{"id":3574,"date":"2020-05-04T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/?p=3574"},"modified":"2020-05-04T06:58:32","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T11:58:32","slug":"making-disciples-the-mission-of-our-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/making-disciples-the-mission-of-our-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Disciples – The Mission of Our Church"},"content":{"rendered":"
Matthew 28:16-20<\/span><\/div>\n
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”<\/span><\/div>\n
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INTRO:<\/span><\/div>\n
This week, we are going to remind ourselves of the overarching purpose of our church. This passage has come to be known as the \u201cGreat Commission.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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There are three things of particular importance to notice before we begin to examine the text tomorrow.  <\/span><\/div>\n
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1.  Jesus, the risen Lord, is now meeting with His disciples for the last time before He ascends intro heaven. While some of the less than closest followers were still doubting the reality of a risen Savior, the disciples bowed down and worshipped Him. <\/span><\/div>\n
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This worship is the recognition of His deity, the adoration of Jesus as the Son of God. Only after the resurrection did the disciples engage in this form of adoration; for all the Jews were averse to worshipping a creature; and so the act here reported is proof of their faith in Jesus as God exalted over all creation.<\/span><\/div>\n
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2.  This experience happens following the disciples greatest failure of their lives. Only a few days earlier, all of his disciples had disowned and denied the Savior.  <\/span><\/div>\n
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As he gathers them together, they were most likely expecting him to give them a real tongue thrashing. They probably were expecting Him to say something like this:<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cThanks a bunch, boys!  I really appreciate the way you stood up for me the other day. Why, only Pete stayed close enough by for me to even see him turn coward. The rest of you gutless wanders turned and ran the moment you saw me in trouble. Now how in the world do you expect me to use a bunch of losers like you to win the world?\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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But much to their surprise, not only did the Lord show compassion for them, but He actually told them to go out and conquer the world.  Of course, it would not be by their power but by the Lord\u2019s power that they would do such mighty deeds.<\/span><\/div>\n
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What does this say to us who so often feel we can\u2019t do anything for God, or who so often, in our own way, deny him? <\/span><\/div>\n
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What He says to the disciples, He says to frail normal old everyday people like us.<\/span><\/div>\n
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3.  What Jesus said here was some of the very last words He ever spoke to His disciples. And when you are leaving someone whom you love and have responsibility for, your parting words will not be ones of trivia but of great importance. And so, tomorrow we began to examine these most important words of our Lord.<\/span><\/div>\n\n\n

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Matthew 28:16-20 16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  19 Therefore go and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3574"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3576,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3574\/revisions\/3576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}