reading this morning is concerning him. It's Isaiah 49 verses 1 through 13. I'll just say a few words about this. This corresponds with the portion I'll be preaching from in the New Testament, which is the Great Commission at the end of Matthew's Gospel. Isaiah 49 speaks about our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father says of him, that after the work that He did upon the cross, that it was not enough to give to Him only the tribes of Israel, that He also would give Him as His inheritance the whole earth, that He might be God's salvation to the ends of the earth. So, listen now as I read to you from Isaiah 49. This is the very word of the living God. Listen, O coastlands, to Me and take heed, you peoples from afar. The Lord has called me from the womb, from the matrix of my mother. He has made mention of my name. He has made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of His hand, He has hidden me and made me a polished shaft. In His quiver, He has hidden me. And He said to me, You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. Then I said, I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain. Yet surely my just reward is with the Lord and my work with my God. And now the Lord says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him so that Israel is gathered to him, for I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord and my God shall be my strength. Indeed, he says, it is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel. I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth. Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One, to Him whom man despises, to Him whom the nation abhors, to the servant of rulers, kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, and He has chosen you. Thus says the Lord, In an acceptable time, I have heard you. And in the day of salvation, I have helped you. I will preserve you and give you as a covenant to the people to restore the earth, to cause them to inherit the desolate heritages that you may say to the prisoners, go forth to those who are in the darkness. Show yourselves. They shall feed along the roads and their pastors shall be on all desolate heights. They shall neither hunger nor thirst, neither heat nor sun shall strike them. For he who has mercy on them will lead them even by the springs of water. He will guide them. I will make each of my mountains a road and my highways shall be elevated. Surely these shall come from afar. Look, those from the north and the west and those from the land of Sinai. Sing, O heavens, be joyful, O earth, and break out in singing, O mountains, for the Lord has comforted His people and will have mercy on His afflicted. May God bless to us the hearing of His Holy Word from the Old Testament Scriptures. Our New Testament reading this morning is Matthew 28, beginning in verse 16. Matthew 28, beginning in verse 16. Hear now the word of the living God. Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. When they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen." May God bless these words to us. Now, let's unite our voices. Perhaps they've been long years in Matthew's Gospel. We come to the conclusion of Matthew's Gospel. And all the way through, as we have studied Matthew, we have seen that he presents Jesus Christ to us as the promised Messiah who came to establish a kingdom of righteousness in a world that had no righteousness. Matthew shows us how he preached about this righteousness, how he showed, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount, that the righteousness that men had acquired on their own strength was completely inadequate. and that it was only through Him that we could have such righteousness as would save us. And that He had come, as He promised and showed by His miracles, that He was the One who came in order to establish this new Kingdom. And we've seen recently in our study of this Gospel what He did to accomplish that. How He went to the cross and poured out Himself there as a sacrifice before His Father, bearing the guilt and the shame For all of our sins, the shame that was due to us because He had no sin, and yet before His Father He was rejected in that period of darkness on the cross when He cried out, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? He became sin for us who knew no sin in order that we may be made the righteousness of God. And we also saw in the last couple of weeks that He was raised from the dead to show that the Father had accepted His sacrifice for us. And that laying down His life had indeed established a Kingdom of Righteousness. That the Son of Righteousness was risen with healing in His wings so that He could go out to the nations and declare the Gospel to them. What good news it was that He had to proclaim to sinners Through Him that they could be reconciled to God the Father from whom they had been estranged by their sin. That they could be restored to God's house, not merely as servants, but as sons. To be the bride of Christ. To live in His house forever and ever. In that house of perfect love, where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have dwelt together in perfect harmony and love for all eternity. that now we could become part of that very same household. The same love that caused our Lord Jesus to go to the cross in order to purchase our redemption is the love that compels Him to proclaim the good news of what has been accomplished in the nations. To tell them what has been done in order that their joy may be full. And so it is, at the end of Matthew's Gospel, we see that our Lord Jesus called a meeting with His eleven disciples. It's a meeting that Matthew in particular places great emphasis on in his Gospel. He tells us that Jesus announced this meeting to them at the Lord's Supper, if you go back to Matthew 26, before He was betrayed, when He told them that they would all be scattered like sheep, and that He, their Shepherd, when He, their Shepherd, was struck, and that afterward He would raise from the dead and would meet them in Galilee. And you remember last week, we saw that the announcement of the angel after Jesus was raised was that I will go before my disciples into Galilee and meet them there. And then when Jesus himself appeared to the women, he repeated again that this meeting in Galilee would be held. According to the other Gospels, Jesus met with His disciples unannounced several times prior to this meeting in Galilee. But this meeting was a meeting that He called. It was a pre-arranged meeting, a pre-announced meeting. As it says in verse 16, it was on the mountain that Jesus had appointed. Because this meeting was prearranged, I think we can assume with confidence that this is the time when Jesus was seen by 500 brethren, as the Apostle Paul says, all at once. Because they knew about this meeting ahead of time. It was something that was told. They knew where to go. It was a prearranged meeting that the women were told about. This meeting was very important because it was the meeting at which the church was officially commissioned to make disciples of all nations. Jesus was speaking to His 11 disciples here as the official representatives of the entire church. We know that he was not just speaking to them as individuals because he tells them that this commission is something that will continue until the end of the age. So he's presenting it to the entire church. This is the work that the entire church is to be involved in until his return. Therefore, we would conclude that this is our mandate today given to us by our risen Lord. how you ought to endeavor then to obey what is told us here according to your own situation and calling. If you are an unbeliever, then you ought to repent today and become Christ's disciple. If you are a believer, then you ought to be diligently seeking to observe all things that he has commanded. And as a member of His body, you ought to do your part in making disciples, to promote the making of disciples in all the ways in which God has given you opportunity. Though you are by no means all called to teach officially or to baptize, you are all called to encourage one another. to be an example to one another, to exhort one another, to comfort one another, to restore one another, to rebuke your neighbor when he sins, to give what you can to support the ministry of the Gospel, to pray earnestly that the Gospel might succeed, that the church might be edified and increased, to adorn the Gospel by godly living in the way that you work and in the way that you live in this world and in your home. to invite others to come and hear the Gospel preached, to teach your children, to teach your household. Brothers and sisters, do you see what Matthew has recorded at the end of this Gospel? Jesus, by His death and resurrection, has established a kingdom of light and life in this world of darkness and death. And He has called us to be disciples and to make disciples of the nations. This is Christ's mandate for us. But there are things we need to learn about this. First of all, I want to ask you the question, what is a disciple? Jesus tells us to make them. We'd better know what they are if we're going to be able to follow what he asks us to do. Well, here's the definition. Simple definition. Disciple is a learner. Disciple is a student. Be sure you get the right picture in your mind. When we think of a student today, we often think along the lines of our impersonal academic model where the teacher is simply one who imparts information. But for Jesus, a disciple was much more than that and one who makes disciples. For Jesus, the disciple is one who becomes like his master. He is what we might call an apprentice. And in this case, the skill is not just a particular trade like auto mechanics or carpentry or something like that, but is an apprentice for life. For all of life and how life is to be lived to the glory of God. It is clear in our text that this is what Jesus has in mind. Because He says that a disciple is made by teaching him to observe all things that He has commanded. You see, it's not just conveying information, but it's learning to observe, learning to do. Jesus wants our whole life to be shaped by Him. It's to affect everything. You're to learn how to honor and glorify Him in your work, in your home. in your recreation, in your finances, in your relationships with your enemies, as citizens in times of crisis and in times of peace, in sickness, in health, in sorrow and in gladness. You see, it is a covenant very much like the covenant of marriage that we have. He is interested in teaching us how to live in God's house as His adopted children. By His Spirit, He is empowering us to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself. He is busy restoring in us His glorious image so that we may be like Him. It's far more than mere academia. But having said that, there is another misunderstanding of discipleship to be avoided. It's common in our day. And that is to look at the knowing part or the academic part is unimportant or irrelevant. to true discipleship. You see, it's all common today in the church of Jesus Christ to look at spiritual things as being things that have nothing to do with hard study, nothing to do with mental effort, nothing to do with receiving of information, nothing to do with figuring out things and laboring under things that are hard to grasp. There is a view that true spirituality is something that is just sort of supposed to happen to you. that it's sort of an undefined feeling of closeness to God or an experience with God that you really can't put into words. Sometimes it's even thought that if you can put it into words, that it wasn't really very spiritual. In this way of thinking, discipleship occurs more by osmosis than by diligent application of the commandments of God in our lives by His grace and Spirit. It makes discipleship kind of a mushy, intangible, undefined thing. But for Jesus, it's not so. It has to do with obeying commandments. Things that He has said with knowing what He has said in order that we may observe what He says. It has to do with practical things such as we find in the Sermon on the Mount. How we treat our enemies. Not worrying about our finances. Not trying to draw attention when we go to worship God to how spiritual we are. Or when we pray and when we fast. Putting God and His Kingdom first in our lives. being humbly dependent upon God. Obeying commandments is too practical and down to earth for some who claim to follow Jesus. They are more interested in finding images on the wall, images of Jesus on the wall at Tim Hortons that they can go and look at and become spiritual. or a deep religious feeling that they have when the music begins to play, or feeling the love of God flowing through their bodies in some kind of vibration. Jesus has commanded nothing about such things. He has commanded us to go and make disciples who learn to observe all that He has commanded. That's what true spirituality according to Jesus Christ is all about. You see then that learning to observe is one of the aspects of discipleship. But there is another that Jesus mentions here, which I skipped over. There are two participles here. Let me say something about the grammar of this passage. Jesus says, make disciples. That's the primary verb in this passage. But then he tells us with two participles, I-N-G words, what it is to make a disciple. He says, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. So there's making disciples. How do we do that? By baptizing and teaching. There's not three commandments here. There's one. Make disciples. And then there's an explanation of that under two heads. Baptizing and teaching them to observe all things I have commanded. Now, we've already looked at a disciple as one who's learning to observe what Jesus has commanded. We see now that he is also one who is to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Baptism is an outward sign that identifies and seals Christ's disciples as Christ's disciples. You might even say that baptism is the way that we are enrolled in the school of Jesus Christ. We become His disciples and His students. Now, this involves a very radical commitment on the part of the disciple. It requires that he completely, completely turn over his life to his Master. An apprentice may submit to a teacher or a Master to learn a certain trade, like carpentry or whatever. But an apprentice of Jesus Christ, as we've already seen, He brings His whole life to be shaped by Jesus Christ. He doesn't just come merely to have a piece of His life somewhere over here, a certain training or whatever in a certain area, a limited area. But His whole life is brought under Jesus Christ. He comes in order that His thoughts, His words, and His deeds may be radically conformed to His Lord. Now, even the action of baptism itself has much to say to us about this idea of transformation, about death to ourselves and life to him. You see, the action of baptism is, of course, washing with water in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And in this action, it is demonstrated that we are altogether unclean. defiled in God's sight, and that we come to Jesus in order that we may be washed by Him. There is a confession of sin in baptism, a confession of our unfitness, even our offensiveness before God. A person cannot be a disciple until he is ready to confess this about himself. Because you see, there is then in baptism a renouncing of self and a forsaking of all of our thoughts and ways in order that we may follow Jesus to learn to observe all things that He has commanded. Jesus tells us about the radical conditions of true discipleship in a number of places. One example would be in Matthew 16, verse 24. Jesus said to His disciples, if anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself. Take up His cross and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it." You see, if it's not all of us that are brought to Jesus to follow Him entirely and give ourselves completely to Him and to be washed by Him in our whole life, then it's not complete. He says, for whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Or what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? Discipleship begins with the covenant of baptism in which disciple comes as a miserable, filthy sinner and submits to Jesus Christ for his washing. And this dying to self and following of Christ is much more than a mere moral cleanup operation. It is not just that Jesus says, live this way instead of that way, though it doesn't exclude that. He does say that. But the dying to self that we're talking about in baptism involves identification with our Lord as the crucified one, as the one who by His death has taken care of sin's defilement and our guilt. We confess in baptism that His death alone is sufficient to cleanse us from our sin and from all the condemnation that sin has brought on us. We confess that our state was such that our condition was so miserable and so wicked that it was necessary that the very Son of God be dragged off and cursed upon the cross in order that we be redeemed. In other words, it's a complete renunciation of ourselves. It's not just a matter of saying, oh, I wasn't living right before. Now I'm going to do better. This is a matter of a complete and utter renunciation of anything good in myself and all that I could ever hope for from within myself, of ever having any favor or anything pleasing to God, and coming and saying, all of my righteousness is in Him. I am baptized into Jesus Christ. Completely giving up on ourselves. You see, our lives are brought into His life in baptism to be swallowed up by his life. This is why baptism is said to be literally into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The word that's used here is ace, which means into instead of in Greek, which means simply in even more important to this point. The word baptizo itself means to merge together. Dale, a man who wrote a four volume commentary on this one word, baptizo, said this. A thing is said to baptize when it thoroughly changes the character, state or condition of the thing which it baptizes. Baptizo should not be confused with the word bapto, which means to dip. When we are baptized into Christ, we are not put in and taken out again, as with dipping, but we are joined together. We are not immersed and brought out, but we are immersed into Him. We are joined into Him forever, so that our character, our state, and our condition is changed forever and ever. We are baptized into Him, and so become recipients of all of His benefits. We become recipients of justification through Him, of sanctification, of adoption, of eternal life. We become a joint heir with Jesus Christ so that His inheritance becomes our inheritance. Likewise, we are baptized into the Spirit of God so that our stony, stubborn heart is changed. When the Spirit comes upon us, we are cleansed. Jesus is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. He gives the Spirit to change us so that we become one who delights in God's law. And when that work is brought to perfection in heaven, then we will delight perfectly in God's law. We will love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbors ourself. And we're baptized into the Father whose children we become through faith in Christ. Even as we have been chosen by Him to be in Christ from before the foundation of the world, so that our whole lives might be holy and without blame before Him in love. So this identification with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is so complete that we are said in baptism to die with Christ. To die. Complete renunciation. And to be raised with Him into all that He has merited for us through His work. We leave behind all that is sinful and defiled and we find a whole new life in God. This is what discipleship is all about. This is what following Jesus Christ is all about. This is what Jesus tells us to do among the nations, make disciples of them, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded. So he is calling all the nations of the world into this relationship of absolute trust and dependency upon him. But this brings up a second question for us this morning. Who is this Jesus to make such a demand upon us? I mean, think about it. If an ordinary man came to you and he told you that he wanted you to die to all that you are, and to lose your life totally in Him and all that He is, and to have all of your trust and all of your confidence and everything, even for eternal life, to rest in Him alone. Such a man. could never be regarded as a good moral teacher. A good moral teacher would not be a description that would apply to such a man. He would be a very vain man, a very proud man, a miserable tyrant, a snake of a man that was filled with empty promises that he could never fulfill. A power hungry man inflated out of control with pride and ambition. How foolish it would be to Follow such a man. How foolish it is as well to take a position. The position that Jesus Christ is nothing more than an ordinary man and that he is a good teacher when he makes a demand like we have seen to be baptized into his name. To renounce all and to learn to observe all that he's commanded. To think that he demands this absolute submission not only of us, but of the nations, of all the nations. Who is this? Jesus has made this demand, but He has not made it without also proclaiming His authority. At the end of verse 18, He declares, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and earth. Look at these words carefully. Jesus plainly says that He has been given this authority. Does that sound strange? This is something that He did not have before and that has now been given to Him. Now, obviously, as He is the Son of God who was in eternity with the Father, He already had absolute authority over all things because by Him and for Him and through Him and to Him are all things. We are told elsewhere that He is the One for whom and by whom the whole world was created. But Jesus is here not speaking of Himself in that capacity. He is speaking of Himself as our mediator. The mediator between sinful man and God. He did not become the Son of Man until He was conceived. And as the Son of Man and our mediator, there was something He had to do before all authority was given to Him. He had to go to the cross. And He had to purchase our redemption. The word authority means freedom. Speaks of having freedom to do what you want. For example, a mother may give her five year old freedom to watch anything that he wants on TV. Or if you work for an investment company, you may be given authority to invest their resources in wherever you wish. You would be given great freedom. in that regard, to do what you wish. The idea here is that Jesus, even as God, did not have authority to do what He wanted as far as saving us until after He had finished the work that He was given to do as mediator. You see, God Himself, even God Himself, has no authority to do wrong or to act inconsistently with Himself. He cannot deny Himself. Of course, if you look at it in an absolute sense, it is not a limitation upon His authority at all, because God has no desire to act inconsistently with Himself. In the absolute sense, He is always free to do what He pleases. But He does not desire or deign to ever act inconsistently with Himself. So then if we look at it in a qualified sense, God has expressed the desire to save sinners, to be their God and to make them His people. But He did not have the freedom to do that apart from the finished work of Jesus Christ. This is why when Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, He said, Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. It was not possible. That was why He had to die in order to redeem the nations. To save sinners apart from the shed blood of Jesus Christ would be for the Father an act contrary to His own nature. God would have to deny all of His justice and His holiness to accept us apart from the shed blood of Jesus the Mediator. By nature, God brings wrath and judgment upon the wicked. It is a virtue in Him to punish the wicked. If you bring a sinner together with God who is holy, the result will be the destruction of the sinner. God's wrath upon the sinner. This is God's proper, appropriate, virtuous, holy, and just response to wickedness. So in a qualified way, we can say then that God had no authority to save sinners until His Son, Jesus Christ, had finished His work on the cross. And we can say that Jesus was not given authority as mediator until He had actually finished the work of redemption. Let me just put in a note here. It doesn't mean that the Old Testament saints were not saved. They were saved according to the virtue of what Christ would do. But if he had not, in fact, done that, there would have been no virtue by which they could be saved. OK, let me show you some Scripture that confirms what I've been saying. Philippians 2.8-11 is one of the clearest of these. It says of the Son of God, being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, because He did that work on the cross. Therefore, as our mediator, therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The Son of God as Mediator was made to be Lord in Christ because He finished the work of our redemption. He was exalted as Mediator to be Lord in Christ. This is a fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy in Daniel 7, 13 and 14. In this verse, we get to see our Lord's ascension in Daniel's vision from the other side of the clouds. The disciples stood and they watched Jesus ascend up into heaven. He went up into the clouds. Well, what happened on the other side of the clouds? Well, Daniel in his vision describes it in this way. I was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the Ancient of Days." That's to God the Father. "...and they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed." You see that Jesus here, as the Son of Man, is given something that He did not have until after He had suffered on the cross. It could not be given to Him until He had finished that work. We read before in Isaiah 49, 4-6, that the Father did not consider it enough to give Him only the tribes of Israel as His inheritance. but that He also gave to him the nations, the Gentiles, as His inheritance. It is too small a thing that you should be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob. and to restore the preserved ones of Israel. I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth." That is what was given to him when he ascended and came before the Ancient of Days as the Son of Man. Isaiah 53, 10-12 makes it clear that the authority to save the world would be given to him after he had finished his work. Isaiah explains that God will see the labor of his soul and be satisfied, and then He will divide him a portion with the great. He will give him his inheritance because he purchased that inheritance. It follows then that when Peter preaches his first sermon after Jesus was raised from the dead at Pentecost, he uses language that reflects the change in Jesus' status. In Acts 2.36 he says, "...let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, Lord in Christ." You made Him a common criminal. You crucified Him. But God raised Him from the dead and made Him Lord in Christ. He has made to be that. God showed that He received this authority as Lord and Christ, as Redeemer of His people. Hebrews 1, 3-4 puts it like this, when He had by Himself purged our sins, notice, when He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, Having become so much better than the angels. Notice, having become so much better than the angels, as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. He was given a higher status than the angels as the son of man. It was his portion, his inheritance was given to him. The result then of his exaltation is that now all men everywhere are called to repent. This is what the apostles say when they preach to the Gentiles. They say, God winked at your ignorance before, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent. Now what? Now that Jesus has been raised from the dead, now that he has completed his work. So we appeal to the nations as we go out on the basis of Jesus' finished work, that He has all authority in heaven and earth given to Him. We therefore command the nations to repent and to become His disciples because He has been given authority also to judge by virtue of His finished work. All authority is vested in Him. To Him has been given the power to save and the power to condemn. That means that your eternal destiny is in the hands of this one man. And that is why this one man can say to you that you must become my disciple. You must completely die to all that you are and not trust in anything that you have of your own and come and trust in me and be my disciple. Unless you die to self and come to the Son for life, you will face condemnation. Jesus says the Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life. He who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. All authority is given to Him both to save and to judge. Therefore, it is in His name and by virtue of the authority that has been given to Him that we go forth and make disciples." Now, what an awesome mandate this is. But how in the world are we to bear such a responsibility as going to the nations and declaring to them that they must give everything to this man? Who are we to go to the nations? We are but mere flesh. Do you not feel as Moses did when Moses was called to go to Pharaoh and demand that he let Israel go? I talked about this last week on Sunday night. Here was Moses who had just spent 40 years on the backside of the desert in obscurity, and he used to just come on the scene and go to the greatest king in all the world at that time and say, God of Israel says let my people go. And Pharaoh was supposed to listen to him. And the people that he is calling to come out are supposed to listen to him too and believe that God sent him and to come and follow him. And Moses had no reason to think that either the Egyptians or the Hebrews would listen to him. Neither the ones who are to be judged or the ones who are to be saved. Who is he to go with a message of this kind of authority? And so he said, but suppose that they won't believe me or listen to me Listen to my voice. Suppose they say, the Lord has not appeared to you. Do you not feel that way? With this charge to call a nation to submission to Jesus Christ? Do you remember what God told him? He said, throw down that rod in your hand. And it became a serpent. And he told him to pick it up and put his hand in his bosom. He took it out and it was leprous. And he put it back in and it was cleansed. God said that it may be if they do not believe you nor heed the first sign, that they may believe the message of the latter sign. But then God goes on to say, and it shall be if they do not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice. And then He gives them instruction about all the plagues and what He's supposed to do. God had purposed to show forth His power upon Egypt in delivering them in this way. Now, you know what happened to Moses. in this instance. He went with God's message, and things went from bad to worse. Pharaoh hardened his heart, and he increased Israel's bondage instead of releasing them. And Israel turned against Moses as the one who is bringing false and empty promises to them. Is this not what happens to the church of Jesus Christ over and over again when we go to make disciples? We go to the world and they laugh and say, who is the Lord that I should obey Him? I am Pharaoh. I will do whatever I want. And we go to the covenant people. And we see them struggling. And some of them, even in unbelief, have been baptized. And we say, you need to entrust all to the Lord. You need to entrust all things. But rather than doing this, they complain. And they say the way of the Lord is too hard. And so our discipleship seems to fall to the ground. And we waver in our zeal. And we're tempted to give up. But you see, there is something here to keep you going. Look at the words in the end of verse 20. Jesus says, in lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. What a great promise this is. That was what He told Moses. I will be with you. The One to Whom all authority in heaven and earth is the One that is promising to be with us. When the church is in its very lowest condition, And the covenant people are rejecting discipleship. And we feel like Elijah when he seemed to be the only one left who had not bowed his knee to Baal. Jesus says, I am with you always. When the world seems to be the most satisfied with its own Christ-denying argument, and seems to have the most confidence in its own ability and its own success, And when it can laugh at you and your gospel is totally irrelevant, Jesus says, I am with you always. When the struggle is long and hard in your own personal discipleship, and you feel like you're making little progress in your own life or in your family, and that the fruit is so poor that you don't know where to turn, you can remember, Jesus says, I am with you always. When your enemies seem too strong for you and you're discouraged and ready to give up, He says, I am with you always. This is the same thing that God kept telling Moses. I'll be with you, Moses. And when things went from bad to worse, he kept telling Moses still that he would be with him and that he would show to everyone that he was Lord, the self-existing one. And we learn from Moses' experience that it was because God was with him that things went from bad to worse at first. It was God's predetermined purpose. He says Himself, I have raised up Pharaoh for this purpose, and I have hardened his heart for this purpose in order that I might make My power known through him. If Moses had gone in to Egypt and he had said, God says, let My people go, and Pharaoh said, and sent them off with provisions, God would have not been glorified in bringing down this kingdom who thought it was so powerful and who thought it had authority to even defy the living God. As the kingdoms of this age think that they have the authority to defy the living God. And so it was that in the end, that the Egyptians were brought down to the dust And they have to bow down before God as the ten plagues sweep across their land and destroy everything that they have. And they have to acknowledge, not with repentance, but they have to acknowledge that He is Lord. They have to submit. Do you get the point? To Jesus, the Mediator, all authority has been given. And to Him has been given the name that is above every name. In the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Just as God was with Moses to work out and orchestrate His plan according to His will, not in the way that Moses might have expected. Well, Lord, if You're going to be with me, then I'll go and Pharaoh will just say, OK, and everything will happen. That's not the way it is, is it? We go out with the Gospel and it's hard labor. People don't listen. They don't respect God's authority. But you see, God's authority is still there. And He is still with us. And He is preparing to reveal His glory on the last day. He's going to show the glory of His wrath in bringing down those who are obstinate and those who rebel against Him. He will be honored in their destruction and in their judgment. He says that they are vessels of wrath that are prepared beforehand for destruction. And then at the same time, how He will be glorified in those that He has called and brought to Himself, that though they be no different than those that He has condemned, that they are as unrighteous as any other, that yet through Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross, that they are made alive and that they are able to have mercy and to be brought into God's house to live with Him forever and ever. Here were the disciples. This small company of men that had been hiding in various places after Jesus' crucifixion. Jesus is saying to them, go into all the world. Make disciples of all the nations. On what basis? What hope? Because I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And what happened, brothers and sisters? Did the Gospel stay with those 11 disciples and the 500 or so that were gathered together in that little company, scattered company that didn't have any resources or strength? No, the Gospel indeed went into all the world. And here we are in North America. Worshipping the Lord Jesus today because all authority in heaven and earth has been given to Him. Let us go forth then in His name with confidence. Let us not waver in unbelief and insecurity. For He has been made Lord in Christ. And He is our Lord and our God. Please stand and let's call upon His name. Gracious Heavenly Father, we stand before You now to call upon Your Name because of the mighty things that You have done for us. We thank You that heaven and earth have been shaken, that Jesus Christ has come down from heaven and that He has lived among us, and that all of our transgressions were poured out upon Him. that Your wrath and judgment fell upon Him so that we might be redeemed. And we thank You and we praise You that by Him that we may say, Abba, Father, to You, that we can call You our God and we can call ourselves Your people through faith. And Jesus finished accomplished work. We thank you that he has been made Lord of all, that he has been made Lord and Christ and that he will remain such for all eternity and that as our mediator and redeemer, that he will forever reconcile us to you so that our sins can never, ever be brought up against us again. And we thank You that He has also given us His Holy Spirit in order that we might learn to walk in His way, that we might learn to live in Your house, that we might learn to love one another and to love You with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And Father, help that love to get a good start as we consider what You have done for us We pray that we would grasp the enormity of what you have sacrificed in order that we might have life. And that this would compel us, that it would constrain us to serve you as your disciples and to rejoice in what you've done, and to spread the Word even when men are obstinate and resistant, that we would go on knowing that you will accomplish your purposes even as you accomplish them upon Egypt. For the Apostle Paul, as he struggled with this in Romans, he himself took comfort that you were the one who had vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath. and that all things were for your glory, and that you would accomplish all of your holy purposes. And so it was that the Apostle labored, and he prayed, and he earnestly besought sinners to come to Jesus Christ. Father, give us this zeal. Help us not to take anything for granted, Lord. Help us to pursue with our children the interests of the Kingdom of God, to see that they are disciples of Jesus Christ who are baptized in His name and who are taught to observe all things that He has commanded. And help us to encourage one another, to comfort one another with this hope that we have. And Father, we pray that You would make this congregation a light in this city. That we would be able to spread Your Word to our neighbors. And that we would see many people drawn to Jesus Christ when He is lifted up and exalted among us. Father, we ask You for Your help because we feel impotent. We feel weak. But we thank You that the Lord is with us and that we are not weak in Him. That we are strong and mighty. And that we can pull down strongholds. Lord, make us live. that we may call upon Your name and declare Your works to the peoples around us. For we want Your name to be glorified in all the earth. We want Your kingdom to come and Your will to be done. Help us. Aid us. Give us grace, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen. You may be seated. I'll ask the elders to come forward and assist with the Lord's Supper.