Matthew 28

--- Now, after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen. And as he said, Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. See I have told you. And they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, Greetings. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me. While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, Tell people his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep. And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So they took the money and did as they were directed. And the story has been spread among the Jews to this day. 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. And Jesus came and said to them,

I don't have to say stop there. It's the end of the chapter. It's the end of the book. Let's pray. Holy Spirit, we invite you to speak to our hearts. You are so good, so gracious, so loving. And you are so willing to dispatch just the right information and grace that each and every person needs for this day. Lord, you know all the people here. Were I to try to meet their needs, knowing all their different needs, all their different stations of life, all their different issues, different learning styles, different spiritual levels of maturity, were I to try to speak to them, I could not. I would fail miserably. But you, Lord God, know each and every person. You know their needs perfectly. You know exactly what they can receive, what they need to receive. And you are here to meet those needs. Lord, I just thank you for that. I thank you, Father, that as we come to you completely dependent upon you, you do not disappoint, but you give us wisdom and insight into your word and illuminate our hearts with understanding. Continue, Father, we pray to do that. We look to you through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. As we begin this chapter, we find that it is now dawn, or at least the very beginning, maybe just before the sun rises. And this is now the first day of the week. This is Resurrection Day. You know that Resurrection Day is Sunday, right? Easter Sunday. It's obviously not Easter Sunday today, but we celebrate the resurrection on Sunday because the resurrection took place on the first day of the week, and that is Sunday. Now that's important, and this is kind of a semi-side note, but it's important for you and I to know because the early church began to gather together and celebrate on Sunday for this reason alone, because it was Resurrection Day. They called it the Lord's Day, and so they set this day apart, and by the time Paul was writing his letters to the early church, they were already meeting on Sunday. It doesn't mean they didn't meet on different days, but they met together on the Lord's Day, and that's all good and fine and so forth, but people, Sunday is not the Sabbath day. The biblical Sabbath always has been and always will be Saturday, the seventh day. I see old movies from time to time where, and it doesn't even have to be an old movie, but you know, they're talking about going to church, you know, on Sunday or doing things on Sunday, and somebody will chastise someone else and say, not on the Sabbath. Well, it's not the Sabbath. The biblical Sabbath has always been Saturday. So knowing that, that brings up the natural question in some people's minds, why doesn't the Christian church then meet on the true biblical Sabbath? If Saturday is the Sabbath, then why don't we meet? And the answer to the question is, well, some people do. I mean, the fact is, there are a lot of churches around this country and around the world that offer services on Saturday, but frankly, that's not the point. When somebody says, why don't we meet on Saturday? What they're really asking is, if Saturday is the biblical Sabbath day, then why don't Christians observe that day as a special day, as a day set apart from all the others in which to really focus on the Lord and that sort of thing? And the answer is essentially twofold, and it's kind of two sides of the same coin. On the first side, we weren't told to observe any special day in the Word of God. We hear, in the New Testament, we hear that the believers met on Sunday, but there's really nowhere that specifically says, you guys need to meet on Sunday. And here's the other side of that coin, you flip it over, and this is the other reality. We were told not to observe special days. That's the fact of the matter. In the New Testament, we were told not to observe special days, and Paul actually had to address this issue several times in the New Testament when he was writing his various letters to the churches. And in Romans, and I'll put this up on the screen for you, in Romans chapter 14, I'm quoting this one out of the NIV, he writes, one man considers one day more sacred than another. Another man considers every day just the same. They're all alike. Here's the summary. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special does so to the Lord. So you want to consider Sunday a special day, great. You want to consider Saturday a special day, wonderful. You want to take Wednesday, you want to make it Friday, hey, some people even take Monday and make it special. Doesn't matter. You know, just be fully convinced this is what's best for you, and hey, this is great, it works, and we're all good to go. Just don't get weird about it. Don't get legalistic about it. When you get legalistic about it, Paul kind of changes his tune from what he says here. Here he's kind of just open. He goes, you know, you can see he's kind of almost, you know, it's like, well, you know. One man considers one day special. Another man considers every day special. Doesn't really matter. Let just each man be convinced in his own mind, and whatever day you set apart as a day to the Lord, let it be just the day you set apart. Do it as unto the Lord, and don't get weird about it. But see, some people got weird about it, and when they did get weird, and what I mean by weird is legalistic, and they started saying, no, this is when you have to meet. This is the right day. Well, that starts to be a problem, and the Galatian churches started to adopt a legalistic mentality as it relates to some of these things. So Paul had to write them a comment in his letter, and he said, you're observing special days. In fact, even months and seasons and years, and then he went on to say, I fear for you that somehow I've wasted my efforts on you, because now you've become so legalistic and so rigid that you're now saying this way, and only this way, and you've got to meet on this day. That's the... You know, how people do, you know, and they get all hot and bothered, and lathered up over these things, and you've got to do it just this way, or you're not really doing it right. We Christians, we're really a pickle sometimes. I mean, we just... We do that. We get in our own little groove, and we think that if anybody... If people don't join us in our own little groove, they're not really worshiping God. They're not really serving God, because they're not doing it my way, you know, sort of a thing. And the Galatians were kind of starting to do that, and Paul had to write and rebuke them. And furthermore, when he wrote to the church in Colossae, he further said, don't let anyone judge you by the things that you're doing, like what can you eat, or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration, or look at this, or a Sabbath day. Why shouldn't we let anybody judge us? Well, he says, those are just a shadow of the things that are to come. They're just a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality of those things find its ultimate completion and fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ. That's the beauty, you see, of the Sabbath. What is the Sabbath all about? It's about rest, isn't it? You see, God said over and over in the Old Testament, on the Sabbath, rest. Rest. Rest on the Sabbath. Take rest on the Sabbath. You rest on the Sabbath. Are you resting? And over and over again, they're talking about resting on the Sabbath. Well, Paul says here that it's a shadow of things to come, but the fulfillment or the reality of it is found in Jesus. Well, how is the Sabbath fulfilled in Jesus Christ? Well, are you working for your salvation? Are you trying to be a good Christian? Are you of the belief that only good people go to heaven? Well, that's wrong. Good people don't go to heaven. Forgiven people go to heaven. And what we do to get to heaven is we rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. He did it. He said it is finished. It's over. It's done with. And I'm resting in that, you see. So Jesus is my Sabbath rest. Somebody says to me now today, are you keeping the Sabbath? I say, you darn tootin' I am. Every single day of the week, I'm resting in Jesus Christ, my Savior, my Lord, who died for me on the cross. I'm not working for my salvation. I'm resting in him because he has done it. Isn't that beautiful? So Jesus is the fulfillment of the Sabbath rest. So, you know, we do keep the Sabbath. If you're trying to keep a day, if you're trying to keep a formalized sort of a day and make it holy unto the Lord and so forth, you're going to run into problems. And you know what? It's not going to be pleasing to the Lord. And here's why. Because that's works. The only way you can please God is by faith. Without faith, what? It's impossible to please God, right? So we live by faith and not by sight. We're not working for our salvation. We're not working to please the Lord so that he'll somehow maybe accept us and let us into heaven. Now, that doesn't mean that we don't want to live our lives in a way that's pleasing unto him. But it's not for salvation. It's because of salvation. Now that we're saved, we're living for him because we want to. I want to please my Lord and God. I want to serve him. But I'm not hoping that somehow my goodness is going to tip the scale and he'll let me in because of it. It's not what's going on. So, you know, there's one other scripture. And I just want to bring up to you about the Sabbath because people will say, well, you know, you've got all those. What about all those Old Testament passages about the Sabbath? There is a fundamental error in the heart of many Christian people. And it's been perpetuated largely by the church. In some cases, some teachers have convinced people that anything God said to Israel in terms of the covenant contract of the law is now applicable to the church. So you read it in the Old Testament as it relates to the law, and you and I need to keep it. So that's why they believe that the church should be keeping the Sabbath. Maybe some of you even have a background of a seventh-day observance in your past. And you might remember some of the teaching that went along with that. The church is bound to the law of Moses, or at least certain parts of it, and so forth. Let me show you this passage from Exodus chapter 31. And I underline some things here. It says, therefore, the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations. Look at this, as a covenant forever. It was a covenant sign. And that's what he goes on to say. It is a sign forever between me and the church. Doesn't say that, does it? It says, between who? Between me and the people of Israel. That in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested. Listen, people, the Sabbath, as far as the observance of it in the Old Testament, was a covenant sign between God and Israel. And you are not Israel. We are the church. The church is an amalgamation of Jew and Gentile. That's what Paul was saying in Ephesians. It's the great mystery that he unfolded in the New Testament, that God is going to take one man Jew, one man Gentile, and bring them together and make them the body of Christ. And it's a miracle. It's a wonderful, glorious reality that He reveals to us throughout the course of the New Testament revelation. But what that means is, we're under the covenant of grace, and we're not under the covenant of law. So, that was a side point. Now let's get into Matthew chapter 28. All right. Now, so, Matthew writes here, you'll notice as he begins this, he says that the women came to see the tomb. Did you notice that? Those are the words. He says they came to see the tomb. But we know from other gospel writers that it was actually more than that. They came to anoint the body of Jesus. They had spices and linens and ointments, and when Joseph of Arimathea asked for permission to take Jesus's body down from the cross and bury it in his own tomb, there wasn't much time before the sun went down. Because once the sun went down, the Sabbath began, and there were work restrictions on the Sabbath. They couldn't do anything. So they did a very hurried job of anointing and preparing the body for burial. So the women had seen this. They observed it. And they talked among themselves, and they said, you know what? We need to go back after the Sabbath is over, and we need to anoint the body of Jesus in a proper way. He needs to have a proper burial. So they're all laden with all these spices and linens and stuff, and they're making their way to the tomb. And in another gospel account, we even know that they're talking amongst themselves and asking, so who's going to roll that big stone away anyway? That's going to be a problem. And, you know, they're just kind of talking along the way and so forth. But what does that tell you? The fact that these women are coming with linens and spices and ointments, what does that tell you? It tells you they expect to find a dead body. It tells you that they weren't expecting any kind of a resurrection. They didn't go there to see if the tomb was empty. They went there. They're talking about, who's going to take that stone away? Because we want to get in there and do our job. And they wanted to honor the Lord with this, but they expected a dead body. That's what the early believers, they hadn't really keyed in so much to the whole thing about this resurrection. And it says in verse 2, that, behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. And anybody who has a big brother like I grew up with knows that sitting on something is a sign of victory. Because my brother would beat me up and then sit on me. And that was his way of telling me, you're done, buddy. And he liked to do that. And he was pretty successful at it because he was older and bigger. So this angel, you got to wonder, if the angel just kind of did this on his own. It's like, I want you to go down and move the stone. And he's thinking to himself, I'm going to sit on it. And Matthew, by the way, is telling this in flashback form. Because this happened before the women got there. We know that from Luke's account. Luke says that when the women got there, they noticed the stone had already been rolled away. And we're told in verse 3 that the appearance of the angel was like lightning. His clothing was white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. I like that. I like it because these guys are soldiers. And they're tough and they're rough and they're armed. And they're trained to be battle ready. And these guys didn't shoot people from a distance where you couldn't even see if you hit the target. They had swords and that sort of thing. And battle was close up and ugly. And these guys had to be just, these were the rough and tough. And an angel shows up and they drop dead. I mean, not dead dead, but they fainted like girls. I'm sorry, women. But they fainted. They just hit the ground, you know, sort of a thing. And I thought, that just somehow just delights me that these big rough and tough soldiers just dropped to the ground and fainted. You know, sort of a thing. And when the women get there, and this is when Matthew kind of brings us into the present as he writes in verse 5. He says, the angel said to the women, do not be afraid for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He's not here for he has risen, as he said. Come see the place where he lay. And then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. And behold, he's going before you to Galilee. And there you will see him and so on and so on. And it tells us in verse 8 that they ran, they departed quickly from the tomb. And there was great fear and joy and so forth. And by the way, before we move on, I find it very interesting that the angel invited the women to look inside the tomb. Did you catch that? The angel said to them, come and see where he lay. I like that. And here's why. God is not opposed to giving us evidence to believe. There are people and they've come knocking on my door who have told me that faith is believing without any evidence. And I've taken some of these people to task. And you probably know who I'm talking about. Because historically, they have writings in their what they call Bible. And there's no evidence. that any of those things ever happened. No evidence that civilizations ever existed that are mentioned in their holy books. And no archaeological evidence. No nothing that would suggest that any of this ever occurred. And I ask them, so, your Bible says that there was this whole civilization that lived in this certain part of the world. Where's the evidence? They say, well, it takes faith to believe. You know what? My God is not afraid to give us evidence. The angel said to the women, come see where he lay. Come and look. Come and look. Listen, the angel did not roll away the stone to let Jesus out. He rolled the stone away to let people in to look and see that there was no one there. Jesus didn't need the stone rolled away. Later on this very night, he's going to actually just walk through the walls into the room where the disciples are hiding behind locked doors. And he's suddenly going to be in their midst and they're going to freak out. Because they realize nobody came to the door, knocked on it, or it never opened. Jesus wasn't hindered, you know, now with his resurrection body, he's not hindered with the need to get stones out of the way or open doors or anything like that. So why was the stone rolled away? So you and I could see the evidence. It's one of the reasons I love that series of books that came out a number of years ago. Evidence that demands a verdict. Because God has left this breadcrumb of evidence that leads you and I to conclude that what the Bible says is true. I mean, you and I read about things in the Old Testament. You can go there. You can go to the same towns that existed in Bible times. They still have the same names for the most part. The Bible says Jesus was born just outside of Bethlehem. It's still there. And every bit of archaeological evidence that they've ever uncovered only corroborates what the Word of God has to say. And every once in a while, the liberals will kind of throw back their heads and say, well, see, there's this that's never been proven in any kind of archaeology. And then they'll get into a new dig and then they'll find it and then they'll have to eat their words. And it's happened over and over again. God has left you and I evidence after evidence after evidence that the Bible is true. The Word of God is factual. And I love that. Come and look in the tomb. Come on in. Just peek in there. And it's really a beautiful thing. So the women run off to tell the disciples and it says in verses 9 and 10 that as they were going along, they actually ran into Jesus. They met Him along the way. And He greeted them and they grabbed onto Him and worshipped Him. And Jesus told them not to be afraid, to go and tell His brothers that they were to go into Galilee where they would then see Him and talk with Him and so forth. And of course, He did meet with them later that night. We know that from John's gospel. He met with them briefly that night. But this is, verses 11 and following, this is where we get into this weird cover-up thing. Men have been doing cover-ups for a long time. And it says here that while they were going, while the women are on the way, the soldiers are on their way back to Jerusalem to meet with the religious leaders and tell them what they saw. And after they assembled and took counsel, which is a fancy way of saying they talked about it, they decided on a cover-up scheme because they could not deny the fact of the empty tomb. Obviously, there was an empty tomb, right? Because all they would have had to do to silence the rumors is to go to the tomb and find the body of Jesus and put it on display. So, and you got to know, they must have tried. They weren't just going to take some guard's word for it. We're going to go back and look, make sure it is empty. Yeah, it's empty. You see, if it wasn't empty, they could have just brought out the body and said, hey, you guys, you're a bunch of liars. But they found an empty tomb. They knew the tomb was empty. So they got to come up with an explanation for how it got empty. So it says they get together, they talk about it, and they basically paid these guys off to make up this story that during the night, while they were sleeping, the disciples came and stole the body of Jesus. Yeah. Whoever thought of that should have been fired. That was the dumbest story in the world. Can you imagine somebody sitting in a court of law today as a witness to something and saying, while I slept, this is what happened. How long would that person be up on the stand as a credible witness? The first attorney who heard that would step up and say, really, how do you know what was going on while you were sleeping? It's really a ridiculous sort of an idea. And you might say, well, maybe they were sleeping and they were awakened by the guys stealing the body of Jesus. Well, yeah, right. These guys are armed soldiers. And you think that they can't overcome some guys who are carrying a dead body? Certainly they would have been able to do that. But this is just a story to satisfy the crowds. And it tells us here that it was spread abroad at that time. And in fact, at the time of Matthew's writing this gospel account, it was still the going story. Even though it lacks credibility and even any kind of a logical reality to it. It's just not logical to say, while I slept, this happened. How do you know if you were sleeping? Well, you know. It's just dumb. So it kind of just tells you what people are willing to believe, you know, if they want to. If you don't want to believe that Jesus rose from the grave, then I suppose you're going to come up with just about anything. Verse 16, it says that, now the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him. But look at this last phrase, but some doubted. This is one of the things that tells me that the Bible is real and it's telling real stories. Because it doesn't hesitate to give us the truth, even when it hurts. If I were writing a story of this sort of a thing, I probably would make it sound as good as possible, you know. I would make it sound as plausible and as realistic as possible. And I would say, I would make sure that nobody injected any kind of doubt into the entire process of this sort of a thing. But yet they say here, but some doubted. To doubt in the Greek means to be of two minds. So it doesn't mean absolute unbelief. It means I'm wavering. I'm wavering. And you know, I can understand why people, you know, some people would waver, particularly when you're applying human intellect. I saw Him die. And according to the experience that I've had in my life thus far, I can tell you with great confidence, people don't come back to life after three days. That just doesn't happen. So if I'm going to apply experience and if I'm going to look at this thing intellectually, I'm going to have to say to you, regardless of the fact that He appeared to appear in front of us, alive and well, and showed the marks in His hands and so forth, and feet. Wait a minute, that just doesn't happen. That just doesn't happen. So I can see why some people struggle to kind of wrap their minds around this thing. And people do doubt from time to time. People, because people just don't come back to life. And that's what makes Jesus different. Being the unique and only begotten Son of God, He's not just like people. As the unique and only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ expressed His authority over death by reversing it, by conquering it. Do you guys understand that Jesus raised Himself from the grave? You do know that, right? It's interesting because when you look up resurrection passages, you will find that the entire, the Trinity is involved in the resurrection. The Bible says that God the Father raised Him from the dead. It says He was raised by the power of the Spirit. And it says that Jesus Christ raised Himself from the grave. That's not a contradiction. That's just speaking of the fullness of the fact that when the Godhead moves and acts, they move and act together as one. Jesus conquered the grave for you and I. He is the answer to this bugaboo problem of death. You know, I was reading one of my favorite, or actually listening to one of my favorite Bible teachers recently talking about this whole issue of death. And he talked about how before he came to know Christ as his Savior, he said, you know, when I was young, a lot of people when they're young don't want to think about death at all. They just don't even want to, don't even bring up the subject. He said, you know, I was really different. He said, I thought about it all the time. And he said, I saw it as a colossal problem that needed to be solved. This death thing, this is not good. So we need to do something about this death thing. And he decided he needed to figure out what needed to be done. So he started reading about other people and their take on this. He finally concluded that the way to deal with this problem of death was to... have himself in perfect physical condition, so he started running. And you know, he's not decrying the whole idea of running. If you're a runner, God bless you, I'll start running just as soon as I pass somebody with a smile on their face who's running. But haven't yet seen it. You know, they have an agony on their face. Anyway, you know, anyway, he ran and he ran and he eventually had this guru, you know, that he followed, this running guru who wrote books and articles and all this information on running and how to run and preparation for running and this and all this stuff. And he's telling this whole story and he says, and then the guy, he's out running and he drops dead while he's running. Well, that's not going to work. You know, when your guru dies, that's a problem, you know, and so he's like, well, what's now he's got to kind of go back and figure this thing out. So he's, he's still working on this thing and he decides that the issue has to be a nutritional issue. And he starts rattling off all these vitamins that he's taken and supplements and all these enzyme herbs and stuff and he's, you know, he's going to just, he's going to be in perfect health and he finds another guru, it's a gal who comes up with this diet, special food diet with all these special supplements that you're supposed to take and all this and he's doing this for a while and he's feeling all good about it and then she dies. And not only that, but they figured out that she died from her diet. That's really bad. She's following her own diet and they figure that's what killed her. And once again, he's back to square one with the whole issue of what he's going to do about this issue of death and finally he comes to know Jesus Christ through the witness and the testimony of God's word and he realizes, you know what, I think I finally have an answer to the issue of death. I think I finally know what's going on with this issue of death and what it's all about in terms of what it's going to take to conquer it. Jesus Christ conquered death. He overcame death by raising himself from the grave and it's a powerful, powerful reality and that's why you and I look to Jesus because he not only made statements, but he backed them up by proving himself by raising himself from the grave. Anybody can make all kinds of fancy claims. The fact is, is there a reality behind it? Is there any truth behind it? Bible says here now in verse 18 and following that Jesus came and said, then look with me in your Bible. We're going to read this. This is called the Great Commission. He says,

This is just like you, this is our commission people to take the gospel that we have and to bring it to the world. And in this Great Commission, it's kind of like a sandwich. You've got the meat on the inside, which we'll talk about in a minute, but the bread that covers the sandwich on the top and on the bottom are two very important statements that Jesus made. On the top of this sandwich, we've got this statement, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Jesus can now bestow authority on you and I and send us out in his authority because he has all authority, all authority has been given to me, therefore I send you out. The last thing that he says on the other side of this sandwich that we're looking at here is this statement where he says, and behold, I am with you always. So he promises, first of all he says, I've got all the authority and I promise to be with you now. Here is the meat of what he has called you and I to do. And there are these quick six things that I will just go through very quickly for those of you taking notes, and we're going to put them up on the screen. The first thing that we are told is we are told to go. The Great Commission is about doing. It's not about just knowing. It's about doing, right, until Christ returns. Jesus could have said to his disciples when he appeared to them on that first resurrection day. Hey guys, good news, I'm alive, I conquered the grave, your sins are forgiven, you're all saved, you're all going to heaven. Just go home, hang out, watch some TV, have fun, buy a car, just chill. When you die, you know you're going to heaven, praise me. That's praise the Lord but coming from him. So he didn't do that, did he? He said go, go, and the Greek word means a continuing action, keep going. The action is assumed. Sharing our faith is not a private thing. You can't go around telling people that, well, my Christianity is private. Well, you can, but you're going to be disobedient if you do. Your faith is not a private thing. It's not to be a private thing. It is to be a very public sort of a thing. So where are we going? Are we going? That's the question we need to ask ourselves. Number two, he said go and make disciples. Making a disciple, by the way, is a whole lot different than making a convert. I prayed the sinner's prayer with many people to have them receive Jesus as their savior, but that's not the same thing. A disciple, you see, is a learner. A disciple is a follower, and our modern equivalent would be an apprentice, someone who learns by watching or by doing. And that's what a disciple is, someone who's watching and following. And so you can see that making a disciple, and that's what you're called to do, go and make disciples. That's a whole lot different than just praying the sinner's prayer with somebody, isn't it? You're basically inviting them into your life. Follow me as I follow Jesus. I want to show you how that's done. Are you a husband? Let's talk about what it means to be a husband. You can watch me. Let's talk about what it means to be a father, to be a mother, to be an employee, an employer. We're going to walk through the whole process of discipleship. You know, we're going to learn as we go. We're going to talk about what it means every step of the way. And that's what we were told to do, making a disciple. When you think about disciples, when Jesus talked about disciples, it almost was like He was trying to talk us out of being a disciple. Have you ever noticed that? Let me show you a passage from Luke chapter 14. Jesus said, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. I read that and I think, wow, I wonder if I qualify. It's almost like He's trying to talk me out of it, being a disciple. It's not an easy thing. And by the way, this was a form of argument used back in those days. It doesn't literally mean He wants you to hate your family. It's a statement by comparison, meaning that if you don't love me by comparison in a way that would almost look like hatred toward your family and so forth, then what He's saying is if you don't love me the most, if your love for me is not greater than anything, then you can't be my disciple. And I have to look at myself sometimes, take inventory and say, wow, I've got to check myself on that one. I might be a court low on that particular score. Number three, He said, and this is the who of the Great Commission, were to do this to make disciples going into all nations. And this probably caught the original disciples off guard, if they even heard it. They didn't believe anybody could be saved if they weren't a Jew. And yet Jesus is telling them to go into all the nations. We're reminded again, no one is excluded from the hope of the dynamic gospel that you and I have. That's why we're involved in going into places where people just aren't hearing about Christ. There's no one who's excluded, nobody, nobody, nobody. I don't care how dark or how backward or how ungodly. No one is excluded. Then number four, we are to then baptize them, were to go make disciples baptizing them. Since what Jesus did for us was done publicly, we are to show our identification with Him publicly through the rite of water baptism. And by the way, let me just make this very important statement. Baptism is not a step towards salvation. It is a step of obedience once salvation has been received. We are baptized because we are saved. We are not baptized to be saved. It's a very important distinction. The church has stumbled over this throughout the years. To say that you must be baptized to be saved is to say that you must do works to be saved in essence. And we know that we are not saved by our works, we're saved by grace through faith. And this, not of ourselves. Fifthly, we are to go and to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Notice Jesus did not say, in the names of, and that's not necessarily a Trinitarian statement. He used the word, or the single name, because here it does not speak directly of a name per se. It means authority. To do something in someone's name was to do it in their authority. If I were to pay off someone with money that you gave me to pay off their debt, I would go to that person and say, I come to you in the name of John, for example. And this is money John gave me, and I'm paying you off in John's name. This is not money from me, it's from him. And in the very same way Jesus is saying that we are to go into all the nations, making disciples, baptizing them in my authority. I've given you the call, I've given you the commission, now go. Do it in my name. So forth. That's what he means in that particular, it's not a, it's not a recipe, or, you know, that's where, another place where Christians have gotten all weirded and whacked out. You know, we have to baptize them, and we have to use certain wording, or they're not really saved, you know. And you've got a problem with that, because if you, you know, it says here to do it in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then you go to Acts chapter 2, and Peter tells people if they want to be saved, they need to be baptized in the name of Jesus. And so you've got a problem if you're going to look at it as a formula. Which formula are you going to use? It's not about formulas, it's about authority. And the authority of Christ is the same as the authority of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Especially number six, he says, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded. And I like that, it's all that he has commanded, not, and again, the church is never commissioned to go and teach people what we think is right. Right? We are not commissioned to go into the world and tell people, this is what you can and can't do, this is how you should and shouldn't live. But that's what we've exactly done. We put rules on people, we put burdens on people, don't drink, don't chew, don't hang with people who do, don't go to movies, don't dance, don't this, don't that, and we just put all these different rules on people. And people start, they look at Christianity and they go, it's just a bunch of rules. They're all man-made. Yeah, there are things that Jesus commanded us, but most of them surrounded things like believe, love your brother, forgive as I have forgiven you. Those are the commands that he's most concerned about. I don't think Jesus said anything about a tattoo, and I'm not a personal fan of them, but you know what? It's just, it's not a rule, and we're not going to make it a rule. So there you go. He said, teach the things that I have commanded. And then as we've already mentioned, Jesus ended this statement by saying, behold, I'm with you always. And did you notice he said, to the very end of the age. The fact that he said, I'll be with you to the end of the age means, there'll be an end to the age. Yeah, that's kind of cool. What Jesus is saying is, I've got a plan, and that plan is going to be carried out, and I'll be with you throughout the whole time. But there is going to come an end, where this particular place that we're in right now, the last chapter will be read, and we will close the book on that chapter before we open another chapter. But there will come an end. This age that you and I live in, that we call the church age, it's going to come to an end. But Jesus promised that he would be with us until the very end of it. That is his promise, and you and I can take it to the bank. Most people might say, well, you know what, things have been going on for an awfully long time, Pastor Paul, and I haven't seen any change in the age, or any signs of the end of the age, or something like that, and that's exactly what Peter said would happen. In 2 Peter chapter 3, he said, scoffers are going to come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires, and they're going to say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. But Peter then reminds us that the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but he is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. You want to know why Jesus didn't come before today? Because he was probably waiting for you. If he would have come in 1985, would you have been included in the kingdom? How about if he came in 1990, would you have been included in the kingdom? How about if he came in 1995, would you have been included in the kingdom, or would you have been left out? How about if he came in 2000? How about 2005? How about 2010? Maybe today you still haven't made the decision to make Christ your Savior. Well, today is the day of salvation, amen? Today is the day. And you know what? He might be waiting on you to come back. And if we find out, we're going to be really mad. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. ---