Committed To Christ's Presence And Power

Committed To Christ’s Presence and Power

Matthew 28:18-20

Knowledge of motion, but not of stillness.

Knowledge of speech, but not of silence.

Knowledge of words, but ignorance of the Word.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.

All our ignorance brings us nearer to death.

But nearer to death, no nearer to God.

Where is the life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The cycle of heaven in twenty centuries,

Brings us further from God and nearer to the dust.

There is according to the words of the poet in his day, and in our day, I believe, so much information, and yet a lack of knowledge. So much knowledge, and yet a lack of knowing.

One man in writing a book in the early 70’s took the last line of that poet and he wrote a book entitled the Dust of Death. And he argued in a very eloquent manner in some 300 pages that the dust of death is settling over western culture, and ultimately the dust of death is settling over every culture in the world.

Is it possible for us as Christians to become desensitized by all the statistics concerning all the lost peoples of our world? - Those hundreds of millions of people who do not know Christ as Savior. Is it possible that the figures we are presented with in sermons, Sunday school lessons, and various Christian periodicals, that these figures no longer move us to action?

For us to realize that we live in a world that is nearly 7 billion people strong, growing by some 80 to 100 million people yearly, does that figure affect us?

To realize from a book by Patrick Johnstone, Operation World: A Handbook for Intercessors, where he takes those statistics and he observes that 24% of the world’s population are atheists or secularists, largely in the former communist world, but increasingly in the western world. 3.4% claim to be animists, yet John Stott and others have noticed that up to 40% of the world population are largely influenced by animism, of witchcraft and of sorcery. 13% Hindus. 8% Buddists. .44% Jews. 17% Muslims. 33 % Christian.

But then of that 33% Christian: 19% Roman Catholic; 4% Orthodox churches; less than 1% Christian Churches; 9 1/2 % Protestant Churches.

And that to hear the figure in America alone, depending on the report, you read 49-59% of the American people claim to be churched. In Randolph county alone, where 62% claim to be churched.

But we know that even those numbers are deceiving for to be churched does not mean that one is saved. So the attendance at a worship gathering does not mean one is a Christian, little lone saved.

Moving from our world, to our country, to our county, to Sparta, IL, to those of us here this morning. Could it be that there are several families represented here, where many of us come from, from families who are Christless families, except for a handful of family members?

Could it be that we have heard this figure so many times in mission information, and Sunday preaching, no longer do we realize the lostness of our world?

You see if all of our churches in the Restoration Movement alone were to double overnight, we would simply be marching progressively backwards. We would not even make a dent.

Is it possible for us as Christians to become desensitized by certain passages of Scripture? Is it possible that we have heard untold sermons on Matthew 28, and had it become like so many other texts of Scripture? Not another sermon on "Preach the Word." Not another sermon on "Repent and be baptized." Not another sermon on "For God so loved the world." Not another sermon on the "Great Commission."

Is it possible that there are certain texts of Scripture that we have heard preached from too often … taught, sung, memorized, read too often … that no longer do they make us lean forward in our seats? No longer do they set us on the razors edge of Christian living?

How do you preach a text that has been preached so many times, in so many creative ways, in so many powerful ways? How do you preach that text to a congregation who know where that text is to be found?

We usually approach the text as Christ’s Final and Great Commission. That in this text, Jesus tells us what we ought to be doing as his disciples. He tells us that we ought to be going. He tells us that we ought to be making disciples. He tells us to baptize. He tells us to teach them everything that he taught the first disciples, and teaches us through His Word. We see the marching orders of the church, the blue print for the conquest of the church. That is how the church can evangelize.