Well, good morning to everyone.
If you would care to open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter
28. Lord willing, we'll conclude
our study, Matthew chapter 20, or Matthew, the whole book, Matthew
28, but also the Gospel of Matthew this morning. Before we begin,
let's bow before our Lord in prayer. Our Father, how thankful we are
to be able to come into your presence and call the God of
heaven and earth our Father. Oh, how thankful we are for your
electing love, your adopting love, your love that would cause
us to be your people, to be born again into your family. Father,
how we thank you. And Father, I pray that you would
bless us, your children this morning, with the spirit of worship.
That you would enable us by thy spirit to look into thy word
by faith to see the Lord Jesus Christ and believe on him, find
rest and comfort and peace for our souls in him. And what we
pray for ourselves, we pray especially for our children's classes, that
you bless our young ones and bless our teachers who teach
them. Father, how thankful we are for these gifted and faithful
teachers that you've given to us. And I pray you'd bless them
as they teach our young ones the scriptures and that you might
use this time plant the seeds of faith in their heart. And
what we pray for ourselves here, Father, we do pray for your people
everywhere. In this dark and difficult day,
Father, I pray you'd cause your gospel to run well where it's
preached, that there'd be a light in the darkness for your people.
Father, for those who are hurting and sick, we pray for them. Those
who are in different trials and deep waters, Father, you brought
them there and we pray that you would soon deliver them until
such time as you're pleased to deliver them. We pray that you'd
give them a special portion of your presence, that you'd let
them have a fulfillment of your promise that you never leave
nor forsake your people. But father, all these things
we ask in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ for his glory, his
namesake, we pray. Amen. I've titled the, our lesson this
morning, the one job of the church. Our text this morning gives us
the very last words of instruction and comfort that our Savior gave
before he ascended back to the Father. And in his very last
words for his people as he's on the earth, he tells his church
on earth, and the church on earth is not people in this building. It's God's people from all over.
There is one church, God's people from all over. All God's people
on this earth have one job to do until he returns, just one. It's to preach the gospel, to
preach him. I have several points. The first
one is this, which is why I just told you, the one job on earth
that the church has is to preach Christ. Let's look at that beginning
in verse 19 of Matthew 28. 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've commanded you. Now the Lord makes this so simple,
we can't mistake it. The one job he's given us, till
he returns, is to go into all the world and preach the gospel. Teach everyone, everywhere, who
the Lord Jesus Christ is. And I'll tell you how we do that.
It's by preaching Christ, and him crucified, and only that.
Your job is not social programs. I'm all for social programs.
An expert ought to do that. Our job is to preach Christ.
Our job is not political policies. Our job is to preach the gospel.
Our job is not to be the morality police. I wish our society would
act better. Janet says, I wish they'd have
some act right. But that's not our job, to be the morality police.
Our job is to preach Christ. Our Savior clearly defines this.
Go into all the world and preach the gospel. And this charge,
just so you know this, wasn't just given to the apostles. It's
not given to pastors and preachers today. It's given to all the
church, to everyone who believes Christ. Now you use whatever
gifts and whatever opportunities that the Lord's given you. You
may not be called to preach, but God's given you some abilities. He's given you some opportunities
to help the gospel be preached to our generation. We're to witness. We're to invite folks to come
to the surface. We're to pray. People say, well,
I'm not very outgoing. I'm not good at talking to people
about the Lord and about the scriptures and about the gospel.
Well, I'll tell you what you can do. You can pray, can't you?
We can pray and ask the Lord to bless His word where it's
preached. I sure do wish throughout the week whenever I come to your
mind you pray for me as I'm studying and preparing. I sure do wish
you'd do that. We can give, we can see something needs to be
done around this place and just do it without being asked. Do
whatever it is we can do so that Christ is preached. That is our
job. Now that's a job. But you think
what a blessing that is. What a blessing that God's given
us this commission to go preach the gospel. The Lord reveals
Himself to us. He gives us faith to believe
Him. He saves us. He came and shed His blood to
put away our sin. He causes us to believe Him and
to love Him. And all that's in your heart.
All that's in that new nature that God gives you. And then
He tells us, go brag on me. Every opportunity you get. Isn't
that a blessing? to be able to tell folks about
Christ. And Lord commands us, go everywhere in all the world
and preach the gospel to all men. Because I don't care who
they are, where they are, I don't care what their background is,
what their color is, what their creed is, what their race is.
What all men everywhere need is one thing. To believe Christ. Now go preaching. Go tell them
who He is. And I'll tell you why we're gonna
do that. What a Savior we have to go brag
on. He has a people from all over
the world. I mean, what a Savior that saved
a people from all over the world. Different tribes, different languages,
different situations. I mean, just what a Savior we
have. Every nation under heaven has
somebody in it that's one of God's elect. Now you go preach
to them. Tell them who Christ is. The
means that the Lord uses to call out his elect, his people from
everywhere, the means that the Lord is pleased to use to reveal
Christ to people is to have one sinner go tell another sinner
who the Savior is. That's a blessing. That's a blessing
that God's given that to us. And what a blessing, what a Savior
we have to, without fear of contradiction, Go tell people Christ is the
Savior of sins. I don't care who you are, I don't
care what you've done, I don't care what you haven't done. If you believe
on Him, you'll be saved. What a blessing. Now the Lord tells us here, you
teach all men, all nations everywhere, what I've commanded you. Now
the gospel is a commandment. We're not going into all nations
begging people to do something. This is a commandment from God.
And the commandment, Contrary to popular opinion is not to
obey the 10 commandments. And then that a good thing. It's
too late. We've already broken the 10 commandments.
Jonathan, that ship sailed at it. Now that that's not the commandment.
The commandment of the gospel is to believe that's so much
simpler than to try to keep all the law of God. Believe Christ.
He obeyed God's law. He did it perfectly. Now you
believe him. You trust him. Quit working. trying to make God happy with
you, and trust Christ. He already pleased his Father
fully. That's our message. We have a message of rest, and
peace, and hope, and comfort to preach to people. I'm glad I don't have to get
out to whip the law and go tell people, act better, you know,
and obey the law better. There's hope, there's peace,
there's assurance in believing Christ. And when, by God's grace,
somebody believes what you're saying, we know few will believe
what we're saying, but when by God's grace somebody does believe
what you're saying, and they do believe Christ, our Lord says
you baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. Now the word teach, go ye therefore and teach all
nations. That word teach means make disciples. Now if somebody
believes on Christ, the Christ that we preach, we're to baptize
them in his name. because now they're his disciple.
Now we don't make the disciples. You know that I know the word
says make that we don't make the disciples. The Lord makes
the disciples. We just preach Christ to him.
But you notice the order. I think this is an important
thing to notice in the order. Somebody doesn't become a disciple
after they're baptized. They're baptized after the Lord
makes them a disciple. See that baptism doesn't save
anybody. Baptism is a confession. that
the Lord has already saved us. So this is why the Lord tells
us, you baptized believers, my disciples, in the name of the
Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit. Because salvation is the work
of the whole Godhead. The whole Godhead joined together
in this thing of salvation to save God's people from their
sin. The Father chose them, the Son redeemed them by his blood,
the Spirit calls them out and gives them faith in Christ. And
when a person believes on Christ, they confess that faith that
the Holy Spirit's given them by identifying with Christ in
believer's baptism. And when a person's baptized,
it's a confession. They're confessing, I believe
that all it takes to save me is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
all it takes. I don't need anything else. Christ
has already put my sin away. When Christ died, this is my
only hope of salvation, he died for me. and I died in him. And when he died and was buried,
I was buried in him. That's why we dunk him under
the water. There's a picture of Christ's burial. But we're
also confessing that when Christ arose, he arose because his blood
put my sin away. So when he arose, I arose in
him. I rose to new life in him. And
that's why we bring people up out of the water. You know, when, uh, When one
of our brothers or sisters confesses Christ and believes baptism,
isn't it a blessing? It touches your heart, doesn't
it? I mean, I hear it. I baptize somebody. This is what
I hear as we're praying. You know, it gets our heart,
doesn't it? We're so thankful. Oh, God's
mercy. Well, that wouldn't be very much
reason to be happy if we dunked somebody in the water and held
them there, would it? Because when Christ arose, it's
the, it's the proof positive. His sacrifice justified his people
from their sin and gave us eternal life. What a, again, it's everything
about the gospel, everything about our God's commandment to
us is wonder. His commandments are not grievous.
This is wonderful. What a wonderful opportunity
it is for a new believer to publicly confess. God saved me. And this is how
he saved me, through the sacrifice of Christ. I tell you, if the
Lord saved us, if he's revealed Christ to us, it's just a blessing. I can't tell you how many times
I've baptized somebody and said, oh, I wish I'd done this so long
ago. It's a blessing. This is how
God saved me. And this is why our Lord's telling
us, now you go take this gospel that I've commanded you and that
I've taught you. and you teach it, you teach it
to all men everywhere. Period. That's the end of the
commandment. And I'm glad it stops there.
Aren't you glad the Lord didn't tell us go get results? Aren't
you glad he didn't tell us go build so many churches, go get
so many disciples. He didn't tell us to get the
results. He said, you preach, you preach me and you leave the
results to me. I'll call out my people. So that's
our job, as a church body, preach Christ to our generation. The
Lord tells us, go into all the world, and we'll do that as the
Lord enables us, but I tell you, the thing that the Lord has enabled
us to do, preach the gospel to our generation, in our town,
right here at Hurricane Road Christ Church. That's an awful
good place to start, isn't it? So we're only to preach Christ,
that's God's commandment. Well, why? Why are we to only
preach Christ? was for the sake of unbelievers.
Look up at verse 11. Now when they were going, behold,
some of the watch came into the city. They showed unto the chief
priest all the things that were done. And when they were assembled
with the elders and had taken counsel, they gave large money
unto the soldiers, saying, say ye, his disciples came by night
and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor's
ears, we'll persuade him and secure So they took the money
and did as they were taught. And this saying is commonly reported
among the Jews until this day. Now, our Lord, we've looked at
just a couple of weeks ago, arose from the dead. He walked out
of the tomb. There was a great earthquake.
There was this angel in these bright clothes. The guard saw
all that happened. That angels talking to the two
Marys, The guards saw all that happened. Now, they were playing
dead because they were scared to death, but they saw it all.
They heard it all. They're eyewitnesses to this
thing, the Lord's resurrection. As soon as everybody cleared
out, they quit playing dead and they went and told the chief
priest what had happened. Now, from the perspective of the chief
priest, this is bad news. If Jesus of Nazareth arose from
the dead, he is who he says he is. He's a son of God. He's the
long-awaited Messiah that God sent to save us from our sin. And what do we do with him? We
tortured him and killed him instead of believing on him. This is
bad news. So rather than repent and bow
and beg God for mercy, they concocted this wild story. And this is
what you tell them. They told these soldiers. This
is what you tell them. The disciples of Jesus came in
the middle of the night, and they rolled that stone away,
that great stone. They rolled it away from the
opening of that tomb and they stole the dead body of Jesus.
They took it somewhere else secretly and buried it so nobody could
find him. And they did that to trick people into thinking that
Christ arose from the dead. And this is what you tell them
now, these professional soldiers. I mean, these Roman soldiers
are somebody. They're professional soldiers. I mean, they walked
just without hesitation into the spears and arrows and just,
I mean, they were fearless, fierce men. They're professional soldiers
who knew their heads on a chopping block if they let something go
wrong here. Now you just tell them you fell asleep. And while
all this commotion was going on, you never woke up. And people believed that wild
story rather than believing the obvious. The Lord said, in three
days I'm gonna rise again. Here in three days, the tomb's
empty. He rose again. Rather than believe that, they
just believe these professional soldiers, you know, just all
slept through this whole thing. You know why they did that? Natural
man would rather believe a lie than the truth. We love a lie. By nature, we love a lie, and
we hate the truth. Natural man, there's so many
examples of this, natural man, would rather believe the theory
of evolution rather than God, the creator. Natural man would
rather believe we can earn a righteousness by what we do. If, if my good
works out by my outweigh my bad works, God will view me as perfect.
Now, if I have bad works, any, how can I be perfect? But they'd
rather believe God will view me as perfect. If my bad works
or my good works outweigh my bad works, rather than believing
in Christ our righteousness, who completely satisfied God's
law for his people. Natural man would rather believe
the ideas that we've concocted up about who God is and how God
saves sinners, rather than believe the plainly revealed word of
God. You know, the word of God is
not difficult to understand. You know, people use all kinds
of excuses. Well, I don't understand the old English. I don't understand.
Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. The Bible is so
simple. Children can understand what
it's saying. Our problem is we can't believe it. And we'd rather
believe some off-the-wall thing that we've concocted up out of
a dead mind rather than just believe the book that God's given
us to tell us who he is and how he saves sinners. and the chief priests are just
like false prophets today. Even though they knew the truth,
they preached a lie and they bribed people to do it. They'd
rather lie and protect their place and protect their position,
you know, in society because the lie makes them more money. People love a lie. So you tell
a lie, they'll support you. They'll give you money, you know.
And they told this lie. I didn't look this word up. I
don't know if the same meaning is teach here, but the Lord says
you teach all nations. In verse 15, they took the money
and did as they were taught. As they were taught. The chief
priest taught them a lie and told them go tell it. People
believed it. I take this to mean, I don't
know. I've never really talked to someone who is a Jew about
this, but scripture says it's commonly reported among the Jews
until this day. Well, Jesus didn't rise from
the dead. His body was just stolen from the tomb and, you know,
reburied somewhere in, and we never knew it. That's believe in the lie of
false prophet. And that's the nature every son
of Adam has. Now the job of the church is
to preach Christ to the unbelieving world. Preach Christ to sinners
who don't know Christ. They don't know him. They don't
know who God is. They don't know who Christ is.
They don't know how God saves sinners. They don't know about
the character and nature of God. They don't know about the righteousness
of God. They don't know about the grace of God. So you preach
Christ to them, tell them who Christ is. So they'll believe
on him and be saved. I mean, it just stands to reason,
how can you believe on somebody you don't know? If you don't
know Christ, if you don't know the Christ of this book, how
can you believe on Him? Somebody's got to tell us who
He is, doesn't it? So we'll believe Him. How can we love somebody
that we don't know? How can we love the truth of
the gospel if we don't know it? Somebody's got to go tell it.
And this is our job. Now, our job is not to go get
people to make a decision. This is our job. Glorify the
Savior. Preach Christ so clearly and
glorify him so clearly that unbelievers will see, that the blind will
see his redemptive glory and they'll believe on Christ and
their souls will be saved. We're to preach this gospel and
glorify Christ so that unbelievers will believe, will come to know
Christ. And I'll say it again, the Lord has told us to go do
that in all the world. And the best place I can think
of to start is right here. We're to preach Christ to our
families. We're to preach Christ to our
children. Our children are born into this world the same nature
you and me got. I mean, they're a mess. Our job
is to do what our teachers are doing right now and teach them
Christ. Teach them who Christ is. Our
job is to teach Christ to our community. So people will know
who Christ is. That's the commandment that God's
given. Go tell them the message about
the savior who had mercy on us and saved us. That's our job. Nothing else. All right. Thirdly, our job is
to preach Christ. Why? For the sake of believers. for the sake of unbelievers,
but also for the sake of believers. Look at verse 16. And when the 11 disciples went
away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them,
and when they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted. Now it just says here, some doubted.
It doesn't say one doubted, does it? That some doubted. We all
know about how Thomas doubted. They came and Thomas wasn't there
when the Lord appeared under the other 10 and, and they told
Thomas, Lord has risen. Thomas said, I'm not going to
believe it. I'm not going to believe it until I thrust my
hand into those holes in his side and his hands. I'm not going
to believe it. This makes it sound like more doubted. Even
after they saw the Lord arisen, they saw him. I guess they thought
maybe it's still some kind of ghost or, I mean, I don't know,
but even though they saw him, they still doubted. Maybe they
thought their eyes are playing tricks on them. Maybe they thought
this is too good to be true. I don't know. Now we need to
remember that believers on earth are still sinners. I mean, the
best we can ever hope to be in this earth is to be a sinner
saved by grace. That's the best we can ever hope
to be. God has saved us. Now we can say that God saved
me. He's caused me to be born again. He's caused me to be born
again with a new nature, a nature that loves God and believes Christ.
But I'm still a sinner. I still have a sinful nature.
God has given us a nature that 100% believes Christ. Every believer has that nature. 100% believes Christ. Can't believe
anything but Christ. But we also still have an old
nature that cannot believe, that will not believe, that'll believe
anything but Christ. We got those two natures. Always
leaves us a sinner, saved by grace. Brother Fortner said,
we're forgiven, but not faultless. We're pardoned, but not perfect.
That's every believer. Sometimes our faith is stronger
than others. It wavers, doesn't it? Well,
what can we do? for our doubting and weak and
hurting brethren. I'll tell you what we'll do for
them. We'll preach Christ to them. We got the same message
for the believer and unbeliever alike. I don't have to come up
with one Sunday, okay, well this is a message for unbelievers,
and then next Sunday I got a message for believers. We got one message
for everybody, believer and unbeliever alike. It's Christ and Him crucified. And I tell you, when you preach
Christ to those that know Him, they're going to look to Him.
You remind them, oh, Christ is everything you need. Christ,
He's your all and end all. You've looked to Him. You've
looked to Him. God saved you. Now you keep looking to Him for
everything that you need. And I tell you, you preach that
message to a believer, and they're going to leave this place skipping.
I mean skipping. I recently preached a message
and brother Bob Boyd came and said if I could do it, I'd jump
up and click my heels together. That's what happens for a believer
when you preach Christ to them. Oh, yeah, I know him. I know who you're talking about.
I don't care how full of doubt we are. I don't care how dark
the night is. The heart of a believer is comforted.
The heart of a believer finds assurance if somebody would just
preach Christ to me again. And the exact same message. Over
here, there could be an unbeliever. They hear this message and they,
Lord, save me. I see. And over here is a believer
that's been hearing the gospel for 50 years. Oh, that's just
what I needed. I tell you, the gospel of Christ
is the only message that can fit people that feel like they've
got so many different needs and so many different problems. That's
the gospel God's commanded us to preach. Now go preach it. I love preaching the gospel to
unbelievers. Oh, I want them to know Christ.
But I tell you, can you think of anything better, I hope I'm
saying this right, than to take one of your brothers
or sisters that you love so much and be able to give them a word
that comforts their heart. I mean, it just doesn't get any
better than that, does it? That's the message that God's
given us to preach. So let's go preach it and tell
believers, I know you doubt. I know you worry. I know you're
hurt. I know it. Oh, but just keep looking to
Christ. You look to him, not keep looking
to him. All right, here's the fourth thing. Now our job is
to preach the gospel. It's our one and only job. How
can we be confident? That message will get the job
done. Verse 18. And Jesus came and spake unto
them saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth.
Now here's the reason we know preaching Christ will get the
job done. Preaching Christ will save the lost and will comfort
the hearts of God's people because all power has been given to our
Savior. All we've got to do is preaching.
It's clearly And as simply as we can, we don't have to produce
any results, we just preach Christ. He has all power. And He is the
one who makes His word accomplish the purpose. Weren't you seeing
it? Isn't that comforting? Doesn't that give you a desire
to help the gospel be preached? We can't lose. We can't be defeated. We cannot fail as long as we
preach Christ and believe Him. That gives me the, oh, I want
to go preach Him. Just let me at it, you know?
I hate to bring up a sore subject, but Sean, if you knew Kentucky
could not lose yesterday at Knoxville, would you want to be there? I
mean, that's a silly illustration, but we can't lose. We can't fail if we preach Christ. Let me at it. Scott Richardson
was at a conference one time. Finally came his turn to preach,
and he got up there. He said, I know how these conferences
are. He said, everybody says, oh, this guy preaches a good
message. He said, let me at it. I think I'm going to outdo him.
Let me at him. Well, I kind of, let me at him. Oh, let me preach
Christ. We can't lose. And listen, the
power of our Savior, he has all power. It's not far off. Look
at verse 20. 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. The Savior has all powers with
us. Go into battle with confidence. You can't lose. Christ our Savior
lives to ensure His gospel saves and comforts His people. And
He's commanded us to go preach it. God help us to do it well. I want to do it well, don't you?
By His power, by His grace, I want to do it well. I don't know, I have to tell
you, I don't know where we'll go next Sunday in our Bible lesson. I've come to the end of Matthew. I feel a little bit like a kid
in a candy store, you know? I look, oh, I'd like to teach
that. I'd like to teach, so we'll, Lord lead somewhere and we'll
go there next Sunday, Lord willing, all right? Lord bless you.