We open the Word of God to the
Gospel of Matthew, the 28th chapter, and I
shall read verses 1 to 10 and verses
16 to 20.
In the end of the Sabbath, as it
began to dawn toward the first day of
the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other
Mary to see the sepulcher.
And, behold, there was a great earthquake, for
an angel of the Lord descended from heaven
and came and rolled back the stone from
the door and sat upon it.
His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment
white as snow, and for fear of him
the keepers did shake and became as dead
men.
And the angel answered and said unto the
women, Fear not, for I know that ye
seek Jesus who was crucified.
He is not here, for he is risen
as he said.
Come, see the place where the Lord lay,
and go quickly and tell his disciples that
he is risen from the dead.
And, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee.
There shall ye see him.
Lo, I have told you.
And they departed quickly from the sepulcher with
fear and great joy, and did run to
bring his disciples word.
And as they went to tell his disciples,
behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail!
And they came and held him by the
feet and worshipped him.
Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid.
Go tell my brethren that they go into
Galilee, and there shall they see me.
Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee,
into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
And when they saw him, they worshipped him.
But some doubted.
And Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying,
All authority is given unto me in heaven
and in earth.
Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you.
And, lo, I am with you always, even
unto the end of the age.
Amen.
And he is with us even today.
Each of the first five books of the
New Testament has in it some kind of
marching orders for the church.
This congregation is made up of serious Bible
students, and so I don't have to point
out all the references to you.
But some of you may not know this,
that at the end of Matthew and Mark
and Luke, in John chapter 20 and in
Acts chapter 1, our Lord gives us some
orders.
And these orders were given to believers.
Our Lord did not give these commissions to
some ethereal, abstract body that someone calls the
Church, capital C.
These orders were given to real, live people,
and they were carried out throughout the book
of Acts by local assemblies of believers.
The Bible calls them churches.
I fear that we evangelicals have tried to
avoid many responsibilities by talking about the Church,
His body, instead of our Church here on
earth.
Now, there is such a concept in the
Bible as the body of Christ.
All believers, from Pentecost until the rapture, who
make up this marvelous body.
But that group never meets.
That group has never won a soul.
That group has never observed the Lord's Supper.
That group has never built a hospital.
That is a concept in the heart and
mind of God.
Jesus said, I will build my church.
But you cannot build the Church, capital C,
unless you are building the Church local.
And let's not be shying away from our
responsibilities and privileges.
I recall a pastor friend of mine calling
me one day and saying, I just had
an interesting experience.
I said, tell me about it.
Well, he said, a freelance missionary stopped by
to get some money off of me from
our church.
He said, our church doesn't support freelance people.
We want to be sure they're a part
of some good, solid organization.
And so I told him I couldn't give
him any money.
He became angry and he said, well, this
isn't the church anyway.
The invisible church is the true church.
I said, what did you say?
He said, I suggested that he get some
invisible money from the invisible church.
At the end of the Gospel of Matthew,
our Lord is in a mountain in Galilee
and he has with him his 11 disciples
plus.
I firmly believe that the 500 brethren that
Paul talks about in Corinthians were a part
of this scene.
Here's a great host of believers and our
Lord is about to ascend up to heaven
and he says to them, all authority is
given unto me in heaven and on earth.
Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you.
And lo, I am with you always, even
unto the end of the age.
Amen.
That's a rather overwhelming statement.
I'm overwhelmed by the universals that are in
it, all authority, all nations, all things, all
ways.
That's an overwhelming thing.
I'm overwhelmed by the fact that he identifies
us with the Trinity, the Father and the
Son and the Holy Spirit.
And I'm overwhelmed by the fact that he's
telling me here that I'm involved in something
much bigger than myself, much bigger than even
the work of a local church.
We're involved in something that touches the whole
world.
Does it bother anybody today that two and
four-tenths billion people in this world are
without a visible church or a Christian witness
in their midst?
Two and four-tenths billion people.
We have enough gospel in the city of
Chicago to save the whole world.
I'm interested in finding out from this commission
in Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 to 20,
what is really involved in the mandate the
Lord has given to us.
And as I see it, there are three
basic factors that are involved in this commission.
There is an authority, verse 18.
There is an activity, verses 19 and the
first part of 20.
And there is an ability, the end of
verse 20.
Now if we as individual believers and as
a local church will just lay hold of
these three factors, the thing will happen to
us that happened to the church in the
book of Acts.
Factor number one, there is the factor of
an authority.
All authority is given unto me in heaven
and in earth.
Now Matthew is the gospel of the King.
You know that.
When you turn the page from Malachi to
Matthew, you move into the throne room.
Where is he that is born King of
the Jews?
As you read Matthew's gospel, written primarily for
Jewish readers, you find Matthew putting together the
story of the King.
In the first 10 chapters, you have the
revelation of the King.
The Lord Jesus Christ is presented and you
have his person presented in the first four
chapters.
And then you have his principles presented in
chapters 5, 6, and 7, the Sermon on
the Mount.
And then you have his power presented in
8, 9, and 10.
When you read the first 10 chapters of
Matthew, your eyes open wide, your mouth drops
open and you say, here is the King.
The Old Testament scriptures tell me he is
the King, chapter 1.
The Gentiles tell me he is the King,
chapter 2.
God the Father speaks from heaven and God
the Spirit comes down like a dove and
says, here is the King, chapter 3.
Satan even says he is the King in
chapter 4.
Here is the King and here is the
King's message, the kind of a kingdom he
wants to establish in this world.
And here is the King's power.
And so you read those first 10 chapters
and say, I've come face to face with
the revelation of the King.
Jesus is the King.
But Matthew doesn't stop.
You'd think that the next step would be
for all the people to fall at Jesus'
feet and say, here's the King, we're going
to receive him.
But in 11 through 13, Matthew says, no,
you have the rebellion against the King.
And the religious leaders rebel and begin to
criticize and find fault.
And so in 14 through 20, you have
the retirement of the King.
The King takes his court, his disciples, and
goes off in retirement to teach them about
the cross.
And three times in that section, he says,
now men, I'm going to Jerusalem to die.
I won't look much like a king.
They'll mock me, they'll scourge me, they'll put
a crown of thorns on my head, a
scepter in my hand, a robe on my
body, and they'll mock my kingship.
But I want you to remember, I'm the
King.
In 21 through 27, you have the rejection
of the King.
He marches into Jerusalem just the way Zechariah
said he would.
He presents himself as the King and the
people say, we have no king but Caesar.
We will not have this man to reign
over us.
And so they crucified the King.
But the story doesn't stop there.
When Matthew got to the end of chapter
27, he didn't say, and thus ends the
life of a good godly man.
Put his pen down.
Oh, no.
He moved into chapter 28, the resurrection of
the King.
And Jesus Christ arose from the dead.
And now he is able to stand before
more than 500 of his followers and say,
I am the King.
All authority is given to me in heaven
and on earth.
Matthew is the gospel of the King.
It's a book of authority.
So often our authorized translation gives us the
word power.
There's a difference between power and authority.
If I walk out of my house holding
onto a rifle that has ammunition in it,
I've got power.
But I haven't got any authority.
Nobody gave me the authority to go around
with a rifle shooting people.
Now, Jesus Christ does have power.
He's God.
Omnipotent.
But Jesus Christ has authority.
He has been vested with all authority.
When you read Matthew's gospel, you run right
up against his authority.
He finished preaching the Sermon on the Mount
and the people were amazed at what he
taught because he taught them as one that
had authority.
Chapter 8 of the gospel of Matthew, the
Lord Jesus Christ had authority to heal.
In chapter 9, he astounded them by saying
he had the authority to forgive sins.
Chapter 10, he calls his disciples and he
gives them authority over Satan.
And when you get to the end of
this book, he says, not only do I
have authority to teach and authority to heal
and authority to forgive sins and authority over
Satan, I have all authority.
That's what Paul meant when he wrote to
the Ephesians and said, get your eyes off
of the little, midget, picayunish circumstances of life
and get your eyes up there in the
heavenlies where he has ascended far above all
authority and every name that is named.
Matthew is the book of authority.
Now, what does this mean to us?
He has authority and he wants to exercise
that authority through us.
He is the head of the church and
we are the members of the body.
And just as my head physically has authority
over the members of my body, so the
head of the church, Jesus, has authority over
the members of his body.
And when those people, those 500 plus brethren
heard Jesus say, all authority is given to
me, now you do something, they knew that
they were men and women under orders.
Would it shock you if I told you
that Matthew 28, 18 through 20, is not
what makes Christianity a missionary faith?
If these verses had never been written, Christianity
would still be a missionary faith.
I was witnessing one day to a man
who belonged to a different faith and he
said, you know, the trouble with you Christians
is you're always proselytizing.
I said, no, proselytizing is a different thing
from sharing the witness that we have.
He said, well, the faith I belong to,
we don't bother anybody else.
We let them believe as they believe because
we respect their belief.
I said, I appreciate the fact that you
respect other people's belief, but you must remember
this, the very nature of the Christian faith
demands that we reach out.
You see, that's the nature of God.
God is a missionary.
God is always sharing.
He built a universe that is based on
sharing.
By nature, God is love and love has
to give.
And so the God that we worship is
a God who believes in sharing.
The very nature of the gospel demands that
we share.
The gospel is not an exclusive message for
an elite people.
The gospel is an inclusive message for all
people.
And the very nature of the gospel demands
that we share it.
The very nature of the church demands it.
The church is not for white people only,
or educated people only, or wealthy people only,
or Westerners only.
The beautiful thing about the church, and this
impresses me every Sunday as I stand here
at the Moody Church and look out at
people from so many different backgrounds, different races,
cultures.
The very nature of the church is that
we're all one in Jesus Christ.
There's nothing exclusive about the church.
And the church can never say to anyone,
you can't be a part of this.
All men are lost, and all men need
to trust Jesus Christ, and the church extends
its arms to all men.
There is an authority.
That means that you and I are under
obligation.
I can't use my time any way I
want to use it.
I'm under orders.
So are you.
I can't spend my money any way I
want to.
I'm under orders, and so are you.
I can't do with my talents and gifts
and abilities whatever I want to do.
I'm under orders, and so are you.
There is an authority.
Now this commission involves not only the factor
of an authority, but it involves the factor
of an activity.
In verse 19, many of you are deep
students of the word, and some of you
sit right now holding a Greek New Testament
in front of you.
And if you are, you've recognized the fact
that the word go in the original text
is not an imperative.
It's not a commandment.
There is only one commandment in verses 19
and 20.
Did you know that?
There's only one commandment.
It's not go.
The commandment in verses 19 and 20 is
make disciples.
Now it's translated teach all nations, but that
word teach means make disciples.
While you are going, it's a present participle,
while you are going, make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son of the Holy
Spirit.
Now that identifies them with a local church.
There are many fine organizations in this world
who are observing and obeying this commission one
-third of the way.
They're making disciples.
Some are obeying it two-thirds of the
way.
They're teaching them.
It takes a local church to obey it
three-thirds of the way, baptizing them.
I'm glad that some of the para-church
organizations have rediscovered the church, that the church
is a divine institution of God.
And while we thank the Lord for every
extra church organization and for every ministry, we
recognize the fact that this commission involves making
disciples, identifying them with a local body of
believers, baptizing them, teaching them so they can
go out and repeat the process.
What is the emphasis in verse 19?
It's not in go.
I am so tired of hearing people say,
well, God never called me to go.
God didn't call them to go.
He said, while you're going, while you're going
to the store, while you're going on vacation,
while you're going on the bus, while you're
going on the road in your truck, wherever
you're going, make some disciples.
That's what they did in the book of
Acts.
They got chased out of Jerusalem.
They said, well, I guess we can't minister
anymore.
No.
While they were going, they made disciples.
The emphasis in the New Testament is not
on an elite group of specialists who are
our substitutes and we pay the bills.
The emphasis in the New Testament is on
the entire church, wherever they are, in the
supermarket, in the parking lot, in the hospital,
winning people to Jesus Christ.
That verb in verse 19 is not an
imperative, it's a participle and so is baptize
and so is teach.
So you are making disciples, make disciples while
you're going and having made them, you baptize
them and you teach them.
We don't find much of an emphasis these
days about making disciples.
He doesn't say make converts.
He said, make disciples.
You know what a disciple is?
A disciple, if you want a good modern
day equivalent of the word disciple, I'll give
it to you.
It's the word apprentice.
Apprentice.
What is an apprentice?
I was chatting recently with a man who
was talking about the possibility of his son
going into one of the trades and the
man said, I told my son that he'd
better sign up for the full six years
and finish it.
An apprentice is someone who dedicates himself to
a trained leader and learns by watching and
by doing.
Our Lord's disciples were apprentices.
He said, now man, I'm going to sign
you up for three years and during these
three years, I want you to live with
me, watch me, listen to me, learn from
me, and I'm going to send you out
and you're going to do it and you're
going to come back and you're going to
say, we made this mistake.
Okay, I'll teach you some more.
You see, Jesus didn't teach his disciples by
giving him lectures only.
Many times he took them off by themselves
and he did lecture to them about the
scriptures.
Then he sent them out to do the
job.
They'd come back in bruised, disappointed.
Sometimes he'd say, okay, man, you've learned something.
I want to teach you some more.
That's what the church is all about.
You see, if you are a growing Christian,
you ought to be sharing that growing with
somebody else.
If God has done some things in your
life, then you ought to be sharing that
with somebody else.
The emphasis in the book of Acts is
on discipleship.
270 times in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and
Acts, you'll find the word disciples.
270 times.
We talk about results.
We talk about converts.
We talk about decisions.
The New Testament talks about disciples.
Not just someone who raised a hand or
signed a card or walked an aisle.
Someone who said, I am an apprentice.
I'm going to learn.
That's what church is all about.
A disciple has to pay a price.
I suppose that's the reason we don't like
to have too much discipleship going on because
whoever's doing the discipling has to pay a
price.
We sit down with younger Christians or with
people who are growing, and we spend time
with them.
We try to answer questions.
We try to lead them into a deeper
life.
It takes time.
It's agonizing.
It means a lot of prayer.
That's what has to be done.
Are you discipling anybody?
You say, well, the pastors are supposed to
do that.
Well, we do, but are you discipling anybody?
That's what a discipler is.
One who takes a new believer, makes an
apprentice out of him, and then he becomes
a trainer himself.
There's a price to pay, but there's a
bigger price to pay not to disciple.
We are going to be suffering in the
next years.
Now, remember that you heard it here.
The church across America is going to be
suffering in the next years from a lot
of statistics, but not a great many disciples.
There is an activity making disciples.
Would it shock you if I told you
the results of a recent survey?
Now, I know there are three kinds of
lies, white lies, black lies, and statistics, but
these statistics happen to come from a very
reputable firm and a Christian organization, and I
believe they are true.
I recently saw some statistics on where church
growth comes from.
If a church really is growing, where does
it really come from?
And the consequence of the study was this,
that 70 to 80 percent of the church's
growth comes from friends sharing with friends and
relatives sharing with relatives.
A very small percentage comes as the result
of trained elite people doing the job.
Now, we're not against that.
We are glad that here at Moody Church
we have several groups that are specially trained
in discipleship and evangelism, and they go out
to win people, but they alone can't do
the job.
Seventy to eighty percent of church growth comes
from you talking to your friends and inviting
them, you witnessing to your relatives and inviting
them.
There is an authority.
We've been told what to do.
There is an activity.
We've been told what it is we're supposed
to do, make disciples.
Finally, there is an ability.
When I face these verses, I feel very
inadequate, very insufficient.
I was reading one of Spurgeon's sermons the
other day, and there in the midst of
that sermon the great Charles Haddon Spurgeon said
to his congregation of some 5,000 or
6,000 people, God has called me to
do an impossible thing.
I said, is there anything impossible for Spurgeon?
And I went on to read.
He said, it is impossible for me to
pastor this church.
No one man, he said, can pastor 6
,000 people.
I read these verses and I say, Lord,
it's impossible for me to go into all
nations.
It just can't be done.
It's impossible for the Moody Church to go
into all nations.
It just can't be done.
One of the hymns we sang recently so
beautifully reminds us that we today have tools
of communication that Paul never had, and yet
Paul did a better job without them than
we're doing with them.
Paul didn't have a printing press.
Paul didn't have shortwave radio.
Paul did not have cassettes or TV or
satellites off of which you could bounce the
message.
We do.
What is this ability?
Lo, I am with you always even unto,
let me change the next word, even unto
the consummation of the age.
There's a difference between an end and a
consummation.
A consummation means the drawing together of all
the loose ends to one purpose.
The difference between a consummation and an end
is the difference between taking off in your
automobile and having an accident and being in
the hospital.
That's an end.
Or getting to your destination.
That's a consummation.
Now this encourages me.
The gospel of Matthew begins with His name
is Emmanuel, God with us.
It ends with Lo, I am with you
always.
And in between those two statements, He showed
that He was with us.
Now we have Him with us today.
The church acts as though they were left
orphans.
He's with us as we pray.
Our faith promise goal for this month is
$150,000.
Too much for any one of us.
Certainly opportunity for all of us.
But when you think of 2 and 4
tenths billion people without any visible church or
any resident witness of the gospel, what in
the world is $150,000 going to do?
That's like trying to stop Niagara with a
wet Kleenex.
But He says, Lo, I am with you.
One British boy, homesick and lonely, went to
inland China.
One boy, no one promising to support him.
Trusting God.
And J.
Hudson Taylor saw thousands come to Christ because
God was with him.
See, our trouble is we look at our
resources the way Philip did.
There were 5,000 hungry people.
Here were a few loaves and a few
fish.
What are these among so many?
Nothing.
The best that the committee could have done
was to give everybody a sniff.
But you put them in the hands of
Jesus and they become something.
And some dear widow at Moody Church says,
Pastor, I can't give a great deal of
money, but I'm going to give what I
can sacrificially.
And you put it in Jesus' hands.
He says, I'm with you.
And he multiplies that.
Now don't ask me how he does it,
but he does it.
The trouble is so many of the saints
will not let the Lord perform His ability
in their lives.
I recall reading about a young Christian who
had so much to do and he said
to his pastor, I have too much responsibility.
The pastor said, that's a good word.
You know what responsibility is?
No.
What is it?
It's our response to His ability.
There's no reason in all the world why
the Moody Church couldn't be giving much more
than that.
Toward reaching two and four tenths billion people
who don't have a resident church or a
visible witness where they are.
And so he gives us an ability.
I am with you.
He's with us in His person.
And He's with us in prayer.
He's with us in His power.
And He's with us in His promise.
He's with us.
And if God be for us, who can
be against us?
And we're not going to be like those
Old Testament spies who saw the walls and
saw the cities and saw the giants and
couldn't see God.
We're going to be like the Apostle Paul
who said, I must see Rome also.
I'm going to come to Rome and turn
Rome upside down.
And he did.
The thing that interests me about verse 20
is that he has a program.
I'm with you always, even unto the consummation
of the age.
He's the Lord of history.
He isn't just the Lord of salvation, the
Lord of the church.
He's the Lord of history.
He said, I know what I'm doing.
I'm in charge of the rise and the
fall of nations and empires.
I know what's going on.
I set the boundaries of history.
And what is going on in history is
for my church.
Oh, if we could only once realize that
the church actually controls history.
Through our praying and through our giving and
through our serving, we become the vehicles of
God for the moving of history very unwillingly.
John Wesley went to a religious meeting on
Aldersgate Street and he got converted and he
changed history.
And so there is an authority.
Jesus says, I have all authority.
There'll be no arguments.
There'll be no debates.
I am the Lord.
And there is an activity, make disciples.
Wherever you go, make disciples, build them up,
teach them, identify them with the church and
teach them so they can go out and
make disciples.
And there is an ability.
I'm with you.
To the very consummation of the age.
I read a story about Campbell Morgan the
other day that I'd never read before.
I thought I'd read everything in print about
Campbell Morgan, but there's always something new to
learn.
He said in his early days, he used
to go read the Bible every Saturday evening
to two blind ladies.
And he was reading to them the gospel
of Matthew.
And he came to the last verse and
he read to these ladies, lo, I am
with you always, even under the end of
the age.
Amen.
And he paused and he said, isn't that
a wonderful promise?
And he said, the one lady looked at
him, just snapped her head and looked at
him and said, young man, that is not
a promise.
It is a fact.
And it is a fact.
He's with us.
Are we with him?
Is your budget with him?
Your use of time?
Are the activities of the Moody church with
him?
He's with us.
And if we're with him, we're going to
get the job done.
If we obey the authority, if we accomplish
the activity, if we depend on the ability,
we'll get our share of the job done.
We can't do it all, but we'll get
our share of the job done.
And that church will get their share of
the job done.
And that group will get their share of
the job done.
And then one day he'll pull all the
pieces together under the consummation of the age.
And I trust that we'll not have to
stand ashamed before him because we didn't do
our part of the job.
All authority, all nations.
I am with you always.
Heavenly father, forgive us for taking for granted
that which is so desperately needed by most
of the world.
Forgive us for wasting time and money and
energy on fringe activities that do not contribute
to the most important activity, making disciples, winning
and building people.
I pray lord that you will get our
priorities straight in our own lives, in our
homes and in our church, lest we be
found not with you.
I pray oh god, begin a work in
our hearts so that through us individually and
as a church, you might begin to accomplish
more and more of the thing that is
on your heart, the winning of a lost
world.
Begin in us today.
For Jesus sake.
Amen.