Beliefs: The Church (S08, E05)

Greetings, and welcome to the Faith Chapel Podcast. My name is Jason,

and I am the pastor of Faith Chapel.

In the podcast, we are going through a series looking at core beliefs of the Christian faith.

This will be a five-episode series

that takes a look at some of the key doctrines of Protestant beliefs.

We continue this series today by looking at the role and function of the Church.

Jesus is the head of the church, and as its proper authority,

he tells us our marching orders, and we are to obey him.

What does Jesus say our task as the church is? Join us as we dive into this discussion.

I want to begin today with a trivia question, two trivia questions, actually.

So we're going to show you two quotes.

Both of these quotes happened during the same event.

And I want to know, the first one is a little more obscure, but I want to see

how many of you really know what it's from.

It's a famous saying, it's come into popular culture, but do you know its origins and its roots?

So the first one that we have is the eagle has landed.

Who knows what this is from? Can you raise your hands if you know what event this is from?

Okay, so we have a couple there. The second one is way more famous.

The second one is, That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.

How many of you know what that one's from?

Okay, both of these were uttered by Neil Armstrong.

The first one was when he landed and descended upon the moon in what was called

the Eagle. It was the ship that took them from the rocket that was orbiting

the moon down to the surface of the moon.

And when it landed on the moon, he said, the eagle has landed.

The second one, which most people know, is when he steps down from the eagle

onto the surface of the moon.

Now, the interesting thing, to me at least, in this is that 10 years earlier...

This was just a wild fantasy.

Walking and being on the surface of the moon was just something that they dreamt about.

But it took one man the courage to say, this is what we're going to do.

And not just one man, but one man with the proper authority to be able to do that.

In a speech given at Rice University in 1962, John F. Kennedy,

the president of the United States, addressed thousands of people.

And he said this, We choose to go to the moon.

We choose to go to the moon this decade and do the other things,

not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

Because that goal will serve to organize and measure

the best of our energies and skills because that challenge is one we are willing

to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others too.

It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts

in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will

be made in my incumbency in the office of the presidency.

You see, he said, I have made this declaration. I have made this a priority

of the United States of America.

And seven years after this, less than seven years after he gave this speech,

Neil Armstrong uttered those phrases.

Now, if you and I had made this a declaration, if you or I had the,

audacity to say we are going to place a man on the moon and safely bring him

back within this decade, it would have gone nowhere.

Because you and I don't have the authority to do this.

You and I don't have the capacity to funnel the resources the way the president

convinced Congress to do.

You and I don't have the ability to put together the infrastructure on a grand

scale like needed to be done in order to make this happen.

It happened because the person who declared it, the person who commissioned

it, had the right authority to do it.

And as we end our series on the beliefs of Faith Chapel, we have to understand

and we have to recognize what our role is in this church and in the kingdom of God.

And to do that, we have to rely upon one who has the authority to say, this is what we do.

And for us as followers of Jesus, that rests on Jesus himself.

And so we're gonna be in Matthew chapter 28, something called the Great Commission.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

We're gonna be going through that.

But before we dive into scripture, let me pray.

Gracious heavenly father, I come before you today and I ask for your spirit to be here.

And I pray father that your word, that you will plant that in each and every one of our hearts.

And I pray, Father, that you will nourish it and grow the seed so that it matures

and bears 30, 60, 100 times the fruit that you put into us.

Jesus, change us and transform us by your mercy and your grace.

I pray for this all in your name, Jesus. Amen.

Matthew chapter 28, we're going to start in verse 16.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.

When they saw him, they worshipped him, but some of them doubted.

And so Matthew 28 is the last chapter in the book of Matthew.

And the first part of this chapter talks about the resurrection of Jesus.

So in the resurrection story that Matthew declares, Mary and other women go

to the tomb early on Sunday morning.

This was Jesus was crucified on Friday. They had to rest on the Sabbath day.

So they came on Sunday morning to anoint his body for burial,

fully expecting to see him lying in the straps, the strips of linen that had

covered his body when they laid him in the tomb.

They got to the tomb and they had a very surprising encounter with an angel.

And then they eventually saw Jesus. And Jesus tells them, go,

one of the things that Jesus tells them is to go and tell my brothers,

to go on before me to Galilee and I will meet them there.

So Mary and the other women, they go back to the disciples and they tell them

the message that Jesus brought.

And they travel to Galilee, to the place where Jesus told them to go and they encounter him.

And Matthew is just so very brutally honest.

He says two things happened. They worshiped Jesus, which is something that only

we should only worship God.

So it describes his divinity.

It describes him as a part of the Trinity.

And then second, it said some of them doubt.

Now, in our age of skepticism, we might shy away from the word doubt.

But Matthew puts it plainly out there for us. and I want to have you understand

and have you know that doubts are not a bad thing,

that you should not be ashamed of doubting the goodness of God or even the existence of God.

It is something that we all deal with and we all wrestle with.

The danger in the doubts is when we keep them to ourselves.

And so I really wanna encourage you, if you ever experienced doubt,

be like the disciples, be able to declare to those that are closest to you,

those that are walking with you,

to Jesus, hey guys, I'm really struggling with this.

I don't know why I'm struggling so much with doubting God's goodness.

I don't know why I have these thoughts about Jesus not even being God himself.

It's okay to doubt. And I wanna give you permission to, because in doubting you and I,

can grow in our faith so exponentially that it is completely worth it.

But I encourage you to be like the disciples here and to be together, open and honest.

This is my struggle.

This is where I'm doubting.

And so he goes on. And in this doubt, Matthew leads us into a huge proclamation

of Jesus, which should hopefully reassure us as much as it did the disciples.

In verse 18, we read that Jesus came and told his disciples,

I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

This is a huge statement.

I brought up JFK and him leading America into the moon, landing and bringing

the astronauts back safely.

Because he is the one who had the authority to do that.

He is the one who said, this is the vision I have. This is what we're going to do.

But you know what? JFK didn't do it all on his own. He had advisors speaking to him.

He had to have Congress's approval.

From 1961 to 1962, the space budget tripled to more than $5 billion in 1962

being spent by the federal government to get to the moon.

And the previous eight years of the space budget, if you add them all together,

they wouldn't even equal 1962's level.

He could not do that on his own. He does not have universal authority.

He had to get Congress's permission.

But Jesus comes and he says, every ounce of authority, not just on earth,

but also in heaven is mine.

What a huge statement.

And one that I'm sure reassured the disciples that took their doubts away.

Jesus has the ability to control what the sun does.

Jesus has the ability to alter the tilt of the earth.

Jesus has the ability to cure leprosy with words.

He has the ability to make people who can't walk, walk.

All authority is his this is a huge statement and it leads jesus into being

able to declare what you and i should do,

paul mentions in first corinthians that the church is like the body of christ

with christ as the head we know that the brain that the head controls every aspect

you don't do this with your finger without the brain sending the right signals.

Jesus has this authority because he is the head of the church.

You and I, we don't get to dictate what the church does.

Jesus, in these next verses, tells us what the church does. But what you and

I get to do is we get to influence the how.

How do we fulfill Jesus's words? And we do it differently in this church and in other churches.

It's fulfilled in different ways, in different capacities, because we have the

freedom to answer the how question.

But the what the church does, Jesus is the only one that has the authority to

do that. And so what does he say?

Picking up in verse 19, therefore, because he has all authority in heaven and

on earth, Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you,

and be sure of this, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

He lays out for us what we should do, and it starts with his authority and his power.

When you have heard this preached before, if you've.

Ever heard a missionary come and talk about this, they will probably put the

emphasis on go, which is the first verb in this statement of Jesus.

But in the Greek, that's not the imperative. It's not the most important part of this statement.

The emphasis of this statement is on make disciples.

So that's where we're going to start. The goal of the church is to make disciples.

A disciple is somebody who learns, who follows, who obeys a teacher or a master.

And as followers of Jesus, that includes all of us.

We are all disciples of Jesus. We are all to be growing and learning and maturing

in our faith, listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit and,

being obedient to what Jesus has taught us,

to love our neighbors, to love God with all of our heart, mind,

strength, and soul, and to pursue above all else God's righteousness.

That's what we do. And that's what you and I, that's the mandate of Jesus,

go and make other disciples.

Again, he has the authority to do this because all authority in heaven and on earth are his.

The other verbs in this statement are how we are to do it, how we are to make disciples.

And we start with the word go.

In the Greek, the actual rendering of this is going.

And so what I like to include in here is the phrase, while going about our business,

on this earth, and that includes everything.

From the moment our alarm clock goes off to the moment we lay our head down,

everything should be about making disciples.

Getting dressed in the morning with the intent and purpose of preparing yourself to make disciples.

Eating breakfast with your family is about making disciples.

Driving to and from work is about making disciples. What you do at work is about making disciples.

Volunteering as your son or daughter's coach is about making disciples of Jesus Christ.

Sitting in the stands watching is about making disciples of Jesus Christ.

Everything that we do is about making disciples of Jesus Christ.

While we are going about our business in this world, make disciples of Jesus Christ.

Make people who are going to study about Jesus, who are going to surrender their

lives to Jesus, who are going to proclaim Jesus.

This is our intent and purpose. And please understand that this comes directly from Jesus's mouth.

This is what he tells us to do because all authority is his.

The next verb we have is baptize. Jesus says to baptize in the name singular

of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three.

And this is the key verse where we get Trinity from.

The name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are known by one

name, one entity, but yet they are three.

And we baptize people in their name.

So what this means, we're gonna talk about a little bit later,

but the idea here is to profess the name of Jesus,

to be able to say with our mouth that Jesus is Lord because what's happening

on the inside is our heart is believing that God raised him from the dead.

This is what we are to do. introduce people to the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus.

And the last thing is teach. We are to be people who not only study about Jesus.

We are to be people who really pursue knowing him.

We are to be people who are constantly running after more and more intimacy with him.

This is our goal. This is our objective to be able to tell people what we already know about him.

If you only know that he died and rose from the grave, start with that.

If you know some of his other teachings like love God with all of your heart,

mind, strength, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself, go there.

Proclaim it with your mouth, but also live it out.

This is our objective. This is what we are to do.

We are to be disciples who make disciples.

And not because the administrative council of this church says so,

not because the pastor of this church says so, not because it's in our belief

statements do we do this.

We do this because of Jesus's authority.

Every ounce of authority is his, and this is what he tells us to do.

The last thing he says in this is a reassurance. And the reassurance is that he will be with us.

Matthew in chapter one starts his gospel by announcing, and his name will be Emmanuel.

And then he puts in parentheses, well, modern scholarship puts in parentheses,

Emmanuel means God with us.

He ends with Jesus's words that say, I will be with you for all of time.

He is driving home the point that as we are disciples of Jesus,

as we are going about our business in this world, as we proclaim with our actions

and our mouths that Jesus is Lord,

he's not far away from us.

He is right there next to us. He is strengthening us. He is encouraging us.

He is making paths straight for us to his glory and his honor.

This is what the church does.

And today we get to take a part in 10 people baptizing and proclaiming Jesus.

Baptism is this outward sign of an inward transformation,

I heard it described this week like a wedding And my wife stepped out of the

room for a minute So I can confess this to you,

I am not someone who likes anything on my fingers or my wrists Like I'm never

going to wear a watch And I tried to wear a ring, but it just didn't work but

I do have a tattoo of a ring on my finger.

And the idea of that is to remind me of my commitment to my wife.

And this ceremony is like a wedding ceremony where someone is committing themselves to Jesus Christ.

This is what baptism is.

This doesn't save us any more than a wedding ring makes us married.

It does not save us. It is a ceremony that connects us to Jesus in a very intimate way.

And so today we're going to have the privilege of baptizing two men in this church.

I'll invite Tom and Barry to come up here.

And as they come up here, being a part of the baptism, being here for them and

with them, it's about helping them to remind themselves of their commitment.

Just like at a wedding ceremony, we are to remind people of the commitment that

they made to one another.

We are here for them. We are here praying with them.

We are here to encourage them to continue to walk in the light of the Lord and

to listen to their testimony.

Our testimony today is going to be recorded with some questions that I will

ask for them and that they will answer in front of all of us.

So, Barry and Tom, I ask you on behalf of the whole church, do you acknowledge

that you sin and fall short of God's glorious standard and need His grace to save you?

If you do, please say, I do. I do.

Do you believe in Jesus Christ's sacrificial death and glorious resurrection?

If you do, please say, I do. I do.

Do you promise to serve Jesus as your Lord? If you do, please say, I do.

At this time, I will pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, I come before you today

and I give you thanks and praise for public commitments to you.

I give you thanks for Tom and Barry and their strength and their courage and

saying and declaring that you are their Lord and that they will serve you.

And I pray, Father, for us as members of this faith community with them,

that you will encourage us,

to spur them on as iron sharpens iron, to spur them on to being more and more

intimate in their relationship with you.

Jesus, I ask for all of this in your name. Amen.

Tom, I'll invite you to stand or to step up. You may want to take off your glasses.

Going to be pouring water in the ceremony.

And the water is symbolic. It talks, it's about being in death with Jesus.

Going under the water is about being in death, identifying in death with Jesus.

And then coming out of the water is living a new life in Christ Jesus.

How glorious is that?

I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Peace be to God.

Thank you.

And Barry, I come before you, baptizing you in the name of the Father,

and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Please be to God.

Thank you. Thank you.

What a glorious and powerful moment, bringing honor and glory to God.

This public confession of faith. Let me pray.

How great are you, O Lord our God?

Amazing is your gift of eternal life.

How amazing is your gift of love to us that you would take our penalty that

we owe on the cross because you were perfect.

You never sinned. You never failed. You always perfectly, as Jesus Christ on

this planet, you always perfectly lived the life we could not live,

loving God with every fiber of our being,

and then loving each other and then loving ourselves as human beings,

as we, as you loved yourself.

How amazing is it that you, when we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord

and believe in our heart that God raised, that you raised him from the dead,

that we get the righteousness of Christ.

And so father, I thank you for giving that to us.

You are so, so good.

And I pray, Father, that we will take your authority seriously and that we will,

bear much fruit for you in making disciples of you.

Jesus, I lay this all at your feet as our King and Master and Lord. Amen.

Thank you again for joining us in our discussion of the role of the church.

The Great Commission is our blueprint for what the church should be about.

We are to go about our business in this world making disciples of Jesus,

baptizing them in the name of the triune God, and teaching people what Jesus taught and did.

If you would like more information about Faith Chapel and its ministries,

please visit the website gofaithchapel.org.

Next week, we will be hearing from missionary Jacob Osborne of TWR. Have a great week.