Matthew 28, verse 18. We'll go
ahead and read our text, even though we've been in this now
for quite a few, several weeks, we'll go ahead and still read
our text here. Matthew 28, verse 18. And Jesus
came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in
heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world. Amen. We've been looking at the
commission of the church, the commission of the church. And
we have seen that in this commission, there are three parts. There
is the go that we find in verse 19. There is the baptize, also
in 19, and there is the teaching in verse 20. There are three
aspects to the church's commission. If we are to be a New Testament
church, if we are to be considered as one of the Lord's churches,
we must follow His commands, right? Teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you." And he has just
commanded that we go with the gospel, make disciples, baptize
those disciples that we make, and that we are to then teach
those disciples that we baptize all things whatsoever Christ
has commanded. There is a threefold commission. There are many today who do not
complete the threefold part of the commission. They try very
hard to try to do that one part, which is to go make disciples. Matter of fact, most of them
are out with a false gospel, running around trying to make
false converts to a false system. And they think that by their
gospel preaching, they are saving people eternally. But whenever
Jesus give this commission to the church, and especially in
the account in Mark, we see, go with the gospel. And we know
that the gospel, according to the scriptures, is the power
of God unto them that believe. That the gospel is the power
of God unto them that believe. So the gospel is to preach and
make disciples of those who have already been saved by the work
and imputation of Jesus Christ, excuse me, and have been quickened
by the Holy Spirit. And so whenever we go with the
gospel, it is not to go to offer salvation to anybody. It is not
to go and beg and plead people to accept Jesus as their Lord
and Savior. It is not to go and to try to
convert them to become a Baptist or to become a member of our
church, although that is gonna happen after the fact. But what we are to do is to go
with the gospel. What is the gospel? Well, as
we talked about in our last section in our study on the church, the
gospel is the declaration of the finished work of Jesus Christ.
The gospel is declaring that Jesus has saved his people from
their sins by his finished work and that that righteousness that
he obtained through his life, through his death, through his
resurrection, that righteousness is applied or imputed to the
sinner. It is an effectual gospel, meaning
that everything that Christ did had an effect. It will accomplish
what it was purposed to do. That's why Jesus was named Jesus. He shall save his people from
their sin. So in the commission, the threefold
commission, Going with the gospel isn't going to invite people
to church. It isn't going begging people
to accept Jesus into their heart or to receive him as Lord and
Savior. The gospel isn't about getting people to do better works
or to join up with the local soup kitchen to give out tracts,
to hand out Bibles. That is not the commission. That
is not the gospel in the commission. The gospel and the commission
is going, declaring to people that Jesus died, was buried and
resurrected, and that by that death and burial and resurrection,
that those who have been given to Christ have been eternally
saved based upon his righteousness, that they have been imputed that
righteousness, and they shall never die, they shall never perish,
but they shall have everlasting life. The gospel is a declaration
of what Christ has done. It is not what Christ will do
if you do something. Okay? So we are given three commands. Go, declare the gospel. Those who are made followers,
that's what the word disciple meant. Those who are made followers
by that gospel. Those who hear that gospel and
say, that's the truth. I believe that's the truth. I
reject everything else as as the gospel except for that and
I want to follow after what that says. Those who by profession
of faith in that gospel, then what are we to do? We are to
baptize them. We are to baptize them. And in
that baptism, what are they portraying? They're portraying that they
count as their only salvation that death, that burial, and
that resurrection of Jesus Christ. They are declaring that they
find themselves in union with Jesus Christ who died for them,
who was buried and was raised again to life for their justification. So that baptism is a picture. Christ give us the ordinance
of baptism as a picture. We'll get into this more fully
when we get into the ordinances, but Christ give us the ordinance
of baptism as a message of the gospel itself. So we are to,
preach the gospel and make disciples, and then they, by visual symbol
in the ordinance of baptism, portray or they give proof of
their profession of faith in that gospel by their baptism. Of course, you can only portray
the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ by one way of
baptism, right? And that would be by immersion,
by immersion, not by sprinkling, not by pouring, not by waving
a damn panky at anybody, not by running them through the sprinklers.
We're immersed fully in the water, and that shows forth his death,
his burial and resurrection. And then thirdly, we see that
he commands us to teach all things whatsoever Christ has commanded.
So for a church to be a New Testament church, and to be a church who
is obedient in the commission of Christ, we are to be going
with the gospel, baptizing them who are made disciples, and then
this third part, bringing them back amongst ourselves, teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded. And that
right there doesn't seem to be of much importance to anybody
anymore. It's just like, let's get them
saved and let's get them dumped. You know, there's a segment of
society today that just wants to get them saved and could care
less about the other two. There's a segment of our society
today that calls themselves Christians that just wants to get them saved
and get them dumped. And then after that, you know,
hey, they don't care about anything else. But the New Testament church,
if it is faithful to its head, if it's faithful to the Lord
Jesus Christ, will not only follow Christ and what he said by going,
baptizing, and teaching, but they will also be a part of that. They will not only teach that,
but they will also be a part of that. They will be involved
in those three things, going, baptizing, and teaching. We must
not only teach them these things, but we must show them these things.
Okay? We teach them to observe. Teach them to observe. Now, that's
what we've been talking about over the last couple of weeks
here now, is teaching them to observe. And we sing here in teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever Christ commanded, that in that
phrase, whatsoever I have commanded you, That in and of itself infers
that there is a body of doctrine, a group of ordinances that Christ
has given to the church and that body of doctrine, also known
as the faith, is something that he has given to them and in turn
has commanded them to reciprocate to every generation, okay? And so by the very fact that
that phrase, whatsoever I have commanded you, it tells us that
it isn't about what I, Mike Smith, think or what you think. It isn't about what some denomination
or what some association thinks. It's not about what some seminary
says or some commentary or some theological group or some systematic
theology book. That is not what is determining
what we should teach people. What does it say? All things
whatsoever Christ commanded. So then that means that the faith,
the body of doctrine is exclusive and seclusive to only that for
which Jesus gave. Would you not say that? Would
you not say the very fact that Jesus said, teaching them to
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded? He didn't say
all things whatsoever the Pharisees has commanded you and what I've
commanded you. He said all things whatsoever
I. Jesus's doctrine takes precedence over everything else. And I will say this, Jesus's
doctrine takes precedence over the old covenant system. Jesus's
teaching is a teaching that is seclusive to Him. Now that doesn't
mean that His teaching wasn't buried in types and foreshadows
in the Old Testament. It doesn't mean that there are
not things in the Old Testament that are good for us to know
and to understand and even maybe to live by. But Jesus, His work,
and His doctrine supersedes all things. whether it be the part
of the old covenant that was given for a time to point people
to Christ, whether it was a picture or a symbol as Israel and all
the priesthood to typify the work of Christ and the people
of God, or whether it is any kind of teaching nowadays that
does not align with what Jesus says, we are to submit to what
Jesus says. So if we come up with a tradition
of man, no matter how long that tradition may have been around,
no matter how much history we can find of that tradition, no
matter how much endearing it is that grandma and grandpa and
aunts or uncles or moms and dads or brothers and sisters have
been preaching and teaching and carrying on and conveying to
us over the years, If that tradition, if that doctrine, if that ordinance
doesn't conform to whatsoever Christ commanded, brethren, then
we need to be careful and reject that. We need to be diligent
and reject that. And we need to be careful to
follow what Christ commanded. The exclusivity of the doctrine
of Christ is what we are to teach. We are not to teach anything
else. Look if you would there, it says, teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I've commanded you. In this commission, we are
to teach those people whatsoever Christ has commanded. So if that's
the case, we do not have any authority as delegated by Christ
to teach anything other than that. Now we see through history
how there has been quote unquote churches throughout history who
has began to teach other things. They've taught other modes of
baptism. They've taught other modes of
membership. They've taught other modes of
the Lord's Supper. They've taught other gospels. They've invented new fangled
things thinking that they can save people by these new outward
things outside of the church, like parachurch organizations,
associations, and denominations, and conventions, and missionary
societies, all these things that usurp the authority and deny
the authority of the local church. We see that they have invented
Sunday schools that think that they can save
children. by running them through these
categoizing sessions. Now, I'm not against teaching
children. I think that that is the place
of every parent. Every parent who is a believer
is to raise their children in the nurtured admonition of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and they are to teach them the things of Christ. And so we are very firmly for
those things. But to think that we can send
our children out into a children's church or to some little group
for just children and that that is going to make them converts.
We're sorely mistaken. Matter of fact, the very definition
of the ecclesia is a gathering assembly. And what we find today
in most places that call themselves churches is you come to church
and then once you get there, everybody breaks up. Everybody
scatters. They get up and they no longer
are gathered. They scatter each other. We're going to scatter
you. We want all the old people over here. Matter of fact, they'll
probably say, we want all the old men over there, all the old
women over there, all the middle-aged people over here, we want all
the young adults over here, the marrieds over here, the unmarrieds
over here, we want the youth over there, and then we want
the little children over here. Okay, now we've got this, everybody's
just split up, and you know, then they have to fill all the
spots for those teachers, right? And so what do they do? They
start canvassing through, the population of the assembly, trying
to find people to cover those classes to teach. The Bible says
that whenever they came together, they came together. And they
had elders within the church that the Lord had raised up and
given gifts of pastoring and then also of teaching. And so
they had men who taught. Much to the surprise of most
people, they didn't have Sunday school classes for women to go
teach children or to teach other women. There was one that was
given the office of teaching, and that is the man. So any teaching
and preaching that went on in the assembly was by the men.
That God had graced and gifted with that gift, that spiritual
gift, and the church recognize that, okay? And so whenever we
are teaching them to observe all things whatsoever Christ
commanded, then we need to teach them not only the doctrine of
Jesus as far as it concerns the gospel, but we need to teach
them all things what he has commanded about how he wants to be worshiped. And that includes how to baptize,
how the Lord's Supper is to be done, how we are to gather together,
how we are to have the roles within the church and how the
body is supposedly supposed to be working together and edifying
each other as each member supplies with their gift, that is also
to be taught. Christ commanded us to teach
those things. You don't think, you know, you
say, well, pastor, I don't think that's what he meant for us to
teach. We should be teaching them just
what he taught as far as the gospel is concerned. But if you'll look in Corinthians,
Paul dealt with the Corinthians on a level of, I mean, many levels
of things. And in 1 Corinthians chapter,
let's see, it's chapter, verse, chapter 11, if you would,
1 Corinthians chapter 11, look
at verse 1. Paul wrote to the Corinthians.
Now remember, he's already 10 chapters. He has already taken
them to task for that how they have not been following what
Christ has commanded. And he says in verse 1, be ye
followers of me even as I also am of Christ. So Paul here is
saying, listen, you need to follow my example. You need to follow
my teaching that I brought to you when I first came to you,
when I first gathered you as a church and delivered unto you
the things of Christ, because I'm following what Christ said.
If you look and follow me, and see, we can say the same things,
brethren. If we are being obedient to Christ in the gospel, in the
ordinances, in teaching all things whatsoever Christ has commanded,
we can tell those who we, you know, some of those who may be
that we have brought to the Lord. We can teach them and say, follow
us as we follow Christ, okay? Now it says we follow Christ,
don't follow us if we're not following Christ. Be a Berean,
go and look at the scriptures and see whether these things
be true. But look at what he says, be ye followers of me even
as I also am of Christ. So Paul is appealing back to
something that Christ conveyed to him and and commissioned him
to convey to the churches. And he says, but I praise you,
brethren, that ye remember me in all things and keep the ordinances
as I delivered them to you. Keep the ordinances as I have
delivered them to you. So what is Paul saying here?
He's correcting them. He's rebuking them. for not keeping
the ordinances the way that Christ had commanded him. They weren't
following Paul's example. And so whenever we, as a church,
in part of that commission, we go with the gospel and make disciples,
baptize them disciples, and then bring them back for instruction,
One of the things that we need to do is teach them the proper
way of the ordinances. Now, one thing we find is a lot
of people like to get a little wishy-washy on the ordinances
because they're afraid that they might lose that disciple. You know, sometimes we might
get a little wishy-washy on what we believe about baptism. We believe that baptism is by
immersion. We believe that the New Testament
church, and only a New Testament church, has the authority to
baptize. And so if anybody is baptized
under another gospel in another church, other than a New Testament
church preaching the gospel of Christ and having the ordinances
of Christ, then it's not a scriptural baptism. And so if we move back off of
that for the sake of, well, we might lose this disciple, well,
let me ask you this. If that person was a true disciple
Remember what the word disciple means? It means a follower. If they've truly been born of
God and converted, repented of the false gospel and the false
faith that they had, then what are they going to do? They're
going to see what the scriptures teach, what Christ commanded, and they're
going to follow that. A follower is that. A follower. A follower doesn't make up his
own new way. A follower follows. A follower
always follows, and we are all followers. Even though we are
the ye who goes to the them, we at once was the them. If it
wasn't for the gospel being preached to us, making us disciples, if
it wasn't for the church baptizing us and then teaching us all things
whatsoever Christ has commanded, then we would not be the ye. We became the ye by the fact
that we had went through that threefold process of being made
a disciple, being baptized, and then being added to that church
and taught all things whatsoever Christ has commanded. And so
now, even though we are the ones carrying out that commission
under the authority of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who
is the head of this church, not me, or not a denomination or
anything else, the Lord Jesus is the head of the church, And
so we, under that authority, we carry out and follow what
he has said. And so even though we are given
that authority to carry that out, we are still followers of
him. We follow what he has designed,
what he has said. And so Paul here, he says, you
know, now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things
and keep the ordinances as I delivered them to you. He said, if you
will do that, I will praise you. But look what he says down to
verse 17. Now, this I declare unto you,
I praise you not that you come together, not for the better,
but for the worse. For first of all, when you come
together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among
you, and I partly believe it. So one thing he says is there
shouldn't be divisions in the church. Now, we can look and
see that, more than likely, he's probably talking about skirmishes,
disagreements, whenever he means the word divisions, okay? But if the church is to come
together and to be in unity, let's just think of these terms,
by the way. I'm gonna kind of get off on a tangent here, but
I think it's very important for us because, as I said, the commission
was given to the church as a whole. The whole church needs to be
involved in this in the decision-making process, in the equipping, in
the enabling, in the praying, in the doing, in the exercise
of it. The whole church is involved
in these things. But let's think about these things. The Bible
teaches that the church should be in unity, right? That there
should be no schism within the church. We should be unified
of one mind, one faith, one baptism, Right? We have one Lord. So we see that there is a singularity
of thought, there is a singularity of doctrine, there is a singularity
of practice, there is a singularity of who our head is, Christ. But let's think of some of the
other things. The Bible uses the church, the local assembly,
as a metaphor called a body. One body. We're not two bodies. We're one body here. That one
body is made up of all the members. And the Bible says that each
member supplies its own importance to the church. So not one person
is more important than the other. We're all equally important.
So there again, that goes back to this singular unifying thing
of the church. We're all on board with the same
thing. We all think the same thing.
We all believe the same thing. Now, that doesn't mean that we
don't have doesn't have different levels of understanding of things.
But in the main and plain things, the main tenets of the doctrine
of Christ, we are in agreement. We are behind that. We support
that. We teach that. And listen, we
also defend that. We defend that from error that
might come in. We defend that when those who
might come among us, who might preach another gospel or another
doctrine, we defend and stand on that. And what do we do? We
discipline that, okay? So the commission and teaching
all things whatsoever Christ commanded encapsulates a whole
lot of things. It isn't just recognizing what
Jesus taught, but it's actually activity of engaging our lives
in teaching these things and upholding those things. Whenever
the Bible says that he give to the church gifts, first apostles,
then prophets, then pastor, teachers, that word pastor, teacher, that
word pastor and teacher there, that means one who leads by example. And here we're called to teach
all things whatsoever Christ has commanded. Teach them to
observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded. Well, how
are they going to observe something if they don't see it, right?
You can't observe something you don't see. So we are not only
to stand here and declare what Christ has taught, we are to
put that into practice. It's important for us to put
into practice what Christ has commanded. We go, we baptize,
we teach. Okay, so we put that in practice.
So we lead by example, we teach by example. When one comes among
us and their baptism is not a scriptural baptism, do we just say, well,
we'll change the rules just for now because we really love you
and we want to add you to our membership? No, what do we do? We lead by example. We teach
by example. We confront them and show them
what the Bible says about baptism. And if they don't adhere to that,
if they reject that, if they balk at that, if they don't want
to have nothing to do with that, if they get up and want to leave,
or whatever, you know, then what do we do? We just have to accept
that. They were not a follower, right? What does a disciple do? They
follow. And if at some point they come
to what God's word says and they say, wait a minute, I don't like
that and turn around and don't want to follow that, then they
are not a disciple. Who are the ones that we are
to teach all things that Christ commanded? those who were made
disciples and were baptized, right? So if they reject that teaching,
then they are not a follower. They are not a disciple yet.
They've not been made a disciple. But look what else Paul goes
on to say. He says, for there must also
be heresies among you that they which are approved may be made
manifest among you. So that means that there's gonna
be some times that heresies are gonna come up within the local
church. And God has designed it such
to weed out those who are His and those who are not. Those
who are His, those who are the approved, right? They which are
approved may be made manifest among you. Meaning that those
who preach heresy, they're outing themselves. And those who follow
and listen to those heresies, they're outing themselves as
well. And it is being made manifest who the true disciples are and
who the false disciples are. So see, that's another reason
why it's important in the commission of the Lord Jesus Christ that
we be faithful in teaching all things and standing for all things
whatsoever Christ has commanded. Because one of the things that
happen whenever you preach the truth and continue to stand in
the truth is that will eventually rub against heresy. It will rub
and irritate those who hold to a false doctrine. And eventually,
they're going to stand up, and they're going to say, wait a
minute. I believe this, or I believe
that. And at that point, they are made evident that they have
not been yet made disciples or followers of what Christ has
commanded. At that point, that's whenever
you teach them with long-suffering. And with meekness, you go in
prayer seeking that they might, as the Bible says, that God would,
per adventure, give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.
Okay, and we seek them out and we teach them the scriptures
and we hope that they will repent of that wrong knowledge and that
they would turn. But what does Paul go on to say?
He says, when you come together, therefore, in one place, this
is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating, everyone take
it before his own supper, and one is hungry and another is
drunken. What have you not houses to eat and drink in or despise
ye the church of God? Now we talked about that back
whenever we were going through these things, but whenever you
don't follow Christ teaching and commands within the local
church and you just do what you think ought to be done, then
you are despising the church of Jesus Christ. You're despising
the New Testament church. You're saying, I don't have any
regards for what Christ has said or the authority with which he
is given the local church to administer the gospel in the
kingdom. I have no regard for that. I'm
just going to do it my own way. I don't think I need to get together
with other people. I can do this on my own. God
has given to each individual this ability to do this thing. So you are despising the church
of Jesus Christ. And what does he say? He says,
what shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I
praise you not. Now, here it is in verse 23.
He says it once again. For I have received of the Lord
that which also I delivered unto you. So Paul, again, is going back to what Christ had
taught him, and thus he reciprocated to the Corinthian church. He
said, what I have been given, I am giving to you. And so back
in Matthew, Jesus tells us, teach them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you. That is our job. That is our
ministry. The ministry of the church is
to reciprocate that faith. Now, we also talked a little
bit last week that there is no other faith than that one faith. There's only one faith, right? And that is the faith that was
once delivered unto the saints. So are we, under the authority
of Christ, have we been given any authority to preach or to
teach or to convey another faith other than what Christ gives
us? No, we don't. So we don't make up new doctrines.
We don't preach new doctrines. We don't teach new ordinances
or change the ordinances. Are we, under the authority of
Christ, given to have any other kind of baptism than the baptism
that Christ gave us? Do we have any place to change
what Christ gave us? We don't. If we do, if we change the message
or if we change the practice, then that disqualifies us from
being a disciple. It disqualifies us from being
the ye. Anyone who is not following the
doctrine and the practice, what do we call that? Faith and order,
right? We believe that there is of like
faith and order. If they are not preaching the
faith and teaching to observe the order that Jesus has commanded,
then they are disqualified from being that. Now, I've used that
example here before, remember, when we talked about New Testament
churches? The fact that Burger King makes burgers doesn't make
it McDonald's. It is disqualified from putting
McDonald's out on its sign because it does not follow McDonald's
stringent rules of what it designs as being a McDonald's. Okay? It might look the same, it might
sound the same, it might smell the same, and to some degree
may taste the same. But it is not the same. It does
not have the authority to make the Big Mac. All right? Stick with the Whopper. You're
not McDonald's. Why? Because it doesn't have
any authority. The only authority to make a
McDonald's Big Mac is those who come under the McDonald's teaching, so to
speak. Okay? Same thing in the New Testament
church. If you disregard Christ's doctrine,
and if you disregard Christ's practice, then what in the world
makes you think that you are Christ's church? You cannot be
Christ's church and disobey him in the faith and the practice.
We must have the faith and the practice to be considered his
church. And so if that's the case, let
me ask this question. Anybody that comes from a church
that does not preach the faith and the practice of Jesus Christ,
is that person a baptized believer. Well, they may be a believer
in the fact that they had changed their mind about where they was
and now they want to come here, but they surely wasn't baptized
because that church over there did not have the authority to
conduct that baptism. They did not have the gospel
and nor the order of Jesus Christ. So it shouldn't be an issue of
people whenever one comes among a church And they say, did you
believe the doctrine that Jesus preached whenever you made a
profession of faith? Well, no, my profession of faith
was in an Arminian church, and I used to believe in free will.
I'll take that as myself. That's how I was raised. I grew
up. I made a profession of faith,
and I made a profession of faith in the understanding of that
gospel. And then I was baptized in the
church that promoted that gospel. preached that gospel and believed
in that gospel, I too believed in that gospel. That it was a
gospel of decisionism. That Jesus will give you salvation
if you make Him your Lord. If you ask Him into your heart.
If you will receive Him. If you'll believe on Him. If
you'll repent of your sins. Those things. Conditional salvation. And I believe that's what the
Bible taught and that's what the gospel was. But was that
correct? No, it wasn't correct. And those
who were preaching that, teaching that, including myself, I was
one of the ones preaching that. Whenever baptized, there was
no authority to baptize because the faith of Christ was not being
held there and the practice of Christ was not being held there. So thus, whatever I did before
was nothing but religious zealous activity. Jesus said, to teach
them all things whatsoever I have commanded. So the only way that we can do
those things is to follow after him. You can't be a disciple
of another person if you do not follow them in their teaching
and their practice. And so Christ here is authorizing and establishing
the church of his kind to reproduce those of like faith and order. Now, we read it last week in
Jude verse three. In Jude verse three, we read
that the scripture said that we are to earnestly contend for
the faith once delivered to the saints. We are to earnestly contend
for that. That's not a passive thing, by
the way, okay? We also read that the churches
was told to defend the gospel, to make sure of its doctrine,
to make sure of its practices. Let's take a break right now.
I want to come back because I want to ask a couple of questions
about what does that mean in practical terms? What does that
mean for us to have a light faith and order mentality and also
look at a few more passages of scripture as we go but let's
take a break and we'll come back and finish up here in just a
few minutes but you can go and get a drink and use the restroom
if you need to.