Chris Harrington Preaching
Immanuel Sermon Audio
Finish the Mission (Matthew 28)
We as a church have done that. It's not something that we take real seriously. And it is a command from our Lord and Savior that we do that. At some point, we as a church, big church, big sea church, are going to have to stop thinking that somebody else is going to do this. We've got to get to the point where this is a call to action for us. And for some of us, it's really scary. You know why? Because we have to talk to somebody. We have to talk to somebody about something that we're uncomfortable talking about with, because that's what our society has led us to believe. That talking about religion and politics, you're just not supposed to do that, especially at work. I might agree with politics because you can get pretty heated over politics. But if you consider yourself a Christ follower, every conversation you have should be filled with Christ. It doesn't matter if you're at work. It doesn't matter if you're playing baseball, coaching little league. It doesn't matter. The things that you say, the things that you do should be filled with the thoughts of Christ. So as I began to kind of talk to you today about taking the gospel to the nations about the Great Commission, I think about that. Guys, God's plan for us was people engaging people with the gospel. That is His plan. Plain and simple. As I was studying for this, I come across a few things. And one of the things I come across was an article and it talked about some of the myths that we have as a church that we've kind of accepted as realities, five myths in regards to the Great Commission. One of those is that we just think making disciples will just happen. We can sit back and do nothing. Somebody else will do it. If somebody wants to talk to me about Jesus, that's fine. I'll talk to Him. But I'm not going to go out of my way to do that. The second thing is that the command calls us sometimes to go across cultural barriers. And some people will say, "I'm not going to do that. That's for other people." And in a sense, maybe you will never have to cross a cultural barrier to do that. But think about this. Jesus gave this command to take the gospel to the nations, to a mostly Jewish community, to take His gospel to a mostly Gentile community. Think about that. The command doesn't call us to sit here amongst our own. We have to go wherever that might be. And for some of us, it might be to our neighbors. Like Landon had said a week or two ago, the nations have come to us. Your neighbor may be the nations. The people you work with may be the nations. Thirdly, we think that Jesus wants converts. Jesus does not want converts. Jesus wants disciples. We need to realize that converts change religions. Disciples change masters. That's what we're after. We're not after somebody that's willing to just switch a religion just on the drop of a hat. We want people who are disciples. We want people who are going to change masters. Fourth, we fall under a false impression, a false impression that sharing the gospel, taking the gospel to the nations, is just for, quote, "elite Christians." People who are qualified to do that. People who know what they're doing. In reality, the truth is, is that we're all called to do that. If you are a Christ follower, you are called to do that. There is no such thing as an elite Christian. Last time I checked, I didn't find that in the Bible anywhere. Okay, so we're all called to do that. If you remember, as you read through the Gospels, who did Jesus use? Who did Jesus choose as his disciples? He used mostly unlearned, lower to middle class people. That's who he chose to take his gospel to the nations. For most of us, that's us. Finally, the fifth thing I want to mention to you is that one of the greatest myths that the big sea church has come across and that we really believe is that the great commission was not a great commission, it was just a great suggestion. It's just something that Jesus said as he was leaving, and it is what it is. We don't take it seriously. So as we dig into the Scripture today, remember this, guys, the gospel. Jesus' plan for the gospel, spreading the gospel to the nations, is you engaging somebody else. Okay, so today our big idea is we will finish the mission when we obey Jesus' command to make disciples of all nations. So if you would, if you haven't already opened your Bibles to Matthew 28, we're going to be reading through 16th through 20. We're going to read the whole great commission. All right, I'll read that for it. Now the 11 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 to them and said, "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 of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you to the end of the age." All right, let's pray. God, we thank you for the day. God, we thank you for the chance to be in your house to worship you and to hear your word, God. God, I pray as we open your word that you would just speak through me, and that this would be a challenge for all of us. So God, be with us, and we thank you for this time, amen. So as I stated earlier, as we begin to dig into the great commission of what it looks like for us as individuals, I want you to think about what you do on a daily basis, how you encounter other people, whether it be at work, school, extracurricular activities that you do. The thing that we need to realize today is that evangelism is not done by something, it's done by someone. There's no programs, there's no committees. We use programs, we use committees to help us mobilize and to help us get things in place. But it's someone who's going to take the gospel to the nations, it's not something. Remember that this mandate, this commission that Jesus has given us, is not just to the church as a whole, it's to use as individuals, okay? So think about it in two cents. Two, one, church as a whole, me as an individual, how does it impact me? The last thing is, guys, there is no plan B. You read in scripture, there is no plan B. This is Jesus's plan for taking the gospel to the nations. He doesn't have a back-up plan in case this one doesn't work. Okay, this is it. And this is something that autostrioc is all really hard today, is that when you dig into the New Testament scriptures, there are no scriptures where we find that there are disciples that aren't making disciples. We are to reproduce other disciples. The first thing we see here is that encountering Jesus should result in worship. In 16 to 17, we see here that it says now that the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some had doubted. We see Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, in verse 28, 9. If you go back just a little bit, as Mary and Mary Magdalene went to the tomb, and the tomb was empty, and then the angel of the Lord told them, go, go tell the disciples that Jesus is not here. Jesus met them on the road. And what was their reaction when they met Jesus? They worshiped and they grabbed his feet as an act of worship. We see the wise men, as we come up to Christmas, we talk about the wise men. The wise men search Jesus out to worship him. What did they do? When they found Jesus, they worshiped him. We see the disciples when they were on the boat. Jesus had just finished feeding the 5,000. Jesus needed to go, he wanted to go away and pray, and he sent the disciples on. And so, as Jesus was meeting up with them and he was walking across the water, and when they realized, hey, that it was Jesus, what did they do? They worshiped him. So an encounter with Jesus should result in worship. The disciples in verse 17 reacted the same way. When they saw Jesus, when they did what he said, he said, go meet me on this mountain. When they met him, what did they do? They worshiped him. When he came to them, they worshiped him. Now, you see, it says that some doubted. As you look at that, it says, you know, you can look at the translations as I was studying. It says maybe not doubted, but some maybe have hesitated. Okay, because he might have been far away. So some may have hesitated to believe that, hey, this is Jesus. This is the risen Lord. And so, another thing is that his worship is the ultimate goal of our mission. Okay? His worship is the ultimate goal of our mission. If you look in Revelation 7, I'll read it for you, so you don't have to turn to it. But in Revelation 7, 9 through 11, it says this. It says, "After this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one can number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed with right robes and palm branches in their hands and crying out for loud voice. Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb." And so, guys, our worship, his worship should be our goal. Anything other than that, if we're doing the things that we do, it doesn't matter what we're doing in missions, evangelism, if that is not our ultimate goal, to bring others into the worship of Jesus, we have missed it. Okay, we've missed it. That is what we want to do is bring others into the worship of Jesus. (1) Two, we see here that Jesus has been given authority over all things and all people. And we're going to spend a little time talking about the authority of Jesus and what that means for us. But I'm going to read verse 18. It says, "And Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.'" When you think of authority, what do you think of authority? When I think of authority, I think of, of course, I think of Jesus, but I think of my boss. I've got a bunch of bosses. I've got a boss in Denver. I've got a boss in Houston. I've got a boss in Oklahoma City. I've got bosses everywhere, okay? So, I'm not short on bosses. I think of my mom and dad. I think, yeah, Char just pointed to Lisa. Lisa is my, you know, so, you know, some of us think of the government as authority. But if you sit back and think about it, do they really have authority over us? You know, in Romans it says that we need to submit to the authorities that God has placed over us. But what kind of authority do they have over us? They can control some of the things that affect us, but can they really control what we do and what happens to us? Sometimes we associate authority with fear. You know, we see in Matthew 1028 where Jesus says, you know, don't fear the things that can just kill you and then they're done with you. You need to fear the thing. You need to fear me because I have the power to cast you into hell or to heaven. Those are the things that we should fear. And so we see that as we start talking about the authority of Jesus, this is something that Daniel prophesied back in Daniel in chapter 7. I'll read that real quick. It says here, "I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like the son of man. And he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom and all the peoples, nations, and languages." You should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall never pass away. And his kingdom is one that shall not be destroyed. Daniel's prophecy was a fulfillment. When Jesus was given the authority from God here, as you see in Daniel, the ancient of days, that's an Old Testament name for God. And God has given Jesus his authority. And we see that when Jesus conquered death, all this authority that he had on earth, he's going to also have it in heaven. So it's an all-encompassing authority. We see this in several areas. We see that his nature, that nature, he controls nature. The authority in dominion includes nature. We see in Matthew 826, if you look in Matthew, Jesus was on a boat. Okay? There's waves and they're like, "Jesus, why are you sleeping?" And he's like, "What are you worried about?" You know, you have no faith and Jesus was able to rebuke the winds and the waves and it stopped. We see how he has authority over disease and demons. You know, Jesus was in Galilee teaching in the synagogues and he was healing. And he was curing sickness. We see that you remember the story of Jesus come across the two demons possessed man. When you know, landed, taught on that in Luke. You know, the two demon possessed men were in the tombs, you know, in the cemetery. And Jesus is able to cast those demons into those pigs and the pigs are off the cliff and die in the lake. He has control over the disease and the demons. We see he has control over sin and death. In Matthew 9, 1-7, we see that Jesus heals the paralytic and he forgives his sins. And so he has the power to heal and he also has the power to forgive sins. You remember they questioned that. So who is this guy? What authority is he able to heal and forgive sins? How can this guy forgive sins? He has the power over our lives. We see in Matthew 16, 24-25 Jesus tells us to take up our cross, deny ourselves. You no longer live for you, you live for me. That's a personal call. We must be open to whatever he has for us. We see that he has control over every life. I don't know if I want to use the word scary, but this is one of the most scary things to me. As someone who is responsible for the flock of a church, this is something that's very scary to me. Because there's a lot of people that sit in our churches that I think are one day going to be really disappointed when they meet Jesus at judgment. Because if you see here in Matthew 25-31-33, all of us are going to stand before Jesus' Judge. He's going to separate us. He's going to separate us as sheep and goats. Sheep on the right, goats on the left. And he's going to tell the goats on the left. Depart from me, I know you not. So he has control over every life. That is something that we really need to contemplate as we deal with people on a daily basis. Next we see that under Jesus' authority we will obey his command to go and make disciples. Here in verses 19 and 20. My mark fell out, sorry, there we go. We see in 19 and 20. It says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit." Now guys, this is something I want you to key on. I spent time talking about the authority of Jesus because I think that is key to this commission. You think about your parents. You think about people who have authority over you. If I tell my boys to go do something and they don't do it, it's because they might not trust or they might not respect my authority. So when you see that Jesus has given us a command to go and make disciples of all nations, he has the authority to do that for one because God has given him that authority. And so when we come to the great commission and we think if you don't respect the authority of Jesus like you should, the great commission is not going to mean anything to you. So we have to get to the point where we know that Jesus has the authority over us. He has the authority over all the things that we had just talked about. Now I know this next slide we're going to put up. This is one of our great theologians of our time. All right. Winnie of the Pooh says you can't stay in your corner in the forest waiting for others to come to you. Sometimes you have to go to them. Okay. And I know if you're Winnie of the Pooh fans you've probably seen that already. Because we can't expect people to come to us. Jesus has commanded us to go. Now for some of us, going may mean going on the other side of the world. For others, going may be maybe mean going to your neighbor next door. You just never know where you might go, but you have to be open and willing to go wherever he sends. As you're going about your daily life, as you're doing the things that God has asked you to do and the things that God has given you in your work, whether you teach school, whether you're a student, whatever we're doing, we need to be sharing our faith with others. And for some, sometimes, and this is not a comfortable call. The call to go and make disciples is not a comfortable call a lot of the times. We get put in uncomfortable situations. We go to difficult places. We have difficult conversations. You might lose a friend. You might gain a friend. Who knows? But it's not a comfortable call. Remember, as Jesus was calling people to his ministry, let me go do this. Let me go do that. And Jesus says no. Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, and the Son of Man has nowhere. And so sometimes he calls us to leave everything behind and go follow him. That call is not for everybody, though. Sometimes our call may be just going to our neighbor. This is something that really struck me. As I was studying and starting to think about what does it look like to make disciples? What does it look like for me to start going to look at people? And as I read across this, our churches are filled with people who have never led anyone to be a reproducing disciple outside of their family. The churches are full of people who have never led anyone to the Lord. We get so complacent and we get so comfortable with where we're at that we don't want to step out. And we're missing the command that Jesus gave us. As I stated earlier, you know, scriptures, there's no scripture that says anywhere of disciples not making disciples, we must be reproducing disciples. That should be our goal in every relationship that we have. If you're in a relationship with somebody, whether it be at work or school or wherever, if your intention is maybe not to make them another disciple, you need to look at that relationship and see how you can change that. We see here that we are commanded not only to evangelize the nations, but the deeper task of discipling the nations. This is where it gets, this is where it gets fun. A lot of the times we have a real easy, we think, well, we've done our job. We've shared the gospel, we've shared Jesus with them, and they've accepted Christ. I have done my part, but that's not true. If we are true and faithful to the command that Jesus gave us, we have got to start discipling. And what does discipling look like? You know, it might look different for me than you, but we need to find somebody that we need to disciple. If Christian shares the Lord with somebody, and this person comes to know the Lord and accepts him as his Savior, Christian needs to take that guy, he needs to mentor him, he needs to show him how to read his Bible, how to study scripture, how to pray, some of the disciplines of the church. It's got to be more than just, good job, you're on your own. Okay, because if that's the case, more than likely that guy's going to stay where he's at. He's not going to grow, and he's not going to reproduce. So reproducing disciples is key. Next we see that baptizing new believers is an essential part of the salvation experience. This is something that the church, maybe our church does. When I say church, I mean, big sea church, maybe we don't put a whole lot of emphasis on his baptism. Baptism is nothing more than an outward expression of inward change. Okay. It symbolizes identification with Christ and inclusion to the body of Christ. I think back when I started thinking about baptism, I went back to Philip and the Ethiopian. You remember that story? As the Ethiopian is cruising along in his chariot, he's reading the book of Isaiah, the scrolls of Isaiah, and he doesn't understand, and Jesus sends Philip down going from Jerusalem to Gaza, and he comes across the Ethiopian, and he says, "What are you doing?" He says, "I'm reading the book of Isaiah." He says, "Well, how do you understand?" He says, "I don't." And so Philip takes time to read the Isaiah with him and what they do next. The Ethiopian says, "Look, there's some water. Let's baptize there. I'll be baptized there." And so we see all throughout Scripture of baptism. So baptism has got to be part of your salvation experience. When I say that, remember, baptism does not save you. There's no salvation in the waters of that baptistry. There's no salvation power in the waters of the Nionna River in Kenya. But it is a symbol. It is an outward expression of inward change. And to not be baptized, I think, is to neglect and dishonor Jesus' command. And so we need to make sure baptism is an emphasis. The discipling process means we teach and observe the things that Jesus commanded and taught. Guys, we've got to be teaching others, like I said while ago, the disciplines of our faith. Bible reading, scriptures, praying. All the things that we do, it's got to be something that we do on a daily basis, something that we are intentional on doing as we come across and make new believers. We don't just receive the word, we reproduce the word. It's not something that you have been given to keep and hold. We have to reproduce that word. We have to be bold in doing that. Sometimes in the discipling process, we think of it as maybe a microwave mentality. We want everything fast. Well, good job. You receive the Lord. You'll disciple yourself, and it will take you a week. Well, sometimes it's going to take you a lot longer than a week. We've got to get past the microwave mentality of discipling. Sometimes it's a hard thing to do. Discipling is a hard thing to do. People, for one, learn at different rates than others. Some people are able to accept some of the things that you teach them faster than others. There is no cracker jack box answer of what you need to do to disciple. It's you intentionally engaging in somebody, teaching them the disciplines of our faith. Trust me, there's a lot of good books on that. And has sent us through a couple of good books on evangelism and discipling. The fourth thing that we come across in Scripture is that the authority and promised presence of Jesus will empower us to carry out the mission. I thank the Lord for this because, guys, we can't do it on our own. We have got to rely on the spirit of Jesus within us. We see throughout the New Testament of the spirit and his power at Ennis. In Acts 2, we see that the spirit comes at Pentecost. We were promised to help her, a great helper that would come, and that happens in Acts chapter 2 at the Pentecost. We see in Romans 8, 9 that the spirit of God dwells in us. The spirit gives us life. Even though that we are sinful creatures, the spirit gives us life. So the spirit dwells within us. We see in Galatians 4, 6 that we are heirs of Christ and his spirit. It's not something that we earned. It's not something that we bought. It's something that we inherited from him. So the spirit gives us life and the spirit empowers us to do these things. Once we see here that the mission is not based on who we are or what we can do, the mission is based on who Jesus is and what he is able to do through us, through in our lives. Praise God for that, right? When we put mission teams together, that's one of the things that I pray all the time. Trust me, I love you guys, but we're all a wreck if you think about it, okay? And thank the Lord that we have the spirit of Jesus in us, the Holy Spirit in us, to help us get us through the things that we need to get through and that we need to rely on his presence. We really can do nothing apart from the Holy Spirit. We can do a lot of good things. We can do a lot of good things as we go about sharing the gospel because our power comes from the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 3.20, it's one of my favorite verses. It says, "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or thank according to his power at work within us." Guys we have got to rely on the Spirit of God. He has promised us the presence. He has promised to help us through difficult situations. It doesn't mean that it's going to be all cupcakes and sunshine all the time, but he has promised to bring us through it, all right? Guys, it doesn't make sense, as we kind of start to wrap up, it doesn't make sense for millions of Christians to do nothing, all right? We should go with confidence. Jesus gives us confidence, knowing that he's the one who's sinice. He is sovereign over all and that he is worthy of worship from all, all right? Guys going, going to make disciples looks different for all of us, but it's the same command to all of us. For me, sometimes it means going to Kenya. For you, it may be going to your neighbor. It may be going to a coworker down the street, down the office. I think it's a shame that if you work for, say if you work for somebody for 30 years in the same office building and that person does not know that you are a follower of Christ and that you have never shared your faith with somebody like that. We have got to get out of our comfortable selves and step out. You know, when you prepare for something like this, you don't know how long it takes. I don't get to preach very often, and so sometimes you think, well, this is either going to last five minutes or it's going to last 30 minutes or it's going to last 45 minutes. I've been where it's lasted 45 minutes and people are looking at me like, hey, the cowboy's playing. But guys, here's the deal. As we start thinking about as individuals, what does it mean for me to lead others to the Lord and then the further step of discipling them, it's a one-on-one deal. You have to engage people and it's got to be conversations other than football or baseball or Pinterest or whatever you talk about it. You have got to step out of that. You can use those things as a lead-in to the Lord, but we have got to get to where we are comfortable and confident in sharing our faith. Now, I'm going to do something a little different here and I didn't tell land and I was going to get it. I saw this once before. I'm a visual guy, okay, and so as I start to close, some of you may have seen this before. It's a rope, okay? This rope represents you, represents me, represents all of us. Guys, this is us, this is our lives and we will exist into eternity, okay? This rope obviously does not go into eternity, it stops at the Christmas tree. But it goes on and on and on. This orange part represents our lives here on this earth. It's very short. James 4 says, "Our life here is nothing but a vapor, nothing but a mist." And how are we going to live that life? Are we so consumed in this little bitty part of our existence about making the most money that we can do, making the most friends that we can make, going to see the most things we can do? And yet, sometimes we might miss the mark where as we're going through this life here on earth, that our number one job here is to make disciples, to make believers and bring them in the presence of the Lord. And so sometimes we need to think about this. I think about this rope a lot, because I've seen this done a couple of times. And when I think about what is my role in life, what am I supposed to be doing? It's not about working your whole life so you can get to the very end and retire. Now some of us, that's great. But as you do that and as you retire, what is your life in the Lord's service look like? For some of us, our length here is maybe a little bit different. We have no control over how long our life on this earth is. For some of us, we have been Christians for the majority of this. For some of us, maybe we have never accepted Christ, okay? Today as I close, I just want you to think about a piece of rope, our lives, what does it look like? What are we doing with our short time here on earth? Are we doing the things that God has commanded us to, the things that Jesus has commanded us to? Are we still wrapped up in our lives and so wrapped up in the things that we're doing, we're still wrapped up in making sure our kids have everything that they need and we just get so consumed with that that we miss what God has for us. And so as we close, if anyone needs to talk to me or land in or Cory or Hunter, they'll be down at the front, well actually Cory's playing the bass today so don't talk to Cory. But please feel free to come up and talk to us. All right, let's pray. God, we thank you for the morning. We thank you for just the chance to sit here and listen to your word and God, thank you for your son and what he meant for us, God. I pray that this morning, God, if there is someone here that does not know you, God, that they would come to you today, I pray that if the someone here is sick, hurting, God, just whatever it is that we just would come to bring those things before you. So as Tyler and the God is the latest God, we just praise you and we look forward to the worship. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]