Much like Who is the Gospel for? This sermon on the Great Comission has been preached in various forms at various churches. It's a great go to sermon when called to preach on short notice. You're taught in seminary always keep at least one sermon in your pocket, this is my pocket sermon.
Pastor Glen
Matthew 28:18-20 “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority
has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you”
Does anyone
know what this passage is called? Right! The Great Commission!
What is a
Commission? It is an authoritative order, charge, or direction.
Who does
this apply to? All Christians. If you belong to Christ, if you claim to be a
Christian then this applies directly to you. No if, and’s or butts. Regardless
of your age, race, creed, nationality, wealth, fortune or social standing this
commission was given to you authoritatively by our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ.
While not all of us are called to be evangelists we are all called to evangelize. While not all of us are called to be missionaries we are all called to do mission work. We are not all pastors but we are all called to preach and teach the word. Most of us know the importance of witnessing, or sharing the gospel but still we struggle with it if we do it at all. Why is that? Let’s find some answers tonight while we finish up Acts 8 in verses 26-40. Acts 8:26-40
26 Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying,
“Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to
Gaza.” This is desert. 27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of
Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the
Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to
worship, 28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading
Isaiah the prophet. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and
overtake this chariot.”
Philip has
been through a lot in the last year or so. He converted to Christianity, served
faithfully in the church, likely ended one of the first deacons and then right
as everything was going well his friend Stephen is murdered and then the whole
church body is scattered due to wide spread persecution. He ends up in Samaria
a place that he was hated and that he had been taught to hate. Yet, the power
of Gospel was greater than the power of hatred and God’s love was extended to
all and people came to know the Lord.
Now Philip
finds himself an evangelist and a pastor of a growing thriving ministry. He
even has the seal of approval not only from Peter & John but of the Holy
Spirit Himself. Things are going great for Philip and the church in Samaria. So
of course, now is when everything has to change. Philip has to now leave and go
out into the middle of nowhere.
Go? Go means
to move from one place to another. What’s the opposite of go? Stop! Go isn’t
standing still and inviting people in. Go isn’t sitting on my couch watching
the game or dancing with the stars. Go is a verb, it requires action and
movement! So where are we to go? Every nation. You can’t teach all nations
unless we first go to all nations. Here’s our first problem with the great
commission. We don’t want to go.
A lot of us,
if we are honest with ourselves, have this fear, that God is going to send us
to Africa. That the split second we fully surrender our lives to Christ that we
are going to get put on a plane to
Africa and have to live in a grass hut, with a dirt floor, no electricity, no
running water, eating bugs, walking around in waste high mud, fending off incredibly deadly snakes and
being absolutely miserable. That’s an incredibly spiteful God we serve if
that’s the case. One that would send us somewhere that we absolutely hated. All
the missionaries that I have met, all of them, whether foreign or domestic, all
have one thing in common. A deep-seated love for those people that they work
with.
Another
question I hear whenever speaking about foreign mission work is “Why go
overseas when there is so much work to be done here?” It’s a fair question. A
few years ago I was part of a team that went to undocumented areas of Asia. As
far as we know no Christians had ever set foot in these areas before. Here in
Person County there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 churches. Here is
pretty well covered. The thing that gets me about this question is that it’s
the wrong question. The question isn’t why are you going over there? It’s where
is God sending me next?
When we look
at the Greek for “go” we get a clearer definition “to pursue the journey on
which one has entered” the Christian life is a journey that started at
salvation and continues on the rest of your life. Going is part of it! Live the
Journey! You’ll never feel more alive!
Romans 10:15 “How beautiful are
the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace”
Philip goes
and overtakes a chariot which took a lot of courage and faith to do so. A
chariot of the type would be the modern day equivalent of a limo. It was more
then just this one guy in it as well. He would have had servants, guards, and a
driver. How do I know this? This guy works for Candace. Candace isn’t a name,
it is a title on par with Pharaoh, or Caesar. It literally translates to Queen
so if there are any candace’s in the audience tonight your name means queen.
Have fun with that on the way home. He was the treasurer for the queen. The CFO
of ancient Ethiopia. This Ethiopia – much larger than modern-day Ethiopia – was
the land where the Queen of Sheba came from, who saw the glory of Solomon’s
kingdom and professed faith in the God of Israel. It’s possible that pieces of
the Jewish faith were passed on through the centuries to men like this servant
of the queen. One other show of this eunuch’s wealth was that he had a scroll
of Isaiah.
Now us
Americans. We suffer from Bible overload. There are Bibles all over this
church. You can purchase them at the dollar store. You can find them in Hotels
placed by the Gideons. You can listen to them online and put them on your
smartphones. You know the ones you pretend to look at when you are texting
during service? Bibles everywhere!
This is a
time well before the printing press and when scrolls were copied by hand. They
were rare and they were expensive. Synagogues would own a few scrolls at most
and almost no one had the full works of the O.T. For this guy to personally own
his own scroll of Isaiah he likely spent the modern-day equivalent of a 5
figure sum.
30 So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the
prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And
he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up
and sit with him. 32 The place in the Scripture which he read was
this: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; And as a lamb before its
shearer is silent,
So He opened not His mouth. 33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away, And who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.”34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.
So He opened not His mouth. 33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away, And who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.”34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.
We now see
the next part of the great commission. Teach. The guys is in Isaiah, reading
about the Messiah and basically says “who can tell me about Jesus?” Philip goes
I can! Philip teaches! Once we go then what are we to do? Teach! What do we
teach them? The Bible!. How can we teach something we don’t know or understand?
This is our second struggle with the great commission. We can’t teach something
we don’t know or understand ourselves.
I used to
work in the Computer Support Department for CCB in Durham. It was a job that
provided very little training. You call the helpdesk because your computer is
broke or you can’t figure out something on a program you are using? Often times
I found out that I was going to be supporting a new application after someone
had called me asking for help. On a rare occasion I find out the day before.
Never, Never, did I actually get training on the application or have it
installed on my computer so I could try to learn it. You can’t teach something
you don’t know.
It’s
important for all of us as Christians to get into the Bible daily. To listen to
God’s word being preached frequently not just the one or two a week you hear
from me and David. To be in prayer daily.
To be in fellowship with fellow believers constantly for the accountability
that it brings. It’s a challenging thing to do day in and day out. I struggle
with it and I am a pastor. Sometimes I just want to sit on the couch and do
nothing but look at my phone. I keep Bible’s all over my house and scripture on
my phone to remind myself of its importance.
So what
should we teach? What did Philip teach? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning
at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.
We teach and
preach Jesus to them!.
Luke 24:26-27 “, Thus it is
written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the
third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his
name among all nation”
You stick to
that and you’ll go a long way. However, here is the catch while most of us have
never stood in a pulpit and delivered a message our lives give a great sermon
or a terrible one. We have to live what we teach or why bother?
36 Now
as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said,
“See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?” 37 Then
Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and
said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
38 So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both
Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized
him. 39 Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the
Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his
way rejoicing. 40 But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing
through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.
A baptism! We love a baptism don’t we? I mean, it’s in our
name, Baptists! It’s an event when people get baptized. You invite the whole
family, everyone dresses up, there’s a big family lunch afterwards and miracle
of miracles it’s about the only time we are willing sit on the front row! This
is nothing like that. They are out in the desert and as God would have it come
across an Oasis. Remember, it was more than just the two of them. The whole
caravan was stopped to watch this, for the Eunuch to declare publicly his
devotion to Christ and does so by the act the of baptism. The question here is
why?
What does it mean to be baptized? Why do we do it? The
eunuch asks a great question here. What hinders him from being baptized? Philip
says you have to believe with your whole heart. Our devotion these days is half
hearted. How do I know this? I talk to you. I see what you post online. I hear
those conversations in Walmart or the grocery store. We have more devotion to
our political causes, our hobbies, reality tv relationships and our sports
teams then we do the gospel. We may give intellectual assent to the reality of
Christ but it is certainly not whole hearted devotion.
Jesus isn’t fire insurance, He’s not a get out of hell free
card and I doubt He roots for your favorite team. He is the King of Kings and
Lord of Lords, The savior of our souls.
Why should a person come to the cross? Why should a person
embrace death with Christ? Why should a person be willing to go, in
identification, down to the cross and into the tomb and up again? Ill tell you
why because it’s the only way that God can get glory out of human being!.
There is only one reason for you to go to the Cross, because
until you come to the place of union with Christ in death, you are defrauding
the Son of God of the glory that He could get out of your life. For no flesh
shall glory in His sight.
Come to the cross to get victory, His victory. Come to the
cross to get joy, His joy. The reason you embrace the cross and press through
until you know you can testify with Paul, “I am crucified with Christ. It isn’t
about what you’re going to get out if, but what God is going to get out of you!
Colossians 1 tells us that 15 He is the image of the
invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were
created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were
created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is
before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the
body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in
all things He may have the preeminence.
19 For it
pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should
dwell, 20 and by
Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or
things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
21 And you,
who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He
has reconciled 22 in the
body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above
reproach in His sight— 23 if indeed
you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from
the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature
under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.
28 Him we
preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may
present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. That’s whole-hearted devotion, that’s the gospel. That’s how revival starts and continues until the day of Christ Jesus.
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