WHAT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO DO

Matthew 28:18-20 (KJV)

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

I heard a preacher say regarding missions, “It’s what Christians are supposed to do.”

Christians are supposed to do missions.

You see, we do not have to pray about and search deep to find God’s will for Christians and especially for Christians as we are united in a church.

The Lord Jesus Christ made it very clear what we are supposed to do.

It’s called the Great Commission and it is expressed in different way at least three times in the New Testament.

It is expressed most clearly in Matthew 28:18-20 (KJV)

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

I want to break that down into it the three things we, as a church, are supposed to do.

I. TEACH ALL NATIONS

28:18-20 (KJV)

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations ...

This gives us the first part of our commission – missions.

Notice the word, “all.”

We are not called to go to:

·   The European nations or

·   The Caucasian nations

·   The Western nations

·   The Civilized nations

·   The Developed nations

The Great Commission calls us to go to “all nations.”

Paul becomes an illustration of this.

Paul was from an eastern-oriental culture.

His earliest missionary work, though outside of Israel, was to predominantly eastern nations.

At one point, his desire and his efforts were to go farther east.

But the Spirit of God would not let him go.

He was forced to stop in his tracks and wait for “directions” from the Lord.

Those directions led him to cross the Aegean Sea and take the Gospel for the first time into Greece, a Western-European culture.

I said that the Great Commission is found in at least three passages in the New Testament. Another one is,

Acts 1:8 (KJV)

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Missions works is to be done:

·   In your home town

·   In your home state

·   In your home country and

·   Unto the uttermost parts of the world

“We are as responsible to go where we cannot go, as we are to go where we want to go.”

We do that through representatives.

I can’t go, but someone else can, and I can help him go.

We call it “Faith Promise Missions Giving.”

I give so that someone else can go.

The first part of the Great Commission is missions.

·   Personal evangelism in our own community

·   Church planting, in our own country and

·   World missions to the uttermost parts

The second part of the Great Commission is,

II. ASSEMBLING INTO CHURCHES

Matthew 28:18-20 (KJV)

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Admittedly, my theology as a Baptist comes out here because, as a Baptist, I see baptism as an ordinance to be performed only under the authority of a local church and in order to receive the saved into church membership.

It is a specifically Baptist position that derives from our conviction that the only sort of church found in the Bible is a local church.

If you understand the Bible to teach that there is some sort of invisible universal church that every Christian is spiritually baptized into at the moment of salvation, then everything you read in the Bible about:

·   The church

·   The body of Christ and

·   Baptism

will reflect upon that belief.

If you understand the Bible to teach, as I do, that every mention of the church in the Bible is a reference to a local congregation of baptized believers, united together for the purpose of accomplishing the Great Commission, then that is going to reflect in your understanding of:

·   The body of Christ

·   Baptism and

·   The Lord’s Supper

I understand the Bible to only teach about local churches

·   I understand the Bible to only teach of baptism by water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost

·   I understand that baptism always comes after salvation and

·   I understand baptism to be the door into local church membership

I say all of that to say that the reason we baptize is to assemble churches.

·   Christians are supposed to win people from all nations to Jesus Christ and

·   Christians are supposed to assemble those won into local churches (through baptism)

The third part of the Great Commission is

III. EQUIPPING THE SAINTS

Matthew 28:18-20 (KJV)

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you:….

This is at least part of the reason we have come to church today.

Ephesians 4:11-14 (KJV) puts the third part of the Great Commission like this:

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

You see,

·   It is not enough just to go out and get people saved.

·   It is not enough to start churches and get people to join and become soul winners

·   It would not be enough if we just gathered Christians together and had Bible studies

What churches are supposed to do is:

·   Go to all nations and try to win others to Jesus

·   Baptize those who get saved into local churches and

·   Equip the members of those churches with everything Jesus taught us in the Bible