It's a privilege to be with you here again tonight for this occasion. So we honor the Lord as we install our brother as a missionary evangelist. I send you greetings as well from your sister church, Grace Reformed OPC in Des Moines. And now brothers and sisters, I'd ask if you would please turn in your copy of the scriptures to Matthew chapter 28, Matthew chapter 28. And we'll read verses 16 through 20. While these are very familiar verses, we should give our very careful attention to what it says, because this is the Word of God. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And 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. sends us reading from God's Word. May He add His blessing to it. What we just read is called the Great Commission. This is Jesus' final command to His Church until He comes again. But while it's a very familiar passage, we can all feel the weight of it tonight as this local church, Covenant OPC, bids farewell to a man who faithfully pastored them for just short of 10 years. Now he's going to go on and do another type of ministry on the other side of the world. And in many ways, the work that he's going to do overseas will be very different from the work that he's done here at Covenant OPC. But as we're going to see tonight, there's also some similarities. So what you see, whether it's home missions or whether it's foreign missions, they're both the work of building up Christ church, making disciples and equipping the saints for ministry. And that's what we're going to focus on tonight. As we examine this passage, we'll do so under three headings. First, Jesus proclamation of authority, Jesus proclamation of authority. Second, Jesus called to discipleship. Jesus called to discipleship and third, Jesus words of comfort. And I'll repeat those as we go along. But first we have Jesus proclamation of authority. Our text begins in verse 16, which says, now the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. Now, Jesus' appearance in Galilee fulfilled what he said to his disciples earlier, back in Matthew 26, before he was arrested and tortured and crucified. He said in verses 31 to 32, You will all fall away because of me this night, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. They're quoting from one of the prophets. He says, But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee. And in verse 17 of our text, the first thing his disciples did when they saw them, him was that they worshiped him. Now remember, these men grew up in the first century Jewish households. So they were taught from an early age to obey God's law. And this includes the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me. In other words, you are to worship God and no one else. So when the disciples worship Jesus that day in Galilee, they were saying they were declaring by their action that he was not merely a good moral teacher. No, they were declaring his divinity, that he is God. But then verse 17 ends with something curious. It says, but some doubt it. And that's a surprising statement considering that, well, Jesus had just been resurrected from the dead. So that raises the obvious question, why did Matthew write this? Well, Matthew included this because it happened. This is a confirmation of the historical accuracy of this gospel. Because if Matthew was only a propagandizer, meaning that he only wanted to make Jesus look good, that's what unbelievers accuse the Bible writers doing. If that's all he was, he never would have included this. So, in pointing out their doubt, Matthew is saying that some who were present continued to struggle to believe and understand everything that was going on. Furthermore, the Greek word for doubted does not describe firmly fixed unbelief. It describes a state of uncertain hesitation. And here, Matthew is not suggesting that some of the disciples and others refused to believe that Jesus was resurrected. Rather, all he seems to be saying is that it took longer for some of them to process the utterly remarkable fact of Jesus' resurrection and the ramifications of that. And on a more practical level, doesn't their doubting serve as a reminder? of how you and I struggle too. Even though we know, we know that Jesus is resurrected. We know that he's raising on high. We know that at the end of time, he is going to come again in glory. We know these things, brothers and sisters. Our old enemy, doubt, is always lurking. And that's especially the case in uncertain moments. certainly during perhaps during times of transition. And yet this should also remind all of us that the commission that Jesus was about to give to his church cannot be done in our own strength. And brothers and sisters, we can only accomplish things for Christ as the Holy Spirit works in and through us. And as we'll see later on, their doubt was surely one reason why Jesus gave these men a word of encouragement in verse 20. We'll see that later on. But because Jesus has completed his divine mission, he is now going to give these men, his apostles, the great commission, So he begins with a declaration in verse 18. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Jesus has authority because He fulfilled the calling that was given to Him in the covenant of redemption, which was a covenant made between the three persons of the Godhead. And in the covenant of redemption, God the Father decreed that God the Son would take on human flesh so that He could atone for your sins and mine on the cross. And once that task was completed, God the Father raised his son from the dead, granted his son all authority in heaven and on earth, and gave him a numerous elect seat as his bride. And the Holy Spirit would apply the benefits of Christ's redemption to the elect in due time. So we see, as we know from this Gospel account, from the Bible, Christ fulfilled his part of the covenant of redemption when he was born into this life and he lived a perfectly sinless life. And then after his three-year ministry, he suffered and died on the cross. And after three days, he was resurrected from the dead, which constitutes proof that God the Father was satisfied with his son's ministry and sacrificial death. But because Jesus did all of this, he now has all authority. He has all authority, which means that there is no place, there is no place at all on this planet where Jesus does not belong. And there is no conversation that you and I have where it's inappropriate for Jesus to be a part of. And that is why the Church of Jesus Christ does missions. And this should remind you how your unbelieving family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and Even people overseas all need the gospel. This should also help you to overcome your fear of man and to remove all of your fears. Since, well, I'm just going to say it. Jesus did the hard part. All he calls his church to do is to go out and proclaim and make known what he already did. Therefore, you and I should have no fear when the Lord calls someone, including a much-loved pastor and his family, to go overseas, or when he providentially places an unbeliever into your life. All of this is entailed in Jesus' statement that He has all authority. As James Montgomery Boyce said, Jesus authority is superior to and over all other authorities, whether spiritual, demonic, or otherwise. His resurrection proves his authority over any power that can possibly be imagined. Consequently, he says, we do not fear Satan or anyone else while we are engaged in Jesus service. And because Jesus has proclaimed his authority, let's see what's in store for us next as we move on to our second heading. Jesus' call to discipleship. Now, because all authority has been given to Jesus, he gives his disciples a command in the first part of verse 19, go therefore and make disciples of all nations. And when Jesus said to make disciples of all nations, He's making two statements. The first statement he's making, he's saying that God's promises are no longer confined to Abraham's physical descendants. The Jews from this moment onward, the gospel was to be proclaimed to all the nations. That is the Gentiles. This fulfills Isaiah 42 6, which says, I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations. The second statement Jesus is making is that he's saying that his disciples note this. They are not being sent out to make converts. No, they're being sent out to make disciples. Note the distinction well. A convert is somebody who has changed their beliefs because after hearing the gospel, they go from being an unbeliever to a true believer. And we got to be clear on this. While evangelism is important and it's critical, It's a far deeper calling to make someone a disciple, which means to be a student or a learner. In the Church of Jesus Christ, what does discipleship is? It is the slow, steady, lifelong process of enabling an adult convert or a covenant child who is born into a Christian household, that child grows up, to grow up and to be nurtured in the faith. Or to put it another way, it's true, you can't have disciples until you first have evangelism. Evangelism is great and it's wonderful, but it's only the first step in discipleship, which goes far broader and deeper. And for every believer, your discipleship, my discipleship lasts a lifetime. And sadly, this is something that many, and I want to emphasize, well-meaning churches forget when they send people overseas on loosely defined short-term mission trips, and they come home all excited, they say, well, I led all these people to the Lord. But if you really think about it, do these well-intentioned believers who make these short-term mission trips, do they usually have a chance to go back and disciple those souls? Vast majority of the time, they're not able to. And that's lamentable since what discipleship involves, it involves being there. It involves knowing these souls. It involves ministering to them regularly and repeatedly, teaching them, counseling them, sometimes on the same issues over and over again. And this is a hard task because in any culture, including this one, There will be deeply embedded cultural assumptions that run counter to Christian ethics, and they don't just go away when someone prays to receive Christ. Helping a young believer or a new believer to root out these wrong cultural assumptions can only be done through true discipleship. It's one reason why we send out missionaries. And not only that, all disciples of Christ Whether they live here or abroad, they need to be regularly challenged and encouraged, as 2 Peter 3.18 says, to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And that's part of the lifelong process of discipleship. And in order for that to happen, God calls men to be pastors who are trained specifically for that task. And sometimes He calls them to serve here on this continent, in this country, Sometimes he calls them to go over and serve in a foreign land far away. But whether it's here or whether it's abroad, discipleship happens within the context, within the bounds of Christ's church. This is clear considering what Jesus goes on to say in our text and the rest of verse 19 and into verse 20, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. As the answer to question 94 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism says, baptism is a sacrament wherein with washing with water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost doth signify and seal our grafting into Christ and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace and our engagement to be the Lord's. So when a person gets baptized, they're being identified as one who belongs to Jesus, who is part of his church, which is Christ's visible body on earth. And as Beuys points out, this is both natural and necessary. If a person is truly converted, he or she will want to join with other similarly converted people. And next, Jesus calls them to teach. And this entails the whole counsel of God, Old Testament and New Testament. But notice that it's not just teaching. He says, teaching them to observe, which entails knowing Christian doctrine, putting it into practice as well. In a nutshell, what Jesus is saying here is that Christ's disciples are made through the ministry of the word and sacrament. And this is exactly what we find when we get into the rest of the New Testament, especially in the book of Acts. In chapter 1 of Acts, after Jesus ascended, he disappeared behind the clouds. Chapter 2 tells us how the Spirit descended upon the apostles. They started preaching in different languages, and people started mocking them, and then Peter got up and he gave his sermon. And we see that in that chapter that 3,000 souls were saved. And in Acts 2.42, it says that these believers devoted themselves to, notice this, the apostles' teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And then the apostles, especially Paul, went beyond the borders of Israel and into the Gentile world. And as Acts unfolds, you can see the gospel being brought to even more nations. We see the Ethiopian eunuch in chapter eight for one. And as Paul journeyed all the way to Rome in the closing chapters, and Paul even talked about going to Spain, which was then the Western most known corner of the world in Romans chapter 15. In fact, everywhere that Paul and the other apostles went, they planted churches. Sometimes these churches had common problems or they faced unique challenges, or they needed doctrine to be clearly spelled out for them. So as the apostles were inspired by the Holy Spirit, they wrote these letters, these epistles to instruct them. And these epistles are still being used by churches for discipling believers, even to this day. But what was particularly beautiful was when, and still is beautiful, was when believers with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds came together and they together make up part of a local church. And this shows, what this shows beloved, something very crucial. that Christianity is its own race. It says in 1 Peter 2.9, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession. So how does discipleship happen? It's very simple. It happens through the ordinary week in, week out ministry of the church. That is the means that God uses. It's not flashy, spectacular. But it's the method that Jesus chose to disciple his people. And the result of that is mature Christians who increasingly showcase the fruit of the Spirit in their lives, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, who are salt and light wherever they go, which ultimately makes Christ attractive to a watching world. But while this work is glorious, Any minister, any ruling elder, any deacon will tell you, it's hard work. There will always be challenges and conflicts. That's true whether you're talking about believers here in the United States, believers in Uganda, or anywhere else. But thankfully, Jesus provides His church. Abundantly, he gives many resources, but there's one resource in particular that's crucial. And we'll see what that is in our third and final heading, which is Jesus' words of comfort. So what is this special resource that Jesus gives to his church? It's really very simple. It's Jesus Christ himself. We see that at the end of verse 20, Jesus declared, and behold, I am with you always until the end of the age. Now, on the one hand, I have to say this shouldn't surprise us at all, but Jesus said this. After all, he was introduced at the beginning of Matthew's gospel, chapter 123, as Emmanuel, which means God with us. In other words, Jesus being with his people, that's part of the very fabric of his character and who he is as our Lord and our Savior and our Shepherd. But on the other hand, Jesus' closing statement is also incredibly encouraging for believers, especially perhaps when you're going through a time of transition. J.C. Rowe said, it is impossible to conceive words more comforting, strengthening, cheering, and sanctifying than these. Though left alone like orphaned children in a cold, unkind world, the disciples were not to think they were deserted. Their master would ever be with them. Though commissioned to do a work as hard as that of Moses, when sent to Pharaoh, they were not to be discouraged. Their master would certainly be with them. No words could be more suited to the position of those to whom they were spoken. No words could be imagined more consolatory to believers in every age of the world. Let all true Christians lay hold of these words and keep them in mind that Christ is with us always Christ is with us wherever we go. He came to be Emmanuel God with us when he first came into the world. He declared that He is ever Emmanuel with us when He comes to the end of His earthly ministry and is about to leave the world. He is with us daily to pardon and forgive us, with us to daily sanctify and strengthen, with us daily to defend and keep, with us to lead and to guide, with us in sorrow, with us in joy, with us in sickness, and with us in health, with us in life, and with us in death, with us in time, and with us in eternity. eternity, and he's not done. Ralph continues. What stronger consolation could believers desire than this? That whatever happens, they at least are never completely friendless and alone. Christ is ever with them. He is ever with you. They may look into the grave and say with David, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. They may look forward beyond the grave and say with Paul, we shall ever be with the Lord. He has said it. He will stand to it. I am with you always, even to the end of the world. I will never leave you and never forsake you. We can ask for nothing more. Let us go on believing and not be afraid. It is everything to be a real Christian. None have such a king, such a priest, such a constant companion, such an unfailing friend as true servants and followers of Jesus Christ. And I just have to say, aren't those words incredibly comforting, reassuring. In closing, I want to say two brief words. First, to the members of Covenant OPC here in Cedar Falls. And second, to Mike and Jen and Joanna Carney. To the members of Covenant OPC, you've made your hard decision to release your pastor from his call. Now think about it, I can't imagine how hard that was for you. Because ever since Mike arrived here, he has faithfully discipled you through good times and bad times. I still remember, by the way, back in 2017, I was between calls. I was asked to come down here and preach. I got to meet you all and your pastor as well and saw such wonderful camaraderie here. But I want to assure you, letting him go to do his part in making disciples in Uganda, this was a good decision. This was the right decision. because God placed it on his heart to go and to minister in a place where his ministry is badly needed. The OPC thanks you for the sacrifice that you're making. More importantly, Jesus is very pleased with you and Jesus will provide for you. And know, I want you to know, we are all praying for you during this time of transition. So as you say goodbye to Mike and Jen and Joanna, I want you to remember a few things. In the OPC, we say goodbye. It's never goodbye forever. It's always just so long for now. And remember, it's not about the minister. It's about the ministry. It's not about your pastor. It's about Jesus Christ, the one who will never leave you. who will never forsake you, who will be with you always, even to the end of the age. So whenever you think of the carnies in Uganda and you pray for them, be comforted. Be reassured by the fact that Jesus is with them and that he will help them in all their adjustments to another culture and all the gospel work that Mike and his family are going to undertake. And now to Mike and Jen and Joanna, I want to say may the Lord do far more abundantly than you could ask or ever imagine, that according to the power of the work within you, and may you know that we're all praying for you too. So may you rest assured that Covenant OPC is in good hands with the elders and with the presbytery. And as you think of the wonderful saints here, as you miss them, as you pray for them, be comforted by the fact that Jesus is with them, that he will help and provide for them because he is their shepherd and he will be with them always, even to the end of the age. Would you pray with me? Oh, our Lord Jesus, how we thank you for these words that you give to us, this clear command with no ambiguity about it, about what it is that you would have us to do as your church and as your people. We thank you that you not only call men, but that you continue to supply and that you continue to provide and you continue to nurture and to care for your sheep here and abroad. We thank you for the Carnies as well as you prepare them for this call ahead. We thank you and we know that you will be with them every step of the way as they prepare for this new chapter. all to your glory and all in your name. We pray and ask in the name of Jesus, our good shepherd. Amen.