and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
12 sermons cite this verse
… what I'm about to say he says behold I am with you always to the end of the age. So if you're taking notes, there's just one truth I want to show you today. There might be other things you write down along the way, but one truth, and here's the first part of it. Life is found in intimate communion with the triune God. So life, with a capital L, is found in intimate communion with, being the key word here, I am with you always. So life is found in intimate communion with the triune God. And I'm using the triune God here in light of the context right before this. Jesus speaking to his followers, to people who are baptized. The word literally means immersed, plunged, enveloped in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So this is just like the mystery of the Trinity here. God the Father God the Son God the Holy Spirit three persons and one God one theologian said try to explain it you'll lose your mind try to deny it you'll lose your soul this is God in community within himself the Father loves the Son loves the Spirit distinct persons within the one Godhead I don't have time to do an exhaustive study of the Trinity today but I do want you to see and soak in the reality that you, right where you're sitting, have been invited to experience life in Trinitarian communion. …
… Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you even to the end of the age. It's given to every Christian. It's given to you, it's given to me. And it's interesting because in that statement, lo, I am with you even to the end of the age, contextually in the original language, it's implying that Jesus will be with us in a special way when we're fulfilling the Great Commission. That's not to say He won't be with us all the time because He said, I'll never leave you or forsake you. But it is to say, Jesus speaking, I will be with you when you do this. I will open doors for you. I will put words in your mouth. I will direct you to the right people. I'll be with you. So your job, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to go and make disciples, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. …
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. May you have a seat. So one, I would say this, one of the many gifts of the TV show, The Chosen, is I, I mean, kind of humanizing the apostles and that sense of just the way in which the apostles, at a moment like this, at a moment like the ascension, would have just been so confused and just kind of utterly, I imagine, imagine being one of the apostles, one of the disciples who is standing there and you watch Jesus go and you're just like standing there with your mouth open. He just flew away. and then you're like, what now? What do we do now? That's why God had to send a couple of angels. Like, why are you still sending it with their mouths open? But that's the question, like, what do we do now? But also a bigger question, not a bigger question, but another question. Not just what now, but why? like why the ascension? Like why does Jesus have to leave? …
… go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And then here's the important part for tonight. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. There's the answer. Jesus gives us the answer to the question, where is Jesus? us. He's with us. He is with us always. However, our second text, Acts chapter 1, verse 6, when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father is fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. And then while they were gazing into heaven, as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? …
… to the great commission, which was Jesus in Matthew 28, verse 19 and 20. He says, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,
… the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. and lo I am with you always even to the end of the age it's an amazing assignment that you and I have been given we have to change our sense of identity first an individual can disciple an individual but only a nation can disciple a nation an individual can i heard somebody say recently an individual can disciple an individual but only a nation can disciple a nation god calls us a holy nation first peter 2 9 a holy the church is a holy nation a holy nation to have the capacity to disciple nations means we have to know what we're doing number one there's got to be a sense of unity and sense of divine purpose there has to be this collective, it's called unity of the faith in Ephesians 4. That group of people can actually help to disciple nations into their purpose and destiny. he says in verse 20 teaching them to observe all things i've commanded you what does that mean all right the original 11 what did jesus teach them Matthew 10 verse 8 Heal the sick He didn't say pray for the sick He said cleanse lepers That which defiles and separates People from one another raise the dead cast out demons every single believer has been given an authority to carry out this mission to leave it for those who stand behind pulpits is actually to weaken …
… Moses needed to hear. It's all the reassurance that we need as well, that the Lord, he goes with us. He goes before us. Matthew 28, verse 18 through 20, the great commission. And Jesus came and spoke to them, his disciples, saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things that I have commanded you. And praise God it doesn't stop right there. Because if it stopped right there, then we might rightfully feel insecure. But it doesn't. Jesus goes on to say, And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen. Even to the end of the world itself, he is with us in what he has called us to do. And now we're not going to get into them in great detail because of the amount of time we have left. …
… and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen. According to Jesus, 10 out of 10 of his followers are meant to play a part actively in the Great Commission until he returns to this world. When I was a young boy, I used to have a recurring nightmare. And in my dream, I saw two lines, a line heading to heaven and a line heading to hell. and I was in the line heading to heaven because I praise God, gave my life to Jesus, saw him, chose to follow him, turned from my sins, turned to him in faith, was given what I could never earn, eternal life. And in that line, you were kind of shuffling forward to enter into glory. And the two lines, the way they went opposite directions, they passed each other. And in my dream, I kept seeing people heading to hell that I went to school with or worked alongside or sat at a table in my job as a busboy. …
… Second, making disciples is our mission. when you get to Matthew chapter 28 verse 16 through 20 the passage we just read in the original language of the New Testament there is only one imperative verb in this passage just to remind you just in case school's been a while you don't remember the imperative verb an imperative is a command when my wife Heather gives me an imperative that's a command do it right then or should do it right then in this passage there's one imperative verb one command around which this whole thing revolves It's one word in the Greek. It's two words here in the English. It's make disciples. It's make disciples. And some translations even have go and teach all nations, which really, it's a completely different word than what we see later with teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. So we need to make sure to separate the two. Make disciples of all nations. That is the mission that I'm giving you, Jesus says. …
… We will miss out on his very presence. Matthew chapter 28 verse 20. We'll miss out big time on the abundance that Jesus came to give us. But not just us. The cost is also for our community. And if we coast out and ignore the mission, then the city of Birmingham gets a great institution called the Church of the Kills that people come to once a week. But that has little to no real effect on the social, spiritual conditions of people living throughout Birmingham, Alabama. And they miss out on seeing His glory. And thousands miss out on coming to know His grace. Not just for us and not just for our community, but to consider the cost of non-discipleship for the world. If we coast, the next year, 47 million more children are born into unreached people groups that have no knowledge of the gospel and the next year 47 million more in the next year 47 million more in the next year 47 million more and while hundreds of millions of people in the world go on without having even heard the name of jesus we sit here thousands of miles away and have our comfortable services business as usual sunday after sunday Yes, the cost of discipleship is great, but I am deeply convinced.
… of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. I just remember a story of an old-timer that wouldn't fly in airplanes. He just refused to fly. Somebody said, hey, if it's your time to go, it's your time to go. And he says, I don't mind going when it's my time to go. I just don't want to be on the plane when it's the pilot's time to go. That made sense to me. He says, well, you should fly because God's with you. And he says, no. He says, lo, I am with you. I am with you, lo. Matthew 28 says go. Acts chapter 1. This is about 10 days before the day of Pentecost, 40 days after the resurrection. Verse 7. He's talking to his disciples. It's not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria to the end of the earth. …
… And he said there, and I will be with you even to the end of this age. That is the reassurance that as we reach out to the uttermost parts of the earth, as we assume the responsibility of equipping these who've trusted Christ as their Savior, he says, I'll go with you. Now, you see, when we do not share the gospel of Jesus Christ and assume a personal responsibility for the world, it appears that we believe that either he's not able to equip us, he will not keep his word to go with us, or what is our excuse? We have an obligation. The truth is we have failed to fulfill the Great Commission. We may have several thousand missionaries in the world, but so what? So what? And you see mission doors open one day and close the next day. So we must look afresh and anew at how we're carrying out the Lord's missionary work around the world. We said, first of all here, that we must assume, that we must make a commitment to assume the responsibility that is ours to evangelize the world. …