Open in your copies of God's Word to Matthew chapter 28. Matthew chapter 28, that's on page 881 in the Pew Bible. We'll be reading the end of the chapter, verses 16 through 20. So please give attention now as I read God's holy, infallible, and authoritative word. Matthew 28, beginning in verse 16. Then the 11 disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. And 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. Again, may God bless the reading of his holy word. Let's pray together. Father, we seek now your blessing, your guidance by your Holy Spirit. We pray for the illumination, of your Holy Spirit, that you would give me the boldness, the unction, Father, the courage to say and to speak your holy word. Help us to recognize that this is indeed the word of Christ. We pray that you would apply it to our hearts and our minds. Again, Holy Spirit, we need your help. We know that spiritual things, spiritual truths are spiritually discerned. And so we need your help. And we call upon you now in the name of Jesus, amen. Well, it's a well-known saying that it's the darkest before the dawn. And in the prior chapter in Matthew 27, it's very, very bleak. It ends with crucifixion, with death, and the disciples have fallen apart. The scriptures tell us that they were scattered. Judas betrays Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, and immediately they flee. Peter denies Christ three times, and Judas commits suicide. The disciples are in a very dark place. They've been on this roller coaster for a week. Is he or is he not the Messiah? How can the Messiah die? They had political aspirations. They didn't understand why the son of man came. And so they're in hiding. The angels appear to the women and the angel tells them very specifically that they are to go to the disciples and tell them, I am alive. Jesus, in our passage here, gives a rousing speech. The hero of our story, at its darkest point, he arises on the third day and he tells his disciples to come. And this is where we'll look at Christ and his message to his disciples this morning. And I want us to look at this rallying cry from our hero. I want us to look at this under two headings. Christ's message under two headings. Number one, the mission, and number two, the method. Well, let's consider the mission. Notice the context. Where are they? Well, the text records that they are in Galilee. Now, why would Jesus tell his disciples to go to Galilee? Galilee is 80 miles from where they are in Jerusalem. And here they take this trip. The women come and tell them of Jesus' resurrection. The Savior is alive. And they go to Galilee where the text says that Christ had appointed. Isn't that interesting? Well, and the other question that we want to ask is, what's the significance of the location where they meet Jesus? The text says, now the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain. which Jesus had directed them, or in the King James, the new King James, had appointed for them. Interesting. 80 miles away from Jerusalem, and yet Jesus says he wants the disciples to meet him on this mountain. What's the significance of this mountain? Well, scholars say that this mountain most likely was Mount Tabor. Well, this is significant for several reasons, but the most important would be that this is where the transfiguration of Christ occurred. It's in their backyard. This is their hometown. Jesus was a Galilean. He grew up in Nazareth. He tells them, I want you to come to Galilee, and I will meet you there. And then our text records. What happens? When they see him, probably for the first time, if we look at this chronologically, they worship. Now, the text doesn't record this. We don't know. But I can only imagine if you come face to face with the resurrected Christ, you will worship. You will fall prostrate. You would be on your knees in worship. But notice, comma, Matthew adds, but some doubted. Doesn't that resonate with us? I don't know, I don't care how old you are, how long you've been walking with the Lord Jesus, how many times he's shown himself faithful to you, there comes those moments, maybe in the darkness, where you begin to doubt. I think this adds an authenticity, a realism to the Gospels. In fact, there is a well-known man who was converted, a Messianic Jew, growing up, knowing the Torah, hearing about Yeshua, and he said what impacted him was as he read the Gospels, it was true to life. The gospel writers weren't trying to hide the foibles and the humanity of the disciples. It's here. It's raw. And I love this pastoral detail that Matthew provides. Verse 18, and Jesus came and said to them. He doesn't stand afar off, off in the corner, hovering over the ground. He comes to them. at this lowest point, even as they are seeing the resurrected Christ, Matthew says, and some doubted. And so Jesus approaches them, comes near to them, encourages them, gives them comfort. And this is his message. And he says to them, all authority, has been given to me on heaven or in heaven and on the earth. What is Jesus doing here? He's proclaiming his position as the mediatorial king. We are peace. We love this subject and rightfully so. This is not Christ's position as essential God. He is the second person of the Godhead. And as such, he should be worshiped and revered. All should fall before him. But he's been given a title, a unique title, as the Mediatorial King. And this is what he is proclaiming to his disciples. This is as a result of Christ's active and passive obedience. The active obedience, he kept the law perfectly. And his passive obedience that he bore in his body as the suffering servant, your sin, and my sin, and because of this, because of Christ, the second person of the Godhead's role in redemptive history, he has been given a name above every name, as we read earlier. Let me read to you from the letter to the Philippians from the Apostle Paul, chapter two. This is verses six through 11. Though he, that is Christ, was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, that's his humiliation, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. This is the exalted Christ who is above every name. I want you to think with me and imagine for a moment Jesus standing with his disciples on Mount Tabor, and Mount Tabor is 1800 feet above sea level. And as he's making this proclamation, you can only imagine as the disciples are standing and looking out over this amazing view, how reinforcing and how striking this would have been to them, that this God, God-man is now exalted above all of the heavens and all of the earth. This man, this God-man, who the disciples thought were dead, stands before them now and proclaims his exaltation. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. This authority includes both ecclesiastical, the church, as well as the civil spheres. All authority. There's not two kingdoms. There's one kingdom. And Jesus is Lord over all. Abraham Kuyper said, there is not one square inch in which the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry out, mine. Jesus is Lord. Whether you acknowledge it or not, he is Lord. Well, what are the implications of this? Again, we're familiar with Psalm 2. The psalmist writes that the nations, in fact, the rulers of the earth, you better serve the Lord. You better kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish in the way for his wrath is quickly kindled. Listen to this. Blessed are all who takes refuge in him. This is a declaration of Christ. All of it belongs to me. My mind, I don't know about you, my mind goes back to the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. You remember Satan brought him up, interesting, on a high point. And what does Satan do? He says, look at all of these kingdoms. If you will bow down and worship me, I will give all of these to you. Those weren't his to give. Those kingdoms belong to Christ. We read this morning from the prophet Daniel chapter seven. I want to go back to it for a second because here the prophet Daniel speaks of Christ, the son of man. and that the Son of Man, which, interestingly, is Jesus' favorite term for himself. He uses the Son of Man as a title over 80 times in the Gospels. And Daniel utters, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and to him, that is Christ, 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 one that shall not be destroyed. The exalted God-man. who's been given an everlasting dominion over all nations. And why? That all peoples should serve him. Go, therefore, Jesus says, because of the authority that has been invested or vested in me as the mediatorial king. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. The word go in the Greek, is interesting. It's not as you go along your way. Now that may be true, but so much of what we hear in evangelicalism today is we're just going to take care of business around where we live. But yet Jesus's emphasis and his command is to go. This Greek word means to go on a trip, to go on a journey. How are you going? We're gonna talk about that this morning. How do we fulfill the Great Commission? And because Jesus is Lord over all nations, he tells us, he tells his disciples, go into all the earth. Go to all nations. Greek, in the Greek, nation is ethnos. It's where we get the word ethnic. This is non-Jewish. This should bring a smile to our face. This is no longer about national Israel. This is what Jesus is declaring. The kingdom is not national, it's supranational. It transcends any geographic boundary in the Middle East. Go into all nations. Go to the Gentile nations and bring them in. The mission, the message of Christ is we are to go because Jesus is Lord. Well, the question is then, how? How do we do that? And that takes us to our second point. Now, the method which we'll consider. Jesus gives us two methods. If we were to summarize, we could use two words, word and method. and sacrament. That's what we have here. Now, I want you to understand, and I'm sure you do, but it's important to note that this authority is a delegated authority. To whom, we should ask? Well, we look here, the context, it's to the disciples, and by extension, to his church. So this is not given to individuals, This is not given to para-church organizations. This is given to the established church. Matthew writes earlier in chapter 18, this judgment passage, he writes that the disciples, whatever they bind in heaven, or on earth, excuse me, whatever they bind on earth, is bound in heaven. Listen to this. This is from Matthew 18, 18. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. So you combine this instruction of Jesus to his disciples in Matthew 18. You combine this with his instruction here in Matthew 28, and you have the three marks of the church. You have the right preaching of the word, and we'll talk about that, the right administration of the sacraments, number two, and number three, discipline. Do you want to know what a true church looks like? Are they preaching the word? Is it thus saith the Lord? It's not my opinion, and that's why we want to preach the whole counsel of God. You have been going through the entire book of Matthew. Because as pastors, we kind of want to tiptoe around some things. Well, I don't like what that says, because I'm going to have to maybe defend myself in culture. A lot of our messages now are recorded. What if I say something about transgenderism? What will that do to me? No, we're to preach the whole counsel of God. Is the Church of Christ, is it rightly administering the sacraments? 1 Corinthians 11 gives a severe warning. We're not popular among other churches because we fence the table. What does that mean? We guard against anyone coming to the table when we, I say we as elders, have not heard their testimony. Are they a member of the true, or a true branch of Christ's church? Have they been baptized? the right administration of the sacraments, and then discipline. Boy, that's not popular, is it, in our culture? No one wants to submit, maybe not even in marriage. I'm not going to commit. And in the church, we need that accountability. And one of the true marks of the church is discipline. God disciplines those whom he loves. Well, I think And maybe you're hearing this as you sit here in the pew. Well, if this is given to the church, then we'll just delegate this to the professionals. We'll just give this over to the paid staff. Careful, that's not what Jesus is saying. Listen to this from our RPCNA testimony. This is chapter 10, section six. Evangelism is the proclamation of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord as he is offered in the gospel. Christ laid the responsibility upon the whole church to make this proclamation. The task is not restricted to ordained officers. Each member is to take his share of the responsibility. Listen to this. According to the gifts God has given him. Well, there you go, Pastor. I'm out. I don't I don't have gifts. No, careful. What is the testimony saying here? Do you do you have a car? That's a gift. How about some income? Maybe you are able to put food on your table and you can host or invite those in your neighborhood. Those are gifts of Christ that he's given to you so that you individually, a part of the collective, the church, might go and fulfill this great commission. We are all responsible before Christ to go and to make disciples. Well, what is this first method that Christ gives to us? Verse 19, go therefore and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. I want you to see with me this morning, the order is really important. Jesus didn't say go into all nations and have them obey me and observe all that I command and then we'll baptize them. That's not what he says. He says to go, baptize, and then we're going to apply the word. Now if we want to get specific, obviously the word goes forth in evangelism. But the process of making disciples comes after the initiation right into the church. That's what baptism is. the sign and seal of the covenant of grace. It's the entrance into the visible church. And this is by command to believers and their children. In fact, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7, even one child of one believing parent, what's the language he uses? They're holy. Holy. Christ has set apart you and your children. He marks these out. These are mine. And we are to apply the covenant sign of the one covenant of grace to believers and their children. baptizing them in the name. This is significant. Not just the name of Jesus, in the triune name of God. That's significant. And why is that? Because each member, each person of the Godhead has a very specific and unique role in the salvation of their people. The Father who appoints from before the foundations of the world. He elected some. The Father appoints. The Son accomplishes. And the Spirit applies. Baptize them in the name. of this tri-personality, one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Go and make disciples. So we've looked at the first method and we've inverted them, or excuse me, baptism before the word, although we know how important the word is. Baptism, and now let's look at the second method. This is the word. Verse 20, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Well, if you're a native English speaker and you hear this word observe, It's pretty laid back. Maybe I'll observe this holiday, right? No, that's not what this means in the Greek. It's a lot more formal. In the Greek, the word means to attend to carefully, to take care of. Reminds me of a garden. And if any of you in this room are gardeners, you know how much work maintaining a garden is. I tell my children all the time, are you reading God's Word? Is it first in your daily routine? And the analogy I often use is you don't have to be reminded to eat. They guard that carefully. We all guard that carefully. Are we as careful with the word as we are our own bodies, our own health, or maybe your 501 or your 401k. Are we as careful with the word as we are managing our money? And this is the command. This is what Christ is instructing his disciples. Guard the word, observe. This is very similar to Paul's words to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1, 13 and 14. Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. Listen to this, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. What is that good deposit? Those were the sound words that Timothy heard as he was growing up. These words that were able to make him wise unto salvation. Are you guarding God's word? Christ commands us, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe what? All that I have commanded you. Again, a lot of times in evangelicalism, and it's very sad that in a lot of copies of God's word, you have red letter additions. What's the problem with that? Well, the intimation is that these red letters somehow in the gospels are more important than the other words of scripture. But you remember, Jesus has already proclaimed, all of it is mine in heaven and on earth, all of the word. is His. In fact, they're His words. This is not just about the red-letter editions of the Bible. All that I have commanded you, from Genesis to Revelation, all of the words are His. As Reformed Presbyterians, we acknowledge and we're proud of the fact that we're doctrinal. We love the Word of God, and rightfully so. We're confessional. We want to understand what the Word of God says. But it's also very important in terms of our piety. How do we live? It's one thing to know it, but is it making application? Am I being transformed? Listen to these words from Kevin DeYoung. My congregation needs me to be humble before they need me to be smart. They need me to be honest more than they need me to be a dynamic leader. They need me to be teachable more than they need me to teach at conferences. If your walk matches your talk, if your faith costs you something, If being a Christian is more than cultural garb, they will listen to you. How important is it for us as Christ's disciples that we are living a life of holiness, that we take his word seriously? Can you imagine the damage? And of course, we hear this all the time in our culture. Well, why don't you go to church? Well, a bunch of hypocrites the damage that that does to evangelism. Now, we're all prone to sin, we're all going to fail, but are we owning it? Are we acknowledging that? Are we going and making a good confession to those that we've sinned against? But for us to go as Christ's disciples and not be holy, we should just stay at home. We, his disciples, are to observe all that he has commanded. Jesus said, you call me Lord, Lord, but you don't do what I say. This begins with us. This begins with the church. Well, the big question is, how? How do we fulfill this mandate? This is impossible. Go into all nations. And what does Jesus tell them? And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. The Emmanuel principle. God with us. It's Christ enabling His church, enabling you. by his Holy Spirit. What's amazing in the Gospels that Jesus says, it's better for me that I go. Really, Jesus? Why? So that the helper might come. And what's amazing is that Jesus said that the church, that the modern church would do greater things than he did. How is that possible? Only by the work of the Holy Spirit. This mustard seed that started in its embryonic form, we see this in the Proto-Evangelion in Genesis 3, and now is mushroomed and has grown and is expanding to fill all of the earth. These works that Jesus said that you and I would do that are greater. The church has grown exponentially in 2000 years. This is a message of victory. Jesus is king. He is Lord. And we are his agents of change in the world. You and I, as members of Christ Church. Listen to these haunting words by the Apostle Paul in Romans 10. This is something that you and I need to think about and need to hear. How then will they call on him in whom they've not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news? The question this morning is, how will you go? Not when, not if, how? What changes do you need to make in your life? To fulfill, to be a part of the fulfillment of the Great Commission. There are two responses to the Lordship of Christ. The first is worship. Second is obedience. How does your life reflect your worship of the Lord Jesus Christ? And the message that it begins with is the very word of God, the gospel. Are you professing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ this morning? Maybe you're a baptized member. Christ has said, you're mine, but you've never publicly professed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You acknowledge him as Lord, but have you made him your Lord? Jesus said in Romans 10, 9, if you confess with your mouth, that Christ has been risen from the dead and confess Him as Lord, you will be saved. There's confession, there's repentance. Have you admitted to God and man that you are a sinner and that apart from Christ that you can do no good thing? Have you publicly professed your faith in Him? That's the beginning, that's the first step. And as you have committed yourself to Christ and you are in a continual daily attitude of worship, are you making disciples? Let's pray.