Great Commission - Assurance

Scripture Reading

Will you please turn in your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 28, Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20, and we'll wrap up this series on the Great Commission. Matthew chapter 28, you're going to find that on page 881 if you're using the provided pew Bibles.

Brothers and sisters, hear now God's perfect and holy word. And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God, brothers and sisters, endures forever.

Prayer for Illumination

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. And God, we pray now that you would please help us. Lord, help us to have a sure confidence. Lord, have faith that these things are true, that you are with us. Give us hearts to receive, believe, and live. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Sermon

You know, I almost didn't become a pastor. I got out of the Navy thinking, okay, I'm gonna go to school, I'm gonna be a pastor, and then my last, I was a weird student, right? I started in the spring because of how I got out of the military, and so just the timing was different. So over the summer, I was just reading books. I had one last semester of college, and somehow across my desk came a book for pastors.

It's written by a guy named John Piper, and it was Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, and it was writing two people who were either pastors or wanting to be pastors, And one of the things he said, as he went into 2 Timothy, he said, if you are not willing to take this seriously, to do the work of an evangelist, you should not be a pastor. And I thought, man, that's pretty tough. I'm not the type of person who naturally wants to go door to door, people's houses and knock on their doors, have cold call conversations, hand them a gospel tract and say, see you later. That's not my personality. And so I didn't go to seminary. I left. Olivia calls it my Jonah moment. I left Pittsburgh and I went to grad school instead. That's not me. I can't cold call. I don't like doing that, so I must not be called to be a pastor.

And I bring that up because as we've gone through this text, I have a fear that many of you might have that same kind of narrow view of what evangelism is. I have a fear that some of you even feel like over the last few weeks, there may have been moments in time as we've been going through this Great Commission series, that you felt more like I've been driving you with a whip than encouraging you with Christ.

So I wanna encourage you today. I want to encourage you where Jesus leaves his disciples in the book of Matthew. That just because you're not the type of person who has a bold personality, that you're willing to have just contact evangelism, go talk to people you've never talked to about the gospel, just because that might not be the way that you talk to people about Jesus doesn't mean that this commission isn't for you. And so as we come to this passage, Jesus leaves his disciples with this great commission with a promise.

A promise of his presence. Look with me at verse 20. Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen. God knows that sometimes you're afraid in your Christian walk. God knows sometimes you may doubt as you walk the walk of faith. God's not surprised by this, but this phrase, and I will be with you, has a rich biblical history behind it. Jesus isn't saying this in a vacuum, but I wanna slowly walk through some verses with you that God said in the past to the saints of old to encourage them. Look with me first at Genesis chapter 28. I'm gonna encourage you to actually walk through these books with me. Genesis chapter 28. Genesis chapter 28, verses 13 through 15. God is speaking to Jacob here. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. the land on which you lie, I will give to you and your descendants.

Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth. You shall spread abroad to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. And in you and in your seed, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Notice verse 15. And behold, I am with you, and I will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you."

Jacob didn't know what was going to come next outside of what God had promised him. And Jacob had been a scoundrel and a schemer his whole life. But now as he's finding his place, now as he's walking with the Lord, now the Lord comes to him at this pivotal moment in his life. And what he says in verse 15 is when the translators from the Hebrew into the Greek, when they took the Hebrew Old Testament and they translated it into Greek, verse 15 is word for word what we found in the Great Commission. You don't get the and there, but it is in the Greek. And behold, I am with you.

Where was Jacob going to find strength to live out this covenant promise that God had given him? It was going to be knowing that God was with him. Trusting that God was going to bless the whole world because of him. North and south, east and west, all the families of the earth would be blessed. And God marks the assurance he can have that these things are true. by His presence with them. And behold, I am with you. If you flip over just one book to the book of Exodus, Exodus chapter 3.

We know Moses really well. We read from Moses today. But Moses was the type of person that did not always want to be the leader of God's people. Actually, there's a few times where Moses seems like he doesn't want to be the leader of God's people. But especially when God is commissioning Moses to start his work. In Exodus chapter 3, I'm going to start at verse 11 and we're going to read through verse 12. But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt, right?

He's telling God, you found the wrong guy. I'm not it. I got a stutter and you're wrong, Lord. You must be mistaking me. And notice what the Lord says. How does he calm Moses' fears? And he, that being the Lord, said, I will certainly be with you. God assures him that he's going to be with him. He's not just sending him out to go lead the Israelite people and do it alone. But he promises his presence and he gives him a sign to go with that. He tells him his name and he gives him a staff that turns into a snake.

And when Moses is just ready to retire, by retire I mean die before he's able to enter the promised land. In Deuteronomy chapter 31, verse 6, flip over a few books with me. Moses is giving his final speech and he's trying to encourage the people. Moses says in Deuteronomy chapter 31, I'm going to start at verse four.

They're about to enter the promised land. They're about to cross the Jordan River. They're about to enter into a period of physical, literal warfare, as well as spiritual warfare. And he says to them, verse four, and the Lord will do to them as he did to Sihon and Og, the king of the Amorites and their land, and he destroyed them.

The Lord will give them over to you that you may do to them according to every commandment which I have commanded you. Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid of them. For the Lord your God, He is the one who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.

Do you see, as they're about to enter into the promised land, they could be scared of the armies, they could be scared of the people. Remember, they were scared 40 years ago. They said, we can't go into the promised land. We're like grasshoppers and they're giants. They're gonna smash us like bugs. And here Moses is telling them, no, remember what he did to those kings on this side of the Jordan. When he defeated them before your eyes, he's gonna do the same there. And how do I know it? Because he's not going to leave you or forsake you. He's going to be with you.

Joshua clings on to this, and the Lord reminds him. Joshua's reminded to be strong and courageous time and time again by the Lord. And in Joshua 1, verse 6, God speaks, God himself speaks to the new leader, Joshua. Moses dies, he retires, he gives the mantle of leadership to Joshua. And in Joshua 1, verse 6, I'm gonna start with verse 5.

The Lord says to him, no man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide. as an inheritance of land which I swore to their fathers to give them." Did you notice it? I've made a promise, I've made good on my promises, and I'm going to be with you. So what's the effect of that? Be strong and have good courage. Where God's presence is there, that's where Christians find courage and strength to do the work that God's called us to do.

I'm not going to go through all these, but you can go to Gideon in Judges chapter 6. You could go to Jeremiah in his call, Jeremiah chapter 1 verses 7 and 8. You can go to Isaiah in his call. Time and time and time again when God calls his people to go do his work, he promises them his presence. All throughout the Old Testament, this is what God does. He commissions, He encourages, He promises His Spirit. And now the second person of God had Jesus Christ Himself, promises them that He will be with them.

Now, I'm not sure the disciples understood all that that meant. Right, we know it because when we go to John chapter 14, Jesus tells them in John chapter 14, right before he's going to the cross, he says, I'm going to go and where I'm going, you can't come. And they say, whoa, whoa, whoa, Jesus. Where are you going? We don't know where you're going. How do we get there? And Jesus makes them a promise. He says that he is not going to leave them as orphans.

He says, it's better for me to go. because the Father is going to send the Holy Spirit. See, when Jesus promises them that He's going to be with them always, even until the end of the age, in Matthew 18, verse 20, He's promising them the presence of the Holy Spirit.

This is what we find all throughout the book of Acts. As we see the apostles in Acts chapter two come out of the shadows, out of their fear after Jesus is murdered, and after they receive this commission, all of a sudden they receive the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit comes upon them. And what happens in Acts chapter two? in the very same city where their Lord was just murdered, they start preaching Jesus Christ.

And thousands of people believe. What is it that changes them from being in a dark upper room, scared for their lives, worried that the Jewish people are going to kill them, to going and boldly proclaiming that Jesus is still the King? What changed between those two? Jesus made good on his promise and he sent his Holy Spirit. And they rely on that Holy Spirit through the whole book of Acts. As they're going from town to town, village to village, country to country, place to place, persecution to persecution, filled with the Holy Spirit, telling people of the good news of Jesus Christ.

See, if the last few weeks I've been encouraging you and telling you the commands of Jesus to go make disciples, baptize, teach, and you did all those things by your own strength, you failed. Because you made disciples for yourself, not for God. It's when we're filled with the Holy Spirit and not relying on our own courage or our own strength, but the courage and strength that comes from the Holy Spirit, that's where you will find great success. God isn't waiting for you to become the superwoman or the superman who has no fear of anybody. God's not waiting for you to somehow muster up enough strength from within yourself that then, then maybe when you're good enough and perfect enough, have all the answers, have all the courage, have all the strength, then He'll use you to make disciples. No. No, quite the opposite. Often He uses the weak and the lowly, but filled with His Spirit to turn the world upside down. It's what God did in the past and I'm telling you this is what God is doing presently even in your life today. Do you have the Spirit of God dwelling in you?

There's not two different categories of Christians. There's not the category of Christians who believe but don't have the Holy Spirit and super Christians who believe and really have the Holy Spirit, no. No, if you have been saved, then you have the Holy Spirit in you.

You know this from Galatians chapter 3 and 4, the Spirit that makes your heart cry out, Abba, Father. You cannot call out to God as your Father unless you have the Holy Spirit. You cannot confess that Jesus Christ is your Lord and it play out in your life unless you've been united by His Spirit to Jesus Christ. See, you are filled with the Spirit if you are a Christian because you didn't save yourself. Every single one of you who's in this room today, you have the Holy Spirit in you if you believe. Because there's no way you could believe if you didn't have the Holy Spirit.

Because there's none who seek the Lord, no not one. We don't come to the Lord because we're somehow good enough, because we changed our hearts, because we became those people who are suddenly enlightened enough to receive the gospel. No, for by grace you were saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is a gift of God, not a result of works, lest anyone should boast. See, God changed your heart. God gave you new life. God poured out his spirit in you.

And so if you truly do confess that Jesus Christ is your Lord and believe in your heart that God rose him from the dead, that is only something the Holy Spirit can do in you. So there's, right, we just live in this culture where we think, right, we have all sorts of debates and discussions about the Holy Spirit and what's he doing and where's he at and do the charismatic gifts still exist and stuff like that. I'm gonna put all of that on the side and say, if you're waiting for some type of charismatic gift before you share the great, or fulfill the great commission and go share your faith with others, you've misrepresented what Jesus is promising you here. Jesus has promised you his spirit. and that he is living in you now.

That's how you will find the ability to be able to rise up and enter into gospel conversations. Jesus told his disciples, a literal translation of this, when he says, in lo or behold, I am with you always. This is the Greek, pasastas y meras, it's all the days. There's not a single day of your life from the moment of your conversion in which God has walked away from you, utterly forsaken you, and left you by yourself.

He's never left you. He's never forsaken you. He's not forgotten His promises. He's not changed His character. He has not taken His spirit of adoption out of your heart. Right now, you're not alone. You can't have strength. You can't have this confidence and courage that comes from Jesus commanding here that they go and make disciples because He's with them. And I know that sometimes this is tough, right? We're very much an emotionally driven type culture. Sometimes you don't feel like the Holy Spirit's with you. Sometimes you feel like when you pray, heaven has a ceiling or a floor of cement and your prayers, you just don't feel like they're going anywhere. But it's not about feelings.

It's about what Jesus has promised. And do you believe that what Jesus has said is true? But I also want to suggest to you that I know that some of you, you know what this is like. When the Holy Spirit works in your heart in such a way that when you're either reading the word or you're praying or you're singing a psalm or you're thinking about the Lord's creation and what he's done and you're You're hit by the power of the Holy Spirit where you just get a taste and a glimmer of what God is like and His gracious, loving nature. Some of you have had that, what the theologians call a beatific vision, just a glimpse of it, just a moment when it's almost like you can actually taste and see that the Lord really is good. Cling on to it.

We're not driven by emotionalism. But when the Lord has given you those moments in your life when you know tangibly, palpably, no, I know that he's my savior. I know that he's my God. Don't ever let go. If it's rooted in scripture, don't ever let go of that. But it's not just for today. Notice Jesus goes beyond that. Look with me at verse 20 again. And lo, I am with you always, even to the ends of the age. It would be one thing if God told us, hey, I'm gonna be with you every day, but when you die, you're on your own. But God is the alpha and the omega. And Jesus told us he's coming back again. He's prepared a kingdom. And there's gonna be a new heaven and a new earth.

And my question is, do you long for Jesus' presence? When you think about heaven, you think about the new heavens and the new earth, when you think about eternity, do you actually wanna spend eternity with God? Is heaven for you a hope of being able to escape punishment? Or maybe see an amazing street paved of gold? Or do you long to see the One who is the Son of Light, where there will be no moon and there will be no sun, because Jesus Christ, the Lamb, the eternal Lamb of God, will be your light?

Do you long to go and to sing with that choir of all the angels that worthy is the Lamb to be praised? Do you long to see your God face to face? Do you long to dwell in His presence forever? Do you long to sing of His praises? Do you long to be with Him?

Because brothers and sisters, the hope of the Christian heart is that we get God forever. And it starts today. Right those glimmers of light you have today. It's gonna be like Saul on that road to Damascus. When the full glory of Jesus shines so brightly, it's brighter than the sun has ever shown before. Do you long to bask in his glory? To see his face shine upon you? And for you to dwell with him forever?

That's the hope we have. And that's the encouragement we have, that we want to go tell that good news to others, that God has made a way for men to be made right with Him, and it's by the blood of Jesus Christ. That we go and we tell others, there is a way that you can have remission for your sins. And you can stand before a holy God, not in fear and trembling, but with joy for all eternity. This is what motivates us.

Our motivation is never going to be in legalistic go do, go do, go do. But it's I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I've made you promises. I've paid the price. Do not be afraid. Be of good courage. I will never leave you nor forsake you. You have a job to do and I've not left you alone to do it. I want to encourage you with just a few stories.

I was listening to a man at another church, large church out in California, and he was talking about, I think I've told this story before in the congregation in a sermon, this really unassuming guy in their church who would keep little business card type things and he would go on the subway in Los Angeles and he had a stutter.

He couldn't speak well. He kind of awed socially. And he would carry these little cards with him and each day as he was on his way to work and on his way back from work, he would go on that subway and he would just say, my name is Melvin. Will you come to my church? He'd just hand them a card. knowing that his pastor preached the gospel. And more people came to that church and heard the gospel because of that stuttering man than anybody else in that church.

I remember going to a church myself with a man who also struggled with social interactions and things like that. And yet, I remember, I go out to coffee with this guy, and I was like, I couldn't get 10, 15 feet before what other people thought was awkward, he just thought was normal. He would just see somebody he knew, it might be 20, 30 years ago.

And he would just stop and say, hey, how are you doing? He'd remember their names. And then he'd start asking them questions about, where are you going to church now? What are you doing with your life lately? And he would just enter into those conversations. Some people at church found him awkward, but God had given him a gift to be able to do that.

I remember my friend, Justin. He was a former drug addict. And Justin and I would go out and we'd hand out gospel tracts in the street. And this is largely because Justin was the one provoking me to do this, right? This is one of the reasons why it's good to have Christian friends. They make you do uncomfortably good things. But I remember Justin was so driven because he worked at a rehab clinic that he didn't want to see the same people suffer the way he suffered.

Walking in his trespasses and sins and how that had destroyed his life. And he wanted people to know that in Jesus Christ there was new life and hope. And faithfully he would go out because he knew that God's presence was available for them too. There's a really famous evangelistic ministry out in Southern California. They go to the boardwalk and to the pier in Santa Monica.

Ray Comfort with Living Waters Ministries. I remember a man telling me he was going out and doing these gospel encounters. I mean, like cold calling, right? Talk about intimidating, right? You go to the pier in California and you're just going to talk with people about the gospel. Microphone in hand, everything, going back and forth.

And I always thought, man, Ray Comfort must have so much courage, he must just wake up and be like, oh, I'm gonna go, I'm ready, I'm ready, Lord, send me, right? Come to find out from one of my friends who went and worked with him that no, Ray Comfort would talk about, he would drag his feet going to the pier all the time. But he would always come back clicking his heels. But the Lord gave me another influence in my life, my own grandpa.

He was a quiet man. I mean, Grandpa was very ironic. He didn't want to start fights. He was a very quiet man. Lovely man, but he was not the type of guy who was going to go hand out gospel tracts. I remember one morning I walked into the kitchen and he was there and he had this pile of coins. Odd. And he had whiteout with him, also odd.

And what he would do is he would take these coins and come to find out, I had to ask my grandma later, I was like, what was grandpa doing in there? And she says, oh, that's his way of doing evangelism. And grandpa would take the coins and he would put whiteout on the back, on one side of the coin, and he would write Bible references on the whiteout. And then when he was walking through parking lots, he would just happen to drop some coins in the parking lot. Because he knows that people love money. And he would pray that they might actually pick up the coin and be curious and go read.

I told you, I'm not a door-to-door knocker. That doesn't give me an excuse. One of the things we love doing is having people over into our homes. It wasn't until I went to seminary that I found out that this is a whole method of evangelism. Just make deep relationships with people, invite them over to your house, and share the gospel in normal conversations. Maybe your scope of evangelism is too narrow. Maybe the Lord's blessed you with a type of personality where you're able to enter into relationships that other people wouldn't be able to enter into. Maybe you have been blessed with a type of personality where you're just able to have lots of people over to your house and you're good at starting those conversations. Maybe you're the type of person that you're more quiet and that's a little bit still too upfront for you.

I know one person that writes Bible verses on receipts. When they go to a restaurant, they'll pay a big tip. We got this advice from someone. Make a big tip and they'll write gospel, like literally write out the whole gospel on the receipt. Either the Romans Road or Romans 6 23 or something like that. And they'll literally write it on the receipt and tell their waitress or waiter, thank you. Hoping that maybe somebody will pick up that message and will actually read it. Be creative. But be confident that your God is with you. He has promised to be with you every day, even until the end of the days. He's never going to leave you. He's never going to forsake you.

And so as you take up this great commission, prayerfully consider, how are you accomplishing this? How can you live this out in your life, knowing that you're not relying on your own strength, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity who dwells in you today.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. God, you have given us an amazing mission. You have given us a message, the best message that could ever be proclaimed. And Father, you have not just given us a message, but you have commissioned us, and you've told us that it can't fail, for your word doesn't return void. Lord, people are going to either respond how you've decided, or they're going to respond how you've decided. And Lord, you've even promised us that you won't leave us, abandon us, or forsake us as we're carrying out this commission. Lord, we pray that you would please, by the power of your Holy Spirit, so work in our hearts such a confidence in who you are and what you have said and what you have done and what you have promised. That we would be a church of people, individuals, families, who had longed to see your glory proclaimed to all the nations. Thank you. That your presence is with us. that you have not left us alone. We pray these things in Jesus's name.