Vision Without Boundaries - Part 1

Welcome to the In Dutch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, January 3rd. There's much more to salvation than looking forward to heaven.

It's about a journey with God every single day. Today's podcast can help us catch a vision without boundaries. Why is it some people have such fascinating dreams, tremendous goals, strong desires in their life, and you'll hear them say something like this, I have always wanted to do that. That's always been one of my goals in life. In fact, I've just dreamed to be able to do thus and so. And then they will end that statement by saying, but you know, I guess it just wasn't meant for me to be able to do that. I guess I'll never be able to achieve that. I suppose that's just a big dream and just something I'll have to think about in life, but never be able to enjoy. I'm fully persuaded that most of us fail to achieve our goals, reach our dreams, our strong desires in life simply because we unknowingly set boundaries, limitations upon ourselves and just give up and consent to mental barriers. We originate ourselves and then wonder why we don't accomplish those things. Well, that can happen in a person's life. Personally, it can happen in the life of a church, because unbeknown to us, we set boundaries and limitations we never even thought about.

They just subconsciously reset them. Oh, I couldn't do that. Oh, that won't really happen.

That's just the dream I have. Certainly God wouldn't be in that. And so I want us to think today not only about those things that happen in our personal life, but the things that happen in our church life. What is true in our life personally will be projected in the life of the church. What we hear in the church will be projected in our personal life. So I want us to take a couple of passages that are very, very familiar to us.

And I want us to think in terms primarily about the church, but also in your own personal life. So I want you to turn to these two. They're two familiar passages. And usually people say, oh, I know that one by heart. But sometimes what I know by heart may be the very thing that trips me up. Oh, I know what that says.

And this is a good example of it. I want you to turn to Matthew chapter 28. And I want us to begin reading in the 16th verse. And when you turn to Matthew 28, then before we read, turn, if you will, to Acts chapter 1. So Matthew 28 and Acts chapter 1, two familiar passages, but two very important ones concerning this whole idea of visions without boundaries. In the 28th chapter of Matthew in the 16th verse, remembering that Jesus has risen from the dead.

This is his final meeting with his disciples here on earth. And he says, but the 11 disciples proceeded to Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had designated. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some were doubtful. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.

And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Then in Acts chapter 1, beginning in the 6th verse, Scripture says, and so when they had come together, they were asking him, saying, Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

And you shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth. Now, when you and I think of a vision, we think of the visions that God gave to his prophets in the Old Testament, and he would allow them to have a vision, the Bible says, and so it is in the New Testament. But what is a vision? It is a mental picture. It is a mental picture that God would give us of something. For example, if he gave one of his prophets a vision of something, they would be able to see in their spirit, in their mind, either them doing something or accomplishing something or being somewhere or something happening. Or some future event, as John so often saw visions in the book of the Revelation, things that would come to pass.

It was a mental picture. Now, when we talk about today and somebody says, well, does God still give visions? Well, most people would say, well, certainly he does not. Yes, he does. A vision is a mental picture, and God still certainly is in the process of giving visions.

Listen carefully now so you'll misunderstand. Never will he give that mental picture, that glimpse of something that comes in a brief split second moment to us. He'll never say, here's what I want you to do or here's where I want you to go. Here's what I want you to accomplish in life. Nothing will he ever say that is a contradiction of the Word of God.

Never, never, never. Well, as you think about this vision for a moment, I want to think about something very important here that oftentimes we overlook, and that is before he stated the vision, he gave them the basis for it. And the basis is this. Look, if you will, in the 16th, the 18th verse. He said in Matthew 28 now, And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. The first thing he did, Jesus doing the speaking. What is the basis for this vision? Somebody says, well, you ought to do thus and so.

Who's doing the same? So it is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, now the resurrected Lord. Listen carefully. What is it that lit the fire of their heart that had grown a little cool after his crucifixion and their disappointment? And what about the kingdom? They're still asking him in Acts.

What about the times and the seasons of these things? The resurrection of Jesus Christ rekindle this awesome flame that God had set in their heart, because this small group of men had the awesome responsibility of evangelizing the world of their day. He didn't say go to Jerusalem and hang around. He said to the remotest parts of the earth. So it was Jesus who was saying this.

The second thing I want you to notice here about it is this. He said, all authority has been given to me in heaven and upon earth. All authority, he says, has been given to me in heaven and upon earth. If you go back to the eleventh chapter of Matthew for just a moment and notice in this passage what Jesus said to his apostles.

The eleventh chapter and the twenty seventh verse. Listen to this is back in his minister earlier. All things have been handed over to me by my father. And so he is saying now when he gives them this vision, he says all authority has been given to me. Now the reason this is very important is because what he's going to ask him to do. He said the father has delegated all authority to me.

All authority in the heavens and all authority on earth. Then he said, therefore you are to go. And with that authority behind him, he gives them this vision of what they are to do. And that vision is what you and I call the great commission or what he said to them is this. I want you to go into all the world and preach the gospel. Now imagine being one of those men and standing there thinking, my, what do you mean go to the whole world?

I'm just a handful knowing what they would face out there. But what I want you to see is this. He established the foundation for it. This is the resurrected Christ speaking. This is God who has absolute and total authority for all things. This is the God who is saying, this is my vision for you.

This is the work you're to do. And that vision he gave to those men. And that vision has been transferred and translated down through to the church for 2,000 years. And what I want you to remember is this, that God has not changed one single solitary part of that vision, that commission, that work. Now he's given us different ways to do it and far better ways to do some things. And ways of reaching the entire world that they of course did not have in those days. But he's not changed anything.

As businesses come and different organizations come, whether it's education, science, whatever it might be, all kinds of things change. But in the body of Christ, our mission is the same. Now it's interesting when you look in this passage of what happens here. He gave them just enough details as to what they were to do. He said, first of all, he says, here's what I want you to do. I want you to make disciples of all nations. What did he mean by making disciples?

Well, he meant exactly what he said. And that is they were to lead people to understand the truth of the one true God through his son Jesus Christ and to understand that the way you get to God is by placing your trust in his son Jesus Christ as the result because of his death at Calvary. That Jesus' death at Calvary paid for the sin of all mankind and therefore when you receive him, your sins are forgiven, you become a child of God. And so that was the message, making disciples.

Now, the very idea of joining a church and no one confronting you with the fact that you need to be born again, that you need to be saved, that you need to be converted, whatever terms you want to use. Making disciples doesn't mean making church members. Making disciples means bringing people, leading them to trust the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal savior and becoming a follower of Jesus. Making disciples, he said, that's the work. That's the first part of it.

The second thing he said was, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit. Giving them, now listen, this vision, here's how you to spend the rest of your life. This is my mission for you. This is the vision I want you to catch. I want you to catch this vision that you are to cover this world doing this.

Doing what? Bringing people to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, baptizing them. Now, why did he say baptizing? Because Jesus knew it was absolutely important that those who were his followers were willing to make a public confession of their faith in Jesus. Nowhere in the Bible does it talk about being a secret disciple.

That is, you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, then you sneak around and don't tell anybody for fear, they'll find out. But rather, he says, baptizing them. Now, why baptize? Because baptism is a public confession of what has happened in our heart. And so when we bring people to the baptismal pool and we say a few words and announce who they are and so forth and affirm that they trusted Jesus, then we put them under the water and we bring them back up again. Now, why do we do that? First of all, because Jesus told us to do it.

Secondly, because baptism by immersion is the most accurate picture of what happens to a person. They die to their old way. What happens to you when somebody dies?

You bury them. Buried in Christ Jesus and risen to walk in newness of light. Baptism is a public confession to the world.

Here's what's happened to me. I died to my old way of life. I am buried in Christ Jesus and now I am risen to walk in newness of life. No secret discipleship. He said you're to lead him into a saving knowledge of Christ, then you're to baptize him. So when somebody says, well, yes, I have been saved and baptized.

No, I just don't think that's necessary. You mean to tell me that you don't think it's necessary when Jesus said do it? This is part of his vision to his disciples. This is the part of the work of the church.

This is the part of his command. Not only are you to trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior, but you ought to have the courage to make a public confession to the world. Yes, I am a follower of Jesus. Listen carefully. You cannot be saved and refuse baptism and be in the will of God. Listen, I didn't say you couldn't be saved by being baptized, but you cannot be saved and refuse to be baptized and be in the will of God.

It is a definite command. I remember coming out of a grocery store one day and these two fellows hit me with some tracks and they said, do you believe in Jesus? I said, well, I sure do.

And I let them on a little bit and let them talk on. And they said, well, do you believe in water baptism? I said, well, Jesus did.

John the Baptist did. And so I joined that group and said, yes, I do. Well, they spent, and I listened to them for about 30 minutes, spend 30 minutes of their time and my time trying to convince me that you don't have to be baptized in water. And so I listened to them and I said, now that you've finished, what have you accomplished?

I said, you've accomplished absolutely nothing. First of all, I don't believe that because the Bible doesn't teach you. Why don't you get out here on the streets with your tracks and lead people into a relationship with Jesus Christ, to trust him as their savior and let them go to church and find out how they ought to be baptized and see you spending all your time trying to prove to me you don't have to be baptized in water.

What a foolish waste of time. What is it all about? What does the Bible talk about? You don't get baptized in air. You get baptized in water. Now, I know the Holy Spirit baptizes us in the Spirit.

That's what happens when we're saved. But public confession by baptism, that's why he said baptizing them. Now, if he'd have meant that for the Spirit, he didn't say the Spirit will baptize them. Now, the Holy Spirit does baptize us. That means he places us into Christ Jesus the moment we're saved. But he told the church to baptize.

That means that the body of Christ is to be baptizing those who've made a confession of their faith in Jesus Christ. So he said, here's your ministry. He said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He said, when you start in Jerusalem, you don't just hang around Jerusalem.

That's why you start but you don't end up there. So what did God have to do? He said, well, it looks like, you know, they're enjoying the food and they're enjoying the apostles' teaching so much I'm going to have to root them out.

So what did he do? He sent them persecution. The only reason the church really began to grow and to spread out all over the world among Jerusalem is I mean persecution, the Bible says, and they were scattered abroad, scattered abroad. Now, those at Pentecost who lived in other places and came there, of course, they went back home. But that group in Jerusalem, they enjoyed it.

And we have the same thing today. People love to come to church. They love to eat. They love to fellowship. We love our friends. We love being together.

And I love all that too. But that isn't just what he told us to do. He said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And so what is the responsibility of the church?

Same thing it has been. And that is making disciples and baptizing. Then he said instructing, teaching. What is the responsibility of the pastor? What is the responsibility of the Bible teacher, the Sunday school teacher?

Instructing, teaching. Here's what God says. Here's how you apply this.

Here's what you can expect. Here's what God does. Here are the ways of God so that each disciple, each believer is a walking disciple maker.

How do we do that? We share what has happened in our own heart. We share what God is teaching us. And so when you come to church week after week, here's what you're going to hear.

You're going to hear some passage of scripture expounded. Here's how you apply it. Here's what he's saying. Here's what it meant. Here's how I apply it to my life. Here's how you work it out in your life.

Here's how you can make an impact on someone else. He said, here's the job. Here's the vision.

Here's the work. He said, you're to go. You can't stay at home. Secondly, he says, you are to make disciples. You are to baptize them. You are to instruct them in the ways that I have taught you. That is the work of the church. And so when somebody says to David, what's the ministry of the church? Same thing has been for 2,000 years.

There's not one single part of it that has been in any way changed. You and I are to be the kind of spirit-filled disciples that when people meet us and hear us, they cannot ignore us. Now, they didn't ignore Jesus.

I mean, people loved him and people hated him. And the truth is, if you and I live godly in Christ Jesus, as the Bible says, people are going to love us and they're going to hate us. They don't like what we stand for. They don't like what we say. They don't like the way we look. They don't like this countenance on our face. They don't like this peace and joy we have.

They don't have it. And so it bothers them, so they don't like it. But the work of the church is to do what? To impact the world.

We're not here just to enjoy being a Christian, though we certainly ought to. We're to make an impact. How do you make an impact? Doing what Jesus said. What did he say do?

Make disciples, baptize, instruct, teach them, edify them, build them up in the faith so that their life is a living, walking testimony that cannot be ignored because there is something inside that person you cannot ignore. He said, this is what I want you to do. Then he told them where to do it.

Now, all of us love, as we said, coming to church and just being together. He said, here's where I want you to do it. He says, as you go make disciples of all nations. Well, how are we going to make disciples of all nations?

Somebody's got to go. He said, in Mark, go into all the world, preach the gospel to all creation. He said, in Acts, he said, you begin in Jerusalem, and he said, you don't stop until you have reached the remotest part of the earth.

That means the largest city down in the ghetto, down in the jungle, out here in the desert, makes no difference where. No place is to be overlooked. Now, why not?

Here's the reason. The love of God has covered the entire world. There is not anyone God does not love. And so if God loves the whole world, he intends for the whole world to hear about him and to understand who he is and to understand his love for them. And you see, multitudes of people who live in our own country, they don't believe God loves them. They believe he's there. He helps them in time of trouble. But love them?

What is there in them worth loving? The world needs to understand that God loves them just the way they are but wants to transform them into being godly people who reflect the very image and the likeness of Christ. God loves them. That's why he said, go into all the world. The remotest part, listen, there's not such thing as an unimportant person in the world. It makes the difference what their lifestyle is, their culture.

It may be absolutely ancient and antiquated. God loves every single solitary one of them. And the second reason is this, because when he went to the cross, the shedding of his blood covered the entire world.

That's why he says in 1 John chapter 1 that he gave his life in atonement for our sins but not only for ours but also for the sins of the world. He said, I want you to cover this globe. I want you to penetrate the remotest part. I want you to go where it will be so remote.

You'll wonder how. There cannot be any boundaries when it comes to doing the will of God. There cannot be any limitations when we do what God calls us to do.

When you begin to knock down the mental boundaries in your life, you will be absolutely amazed at what God is willing and ready and able to do through you once you're willing to do that. We are the ones who set the boundaries. We set the boundaries what a church will do.

We set the boundaries what we are able and willing to do in our own personal life. He said to them, to the remotest parts of the earth, he said, all authority is given to me. And he says, you'll be anointed with the Holy Spirit. You'll receive the power of the Holy Spirit. What was he saying? No boundaries, no limitations.

What I'm sending you to do, he says, I will go with you to do it. Thank you for listening to Vision Without Boundaries. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.