Great Commission or Great Option?

As we do every Sunday, we’ll now go into a time of congregational prayer, and it would just seem so fitting that we would pray for our new friends Drew and Martha. So what I want to invite you to do is just grab your neighbor, pray for them, pray that the Lord would bless and keep them, especially as they go back. When, when do y’all go back? Early February, so they’re still here in the States for a few more weeks, taking care of some stuff and resting for a moment, but early February they’re going to go back and once again be frontline workers for the gospel. So let’s do this: let’s pray for them for a moment, and then I’ll put a bow on it, and we’ll begin our sermon time.

Thank you all. Thank you so much for today, Father. Thank you so much that You, You’ve brought us all here, God. You’ve brought us through another week, Lord. You’ve gathered us, You’ve assembled us, and in a few moments You will once again send us out into this world. Lord, thank You so much for, in a particular way, calling Drew and Martha to Yourself, Father. Thank You for them receiving that, Father. I, I thank You for health for him in particular, Lord God. I thank You that You’ve kept him, him, Lord. I thank You that You have sustained them in their years on the field, Lord. I pray that as they go back, You’d give them a lot of fruit, Lord, a lot of favor with the folks they work and they live with, Lord. I’m, I’m so excited. One day when You call me home, I’m going to get to meet people that they have won to You. I’m going to put my arms around the men and the women and the children that, that now believe the hope of the gospel because of their work. God, thank You for that. Lord, would You please help us to be the very same here, and by Your grace, You may even call some of us to go overseas and join them. God, I pray that You would stir that in us, that as we leave here today, Lord, some of us, God, that You would, You would just begin that desire that we would find ways to get our folks overseas. Lord, I pray for me right now. I’m asking God that You would help me just to simply share what You and I have talked about this past week as I’ve studied this text. Lord, I pray that You would help all of us to walk out of here knowing You a little more deeply. Lord, for the person in here right now that does not yet know You as Lord and Savior, God, I pray that You would open their eyes, they would see You, they would want to worship You, they want to give their lives to You, and that You would fill them with Your own pleasure and joy. Please, God, we do love You, and it’s in Your great name that we pray. Amen. Amen.

Well, if you have your copy of God’s Word, you can go ahead and open it up to the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew is the first book of the New Testament. If you’re still getting oriented with the layout of the Bible, then you just open it right in the middle, you probably land in the Psalms, hang a right, and go about a quarter of the way, and you’ll land in the New Testament. Open up to the Gospel of Matthew. We will be looking at the last five verses of the Gospel of Matthew this morning as we continue our deeper series. As you’re turning there, I want to run a pop quiz by you guys. There is a soda company based in Atlanta, Georgia. It started about 140 or so years ago. It’s got a red label. Don’t put it up yet. Any ideas about what that soda company might be? Coca-Cola. All right, you put that image up right there. Coca-Cola. Did you guys know it was founded, or at least what we know as Coca-Cola, was created in 1886, first created by a Civil War veteran and pharmacist named John Pemberton? Not just modern myth, but this is fact: the original recipe did contain a little bit of opium, a little bit of cocaine. Now they didn’t, didn’t have all the information and the knowledge, and certainly the stigma that we associate with that today, but it did in fact contain that. John Pemberton, he was from the Atlanta, Georgia area. His product initially, it took some time to really get off the ground.

In fact, he gave out Coke for free. He was just trying to get his drink into the hands of as many people as possible. And at that point, you would go to a soda fountain—that’s like a, I guess, a drug store—and you’d go get a soda, go get a drink, and that’s just kind of where you got some of your medicine from. So people would go to these soda fountains and they’d get a Coca-Cola if they had a headache or if they’re feeling just kind of down—all all sorts of things. And honestly, for the same reasons that you and I might actually stop into the gas station and get a Coke today, too, right? It’s crazy.

The US military in World War II funded creating and operating bottling plants for Coca-Cola in North Africa and Western Europe so that soldiers and service people could drink Coke in between battles. So far as to say that some soldiers were quoted, “I fight this war so that I have the right to buy a Coca-Cola.” When people drank Coke during World War II, they were drinking freedom.

Today, Coca-Cola is present in over 200 countries worldwide. An estimated 94% of the world knows what that graphic represents. 8 billion people in this world, 94% of them have tasted Coke in their life. It’s wild. Only 20% of Coke products sold annually are actually consumed in America. 30% are consumed in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. In 129 years, Coca-Cola started as a local product and has become a global brand.

However, those same 8 billion people today do not have the same awareness of and enjoyment of the name Jesus Christ. The IMB—that is the organization that we have partnered with directly to send out ones to take the gospel around the world—the IMB estimates that three billion people in this world don’t even know the name Jesus Christ, let alone have made a decision to reject following Him or not.

Coca-Cola is enjoyed in countries where the name Jesus Christ is not worshiped. Coca-Cola is drank in Turkey, where over 86 million people do not believe that Jesus is the Savior. Coca-Cola is drank in France, where the Reformation started under the pen of John Calvin. However, currently 52 million people in that hotbed of Christianity 500 years ago—52 million people today—do not believe that Jesus is Lord and Savior.

There are over 3,000 people groups around the world that have no access to the gospel. Some of those same people groups drink Coke around the table every night with dinner. I think about that and I wonder why in the world should a soft drink company care more about getting its product to the end of the earth than some local churches care about spreading the worship of Jesus.

Man, our lives as followers of Jesus—our lives are meant for a purpose so much greater and better than anything Coca-Cola could ever strive for. All this is just to say that some of us—actually all of us—are tempted to live lives for a purpose that doesn’t really amount to the purpose God has for you.

You think about the American dream, this idea that you could just earn your way to such financial freedom and success that you would not have to depend on anybody. You buy any toy you could ever want, you could provide for yourself. Man, those are great things, but that as a life purpose does not amount to what God has for you.

Or you think about even marriage and family: “My life will be complete if I have the right spouse, if I have the right amount of kids, if those kids obey me, if they get good jobs later in life.” That’s a great thing to live for, but that can’t actually sustain you. It doesn’t really fulfill you.

Your health or wellness, living for the idea that I’m going to be as strong and as healthy for as long as possible. But man, these bodies break down. Try as you might, one day this body and its timer will stop ticking.

No other life purpose can satisfy or fulfill you. There is no greater life purpose than the one that Jesus Christ offers. So if there is one thing that you take away from today as we open up God’s Word, it is this: sharing Jesus’s message is your mission. Sharing the message of Jesus is your mission. I trust by the end of this sermon you will agree with me.

Matthew 28:16-20 reads like this: The 11 disciples traveled to Galilee to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. When They saw Jesus, 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 the 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 might know this passage as the Great Commission. This is this pivotal moment at the end of the Gospel accounts where Jesus has already died for the sins of the world, He has been buried in a grave, He has been resurrected, and He is about to ascend into heaven. Later in the book of Acts, He will send the Holy Spirit down who will live with us in the in-between time of Him coming back from the grave and going back to heaven. He has this moment with the disciples, now the apostles, and this for us as the church, this is where our mission begins.

I want you to notice a few observations before I really get to the meat of the text. Think about this: verse 16, it says, “The 11 disciples traveled to Galilee to a mountain where Jesus had directed them.” Think about this: God initiates all of our mission and activity for Him. Jesus had told them what mountain to go to. Jesus knew that when they got to that mountain, He spoke with them, He was going to give them a mission. God initiates all mission activity that we do for Him. He initiates your morning Bible study. He initiates that conversation that you’ll have with a cashier at Publix inviting her to church. He initiates you writing the money on the check that you’ll put into the office offering plate. God initiates all of your activity for Him.

And naturally then, verse 17, when you see Jesus and you worship Him, that worship would naturally produce evangelism. We talk about the things we love. I love my children. I’ve already told y’all, I’ve already told a dozen of y’all that my daughter started gymnastics yesterday. It’s because I sneak and love that girl. I’m going to talk about what I love. What you love, you will tell people about. And when you are worshiping Jesus, when you are actively loving Him, you will tell people about Him.

And I love verse 17 as well because it says, “When they saw Him, they worshiped, but some doubted.” Man, worship and doubt, they can coexist in a relationship with God. God does not need you to have all of the theological mental buttons buttoned up for you to have a relationship with Him. If you’re in the room right now and you’re still trying to put some things together, what does it mean to walk with God? I don’t know that I can have faith in something I don’t believe. How’s the Trinity work? How in the world can there be one God in three persons? And if Jesus is God but He was also man and then He died, does that mean that God died? And if God died, then are any of us actually real? Like, I may have just given you a doubt, I don’t know, but worship and doubt, man, it can live in the same mind and the same heart with the Lord. The Lord doesn’t want your perfect understanding; what He wants is your open heart. So if you’re in the room right now and you aren’t quite sure about following Jesus, man, my invitation to you is take some of those doubts and put them to the side, and for a few minutes let Jesus tell you about who He is.

I said a second ago this passage is called the Great Commission. These are Jesus’s final words to His disciples, and in this He is saying Christians, my followers, they have one main task. Christians have one main task: making disciples. Look at it again with me in verse 19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.”

All right, I’m going to get a little nerdy on you for a moment. We don’t see this because we are reading an English translation of a Greek writing. In the Greek language, there are different types of verbs that would be written different types of ways. You have a supporting verb that would tell you how you do something, and then you have an imperative verb. The imperative verb is what You really want done. Now we talk like this. You might look at your kids and you might say, “Clean your room, make that bed, pick up your toys, and oh yeah, those dirty clothes, take them to the laundry room.” What’s the main thing you really want them to do? Is clean their room. But for them to clean their room, they’ve got to do the other stuff. They’ve got to make that bed, they’ve got to tidy up those toys, they got to take care of that dirty laundry, right? Or think about if you’re at work. Your boss might look at you and say, “Finish the job.” You got to inform everybody about what you’ve done, you need to tidy up your workspace, you need to get ready for tomorrow. Now if you only inform and tidy up and get ready, you may not have actually finished the job. Finishing the job, that’s what you really want done. Cleaning your room, that’s what you really want done.

When Jesus is looking at the disciples and He speaks, there is one main thing He says. That main thing is make disciples. Make disciples. If we read it in the Greek, it would scream at us. Jesus is telling us, make disciples. That is my mission for you. You making disciples is the mission that Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, has for us. To make disciples, we must share the message. I firmly believe if you want the joy of helping somebody receive Jesus Christ, if you want the joy of helping somebody pray to give their lives to Him, but you never talk with people about Jesus, I just don’t think it’s going to happen for you. If we’re not telling people about Jesus, they are not becoming disciples. In order to make a disciple, you got to share the message about Jesus. Making disciples requires proclaiming the soul-saving and life-altering message of Jesus Christ.

We’ll come back to this passage in Matthew in a moment. We’ll put another passage on the screen because you might be wondering, what is that message? What do I tell people if I want to help somebody walk from death to life? If I want to help somebody meet Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior? If I want to help somebody become a Christian? Or maybe that’s me. Maybe I want this. I’ve heard about walking with Jesus, but I don’t actually know what I need to believe about Him to have that. Then do I have news for you? It comes out of 1 Corinthians chapter 15. This is a different part of the Bible written by a different person. This time it’s this guy named Paul. Paul was a persecutor of Jesus, a persecutor of early Christians. God saves Paul as he is on his way to go hurt more Christians. Paul is radically won to become a defender and a disciple of Jesus. Paul starts a church in the city called Corinth, and this is what he says: “Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preach to you, which you received, on which you’ve taken your stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. For I passed on to you as most important what I received.”

Let’s pause. If somebody says, “Hey, this is what’s important,” what’s that mean? This is what’s important. We need to listen. Paul said this is the gospel, this is what’s important. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, that’s Peter, then to the 12, then He appeared to over 500 brothers and sisters at one time, most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. That is a euphemism for passed away.

So what is the message of the gospel? It is this: a Savior has been promised by the scriptures. You see, God’s plan from before time was to send a Savior. I was talking with one of our church members on the phone the other day. They are reading the Bible for themselves for the very first time. They are 20 chapters into the book of Genesis, and they said, “Jeremy, I am sick to my stomach reading this. Why in the world is Abram lying about his wife? Why in the world is God letting Lot do things with his daughters? What is happening?” And I’m talking with her, and I’m saying everything in the Old Testament is setting the stage.

for Jesus to come. The good people of the Old Testament, they are just shadows or types of Jesus. The bad things of the Old Testament is making you want a Savior to come. All of the Old Testament is just preparing you for Jesus, and sometimes explicitly. Jesus fulfilled between three and 500 prophecies about Himself. God had been promising from the very beginning, way back in Genesis 3:15. In fact, write this down: Genesis 3:15. I want you to read that later and tell me that’s not about Jesus, because God promises a Savior who will come and defeat the Satan. All right, sending Jesus was not God’s last-ditch effort to try to get a Hail Mary to win a playoff game. Sending Jesus was God’s first priority and His plan the entire time. The gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ saving the world, that was promised by the scriptures. This passage in 1 Corinthians, though, it also tells us the gospel is this: Christ died for our sins, and He was buried. You see, Jesus was born to die. He was born to die for you and for me and for the souls of this world. On the cross, Jesus, Jesus became a substitute for you, a sacrifice in your place. He took your punishment for your sin. Anybody ever been in a situation at work or in life where somebody else paid the consequence for your mess up? There was a substitute; someone had to be sacrificed for you. That was Jesus. Indeed, Jesus paid it all, and all to Him we owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, but Jesus, oh, He washed us white as snow. On the cross, God poured on Jesus all of the punishment and the wrath that you and me and the souls of every person that has ever lived, what we deserve, was placed on Jesus. He died for our sin, and after dying, He was buried in a real grave that was protected by real Roman soldiers and Jewish leaders. He did not faint on the cross. His body was not swapped for somebody else’s. On the cross, Jesus died, and He was buried, but death couldn’t hold that man. On the third day, this is what Paul says: Jesus was raised to life on the third day. Death could not hold Him because on the third day Jesus defeated the grave and was raised back to life. Amen. Thank you so much, Sam. Amen.

Man, this ought to be the heartbeat of us. This ought to move us. This changes how you view everything and everybody. This changes things, and if it doesn’t change things, it hasn’t changed you. My life came alive when I was a 15-year-old sitting in my buddy’s Nissan in my driveway, and he says, “Jeremy, I love you. You claim to know Jesus. You do not know Him. This is who Jesus is.” And he walked me from death to life that night as a, as a 15-year-old, and my life has never been the same. Man, when did it happen for you? Has it? Please hear with every fiber of me right now: the very best thing you could do in this moment, if you, if you, if, if you haven’t given yourself to Him, please stop listening to me and just right where you are, close your eyes and just say, “Jesus, say, I hear this well-meaning guy talking about You in a way that it’s like he believes in You, but I don’t, I don’t believe in You that way yet. You help me, please.” Jesus doesn’t demand your, your perfect ability to follow Him because none of us have that. What Jesus wants is your heart. He wants your willingness. He wants, He wants to carry you. On the third day, Jesus defeated the things we could never conquer on our own: sin. Sin is, is kind of like a weird sweater, and try as you might to, man, arrange this thing, like it just, it just don’t fit right. You know, you know what I’m talking about. You’re just trying to get it off, and you’re just, just uncomfortable. But the thing about the sweater is, like, it’s like sewn on to you. You can’t cut it off. You can’t get it off. The Bible says for all who place their faith in Jesus, they are clothed with the perfection of Jesus. Think about it this way: salvation is kind of like God takes that sin sweater you can’t get off, it doesn’t feel right, and it bothers you, and it just, it just kind of hangs on you, and He takes it off for you, and He gives you His jacket, and He says, “Hey, here you go.” Instead, on the third day, Jesus defeated death. Romans 4:25 says that Jesus’s death is what gives us forgiveness, but His resurrection is what makes us right on the inside. It’s the difference between me forgiving my children for doing the wrong thing versus their hearts being transformed and they start doing the right thing. If Jesus had only died as a sacrifice, then all of our sin up to that point would have been forgiven, then we would have started a new ticker, we would have started a new sin counter, and it just start one, two, three, four, five, six, and so forth. Jesus, though, because He was raised back to life, that clicker turned off forever, at least for those who trust in God. And now when God looks at me, He doesn’t look at all of my sinfulness and all my wrongness; He instead sees all of Jesus’s rightness. And God’s got His work cut out for Him with me because God has been at work with correcting the wrongness since I first believed in Him.

You think about Jesus being raised on the third day, too. This is just extra for you. 1 Corinthians 15, if you were to read the rest of this chapter, you would see Paul talking about how the resurrection of Jesus guarantees that one day you and me and all who trust in Him will also be resurrected. It’s been a hard past two weeks, the greater family of our church. We’ve had four or five folks pass away. We did our second funeral in four days later, and I think about the finality of losing a loved one bodily, and I rejoice in the fact that because Jesus rose from the dead, one day all who trust in Him will also rise from the dead. So that loved one that was missing from the Christmas table, man, one day you get to get to see them again. That friend that’s no longer with you, one day you’ll get to put your arm around them, and you get to just hug each other for as long as you want to, and nobody’s going to rush you through that, and it’s all because of what Jesus has done for us.

This is the good news of God’s grace for you, not just that He can forgive the bad things you do, but that He can make you right on the inside, and one day this life will give way to a paradise of an eternity with God where you get to look at your loved ones and your friends who have also trusted in Him, and the complete strangers in the Middle East that our friends are winning to the Lord, and we get to say, “Amen,” for the rest of eternity. We are together before the Lord. This is the hope of the Gospel, that there is more to life than this, and that is such good news. If this is all that there was, there’s really not much to live for, but praise the Lord, there is so much more to live for because this is not all that there is.

After Jesus was raised from the dead, this is the last aspect of the Gospel, what Paul says is most important for his church in Corinth to know. After He was raised from the dead, He was seen by many people. Man, the resurrection is no secret. It is, in fact, one of the most verified facts of human history. We have more evidence for the resurrection of Jesus than we do the The Odyssey. Anybody read The Odyssey in high school or middle school? Man, what a hard thing to get through, right? The book that we call the Odyssey that we make or we encourage students to read from, there’s only four copies of the Odyssey ever found in ancient literature. They are, they don’t match in what they have, the content of those stories, those four copies don’t match, and we know from dating practices that they are hundreds of years after when it was supposed to be written originally. Yet we look at students, we say, “This is the Odyssey, this was the author’s intent, this is bona fide history.” However, the New Testament, the gospel accounts of Jesus Christ, we have thousands of manuscripts that have a 99% match rate from just a decade or two after the event that they record. The gospel and the testimony of the Scripture is the most verified set of history ever. The resurrection is not a myth. The resurrection is not a cute idea. It’s not just an encouraging story. No, the resurrection is bona fide fact. We do not have blind Faith as Christians we have a Rock Solid Faith and that message is enough to transform people from Lost Servants of sin who deserve to be punished into lovers of God who will one day stand before the throne and stand in Him complete. Jesus died our souls to save, our lips shall still repeat, we will sing around the throne. Jesus Paid It all, my sin had left a crimson Stone, but a Crimson Stain, but You have washed it white as snow.

The gospel, it is not just a well-meaning message from a well-meaning guy on Sundays at 11: the gospel is true and sharing the gospel does something for us. When I was praying months ago about what to include in this season that we’ve called deeper, it just hit me, sharing the gospel has got to be one of those three things we talk about. Lo and behold, how how the Lord lines things up. I had no idea that Drew and Martha were going to be with us. I had no idea that I was going to be preaching this passage on the morning that they get to share, but that’s just how Godly likes to line up calendars.

I’m sure you guys have heard the Great Commission talked about a thousand times, probably some some better preachers than me. I knew that sharing the gospel had to be something we talked about because when you make a habit of talking about Jesus it does something for you. When I think about sharing the gospel, it man, it reminds me of God’s grace that I’ve received. It reminds me of the things I used to live for, but now the one I get to live for now. When I think about sharing the gospel, it helps me believe that God Is Bigger Than People. It helps me believe that there is a God who saves people because I get to tell them about how there was a God who saved me when I share the gospel.

Romans 1:16 says it is the power of God to save Sinners. The gospel is like a nuclear bomb of God’s love and you just get to keep firing it at people, trusting that that bomb, that power is going to do its job. And that analogy didn’t really land that great. Thank you ho Beckers for telling me that was a little off J. I think you guys get what I mean though, right? What can melt the Heart of Stone? What can change the leper spots? It’s got to be the power of God to save, and it is.

Man, when I think about my life before I gave my life to Jesus, well-meaning church kid, stonehart man, I thought I knew it all. I thought I was good with God because I did things. I would give God my spare change in the offering plate. I would pray to Him occasionally. ID read my Bible sometimes. I would attend the church stuff that my parents wanted me to go to. I tried to control my tongue in my speech. I tried to get a some sort of grasp on the things I thought about. I participated in youth group. I did FCA. I did all the things, but man, my heart was frozen solid against the love of God. There was one thing that could melt my heart. There was one thing that could break through all the religion and all the self-righteousness that I was living in, and it was the power of the gospel.

And when you share that power, the person that frustrates you because you know they don’t walk with Jesus, the person person that lives the wrong way because they don’t know the Savior, man, our logic can’t make them live the right way. You’re not going to rub off on them well enough for them to all of a sudden be moral people, and being moral people is not the goal. The goal is lovers of Jesus. There is one thing that can transform somebody from a worshipper of self to a worshipper of Jesus Christ, and it is sharing the gospel with them.

Now I want to invite you, what would intentionally trying to just talk about Jesus with people, what would that look like in your life? Cashier at Publix, other moms at school, or other families around the neighborhood, or people around town. I want to do a little math with you, you guys. I’m not going to get too crazy with this because you’ll probably spot some errors if I get too complicated. Look around the room, just just kind of look back. This is about a hundred people over the last four months of 2024.

Our Sunday morning worship service attendance has averaged 100 folks. Let’s think about something. What if all 100 of us shared the gospel one time in the month of February, and we got a 10% yield, i.e., 10% of people we share the gospel with actually believe? That would mean in the month of February, our 100 people would produce 10 disciples. Fair? Let’s carry that forward. That 110 people then would share the gospel one time in the month of March. 11 of them believe. That makes us 121 folks. 121 people in the month of April would share, and 12 would believe. That would make us 133. In the month of May, because we are on a roll and we’ve established a habit, we just keep going. 133 of us share the gospel one time, 10%. That would mean 13 people believe. Carry that out through January 2026, we would have 311 people worshiping with us. My goal is not to fill these pews. My goal is to fill heaven. In one year, our 100 people would gain 211 disciples if we made a practice of every one of us sharing the gospel one time a month and only 10% of those folks believing. Does anybody else want to see something like that, or am I the only person that cares about stuff like that? I’m not. You guys, give yourselves a hand. I’d love to hear one person trying to clap about that. [Applause]

Here’s the thing: Jesus promises that He’s going to give us a return on our work for Him. Go back to Matthew 28 with me. Jesus comes near and He says, verse 18, “All authority has been given to me.” I’ve got all the authority in heaven and on Earth. You scoot down to verse 20, and remember, “I am with you always, to the ends of the age.” Man, Jesus, He does not just commission us for a task, making disciples; He also promises His authority and His presence with us. Jesus wants to see heaven filled with worshippers way more than any of us do. Jesus has all authority. The limitations that once applied to Jesus when He became man no longer apply to Him since He came back from death. Jesus has supreme authority throughout the universe, and He uses it for the sake of His gospel expanding. Jesus has the final say on how we spend our time and our money. He has the final say on how we speak to others. He has the final say on how we operate as a church, and He has a final say on what we live for as His followers. Jesus has all authority, but He’s not just a boss up on the top floor telling you what to do. No, Jesus is in the trenches with you because He says, “I am with you all the time.”

Way back in 2024, three weeks ago when we celebrated Christmas, we sang about Emmanuel. Matthew 1:23 promised that God would be with us, and the name of that person is Emmanuel, God with you. Christmas is all about God being with us, and guess what? January is too, and so is February and March and every other month, every day of your life, every moment of that day, God is with you. One Bible commentator says this: “In other words, you, the disciple, you are not going to be left to serve God as well as you can in light of what he has learned from the things Jesus has commanded. Now the disciple will find that he has a great companion as he goes on his way through life.” This tells us something about Jesus. The Jesus of whom Matthew writes is no small Palestinian figure. Nah, but He is a mighty person who is with His followers wherever they may be, and this, he says, will last through time. He’s not speaking of a temporary residence with first-century disciples, no, but of a presence among His followers to the very end of time. That’s why we begin every service reminding ourselves Jesus is with us. Man, Jesus is with you. He wants you to tell others about Him way more than we could ever want that, and He wants to give you a return on that way more than you could ever want that, and He has the power to actually do it. Man, when you put yourself out there and you talk about Him and you share the gospel, it’s like you’re taking a baton and you’re handing it to the God of the universe. It’s saying, “Okay, I’ve run my race as hard as I can. Now you take.”

this Jesus and you do something with it and watch what the Lord does around you as you share that message with others. Man, as we seek to make disciples by sharing the gospel, we would naturally do three things, and I’ll start to finish with this: we would go, we would baptize, and we would teach. Those are those supporting verbs that [inaudible] the main point of what Jesus was saying, but nevertheless it deserves to be said. Going, verse 19, he says, “Go.” Going happens both throughout your daily life and going intentionally. You are going internationally. I would like to invite you the final Saturday of this year: come with me and Carter, and let us go. Let us go to a park, let us go to Food Lion, let us go to the mall, and let us find somebody to share the gospel with. I’m going to give you every opportunity over the next four months to go with us. You go, you’re going to share the gospel. Some are going to believe. That’s when you get to baptize. You baptize believers, this declaration of belief, this idea of transformation. Guess what? Maybe you have believed the gospel and you have never made that public through baptism. Love to give you an opportunity next Sunday. Carter, my son, we’re in conversation with three folks who’ve all given their lives to Jesus, and they want to make that public with baptism. If you’d like to be number four, we’d like to welcome you to the water. Find me after service, write it on that connect card, and we’ll be—I’d be—I would love to make time to talk with you about choosing that step. So you go, you baptize, and you teach others to obey. We teach them to observe everything that Jesus commanded us. Man, we’re trying to give you every opportunity here at Sauldam Baptist to be taught, from Sunday school at 10 o’clock to Wednesday night Bible study at 6 o’clock, women’s ministry Monday mornings, and Tuesday nights men’s ministry. It’s coming down the pipe for us. Man, own your faith and come and learn, and it might be your job soon to to teach others, to help them understand—understand—help them to obey everything Jesus has taught us. As I ask you, as I start to close, how does your life need to change for you to make disciples? You see, all people you interact with are either bound for heaven or bound for hell, which means every conversation and interaction you have either helps people walk into a new life of freedom from sin or it further condemns them to a life without Christ, which means all time and resources must be leveraged to help people know Jesus. What needs to change in your life for you to go deeper with Christ by sharing the gospel with folks? But of course, the gospel is not about your effort; it’s not about your work; it’s about what Jesus has done for us. Makes a lot of sense for us to close the sermon, close the service by singing that same song, “Jesus Paid It All,” still just as applicable for us. So here’s what I want to invite: Pete, you come back forward. Cody and Ellis, y’all come back up. I just want to take a moment where you are right now and just bow your head and just to pray with the Lord and say, “Lord, what what what might need to shift in my life for making disciples and sharing the gospel to become a more regular habit for me?”