What Is Our Purpose?

This Sunday, as we are going into our time of corporate prayer before the sermon, something I’ve just really been struck by in this past week is just the needs of our body, the needs of our church family. You know, we have a couple of our members in hospital rooms right now, visited with some of them this past week. We have other members that had unforeseen and sudden injuries. We’ve got other folks dealing with chronic things. And I just figured it’d be really good for us to spend a little bit of time praying. So this Sunday, that’s what we’re going to pray for. If you just buddy up with the neighbor and any of the physical or emotional financial needs of our church family, if you just lift that up to the Lord, and I’ll close us out here in a moment, and we’ll get into the sermon, all right? All right, y’all take it away with prayer.

Father, You give a couple metaphors to describe the local church. God, we saw it two months ago. You call us a household. God, we saw it last week, too. You call us a body. When one of us suffers, we all suffer. When one of us is honored or blessed, we all are honored and blessed. God, I’m suffering this morning, not because of something that’s inside of my physical body, but because of the situations that various members of our church family are going through. Father, I would never really understand why You allow or direct things like cancer, financial ruin, family discord, or sudden injuries and falls. I’ll never understand why You allow and direct those things. Christ, I know that we call You the great physician. I know that You can heal anything and anyone at any time. You don’t need anything to do those types of things. So God, I’m begging, would You please do that for somebody today? God, would You please physically touch somebody’s body in our local church this morning, Lord, today, that You would heal somebody from something that they are dealing with, please? God, You’ve done wilder. You’ve done weirder before. And I know that You still have healing going on. So God, I’m asking that You would help and heal somebody this morning, please, for Your glory and Your namesake. Lord, that person will be able to testify to Your kindness and Your goodness and Your faithfulness. But God, in the midst of it, whether You do that or not, blessed be the name of the Lord. We can still say with those three Jews that were put into the fire, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, He can save us from the fire. He can save us from cancer. He can save us from falls. He can save us from anything. But even if He doesn’t, blessed be the name of the Lord. So God, I ask for the healing. I ask that You would help somebody in our church this morning. But I ask, too, for a spirit that would believe that You are still great regardless. Lord, as I turn my attention to the sermon, I’m asking You to get a hold of my words. The meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth, they’d be pleasing to You, God. You are my rock. You are my redeemer. You are the one that has saved me. You are the one that is working amongst us this morning. Would You please get a hold of this and do something with it, Lord? Hide me behind Your word. Let me not overspeak where Your word doesn’t speak, but let me speak fully where it does. God, I pray, like I said earlier, that we’d all be just a little more transformed at the end of it. In Your great name that we pray. Amen.

Well, as I was preparing for this morning and I was thinking about Memorial Day, thinking about the text that we’re going to be in, I was reminded of a picture that was taken in 1945. For some of us, we would remember what that year signifies. Guys, this is a picture of President Harry Truman honoring, giving a medal, actually the Medal of Honor, to a guy named Desmond Doss. There have only been 400 some odd servicemen in the army itself that have received the Medal of Honor. Before this gentleman’s three-year tour of duty was done, he had received two bronze medals and the Medal of Honor. But he was an enlistee after Pearl Harbor was attacked. He did not need to be drafted, but he said, hey, I’m going to go ahead and give my energy and whatever time, whatever life I have to defending our nation. But More important than his commitment to helping serve in the military was his commitment to His Christian beliefs. Desmond Doss, he has been memorialized in the movie called Hacksaw Ridge. Has anybody seen that movie before? It’s one of those movies that I can’t necessarily publicly condone because of some of the graphic nature of it because it’s a war movie. But I can absolutely condone a man that would give His life to a cause greater than Himself and do it with some distinct Christian values.

You see, he’s famous because he was a conscientious objector, but he was an enlistee. What that meant was he refused the ability to carry a firearm in combat. So he said, “I want to serve in the military, but I can’t take anybody’s life. That goes against my beliefs. What I will do is be a combat medic.” And you can imagine the ridicule this guy got, right? This guy goes to boot camp and he is not touching a rifle. He’s not touching a pistol. He’s not doing any of that stuff. But he’s doing all the physical training. He’s doing all the other stuff, tying ropes, learning how to sew up bandages, things like that. And he was hated in his company. In fact, it’s been reported that multiple of the men that were in his company said, “If we go to combat, I’m making sure you’re not coming back. If you’re not going to carry a rifle, what are you here for?” And he just knew, “My job is to help and it’s to serve, but I’m going to do it the way the Bible says to do it.”

You see, Desmond Doss lived with a mission greater than the mission. He lived with a commitment greater than just the one that His country asked of Him. It’s fantastic. You watch that movie, Hacksaw Ridge, and you see a guy that after the American and ally forces had taken a key Japanese position in the Battle of Okinawa, they had been overrun, they had been ambushed. Everybody’s retreating and fleeing. He says, “Not me.” And he starts to rescue one by one. It’s like 75 some odd soldiers out of this combat zone. So much so that he eventually is hit with a grenade, has like 15 pieces of shrapnel go up his body, trying to get out, is struck again by another firearm. And people are trying to carry him out. He said, “No, get somebody else. Get others.” Because he knew. He knew where he was going. He knew that he was fine. He knew that he had fulfilled His task. God had preserved His life, and he came back to live into his 80s, which is just astronomical. People were built different back then. Some of y’all are built different like that today, too. And he’s just a fascinating story of a man that lived with a mission. He lived with a mission. And that, for me, is just, it’s intoxicating. As I look at a guy like Desmond Doss and say, “I want to give my life to something. I want my life to count for something. I’ve got to live for a mission.”

This Sunday, we are wrapping up our series that I have called Blueprint, where we’ve been examining what does the Bible have to say about the nature, the structure, the orientation of the local church. So we spent a few weeks looking at elders, pastors, overseers. We spent a week looking at deacons. We spent last week looking at members. This final week, we’re going to look at what is the mission. If God has made a house and He’s given it leaders, He’s given it members, what’s the purpose of the house? What’s the mission of the house? So if you will, or if you’re a note taker, this is the one big thing I want you to leave with this morning. The mission of the church is the discipleship of the nations. I’m convinced that after we go through our passage this morning, you will agree with me.

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them up or turn them on to Matthew chapter 28. Matthew chapter 28. Love to hear the sounds of some of these pages of your Bibles opening. Matthew 28. It will be in the final five verses starting in verse 16. It’ll be on the screens if you haven’t gotten there yet. Matthew 28, 16 through 20. The 11 disciples traveled to Galilee to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him, they worshiped. But some doubted. Jesus came near and He said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 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 everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age.

You see, I’ve done you a disservice because we’re just kind of dropping into a passage without any context. We didn’t read what happened before this. What happened right before this is what we would call Easter, or rather Good Friday. Jesus has wrapped up His three-year ministry. He has been falsely and foolishly tried overnight in this terrible court system that is really just oriented around lies, just trying to get Him killed. So Jesus goes through this trial process. And then the sun comes up and He is nailed to a cross. And He dies the death of a political martyr. But He also dies a sacrificial death for our sin. But we’ll get into that in a minute.

And after He dies, He’s buried. And His followers, like, what gives, man? We’ve gone with You for years. We’ve seen You healing people. We saw You raise somebody from death twice. We saw You feed thousands of people with Jewish lunchables. And You’re going to die? What gives? What’s the deal? Some of y’all are really just getting the Jewish lunchables thing.

Jesus dies, but He comes back to life. And He shows Himself first to Mary, Mary, Mary. Three Marys go into a cemetery. He shows Himself to these three women and He tells them, I am alive. Go tell the others to meet me. So they pass on the message to the disciples. And this is where we’re at. The risen Christ is waiting for them on the mountain. And He is standing there. And these 11 men, their hopes are dashed. Their joy is really being tested. Their plans have been foiled. And there’s Christ. And He appears to them.

Now you’ve set yourself in the moment. Now I’m going to read it back through. Think about it this way. The one you love, last time you saw Him, He was dying on a cross. You walk into a clearing and you see Him. Naturally, you would worship Him. But some naturally, too, would doubt Him. And Jesus, He approaches them. And He starts speaking to them. And He commissions them. And then the gospel ends. Matthew’s telling of the Jesus story ends with these words.

So I’ve got questions. I’m a question asker. And I’ve just got questions of this text. And I’m wanting to start off with, it’s called the Great Commission. In your Bible, it probably has a section heading above it, at least in mine, above verse 16. It says, the Great Commission. I got a question. Who is Jesus commissioning exactly? Because we see these 11 disciples are standing before Jesus. So are these words only meant for these 11 guys? Or is this something binding for us?

I think naturally, if you’re just going to read your Bible at face value, if you’re going to take Jesus’ promises and His commands from the other parts of Scripture as binding and beneficial for us, you would say this is beneficial and binding for us, too. As Jesus is speaking to these 11 disciples, think about it this way. It’s like a prism or a lens or a window. He is speaking through them to us this morning. Jesus is commissioning not just the 11 disciples, but He’s commissioning all people who would call on the name of Christ for salvation. So it’s like we are standing on the mountain with these 11 men. We’re behind them, about 2,000 years behind them, but we are with them. And we’re standing there, and we are being commissioned, too.

But amongst those 11 guys, it says some of them are worshiping and some of them are doubting. Some are worshiping, some are doubting. This is a mixed bag. Some were recognizing the new thing God had done. God had died and come back to life. And some are still struggling with the old thing they saw. God died. Our best friend died. So naturally, amongst that group of 11 guys, there would be some that would worship Him and some that would be doubting Him.

And I think in a room like this, that’s where we’re at, too. In a room like this, some of us are in here worshiping Christ. We’re able to call Him the King of Kings, and we are able to rejoice in that. We are able to rejoice in the words that we were singing earlier. We are able to rejoice in the fact that He is on the throne and He is Alive. And some of us have gone through some hard things this past week, or our families have, or our church body has. And we’re just doubting a little bit. Christ can handle all of us in that. But I love that the word worship is included here in verse 17. When they saw Him, they worshiped. I’ve got a truth for you. If you want to evangelize and if you want to make disciples, you need to be worshiping. Or say it this way. Worship drives all evangelism and all discipleship.

Becca and I lived overseas in Southeast Asia for a couple years serving as missionaries where we just got to tell a lot of people about Jesus. And I had placed onto myself a quota. Every week I need to share the gospel X amount of times or else I’m not being faithful as a missionary. Man, we can come up with rules for anything, can’t we? Goodness gracious. We’d get to Saturday night and I’d say, man, I got to do it two more times or else I haven’t been a missionary this week. And sometimes Becca would let me go out to the park and I’d find two unwitting strangers and I would just bludgeon them for five minutes with the gospel in my poorest language. And I’d go home and I’d say, look at me. I did it. Anytime I was focused on the work itself and I wasn’t worshiping, that’s how it would come out. Quota or not, I would just bludgeon people. God loves you. Jesus died for you. And that’s how it would come out. But when I would just be worshiping Him, when I’d just be enjoying Him, man, that’s when it would just flow out of me.

And I’m not just saying worship is what, it’s only what we do whenever we stand up with the choir and we sing songs. Worship for you might look like going outside and taking a walk and just listen to the birds sing and you’re just enjoying God’s creation. Worship for you might start at a coffee shop reading a book about Jesus and just saying, man, look how good He is. Worship for you might start here, but I hope it doesn’t stop here. If you are worshiping in your daily normal life, you will not be able to help but tell people about Jesus and help them enjoy Jesus too. That’s just how it is. Worship drives these things. If you are worshiping, you will be evangelizing and you will be disciple making. I guarantee it. Don’t focus on the quotas. Don’t focus on the work. Just focus on Jesus.

And whether you’re worshiping or doubting, all Jesus followers are commissioned. So my second question, why should we obey Jesus? Why should we obey the commissioner? I think there’s three great reasons. The first, He gives it to us. He has unlimited authority. Jesus came near, verse 18, sorry, and said to them, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Not some authority or partial authority or all good meaning or, man, all good rules. No. All authority has been given to Me. And not just in heaven where Jesus can be relegated for a little while or like sequestered off, but in heaven and on earth. And not just in Israel or in America. All authority has been given to Jesus in all of the universe. He is God. And His jurisdiction is the entire universe. Christ has unlimited authority. He is the original doctor without borders. He does not need a UN to govern where He is authoritative. The entire cosmos is under His jurisdiction. So whether we’re in America or Afghanistan, whether we are in church or anywhere else, Christ is king there. It’s a matter of whether people recognize it or not. Christ is king. He has unlimited authority. We ought to obey Him.

But He’s not, He doesn’t just have authority. He also, number two, it’s His unending presence. He finishes these things in verse 20. He says, remember, I am with you always. I’m with you always to the end of the age. He is not just God in charge. He is God with us. God is with you no matter where you might feel lonely. God is with you no matter where you might feel alone or betrayed or beside yourself. He’s with you in the hospital room after the procedure. He’s with you in the doctor’s office within the diagnosis. He’s with you in the school lunch room or in the work break room when nobody is with you because you’re trying to just talk with people about Jesus because you’ve been worshiping Him because your well-meaning Pastor told you to on Sunday. He’s with you in the empty bedroom as you are mourning the loss of a loved one or as that loved one left. He is with you forever. That’s the second reason. And the third reason, His unbroken faithfulness.

Imagine this whole moment is happening because Jesus was faithful to a promise that He would finish God’s work. The disciples saw Jesus die. I don’t think that they thought Jesus was faithless to them, but they didn’t perhaps believe that Jesus was going to be faithful to all the promises. You see, Jesus is God and the resurrection is the ultimate proof of His promise-keeping nature. These disciples saw Jesus die and now they’re seeing Him face to face again and they’re having to reconcile with what God said would happen.

Like in Genesis 3:15, where after Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit that God had forbidden them to eat, they broke the one rule that God gave them to keep. And God has already given them punishment. And then He looks at the deceiver. He looks at Satan, the one that tempted them to eat in the first place. And He said these words, “I, God, will put hostility between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head and you’ll strike His heel.”

God promised that He would send a deliverer that would make all things right. He promised to send an anointed savior, a Messiah. Jesus then comes on the scene in Matthew 16. And He says this, “From then on, Jesus began to point out to the disciples that it was necessary for Him to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, scribes, and be killed.” Doesn’t stop though. “And to be raised the third day.”

God promised He would send a deliverer that would undo all the bad that Adam and Eve threw into the world through the deception of Satan. He promised that He would make it right one day. And Jesus comes on the scene and says, “I’m that guy. All those promises and those prophecies were pointing to me. I’m the fulfillment of those things. Here I am.” And He starts fulfilling all these other promises that we don’t have time to get into.

And then He says the most outlandish thing that God could say, God says, “I will be betrayed and I will be killed and I will rise.” Then Jesus is betrayed. He’s killed. And then He rises. He is faithful to you. He is faithful to His promises.

I want to back out from the sermon for just a moment and just acknowledge we have all been betrayed. We have all dealt with a loved one, friend, a boss that has been faithless to us. And it’s easy to take that experience and we project it onto God. And we say, because my dad hurt me or because my boss betrayed me, that must be what God’s like too. But it’s actually the reverse. God is the one that’s good and gracious and kind and faithful. And He is what our dads and our bosses and our friends are supposed to be like.

You see, we have all been betrayed before. We’ve all been hurt. We’ve all been abused in some way. But the bigger thing is because of sin, we’ve all contributed to the betrayal and the hurt and the abuse of the world. God says that sin is anything that goes against His design or His desires.

And I stand before you as a guy that makes no bones about it. I am a sinner. I have broken God’s law. I’ve broken His heart. I’ve broken His desires. And I do this every day. I’m quite good at it, actually. But Christ in His kindness has redeemed me on the cross. And He has sent His Spirit to begin making my heart come alive and making it new. So that now when the God of the universe sees me, He looks through Jesus. And He says, “I love him. Yeah, Jeremy’s messed up. But my son died for him, which means I’m good with Jeremy now. Yeah, that guy, that gal, she has really blown it. But they all do. It’s not a matter of do they blow it or not. It’s a matter of are they going to trust in my grace or not.”

So for you this morning, if you’ve never actually trusted in God’s grace for you, I just want to encourage you. Stop listening to me and start praying to the Father that loves you. And just say, “Lord, I accept the grace that You have for me. Please forgive me. Please Make my heart right. Wash me with Your kindness and Your grace. I confess I am a sinner. Save me, please. God loves to hear that type of prayer. That, that is the heart of worship. Have that moment with Him.

And for the rest of us in the room, we’ve seen where God has been faithful to His promises. We’ve seen where God has kept His word. We have seen where He has been kind to us. We can say with the hymn writer, “Great is Thy faithfulness. O God, my Father, there is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not; Thy compassions, they fail not. As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be. Great is Thy faithfulness.”

Sing it with me. “Great is Thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have need, Thy hand hath provided. Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.”

We are able to say, “God, You are faithful. Yes, I will follow You.”

Whereas Leon Morris wrote in his commentary, The Gospel According to Matthew, as he is reflecting on these promises, he says, “In other words, the disciple is not going to be left to serve God as well as he can in light of what he’s learned from the things Jesus has commanded. No, the disciple will find that he has a great companion as he goes on his way through life.”

And this tells us something about Jesus. The Jesus of whom Matthew writes is no small Palestinian figure. No, He’s a mighty person who is with His followers wherever they may be. And this, he says, will last throughout time. He’s not speaking of a temporary residence with first-century disciples, but of a presence among His followers to the very end of time. That’s a Jesus worth obeying. That is a Jesus worth following.

So if we’re commissioned, and if we must obey the commissioner, what are we commissioned to do? What are we supposed to do? Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t leave us to make that up. He says in verse 19, “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 everything I have commanded you.”

You see, we lose it in the English, but in the Greek language, a main verb is written one way and supporting verbs are written a different. There is one main verb here and three supporting ones. The main verb is “make disciples.” That is what we are commissioned to do. The mission of the local church is to make disciples of all nations, bar none.

Unfortunately, I see how some churches live for other false missions. And I think these false missions are well-intended. I truly do. And I think some of these missions can help serve the purpose of making disciples, but they are not making disciples themselves.

Sometimes churches live for a false mission of finances. And the idea is we need to stockpile as many reserves as possible for a rainy day. Man, it’s really good to be wise with our money, to make sure that we can handle a fire. We’ve been there. Make sure that we can handle a sudden influx of kids. We’ve been there. But whenever a church lives for finances, I think they stop looking at the future and wondering, how can we invest in the generations to come?

Or sometimes churches live for a false mission of family, where they just want what the gathering looks like and feels like to be kind of like your Sunday lunch. I know everybody. Everybody knows me. I know their kids. Their kids know who I am. And that’s great. Church is family. But it can be really hard for an outsider to break into some really tight-knit family groups. And usually family makes it hard to leave. Families don’t send very well.

Sometimes churches live for a false mission of the feel-good. Whatever makes us feel good, we’re going to do that thing. That might be a tradition or a program or an event. And again, those things can help serve the purpose of making disciples. Traditions can do that. Programs can do that. Events can do that. Yes. But whenever we live for what makes us feel good as a church, I think we stop thinking about what does this generation need for us to make disciples? What do we need to reassess in light of the timeless mission of Jesus and our temporary experience of our community?

Sometimes churches live for a false mission of philanthropy, giving away money, reducing social ills. Once again, Jesus, He came healing and feeding. We should be healing and feeding our community.

But that’s not the same as making disciples because you don’t ever have to have a spiritual conversation with somebody to feed them. Those things are meant to serve a purpose of making disciples. Jesus says, “Make disciples of all nations.” That’s my mission for you. Disciples are transforming saved learner followers of Jesus. Disciples are people who have Jesus on the throne of their heart. They occupy first place in their lives. Or it’s like another Bible, or like Leon Morris again says, in the Gospel of Matthew, a disciple is both a learner and a follower. A disciple takes Jesus as his teacher and learns from Him, and a disciple also follows Jesus. The life of a disciple is different because of his attachment to Jesus. Let me read that again. The life of a disciple is different because of his attachment to Jesus. The master is not giving a command that will merely secure nominal adherence to a group, but one that will secure wholehearted commitment to a person. When Jesus says, “Make disciples of all nations,” He is reorienting everything that a disciple lives for. Everything a disciple lives for ought to be making more disciples. It ought to be. And Jesus commissions us for this. He doesn’t suggest. He doesn’t request. He doesn’t offer, beg, or coach. He commissions. He commands us in this. And because Christ is who He said He is, we must do what He says to do. We must be making disciples.

The church is established because God has a mission. God’s mission has always been the same. Jesus said, “I came to seek and to save the lost.” And from heaven, Jesus came and sought His bride, the church. And He equips and releases that bride, the church, to engage in the mission with Him. We are not saved to become bystanders or to sit on the sideline and watch Jesus play the game. We are saved to be brought into the game to help Jesus accomplish the goal and take the football and get it into the end zone. We are saved to help Jesus score more runs so that He gets the most glory. At the end of time, Jesus will be on the throne. We have the opportunity to make sure that there are others around the throne enjoying Him. Amen. I’m going to read it later, but I’ll just quote it now. The end of days, every knee will bow to Jesus. Every tongue will confess He’s Lord. Some in worship and some will be forced. And we have the opportunity to make sure there’s as many worshipers as possible. That’s what Jesus is bringing us into. That’s what we are commissioned to do.

So then the question you ought to be asking is how? How? How do we accomplish Jesus’s mission? Again, we’re not left to our own devices. He tells us three ways: go, baptize, and teach. We go. Jesus’s main focus remains on the task that all believers would duplicate themselves wherever they would be. So that means here, there, and everywhere. As we go, as we go to Publix or as we go to Panama, as we move our lives overseas or as we just walk across the street, as we are going to watch a ball game or as we’re going to the bank, we ought to have the same goal: How can I make disciples here? That’s the goal. I think the U.S. military gets this. No matter where a service person is, when they are in uniform, they know I represent a commander and a country. I represent an entity greater than myself. So I’m going to carry myself with a certain sort of rapport and dignity. The thing is, Christ is saying you never get to take off the uniform. Christ is saying you are always representing Me and My kingdom. No matter what country is on your passport, no matter what business you occupy, no matter what address you live at, you, if you call Me Lord, you represent Me. And your job, I’m sending you there, is to make disciples. We represent Jesus in our places of business, at our banks, at the ball fields, or even in the back hallways as we’re talking with others. We represent Christ. We go.

We don’t just go, but we baptize people in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Baptism is this immersive once-for-all rite of passage for those entering God’s kingdom. And we baptize them in the name of the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. They are different yet unified, and they are together. And when someone calls on the name of the Lord for salvation, they Pledge their allegiance to Christ, to the Father, and to the Spirit. So we make disciples by going, by baptizing, and by teaching. We teach disciples to observe all that Christ gave us. If baptizing is a moment, then teaching is a lifetime process. This lifelong, lifetime process of conforming into Jesus’s image. And I, as the pastor at Sauldam Baptist Church, bear an immense responsibility to help catalyze that in your life, so that you can be a catalyst for that in others’ lives.

Starting next Sunday, we will begin a series called The Life You Have Always Wanted. I think everybody in this room wants a life filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. Who else got me? Goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Everybody wants that life. Whether they claim Christ is Lord or not, I’ve never met somebody that doesn’t want a peaceful life. I’ve never met somebody that doesn’t want joy. I’ve never met somebody that doesn’t want self-control. And it’s my job as pastor to help catalyze that for you, to teach you to obey everything Christ commanded, so that you’ll be able to give that away to somebody else. So we’re going to spend a couple months looking at that. How do we get that type of life?

So in light of all this, that in light of the fact that Christ has a distinct mission for us that’s grounded in His authority and His presence and His faithfulness. And that mission is to make disciples. If Jesus is truly king and if He has designed the church for this purpose, then how will Sauldam Baptist Church respond? How will we respond? I think that there are three particular responses. And this is where it gets personal for us as a church.

I think the first thing God is asking us to prayerfully consider is aligning our structure with the New Testament pattern of plural elders, serving deacons, and fully engaged members. You see, this series, the past couple months, we’ve been looking at what does God prescribe? What’s His design? What’s the blueprint for the church? And we saw multiple places throughout Acts and the Timothys and Titus and 1 Peter that a New Testament structure will catalyze New Testament ministry. And I think everybody in this church too wants to engage in New Testament ministry. We wanna see our church grow, not just numerically, but also qualitatively. We wanna see our church be filled with transformed and transforming people, helping transform others. We wanna see our church be generous. We wanna see our church continue to bear fruit long after we are here. We’re doing some of those things. We will catalyze more as we continue to align ourselves with what God’s design is for us.

I’ve talked with a couple folks, in particular about the hesitancy about plural elders. And I just wanna make a statement. This is not a move to centralize power for me. I think some folks hear the word elder and they get nervous, thinking Jeremy’s gonna create some authority structure that’s just gonna back him always, forever. That is not what this is. In fact, this comes out of a desire to create more accountability for me and a desire to enhance the pastoral leadership of this church by recognizing other biblically qualified men to step into this with me. It should not be on one man’s shoulders to pastor a church. It’s beyond me. You guys see that prayer list, that prayer request list? I can’t make all the hospital visits. I can’t help catalyze all the ministry. I can’t help make all the decisions. There’s gotta be others in that room doing it with me, keeping me in check, but also helping guide you guys and shepherd and love on y’all. That’s what this is for. I just wanna make that statement because I’ve heard a couple of folks just get some heebie-jeebies about that word elder. Man, I track with that. The church I grew up in did not have elders. But as I have studied the Bible for myself, I’ve come to see there’s a gap in where I grew up and in what the Bible says.

So that’s the first thing. I think we need to pray about aligning our structure, but we also need to pray about orienting our ministries around this. Orienting our ministries. Through my doctorate program, I’ve had a number of opportunities to interact with incredible men and women as my professors and as my classmates, one of which is a guy by the name of Jeff Strucker. Anybody in the room recognize Jeff Strucker or that picture? Maybe some of y’all will recognize the name Black Hawk Down. Anybody seen that movie? That’s about a guy named Jeff Strucker. I got to interact with the real-life guy. I had hash browns at Waffle House with Jeff Strucker, and it was awesome because he’s putting his finger in my chest saying, “You don’t know nothing, bub.” It was incredible. This guy, so he’s a believer. He served as a chaplain. If you don’t know the story of Black Hawk Down, that’s another one of those war movies that I can’t publicly condone, but I should say, you should watch it. It’s incredible. It’s the story of how in Somalia, there was this unit in the American Armed Forces trying to take out some terrorists. They had to send some folks in for a fast strike on a terrorist cell. It did not go well. One of their helicopters, called a Black Hawk, was struck down. Jeff Strucker valiantly got all of his men out that were still alive and then went back in to keep doing it throughout the night. It’s an incredible and emotionally draining movie to watch.

After he finished with the military, he became a pastor, and he pastors a church outside of an army fort in Georgia. They have made the decision to not purchase a building. None of their pastors are supported by the church financially. None of their ministries happen according to the tithes of the church. Everything they do is purely about making disciples and raising up other church planters that could do the same thing on other military bases. Speaking about the Great Commission, he said this: “We blow up the calendar, burn down the building, and bankrupt the mission—or bankrupt the budget for this mission.” He, as a military officer, understands the mission has got to be the most important thing. And as a pastor, he has made the decision to lead the church in such a way that they would not have the conveniences that we get to have. I’m not saying next week that we’re not meeting here and we’re just meeting at E.B. Ellington. That’s not what I’m saying. But what I am saying is I wonder what it would look like for us to continue to reorient ministry around making disciples.

And the third way that we need to respond is we need to personally engage. I said it earlier: if you do not know Jesus personally, this is where I want you to tune me out. If you have never given your life to Christ, if you’re still figuring out who is Jesus and do I love Him, this is where I want you to just pray by yourself. And just ask Jesus to help you embrace His love for you. God is wild about you. So wild that He would give up His only begotten Son to save you. He is so wild about you that He didn’t send His Son into the world to condemn the world because it was condemned already. No, He sent His Son to seek and to save you. I don’t need you focused on making disciples. I don’t need you focused on our structure as a church. What I want you focused on is embracing the gospel. And for those of us in the room that have embraced the gospel, I think God’s just asking us to join in the mission. This is something that He is aggressively pursuing. And we already know how it’s gonna end.

Philippians 3 says it—or Philippians 2, sorry—says it this way: God has highly exalted Jesus and has given Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. One day we will be around a throne that is described like this in Revelation chapter seven. We will be with people from all over the world. And this is how John captures it: “After this, I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number. Standing before the throne and before the Lamb, Jesus, they were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. And they cried out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who was seated on the throne and to the Lamb.’ And all the angels stood around the throne along with the elders and the four living creatures. They fell face down before the throne and they worshiped God, saying, ‘Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen.’”

That’s where we’re going. That is the end of our lives forever.

And we have the opportunity to ensure that as many people from the nations are there with us, people from every walk of life and every corner of the globe, rejoicing in and enjoying and glorifying God forever. The question is not, is that God’s desire? The question is not, will God get what He wants? The question is, will we join Him in that desire and help Him get what He wants? That’s the question.

We must all personally engage the Great Commission. God is calling every soul in here to that. This is not my desire. This is not my design. This is not my idea. This is straight from the mouth of Christ. That is what He has for us. And I can guarantee that would be the most satisfying life you could ever live, is ensuring that as many people from the nations are there with us.

Since we close, I want to do something. We’ve done this a few times. I believe that God gives assignments. He gives answers. I believe that when we pray, He wants to speak. If this is your first time with us, you don’t have to do this. But if you’ve been here for a little while, you’ve seen, participate if you want to. Show me your palms. Just put them in your lap. The same way that I would receive a Christmas gift from my parents. God has a gift for us. He has an assignment. He has a word for us.

And I just want you to pray personally. God, how am I supposed to respond? Ask Him that question. Father, how are we supposed to respond? God, we pray with the prophet Samuel, speak for your servants are listening. How do you want us to respond? God, you’re far better than we could ever ask or imagine. Your plans for us are far bigger and far more incredible and far more satisfying than we’ll ever give you credit for. God, I beg that you would please help us to respond well. Lord, let this house, let this group of people be given to your mission.