The Purpose of the Church - Conclusion (Matthew 28:16-20)
The Purpose of the Church • Sermon • Submitted
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Announcements
Announcements
Bible Study & Prayer suspended until further notice—the reason for this is quite simple—it has to do with our move into a new facility. Because the YMCA has decided to start doing basketball tournaments on Sunday mornings again, we’ve made the decision to get into the other building as quickly as possible. That’s caused a slight change of strategy in how we were going to do the renovations—my initial hope was to get all the renovations for the entire storefront done before we moved in, but in order to get us in the building quicker, we’ve decided that we’re going to focus our efforts on renovating what we’ll use as our auditorium and making the current bathroom situation work until the new bathrooms can be built. You might ask, what does this have to do with suspending Wednesday evening services? It has two things to do with it, (1) it gives me an extra twelve hours a week that I can spend working on the renovations; and (2) it gives us a time every Wednesday where those who are able to help, can come by and help us get the building ready. So, until further notice, we won’t have a virtual Bible Study & Prayer time, however, the prayer list that’s sent out every Wednesday morning will continue to be sent—so feel free to continue updating us with prayer requests and praises either through email, Facebook, texts, or calls.
Speaking of the storefront, renovations on the new storefront started September 3rd with the intent of moving all services in-person to the new location as quickly as possible. Work is being done to make the auditorium and current restrooms useable. Renovations for the rest of the building will be done after we move our services to the building with work being completed late October/early November. We would love to invite everyone to see the facility as soon as possible, but please wait until at least Wednesday, September 8th before stopping by. What this means is that we’ll have a few months of almost a soft-opening at the building, in which we’ll regularly be meeting there Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings, but we’ll wait until the rest of the building is finished before we do a big celebration (which now that I’m thinking about it, November 8th marks a year since the church was officially founded, that would be a great time to do a big celebration for our move into a new building and one year).
Quick business meeting, right after the service before lunch, it’ll take less than five minutes.
Sunday, September 12th, 2021, at 5:30pm, we’ll gather for baptisms at 935 Brisbin St., Houtzdale, PA 16651. If you need to be baptized, contact Pastor Daniel as soon as possible. (We’ll still have 10:30am Worship at the Moshannon Valley YMCA.)
As always, please remember to worship the LORD through your giving. To help you give, we have three different ways for you to do so: (1) cash and check gifts can be dropped off in the black offering box. Checks should be written to “Grace & Peace” and if you’d like a receipt for your cash gift, please slide it in an envelope with your name on it; (2) you can give by texting 84321 with your $[amount] and by following the text prompts; or (3) you can visit us online at www.graceandpeacepa.com and select “giving” in the menu bar. Everything you give goes to the building up of our local church and the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Prayer of Repentance and Adoration
Call to Worship (Psalm 30)
Call to Worship (Psalm 30)
Our Call to Worship is a psalm of David that carries the superscription of “A song at the dedication of the temple.” And before we actually read the psalm together, I do want to explain that because if you’re familiar with Bible history, you’ll remember that the temple didn’t exist during the time of David—the temple was built by his son Solomon. However, what some scholars think, is that this psalm was written by David to either dedicate the land that the temple would’ve been built on or for the Israelites to utilize it during the dedication of the temple. David writes in this psalm praise for delivering him from punishment and discipline. He speaks of how God helped him and healed him, how God pulled him out of the pit and restored life to him; and because of the great work that God has done within him, David praises and glorifies God. Please stand and read with me Psalm 30—I’ll read the odd-numbered verses; please join me in reading the even-numbered verses.
A Psalm of David. A song at the dedication of the temple.
1 I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up
and have not let my foes rejoice over me.
2 O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,
and you have healed me.
3 O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol;
you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.
4 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints,
and give thanks to his holy name.
5 For his anger is but for a moment,
and his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may tarry for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
6 As for me, I said in my prosperity,
“I shall never be moved.”
7 By your favor, O Lord,
you made my mountain stand strong;
you hid your face;
I was dismayed.
8 To you, O Lord, I cry,
and to the Lord I plead for mercy:
9 “What profit is there in my death,
if I go down to the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it tell of your faithfulness?
10 Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me!
O Lord, be my helper!”
11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
you have loosed my sackcloth
and clothed me with gladness,
12 that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!
Congregational Singing
Congregational Singing
Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery
Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery
In Christ Alone
In Christ Alone
All I Have is Christ
All I Have is Christ
Scripture Reading
Scripture Reading
36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” 40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”
Sermon
Sermon
Introduction
Introduction
This morning’s sermon is unique in that it isn’t exactly how we normally do sermons and there’s two reasons for that: (1) this is the end of a six-week series that we’ve been working on about the Purpose of the Church, which means that a large part of the message is a recap of the series; and (2) because we’re recapping the series, the message is going to be structured a little differently. Normally, when I preach, we work through whole books of the Bible, verse-by-verse and line-by-line as we intentionally seek to exposit what the original author wrote to the original audience. After we determine what the original author meant to say to the original audience, then we determine the timeless truths that we can apply to our lives today.
This series has been a little different in that we haven’t looked at one book specifically, but instead, we’ve taken Acts 2:36:47 as a purpose statement for the church, and we’ve taken the past four weeks looking at each element of Acts 2:42 as elements which are necessary for a group of people to actually be a church. And as we’ve done this, we’ve looked at the idea of a church in a systematic way, which means that we’ve looked at various passages throughout the Bible that speaks of these specific elements and explains what they are and how we’re to do them not just as individuals, but also as a church.
So the way that this sermon is structured is this, we’re going to spend the first part of the message recapping all of the different elements that we’ve worked through, but I don’t want you to think that I’m just repeating what I’ve previously taught. What will be different this time around is this, after I give a definition and synopsis of that element and what we’ve talked about previously concerning that element, I’m going to then explain how that fits into our local church—or in other words, how do we accomplish these things at Grace & Peace Bible Church?
So, we’ll work through each element individually—I’ll give a synopsis of that element and explain what we do as a church to intentionally do these things
And then towards the latter end of the message, we’ll spend the remaining time discussing what our mission as a church is utilizing Matthew 28 as the basis for our mission statement.
Recap of Series (Core Values)
Recap of Series (Core Values)
As we started this series, we opened up to Acts 2:36-41, which is the same passage that we’ve been reading as Scripture reading each week as we’ve worked on this series. In the first message of the series, which was an introductory message for the whole series, we worked through Acts 2.
The basic outline of that message was simple—from Acts 2:36-41.
The church is built on a confession of faith—that what makes a church different than any regular gathering of people is simple—we don’t gather just for fun, we don’t gather to make ourselves feel good, we don’t join a church just because our friends go there.
Our church is built on our common confession of faith—that we believe in Jesus Christ and his Gospel—that he was born of a virgin, lived a perfect, sinless life, and died on the cross as our substitutionary atonement for our sins. That he was buried and raised from the grave three days later. Our church is built on our confession of faith in Jesus and our belief that the Scriptures are truly God’s Word—that God breathed out these words and because God breathed out these words they are profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the person of God may be complete.
Our church is built on our belief in Jesus, our belief in the Word of God, and our commitment to live in a way that is consistent with the Scriptures and brings glory to God.
Since our church is built on that confession of faith and that common belief, we need to be devoted to certain things, that I’ve called elements throughout this series, which we’ll talk about later.
This devotion or commitment to these elements is precisely what the early church in Acts 2 did; and due to their commitment to these elements, the LORD added to their number day by day.
So, the first sermon of this series came down to this application: to believe in Jesus Christ and then allow your belief in Jesus to compel you to commit to prayer, fellowship, communion with God, and doctrine.
On our local church level, we show our commitment to our belief in Christ when we covenant as members of our church—one of the requirements of membership into our church is agreement with our church covenant and agreement with our doctrinal statement. We do not allow someone to become a member of the church unless they agree with our doctrine.
From the first week, we then broke down each element and focused on each element every week—the second week, we focused on The Apostles’ Teaching or what we typically call doctrine from 2 Timothy 3:14-4:4.
I explained that even though most people think of doctrine as something dull or boring, the truth of the matter is that doctrine is what informs our belief system.
Or in other words, even though (in our modern-day church setting), most people would rather get what they think of as “practical messages” (e.g., 5 steps to a better marriage or parenting 101), the reality is that unless you understand the doctrine, you can’t accurately give practical sermons and as believers, you won’t actually know if those practical ideas are biblically correct or if they just sound good.
It is doctrine that’s from the Word of God that informs our beliefs.
The primary application from that message was based on the idea that all Scripture is doctrine, thus, we need to preach and teach all Scripture.
We cannot pick and choose what we want to believe out of the Bible—we believe the Bible because God breathed out these words. Thus, as Christians who claim to believe in the Word of God, our belief system needs to be rooted and grounded in what Scripture says—not what we want it to say.
Because our belief system needs to be rooted and grounded in the Word of God, the church itself needs to be rooted and grounded in the Word of God. I made the statement during our sermon on Doctrine that, For the church to be dedicated to anything other than true doctrine through Scripture is blasphemous and heretical—human opinion, psychology, philosophy, and human tradition can never be elevated to the level of doctrine.
As individuals we are to be devoted to right doctrine found only in Scripture because right doctrine will lead people to faith in Jesus Christ and right doctrine will help believers to mature spiritually and be equipped for the work of the ministry.
On the local level, at Grace & Peace Bible Church, we have a list of what we call “Core Values,” and you can see them in your worship guides I print them every week because I want it to be clear what we’re trying to do.
The first core value is, “we desire to be completely Bible-based, because Scripture is the inspired Word of God.” And since Scripture is the inspired Word of God, we believe that everything we do needs to be governed by the Bible.
So in our church, we emphasize expositional preaching and teaching of the Word of God—expositional means that we are trying to draw out what the Bible says—it contrasts what’s typically referred to as eisagetical preaching, which is the fallacy of reading into Scripture what you want it to say.
We are committed to right doctrine according to Scripture, which is why our preaching and teaching will never elevate anything other than the Word of God; and it’s why our preaching and teaching focuses so much on verse-by-verse, thought-by-thought explanation of the passage. The Word of God understood in context is authoritative—not what I say and not what I want it to say.
We emphasize doctrine or the apostles’ teaching with our strong emphasis on exposition preaching and teaching—as we seek to understand the word of God in order to apply the Word of God to our lives today.
This commitment to doctrine, is also why I regularly and emphatically encourage you to go home and read Scripture, study the Bible, and learn doctrine.
The third week was focused on the element of Fellowship from Hebrews 10:19-25 and I started that message by explaining that we typically have a false idea of what fellowship is.
We grab a cup of coffee with someone, we have lunch together, or we go to a ball game; and we call it fellowship. Or we bump into each other on the sidewalk and claim that we fellowshipped with one another.
And I explained that while those things can be fellowship, doing them doesn’t necessarily make it fellowship—there’s a part of fellowship that goes beyond than just hanging out with one another.
Biblical fellowship requires intentionality—it doesn’t happen by accident, you have to choose to fellowship because biblical fellowship requires the sharing of life with one another.
So yes, go get coffee together, go have lunch together, go to a ball game together—but as you do these things, share about your life and ask about their life.
To truly and biblical fellowship—you have to share in life, you have to stir up one another, and you have to encourage each other.
Biblical fellowship includes regularly gathering together—this includes being actively involved within a local church, but it extends beyond that.
It is really difficult to fellowship with those in your church, if you aren’t actively coming and participating. And it’s really hard to get to know people within the church, if you don’t stick around or come early enough to chat with each other and develop relationships.
This includes fellowship during regular services and serving within the church, but this also includes the times of fellowship opportunities that we offer as a church—games at the Altoona Curve, Worship in the Park followed by a meal, New Years Eve, Thanksgiving meals—we try to offer something for the church to have fellowship opportunities at least every other month—take advantage of them.
We devote ourselves to fellowship by intentionally seeking fellowship, regularly gathering together, and encouraging each other to love and good works.
On the local level, at Grace & Peace Bible Church, we offer fellowship opportunities fairly frequently in order to help you fellowship with one another.
And our commitment to fellowship is seen in two of our core values—to be Discipleship-focused and to encourage growth and nurture obedient service.
Discipleship, encouragement, and nurturing, while they can be done from behind a podium, happen best in small groups and one-to-one personal relationships
We have these listed as core values because we want to see people actively seeking Jesus, intentionally reaching others, and developing a heart for Christlikeness. We have these listed as core values because we want you to go and show your love for Jesus by being willing to serve other people.
Biblical fellowship is necessary for our church to grow in Christ.
Week 4, focused on the Lord’s Supper (or what Luke in Acts calls the breaking of bread). We utilized 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 to explain what the actual purpose of the LORD’s Supper is—it isn’t just a ritual for us to do and keep doing, there are reasons for us to do it and keep doing it.
What we read in 1 Corinthians is Paul’s condemnation of the church in Corinth for abusing the Lord’s Supper
We spoke for a bit about how their practice of the Lord’s Supper differed from ours in that there’s typically included a full meal as part of the Lord’s Supper
So they would eat together and then observe the Lord’s Supper together.
And in their scenario, people weren’t utilizing the Lord’s Supper for what it was intended to do, they didn’t care about the spiritual purpose of the Lord’s Supper
So, we spent some time that service talking about what the spiritual reason for the Lord’s Supper is as given by Jesus
Paul explains that the Lord’s Supper is meant to be somber, but celebratory as we reflect on Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection.
As we do this we should be reflecting on the New Covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ.
Paul then explains that since the LORD’s Supper is such an important part of the Christian life, Christians ought to take the LORD’s Supper seriously.
It should cause us to examine ourselves—a spiritual oil check of sorts, we ought to reflect on our current spiritual condition, repent from sins, and meditate on what God has done.
And I extended that application for us today, that this examining should actually be done each and every day—every day, we should be doing a spiritual spot test to see where we are, and to see where we’ve grown from, and to see how much further we need to go in our progressive sanctification.
As a local church, as Grace & Peace Bible Church, we emphasize this in two ways—(1) by partaking of the Lord’s Supper together regularly. And (2) by encouraging examination and contemplation during our sermons, during our services, at home, at work, and at church. We should do this regularly in order to help ourselves in the process of sanctification.
And then last week’s sermon, was focused on the concept of prayer from Matthew 6:5-15. We opened up by defining prayer as God’s people calling on the name of the LORD. We pray in order to speak to God—knowing that he already knows what we’re going to pray for, he just wants to depend on him and rely on him.
Why should we pray? It’s quite simple, if you are a Christian, you’ll want to speak to God and prayer is how you speak to God.
Prayer is something that all of God’s people (at least the ones who were actually trying to follow God did)
Prayer is something that was taught by Jesus and modeled by Jesus during his earthly ministry
Prayer is commanded of us, exhorted of us, and encouraged of us.
So, true Christians ought to pray.
We spent a lot of time talking about how we are to pray and the reality of it is that the Bible gives us a lot of wiggle-room into how we should pray.
There is no one way to pray, there is not set model to pray, you don’t need to stand, you don’t need to sit, you don’t need to do anything like that because prayer in the Bible is done in all sorts of different ways.
In reality, when it comes down to it, what we see in Scripture is that (1) prayer should be done regularly and authentically; (2) we should worship God through our prayer, desire his will, and petition the LORD through our prayer, and (3) we need to do this as individuals and we need to do this as a church community.
As a local church, as Grace & Peace Bible Church, we emphasize prayer in three ways:
(1) our Core Values mentions the idea of worshiping authentically, part of our worship of the LORD is authentic prayer. It is important for us to pray frequently and regularly;
(2) on Sunday mornings, I’m sure that you’ve noticed that we have multiple prayers throughout the service and each one has a specific purpose: (a) a prayer of repentance and adoration, (b) a prayer for the illumination of the Holy Spirit as we study God’s Word, and (c) a Pastoral Prayer that ends the sermon. These are intentional because there are multiple ways in which we can and should pray. I’m sure you’ve noticed that we don’t usually take prayer requests on Sunday mornings (though in times of great distress, we will)—that’s intentionally done to keep our prayers from simply being a list of requests and for them to be focused on worshiping the LORD.
(3) Not that there’s anything wrong with praying for requests, because we do that as well—on Wednesday evenings, during our virtual Bible Study & Prayer time I keep a list of prayer requests from the church that we pray through. This list is emailed to our members and all who ask for it every Wednesday morning, so that we can be a people that pray together.
Now, we’re in our final week and what we’ve learned so far is that the church ought to be formed and built-on our common profession of faith in Jesus Christ—that we gather together because we believe. And that just like the early church, we ought to be committed and dedicated to prayer, to fellowship, to communion with God, and to right doctrine. If you’ve been paying attention over the past month and a half, I’ve given you several different elements that make up a church and I’ve given you several different things that the church is to be focused on, and I’ve said that we could consider Acts 2:42 as a purpose statement for the church; but I haven’t given you a cohesive goal for the church and that’s what we’re going to discuss in our last few minutes together in this series. If you have your Bible with you, turn to Matthew 28:16-20. It’s a short passage, but it gives us the goal or the mission of every true disciple of Jesus Christ; and by extension, it gives us the goal or the mission of every local church’s mission, including ours.
Let’s read the last five verses of Matthew together, we’ll pray for the illumination of the Holy Spirit and then we’ll dig into God’s Word for the last few minutes:
The Great Commission (Mission)
The Great Commission (Mission)
16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 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, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
This passage, which is often called the Great Commission is Jesus’ final command to his disciples after his death, burial, and resurrection, and before his ascension to sit at the right hand of God.
And the passage starts by giving us the setting of this particular event in Vs. 16, “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.”
The eleven disciples went to Galilee, of course, remember that there are eleven disciples left since Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus and committed suicide.
These eleven disciples go to meet Jesus on this mountain, which it’s clear that this was arranged by Jesus because the passage says that they went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
And the Bible says that when they saw him they worshipped him, but some doubted.
Now of course, the idea of worshiping Jesus when they see him is warranted. Especially when you consider the fact that this is after they witnessed his death, burial, and resurrection.
The question really, is why did some doubt? Because this is after the event in which Thomas placed his hands in the wounds of Jesus, and these are the original eleven disciples, so why would they doubt?
We have to go back and look at what it means to doubt—if you look up the word doubt as a verb in the Oxford Dictionary, you end up with two primary senses of the word: (1) “to feel uncertain about”, which is our typical understanding of the word, (2) the archaic or the former definition of the word “fear, be afraid”
All of the disciples worshipped Jesus, so it isn’t doubt in our typical understanding of the word; and I would argue that the idea of them being afraid could be warranted
But I think the better understanding of the word is the idea of hesitating—they hesitated.
You might ask, why would they hesitate, and Louis Barbieri, has a good response to that. He says, “Since Jesus had appeared to them earlier and verified Himself to them, they were not doubting the resurrection. There was probably simply a brief question among some of them as to whether this was truly Jesus appearing to them. There was no indication that any miraculous element was involved in his being there and since unusual circumstances had occurred with previous visits, perhaps they wondered.”
They hesitated, which I think we could all allow them to hesitate—knowing that they’re seeing someone that they had witnessed being crucified, knowing that they’re seeing someone that they had seen placed into a tomb, knowing that by all human standards, Jesus shouldn’t even be there.
I think they have a right to hesitate.
Nevertheless, Jesus doesn’t confront them for their hesitation, he makes a statement (well, really two statements); and these statements sum up the final command that he gives the disciples in Vs. 18-20, the book closes with, “Jesus come 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.”
Jesus starts by making a statement concerning his ultimate Lordship.
Colossians 1 speaks of the preeminence of Jesus Christ and part of that preeminence is due to him reconciling to himself all things by “making peace by the blood of his cross.”
Jesus is making the statement that He is the King, and as the King, he has all authority—now of course, even before this point, Jesus had authority. Even as the God-man, living on earth he still had authority, and that’s recognized by demons who fled from him, fig trees and storms who obeyed his words, and people responding to his statement that he is I AM.
But this statement of Jesus stating that he has all authority in heaven. and on earth, is a statement of fulfillment—if you remember with me Daniel 7:13-14, which is a prophecy of this coming king; and in this prophecy from Daniel, the prophet utilizes words that Jesus utilizes to give his last command. Daniel 7:13-14 says, “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a 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 a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”
Notice the kingdom imagery that Daniel is utilizing and compare that to what Jesus says in Matthew 28.
Daniel says that “one like a son of man” will be given dominion or power and glory and a kingdom of all ethnicities.
Daniel says that this kingdom is everlasting and will not be destroyed.
Jesus in Matthew 28 says that “all authority” or all power in heaven and on earth has been given to him.
His command then is to go and do something to all nations.
Jesus is making the claim to be the ultimate King that was prophesied of in Daniel 7:13-14, and because he is that ultimate King, which was proven by his resurrection, he has one final command for all of his disciples.
Vs. 19, “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.”
Jesus as the ultimate King is giving this one last command; and this command is authoritative because Jesus is the King.
He tells them to “go therefore and make disciples.”
Often, people think that the main part of this command is the idea of “going.” That the most important part of this verse is “to go,” and they base that on the fact that in English, typically if you start with a certain verb, that’s probably the more important verb, but the issue is that in Greek, that’s not how their language works.
In Greek, word order means very little—so, in English we have a certain way that we write our sentences—we would say Jack ran up the hill and to mix up those words would be to change the meaning or to make a nonsensical sentence. The hill ran up jack, ran up the hill Jack, the hill Jack ran up.
In Greek, the word order doesn’t matter, it’s how the word is spelled and what endings the word utilizes that matters and in this particular sentence, the main verb is make disciples.
The primary command that Jesus is giving all of his disciples as their King, is to make disciples. The go just emphasizes the need for the person to actually do this command.
Craig Blomberg, “To ‘make disciples of all nations’ does require many people to leave their homelands, but Jesus’ main focus remains on the task of all believers to duplicate themselves wherever they may be.”
Jesus wants more disciples and he commands his current disciples to go and make more disciples, which by the way, extends to us today.
Now, you might have the question, what does it mean to make disciples? Jesus answers that as well. Making disciples includes, “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.”
The idea of baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is more than just the simple act of baptism. It includes the initial response to the Gospel. Baptism is a symbolic act in which the new believer is proclaiming his belief in Jesus Christ and his willingness to follow Jesus to those around him.
Thus logically, baptism shouldn’t occur until after the moment of true belief in Jesus Christ—repentance from sin, belief in Jesus, and calling on him as your Lord and Savior.
So making disciples starts with evangelism. Paul in Romans 10:13-14 says, “For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” which can also be translated as “proclaiming.”
You cannot make disciples if you don’t proclaim Jesus Christ and him crucified.
The second portion of that last sentence is to “teach them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
Which is done as we study and read God’s Word together, but here’s the thing, this command isn’t written to just the pastors standing behind pulpits.
This command is written to Jesus’ disciples and if you believe in Jesus Christ and have repented of your sins, you are a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Which means that you have been commissioned to make disciples of Jesus by evangelizing them through the proclamation of the Gospel and by teaching them all that Jesus has taught.
So Jesus’ last words to his original eleven disciples are applicable to you—and they’re authoritative towards you because Jesus is the ultimate King; and Jesus is your ultimate King.
But if you’re like the average Christian today, you have deep concerns about evangelizing people and teaching people about Jesus Christ—you might feel unqualified, you might feel like you don’t know enough, you might think that you aren’t good enough; and quite frankly, without Jesus, you are unqualified, you definitely don’t know enough, and you aren’t good enough.
But if you’ve repented of your sins and believed in Jesus Christ and have called on him as your Lord and Savior, his final command ends with a note of encouragement. Vs. 20, at the end, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Without Jesus, you are unqualified, without Jesus you don’t know enough, without Jesus you aren’t good enough to proclaim the Gospel, to evangelize, or to make disciples
Because as an unbeliever, you haven’t experienced the Gospel, you haven’t been evangelized, and you aren’t a disciple of Jesus.
But if you are a disciple of Jesus, you’ve experienced the life-changing nature of Jesus’ Gospel and you’ve been evangelized, and you’re being discipled.
And the fact that you’ve experienced God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ’s sacrificial atonement for your sins ought to compel you to proclaim what Jesus has does for you to others, to seek the souls of the lost, and to disciple those who truly believe.
If you don’t feel compelled by your experience of Jesus’ sacrificial atonement for your sins, you must ask yourself if you truly believe.
Because true believers of Jesus Christ have been commissioned by Jesus to make disciples of all nations.
There’s an old adage that last words ought to be lasting words, and that’s precisely how we should view Jesus’ final words to his disciples. This is something to take utterly seriously, because it is something that Jesus wants us to take to heart—it is something that Jesus wants us to take seriously and do. So how do we apply all that we’ve learned to our lives today? We’re going to look at the application in two ways, individually and then as a church:
Application
Application
Individually, what we’ve learned throughout this series and what we’ve learned from Matthew 28 is rather simple. From the whole series, we’ve learned that as believers, we ought to be firm in our belief of Jesus Christ—we ought to seek truth in doctrine, desire to commune with God daily, share life with fellow believers, and pray authentically and regularly. From Matthew 28 our application is simple:
You need to be making disciples of Jesus Christ:
This means (first of all), that you need to be a growing disciple of Jesus Christ:
It is difficult to make disciples of Jesus if you aren’t actively growing in your faith.
Progressive sanctification, while it is a work of the Holy Spirit, does require your effort as well—you can’t expect to grow if you don’t pray, if you don’t read Scripture, if you don’t attend church, or you don’t serve.
We minister to others out of the overflow of our hearts—if your heart isn’t growing, you won’t be able to make disciples.
This means that you need to be actively evangelizing people:
Consider with me when the last time you had a conversation with an unbeliever about Jesus Christ, for many people, it isn’t very often—because we tend to spend the most time with people who share similar worldviews—so we’ll typically spend more time with people who believe in Jesus just like we do (and there’s nothing wrong with that.
However, the Bible teaches us to make disciples—if you’ve never had a discussion with an unbeliever about your faith and how they can know Jesus Christ, how can you expect to make disciples?
You might think, but I don’t know enough to be able to evangelize people—it’s not as hard as what your brain makes it seem.
All of mankind was born into sin due to the fall of man in Genesis 3.
The Old Testament teaches us that sin utterly separates man from God; and in order for man to commune with God, there needs to be a blood sacrifice for our sins.
The Old Testament sacrificial system was a foreshadow of the ultimate sacrifice that we see in Jesus as he atones for our sins on the cross.
Because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, we can simply repent from our sins, believe in Jesus Christ, and follow him to be saved from our sins.
You can simply take time to explain how Jesus has worked in your life
Testify about your life prior to salvation; and explain how God providentially led you to him
And how Jesus has changed you and is conforming you into his image.
The more you evangelize, the easier it’ll be—and remember, Jesus is with you always, to the end of the age.
This means that you need to be actively discipling people:
The very idea of discipling is to “teach them to observe all that [Jesus] has commanded you”
And thankfully, we have a record of what Jesus taught preserved in Scripture.
The very idea of discipling is to teach people what Jesus taught through Scripture.
But here’s the thing, in order to teach other people, you need to know what Jesus taught
This doesn’t mean that you need to know every jot and tittle in the Bible, but it means that you should know the basics.
That Jesus’ sacrificial atonement for the sins of mankind ought to compel you to believe and then live in a way that’s consistent with Scripture
The Bible tells us multiple times to put off our former way of living and put on the new way of living, which is found in Jesus Christ.
And the Bible tells us what all that entails.
You need to be growing as a disciple in order to disciple other people; and quite frankly, what I’ve learned as I’ve grown as a disciple of Jesus Christ is that as you grow, you’ll find it rather hard not to want to help people grow in their faith as well.
The more you grow as a disciple, the easier it is to help other people be disciples—and remember, Jesus is with you always, to the end of the age.
You are to be making disciples of Jesus Christ, actively and intentionally.
Corporately as a church, we’ve learned throughout this series and what we’ve learned from Matthew 28 is rather simple. From the whole series, we’ve learned that as a church, we need to stand firm on our belief of Jesus Christ—we need to seek truth and teach truth, we need to desire communion with God daily, we need to share life with our fellow believers in church, and we need to pray authentically and regularly.
I explained how we’ve sought to do that as a church:
Through regularly gathering together for worship on Sundays and Wednesdays
Through intentional prayers on Sunday and the sharing of prayer requests on Wednesdays
Through expositional preaching that seeks to learn what the Bible teaches and then applies it to our lives
And through regular examining of ourselves to be sure that we are walking according to Scripture and glorifying Jesus Christ.
From Matthew 28, our application as a church is this:
Our church needs to be filled with people who are seeking to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ
Our church needs to be actively evangelizing people
Our church needs to be actively discipling people
Which is intentionally built into the very fabric of our church.
As a church, our core values reflects this: we want to be completely Bible-based and discipleship-focused. We want to lead people to worship Jesus authentically and we want to encourage growth and nurture obedient service.
As a church, our church covenant reflects our want to evangelize and disciple; our statement of faith reflects our desire to evangelize and disciples.
As a church, the tag line that we print on just about everything and the tag line that we utilize on our website, social media, and even during our services reflect that—we want to Worship Jesus, Equip believers, and make disciples.
As a church, our mission statement reflects that we want to make disciples, it says: we exist to make mature believers of Jesus Christ in Central Pennsylvania.
Put simply, what this whole series was meant to do is to cause you to reflect on your own life—are you firm on your faith in Jesus Christ? Are you dedicated to doctrine, to sharing life with each other, to regularly worshiping together, to communing with God, and to prayer? Are you fulfilling the Great Commission by seeking to intentionally make disciples of all nations? Or are you neglecting any part in your own life?
Acts 2:42 teaches us that the early church devoted themselves to these things and Matthew 28 teaches us that Jesus has commissioned all disciples to make more disciples—what that means is that if you are not devoted to these things and if you are not making more disciples, then our church won’t be; and if our church isn’t dedicated to these things and if the church isn’t making more disciples, then God will not grow our church—we will stagnate and we will eventually die.
But if we stay true to our mission, that we exist to make mature believers of Jesus Christ in Central Pennsylvania; and we hold fast to our core values of being completely Bible-based, discipleship-focused, with authentic worship and the encouragement of growth and obedient service, God will grow our church.
Because the church exists for right teaching, fellowship, communion with God, and prayer; and the church exists to help true disciples make more disciples.
We exist to make mature believers of Jesus Christ; and we do that by worshiping Jesus authentically, equipping believers for the work of ministry, and by making more disciples.
Pastoral Prayer
Congregational Singing
Congregational Singing
For the Cause
For the Cause
Business Meeting
Business Meeting
At this time, Melissa can you please come forward?
Can I get a motion for us to enter business—second
Full recommendation for membership
Can I get a vote for her approval into members—all in favor, “amen”
Motion to exit business—second