Jonathan Gibson and I were privileged to share a conference a few years ago, and I was so pleased with his presentation of the truth that soon after returning home, I contacted our admissions chairman, Bob Macy, and suggested that we invite Jonathan to be a missions conference preacher for us. And I'm very glad that we've done so. Jonathan was an MK raised in Tanzania for the first seven years of his life. His parents worked with MAF in East Africa. And then he says he did a gap year of 19 years hold in South Africa working for Youth for Christ, and he would spend his varsity holidays in South Africa each summer preaching in different churches. He's ministered in Malawi, in India, China, Hong Kong, Korea, training pastors at conferences. Jonathan is an ordained teaching elder in the International Presbyterian Church in the United Kingdom. You'll notice that he's from Ulster. He served as an associate minister at Cambridge Presbyterian Church. Many of us here know Ian Hamilton. And now he is the Associate Professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. We're delighted to have him here. All the glory goes to God. Christ is the one who has poured out his gifts to the church. We give the glory to God, but we honor the servant. And we're very glad you're here, dear brother. Come and bring God's word to us. Well, thank you to David and to the session for the kind invitation to be a part of your missions conference. And I'm looking forward to sharing God's Word with you this morning and this evening on this Lord's Day. Let me pray for us as we come to the reading and the preaching of God's Word. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you reign supreme in the heavens above and over all the earth. And so we pray that these words that you spoke over 2,000 years ago on a mountain in Galilee would echo down to us today by your Spirit. Would you please encourage and challenge us to see your church built up and your kingdom extended to the ends of the earth? And we ask this in your name, the one who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God forever praised. Amen. Would you please stand for the reading of God's Word from Matthew chapter 28 and verse 16 to 20. Let us hear the Word of our God. Now, the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him. but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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 behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of our God endures forever. The cannibals, you'll be eaten by cannibals." Those were the words spoken to the Scottish missionary John Patton in 1858, just before he left the Hebridean islands of Scotland to evangelize the cannibals of the outer New Hebrides, the islands now known as Vanuatu in the South Pacific. It took John Patton six months to get there by sea. Within five months of arriving on one of the islands called Tanna, his wife Mary and newly born son Peter both died of tropical fever. After he buried them, Patton spent nights sleeping on their graves to protect their bodies from being dug up and eaten by the local cannibals. After four years, the natives drove him from the island of Tanna. Years later, he returned, remarried, and returned to live on a different island called Aniwa. He and his new wife Maggie found the cannibals on that island much the same as on Tana. He wrote in his journal, the same superstitions, the same cannibalistic cruelties and depravities, the same barbaric mentality. The same lack of altruistic and humanitarian impulses were in evidence. Patton and his wife Maggie went on to have ten children together, four of whom died in infancy. Yet, despite all of this, they remained on the island of Aniwa and labored for Christ. Patton learned the Aniwa language. He put it into writing and began translating the New Testament. into Aniwa. In 1899, the Aniwa New Testament was completed. And by the end of Patton's life, after many decades of hard labor, the entire island of Aniwa professed Christianity. It's quite a story, isn't it? one of the great stories of missionary endeavor, inspiring, encouraging, uplifting. But think about the cost. Patton left his family in Scotland, never to return there. He lost his first wife and numerous children. He had malaria 14 times, and the cannibals often threatened his own life. Why does a man from the outer Hebridee Islands of Scotland travel to the other side of the world to convert and disciple cannibals, especially when it's at the cost of his own wife and children? I mean, what would possess a man But Patton is not the only great missionary story. If we had time, we could talk about William Carey and Amy Carmichael, missionaries to India. Hudson Taylor, missionary to China. Adoniram Judson, missionary to Myanmar. David Brainard, missionary to the North American Indians. Elizabeth Elliott. missionary to the Alka tribe in the Amazon who had murdered her husband, and four other missionaries. We could mention David Livingston, missionary to Africa. Helen Rosevere, missionary doctor to the Congo. Richard Johnson and Samuel Marsden, missionaries to Australia and New Zealand. Darlene Diebler-Rose, missionary to Papua New Guinea. And on and on we could go, men and women who spent their lives reaching the lost peoples of the world for Christ. Some risked their lives, others literally gave their lives to disciple the unreached peoples of the world. Why? What possessed them? Where did they get their inspiration and encourage from? Well, the answer lies in the verses we've read from Matthew chapter 28, verses commonly known as the Great Commission. And we can understand these familiar words of Jesus under three headings. Now, boys and girls, I've got three points, and each point has got three words. Thought I'd keep it simple so your parents could follow along. Okay? Here's the first one. The great claim. The great claim. Jesus Christ is Lord of everything and everyone, everywhere. Jesus Christ is Lord of everything and everyone, everywhere. Look at verse 18. And Jesus came and said to them, in heaven and on earth has been given to me." Notice the first word of the Great Commission, all. It's the word that dominates Jesus' words in these verses. It's used four times. All authority, all nations, all of Jesus' teachings, all days, always. In verse 18, the focus is on all authority. on the totality of Jesus' authority. He has not been given some authority over some things or some people. No, He has been given all authority over all things and all people. He is Lord of everything and everyone. Notice what else Jesus says, all authority in heaven and on earth. Heaven and earth, it's a merism, that is, it's a way of speaking about two polar opposites which include everything in between. All authority everywhere has been given to me. Everywhere on earth, from Florida to the Philippines, everywhere in heaven, Jesus has authority. This is the great claim as He meets His disciples on a mountain in the backwater region of Galilee. This is what He says to them, I'm Lord of everything and everyone everywhere. All authority has been given to Me. Now, if we're going to grasp the full meaning of these words, we need to notice the timing of Jesus' great claim. He makes this great claim about receiving all authority in heaven and earth after His resurrection and just before His ascension. Now, of course, it does not mean that before His resurrection, Jesus didn't have any authority. As you read Matthew's gospel, you see that He has authority to teach, chapter 7, Sermon on the Mount. He has authority to forgive sin. Chapter 9, an equal authority to God. In chapter 10, he has authority to cast out demons and heal the sick. So, what then does Jesus mean when he says, all authority in heaven and earth has now been given to me? He's referring to the scope of his authority. It's been enlarged, hence the word all. and the phrase, in heaven and on earth. The change in Jesus' authority is not qualitative, but quantitative. The spheres over which He exercises authority as the incarnate Son has been enlarged. He now, as the resurrected God-Man, has authority over all things. and all people in all places. His rule has been expanded beyond teaching and forgiving and casting out demons within the confines of Palestine. His rule has been expanded beyond the borders of Israel. It has been expanded beyond the earth into heaven over all the powers and principalities of the heavenly realms. Of course, as the eternal Son of God, He always had all authority over everything and everyone, everywhere. But as Jesus, the incarnate Son, the person of God who became a man, universal authority has now been given to Him after His resurrection. The timing is important. And so too is the location. Did you notice where he gives this great commission? Verse 16, on a mountain. In Matthew chapter 4, on another mountain, in the midst of his temptations, Satan showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and said to Him, I will give you all of these if you will bow down and worship me. And Jesus refused. Instead, He served and worshiped His Father only. He refused the shortcut to glory, and He took the long road to glory, which involves suffering even unto death. And as a reward for that perfect and entire life of obedience, Jesus on another mountain now receives all authority in heaven and on earth. It is His reward for His obedience to His Father's mission. There's an allusion here to Daniel chapter 7, which we read earlier in our service, where one like the Son of Man approaches the Ancient of Days and receives dominion over all the kingdoms of this world. And alongside that allusion to Daniel 7, there's an allusion to Adam in Genesis. In the beginning, God made the world and appointed Adam on Mount Eden. Did you know that, boys and girls? Eden was on a mountain. It's where rivers originate. On Mount Eden, Adam was given authority over everything and everyone everywhere, but he fell and failed and lost his authority. But here in Matthew, Jesus, the faithful second and last Adam. Now stands on a mountain in Galilee by some water, just like Adam stood on a mountain by some water in Eden. Now Jesus stands on a mountain by some water and is given authority over everything and everyone everywhere. Why? Because there's the second and last Adam he did not feel in his mission. He lived a life of perfect obedience to his Father, and as a result, his Father granted to him all authority everywhere. This is what our secular culture, our pluralistic culture hates with a vengeance, the great claim of Jesus Christ. Our secular culture detests this great claim. As Psalm 2 says, the nation's rage and the people's plot in vain. The kings of the earth take their stand against the Lord and against his anointed one. Why? Because he has exalted him in Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem. We can see how our secular culture doesn't like this in two ways, or what it tries to do with Jesus' great claim. Here's the first thing it tries to do. Secular culture tries to privatize Jesus' authority, tries to privatize it. Our culture says Jesus can have authority so long as it's a private authority, not a public authority. Secularism pushes religious belief to the periphery of society and into the privacy of the human heart. Secularism says you can have your Jesus is Lord mantra. That's fine. Just keep it to yourself. Secularism says Jesus can be Lord, yes, so long as He's only the personal Lord of your own heart, so long as it's a private matter. not a public matter. But look again at verse 18. Jesus isn't interested in secularism's proposal, is He? He's not just Lord of the private heart, He's Lord of the public square. He's Lord of everything and everyone, everywhere, which means His authority is not a private matter, it's a public matter. I think this is most strikingly seen when Her Majesty the late Queen Elizabeth II was coronated in Westminster Abbey in 1953. If you would allow me for a moment as a Brit living in exile to be a wee bit British here in America. Boys and girls, I don't know if you saw the coronation of King Charles just last year, but the Queen. Elizabeth had a very similar coronation, but hers was a wee bit different. That day as she walked down the aisle of Westminster Abbey toward her throne, she walked past her throne and knelt by an altar to pray. It was a private prayer, but it was a public statement because engraved on that altar where she knelt to pray were these words, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and Christ. The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and Christ. It was a private prayer. Nobody knows what she prayed, but it was a public statement. broadcast to 20 million people in Britain, all watching on their brand new TVs. What was the Queen saying to the nation? What was she saying to the world? She was saying, Jesus Christ is Lord of everything, everyone, everywhere. And this is no private matter. The kingdoms of this world belong to Jesus Christ. Another way our culture likes to handle Jesus' great claim is to relativize it. Our culture likes to privatize it, but it also likes to relativize it. It says Oh, that's wonderful that you believe that your Jesus has all authority, so long as you don't think it's true for everyone. You've got your truth, your version of reality. Others have their truths, and we live in a pluralistic, tolerant society. You with your truth in your small corner, and me with my truth in my small corner. So let's live happily together. And as a philosophy, Pluralism wants us to live our lives like we live in one of those big, inflatable, see-through balls at the carnival park. Do you know the ones, boys and girls, if you've ever seen them? You get inside this big ball, they zip it up, and then they blow it up with air, and you walk around on the grass or even on the lake in your ball. you in your bubble of truth walking around, and other people in their bubbles of truth walking around, and all is peaceful, so long as your bubble of truth doesn't bump into other people's bubbles of truth. So long as you keep what's true for you to you, and they keep what's true for them to them. This is what our pluralistic culture does with Jesus' authority. It tries to relativize it. I saw an example of this last year in the recent Anglican Synod in the United Kingdom when an evangelical minister, all well-intentioned, stood up at synod and addressed a liberal woman vicar and said, In essence, I look forward to the day when you can marry in your local church of England according to your conscience of what marriage is, and we evangelicals can officiate marriage in our local church of England according to our conscience of what marriage is. It was an attempt at a peaceful solution to the impasse of the blessing of same-sex relationships and marriage. But notice what the evangelical minister had done. He had just relativized Jesus' authority over marriage. He had just reduced it to a diocese or a local parish in which Jesus' view of marriage would be allowed so long as it stayed within that diocese or that local parish. you and your view of marriage in your diocese, me and my view of marriage in my diocese. Instead of conserving Jesus' authority, this minister had just compromised His authority. He'd relativized it. And Jesus isn't interested in the proposal. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." His authority is not something that can be relativized as one truth among others, as one reality that fits for some but not for others. And that is because Jesus did not rise from the dead in a bubble. The world in which we live is the world in which Jesus rose from the dead, and therefore it is over this world that God has given Him all authority in heaven and on earth. Perhaps we could put it like this, the only people living in a bubble are those who refuse to submit to Jesus' authority, because Jesus rules the world. Do you know that little chorus, boys and girls? He's got the whole world in his hands. He's got the whole wide world in his hands. That's what Jesus is saying here. I have been given the whole world. It is mine. That's what Her Majesty the Queen was saying when she knelt before the altar that day. She was saying, I'm living in the real world. I'm living in Jesus' world because Jesus rules the world. This is Jesus' great claim, and it serves as the foundation for His great commission. Here's the second point. Remember, boys and girls, three points, three words. The great claim, and second, the great commission. The great commission. Go, therefore, and disciple all nations, verses 19 to 20. Notice the therefore at the beginning of verse 19. The great commission does not bring about the great claim. The great claim brings about the great commission. Let me say that again. The great commission does not bring about the great claim. The great claim brings about the great commission. I remember many years ago hearing an illustration to do with mission that went something like this. The Bible teacher was using an image of mission work from a previous century, and he said, people ask me, what is mission? I say to them, mission is getting in your canoe, paddling up the river, getting out and asking, is Jesus Lord here? If not, preach the gospel. Get back in your canoe. paddle up the river, get out and ask, is Jesus Lord here? If not, preach the gospel. Do you see the problem with that presentation of mission? It turns the great claim into a great hope. It turns the great commission into the great expectation. Go and disciple all the nations, baptizing and teaching them, and if you do, then therefore I will gain more authority in heaven and on earth when that tribe up the river submits to my lordship." But that's not what Jesus is saying here. He's not waiting to become Lord of the tribe up the river. He is Lord. of the tribe up the river. He's Lord of that tribe up the river, whether they like it or not, whether they believe it or not, whether they recognize it or not. And that is why we should get in our canoe and paddle up the river, to every tribe, up every river, because Jesus Christ is Lord of everything, everyone, everywhere. This is how the apostles preached in the book of Acts. Now, of course, there's an important distinction or qualification needed between the objective reality of Jesus' lordship and the subjective experience of Jesus' lordship. There was a liberal theologian called Karl Barth who believed that faith was just an awakening to the reality that is already ours because of Christ. In Barth's theology, essentially everyone is a Christian under Jesus' lordship. It's just our job to wake them up by faith to the reality that is already theirs. But that's not what Jesus means here when He asserts His authority over everyone everywhere. The objective reality of Jesus' lordship over all people does not mean that everyone is automatically a Christian. Rather, what it means is that there are two types of people in the world. There are Christians and there are rebels. There are Christians who have, by God's grace, repented of their sin and submitted themselves to Jesus as Lord. And there are others who refuse to repent of their sin and instead rebel against Jesus as Lord. Or if they've not heard of Jesus, they rebel against their Creator, who they have heard through creation and conscience. But let's be clear, Jesus is still Lord of both types of people. This is the great objective claim of Jesus. He is Lord of everyone, everywhere, and it is that great claim that brings about the Great Commission. The Great Commission does not bring about the Great Claim. The Great Claim brings about the Great Commission. The word, therefore, in verse 19 matters. which therefore brings us to the Great Commission itself. It really consists in two simple commands, go and disciple. The order is important. First we go, and then we disciple. Now this reminds me of an old brethren man in the gospel hall that I was brought up in, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. This dear old brethren man was a teaching elder in our church, and he used to have this little maxim, this little saying, if you take the go out of gospel, you're left in a spell. Take the go out of gospel, you're left in a spell. I've never forgotten it. His simple point was that if the church loses its missionary initiative in going to the nations, then we're all just left in the spell of our own introspection and intramural debates. I remember I loved the point. And then I took Greek 1 and 2 at seminary and, of course, became a Greek expert overnight. In the Greek, there's only one imperative, there's only one command in the Great Commission, not two. The text literally says, going disciple. The only command is to disciple. Well, because I was a Greek expert, of course, the next time I got to preach, I preached on Matthew 28, to critique this old brethren man's wordplay. You don't need to go to the nations, I said, you just need to evangelize and disciple wherever you go. The text literally says, going, disciple. And then I took Greek 3 at seminary and realized that my dear old brethren teacher who had no Greek had got the Greek right. because a participle like going can carry an imperatival force because it piggybacks the imperative, disciple. Going, disciple is just the same as saying go and disciple. And so, my old brethren, teacher was right after all. But what's the point I'm making? Going is part of gospelling. going as part of gospelling. I've been reading a little book to our two youngest children, Zach and Hannah, about Aimee Carmichael. She was from Malial, County Down, Northern Ireland, just down the road from where I was brought up. Her missionary story is one of the ones that I've loved reading about the most. But I just discovered as I'm reading this children's book with them, that it is one word in the Great Commission that convinced Amy Carmichael to be a missionary, and do you know which word it was? Go. Go. She went to Japan to be a missionary. She served for a time. Her health didn't let her continue to serve. She returned and went to India and served for the rest of her life in India. The going is important. But so too is what we do when we get there. We are to go and disciple the nations. The verb disciple means to make a person into a learner, a submissive pupil of Jesus. It involves a conversion, but it is not merely a conversion. Jesus doesn't just want numbers, He wants followers, learners, people who understand and love His teaching. And He wants people from all the nations discipled. This word nations here could be translated ethnic groups or people groups or nations or countries, but I think the former is more likely ethnicities, people groups. It connects with Genesis 12.3, the promise to Abraham. In you all the families of the earth will be blessed. Again, notice the word all. It dominates these verses. All authority and now all nations. The all-encompassing authority of Jesus leads to the all-inclusive scope of the command. Universal lordship. leads to universal mission, and the mission is discipleship. Now again, this is quite offensive in our culture. This idea of going to people of another culture and trying to convert them or evangelize them and then disciple them, this is deeply offensive. This is what people call proselytizing, and it's not very PC. to do. I remember many years ago when I was a physical therapist in Belfast, and I was about to go to India on a mission trip to preach for two weeks, and my senior therapist who was giving me my marks the next week, I was a student at the time, she said, I hope you're not going over to India to convert them. And I sort of scrambled along trying to explain myself, which basically was saying, yes, I sort of am going over there to convert them. And she said, I think that's terrible. They've got their religion. You've got your religion. Why do you need to convert them? But as I've reflected on that conversation and our culture's general stance towards evangelism and missions, I've realized There are two important responses that can hopefully help us to be confident and courageous as we are open with others about what we're doing in Christian mission. Here's the first one. Everyone is involved in some kind of evangelism or discipleship. Everyone is. The physio lady that day was giving off about me evangelizing people in India, but did you notice what she was doing to me? She was evangelizing me. She was trying to disciple me. She was trying to convert me to her position that all faiths are equal, and therefore no one has the right to try to change another person's views. In making such a claim, she was trying to disciple me. So it's not whether or not we're going to try to convert someone or disciple them. It's just which kind of conversion. or discipleship will be involved in. Here's a second response when confronted with the accusation of proselytizing. Everyone believes in some kind of absolute. Everyone believes in some kind of absolute. The physio lady said that the reason I was not to evangelize people in India was because they had their own religion. I had mine, and we should just leave it at that. But notice what she was assuming. She was assuming that truth is relative, that it's all equal, and that no one faith is superior to another. Now, she wasn't saying that the Hindus and I believed in the same God, we just understood that one God differently. No, she was saying there are different gods, but they're all equal. In other words, for her, truth was relative, it was subjective. You in your small bubble of truth, Johnny, and me in my small bubble of truth, and the Hindus in India in their small bubble of truth. But do you see the great irony in her argument? In thinking like that, she had just stated an absolute truth to which we all had to submit, and that is that there is no absolute truth. The truth is relative. The absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth. That's what she was trying to get me to submit to. Everyone tries to evangelize, and everyone makes absolute truths. The question is, which absolute truth is true? And therefore, which kind of evangelism is not just right, but which kind of evangelism is good for the world? Because truth is always good for the world. And so, as Christians, we've got nothing to hide or be embarrassed about. We evangelize and disciples all nations because of Jesus' absolute truth claim that all authority in heaven and earth has been given to Him. This is why John Patton didn't leave the cannibals of the outer New Hebrides to themselves. This is why William Carey and Amy Carmichael went to the Hindus of India when they already had millions of other gods to worship. This is why Hudson Taylor wouldn't leave the Chinese to continue in their Confucianism and Buddhism, or Adoniram Judson with the people in Myanmar. This is why David Brainard went to live among the North American Indians even though they had their own worship. That's why Elizabeth Elliot went to the Alka tribe in the Amazon, even though they worshiped the creation. It's why David Livingston and Helen Rosevere went to Africa, even though the Africans had their animistic worship. It's why we should go to our neighbors and friends and to every people group on earth, because Jesus Christ is Lord of everything, everyone, everywhere. This is the great absolute claim. that serves as the basis for the Great Commission. Jesus gives us two things that we're to do as part of discipleship. You'll see those in verse 19. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Now, when you think about that commission, all nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which is a deeply offensive thing to do in a pluralistic culture. Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. It's more like the grieve commission than the great commission. It's a formidable task. All people groups, not just some, the Joshua Project projects that out of the 17,104 people groups in the world, there are currently about 7,000 of them unreached. Discipling these people groups will involve converting them, which is a deeply offensive thing to do, and then the arduous task of discipling them in everything that Jesus commanded them. No wonder it's been called the Great Commission. Perhaps better, the grave commission, because of the effort and the cost it will take. Well, I wonder how it makes you feel today. Overwhelmed? Discouraged? Unrealistic? Impossible? Well, Jesus knows it's overwhelming, and so He ends His great commission with a great comfort. Boys and girls, here's the third point. the great comfort, the great claim, the great commission, and the great comfort. The last words of verse 20, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Jesus' great claim leads to the great commission, but it comes with a great comfort. He will be with us all days," there's the word all again, all days, to the end of the age. This gives a nice bookend to the book of Matthew. Do you remember how it begins with Jesus being called Emmanuel, God with us at His birth? And it ends with Emmanuel, God with us to the end of the age. I mentioned earlier that soon after John Patton arrived on the islands of the outer New Hebrides, he buried his own wife and child. As a result, he nearly lost his mind. He wrote in his journal, "'Had it not been for the abiding consciousness of the presence and power of my dear Lord and Savior, nothing else in all the world could have preserved me from losing my reason and perishing miserably." And then he quoted some words from Scripture, Matthew 28, 20, "'And lo, I am with thee all way to the ends of the age.'" Even so, come Lord Jesus.