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[0:00] I'd like you to pray with me again. Nothing obviously failing in Graham's prayer. It was a wonderful prayer, but for my own soul, for our souls.

[0:20] I just want to pray again. Lord, we have gathered here to hear from you. All of us coming this morning with more or less motivation, but nonetheless, we've gathered here to hear from you.

[0:40] So we desperately need to hear from you. We don't desire, the better lights in us do not desire to waste our lives.

[0:52] Lord, we feed richly on the gospel that you have forgiven us, this glorious news that in all of our sin that we have willfully pursued, you have met us with peace.

[1:09] You've met us with kindness. You also, so often in the books that Paul has written, you turn towards commands. You turn towards imperatives.

[1:21] You don't leave us in the gutter, but you pull us out of the gutter, and then you put us in the glorious employment of your kingdom. We become citizens, and you say you're saved to be saved, and so we want to be living sacrifices to you, as Romans 12 says.

[1:40] We want to give our lives over to you at the end of our days, whatever days you give us. And so we've gathered here to hear from you. We want to understand what your commands are, that when you say to go, to go to all nations, to share the gospel, to plant churches, that you should be sung to in all tongues, that we want to understand how to do that.

[2:03] We want to be convicted to do that. We want to have the proper motivation to do that. We want to have the right mental and emotional apparatus and strategy, and so we need help.

[2:16] We're listening for our very lives. We don't, I pray, don't let any student in here. This is a miracle level prayer, God. Would you answer it?

[2:27] Don't let any student in here, any adult in here, look back on their 70, their 80, their 90 years and have not been challenged to not waste their life.

[2:39] We have far too long, God, wrestled with the question, is this okay or is this fine to do? We should ask, what is the holy thing to do? What does it look like for me to present my life to you as a living sacrifice?

[2:55] Help us. Let us throw off every encumberment, every weight that sits on us of sin. Help us to give our lives to you.

[3:12] In Jesus' name, amen. Joey, on day one, said the church exists to proclaim Christ. The church exists to proclaim Christ.

[3:24] And so the way I see my sermon is the how of that, right? But how so? We exist to proclaim Christ by God's grace.

[3:34] Your churches proclaim Christ. But then there's other churches yet to be planted. There's gospel evangelism and sharing yet to be done. And so we do that by being a church missional.

[3:48] And that's what this sermon is about. So what I want you to do is I don't, I'm going to read scripture to you. I'm not even going to tell you where it's coming from. It'll be very familiar to you, obviously.

[4:01] But what I want to do is use it and tell you a story. So I need you to listen very closely, very attentively, and think about what's being said.

[4:11] And what you'll hear is the story of the whole world. Your church's story. You'll hear worlds and prophets colliding and breaking.

[4:22] You'll hear a story of slavery, blood, war, catastrophe, good and bad ambition, salvation and a savior, pain and triumph.

[4:32] Fear and victory over fear. And a long journey home by way of displacement. It's your story. It's my story.

[4:43] It's God's story. It's your specific church's story. It's a story that doesn't name but involves the state of Oklahoma. It's our story.

[4:55] And it leads us all the way to the steps of eternity. So just listen. Listen very closely. Then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

[5:11] They will rule. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth. They will rule the whole earth and the creatures that crawl on the earth.

[5:25] The Lord God said, Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat and live forever.

[5:38] So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove the man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.

[5:56] The Lord said to Abram, Go from your land, your relatives and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation.

[6:07] I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt and all the people on earth will be blessed through you.

[6:21] God to Jacob, Get up, leave this land and return to your native land. God to Jacob again, Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there.

[6:34] Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau. God to Moses, So now go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.

[6:51] Israel is trapped at the Red Sea. Listen to what he says. Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. The Lord said to me, this is Moses, Get up and go down immediately from here for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly.

[7:13] They have quickly turned from the way that I commanded them. They have made a cast image for themselves. Again to Moses, Get up. Continue your journey ahead of the people so that they may enter and possess the land I swore to give their ancestors.

[7:29] Now Joshua, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now then, You and all these people get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give them.

[7:42] Gideon, Get up. Go down against the camp because I am going to give it into your hands. Elijah, Go and present yourself to Ahab and I will send rain on the land.

[7:57] Jonah, Get up. Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because their evil has come up before me. Again, Get up. Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach the message that I tell you.

[8:15] An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream saying, Get up. Take the child and his mother. Flee to Egypt. And stay there until I tell you for Herod is about to search for the child to kill him.

[8:33] Jesus, But so that you may know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he says to the paralytic, Get up. Take your stretcher and go home.

[8:45] Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, Proclaim this message. The kingdom of heaven has come near.

[8:57] Jesus to the sinful woman. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. Jesus to the ten lepers. Go.

[9:08] Show yourself to the priest. Jesus to the royal official. Go. Your son will live. God tells Ananias about Saul.

[9:19] Get up and go to the street called Straight. The Lord said to him, To the house of Judas and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul since he is praying there. God to Peter about Cornelius.

[9:32] Get up. Go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them. For I have sent them. Jesus to Paul. Get up and go into Damascus. And there you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.

[9:44] All that you've been assigned to do. Get up. Go. Jesus to Paul. Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant.

[9:55] And as a witness. God has been telling his followers. And includes me and you. To get up and go from the beginning. I want you to turn to the most famous place where this shows up.

[10:10] Go over to Matthew 28. Where you will hear very personally. You need to hear this very personally. That God is speaking to you through his word this morning to get up and go.

[10:24] Will you follow is the question. Matthew 28. This will be our focus passage. 28. 16 to 20. And even more specifically 18 to 20.

[10:36] The 11 disciples traveled to Galilee. To the mountain where Jesus had directed them.

[10:48] When they saw him they worshipped. But some doubted. Jesus came near and said to them. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

[11:03] 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 everything I have commanded you.

[11:16] And remember I am with you. Always. To the end of the age. Where I pastor Gashlin Baptist Church. When I preach in chapels or places like this.

[11:26] I find it helpful to try to distill a passage down to. What would this mean for anybody. Any place. Any era. Any language. Any century. And I would call that just like a transcendent meaning.

[11:39] The big idea some have called it. But this is what I think this passage means for anybody. Anywhere. Anyplace. A Christian. Right. It means this. Because Jesus is Lord of all things.

[11:50] And worthy of more worship than we can muster. And because he is with us in every trial and triumph. We must endeavor greater and greater and greater great commission initiatives.

[12:03] That's what it means. Let me read it again. Because Jesus is Lord of all things. He is Lord of all things. And he's worthy of your worship. More worship than you could ever give him.

[12:15] Because he is with us in every trial and triumph. We. We. Must endure greater and greater and greater.

[12:26] Great commission initiatives. Planting churches. Sharing the gospel. Not just thinking.

[12:38] Could I go and give my life to be an IMB missionary. But what if you thought about starting an IMB. Why do we think other than those things. That's what I think this passage means.

[12:51] It's coming very personal to us. And bringing a great challenge. And saying. You need to endeavor more and more and more. And greater and greater and greater things.

[13:01] You have yet to begin to think about what it looks like to give your life. Fully over to God. We are so riddled usually. With. JV sins.

[13:12] Just things that just stick to us. And it kills. Our ambition. So my hope. My desperate plea. As I've prayed and thought. And try to prepare for this. Is that God would use this room.

[13:24] If I'm understanding right. Somewhere in the range of about 180 students. That he would use this room. For insane. Glorious. Redemptive acts.

[13:35] Miracles. Of seeing God. Change people. The course of history. So here's where we're going.

[13:47] We're going to look at it in kind of four different frames. Or movements. So we're just going to kind of run through the text. So to speak. Four different times. And four different angles. There's four different alls.

[13:59] We're going to look at these four alls. That God has. For us. Four verbs. Because he mobilizes us. In this text. The underlying keynote. And then also.

[14:10] Just the seeing of. What are the conclusions for my life. For your life. In this great commission. So the character. The character of the great commission. The cadence of the great commission.

[14:23] The keynote of the great commission. And the conclusions of the great commission. All starting with. All right. You with me? Okay. So.

[14:34] Four verbs. Four alls. Four mores. And four counter activities. So we first want to see the character of the great commission. We see. And respond to it. We want to see it. And we want to respond to it.

[14:44] The character. The shape. Of the great commission. So famously. There are four alls. And maybe you saw them already. But it's that. All authority in heaven and on earth. Is his.

[14:56] So therefore. We go to all the nations. And disciple. And baptize. We teach the nations. After they've been baptized. They've been. Members of churches.

[15:07] They've been baptized. We teach them to observe all. That he commanded. And then we remember. That he's always with us. No matter what. No matter what we endeavor. So we're thinking about these alls.

[15:19] This is the character. It's the shape of the thing. You know. He's laid authority. Over all things. So every square inch. Of the cosmos.

[15:29] The heaven of heavens. Paradise. Hades. Black holes. And gravitation. He owns it all.

[15:40] He has dominion over everything. Over every breath that you have. Every breath that any unbeliever has. He controls and has dominion over every nation.

[15:52] He controls every conversation. He's lord of every smartphone. And he's lord of every camp crush. He runs everything.

[16:08] I heard some conversation about camp crushes last night. So I thought I'd throw that in there. He has the keys to everything. He holds control over everything.

[16:20] He owns the sea. He owns Jupiter. He owns Mars. He owns the stars. He owns Hollywood stars. He controls TikTok. It's his.

[16:31] I know that's confusing. But he controls everything. He owns Tesla. It's his. He owns Taylor and Travis. It's all his.

[16:43] All dominion is his. He has authority over everything. And there's not a square inch. There's not a molecule that doesn't belong to him. And so what does he do with this? He says go.

[16:54] What would you do with all authority? I don't know. It scares me to think about it. But what he says is he says I want you to go. My image bearers are far from me.

[17:06] And I need you to go get them. I'm going to use you to go get them. That's what he does. With his authority. And he says I want you to plant these churches. And so we're supposed to go. So the second part is to go to all nations.

[17:17] He has all authority. So we go to all nations. And we disciple and we baptize. Every tongue. We go and we tell. Every tongue we go and we tell.

[17:28] Why? Because he needs to be worshipped. And sung to in every tongue. This global enterprise. I mean he is announcing to you.

[17:39] Bombs away. Like go for it. You are free. To endeavor great things. Crazy things. People that you. Things that your family.

[17:50] Your church. Might even be like. That's a little too much. Why haven't we erred on that side? He says go to all nations. And he owns everything. And so we are as invincible.

[18:03] As he is. Because we are in Christ. So we are steady. And we are safe. And we create. Steady outposts. Called churches. And we advance them as far as we can.

[18:16] Baptizing. Why? Because he has all authority. We evangelize. We make disciples. By his grace. And baptism. Baptism. Is this sign.

[18:27] It's the signal. That separates the world. From the church. And so he puts it in there. This is. So the great commission. Isn't about a bunch of like. Random Christians.

[18:38] Running around. All over the place. Just by themselves. Siloed. It's about churches. Moving. It's the church missional. But then we also recognize.

[18:49] He tells us to teach the nations. When they become Christians. They have to be taught. What? All things. To observe all of his commands. That's. A big deal. So.

[19:01] What you're supposed to do. Is you're supposed to make. Little Christ's. Christians. Everywhere you go. That's what your life. Your life. I mean you.

[19:12] Is supposed to be about. This isn't like. Uniquely for the. Youth pastors in the room. Or for. Missionaries. Or whatever. It's like. This is your commission. Every single one of you.

[19:22] It's your commission. And so we teach the nations. To observe all that he has commanded. And you guys know this. But. In your culture. Our culture. You're going to be destroyed for this.

[19:33] Right. Particularly on the sexual ethic front. You do know what. Jesus teaches on these things. He says you need to teach all the nations. I'm just picking one thing.

[19:44] Right. Right. So if you believe. That a husband. Is to be the head of their home. If you believe. That divorce isn't neutral. If you believe.

[19:57] That. Sex before marriage is sin. You're observing his teaching. And you're supposed to take those messages. That that's actually sin. It's going to destroy you.

[20:08] If you don't believe those things. Live according to those things. That's part of the commission. As you're going to teach. And baptize. And disciple. And you bring them into a church. And they're going to have life.

[20:19] Come in their life. Because they're killing sin. And that is the commission. Is to observe all he has commanded. You will be persecuted for this.

[20:30] And you know that. But I just would say. He's with you. Always. Right. That's the fourth thing. It's the fourth all. Remember he is always with you.

[20:40] And this is the sweetest part to me. I mean when I. I'm always looking for Christ. To just give me. A word of kindness. We'll take a cup of. Of water yet.

[20:51] Right. Like the. Like the hymn says. But this is the sweetest part. Remember he's with you always. He's with you in every season. Every trial. Every temptation.

[21:02] Every sickness. Every disappointment. Every persecution. God loves you in Christ. More than you could ever know. And so he doesn't.

[21:14] Coddle you. He sends you out. He says go. Because you are invincible. You're in Christ. Paul is a good example of that. Right. Dude is just getting himself. Whooped all over. The east.

[21:27] I mean gets. In acts. Right. He gets beat so bad. It's like eyeballs. Like hanging out. He gets thrown out of the city. And what does he do? He like puts his eyeball back in. And walks back in. And shares it. Why? How can he do this?

[21:38] Because Christ is with him. And to the end of the age. He knows that this isn't the final deal. He's courageous. Because he trusts in the Lord.

[21:48] Why? Because he's always with him. And so he spans the distance. For me and you. Between light and darkness. Between death and life. Holiness and unholiness. He makes us something we're not.

[21:59] And he says I'm going to be with you. Why? Because I delight in you. Why does he delight in you? Because he does. That's what he says in Genesis 1 and 2. He has created you in his image. He's zealous to receive the glory from you.

[22:14] He loves you for who you are. The only being in the universe uniquely positioned not to benefit from you. He just loves you. And that being says I'm going to be with you.

[22:26] As you go on this commission I'm going to be with you. So this is the character of the church missional. Is that we're supposed to recognize that he's with us.

[22:36] We're supposed to go to all nations. We're supposed to baptize. We're supposed to teach them. It's going to be difficult. Right? Half the people on the planet have never heard of Jesus' name.

[22:49] This should destroy you. They've never heard of him. Much less following him. This should not be okay. It should bother you.

[23:01] You should sit up at night thinking God please give me all the brain cells you gave me. Help me to use them to destroy that fact.

[23:12] That half the people on the planet have never even heard of you. Let's look and see. Let's see and respond to the cadence of the great commission. So there's four verbs here.

[23:23] There is a kind of rhythm. A symphonic movement to the mission of God amongst his people. His churches. It's action.

[23:34] It's actionable. It's that we go to the lost. So we're supposed to go. Go to the lost. Make disciples. Baptize those disciples.

[23:47] And teach those disciples. That's the cadence. Go to the lost. Make them disciples. Baptize them. Teach them. Obviously God is running the show here.

[23:59] But he does tell you to go. He does use you. And so we want to recognize the cadence. And acknowledge that we're the one sharing the gospel.

[24:09] We're the one doing the evangelism. We're the one going. So the second one. Make disciples. Right? Out of. Out of. Make disciples out of those that we've shared the gospel with.

[24:21] When they come to follow him. Then you baptize them into the family. The church. This is all connected. Your evangelism is immediately connected to baptism.

[24:32] And the church. In. I know y'all discussed baptism. And the Lord's Supper. In college. I was confused. I was still working through some things. And I remember trying to have the Lord's Supper by myself.

[24:43] In my dorm room. That was stupid. The Lord's Supper didn't belong to Sam. It belongs to the local church. And so. Baptism is just the same.

[24:54] We make disciples. We share the gospel with them. Jesus converts them. Gives them a brand new heart. It's as real as the hands on your arms. Like this happens.

[25:04] It's reality. And then they're to be baptized. They go from darkness to light. That is your goal. That's your task. Anybody you know in class. Or is connected to you in some way.

[25:15] Your friends. Your neighbors. That's the goal. When you have the ability. And that's sooner than you think. To mobilize yourself. And you are choosing your own way in your life.

[25:25] Are you going? Are you choosing to center your life on making disciples? That is going to be followed up in a planted church. That is going to be baptizing those people.

[25:36] Watching them go from death to life. There is nothing more invigorating. More precious. More amazing. Than seeing someone who used to be an enemy of God. Become a friend of God.

[25:47] Go from being in Satan's family to God's family. You will never regret making that what your life is about. And I'm not talking about a career. Like be a teacher.

[25:58] Be a stay at home mom. I don't care. Be a trash guy. I don't care. I'm saying make that the point of your life. Is that you understand this is your commission. It's yours. So we baptize them.

[26:11] This is church membership. The Lord's Supper. The Lord's Day worship. Deacons and elders. Deacons and diapers when they're old. It's the church. This is the doorway.

[26:22] It's baptism. And then you teach them. And that's what process you're in. I'm in. When we're members at churches. We're being taught. We're teaching each other to follow Jesus.

[26:33] And it's taking place. Surprise, surprise. In a local church. That is what he promises to come back for. So do you want to know where the action in the world is?

[26:44] From God's perspective. What the angelic host would go like. Where's the action? It's the local church. It's not politics. It's not nations at war.

[26:55] That's not where the action is. The kingdom of God is advancing on normal folk like you and me. Who are taking the gospel to the nations and pushing out the frontiers of darkness.

[27:07] We're pushing past it. Announcing the light. And moving on. These steady outposts. So we make disciples. Or excuse me.

[27:17] We go. We make. We baptize. We teach. These are the verbs. That's the cadence of the Great Commission. Well now let's see and respond to the keynote. The keynote of the Great Commission.

[27:30] And I would just call this four mores. When this is. Maybe you heard me announce. Hey we're going to look at Matthew 28. And you're like man. A little on the nose I think.

[27:42] I've heard this passage a million times. What could he possibly have to say? What are some of the things that people. People. When they read. They consider.

[27:53] Maybe even fight over. What the Great Commission is about. They're going to often say. The meaning of baptism. Right. We're going to argue over that a little bit. Or the verb go.

[28:03] Like what does it mean? It means as you are going. It's fine. Maybe they'll address something about the triune God. Right. Baptized in the name of the Father. The Son. And the Holy Spirit. Disciple.

[28:16] We're talking about disciples. Not converts. Have you ever heard someone say that? Right. There's these things we get hung up on. Or maybe even the for alls. As I talked about in the first one. But what I never hear people say.

[28:28] And if I only had one thing to say to you this morning. It's this. What is the fundamental. Underlying. Foundation. Of the Great Commission.

[28:41] It's the concept. It's the truth of more. That's what this is about. It assumes. It's the key note. That's like invisible. It's the constant refrain that everyone forgot.

[28:55] Is that the assumption is. Yes. You must pursue personal holiness. A holy church. But then the point isn't to just stop at that.

[29:06] It's actually you have to advance. You have to move. You're a living sacrifice. Your church is going to present. Be presented at the end of the age.

[29:17] And the question is. Was this church just sitting back on its laurels. Or was it going? Was it pursuing great things? So here's what I would say.

[29:27] And you could go beyond this. But this. Just get in your mind the word more. So more churches. More missionaries. More Christian institutions. More healthy families.

[29:40] More churches. More missionaries. More Christian institutions. More healthy families. So I want you to play a very easy exercise with me.

[29:50] A very easy game. I just have a question for you. Feel free if you feel led to answer this. Do you think we need more or less pastors to pull off the great commission?

[30:05] More. It's okay. Yeah. Do you think we need more or less preaching? If you just do the math. Do you think we need more or less preaching to pull off the great commission? More. Right? Makes sense.

[30:17] More or less baptisms. More. Right? More or less Sunday school lessons. More. Do you think we need more or less church planting?

[30:30] That's an obvious one. Right? Now here's one that will kind of catch you up. If you're going to have more church planting, you actually need more money. Right? This isn't dirty business.

[30:42] That's actually like, oh, that's the great commission. We actually have to think that way. We have to think strategically. Do you think this means more or less deacons? More. I mean, you could get into things like more or less prayer.

[30:56] Obviously more. But the underlying keynote is more. If we're going to have more churches, we need to have more pastors. Now, let's think about more missionaries, right?

[31:07] Pushing out. So more churches, more missionaries who are ultimately just cross-cultural evangelism. That is what the Bible is going to depict them as. They're going to evangelize, establish a church, and then move on.

[31:20] And I don't think that that, this is me personally speaking here. I don't think that missionary is only for somebody. It's for anybody who is a Christian and read Matthew 28.

[31:32] That's what I think. So if you have an endeavor, you have a desire to go cross-culturally, God is not going to stop you from that. You may have providential hindrances.

[31:43] Okay. But you don't have to ask and sit there and pray forever on like, can I do this? So like, yes, you can. Matthew 28. Go for it. Why? Because the underlying keynote is more.

[31:55] The expectation is more. So we need more missionaries. So here's the questions. Here's the questions coming in. Do we need more evangelism or less evangelism? More. Okay. Do we need more Bible translators or less?

[32:11] If anyone says less, I'm like, what's wrong with you? Right? This is so obvious, but we don't live according to it. We don't strategize according to it. We don't give our life over to it.

[32:23] Do you think this is more going and sending or less for every church? More going and sending or less? More. This is painfully obvious, but I'm going to keep just.

[32:36] Do you think this one's maybe a question? More short term missions or less short term mission trips? I think it's more. I just do.

[32:46] I think we don't suffer from too many people sharing the gospel with unbelievers. So it's more, right? What about Christian institutions? What do I even mean by that? I would mean like colleges or maybe even FCA or something like that.

[32:59] But also books or whatever, like seminaries, the place that I work at. So do you think we need more or less doctrinal books, books about doctrine?

[33:10] We need more. Do you think we need more or less Bible schools? We need more. Who's going to train these pastors in Hebrew or Greek or whatever?

[33:21] Me and my kids and my wife, we went this last week to the Creation Museum in Kentucky and the Ark Encounter. If you've ever heard of that, if you haven't, that's fine.

[33:33] But I just walked away from it thinking about this. Like this was so helpful to me. It was so helpful to my kids. And I'm like, we need more things like this, not less. Guys, the church actually, believe it or not, especially in America, is not poor.

[33:49] We need to use that money to glorify God. And we need to have great endeavors in mind. Do we need more or less people knowing Greek and Hebrew?

[34:01] You need more. You need more. Somebody needs to hear that. You need to give your life over to go, man, I don't even know like how to spell Greek or Hebrew. But I think I should study it because he's up here saying it in the Great Commission.

[34:16] Here's something for somebody out there. I think we need more PhDs and more dissertations. We do not suffer from people loving Christ too much or knowing too much about the Bible. We don't.

[34:27] So we need more. What about more healthy families? You're like, I don't see that one in there. Well, it's not by accident that Paul always talks to these new local churches and he starts addressing the families, right?

[34:39] So do you think we need more or less family devotionals in churches? More. Do you think we need more or less healthy fathers in local churches?

[34:51] More. Do you think we need more or less healthy mothers in local churches? More. More. I want to read something from you from a lady named Noel Piper.

[35:02] And she's reflecting on Jonathan Edwards. Probably the greatest theologian to ever sit on our soil. And so this is Noel Piper writing about this family.

[35:14] If you've ever heard of Jonathan Edwards, he's worth knowing about. This is what she says. Beginning on August 25th, 1728, children came into the family. Eleven in all.

[35:24] They had eleven children. At about two year intervals, Sarah, Jerusha, Esther, Mary, Lucy, Timothy, Susanna, Eunice, Jonathan, Elizabeth, and Pierpont.

[35:35] Those are the names. What a name. Pierpont. It's available for anyone out there if you want to name your son Pierpont. In 1900, a guy named A.E. Winship made a study contrasting two families.

[35:49] One had hundreds of descendants who were a drain on society. The other descendants of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards were outstanding for their contribution. You cannot believe what I'm about to read you.

[36:01] This is what happens with Jonathan Edwards and Sarah Edwards, their family. Winship wrote of Edwards' clan, whatever the family has done, it has done ably and nobly.

[36:12] And much of the capacity and talent, intelligence, and character of more than the 1,400 of the Edwards family is due to Mrs. Edwards. By 1900, when Winship made his study, this marriage had produced, just listen, this is the family line.

[36:33] Thirteen college presidents, 65 professors, 100 lawyers, and a dean of a law school, 30 judges, 66 physicians, and a dean of a medical school, 80 holders of public office, 3 U.S. senators, mayors of 3 large cities, governors of 3 states, a vice president of the United States, a controller of the treasury, members of the family wrote 135 books, edited 18 journals and periodicals.

[37:08] Listen to this one. They entered the ministry in platoons and sent 100 missionaries overseas, as well as stocking many mission boards with lay trustees.

[37:20] One in 14, 1,400 descendants is what he tracked. One in 14, 100 missionaries, ended up going overseas to share the gospel. Do we need more or less churches?

[37:33] We need more. Of course they must be holy churches. Of course they must be churches that kill sin. But we still need more. Do we need more or less healthy families?

[37:45] We need more. Do we need more or less missionaries? We need more. This is the keynote that is struck. That's the refrain that you and I and sometimes our churches have just forgotten.

[37:57] It's the moreness of the thing. And it's driving the deal forward. It's the keynote. Well, there's a couple conclusions that I want to just draw you to, four of them.

[38:08] The conclusions concerning the Great Commission. Four counter activities. And this is where the church missional is going to get real personal for you.

[38:18] And I want it to get personal. I want to challenge you, not because I know you personally. Some of you I know. But more so because I understand sin. I understand my own sin.

[38:29] I understand, I think, to some degree, our era. I understand your age. I spend a lot of time with people that are your age. And so I just have four things that I want to have you focus on.

[38:40] These are the conclusions. If we're to assume that we can do what Jesus said we're going to do. And that you're going to do that well, then you're going to have to do at least these four things.

[38:52] So the first one is build up your outer man. The second one is build up your inner man. The third is build up your intellectual man.

[39:03] And the fourth is build up your ambitious man. So build up your outer man. Build up your inner man. Build up your intellectual man. And then build up your ambitious man.

[39:15] So I'm starting with building up your outer man because it is the least important. And yet it becomes fascinating to me how this is the thing that often stops people from doing great commission endeavors.

[39:30] You have to look no further than my own namesake at my college, Charles Spurgeon. He was 57 when he died. And he just had massive health issues. He just drove himself into the ground.

[39:42] I'm not sitting in judgment on him. I'm saying, what would it be like if he had pursued some level of greater physical health? Could he have had 30 more years? I mean, all of y'all's pastors and your youth pastors in this room, like, love Spurgeon.

[39:57] Massive impact. 100 years later, still, like, massively red. And I'm just like, what would it have been like if Spurgeon had had 20 more years in his life?

[40:08] John Calvin, there's this famous story of Calvin. He's writing to one of his friends and he's, like, articulating. He died in his 50s as well. He's articulating all of his health woes.

[40:22] But the man, like, literally just only sat at a desk and, like, just wrote nonstop. And so I think this actually matters, especially for our era. And I'm uniquely talking to a 13-year-old, a 16-year-old, an 18-year-old and saying you actually need to pay attention to this.

[40:39] And if God is going to use you throughout your life, you actually need to steward your own body. And that that matters. It's a big deal. So if you want to pursue the Lord, you want to give yourself over to the Lord for decades, then you're going to have to actually build up your outer man.

[40:57] Build up a frame that can endure worshiping God and pursuing him with a physical ability to endure rigor and pain and persecution and frustration and difficulty.

[41:10] You actually have to, there is a direct correlation, I've seen it over and over and over again, of people's willpower, their desire to kill sin, and their physical endurance.

[41:23] And those who deny that fact, I have just found that they're not properly assessing it. And so I would just be one randomly showing up in Oklahoma to tell you, like, hey, this part of the Christian life matters too.

[41:36] You need to focus on what does it look like for me to endure and pursue a life of physical ability. It doesn't mean we're supposed to be Olympians. That's not what I'm talking about.

[41:47] I'm just saying, are you giving your life over to the Lord and able to spend it being built up and self-controlled in the way that you deal with your body and the way that you eat, those sorts of things, so that you can glorify God for an enduring amount of time.

[42:04] The second one is build up your inner man. We're like, oh, okay, this is, I'm more comfortable here. He's not talking about exercise and calisthenics anymore. So build up your inner man, right?

[42:16] I want to encourage you, and I'm talking to you, to join the 5 a.m. club. To join the 5 a.m. club. If you're the kind of person, I am not aware of one, and I'm not sure you could present me with much evidence, of people who have changed the world in good, glorious ways, and then also guys, gals who weren't particular, they weren't Christians, but they just were influential, right?

[42:48] Bezos or something like that. They get up in the morning, and they get after it. And let me give you just a small frame of why, and this is a conclusion about the Great Commission.

[43:00] If you get up and you have three parts of your day, morning, afternoon, evening, go to bed. If you get up at 5 a.m., I'm going to tell you about a miracle. You get a fourth part of your day before breakfast.

[43:15] And you get to get up, you beat the sun up, and you begin by feeding on the Word of God, praying to God, begging God that He would do great things. Mastering the passages of Scripture that you currently don't know.

[43:30] Memorizing Scripture. I know a lot of you, or all of you, had to memorize a portion of Scripture even to be here. Well, why don't you 10x that? Part of that is going to be being a part of the 5 a.m. club.

[43:41] Getting up and giving your morning to the Lord. Devoting your day to the Lord. And having a desire to journal, to dream, to discipline yourself, to wake up with the Lord, be with the Lord.

[43:52] I go on walks in the morning, and it's amazing to me, whenever I'm out there, guess who's already praising God? The birds. It's amazing. Even that thought was amazing to me the other day.

[44:06] I was just like, God, they're already praising you before I have. Get up in the morning and pursue the Lord. And here's the alternative. Weapons of mass distraction.

[44:18] That's what our culture is going to give you. You can have that. You can have glorious time with God and give your decades to God. Decades. Whatever He gives you. Or you can just have what our culture gives.

[44:30] The drivel. The slop. Just distraction and foolishness. All of the promise of digital utopia.

[44:42] And just with one more click, it'll be great. I have a little app on my phone that has limited me to anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes of internet time a day.

[44:54] I'm a dad of young kids. I run a college. I'm a pastor. I got a lot of stuff to do. A lot of stuff. So why in the world would I waste it on foolishness on the internet?

[45:07] Give your mourning to the Lord. Build your inner man. Where are your desires to conquer? Like somebody, and maybe you know, and it's okay.

[45:18] It's great if you do. Someone tell me what's happening in Ezekiel 37. What's Ezekiel 37 about? It's the Valley of Dry Bones.

[45:28] It's a pretty notable passage. If you don't know whenever I just ask you, you've got work to do. God's Word is worth it. You need to conquer Ezekiel.

[45:41] You need to know the difference between Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Why are they very similar and why are they different? What is the emphasis of Luke versus Matthew? Why isn't that something that we pursued? We want to build our inner man so that we can do this great commission.

[45:55] So that the new ambitions and the heart desires of glorifying God are there. So that we can pursue that. Martin Luther, he said, I have so much to do today.

[46:06] I shall spend the first three hours in prayer. I have so much to do today. I must spend the first three hours in prayer. You give your mourning to the Lord.

[46:16] Build up your inner man and skip the digital dementia. Be done with it. Journal and dream and think about what God would have you do.

[46:28] And then do it. Execute it. One, I just want to say one more thing on this one. You build this stamina up by getting rid of distraction.

[46:41] Okay. And I, yeah, I should just do it because I don't need to fear man. Some of you are pursuing things like, I'm just like playing games all day long, digital stuff.

[46:52] And I just go, man, don't distract yourself to death. Like you, you can watch it. Like I watch, I deal with 20 year old dudes all the time that most of what I'm talking to them about is self-control.

[47:04] There's no accident that Paul in all of his lists are, is talking about self-control. So every guy that I watch with how much time they waste on the internet, how much time they spend gaming, spending time on TV, whatever it may be.

[47:17] It's like their horizon when they're 80 years old is just closing down. I'm just watching it in front of me. Because they're wasting their life.

[47:28] I'm like, you have a commission that Jesus, the God of the universe has given you. Get rid of it. Dream a new dream that has to do with the glory of God. So you have to build up your inner man.

[47:42] And that's not going to happen next week, guys. That's like years, years of effort and discipline and stewardship. And you build that inner man. And then you look back on a life that you're proud of.

[47:55] Not because you saved yourself. I'm not talking about justification. I'm saying, this was my living sacrifice. This is what I did with my life, God. You saved me. This is what I've given you.

[48:08] In college, I worked at a camp. Not too dissimilar from this one. And it was the first time I'd ever heard this. But one of the guys that ran the camp, he talked about in his college days, he threw his TV away.

[48:21] That was back in the day when there was like such a thing as a TV. And not just a smartphone. And it was just a novel idea to me. And I was like, yeah, that's what I'm going to do. I'm just like, forget it. I don't need a TV. And I want you guys to think about those sorts of things.

[48:35] Is there a challenge in that of like, could you pursue other things? It's not a comment of like, it's immoral to have a smartphone. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, think wiser than that.

[48:46] Are you wasting your life? Build up your intellectual man. Build up your intellectual man. Your culture says to waste your teens. Your culture says waste your 20s.

[48:57] Like you're just getting started in your 20s. Like and then like maybe get married in your late 30s and try to have a kid before you're 50 or whatever. There's problems with that. That's what our culture says.

[49:10] But what I think you should do instead is now pursue understanding what the history makers, and I mean Christian, right? History makers, world impactors have done.

[49:22] Read biographies. Build up your intellectual man. Read biographies of Amy Carmichael or Charles Spurgeon. Elizabeth Elliot, Adoniram Judson, David Brainerd.

[49:33] How did they live their life? You build up this intellectual person, and the core of that is Scripture.

[49:43] How does Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, how do they link together? Do you know the answer? Have you pursued it?

[49:55] You build up your intellectual man. You pursue this. You have questions. You're curious, and you go for it. I remember in reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John some years ago, the question came to me that's in line with this.

[50:10] I was just reading, and you're just walking with Jesus as he talks to people, as he confronts certain Pharisees or whatever. And I just had the thought, I love Jesus.

[50:22] I just love everything about him, like the way he treats people, the way he's gracious with those who are humble, the way he destroys the arguments of Pharisees or whatever it is. I just loved him.

[50:33] He's just so compelling. And the reality of that is that moment would have never been possible if God had not set me on a different trajectory years earlier to just start studying the books.

[50:46] So you build up that intellectual man, and it actually builds your affections for God. The last one, build your ambitious man. You could put a comma there. Build your ambitious man, or it could be, you know, these are things preachers think about, but build up your ambitions.

[51:03] Build up your ambitious man. So I wrote this when we were singing. Do you think we need more church camps or less church camps? Meaning this one.

[51:14] Wouldn't it be amazing if all the awesome, I mean, I love these guys who have put this camp on. If there were 50 of these, who's going to do it?

[51:29] You build up your ambitions. Sin will waste your life. Porn will kill your ambitions. Who's going to plant, here's my question.

[51:40] Who's going to plant a seminary in Saudi Arabia? Who's going to plant one in Hong Kong? Who's going to plant one in Casper, Wyoming?

[51:53] Where are your ambitions? What are your desires? Have you sat with the Lord long enough to hear something in your own soul connecting to him?

[52:05] Where are your ambitions? What's the body of work, so to speak, that you want to deliver over to him at the end? You begin that by feeding on Christ in the morning, strategizing, executing that strategy, and that doesn't start when you're 30.

[52:24] It starts now. It started yesterday. You are always living with the decisions you made in the past. That's what the beauty of the gospel is, is that he saves us from our sin.

[52:37] We cannot save ourselves, and we worship him for that. However, we don't want to just sit and be like, I'm so glad I'm not like that, but I don't have any ambition. It's like, no, Jesus said go.

[52:49] What's the going? What's the going for you? So my final question to you is just, do you yearn for, long for a grand vision? That Jesus, your Lord, has given you purpose in your life.

[53:03] He's told you to go. And the question is not whether you're supposed to go. It's sort of like where you're going. And how effective you are at that going. How effective you are at making disciples and planting churches and being a part of seeing Christ glorious in people who today are sitting in darkness.

[53:22] But in the future, he's going to use you to meet that future and share the gospel with those people and pull them into the church missional, that they then do that as well.

[53:34] Let me pray. Lord, I thank you for this passage. I pray that it would be useful to these young men, these young women. Lord, do not let them waste their life.

[53:49] Lord, you are worthy of more praise than we can muster. Lord, you are worthy of our worship.

[54:04] Lord, show us new and fresh affections for you. You are the most glorious being. I love you, God. Like, I want these students to love you.

[54:16] Make them ambitious for your commission. Give them a desire to see healthy churches strewn across this globe.

[54:27] And there are massive barriers in the way of that. And they need all their brain cells, all their hopes. Give them families like the Edwards. We need healthier churches.

[54:39] We need healthier missionaries. Bless us with it. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand and worship.

[54:50] Do you feel the world is broken? Do you feel the shadows deepen?

[55:08] Do you know that all the dark won't stop the light from getting through? Do you wish that you could see it all made new?

[55:29] Do you wish that you could see it all made new?

[55:59] Do you wish that you could see it all made new?

[56:29] Do you wish that you could see it all made new? Do you wish that you could see it all made new? Do you wish that you could see it all made new? Do you wish that you could see it all made new? Do you wish that you could see it all made new? Do you wish that you could see it all made new? Do you wish that you could see it all made new?

[56:39] Do you wish that you could see it all made new? Do you wish that you could see it all made new? Do you wish that you could see it all made new? Do you wish that you could see it all made new? Do you wish that you could see it all made new? Do you wish that you could see it all made new?

[56:51]  Do you wish that you could see it all made new? Do you wish that you could see it all made new?