Teaching them to observe all things– Matthew 28:18-20 & Mark 14:22-25
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in 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: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Last week we spoke about the subject of Evangelism. We pointed out that an Evangelist is a preacher called by God to go out and win souls for Christ. Eph 4:11-12 says that the “He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers. For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ
Are all apostles? Are all Evangelist? Are all Pastors & Teachers? Obviously not but just because a Christian isn’t an “Evangelist” per se, we all have the responsibility to live out the great commission. We should all share the Gospel, we should all be baptized, we should all study the Word of God, we should all support this work if we are to be faithful to the marching orders that Jesus gave.
In looking at the subject of Evangelism we said it requires certain things Compassion, Effort and Commitment. It requires compassion not only for people and their day to day needs, it requires a compassion for their soul. All men are born sinners therefore all are lost in their natural condition – if we as Christians don’t care about their lost condition NOBODY ELSE WILL!
So it takes compassion, it also takes Effort! In order for somebody to be converted to Christ it takes work since somebody has to put in the time to spread the word! Romans 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
Even if you don’t preach from the pulpit on Sunday Morning it still takes work to search the Scriptures so that you know what you’re talking about! It also takes effort to engage people in conversations in order to get through to them and this brings us to the next thing – Commitment! Anybody who has ever witnessed to another person knows that 9 out of 10 people reject the message. Without commitment, without resolve we would give up, and we cannot afford to give up – how can we give up when the world is on its way to hell?
So last week we spoke about those things that drive us to Evangelize. At this point I would like to take a closer look at Matthew 28:18-20 and I would like to see how it applies to the local church. No doubt it speaks of the work of the Apostles, no doubt it speaks about how the local church should support Evangelism and Missions (which we do) but how does it apply to us personally and how does it apply to those who we speak to about the Lord?
Matt 28:18 - And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. So right away we see that Jesus has all authority, so when He speaks He is speaking authoritatively, that is we are not given the option to do whatever we want. Jesus isn’t giving The Great Suggestion – He is giving the Great Commission – and we need to follow it! So what are we to do?
Go ye therefore, He doesn’t say sit around and hope for the best, He doesn’t say don’t worry about, He doesn’t say just pray about it and then don’t do anything – NO! He says GO!
and teach all nations, Lets park it on this exhortation for a moment. God certainly calls many people to the mission field, but he doesn’t call every believer to travel the globe. We need Christians to do this work right here in our Country and in our community. If you live in this nation, if you live in this county then teach the people of this county.
I believe the teaching mentioned here is the simple teaching of the Gospel. This is where it starts – we get people to recognize their sin and their need for a Savior. We tell them of the death & resurrection of Jesus and call them to believe upon His name. That’s where it starts. You cannot go to step # 2 unless you accomplish step # 1 so once a person accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savior then you go to step # 2
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The Gospel saves a person and once a person is saved then they are to be baptized into the Body of Christ. The Spiritual Baptism has already happened at the moment of Salvation but the water Baptism is the outward sign of the Spiritual Reality. Once a person is Baptized both Spiritually and by Water they can then join a local church – What does Jesus say about step # 3? Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. Where do believers get taught the Word of God, in the local church!
So we see here in order for the Great Commission to be fulfilled in a person’s life they must first Believe, be baptized and join a local church. Now I know as soon as I say that somebody will think to themselves “well you don’t have to be baptized to be saved” or “Are you saying if a person doesn’t go to church they……”
Again Jesus isn’t giving the Great Suggestion – He is giving the Great Commission and there is no doubt that He wants these things done – so let’s spare the arguments, let’s set aside the debates, let’s stop the excuses and JUST DO IT! --- “Yeah but I don’t see why…..” NO! JUST DO IT!
Now I have authority over my home and over my children. I’m not going to say All Authority because then you might hear some groans from my wife…..groanings that cannot be uttered But if I tell my kids to clean their room or to walk the dog I am not looking for 12 reasons why they don’t think they need to do it.
Please clean your room…. “well I don’t see why I need to clean my room, it’s just going to get dirty again anyways”. “Why DO I have to clean my room, so and so didn’t have to clean their room today”.
Are those the responses I want to hear? If I keep hearing those responses guess what? If you don’t feel like cleaning your room then I don’t feel like you should watch TV today. You don’t want to listen? The I don’t want to let you go to your friend’s house later. That’s pretty simple, disobedience requires discipline. Why do we think that God is any different? The Bible says For whom the LORD loves He corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights.
So basically if a person is unwilling to obey, God is eventually going to have to deal with them. Correction & discipline is never fun but you know what? It can be avoided! So let’s do our best to fulfill the great commission, if we do we have this promise from Christ Himself - and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
So we’ve talked about the Preaching of the Gospel, Baptism, Joining a local church. Once a person is part of a local church what they do? We are taught the Bible, we pray (of course we as part of the church should do these things at home as well, not just on Sunday morning) but we pray, we enjoy Christian fellowship and we are about the business of doing good works.
Now in the local church we have two ordinances – Baptism & Communion. We call them ordinances because they were ordained by Christ Himself. He told us to do these things. Again it’s not a suggestion and since we have already talked about baptism lets now finish by looking at Communion.
We know about how Jesus changed the Passover celebration into what we now call the Lords Supper or Communion. We know that before we eat the bread and drink the cup we should examine ourselves and then we partake in Remembrance of Christ Death. Not only does the Lords supper looks back to the cross and it also looks ahead to the future, to the 2nd coming where we will eat the bread and drink the cup anew in the Kingdom of God.
The age old debate is this – Are the elements the actual body and blood of the Lord. Rome teaches that in order for Communion (or the Eucharist) to be valid (Eucharist simply means gratitude or thanksgiving) you must have a Roman priest present so he can consecrate the bread and wine.
They teach that at the moment of consecration a miracle takes place and the bread & wine LITERALLY become the flesh & blood of Jesus. This teaching is called Transubstantiation because the substance, its essence has been transformed. Yes it looks like bread and yes it still taste like bread and if you brought it into a laboratory and examined it what would you find? You would find that all signs point to the fact that it is bread – BUT – it is actually flesh – or so they say.
You know what we call that? Hocus Pocus! The term Hocus Pocus actually derives from the Communion service in the Latin Mass. The phrase “This is my Body” when spoken in Latin is “Hoc est corpus meum”, so back in the days when people went to Mass they had no earthly idea what was being said because the entire Mass was in Latin! Latin may have been the language of the Roman Church but the problem was nobody understood it! So the people would see the priest raise his arms and repeat Hoc est corpus meum, hoc est corpus meum – and it became a saying among the people “the priest is up there doing his “Hocus Pocus”.
Now Anyone who has ever read the Bible knows that eating flesh and drinking blood is strictly forbidden, obviously! It was and is a grave sin so it’s almost beyond belief that anybody would take Jesus’ words in that strict literal sense but of course many do. We understand the essence of the Lords Supper in this, when Jesus said “Do this in Remembrance of Me”.
Why would it be necessary for a church to cling to this “flesh & blood” view of Communion? It seems so strange to us but the reason why flesh and blood is necessary in the Mass is that the Roman Church teaches that the mass is a literal sacrifice, that is Jesus is literally being re-sacrificed on a Roman altar again and again, and he will continue to be sacrificed again and again until the end of the age.
Romans 6:10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God
Hebrews 9:28 - so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many
I don’t bring those things up just to be critical of the Roman Church rather I bring them up so that you understand, so you can proclaim to them the TRUTH that Christ death was enough! If you believe your sins are forgiven, you are free from condemnation! We are not bound by rites and rituals that keep us in a state of peril. Am I saved or am I lost? Am I forgiven or am I not? Is there something else I must do? How can I know that I will go to heaven?
The Bible says WE CAN KNOW that we have everlasting life, 1 John 5:13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
If a Bishop or a priest tells you - you can’t know, and the Bible tells you - you can know who are you going to believe? Communion doesn’t forgive you of your sins (that’s another gospel), Communion doesn’t forgive you of your sins – IT REMINDS YOU THAT YOUR SINS HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN! Amen? Amen!
One last thing before we celebrate the Lords table – the self-examination. I’m confident that you know full well that we take that time to examine ourselves to make sure we are right with God. Does every single person actually do that? I don’t know, I hope so but I’ll tell you one thing for sure - God knows! Let’s open to 1 Corinthians 11:27-
Now if you read earlier in the chapter you would see that in the church at Corinth many were dishonoring the Lords table. Back then they would have a full meal and some were pigging out while others were left with nothing! Some were even getting drunk (I don’t know how that flies with the Baptist doctrine that it was only grape juice but the point is their hearts were not right with God and God was very displeased with their behavior to say the least. It’s bad enough to sin at home but to sin while your gathered together with the church! That’s serious stuff!
1 Cor 11:27-34 - Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. This lets us know how serious the matter is, if somebody isn’t right with God, and they don’t care to make things right and they take Communion anyway this is what the Apostle Paul says – you are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. No doubt countless people have approached the Lords table in an unworthy manner – what should we do?
But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. GOD WANTS US TO PARTAKE! But - he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.31 For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
33 Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. 34 But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment. And the rest I will set in order when I come.
You see if we are willing to confess our sins to God what does the Bible say – 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we would simply judge ourselves, God wouldn’t have to punish us. It says that some were weak and sick as a direct result of their sinfulness while taking Communion. Some even died! We talked about the sin unto death a few weeks ago and this certainly sounds like an example of that!
Now I suspect from time to time people have taken communion when they shouldn’t have but because we pass the plate, (in some churches you have to go up front) people take it when they shouldn’t because they don’t want anybody noticing they didn’t partake. Someone might say “if I don’t partake then the person sitting next to me will wonder what sin I have committed” – THEY ALREADY KNOW YOU ARE A SINNER! Were all sinners –“yeah but they will know it’s serious or at least unconfessed”.
My response to that is this – are you more concerned about what they think or about what God thinks? But if that is really an issue for you I have a simple solution – confess your sins to God! He already knows! So go ahead and ask His forgiveness! It isn’t the first time you’ve asked for it and it certainly won’t be the last!
All that being said this is a special time, a time to celebrate in solemn remembrance of what our Savior has done for us –
