Now that is a well-known passage, right? That's what we call the Great Commission. Now before we turn to the bulk of the message, I want us to consider that commission in its context. If you look in your Bibles, if you've got one with you in front of you, it's at the very end of Matthew's Gospel. The context for this incredibly famous text, this text that has motivated the sending out and the funding of missionaries is significant for us. This is a text that drove men and women to leave behind family and homes and everything they know to take the message of the gospel to places they'd never seen before. And I don't want to diminish that this morning, but I do want to reclaim that vision in a very particular way, and you'll see what I mean as we go along.
But to do that, we have to begin to understand this commission that Jesus gives in the midst of its context. Now, if you look at the Gospel of Matthew, the Great Commission is given literally at the very end of the Gospel, and it's coming right after the events that the entire Gospel has been building towards. So it's coming right off of the week where Jesus triumphantly enters Jerusalem and then is subsequently arrested and tried and tortured and executed. And so, it's in this context that you're coming out of the lowest of low points for His disciples. It's a weekend of fear and uncertainty, and that's right behind them. But it's also following right on the heels of the resurrection.
So, these 11 men that we see in Matthew 28:16, these 11 men that Jesus says, 'Come up to the mountain with Me.' I mean, they've been through a whirlwind. They've been through the lowest of lows. Jesus, they've left everything for Him, they've left their lives behind, their careers behind to follow this man, and He's arrested and put to death. And then they have their world rocked and they see Him living. He's got flesh. He's breathing. And there's something different and more powerful about Him. And so they've been through just the gamut of emotions in the course of the last events.
And that all builds up to verse 17. 11 Jewish men, monotheistic and understanding there's only one God, there's only one God you'd worship. Verse 17 says, 'Those Jewish men worshiped Jesus.' So they grasp the full nature of His identity. They begin to understand for the first time the real purpose of His Messianic mission on earth. And it's in that context, literally the turning point of history has happened in the previous weeks, and now they stand on the mountain. 11 men, 11 disciples, and the Gospel of Matthew abruptly ends. Our passage, nothing more, Story closed.
Matthew is making a point. The original disciples, those who would follow, now have clarity on what Jesus' mission had been. They've seen now He's died, He's been raised from the grave. We've seen those stories, how they misinterpret the parables, how they're trying to position themselves in His kingdom. They don't understand what the kingdom's going to be. Now they finally begin to understand it and it's finally beginning to become clear, and then here at the end, Matthew abruptly brings the entire narrative to a quick close with the point that now that they understand what Jesus' mission had been, He reveals to them in His final words what their mission must be.
So on the verge of His departure, Jesus makes crystal clear, 'This is what you, My disciples, are to commit yourself to. Our mission statement that I read is built off of these final parting instructions. So I want to read the commission again, the Great Commission, and then read our mission statement, and then we're gonna spend the day looking at 5 implications that emerge from those 2 things.
6 · Oswald reads the Great Commission in full, introduces Providence's mission statement, and announces the sermon's trajectory: five implications beginning with the affirmation of Christ's Lordship
Verse 18: 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 the 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. And using that as our starting point, this is our mission statement at Providence: that we would be a community of disciples who treasure, declare, and mature in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're going to unpack that statement in the weeks to come. This morning, we're going to spend our time looking at the very beginning of it, that we would become a community of disciples. So with that in mind and the Great Commission in mind, here's 5 implications we see from the mission that Jesus gives to the 11 and by extension to us. The mission that should define who we are. The mission, everything about this passage Matthew details to us, affirms Christ's Lordship.
7 · Oswald clarifies the first implication: the Great Commission begins with Christ's public declaration of cosmic Lordship
When I said earlier that we need to reclaim the Great Commission, I'm not saying we need to steal it back from the missionaries. I'm not trying to create an us/them dichotomy. I'm implying that we need to better grasp the grandeur of what Christ is saying there. Jesus' final charge is grounded in his death and resurrection. That's the context we've talked about. And that is to say, the command to go and make disciples stems from the authority and the power that's been given to the risen Christ. When he announces at the outset of the passage, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,' He's going public with His Lordship. His final words on earth as the risen Christ before He returns makes clear that He, Jesus, is Lord of the universe. He reigns supreme and He has had power from God bestowed on Him.
8 · Oswald unpacks the significance of the mountain setting: mountains are sites of divine self-revelation in Scripture
Now, several things are significant. First, He makes this declaration on a mountain. And if you're familiar with the story of the Bible, mountains are important. God repeatedly meets his people and reveals himself to his people in the context of mountains. So whether it's Moses receiving the law on Mount Sinai, or whether it's in the Gospels themselves, the transfiguration of Jesus happening on the mountain, there's ways that God reveals himself to his people. And Jesus is doing just that. He's making a clear connection with creation. Remember how Genesis begins? 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' It's indicating that because God created them, he rules them. And so when Jesus claims that he has all authority in heaven and earth, he's staking the claim, he's staking the boundaries of His kingdom. 'My lordship covers everything.' All the world, all the universe is under the authority of Christ.
9 · Oswald draws a parallel between God's commission to Adam in the garden and Jesus' commission to the disciples
Now, in the garden, God directs His attention after He's created to man, right? He looks to Adam and He begins to instruct Adam. He begins to commission Adam. He gives Adam a mission in Eden. If we remember that, He tells him in the garden, He tells Adam, 'You should subdue the earth. You need to exert dominion over the earth and you need to fill it.' Remember the story of Genesis. Well, here Jesus as the risen God-Man carries the Creator's authority And He fulfills where Adam failed. So where Adam has failed to subdue and rule, Jesus now has that authority and will fulfill it perfectly. But He's also instructing in the same way. He's commissioning the disciples. So like God commissions Adam in the garden, here Jesus commissions His followers.
10 · Oswald asserts the critical shift from Adam's commission to the disciples' commission: post-fall, believers are no longer primarily kingdom-builders but kingdom-announcers
But it's different. After the fall, after Adam's failure, it now falls to the Son of Man to exert and express and extend God's dominion over creation. Our role is no longer primarily kingdom building. Our role is kingdom announcing. The Lordship of Christ has has changed what we're called to do. In the garden, God says to Adam, 'Subdue this world. Fill it. Exert dominion over it.' That's changed now. That broad call still exists for man, but now Jesus speaks to His disciples and says, 'This is what I want you to concentrate on.' Not building a kingdom. Not extending dominion told Adam, 'I want you to announce a kingdom.' Jesus commands disciples to bring men and women into awareness of the fact that he reigns. And that's what the mission of Jesus to us boils down to: two things: the fact that we've been sent by Jesus, and the fact that we've been sent with a task. And that task is not to build a kingdom.
11 · Oswald critiques a common misunderstanding in American Christianity: believers do not build the kingdom—Christ has already conquered and established His reign
And that's contrary to what we see in a lot of American Christianity. There is this sense that we are supposed to build a kingdom for God, that we're supposed to conquer things for God. Biblically, in the New Testament, God is the one who's conquered through Christ. We herald and proclaim the reality that He has already conquered, that He does already reign. Jesus builds the kingdom, we broadcast it. We're sent into the world and to all peoples, and the task we're given is to make disciples, to herald and proclaim the kingdom. And disciple-making is really just showing people the reality that Jesus is Lord, that he's Lord over the entire universe, and that he's Lord over our lives. And then helping them to live in light of that announcement. So the kingdom's announced and proclaimed and heralded. It's not brought. It's not built.
12 · Oswald turns to Acts 1 to illustrate the same point: the disciples still want to build the kingdom, but Jesus redirects them—they will be witnesses, not kingdom-builders
Listen to how Acts 1 puts this. And so they came together and they asked him— so this is Luke telling the same events now. He's put them in Acts instead of in his gospel. Lord, 'Will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? Are You going to build the kingdom?' The disciples are concerned with building the kingdom. They're still concerned. 'Is now the time, Jesus, when You're going to flip Rome on its head and You're going to exert Your authority?' And He said to them, 'It's not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has 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 Judea and in Samaria and to the ends of the earth.' Here's the point. Don't concern yourself with building my kingdom. I will build my kingdom. Concern yourself with being witnesses to my kingdom.
13 · Oswald draws a grammatical observation from Scripture: the kingdom of God is described with passive verbs—it is received, entered, inherited, never built
When Scripture talks about the kingdom of God, almost exclusively it uses passive verbs. The kingdom is something that's received. It's something that's entered into. It's something that's inherited. And Jesus' commission to us reflects that reality. It affirms his lordship, that Jesus establishes his reign and rule, and it calls us not to build it, but to broadcast it. We make disciples. We announce his reign. We tell the story of the gospel. We usher rebels into submission to it and transfer the lost into life in Christ. It's the first implication of the mission. It centers on Christ's lordship, and that defines his role and ours.
14 · Oswald announces the second implication: disciple-making is not a program or event but a comprehensive way of life for all believers
The second is this: the mission that he calls us to is a way of life. Now, we're centering on that first part of the mission statement, the call to be a community of disciples, that we would be centered around making disciples. The second point that we see from this text is that this mindset is supposed to be a way of life.
15 · Oswald uses the Army Rangers and Navy SEALs as analogies: being a Ranger or SEAL is not a credential but a way of life—a daily, comprehensive commitment to excellence and mission readiness
Now, Hannah can attest to this, I have to confess, I can get a little obsessed with military stuff. I love reading books about the military. I find it fascinating. So whether it's Citizen Soldier or Band of Brothers by Ambrose, I just devour them. And recently I was reading a book about the Rangers and just fascinated by this culture of the Army's Rangers. Now, if you're not familiar, the Rangers are the special forces of the United States Army. So they're this unique branch of the United States military that is called in a very particular way to be the tip of the spear. These are the elite soldiers that are called with a very particular task. You are the first men that we deploy into battle. And so all you do is ready yourself for being deployed into battle. That's what the Rangers do. And I was looking online and I was reading about this, and here's a description of who a Ranger is. A Ranger embodies the heart, soul, and spirit of a true warrior. A Ranger, it said, never rests on his laurels or past accomplishments. He will continue to prove himself to be the best each and every day. It's not just a title. It is, in fact, a way of life. Tough, demanding, fast-paced, arduous, and dangerous are only some of the terms associated with this elite soldier. So there's this sense for the Rangers, this this elite special forces of the US Army, that to be a Ranger isn't about going just through Ranger school. It's not just about being Ranger qualified. It's that you've embraced this sense that because I desire to be a Ranger, every day I'm in the pursuit of being a Ranger. It's the same with the SEALs. They've got this mantra. I've watched and read a book about their BUD/S training, you know, the classic famous Navy SEAL training where they have Hell Week. And they constantly drill into these sailors who are seeking to become SEALs, 'The only easy day was yesterday.' You want to be a SEAL? Every day. It's a way of life. There's no sense that now I've finished 27 weeks of BUD/S training and Hell Week's over and I know how to blow things up and I can swim for miles and I can shoot with deadly precision, and now I'm all of a sudden a SEAL, and I just gotta go off and do SEAL things. No. To be a SEAL is to embrace a way of life. To be a Ranger is to grasp the Ranger Creed.
16 · Oswald unpacks the Greek grammar of Matthew 28:19: 'go therefore' is better rendered 'as you go'—disciple-making is not a specialized task for some but an ongoing posture for all believers in all of life
The mission that Jesus puts in front of us is the same way. To be a disciple is not just to It's not just to have some ID card in your wallet that you can pull out and say, 'Hey, look! I'm disciple qualified!' You see this in the mission and the way that Jesus explains it. Our English translations don't capture it well. But the sense of the verb in Matthew 28:19 where we read, 'Go therefore,' would be better rendered, As you go, make disciples. There's a sense in the way the verb is in the original Greek that this calling Jesus gives to us isn't just some men are going to go and do this. It's no, as you go, as you go about your life in the world, make disciples. So when I talk about when we need to reclaim this, I'm not talking about cutting missionaries out of the Great Commission. I'm talking about expanding it. I'm talking about bringing the church and every believer into it. The mission is given in a way that makes it clear. Jesus expects it to encompass all believers and all of life.
17 · Oswald turns to the book of Acts for linguistic evidence: the term 'disciple' in Acts never refers exclusively to the Twelve but always to the entire body of believers, confirming that the Great Commission is the mission of all Christians, not an elite few
The mission that he gives to the church and to providence is not just the mission of pastors or care group leaders or evangelists. It's the mission of everyone who's a part of this body. Making disciples is meant to involve all the church so that we might reach all peoples. It's interesting, if you look in the book of Acts— Acts is the story of the church beginning, right? If you look in the book of Acts, there's 25 times where the word disciple is used. You know how many times Acts says disciple and is referring to the Twelve? Not a one. Every time Acts uses the term disciple or disciples, it's referring to the body of Christ. The disciples' number was increasing. It's not this static, here's Twelve. No. Disciples increase, they proliferate, as the church grows, as members are added to their number, it's not that there's this elite inner circle of disciples and then the rest of the church. All are considered and called disciples because all carry the call and mission that Jesus gives in Matthew 28.
18 · Oswald traces the shift in meaning for 'disciple' from the Gospels (the Twelve) to Acts (all believers)
So the term that's used exclusively in the Gospels for 12 men who formed the most inner circle of Jesus' ministry now gets extended. And it describes all who would follow him after his resurrection. And the imagery is meant to imply a lifestyle of disciple-making. To be a disciple is to live a life of disciple-making. Which makes sense because that's exactly how Jesus engaged in it, right? He doesn't just call the disciples, 'Hey, throw down your nets. Go and proclaim My Kingdom.' 'Come follow Me. Come walk with Me. Come learn from Me. Come eat with Me. Come live life together with Me for 3 years and I will be making you My disciples. Now go replicate that.'
19 · Oswald uses a satirical hypothetical to illustrate what disciple-making is NOT—a calendar slot or program
You don't think of disciple-making and look at your calendar and think, okay, Great Commission, I'm tracking here. It says you got to go and make disciples. So the pastor is saying that the Bible says that everyone is called to make disciples. So I'm looking at my calendar and, you know, I think I can fit in the first and third Wednesday of each month. I can devote 45 minutes, give or take, to disciple-making. And so I'll be fulfilling the Great Commission because first and third Wednesday every month, I will be disciplined to this. From 2:30 to 3:15, I'm gonna make disciples. I'm gonna give myself to that. No. You live it out. You go about your day looking for opportunities to announce the kingdom. To share the gospel. And then you model what that looks like. You model what it looks like to live as a citizen of the kingdom.
20 · Oswald defines disciple-making as the entire arc from conversion to maturity—not a status or credential, but a description of progressive submission to Christ's Lordship
Disciple-making is a broad process that encompasses everything from conversion to maturity. It's not a certificate, it's a description. To be called a disciple is to be called to change allegiances from self-rule to Christ's rule, and then to progressively live more in light of that. Those are the first two aspects we see emerge from this sense of call that Jesus gives to us.
21 · Oswald signals the third implication—the mission happens through the church—and addresses a potential objection: Matthew 28 doesn't mention the church
The third is this: the mission isn't just a way of life. The mission isn't just anchored in Christ's Lordship. The mission happens specifically through the church. Now, I've been alluding to this up to this point. And if you actually look at the text, there's nothing explicitly said about the church in Matthew 28:16-20. So am I imposing this upon the church? Is this artificial to what Jesus' intention was? It's not a good thing to impose things on the text. You don't want to do that. It's something to be avoided. Well, there's a good reason the church isn't mentioned in Matthew 28. It doesn't exist yet. The church isn't on— it's not on the screen. It's not a part of the plot. Yet, but it's about to become that.
22 · Oswald unpacks the content of the Great Commission: Jesus instructs the eleven to make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to observe everything He commanded
Jesus tells the 11 disciples, so minus Judas, he's betrayed Christ, he's committed suicide, it's just the 11 now. You, my 11, are going to go make disciples. Here's what's gonna happen. When people repent and believe in me as Messiah and Lord, you're going to baptize them. Therefore, make disciples baptizing them. And then you'll continue this process of disciple-making by teaching them everything that I've said. You'll teach them everything I've commanded, and you'll teach them how to observe what I've commanded. So here's the deal. You're going to teach them all that I've commanded. And in Luke's rendering of this, he says that Jesus takes them up on the mountain and he starts walking them through Scripture. Can you imagine? I don't know how long they're on the mountain for, but Jesus is basically giving them the nuts and bolts of Scripture and showing them how He completes it. How He fulfills it. And so then when He says, 'You make disciples, baptize them, and teach them everything I've taught you and show them to observe it.' So, you make sure these disciples that you're making, that you're baptizing, that they hear the Word and that they're doers of the Word. That the truth is proclaimed and that the truth is applied to their hearts.
23 · Oswald explains that Matthew gives no explicit church structures, but Acts shows how the disciples understood the Commission: they created the church at Pentecost
But nothing explicit that says, 'And thou shalt do this on Sunday mornings between the hours of 9 and noon, and Sunday school will be an integral component of your making of disciples, and Sunday school should be an integral component consisting of 45 minutes before the main service.' The church isn't explicitly referenced. Like we said, it doesn't exist. The book of Acts picks up the story and describes the creation of the church. But the book of Acts is jumping in right where Matthew and Luke and the other gospels conclude. What Acts is showing us is how the disciples understood Jesus' meaning. At Pentecost, the Spirit drops, right? The Spirit falls upon the disciples. And it falls upon the crowds and there's mass conversion. The disciples are empowered and the church is born. That's Acts in a nutshell. The Word and the Spirit begin calling out and creating a people on a mission. Acts is a series of details if you read it of power encounters. Of the Word of the Gospel going out, and wherever the Word of the Gospel goes out, wherever the Kingdom is broadcast by disciples, the Word goes out and there's power. The Spirit moves and people are saved and drawn into the Kingdom.
24 · Oswald argues that while Matthew 28 doesn't mention the church explicitly, the activities Jesus commands—making disciples, baptizing, teaching—are precisely what the rest of the New Testament describes as happening in the church
When the Gospel of the risen Christ is announced, His authority goes with it. It conquers rebel hearts. It creates a people and a church and a bride. In Acts, the apostles envision discipling, baptizing, and teaching, all these activities given to them by Jesus at the Great Commission. In Acts, those disciples, so read the 11 guys who were actually there on the mountain, who were there with Jesus, they take that to mean We create a church. We create a people. It's the context where these things happen. So no, Matthew 28 doesn't say anything explicitly about the church. It just gives us the details of all the things the rest of the New Testament says should be happening in the context of the church. Making disciples, baptizing and teaching those disciples, accountability that fleshes out truth applied. The rest of the New Testament consistently sees those activities as happening in the church, and so we can draw the conclusion the mission that Jesus gives to the disciples and to all believers as disciple-makers is to happen in the context of the church.
25 · Oswald signals the fourth implication: the mission not only happens through the church but defines the church
Now closely with this is The fourth implication: the mission defines the church. So mission happens through the church, but mission also defines the church. Now, one of the interesting things about reading the Gospels and the book of Acts, really the entire New Testament, is people are constantly trying to tweak God's plan. They're constantly trying to tweak and interject their ideas for how the kingdom should look or how the kingdom should be built.
26 · Oswald catalogs examples of people imposing their vision on God's kingdom plan: Peter rejecting the cross, James and John seeking power, Simon trying to buy the Spirit's power
So remember Peter? There should be no sense of substitution. No sense that the Messiah dies, right? Don't let that happen. And Jesus responds, 'Get behind me, Satan.' You've got James and John and their vision of the kingdom. 'This is how you should build the kingdom, Jesus. You should give us some sweet seats.' We want to have a little power with what's going on. Can you give us some authority? In Acts chapter 8, you see Simon. The Spirit's power is going out and he looks at all this that's happening and realizes there's something real going on here. And he comes to the disciples and what does he say? 'Can I buy some of that? What's the going rate on this magic? I want to use it for personal gain and prosperity.' Well, those stories happen all over Scripture. People trying to bring their baggage and their vision of what the kingdom should look like and what the church's mission should be.
27 · Oswald asserts God's counter-vision: God builds the kingdom, and the church is His ordained instrument to announce it and mature disciples
Here's God's vision: I'll build the kingdom, thank you very much. You tell people to entrust themselves to it. You show them how to live as good citizens in it. And the church is the primary instrument God has ordained for just that. That that would be the instrument, the church, for making and maturing disciples. So here's the crux. If the church is primary in God's plan, shouldn't the church also be primary in our plan? When we read Scripture, there's one institution, there's one body, there's one entity that emerges in the New Testament as the means that God has ordained to accomplish His mission in the world? It's the church. It's the vehicle that He's going to use to spread the name of Christ and recognition and an understanding and a grasp of the reality of who Christ is in God, that He was perfectly man, perfectly God, died a substitutionary death, has been killed, raised from the grave, and now enthroned in heaven. And the church is the vehicle God ordains to put forward that message that gives the task and mission of disciple-making.
28 · Oswald applies the theological claim: if the church is God's ordained vehicle for the Great Commission, then church members should define their mission by disciple-making, and those seeking discipleship should expect to find it in the church
There's a really clear application from that. It means if you're a part of a church, your mission should be defined by how Jesus defines it. Your mission should be to make disciples. But it also means that if you're seeking to be made a disciple, to continue in the path of discipleship, you should see that most clearly carried out in the context of a church.
29 · Oswald tells a story of a young believer encountering a pastor who refuses to call people to repentance, illustrating the danger of mission drift—a church that has lost sight of its God-given mission
I was at a meeting recently, probably about a year ago, and I was having a conversation with another pastor, and it was really fascinating. Conversation. It was an individual who had grown up in the church, gone off to college, and gotten saved and had a real encounter with Christ. And he repented and turned his life, and he's just on fire, just one of those new believers that just couldn't get enough of the gospel and Christ and, and the significance of what God had done for him. And he returned back home to his small rural town. He was sitting in the church and the pastor preached a message and he kind of joked about it afterwards. He said, 'You know,' and I was young, he's like, 'I'm 20 years old and, you know, full of passion.' He's like, 'I probably wasn't totally appropriate in how I did it, but I just came up and just excited and wanted to share with the pastor all that had been happening in my life.' And in the context of the conversation, he says to the pastor, 'Now, I noticed that you didn't call anyone to repent and to believe in your message.' It seemed like there was an opportunity to there. Why didn't you? Or is there another context where we can do that? And the pastor just looked at him with this really knowing, mature look on his face. I would never do that. It's not my job to tell people what they should and shouldn't believe or how they should orient their life. That's not something that I'm called to do. You know, we're having this conversation and he's just flabbergasted. 'Can you believe that?' He said, 'I understand now how I could grow up in the church and not know the Lord.' Now that's a strange story. It sounds really foreign, right?
30 · Oswald diagnoses the story as mission drift: when the church's mission becomes everything, it becomes nothing
What that story expresses is a church that's reached the full extent of mission drift. That's a church and a pastor that at some point along the road embraced this mentality that mission, the mission of the church, is meant to be everything. If mission is everything, then it's nothing. The church is not called to complete 20 different tasks for the sake of building the kingdom. Now, there are significant things, instructions that Scripture gives, commands Jesus gives in terms of pursuing things like justice, pursuing care for widows and the poor, and extending help for people, right? There are significant things that Jesus says and instructs us in terms of pushing back against the fallen nature of the world, seeking to express and extend God's mercy in it. Jesus calls us to do those things. He calls us to live with compassion and mercy. But the issue is we're often guilty of confusing individual calling with corporate calling. If we stretch the gospel to include solutions to all social problems, we will lose the gospel.
31 · Oswald clarifies the church's singular mission: make disciples
Matthew 28 makes clear. Do you know what the mission of the church is? What the call of the church is? It's one thing. Make disciples. That you would, as you go, make disciples of all nations. That you would be committed to transferring people from the kingdom of darkness to the reign and kingdom of Christ. Now, if that's happening, if the church is making individual disciples, those individual disciples will be taught all that Jesus commanded, right? And taught to observe it. And so those individual Christians in the midst of that corporate calling of making disciples, as they mature and become disciples, will begin to have a sense of individual calling. In which place they will go out and seek to affirm and complete many of those commands that Jesus gives us in the gospel. That's not a cop-out. Those commands are real, and believers, Christians, are called to keep them. But the church has a more specific call: to make disciples.
32 · Oswald uses a thought experiment: if the church ceased to exist, many social goods would still be pursued by other organizations, but the one institution ordained by God to make disciples would be gone
You see this by asking this question: What if the church ceased to exist? Would there be organizations still committed to feeding the poor? If the church ceased to exist, would there be organizations still committed to political activity? If the church ceased to exist, would there be organizations and people fighting for things like justice and things of that nature? Yes, there would be. But if we understand Scripture, if we see God's ordained intention, if the church disappears from the scene, The one institution ordained by God to make disciples, to spread the gospel by drawing people into God's community, that they might know Jesus and savor him more, that they might treasure him and declare him and mature in him, will no longer exist in the world. So the mission must define the church.
33 · Oswald announces the fifth and final implication: the mission is sustained by Christ's power and presence
And finally, number 5: the mission is sustained by Christ's power and his presence. Now, it's no accident that the Great Commission begins with references to the power of Jesus and the presence of Jesus. If you read verse 18, 'And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.'' Beginning of the passage and the end of the passage.
34 · Oswald revisits the disciples' emotional state on the mountain: they've endured fear, disorientation, and loss, then witnessed the resurrection
Now, to understand the significance of this, you got to go back and understand the context again. They've had a crazy couple weeks. They've seen Jesus die. They've been chased around by Roman soldiers. They have fled for their lives. They've been hiding up in a room expecting at any moment the authorities are gonna come and pound on the door and break in. After that, Some women come to them telling them that Jesus is raised from the grave. They think they're insane. Then Jesus appears. They see Him. He has a physical body. Thomas puts his hands in the wounds, realizes He is alive, but there's something magnificently different about Him. And yet, just prior to this, in verse 11, we read they also know that the Sanhedrin and the authorities and all the Jewish leaders are conspiring against them still. So here they are on the mountain. Jesus is there. Things are gonna get better now. We've had an insane couple weeks, but Jesus is back and he's different even than he was before. Whew, no worries. And then you realize the way he's teaching and the way he's talking It kind of sounds like he's not staying. Jesus, I don't know if you get this, but all those people who just killed you, they're plotting to pretend like you aren't alive again, and if you leave, they're going to keep plotting and they're going to kill us. You shouldn't go right now. I think that's probably what's happening when Jesus says, 'They worshiped him and some doubted.' I think there's a little bit of there, a play on what is happening with Thomas, but I think there's also doubt of just the sense of, 'You're leaving? You're gonna go? We need you right now. We're starting to grasp the significance of what you're calling us to. That's a big thing you expect to happen in the world, and we can't do it without you.'
35 · Oswald imagines the disciples' perspective: standing on a mountain with Jesus, hearing the command to reach all nations, and feeling the overwhelming impossibility of the task
The mission of the church to make disciples of all nations is a daunting task. Jesus is on the top of a mountain with 11 dudes. You can't tell me when he says, 'All nations,' they don't look around at the horizon. And think, 'All nations? How are we ever going to get out of Judea?' You think Peter's sitting there wondering, 'Ugh, I don't really know if I want to be in charge of this thing.' You think the disciples aren't gulping a little bit?
36 · Oswald shifts to personal pastoral testimony: he often lies awake at night overwhelmed by the weight of Providence's mission
There's times at night that I lie awake and I can't sleep. Sometimes it's 'cause I ate something. Other times it's because I'm aware of what I've been called to. And that lays there. To lead and teach and care for and nurture and disciple the believers of Providence. That they would make disciples. We are called to bring the gospel to bear in our community as we gather, that disciples of Christ would be made, that maturity would happen. And we are called to make disciples in the community outside of us and around us. We are called to partner in such a way, like the church in Antioch, that we would partner with disciples being made to the ends of the earth. So in places like Burma and Indonesia and the Philippines and North Africa. The Dominican Republic. We're called to help each other to walk in a manner worthy of the Gospel. I shouldn't be the only one laying in bed at night wondering how. If you're a parent, you probably do, right? 'Lord, help me. How do I disciple this little child's heart?'
37 · Oswald turns to Luke 24 to reinforce the fifth implication: Jesus opens the disciples' minds to understand Scripture, commissions them to proclaim the gospel, and promises the Spirit's power—linking understanding, mission, and divine enablement
Well, just as important as keeping the mission of making disciples at the forefront, we need to keep Christ's power and presence there as well. In Luke's accounting, Luke 24:44, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.' Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. So all these parables that they just seem like dunces and they're missing, all of a sudden they grasp. And he says to them, 'Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise again from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed 'in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.' That's the Great Commission. Here's your task: proclaim my kingdom, proclaim my saving works, because you are witnesses of these things. And it's no small thing. Then he concludes, 'And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.
38 · Oswald identifies two temptations believers face in light of the Great Commission: self-sufficient presumption ('I can do this') and despairing paralysis ('I can't do this')
Jesus gets our two temptations. He understands that some of us are gonna see this, jump up, ready to go, and run out the room in our own power. I can do that! You're probably under 30. Maybe not. Maybe you just think you're still under 30. That's a temptation. People thinking, I'm going to complete the Great Commission. I'm going to do my part to make disciples. Because I believe in Jesus and I've got the strength to do it. Well, you don't. Peter had a lot of similar thoughts if you read the Gospels. And God had to humble Peter before he realized his need. The other temptation is to look at all that we're called to do. To just even consider, 'How do I continue becoming a disciple?' Much less, 'How do I go make disciples?' and to look at that and despair.
39 · Oswald proclaims the theological heart of the fifth implication: Jesus extends His omnipotence—the same power that created the universe—to His disciples for the purpose of the mission
To both of those, Jesus says, 'All authority in heaven and on earth.' The same omnipotence that spoke matter into existence, the same power that created out of nothing, that same power as the risen Christ Seated at the right hand of God, I now extend to you. My authority I give to you for the purpose of your mission. Your one mission: to make disciples. To transfer lost, broken, rebellious, sinful people from certain death and judgment into My Kingdom. That you would hide them under My blood. That they would see the sacrifice I've made on their behalf. That they would repent of their former life. That they would believe in it, that they would live in light of it, that they would mature in My Gospel, be conformed to My image, and that they would go out and do the same. I give My power for that purpose.
40 · Oswald turns to Acts to illustrate the Spirit's power in mission: the church explodes at Pentecost and spreads across the Roman Empire—not because of human skill or strategy, but because the Spirit empowers the gospel proclamation
There's inspiring hope all over the book of Acts. If you read Acts, it is an incredible story. There's incredible things happening all over. The church explodes at Pentecost from 12 men and some hangers-ons to thousands. And it keeps exploding. It's just multiplying and multiplying and multiplying, even through the bumbling of its leaders, even through racial tensions that are going on, even through not totally getting the gospel yet. The church is expanding. The gospel is going out. Here's the deal: thousands of people don't believe in Acts 2 because Peter preached a killer sermon. It was a killer sermon because the Spirit inspired it. The Roman Empire doesn't become infected with this little tiny Judean religious sect called Christianity because Paul and Barnabas have just killer marketing strategies. They really knew how to package this message and really knew how to sell it to all sorts of different audiences. I mean, they were just killer salesmen, and that's why Christianity just goes all over the Roman Empire. No, that's not why.
41 · Oswald applies the theological claim to Providence: the church will not grow through pastoral skill or human effort, but through the same resurrection power that raised Christ from the grave—the Spirit's power Jesus extends for the mission
And providence won't grow in maturity. It won't see numbers added added through conversions, because of its pastors' gifts, or the gifts of its people. What gives us hope in the mission is that the same power in Acts that creates the church and builds the church, the same power that took a dead crushed Christ and ignited him with life and raised him from the grave. That same power Jesus puts at our disposal for the purpose of our mission, that we would be a community of disciples who treasure and declare and mature in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's our hope, that Jesus, the supreme Lord of the universe, sends us out with his power and with the presence of his Spirit.
42 · Oswald closes in prayer, asking God to anchor the congregation's hope in Christ's authority, power, and presence—not in human skill or strategy—and to help Providence fix its eyes on the mission of making disciples for God's glory
Bow your heads. Lord, Would you help to anchor our hope there, Lord, as we contemplate the massiveness of the mission before us, that we would take the reality of your gospel, the reality that you came and you lived a perfect life and you died a death in our place, that you bore the weight of sin, that you gave a perfect sacrifice, that you were vindicated from the grave, that you rose, that you conquered, that you are now seated and enthroned at God's right hand, would you help us to grasp the hope that you give us in proclaiming that message to enslaved and blind and broken and dead people? It doesn't rest on how articulate we are. It doesn't rest on how hip we are, how culturally savvy we are. That it rests on your authority and your power and your presence, that you are with us even to the end of the age. So God, ground our hope in your power and your presence and help us Help Providence, help me, help each believer here, help each disciple to fix our eyes on the mission of making disciples for the glory of your name. In your name, Jesus, amen.