Last Words of Jesus

 SERMON OUTLINE

Introduction

All the words of Jesus are important to consider.

John 19.28-30   “It is finished”

-The completion of God’s plan to reconcile mankind to Himself

-Jesus is no mythical hero, nor a god manufactured to promote religion

-Sin is not a old fashioned concept

-Jesus is the Son of God who died on the cross so sin and to bring us into relationship with God

Luke 24.13-27; 44-46

-Jesus pointed them to the Scriptures to understand the meaning of his death and resurrection.

Matthew 28.18-20

-Disciple is main verb, a command to “make disciples” of all nations

-Modified by three participles: Going, baptizing, teaching which are also commands

–Ethne means a linguistic cultural family group. Over 16,000 identified in world today.

–I am with you always, to the end of the age

-Luke 24.44-49, repentance and forgiveness of sins proclaimed to all the nations

-Acts 1.8, the power of the Holy Spirit to be witnesses to Jesus Christ

-2 Peter 3.11-12, hastening the coming of the day of God, Matthew 24.14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

SERMON NOTES

The Last Words of Jesus             John 19.28-30

Last week I shared with you last words from past leaders. This morning I want to share with you from the last words of Jesus. All the words of Jesus are special and important to carefully consider over and over again, but this morning I want to focus on what Jesus commanded us to do when he left this earth, and to continue to do until he comes back.

Let’s begin this morning with John 19.28-30. Before Jesus committed his spirit into the hands of his Father and died on the cross he said, “It is finished”. What Jesus was saying was that God’s purpose and plan to reconcile sinful humanity to Himself was now complete. In a few days God would to raise Jesus from the dead and prove to the world that He accepted the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ as a payment for the sin of anyone who would ask God to forgive them.

I want to point out to you that Jesus is no mythical religious hero. Jesus is not a god manufactured by a religious institution to gather people together. And sin is not an old fashioned concept that no longer fits into modern society. Jesus is the Son of God and Jesus did die on a cross for the sin of humanity. The work that God did on the cross in Jesus Christ is the most important event in all of history.

Your sin is very real before a Holy God who judges sin. And your need for forgiveness in Jesus Christ is very real this morning. If you die in your sin, without the gift of eternal life that God offers you in Jesus Christ, you will suffer in the lake of fire for eternity. For those of us who believe what the Bible teaches, the words of Jesus “It is finished” mean eternal life in the presence of God.

These are serious truths, not just religious fantasies. May God in His love and mercy reveal your sin to you and shake your life to the core so that you may know Jesus Christ as your savior from sin, and have a God transformed life through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

After Jesus was resurrected from the dead he stayed on earth for 40 days teaching his disciples how the OT spoke about him, his death for sin, and his resurrection. Turn to Luke 24.

In verses 24.13f we read about two disciples on the road to the village of Emmaus who meet a stranger on the way, who actually was Jesus but was not recognized by them. They share their discouragement over the death of Jesus because they had hoped that Jesus would redeem Israel (21). They, like the rest of the Jews, were looking for a political deliverance and not deliverance from sin which was their greater need. Then we read in verses 25-27, “Jesus said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Jesus wanted his followers to understanding the purpose and meaning of his death and resurrection based on the teaching of their Bible, which was the OT. How precious is this Bible which God has given to us!

We read later in chapter 24 about Jesus appearing to the disciples. Again we read about how Jesus instructed them from the Scriptures. Verses 44 to 46 says, “Then Jesus said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.” God gives his people His Word and a mind to understand it. Praise God.

At some time at the end of those 40 days, before Jesus ascended into heaven, he gathered together his disciples and gave them final instructions of what to do until he should return. These final words of Jesus are found in Matthew 28.18-20. We need to pay careful attention to these words of Jesus because his instructions to those disciples are still his instructions to his church today and to us as individuals. “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, to the end of the age.’”

To help you better understand Jesus’ instruction in these verses I want to look at the grammatical structure of verses 19 and 20 in the Greek. The main verb in verses 19-20 is “make disciples” and this work is to extend to “all nations”. Literally the Greek says, “Disciple all the nations”. This is a command from Jesus, not a suggestion or one of many options, but a clear and direct command.

The word “Go” which begins verse 19 is translated into English as a main verb but it is not a main verb but a participle which modifies the main verb “make disciples”. It should be translated as “going”.

There are two more participles in verses 19 and 20 which modify the main verb, and they are “baptizing” and “teaching”. All three of these participles are also used as commands.

Putting the command of the main verb together with the commands of the participles shows that Jesus is giving a very strong command to his disciples, “Going, disciple all nations, baptizing them, teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you”. Notice that we are to make disciples while going. Jesus does not say, make disciples by bringing them to church, but as you are going make disciples. As we are going about our daily life our goal in obedience to Jesus’ command is to share the message of the Gospel with others, and then baptize and teach them, all with the purpose of making disciples. Making disciples involves the whole process from evangelism, to conversion, to baptism, to teaching, to the believer going out and making disciples themselves. The main goal of the local church is to make disciples. We have not done well in fulfilling this command.

“Nations” is the Greek word “ethne”. Ethne means a group of people with the same language and culture and not just geographical nations. It is a linguistic and cultural family group. There are over 16,000 distinct people groups in the world that Jesus calls us to disciple. Some of these people groups have not yet been reached with the Gospel. But God is moving in giant strides these days and we can be part of that movement and speed up the return of Christ. Today much of mission work is geared to training local Christians and church leaders. That is what I would like to get involved with in the time I have left on this earth.

Notice the final promise of Jesus, “I am with you always, to the end of the age”. Jesus has given us a command to make disciples and will be with us to fulfill this command until he comes again.

Turning back to Luke 24 let me read verses 44-46 which we read previously and then continue on to verse 49. [Read Luke 24.44-49]

“Repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you”. The promise of the Father which is the gift of the Holy Spirit was fulfilled in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit came to indwell believers and formed the church. God has given us the Holy Spirit in order to have power to fulfill Jesus’ command to proclaim his name to all the nations. Acts 1.8 says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth”. As believers we have the Holy Spirit to bring the message of repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all the earth. God has given the church all that is needed to disciple the people of the world.

I was able to attend Mission Fest in Toronto just over a week ago. My friends, the world is falling apart very quickly now, but God is saving people all over the world for His kingdom. We need to get involved in God’s work as much as we possibly can.

As I was reading to you the last words of Peter last week from 2 Peter 3, I noticed as I read verse 12 the word “hastening”. Listen as I read 2 Peter 3.11-12, “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for andhastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!” Waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God. How can Christians speed up the coming of the Lord Jesus? Jesus openly tells us how in Matthew 24.14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come”. When Christians have proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom of God to all the ethnos of the world then the end will come.

How can you get involved in fulfilling the commandment that Jesus gave us that going, we are to make disciples in all the ethnic groups of the world, baptizing and teaching them?

First of all is prayer. The words of Jesus are still true today, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9.37-38). You may not be able to go to the nations of the world but you can pray for God to send workers there and for God to bring men and women and young people to Himself through the Gospel. Here are two powerful resources for prayer. 1) Operation World. Use this book to pray for the world on a daily basis. It will inform you about what God is doing and what needs to be done in each country of the world and how to pray to that end. Buy a copy (see bulletin) and use it daily to pray for God’s work and you will begin to have God’s heart for the needs of the world and for His work around the world. 2) Sign up to Joshua Project. I have already sent out two emails on this great resource which I have just begun to use in the last couple of months. You can get a short email sent to you daily or as many times a week as you choose and you can pray for a people group many of which are under 2% Christian. You can pray for that people group and join your prayer to the prayers of thousands of others on that day for that lost people. The website and how to sign up is in your bulletin.

Second is giving. God has blessed us in Canada with tremendous resources and we are responsible to use them for the Glory of God. I have wasted so much of what God has given me and pray that I will be responsible with what I still have and what God will give to me. I praise God for what we are doing at Rosedale in supporting front line mission work. Let’s keep doing it and add to it. Let’s ask ourselves what we can do individually.

Third is going. We all have those around us who need to hear the Gospel message of salvation in Jesus Christ. We need to pray for them, love them and share with them as the Holy Spirit leads us. We can also serve in local mission work and volunteer in groups that support mission work overseas by providing resources, support, information, contacts, letters, encouragement, whatever we can do to promote the advance of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

In the last days of Jesus on this earth his focus was on teaching the disciples about the kingdom of God by giving them an understanding from the Word of God. “Jesus presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God”. (Acts 1.3)

Jesus also left the disciples with a clear command to make disciples in all the nations of the world by going, baptizing and teaching, and that is our task until we die or until Jesus returns.