1229. What About the Mission?

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.

The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones Senior's intent was to make a school where the focus would be on Christ.

So he established daily chapel services today. That tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from the University Chapel platform today speaker is Dr. Alan Benson, the Executive Vice President of student development and ministry advancement at Bob Jones University. Take your Bibles and turn with me if you would, to Matthew chapter 28 there really is no time in the year for me like the season of Easter. It really is that time that I think even beyond.

Christmas is the most significant of you will call them holidays or holy days.

For the believer, the resurrection is our great hope and yes, we acknowledge that Jesus had to come and be born to be our Messiah. And yet if he died and didn't rise again the third day. Paul says we would be among all men most miserable as president mentioned that there is no greater theme and then that ought to be connected to what our lives are about then coming out of the resurrection and realizing what should we do next to title my message this morning is really from the great commission is refined in Matthew chapter 28 versus 16 through 21 about the mission you know someone and just dream this whole idea of the great commission.

Our Lord came to earth with a mission to seek and to save that which was lost. The father sent the son to be the Savior of the world. He was a light of the world and when he left he said you are the light of the world. So really we have a great mission that he committed to us. So what about the mission, and I really want to capture in our minds. This thought that the mission's living on mission us as we sang about in the two songs that we sang having a passion for the Savior and his mission that drives us to live nationally with the gospel is the right response to the resurrection. The right response to the resurrection Matthew chapter 20 verse 16 says this in the 11 disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them and when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all power is given to me in heaven and 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. Notice the idea of the commission taking place below. I am with you all way, even unto the end of the world.

Amen for number of years people, referred to my wife and I his body and soul. She was a nurse.

I was a pastor so our conversations as we would sit down at the table in the evenings after she will come home from work were really very interesting. The first 10 years of her career she worked in the emergency room and level I trauma unit so I would talk about you know junior hires talking behind but each other's back in the trauma of all of that I was a so Hon, how was your day and I would get an array of answers from what it was like to treat a gunshot wound to the head or what it was like to massage the heart due to chest trauma from a car accident made the junior high war seem somehow different. Not often think to myself. I am so glad that when people with that kind of emergency show that you are there to help because I wouldn't be much help, but I could pray with them and that's a lot of help, but as far as stopping the bleeding. Probably not much I could but more than that. Not my just thankfully there's people like you there to help to know that you care enough to do so the next 10 years. She started and ran crisis pregnancy centers in North Carolina and then in Chicago. It was not uncommon for her in any given week to interact with young girls 13 to 14 years old who found themselves expecting a baby and who had already had more than 10 sex partners. They were babies having babies as part of the clinic setting. I got involved, and we would do counseling so we would do everything from smoking cessation counseling why a pregnant mother shouldn't smoke to postabortion counseling.

How do you survive when you come to grips with the reality that you killed your child, and by the way, there is forgiveness and restoration in Christ.

Praise God for the gospel. We are doing weeks of parent classes for those who decided to keep their babies and wanted help. Most of the time I classes would be with just women, but sometimes men would show up and in that setting. I learned a new term baby daddy men who would come weren't husbands they were in fiancés. They were even boyfriends. They were baby daddies began to realize how broken our world that we would encounter these people who are now so broken and so scared most of them would consider taking the life of the baby that was growing inside them because they do not want that her children to have to face the kind of life that they had to live in people we live in a very difficult very broken world. And sometimes I think as we sit on the campus like Bob Jones University.

We don't really realize we live in a world that is filled with casualties but it's more than that we live in a casualty creating culture we live in a world where babies have babies we live in a world where children shoot children. We live in a world of hatred and selfishness like we saw displayed in Sri Lanka. This can we live in a world of arrogance and depravity. You know what, it's an easy world to withdraw from its easy world to hate.

It's ugly and it's harsh and it hurts when it becomes very easy for us as believers to look at the world to get a sense of disdain or discussed and a drawback is no drawing back from some hideous scene. It's a hard world to love.

In fact I would say to you this morning if pity somehow becomes the primary motivator for your evangelism.

It will at some point fail because this world is going to hurt you but we have a mission, a mission that was committed to us by someone who more perfectly than anyone ever could. Saw the ugliness and the harshness and the herds and the pain and the film world and enough to come and complete the will of his father bear the wrath, the just wrath of his father in being our sin bearer on Calvary so that death might be caught up in life and he committed that mission. Thomas, you see this world is the world that he loved and it is possible screw for us through passion for him thus displayed income passion for the world by the power of the gospel, not just to make a difference but to make the only difference that really matter. Our job is not somehow to make the world a prettier place. It is to see lives that are being destroyed by sin transform through the gospel to the place that those same lives are trophies of grace and glorify the Savior to redeem. That's our message and it is our mission. So I really want us to contemplate just this thought that in light of the colossal consequences of eternity when it comes to the spiritual needs of the lost in a casualty creating world. Do you know what you're doing when it comes to the gospel. You know it well enough to share if not get equipped and if you do due care enough to help. What about the mission, so I want us to come to Matthew 28 and we walk the journey of the passion week. We've actually felt some of the emotion of the disciples who failed and we see here that some of them doubted they still don't understand all that has transpired. Jesus is going the way he is risen from the dead. Does he really have all power. This isn't what we expected their turmoil and really Jesus appears to them here and before he leaves. He says to them, what about the mission, so I really want to see just two things.

One looking at them and looking at us I want is first of all to see the crisis but I want you to realize that every time we come to the place that we are going to share the gospel. There is a crisis. Will you do it, will you not to be inconvenienced, will you not when you make a priority, will you not, is it worth it will be difficult, how will they respond. How will you be treated every time you think about sharing the life-changing news of the gospel. It's a crisis and I ask you to decide before the price is how will you answer the question. Will I do something because all too often I think we sit in the moment we walk away with regret that we really didn't. Are we preparing our heart to live mission away because there's always a crisis and so I want you to see in that Christ is the daunting task.

The daunting task. Consider the disciples.

Paul described the world at the coming of Jesus is when the fullness of times oaks think about the world because it's the same world that that their living and when Jesus leaves was a Roman world, a geopolitical power that was desperately clinging to global control and centralized power in a figure called the emperors who knew that the only way to wield control over this all was that through fear men would consider him to be a God was a Greek world Rome spread Hellenistic culture with the splendors of its language and art and architecture was a culture that exalted man in the face of the cruelty of the gods, who, in their temper mentality humored themselves by torturing and trivializing the mortals and so we have to elevate man was a Jewish world with the most elaborate religious system of laws and requirements that the world had ever seen a system that they had perverted so that now it inverted God's plan by accumulating regulations whereby men, might through their own self-righteousness.

Reach out to God, was a satanic world where Satan was active and is as perceptive infilling in controlling men from demon possession and false spirits as at any time in human history to this world. Jesus came as a light in the darkness. He lived in it for 33 years and he called these men administered and taught for 3 1/2 years. He confronted the demagoguery of Rome. The humanism of Greece. The religion of Israel and the power of hell and at the end of all of that, they killed him. They were all in agreement. They all tried out in one way or another, crucify him.

They all wanted nothing to do to him and this is the world that these disciples are now called to reach with the gospel.

Wonder why some doubted it had changed.

It didn't get better are people walking around morning over the fact that they made a mistake when they killed Jesus think are wishing that somehow they could go back and have a do over.

See the challenge of evangelism is always a daunting task. And if you wait until it's easy, you will never start. By the way the world hasn't changed. Swipe all captured it so well when you look at the world in Romans chapter 1 understand he captures the whole world see the same things. There you'll see in Romans one, a pervasive secularism that that embraces culture in general and it did in Jesus world, and it does in hours and so there are two factors at work in the world all the times there is this passion for the elimination of God takes different forms in different cultures but friends it sit there in our culture today. Maybe coming more actual in its practice removing God from public places removing him from from public schools taking him out of the marketplace removing the presence of anything that might remind us that there is a God elimination of God. Secondly, the erasing of truth don't want there to be absolute truth because it's binding to us. We want relativism.

Things are only true as they need to be true to benefit me the most and when it doesn't benefit me. I don't want it to be true. The exultation of man. Humanism's message is that I'm the only God I need embracing of sin. But somehow, life is fullest enjoyed whenever I am free us to do whatever I want to do and thus not just allowance of sin but an embracing of sin because it frees the heart and in the elevation of death and should not be shocked that were living in a world that actually promotes things like abortion because it's freedom that promotes things like use euthanasia because others would waste my resources by Paul at the end of Romans chapter 1 says that though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

The world is a place that actually pursues the elevation of death.

It's a daunting task but then see that there were doubting people wasn't long before this. The Peterson I go fishing.

By the way, wasn't saying any break boys go catch some fish member. He was a fisherman. When Jesus found him. And when Jesus dies, he says you know what this was all for nothing. This didn't change a thing. And I'm going back to where I was before he called me quite so beautiful that Jesus finds him on the seashore like he found him there in the water they were doubting the world that did just kill Jesus surely wanted to kill them to and I wonder if we don't sit at times and we doubt the gospel really work is Jesus really winning is a church really being built. Can we really make a difference. Maybe we ask doesn't really matter. They were doubting. Are you so you come then to this message from Christ. I want us to see. Secondly than simply this, something we all know, but I want us to see the command. The command notice what Jesus says to them, knowing that there doubting he says at the end of verse 18, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Imagine what that now means to them as he speaks of his authority. Rome doesn't have it. Greece doesn't have it. Israel doesn't have it. Satan doesn't have it all already is given on the me in heaven and on quieting their doubts he's conquering their fears.

He's commanding their attention because going to commission their activity. All authority is given on young people.

We know this verse so well we know the great commission so well. And yet, that which is so familiar, often breeds disdain. Do not forget who is Lord. Do not forget, as we come out of the resurrection what he is just and on the final enemy. Paul describes Russ's death.

Hey, he is just conquering death we say. Death could not hold him. It was impossible for the brave to keep him, you cannot get life into death, and death not be bursting all wineskins. He has all authority and resurrection power.

He is slated to the principalities into the powers displayed to the rulers of the Kings displaying to the priests and scribes that he displayed it to these now and doubting disciples and young people. If you read of his life in the Scriptures and you remember what is done in the resurrection he's displaying and declaring she no, he's your war and he said I will build my church and the gates of hell with all their authority will not stand against all areas. This you may sit here today and say so that's great.

And I know that but he left.

What is that mean for me. Notice the next two words go ye therefore, it actually is here an expression of almost an assumption having gone the mission.

All I'm expecting in light of why I came in what I did that I called you and that I equipped you that you are now going to be going. People interesting that Peter's as I go fishing is standing here and probably ringing in his ears are those words that said, I will make you a fisherman so see the activity of the program. Notice that this authority that he has.

He very clearly here is delegating.

We are living in a humanistic secularist society that is constantly looking at those of us who would come to them and declare truth they're asking us this question.

What right do you have and I will tell you if you look within yourself and you try to engage them in an argument that involves you. They rightly ask you what right do you have because you and I have no right. But Jesus is Lord, and he has every right and he says having gone June gold.

Therefore, based upon my authority so the authority that you have is delegated authority.

You're not going for you. You're not going to win an argument, you're not going out of pity you're going out of passion for the one Lord, who has an every right to declare the truth and every right to commission you to declare the truth to notice what he says.

Go 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. Notice that he is very clear here about what it is that we are to declare if there is truth that matters is that there's truth that he taught and that she committed that he wants declared that it is true that we dare not change is truth over which we dare not cower and is truth that we must not compromise its his truth, and it is the power of God on the salvation so we are commanded to teach them the things that he had taught that it's his truth that I must know the gospel. Do you know the gospel.

If not, these are the days to know and then I must obey. I must accept the mission that he is committing to me. I must go with the confidence that he expects me to go resting in him as Lord, and I must as I close, I leave you with these thoughts. Disciple what a term here's the way to think about that in light of great commission living be one for some of us, maybe that's where the starts are you a disciple be one.

Secondly, have a heart that says I'll seek one. My constant passion as I live in this world as I am going to look cool is it that I can reach for Christ and as I live that way that all purpose to reach one I'll go somewhere in a personal direction to try and connect. I'm always looking but I'm looking for someone to connect with and when I connect I'll teach disciple be one seek one reach one, teach one why because Jesus is worth father set us on fire to be a people who live on mission with the gospel for this is truly the right response to the resurrection. Pray these things in Jesus name for his you been listening to a message preached by Dr. Alan Benson, the executive vice president for student development and ministry advancement at Bob Jones University by listening friend and I ask you a question.

Have you received the crucified resurrected Jesus as your own personal savior. No doubt God is speaking to your heart. There's a knock on the door of your heart and he's asking to come in. Would you personally individually right now call upon the name of the Lord ask Jesus to be your savior for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Let me urge you to do that right now. May God bless you these daily programs are made possible by the many friends of Bob Jones University and its radio ministry. If you appreciate these programs and benefit from the faithful preaching and teaching of God's word would you consider sending us a special financial gift today.

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