The Great Commission

Good morning, Okay. On yesterday we took an overall look at missions, began with the Old Testament, brought it all the way into the New Testament. Learned a couple of things. First, we realized that missions is not just a New Testament idea. Amen. This has been in the heart of God since the beginning of his Plan of redemption, that his people would be a people of missionary zeal, that his people would be a people who are passionate about his name and his glory and his fame resounding among the nations and throughout the nations. We didn't come to the New Testament and realized that Matthew twenty eight is not the first neither the first place nor the only place where we have this idea of the Great Commission, which is very much in line with what we find in the Old Testament. However, we must realize that as we talk about missions, there is this place where there's the culmination. There's this sort of this apex of the missionary call there in the Great Commission in Matthew twenty eight. So it's not that the Great Commission in Matthew twenty eight is unimportant. The far be it for me to say that it is of the utmost importance. However, I would argue that we cannot fully understand or appreciate its importance unless and until we have this full loord biblical, redemptive, historic view of what God has always been doing. So then we put Matthew twenty eight into that context, and we understand it more fully. And so if you have your bibles, open to Matthew chapter twenty eight, and we will now look at this great commission with new lenses Matthew chapter twenty eight. And well I want you to do is I want you to back up a little bit. Usually will start there in verse eighteen, but I want to back up a little bit. I'm a little biased. If you cut me, I bleed apologetics. That's just the way it is. I think about everything from the standpoint of apologetics. Much of it, you know, has to do with the way that I came to faith. I've told the story many times, but for those of you who are not aware, I didn't grow up in the church. I didn't grow up around Christianity. I didn't grow up around Christians. I was raised by my mother, who was a single teenage mother, and she was a practicing Buddhist, and so Buddhism was the only religion and spirituality I knew until I went to a university. It wasn't until I got to use diversity that I first heard the Gospel. And a young man came to me and tried to share the Gospel with me, and he tried to use the force spiritual laws you're familiar with for spiritual laws, you know this, this track that he tried to use. I didn't have enough biblical knowledge, background, or understanding to walk with him through the for spiritual laws, so we had to back up and start with you know, hey, this is the Bible. And we spent two and a half three weeks together with him just answering my questions. But about the last week or so he had he had taught me how to go find the answers myself. And so I've often said that I was being trained in apologetics before I was converted. So I just think about things through the eyes of a skeptic. I think about things through the eyes of one who has been an outsider, and I think about things as one who since that time, has been engaged with people who are skeptics and with people who are outsiders. And so as a result of that, when I read the scriptures, oftentimes, even if I'm not trying, I'll find the apologetic angle. And so yes, I've found an apologetic angle even to the Great Commission, because I believe that the conflict. There is a conflict right before the giving of the Great Commission that I believe is important. It begins in verse eleven. So back up with me at verse eleven. While they were going behold, some of the guards went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, tell people, his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep. And if this comes to the governor's years, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. This was important. By the way, this last phrase will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. This phrase is important. We'll keep you out of trouble. If you're guarding someone or something. Have you been charged with guarding someone or something within the Roman legions? If you lose your prisoner, or you lose your charge. Oftentimes you would lose your life. So this phrase was important. We'll keep you out of trouble. So they took the money and did as they were directed, and this story has been spread among the Jews to this day. Now the listener, the context of this is hugely important. There are people who will believe any and everything about Jesus as long as you don't up the resurrection. Amen. I mean people out there everywhere believe in Jesus. There are very few people in the world who say there was no such thing as no such person as Jesus. Everybody believes that there was such a person as Jesus. However, their problem comes when you begin to communicate what the Bible says about Jesus. And so I believe it's very fitting that right before we have this great commission, we have this sort of conflict that is presented, and the conflict is Jesus has been resurrected. And there are those who are willing to do any and everything in their power to keep this truth from getting out. They do not want people to know and believe that Jesus has risen from the dead. This is what Jesus said would happen, and it happened exactly the way he said it would happen. And these individuals know that as Christ is resurrected, everything they know, everything they believe, everything that they have, and everything that they hold dear is long. Therefore they must, they must, they must stop the spread of this idea that Christ has been resurrected. Folks, we face the same thing today. There are people who have written PhD dissertations arguing, among other things, that the body was removed. This is one of the arguments that was put forth in German higher criticism back in the eighteen nineteenth century. There are people who are still making these kinds of arguments because you have got to explain why the grave was empty. If you're going to halt the advance of Christianity, you have to explain why the grave was empty. There has to be some way to explain. They stole the body, He wasn't really dead. They hallucinated something. Something has to be communicated there, Folks. Even the disciples were affected by this tendency toward unbelieved. Look at the next two verses, verse sixteen to seventeen. I mentioned verse sixteen yesterday I met verse eighteen, but sixteen and seventeen. Look at it here. Now, the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mount to which Jesus had directed them, And when they saw him, they worshiped him. They worshiped him, but some doubted. Even the disciples, even those who saw him. Imagine that this is a This is amazing to me. Why do they go ahead? Now Jesus has been crucified, he's been executed in public. He's dead. They know he's dead. Yet they've been given instructions to go meet Jesus, who's they dead? They know he died, they've been given instructions to go meet. So there were at least some of the disciples who had enough faith to go meet Jesus where they were supposed to meet him. But when they saw him, they still doubted this resurrection. How much more then for those who do not believe, how much more difficult is it for them to embrace this truth and embrace this reality. This is the conflict. This is the conflict not only with a culture that knows it has much to lose if Christ grows from the dead, but it's also a conflict within the very nature of Man, even those of us who are Christians. Listen, there's a reason that we need to sit under the preaching of the Gospel regularly. There's a reason that we need to be reminded again and again and again, because all of us have a tendency to fall back into unbelief. All of us have a tendency to fall back into the comfortable life of sin that we once enjoyed, And so we must be reminded. We must have those ordinary means of grace. By the way, isn't it interesting that in those ordinary means of grace when you look at the preaching of the Word, and when you look at the worship of God's people, and you look at the two ordinances that He's given us. In these two ordinances, what are we reminded of in baptism? What are we reminded of that Christ was? If we do it the right way? Amen. Amen. There are those other people who haven't you know, as we talked about earlier, haven't reformed all the way yet, and they're still sprinkling folks. Pray that the reformation will continue for them. Amen. But in baptism done the right way, it is a picture of the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus. Amen, we are reminded in baptism that Jesus died. We are reminded in baptism that Jesus rose again. And then when we partake of the Lord's supper, what do we do. This is my body, which is for you. Do this and remembrance of me. This is the or the new covenant. Do this as often as you drink it, and remembrance of me. And then what do we say, As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord's death. Watch this until he comes. How can we proclaim his death until he comes? Well, because he has been resurrected and he's going to come again. So in the ordinances we're reminded over and over and over again that Christ died, that Christ was buried, that Christ was resurrected, that he is ascended to the right hand of the Father, and that he is going to come again to judge the living and the dead. Why do you give us these ordinances because we need to be reminded of these things. We need to be reminded of these things. Okay, now let's look at the context of a great commission. There's the conflict, and that conflict rages on. That conflict is the soil in which this commission was planted. That conflict is why we have to go and tell the context. Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. This is a powerful and important statement. This is the second person of the Trinity who says that now all authority and heaven and on earth has been given to him. Why all authority? The key here is in heaven and on earth. Jesus is God. He is the second person of the Trinity. He existed eternally, as eternally as God. Yet now he has authority, a type of authority that he has taken that he would not have taken before. By virtue of his humiliation and his exaltation. He has victory over death, hell, and the grave. It is only in the incarnation that God takes this actual victory over death, hell, and the grave. God cannot die, and then God becomes a man. He takes on the fullness of humanity and experiences something in the Godhead for the first time and for the last time, he experiences death, and then he experiences victory over death, authority over death, over hell, and over the grave. Listen to this. Ephesians chapter four, begainning of verse eight. Therefore, it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions the earth. He who descended is the one who also uscended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. Christ Again, it's almost difficult to even say, but Christ adds to the glory of the Godhead through his incarnation. There is another level of glory that is experienced in the Godhead, because Christ takes on another nature, and in this second nature, his human nature, he has this glory which he has always had. And in addition to that, he has glory as a man, which is now something significant and new. But in addition to this glory, there is also this authority and this power that he takes Talassians chapter two, verses thirteen to fifteen. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive, together with him having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with his legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. On the cross. Christ put these rulers to open shame. So there are two things that we read here that happened on the cross. First of all, on the cross, Christ cancels our debt. Amen Hollowlyah, praise the Lord. He cancels our debt on the cross. It is paid in full on the cross. It is done. On the cross that debt is canceled. But not only has our debt been canceled, but these rulers have been disharmed. He has won victory. He has gained authority through the cross. This is the beauty of the cross, this authority that has been won. Listen, you and I are no longer under the authority and the dominion of Satan and Sin. Because of the victory that Christ has won on the cross. You and I now have the ability to walk in holiness and righteousness. Because of what Christ has done on the Cross. You and I are no longer subject to the Prince and the power of the air, because of what Christ has accomplished on our behalf through the Cross. This is the victory that he has won. This is the authority that he has gained. Secondly, look at Hebrews chapter two. Hebrews Chapter two, beginning of verse fourteen. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who, through fear of death, were subject to lifelong slavery. There's the picture. There's the clear picture of what Christ has accomplished on our behalf through through the Cross. There is this victory that he has won over Satan himself. There is this authority that he has taken over the Prince of the power of the air. And so now he says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth because of this victory that he has won. Listen. This is one of the saddest aspects of the prosperity Gospel. The prosperity Gospel, instead of acknowledging this victory that Christ has won, and instead of resting in this victory that Christ has won, brings to the forefront this idea of our roar, our battle with Satan and with evil, and through incantations and sayings they try to win again a victory that Christ has already won. And all that does is remind us of Satan and remind us of our sin, and remind us of who and what we used to be, rather than acknowledging this victory that has already been won. Imagine if you will, imagine, if you will, that there has been a great battle that has been fought, and after this great battle has been fought, all of the enemies that have surrendered have been put in cages. And so there's this great compound and one by one these enemies are marched into this cage, and there is victory over these enemies. This is what Christ has done on the cross. These enemies have been put into this cage, and we are on the outside of this cage, and we are rejoicing in Christ, because in Christ we now have victory over these foes, because we were in Christ, whin he won this victory. Here's what the charismatic movement does. The charismatic movement tells Christians to walk up to the cage, open the cage, get into the cage, and do battle with these enemies. This is the charismatic movement, this is the Word of Faith movement, where Biblical Christianity says we need to be reminded again and again and again that they are in the cage. We are outside the cage. Christ has one victory, and we're celebrating his victory. Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. What the charismatic movement wants to do is jump in the cage and fight with the defeated foe. Here's the thing. If you jump in the cage with a defeated foe, you might get hurt. Amen. And this is what's happening to people. This is what's happening to people. Here's the other thing. When we think about our sin, do we need to be reminded again that Christ has won victory over our sin, over our sinfulness, or do we need to somehow take it upon ourselves to get in the cage and do battle with our sin, as though we're the ones who need to know I've won. The victory has been declared. All authority belongs to Christ. The battle is the Lord's John chapter twelve, verse thirty one, and in verse sixteen, Chapter sixteen, verse eleven and John twel thirty one, we read, now is the judgment of this world? Now will the ruler of this world be cast out? This is before Christ wins this victory, he says what he's going to do. And then in chapter sixteen, verse eleven, concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged, this is Christ announcing what he's going to do. Now as I read this next text, let me say this up trump that this next text that I'm reading, I don't hold this as a test of fellowship. I don't hold people who disagree with this as being unorthodox. I understand that there are people who disagree with me over this particular position. I'm not saying that everybody has to hold this position. Okay, everybody should, but now everybody has to I respect your right to be wrong on eschatology. Okay, I hold to an I'm millennial leescatologist. Now some of those of you have heard, you know, I'm millennialists. The people who don't believe the Bible. These people, you know, the Bible says something about a millennium, and they don't believe in the millennium. YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA. No, no, no, no. Revelation chapter twenty. This is the only place that we read about the millennium in the scriptures. Right, Revelation chapter twenty. Let me just basically explain to you briefly the lineal position and what this has to do with what we just read about Christ and the authority that he has. Now, Remember, Satan's been judged, He's been cast out. There's victory over him right here, right now, right Revelation chapter twenty, beginning of verse one. Everybody turns to that text. Okay, and again, this is not a test of fellowship. There are people whom I respect greatly who disagree with me. There are people in his room. There are pastors whom the group who disagree with me on this. I am not saying that they are wrong. I just want you to understand how this fits within the context of those of us who do hold to this particular Eschatology twenty and verse one. Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit, and a great change. Now there's an angel who's holding a key and a chain. This is symbolic language. I don't think it's a stretch to say that this is symbolic language. Okay. And he sees the dragon, the ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan and bound him for a thousand years. Now, how many of you know that Satan is not bound for a literal change and a literal key. This is symbolic language. The binding of Satan is not going to take place with literal chains and literal keys. We're talking about spiritual reality here bound him for a thousand years. By the way, one thousand years is not literal why they're Almost every number in the Book of Revelation is a symbolic number. This number a thousand in symbolic of a long period of time. It is not a literal number. Virtually every number in the Book of Revelation is symbol and it has a symbolic significance. The number three the number of God. The number seven the number of completion. The number three and a half is a broken seven. So something that if it lasted for seven years would destroy the church is ended after three and a half years, which means it doesn't come to completion. The number four the number of the earth, the four corners of the earth. Every tribe come nation, people right the number four. The number ten, this is another number of completion. The number twelve the number of the people of God. The number twenty four, which is two twelves one hundred and forty four twelve times twelve, one hundred and forty four thousand, twelve times twelve times a thousand. Almost every number in revelation is symbolic, including this number Satan being bound for one thousand years. All millennial view you is, if you that doesn't say, well, I don't believe that, he says that the number is symbolic, symbolic and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it over him so that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while. The un millennial view is that this is now. It's not sometime in the future, this is now, right now. We're in the millennial period, right now. Satan is bound, right now now. Immediately when the people will hear the un millennial position for the first time and they go, oh, Satan is bound now I don't think. So there's crime out there, there's murder out there, there's stuff out there, there's this out there. Doesn't look like Satan is bound to me. Time out. Let's read it again, bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and shut it and sued it over him, so that he might not do anything satanic anymore. No, No, the binding is limited so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, so that the Gospel might go to the nations during this millennial period, which is now when the Gospel is going to the nations. Because Christ bounds Satan at the crawls, this is the millennial position. Okay, again, this is not a test of fellowship. I just want you to understand where I'm coming from, all right, and where many and Reformed circles are coming from when they talk about millennialism, because this is usually the biggest hangout. How can you even say that Satan is bound because the binding of Satan here is not complete. It's very specific, and it has to do with the way that he deceives the nations, which has to do with the spread and propagation of the Gospel, which is all about missions. So the om millennial position is the missionary age is possible because we're in the millennial age. Okay. Christ is ruling and reigning right now through his church, and the Gospel is spreading. Well. Finally, when we talk about this authority that he has, there is one other idea here. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. I believe in the context of Matthew's gospel, there is another thing that we have to understand. We have to understand that Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience and he's trying to communicate something to this Jewish audience. He's trying to communicate to them that Christ is the Promised Messigah. But he's trying to communicate something more than that. And I believe that you can see it in the way that his gospel is laid out now. The thesis statement of redemptive history, the first proclamation of the Gospel, takes place in Genesis three fifteen. Okay, Brother Jones mentioned that to us on yesterday, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your scene and her scene. You were bruises. Heel here will crush your head. This is the proto evangel This is the first proclamation of the gospel. This is our gospel. Hope, Amen, that there is one who will come who will crush the head of the snake. That this thing is not going to end like this. There's good news. There's all kinds of good news. There there's okay, I remember the first I don't remember. I don't even remember who it was that sort of enlightened me to this reality. But you think about this from the standpoint of eve. They eat the fruit and their eyes are open. They feel guilty, they feel shame, they know they're naked. They try to cover themselves because for the first time they know they're naked. God shows up and they hide. It's crazy. You hide from God behind a tree. Send is what we learned the last night. Told it depravity, sin messes even with your mind. You're not even rational anymore. You know God's coming quick behind that tree? Can you see me? This is crazy, right? But why are they hiding? Because they know that they're supposed to die today, but they don't. We heard about God's mercy in sacrificing an animal to cover them. We understand this. But listen, here's God's mercy. The serpent is cursed. Eve's standing there with Adam. It's not in the test, but I see it in my sanctified imagination. All right, Eve's standing there with Adam, and God says, I'll put in they between you and the woman, between your seat and her. See you and Bruce's heel. He will crush your head. And Eve, I believe that that moment just burst into tears. And I see in my sectified imagination Adam with his arm around his wife, looking at her, saying what's wrong? And Eve says to him, did you hear what he just said? I'm going to have children. That means we're not gonna die today. I'm going to be a mother and one of my offspring is going to make this right false. That's good news. That's the mercy of God. That's the mercy of God. He could have just chilled out him and Eve cut the snake's head off and everything would have been set, but that's not the way he did it. Instead, mercifully, he promises that there is one who is going to come, that there is a promised seed. The very next chapter is the first murderer. It's the murder of Seed of the woman able by the seed of the serpent Kane. How do we know that Kane is seed of the serpent? John tells us in First John three, do not be like Kane, who was of the evil one. He murdered his brother because he was of the evil one. So now what do we do about the promised seed. At the end of chapter four there is another son born. His name is Seth, so the godly seed is restored. Five we have the first genealogy ten generations, tracing the godly line of Adam from Adam to Noah through the godly seed of Seth. Then we're introduced in chapter six to this mysterious passage that talks about the sons of God and the daughters of men, and folks get all up tight talking about angels intermarrying with humans, Angels whom Jesus says do not reproduce. By the way, whose wife is she going to be in heaven? And heaven will be like the angels? They don't marry or given marriage. Angels don't reproduce, So what are you talking about the godly line of Seth intermarrying with the godless line of Cain. This is a huge problem when you're talking about protecting and preserving the promise seed. The sin of man multiplies. The flood comes, but the arc is given on the arc is Noah. We know he's the next line in the Promise Seed. His three sons Sham, Pim, and Jafuth, and their wife lives. After the flood, we realize that Sham is the Promise See. Eventually he gives birth to a man by the name of Tara. Tara's only significant because he had a son by the name of Abraham. Abraham is the next Lincoln the chain. But how is Abraham going to give birth to the promise scene when his wife is beyond chaw bearing years. So he goes into Hagar and they have Ishmael. But God didn't say a seed, he said the seed, so it's not going to be Ishmael. Sarah does give birth. She gives birth to Isaac, whoiz the promise See next. Isaac has twins, Jacob Andissau. Last time we decided who was the promise seede by who their mother was. Jacob Benisau have the same mother. How do we now decide who's the promise See? Certainly it'll be the older one. No, the older will serve the younger. This is not about birth order, it's about election. So Jacob is the promise. See. Now, all of a sudden, Jacob has twelve sons, which one of these boys is going to be the promise. See when you're introduced to them, they are ruined. They are a horrible lot. One commits incest the oldest, and then you have two who are mass murderers because they kill all the shekha mines. Then ten of the twelve conspire to kill their brother. They wanted to murder him, but instead Judah steps up and says, if we murder him, we don't get anything for him. Let's sell him instead. Wow. So they put him in a hole and he goes off to Egypt. When he goes off the Egypt, he's a slave. From being a slave, he goes to being a prisoner, and then from being a prisoner he becomes second income end to Pharaoh. Why so that we can see that he is the mighty promise seed. Nope, he's actually not the promised seed at all. The only reason he goes to Egypt is so that when the seven years of Femine come there will be grained so that his brothers could come and buy the grain, and the promise seed doesn't die. The promise seed, by the way, is Judah. How does Judah identify himself as the head of the family and the promise See well, Joseph said, go get to brother Benjamin. But Daddy won't let Benjamin go because he still doesn't trust these other ten. But Judah says to his father, I will offer myself as a substitute, guaranteeing the son whom you love. So Judah offers himself as a substitute, promising the father that he will redeem the son whom the father loves. Does that sound familiar? Don't get ahead of me. Then you see the promise. See after that, we have the promised nation. The promised nation is given a law. The nation can't keep the law. The nation is given kings. Their kings are ruined. The nation goes into exile. The nation has profits. By the way, the greatest king that the nation ever had was a descendant of Judah. This great king came on the scene because one day there was a man down in the valley who was fighting or wanting to fight against the champion from Israel. Send me a man to fight with me. If he defeats me, we will serve you. If I defeat him, well you will serve us. So judas great descendant David goes down into the valley as a representative substitute for the people of Israel. As their representative substitute, he wins victory over their adversary. And because he's their representative substitute, all of Israel wins victory because they are in him in the valley. Does that sound familiar, Well, now we move ahead. This nation goes into exile. Their prophets warn them after the nation has split. Eventually they're under Roman rule, no word for four hundred years, and they're wondering what's going to happen. Now, Matthew writes a gospel that begins with the genealogy. Well, in chapter one, the genealogy tells the Jews Jesus is the promised seed, not just the next Lincoln in the champ but he's the reason that the chain existed. Well, in chapter two, Herod tries to do what Pharaoh tried to do, which was killed the first born males. So now Jesus is not only the promise seed, but he's the protected seed and as the protected Seed, he goes to Egypt to fulfill the prophecy. Out of Egypt I have called my son. Well, then he comes out of Egypt, and ultimately, before he goes into the land of Promise, he goes through the waters of Jordan in order to be baptized, just like Israel was baptized in the waters of the Jordan. So now we see that Jesus is not only the promise Seed and the protected Seed, but he is also true Israel. Then he's tempted in chapter four lust of the eyes, thus of the flesh, pride of life. This is exactly the way the first Atom was tempted. If you remember, the fruit looked good to the eyes. The fruit seemed like it would be good for food, and then it would make them wise. At every one of those points the first Atom failed. He is our federal head, so we fell in him and all of those points. Now the last Adam succeeds. And because he's our federal head, we succeed in him. And chapter slide through seven he stands on a mountain and says, you've heard it said, But I say to you, so now he's the true lawgiver. Then he goes about performing miracles as the true judge in the true conquest, which Israel never carried out. Ultimately we get down to chapters twenty six and following, and he is the true suffering Servant. And then when he's resurrected, he finally says, all those others were mere shadows of me. But I am true Israel. I am the promise. See, I am the protected seed, I am the Lawgiver, and I am the suffering Servant. And right now all authority of heaven and on earth belongs to me. That's the message of Matthew. That's the context of the Great Commission. He has all authority, all of not just all of history, not just all of history, but even free history, all of eternity has pointed to Christ. And so the context of this commission is that he stands there having all authority, first by virtue of being God, and second by virtue of having earned it as man. This is the context of the Great Commission. Well, what about the content. Let's look at the content nineteen to twenty or eighteen to twenty, go therefore it and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father. And the Son of 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. First, the content of this Commission. It's global, it's multi ethic, it's evangelistic, and it's comprehensive. The time we have left, I want to talk about these four things. The global nature of the Great Commission, the multi ethnic nature of the Great Commission, the evangelistic nature of the Great Commission, and the comprehensive nature of the Great Commission. First, it's a global commission. He says, go or as you go. In other words, the Great Commission is carried out as the people of God go. We cannot carry out the Great Commission by staying where we are. Amen. He does not say, hey man, y'all hang out here and everybody will come to you. By the way. This is different in the New Conveinet. This is different because what happened is Israel sets up shop in one place in one nation, and they build one temple, and everybody comes to this one temple, and it's come and see our God. Now, the Great Commission changes all of that. The Great Commission is not if you build it, they will come. The great commission is go and tell leave here, scatter from here. Now it starts with people who come. They gather there, and you remember the day of Pentecost. They're all gathered there, right, But why are they gathered there. They're gathered there so that on the day of Pentecost, the gift of tongues can be given. The gospel can be preached to the whole world at one time, and then eventually, through persecution, when He finally makes everybody leave, the gospel can then be taken to the whole world. So people have to come and gather in Jerusalem, gather at the temple. They gather there at the day of Pentecost so that this great miracle can occur. And then once this great miracle occurs, people can take this message that they've heard. Thousands are gathering, right, and many stay there for a long time, and they're disciple there for a long time, and eventually they have to leave and they have to scatter. And as they scatter, they take the Gospel with them as they go. That give nations that we take to the nations. Again, this makes it clear that this is a global commission. Acts one to eight we talked about this. You'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and then the remotest parts of the earth. There are a lot of people who, you know, talk about this passage and give different meanings, gif for different meanings into you know, these different places that Jesus told them to go. Revelation is a symbolic book. Acts is not. So when he says to Jerusalem, he means Jerusalem, and when he says Samaria, he's pretty much talking about Samaria. And then when he says the remotest parts of the world, he's talking about down here and where I'm from. We Americans need to be reminded that so many people, when they think, you know about the Gospel going to the remotest parts of the world, they think, yes, it must go the deepest, darkest Africa news splash. It was easier to get to Africa at that time than it was to get to America. Amen. We're much more remote, Amen, And so I come from the remotest parts of the world, just like you come from from the remotest parts of the world. Okay, And We praise God both of us for the way that the Gospel gone to that remote part of the world and to this remote part of the world. The idea is that it would be nations and the pattern of the apostles, the pattern of the apostles, What are they do? They went, They went to the nations. Acts one to eight again becomes this caesious statement for the book. It's a multi ethnic commission. It's a multi ethnic commission. That no longer is the idea that people would come and that they would basically become Jews. And this was a great conflict in the early Church. This is the Judaizing controversy. They are those who said, no, no, no, no, these gentiles are coming in, but they need to be circumcised first, and they need to become Jewish before they can become Christian. That was a great controversy within the Church. The Jerusalem Council dealt with this next chapter fifteen. So the idea is not that people would come and they would come to Israel and then they would come to Judaism and thereby no God. The idea was that the Gospel would take root among ethnic groups and that there would be expressions of Biblical Christianity in the various ethnic groups of the world. That phrase there, take it to pantatathne, that's every people group. The word ethne, you recognize ethnic right from that word, from the Greek word there. This also implies translation. This also implies translation. One of the most crucial aspects of missions is the translating of texts into the languages of people. In fact, early on in missions, this was the main thing that we understood that people needed the word of God, and that if we were going to do missions, that meant that we were going to go places, learn their languages and translate the Bible into their languages so that they could have the Word of God. This is a crucial aspect of missions. Linguistics and the translating of the Bible is a crucial aspect of missions, but it's been lost in the modern era. No longer do we even think about linguistics or think about the translating of the Bible. You know, you may meet people who say God's called me to be a pastor God's called me to be a church planner, even God's called me to be a missionary. But very rarely do you find people who say God has called me to invest my life in linguistics so that I can translate the Bible into as many of the languages left in the world that don't have the Bible as possible, and there are somewhere around three thousand languages now that don't yet have the Bible. We have tools, tools like we've never had before, that allow us to be able to translate the Bible more efficiently and effectively than we ever have before. And this is a crucially, critically important work. What makes it difficult is that some of these languages don't even have an alphabet. There are people groups in the world that don't have a written language. Some of you may be aware of people groups that don't have a written language. And so sometimes admissions what we end up having to do is go into a people group, learn their language, creating an alphabet, teach them the alphabet to their own language, so that we can then give them the scriptures and they can read the scriptures in their language. See, this is the work of missions, that we're bringing the Word of God to people. This is different, for example, from Islam. Islam argues that Qur'an cannot be translated and must not be translated into other languages, and so when the Muslims have their conquests, they also spread Arabic around the world. And in fact, the great irony is there are many Muslims in the world who don't read Arabic and don't understand Arabic, and so they're following just what they've been told because they can't read it and understand them for themselves. There are some of them who've memorized the Qur'an in Arabic because they've had it on audio tapes, but they have no idea what they're saying. This is not Christianity. This is why Christianity has always been associated with literacy. This is why education has always been crucial in the Christian mission, educating people so that they are able to be literate and understand God's special revelation in the Bible. This is why education has always been crucial. This also implies church planting. It implies church planting. The heart of missions is getting people the scriptures in their language and getting churches planted among all people groups. This is the heart of missions. Church planning is at the heart of missions. Church planning is at the heart of missions. Church planning is at the heart of missions. We must plant churches. People need local churches. We need thousands and thousands and thousands of churches planted all over the world. Let me give you just an idea of the significance it is. In the United States, there's been a decline in church attendance. There have been a decline in the number of churches. There's not one county in the United States that has more churches per capita today than it did fifty years ago, not one county. We've seen the rise of megachurches. But you know, every every year, thousands of churches close their doors and die in the United States, in the South, in the Bible Bell, Okay, missiologists and demographers have estimated that over the next twenty year, just to keep up with population growth and just to keep up with the decline we've already seen. Now this is in America, and this is in the Bible Belt in America, over the next two decades, we need twenty five thousand churches to be planted just to keep up twenty five thousand churches. Now, if that's the case in America, imagine the rest of the world. Imagine the rest of the world. Tremendous task ahead of us. And this is a counting places that call themselves church where the Gospel is not present. And I know you know something about that. Around here, amen, you know I'm riding here. As we ride around, there are a couple of things that have just that have startled me. They don't startle me anymore. I remember the first time that we came and we drove from here down to Livingstone, and I've vowed never to take that drive ever again because it's scared me driving down the levers and at night. Fish, your first time on these African roads and you're riding at night and you're from America, that's yeah. I just wanted somebody to hit me in the head with a hammer, knock me out and wake me up when we're there. That said, we're riding, and what was interesting is we're riding and all of a sudden, I'm not seeing anything. It's dark, there's no light, there's nothing. Every once in a while we slowed down and swerve to go around a hooddle or something like that, and all of a sudden, we're riding down the road and I would see people. They would be walking, they would be on bikes. It's the middle of them. It's pitch black at night, can't see anything. And then there there's these people in there walking kind of like we haven't passed the town in half an hour, and there's no town up here. Where are they coming from? And where are they going? And there's the first time somebody told me, oh no, no, no, no, there's all kind of villages back in there. You know, there's a I had no idea. I just saw these PAMs. Just started to scare me, you know. And yet every once in a while, I didn't see anything anywhere, didn't see anything back there. But every once in a while, whoop, there's a Kingdom hall Jehovah's witnesses. All of a sudden, whoop, there's a Pentecostal Charismatic church. How do you know just by the name, Just by the name, the name gives it away, you know, world domination, full gospel power, whatever. You know what I mean that just the name gives it away. All right. They're everywhere, They're everywhere. So when we talk about planting churches, we're not just talking about places where the gospel has not been We're talking about places where the gospel has been perverted. We need to push back the darkness there as well. Amen. In this church planting again. We see this as a pattern of the apostles. I won't save us more about that. It's evangelistic. The Greek Commission is evangelistic. Baptizing them, this is evangelistic. As Baptists, we understand that you baptize people when they've been converted. Amen, somebody, there's a Baptist meeting. When I said that, there should have been amen's all over the room. Let me try it again. As Baptists, we understand that we baptize people when they've been converted. Amen. Okay, So this is evangelistic in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In other words, this implies conversion in that these people must reject their other gods. We're baptizing you with the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and the name of the Triune God. This is the baptism. So they have hurt the gospel. They've been confronted with the gospel. They are forsaking that would stay were believing in and to which they were holding. And they are now being united with Christ. Not only do we see in baptism a picture of the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But we also see a picture of a person's old life being buried and being raised to walk in newness of life. Amen, it's not Jesus and it's not Jesus. Plus, we have to be very careful about this. There are a lot of religions out there where people don't mind adding on the gods. You know, when you go to places like India and other places in the world, and some places around here, you know, where people have multiple gods that they worship, you tell them about this Jesus and they think, wow, he'd be a great god to add to our other ancestral gods. They're like, yeah, sure, especially if y'all look passing out you know, food. So missionaries come and we pass out food, and we show a movie, dinner in a movie, you know, will you pray this prayer man, I'll do whatever you say, you know, And then they go back home and report the thousands have been saved. People weren't saying they got dinner in a movie and you should raised their hand and they were like, yeah, no, it's not adding Jesus to whatever. You have. It is acknowledging that there is but one God, that we worship this one God, and that we reject all else and all the others. This is our mission. Finally, this mission is comprehensive, teaching them observe all things that I've taught you, so you don't just parachute in preaching evangelistic message and then go on to the next people group. Christianity is comprehensive. It affects every area of life. And so our mission is not just to make converts. We are here to make disciples. We are to teach people how to follow Christ in every area and every aspect of life. There is an ethic in Christianity. Amen. Jesus makes this very clear, and it's sern on the mountain. You heard it said, don't commit adultery. I'm saying to you that even if you look at a woman with lust, you've committed adultery already. So it's amazing that Jesus brings us these ten commandments. And he doesn't say all the ten commandments forget that. No, he raises him and the notch he raises of another notch. And so we have a foundation for Christian ethics. We have a foundation for our Christian worldview, and as we make disciples, what we are doing is listen, because connect this to what we heard last night. You understand where Adam was. I thought it was beautiful. Understanding total depravity. You go back first and understand where Adam was, where he fell from. Then you understand the nature of his total depravity. When you understand the nature of total depravity, you also understand the nature of sanctification and the nature of discipleship. Because if every aspect of your being is impacted by sin, what makes you think you can just pray a prayer and then go on your merry way. The Gospel has to be applied to every area of your life. Listen, we don't know what we don't know, Amen, And it's only through this comprehensive application of the truth of the Gospel that we are made aware of those things in us that need to be submitted to the Cross. This is what we do the Great Commission. It's global, it's multi ethic, it's evangelistic, it's comprehensive, and finally, it's doable. Lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. We can do this, Amen. We can do this. Why because the one who has all power in heaven and on earth says he's with us as we go. Fear not. Right on, Let's pray, Father, thank you for the great mercy that you've shown us in giving us the great commission. There are so many ways that you could have chosen to accomplish this task. And yet by your grace you have granted that we, as frail, fragile, and flawed creatures, would proclaim your name, your glory, and your excellency among the nations. Grant by your grace that this would be our burning passion, that this would be our heart's desire, and grant that the work would bear much fruit. Again, that Christ might have the fullness of the reward for which he died. This we pray him his name and for his sake on it