Well, please turn with me in your Bibles this morning to Matthew chapter 28. Matthew chapter 28. We are going to be considering together this morning verses 16 through 20. Matthew chapter 28, beginning in verse 16. Hear the word of the true and living God. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Is it comfortable in here right now? Did you find parking this morning? Good parking? Didn't have to walk too far? How's the temperature in the room? Did you find the music pleasing to your ears this morning? Were you greeted this morning? Did you get a smile this morning from someone, anyone? I'm curious, were the prayers too long today? Were the readings too much? For those who've been here for a month, is Grace Community Church meeting your felt needs? For those who've been here for five years, is this church serving you well? Are you getting what you want here? How are we ranking when it comes to being entertaining? Are you entertained enough when you're here? Are we lacking in the area of entertainment? After all, the mission of the local church is to draw and entertain as many people as possible by its great music, its relaxing atmosphere, its inspiring messages given by life coaches, And all of it needs to happen in no more than an hour's time on Sunday, especially during football season, because we all know that the majority of men out in the world today need to be back home in their recliners by 11 a.m. on game day. And if they can check the church box off and the 11 a.m. start time for the game off, they've had a really good Sunday, really good weekend. After all, we as a church, we don't want to cut into people's Sundays their home projects, their do-it-yourself projects, their family time especially, or their Sunday drives to Caliche's. So shouldn't we advertise, as one pastor did with me a few years ago, who ironically whose church didn't last maybe but a year, quote, we guarantee no more than an hour of church on Sundays. We promise to get you in by 10 and out by 11, guaranteed. So isn't the mission of the local church to serve and entertain and please people in all of these areas? Well, if you've been here for even a few weeks, you know the answer is a resounding no, it's not. That may be the mission of many local churches today, but it's not the mission that Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, left his church with. The past three messages that I've given, I took the past two Sundays off, but the past three messages that I've given have been part of a mini-series of studies on the local church. I've argued that the local church is central to God's redemptive plan for history. The local church being a part of the global universal church is central to God's plan for redemptive history. I think most of us know where history is headed, right? We all know that this is all heading to a new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells. So some people say, well, come and become a Christian and you'll live in heaven with Jesus forever. That's not actually true. You're gonna live on this earth, but it's gonna be a new earth and a new heaven above us. Everything's headed to the new creation. All creation will be made new. And scripture teaches that God's work of making all things new has already begun. It's already begun. It's begun in his people. We're told that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. We're learning right now as we're going through the book of Ephesians on Sunday mornings, that our new selves have been created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. We are part of this new creation. And so, the more the church multiplies throughout the earth, the more the old passes away and more the earth is filled up with the new. By the way, if you are here this morning and you're wondering, what do you all do on Sunday mornings? We normally go straight through books of the Bible, preaching expositionally through the scriptures. We just happen to be doing a little short mini series of studies on the local church. And so hopefully that answers any curiosity. So this today is the last message in this series. And I want you to know that this series has been far from exhaustive. I mean, we could spend years studying the nature and attributes of the church. If you pick up any systematic theology, you'll notice right away that the section of ecclesiology, the church, is very big, vast, huge, more than what we could cover in four Sundays. But I just wanted to bring your attention to some of the larger matters of the church. Namely, like we talked about in message one, we considered why Christians should even join a local church. We asked the question, should every Christian join a local church? And by join, I mean what scripture means. Attending, loving, serving, submitting, and committing to a local body of believers And I set that day three arguments before you as to why every Christian ought to join and become a member of a local church. Argument number one, just really quickly, there are New Testament commands that you cannot obey. unless you attend, love, serve, and submit to a local church. And we should want to obey Jesus because Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey my commandments. So I'm saying there are New Testament commands that we can't obey unless we are vitally connected to a local body of believers. Argument number two, there are New Testament examples that we cannot follow unless we are vitally connected to a local church. And I gave a number of examples in that message. Argument number three, lastly, there are New Testament purposes and experiences that you will never know unless you are vitally connected to a local body of Christians. That was message number one. Why join a local church? Message number two, we consider the authority of the local church. And this was a big one. The priestly authority of the local church. We saw from Matthew chapter 16 and Matthew chapter 18, that Jesus, the Lord of the church, the head of the church, gave the keys of the kingdom to the church. Initially, yes, to Peter, But then two chapters later, when he's addressing all of the disciples, all of the church, if you will, we see that the keys are already in the hands of the church. And it makes it very clear that, he makes it very clear that the local church has the final authority under Jesus, under heaven, that's a big under, to welcome new believers into the kingdom. That's the concept of binding. We bring believers in by the proclamation of the gospel, then we bind them, we're locking them into the kingdom, and it's the local church that has the final authority to remove, like 1 Corinthians chapter 5 says, to remove unrepentant people from its membership. That's the concept of loosing, or releasing in the Greek. Binding and loosing. This is a quick run through. If you want the details of what we covered, I invite you to go onto our website and find these messages. But the local church has the keys and the final authority under heaven, under Jesus, to open the gates of the kingdom of God by the proclamation of the gospel and to then bind professing believers in and then to loose unrepentant people out whose lives are not in step with the gospel like the man in first corinthians five that that lies with the church doesn't lie with the board of elders doesn't lie with the board of uh... presbytery somewhere off uh... separated from the church it's given to the church now before you write this whole concept off as nothing more than chaos and dismiss this form of government known in history as congregationalism, I want you to know that this authority that the church possesses is a shepherded authority, right? We're not looking at the scriptures and finding that the church has the authority to do whatever it wants to do. That's far from what we're talking about. The church has the keys, but the church also has been given elders and pastors and God-fearing men to teach the church, train the church how to use those keys. how to wield that authority. It's a shepherded authority. The church is still called, like in Hebrews 13, to submit to her leaders. We're talking about elder-led or pastor-led congregationalism. The church possesses the keys, but it's the elders who train the church on how to use those keys in binding believers in and then loosing unrepentant people from its membership by handing them over, as Paul says, to the devil. That was the first two messages we looked at. And then the last message was very, very short, very clear, not short. You say your messages are never short. The last message was message number three. We considered the purity of the church, the purity of the local church and how God has designed the church to maintain its own purity. And we saw very clearly that the responsibility to make sure that this place stays pure and holy unto the Lord, that responsibility is in the hands of the church, individual believers. That's why Paul comes against the Corinthians for tolerating that man in sexual sin. He didn't come against the pastors or elders, he came against the whole church. He came against the whole church in Galatia for tolerating these men who said that Jesus, yes, but you also have to have this. He says, you foolish Galatians, all of you, you should not be tolerating this nonsense. It falls on the church to maintain its purity of life and its purity of doctrine. Well, as we come to this last message, I wanna consider the mission of the local church, the mission, the purpose of the local church. Why we exist? What is our purpose? Why we gather and why we covenant together and lock arms and say, let's go for the long haul. We're in it for the long haul. Well, to do that, I want to direct your attention again to the words of our risen Lord in Matthew chapter 28, verses 16 to 20. Now, before we go any further, my goal this morning, and I mean this, is not to bonk you over the head with guilt, and not to bonk you over the head with any kind of guilt trip and to beat you with, you ought to be doing this, but what I want to do this morning is open up the riches of this passage so that you're compelled by an undying love and by a holy zeal for the Lord Jesus Christ to make the Great Commission part of your everyday life. It's one thing to beat people and tell them, you need to be doing this, you need to be doing that. But if those people don't know the riches of the glory of God's mystery, Jesus Christ, they're gonna go out like empty husks, feeling guilty about it. This passage is central to Christianity. It is central to the church. It's what defines us, it defines our mission, it defines our purpose in the world. And it's good, I would say, to revisit this passage on a regular basis, to examine yourself to see if this is central to your own life as a professing believer. Because we can easily focus on ourselves. Am I growing? Am I maturing? Am I learning? Am I growing in grace? Am I growing in knowledge? And we can so easily get caught up in what our brother said, good distractions, that we forget what we're ultimately here for. Why are we growing? It's so that we can fulfill the Great Commission. Why are we being sanctified? It's so that we are more effective when we proclaim the gospel. We can easily focus within these four walls. focus on ourselves, on our work, on our professions, on our careers, on our families, all the while people are perishing around us. The people who are closest to us are perishing. And I fear that we've grown so cold to that fact. We have grown so accustomed to the fact that we read the newspaper and there's an obituary and there's several on that page in our own city. And though nice things are said about them in that obituary, we know from the scriptures and from the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, that it is not well with many of their souls. We know these things to be true. We can grow cold and indifferent to these things, and we can adopt a corrupt, hyper-Calvinistic mindset that says, well, God's just gonna do what he's going to do. Let go and let God, a phrase that's never found in the Bible at all. While we do nothing but live our lives and come to church and occasionally bonk someone over the head, not with the gospel, but with the fact that they ought to be living differently. And we walk away thinking, well, they persecuted us because I told them the gospel. No, you told them that they were wrong. You told them that they should be going to church. That's not the gospel. That is not the gospel. If you're a Christian, if you claim to be a Christian, what we're about to read is so massive, so huge, that it ought to shape every area and every aspect of your life. And if it doesn't, well there's cause for serious self-examination in your life. If you can brush off the weight of the Great Commission, and yet you can still claim to be a disciple of his, you really ought to examine yourself through the lens of scripture to see if you truly love the Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible as Ephesians chapter 6 says at the end. It's a love that leads to obedience. Friends, the reason God doesn't remove us from this world as soon as we get saved and sort of rapture us into glory, as soon as we bow the knee to Christ and turn from our sins, the reason He doesn't just save us and bring us to heaven after that is because of this passage. It's because of this text. In fact, one of the reasons Jesus died was to sanctify and send, sanctify and send us into the world. In John 17, that high priestly prayer, Jesus spoke these words to his father regarding his people. I do not ask father that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I've sent them into the world. And there's a conjunction here in verse 19. And for their sake, I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. Did you catch that? Jesus is saying, in other words, Father, as I set myself apart right now as the sacrifice to take away the sins of my people, those whom you've given me, Father, as I set myself apart as that sacrifice, I'm doing so in order that they also may be set apart as I send them into the world as the son of God. The Lord Jesus Christ walked in this corrupt world with the power of the Holy Spirit, with the holiness of God emanating from Him. He says, that's how I want my people to be in this world, effective, fruitful, and obedient. And that's why I consecrate myself now, Father. As we come to Matthew 28, we come, obviously, to the end of Matthew's gospel. And when we come to the end of any story, we often ask the question, so what? Now what? What's next? And if that's true with any story that we read, how much more the story of all stories, the story of the life, death, resurrection of Jesus Christ. Coming to the end of Matthew's gospel narrative, the Christian is forced to ask the question, now what? How should I then live? And since we're considering the mission of the local church, or namely the mission of Grace Community Church as a local church, we must ask the question, as Grace Community Church, how should we then live? How should we then live in light of the text here? That's the question I wanna answer this morning from the passage before us, because in it, Jesus makes three statements that ought to govern and direct our lives individually and also corporately as Grace Community Church. Let's begin in verses 16 and 17 by considering the setting, the setting of the Great Commission. In verses 16 and 17, we have the setting of the Great Commission. And then in verses 18 through 20, we have the substance of the Great Commission. The substance of the Great Commission. Matthew says, now the 11 disciples, obviously 11 because Judas has already gone out. He's committed suicide. They went up to Galilee, the northernmost part of Israel. to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him, they worshipped Him. They worshipped Him. But some doubted. So the place is on this mountain somewhere in Galilee, probably a specific mountain, that's why we have a definite article, the mountain to which He sent them, He directed them. You remember, it was there in the Sermon on the Mount where he sat down on the mountain, began to speak. It was there somewhere in Galilee where our Lord was transfigured before them. Oftentimes, Jesus was teaching them on a mountain. They go back to this appointed place and they worship Him there. If any of you ever struggle with the deity of Christ, whether or not Jesus is truly God, here's a text you can look at. They worship Him here. They worship Him, and He receives their worship. If He is not God, an angel is more righteous than Jesus, because an angel actually stopped John from worshiping Him in the book of Revelation. So if Jesus is not God, He is sinning here. by receiving their worship. They worship Him. And it says here that some doubted. Some doubted. Now, this isn't the doubt that Thomas had. Actually, in the Greek, it's more like hesitated. And what most of the commentators agree with at this point is that there was some kind of recognition issue going on. You remember the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They did not recognize Jesus in His resurrected body. For whatever reason, we're not told, they just didn't recognize Him. So it could be that, I mean, word has already gone out. The 11 have been directed by Jesus and by Mary, who came to the tomb early and said, go up to Galilee, he's gonna meet you there. So you have word traveling from Jerusalem that Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, is going to meet his disciples on some specific mountain in Galilee. And so, of course, there's a division. Some people believe that there's only the 11 here. Some people believe that there's the 11 and more here as well. But regardless of the case, some of them are quick to bow and worship, whereas some of them are hesitant. Hesitant. Well, now consider verse 18 with me. We're asking the question, How are we to live individually? How are we to live corporately as Grace Community Church? We learn here from verse 18, we are to number one, recognize the significance of our Savior's great claim. We are to recognize first and foremost the significance of our Savior's great claim. Look at verse 18 with me. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. All authority. in heaven and on earth has been given to me in the ancient world. People believe that's why there are so many temples and worship places on mountains. They believe that those mountains were the bridge between the earth and the heavens. And whether that's going on here, obviously we know Jesus to be the creator of the mountains. He knows that there's nothing more than just mountains, but they're on this bridge, if you will, between heaven and earth, where they can look up to heaven, where they can look down upon the earth. And it's here where he says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. All authority. Now, if we follow back in Matthew's gospel to the places where we see Jesus's authority just flexed, I mean, all throughout the gospels, he is just flexing his power. He's flexing his authority. We see first and foremost at the end of the greatest sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount, the response by the people is astounding. We read in Matthew 7 29, he was teaching them as one who had authority. And the people were astounded at that. So he has authority to teach. That in itself, if you read through the Sermon on the Mount, is one of the proofs of His deity. Because He's quoting God in the Old Testament. It is written, but I say to you... Friends, if He was a false teacher, He wouldn't have lasted any longer than He lasted. Because no man comes on the scene and says, I know God said, but I say to you. I know it was written in the law, but I say to you. This is God in the flesh speaking to people here. That's why Jesus never said, thus says the Lord. All the prophets before him, thus says the Lord, thus says the Lord. It is written. Jesus comes along and says, I say to you, I say to you, I say to you. He has the authority to teach. Moving on in Matthew's gospel, chapter eight, he has the authority to heal and to reverse the effects of the fall. We find him in Matthew eight, a leper coming to him, kneeling before him and saying to him, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. And Jesus says, I will be clean. And he was cleansed from his leprosy. So he has the authority to teach, the authority to heal, to reverse the effects of the fall upon mankind. Later on in chapter eight, he has authority over nature. He flexes his power over nature. The disciples are on a boat. A storm rises up. They're terrified. What does Jesus say? Peace, be still to the storm. He calms the waves, calms the winds. And it was calm. And verse 27 of chapter eight, the men marveled saying, what sort of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him? So He has authority over nature. The very next chapter, Matthew chapter 9, He has the authority to forgive sins. The authority to forgive sins. He tells the man who was a paralyzed man, but now that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Then he said to the paralytic, rise, pick up your bed and go home. He flexes his authority to forgive and the people again are astounded that God had given such authority to him. Moving on, we find perhaps the greatest demonstration of his authority. In chapter 9, verse 25, he flexes his authority over death itself. Over death itself. That young girl is dead. And on his way to her house, another woman interrupts, intercepts Jesus. And she has an issue of blood. She's just pouring out her heart to the Lord Jesus. And you can imagine the stress upon the father, trying to get back to my daughter, man, I'm trying to get back to my daughter. And Jesus heals her, eventually moves his way into this little girl's house. And we read in Matthew 9, 25, But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. He has authority over death, mankind's greatest enemy. And even if there was one more enemy, you say, well, what about the devil? What about the unclean spirits? I invite you to Matthew 10 one that says, and he called to him his 12 disciples and he gave them authority over unclean spirits. He had the authority over the devil, over the demons, to be able to delegate that authority to his disciples. And so you say, what's different now then? He flexed his authority during his earthly days. And now after his death and resurrection, He's given this authority over heaven and earth. This is nothing other than the Father giving the God-man, Jesus Christ, the long-awaited King of David's descendant, this universal authority. You see, long ago, it was promised that one of David's descendants would occupy David's throne and be on that throne forever. This is that king. That's why Matthew's gospel is so significant when it comes to the genealogy in the very beginning, because it's showing that Jesus is the true king of Israel. And as the king of Israel, he's also the king of the earth. And like he says here, he's the king of heaven. Absolute universal authority given to Jesus Christ Wherever there is a square inch of anything, it belongs to Jesus. He's the ruler of it. He's the sovereign over it. He's the king over it. He is Lord of heaven and earth. This is the reward of His suffering. All authority was His by virtue of His Godhood. As God, He owns everything. He's Lord over everything, but as a man, this authority was given to Him. as the one who became lower than the angels, as the one who humbled himself to obedience to the point of death, even death on a cross. And this is God the Father rewarding him as the God-man, the mediator, the High Priest, the King of Israel, the Son of David. No one can resist this authority, friends. No one. Not even death. He said previously in Matthew 16, I will build my church and the gates of hell, which is an obvious reference to death, will not prevail against my church. Not even death can hold back. from me building my church. That's what's important for us to understand in all of this talk on the church, because we can so easily take our eyes off the Lord and say, well, that's Justin's church, and I cringe when I hear people say that. Or, hey, that's Dever's church, or that's MacArthur's church, or that's Piper's church, or that's... Chandler's church, friends, it's Jesus' church, and we need to remember that, always. Always remember that. And He will build His church, and death itself will not stand in the way. Not physical death, when Christians die off, guess what? He raises up more. Not even in the face of spiritual death, because He makes alive by His grace. No death, physical death, spiritual death can stand in the way of Jesus building His church. He now has the authority to save and to overcome sin and death in his people. That's one thing he prayed in John 17. Father, you've given me authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given me. Jesus has authority to give eternal life. Why is Jesus given this authority? It's not first and foremost to kill, it's first and foremost to make alive, to give eternal life to all whom you've given him. Friends, this authority can interrupt a ravaging Pharisee in Acts chapter 9, breathing out threats against the church. This authority given to the risen Jesus can knock that man down, blind him for a few days, and make him into an obedient, loving, submissive disciple. That's what his authority does. A few chapters later, Acts chapter 16, he can take a relaxed, civilized lady named Lydia and just open up her heart so that she responds to the gospel. So he can take the worst of the worst, a Saul of Tarsus. He can take a calm lady selling purple over here in Acts chapter 16 and just open up her heart. Both are dead. Lydia was just as dead as Saul was. And yet by His grace, He interrupts, so graciously interrupts and gives life where there's death. by His authority as the Son of Man. He has all authority. Well, this whole chapter is really reminiscent of Daniel chapter 7. Daniel chapter seven, verse 13. Daniel has this amazing vision. He says, I saw in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man. And he approached, he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him. So you have this human figure appearing in the presence of God almighty, the ancient of days. And Daniel says in his vision, and to him, this son of man, was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an eternal dominion, which shall not pass away and his kingdom one that shall never be destroyed." And boom, Daniel wakes up. What is this all about? And yet here we are, thousands of years later saying, by God's grace, we know what this is all about. all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to the risen Lamb. So we are to recognize first and foremost the significance of His great claim, that He has universal sovereignty. Nothing can stand in His way. Do you see why that comes before the Great Commission? Do you see why that has to be the basis of how we operate and how we move into the world? He has all authority. If I know that, I'm not going to go to people and present a weak Jesus in heaven, wringing His hands, hoping that sinners will come to Him. I can present the King Jesus on the throne, who calls men and women and children to repentance. Because if they do not, He will baptize them with fire. With fire. Unquenchable fire. the gospel writer would go on to say a few verses later. We present a sovereign king who is worthy of our submission and trust. We do not present this poor beggar who needs more fans down here on earth. We don't present this weak Savior in the heavens who did what he could on earth and is just hoping that he can lend some sort of help to us as we try to build his church. He says, I will build my church by my authority, by my power, as you go. And even if you go and get killed off like sheep, just lining up to be slaughtered, guess what? He is still building His church. Nothing can overcome, nothing can prevail against the King's mission to build His church, His bride. So that's important for us to know this, friends. We must recognize the great claim of our Lord. Don't bring down Jesus to anything less than the sovereign king of the universe when you are pleading with men and women to turn from their ways. Don't do it. It's a compromise. Don't make it seem like Jesus is lonely in heaven, that he needs them in heaven. Oh no, friends, he is a gracious king who is sufficient in himself as the God-man. eternally one with the Father and the Spirit from all eternity. He didn't need angels. He didn't need men. He didn't need women. He didn't need a world. All of this that we see today is just an overflow of the joy of the Trinity. All of it is just an overflow of joy and love for the members of the Trinity that others might be swept into their love. And now as the risen King, He possesses all dominion, all authority, And it's important for us to know this, that we don't go out in our own authority. We don't go out in our own authority. This is meant for our confidence. This was meant for their confidence in that day. We don't have to go out thinking, I hope I have the powers of persuasion. Friends, can you persuade a corpse to rise up from the dead? Do you think Ezekiel in chapter 37 could go to this valley of dead bones and look for just a square inch of flesh and put all his hope in that square inch of flesh and say, oh, I hope that there's something left in there to get you to arise. No, friends, his hope was in the living God who called him to go forth and prophesy, to preach, and to then give his wind, his breath, his ruach, his spirit to be able to breathe new life into these bones. He has all authority to do that. And we go forth in that manner. Not only are we to recognize the significance of our Savior's great claim, we are to respond in obedience to our Savior's great commission. We are to respond in obedience to our Savior's great commission. Look at verse 18, 19, I'm sorry. In light of this, verse 19 says, go therefore. Therefore, meaning in light of my authority, go therefore. and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." The main verb in this passage is make disciples. We have other participles, go, baptize, teach. But the main overarching verb in here is make disciples. It's actually one word in the Greek, make disciples. What's interesting about the word go here is so much controversy has arisen over this word. Some people dogmatically think it means leave. And so they come down on everyone who doesn't pack up their belongings and go to a far country off in the middle of nowhere. That's one form of abuse. There's another form of abuse that translate this word. I've heard it so many times. They translate this go as as you go. As you go about your daily business, see how it's kind of an attempt to soften the weight, to soften the blow of it. Friends, we need the full force of this word to hit us. It's not as you go, it's go. Go means go. What's interesting though is in the Greek, it's actually having gone. It's passive. having gone. There's an assumption of the Lord Jesus here. He's assuming that his disciples would go. He said in Matthew 24, the gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world before the son of man returns, right? This gospel must be preached to all the nations. So they were already being trained. They already knew that this mustard seed that started with them would eventually expand and cover the whole earth with its shade. And just like, I mean, that's just like what God said to Abraham, that his family would grow to a point where they would bless all the families of the earth. How? That's fulfilled in Jesus and in the gospel. All nations, tribes. So, having gone, it's the assumption that we're going to go. He says, therefore, make disciples. Make disciples. Now, this phrase here, It has to be made up of two things. There has to be two things in mind here of making disciples. The first element has to be go and convert them and then mature them. Right? There needs to be some sort of conversion, some sort of supernatural act that needs to take place before you get a proud man to submit himself to the Lord of Glory who made him. That just won't happen. You cannot make a disciple And what I mean by disciple is a submissive learner, a sacrificial lover, and an obedient follower of Jesus Christ. That's what a disciple is. A submissive learner who hangs on every word of God, a sacrificial lover, like that woman who poured out her all she had before the Lord, and the Lord received it as worship. A sacrificial lover, and lastly, an obedient follower. taking up your cross and following Him, embracing death to self. You can't make someone do that unless there is something happening inside of them by the power of God. You can't. How can you, how can you, how can a Saul of Tarsus become a submissive learner of the Jesus he's trying to extinguish from the hearts and lives of his people. You can't do that unless God intervenes, and so what do we do? We go preach the gospel. We proclaim the good news, which obviously involves presenting bad news first. So we go with the truth of God. We go with the thunder of God's law for those who are proud and arrogant and think that they're right with God. And we show them that they are unfit for the kingdom of God. They are unfit for the new creation that is coming to this earth. There will be no place for them here. And the only other place is the lake of fire, which is off in the darkness. And we get people to feel their unfitness before we pour over them the sweet water of the Good News of the Gospel. And it's in that moment, according to 1 Peter 1.23, that they are born again. They are born again through the Word. This Word being the Gospel. That's what happens. Friends, you see this in Ezekiel 36 and 37. How are men and women who are proud sons and daughters of Adam going to yield themselves under the authority of Jesus Christ to follow Him all the days of their lives. That doesn't happen by mere decisionism, because if we just believe that salvation is nothing more than a human decision, we have failed to understand the greatness and grandeur and holiness of God, and we fail to understand the corrupt nature and sinful nature and the depravity of man that could keep him as a vile enemy of God for the rest of eternity if God does not intervene to change that heart of stone. Friends, don't elevate man man is corrupt. Even those in the church who are not converted, they may be converted to something, but it isn't Christ. Even those people When you strip away all that outer garment of religion and all that outer garment of this outward righteousness and trying to please people by looking good, when you strip away that, all of that, there is still what Scripture says in Romans chapter one, there is a heart that hates God, that suppresses the truth. Friends, we don't understand how truly bad we are as human beings apart from the grace of God. And so we go to them with the gospel. and Ezekiel 36, God says this. Listen to this promise. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Where does God attribute obedience to? Himself. Right? I will give you my spirit so that you obey my voice. When is the spirit given? When is the spirit given? Galatians chapter 3, Paul says, was the spirit given to you by your obedience to the law or by hearing the gospel with faith? The spirit comes to people when we are giving them the gospel. He illustrates that so perfectly in the next chapter, Ezekiel 37. Ezekiel sees this valley of dry bones, hopeless. I think he even says something like, and behold, they were very dry. Just in case you were maybe mistaken that there was some sort of moisture in them, any kind of humanly speaking, some kind of hope, he says, behold, they were very dry. This is the kind of dry that, I mean, the bones are starting to decay and crack. This is very dry. This is dead, hopeless. And he said to me, God says to Ezekiel, prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man, say to the breath, thus says the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came. The spirit came into them, and they lived, and they stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army. So you have the picture of the prophet prophesying. He is speaking forth the word of God as God had commanded him. He didn't preach his own message. He preached what God said. And as that happened, something else happened. The spirit, the breath, the wind came upon these dead bones and clothed them with flesh and caused them to stand up an exceedingly great army. Friends, that's a picture of what happens in New Testament preaching and proclamation. As we sit over coffee with people, and spell out the gospel and all of its beauty. As we teach our children the truths of the gospel from an early age in our living room, as we go out to the streets, to the parks, and talk to people about the gospel, when we go into the workplace and we take a few minutes here on our breaks to give solid gospel truth, you know what can happen in those moments? The wind can come in that dry valley. The Spirit of God. As Jesus said in John 3, the wind blows where it wishes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. And so, how do we make disciples? Well, we go with the Gospel. We go with love. Paul says, I wasn't just willing to give you my message. He says, I was willing to give you my own life. Right? It's not tagger evangelism. It's, hey, Let's not be afraid to actually have meaningful relationships with the unbelievers in our lives because guess what? What we have in us cannot be taken away by them. We need to be able to have meaningful relationships with the lost in order to bring them the gospel. And there's also times where we know we will never have a relationship with the person and we're still called to open our mouth with the gospel. So whether you know them or not, but regardless, there should be a heart of love behind what you're saying, because you recognize that had it not been for the grace of God, you would be in that same boat with them still. Ignorant, blind, dead, ruined in sin, full of pride. And what is the gospel? The gospel is that God is holy. and righteous, sovereign, good. And as any good God, any good judge will do, He will condemn all that is unfit to be in His presence. And the problem is, as the Psalms say several times, the Lord loves righteousness and He loves justice. Two attributes that are not found in us because of the fall. We are not righteous and we are not just. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. So if you put those before His throne who are not righteous or just, we won't be fit to stand before His throne. We are ruined before Him. We are undone before Him, condemned before Him. But yet God, in indescribable love, saw us in our misery, saw us in our sins, saw us in our deepest need. And as some people say, well, God had to send us a Savior because God is love. No, friends, God had to send us a Savior because He chose to love us and save us. You see? It's not that God is love and so He had to save us. It's God had to save us because He purposed to save us. He set His love upon us. And because He set His love upon us, He came to our rescue. He came to our rescue. Jesus Christ lived the perfect life that we could never live and died the death that we should have died under the wrath of God. The fierce fury of God the Almighty fell upon Jesus that day in our place for our sin because of our blasphemies and arrogance before a holy God. And He bore our sin and He paid our debt. And when He turned that cup over, there was not a single ounce of wrath to be left out. He says, it is finished. He absorbed it all. as our propitiation. And when we heard that message, we repented, we believed. Friends, the gospel is not preached if we do not call people to respond to it. It's not tag your it, here's the message, go your way. It's here's the message, here's the trouble that you are in before a holy God, and God commands you, I command you, not because of my authority, but because of the authority of Christ, command you to turn from your ways and believe in this substitute, believe in this mediator. And if you do that, you will receive the gift of eternal life and the free gift of justification. which is being declared righteous in God's courtroom. And they must respond. But we go forth preaching that message and disciples are made because God intervenes. We go forth preaching that message because the wind comes along and breathes life into them, gives life to them. That's what happens. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." He says, all nations. That's all people groups. We've got to be prepared to embrace and give the gospel to anyone. Those of you who are considered upper class need to be willing to compromise and get over yourself and talk to people who are considered lower class. Let's not even talk about upper class and higher class when we had the Lord of Glory step down to this wretched earth for us who are ruined and black and stained because of our sin before a holy God. In light of that, there is no upper class. This is all dead class. This is all corrupt class that we are going to. All nations, Again, some people go. You find in the book of Acts, God sets apart certain people to go for missions. You find also that the first seven chapters take place where? In Jerusalem. They stay for I don't know how long. Sometimes we read the book of Acts and we think it all took place in like 16 days or 26 days or whatever. Friends, it was a long period of time. Many of them spent years in Jerusalem before they even, like we find in chapter 8, someone going to Samaria after seven chapters. Some go, some stay, but all are proclaiming the gospel wherever they're at. That's the assumption. Having gone, make disciples. That's the assumption of our Lord. All have the world in view. Every true disciple has the world in view, which is why we ought to be regularly praying for other nations. I don't just want to be a Las Cruces Christian. We are world Christians because our Lord is the Lord of heaven and earth, the whole earth. Friends, there's people who have not heard the gospel even in this city. that atheist barista at the coffee shop. I've met the crazy hairdresser whose life is just unraveling because of sin in the fall. There are people all around us, people at your local gas station where you go in every day for coffee, some of you for work, people who do not know the truth and yet you are there, not by accident, but by divine design, with a commission to go to them and make disciples of them, by proclaiming the gospel, praying that the wind, that God's Spirit would blow upon them, breathe new life into them, and then we bring them into the church, and then we start the process of maturing. And that's where he says here, teaching them, teaching them, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. That comes after baptism. The baptism here, our word, our ESV says, in the name of the Father. The word is actually Ais, it means into. So we baptize people into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as a symbol of their allegiance, their new allegiance to this God who is triune, one God, three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All of them mentioned here, because the new disciple is devoted to the One God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And we teach them, this is the response, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. This is interesting here. All that I have commanded you to observe it. to obey it. So this is not necessarily bringing new converts in and then automatically plugging them into systematic theology and starting to teach them of the attributes of God and all these different good, glorious topics of systematic theology. Friends, first and foremost, Jesus says you teach them to observe and obey what I commanded you. How do you teach obedience? How do you teach obedience? Again, this presupposes a conversion of heart. This presupposes a new heart. You lay forth the glories of Jesus Christ in your Bible study and in your teaching and in your preaching and in all your one-on-one Bible readings with people in the coffee shop or whatever you do outside of this place in your family, you lay forth Jesus Christ in all of his glorious splendor as the God-man once humbled, now exalted, Obviously returning, you set Him forth in that way and the regenerate heart will follow. The regenerate heart says, that's who I love. Tell me more about Him. Tell me more about Him. That's why we can hear good Bible preaching and yet if it's not focused on Jesus, we walk away thinking, that was good. Oh, but when we hear preaching about Jesus Christ and His unfathomable love and sacrifice for us, our hearts awake, awaken. Our hearts leap out of our bosom, as it were, and we say, if that's Him, I'll do anything He says. And we say, well, let's see what He says. He said here, if your eye causes you to sin, to pluck it out. And we teach Him how to overcome sin. We teach Him how to fight sin. If the right hand causes them to stumble, He says, cut it off and throw it away from yourself. And we lovingly come along, our brothers and sisters, and as disciples, we teach them what that means, to cut off that hand and pluck out that eye. He says, all that I have commanded you. I mean, the word all just really dominates the whole passage. All authority, all nations, all things that I've commanded you. It's even in the last phrase, all the days I am with you. Our translations say, I'm with you always. It's literally all the days in the Greek. There's three words there. All the days I'm with you. So we're to make disciples, not merely converts. A disciple is a learner. A disciple is someone who comes under a teacher and essentially closes their mouth to say, you speak, I'll listen and do. We might use the word today, apprentice. For those of you with a construction background like myself, we have electricians at work that have apprentices. And what are they doing? These guys are shadowing electricians to see how they deal with electricity, how they run wire, how they install conduit. They're not the ones in the front running it themselves, making the decisions. They're watching to see how these guys do it, because they've been doing it for years. And that's what we do. We come alongside Jesus. We don't take the lead. He's led us forth already. He's the one who calls the shots. He's the one who speaks, and we listen, and we follow. Like Mary, we are there at His feet, listening to His Word, day in and day out of our lives. It's not merely making a convert, we're making disciples, maturing them. A disciple, again, is a submissive learner, a sacrificial lover, and an obedient follower. teaching them to obey all that Jesus has commanded us. So what are we to do? We are to recognize the significance of our Savior's great claim to universal sovereignty every day. We are to respond in faith and in obedience to our Savior's great commission. This is the assumption of every disciple, every believer. And lastly, we are to rest assured in our Savior's great promise. We are to rest assured in our Savior's great promise. Look at the end of verse 20. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. I am with you always to the end of the age. We have made a complete circle in the Gospel of Matthew. Chapter 1 verse 23 says these words, And yet here in the very last chapter of Matthew, Matthew wraps up with showing us this God with us. Showing us this God who is with us, accompanying us. by His authority, by His power, in His commission to go and to make disciples. Notice the context of the promise, because again, this is one thing that's taken out of context a lot today. We'll see magnets and bumper stickers that say, I'm with you always to the end of the age. But he says that in the context of commissioning his disciples to go out in a dark world. He says that in the context of obedient disciples who are going forth to make disciples with a gospel that's worthy to be proclaimed. So in the face of opposition, he says, I will be with you all the days, all of your days. That's literally the word always there. I am with you all the days. as you go forth, discipling the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you, I am with you in that context always. And is there ever going to be a time in church history where we stop preaching the gospel? No, he says to the end of the age, to the end of the age, When this age passes away and the new age is ushered in, we will stop preaching the gospel. We will remember the glorious gospel for all eternity. The song of the Lamb will be our song in the new heavens and the new earth forever. But now is the time in this present evil age, as Galatians 1 calls it, where we are preaching this good news. Think about it, friends. This is the one time ever where we get to see dead people raised to life. This is it. You and me. This is the age. This is the time we have to make disciples. The only thing you will ever take with you past this life is a disciple. Your flesh will rot away. You'll be given a new body. Let God worry about that, but what he's given you is His command to go forth in His name and His authority and to make disciples. It doesn't matter if you don't know how to speak well. Look at Moses. It doesn't matter if you know how to articulate things well. If you know those four elements of the gospel, God, man, Christ, response, go forth with the gospel. If you need help, we hand out this book or we can order more. This is one of the best little books I've read on just what is the gospel. Great little book. If you're a disciple in here today and you can't articulate the gospel, if you know anything of the weight of this commission, your number one mission after this service ends should be to go home, open your Bible, and learn what the gospel is. To learn to be able to articulate it. Put all books aside right now. Put all activities behind. If this commission is your commission to go with the gospel, then you should make it the pursuit of your life to know and proclaim that gospel in all of its fullness, in all of its beauty. This is our mission. This is what ought to define and direct our lives. It's what defines and directs our church. It's not what we want to do. It's not about how comfortable we are. This is about Jesus giving a mission to his church and us following. And so I urge you in this room this morning, find an imperfect church. to attach yourself to. Lock arms with that church and go forth with the gospel. I say I'm perfect because the only perfect church outside of this world is really outside of this world. It is in heaven, in glory. So find an imperfect group of believers. Yes, they're going to have imperfect songs. Yes, they're going to have an imperfect speaker. Yes, they're going to have an imperfect pastor. Yes, they're going to have imperfections all the way around. But friends, if they've got a good gospel, if they have a desire to see the lost saved, if they fear God, and come under His Word week in and week out, join yourself there, commit yourself, and go forth with making disciples in this world with all the authority of the risen Christ backing you and supporting you. This tells us, as we close, that The overarching atmosphere of this place should be the great commission to go and make disciples. How do we fuel this love? How do we sustain this passion? By beholding Jesus Christ week in and week out. Beholding Him in His Word. beholding Him in prayer. I think that's why Paul prayed that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, would give the Ephesians the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of their hearts enlightened, that they may know what is the hope to which God has called them, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, And lastly, what is the immeasurable greatness of God's power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great might, that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. Paul says, I want you to behold, Ephesians, I want the Spirit to open your eyes so that you behold this sovereign, majestic Christ who's been seated far above all rule and authority. Because when you behold Him, you love Him, and when you love Him, you obey Him. And that defines you as a people, that defines you individually, that defines you as a church.