About this sermon
The eleven worshiped the risen Jesus on the mountain in Galilee, though some doubted. Jesus answered with his authority over heaven and earth, his command to make disciples of all nations, and his promise to be with them always. The mission belongs first to Christ, who sends ordinary and even doubting disciples, so the church shares the good news it has received with its neighbors and trusts his Spirit to call the lost to life.
Sermon transcript
bright hope for tomorrow. Blessings on my with ten thousand beside. Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness, Your guidance, great is Thy faithfulness, loyalty be. Amen. In our passage for consideration tonight, it’s found at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, the very last paragraph, 16 through 20. Matthew chapter 28 verses 16 through 20. Read that in our hearing together.
Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.” Let’s pray again. Father, we would simply ask for ears to hear, eyes to see and hearts set to obey what it is you reveal to us in this your holy word. So would you give us the grace to mix the hearing with faith and to be changed, to be positively impacted by what it is you say through this your word. This is indeed your word and we need to hear from you. Earthly words simply won’t do. So be present with us, empowered by your spirit, opening the eyes of our understanding that we may behold wondrous things from this, your holy word. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Decades and decades ago, during the course of a piano lesson, And my piano teacher was from the older school, a very unsentimental, don’t care how you feel music teachers. So during the course of one of my lessons, she clearly was finding me less than attentive and more distracted than usual. So she stopped me cold. in the middle of what I was playing in such a distracted, disinterested way, and in a frustrated fashion, began to demonstrate to me what I should have been doing by slowly and deliberately playing the notes in a correct manner. So he went, dink, dink, dink, exaggerating what it is I should have been doing. She did that more than once. And what she was doing was like she was saying with her hands, Mark, this is a piano, and this is how you play.
It was one of these back to basics moments that any good teacher does when they see a student getting off course. Well, the passage we just read is like that. For anyone who’s been a Christian for any length of time, it’s a back to basics kind of passage.
It rehearses for us in very basic and rudimentary ways what the mission of the Church of Jesus Christ is. Make disciples. Of course, we know the ultimate end of all things and all people is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. But as that is instantiated in the earth, in time history, in this present economy of things, the principal thing we’re to be about as a church is making disciples. And his passage tells us how to do this, how it’s carried out in this age and every age until Christ comes back.
And one of the things, perhaps slightly underappreciated, that we get, that we see, is that that mission, that specific mission, is for doubting disciples. So let’s consider this together, just basically around a couple basic interrogatives, the who, the how, and the what, why of mission. Who, how, what, why, combining the what and why of mission together. Who participates in the mission of the church here? Verse 17 tells us, and when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. It’s doubting disciples. At least some of them are the ones that are participating.
It’s impossible to say exactly why, at this particular point, they were doubting. Maybe they were shocked in realizing that Jesus, who had just been crucified, was now resurrected and alive. And maybe that just didn’t settle in with them particularly. I mean, it’s not every day that you encounter the bodily resurrected Son of God. So perhaps that was making them nervous and they weren’t sure if he was an apparition or a ghost or something, maybe?
And it wouldn’t have been the first time that a disciple doubted. I mean, to this day, many think the Apostle Thomas’ first name is really Doubting Thomas. So we don’t know exactly why or what they were doubting here. But that they doubted, that they were doubting, isn’t the least bit surprising for anyone who’s been a disciple of Jesus Christ for any length of time.
I mean, in light of the historical resurrection of Jesus, we still grapple with unbelief 2,000 years later. In all kinds of realms. In any given church, there are Christians who doubt that their stagnant or cold marriage will ever experience new life again. There are lots of people who doubt whether or not their dead-end vocational life will ever be truly fulfilling and life-giving, or even sufficiently remunerated. I know lots of people who question and doubt whether or not children will ever come around to full, true, authentic faith. Whether God will keep his promises. Many believers simply doubt having lost the capacity to imagine with kind of hope, Christian hope, that anything can or will improve in life.
For lots of people, doubt of whatever type operates like a low-grade fever that takes up residence. You know how a low-grade fever operates? You just kind of go through life. You’re able to function. But there’s this ever-present thing that’s just eating away at you. There’s just some doubt, some place of unbelief just constantly at work that doesn’t ever seem to go away. It can be a painful thing to have doubts, particularly where one thinks faith should be very present.
I’ll never forget preaching a sermon years ago at church where I was on staff and a struggling Christian friend, who was a member of that church, coming up to me one evening after the sermon, after the service was over, and just looking totally devastated, totally exhausted.
She was besieged by doubt and was deeply troubled, wondering if God actually loved and accepted her. And after she sat down next to me right at the end of the service, she just kind of burst into tears. And I remember looking over at her and she cried out, why won’t God make it clear to me? Why won’t he show me I’m saved? Just remember that. The vividness of her doubt in that moment and the way it just was really had her in its grips.
And all it was really able to offer her was just the gift of presence in prayer in that moment. There was nothing she hadn’t heard her whole life from the scriptures concerning the promises of God and the gospel that I could say. Now, in the Christian community, in the church particularly, doubt gets Can I say a bad rap? But unremarkably, when you think about it, it often has been the occasion, inadvertently, we’re not sanctifying doubt here, but inadvertently, it has been the occasion of some positive developments.
You think of Galileo. Like a few others, he doubted. And it was actually against the position of the church of his day, the Catholic church, doubted that the Earth was the center of the universe. And as many of us know, he sparked a scientific revolution with his doubt. And so others who questioned the prevailing wisdom of their day, it was that actual questioning that led them to go on to some great discovery, to actually find the truth about something. So doubt, often inadvertently, is used to get at the truth of something.
We’re going to have to sanctify doubt to see that is the case. But nevertheless, the doubt, the kind of experience here by the disciples who saw the resurrected Christ and worshiped him, yet some had doubts. The kind experienced here by the disciples is the kind that is likely to prove troubling to us, to believers. Right? Here’s Christ. We should not be doubting in His presence. But the truth of the matter is this.
Doubting, or we could substitute fearing, the Marys were fearful earlier in the chapter. There are other places where disciples show a bit of anxiety or guilt-ridden or cowardly disciples here really are the only kind there is. There are no, never has been, never will be fully confident, faithful, undoubting, unbelieving disciples. the only ones that Jesus uses and has, have some doubt somewhere. We still, even in Christ, have the blood of our first parents, the tainted blood coursing through our veins. So we are never going to be perfect disciples.
And this is likely why Jesus even says he promises in the very end, his final words here, promises to be with us to the end of the age in this mission to which he’s called us. Why? Because we need his presence. Our doubting, fearing hearts need assurances of his presence with us. Hesitant doubters are who Jesus calls and uses in His work here on earth in this time before He comes. Mission is for these kinds of folk. For fallible, questioning, weak disciples who hear Christ’s call. Whose faith strengthens them.
It’s for us. And thankfully, this mission ultimately, it doesn’t depend upon the disciples ultimately. Here’s the how. That’s the who. He’s doubting disciples. How? How does this happen? The authority of Jesus Christ. Jesus came and said to them, verse 18, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Then the command, go. But first, the statement of how this is going to actually happen. Here’s how this mission, with some of you doubting, questioning, feeling weak, fearful, here’s how this is actually going to happen. My authority over all things. So even before mission is something done by us, in our participation what God has commanded us to do. Before mission is something done by us, it is always, first and foremost, something done by Him. The One who holds all power and control in Himself.
You know, there’s like echoes of that famous statement that Abraham Kuyper, that phrase that is often uttered of his. Jesus is like expressing with these words here to this group of feeble followers, and by implication to us, these words of Abraham Kuyper, where he says, there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, mine.
He owns everything. He has authority over heaven and earth. This is how the church is going to go forward in all places as he calls out his elect from every kindred, tribe, and nation. His authority. So our feebleness, our doubting, our weakness ain’t holding up the forward movement of the kingdom of God and the carrying out. It is calling forth from all corners of the earth his people. It’s his authority. This is a big task to which they’re called.
It requires an even bigger God to carry it out. A king whose grace and power is such that no one could ever ask too much of him in this task. So in a very real sense, following Christ, who has all grace and power and authority, and is currently engaged in a cosmic reclamation project to reconcile all things. And in the end, extinguish death itself. Turn the curse back in on itself. The curse will curse the curse. And all things will be.
Not just the way they were initially, but it’ll be, as one of my professors said, it’ll be creation plus. We will have the glory of Christ fully displayed in memory of His redemptive work for us, in addition to a pristine renovation, renewal of all things. Following Christ. following him is to join in what he is already doing with that over which he has already claimed ownership.
The who, a bunch of feeble doubters, fallible, weak, unbelieving often. Right? Lord, we identify with the man. Lord, we believe, help our unbelief. That’s the who. The how is by the authority of Christ. And authority, I see more and more of this. Authority is kind of a dirty word in the West. We want to smash and level everything out. Equality meaning no distinctions, no one above anyone else, right? So it’s kind of a dirty word. Jesus’ authority, his expression of it, it isn’t the kind where he ultimately presses his people under his thumb.
It is the power and authority that leads him to come down. And as Athanasius says, he comes down to be like us, to raise us up to be like him. It’s that kind of expression of authority. His commanding authority is that which calls out to the dead, like Lazarus, and raises them to new life. It’s a life-giving authority. And of course, Jesus used His authority to lay down His own life, that we could have eternal life through Him.
So it’s not a macho, abusive, destructive kind of cosmic power. But it is the power of the lion who becomes the lamb. Christ commanding sovereign authority is our only hope for true life. In addition to our only hope for success in this mission or anything. You know, it really is a marvel that anything gets done in Jesus name. Especially making disciples. When we consider, as one author puts it, the ragamuffins that Jesus chooses to use. You know, I think about myself often in God’s call to participate at a personal level. He calls us to love strangers, but yet I find myself often struck with stranger anxiety.
You know, I sit on the plane and people ask, you know, what do you do? And you ask them, what do you do? And I say, well, I, uh, I’m a preacher, Presbyterian preacher. And then I find myself strangely not wanting them to engage, just wanting to sit there and be quiet. I’m like, wait a minute.
This is not the way it’s supposed to be. So it’s just that God chooses to use, that Christ calls forth. The imperfect do this task. It is an amazing reality. That he uses actual people. He calls, even uses people like us to carry out his great commission. This is even for when people like to make fun of Presbyterians. He even calls the frozen chosen. to participate in this. Who participates in this? Doubting disciples.
How? The ultimate sovereign authority of Christ himself is what grounds and backs that call. But what about the mission itself? It is this, right? Simply make disciples. He uses doubting disciples, backs it with his cosmic, sovereign, absolute authority, and says, go make disciples. So what is that mission? Between his ascension and second return, the church is charged with making disciples now. As one Southern preacher said about this, the church that doesn’t make disciples will have some splainin’ to do. Everything else Jesus says here is related to that one central command in this passage. Make disciples. Right? So, go, first thing, right?
Implies that the church, far from being a holy huddle, My four no more. Far from being just this kind of one location bound entity, is an institution that is actually moving outward to accomplish this mission of making disciples. That’s what go means. The church is on the move, going to those places where dead people needed to rise to new life, where lost people need to be saved. Where those who haven’t heard need to hear the call and summons to believe on Christ. That’s go. Going doing what? Baptizing. What are the implications of that?
Making disciples is a community affair. Baptism is the initiation into Christ’s church. It’s a translation from outside the kingdom of darkness, not by regeneration, but out from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. It’s a bringing into the church. Which tells us to make disciples takes a church. It takes the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to grow a Christian. Lone Rangers make good movies, but not good disciples. We go, we baptize, we teach.
We’re an apostolic church community. We pass along. We seek to be shaped by that deposit of writing and teaching that Jesus gave through generations of apostles and disciples down to us. We’re to give what has been given. Here’s the Bible. The truth. and the tradition of the church. Those are some of the just the very straightforward basic mechanics that obviously lots of things are written about, but that’s just the basics of it. The call is to make disciples. And those activities are the mechanics, the going, the baptizing, the teaching, all that Christ has commanded. All that the apostles, the positive of truth the apostles gave us in the scripture.
Now here’s the why. Or the motive. We all know this. Again, this is a think, think, think. Basic truth that we just pause for a second and just reflect on anew. What’s the motivation for this? For giving the gospel? At the individual level I’m thinking of particularly.
It’s said that You’ve heard this, that the best product promoter, the best person to promote something, to sell a product or whatever, is a happy, satisfied customer. So it is even in discipleship making. The people who, as one author put it, gossip the gospel, who speak it, who give it, who tell of the great things Christ has done for them, who testify, whatever language you want to apply to it. The people who do that are the people who’ve actually tasted of the gospel. They’ve experienced something that they can’t help but share and invite others into it. They have overflowing cups, and they spill on other people. Because we can’t give what we haven’t first perceived. That’s not how this works. You know, it’s easy to be mechanical and say, if you’re a Christian, give the gospel. OK, yeah, but that’ll last as long as you feel the conviction. But when you’ve actually tasted the good news, and it’s actually impacting you, you will share it.
C.S. Lewis has a little book called Reflection on the Psalms. He talks about how, when he was an unbeliever, still considering the Christian faith, and perhaps even before that, how he used to get annoyed in the Anglican church by the singing of psalms. It annoyed him when he was an unbeliever. Because he thought he’d listen to these psalms, and it was all about God saying, you need to worship me, look to me, praise me. So he thought it was boastful. that God would demand that everyone everywhere praise Him at all times. And in this unbelieving presupposition, he thought, what kind of God would be that narcissistic to demand that we sing to Him and praise to Him? So that was how he saw it as an unbeliever. But Lewis, he came to realize a few things. He says it hit him suddenly at some point that all enjoyment of someone or something spontaneously spills over into praise.
That we urge others to join in our enjoyment. We say things like, you know, if there’s a beautiful rainbow, do you see that? We’re not content to just leave it as this kind of internal enjoyment. Our enjoyment of a thing is made complete when we invite others into it. You read a great book, you see a great movie, you see a beautiful flower or whatever. You go, you need to check this out. There is something about a praiseworthy thing that we enjoy, which we don’t feel is a completed experience until we’ve invited others in. Stevie Wonder has the classic case of this, right? This song. Isn’t she lovely? Right? He sees this beautiful woman, and he thinks everyone else needs to admire her in order for his joy to be complete. C.S. Lewis came to realize that.
He came, the things we enjoy, the things we praise, lead us to invite others into it. We don’t feel it’s a complete sense of praise and enjoyment until we’ve actually invited others in. If our inner joy is not made complete until we audibly invite others into it, he realized that the psalm writers are telling everyone to praise God. All those psalms are calling, where God is saying, worship me. And the psalm writers are saying, worship and praise God. That all those psalms are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.
That’s what he came to realize. And so that’s to say, the person who has tasted new life even in a partial way, having been made a disciple, who knows they’ve been called out of darkness into light, whose eyes, who knows they once were blind, but now they see. That’s the kind of person who will be internally motivated to move toward others. and invite them to taste and see that the Lord is indeed gracious as a God who saves.
If you were starving and you found some bread and you encounter another beggar, you’re going to point the way to that bread, right? You’re perfectly posited to tell others where you’ve gotten it. And what that turns is it turns the task of giving the gospel, of evangelism, of the mission of the church, into something more than a mechanical thing we check off the list. You see, if your heart, if you’re drinking deeply from the wells of salvation, if you’re experiencing it personally, If you’re motivated, then the actual mechanics, there’s tons of books and techniques and all this, right? And there’s a lot of good stuff. But all of that is secondary to you desiring to actually give what has been given to you. It becomes easy.
You know, it’s kind of like a, Let’s get Rebecca and Rachel mixed. Rachel and Leah, right? Got Leah first. Isaac, right? Isaac? Yeah, Isaac got Leah first, right? He’s deceived. Ah, I wanted Rachel. Well, then, you know, father makes him wait seven years, right? Seven years to get her. And I love what it says about that. It says, in those seven years seemed but like a few days to him because of his love. See what love will do? You see what a kind of internal motivation will do? It makes what would seem laborious actually less laborious, free, simple. Love for a sense of Love to Christ for what he has done is a good motivation for actually participating in this mission.
We remember the leper that Jesus healed and commanded to keep silent, except before the priest, right? Jesus was basically saying that too much public clamor would hamper his own public mission. which is exactly what happened because the leper opened his mouth. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut about what Jesus had done and people thronged Jesus and he had to leave. That leper was simply doing what is natural for a man to do who has been given a new life by Christ. A man who has taken in, received, believed on Christ by faith. So that’s one way, motivation.
In closing, I mentioned the gal who came up at the end of the service years ago, who was just really besieged by a sense of doubt of God’s love and acceptance of her. And today, I see her on Facebook now. She really, at some point, came to receive and to revel in God’s mind-numbing love for her in Christ. Somehow, she got a sense of that on the heart. It was no longer an empty promise in her head. But somehow, it really got personal for her. God helped her by His Spirit. And today, I mean, her whole countenance is different.
Where she used to just be heavy, she’s just a happy, boy it, she participates in all kinds of acts of mercy and service in the church and participates in all kinds of ways in the life of that church and serves Christ that way. Of course, with all the attendant bumps and bruises and the ups and downs that we all face in the fallen world, but there’s a complete change in disposition. I see her as the kind of doubting disciple who participates now, joyfully, in Christ’s mission and His call to the church. So may God, by His Spirit, help us in whatever that looks like, whatever that means for us individually, whatever it means as a church, whatever it means as the kingdom of God here in this area and beyond.
Help us to Live this out. And be pleased to see Him call out people. Not just by shifting churches, but even converting. People coming, what must I do to be saved? In our workplaces, in our families, in homes. and the church itself and wherever else God in this kind of providence leads us to be lights, lets us be lights that shine forth the praises of him who has called us. Let’s pray together.
Father, we recognize the clarity of what you’ve called us to be and to do. We pray for your great grace, Lord. We know that you are at work, that the authority of your son that by that great authority over heaven and earth, he is claiming his own and is calling out people from darkness into your marvelous light. Those who were not a people who were far off, aliens to the promises and the Commonwealth of Israel, who are being brought near because of the death Christ, the shedding of His blood for His people. Ones whom you foreknew have called and will call in due time.
Father, we want to participate in that. So would you be gracious and lead us and direct us and give us courage, faith, hope, love for our lost neighbors for the people in those places we inhabit. Would You give us wisdom in how to express the Good News? And Lord, would You be pleased by Your Spirit to take the Word, because we know faith comes by hearing, and hearing by Your Word. and use it to the end of calling the lost, the dead to live, the lost to come home. Lord, do these things by Your Spirit, in Jesus’ name, Amen. Let’s take hymnals and hymn number 295. Let’s stand together, if you’re able. Then into all the earth I’ll hear and turn unto
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