Jesus Last Commands

Go and Make Disciples

Go make disciples of all nations.

Acts 1:8 “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 farthest parts of the earth.””

Jesus wanted His followers to multiply. And He made it clear it was for the whole world.

Early on the disciples still thought that Jesus came only for the Jews. Paul and Peter were some of the first to truly understand that God intended the actual whole world to know Jesus and be saved. It’s funny how small their view of God’s plan stayed even after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

How amazing is it that that job was given to us people.

Baptizing Them

It’s not a hidden thing and it’s not a small thing in your life. You are changed forever when you choose to follow Jesus. In this life here and now.

Jesus gives us only 2 explicit ritual ceremonies - Baptism and Communion. Believe and be baptized.

Reminder on baptism - it’s an outward expression of what God has done in us through Jesus’ death and resurrection. We are buried in His death and we are raised to new life in his resurrection, cleaned of our sins.

Teaching Them to Obey

Not just a quick and one and done but actual life change. I think some places get a little soft on this one. Jesus says “teach them to obey all that I have commanded you.” That’s quite a lot.

Jesus doesn’t just say, tell them about me, then let them go back to whatever they were already doing. He wants to see actual behavioral change in people’s lives.

Don’t let us think this is means that we are saved because of our works but it’s important to remember that Jesus does have plans of action for us to take.

I am With You

None of this is stuff we have to do on our own. Most of it we can’t anyway.

We do this under Jesus’ power and authority and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

If God is for us, who can be against us.

We have the Bible, we have prayer.

The NET Bible Chapter 8

8:31 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 8:32 Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things? 8:33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 8:34 Who is the one who will condemn? Christ is the one who died (and more than that, he was raised), who is at the right hand of God, and who also is interceding for us. 8:35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 8:36 As it is written, “For your sake we encounter death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 8:37 No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us! 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, 8:39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.