I'd like you to turn in your
Bibles to Matthew chapter 28 for our reading this evening.
We'll read a portion of scripture, just part of this chapter of
the Gospel of Saint Matthew, chapter 28. And we'll begin reading at verse
one. Chapter 28. In the end of the
Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week,
came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. And
behold, there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended
from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door
and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning,
and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him, the keepers
did shake and became as dead men. And the angel answered and
said unto the women, Fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus,
which was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen,
as he said, Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly,
and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead. And behold,
he goeth before you into Galilee. There shall ye see him, lo, I
have told you. And they departed quickly from
the sepulchre with fear and great joy, and did run to bring his
disciples word. And as they went to tell his
disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail! And they
came and held him by the feet and worshipped him. Then said
Jesus unto them, Be not afraid. Go, tell my brethren that they
go into Galilee, and there shall they see me. And just going to
verse 16 and carrying on our reading there. And Jesus came and spake unto
them, and saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in
earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptising 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. And it's this verse here,
verse 20, and the promise found within it that I'd like us to
consider briefly this evening. I am with you always, even unto
the end of the world. Amen. Let's come to the Lord
just once more in prayer before we consider his word. Almighty
Lord God and heavenly Father, we pray now, even as we come
to thy word, Father, that thou wouldst teach us from it and
that there would be blessing even as thy word is opened up.
Father, we have before us a wonderful and precious promise. We pray
that each one may know the reality of it, even the one who stands
here now to proclaim it. We pray for thy presence, Father,
and thy blessing in Jesus' name. Amen. Lo, I am with you always, even
unto the end of the world. Amen. I can't think of any better
words that the Lord Jesus Christ could say to his disciples at
this very moment. His disciples were fearful and
sorrowful. They were filled with anxiety
at what was to take place with the Lord Jesus Christ leaving
them. And here we have the words that
the Lord Jesus Christ proclaims to his disciples, something to
deliver comfort to them. Lo, I am with you always, even
unto the end of the world. It's no wonder that by the unction
of the Holy Spirit, the writer closes the Gospel with just a
single word, Amen, to follow this glorious promise before
us. It's as though Matthew, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
says this is the crown jewel of the Gospel, the enduring presence
of Christ with his people. I want to just bring three brief
points to you this evening. Firstly, the preciousness of
this promise. Secondly, the particular context
that this promise was delivered. And finally, the application
of this promise. Let us just consider the preciousness
of this promise before us this evening. What is it that Christ
is promising for his disciples at this very moment? He promises his presence to go with them.
He would leave them soon bodily to be ascended into heaven, to
go to the right hand of the throne of God. And understandably they
had spent three years with him and they were sorrowful, but
Christ does not leave them. Although he will leave them physically,
he says spiritually, I will be present with you all way, even
unto the end of the world, really the sense there is what the original
is saying is every single day, even unto the end of time, I
will be with you. What is the significance of Christ's
promise? At Christ's presence you might
be thinking of this evening? Well the way I would see it is
by ways of a negative analogy and I want you to just for a
moment think of a father and a child and perhaps they're walking
through a busy town centre, it's a market stall day and there
are many adults, many crowds bustling around but that child
with his or hers hand in their father's hand feels security
and comfort and happiness. Perhaps they're skipping along
knowing that they have their father by their side and then
imagine that something catches the eye of this child as inquisitive
children do and they wander away perhaps from the reach of their
father's hand to look at something and in a moment out of the presence
of their parents they feel insecure, they feel concern, they feel
fear, they feel no comfort whatsoever until they find their father
once more and they cry out and they seek the father that they
have lost the presence on. This is what Christ is promising
to his people, his presence, and that means everything that
a father would give to their children, that security, that
safety, that peace, that confidence, that hope, This is what Christ
promises to his people by his presence. We note that this is
not just a presence here and there, but a temporal presence,
a presence that will come and go. But he says, Lo, I am with
you always, even unto the end of the world, even
to the end of this world's time. This is for all disciples, although
this was spoken to the immediate 11 disciples and perhaps some
more. This is for every single one of Christ's disciples throughout
all the ages. And the beauty of it is that
he is not just there in the good times for his people. He's not
there in the spiritual highs and then departs in the lows.
No, every bleak and dark day Christ is there. He is always
there. Consider this just for one moment.
Believers amongst us, those who are called by God, how many reasons
have we given Christ to abandon us? How many times could it be
said that we do not deserve the very presence of Christ and yet
here he promises perpetually, enduringly to be with his people. I am with you always. Note in
your darkest trial, Christ is present with his people. This is also a personal promise.
Yes, it's a perpetual promise, but it's a personal promise.
He said it to his 11 disciples, but he said it to each and every
one of them. It was as if he was saying to Peter, that disciple
before him who had betrayed him, Peter, I will be with you. When
you stand up in front of the high priest and you say, now
there is none other name given among men whereby we must be
saved. Peter, I will be with you when you are called to do
something unprecedented and to go and preach to Cornelius and
the centurion in his household. Peter, I will be with you when
you are in that darkish jail thinking that your life is ended.
Peter, I will be with you. Even as church tradition states
that he was crucified upside down. I will be with you. Peter,
I will be with you. Perhaps James was there, the
brother of John, that son of thunder, and perhaps as this
promise was being said, Christ was saying to James personally,
yes, your ministry will be short, but even when the sword of that
Roman comes down on your neck, I will be with you. Can we just
For one moment consider the glory of this, that Christ promises
his presence to his people. This is the very Christ, the
infinite Lord, the God of creation who spoke this world into existence
by his word. The very God who can count every
single blade of grass. The very God who gives each and
every one of us breath in our lungs. the very God who causes
the flowers to bud in springtime and the leaves to fall off the
trees in autumn time, the very God who numbers your hairs, the
very God who can number the sparrows and knows when even one of them
falls, that very infinite Lord of creation, the God of providence,
is present with his people. Lo, I am with you always, even
unto the end of the world. Well, we've seen the preciousness
of this wonderful promise. Well, we must note that this
is a promise that is not written in isolation. It's written in
a particular context. And if we just read verse 19
and verse 20, we can see that this promise is peculiarly situated
within the Great Commission. It says there, Go ye therefore
and teach all nations baptising 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. These disciples
were feeling the burden of their saviour, their master, their
teacher that was going to leave them physically in time to come,
but they were also feeling the burden of the task that God,
that the Lord Jesus Christ had set before them. And it is in
this context that the Lord Jesus Christ utters these words. He promises His presence as they
go forward to teach all nations and baptising them and to teach
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. You see,
Christ promises His presence particularly to those who feel
the weight of the burden of this commission, who seek to obey
and observe its fulfilment, this great commission. You see, this
is the vision that Christ has for his bride, that they would
be the very vessel that would move the gospel from one nation
to another to reach all nations. This is what Christ envisions
his bride, his church to do, to go and teach all nations and
to baptise them and to teach them to observe all things. And
it is in this context, this peculiar setting, that we find the presence
of Christ being promised. You see, it's a truth that Christ
is present with all his people. We know that from something like
Psalm 23. He is with us in the trials. He is with us when we
go through the valley of the shadow of death. But here we
see his presence, his tide, in a very peculiar and fuller sense
to the Great Commission. So it is in this context that
we find this wonderful and this precious promise. Well let's
come to the application of this promise as our final thought. Firstly we can say that it's
an encouragement certainly to labourers amongst us here, those
who have the burden of ministry before you, who go Sunday by
Sunday to preach the word in pulpits, those Sunday school
teachers amongst us that week by week seek to teach young children
the things of God. This is an encouragement for
you particularly. Go on. Go on and continue on
because God, the Lord Jesus Christ is with you. You see, you don't
do it in your own strength. No, it's Christ who has promised
that he will be with you always. I'm sure some of us here have
felt so empty and so low, wondering how we will stand up and speak
of him. But this is your encouragement
that Christ is with you always, even unto the end of the world.
It's an encouragement for self-denial. It shows us and highlights to
us the blessing of self-denial. You see that is one of the most
difficult things to do, isn't it? To give up our time, to give
up our energy. There is a cost to following
this great command of the Lord Jesus Christ to go and teach
But surely the cost is worth it if we have the presence of
Christ with us. You see, no one ever denied self
for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. No one loses out. They only gain. It may feel like
a loss, but there is so much to gain. And here we have the
presence of Christ given to those who deny themselves. I see this
also not just as an encouragement, but something of self-examination. Is it not right that every member
of Christ's church should feel the weight of this commission? We see that it is delivered to
the 11 disciples, yes, but he commands them to go to every
nation. Well, the disciples were not
able to reach every nation and thus this command stands even
for us today, should it not be that we feel the weight and the
wonder of this command. The promise, as I have mentioned,
is for all time, even to the end of this world's time. If
the promise is for the end of this world's time then surely
the commission that sets that promise there is also for all
time. We know, as I've mentioned, that
we feel the presence of Christ as those that have been called
out by him. We know that he is present with us. But I wonder
this evening if we only experience only a partial sweetness of that
presence of Christ. May it be that someone here is
not drunken fully of the fountain of Christ's presence because
they perhaps have not understood or neglected this great commission. I appeal to those who have stood
in the breach, as it were, those who have spoken even if it's
just a word to someone of their colleagues or someone in this
world. Is it not true that in that time you feel a sense of
God's approbation upon you that you would not have had had it
not been that you stood and filled that breach and spoke that word
in due season? So maybe it is a moment to self-examine. Is it that we do not feel the
fullness of Christ's presence because we perhaps have not seen
the importance, the weight of this command? Finally, I see
it as a solemn reminder. This promise has a fulfillment. It says, I will be with you always,
even until the end of the world, even to the end of time. The
reason is that this promise will be fulfilled when Christ returns. Christ is to return again and
so he only promises to be spiritually with his people for a particular
period of time for then he will come on the clouds with the sound
of the trumpet with his angels and there his people will no
longer have his spiritual presence but his real presence once more. This promise has an end, an expiry
date as it were and it expires on that great judgment day. I
wonder if you were to stand before the judgment seat of Christ this
night, as it were, if he was to come, could it be said of
you, even as it was said of Paul, that I am free from the blood
of all men? I am free from the blood of all
men. I see this also as a warning to those among us this night
who have no spiritual reality, no union with the Lord Jesus
Christ, yet unconverted. This promise speaks of an end. It teaches us that judgment is
coming. and how awful it would be to
be unprepared. You see, on that day, mountains
and rocks will not hide you. You will be exposed to the wrath
of the Lamb. I pray that even now the Holy
Spirit would work in you and show you that you have a need
of this Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, that you have a need
of his presence, which he has promised to his people. May it
be that even now, even at this very moment, the Holy Spirit
would convict you of such. We have seen then a precious
promise. We have seen a promise within
a particular context and we have seen the application of this
wonderful, wonderful promise. Lo, I am with you always, even
unto the end of the world. Amen. I just wanted to share with you,
before I take my seat, just something of Emily and I and the family's
testimony of why we feel called to go to Kenya. We don't perhaps
have enough time to go through our individual testimonies. I
would like to share a few points with you about our call and the
things we feel called by the Lord to do there in Kenya with
the Mombasa mission. I must say first, both of our
call by graces were very quick. Within a few months we were transformed
from nature's darkness to Christ's marvellous light. But our call
to the ministry and our call to serve, our call to the mission
field has been a process of time. It perhaps began with the introduction
to us, to the mission in 2018 and only really solidified last
year. but our end point is clear. Although it often is the case,
isn't it, where things are protracted and prolonged, sometimes it's
hard to see where things began and where things went, but our
end point is clear. I know and my wife knows that
we feel called by the Lord to bring his word to those in Kenya
and in no way would we have guessed how the Lord would work his will
in us. It was in March 2019 that we
first visited the mission and a tongue-in-cheek comment perhaps
by James and Elsie about our possible suitability to join
the mission and we laughed it off as a joke. We could not see
how that could be even possible in any way, shape or form but
God had other plans and we now feel that so very clear in our
hearts and in our minds that we feel that we have been called
to go to Kenya. There are a few key themes within
both of our testimonies that I would like to share with you
just for anyone's benefit really. Firstly is this that both of
our testimonies highlight an ongoing process by which we felt
we needed to submit to the Lord and submission is something that
is so very hard, isn't it? It goes against our flesh. We
want to be captains of our own will and masters of our own destiny
but God had different plans to us and through his teaching and
through his speaking to us, we slowly had to submit to his will
for our lives rather than our own. Emily speaks of a time where
our pastor was speaking on the life of Abraham and Abraham is
a worthy character of study, how he left Ur of the Chaldees,
left everything that he knew, his family, his home, and by
the call of God left to go to the promised land, this hazy
promise that had no real substance to it but he was called by the
Lord and Emily speaks of how barrier after barrier came down
as the life of Abraham was expounded in those messages and how Abraham
continued to take up his tent and to pitch it where the Lord
would have him and to move forward and so we felt the same submission
to the law that we were to forsake all, to leave off ambition in
Korea and to leave off life here in the United Kingdom, to go
to an extreme climate like Kenya. Secondly, a key theme that we
both had was a desire to live more for his honour and for his
glory. Once more, a most difficult thing
for a person to exchange that which they see as the way that
they see the future to go and to change that for his honour
and for his glory. There is a poem that both of
us felt a weight of conviction under and it's a poem by C.T. Studd, a very eminent man who
was a professional cricketer who had so much humanly speaking
in his life before him, but he forsook all to follow the Lord
in obedience to him, to mission in China and to Africa and he
penned these words, only one life to will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ shall
last. And it convicted us of the triviality
of our lives. So much of our lives was around
things that had no meaning, no eternal weight. And it was, as
it were, God teaching us through this poem, only one life to will
soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last. That he
was calling us to a higher purpose, to cast away trivial things and
to live for him and for his honour and glory. I wonder if that resounds
with anyone here this evening. Only one life to will soon be
past, only what's done for Christ shall last. Finally there was
always within us from the moment of my conversion a real desire
to proclaim him and through the call to the ministry this is
what really burdened my heart which was this, that I desire
to speak well of the Lamb, to think that there are lost souls,
particularly there in Kenya, who have no access to God's Word,
who have no one to teach them. It's as the prophet says, that
they were sheep without a shepherd. That is the landscape of Kenya.
There are many there that are so far away from a Bible-believing
and a Bible-preaching church. have no understanding of the
gospel and to think that there are lost souls that need the
Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed to them. And there is a hymn
that spoke to me and it's this, Jesus, Jesus, the name high over
all, in hell or earth or sky, angels and men before it fall,
in devils fear and fly, Jesus, the name to sinners dear, the
name to sinners given, it scatters all their guilty fear it turns
their hell to heaven his only righteousness i show his saving
truth proclaim tis all my business here below to cry behold the
lamb happy if with my latest breath i may but grasp his name
Preach him to all and cry in death, behold, behold the lamb. This is our desire to behold,
to speak of the lamb who came to take away the sin of the world. And it is through this and through
his working that we see before us a work in Kenya primarily
for the teaching and for the proclaiming and for the preaching
of the gospel and for God's word. We understand that God has given
us unique gifts. Emily is a nurse and myself as
a doctor, we have medical gifts to utilize but we don't see ourselves
as going as a doctor and nurse pair to Kenya to do doctoring,
nursing. We see ourselves primarily to
go and to minister those spiritual blessings, those spiritual needs
It was often through the work of being a doctor, and I really
like my job. I enjoy helping people and dealing
with physical ailments and symptoms. But there is something that doesn't
satisfy in just that. To know that you are healing
people physically, yes, but that they have a greater spiritual
need, a need that within the NHS, as it were, you are bound
to not speak of. to them. This is what we feel
we are called to do, to speak of the Lord Jesus Christ to children.
In the Sunday school where there are 500 children coming to be
taught just by Hannah alone, we feel that this is where the
Lord would have us in the going around from homestead to homestead,
to speak to those who have no desire to come to to do those
things is what God primarily has called us to do and we know
that there are challenges before us. We know that they're thankful,
so thankful for James and Elsie who have trailblazed as it were
and have made a path plain for us to go but there are so many
challenges before us. Learning the language of Swahili
will be no easy mountain to pass over. We know that we need to
learn an entirely different culture that is entirely different from
ours. We know that we will leave our family, both our church family
and our physical families and we know that that will hurt and
there will be times where we will feel lonely and we will
desire to see our family. We know that there will be challenges
but we are also so grateful, so thankful for for you, for
churches like this, for people who prayerfully will support
us and lead us and help us in our way. And so I would like
to just finish with this. Thank you. We appreciate your
prayers. We know that many of you have
a burden for this work. You fulfill the Great Commission.
Maybe it is not that you are to speak of Christ in a public
and open way, but you have this promise given to you because
you prayerfully support the work of the Great Commission. And
so I thank you and appreciate the prayers of God's people.
Amen.