THE GREAT COMMISSION
Text: Gal 4.4
Intro.:
1. The birth of Jesus is a well-spring of great joy to the world.
2. We associate w/ His death, sorrow & regret, but from His birth, joy.
3. The 1st Christmas carol of the angels was a joyful event expressing the gladness of God’s heart.
4. The stars of Bethlehem casted no gloomy light but shone forth w/ great glory & joy
5. When the Eternal God stooped from heaven & became a babe among those that rebelled against Him, the deed could mean no harm to us.
6. We could have if we had been there taken the young child into our arms & held the Eternal Lord in weak & freebie hands.
7. God in our nature is not God against us but God w/ us & for us.
8. If God had meant us harm He would never came as a babe.
9. He would have come as a man of power bearing His sword before Him.
10. It is no mystery that lost men & women celebrate the birthday of Jesus for God coming as a babe could mean no harm to them.
11. They know nothing of the spiritual meaning of His coming but they do respond in their own way by remembering His coming.
12. To those who are truly the Lord’s people, His coming is the subject of quiet & deliberate thought & a source of joy in a somewhat dismal world.
13. The birth of Jesus not only brings hope but the reality of goods thing
14. We do not speak of Jesus coming into a relation w/ our nature but of Him entering into union w/ us for the cause of our salvation.
15. He didn’t just become flesh but He is flesh of our flesh & bone of our
16. He is one w/ all of us who believe in His name & declare Him Lord.
17. Bible scholars call the commission of Matt. 28 the Great Commission but in our text is the Great Commission of the Bible.
18. Before Jesus came into the world, we were children, children under bondage, children under the tutorship of the law.
19. But the Great Commission: God sent forth His Son changed that.
20. We are no longer children, but adults, heirs w/ God & joint-heirs w/ Jesus Christ.
21. Our Lord’s birth brought the Church to maturity, we are no longer children born under the Law, but the sons & daus. of God.
22. If sons & daus., then we are heirs of God & joint-heirs w/ Jesus Christ.
23. We can divide the text into two parts: The Joyful Mission & The Joyful Results.
I. THE JOYFUL MISSION OF THE SON OF GOD.
A. THIS GREAT COMMISSION WAS ACCOMPLISHED AT THE
RIGHT TIME
1. Why the world had to wait in darkness so long, we cannot explain.
2. Why the Church still struggles to attain maturity, we cannot explain.
3. But this we do know: God sent forth His Son in the fullness of time
4. Jesus didn’t come before His time nor behind His time.
5. He was punctual to the very hr. neither late nor early.
6. The Birth of Jesus is the greatest event of history.
7. All of history either points to His Birth or points back to His Birth.
8. The Birth of Jesus is to our history as the Sun is to our solar system.
9. Just as we derive our Light from the SUN, we get our light from the SON.
10. Just as the planets revolve around the Sun, we revolve around the Son.
11. To us He is not only the Alpha & Omega, the beginning & end, He is all there is in between.
12. But why did it happen at this moment in time?
13. Well, 1st it was predicted by all the prophets - God’s Word will not return void, it must be true.
14. In Dan., a Bible student could have told the exact day of the birth of Jesus.
15. In Michael, the exact place of His birth is told.
16. The Lord appoints the date of every event, all times are in His hands.
17. There is nothing which happens by change in God’s time, there are not loose threads in the providence of God.
18. The Great Commission of God happen on scheduled time.
19. The Keeper of the Great Clock of the universe keeps good time & God sent forth His Son in the fullness of time.
B. THE LORD WAS MOVING IN TIME TOWARD MAN
1. We moved not toward the Lord, but it was the Lord who moved toward us.
2. I find no where in the history the world it move w/ repentance toward God.
3. I have found no one who, if he be truthful, who will say he was searching for God when he was saved.
4. No, it was the offended God Himself in His Grace Who broke the silence of ages to come & seek & save that which was lost.
5. It was God’s coming into the curse of our element time, to seek after us.
6. In the fullness of time, God move w/ irresistible Grace to call you.
7. Those He call, He sanctified, those He sanctified, He will also glorify in the fullness of time.
8. It is all in the fullness of time God moves toward man to save his soul.
9. It was in the fullness of time Jesus came to deliver us from bondage, from the wages of sin.
10. We were children kept under the law, cursed & condemned.
11. But in the fullness of time, Jesus move toward us so we might be children, heirs of God & joint-heirs w/ Jesus Christ.
12. The Great Commission of God sent forth His Son in the fullness of time so we might cry Abba, Father.
C. THE GREAT COMMISSION WAS BY THE FATHER’S AUTHORITY
1. Everything Jesus did was done by the commission & authority of His Father.
2. Jesus, when He was born in Bethlehem & assumed our nature, did it under the authority of the Father.
3. The Father gave, The Father sent - in the fullness of time, the Father sent the Son that we might be children.
4. Jesus is the Messenger & Ambassador of God & God sent Him in the fullness of time.
5. Behind every word of Jesus is the authority & warrant of the Eternal God Who we call Father.
6. The Son did nothing of Himself but worked the work of the Father
7. Before the foundations of the world, the Father said He would give, the Son said He would come & the Holy Spirit said
8. The Great Commission was by the Father’s Authority.
D. NOTICE IT WAS A DIVINE PERSON COMMISSIONED
1. God didn’t sent an angel, nor any exalted creature but His Son.
2. How there can be a Son of God we cannot never know.
3. The eternal relationship of the Godhead must for ever remain one of the mysteries of our religion.
4. It is quite certain Jesus Christ was the Son of God, for He is called the Son & He called God Father.
5. He existed before He was born for God sent forth His Son.
6. He already existed or else God could not sent forth His Son.
7. While He is One w/ the Father, He must be distinct from the Father & have a separate personality from the Father.
8. Otherwise it could not be said that God sent forth His Son.
9. God the Father was not made of a woman, made under the law but only God the Son.
10. Admire that God should have only one begotten Son & He was commissioned to be an Apostle & preacher to man.
11. The messenger to man is none other than God’s own Son.
12. It is the Lord of Heaven, the Lord of Angels, the Lord of all creation born unto Mary.
13. He that comes to save is no weak creature liken unto ourselves nor is He an angel or Seraphim, Cherub w/ limited power.
14. He is the Mighty God, the Son of the Highest, He is Jesus Christ the Son of God.
II. THE JOYFUL RESULTS OF THE GREAT COMMISSION
A. REDEEM THOSE UNDER THE LAW
1. The birth of Jesus (His coming under the law & living in perfection to the law) freed believers from the yoke of the law.
2. No true believer desires to be free from the law as a rule of life.
3. We delight in the laws of God, which are holy, pure & just.
4. We desire, if it were possible, to keep every precept of the law w/o one single omission or transgression.
5. The earnest desire of the Saint is perfect holiness but we do not look to the law for our justification before God.
6. It was our tutor, our schoolmaster but when Jesus came we graduated from the school of law to the school of Grace.
7. Jesus came to redeem us from the condemnation of God’s Law.
8. The Law of God condemns but the Grace of God redeems.
B. WE MIGHT RECEIVE THE ADOPTION OF SONS
1. There is a false doctrine which says: if you sin you have lost your salvation.
2. One sin will destroy you, one sinful thought will cast you down.
3. If you are not perfect, you must take your wages & be gone.
4. You might treat a hired hand in such a manner but not your children who are blood of your blood & bone of your bone.
5. If they were servants, you could deal w/ them in such a manner but since they are children you don’t cast them away.
6. You correct your children, you don’t banish them.
7. Those who preach & teach such doctrines don’t understand the legal adoption we have in Jesus Christ.
8. We are no longer servants kept under the law, in bondage but children of God & joint-heirs w/ Jesus Christ.
9. If heirs of God, then we are the children of God & joint-heirs w/ Jesus Christ.
10. God doesn’t deal w/ us as servants, such is the talk of the bondwoman(Hagar) & her child(Ismael).
11. God deals w/ us as children even when He is correcting us for disobedience.
12. Jesus was born unto us & we are born unto Him: this makes us the Elect, the Saints, but best of all, children of God.
C. JESUS HAS COME IN THE FLESH TO MAKE US CHILDREN V6
1. What does it mean to be children of God ? Lively religion!
2. Thank God our religion is not a dry, dusty & dead religion but a lively relationship w/ Jesus Christ.
3. We need to feel the mystery of His love as children.
4. Just as our children need to feel our love, the children of God need to feel His love.
5. We enjoy our earthly Homes, not as servants, but as children.
6. God’s House should be a lively & loving place where the children enjoy being in their Father’s House.
7. The Temple was a cold place of stern religion but the Church of Jesus Christ should be where the children gather home.
8. God is our Father & His presence should make us glad.
9. We should revere the Father’s House but not to the point where it is a cold dead place where the children dread.
10. Jesus was born so we might be the children of love & joy.
D. BECAUSE OF ADOPTION, GOD SENT FORTH HIS SPIRIT V6
1. Notice in our text there are 2 commissions.
2. God sent forth His Son & then He sent forth His Spirit.
3. Because Jesus has been sent, the Spirit is sent & you know the indwelling Spirit because Jesus came.
4. Surely, you must agree that this was the Greatest Commission.
5. Jesus being sent by the Father is the Great Commission.
6. Now we have the Spirit of Light, Love, Liberty.
7. We have the same Spirit Who descended upon Jesus Christ.
8. We have not received the spirit of bondage to fear but the Spirit of God to adoption.
9. Now it is just as naturally to cry Abba, Father as it is to take a breathe of air.
CONCLUSION:
1. Christmas means many things but the greatest source of good tidings of great joy is redemption & adoption.
2. Christmas is not Christmas w/o these gifts of God.
3. Are they under your tree? Believe on Jesus - He is Christmas, He is the Joy of Christmas.
