Go! (Matthew 28:16-20)

Intro: If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Matthew 28… Over the last two weeks, the pastoral staff has been unpacking our ministry focus here at Heritage. A phrase of three simple words that we long to both define our church and guide us into the future. Love. Pray. Go! You see, our hearts desire is for our church to be a place where we are united in an overwhelming and great love for the triune God, His Word, and one another. We long to be a place that is defined by biblical and sacrificial love. Moreover, we aspire to be known as a house of prayer. A place that takes prayer seriously, believes that God hears, honors, and answers our prayers according to His good and perfect will. You see, we view prayer as the glue that holds us together in both unity and hope. And lastly, today, we want to focus our attention on the third and final word in our ministry focus. What does it mean to Go! To move forward in our faith and be known as a church on the move. By, Go, I simply mean consistently and faithfully taking the next step of faith, whatever that next step in your journey with God might be for you and your family. That’s the focus of today’s message, and I can think of no better place to challenge you to move in your faith than the final words of Matthew 28, which contain Christ’s final marching orders to the eleven remaining disciples. It’s here in this wonderful passage, that this gospel reaches its climax. In fact, you can argue that this holy moment of time was the pinnacle of the entire New Testament. In many ways this text is the focal point of all Scripture. For here in this familiar passage the resurrected Jesus in all his glory, meets once again with His followers and calls them to go and live their lives in a way that transforms people and culture.

Read along with me, as I read verses 16-20… There are four truths regarding the Christ followers call to Go that I want you to understand this morning. Four truths that have the power to transform our lives, our families, our church, our culture, and our world, if we simply embrace them and live them out.

1) Going implies making yourself available to God (28:16).

Notice that the disciples were exactly were where the Lord asked and expected them to be, on a mountain in Galilee. Unlike other the other gospels, the gospel of Matthew does not record several interactions that the disciples had with the resurrected Lord in Jerusalem. Instead, his focus was this special encounter that Jesus arranged beforehand.

It has been wisely said that when it comes ministry effectiveness, the greatest ability is availability. Think about that, the most gifted and talented servants are completely useless to God and His kingdom if they are not available to God. You see, taking the next step of faith does not begin with knowing the destination, with knowing exactly how you will be serving the Lord five years from now. Or knowing exactly how your life and personal ministry may look like in the future. Yet, it always begins with simply being available to be used by God, and putting all your concerns and reservations aside.

That’s what we see in the disciples in this passage. They had no idea what the risen Lord was about to ask of them, they simply prioritized being available and open to what He would ask. Therefore, theses eleven men leave Jerusalem and walk northward throughout the Judean wilderness for about a week until they finally reach the mountain that Jesus had previously called them to. Now, we must note, that the eleven were probably not alone. We know that according to 1 Corinthians 15:6 that the resurrected Jesus appeared to more than 500 of his followers, and it believed that there were many who probably joined the disciples on that mountain that day.

Recently, I had the privilege of leading a trip of 40 our church members and friends to Israel. And my favorite place we visit on our trips to Israel, is Mount Arbel which overlooks the sea of Galilee. This would be a mountain in which the disciples were familiar and perhaps this was the location where Jesus would retreat to pray so that He would keep His focus on glorifying the Father with His life. Some scholars believe that this is the very mountain that Jesus assembled and commissioned his disciples to go into all the world and make disciples. Now honestly, we have no way to know this for sure, but every mountain in this immediate area has a similar view to behold. Every high place overlooks the region of Galilee where Jesus did around 80% of his ministry. They tower over the small area of land where he taught, performed miracles, and called His disciples. I find great encouragement there, as I think of my own life, because so often I consider my life and ministry to be rather mundane and isolated to a small stretch of highway between Gardner, where I live, and Princeton where I work. Yet, Jesus meets his disciples here as if to say, you’ve seen me minister in a rather small area, you’ve seen my method, and no matter how small of area in which I may live, I simply ask that you be willing to be available there. That means if your life is confined to an office or school building, will you be available to be used by God there within those walls? If your life is defined by changing diapers, or home schooling your children, will you be faithful and available in your home to do whatever Christ may ask of you? Listen, yes, Jesus calls us to go into all the world, but before we are willing to jump on a plane and travel to the ends of the world on a mission trip, or even relocate our lives to serve as a long term missionary in a foreign world, we must first be available to be used by God where He has us now.

This means we must die daily to our selfish desire and will, so that we may live our lives as a living sacrifice to God alone. Luke 9:23-24 reads… “And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” Please understand that we must constantly be willing to lay aside our own plans and busy schedules so that we may be available to what God may have in His better plan for our life. Now, this is radically hard, isn’t it? I don’t know about you, but so easily get frustrated, impatient, and downright unbearable when my day doesn’t go as I had planned. When I’m behind in my work load, and someone calls and needs me to be willing to lay everything aside, to attend to their need. That’s profoundly challenging for us, because we have to be able to turn off all the stress of the moment just to be fully present to the person in need. Guys, let’s be honest, how often does this happen when we come home from work? Perhaps we have a plan for our evening, or maybe its been a challenging day and all you want to do is checkout for a moment, and we come home and our wives need us, or our children have a science project due tomorrow, and of course they have done nothing ahead of time, and they need us to lay aside everything, and be fully present and available to them. That’s a challenge for sure, but if we are going to go! And take the next step of faith, we must be willing to be available and die to ourselves and sacrificially give ourselves to God and others.

Pastor and author John Piper gives some wise counsel to consider on this point. He wrote, “The way to think about self-denial is to deny yourself only a lesser good for a greater good… Jesus wants us to think about sacrifice in a way that rules out all self-pity. This is, in fact, just what the texts on self-denial teach.” Oh how hard it is to lay aside our will and schedule to be available to God, but we must see it clearly and biblically, that in doing so, we are exchanging a lesser good, for a greater one, for every unplanned interruption of our day presents us with a unique opportunity to serve our Lord and King by making the gospel message visible to others. For in those moments, we like Jesus must be willing to lovingly lay our lies down for the benefit of another. Please let me ask you, Are you available to take the next step of faith? Or are you too consumed with your own life and schedule to add time for God? Oh, that God would give us a heart that is always available to Him and others!

2) Going is an act of worship by imperfect people (28:17).

Verse 17 informs us that as the disciples fell and worshiped Christ on that mountain. Please understand that worship and taking the next step of faith are always intertwined, so that we will never go with God and take the next step of faith if we are not consistently engaged in worshiping Him in Spirit and truth. And in this powerful moment, as the disciples’ eyes gaze upon the one who has conquered death and the grave, their hearts are flooded with awe and worship for they were standing in the presence of the Son of the living God, the Lamb who was slain for all our sin. And so, just like Isaiah in the text read earlier, they fall to their faces, and bow before the Holy One. Notice how there is a true connection between humility, the act of making ourselves small, bowing before a holy God, and our worship. Oh, how we should feel incredibly small in the presence of the holy and Almighty God, that’s how our worship should manifest itself in our lives. It should always magnify Him while humbling our hearts. Listen, there is no doubt the disciples felt unworthy and inadequate at that moment, because notice the next phrase…

Please don’t miss it! It reads, “but some were doubtful.” This is one of those phrases in Scripture that speak oh so powerfully to the integrity of Scripture. Matthew refused to sugar coat this moment. He refused to say that the disciples simply worshiped, but instead he added, “some were doubtful.” Now, there are several ways biblical scholars have attempted to make sense of this verse. Some have argued that those who doubted must have been among the masses. In other words, it wasn’t the eleven who doubted, but some of the other Christ followers on the mountain. But if that was the case, Matthew could have been clear. In fact, the Matthew’s use of the Greek language in this verse is rather ambiguous. It could literally be easily interpreted that Matthew is saying that in the hearts of the eleven, there was both worship and doubt.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I love it when the Scriptures describe the disciples as being rather human, and I think we see that clearly here in this verse. Let me explain a little further. First, of all I think it is important to understand that the word doubt that Matthew uses here, in the original Greek implies hesitation more than a lack of belief. In other words, they wrestled in their hearts between going and hesitating. It is interesting that the only other place this word is used in gospel of Matthew is in the story of Jesus walking on water. You remember that story right? The little boat filled with disciples in the middle of a massive storm was being ping ponged on the waves of the Sea of Galilee, when all the sudden Jesus comes walking on the water. And the disciples panic, thinking Jesus was a ghost, and yet when they realized it was Christ, Peter asked to join Him, to walk on the water with Him. Now, it is one thing for Jesus, who created water to walk on it, but it is a powerful miracle for a sinful man like Peter to stand upon and walk on top of water. And yet he does, and as he’s walking towards Jesus, we are told in Matthew 14, that notices the wind and immediately begins to sink. Jesus then comes to his rescue and pulls him up and says in Matthew 14:31… “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Why did you hesitate? It seems clearly that Jesus wants us to see the connection between our hesitation and little faith. Now, make no mistake, it wasn’t little faith that got Peter out of the boat. That was pure, undefiled, big faith. But little faith, is when we are in the middle of a God moment, and our hearts hesitate to move in faith. That is what was occuring on the mountain, the disciples were standing in the presence of God, in a God moment, and yet there was something in their hearts hesitating.

I don’t know about you, but I’m full of hope when I read such things in scripture, because that’s a clear picture of my heart. Oh, how I wish it wasn’t so, but sadly, there are many times, I hesitate to follow Christ. But please, notice that Jesus, knowing crystal clearly the hearts of the men before him, calls on them to go into all the world and make disciples. He doesn’t wait till they’ve reached a point of maturity where doubt no longer exists. Instead, he calls on imperfect men and women to simply follow His example and proclaim the kingdom to the lost. You see, imbedded in the grand story of redemption is a gospel principle that we must not miss, and its this: God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things in His kingdom. We see that here, in this passage. That God calls ordinary men who worship Him, but occasionally hesitate and doubt, to transform His world. Notice, he uses bi-polar disciples to make the world whole again.

I can’t tell you how many times I have had conversations with believers who feel a tug on their heart to share gospel’s saving truth with a friend. And yet they struggle to feel qualified for such a conversation. So often, they come to me and ask me if I would talk to their friend for them? And yet this passage affirms that they themselves are qualified to have such a conversation. You don’t have to wait till you have conquered all the sin and fear in your life, or become a biblical scholar whose knows all the answers to share the truth of Christ with others. In fact, God seems to prefer to use flawed humble people to proclaim His flawless love with others. Again, we simply must have worshipful heart that is available to God!

3) Going requires a submissive and obedient heart (28:18-20a).

Before Jesus gives the disciples a command to follow, notice how He declares His absolute sovereign Lordship in verse 18… “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” Listen, there is no authority outside of Jesus, it has been completely given to Him by the Father and His sovereign authority is certainly both absolute and universal. Therefore, Jesus’ followers must have an attitude of humble submission to His will and all His commands. You must understand that submission and obedience to the absolute sovereignty of Christ Jesus, is not an option for the Christ follower. Instead, it’s our supreme obligation. There is no room for negotiation or adjusting God’s will to make it more suitable to your plan for your life. No, the Christian must surrender all of their will to His. It’s the attitude that says with absolute sincerity, whatever you desire God, I will do! I will follow you and obey you in all things because we have zero authority to declare over our own lives. J.C. Ryle once wrote, “Obedience is the only reality. It is faith visible, faith acting, and faith manifest. It is the test of real discipleship among the Lord’s people.” Oh how, important it is to understand that, for you will never take the next step of faith in your walk with Christ, if you continue to cling to your own authority and refuse to submit in obedience. You see, as long as you are continuing to walk in your own wisdom, according to your own reason and feelings, as long as you are holding on to your authority, you will never submit to His.

And so, Jesus the risen Lord, makes it abundantly clear to all of those gathered on the mountain that day, that all authority had been given to Him by the Father. Therefore, He alone has the right to command them to go and make disciples of all nations. Notice the transitional word “therefore” in verse 19. You see because Jesus is sovereign Lord of the universe, He has the authority to make such a command and also has the power to enable us to obey such a command.

But let’s examine this great commission together for a few moments: Look at verse 19 through the first part of verse 20… “Go therefore and make disciples of call the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you”. Interestingly the main verb in this verse is not the word “go.” Instead, the verb in the Greek language is “make disciples.” This really begs the question, “what is a disciple?” We know that Jesus had 12 main disciples, eleven of them are now left after Judas betrayed Christ and hung himself. And now Jesus is talking to these 11 men, along with others, and He calls on them to go and reproduce themselves. So, again, what is a disciple? Well the root meaning of the word disciple in the Greek language implies both believing and learning. Therefore, the word disciple implies someone who believes Jesus is who He says He is, someone who has placed their trust, faith, and hope in Christ, the one who lived, died, and rose again. But a disciple is also someone who continues to learn about Him with a heart of obedience. Notice, it’s not just believing the right things about Jesus, or agreeing with facts about Him, instead it implies growth and movement towards obedience. That’s our command, we are to be a disciple as well as an instrument in making disciples of all nations.

You see the Bible knows nothing about accepting or receiving Jesus as Savior and not as sovereign Lord. I sadly meet many who profess Jesus as their Savior, but continue to live their lives according to their own desires. So instead of living a life of submission to His lordship, they simply add a little Jesus to their life, but never change their lifestyle. Oh, how this should concern us, because there are many churches who peddle a false gospel, that proclaims Christ as a Savior, who loves you and accepts you just as you are, and He gives you the freedom to live your life according to your own desires and wisdom. Folks, that is a false gospel message. Instead, we are commanded to go make disciples, men and women who love the Lord, who simply want to be with Jesus, and they want to please Him and be like Him. And so if you want to check your vitals this morning in regard to being a disciple, there is one question you should ask yourself: How much do you hate sin? Because it is your sin that will keep you from spending time with Jesus and will keep you from being like Him. And if you don’t hate sin and the effects of sin, you will probably never share His great redeeming and forgiving love with others. The great missionary to India Henry Martyn who lived from 1781- 1812 once noted, “The Spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, and the nearer we get to Him the more intensely missionary we must become.”

Now listen, its vital that you understand this… The Great Commission is not a calling for some. No, it is a mandate for all believers… When it comes to a calling, you don’t need to hear a voice; you have a verse in the Word of God. This verse, and it is now our responsibility, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, to evaluate how we are best equipped to fulfill that call… You see I view every member of our church family as a potential missionary to be equipped and mobilized. Our goal is not to send some to Guatemala every year, but to send all into the mission field of our world to make disciples of all nations daily.

But notice in our text how the disciples are to be made… again in the Greek language we can clearly see that Jesus uses three participles: Go (or more literally “going”), baptizing, and teaching. Go!, Baptize!, Teach! That how they were to be disciples and make disciples.

First, we must Go! Now going, clearly means more than traveling across geographical borders, although this is certainly part of Jesus’ command. He clearly expects us to invest our money, energy, and time into taking His salvation message to the ends of the earth. We can’t overlook that. This is why here at Heritage we sacrificially give to missionaries and mission organizations that advance His kingdom. This is why we go to Guatemala and other countries to minister, and this is why we pray for our missionaries weekly. This is why I pray that God would call some of you to become missionaries. But again, going means much more. You see, the point is that we believers are to be active in our faith, and our faith must be evangelistic in nature. Therefore, going simply means crossing various boundaries to make disciples—going across the street, going to dinner with an unbelieving friend, going into the inner city to feed the poor, having an uncomfortable conversation with a friend or family member caught in sin, or going beyond one’s comfort zone to make the gospel accessible to the lost. Living life for the disciple is simply “going” with a purpose, every day. Making the most of every opportunity to die to ourself and share the Word, His truth, His gospel with others.

Second, we must baptize converts in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Please notice how Jesus emphasizes the unity of the Trinity by declaring that baptism be done in one name (the name, not the names). You see when we are baptized the believer is identified with everything that God is, has, and represents. As we mentioned a few weeks ago, when I preached on Romans 6 during a baptism service, the word baptize literally means to immerse in water. And it is to be the initial act of obedience to Christ after salvation, where we proclaim our union with Christ, in His death, burial, and resurrection. The act of baptism has absolutely no saving power in itself. It has no part in the work of salvation, but is simply a God-ordained and God commanded action that is to accompany our salvation.

Jesus said in Mark 16:16… “He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.” The Lord was clear in this verse, that disbelief, not failure to be baptized is what condemns a soul. But Jesus could not have made the connection between salvation and baptism clearer. You see, Jesus expects us to be obedient to this command. He expects all believers to be baptized by immersion, and that why we have it made it requirement for church membership here at Heritage. And I can’t help but think, for some of you in this room, that baptism should be your next step of faith. And yet for some reason, you have convinced yourself, maybe even for years or even decades, that you are the exception to this command.

Lastly, we are to make disciples by teaching them to observe all that Christ has commanded. As I already mentioned, a disciple is simply a learner and a follower. Therefore, as disciples we must constantly be growing in our knowledge of Christ and the gospel message and adjusting our life to His truth. Listen, this is part of our lifelong task, and as we learn, we are to share those life-giving principles with others and encourage them to live lives of obedience to all that He has commanded. Now, certainly teaching does not imply that everyone is to teach a small group or be a pastor. That’s not what this text means, but rather in a Deuteronomy 6 fashion, we are to share His truth with our family and friends as we live in their midst. Isn’t it interesting how natural and easy it is to talk about that which we love the most? We can spend hours talking about our family, sports, tv shows, the news, and politics, but when it comes to Christ do we freely speak of how His love and grace transformed our lives, our family, and our world? Oh how we hesitate, pause, and worry about how our words may offend others. Folks, we are way too concerned about how other people perceive us. And often, that keeps us paralyzed and overly hesitant in our faith. And that alone will rob us of the joy, peace, and blessings that God longs to pour out over us for being obedient in our faith and walking with the Lord.

Going, taking the next step of faith, whatever that might be for you and your family, demands an attitude of submission and obedience. The author of the book of Hebrews makes this attitude synonymous with true saving faith, declaring that Christ “became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation” (Hebrews 5:9). Some of you in this room today, really need to examine your faith. Is your faith obedient, is there movement, are you going, are you sharing your faith, and teaching others His ways? Are you calling people to faith and repentance? If not, we must humbly question our salvation all together, turn from our sin, turn to Christ, take up our cross and walk daily with Him.

You see here is the truth, Jesus modeled our ministry focus so well… He loved us to the point of bearing our sin and shame and dying on the cross for our sin. He prayed for us that powerful high priestly prayer of John 17, that we would sanctify our lives His truth and live for Him, and even today He lives to make intercession for you today. Furthermore, He humbly and lovely came to us as we were trapped in our sin, we were sheep without a Shepherd, and yet He entered our messy lives to call us to faith and repentance. And now, He simply asks us to follow His example! Will you be obedient to His call?

4) Going compels us to rely on Christ’s presence and power (28:20).

As important as my first three points were to this sermon, all would prove completely useless without this last point. You see we would never be available to God, never worship Him, or submit and obey His commands, without Christ’s presence and power working in and through us.

Therefore, Jesus concludes by saying, “and lo, I am with you always, even till the end of the age.” The use of the word, lo, is simply a calling of their attention to something very important. He is saying to the disciples, I myself, the one who has all authority, authority to lay my life down and take it up again, completely sovereign in all power, I the eternal, holy, Son of God am with you always. The word always is literally “all the days.” All the days of your life, Christ is with His followers, leading them and providing them with everything they need to obey His Will, and His Great Commission.

Notice finally that His presence is promised to the end of the age, that is until He returns in bodily form, in His majestic glory and power to judge the world and to rule His earthly kingdom. Yet until then, He will always be with those who belong to Him, His imperfect hesitant disciples, are promised His presence and power to move them in their faith and to take the next step in their walk with Him. They simply must trust Him and go!

Jesus disciples were not left on their power or ability to obey such a massive undertaking. You see Christ followers should not rely on their own ability to obey any of His commands. Instead, they must totally trust that He will work through them. That He will give them the words, the courage, and the ability to obey. Just a reminder here, Jesus in this passage was not talking to professional orators, or the educated elite. He was talking to fisherman, a tax collector, and normal everyday simple-minded people, and He calls on them to transform the entire world. It’s been well said by many a pastor, you simply must do the possible, and let God do the impossible. Trust me, you can do little to nothing on your own, but Jesus can do abundantly more than you can ever imagine through you, if you simply trust to work through you and obey His word.

I don’t know where you are in your spiritual journey today. We all gather together this morning at different places in our walk with God. But I simply want to close this morning, by asking you to examine your walk. Are you actively moving in faith? Are you going? Are you eager to go? Like Isaiah, is the cry of your heart, “here am I God, send me, use me for your glory!” I fear, way too many of us are not there, instead we are rarely available to Him, your worship is stale, you obey only when its easy or convenient, and God seems rather distant and weak to you. And perhaps this morning, the reason for such sinful contentment, is because you have wandered from God and you are no longer actively going in our faith. What’s your next step of faith? If you are struggling with that question let me close by giving a few suggestions to consider:

· Is there a sin, maybe you have an habitual secret sin, that need to be brought to light, confessed, and repented of. Perhaps you need the counsel and accountability of mature believer to come along you. Are you willing to ask for that help?

· Men, are you leading your family humbly and sacrificially? Perhaps you need to take a step of faith in that area?

· Women, are you lovingly respecting your husband?

· Children, young people, are you honoring your parents? Are you the same person at school as you are at home and/ or church?

· Perhaps God is prompting some your heart this morning to share Christ with an unbeliever? Maybe He’s urging you to go on a mission trip, or even leave it all behind and become a missionary? Or you willing to go in that manner?

· Another important area to consider: Church family, are you joyfully and sacrificially giving to the ministry of this church? The elders of over the last few weeks have been wrestling through some data, and though no names are attached to the information we have, I can honestly say, the data speaks loudly that there are few in this church that truly give biblically. We will be certainly talking about this more in the future, and I know the economy is in the tank, I know how much it cost to heat our homes, but we are called to faithfully give and support the Lord’s work. Are you?

· Or maybe your here today and you know you need to trust Christ as Savior and Lord, follow through in believers baptism, commit to becoming a member of our church family, get plugged into a Bible study, serve in a ministry, or maybe you need some counsel and guidance as to which way to go. Will you simply take that step of faith?