you can do. alright, so let's go down to our verse. verse 19. first word is what? go. now john's touched on that one. now i've already said that's a participle, which means it's not the main command, but it's part of making disciples. this says to me there is an intentionality to it. what's that mean, intentionality? a purpose. you've got to study on this thing. you've got to think about how am i going to do this. you've got to strategize. An easy example is a lot of parents have decided, a lot of Christian parents, to homeschool their children. That's an intentional decision to make disciples of their children rather than sending them to some other place to be educated. They feel like if they do it at home, they can make them better disciples. So that's intentional. Well, that's good. Now, husbands, you're supposed to be the head of your home, the priest in your own home. Do you disciple your own wife? do you lead her in scripture reading and in prayer and teach her the things you're learning and talk to her? purpose to do that. how about the other people in your own church? is there any intentionality in your interaction with the other people in your church to help them to be disciples? or outside your church, what intentionality do you have to make disciples? let's talk about evangelism as an example. I picked Murley from the airport in Atlanta at midnight one night. He hadn't eaten, so nothing's open except this McDonald's. Everything was closed but the drive-thru, so we went through. There's this gal behind the mic, and boy, she was happy. She was just Miss Personality. It was late at night, and you drove up, and it looked like she was the only one in there, and she was having a good time. I joked around with her a little bit, and she gave me the food. I said, thanks much, and drove off, and Murley says, Are you out of tracks?" I said, what? Are you out of tracks? Well, I had an old glove box full of them. It never even crossed my mind to give her a track. She would have been an easy one to give a track to. Well, see, I was a dud. Well, he's always thinking about making disciples, even if it's as simple as handing somebody a gospel track. Well, I felt terrible that I was such a dud, but now I don't have any tracks in my glove box, because he gave them all out. It's intentional. go. some people are especially called to go other places, aren't they? maybe you're one of those people, or maybe you should support the people that are called. but let's say you're not called to do that. well, you can still do it within your own locale. you can still do it at work. lifestyle evangelism, when you see the same people every day all day, that's a lifestyle evangelism, and they see the way you live that out. think about that. have you ever thought about how you're going to reach your neighborhood, your street, with the gospel? a lot of Christians will get involved in neighborhood watch groups with the police department and get the neighbors together and precinct captains looking for nefarious activity in the neighborhood, that's a good way to meet people. I've known people who got involved with political parties, one or the other, as an excuse to meet people. Join a babysitting co-op, as an excuse to meet people. You can find ways, some people just host block parties, as an excuse to meet people. Once you develop those relationships, then start asking them over for dinner, go out to eat with them, different things, and you develop a relationship with them, and then in God's timing, you can bring the gospel up, but it's got to be an intentionality to that. Do you ever think about that? Same at work, do you have any thoughts about how you're going to reach your co-workers with the gospel in a way that doesn't just offend them? I don't mean slash and burn approach, plan to stay there a few years, it's a different approach than if you never see them again like you got on an airplane. Sometimes they translate participles, as you are going. So even though there's an intentionality to this, there can also be a naturalness to this. So in the backyard while you're barbecuing with your neighbor, you can make disciples. At the water fountain, make disciples. There is the as you are going aspect, but there's also the intentional aspect to that as well. So now we get to the actual command though, make disciples. Now here we go. in words. what does the word disciple mean? to make disciples? the brother in the back row said his bible said, instead of that, it said to teach all nations. so you can tell it's got something to do with teaching people things, but how would you define a disciple? what is a disciple? what does that word mean? well what's the opposite of teaching, like his translation said? studying. so, a learner would be a good translation. Any other synonyms you could give me here for disciple? John? Oh, that's a good one. Apprentice. Yeah. Very good one. A follower. Anybody think of another one? A mentee. And you can be the tormentor. That's good. The Greek word is mathetuo. Anybody know what English word comes from that? If you transliterate it? Mathematics, what's that about? How in the world does mathematics have anything to do with making disciples? It's what? I wasn't thinking of absolutes, that's good, I hope there's some absolutes out there. you can see the word discipline and the word disciple are related. Our word math comes from this Greek word for disciple. That's a verb, it comes from the noun form of it. It's a discipline, like in any academic discipline you have to study, whether it's chemistry or mathematics or whatever it is, there's a certain discipline that you have to master to get that information. And so the original Greek word meant knowledge, study, and learning. that's why I said learn, if you're teaching somebody's learning, you're an apprentice, you're learning to master this discipline, so discipline, disciple, that's how it all comes together in that sense. so we have, Jesus said make learners, make apprentices, make adherents, make pupils of all nations, for what purpose? what's the goal? the next thing, what's the goal? That's another one of our participles, doing what? Teaching them, baptizing and teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded. So you could say a disciple, just looking at this verse, is a baptized follower of Jesus who has learned all that Jesus commanded and who obeys all that Jesus commanded. That's the goal. I know we're all at different stages in our discipleship, our personal discipleship. We need to learn what Jesus said about prayer. We need to learn what the Scriptures say about evangelism. We need to understand deeper and deeper who God is that we worship. how to have a daily walk with them, how to be husbands and fathers that God wants us to be or the wives and mothers and even children, how to be an employer who is a disciple or an employee. What does it mean for you as a Christian employee to be a disciple of Jesus in that area? How do you handle stress? See, that's an area of discipleship. If you have ulcers all the time, probably you're not handling stress well. I've already talked about giving. I think we need a lot of discipleship in the area of giving probably. I know we're all works in progress. we're all at stages of discipleship, but our goal is to obey all that jesus commanded. jesus said a disciple is not above his teacher, it is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and that ultimately is jesus. pretty good goal, isn't it? now, according to verse nineteen, again, the eleven were to focus their disciple-making efforts on who? I don't know how you say that. What's the focus? What's the target group? There we go. All nations, there we go. That involves intentionality again, doesn't it? Strategizing. Whose job is it to think about the gospel going to all nations? Do you think about that? Does your church ever think about that? does your church have a strategy for reaching all nations? whose job is that? what do you call those people that think about those kind of things? christians! we should be thinking of that! if you haven't, why not? maybe you're not discipled in that area. you, christian, you should strategize about how to make disciples of all nations. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to go, but you need to think about how can it be done and talk to people about that. Your church needs to strategize about that. Your elders need to strategize about how they're part of that, how your church is part of that. There's an intentionality to this again, it doesn't just happen. This could be also where that division of labor comes in. If you can't go, if everybody in your church can't go, well... maybe you could support and send somebody who can. right? now we get to our next participle. baptizing them. talk to me about baptism. what's baptism? define the word. you know, this is an untranslated word in your bible. they didn't do us any favors. this is the greek word baptizo, letter for letter, right into english. it remains to this day an untranslated word. they can't afford to translate it because a lot of people won't buy the translation if they do. what does it mean? immersed in water, immersed in anything, but obviously here we're talking about water. you can also be immersed in the holy spirit, you can be immersed into Christ, you can be immersed into fire, fiery trouble, it just means immersed, but it's used of sunken ships, it's used of pickles down in brine, things like that, I mean it just means underwater or under something, and so you have to look at what? now most people would say that here he's talking about the outwardly religious act of dunking people in water. what does water baptism symbolize? the new birth. water baptism is a symbol of spirit baptism. it's an identification with christ. it's like an initiation right into the church, into the new covenant community. some people say it symbolizes washing away your sins. some people compare it to a liquid grave where you're buried with christ through baptism into death and you're raised to walk in the newness of life. some people compare it to that. it's really the New Testament equivalent to circumcision because it says that Abraham believed God and God gave him righteousness. Years later, he got circumcised. It was years later until God told him to do that. And it says in Romans that that circumcision was a seal or a sign of the righteousness that he already had by faith. So, too, once we come to faith in Jesus, which is a supernatural work of God, you believe all these things we've talked about, then a sign of that, outward sign of that, is water baptism, paralleling circumcision in that sense. baptism in the new testament is a demarcation that separates the men from the boys, so to speak. the serious buyer from the tire kicker, the wheat from the tare. baptism is not a matter of indifference to god. this is an integral part of the great commission. i just got to ask this, if you truly believe in jesus, you need to be baptized. if you have not been baptized, you are disobedient to what Jesus said. so if you're sitting here today and you believe you've never been baptized, what do you need to do? you need to make that right. you need to go talk to somebody and get baptized. if you want to be a disciple, you start that off with being baptized. you know, Jesus came to John to be baptized, John didn't want to baptize him, why not? was associated with repenting from sin and turning righteous. Jesus didn't have any sin, but he said, no, it's necessary to fulfill our righteousness. So it was that important that Jesus submitted to it. Jesus hung naked on a cross to pay for our sins, and some of us are afraid, too timid to be baptized? there's something about baptism that gives glory to God and shame to the devil. it really does. and so, if you haven't been baptized, you need to be baptized. on the other hand, if you have been baptized, in your church, you know, it's just easy to never talk about this. so, you need to remind the people in your church, you've had new people come in, or maybe some kids are believing that didn't used to believe, you need to remind the church, hey, you know, this is an integral part of what Jesus wants us to do, is baptism. And so, y'all need to be good in reminding people to do that. I don't want to do a big thing on baptism here, but baptism shows up in the New Testament out of nowhere. There's nothing in the Old Testament about it. It's something that developed in the Inter-Testament period among the Jews as a sign that you were renouncing your old way of life and getting right with God. John picks up on that, and his is a baptism of repentance. Then Jesus came along and picked it up too. and it looks like it was a precursor to what jesus started but it wasn't the same. and so that's interesting isn't it? but the point is, here it is. and so they're picking up what was already something that happened in judaism and giving it this meaning, for the followers of christ. tell me, why is it significant? But baptism is to be done in the name, according to verse 19, of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And notice it doesn't say names, it says name. Why is it significant that the word name is singular? The name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What does that tell you? The three in one. The Trinity. One God, three persons. Now I know that's not logical, but it is what the Bible has revealed. Somebody said if you try to explain it, you lose your mind. If you deny it, you lose your soul. they don't understand electricity either. got news for you. now they can have laws about it and they know how to harness it, but really they don't understand it. you can't teach a dog calculus, he just can't understand it. i can't understand god in that sense, but just what he tells me. one god, i got that, old testament's pretty clear, one god. three persons. god the father, god the son, god the holy spirit. you might not like theology, but you're in it pretty thick right now. unnecessary part of making disciples, you've got to teach theology. Yeah, okay, run from bad doctrine, run from the abusive doctrine, but theology means words about God. you gotta teach them about who this god is. he's the great three-in-one. he's not a unitarian, he's a trinitarian. paul warned about false gospels and false christs. i read this one book on house churches and they were anti-theology. and this book said, he's quoting someone in the church who goes to this wonderful house church. he says, as for doctrine, i don't know what they each believe and they don't ask me about mine. and he goes on to say that doctrine divides but Christ unites. Well, that can be true, but the problem is an accurate, factual, proper understanding of the person and work of Christ is critically necessary, and that's pretty doctrinaire, and yet that's not discussed. Is Jesus God in human form or is he a lesser being? He said, I don't know, I don't ask, they don't ask me, I don't ask them. Is his death on the cross propitiatory? Did he really die for sins or did he just die because they killed him as a supreme act of love? I don't know, they don't ask me about my doctrine, I don't ask them. Was the resurrection literal? Was the tomb empty or was it metaphysical? I don't know, I don't ask them about what they believe, they don't ask me what I believe. Those things do matter, they do matter. So Paul says, I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you and are turning to a different gospel. There are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel. Now you all know that, there are distorted gospels, but that means there's a standard for what is true and what is not. deal with those things. Paul said, I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, you put up with it. That's the problem. There are people who invent their own version of Jesus, their own version of the gospel, and you know what? They all use Bible verses, so far as it's convenient to them. My point is, the fact that you're baptizing people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, That's theology, folks! Paul told Titus, he says, teach what accords with sound doctrine. That's doctrinaire. It is. I'm sorry, but there it is. So, let's talk about that. You don't have to use these big words. You know, it's a put-off when people use big words, but where's a big word? Hamartiology. Hamartia is a Greek word for sin. Okay, when you present the gospel to somebody, this is the doctrine of sin. What is sin? Sin is falling short of God's glory. The original word for sin, Homer used it of a guy, they're in battle, and let's say that church building is the enemy and he's got his spear and he's behind something, and he throws his spear at the enemy, but he hits the door over there instead. That was called sin. He missed the mark. He missed the target. You know what sin is? God's got a bullseye for your life and it's called perfection. When you shoot over here and miss it, that difference between you and God's standard, that's sin. Or you fall short of it, that's sin. He's the standard. it's missing the mark of perfection. well that's a doctrine, you're not going to tell people that. let's talk about, that's easy, when in anthropology, you probably had that in college. but that's the doctrine of man. what does the bible teach about man? it teaches we're sinful. it teaches we're dead in our trespasses and sins. it teaches we are powerless to save ourselves. it teaches man is estranged from God. that we are by nature children of wrath. that's doctrine. you know Unitarians think we're all basically good. well that's wrong. how about just theology proper? theos means god, logos is words, theology is just words about god. theology proper is about who god is. we've already studied it. he's triune, the trinity, that's doctrine. it also says he's holy. it also says he's righteous and he's just. in fact he's not going to allow sin to go unpunished. so although we owe him our worship, what he gets is our fist, okay, we've rebelled against him, and this, it says it creates a condition of hostility between man and God, it says we are his enemies, that's what it says in Romans. let's talk about end time events, eschatology. here's an end time event, you're going to die, and when you do, outside of Christ, you're going to face judgment. You'd be a sinner in the hands of an angry god, to quote one of your fellow New Englanders from 200 years ago. In eternity you're going to stand before a righteous god and face judgment for your sins and the penalty for that is eternal separation from god, otherwise known as hell. Let's talk about another big theology word, Christology. We'll throw in soteriology there. What's Christology? That's words about Jesus. This is Greek word for being saved, words about being saved. Okay, so who is Jesus? We already talked about that. He's God. Despite our sins, God became a man, incarnate. ever had chili con carne? what is that? chili with meat? he's incarnate? he took on meat. that's what that means. god became flesh. what did he do? he died on the cross. why? in our place. it was substitutionary because being infinite god, he could suffer in a finite time on the cross what it would take us who are finite an infinity to suffer in hell. that's what was happening on the cross. that's theology. pretty hardcore. but he didn't stay dead. he rose from the tomb, and it was empty. it was a bodily resurrection. so, that's Christology, which is Teriology. well, he made our salvation possible. he offers it by grace, through faith. you can be saved. not by your own works, why? you're pretty crummy. you can't get there on your own. let's talk about another big word. what's that one? The spirit, you heard of pneumatic tires? Pneumonia? Okay, this is where it's about the Holy Spirit. God the Father planned it, the Son carried it out, and the Spirit applies it. This is the new birth. You must be born again, Jesus said, born from above, born of the Spirit. So the Holy Spirit births you into God's kingdom, and then he's the seal that God the Father gives you, that you belong to him, and he keeps you in Christ. He keeps you faithful. He keeps you holy. He gives you that desire and the ability to obey all that Jesus commanded. That's neumatology. What's this big word? Ecclesiology, what's that? That's what we do every year around here. The doctrine of the church, ecclesia, that's right. Jesus said the gates of hell won't prevail against it. Amen. The moment you're born again, you're a member of the church. god burst you into it, the worldwide body of christ, and yet at the same time he wants us to come together in local congregations for accountability and encouragement and helping to fulfill the great commission that's sent out to disciples. okay, it's through the church that we learn what jesus commanded. so what's my point? is this theology? is that doctrine? yeah, now you don't have to use those big words, but you sure better be right. the bible talks about all those things, jesus talked about all those things, if you're going to be anti-doctrine, Well, good luck. That's just basic gospel stuff that I just talked about. I just presented the gospel to you. Look at all those areas of theology I touched on. So you want to run from the abuse of doctrine, but not its right and proper use. Now, one thing we've already touched on obliquely is evangelism. I've said he didn't command it here, did he? He didn't. but it's obviously part of the process, or you're not gonna have any disciples if somebody didn't open their mouth about Jesus. Paul said, how are they to call on him whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in him whom they have not heard? How are they to hear without someone preaching? Now guys, some people are called to be evangelists, like Billy Graham, but you're all witnesses, and this goes back to, do you have a burden for your street, your community? Are you at least praying for those people? are you at least giving tracts to the girl at mcdonalds? more than that, we are to open our mouth, and in god's spirit's timing, i don't mean shoving it down people's throats, but you need to be prepared to open your mouth and talk about jesus. be more bold. what's the worst they're going to do? cuss at you i guess. you probably won't be beaten for it like merlee was. how bad is it going to be? we could practice if you want to, come up here and witness to me and I'll shriek at you and yell and cuss and you'll get used to it. that's as bad as it's going to get. huh? what? yeah okay. you're used to it, you practiced. so my point is guys, be bold with the gospel. look what you've done the last 20 years, how many people come to Christ. if you go the next 20 years with that, what's going to happen? if you don't like what you saw then, you better change what you're doing. what's insanity? Doing the same thing you've always done, expecting to get any different results from it? Paul told somebody, probably Timothy, he said, do the work of an evangelist. Now he was an apostle, but he said, do the work of an evangelist. There's work. that evangelists do, and that's part of what missionary apostle people do, but all of us should be evangelical. we should think of ways to talk about the gospel. so overcome your shyness. are you a personal witness? how do you witness? back to this money thing, do you support those who preach the gospel for a living? does your church even have a strategy for its own street? how do churches get too cloistered, too isolated? it's not healthy, it's just not. Then the next thing he says to do is what? Go back to the verses after he says to baptize, what does he say to do? Teaching. We see the importance of teaching from this verse. Our Lord Jesus himself, who is God in the flesh, to whom all authority in heaven and on earth was given, has told his people to be teaching. Jesus said, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. if you don't know what that word is, how can you abide in it? and he says, teaching them to do what? verse 20? teaching them to observe, obey. it's not enough just to teach what Jesus commanded, you've got to teach people to obey what he commanded. and it says to me, all of our teaching needs to be application oriented. what i mean by that, you can't just give people a content dump. if the what, that's the content, doesn't lead to the so what, that's the application, you haven't taught the what correctly. so you don't go, let me just show you six cool facts about jesus when he was on earth. okay i like six cool facts, but how are you going to design those six cool facts to some application over here, what life change do you want to see in this guy you're telling those six cool facts to? Jesus didn't walk around and say, hey, let me tell you, let me tell you what really happened. I was there. Let me tell you what really happened with God and Abraham up on that mountain with that ramp. Never once did he do that. Everything he said had to do with application, with life change. You see what I'm saying? Merle Lee said there's a lot of NATO men in Sri Lanka, NATO, no action talk only. He doesn't have any use for an eight-toed man. And so, James says, be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving themselves. So, Jesus said, abide in my word. Jesus said, observe my commands. He says, keep my commandments. James says, be doers of the word. When I was in high school, all the seniors got to park their cars in a special row of parking. And this was back in the dark ages, you know, there weren't minivans or anything like that, and they usually just drove their parents old sedans, four-door big sedans. That's what they drove. It was up on this hill, though, above the school. And that's where they'd all park. And then every day after school, you'd come out, and they'd have the hoods open. and they'd be standing around the engines, revving them, and the smoke, that's before catalytic converters, the smoke would be bellowing out of them, and they'd be talking about racing cams and lifters, and they'd all have, they'd jack these things up, and the big, you know, and these are family cars, okay, but that's what, now that's fine, but what would you think if when you go out for break today, I'm sitting out in Nathaniel's Scion, and I've got the hood up, I'm like, I'm just gonna rev the engine. You think, boy, that's immature. The problem with what the teenagers did, the purpose of a car is not to rev, is it? It's to get you from point A to point B. That's all, it's just a tool. And so, when we teach the Bible, if you teach the Bible, and all you do is give content, you know what you're doing? You're revving your engine. The content is the means to an end, and the end is application. So, we too often, we have a spiritual abortion of God's purposes when you just give content. You're revving your engine. We celebrate content. No! Application. Teaching them what? To observe. You understand what I'm saying? A lot of people run from doctrine, I think, because it's not applied. I'd run from that too. whenever you sit down, if you ever teach in church, i hope some of you men do, open your mouth in church. when you teach in church, when you sit down and prepare, you ought to say, what's the application i'm driving for? You ought to say, how will this content I've got here be used for application? Or if you see some need they have, working backwards to meet that need, what content can you use to meet that need? How can you drive to the hearts of people and to your own heart this scripture that God's led you to work with? And I ought to be able to stop you for church. Paul, are you going to teach today? Yeah. What's your application, Paul? You ought to tell me once in it. Here's the application. If he can't, he's not ready. You see? Alright, so application is the crown of all teaching. It's the goal of all instruction. I would say a teacher has not taught unless he has applied the content. You just use that content as a means to apply the truth. Ask God to make you a life change agent. That's what you want to do. So I want to show you a pretty famous verse, it's 2 Timothy 3.16, you can probably quote it, all scripture is breathed out by God and it's profitable for teaching, for approval, for correction, for training in righteousness. And what's very important is the next verse, verse 17, that the man of God may be knowledgeable about the Bible. It doesn't say that, but I would expect it would based on my church experience. Here's what it really says, that the man of God may be competent under all content. Oh wait a minute, that doesn't say that either. What does it say? That the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. What's the goal when we're making disciples? Well here we go again. Disciple is not above his teacher. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher. The goal is to make people like Jesus. And how do you make people like Jesus? You obey, you observe all that he commanded. That's the goal. Remember Jesus had that talk with Peter, do you love me, do you love me, do you love me? And he said, yeah, I love you. And Jesus said, well, feed my sheep. He didn't command us to evangelize, but we've got to do that. He didn't command us to plant churches, but why do we plant churches? It helps us make disciples. So let's look at your church. You look at your church. Are you making disciples in your church? Or is it just a bless me club? Is it just to feel good? Is it just let's go hide from everybody and build insulation around from the world? Are you making disciples? If you're not, what are you doing? Quit, go back to the Baptist. Do you ever get teaching in your church? Is there systematic, in-depth, study of scripture, if there isn't, that's like not being baptized. Jesus said, teaching people. there was a young guy who went to a house church all his life and he thought he liked it and then when he got to college he started dating this gal who went to a big Baptist church and so naturally that's where he went. they had a full-time pastor who was a pretty good Bible teacher. well he'd never heard anything like that in his life. and he liked the Bible teaching that he never got in a house church. I saw this because he posted it on his Facebook. that goes everywhere you know. and it says, he's talking about this Baptist church and he says it's so different from house church, quote, where a bunch of old guys sit around shooting from the hip sharing what they think the Bible says about something. Sadly, a new Christian would never learn the Bible in a typical American house church. That's a shame. i think we spend years in traditional churches where you hopefully get some real good bible teaching but you're starved for relationships. so then we start house churches and we've got these great relationships and we do it four or five years also and we realize we're not getting any bible teaching. that's a false dichotomy. you ought to not have to have that extreme choices. the two ought to be together. so i'm presuming you have a great relationship in your house church, you need to allow and encourage some of the brothers teach. Anatomy built into it. In Romans, it talks about spiritual gifts. We all got different gifts, but you need to use them. If teaching, you need to teach. So there needs to be that forum, somehow. And in Timothy, he tells Timothy, I charge you, it's pretty serious, sounds like, charge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, judge the living dead, parent his kingdom, what? Preach the word. Does that ever happen in your church? well, I guess you're against a great commission too. be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with complete patience in teaching. what? teaching. alright, what am I saying? we're supposed to make disciples? why don't we start house churches? oh, we're going to make disciples, great! were you doing what Jesus said? so if you're an elder, what separates you from deacons is you're supposed to be able to teach, that's your qualification. well, teach. do it. we've always had teaching on Wednesday nights, but about half the church couldn't get to it because of our traffic in Atlanta, so we moved our teaching to Sunday, so we have over an hour of participatory worship, not centered on any one person, everybody shares equally, and then we take a break, 15 minutes, snacks, and we come back, we have 45 minutes of teaching done by an elder, and then we take another break, and then we have the Lord's Supper as a holy meal. So we've got three phases to our meetings on the Lord's Day. Now you can do it on some other day of the week, but there needs to be provision made so that people can learn the scriptures in your church. As Spurgeon said, I like Moody's way of doing it better than our way of not doing it, so you need to do that. The next thing he says, teaching them to observe all that I commanded. There's a new 501c3 out called The Society. for convenient christianity. it's committed to obeying some of what jesus commanded. jesus said a lot of crazy stuff. he really did. it's just ridiculous. and so, what the society does, it provides pretty good sounding rationale for not having to obey everything the bible says. like, oh that's cultural. times have changed. that's just paul's opinion. You're taking that out of context. That's one of my favorites. There's errors in the original manuscripts, and it doesn't really say that. If you want to go to their website, it's www.scc.lie. He's a liar, Stephen. Now don't join the SCC, folks. All that Jesus commanded. Isn't that something? So when it comes to obedience, selective service is not a good thing. all that Jesus, not just the part you agree with. so if you're a homosexual, and you see this stuff in the bible, you're going to be tempted to think, oh that part doesn't mean what it says. or if you're a womanizer, you're going to be tempted, that part doesn't really mean what it says. or whatever your problem is, you're going to be tempted to explain away that stuff. well no, all that he commanded. Jesus said, whoever, what did he say? He said, whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. A cross, people wear it as jewelry now, but that's how they kill people. You might as well put a little bit of electric chair, a little guillotine, and wear that for jewelry. Death! You're dying to what you want, and you do what Jesus wants. Dying to your flesh. That's what it takes. You want to be his disciple. I have a real problem with red letter editions of the Bible. It makes you think the stuff in red is more important than the stuff in black. But it's not. All scripture is inspired. So when you get to the epistles, which are the wives of the apostles, and also letters that the apostles wrote, well, you get to the epistles, that's as inspired as the stuff Jesus said in the gospel. It's commentary. It's what it is. It's commentary. Jesus said some stuff. He says, I tell you the truth, at your advantage I go away, if I don't, The helper won't come, but if I go, I'll send him. He said, I have many things to say to you. You cannot bear them now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will speak not his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak. And he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me. He will take what is mine and declare it to you. That's the basis for the inspiration of the New Testament. There's a lot of stuff Jesus never said that the apostles did from the Holy Spirit. It's just as authoritative as anything Jesus said. A lot of the homosexuals say Jesus never condemned homosexuality. Paul did that. He says a lot of things Jesus didn't talk about, but it came later. You see what I'm saying? It's all inspired. So again, selective service. No, you want to obey all that he commanded, and he commanded a lot of stuff through the apostles that we read in their letters. What kind of stuff should you disciple people in? You need to teach people what he said about prayer, don't you? You need to teach people what he said about how to read the Bible and meditating on Scripture and memorizing Scripture and its application and how to study it, how to have a walk with God, how to listen to that still small voice. What does it say about being filled with the Spirit? What is the relationship between faith and obedience? You need to teach them about marriage stuff, husband-wife relationships. You need to teach them about child training, what it says about that. You need to teach them about finances. All these are areas of discipleship, aren't they? Holiness. The Bible says, this is the will of God, your sanctification. And then he says what he means, that you abstain from sexual immorality. Well, he thinks of sanctification, what does he think of? You abstain from sexual immorality. That's pretty practical, isn't it? You have to teach that in your church. Okay, we talk about child training, even evangelism. All these are areas that all Christians need to be discipled in. Well, there needs to be some systematic thought given to that. How is that done in your church? That's what leaders are for. They should teach it publicly. They should teach it privately. Mentoring relationships. Merle, he's going to talk about small groups. Jesus had his small groups. We need small groups of transparency. Well, you're honest with other people and you talk about your struggles and your sins. So, discipleship is as much caught as it is taught. It's both. Now, I'm hitting you hard on the teaching side because I happen to know most house churches really are terrible when it comes to having teaching. They just don't have any. Y'all need to teach more. But at the same time, there is that relational aspect of it. We're going to lunch with people and meeting guys for breakfast, even hunting with them or playing golf. That is also, you build that relationship, but intentionally picking brothers and sisters, brothers to brothers, sisters to sisters, you don't want to cross-gender that, where you're transparent and you share your struggles and encourage each other. That's very important that we do that. Now, Jesus closes in verse 20 by saying, Behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age. Now, why did he conclude with that? That's right. So they wouldn't feel alone trying to do this. Guys, this is tough to do. We needed the reassurance, we needed the encouragement, and it's a scary thing sometimes to do. All these things are scary. I know this didn't apply just to the apostles. Because he said, I'll be doing this until the end of the age. Well, they died a long time ago, and he still hasn't come back. He's still in the business of being with people that make disciples. We're all to make disciples according to the opportunities and skills and gifts that God has given us. So I challenge you today to do that. We're saying it starts with a proper understanding of who Jesus is. That's theology. A proper response to that, which is worship. where you're devoted to Him as your Lord, it grows out of a genuine faith in the resurrected Lord Jesus and the things He's commanded. You understand? He said He's got the authority to command this. He is commanding it. He's already there before you get there. And He's promising here on the conclusion He's going to be with you the whole way. But the whole process is what? You're going, and you're baptizing, and you're teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded. Hopefully, this will give you some ideas of what you can do where you live. Let's close in prayer. Well Lord, I see with my own two eyes what you said to do recorded right there in Matthew. Everybody else here today saw it too. So Lord, don't let us walk out of here and forget what you've shown us. Help us to be doers of the word, as James says, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. So Lord, the Holy Spirit is in each one of us here today who belongs to you, so I pray that through your Holy Spirit you would convict us if we're not doing something you want us to do. That you would enlighten us to exactly how we can apply this in our own lives, how we can influence our churches to do this. Lord, we do want to make disciples, not only in New England, but in the whole world. So Lord, give us a vision for that and a heart for that. And Lord, we know this is your work. We pray you'd be pleased to use us as part of that. It's in the strong name of Jesus that we ask it. Amen. This message was produced by the New Testament Reformation Fellowship, reforming today's church with New Testament church practice. Permission is hereby granted for you to reproduce this message. To learn more about New Testament church life, you can find us on the web at ntrf.org. God bless you as you seek to follow Him in obedience. May your faith in the Lord Jesus be strengthened and your daily walk with Him deepened. Yeah. Okay.