Sermon – Jesus Said, ‘Go and Make Disciples’

16 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. 17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore[a] and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 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.

32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.

You know most of the time we kind of goes like this Sundays are just kind of rest mentally Monday and I do need to read and Saturday hours. I’m workin on here workin Sunday I can arrest mentally I do Monday I need to get dig in and you know start working and see can and and usually Tuesdays and try to get my message going and hopefully get it three quarters away done it’s not done and then you know when she’s trying to finish it up or this week you know I get to use these kind of busy had a dense point to cut grass but I did get started and and but the message I worked on Tuesday is still my computer is safe because in the middle of the week things got changed and this morning I found out why. You know I read a book just recently watch while he’s on vacation call radical. And it is powerful I mean it just shakes your world it shakes and it shook me and you know and that book Pastor David Platt shared a story where lots of stories but one particular story he was going on a mission trip he’d planned this mission trip and it was going to cost him about three thousand dollars to go and some woman in his church came up to him and said Pastor don’t you think if you would just send them the three thousand dollars that you know how much more could be accomplished. Look at the money your ways and he said you know I really struggled with that he says I struggled with that for weeks and really doubt in your maybe she’s right. But in the end he went in when he got there. One of the people that he was their minister and he said you don’t know how much it means to us that you came. He says Americans are free to take out their pocketbooks and send us money he said but you don’t know how much it touched me that you actually came. It’s shown me that you love me that you truly cared for me and Gary brought that up. I went out that’s not a message because Gary said this morning it’s a personal touch. How effective do you think we would be this weekend if we just took our table down there put all the information up there put the tracks there put the bottles there put the information just put a member table leave them so people walk by they can say Oh you think would be very effective now. So now I found out why Jesus said Go and make disciples is a personal touch. Gary just spoke it as a preacher. Dermot with me if you will to Matthew twenty eight. Matthew twenty eight verses sixteen through twenty and then also in Matthew ten here the word of the Lord. Then the eleven disciples one away into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them when they saw him they worshipped him but some doubted and Jesus came and spoke to them saying all of Doherty has been given to me in heaven and on earth with the talking a lot about authority lately haven’t we. Satan has absolutely no authority over Christ whatsoever and he has no authority over Christ’s followers stand on that and believe me once I get behind me Satan. All right then he says and it’s interesting that he preloaded this with all of the work he has been given to me. He says Go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirt 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. A man until the day that sky opens up and Jesus comes back. We are to be making disciples. Where to go and make disciples for the very last day. We shouldn’t say what I know is coming so near there is no sense bothering to the last day we should be making disciples. Then in Matthew ten verses sixteen through twenty says Behold I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as does. But they were men for they will deliver you up to councils and scurried you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for my sake as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles but when they deliver you up do not worry about how or what you should speak for it will be given to you in that hour which you should speak for it is not use speak but the spirit of your Father who speaks in you amen. I know that this proceeded actually what was in Matthew twenty eight but he tells him then I’m going to send you out as sheep among walls. There’s going to be opposition. But then he tells them all of the work he has been given to him and we know that he’s given the disciples authority so we can stand firm in that. I added another scripture Matthew. Well others too but Matthew ten thirty three thirty two and thirty three says Therefore whoever confesses it was whoever. OK There we go. You got it. Therefore whoever confesses maybe for Man him I will also confess before my father who is in heaven. But Whoever denies maybe four man him I will also deny before my father who is in heaven. You know some people look at Matthew twenty eight the Great Commission and so I want that for other people. That’s for the professionals. That’s for the evangelist. That’s not for me. But what did Matthew ten thirty two say whoever confesses may be for him. Man him. I will also confess before my father who was in heaven. He makes it very clear that it is for all who believe in him to confess Him. He will confess before the father Jesus’ Great Commission is meant for all who believe on him. We’re all to follow the example that he set for us in what was that example to preach the kingdom of God is near the kingdom of heaven is near. But not only that the example that he set in training the disciples in the cycling them that’s an example where to follow we are not doing his example Justice. Even if we do wander in the street and say Would you like to surprise Here’s how you do it but on the on your. Be on your merry way. We’re to follow that example to make disciples or to bring them and teach them and train them. That’s what it said. Train them teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. He gave in the Great Commission we are to follow that example. We as Christians are called to make more Christians. Amen. Now I know that we can’t make them but we preach the message we teach a Holy Spirit doesn’t work if it’s a multiplying thing. If you go all the way back to Genesis before sin entered in and Genesis one twenty six twenty eight. Let me just turn to it. It says. Then God said Let Us make man in Our image according to our likeness let them have dominion over the fish. This will. The sea over the birds of the air and over the cattle over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image in the image of God He created male and female he created them. Then listen to what God said then God bless them and God said to them Be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and subdue it. So this would be for sin entered in. What’s God telling him to do. Be fruitful and multiply. They were created in the image of God like God So he says Be fruitful be fruitful fruitful be fruitful and multiply so they are to make more of the images of God following me. So Jesus said Go and make disciples we are Christians we are to go and make more. That multiplying thing is what we are to do as believers of the followers of Jesus Christ. I found a quote in there was no name no author given it says Spiritual multiple multiplication on you to drink because I can’t talk says Unfortunately most Christians are sterile that is to say they never reproduce themselves. When God is clearly commanded us to make disciples not just decisions. Consider this the total offspring of a single pair of flies if they survive if they do not meet the demise of somebody with a fly swatter. If they survive to the end of summer they would create a mound big enough to cover Germany to the depth of forty six feet to one pair use Waterhouse clod remember the Porton scourge of reproduction. OK. One pair of lives they didn’t get the offer so rather you’re not. But just think about it they multiply greatly grown up on a dairy farm I can tell you they multiply greatly. Second Timothy two verses one through four says you therefore my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses. Commit these two faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Disciple them teach others also. You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engage in warfare and titles entangled himself with the affairs of this life. Let that sink in for a moment. No one engages in the warfare in tangles himself with the affairs of this light that he may please him who and this is him as a soldier. Don’t let the world don’t let the things of this world untangle you. I’m here to tell you today that the house you live in is not as important as eternity. The size a house you live in pales in comparison to eternity the kind of car you drive pales in comparison to eternity. The kind of clothes you wear pales in comparison to eternity. Anything this world has offered pales in comparison to eternity. We are called to make disciples before we left for vacation. I was listening to radio one day and I heard an amazing story about a missionary named James Elliot and what a powerful powerful story this man became a believer in a young age and he was a tremendous witness in high school and through college I think he went to Wheaton College and he felt God coning for missions so he. He really felt the call to go to the question in the end. It was an activist tribe and those were found saying that Wright is a U C A S S tribe and they were a very violent murderous tribe. They had never had any contact with the outside world. But Jim and three other couples three other couples decided they were going to try to reach this tribe so they decided what they would do is first fly over to the tribe. They found the tribe and they found a pilot named Nate and they for months they would fly over they would shout friendly messages to them they would drop gifts down. And after several months of this they decided that it was time to go in and they actually contacted a couple of the members of the tribe and had conversations with them but little did they know that the message if these people were taken back to the tribe was not the same message they were giving them. They sent they went back and told lies. But they felt it was time to go they was encouraged and thought it was time to go in. So one morning they decided you know it’s time to go but someone looked out and they seen members of the tribe come and so he radios his wife or calls his wife and said you know we’re going to meet with them we’ll call you back in a few hours. That call never came because the members of that valent tribe came and took their lives and they were found down river. But that’s not the end of the story. The most wonderful thing in this story Jim Elliott’s wife and daughter and another woman forgave them and they went ministered to that tried and through their forgiveness. Then see. How they could possibly forgive them for what they done they wish they would reach thousands. So his wife was not a loss but God said Go and he was willing to go. It may not always be easy. I’m not saying God is calling you to go to some violent tribe. He might just be calling you to go next door or to the now there’s another city but he went he was willing to go. That book that shook me Pastor Platt had challenges. It’s like wow are you willing to commit for the next year to pray for the entire world you said well that’s kind of broad You can’t do that but you can you can pray for the entire world. You can pray pick out a certain missionaries I said get his name let’s you know we’ve committed to pray for Burundi in Indonesia the charges there we don’t are not doing as well as US should be to first admit I’ve prayed for a few times. Well I pray for him every day. I need to make a list and be more dedicated to my prayer time. That’s right. Put a note on a mere I don’t know another challenge he says he makes is challenge you to read through the Bible the entire word the next year. Make yourself spend time in a word to help yourself to help us grow in the Lord to grow in a word. Sacrifice your money for a specific purpose sacrifice is a key word there doesn’t mean your normal offering a sacrifice. Are you willing to sacrifice for a specific person purse purpose be it a missionary adventure or whatever. Spend your time in another context. Are you willing to. Think about doing that sometime in the next year. I ain’t saying it’s got to be for a month or two weeks. Could be a weekend or could be a day. What do you want to spend your time in a different context outside of your normal realm. Your get outside of your four walls that you live in all the time or your normal situation your normal comfort zone. Are you going to do that. It might be the inner city maybe over in Pittsburgh or Baltimore I don’t know but think about it. Are you willing to take a challenge. Commit your life to a multiplying community a community that’s willing to make disciples of others that they too can go multiply that was Jesus’ mission that was his plan. He worked with a small group of men and taught them how to disciple others. Yes he preached at a multitude but he had that small band that he taught them. He discipled them that they could grow closer to him understand him that they could go and do the same thing that these twelve would go to make twelve more then they would go make that multiplying effect is tremendous. Or we are multiplying church. Romans ten nine in ten says but what does it say the word is near you in your mouth and in your heart that is the Word of Faith which will reach the end. If that’s a mighty big word if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead you will be saved for with the heart one believes on to right to Snit’s with a heart that we believe in Jesus Christ and we are made righteous but it is with the mouth confession is made on to salvation. We must not only believe we must confess with our mouth we must put that personal touch on it. They don’t want our dollars they want our time they want our touch they want our arms to wrap around LOVE know we love them. It’s not of the Great Commission is not a suggestion. That’s why they call it The Great Commission you had been commissioned to go and make disciples. Imagine if you will a doctor he’s going the college he wants to be a heart surgeon he goes to college for eight years and they’ve watched him he studied all the manuals. He is a brilliant student he makes straight A’s. They’ve watched him practice. They said man you’re good your hands are so good you’re great. It’s time for you to go out and in a star practice. I’m not ready I’m not comfortable. I need a little more training so he gets two more years of training and he’s really good. It’s time for you to go now start saving lives because you know you can be a great heart doctor you can save many lives. I’m just not ready yet. So a couple more years. He spent his entire life in training when he could be out there saving lives. Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it. It does sound ridiculous. But how many of us have had plenty of training and we could be out there saving lives for eternity. Somebody said we’ve had enough training it’s time to go. A man I don’t want to say anymore. We’ve had enough training. Let’s go people let’s go. I’m not maybe that’s where we’re supposed to kick off as the band was in season I don’t know I don’t know why the Lord changed my message Tuesday when he knows I don’t have a lot of time. Already knows that. He knows how busy I am and you know you know you don’t you don’t believe how fast Saturdays come. Any changes in the way people are what do you think. But he wanted me to give that message go go and make disciples. It’s that simple is that plane are we willing to say Yes Lord it may not be this weekend I don’t know where he wants you to go but will you grab that and receive it to go and make disciples. Let’s teach others that they can do the same. Let’s do what Jesus did Amen amen.