The Great Commission: Make Disciples by Teaching, Matthew 28:18-20

We are in the last verse in our study of Matthew (Matthew 28:20), which is part of the closing statement of our Lord given to His disciples, frequently referred to as the great commission. It is part of several statements that he made to His disciples prior to the ascension where He states that He is sending them out into the world; that they are to go to not only Jerusalem but Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost part of the world. They are to take the gospel to the nations. It has always been God's intent that the gospel would go to the nations. The Gentiles were not excluded from the blessing of God in the Old Testament. The idea that they were to make disciples of all the nations is intentionally an echo and a fulfillment of Genesis 12:3, that in Abraham all nations would be blessed. This is reaching that fulfillment, the expansion of the gospel specifically to all nations in a new entity, a new organism, not based on a descent from Abraham physically, which is what was true of the Jews, but based on their descent, as Paul puts it, from Abraham spiritually. They are the spiritual seed of Abraham by faith and they are a new entity known as the church, the body of Christ. And so this becomes, as it were, part of or a summary, another way of stating the mission of the church, and it is directed specifically to the apostles for they are as Paul puts it in Ephesians 2:20 the foundation of the church; but through them to each one of us.

We each play a part in this, either directly or indirectly. Those who are teachers pay a part in this directly. Those who may not be involved in teaching, but there part of the body of Christ through the ways in which they serve the body of Christ through prayer, through giving, through serving in different functions. This is all a part of the way that we achieve the mission of making disciples of all nations.

Jesus grounds this in His authority that his given to Him as the head of the church, and we are to submit to that authority in this church age. We are told to make disciples. That is the command here. We make disciples as we go. The command here isn't to go; the command here is to make disciples of all the nations. Then we'll see that there are these two phrases, baptizing and teaching, and they describe how discipleship is done. Notice it doesn't get into methodology.

I will say something about methodology. We have little phrase that that I use now and then, and that is that the right thing done in a wrong way is wrong. The right thing is focusing on an objective. A right thing can be done a right way or wrong way; that has to do with methodology. And one of the great problems in American evangelicalism that we've exported to the world at large through missions is that methodology is neutral. But methodology is not neutral. The Scriptures teach what the methodology should be, and often what happens is that you hear well-meaning pastors and well-meaning seminary professors import ideas into the text that aren't really there. As I have pointed out in the past, after World War II came the rise of various college ministries that developed, as it were, a certain methodology for how you make disciples, and it was restricted to a small group. That morphed in various ways. There were spiritual formation groups, and that whole idea really came out of mystical Roman Catholicism, and that's very dangerous; but yet there was this is the trend, the fashionable thing to do in almost every evangelical seminary, except of course Chafer Seminary and one or two others.

We don't follow in that footprint because that's not a methodology really that is supported by Scripture; the idea that it always has to be a small group isn't supported by Scripture. So we have to be careful not to import some preconceived notion into the text.

What Jesus talks about here are two things that are important: baptizing, and teaching.

What we've looked at is the statements Jesus made, that all authorities been given to Him. The participle here go really should be understood as while you're going, as you are going, as you go through life, make disciples of all nations. We have seen what it meant to be baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Today were going to wrap this up looking at the last two statements, "teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you", and His concluding statement, "I am with you always, even to the end of the age".

The context is after the resurrection. Jesus has sent His disciples to go north to Galilee. And after about a week they finally understood His resurrection, that He did rise from the dead, and they finally left Jerusalem and went north to Galilee and there He appears to them. In that context, Matthew records one of the statements of His mission to the disciples for the church age.

The command here is to make disciples, from the Greek word MATHETUEO, which has the idea of becoming a learner if it's in a passive sense; if it's an active since then it's directed to the teacher to create students. There are a lot of ideas that come out of this, but that's the focal point.

A disciple is more than someone who has simply trusted in Christ as Savior. There's a lot of confusion over this. There are those in the Lordship camp who say that these are identical, but that is not correct. A disciple is a believer who decides to press on to spiritual maturity and not to stay in diapers throughout his spiritual life. The direction is to all the nations; it's not restrictive. It is to all of the nations, a worldwide endeavor that has gone on through the centuries.

Then it is done two ways. There are these two words, baptizing and teaching, that are instrumental participles in the Greek, which tell you how the main idea is to take place. We are to make disciples and there are two broad areas: baptizing and teaching. Baptizing here has the basic meaning literally means to plunge or dip or immerse, but it came to mean identification. So when the text says we are to be baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, that is a statement of the Trinity, and what the Trinity has in common is their common essence, their deity. God in one in essence, but He is three in personality. That doesn't mean that He puts on three different masks, but that He is three distinct persons with one essence.

So when you do something in the name of someone it has to do with the idea that a) you are representing that person, and b) the idea that it is done in a way that focuses on their character, their essence, all that they are.

It implies that as part of this act of baptism there is also some instruction. We talked about baptism and its purpose is as a physical act. It is designed to teach an abstract principle; something that is not taught very well, I think, in many churches, but one that is essential for understanding our spiritual life. That is, that the instant that we trust in Christ there is a spiritual transaction that takes place. God the Holy Spirit identifies us with the death, burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's what Paul is talking about in Romans 6:3-6: "Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized (or identified with his death) into his death. Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we should also walk in newness of life".

This gets to the intent of this baptism. When Jesus is talking about baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Holy Spirit this is literal physical water baptism by immersion. It is a ritual, one of two ordained for the church that are designed to teach spiritual truths so that we can come to grips with what this means. These are visual training aids to teach abstract doctrine, and the purpose is to understand that the power of the sin nature has been broken for the purpose that we would live in our new life in Christ.

Romans 6:5, 6 For if we have become united with {Him} in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be {in the likeness} of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with {Him,} in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin…because we know this, that our old man …" That is, everything that we were before we were saved; old man is not the sin nature that's a different term old man represents all that we were before we were saved. "… was crucified with him that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin".

That's the point at the end of verse four to walk in newness of life on the basis of the fact that we should no longer be slaves of sin. This is what happens positionally at the instant of faith in Christ. We are identified with Him. This is a permanent identification and is one of the reasons we can't lose our salvation; it is because of this permanent identification with Christ that occurs at the instant of salvation. The purpose of believers' baptism is to teach the abstract biblical teaching of our new position in Christ.

Now how do we understand this? It's important to understand this, because a lot of people have taken this to mean you have to be baptized in order to be saved. Why doesn't Jesus say something like evangelize all nations, witness to all the nations? Because that doesn't necessarily mean they will become saved; that's just talking about the objective mission. What He is focusing on here is that the end result of evangelism has taken place, and in the early church if anyone trusted in Christ as Savior it would be thought they would immediately be baptized. This was something that was that was done; it was automatic; it was understood; that's what you did, and it was designed to continuously be reminding everyone of what has happened in their identification with Christ. The use of the word baptism here is a figure of speech called a metonymy, and a metonymy is where you take one noun that is unrelated to another noun and you have a word substitution. So that baptism stands for the process of evangelism and their response to the gospel and belief in Christ, their are understanding the teaching and understanding of the basics of the gospel, and then it culminates in this ritual of believers' baptism.

There's an example that we have this week of a metonymy. Everybody here used this metonymy; probably within the last 24 hours, if not within the last couple of days. I bet you can't think of what it is. What it is is making the statement: what are you going to do on 4 July; how are you going to celebrate 4 July? That's a metonymy. We don't celebrate the date the fourth of July. Something, though, happened that is associated with that date, and that is the signing, the voting and approval of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. We don't celebrate a date per se, it's not the date of the day of the month that is significant; it's what happened on that date historically. English is filled with these kinds of idioms and metaphors and metonymy's so that we substitute for the event the day on which it happens. It's not wrong to say we celebrate 4 July, but we understand that it is an idiom. We may not consciously understand that, but it is, it's the specific form is a metonymy. And we do this in so many different ways. We are indeed celebrating what happened on that date, so it's simply this substitution of one noun for another.

That's the same thing that happens here. Jesus is saying, "Baptized them", and what He means is the whole process that begins with giving them the gospel, culminates with their salvation and understanding of their identification with Christ, and their public profession of faith in baptism.

This is the focal point. How do we make disciples? It starts with evangelism, and this is a clear statement of the mission of the church. The first aspect of the mission of the church is to present the gospel clearly to people so that they can have eternal life. The second aspect of our mission is to teach people the Word of God, and that is where we go in the in verse 20, "teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen."

The phrase "teaching" is not a metonymy; it is a specific statement of what the church is to be about. The church is to be about the business of training, and that is encapsulated in this word "teaching". The verb is to DIDASKO, which is used again and again and again, and its noun form is the DIDASKOLOS, which is often translated as "teaching", but in the King James and often translated it as "doctrine". That's what doctrine is; it is teaching the whole realm of Scripture. Its focus is on instruction. And this is what is lacking too often in the universal church today. Many local churches fail to teach, and what is happened in our history and the history of English-speaking practice of Christianity is to create a distinction between the idea of teaching and the idea of preaching. Often what is taught in seminaries, and has been practiced in churches, is that Sunday morning is a time of preaching and Sunday school is for the time of teaching. It's important to make these distinctions.

Recently I had a conversation with someone who then took that conversation and asked these questions of a pastor of a large church that they attended, and asked him what they meant by preaching and teaching. The response was, "Well preaching is motivational, preaching is designed to encourage people or to challenge people, and teaching is what is done in Sunday school". This person was amazed because this guy said exactly what I said he would say. Because that is what is taught today, and it has been that way; it has taken on the various forms as different trends come along, but that's basically what goes what goes on today. And this really contradicts the words that are used in Scripture.

Example: Matthew 4:23. A summary statement by Matthew and Jesus initial ministry says, "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people". So Jesus is doing three things; He's teaching, preaching and healing. But what are the Greek words that are used here? That's what's important. In the two we are concerned about are the verbs DIDASKO go for teaching or giving instruction, and the second word is the word KERUSSO, which simply means to announce something or to proclaim something, to make something known. Now how you get motivation and exhortation out of that I'll never know. The biblical distinction is between an explanation of what it means so that you can understand what you should do—that's teaching—versus proclamation, which is making an announcement.

In the ancient world they didn't have they didn't have email and texting and all of these other things that we use to communicate today, and they didn't have newspapers like we have today. If there needed to be announcements from the local governor from the ruler of the city, or even from the Emperor, then messengers were sent out, and it was the role of those messengers to make these announcements. Another word for this was "herald". A herald was somebody who would make these announcements. The Greek word is a KERUX, from which we get the verb KERUSSO. The role of the KERUX, the role of the herald, was to go through the towns and villages to simply make the announcement. His job wasn't to explain it, to teach it, to get involved in discussions about it, or to answer questions. He was simply an announcer.

We are going to run into a parallel word that used a little later on, KATAGGELLO—AGGELO is the verb related to AGGELOS (where we get our word "angel"). An angel is simply a messenger, and so the verb means to give a message. When the preposition is added it's KATAGGELLO and it means to make an announcement; it's a synonym for this. A few times in the New Testament it will have that word translated as preaching. Another thing that you will find in Acts and in some of the epistles is that in the English it's translated "preach the gospel". There is no actual verb for preaching in the Greek, but you have EUAGGELIZO, which is the verb to bring good news or to tell good news or to give good news. So instead of translating it to preach the gospel and or to preach it should be translated is to announce good news. That's the idea in that word.

The point that I'm making and it is all almost without exception—there are a couple places where KERUSSO does not have the gospel as its object—when KERUSSO is used what is being announced is the gospel. They are preaching Christ; that's the gospel, another way of talking about preaching the gospel of Christ.

And so the difference biblically between teaching and preaching is content. Preaching is focusing on the gospel and announcing the gospel, whereas teaching is explaining—perhaps explaining the gospel, explaining the different words that are used for the work of Christ, redemption, justification, propitiation reconciliation, things of that nature; that would be teaching. But this idea that dominates so much today that preaching has to do with motivation, it's upbeat, it's exhortational, in many churches today is a result of the church growth movement that started in the 70s. The idea of preaching is topical. You pick certain topics like how to have a successful financial life, and then you'll have five sermons on that that hop around the Scriptures. It may be biblical wisdom, but there's no real teaching, no real exposition of the text or an explanation of the passages where money is talked about in the text, and so it simply somebody's good ideas, and the idea is that if I make the text practical, then people will come.

And that is often true. People come because they don't want to understand the Bible; they really don't. They give it lip service, but they don't really want to understand the Bible. If they did they would try to read the Bible. And what happens is when you get people in those congregations and start reading the Bible, then as God gets a hold of them they begin to realize there are some problems with their congregation. That doesn't happen as frequently as it should, but it does happen.

So there's this difference between teaching and preaching. Now let's see how this works itself out in the early church during the period of the apostles. How did they understand and implement this mandate to make disciples by teaching? Acts 2:42 after Peter has explained what is happening, often referred to as Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost, what he is doing is standing up and answering a question.

What has previously happened is there were the disciples—I believe it was only those 11 disciples—who spoke in unknown languages. At the end of Peter's explanation of what has been going on was that "these men are not drunk like you suggested". There's a response and 5000 trust in Christ as Savior, and then Luke gives us these kinds of progress reports through the book of Acts. He says they were "devoting themselves to the apostles teaching"—the word did DIDACHE, another form related to DIDASKOLOS—"and to fellowship." and the fellowship". It's not four things; it's not teaching, fellowship, breaking bread and prayer; it's teaching, fellowship, and then the last two are in apposition to fellowship. That's the breaking of bread; that stands for communion, and prayer. That's fellowship with God. This isn't a verse about fellowship with each other. They were dedicated to the apostles' teaching. They had a passion for learning what the apostles had to teach. That means they regularly assembled together.

Now when you've had that many people get saved that quickly you have to figure out where you're going to meet. I'm not suggesting they all met together, but it's interesting that in the last few years just outside the Zion gate going into the old city of Jerusalem they discovered what they thought for years was a synagogue, an ancient synagogue going back to the first century. In the last few years through further excavation they have discovered that they were worshiping Jesus; that this was one of the earliest congregations of Christians that met in Jerusalem. And that's what their focus was. That's what should be the focus of every congregation. It should be made up of men and women who have a passion and are devoted to the study of God's word, the teaching of the apostles.

In Acts chapter 5 we learn what they were doing from the lips of their accusers, from those who opposed them. Acts 5:25, But someone came and reported to them, “The men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people!” They weren't giving nice little homilies and motivational talks, they were doing the same thing that Peter did in Acts chapter two. They were explaining why Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah of the Old Testament who had been prophesied and promised. They were giving explanations of why Jesus had come and died on the cross for their sins.

The Sanhedrin accuse them in verse 28 and said, "Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name, and yet, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching ...” The point is that this is what they were doing. They were teaching and given instruction to the people; they weren't giving them nice little motivational expectation on messages, they were explaining the Old Testament in light of Jesus as the Messiah.

Later in Colossians 1:28, we find that Paul says, "We proclaim Him [Christ], admonishing every man and teaching [KATAGGELLO] every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ". It's not KERUX but it's a synonym and it means to make a proclamation or announce something. So that's talking about the gospel presentation, announcing that salvation has come, forgiveness of sin is ours through Jesus Christ. And as a part of that they are warning. They proclaim it and then warn, and this is an instrumental participle so part of proclamation is warning people about what about eternity in the lake of fire, about eternal condemnation, about spiritual death, warning every man. That's part one, so that would relate to the gospel; and part two is teaching every man in all wisdom. Then you have its purpose stated in the last clause of the verse, "that we may present every man perfect". Now that's not sinless, it's the word TELEIOS and it means to present every man complete or mature in Christ Jesus. So here we see a connection between the gospel warning and giving instruction, and that is how you produce a mature Christian. It is through the instruction from the word of God.

Paul says in second Thessalonians 2:15, "Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught." Sometimes we know there are a lot of bad traditions, but there are good traditions and a tradition that is based on the Word of God is a good tradition. That's what Paul is talking about here: "these traditions that you were taught, either by word [spoken word] or through the written epistle".

1 Timothy 4:10, For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. Prescribe and teach these things.

Paul says command and teach [instruct] the people on these things all the things that he's been referring to previously in this epistle. Then in his second epistle to Timothy, he says, "and the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses commit deeds to faithful men who will be able to teach others also".

Now this first sort of blows up the whole little small group discipleship thing because what Paul says the things you've heard from me among many witnesses, you know, in the midst of a large group of people in the midst of a large congregation. You have heard me say that there were many witnesses to what I taught and he says you've heard this from me among many witnesses, and then commit those things to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. This is the purpose verse for Chafer Theological Seminary. That is what is seminary is to do. It is to transmit truth from one generation to another, teaching the word of God.

I am often discouraged when I look back on the number of men who influenced me and taught me from high school and in through college and how many of them were given the body of truth that I was given, but 20, 30 years later they've gone off the rails in some strange direction. Many of them are still very, very solid, but there are many who are not. I mentioned a name this last week, I looked on the Internet and was reading his website. He's a pastor somewhere and he's way off the rails on a bunch of stuff and it's sad how people how this happens. That is how Satan works to distract the church from the basics and from the truth of Scripture.

As we look at what the Scripture says the emphasis for the church age is on teaching, or for instruction.

The next question is, how should we then teach? This comes down to methodology. What are some basic principles of teaching? I think there are some basic principles that are true without getting too specific so that you are restricted, because a pastor will teach through his background, his personality, his culture, and different things like that affect it. But I think there are some things that are true that should characterize every pulpit ministry.

First of all, we should teach the whole counsel of God. There was a great error that was committed by early dispensationalists in the late 19th and early 20th century, who would just focus on teaching the epistles, and there were some that would only teach Paul's later epistles. And we have to know the whole counsel of God, because the epistles of the New Testament assume that the Gospels and Acts are understood, and if they're not taught from the pulpit, who will teach it? The Gospels and ask assume that there is a literate audience in relation to the Old Testament, that they understand the promises the prophecies of the Old Testament, so that the allusions that are made in the quotes that are there from the Old Testament have meaning and significance. But there are those today who reject that. There are those who have been less verbal in the past, to just by ignoring the Old Testament have done the same thing, but we have some men today who are making a point of divorcing themselves and divorcing the church from the Old Testament.

One of these men is a Dallas Seminary graduate, a son of a well-known pastor in Atlanta, Georgia. He himself has a church in Atlanta called Northpoint Community Church and just this last week he was accused by Ken Ham, the director of Answers In Genesis, of being a false teacher. And what has happened is that he has an announced in a sermon just within the last month that Christians need to "unhitch unquote the Old Testament from their understanding of the faith". Now the reason he's important is because he has a huge following. He is one of these mega-church pastors and has a huge following. He's instrumental and influential with a lot of people because if he's built a big church like that obviously, God is blessing! That's a false assumption.

Harry Leaf told me before he ordained me that anybody who knows anything about organizational methodology can build a big organization, but that doesn't mean God has anything to do with it. And if you're not doing it the right way with Scripture and trusting in the Lord then it's all the work of the flesh. Anyway this was Andy Stanley's statement and he goes on to explain this by saying, "Many have lost faith because of something about the Bible or in the Bible, the Old Testament in particular. Once they can no longer accept the historicity of the Old Testament, once they couldn't go along with all the miracles, once somebody poked a hole in the Genesis creation, you know, myth; once all that went away suddenly the house of cards of faith came tumbling down because they were taught it's all true; it's all God's Word, and if you find one part that's not true than of the whole thing comes tumbling down".

So the implications from that are, I would question his understanding of inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture at this point because of the way he's handling that. And then he goes on to say, "But not Christianity; the Bible did not create Christianity".

That is a confusing and troublesome and wrong statement. So anyway that's his point and he tries to focus just on the gospel and just on the resurrection as if it happens in a vacuum; and it doesn't. That's why God gave us the Old Testament so that when it came to the point that the Messiah would appear people would be able to identify Him. And it took four thousand years of revelation to get to the point where the New Testament says, "In the fullness of time, God brought forth a Savior".

So this is a problem. We need to teach the whole counsel of God so that people understand who God is. You can't understand who God is, if you don't start with Genesis chapter one. That tells us first and foremost He's the creator. And what his problem seems to be is that he has a problem with creation with a young earth, a six literal 24-hour consecutive day creation. But as we've seen in many of our studies that the more you go through Scripture, the more you realize how the Bible emphasizes that God is distinct because He is the creator God who made everything in the heavens and on the earth and in the seas. And that this is foundational to understanding sin because sin is the violation of the character of the creator, and if you don't understand what sin is and you can't really understand why you need a Savior, or why Jesus died, or why the resurrection is necessary. It's all built on, ultimately, that foundation of God as the creator. So we need to understand those things; we need to preach and we need to teach the whole counsel of God.

Second, we need to teach verse by verse through books of the Bible. As a pastor who has taught verse by verse I find that I'm constantly discovering and coming to discovering passages that don't mean what most people most of us, myself included, of always thought they meant. I have discovered more fully the meaning of the text and passages of Scripture, and it has given me a deeper understanding of God's Word so that I can communicate that to the congregation.

Some of the reasons that we should teach verse by verse are, first of all, it helps us to understand the context. Even if you go into a passage and you take the time as a pastor to study the surrounding context, a lot of times unless you understand the context of the whole book or the whole epistle, you're going to misinterpret that passage, or maybe this section of the book that is there. You need that broader perspective which teaching verse by verse brings out.

Teaching verse by verse prevents taking verses out of context, and so often that is a problem with a lot of theology and a lot of theologies, and with a lot of sermons.

By teaching verse by verse it gives us all a deeper understanding of the Word. It doesn't mean that you can't teach topically but those topics should be outgrowths of the Word. For example, our passage at point, talking about the great commission and the command to make disciples. After we wrap Matthew, I'm going to do a short series during the summer summarizing what the Bible teaches about discipleship. This is a very important topic, something we all need to be reminded of, and we will look at some passages in the other Gospels and also look at the epistles in terms of the expectation that God has in terms of the goals and objectives of a growing, maturing believer. So that's important that all of those things are accomplished.

And it prevents pastors from riding hobby horses. Pastors will do that. They'll get on some topic and just keep going, and they never come back and go through the whole passage.

It also means that if there are things that you don't really like to talk about, eventually you'll get to passages where you'll have to talk about them. And so if you just go verse by verse sooner or later you cover everything, whether you want to or not.

Now I'm not really picking on Andy Stanley this morning, but in 2015 he created another controversy because he was interviewed for, I believe, Christianity Today or maybe as one another Christian magazine and was asked the question in the interview: What you think about preaching verse by verse messages through books of the Bible? Dallas Seminary used to be so proud of turning out expositors of the text. It's sad that's not true anymore. His answer was, "Guys who preach verse by verse through books of the Bible … that's just cheating. It is cheating because that would be easy. First of all that isn't and how you grow people."

The writer of the article says it's cheating! You hear that you exegetes, you small church pastors sweating away in your study on Friday and Saturday nights to finish up before Sunday? You expositors checking the Greek and Hebrew and grasping the etymology of keywords and phrases putting it within scriptural context, cross referencing all the important verses, studying the commentaries of all the great scholars to unwrap the oracles of God, verse by verse at a time? People don't grow that way?

I like the way he said that, and then he went on to say: "I think I speak for a lot of people, and I mean a lot of people, who when we think of spiritual growth and discipleship don't exactly think of Northpoint church. I'm not trying to be mean really I'm not; I'm just saying. I don't think discipleship would be the perceived strong suit of that congregation. I'm willing to bet the still married to women, but happily gay couple and Northpoint probably don't think of discipleship either. They certainly don't think about sanctification and holiness, which is essentially the same thing as spiritual growth." That leads me to believe that Stanley must mean this is and how you numerically grow people. It's all about numbers, and that's a sad thing.

We need to preach the word verse by verse. The goal of our teaching is to present everyone mature in Christ. Romans 12:2, And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

How do we avoid being conformed to this world? By being taught the truth of God's Word, by being transformed by the renewing of your mind; that only comes through the teaching, the instruction of God's Word. The goal is not knowledge for knowledge's sake. It's not to be not to be the smartest guy in the room in terms of Bible knowledge. The purpose of the commandment, Paul says to Timothy, "is love from a pure heart from a good conscience, and from sincere faith". Ephesians 4:11, 12, the role of pastors and teachers.

Ephesians 4:12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ

Colossians 1:28 We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.

Jesus says we are to teach them to observe all the things that I commanded.

I started trying to go through some of Jesus commands this morning and I came up with over 1200 imperitrival verbs in Matthew alone. A lot of those didn't come from Jesus' mouth, and a lot of those were not necessarily directions to believers, but there are a lot of commands just in the Gospels. That's my point.

Let's review a few. Matthew 5:12, Jesus said, "rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you". We are to rejoice, even in the midst of persecution.

Matthew 5:44, "I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you". That includes even radical leftist Marxist Democrats! Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. That's still in effect.

Matthew 6:19, "Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal".

Matthew 6:33, "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you". Those are just a few.

Jesus goes on in John. For example John 14:1, talking to the disciples in the upper room: "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me".

John 15:4, "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither {can} you unless you abide in Me".

John 15:7, 8, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit we are to bear much fruit, and so you will be my disciples". That's what being a disciple means: to pursue spiritual maturity.

John 16:24, "Until now, you've asked nothing in my name. Ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full".

And of course the mark of a disciple in the church age is to love one another. John 13:35, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

And then Jesus concludes at the end a word of encouragement, what will strengthen them. He says to His disciples, "Behold I am with you always, even to the end of the age". That is a promise to church age believers—the end of the age. He's not talking about the end of time, He's talking about through the church age; the presence of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit indwelling every believer. This is distinct to the church age.

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