They Worshiped Him

In Matthew chapter 28, Jesus commands His disciples to go and make disciples of all nations. We call it the Great Commission. Now, appropriately so, in that the commission is great in its scope. It's great in what it calls us to do.

It's great in its significance. It's weighty in what it is calling us to do. But the Bible doesn't call it the Great Commission, because as we see here in the Great Commission, what Christ calls us to do is really quite ordinary. Ordinary? We read that command of our Savior, and it doesn't seem ordinary at all, does it?

Quite the contrary. It appears to be a rather daunting task. Well, this week on Renewing Your Mind, Dr. Burke Parsons is going to lead us through a study of this concluding portion of Matthew's Gospel and show us how Christ empowers us to fulfill the Great Commission in our homes, our churches, in our communities, and to the ends of the earth. The Great Commission is one of the most significant and foundational commandments that we are given in Scripture. And when you hear the Great Commission, what do you first think? I think a lot of Christians, when they first hear the Great Commission, even mentioned, they perhaps are excited, inflamed with passion, thinking about the Great Commission that Christ has given us and reaching the nations with the gospel of Christ.

But I think many Christians are not as excited, but often feel guilt and shame. They feel like we've not been faithful to the Great Commission, and so when they first hear the Great Commission mentioned, they begin to feel a little bit of shame and guilt, realizing that not only have they not done enough, but that we as the church have not done enough. And so people, I think, too often, when they hear the Great Commission, feel that shame and that guilt. And in this series, as we walk together through the Great Commission, every line and every verse and every phrase and every word, my hope is that we as God's people, that we as the church, will not only be excited and inflamed by the commission that Christ has given us, but that also we will feel a right sense of duty, as we are called to be a part of fulfilling the Great Commission to the nations. Now, many biblical scholars, many New Testament commentators, when they look at the Great Commission and they look at its place in the gospel of Matthew, they say that the Great Commission is one of the keys to understanding the entirety of Matthew's gospel. They say that when you look at it carefully through every line and every verse and every phrase and every word, that you begin to see how Matthew beautifully orchestrated how this commission would come precisely where it did under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And so as we see Matthew recording these words of Jesus in this scene that is both story, it's both narrative and it's teaching. And so as we look at this scene of the Great Commission, my hope is that we will see how it is the Great Commission not only helps to give us a key to all Christ has given us in the gospel of Matthew, but in one sense how the Lord Jesus Christ gives to us a charge that we would be faithful to the fulfillment of the Great Commission in all its fullness as we strive to make disciples of all nations.

Now, one of the most significant things about the Great Commission is that it's not a dialogue. The focus is all upon Jesus. In this Great Commission, Jesus is the star. Jesus is the very central part of this Great Commission. And as you can see from looking at it at the very outset, the New Testament and the Bible nowhere calls this a Great Commission.

It's nowhere referred to as a Great Commission. We call it the Great Commission, now appropriately so, in that the commission is great in its scope. It's great in what it calls us to do. It's great in its significance. It's weighty in what it is calling us to do. But the Bible doesn't call it the Great Commission because as we see here in the Great Commission, what Christ calls us to do is really quite ordinary, or at least it ought to be ordinary. It ought to be the general practice of every Christian and every church in all the world doing what we as the church are called to do.

And so let's dig in together. In Matthew chapter 28, we read beginning at verse 16, the entirety of this passage, we read, Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him, they worshipped 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, even to the end of the age. The eleven disciples went to Galilee. Of course, the eleven disciples, twelve minus Judas, who betrayed our Lord and Savior.

These eleven disciples went to the precise mountain that Jesus had directed them. And we see that Jesus directed them just a few verses earlier in Matthew 28. You can look there with me. We can pick up there even at verse 7 of chapter 28. Then go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead, and behold, He is going before you to Galilee. There you will see Him.

See, I have told you. So they, that's the women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell His disciples. And behold, Jesus met with them and said, Greetings. And they came up, and they took hold of His feet and worshipped Him. Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.

So this is just after the resurrection. And Jesus told these women to go and tell the disciples, His brothers He calls them, as Jesus calls us His brothers, His co-laborers, even astonishingly His friends. These disciples, these servants of Christ, He calls them and says, Go and tell them to meet Me in Galilee. And so they go to Galilee, to the precise place that Jesus had appointed to the mountain.

And there they came, and there they waited, because it seems as we see here in verse 16, that Jesus is perhaps at a little distance from them, perhaps a little far off from them. And so as they go to the mountain, meeting Jesus there and on the mountain, we see Jesus meeting with His disciples and having significant redemptive historical events throughout Matthew's gospel on mountains. Mountains are often the place that God uses for revelation, even for His own self-disclosure, His own revealing of Himself, revealing of His law, the transfiguration, Jesus teaching on the mount in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 through 7. So mountains have a very significant place in all of Scripture and even in the gospel of Matthew. And so here Jesus tells His 11 to go and to meet Him in this particular place in Galilee. And then we read something that is really quite astonishing in verse 17. And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted. So there the disciples were on this mountain in Galilee that Christ had appointed, and they saw Him likely from a little distance. And like the women, appropriately, they worshiped Him.

And the language of worship, as we understand in the Bible, is language of not simply giving lip service, not simply mouthing words, but actual worship with our whole being. And this is what we see the disciples doing. It is likely that they are either on their knees or that they are prostrate on their faces to the ground. You know, when God comes and when God appears, even through Theophanes and even through the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament, God's people who have right reverence for the Lord, right awe of God, understand His righteous character and His being, what do they do? They get on their faces. When anyone encounters God, when anyone encounters the Lord, they don't just address Him casually.

They don't just walk up to Him and shake His hand and say, it's nice to meet you. They fall down on their face with fear and trembling, worshipping the God who is. Because when we encounter the Holy God, we see our own unholiness.

We see our own unclean lips. We see our own need for the holiness and righteousness of God. And so we get on our knees and worship. We get down on our faces and worship. That ought to inform how we worship the Lord, both privately, with our families and even in our congregations.

There is a reverence and an awesomeness to worship. So the disciples were likely on their knees or perhaps even on their faces. The women we saw earlier, what did they do? They grabbed a hold of His feet. They wrapped their arms around His feet.

We see such tenderness and love, don't we? That these women loved Him so much, perhaps even kissing His feet. So these disciples, they fell down and they worshipped Him.

Now this is significant. Part of the reason it's significant is that they are doing, in worshipping the Lord Jesus, precisely what God created us as humanity to do. God created us and He created all the world, created all the universe, He created all things. And He created the world for us. He created the world to be inhabited by us. So the world was made and formed so that we might dwell within it.

Creation exists not for us to serve creation, but creation exists to serve us. We are called to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. We are called to take dominion over all that God has given us and put under our care.

And notice it's our care. And so we're to be good stewards of the earth, not for the sake of the earth, not because we worship the earth, but because we care about the mission of God. We care about that which God has given us and created for us, that we might be good stewards, not for the sake of the earth, but for the sake of generations that may come from us if the Lord tarries our children and our children's children, that they might know the Lord, that those who come from us might serve the Lord and love the Lord and follow the Lord and that we might worship with them together forever in heaven. And so God created the world for us. And He created the world not simply to be inhabited by us. He created the world and didn't simply sort of leave us on our own and say, okay, I'm going to sit back, you all go and figure it out for yourselves and how to live and how to do whatever it is you do. No, the Lord not only created, but He sustains. The Lord created the heavens and the earth and then He sustains the heavens and the earth and He sustains us within them.

He gives us daily breath and He gives us all that we need that we might worship Him. But ultimately God didn't just create so that we might inhabit the world. He didn't create so that He might just have something to do. Notice that the Bible never says that God needed to create us, did He? He didn't need to create us. He doesn't need us at all. He doesn't need anything for Him to be the God that He is. Perfect, self-sufficient, self-existent, eternal.

In all His attributes, God is perfect and complete and one. And He doesn't need us. He doesn't need anything. We speak of the acidity of God or the self-sufficiency and existence of God. He doesn't need us. It's so much sweeter than that in that the Lord wants us. The Lord created us because He wants us. He desires us. He created us to have a people for Himself who would do precisely what the disciples are doing here, that we would worship Him.

Now one pastor has said, and I think rightly, that the mission of God exists because worship doesn't exist everywhere in every nation, in every tribe, tongue, and nation. But the disciples had been reached with the gospel. They'd been reached with Jesus Christ. They knew the Lord Jesus Christ.

They followed the Lord Jesus Christ. And they rightly worshiped the Lord Jesus Christ. And worship, worship is not just some means to another end of giving glory to God. Worship itself glorifies God. That's why our lives are to be defined by worship. Worship is not just something we do on the Lord's day.

It's something we do every day of the week and then come together in culmination on the first day of the week to set our weeks aright as we come together corporately and congregationally to worship God together. And here the disciples are worshiping the Lord, likely on their faces, worshiping God, doing exactly what God created them to do. And when we worship the Lord, not only in singing, not only in gathering together in corporate worship, not only in reading the Bible, not only in praying, but in all of our service to the Lord, in all our daily communion with the Lord, in all our walking with the Lord, and thinking on the things of the Lord, and knowing His Word and studying His Word, not just reading it.

The Bible nowhere calls us simply to read the Word of God, but to study it, to devour it, to meditate on it, to hide it in our hearts. And so as we do that each and every day of our lives, as we live lives of repentance and faith, trusting Christ, we are worshiping the Lord in all of life. That culminates in the Lord's day worship. Here the disciples were doing exactly what God created us to do. You see, the mission of God is being fulfilled this very moment, as His disciples are there on their faces worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ. But then notice what else we read, something that is really quite astonishing, something that when we first read it, we simply pass over it because we're not even sure what it means. We don't know quite what Matthew is saying and really what all is entailed in these couple little words. In verse 17 we read, And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted. What an amazing thing to admit. Now let me ask you a question. If you were recording a record of the life and the teaching and the events of Jesus Christ, and you were trying to, if you will, sell this story to the world, that this story might be believable, that people when reading this, they might say, boy, I really get it.

Look at what happened. Everywhere Jesus went, people trusted Him. People responded to Him. People came to Him. He did miracles and everyone responded and no one ever doubted Him or denied Him.

No one ever ran away from Him or scattered from Him. But what do we see the New Testament admitting? We see the New Testament admitting that some of the eleven, some of His disciples doubted. This is one of those interesting little phrases in Scripture that actually helps us understand and see how it is that Scripture is in fact the infallible Word of God, how the Scriptures are indeed inerrant. What other piece of literature, of historical literature, would admit to some of the very core disciples or followers or learners doubting?

The Scriptures give to us the fullness and the beauty, even the harshness, even the difficult things of what was really taking place. I've always wondered in looking at this phrase that maybe Matthew, knowing his own heart, was one of those doubters. Now we already know that Thomas doubted. We know that Peter denied. We know that the disciples themselves scattered. But here we have one of the disciples, Matthew, admitting doubt. He knew his own heart.

The Lord knew all their hearts. Perhaps Matthew was talking with others as they were falling down worshipping saying, Is this really true? Could this really be? Is this really him? Did he really die?

Was he really raised? We don't know what they were doubting. But was Matthew hearing from even Thomas again? Was he hearing from another disciple as he was gathered next to him there on that dusty mountain in Galilee?

Is this really him? Well, some New Testament scholars and Greek scholars, when looking at this word doubt, though they point out rightly that this same word is used with Jesus and the Apostle Peter, there they were in Matthew 14 on the sea, Jesus walking to them on the sea, and Jesus offering that Peter would come and join him on the water. And in the face of the elements, the wind and likely the rain that was upon the sea, Peter stepped out, but he had little faith. And Jesus said, Why do you doubt? Why do you have such little faith, Peter? And so this term, this word that's used there is used here in Matthew 28, where the disciples doubted.

But there's another nuance to this word in the original language that means to hesitate. Now, it could very well have been the case that when they saw him, just like the women earlier in Matthew 28 saw him and his appearance was radiating, it was glowing as it were, it was like lightning, if you will. And at first, many of those who first encountered Jesus didn't recognize him, you remember? They didn't know it was him. They didn't fully recognize him because though he was Jesus and of a familiar sight, a familiar appearance, he's now different. And so perhaps it was simply that they didn't recognize him. They didn't really know, is this him? Is this Jesus?

Is this our friend and our Lord that we've walked with these years? But it could have been that they were simply hesitating, hesitating not so much in worshiping, but hesitating in fully acknowledging and recognizing that this is Jesus himself. Now, whether they were hesitating or whether or not they had little faith or whether they were doubting certain aspects about who Jesus is or what Jesus did, doubting perhaps the resurrection, still the New Testament gives to us this record that there was some dissonance.

There was some sort of internal heart conflict that these disciples had, not significant. Because when we think of the Great Commission, we think of what Christ has called us to do in going to the nations. It excites us and inflames us, but it also scares us a little bit. It makes us a little bit afraid because we know what that means.

We know what that entails, don't we? We know that that means going. It means sending. It means mobilizing. It means supporting.

And so that means what? It means sacrifice. For each and every Christian in some measure, it means sacrifice. It means that we have to give up something. It means we have to give up comforts.

It means we have to give up money. It means we have to give up what makes us most happy in life and we have to be faithful to the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Well, the disciples were no different. And in this very ordinary scene with no signs or wonders, Christ speaking, the disciples worshiping and listening, in this very ordinary scene, Jesus calls those who are hesitant, those who have little faith, those who doubt, very ordinary people, fishermen, tax collectors, and every one of us, He calls us to be faithful in the fulfillment of the fullness of the Great Commission. So the Great Commission begins and is given in the atmosphere of worship. And a church, a family, or an individual who believes he or she or they are rightly and appropriately worshiping God but are not being faithful to the Great Commission of Jesus Christ are not faithfully worshiping God. The Great Commission is given in the context of worship and it is given that people might go, that we might go, and that people might hear that they might become worshipers themselves, that we might see throughout all the world and every tribe, tongue, and nation people worshiping the Lord, bowing down and getting on their faces and praising God and serving the Lord in all of life and then they themselves being faithful to the Great Commission and taking that Great Commission to their own nations and to their own villages and to their own tribes and to the unreached peoples within their own nations. This is to be the warp and woof of the Great Commission in all the world and it starts in every home and in every heart and in every church. And we'll go and we'll send and we'll support not only because we're faithful to the Great Commission but because we're faithful to the Great Commandment. As Jesus responded in Matthew 22, the Great Commandment, the greatest commandment, the fulfillment of all the commandments ultimately is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves and if we don't love God and we don't love our neighbor then we won't go.

And our going if we go will be harsh and cold and miserable. So love, God's love for His people and our love for Him, for the world is that motivation for us to be obedient to the Great Commission of Jesus Christ. And love like that can only come from an obedient relationship with Christ.

When Jesus' followers encountered Him after the resurrection, they fell down and worshiped Him. It was then that He commissioned them to go and make disciples and take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Dr. Burke Parsons joins us this week on Renewing Your Mind with his series, The Great Commission. We'd be happy to send you this five-part series on DVD when you contact us today with a donation of any amount.

You can make your request online at renewingyourmind.org or we'd be happy to take your phone call at 800-435-4343. Did you know that last year alone Ligonier Ministries reached more than 56 million people around the world? That's double the number of people who connected with us in 2020. If you are one of our ministry partners, please know that we could not have done that without you. Dr. Sproul called you the backbone of this ministry because of your commitment to pray for us and provide a recurring monthly donation.

So thank you. 56 million is a big number to be sure, but when you consider there are almost 8 billion souls on the planet, there's plenty of work to do. So if you're not a ministry partner but you recognize the importance of what we do, would you consider joining me and the thousands of others who are committed to reach even more people with these theologically rich resources in multiple languages, including Spanish, French, Portuguese, even Farsi? If you'd like to join us and become a ministry partner with your monthly gift of $25 or more, please mention it while you're on the phone with us. We'll add you to this very special group of people. Thank you for your support. The first words of the Great Commission show us that Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, and it is under that authority that we have been sent to every corner of this earth. I hope you'll join us tomorrow as we continue our study of the Great Commission here on Renewing Your Mind. .