Take your Bibles with me this morning. Open up to Matthew chapter 28. Right to the very end of the Gospel of Matthew. Throughout this celebration of the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus. We've been looking at the road to redemption. We're looking at Jesus being praised and exalted as he entered into Jerusalem for the triumphal entry. We've seen him rejected then and put on trial, mocked and scourged and flogged and crucified. but then we saw last week his resurrection, his being raised from the dead here in the first 15 verses of Matthew 28. This morning, we're finishing out the chapter, verses 16 through 20. We're looking at his commission, the great commission that Jesus gave to the disciples. And by virtue of that, now there are those that I've actually heard preach in my lifetime that have said that the great commission was just to the apostles. and not to anyone else. This commission is given to the disciples to go and to make disciples. So as you make disciples, disciples do what disciple makers do. We continue to obey this commission and we continue to go. I'm gonna show that to you from the scriptures this morning. But here at the end of the chapter, the 11 disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came up 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 the Son and Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. What we find here is that Jesus has risen from the dead. So the question is, what's next? What do we do? What do we do now? I mean, that certainly for the disciples, that was the climax of world events, right? Jesus had been born, he had lived, he had been put to death, but now he had been raised from the dead. So what do we do now? Well, Jesus gives them their mission. This is the agenda. The divinely instituted mission of every disciple of Jesus is to make disciples wherever in the world they are at the moment. Disciples are known for making disciples. This is Jesus's program for building the church. Now, what that means for us is that while we look at the Great Commission and you think, okay, this is just a command to go and evangelize, there is so much more to making disciples than evangelism. Evangelism, in fact, is just the first necessary part of making a disciple. So we're going to look at what it means then this morning to be making disciples. It's interesting that we start that the disciples were told to meet him at this place in Galilee. They have a designated meeting spot. They go and it says when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. You get that among the 11 who now have seen him and touched him and eaten with him, who know he has been raised from the dead and is alive. Some of them are still doubting. We find, in fact, that there is no great boldness among them until Pentecost, when the spirit is given. And then you see men that are radically transformed, men that are willing to go and spend everything, even to the point of dying for Christ, because they know that he's true and now they're endued with power from the Spirit. I think we need to take some comfort from this too. If the 11 disciples can meet on a mountain with the risen Christ and doubt in their worship, we have to realize that what we offer to Christ often is tainted by the flesh. by our worry, our fear, our doubts, our sinfulness. That's why I'm convinced as you look at the judgment seat of Christ, it's not just gold, silver, and precious stones that's refined in the fire. There's wood, hay, and stubble. and those things are burned up. Heard a preacher one time, it might've been Spurgeon, reading Spurgeon, who said that that wood, that hay and that stubble was everything that remained tainted by us having passed through our fingers in service to Christ. We will fear and we will doubt and we will fail, but that's not the point because we serve a savior who has saved us and will keep us. And one day all of that is gonna be burned away and all that's gonna be left is what he has done and it's gonna be purified And they say, that's your reward. And you know what you're gonna do with your reward. We're gonna go home and hang it on the wall in your mansion, right? No, to throw it back at the feet of Jesus. Because after all, it's his work. It's what he's done in us and through us. And so we praise him with that offering. Well, Jesus comes now and he speaks to them. And as he's about to give them their lifelong mission, he tells them the foundation of that mission. the authority behind it. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Jesus came. He humbled himself. He went to the cross. He was faithful to death. He was raised. He was exalted. He has ascended. He is seated on the right hand of the throne of God. God has given him the son, the name, which is above every name and all authority is his in heaven and on earth. That means in all of the created order. It's all his and he's the king. He rules and he reigns over all of it. This is the authority for our mission. When we go as ambassadors, as ministers of reconciliation, as we go to evangelize, baptize, and make disciples of these converts, we're doing this under the authority of the Lord of Lords. We don't need to fear those who would oppose us or try to stop us. The government didn't tell us to be quiet and to not say things and to not do things. And I love it, what John MacArthur said, they told him, shut down the church and quit preaching. If you continue to do this, we'll put you in prison. And he said, he just prayed about it and was confident that if God wanted to give him a prison ministry, that's where he was gonna go, wherever you are. Whatever the cost, be faithful to the Word of God. We obey God rather than men, and His mission to us, backed up by His authority as King of Kings, as God Almighty, is to go and make disciples. This is His command to us. In Ephesians 1, verses 20 and 21, we read, He worked in Christ by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand at the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. There is no end to the rule of Christ. We see this all the way back in the visions in the book of Daniel. All of the nations by that statue dreamed up by Nebuchadnezzar and a rock comes out of the mountain and smashes the nations to dust. And that rock represents a kingdom that is forever and that will never end. That rock actually represents Christ as king, ushering in his kingdom. And as he came, lived, died, and was raised, so he is exalted. And so he's in charge. When we say God is sovereign, that's the same as saying Jesus is sovereign. It's the same as saying the Holy Spirit is sovereign. People want to talk about grace being resistible. Who can resist God? Who can resist God? Here, Jesus, with this authority then, tells the disciples, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I commanded you. As he gives this instruction to go make disciples, there's a little bit of confusion just on the way this has forever been translated into English. The go there, is better said, not get up and go from here to there to accomplish the mission. And by the way, this is the problem. If we do just take this as go, in fact, I had an evangelism professor say this. He said, you don't have to go because you're already there. Because where he told the disciples to go, there you are. So you don't have to go. Now he was a great evangelist. He once went on a cruise and took 4,000 gospel tracks on a cruise. And in one of the ports of call, bought a thousand more. because he had given them all out on the cruise. Can you imagine being trapped on a boat with that man? Here he is on the Lord's mission to do what he had been sent to do. But I think he missed the point. Yes, Jesus did tell the disciples that they were going to be going. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and on all Judea and Samaria and even to the end of the earth. There's a concentric realm there of where you are going and taking the gospel. But the best way to understand this command to go, the command is not go. And here's the point. The command is make disciples. The command is not to go. We could better render this as you are going, make disciples. He tells the disciples, wherever you are, wherever you're going, even to all the nations of the world, be making disciples. Go into all the world. Make disciples of all the nations. Now this, some have taken this by the way, that we are to go and we are to see whole nations converted. That's not going to happen. That's simply not going to happen. The whole world is not going to be saved. But there are those in the world that are going to be called out of the world and they are going to be saved. because we understand that the body of Christ is composed of those from every tribe, tongue, and nation. We read in Revelation 5, 9, they sang a new song saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain and purchased for God with your blood people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. Revelation 7, 9, after these things I looked and behold a great multitude which no one could count from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed in white robes and palm branches were in their hands. So as you are going, make disciples wherever you are. By the way, another flaw in our thinking sometimes is that it is the missionary that goes or it's the evangelist that goes. And if we can't go, then we support and fund the mission. As much as we stress supporting missions and evangelism, giving money to support that is not doing missions and evangelism. God will provide and fund that work through his people so that the word is going out, the gospel is being preached wherever we go, but we have to realize all of us in that regard are evangelists. Because all of us are here in this world as disciples of Christ and commanded to make disciples as we're going, wherever we're going, make disciples. We go, and in fact, we see it in Romans. Romans says, how are they going to hear without a preacher? And how's somebody going to preach unless they're sent? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And everybody says, oh, see, the Bible says it's the preacher's job. So we're gonna bring all our lost friends to church and let the preacher do it. You know who the preacher is? It's you. And if you won't, the rocks will, and the birds will, and the trees will. The heavens declare the glory of God, but we've been given this task to go and to preach the gospel, to proclaim it, to warn the lost, to flee the wrath, to come, to point them to a savior that they don't even know they need. They'll tell you when you preach to them that they don't believe that there is a God. They do. You just need to remind them because they do fear him. They fear his holiness. They fear being accountable to him. They fear he is a cosmic killjoy. not understanding that the greatest happiness and joy in the world is being a slave of Jesus Christ. We go, and as we go, wherever we are in whatever nation we find ourselves, we need to be doing this work of making disciples. So what is it then to make a disciple? And this is the confusion, because there are those who think that making a disciple is just evangelism. You preach the gospel to them, they believe, and you baptize them. And that's it. You move on to the next one. So many. I heard an evangelist one time describing what a great ministry evangelism was, because you just got to go spend a week in a church, get everybody stirred up, and then leave and let the pastor deal with it. That's not evangelism. That's just preaching. We're all evangelists. We're all to be carrying forth that good word. Now there are those who are especially gifted to do that. We'll see that in a minute in Ephesians chapter four, but all of us are to be going and making a disciple. It's not just seeing people converted. This is the way the church, the evangelical church has really treated it probably for the last two generations. There is a stress on getting the center converted, but once they are, we just leave them in the pew. There's no actual discipleship. Now, there's programs and things to get involved in and things to keep you busy, but it's not disciple-making. I liken that to the fact that what would you think if you went to the delivery ward in a hospital and you saw the doctor running from room to room and every time a baby was born, you'd, okay, that one's born, threw it on the floor and went on to the next one. That's how some people approach disciple-making, that it's all about just get a born, get a born and then we're done. No, that's just the beginning. So I'm telling you, when you share your testimony, we don't need all the details before you were saved. We need to know what Christ has done and is doing in your life today. Your story began when you were born in your life and in the new life. When you're born again, all of that that happened before, it's under the blood, it's covered, it's done, it's forgiven, it's gone. Leave it there. Don't go back to the old man and try to pick him up and parade him around. Too many testimonies of people picking up that corpse and saying, wow, that's a good looking dead corpse, isn't it? No, it's dead, it's gone. You've put on a new man. Walk then as a new man. So how then do we make disciples? I'm glad you asked. Turn with me now to Ephesians chapter four. As we go and as we make disciples, We're told they're first baptizing them and then teaching them. Baptism is that first act of obedience signifying our death, our burial, and our resurrection with Christ. Baptism is our initiation into the church and a public profession of faith. This is the first step of discipleship after conversion. We see it on the day of Pentecost. We see it throughout the scripture. Paul writes in Romans 6, Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. That verse should sound familiar to you because just a few weeks ago when we baptized, what did I say when I baptized? You have been buried in the likeness of Christ and raised to walk in newness of life. That baptism pictures then the reality of what has happened as we confess our faith in Christ. Colossians 2, Paul writes, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world and not according to Christ. For in him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily. And in him you have been filled. who is the head over all rule and authority, in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, and buried with him in baptism, in which you also were raised up with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you being dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him, having graciously forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled our certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us. He also has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross, having disarmed the rulers and authorities. He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them in it. As we go and as we preach and as we evangelize, some sow the seed, some water the seed, some see the harvest. God gives the increase. Every time a sinner is saved, Jesus triumphs over the devil and the demons. There is rejoicing in heaven when one person repents. because the mission continues. We see what happened. On the day of Pentecost, when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men, brothers, what should we do? Peter said to them, repent and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises to you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself. And with many other words, he solemnly bore witness and kept on exhorting them saying, be saved from this crooked generation. So then those who had received his word were baptized and that day there were added about 3,000 souls and they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. Here at the birth of the church, we see the beginning steps of disciple-making. It begins when we see sinners converted to Christ. When they repent and believe and walk now in obedience, that first step of obedience, that initiation into the life of the church is baptism. That is a public profession of faith. And Peter says the testimony of a good conscience toward God in 1 Peter 3. corresponding to Noah, baptism now saves you, not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal of a good conscience to God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven after angels and authorities and powers have been subjected to him. Our baptism does not save us. Baptism does not give us assurance. Baptism does not secure us. I did hear a preacher one time respond to a question. He was asked, what can I do for assurance for my salvation? And the preacher said, look back to your baptism. No, because sinners can be baptized. What we are confessing through baptism, what we are professing is what has happened inwardly, the circumcision of the heart, that we've been born again, and that now we've been crucified with Christ and are raised and walking in a new life with Him. Don't look to your baptism. In fact, if you want assurance, don't look at anything that you've done. Don't go back to a specific date, a specific prayer, a specific time. Look at your life right now. Inspect the fruit. What is the Spirit doing in you and through you that can only be explained by His activity, by your walk with Him? The Spirit gives us assurance. It doesn't need to come from anything we've done. It needs to be what Christ is doing through us and with us. So this first step is to preach the gospel through evangelism, through witnessing, through giving testimonies. And as that gospel is preached and sinners are converted, we take that first step of baptism. This is an open door to now a life of being a disciple. How then do we make them disciples? Jesus says, we teach them to observe everything that he has commanded. So as you go, in all the nations, wherever you're at, make disciples, baptize them to start after their conversion, and then teach them obedience to Christ's commands. In Ephesians 4, starting in verse 11, we'll read verses 11 through 16. And he himself gave some as apostles and some as prophets, some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and to the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ, so that we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming, But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, that is Christ, from whom the whole body being joined and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the properly measured working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. This I could not escape coming to here. I was just going to quote a few of these verses as a cross reference. And just in studying this text, Paul just gave the path to disciple making for the church. He laid it out. It starts by equipping the church for the work of service, for ministry. What is the ministry? The ministry is the mission. It is preaching the gospel to one another. It is using the gospel to encourage one another. People have said that once you're saved, you don't need to hear the gospel anymore. If you heard it and you believed it, you know you need it every day. We live and we breathe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. How does he build his church? He himself gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers. The prophets and the apostles with Christ, we're told, are the cornerstone of the kingdom of God. The word of God, the written word, that's what we use for equipping and ministering to one another. The apostles and the prophets, divinely appointed called, given the ability to work miracles and to do certain things that testified to their trueness and to the truth of the message they preached. And now, some say we don't have apostles and prophets anymore. Yes and no. If anybody ever tries to friend you on Facebook and they call themselves an apostle, just don't friend them. No, they're wrong. There are no apostles today. And yet we do still have the ministry of the apostles today. We have their word written here, inspired by the spirit. So if you want apostles and prophets, you know where you go? The word of God. We don't need apostles and prophets anymore. We have their finished, inspired, infallible word, God's word given through them to us. But now we have in the church those who are to serve as evangelist and pastor teachers. As we look at these two positions within the body, positions of service, the evangelist we would see as a church planter or a missionary, someone who goes and is especially gifted to do these things, to fulfill this calling, to introduce people to Christ, to call them to faith. And the pastor teachers are those who shepherd. The word for pastor literally is a shepherd, a shepherd teacher. He feeds Christ's sheep. Well, what do Christ's sheep eat? They should be hungry for the word of God. It's amazing to me the number of times that people will come and hear an expository sermon and they're not used to that. And they say, wow, that really fed me. And then they go back where they were and they realize how starving they've been to hear the word of God. We have to be fed the word because that's the only food we've got. Everything else, all the games, all the amusement, all the programs, all of that, Spurgeon said, we've gone from shepherds feeding sheep in the church to now there are clowns entertaining goats. I promise you, you look around our nation and some of the weirdest and wildest things you'll see. And in fact, I heard it, a preacher friend of mine said that he was watching a preacher online on Easter. He came riding into the pulpit on a roller coaster. Literally, they built a roller coaster on the stage and made it like a circus. And a pastor was critiquing that. And he said, I don't know, I can't call this a church or a church service or a worship service. He said, from what I could see from what the scripture tells me, we're just watching a goat farm. If you have goats, you know what that looks like. Everywhere on everything, eating anything all over the place. Somebody said stinky. Sheep stink too, trust me. But here we've got all of this going on and it's not equipping. It's not feeding. It's not even shepherds and sheep. Well, because these have been given by Christ to the church, what have they been given for? So that the evangelist and the pastor teachers can take the written words of the apostles and the prophets and with that, equip the saints to equip, to be equipped, to be made ready for service. And again, that word service can also be translated ministry. It's actually rooted in the word from which we get the word deacon. We're all to be servants, serving one another within the body. We have to be equipped to do that because that does not come naturally to us. We have to be taught how to put the word of God to work in our daily lives so that we can serve God and serve one another and even serve the community and the world. We don't just go to the world and preach the gospel to the world. We need to be loving the people in the world, caring for the people in the world. not at the same time being worldly with them. We're in the world, but not of it, but we are to be equipped through the word of God. This is an equipping for service again. for this equipping, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ. So if we want to make disciples, first we preach the gospel to them and they are converted. In that conversion then they are baptized. As they are a part of the church and the life of the church, now we don't just drop them and leave them, now we work to equip them. We're equipped by this teaching and preaching ministry of the church. That is why, by the way, you will find in your life a sanctifying influence by sitting under the right preaching of the word of God. The word sanctifies us. Jesus prayed that in John 17 as we saw. Sanctify them by truth, your word is truth. The result then of that equipping is edification, it is growth. Now understand that church growth is not just how many people we have in the seats. Spurgeon said, by the way, too many young preachers, just focus on all the empty seats. He said, focus on the seats with souls in them, because that's who you're there to feed and to equip. Edification then is not necessarily numerical. That was great on the day of Pentecost, 3,000 people got saved. That's tremendous. That's not an everyday occurrence. That was Pentecost. But as we see, Jesus tells us, and we read in Acts, that the Lord was adding daily to the church those who were being saved, those who were being converted, who were being brought to faith. That might be the process of they've heard the word, they've been convicted by the word, they've not believed yet, they're struggling with it, they have questions. We need to be sensitive to what the Spirit of God is doing as we are witnessing to people. As then they are equipped, We now need to be edified. To grow up, he says, we're equipped for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. Now, as we are building one another up, when do we stop? When do we know we've arrived? But you would think if anybody on this earth had arrived, it would have been the Apostle Paul, right? Surely he was super Christian. What did he say? Not that I have already attained, but I press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ. Press on till the finish line. Press on till you can't press any more. Keep going. Edification needs to go on and on and on. We need to constantly be being built up in the Lord. And we are built up until, verse 13, we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. So we're to press on until we're mature. We're to press on until we have a full knowledge of the Son of God. Anybody here today have a full knowledge of the Son of God? then we've got work to do. We need to be further equipped and further edified, built up so that we grow in this knowledge of the Lord. Every day we are closer to Jesus coming back and every day we should know him better than we did the day before. From the word being edified in our knowledge of him, bringing us then to a unity of the faith, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. The result of that edification then is that we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming. This is when we are being taught to obey the commands of Christ. We're being able to taught the word of God. What Jesus tells us as we grow, we mature. Paul says you start on milk and now you should be eating meat. In fact, Paul tells the church there, he said, you by now should be teaching others, but you yourself are still needing to be taught. In other words, your growth, your spiritual growth is stunted. You need to grow. Now, it's not that we outgrow the milk and don't go back to it. We need the pure milk of the gospel. But we need to add meat to that, the meat of the word, the deeper things of the word, getting to know and trust Christ in every circumstance. not being tossed here and there by winds and by waves, by false doctrine and by fans. I'm honestly blown away. especially recently in the Reformed world, some of the fads that have popped up and some of the things that preachers are preaching today. In Reformed churches, things that have no place, they're not in the scripture at all. It's just a fad. And they're partnering with people in other churches that are apostate to help share this message at conferences, to get the word out that we as Christians are here to conquer the world. And we're going to make this nation a Christian nation. A Reformed Baptist pastor who said that if a church isn't doing what it's supposed to be doing, then the government should impose penalties on the church and force them to do what they're supposed to do. What? What? There's one head of the church and that's Christ. That's it. He tells us what to do. And as we're equipped and as we're edified, it's so that we grow and mature so that we avoid the fads and the false doctrine, the trickery of men, the craftiness of deceitful scheming. As we are further edified and further grow, we speak the truth in love. We're to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, that is Christ. as we are growing up into Him, being made more and more like Him. This is the reality. The more the world sees Jesus in you, the more they're going to hate you because they hate Him. If you get along swell with the world and you're not suffering persecution on some level, you're not engaging the world looking like Christ. They think you're one of them. We should and it's not that we go out and make an effort to say persecute me. It should just happen because of who we are, full of the Spirit, preaching the gospel, living the gospel. Somebody, MacArthur said, somebody had said, preach the gospel at all times if necessary, use words. There's only one way to preach the gospel and that's with words because the gospel is words. but now we need to live in such a way that it backs those words up, that our life demonstrates what the gospel has done to transform us and to change us from what we were to what we are. As we grow up in all aspects of Christ, then, this really should be what it's like, that every time we gather as a church, we all should look more like Jesus than we did last time. Now, how do we do that? How does that happen? That happens through the dreaded word, trials. Suffering. You want to prove your faith? Test it. Then it's proven. And understand, by the way, it's not the quality of your faith that matters, it's the object of your faith. The disciples, again, they came to Jesus and they worshiped, but they doubted. But it was the point that they trusted him. Put your faith in Christ. Grow up in Christ. and then your life will prove what Christ has done and what he can do for others. So we see them converted, we baptize them, bring them into the life of the church where they're equipped by the word for service and ministry and they are edified to grow more and more like Jesus. The next step of making disciples is that we need to teach one another how to engage in using our spiritual gifts. Verse 16 there says, from whom the whole body being joined and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the properly measured working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. We know that Christ is the head, but we also know that we are the body. Here's the reality. What can a body without a head do? That's it. Decompose. A body without a head is not going to work. What about a head without a body? Y'all remember that sci-fi movie in the 1970s, the monster with two heads, where the guy lost his body so his head was sold on to another guy's? Anyway, yeah, go look it up on Google. The church has one head, a body can't have two heads, and a head without a body also, there's no heartbeat, there's no blood, it's dead. It doesn't work that way. So we have to realize that Christ is the head, but we are the body. And there are things that he has given us and things that he does through us that minister to the life of the body. He's gifted us. He's given us callings and appointments and things that the Spirit does and accomplishes through us. The whole body being joined and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the properly measured working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body. This is the reality. If there is a part of your body that is not growing normally like the rest of your body, that is referred to as a deformity. Something is not formed correctly. I would really hate to see the body of Christ right now. horribly deformed because the foot's arguing about the eye, the eye's looking at the nose. Did you hear that the two eyes got to talking and they said, I don't know about you, but something smells between us. Here's the body always fighting with itself. You don't understand that one part of the body hurts, the rest of the body hurts. If you don't believe that, stub your toe in the middle of the night. and your whole body shuts down. Get a toothache. Those are the worst. One little thing, one little pain shuts the body down. Well, we're members of one another, and we've been given gifts. There are things that we bring and that we supply to one another, and we need to be taught to engage in using those spiritual gifts. 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says, for even as the body is one and yet as many members and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. Also by one spirit, we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we're all made to drink of one spirit. For also the body is not one member, but many. If the foot says, because I'm not a hand, I'm not part of the body, is it not for this reason any less a part of the body? And if the ear says, because I'm not an eye, I'm not part of the body, is it not for this reason any the less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has appointed the members, each one of them in the body, just as he desired. We are His body and He has given us gifts to use. Part of disciple making is teaching people to engage with the use of their spiritual gift. 1 Corinthians 12, Romans chapter 12, and a couple of other places, in Peter, give us lists of spiritual gifts. If you want to know what you have, look at what you excel at doing in ministry. Look at what motivates you and drives you. I need to do a series on that at some point, to look at spiritual gifts. Because if you don't know what your spiritual gift is, how can you use it? How can you make disciples and benefit the body like you're supposed to if you don't even know what that looks like and what that is supposed to be? Now, I understand there's some people that say you only have one spiritual gift. I disagree. I think the spirit gives us gifts dependent on the circumstance in which we find ourselves. There are strengths that we will have, but all of these, we are told, are given to us and they're to be exercised by faith. So you have to have the knowledge of what your gift is, and then you have to have wisdom and understanding and faith to put it to work. Because if you're not careful, that spiritual gift can become a source of pride. Look at what I'm doing for the church. Everybody depends on me for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. As soon as it becomes about you, it's wrong. It's gotta be about Christ. The gifts, the equipping, the engaging, the service, all of this is to make us more like Christ, to make Christ better known to us. As a result, then, the natural result of that is expansion. It is evangelism. Whether you call it addition or multiplication, either way, it's math. You're going out and you are preaching the gospel, living the gospel, witnessing, testifying of the truth about who Christ is. And as people are saved, as they become converted, as they are baptized, as they are equipped, as they are edified, as they are engaged, we see the church grow. We see it there in the book of Acts. Again, God was adding daily to the church those who were being saved. Now, you may not see somebody converted every day. James, wouldn't that be awesome if every time you went out, 3,000 people got saved? Hallelujah. But we're sowing seeds, and we never know when that seed's going to take hold, when the Spirit's going to bless it, when it's going to grow. but we've got to be out there sowing the seed. This is God's agenda for his people. This is the mission of the church, to worship God, to love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, to love our neighbor as ourself, and in the doing of that, we are engaged in making disciples. He'll turn with you back to Matthew 28. The very last verse there, verse 20. We see then baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I commanded you. And then we see how it is that we're enabled to do all of this. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Jesus says, I'm going to be with you in fulfilling this mission. You understand what that means? It's not us doing the calling. It's Christ. He's calling through us. That's why the sheep hear his voice and come, not because of me, but because of the voice of Christ. It's him in us fulfilling this mission. He says, I'm with you always. No reason to fear, no reason to doubt, no reason to fear failure. Go and be faithful, be obedient, equip, edify, engage your spiritual gifts. I will grow the church. through the work that you're doing, through everything that you supply, and I will be with you always. Notice, James Boyce said, notice the alls in this paragraph. Jesus said he has all authority. We're to make disciples of all the nations, baptizing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I have commanded you. And then he says, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. A significant phrase, I believe, because what does he say? I am with you. He's with us in all of this, in this mission, in this commission, in the going, in the making of disciples. This is him building and growing his church. When Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you. Do you know what was prepared when he left? He gave the spirit to do what? To build the church. He told the disciples that I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. Where is it that we belong? Where is our home on this earth? It is the temple of the Holy Spirit. It's us. He's building his body. This is the place he is building for us. It's not that he's not that Jesus is a carpenter is constructing a mansion up in the clouds for you. It's that he's building his church. And when he comes back and we meet him in the air, the description of the book of Revelation is that I saw that great city, the new Jerusalem, descending from heaven, which is the bride of Christ adorned in white robes of his righteousness. We are the city of God, the people of God. The church, this is where we belong. This is what he is preparing. And he's called us to join him in this mission and said, while you're doing it, I'll always be with you. Hebrews 13, five, he reminds us, make sure that your way of life is free from the love of money, being content with what you have. For he himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you. He will never leave us. He's also left us an advocate. He is with us. We're enabled by Christ through his spirit. John 14, 16, I will ask the father and he will give you another advocate that he may be with you forever. John 16 tells us, but now I'm going to him who sent me. None of you asked me, where are you going? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And he, when he comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin, because they do not believe me. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see me. And concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. I still have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify me. For he will take of mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the father has are mine. Therefore, I said that he takes of mine and will disclose it to you. This is the ministry of the Holy Spirit who seals us and who keeps us and who is with us forever. Is this not amazing? Jesus says, I'm going to be with you forever and I'm going to give you my spirit and he's going to be with you forever. And Jesus and the spirit are both interceding for us before the throne forever. All authority's His. He's gonna keep us. He's gonna secure us. What do we have to fear? What is our hesitation in evangelism and making disciples? Really, the question should be, what is our hesitation to be obedient to His mission, to being about His work? Where was Jesus at 12 years old? They went and they found Him, where? In the temple, teaching the priest. What did He say? Aren't I supposed to be about my Father's business? If that's true of him, how much more of us? We have been saved and made part of this body so that through the work that we do, Christ himself will call his people to himself from the four corners of the world. We do this then, he says, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. Until we hear a declaration from the throne of God, it's done. It's finished. History is complete. When we get to that moment, I promise you on the authority of God's word, when we hear that declaration around the throne of God, it is done. We will not then see Jesus looking around as if he missed somebody. Nobody's going to be missing. He's not going to lose one of us. That's the good news about it. People say, well, you'd lose your salvation. Maybe I can lose my salvation, but you know what I know? Jesus can't lose me. He can't. He tells us that. In John 6, all that the father gives me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. Now, this is the will of him who sent me. This, Jesus says, is God's will. That of all that he has given me, I lose nothing. But raise it up on the last day. for this is the will of my father, that everyone who sees the son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise him up on the last day. We have our work cut out for us then, this is his mission to us. As disciples, we should be making disciples, equipping, edifying, engaging with the use of our spiritual gifts, seeing the church expand as souls are added to it as they're being saved. We do that under the authority of Christ and enabled by his spirit, knowing that he is with us always, even to the end of the age. And we do that with an assurance that Christ will build his church, He will save his people and he will not lose one of them. His work will be complete. That means that one day in the future, praying hopefully the near future, the body of Christ will stand around its head, the Lord Jesus, and sing in unison, worthy is the lamb that was slain. He's gonna get all of the glory and all of the honor and all of the praise for all that he's done. And none of us are gonna say, look at me, look at what I did. No, we're gonna say, look at him. Look at what he did. Now, here's the truth. We don't have to wait till then to live like that now. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. And as you do, tell others what you see. make disciples. As you go, wherever you go, when you go, be making disciples. Let's pray together. Father, how we thank you for your word and for the accomplished work of Christ on the cross. That as he came and was rejected and crucified, you accepted him. were satisfied with his sacrifice, raised him from the dead, and now because of his work, you've accepted us in him to be called to this mission, to go and to make disciples. Father, enable us to do this. You've promised us, you've told us this is your will, this is what you want us to do. We pray by your spirit, then we would be motivated and obedient. that we would go and that we would engage the lost with the truth of the gospel, that we would serve one another within the church, using the gifts that the Spirit has enabled us to serve one another with. Ultimately, so as the body grows, as souls are saved, as saints are sanctified, then our head is glorified. We give all of the glory to you and we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.