Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Verses Eighteen to the end, I'm
having received such a good word that we
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just sang of in Psalm Sixteen.
All these pleasures, all of this benefit,
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all these ways in which God has
blessed us in him through the resurrection.
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He calls us, like he called
the women who first came the to
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the tomb, to then go and
share those things, to not take the
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most important things that are in all
the world and hold them to ourselves,
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but to share them with others,
to invite others in, to draw others
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in, and in that the Lord
gives us a command. He speaks to
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US and gives us a mission that
we are called to follow. If you're
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able, I'd like you to stand
and we'll begin with prayer and then we'll
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hear God's word here. Go ahead
and stand and let's pray and hear the
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word and ask the Lord that we
might receive it together. Let's pray,
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our heavenly father, as we hear
your word now, as you give to
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us yet again a reminder of the
Great Commission, which the mission that you
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have sent your church on. It
has that you would help us to hear
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it and to be bold and with
all of the with all of the grace
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that you have poured into our hearts, with all the knowledge that you have
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given us of the son. We
asked that you would help us not to
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hold this for ourselves, on to
hide the great light of God under a
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Bushel, but to share it and
spread it. And so we asked that
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you would speak to us now,
that you would encourage and embolden our hearts,
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not only in the command itself,
but in the one in whom we
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trust. It is through him that
we are changed, it is through him
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that we are directed, it is
through him that we can go and share
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these things, and so we asked
that you would help us to hear his
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word as he speaks to US tonight. Will Holy Spirit be at work among
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your people? We pray this in
Jesus name, on man. And so
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God's Word From Matthew, Chapter Twenty
Eight, Verses Eighteen through twenty. and
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Jesus came and said to them,
all authority in Heaven on earth has been
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given to me. Go there for
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
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them in the name of the father
and of the son and of the Holy
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Spirit, teaching them to observe all
that I have commanded you and behold,
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I am with you always to the
end of the age. Men, he
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may be seated. One way to
express the whole plan of salvation, the
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whole history of God's working. One
way to express that is to think about
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it in this way, that God
desires to be with his people, to
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make us and to make us unified
with him, to have fellowship with him
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and with one another. Even in
Psalm Sixteen, at your right hand,
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our pleasures more right, God draws
us close, he brings us close to
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him. It's a relationship that he
blesses us with. When we receive our
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daily bread, when we receive much
more than that, it's not just that
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we get those things, is that
we receive them from our father who loves
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us. We're not receiving, in
the gifts of Christ, these sort of
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mystery packages that show up on our
doorstep and we don't know who they're from.
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May Be thankful for them, a
certainly thankful for them, but it's
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more than that. Our Lord reveals
himself to us, he draws him self
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close to us, and that's why
Jesus came. So I Jesus became a
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human being, he became a man
to die for mankind and so that he
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could be with us always. Now
here, he says, to the end
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of the age, and he of
course he doesn't mean and not anymore after
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that. He means that through this
age until he returns, he will not
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leave us. And when he returns, of course we will see him as
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he is, will be caught up
with him in the air. We will
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be with him in the heavenly places
forever. This is what life is like
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in a post resurrection world. Sometimes
we hear movies about the post apocalyptic world.
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Right this is a famous trope,
you know, zombies walking around and
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buildings bombed out, this sort of
dystopian whatever way you take that world.
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Christians are never going to experience that
because the Apocalypsis of Christ. The revelation
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of Christ is the revelation of his
favor. We live in a post resurrection
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world, a world in which the
light of God is shining in the world,
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the world is never seen it in
the history of the world. We
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live in this amazing time in which
the grace of God is shining on through
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the world and through his people to
the ends of the Earth, in which
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people who were once those who gave
drink offerings in blood to false idols,
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as Psalm Sixteen said, are now
worshiping the one true living God and even
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going to new places to bring that
news of him to the world, and
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that's why I wanted to draw attention
to this passage tonight, because this is
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part of what it, the resurrection, is all about. It's about establishing
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a world which is future, yes, but is also right now, and
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it's from that resurrection and from the
Lord's commissioning his disciples in this way that
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we know why we're here, that
we know what we're supposed to be as
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a church, what we're doing,
what the purpose is for our lives as
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a people who are called out of
the world unto the Lord. One of
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the things that we see revealed here
in this passage is that Jesus has a
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purpose, and that purpose is the
spreading of the Gospel to the nation's that
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purpose is the harvesting of the crop, and so we see Jesus coming to
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them with his authority. He says, all authority in Heaven on an earth
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has been given to me. Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations.
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This is the mission that he sets
us on. A mission in which
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we go and we teach people.
We call people unto discipleship. We tell
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them about who Jesus is. Who
He is is the son of God.
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Who He is is the one who
became incarnate and human flesh, diet on
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a cross to forgive us our sins, rose from the dead, victorious over
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death, and will come again to
gather all his people to himself. We
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go and we tell people about this, we teach them that, we explain
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those things and when they come to
be disciples, we baptize them in Christ
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and we make them. God makes
them and we Idet, we mark them
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with his sign and promise of baptism. And then we're not done. We
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continue teaching, continue discipling. We
are disciples both before and after we come
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to Christ, learning and growing and
following him and not just in a small
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way, but in every way,
seeking to know Jesus in every way we
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can, seeking to know everything about
his character, everything about his person,
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everything about his work, everything about
what he wants. He becomes our husband,
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as the bride of Christ. We
Fall in love with him and we
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want to know everything about him.
Tell us about yourself. What do you
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like? What do you not like. What do you want? Where are
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we going? This is the mission
that God gives to his people, mission
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to the church, and it's an
important mission indeed. All of us have
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who believe in the Lord Jesus,
and even now, those of you who
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may not believe but are hearing this
word, you know it. You at
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the Gospel has come to you and
it needs to continue to go out.
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Do you know that they are about
two thousand households within a half mile of
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just this church? That's according to
the post office, a rough count.
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What about two thousand within a half
mile of just this place? There's not
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that many churches. There's not that
many. There's a lot right here on
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this campus, but certainly not enough
to meet the needs of two thousand people.
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And what of a half mile beyond
that? Beyond that and beyond that,
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harvest is ripe. There is good
work to be done. God's mission
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in this world, we might say, is to save the elect so that
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they might glorify him and enjoy him
forever. That's God's mission in this world.
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That's what God is doing in this
world as the church. He calls
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us to be a part of that, to be a part of the thing
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that he's doing. In particular,
he calls us to gather and tend to
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his sheep through the proclamation of the
Gospel and to help the church or and
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to be the church that fulfills that
mission. The Holy Spirit equips every single
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member in the church with various gifts
and services and workings to do that work,
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to fulfill that mission, not everyone
doing the same thing, but all
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doing it together for the common good, the good of fulfilling this mission,
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the good of fulfilling God's mission.
Every single one of us has a part
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to play. Every single one of
us. This command comes to as the
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body of Christ, because the gifts
are so varied, in the services are
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so varied. Of the Holy Spirit's
gifts are so diverse. I couldn't begin
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to list all of the ways in
which one could possibly participate in this mission.
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But you must ask yourself health how
am I? Am I part of
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the body of Christ that is fulfilling
this command? Am I part of the
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body of Christ that is going and
discipling and baptizing people in the name of
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the father and the son and of
the Holy Spirit? This is our mission,
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it is great, it is important
and God calls us to it.
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But where does a heart for that
come from? Where does a heart that
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feels the urgency of souls being lost
come from? Where does a heart that
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desires to obey and doesn't just say
another time and for somebody else and not
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for me? Where does that come
from? Where does the wisdom come from
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that knows how to grow and how
to employ the gifts that the spirit has
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given us? Where does that come
from? Well, these all come from
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God. They come from our Lord
and our Savior, and that's why we
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can't just rush out on ahead of
the Lord. We have to follow his
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lead, and that first and foremost
means trusting him. In other words,
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before we go and proclaim this news, let's make sure we know the news.
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That doesn't mean we falls it around
him, just study until we go,
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but it means it needs to be
in our hearts. It's not that
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complicated, right, Mary and the
other Mary. They see Jesus risen from
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the dead, they go tell people
Jesus has risen from the dead. or
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The woman at the will. How
did he know these things? He said
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these things that no one could know, and she goes and she tells other
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people. Sometimes I think we overthink
it and it doesn't need to be that
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way. And sure there will be
hard hearts, even like ours were hard,
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and there will be people who don't
want to come. There will people
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who don't want to go. And
the Lord doesn't tell us. All Authority
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in Heaven on earth has been given
to you. Now Force people into the
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Kingdom. He says, All Authority
in Heaven on earth has been given to
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me. Now Trust me, just
trust me, as you have for your
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salvation and now also for the mission
in which I've called you to be on.
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And so let's trust him, and
let's trust him who has revealed himself
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to us. I want to finish
by looking at just a few things,
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then, and from this passage alone, in which Jesus tells us about himself,
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things we can trust him for.
The first one is that he's intentional.
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Jesus as our Lord, as our
king, is this great emperor of
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all the universe. He is not
an absent, minded, forgetful guy.
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He is the Lord of the universe
who intends all things according to his perfect
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plan. He plans at all and
our lives right now is Christians in this
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post resurrection world, have meaning and
importance and value and significance. In other
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words, Jesus has not sent us
out on a fool's errand now he has
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told us to count the cost of
discipleship. He's told us that it will
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be hard, but he's also told
us that it will be worth it.
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Jesus says in Matthew Sixteen, Twenty
four, whoever wants to be my disciple
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must deny themselves and take up their
cross being a disciple of Jesus. We
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tell this ourself and obedience to this
command, and we tell those whom we
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are seeking to make disciples. Being
a disciple of Jesus is not the comfy
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road. It just isn't. Christians
have frequently had to give up valuable relationships,
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power, money, fame, favorite
dreams and sometimes even their own lives.
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But don't make a mistake, it's
totally worth it. Every Christian can
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say with Paul, as he says
in Philippians three eight. Indeed, I
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count everything as loss because of the
surpassing worth of knowing Christ, Jesus,
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my Lord. For his sake,
I've suffered the loss of all things and
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count them as rubbish in order that
I may gain Christ. Take it,
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pick anything you want. In my
life. Paul says anything any lists some
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things that are kind of amazing.
He says, I could care less for
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the sake and the worth of knowing
Jesus Christ, my Lord. It's all
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worth it. The Lord is intentional
in what he does and he sets us
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on a mission. That is not
a fool's errand it is meaningful. It
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is a plan and it is worth
it. We can trust him. We
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also know from this passage that Jesus
loving, patient and kind and forbearing.
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How do we know? Because he
says to his disciples, go therefore and
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make disciples of all nations. If
Jesus wanted to enter into his glory and
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vanquish every enemy, he certainly would
have a right to do that, but
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he doesn't do that. Instead,
in this post resurrection time, what does
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Jesus do? He continues that ministry, except at a greater scale, of
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what he did in his time on
earth, raising people from the dead,
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healing the brokenhearted, forgiving sins.
These things Jesus began when he became incarnate
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and he continues in his incarnation even
now, even today. Jesus didn't vanquish
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every foe, but died for many
of the ungodly and calls us to him
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to trust him. He is being
patient, he is being kind. The
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message we go with is a message
of love, and the power in which
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we go is a power of love. His power in us. And speaking
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of power, this is a third
thing. We can trust Jesus for.
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We are reminded of his authority.
He is the one, he says.
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All Authority in Heaven and on Earth
has been given to me. He gives
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us this command, he says,
teaching them to observe all I have commanded
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you, and behold, I am
with you to the end of the age.
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How is it that Jesus came to
have rule over heaven and earth?
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Well, it's, of course,
true that he is divine. He is
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the maker of Heaven and earth.
Through him all things were made, but
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when it comes to our Lord,
it's more than that. He has rule
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overhaul heaven and earth. Also,
as man, he did what Adam failed
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to do, that under shepherd,
that Vice Regent that Adam was called to
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be, in ruling and having dominion
over all creation. That's what Adam was
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supposed to do. That's what Adam
failed to do, but that's what Christ
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did. He stands supreme over us, not only as God but also as
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man, and from that power he
rules as the son of God. He
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rules, he rules waves and nations, he rules time and matter, he
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commands armies and clouds and mountains and
hearts. We can trust him when we
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are persecuted for making disciples, when
people kind of laugh at us for making
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disciples, when we baptize people,
when we teach them everything that the Lord
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says, including things that are uncomfortable
or not real good cultural fits, when
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we teach everything, when we share
everything, when we point them to our
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everything, we can know that he
is behind us. Him All is mighty
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angels. We don't need to be
afraid. We don't need to be afraid.
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And finally, he is our leader. He is with US always to
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the end of the age. Jesus
is not some kind of gutless commander who
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throws out a command and then high
tales at the other direction, that sort
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of hopes for the best, as
men are common to do or known to
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do. No, Jesus gives the
command and he says, I will be
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right there with you every single step
of the way. I will not leave
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you, I will not forsake you, I will be with you always.
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Behold, I am with you,
always to the end of the age.
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We are led by God himself,
and perhaps this ought to be one of
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our primary reasons for going. It's
not just a good idea or an important
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idea. That's the only idea.
It's the only thing to do to go
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with God, to be with God, to follow where he leads. And
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do you know that you can trust
him for that? He's not like men,
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sinful men who despise those whom they
are called to serve hurt those they
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are called to serve. No,
our Lord always leads us perfectly in every
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way. That's why he prays.
God is the head of the church.
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That's why we follow him, that's
why we listen to his word, that's
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why we share him with others.
So how do we respond? Well,
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we respond by knowing that, first
of all, if we are not engaged
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in this mission, we're on the
wrong road, because he's going somewhere and
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we need to be with him.
We need to be with him, we
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need to be close with him,
we need to be listening to him,
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following him. This is what Christ
is doing, this is where our savior
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is leading us. This also means
that if we're doing this in our own
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way and not trusting our commander,
we're also doing it all in the wrong
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way. Imagine trying to be trying
to light up a dark room by polishing
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a piece of leather really hard.
It's just not going to work. That's
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what we do when we try to
do things in our own way. We
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Rot and we rather will have it. Try It's not going to work.
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But if we act like even the
small list sliver of a mirror shining the
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sun, no problem. God's light
is so bright that if it catches even
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the the smallest bit of faith,
it can reflect and light up a great
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deal. He can do marvelous works, and he does all the time,
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all the time through our weakness.
He knows that we're weak, he knows
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that we struggle, he knows that
we have a hard time in this world
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that were tossed to and fro by
various doctrines that are not his, that
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they are all kinds of temptations of
the evil one. He knows these things,
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beloved, and that's why we take
comfort not from the command but from
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the commander, from the one who
loved us before this world began and has
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shared his word with us through others, so that we may continue to share
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that in this world. And so
let us stay focused on our mission.
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When we think about who we are
as a church, when we think about
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our individual lives in this world,
let us remember why we are here,
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what he has called us to do, the hope that we are reaching and
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moving towards in his name, by
his power and under his love. Let's
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pray
