The Presence of Jesus
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Matthew 28:16-20
Matthew 28:16-20
Good morning, church!
I want to stop and thank all of you that gave to the staff appreciation offering!
What a blessing that is for Candace and I right be before the Christmas season!
I also want to thank publically those who showed up yesterday to help me take care of some much needed clean up and care at my property yesterday. You guys knocked out so much than I could have taken care of myself and I am extremely thankful for each of you!
I’ll tell you, I feel appreciated and appreciative that I get the honor to be your pastor!
So, on behave of Candace and myself, thank you!
This morning, we are going to wrap up our study of the Great Commission.
Let’s read it to together one more time, shall we?
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and 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.”
A while back I listened to a David Platt sermon on this passage and he said that there are three basic parts of the Great Commission.
Jesus’ power.
Jesus’ plan.
Jesus’ presence.
Jesus’ power is the power of the resurrected Jesus and He gave us His power and authority.
He said that all authority in heaven and earth has been given to Him by His Father.
Ephesians 1 tells us that the Father raised him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly placed, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things under His feet!
There is nothing, anywhere, or anyone that cane escape the power, authority, and dominion of the resurrected Jesus Christ!
The fact that we think we allow Him to be our Lord is kind of funny, because He already is Lord over all things and all people!
Its more about us recognizing the authority that He already has and to stop fighting against it and submit to His rule and not your rebellion.
In the Kingdom of God, there are certain unmoveable truths that we are powerless to change or deny and one of them is the absolute fact that Jesus is Lord over everything in the heavens, the spiritual world and the earth, the physically world.
Nothing escapes His dominion. There is no unconquered corners of the world.
So, in the view of the great commission, each and every one of us live under the authority and rule of Jesus the Lord of heaven and earth.
So, when He says “Go” its not about allowing Him to be our Lord and keep this command, we are called to stop living in rebellion to His command and submit to His authority to give such a command!
But also, isn’t it great to know that wherever He sends you, He is Lord there too?!
He can not ask you to go anywhere that He is not Lord and King because He is Lord and King over all of the earth!
Now, there may be territorial disputes where the enemy thinks that He has set up camp but ultimately, Jesus is seated at the right hand of power and EVERYTHING has been placed under His feet!
So, everywhere that your feet touches has a King and His name is Jesus!
So, may be not live in rebellion to His command and authority.
May we submit to His authority and go where His authority rules supreme and where He has bestowed on us His authority and power!
Go with confidence!
Go with authority!
Go with power!
Go with Jesus’ plan!
Isn’t it great that Jesus didn’t just say go and wing it?!
He said, go with my authority and power and go with my perfect plan!
He said, be intentional about going! Set your mind to being open to going and looking for someone to share the gospel with!
It means go with your spiritual eyes open to someone that the Lord has an appointment with!
It means go where you are.
Go where you work.
Go in your neighborhoods.
Go to all of the nations!
Just “Go!”
The plan doesn’t say and create converts.
It says go and make disciples!
And Jesus in His ministry said, a lot about what it means to be a disciple!
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
Jesus said a lot and clearly defined what His disciples would be willing to give us for the sake of following Him, about what His disciples should look like.
We must pursue that level of commitment and surrender to Jesus and then make sure that the disciples that we are making look like what Jesus taught!
We need to make sure that we are disciples worth duplicating and then... duplicate!
Jesus’ plan says to make sure that they understand the meaning of being baptized.
Make sure that they understand that it is an outward expression of an inward change but the focus is on the inward change.
When we are baptised, we are showing the world and the Lord that we are dying to our sins and old lives, we are choosing to be buried with Christ in His baptism and we are being raised to walk in a newness of life in submission to His will and defeat over sin and death!
This is the start of a repentant and sanctified life.
And that sanctified life is walking in obedience to the commands of Jesus.
Do you see Jesus’plan?!
That’s why we must teach what Jesus taught!
We must teach others that the goal is to look like and act like Christ. You do that by being obedient to His commands.
This is the essence of discipleship!
Obedience to the one you are following!
Isn’t it great that Jesus didn’t say, just go and wing it?
You know because He could have...
He could have said, just go and trust be to lead you in the moment.
But isn’t it great that He gave us a plan?!
The last part of Jesus’ commission to us all is that He promises His presence with you.
This might be the best part of it.
Jesus says, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Close your eyes for a second.
I am with you always...
I am...
with you...
always...
Just let that truth set in for a minute.
I know you know it but let it be real to you even now.
He is with you, always.
He has granted you His power, given you His plan and promised you His presence.
You are not alone.
You are never left alone.
When you go, He is with you.
When you stay, He is with you.
Church, that means so much more that we think.
Jesus, right after this, said,
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
We will receive His power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you! You receive His power but also He non-stop presence!
Jesus may have ascended to heaven but He sent down His Spirit to not simply walk with us or around us, but to INDWELL WITH YOU!
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
So, Jesus is with you always because His Spirit indwells in you!!
It is so much more that someone you have to go visit or invite where you are! He is with you! He is in you!
Can you quench Him? Yes!
Can you try to ignore Him? Yes!
But He will be with you always because He is within you!
There is a unity, an intimacy that is closer that we understand!
And with that unity, comes everything!
Ephesians chapters 1 and 2 uses the phrases, “in Him” or “in Christ” 17 times!
Not with Christ, or beside Christ, but IN CHRIST!
And listen to what that means for you!
Listen to these truths that come with this oneness with Christ and what His presence brings to you!
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
You are in Him and He is in you!
You are with Christ and Christ is with you!
You are being built into the dwelling place of God!
All of that is unmovable truths of the Kingdom of God!
and THAT is again but a glimpse of the fullness of what we receive with the indwelling, promised presence of our God!
Oh what would we as a people be like if we could acknowledge this truth more than 15 minutes a day?
What would our lives look like if we practiced acknowledging His constant presence an hour a day, 3 hours a day, even every waking minute?
We would have access to every spiritual blessing all throughout our day.
We get to stand in the presence of our Father which art in heaven.
We can walk through life standing confidently before the throne of grace in our time of need!
We will experience the fruit of the Spirit instead of hoping for them.
This promise of Jesus, to give us His Spirit and therefore His presence and access to the Father, maybe the greatest promise of Jesus Christ.
And we barely acknowledge it throughout our day.
This is why we must do everything that we can do to think about God. To think about who He is and standing before Him, with Jesus praying for you and Spirit indwelling you.
Church, I want us to understand something.
When we put our minds in this place, standing before our Father, with all of His love and grace, with Jesus, in Jesus, seated at the right hand and the Holy Spirit within bringing us to a supernatural, extra-worldly, spiritual place of prayer,
when we acknowledge that place and live there, stay there as much as we can, what on earth can touch us!
What can be better than that?!
That is the place that peace dwells!
That is the place that God pours out His love into you heart!
That is the place where grace abounds!
That is the place of perfect peace.
That is the place that God hears our prayers and answers them!
That is the place that we are going to spend eternity and we get to experience it NOW!
When you go to that place and stay there, and you are experiencing promises you have only hoped for, you will never want to leave.
And when He says go, you go because you just want to stay where He is.
When you find that place with your Father, the things of earth will start growing dimmer and lose its appeal.
You minds will be fixed more on the eternal and less on the temporal.
Church, this is it!
This is what Jesus died to bring you!
This is eternal life!
Why would we be so hesitant to tell someone else this amazing truth?
Because its not true for most of us, because we don’t even know what we have.
