How Do We Do Missions?

Listen on

Steven Lee
Pastor for Preaching & Vision

0:13Well, last Sunday we looked at why we do missions from Psalm 96. We do missions because we're gripped by the glory of God. We want others to behold God's glory, and we want to invite them in to see and to praise and to enjoy his goodness. And so this morning what we're gonna do is look at how we do missions. In other words, what are we supposed to do and how are we to do it? And to answer that, we're gonna look at the end of Matthew's gospel, as you just heard, read. So would you join me now as we pray?

1:00Father in heaven, we ask that you would open our eyes and cause us to see you and your glory afresh, incline our hearts so that we would delight in Christ and see you from your word. Pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. There was a story that made international headlines in 2018. And some of you may remember it, it's back in the headlines because recently National Geographic made a documentary about this story. And it's the story of a missionary named John Allen Chow. He was a missionary who attempted to contact an isolated tribal people called the Alese. And they lived on North Sentinel Island, situated in the Bay of Bengal. And if you don't know where this is, I didn't know either. I had to look it up on a map.

2:01If you think of Bangladesh and right in this little bay, and then you go hundreds of miles down, it's these islands in the middle of nowhere, he made several contacts by boat, which was illegal at the time. And he had fishermen that he paid a couple hundred dollars, that they would just bring him close enough. And he, he tried getting contact with those tribal people, leaving them gifts. At one point a boy shot an arrow at him and it hit him in the Bible. And in his diary, he, he was writing and he said, I think I could be more useful alive. But to you, God, I give all the glory of whatever happens.

2:38Forgive any of the people on this island who try to kill me, especially if they succeed on what would be his last trip. He asked the fishermen to drop him off and to leave him on the island. And he landed on that island on November 17th, 2018. And he died at age 26. His death sparked fierce debate, some blamed of the missions agency for radicalizing. Him and others thought he was a martyr like Jim Elliot and his friends who went to Ecuador. His own father blamed evangelicals extreme Christianity for his death. And yet a friend of Chow's said this, he said his motivation was love for the people.

3:26If you believe in heaven and hell, then what he did was the most loving thing anyone could do. Every major media source reported on this story when it first came out. And, and they pointed to how Christian missions is toxic and foolish and extreme. It, it ruins native cultures. It's colonizing both arrogant and misguided. The bad outweighs any good that would come about from Christianizing a pagan culture. When I first heard of this back in 2018, I, I didn't know that this young man actually went to a missions training school and had training in linguistics and medical techniques and had carefully thought through and counted the costs.

4:17I just thought he was just a rogue young man on mission. The the question that this raises for us this morning is whether God has called his church to engage in such work. The question for us this morning is, does Christ command his people to go and do stuff like that? Is it toxic? Is it foolish? Is it extreme? Or is it what Jesus calls his people to do? Is there anything in the Bible that compels us to tell others about Christ? Is there any scriptural basis for missions? It would be no surprise to you this morning that I would argue yes and we just heard it read in our passage from Matthew. It's a very familiar passage for a church like ours.

5:12And yet what I'm gonna do is try to help us see it afresh this morning. Matthew 28, 18 to 20 is often called Jesus great commission to his disciples. And in it, he commands us to go with his authority and his presence to make disciples that will love and treasure Christ. That that's the main point. He calls us to go with his authority and his presence to go and make disciples that will love and know and treasure Christ. This is our mission. This is how we get our mission statement. Every believer, every believer, not just the ones we send out every believer is to be a disciple making disciple. That is what we were saved for.

6:10Yes, saved to glorify God in order to be disciple making disciple. So I have several aims for us this morning. What I wanna do first is to reestablish our commitment to making disciples of all nations. Now I remember during the process when we were renaming ourselves, you remember that painful process, uh, and becoming a separate church. People would ask are, are we still committed to the nations? Because we had something we called 25 by 25 and and, and we had a long storied history of our commitment to the nations. And people would openly ask, are, are we still about that this morning? My answer is yes.

6:51We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things, for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. And one of the ways we do that is by engaging in missions as goers and senders. Our church is committed to proclaiming Christ to the ends of the earth and to do so until Christ comes again. The second aim is that I want some of us this morning to be awakened to God's call on them to go, we're not gonna do an altar call like we've done in previous years. We're not gonna call you to come up and stand up in front. But I believe that God is stirring in some of us to go that when John was praying, you were thinking, oh maybe me.

7:51Some of us are restless and sensing that God may be calling us to a place of greater need for the name and for the sake of Christ. And I want you to obey that call this morning. I remember when I first felt that I was out in California, I had just graduated college. John Piper had come out for this conference called Resolve. That was with John MacArthur's church out there. And it was in Long Beach at the convention center. And he made some passing comments about how there were so many Asian Americans in Southern California and, and then he said, perhaps God is calling you to go and fulfill that great commission.

8:28And I remember just tears streaming down my face. 'cause in that moment I felt like, I think it's supposed to be me. And and the Lord called us instead to a cold place called Minnesota. And and yet perhaps God is calling some of us to cold or hot or dangerous places for the sake of the name. So our plan this morning is to look at our passage in three aspects of the mission, the foundation, the strategy and the motivation, the foundation, the strategy and the motivation. What I wanna do is kind of unfold for us, Matthew 28, 18 to 20. I know it's a familiar passage. And then to connect this to our broader vision to disciple the next generation here at the North Church.

9:15So first we look at the foundation for the mission. Look with me at verse 18. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Now, several questions come to mind. Who has given this authority to Jesus? Why was he given this authority? And what does it mean for Jesus to possess all authority? Now look back at the context for our passage in verse 16 and 17, 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 that's the broader context. Jesus is still being doubted by his 11 disciples when they go to meet him on this mountain.

10:08And Matthew is showing us that these are Jesus' final words to his disciples. Jesus gives the mission, but before he does, he gives the basis for what he's going to command. And it's this, that Jesus possesses all authority as the risen Lord. Now who gives this authority to Jesus? Uh, I think from the context it's clear that he's using the divine passive has been given to indicate that it's God the Father who has given him this authority. We see similarly in other passages like Ephesians one 20, just listen. God raised Jesus from the dead, seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

11:04So God the Father gives Jesus the Son authority, power, and dominion. Or John 17 verse one. This is Jesus praying high priestly prayer. He says, father, the hour has come glorify your son, that your son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all flesh and to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. So Jesus is given this authority by God the Father, for a specific purpose. Now, why was Jesus given this authority? It was the result of Jesus' death for sinners as the very lamb of God. Now, Jesus is always God. Uh, before the foundations of the world, Jesus has the authority of God himself.

11:54But there's something unique that takes place here in his death and in his resurrection, Jesus strips Satan of all of his power to condemn. He sheds his blood so that sinners would be reconciled to the Father. The the list of sins he nails against the cross. He triumphs over sin and death and Satan and rises again from the dead. And that's why Jesus on the cross stretches out his hands and says, it's finished the mission that God the Father had given Jesus. Jesus came and he carried out perfectly vindicated by the Father rising again from the dead and ascending on high. So Jesus is not just king of the Jews, as was posted over the cross, but in his resurrection, he became the king of the universe throughout the gospel of Matthew, if you just read it, it's showing Jesus authority, hi, his authority to heal, his authority to forgive sins, his authority to command out demons.

13:03Jesus has authority. And in the cross he has ultimate and complete authority over everything. He has absolute all encompassing authority. And Jesus articulates this truth as the foundation and as the basis for the mission. And if we ever get these disconnected, we're gonna lose sight. We're gonna be intimidated by the scope of the mission because it's a big mission. And yet it's only possible if all authority in heaven and on earth over everything has been given to Jesus. And Jesus is empowering his disciples to go with his authority. What does it mean for Jesus to possess all authority? I think Matthew 28 is explicitly calling to mind language from Daniel chapter seven, verse 13 and 14.

14:01And you can turn there if you want or you can just listen. And we sang a song actually about that, the ancient of days. And we had a series through Daniel not long ago. And here what it says, Daniel seven 13, there came one like a son of man and he came to the ancient of days. And to him, to the son of man was given dominion and glory and a kingdom and all that, all people's nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away. And his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. Daniel is getting a vision of a future day. When the ancient of days, God the father, would give power and dominion and authority to this son of man. Uh oh. Who is this guy gonna be?

14:54And and the purpose for that is that all people's nations and languages should serve him. Jesus is that son of man who has been given complete dominion. That sounds like the great commission, doesn't it? The foundation for our mission is because Jesus has been given universal worldwide authority. This is why in Philippians it says, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on 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. And every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So God the Father possesses all the authority, he's given that to his son.

15:46And now Jesus gives that to his disciples as an empowering work, a motivation, a foundation, the basis for their mission. Now I wanna look at the strategy in verses 19 and 20. Look with me there. Right here we get the mission and the means for that mission. It says, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Now, the main command in this section is make disciples. Make disciples is the imperative. But the go at the beginning is a circumstantial partisan, that's a fancy way of saying it shares the same impaired tival force of make disciples. So it means go and make disciples.

16:39You can't have one without the other. Now, there are several things for us to note here. Make disciples reminds us that it's not just evangelism without discipleship. We were talking earlier this week with some of the pastors and Nick Whitehead said, you know, I was talking to a guy who's always really excited about evangelism and he would share the gospel a lot. And, and Nick asked him, well, what do you do to disciple these people af if some of them believe? And and the guy said, well, I I don't do that part. And and Pastor Sam said, he's not carrying out the great commission, but the great omission, the task is not just to get people to believe, but it's to make mature disciples that would likewise make disciples. The call here to the disciples is unique.

17:31Now, the the reason it's unique is because in the Old Testament, Israel is never called to kind of go and tell. Israel was called to, to live holy lives as a nation. And people would come and see here is a nation who has Yahweh as their God. And look how they live. Look how they obey. Look, look how they're blessed. Like when the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon's court and just saw a happy is everyone, this is amazing. Look how good it is to follow Yahweh. But now the church is not just a cloister and say, come and see, but we're to go and tell Jesus is initiating this mission. And he sends and his commissions, his disciples to go and to go to all nations or all peoples. This is tne is worthy.

18:27We get the word ethnicity. This is all peoples ethnolinguistic groups, perhaps 16 or 17,000 in the world. And all are to come to saving faith in Jesus. Some from among all of those groups. This means as a church, we want to be able to prioritize those who have not yet heard, not those who have no churches, who have no bibles, who have no witness for Christ. Our aim is to establish Christ in every nation. Every earthly ruler will eventually bow the knee to king Jesus. They will either do so willingly as worshipers or under judgment and under compulsion before king Jesus. So that that's the mission that we've been given to go and make disciples and, and the means, the way we accomplish that we see in our passage we are to baptize in the name of the Father, son and spirit. And then to teach.

19:33These are both disciples that reveal the means for how we are to make disciples. Now, uh, the question that might come to mind for many of us is why baptism? You know, very often in our baptist circles will say, baptism isn't salvific, meaning that baptism doesn't save you. And we believe that. But if you say something like that, many people begin to conclude baptism is unimportant. If it doesn't save you, then what significance is it? But Jesus includes it as one central aspect of what it means to be a disciple. Why? Well saying baptism is unimportant is like saying exchanging vows at my wedding is unimportant. Uh, I'm committed to my wife.

20:22Why do I need vows and rings and a ceremony? Well, those symbols are the living enacted pictures of the internal commitment that we have to one another. And in fact, without the vows, there is no marriage covenant. And the same I think is true in terms of baptism. Baptism is a sign of one's allegiance to king Jesus. It's the initiation rite into the Christian faith. It signifies that we've died with Christ and that we've been raised with Christ, that as we go into the baptism waters, our sins have been washed clean. And then now we're not just baptized to be independent people, we're baptized into the fellowship of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and to his body, the church.

21:13This means we declare our new allegiance, our new life, and our new family. And there's several implications of this that I want to look at. It means that the disciples would not have a category for intentionally unbaptized Christians. The disciples would not have a category for intentionally unbaptized Christians. It would be an oxymoron. Baptism signifies that you are now in Christ. It's an essential component of discipleship, which means that if you are a believer in Jesus here this morning and you are not baptized, you need to get baptized.

21:58Being shy, not wanting to wet your hair or stand up in front of others is not a valid reason to not be baptized. And I know we have people in our congregation who, who have some of those reservations don't wanna stand up in front of, don't wanna be able to give their testimony. They're, they're fearful. And, and, and I would just ask you to consider the scriptures, I think Jesus would not have a category of an intentionally unbaptized Christian. Secondly, it means several implications for our global partners. But I'll draw out one, we should send global partners who make disciples that receive the initiation rite of baptism. And the reason I bring this up is because I've heard, I don't know if it's in our church, but I've heard of missionaries that go to Muslim countries and Muslim peoples and they will intentionally tell their converts not to get baptized, uh, to, to not declare their allegiance to Jesus.

22:58Well keep going to the mosque just privately worship Issa in the mosque w wearing all of the same things and don't tell anybody so that you can keep and preserve those relationships because they're so desperate for a church planting movement. And so they just want these secret Christians. And, and I think the reality is they should go and they should call those converts to consider the cost of discipleship and then to get baptized into the family of God.

23:31The second way we're to make disciples is teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. So at the heart of disciple making is teaching obedience to Jesus commands. So we're not to do drive by evangel, drive by evangelism, that that isn't enough disciple making aims towards applying the whole counsel of God. That that's what we try to do. That's why we do exposition through entire books. 'cause if there's a part that is uncomfortable that I'm inclined to skip, we don't skip so that we can benefit from the whole council of God. We want to teach all of what the Bible teaches. And likewise in missions, we ought to teach the whole council of God in order to obey all that Christ commands. And again, this has several implications for us.

24:23First for us, are we obeying all that Christ commands? Are we doers and not just hearers of God's word. If we are to teach others to obey all that Christ commands, we need to be people who are obeying Christ in every area and aspect of our life. And we have our idols, we have our issues as American Christians. Don't we just like in any other part of the world, there are parts of the scriptures that we are inclined to just put aside because they make us uncomfortable and we need to be obedient to all of it. And for global missions, this is incredibly important. Uh, I'm, as I work with Nick, I've seen more and more of this that there's this troubling trend in missions that missions agencies are willing to send almost anybody to do almost anything because it doesn't cost them any money to send almost anybody to do almost anything.

25:26As long as you can raise your own $120,000 to go and do that thing, right? So if you wanna be a missionary that makes clown animals in a refugee camp full of children, you can probably find an organization that will send you, they'll take 6% of all that you raise. And the Lord bless you as long as you raise the money. And, and a as we talk in global outreach and as we reformulate our broad guiding principles and our vision, we are really zealous, really zealous that we have people who are engaged in the very heart of the mission making disciples by baptizing and teaching all that Christ command gathering and strengthening churches that grow to maturity in Christ.

26:16And yes, this will include preparatory work like Bible translation. It will include supporting work stateside that enables gospel proclamation abroad. It will include church strengthening so that believers can obey all that Christ commanded. Yet we don't wanna just engage in businesses that have no gospel proclamation. We don't want humanitarian work without discipleship. We don't want literacy development without proclaiming the good news of Jesus. We don't want water projects without strengthening the church to obey all that Christ commanded. And so we're really zealous to do this well and to do this better.

26:57We want in our global outreach ministry to focus on making disciples through evangelism, discipleship, church strengthening and church planting. We're zealous to be good stewards of what God has entrusted to us. We wanna make sure all that we do as a church is tethered closely with the great commission. So the strategy for carrying out global missions is informed by God's word, Christ's command and his means for carrying it out, baptizing and teaching. Now we come to the third item, which is the motivation for the mission. So we've seen the foundation, we've seen the strategy. Now we come to the motivation.

27:41And that comes in the latter half of verse 20. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. What an amazing word of encouragement for his disciples. Remember in that context, some of the disciples were still even doubting and, and he's just given them this mission that is worldwide in scope. Every nation, I want you to teach them all that I have commanded you. That's impossible, Jesus. We can't make anyone obey without your spirit at work in people. It's an impossible mission. And what does Jesus say His motivation is that I am with you. My presence and my power go with you. I will never leave you nor will I forsake you. Now, what does it mean that I'm with you always?

28:33Because Jesus is going to leave them bodily in just a few moments. It means that Jesus is spiritually present with his followers. Until this mission is completed, Jesus will be present through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, empowering his people. In, in John 14, Jesus says to his disciples, he says, I will not leave you as orphans, but I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. So the Spirit is going to come teach them, give them peace.

29:16Confirm to them that Jesus and the Father make their home with them and will empower them for this mission. So why does he give this motivation? Why does Jesus need to tell them this? It's because the work is going to be really difficult. You're gonna be tempted to give up. And yet Jesus promises his presence, his peace, and the power of his indwelling spirit.

29:45Would we go to the ends of the earth if Jesus would not go with us? No way. And yet, perhaps for some of you here this morning, Jesus is calling you to take risk, to step out in faith to go. And he says, what I promise you is that you're gonna get more of me. He doesn't promise us success. He doesn't promise us results. He doesn't promise us wonderful stories that can we write home about, but he promises us more of himself. And the question is, is that enough? Is Jesus enough to call us to go to the nations if that is his call upon our lives? The great commission is not this long drawn out unwinnable war, but Jesus calls us to proclaim his victory, his lordship, his kingship, and then the end will come. It gets completed.

30:49Now, uh, I wanna move us towards some application here this morning. So what's the mission of the church? The mission of the church is to glorify God by going and preaching the gospel among the nations, making disciples by baptizing and teaching all that Christ commanded, establishing these believers into churches who will worship and grow towards Christian maturity. We try to summarize that is we want to be a people that treasures Christ in all of life. And we wanna raise up people both near and far that treasure Christ in all of life. Now, when I think about the application for us here in this context, I wanna apply this in two ways here this morning. Some of us, God is stirring in our hearts to go, he's impressing it upon your heart to take steps forward until he closes the door. And we're not gonna have moving music to stir up your emotions.

31:50We're we're not gonna, you know, sing the same refrain 25 times to kind of stir up the right feelings in you. We're, we're just saying, Lord, make it clear to those that you're calling to go. And it could be that you're four and you're saying someday if Lord wills, I want to go. It could be that you're in high school and you're thinking may maybe I should get some training in, in, in understanding the Bible 'cause that that's just stirring my heart. Uh, it could be young adults, newly married college students that are saying, I I could see worse ways to spend my prime years giving, giving a big corporation my 40 hours every week just to bring home a paycheck.

32:38And then there are those who are empty nesters and senior saints who are saying, Lord, uh, I'm willing. I don't know how much energy I still have. I don't know how much time I still have. And yet, Lord move in me. Oh, what would it look like for me to engage in this mission? And, and I could tell story after story of the people who've done that. It, it, it really is amazing. I I say this because our church has done that again and again. And I believe that God is eager and pleased to continue to call that forward from this church. Uh, I know there are many people who are engaged regularly in ESL Ministry here and with their neighbors here and those who go abroad for three months out of the year every year engaging with refugees here in Minnesota.

33:27And so if that's you here this morning, we have one request is that you would talk with Nick Whitehead, that you would reach out, send him an email and just begin to talk with him and, and take steps forward until the Lord closes that door. You can perhaps ask for prayer after the service with those who are upfront. I believe that God will continue to raise up goers here and from this church of faithful senders.

34:03Another aspect of applying this text is this, and this is kind of my burden here this morning, in addition to having some of us called to go, this passage is not just for our global partners and those who are hoping to go overseas. This is a passage for every Christian we are to all make disciples. We're not all called to go and cross ocean in cultures, but we're all called to make disciples. And yet the reality is we can only export what we're quote unquote manufacturing here at home. And, and so the question becomes what is the American church manufacture or what do we come up with and what are we exporting? Unfortunately, I think if we look across global Christianity, there's been lots of good exports. And yet there has been shallow theology, easy believism, charismatic, chaos, and probably our greatest export, the prosperity gospel that we have brought to the farthest reaches of the earth that are just wreaking havoc that people say, well, if I believe in Jesus, then I can be as rich as these Americans who have come with all this money.

35:14And, and we make all these false converts. And so we need to examine whether we are making disciples that obey all that Christ commands. And if we are those disciples that obey all that Christ commands. And, and what I wanna show is that global missions is not in competition to our vision of discipling and investing in this next generation to know and love and obey Christ. It's an overflow of that mission. And yes, we are to do this at home so that we can do it abroad. How can we make disciples abroad if we haven't made disciples here at home? How can we call new believers to get baptized, forsaking their family and their culture with a threat of imprisonment and beatings and persecution and the loss of their livelihood?

36:03If we have people here at home who don't fundamentally understand the importance of baptism and are saying, I don't wanna be baptized 'cause I don't wanna be all wet in front of people in public. How can we teach the nations to obey all that Christ commands if we're not obeying him here at home? And so the Great Commission is not just a call to go and make disciples, but to ensure that we are indeed believing that Jesus is enough. That the surpassing worth of Christ counts everything else as loss. This means also that I don't think we should send someone to go abroad to learn another language in order to share the gospel if they don't know how to share the gospel in English here in Minnesota, there's a command for all of us. It's the great commission, not the great suggestion.

37:05And, and so this could sound a little bit like a downer message, right? And yet I am so encouraged, and yet I wanna call us to examine our lives and hearts. I think God is calling some of us to go. He's calling all of us to redouble our efforts to be those who make disciples. And yet he promises us that He sends us in his authority, he promise us, promises us his presence to go with us. And the good news is that we have all that we need and we go and we're displaying the all surpassing worth of Christ. We're telling others of the hope that can be found in Jesus. Do you ever just read the news, watch the news, and you think we're on the verge of World War iii? The, the, all the stuff in the Middle East, the stuff in Ukraine.

38:04What if China starts taking Taiwan and we think what in the world is going on? And Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms, I have been given authority over it all. Whatever happens in the future, I am using it for good. I'm tearing down borders. I'm moving people from place to place so that my gospel would go and take root in peoples. If our global partners get kicked out of one country, they will have other open doors where they can go. Our God is seated on his throne and he sends us and he commissions us to finish this work to be engaged in going and sending. And so we are not alone, but we go in the authority and in the presence and in the power of Jesus.

38:59And, and for most of us, it's gonna be across the cubicle, across the street, engaging with a neighbor. And probably the easiest words you could say that are also the most intimidating. Do you wanna read the Bible sometime? You know that I'm a Christian. I I I've shared this with you. I know that you don't believe it sounds like you haven't ever read it. Would you wanna read it together sometime? And then to just begin walking with them?

39:27We know that global missions is a temporary reality. It will someday no longer exist and for good reason because there will be some from every tribe, language, tongue and nation gathered around the throne. How glorious and sweet will that day be? Maratha come Lord Jesus. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would stir up those who you are calling to go and to take steps towards that end. And then we pray that you would move in each one of our hearts so that we would be those who obey. All that you command are eager to be disciple making disciples. We pray that you would raise up more laborers 'cause the harvest is plentiful, yet the laborers are few. Oh, would we be a church full of laborers, eager to get out into the harvest? We pray that in Christ's name. Amen.

Jump to live

Jump to live

Sermon Text

Matthew 28:18–20