Sermon Transcript

Today, we’re starting a new series, and this series is titled, “Who is Jesus and What Does He Want?” So, please go ahead and turn to Matthew 28. Like any good story, we’re going to start at the end and move our way back to the beginning. So, turn to Matthew 28 and then rise with me as we read verses 16–20.

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.” (ESV)

Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. Catapult our minds to the heavens and help us to see the God that we read about in Exodus 19 today. You are the God who descended onto Mount Sinai. You speak with peals of thunder and flashes of lightning. You are majestic. You are holy and set apart from us, and yet you condescend to be in our presence.

Please help this feeble teacher here today to speak and proclaim your word in such a way that our minds and our hearts are rejuvenated and galvanized to go out and do the work that you have called the church to do. Please, Father, help us and fill us with your Holy Spirit.

And be with all those who are at home watching this sermon. Be encouraged to know that they also count and that they are valued in the eyes of God. And for all those who wish that they could be here, I pray that you would strengthen their resolve to feel the peace and the presence of God and feel encouraged to do your work. We love you, Lord Jesus. We need you. So come, in your name we pray. Amen.

In 2016, the Southern Baptist Convention had commissioned a task force to do some research. The SBC wanted to know how our churches are doing when it comes to making disciples.

Some of you were really blessed and touched by the visit of my mentor, Dr. Quarles, last week. And Dr. Quarles shared with you a survey study that he had done at Louisiana College where he was one of my professors. And he was shocked because he found that the children who had said they had belonged to the church most of their lives and considered themselves believers, they claimed that Jesus was not the only way to salvation.

Well, this study in 2016 that the SBC had commissioned found some data that was pretty similar, and it was alarming. This task force discovered data starting in 1996, and they followed the trend for 20 years. In 1996, 5,224,000 people attended church on a weekly basis—5,224,000. Then over the course of 20 years, Southern Baptist churches baptized a whopping 7 million people.

So we started with 5,224,000, and we baptized 7 million. So, you would think after 20 years, you must have close to at least 10 million people going to church, right? Not even close. Well, Josh, you might say, “Josh, maybe it was 9 million.” Not even close. 7 million? Well, I would hope so. We just baptized seven million people. Nope. Not even close. Three? Nope.

How many people did it add? It didn’t add any. In fact, over 20 years, though they had baptized 7 million, they lost people in the church. They lost a whopping 24,000 weekly attenders. And yet we held up with pride that we had baptized seven million people.

And that right there should catch our breath and take it away and make us realize that maybe we’re using the wrong metric for success. Because if we’re baptizing seven million people and we don’t even have that many people going to church on a weekly basis, then baptism is not what we should be aiming for.

And that was the conclusion of the study. The study was that Southern Baptist churches by and large are not making disciples. They care more about the metric for baptism, and then we just let them walk out the back door. Robert Gallaty says—he was on the commission—[that] we have done a great job in teaching people what they are saved from (that is, God’s wrath and sin), but we need to do a better job in showing them what they are saved for. We preach a very good gospel of forgiveness, but we forget that the gospel that we are given is meant to go and make disciples of all nations.

Who is Jesus?

So to the text we turn, Jesus came from a town of Nazareth in the region of Galilee, northern Israel. This is the backwoods of Israel. Okay? Anybody ever heard of Bear Creek in Chatham County? Right. Okay. We got one, two, that’s it. Great. That’s about how many people might have heard of Nazareth.

And Jesus showing up on the scene coming out of Nazareth and changing the world within 35 years is pretty close to somebody coming out of Bear Creek, Chatham County, North Carolina, marching to Washington, DC, and changing the world within 35 years. It’s a pretty remarkable feat. But then, what we need to understand is that he certainly must have been more than just a backwoods carpenter. Otherwise, how could he change the entire landscape of geopolitical structures and social environments so quickly within 35 years?

So, he obviously is far greater than a mere carpenter. And that is what we’re going to see in Matthew 28. The disciples are on their way to Galilee to the mountain that Jesus had apparently instructed them to wait at. And they see Jesus after he had been killed.

Jesus is God.

And we see the disciples doing this incredible thing when they see him. When they see him in verse 17, they fall down and worship. Obviously, he is more than just a backwoods carpenter.

In fact, what the disciples did to Jesus is what Satan tried to get Jesus to do to him. Satan had told Jesus, “If you bow down and worship me in Matthew 4, I’ll give you everything you ever wanted.” But instead Jesus said, “No, you shall worship the Lord your God only.”

So what Satan had tried to trick Jesus into doing, the disciples at this point do—they fall to their knees and they begin worshiping him. Not all of them. Everything that the disciples had heard from Jesus had led to this point. Why would they fall down and worship him? It is because they recognize who Jesus truly is for the first time. They recognize that Jesus is God.

The disciples with their actions, they are declaring that this is not a backwoods carpenter. They are declaring that this man is God. And church, I’m here to tell you that when they tell you that not all of them bowed in worship, but some doubted, this is a wonderful piece of evidence that this is actually a historical event.

And I’m here to tell you why. When historians find these ancient documents and they’re trying to weigh whether this is a true event, should we trust this document? One of the things that they look for is called the criterion of embarrassment. You see, if a historian puts in his writing a detail that is embarrassing to the historian, they think, “Well, certainly he’s not making it up. Because if he was making it up, he wouldn’t include the embarrassing detail.”

And you see the authors of the gospels, they are admitting, “Hey, we didn’t all recognize that he was God. Some of us doubted.” And this satisfies the criterion of embarrassment that tells non-Christian historians this is likely a true event. And this shatters the idea that Jesus being God was a fact that was made up after Jesus died.

Just like those who did not bow down in worship proves that this really happened, those who did bow and worship proves something else. When the worshippers proved that they knew God by bowing down, they knew that Jesus was God, Jesus received their worship.

So what does this tell you? When Jesus did not reject their worship, this proves that Jesus accepted the proclamation that Jesus is God. Because if Jesus was merely a man, he would have rejected their worship.

We see this in Acts 10. Cornelius in Acts 10, he’s a centurion, and he has a vision from an angel. And the angel tells Cornelius, “You need to call and summon for this guy named Peter.” And so he does so. And he calls Peter over to his town. And when Peter walks into the room, what does Cornelius do? He falls down and he starts to worship Peter.

But what’s beautiful is how Peter responds. Peter says, he lifts him up and he says, “Stand up because I too am a man.” If Jesus did not tell the disciples, “Get up. I too am a man,” then we know that Jesus is accepting their act of worship because he is acknowledging, “Yes, I am God in the flesh.”

This means that we have to take seriously what Jesus calls us to do. He is our maker. But it gets even better than that. Not only does Jesus acknowledge and accept the reality that he is God, but Jesus is about to show us what God exactly, which God exactly he truly is.

Jesus is YHWH

Specifically, Jesus—on your notes—specifically, Jesus is Yahweh. And this is a stunning reality. And we are going to see how Jesus is Yahweh just based on the Great Commission. This is why we read from Exodus 19 today. We read from Exodus 19 because I wanted your minds and your hearts to see the God who speaks with thunder and lightning. When he speaks, you tremble in your boots. You take off your sandals because you realize you’re standing on holy ground in his presence.

This is the Jesus that handed the disciples the Great Commission. Now, how do we see that? First, let’s answer the question, who is Yahweh? There may be some here who don’t know who Yahweh is or listening online.

Who is ʏʜᴡʜ?

Yahweh is God’s name in the book of Exodus primarily. We do see it first pop up in the book of Genesis in 2:4. But I want to point out how this name comes about in the book of Exodus.

You see, Israel had suffered under the hand of Pharaoh in Egypt as slaves for 400 years. And in Exodus 2:24, we see that the cries of the slaves, their cries and their prayers have reached the ears of God, and they now are beginning to—God is beginning to move things in their favor to rescue them and save them.

In Exodus 3:4–5, God calls Moses. He starts calling Moses’s name from a burning bush. And he tells Moses, “Take off your sandals. You’re standing on holy ground.” And he tells Moses, “Moses.” Oh, and Moses tries to hide his face, by the way, because Moses is scared at the holiness that is before him.

And he tells Moses, “I’m calling you to go back, and I want you to rescue my people, and I’m going to take you and them, lead you to the land of milk and flowing honey. And it’s going to be the promised land. And this is the land that I promised to your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

And Moses says in verse 11, “Me? Me? You’re going to call me? Who am I?” But church, I want you to hear this in verse 12. He says, and this is key, “But I will be with you.” And this is exactly what you’re going to hear Jesus tell the disciples after the Great Commission.

Moses retorts to God and says, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ What do I tell them?” And God tells him in verse 14, “Say to them, ‘I am who I am.’”

At this moment, God speaks a Hebrew phrase that reveals the meaning behind the name Yahweh, as they both share the same root word. When he says, “I am who I am,” he is saying “ehyeh,” which is the same verb “hayah” that is in the name Yahweh.

So what does this mean? It means God’s name Yahweh refers to his nature that he is the God who is always near his people, and he is saving them. This is what separates our God from all other religions in the world. We have a God who condescends and lives near us despite being so holy. So that is what his name means, and that is why we often refer to the Lord as the Great I Am.

ʏʜᴡʜ in the Great Commission

So how does the Great Commission reveal that Jesus is Yahweh? You see, in the Great Commission, he says that he wants us to make disciples, and he says, “Baptize them in the name of.” Now Dr. Quarles, from last week—I know you guys love him—he wrote a commentary on the book of Matthew, and he has pointed out that the most common way to refer to the name Yahweh—see, the Israelites didn’t like to use the name Yahweh because it was so holy—they would often, when Yahweh was written in the scripture, substitute the pronunciation of Yahweh for Adonai, which means Lord. Another way that they would avoid saying Yahweh is they would say just the phrase “the name.”

And this is one of the things that Dr. Quarles has pointed out in his commentary. He says that when they say in the Great Commission, “Baptize them in the name of,” it is likely that Matthew is using the replacement for God’s name.

Now how strong of an argument is that? I think it’s actually pretty strong. Why? Because he says, “In the name,” singular, but then he names three people: “In the name (singular) of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Do you see that? He gives three people, but he says there’s one name.

So that’s the first one. However, you also see this in the Great Commission, in verse 20, where he says, “I am with you always until the end of the age.” When he says this, Jesus is using a Greek phrase, “ego eimi.” And when they translated the Old Testament into Greek in Exodus 3:14, when it says, “I am who I am,” the translation says the same words that Jesus says here, “ego eimi.”

That’s the second reason we can see that the Great Commission points to Jesus being Yahweh. And then the third is that he also shows him being with them until the end of the age which shows that Jesus is eternal. And there’s no denying that he’s God.

This is the same kind of idea that you see God comforting his people in the Old Testament. In Exodus 4:12, Joshua 1:5, Judges 6:16, Jeremiah 1:8, the Lord is telling his people, “I am with you.” Because he is Yahweh.

And then the last point is that Jesus says at the beginning of the Great Commission, he says, “I am the Lord of heaven and earth.” He’s in charge of everything, church. He is Lord of the cosmos. There is not one nanoparticle that Jesus does not control. That is because Jesus is Yahweh. He is the maker of heaven and earth. He is the Great I Am.

So church, who is Jesus? He is not just God in the flesh. He is the great God of salvation from the beginning of everything. And at that reality, we have to ask ourselves, “Well, maybe we should listen to him.”

What does He want? He wants us to make disciples.

If God is not a backwoods carpenter, then what does he want? If he is the maker of heaven and earth, church, Matthew 28 makes it very clear—Your God of salvation, your maker of heaven and earth—he is calling you and every church of every generation to make disciples.

In fact, this is the reason the church is not yet with him in heaven or on earth. You see, he has not yet returned because he is biding time for people to repent and to turn to him. And how does he make that happen? He uses the church to call people out of sin and into new life with him.

And then when they come into the fold, we’re not just dunking them and sending them out the door. We bring them into the fold of God, and we teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded us. That is why this church exists. It’s why every church exists of every single generation.

The second the church stops making disciples, the second its promise to exist disappears. A church that does not make disciples is just wasting space. I’m not being harsh. That’s the reality from scripture. The reality from scripture is our beckoning call and commission from here until Jesus returns is “make disciples.”

So what is a disciple? A disciple is someone that is a student of another. Jesus is really the disciple-maker, and we’re all the disciples. So a disciple is a disciple of Jesus. But Jesus is not interested in just making our heads fat. He’s interested in making our hearts fat because he says here he wants us to teach them to obey everything he’s commanded them.

You see, the key here is obedience. We’re not transferring head knowledge. God is not interested in setting up a seminary for every single one of us to go through and learn about really complex doctrines. So, you don’t have to be worried. You can feel peace.

You might say, “I don’t know a lot about the Bible. What am I going to do?” It’s something that’s doable, and you’ll see. But before we get to that, we have to look at the “therefore.” You see, it is because God is king, and he’s the king of the cosmos, and that is Jesus. He is Yahweh. Because of that, Jesus says, “therefore.” So it is only because he is in control of everything that he gives us the command to make disciples.

But the other thing I want you to have peace over is that he says in verse 20, “I’m with you until the end of the age.” So we can make disciples with confidence, church. We can have confidence because, one, our king called us to do it. But two, he’s there with us every single day to get it done.

Every day we can make disciples because that’s what he—he’s there. He empowers us through His Holy Spirit. He does not leave us. It does not stop.

The thing I also want you to notice is this word “go.” Anybody been on Southeastern’s campus lately? One of the things that I absolutely love the president of Southeastern for, Danny Akin, he has taken that seminary, and he has recognized that the goal of every single effort that is done in the classrooms is to make disciples.

“Go.”

The motto of Southeastern is “Go.” Why? Because of this verse. You see, the word “go” implies that you do not make disciples by accident. He is calling you to stop and ponder, “How can I go?”

Now he says, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Does that mean you have to pack your bags and head to Pakistan? No. What it does mean is that you have to be intentional.

Do you have to go to Walmart later today? Then go to Walmart with the intention, “I’m an ambassador of Jesus Christ. I’m going to go get my laundry detergent, and my ear is going to be slightly attuned to the Holy Spirit in case the Spirit looks at me and says, ‘I want you to talk to that person.’” Do that and watch what happens.

I guarantee you’re going to taste and see that the Lord is good because he is determined to use his bride. It is why we exist. So everywhere you go, if you’re going to work today, “I’m going to work as an ambassador of Jesus.”

If you’re going to run errands, ask your non-believing neighbor. When was the last time you talked to your non-believing neighbor? “Hey, I got to go to the store. What you doing today? Why don’t you come with me?” So, the word is “go.” Church, be intentional.

Here’s some other ideas. Everybody’s got grandchildren in this room, apart from me and Stephanie and Owen. That’s right. Oh, Anna. Sorry, Anna. Oh, and these two, right? Okay. All right. So, there’s more of us.

Almost everybody in this room has grandchildren, and I’m sure many of you have unbelieving grandchildren. Maybe some of you have unbelieving children as well. You can be intentional by inviting them over for dinner. And then you can tell them, “Bring your friend with you.” That’s a “go.”

And then the other one, call your neighbors, your non-believing neighbors, and invite them over for dinner. That’s your “go.” There’s a local community center that participates in community evening events. Go to them. Go play bingo. I’m not endorsing gambling, but just go meet with people. Go to the community centers. Go.

I don’t care how old you are. You are called to be a missionary where you are. And if you still do work, and you can do work remotely, go to the coffee shop.

You might have noticed that when I first started working here, you saw my truck in that parking lot every single day. But if you drive by lately, you’re not going to see it as much. Do you know why? I’m doing my work in coffee shops, and I’m trying different coffee shops every day.

And when I go, I’m praying in the parking lot, “Lord, if you want to use me here today, I’m ready.” And I’m writing my sermons, and I’m studying, but I’m meeting people. I’m getting phone numbers. I’m making friends. I’m having lunch with people in the community. That is my “go.”

I’m trying to serve the church and reach the lost every day, including Sunday. But all the time, we are commanded to go and reach the lost, looking for disciples.

How do we Make Disciples?

So how does he want you to make disciples? The first, he gives you two commands how to make disciples. Baptizing is the first step, but also teaching them to obey the commands of Christ.

First, by Baptizing in the Name

So baptizing, we are going to come back to baptizing, and we’re going to get more in detail. First, I want you to recognize that baptism here is a command that’s given to the disciple-maker. Oftentimes, we talk about baptism as though it’s a command given to the new disciple. And it is true. New disciples of Jesus are commanded to get baptized.

But you’ll notice here Jesus is commanding the apostles to baptize as part of this process of disciple-making. So what does that mean? That means, church, when we baptize people, we are in agreement that we’re going to see through your entire disciple-making process.

And when does the disciple-making process come full circle and come to an end? It’s when they themselves become the mentor. Your discipleship process is not over until the mentee becomes the mentor, when they get their own disciples, and they are now repeating the process.

You see, a truly vibrant and healthy church is a church that does not have 7 million baptisms. That’s great. But rather, a church that is vibrant is more focused on this metric: “How many of our disciples are making disciples who make disciples?” That’s the metric.

Second, by teaching them obedience to the commands of Christ

And what are we teaching them? We’re teaching them to obey all the commands of Christ. And at this point, you might be asking yourself, “What are the commands of Jesus?”

I said already, God is not calling you to start reading a ton of books to read systematic theology. No words like “supralapsarianism” and all these other gobbledygook in the theology books. That doesn’t matter in light of the Great Commission.

Jesus is after the commands of Jesus. So what are they? The commands of Jesus are: love your neighbor as yourself, pick up your cross and die to yourself, do to others as you would have them do to you, turn the other cheek, serve the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, give to those who ask and lend to those who want to borrow, forgive as your heavenly Father forgave you, take care of the widows and the orphans, repent and believe because the kingdom is at hand, and make disciples of all nations. These are the commands of Christ.

And this is what the Lord is calling his church to. If you can lead people to be baptized and make disciples by teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded us, then you are a vibrant church.

So when does the cycle end? Like I said, it ends when the mentee becomes the mentor. And church, this is what the vision is for us. Because you might be thinking, “What are the commands of Christ?” We’ve mentioned a few, but that is the whole point of this sermon series, which we have titled “Who is Jesus and What Does He Want?”

Throughout this whole sermon series, we are going to be looking at the command “believe.” When we are called to believe in Jesus, it kind of presupposes that we know who Jesus is. Today we have looked at the first, that Jesus is God. Specifically, he is Yahweh. So, we need to know who we’re believing in.

And then the other thing is we’re going to look at all the commands of Christ. And we’re going to go through the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, some of Acts, and some of the book of Revelation. And we’re going to cover the commands of Christ without repeating.

And this is what I hope for our new metric of success to be in our church. There is this idea that Paul has called the “crown of boasting.” In 1 Thessalonians 2:19–20, Paul is writing to the Thessalonian churches, and he says, “What is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you?”

And what Paul is saying is when the Lord comes back, he’s going to lay his works before Jesus, and he’s going to say, “This is what I have done for you, Lord.” And what does that mean for him? It is him taking the people of Thessalonica and saying, “Look at the disciples I have made by your strength, Lord.”

So church, Wake Union, I am calling you with the Lord to set your focus on a new crown of boasting. The crown of boasting the Lord is calling us to is we want to be able to look at the Lord and say, “Lord, look at how many disciples we have made that are making disciples that are making disciples standing before the Lord.” This is going to be our plea.

And we can’t do it alone. It’s an every-person effort. And it’s as easy as starting just with your neighbors, your friends, your co-workers, your grandchildren, Anna.

So, let’s go to the Lord and ask him for help to do this as we bring our minds and our hearts to this metric of making disciples.

Lord Jesus, we need you today to strengthen our resolve as we acknowledge that you are Yahweh, that you have given us strength and empowered us because you are with us by the power of your Holy Spirit to do great and mighty things. And the mightiest of them all is to make disciples in our community.

Help us, Father, to be that living witness, that light on a shining hill, not putting our lamps under a basket and keeping it hidden, but putting it on the stand for all to see. Help us to live out our good works, as you said in the Sermon on the Mount, so that others might see them and glorify our Father in heaven because of them.

Set our minds to a new crown of boasting, Lord, that we would be a church that fights for making disciples who make disciples. I pray, Jesus, that you would strengthen us and give us confidence and hope in the power of God that resides within us.

And I pray, Lord, that we would take seriously the discipleship of Sunday mornings. That we would come and learn from the Bible in our Bible studies. That we would get phone numbers of each other and meet throughout the week. That we would invite our neighbors, our grandchildren, our children, and their friends over for dinners. That we would fellowship together in third places like community centers.

Please, Lord Jesus, be with us and strengthen us to do this. In your name we pray. Amen.