The Church in Biblical Perspective
The Ekklessia: God's Church for the Ages –
His Mission—Our Mandate

Matthew 28:16-20

By Dr. Harry Reeder III

We will be looking at a very familiar text in Matthew 28. Matthew 28:16-20 says

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 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, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

The grass withers and the flower fades. God's Word abides forever and by His grace and mercy may His Word be preached for you.

It is the end of February and this is my favorite time of the year. I get so excited and exhilarated this time of year. I get renewed. Do you know why? It's in the papers. Pitchers and catchers report for spring training. This is it. I can smell that kangaroo leather right now of good baseball shoes and gloves but I'll give you another reason I love this time of year. I love our Mission's Conference. I get excited thinking about it. In the next couple of weeks Cindy and I will be praying about our Faith Promise giving for this next year along with you. There will be around 400 plus missionaries that will be here that we'll get to meet and I love to see what happens to them as they meet you. They get refreshed, renewed, and encouraged as they stay in your homes, spend time with you and eat meals with you. They love it when you come to their presentations during the Mission's Conference. I love to see them get encouraged.

We will pray for our missionaries but God will begin to lay upon our hearts specific missionaries and ministries for world evangelism that you will start praying about. I love this missions time of the year because we have the Faith Promise, the prayers, the missionaries and from this time of the year what short terms mission's trip will God be calling you to? Maybe God is calling you to the leadership ministry of the Global Outreach Ministry. Be praying about that. Is there a place for you there? Some of you God may be calling to cross cultural vocational world evangelism to be a missionary in that sense. Also during this time God gives us clarity about what we are here to do.

When you look at a football team you have these eleven athletes, hard chargers, disciplined, motivated, and what in the world brings these eleven such individuals together? They have a goal, a mission, and it's called a touchdown. Why do we have a Mission's Conference? Here's the deal. How do we score the touchdown and how can 4300 people move as one? How does that happen? What is the goal that we're all moving toward?

God's mandate is our mission. We have been looking at the vision for Briarwood. We celebrated for a whole year God's blessings which was our year of Jubilee. Now we are looking to the future and we are just building on that. What is our vision, our passion for the future? It's not just for our generation, but to do it in such a way that For Coming Generations, Briarwood desires to be a Christ-centered, Gospel-driven, Spirit-filled EQUIPPING CENTER or church where every member is a minister and a missionary. Why would we say 'every member a minister and a missionary'?

Let's back up a little further. This is our sixth study in moving through this vision – Christ centered, Gospel driven, Spirit filled equipping church. I want to remind you very briefly what we have done. Our first study had to do with what is the church. The church is God's church and it belongs to Jesus Christ – His church, our home. It is that simple. Jesus said, "I will build My church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

The second thing was, what is the first thing we want to learn about His church. It is Christ centered. Christ is the center, the sum, the circumference and the substance of all that we say, do and believe. We learned of the preeminence of Christ as Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. His preeminence is our passion.

Thirdly, was what is our message. We are Gospel driven. It is His Gospel that is our proclamation. The Gospel is the foundation and that's how we become a Christian. It is the formation which guides us in our Christian life. Everything we do in our Christian life is guided by the Gospel. It is the motivation of the Christian life also. Why do we do what we do? It is because we are obeying Jesus. Why do we obey Jesus? It is because we love Him. Why do we love Him? It is because He first loved us. That's the Gospel. The Gospel is the foundation, formation and motivation of the Christian life and you never go beyond the Gospel. You go deeper, higher, wider and further with the Gospel.

Then we had our fourth study. We went to His promise and our power. Did you know that God doesn't bother telling us to do something that we can do on our own? He only commands us what we can't do without Him. Without Him I can do nothing. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So what we have is God's promise. The Father has promised the Holy Spirit, as the gift from the Father, through the Son that enables a sinner first to come to Christ because we are dead in our sins. We are born again. It enables us to come to Christ. Then He empowers us so that we can know His Word and live His Word and mature and grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. So we have His promise which is the Holy Spirit and His Spirit is our power. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. So we are Christ centered, Gospel driven and Spirit filled.

Last week in our fifth study we said here is His church, our home, Christ centered, Gospel driven and Spirit filled, our Savior who is our life, now what are our lifelines? They are the Word and prayer. He speaks to us in and through the Word and we call upon Him in prayer. As we noted, Jesus had wireless long before we invented it and there is no place that you don't get a signal. I have a map from my cell phone provider and it says the color red is where you can get a signal. Praise the Lord. Most of the places where it was white I wasn't going to show up there anyway but there is no place you don't get a signal when you call upon Jesus and it never drops. Just call upon Him. We call upon Him in prayer so we are Word fed and Holy Spirit led through prayer. Our lifelines to Jesus are the Word and prayer. So the ministry of prayer and the Word are the intentionally God ordained lifelines that are designed and absolutely essential for us as Christians to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

So what? Why are we Christ centered, Gospel driven and Spirit filled? Why do we need the lifelines? So what, why? What is our mission? Our mission is His mandate. A man said to me one time, "Pastor, I go around to a lot of churches. I get their bulletins and see they have on there their mission statement. You people aren't very creative." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "All of you seem to have the same mission." I said, "Bingo! You got it! It is because we are all getting our mission from the same Book." In fact, we are all getting it from just about the same Scripture in Colossians 1, Ephesians 4, Acts 1 and Matthew 28. We will wordsmith it differently but churches that belong to Christ that are Christ centered, Gospel driven, Spirit filled, Word led and prayer led will pretty much have the same mission because we are all working from the same Bible and the same text that lead us and direct us.

Now what is it? Matthew 28:18-20 says 18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore (literally, 'As you are going…') and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. (We have to win the whole world? Yes, but I have good news.) And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." You can't pull this off on your own. There is no way that 'you' people can pull this off but I'll be with you and I'll lift you up on wings like eagles, Jesus says. Watch what I do with you and through you. I know this is a familiar verse but could you just ask yourself "Lord, would You give me just a sense of freshness here and help Harry to make it fresh for me?"

Most of my childhood I was raised in the Christian and Missionary Alliance church and they say to me, "You go to a PCA church and we all uphold the Westminster Confession of Faith and we do missions." The Christian Missionary Alliance says "We do missions and that's the big deal. It is all about missions. In this church we had five mission's conferences every year. There was no way you could get in our youth group and get through a year without going forward to go to missions. You have no idea how many verses are in the hymn "Have Thine Own Way." We would sing it until somebody from that youth group was engaged in missions. So I have heard about missions and I have heard this text preach so many times. Every visiting preacher seemed to always think we hadn't heard this text yet and so they would come in and preach it.

One man was pretty creative. He said, "Do you know what the most important word in this passage is? It is 'go.' I'm telling you 'go' is it. You take the 'go' out of God and you have 'd.' You take the 'go' out of good and you have 'od.' You take the 'go' out of gospel and you have 'spel.'" I was wondering how long he was going to be able to keep that up. I was just cheering him on.

The fact is 'go' in the text really means 'going' and it's one of three participles and that is the imperative verb. What are we looking at? We are looking at His mandate which is our mission. What is His mandate? The imperative verb is make disciples. Touchdown! We are to make disciples. What brings Briarwood together in Christ, Gospel driven, Spirit filled, prayer and the Word? It is that we are making disciples. That's what God has called us to do. Our command is to make disciples. That is our purpose.

I was reading this book where this man was riding along the interstate and he was traveling salesman. On the interstates it can get pretty monotonous and so he is looking around. He saw a farm with a big barn and there was something on the side of the barn. It caught his eye. On the side of the barn were all of these targets and on every target there was an arrow right on the bull's eye. There was a little kid standing there with a bow and arrow. The man thought I need to stop and watch this kid. He must be some kind of archer. I can vouch for the truthfulness of this story but I did read it. The man stopped and watched the kid pull the bow, strung the arrow, let it fly where it went into the side of the barn and then the kid went over and painted a target around it.

Sometimes I think that's the way we do church. We kind of just do something sometime and then paint the target. We do have the target which is to make disciples. The Bible says in Acts 13:36 "For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers…" In other words, David was here for the glory of God. God didn't exist to give David purpose. David existed to do God's purpose. What was God's purpose for David? When he finished, that was it. What is the purpose of Briarwood Presbyterian Church? It's not to have Briarwood Presbyterian Church. That's not our purpose. The purpose of Briarwood is not for you to be fulfilled. It is fulfilling but that's not its purpose. The purpose of Briarwood is not to give me a job. Briarwood is here to make disciples of all the nations. When we are done we will know it because Jesus will be back. When this Gospel has been preached to all the nations then I will come, He says. This is our job. This is what we are here for. This is His mandate, our mission.

So how do you do this? What is the strategy? Praise the Lord that the very text that gives us our purpose, God's mandate, our mission gives us our strategy. How do we do this? He tells us how to do it and He puts three participles together. In this text the 'you' is understood here and it is a plural 'you' and it is literally saying 'all that I have commanded you.' I will show you as it ought to be. Matthew 28:19 literally reads "As all ya'll are going, make disciples of all the nations." So what are we doing? We are going. Then what do you do? It goes on to say in that verse "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," and then what do you do? Matthew 28:20 says "teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."

All of us together – Christ centered, Gospel driven, Spirit filled, Word fed, prayer led – are to make disciples of all the nations. How? We do this by going, baptizing, and teaching. Going is referring to evangelism – taking the Gospel to lost people. We are to seek the lost to take the Gospel to them. He has called us to do this. What is a disciple? A disciple is a follower of Christ. How do people who are born, living for themselves, dead in their sins, be brought to life and quit following themselves to eternal condemnation and now start following Christ to eternal life? How does that happen? It is that you go to them. I am supposed to go to them. If you are a Christian today probably a number of people went to you. Some of them planted some of them watered and some of them cultivated but somebody went to you. What are we supposed to do? We are called to go out and take the Gospel to them because they are perishing. We are taking the life of Christ to them. Christ has commanded us to do this. We love Him and because we love Him we obey His commandments. His commandment is to make disciples.

How do I make disciples? Lord, I want you to go. I don't want you to wait for them to come to you. Periodically I'll just pick people up and I'll just bring them to you but I want you to go to them. You can all kinds of events to do this. We just had this marvelous Sportsman's Blast. We have this Bridge to Life training but all of that is meaningless if we personally aren't going to the lost. We said For Coming Generations, Briarwood desires to be a Christ-centered, Gospel-driven, Spirit-filled church, why? It is so that we're an equipping church where every member is a minister and a missionary. It's like my missionary alliance pastors used to say "You're either a missionary or a mission field." So if you know Jesus today you're no longer a mission field. What are you? You are a missionary to go to the mission field. Who is the mission field? The mission field is your children, your relatives, your co-workers, your neighbors, it is the lost. Some of us know we are to take it out there cross culturally and we'll be talking more about that in the next couple of weeks. But we are not going to do out there what we are not doing here, are we? We don't want to be a donut church where we are giving people money to go out there and do it while there is a big hole here. We want to send people out there to do what we're doing here and that's making disciples. God has called us here. Do you know how you get donut churches that send people out to do things that they are not doing? You get donut churches when you have donut Christians. You have donut Christians when you have donut preachers like I could be but I don't want to be. I don't want to send people out there when I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing here. We're supposed to be going as well as sending.

I have a confession to make to you all. I have one prejudice in my life that I refuse to repent of so do not send me any emails and call me to repentance. I'm going to confess it right now but I will not repent. I will tell you what it is. Here it is. When I get on an airplane I look to my left and that's called a cockpit. In the cockpit are the pilots and when I look to my left I want to see gray hair or no hair. Don't tell me not to be gender bias or age bias. It can be a woman and that's fine as long as she has gray hair or no hair. I do not want to look in there and say "Do you have a driver's license? Or have you flown before?" I want to know that they know their stuff. You know when that guy landed that plane in the Hudson River it didn't surprise me when he came out with little hair and gray hair for someone to pull something off like that.

I do remember when that planed landed in the Hudson River and I know some of you are not old enough to remember but there was also another plane that crashed in the water when I was in college and that was when there were a lot of hijackings going on. This particular plane was hijacked but they hijacked a plane that didn't have enough gas to get where they wanted to go so they are out over the ocean when it ran out of gas. This is a true story. When the flight attendant realized it she stood and made the announcement "As you know we have been hijacked, we're not going to get to the airport they want to get to so we're going to have to land, crash, in the ocean. We are going down." Before she could hardly finish a young man by the name of Andrew Meacon got up and took the microphone from her and said "Having heard this I don't think many of us will survive this so I want to tell you all about Jesus Christ and how in the next few moments you can go to eternal life." He shared the Gospel and then said "I don't have time to get around to all of you so all of you who would like to pray to commit your life to Jesus I'll lead you, just raise your hand." Twenty six people raised their hands.

You may be thinking "Harry how do you know that many raised their hands?" The flight attendant was one of six who survived and that's what she said. He prayed with those to receive Christ and in the next few moments they slipped into eternity. When I heard that the first time the person I heard it from said, "Would you be ready to do that if you're in a plane that's going down?" I often pray that you would and I would.

Here's the real lesson. Every plane is going down. Everybody you meet is headed right now to eternity and they will either meet it in Christ or they will meet the judgment of Christ and you can speak to them right now. So we are going. Secondly, we are not only going in our strategy they are baptizing. Have you ever noticed that there are twenty two baptismal events in the New Testament with believers and their household? What does it say? It says that they were baptized and added to the church. That means they were enfolded. They became a part of the body of Christ so when the church got together in the large group Sunday morning they were there. When the church got together with focus on a Sunday evening they were there. When the church got together in smaller groups like congregational communities they were there. They were the Ekklessia. They were the gathered together ones. They had become a part of the family of God. The family had gone and shared Christ. They came to Christ and now they were enfolded. They and their households were enfolded into the body of Christ. They were loved, cared for and prayed for. They were challenged and admonished. All of those one another things were taking place because they were in the body of Christ.

We are not only followers of Christ but we're also in relationship with Christ and each other. So we become a part of the family of God and God calls us into that relationship. It is expressed in a large group, a congregational community, a small group and all of those things are taking place in relationships. There is one level that takes place in something like this. There's another level that takes place in one of those congregational communities and then there's another level that takes place in a small group. We are then loving one another and caring for one another.

In other words, when you come to Christ you are embedded into His church. You become members of the body of Christ. You become part of the family of God. You have to come to Christ personally but you don't live for Christ privately. You live in relationship with His people and its utter arrogance to try to do anything else. It is utter arrogance or indifference. When it's arrogance it's the attitude of I don't need the body of Christ and Jesus was wrong. I'm one of those hands that don't need the arm or it is indifference to others who need you. It is one of the two. We need that accountability and encouragement as were enfolded into the body of Christ.

I know it's not easy to love one another. We would much rather come in and find a good pew, hear a good sermon and I'll slip back out. You are not allowed to do that as a believer. You are enfolded into the body of Christ. I'm not saying it's easy to be a part of the body of Christ because I know it's hard. You may say "Pastor there are just some people I don't like" and they probably don't like you. That's the deal. You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family. The only time that happens is with an adoption situation, otherwise your family is the one you have. God gave you that family, didn't He? God has called you to love your brother, your sister, your father and your mother and you honor them also. You choose your friends but you don't choose your family.

You don't choose God's family because God chose His family. We are supposed to love them. Guess what? They even have to love us. Oh the joy when you see that. One time I was pastoring in Charlotte and I received a phone call at 2 o'clock in the morning from this lady. She had just come to Christ and become a part of church. I received the news that she was dying of pancreatic cancer. They were taking her in for emergency surgery and she probably wouldn't make it. Can you come to the hospital? I got in my car, stopped and picked up an elder and we got to the hospital. I was going to tell the elder to go pray with her husband Jack but as we passed the waiting room six men at 2 o'clock in the morning were already in there praying with Jack. I went into the prep room before surgery to pray with her and I had to get in line the six women who were the wives of the six men were in there praying with her. That was their small group, their discipleship group. She survived the operation and her husband Jack became a deacon. The first pulpit in the new church at Christ Covenant, Jack built with his own hands as a statement of thanksgiving to Christ for the body of Christ. Relationships – they don't just happen. You have to be intentional. We are to be speaking the truth in love with each other.

Another instance was a woman named Susan. Her and her husband had just moved there from another town. They didn't know anybody. They joined the church and within the first month they were there they got into a small group. I received a phone call from Charles and he said "My wife just got sick and it looks like it's serious. We don't have anybody so could someone from the small group come and help her?" The leader of the small group called in two families who went over and took care of the children. The ambulance came and Charles and Susan went on to the hospital. They got the diagnosis and put her in a room and there were sixteen people waiting for them to pray with them.

Relationships – where God's people have enough confidence that they stay the course with each other. It doesn't mean you don't have parameters or speak the truth pointedly, lovingly and clearly to each other but you stay the course. That's what happens when we are enfolded into the body of Christ. We're not only going in evangelism to make disciples and baptizing so that people are added and enfolded into the body of Christ but then there is a third thing.

Thirdly, we then start teaching. Notice what it says in Matthew 28:20, "teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (ya'll)." That is equipping them so that they are trained and can learn to think Christianly. They have a lifestyle that comes from a life love that is then directed by a life view. They think with a Christian mind. We don't have Christian minds anymore. We have unbelievable access to information. You can Google and find out anything in five seconds. We have all kinds of facts but we don't have people who can think any longer and when we do think we don't think God centered and Christ centered because we haven't been trained. The Christian life is not intuitive but it is based upon learning the Word of God to think Christianly so that I look at my money and realize "Oh a tithe and an offering, what's more is actually what is left if I don't do that." The Bible tells me that.

The Bible tells me here is the Lord's Day, give it to Me and watch what I do with the other six days. Use it for yourself and watch what happens to your life. That just doesn't make sense but that's what I'm telling you. How do you live your life? Leadership is not controlling people, its loving people. Leadership is not manipulating people its motivating people. Leadership is not taking people's lives for your purposes but laying down your life. It's not lording it over but serving. I'm telling you that and the world will tell you something else. You have to learn to think differently, Christianly.

I want to tell you about a judge. He was a magistrate of a court in which a serial murder was brought before him. He was convicted hands down with no doubt about it. The verdict came back and the penalty in that state for a serial murder, premeditated was the death penalty. He was a Christian judge. Was he right to administer justice as a Christian judge? Yes he was. This man was also a member of the church. The church has a prison ministry. Isn't the church supposed to have prison ministries? This judge was a part of the prison ministry and guess what prison he went to? It was where the man was sentenced to death was. This judge went to death row and led this man to Christ. He also started discipling him and brought his son with him as he did this because he read the Bible where it says "Fathers teach your sons when you rise up and walk by the way side. Take them into your life" and he did that. There were seemingly contradictory things but he learned how to think Christianly and work his way through the issues of life.

We have to from the pulpit, the congregational community lectern, and the small group embrace and prioritize all of those things so that you and I can be equipped and equip others. In other words, I believe this text is saying all of us need to not only be in the large group for preaching and teaching for faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of Christ but we need to be in those small groups just like those disciples were so that we can hold one another accountable, build relationships, be discipled, taught and go even deeper with interactions and questions. I think you ought to be discipling somebody, every one of you. You might say "I'm a new Christian" well then find a newer Christian. You say "I may lead them astray" well I didn't finish. You not only need to be discipling but you and I ought to be discipled so that we don't get off track.

We are to be a disciple and be a discipler. We are to be equipping and be equipped. Where does that bring us? How do we know when we have scored? The text tells us. Here is a question. When I look at this text what are we supposed to do? Make disciples. If we're supposed to make disciples, how are we supposed to make disciples of all the nations? I want you going, baptizing, and equipping. I want you going to evangelize, baptizing by enfolding and teaching to equip. How do we know when we have done it well? Who is giving us this command? Jesus. Had Jesus been doing any discipling? Yes. Who had He been discipling? He had been discipling the eleven He is talking to. How long? He did it for three years. If Jesus is doing what He is telling us to do it would seem to me what those disciples did would be our objective, right?

Matthew 28:16-17 says 16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him… Touchdown! Go as a follower of Christ. Enfold them into the body of Christ. Equip them and you have a touchdown for they become worshipers in gathered worship and in lives of worship. Romans 12:1 says "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." Life becomes worship. Not only do we prioritize gathered worship but now we are about to scatter so what do we do when we scatter? We worship. All of life is worship. Every piece of life is worship. When they see Christ – Christ centered, Gospel driven, Spirit filled - what do they do? Life becomes worship.

According to the last part of Matthew 28:17 some of them doubted. Are we perfect? No, we are frail, human sinners saved by grace that falter time and time again therefore the One who has brought us, enfolded us is equipping us and because the Gospel is true in our life we keep coming back and recalibrating and here is where we want to get to. Life is worship. Let me paraphrase John Piper who says it much better than me. Do you know why we are having a mission's conference, Bridge to Life training, evangelism, enfolding, and equipping? Our mission exists because worship doesn't. Wherever there is worship, mission is accomplished. That the praise of God would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Whether I eat or drink or whatsoever I do I do all to the glory of God. God, liberate me from idolatry, narcissism and set me free so that it is all about You and when that happens, homerun! That is a better metaphor than a touchdown for how do you get to first base? You evangelize. How do you get to second base? You do that by enfolding. How do you get to third base? You equip. How do you cross the plate? You worship by giving God glory in life gathered in worship and giving God glory throughout life when we scatter from worship.

So where are we going? Here is our takeaway. Our takeaway is the one we have had for fifty years and now we are moving into our fifty first year. It is the Briarwood mission. For God's glory, Briarwood is committed to EQUIPPING CHRISTIANS to worship God and reach Birmingham to reach the world for Christ. Who? Briarwood. What do we do? We worship God and reach people. How? We do it through discipleship and equipping Christians. Why? It is for God's glory.

All of us here recognize if a church is Christ centered, Gospel driven, Spirit filled, Word fed and prayer led, it will be a missionary church with missionaries in it, all over the place. What we sometimes don't realize is that going on the mission brings us back to the Gospel, Christ and the Holy Spirit. I know its Christ, the Gospel and the Holy Spirit that leads us on the mission which is an unassailable fact but it's also an unstoppable reality. If you and I stay on the mission we'll keep coming back to Christ, prayer, the Word, the Gospel and the Holy Spirit. So let's stay on this mission.

I want to ask two questions and then I'll close in prayer. My first question is where are you? People have come to you, have you come to Christ? Are you a follower of Christ? Have you been enfolded into the body of Christ? Are you participating or are you playing drive by church? The second question is, are you being equipped and are you equipping others? Is God moving us sinful, frail, faltering but our heart desire is to worship God with our lives because that is what has to happen to us for it to go from us around the world.

This last week someone asked me, "Harry, Coptic Christians? Are there Christians in Egypt?" "Yes, there are actually 250 evangelical churches in Egypt." Do you know how they got there? There was a man named Philip and he went. He won an Ethiopian eunuch, he was baptized and brought into the body of Christ and from him came the church in North Africa. "Harry, my ancestors were French and they were believers and they were part of this French Huguenot church." You can thank Mr. Calvin who trained 1300 pastors and sent them to France and most of them died. "Harry I'm from South America." Here is how the Gospel got to Brazil. At that same Geneva they trained 125 people in 1565 and sent them to Brazil with the Gospel. "Harry I've seen the Gospel go to China and everywhere."

It happened out there because it was happening somewhere and by God's grace may it happen here in us and through us so that we go out there. "Harry I know there are great Calvin's, Knox's and Taylor's but that's not me." Here is Peter and God uses him for 3,000. Where did Peter come from? Andrew. You may not be a Peter in the Great Commission but you may be Andrew who wins Peter. Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them, and teach them. "Harry it seems impossible." It is but He'll be with us to the end of the age. Let's pray.

Prayer:

Father, thank You for the time we could be together in Your Word. Thank You for the privilege to see Your mandate which is why we are here. We are not here for us. We are not a monument. We are not a museum. We are a movement of the Gospel through the power of the Spirit, the preeminence of Christ, to make disciples from Birmingham to the world. O God, thank You that we can be a part of what counts for forever, I pray in Jesus' Name, Amen.