Matthew 28, beginning at verse 16. Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw Him, they worshipped Him, but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. Let's pray together. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your church. And we thank you that you still speak to your church today through your word. We do pray that you will do that tonight also through me and that you will make your word come alive, especially to us tonight in a very pertinent and specific way. Father, bless my words and bless each one of us so that we will take your word to heart. Speak, Lord, your servants are listening. We pray in the name of our living Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. What is your purpose in life? What is your goal in life? What is it that you seek to accomplish every morning when you get out of bed? What are you living for? We know the purpose of the church as it is described in the first question and answer of the Shorter Catechism, Westminster Catechism, that we are here to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. But what does that mean? That's kind of vague. Well, Jesus makes it a little more specific in this passage where he gives us what we might call the mission of the Church, the way that we accomplish this higher goal of glorifying God and enjoying Him. And that is that the Church is here to make disciples of all the nations. If we think about making disciples in the broadest sense, then we are accomplishing the higher purpose of glorifying God and enjoying Him when we are helping other people to become followers of Jesus Christ, who will love Him and serve Him in all different areas of their lives, wherever He puts them. Some of the most significant work that I've done in Ukraine, I believe, is doing just this, making disciples, especially of men, investing my life in the lives of other men. By the grace of God, when I will be long gone, my life will keep bearing fruit in the lives of men who will, in turn, invest in the lives of others, whether they will do that as pastors or as elders, as husbands and fathers, or as Christian men in society. That's what Jesus commands us in tonight's passage. He commands us, weak people, to make disciples of all the nations. So the question I want you to think about as we look at Jesus' command this evening is what can I do? What is my part? What is God calling me to do to accomplish this? Making disciples of all the nations. In the first place, let's look at the fact that Jesus commands us in spite of the fact that we are weak. You know the story, you know the background of this passage. You've read the Gospels, you've read about Jesus' perfect life that He lived, and you know that He lived that life not just as an example to us, which it also is, but He lived that life especially as a life that was lived in our stead, in our place. He lived the perfect life that you and I can't live. And after he lived that perfect life, he died on the cross. He died the death that you and I desperately don't want to die, paying for our sins. And he was buried, and for three days, he was in the grave from Friday evening till Sunday morning. And on Sunday morning, the woman went to the grave to care for his dead body. When they got there, his dead body was not there, but he appeared to them. living, in a living body, he had been resurrected from the dead, and he said to the woman, go tell the disciples to meet me in Galilee. Galilee, of course, was Galilee of the Gentiles, Galilee of the nations, so we get a foreshadowing of what he's going to tell his disciples when they meet him up in Galilee. Then we have An intermittent passage doesn't quite flow with the rest of my scene, verses 11-15, where we read about the soldier's reaction when they find the grave empty, and they go to the chief priest and they make a plan there. And then verse 16 says, then the eleven disciples went to Galilee. But we can actually translate that to begin, but the eleven disciples went to Galilee. Excuse me. In contrast to what the soldiers and the chief priests were doing, trying to cover up the resurrection, the disciples instead went to Galilee in faith to meet Jesus Christ there. And so they meet Him there, and as they see the resurrected Jesus Christ, they worship Him. What else can you do but worship Jesus Christ, resurrected from the dead? Except, we read, that some of them doubt it. Now that catches us off guard, or it should, as we read this passage, because what was there to doubt when you look at Jesus Christ risen from the dead? Why were they doubting anything? And the most reasonable answer to that is that they were doubting because they were human. Because that's what we do as human beings. So I want to encourage you tonight Do not be surprised by your doubts and your hesitations, because you and I are human the same way that the disciples were. As one commentator has written, Jesus' resurrection didn't instantly transform men of little faith and faltering understanding into spiritual giants. They were still human. And I know from my own life that that is very true. In seminary, the Lord brought me through various faith struggles, and the first one that I went through was my very first quarter in seminary, where I struggled with the existence of God. Does God really exist? And that's an awkward thing to struggle with when you're in seminary, because you're kind of there because He exists, but the Lord knew that that was a safe place for me to be wrestling with that question, as it turns out. And I was praying to Him to give me a sign, something to show me that he exists. Surely he would do that for me. Well, he didn't. He didn't give me a dream and he didn't make fire come down from the sky or anything like that, but he used a sermon on a Sunday morning, imagine that, to speak to me. As I went to a church in Chicago I'd never gone to before and the pastor happened to be preaching that morning on doubt. And he said a couple of things that I still remember that I want to share with you as well because they've been significant in my life. He said, that we do not need to fear our doubts, we do not need to be upset or thrown off balance when we have doubts, because God does not require perfect faith from us. See, we are human, we are sinful, it's the object of our faith who is so great. So he said, little faith, big God. And that's what Jesus said when He said to us, all we need is faith like a mustard seed. Because our little faith is faith in a big, almighty God. And He can use our little faith, even though it does have doubts and does have uncertainties. He will use that faith to do great things with it. Another thing He said that stuck with me is, believe your beliefs. and doubt your doubts. And that may sound like a psychological trick, but it's more than just some kind of a psychological trick. You see, because what happens is doubts come into our minds, and these doubts come from all sorts of places, and we give these doubts so much attention that we focus our minds on them, and we begin to believe them. And we doubt our beliefs. when instead we should doubt these doubts that will come anyway and believe our beliefs because our beliefs are founded on the truth they're founded on reason, they're founded on history and that's what the guards and the priests were trying to deny in verses 11 through 15 they saw the grave was empty so the guards, the Roman guards, went to the chief priests I told them the body is gone, and they said, okay, we'll make up a story, we'll spread the story that you fell asleep on the job, which of course they could be killed for according to the laws of that time, if you're a Roman soldier sleeping on the job, when you should be guarding something. But, well, here's some money, so you can spread that story, which might get you in danger, but if you do get in danger with Pilate, we will satisfy him as well, assumedly also by giving him a bag of money of some sort. So they make that story up, but Like our doubts, there's no foundation to it. It's a ridiculous story. Because if the guards were sleeping at night, how could they know that the disciples stole Jesus' body? They were sleeping. They wouldn't be able to know what happened to his body. And if that really is what happened, then the chief priest would prosecute the disciples. Certainly, they weren't afraid to prosecute them by now, as they had killed their leader, Jesus Christ. But there was no prosecution, because they knew it was hogwash. It was not true. And in the same way, people who deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who deny the truth of the gospel, do not have a shred of evidence. Our doubts do not have a shred of evidence. Of course, we can deal with doubts in many different ways. But very often, when those doubts come, they just come from all sorts of places, and we just need to believe our beliefs and doubt those doubts, which do not have the evidence that our faith does. So, leave your doubts and hesitations behind. Obey Jesus' command regardless of your imperfect, weak faith. Jesus doesn't use people with perfect faith. He uses people with imperfect faith, people like you and me, people like the disciples. Those are the ones he used to build his church. In the second place then, Jesus commands us because he has all authority. Now, that might throw us off a little bit, because we might say, but Jesus, He already had authority. Matthew already wrote about Jesus speaking with authority in chapter 7, verse 29, that Jesus gave His disciples the authority to drive out evil spirits in chapter 10. Matthew has written that Jesus' words, like those of His Father, will never pass away, and that He forgives sins. Now, Jesus obviously had some authority already. But here Jesus says that His authority now extends to all spheres. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. He has accomplished the victory by dying on the cross, by being resurrected. Everything has been subjected to Him. And Satan and his cohorts today are under Jesus Christ's rule, and they cannot move an inch without Jesus allowing it to happen, because He is King of the universe. Everything has been subjected to Him, except of course for the Father, who subjected everything to Jesus. And so Jesus says, since he has all authority, we should go and make disciples of all the nations. He has authority over every part of Minnesota, over every part of Ukraine, over the far reaches of the earth, and so he calls his disciples to go to those far reaches of the earth. So, this command comes from the one who has full and complete authority over you and me, over this church, and over everything that exists. Do you object to His command? Do you disagree with His command? Do you obey His command? As we come to the third point tonight, let me ask you a question about verses 19 and 20. The question is, where is the emphasis there? We find Jesus... Actually, I'm not sure how your ESV puts it, but in the NIV there are four parallel verbs, which look like four parallel commands, go, make disciples, baptize, and teach. And we need to ask ourselves, which one of those is a central idea? Actually, I ask that because it's clear, if you look at the Greek version that Matthew had written in Greek, that one of these verbs is the central one, and the other three kind of help out. One of these verbs is a command, or indicative, if you remember grammar, and the other three are participles that help support this one indicative command that they tell us more about how to accomplish what Jesus calls us to do. And the central verb here is make disciples. And so going, baptizing, and teaching are circumstantial to the main idea, the main command to make disciples. And we could paraphrase verses 19 and 20, or part of verses 19 and 20, to say, as you go then, make disciples of all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and by teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. So, in the third place, Jesus commands us, very specifically, to make disciples. So let's spend a few minutes talking about what that means. One obvious part of that is spreading the gospel. In order for somebody to become a disciple of Jesus Christ, he must hear what Jesus Christ did. He must hear the story of Jesus Christ's life and how Jesus Christ's life from death and resurrection came in answer to the problem that was created by Adam and Eve, the problem that all of us today experience in life and try to explain in different ways. In order for somebody to become a disciple of Jesus Christ, he needs to hear the gospel message. That's the way that God has ordained it. He could do it with angels, he could do it with lighted signs blinking in the sky saying, believe in Jesus, but that's not the way he's chosen to do it. He's chosen to do it through the preaching of his word, through the proclamation of his word, through people telling other people his word. Romans 10, verses 13 and following, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. I don't think this means that all of us are called to be involved in street evangelism. I don't think that Jesus means by this, or Paul means by this, that we need to be all standing on street corners handing out tracts. I've done that, both in the States and in Ukraine, and that's one of the hardest ways to try and share the Gospel, and I think one of the least effective ways. Not that it's a bad thing to do, the Lord uses that, and some people have a gift for doing that kind of thing. People like my mom, who's never met a stranger in her life, and is very quick to talk to people about their faith. But a more effective way, I think, to do that is the way that we generally propose in the Reformed tradition, and that is friendship evangelism. That is to use or to share the gospel with people in the context of a real caring friendship, so people can see our lives and hear our testimony, and in that way grow closer to Christ or come to Him in faith. Unfortunately, that often becomes an excuse for not doing evangelism at all. I believe that usually the most effective way to tell people about the gospel and to lead them to Jesus is by developing a relationship with them, loving them, and letting our words and our actions show them the way to know God. We need to be in contact with unbelieving people. We need to befriend unbelieving people. But we must make sure that those relationships with unbelieving people really are bringing them closer to Jesus Christ. At the same time, we must be willing to offend some of these people. 1 Corinthians 1, verses 23 and 24 says, we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Gentiles. but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks. Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God." As Americans, we typically don't want to offend people. At least I know that my strong preference is to be at peace with everybody, and if I'm not at peace with somebody, it's hard for me to sleep at night, so I don't like to offend people. And it's hard for me sometimes to be direct and to say the things that need to be said. Ukrainians sometimes are very different. They don't mind very often to say something very directly and they speak their mind even when it's not appropriate sometimes. I remember being at a church dinner one night in somebody's apartment and it was dessert time. Everybody was sitting in a room and one of the girls in church who had been gaining a lot of weight in the last few months walked into the room with a significant plate of dessert And one of the ladies looked to her and said out loud in front of everybody, are you sure you need that? But if we want to share the gospel with people, if we want to witness to them, sometimes we have to say things that will be offensive. Now, I'm not saying that people should be offensive because we are being obnoxious in the way that we share the gospel, because we're being insensitive in the way we do it. But if you have never lost a friend because of your loving and sensitive gospel witness, then it is possible that you are too timid in sharing your faith. It's possible that you care for your friendships with non-believers and what those friends think of you more than you care for their lives and for their souls. Our friends desperately need to hear about the hope that we have. They need to hear about the confidence that we have, about the joy that we have, about the love that we have received. Some of them will be offended and they'll drift away. But others will come to Jesus Christ as their Savior through us. Sometimes we need to risk a friendship in order to save a life. But we must do much more than tell people how to be safe. We must do much more than bring people to the point where they express faith in Jesus Christ and repent of their sins, because we're not here to engage in hit-and-run evangelism. Jesus is not talking about making converts He's talking about making disciples, which means once somebody becomes a believer in Christ, the hard work really begins. Because now we have to take that person by the hand and help him walk through life as a Christian. Help him find out what it means to be a Christian husband or wife or student or businessman or father or mother. What it means to live as a Christian in this life. People need us. We need one another to see how that is done. And that's what Jesus did. He invested his life in the lives of others. He had 500 people who followed him and he was teaching them. 70 of those he sent out on a special mission with the power, or with the authority I should say, and the power, to drive out demons and to heal. Among those he had 12 disciples whom he trained in a very special way, as we all know, and at least 11 of them became apostles. And among those he had 3, Peter, James and John. who had special privileges to go into the room when the little girl who had died was resurrected by Jesus, to go up on the mountain when Jesus was transfigured, and he was training these three men in a particular way to become the pullers of the church, and they did, with the exception of James, who was killed very quickly on in the book of Acts. Peter and John became so important to the development of the church because Jesus had invested time in them, because Jesus was deliberate at helping these men grow. I thank God for the way that he's used older men in my life. Men like Pastor Jim Boscraft, whom some of you might know, and Lendl Smith, the pastor of Bethel OPC in Wheaton, where I did my internship. before I went to Ukraine, men who invested in my life to help me grow as a young Christian man, as a young pastor. I believe that all of us need that kind of mentorship, at least at some point in our lives, where somebody takes interest in us and helps us learn what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Each one of us in turn has the ability to help other people. people who are younger than us in the faith, in some way or another, through our relationships with them, to grow in the faith. You know, discipleship is not just what I'm doing right now. Discipleship is not just for the pastor and the elders, because we need people who spend one-on-one time with us, give us individual attention, to help us grow more and grow deeper as believers. Discipleship, the call to discipleship, is a call to the whole church. Because the pastor and the elder cannot possibly disciple everyone in the congregation the way that we all need to be discipled. And I don't think a pastor and elder should disciple a woman very closely, one-on-one. And so all the gifts in the church and all the people in the church are called to be part of this great ministry of discipleship to which Jesus calls us in Matthew 28. In Titus, Paul talks about this very clearly, Titus 2, verses 3-5, he says, Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. You see, each one of us has a place in helping other people, other believers, grow and develop in their faith. How did the apostles become the great leaders of the Church? They were lovingly discipled by Jesus. How did Paul become the greatest missionary of the Church? He was lovingly discipled by Barnabas, as was John Mark, the author of the Gospel of Mark. How did Timothy become one of the leaders of the early church? Well, he was lovingly discipled by the Apostle Paul, as were Luke and Silas and Titus and others. And so Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2 verse 4, And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. So if the church is not making disciples, not just converts, It is not completely obeying Jesus' commands. And if you are not making disciples, not just converts, you are not completely obeying Jesus' command to His church in Matthew 28. But you might say, how on earth? Who am I? How can I make disciples? And I imagine that is how the disciples felt when Jesus, these doubting disciples felt, when Jesus looked at them and he said, go and make disciples of all the nations. Isn't that a command that's too great for them? Isn't that a command that's too great for us? Yeah, it is. And so Jesus says to them, and I will be with you to the very end of the age. He ends with that assurance that He is with His church as we strive to make disciples of the nations. So when you're looking for ways to befriend unbelievers at school, in your neighborhood or at work, Jesus says He'll be with you. When you're stumbling through a gospel presentation or searching for the right words to explain to a friend or an acquaintance what Jesus has done in your life, Jesus will be with you. When you are struggling to see how you can be a positive influence and an encouragement in another believer's life, Jesus will be with you. When you are searching for ways that you and your family and your church can participate in the worldwide effort of leading the nations to Christ, Jesus will be with you. When you are far away in a mission field, in a country where you don't know the culture, can't speak the language, and you're trying to disciple people, and you're discouraged with the results that you see, Jesus will be with you. And when you rejoice in seeing the Holy Spirit work through someone as weak and sinful as yourself, Jesus will be with you. When Jesus spoke these words to the disciples, he had about 500 followers, 11 apostles. Today, 33% of the world's population, about 2 billion people, on all six continents where people live, claim to be Christians. About half a billion of these are Protestants. For much of the past 14 years in Ukraine, the Protestant Church there has been growing at a rate of about 10% a year, and the Presbyterian Church in Ukraine, out of many currently in in that country has a membership of about a thousand people. God is working, God is on the move, Aslan is on the move, as we have recently heard again in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But a lot of work still remains. The Bible still has not been translated into 60% of the world's languages. Now, granted, those are minor languages, but still, there are a lot of languages where the Bible doesn't even yet exist so that people can read it. About 1,000 distinct people groups, give or take a few hundred, have not yet heard the gospel. Millions of people living in Ukraine are living without purpose, are living without hope, are living without joy, as are millions of people in this state and in this country. And so Jesus commands us, us, weak people, to make disciples of the nations. And that's why he became a missionary. Because that is Jesus' command to His church. And so my question to you tonight is, what can you do? What is your place? You have a place. You are part of the church of Jesus Christ. This is His command to the church. Are you living your life in light of His command? Is this your purpose in life? To make disciples of the nations? This is the purpose of the church. And if you are part of the church, this is the mission that Jesus Christ has given you. Now we have different roles to play. Some of us are called to go overseas and to live in foreign countries, learn other languages and to disciple people there. Some of us are called to support missionaries financially or in other ways by short-term teams and helping out in various other ways. We are all called to pray for God's work of saving the nations. And all of us are commanded to make disciples wherever God has put us. in this life, wherever he is calling us in this life, whether that is across the sea, whether it's across the street, across the office, across the aisle, or across the kitchen table. Let's pray together. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you that Though you are doing the saving, though you have chosen people, though you are regenerating people, you are nevertheless working through us. You haven't pushed us aside so that we can watch you work, but you have decided to work through us so that we can watch you use us and do great things in this world. Lord, we want to be part of that. We want to see you use us. We don't want to sit on the sidelines. You have given us gifts, and we ask that you will use those gifts. We pray that for every person who's here tonight. Heavenly Father, show each one of us how we can develop our gifts, what our gifts are that you've given us, and how we can use them in this church, in this community, and on and on to the ends of the earth. Show us, Father, how we need to be faithful to your call and what it is that we can do to make disciples of all the nations so that all of the earth will praise you and that people of all nations will sing your praises, will glorify you, and will enjoy you as their God. Bless this congregation, Father. Help this congregation also to be faithful to this call. Make this congregation strong. and help them also to rejoice in you and to see your provision and your care for them in everything they do. We pray for their pastor who will be coming. We ask that you will also bless him and do great things through him also in this congregation, Father. We thank you for your provision, for your love and your care for your people. We pray this in the name of our risen and mighty Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.