All Authority
Our Father in heaven, we ask that as you have lead us all the way from new birth to this place and you will lead us safely home, we pray that you now lead us in these moments together that we might have receptive hearts of faith to receive your Word, the Word that will first be proclaimed to our ears and the Word that believers here will take and taste and touch and swallow. May we feed upon you oh Christ and may you come dwell among us through your Word we pray. Amen.
Our text this morning is Matthew chapter 28. The last paragraph of Matthew 28, I dare say that if you have been in the church for a long time this may be the text that you have heard more sermons on than anything else, even though psalm 23 is famous and John 3:16, yet because this is the missions text and churches have missions weeks and missionaries, I am sure most of us have heard many, many sermons. In fact, I have preached on this many times. The sermon I am giving you this morning is not one of the sermons I have preached many times and in fact you’ll see though we certainly could take this and make a great missionary sermon that’s not the gist that I want you to see from this text this morning.
We read in verse 16 through the end of the book. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them and when they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted 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.”
I was on a plane again this week doing a conference in DC, just a short flight once you get up in the air and I do a fair amount of traveling as some of you do, and it’s a good time to read, it’s a good time to take a nap, and when the nap is done and maybe it’s too bumpy to read or get work done, I will open up my iPad or my phone and watch one of the same movies that I’ve seen a hundred times because they’re the same movies that I have on there. Actually, a set, there’s a whole bunch of Mission Impossibles and then there’s Star Wars, the original, not the, ya know the real ones, and then Lord of the Rings, yes thank you, we’ll come back to Lord of the Rings. The Mission Impossible movies, and I know there’s a new one coming out, often end, you know it’s very intense the whole way through and then they end with a short wrap up scene, it’s often a little cheesy and they’re sitting around having drinks, they have a laugh, share a joke, the last two minutes the calm before the storm and maybe it sets things up that they’re all gonna be ready for another adventure. It’s just a nice few minutes tacked on at the end that sends you on your way knowing the good guys won and they’ll be ready for their next mission should they choose to accept it.
Sometimes the last paragraph in a book or the last scene of a movie is not all that important. You could skip it and you really wouldn’t miss anything about the great significance and excitement in that book or in that movie. And then there are books, movies, stories whose last scene or last paragraph or last words are absolutely essential for understanding what the whole story has been about. The Gospel of Matthew is like that. Here’s what I read from one commentator this week; these last five verses are the key to understanding Matthew’s whole Gospel. That is not an exaggeration. These last five verses are key to understanding the whole Gospel that Matthew is telling. Now we think of this as The Great Commission text and it is, but this sermon is not going to be mainly about The Great Commission or at least not The Great Commission itself. You can’t not talk about it, it’s right there, but I don’t want you to think that The Great Commission is some nice added extra missionary text at the end of the book, that if everything’s kind of all done, all of the big stuff is taken care of and then as a nice little postscript it’s like Jesus says, alright everybody huddle up, huddle up, huddle up, come on, I’m here but I’m going soon, I want you to tell people about it. Alright go team and off they go. Well of course it’s something kind of like that except not really because this paragraph is not just a nice postscript where Jesus says, now start telling people about it, this last paragraph ties up all the big themes in Matthew’s Gospel and tells us what this whole book has been about. We haven’t been in a long series, Mathew, we looked at a series of parables, and then the resurrection and then post resurrection, so it’s been a relatively short series and you don’t have the whole book over years, but you’ll see, I hope this morning, how the major themes that have been woven throughout this story are all coming together in this final paragraph.
Now look at The Great Commission in verses 18, 19, and 20, particular 19 and 20. You may have heard before, and this is true and important and helpful, that there is one main imperative and there are three participles. Participles, think “ING” words, no they can be translated as imperatives, participles can have an imperatival force, but you may have noticed before or had it pointed out to you that the one imperative technically as the Greek constructs it is, not go but make disciples, and then the three supporting participles going, baptizing, and teaching. Now it’s right, they all have a force of a command that the church sends out and people go, and they teach and they baptize, but that central command there is to make disciples. You may have seen that before with those four verbs or verbal constructs. What you may not have seen before, in addition to those four words, there are four alls, A L L S, four alls in The Great Commission. It’s the Greek word pas or depending on its declension pasa, pan, pantos, but it’s the same word and it shows up four times in verses 18 through 20. All authority, there’s the first one, all nations, there’s the second, all that I have commanded you, there’s the third and the fourth one is a little invisible in our translation, but it says pasas tas hemeras, all the days unto the end of the age translated there and it’s an idiom for always, but literally in that word always is the construction all the days. So those four alls, you see them, all authority, all nations, all that I have commanded you, all the days. Those four alls tie up the major themes, symbols and big ideas in the Book of Matthew.
We’re gonna come back to those in just a bit, but in order to see how these four alls function within this paragraph, we need to go up one more verse, verse 17 because this is a very surprising statement and the four alls not only summarize the Book of Matthew, but they give a response to what is surprising to us in verse 17. “When they saw him, they worshiped”, now that could be surprising, they worshiped, they fell at their feet, but this is more than just paying homage to someone that they respect, this is the full force of worship. We know throughout Scripture someone receives worship who is not to receive worship, very bad things are about to happen. If anyone wants to worship you, you’re in big trouble, so you tell them, cut it out, but Jesus receives it because they understand. Now they have much to learn, they have not received the Holy Spirit, but they understand that this man, this Jesus, now remember He’s a man that looks like them, sounds like them, has hair like them, spoke like them, from the same area as them, and now they realize that He’s a man, but He’s more than a man. They fall on their faces, and they worship. So, this story, Matthew’s Gospel is not mainly about teaching you to live the Jesus way or getting you to copy Jesus and follow His instructions, yes we’re gonna see, obey all that He commands, but it is to drive you to a place where you worship. So that’s surprising, but the second half of verse 17 might be even more surprising. “When they saw Him they worshiped, but some doubted.”
All the times I’ve preached on this text or heard this sermon preached I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a sermon on that particular phrase, “But some doubted.” First, we need to establish, well who is the they in the first half of 17, well that’s the eleven disciples. Verse 16, the eleven disciples, why eleven, not twelve, cuz Judas is gone. The eleven disciples wen to Galilee to the mountain Jesus had told them so there they are, they saw Him, they worship, but some, it is unclear from the grammar itself whether the some is some of the eleven or the some might refer to a larger group of people that are there in addition to the eleven and you could make a case for either though I think the some refers to some others, that there is a larger group here besides just the eleven disciples because many times in the Gospel we’ve seen that there’s a larger group, he sends out the seventy, there’s a hundred and twenty, there is a larger group of those who have been in the entourage, have been following Jesus. We see back in 28:10 Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid, go and tell my brothers”, which again could be just the disciples, the eleven or it could be the larger collection of people who have been following me, “Go tell those brothers to come meet me in Galilee.” Most of the eleven had seen Jesus twice already if we take this to be at the very end, shortly before the ascension, Thomas maybe once, Peter probably three times, the eleven most of them twice. It’s hard to imagine that they still would have had doubts about what they were witnessing. Thomas for example, Doubting Thomas, when he saw Jesus and he put his fingers in his hand and in his side, then he says, “My Lord and my God”, his doubts were overcome. So it seems hard to believe that of the eleven some of them would have been doubting, but if there is a larger group, perhaps some of them seeing Jesus for the first time, it makes sense, in fact many commentators think that this may be what Paul alludes to in 1 Corinthians 15 and He appeared to more than five hundred witnesses at one time. Well, when did that happen, well this might be that time. If this is a larger group of several hundred disciples, there with the eleven on the mountain because He’s in His old stomping grounds where He taught the people many time in the countryside of Galilee and large crowds would come to Him and so now a crowd perhaps has gathered again and some are not quite ready.
We must not be too hard on them, you can understand they might be thinking, well is this really Jesus, guys is this really happening. He is the messiah, He looks familiar, but there’s something different about Him. Remember Thomas didn’t get it right away, the men on the road to Emmaus didn’t understand it right away, the disciples in the boat seeing Jesus on the shore, they didn’t get it right away and don’t hear in this word doubt, a kind of arms crossed scoffing cynicism, some are worshiping and some are saying, pft, I don’t know about this Jesus guy. That’s not what doubting here means. Some translate it, but some hesitate, and I think that’s the sense. This word in Greek is only used one other time in the New Testament and if you had time to really think about it, you might come up with the other time when this word is used. It’s used in Matthew 14 when Peter walks out to Jesus on the water and he starts to sink and Jesus asks him, here’s the only other time this word is used in the New Testament, this same word, why did you doubt. That’s not a scoffing cynical Peter; that’s a Peter with great faith. He got out of the boat, but he wasn’t sure, he hesitated, and in that story from Matthew chapter 14:33, he says, “Those in the boat worshiped him”, so we have the same juxtaposition in Matthew 14 worship and doubt just like we have here, worship and doubt. Hesitation.
Like do you ever wait in a long line for a rollercoaster, I used to love rollercoasters, my head and my stomach didn’t put up with it very well and, it’s a young kids game to wait outside for an hour to just have your stomach plummet for 45 seconds, but enjoy Carowinds, the asphalt is lovely in July. But you wait and you see it and the thrills and the excitement and all your friends are there, and whoo, this is gonna be great and look at the drop and aw you’re gonna put your hands up and then you get there and then there’s some in your group that wait in the extra long line because they wanna sit in the first car, they wanna have the best experience, they’re gonna put their hands up, they are ready to worship and some doubted. And sometimes you have to see the two people that have to be lead down the stairs of shame, they really hesitate and just said, I can’t do it, I got this close, but most people, some are in there, woo, some are hesitant but they get in the car. So, these disciples, this is not the end of the road for them. This little line here in verse 17 should be both an encouragement and a challenge to us. It’s an encouragement if you’ve ever had that experience in your faith or maybe even right now, maybe you’ve been learning a lot about Christ, you’ve been learning from this church or from a book or a Bible study and other people seem to be ready to run ahead and you still, you’re not sure yet. Well, you have company here. There’s a kind of doubting that says, prove it to me, eh, the sort of person who asks questions just to delay having to make a decision, the person who’s asking questions as if to say, I’m not interested, and then there’s the person who says, I wanna get there, but I’m still, I’ve got questions. So, there’s a comfort here, but there is a challenge because sooner or later, and you don’t know when the end will come, none of us do. You have to either join with those who are bowing before the Lord Jesus or no matter how many good questions you have, you remain standing, doubting, unwilling to submit yourself to Christ. They worshiped but some doubted. And these four alls that we’re now coming to not only summarize the Book of Matthew, but I think they’re there to help those who were the some, the doubters, the hesitant, the I’m here and I see the rollercoaster is about to take off and I’ve been waiting in line and my friends are getting in the car and I’m not sure I want to do it now. These four alls are to help you get in the car.
Four alls. One, all authority. This has been a theme throughout the book. Again, if we had been going through this series for a long time you would have this in your head. At the end of Matthew chapter 7, The Sermon on the Mound you remember, greatest sermon ever preached, and what do the scribes and the elders and the leaders, what do they, what do they marvel or rather what do the crowds marvel about Jesus, what was it about His preaching. You remember, they didn’t way, and they marvel because He was so funny or even He could tell such a good story, He had powerful illustrations, He was so loving and gentle and unanxious, they marveled because He spoke like one who had authority. It’s always the mark of great preaching, it comes through different personalities, but if you don’t preach with authority then it offends people, interesting talk, he preached unlike anyone they had heard. Such authority they are left wondering, just like later when He calms the storm, who is this, the wind and the waves obey Him. It’s a growing theme, especially in Matthew, Mark and Luke. The people are wondering now who is this, the demons listen to Him, the wind listens to Him, the waves listen to Him, who does that? You know you’re in a parking lot and there’s a car making that terrible sound that it’s alarm is going off and everyone is thinking whose is that and you’re thinking that and then you realize it’s yours and you just have to get your key out and just bleep bleep, stops, but yeah you’ve got the fob and you do it and there it is, oops sorry and it stops. Who does that with the weather, Jesus. Wind, waves, storm, enough, They’re wondering who is this man.
Matthew 9, the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins and they wonder, no only God can forgive sins and Jesus must have been thinking, yeah you’re tracking, and so this authority, it’s not the first time Jesus has exercised authority, it’s not the first time He’s had authority, but it is now explicitly expanded to include heaven and earth and notice the language, all authority has been given to me. Who gave it to Him, it’s a gift from His heavenly Father. This is His royal enthronement about to take place to sit at the right hand of God the Father almighty. God the Father has given to his beloved son all authority and he remembers, so said these four alls are tying up all of these themes from the Book of Matthew. Do you remember someone earlier in the Book of Matthew who tried to offer Jesus all authority, namely the devil, it was one of his temptations. I’ll give you all this, just worship me. Jesus refused. Such a gift is not the devil’s to give. You do realize this with your sin and temptation. The devil is a liar, he is a deceiver, and he promises you what he cannot deliver. He promises you that that picture, that fling, that bitterness, that pride, that vanity, he promises you it’s going to make you happy. I will give you all these things, just worship me. He cannot do it, he cannot deliver on those promises, he’s a liar, but now the triumphant Christ after his resurrection is given this gift, granted unto Him, this authority, all authority which means there is nothing that the Lord Jesus cannot ask of you. There’s nothing that He cannot ask of you. We don’t tend to like the word authority, it’s not a word if you here, I’m here with the authorities. You don’t like authority and yet authority is meant to be God’s gift to us. The answer to bad authority is not no authority, but good authority. To have good pastors or elders, to have good police officers and law enforcement, to have good magistrates, to have a good army, to have good parents, to have a good boss exercising authority and here we have the Lord Jesus who is all goodness given unto him all authority.
Second all, verse 19, all nations. One of the strange things you find in the Gospels, now it’s especially in Mark, but it’s also in Matthew is that during His ministry Jesus is often telling people not to speak of Him. Sometimes called the Messianic Secret. Don’t tell anyone yet because people are getting healed, people are having demons cast out, and naturally they wanna go and start telling everybody about this amazing thing that they saw and that happened to them and yet it’s curious that Jesus would scoff and say, no, no, no don’t say anything yet, because He knows, well one, they’re not ready to make disciples, they don’t have the spirit, and two, He’s not ready to die, His time has not yet come. So, there is a moment in salvation history where this good news is mainly restricted to one people. Remember the story in Matthew and it seems sort of odd that Jesus would say it, almost unfeeling and mean of Him to that Canaanite woman, oh no we don’t give bread to the dogs, you’re not a Jew. Well even the dogs get some crumbs under their master’s table, isn’t that true. She was a woman of great faith, I think Jesus as testing her, but he was saying at this time this is mainly a message for the Jews. Now you could be incorporated and that’s what’s happening here with the inbreaking of the kingdom. It was a come and see message, but now it is a go and tell message. Everything gets reversed whereas Jesus has often been saying not yet, not yet, don’t say, don’t say, just let them come and now He says, go. It makes sense. The first two alls, universal authority implies a universal mission. Where should we go with the Gospel, well everywhere that Jesus has authority. Think about how the Gospel is often portrayed in the Gospels. It’s first of all a message that says come, come unto me all who are heavy laden. Let the little children come unto me. Anyone who comes to me I will in no way cast out or the psalmist says come let us worship and bow down. That’s the first step, but that’s not the last step. Now there is a go, go. Now certainly there is a most explicit obvious go, these disciples who will be sent out, missionaries, the word missionary, mission from the Latin which means to send just like Apostle is the Greed word to send, so to send out ones and we send out people in a formal way to go out and to go to those places that have little to no access to the Gospel, but all of us by implication as the church of Jesus Christ have a going aspect to our ministry, come, come, come and now He says go.
Two, all nations, ta ethne. You can hear our English word ethnicities. Ta ethne which is probably, we hear nation and we may think, well it’s a country that’s got a president and a congress and it’s got a border and it’s got an army, but nation was less developed then, probably the closest you can get in the ancient world to thinking a nation is thinking a language, thinking revelation, every tongue, tribe, language, nation. Overlapping terms, but they’re all kind of getting the same bullseye, a language, a people, a nation, a tribe, go to all of those, all the ethne of the world. Now we’re so familiar with this and many of us have heard umpteen sermons on this. Some of us have given our money generously, given our sons and daughters, given our lives to this great commission, this ta ethne, all nations, but put yourself back there and think, what a crazy site this must have been. These are relatively speaking, these are nobodies, in the middle of nowhere, in hicksville middle east with a rabbi, 30-something year old rabbi on a mountain, they’re not in Rome, they’re not even in Jerusalem here, they’re not in some major city and they’re bowing down before him and maybe there’s the eleven or as I’ve argued, maybe there’s as many as several hundred, but it’s still a relatively small group. They’re out there in the middle of nowhere and they say, okay you’re leaning in Jesus, it’s amazing, we love you, we worship you, you’ve risen. Okay there’s some of us here in Galilee, now what, what are our marching orders, what’s the mission and He says, everywhere. Really, if you had a startup company and you did a leadership retreat and the boss came down and he said, I’m just passing out or you’ll see on the screen just, we had $400,000 of revenue last year, just our long-term strategy is that this would go everywhere and we would be the dominant, you mean just like in our county, no I mean the universe. Say, we’re gonna step back, get my stock option now. But Jesus has the audacity, and to think about the provincial life that Jesus of Nazareth had lived. The distance between the Sea of Galilee in the north and Jerusalem in the south is about 70 miles, roughly the distance between Charlotte and Winston-Salem. His whole life, except for one little excursion into Egypt when he was a baby, so he’s between these two poles and not quite as far east and west, he’s just in this little orbit, Charlotte to Winston-Salem, his whole life and he has the audacity now to say in this little out of the way place in sort of the hinterlands of the Roman Empire, he says, my authority knows no bounds and so my mission knows no bounds.
It’s important that Jesus takes them back to Galilee. Now we think of this as right before the ascension but the ascension, you can read it in Luke and in Acts, the ascension takes place just outside of Jerusalem, Bethany, Mount of Olives. Here they’re up north in Galilee. Now this is the last thing that we read so it’s right to think about ascension, but somehow, they’ve gotta travel back to Jerusalem before the ascension. This is up north in Galilee. Why did Jesus want to give these instructions in Galilee? There’s been in Matthew’s Gospel a movement north to south, and now crucified in Jerusalem, risen in Jerusalem. You remember we’ve had this theme about going up to Galilee but partly it’s because they come back home, they’ve come full circle, they come back to the Shi’ar, but it’s not just that, think about Galilee, why Galilee. In Matthew 4 at the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, so this is at the launch of Jesus’ ministry we read quoting Isiah 9:2, “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordon, Galilee of the gentiles, the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light. Galilee was Galilee of the gentiles, Galilee was associated in that messianic prophecy from Isaiah as that place where the people living in darkness would see a great light so of course Jesus says we’re gonna go back and we’re gonna launch this thing, I’m gonna give this speech here in Galilee. And think too about the very beginning of the Gospel that I did preach on not long ago in Matthew chapter 1. You know it starts with a genealogy, the Book of the Genealogy or the Greek word there, ganesaos, the genesis, the origin, the beginning, the Book of the Genesis of Jesus Christ, you remember that genealogy wants to make two important connections, the Son of David and the Son of Abraham. Now we’re coming to the Son of David connection. This is the Son of Abraham connection. Why was it so important to establish in Matthew chapter 1, he’s the Son of Abraham, because we’re gonna get to Matthew chapter 28 and just as God had promised to Abraham all those years ago, “I will make your name great, I will make you a great nation and through you all the peoples on earth shall be blessed.” That’s what it means to be the messianic fulfillment as the Son of Abraham, that He is going to bring about the fulfilment of that great missionary promise to Abraham. All nations, all that I have commanded you.
So I said, we’ve seen in the chapters previously this language that we probably missed before that Jesus made arrangements ahead of time for his disciples to meet, there was a rendezvous point, we’re not told what it was, but they’re from there, they had been there, they had teaching, there was probably a very familiar place and mountain and you can just say I want you to go and meet me and they would know, or they would go to the general area and he would find them. Matthew 26:32, “After I am raised up I will go before you to Galilee.” And then we see the same thing in chapter 28:7, “Go quickly, tell His disciples He is going before you to Galilee. Verse 10, Jesus said, “Do not be afraid, go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee”, so they have been given instructions, that’s the rendezvous point. You’re gonna go back up, take a few days, go back to Galilee and I will meet you there on a mountain.
Verse 16, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. Think about mountains in the Bible. Mountains are places of revelation, usually of God’s will and God’s commands. Most famously you have Mount Sinai, that’s the place that God reveals himself and his glory and gives to the people the commandments, mountains are places of revelation of God’s will, God’s commands. Well think about the story of Matthew because it begins and ends and in the middle there’s a mountain. Public ministry launches in Matthew chapter 4, and then He teaches Matthew chapter 5, where is he, the Sermon on the Mount because what is He, He’s a new law giver, He’s a new Moses and He’s giving to the people on that mountain new commands. He’s explaining to them how the Old Testament now applies. He’s the new Moses who had to be hidden away just like Moses did because of a jealous king who had to pass through the waters, the Jordan like the Israelites passed through the waters of the Red Sea, who was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days like God’s people wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. He’s embodying the life of a new Moses and a new Israel and so He starts in Matthew 5 He gives them commandments from the mountain and here in chapter 28 He ends on a mountain, and you may remember in the middle there’s a mountain, chapter 17. We call it the Mount of Transfiguration.
Three, you can tell the story of Matthew from three mountains, the Sermon on the Mount, Transfiguration where His glory is revealed and the full unveiling so they can get a glimpse of who He really is, and then here on this mountain in Galilee. It is fitting for a God and for a king. He shows Himself once more to be the divine law giver so he gathers them to the mountain to say, “Make disciples, baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you”, not teaching just so that they can pass a test, but teaching unto the end that everything Jesus says would be observed, would be obeyed. This Great Commission and indeed all of Jesus’ commands, this is not the great suggestion, this is not an aspirational vision statement that we know we’re not gonna reach, but we’ll just put it out there, these are commands and Jesus has a right, all authority, the divine law giver on the mountain once again to give these commands. Remember I said that genealogy connects Jesus to Abraham and to David, he’s the son of Abraham, that’s the all nations and he’s the son of David and that I believe is the all authority and also everything I have commanded you because he’s showing himself to be a king, to be the great King David’s greater son. There’s often an awareness, sometimes ironically throughout the Book of Matthew that Jesus is the fulfilment of the Davidic covenant and the king of the Jews. He rides in on a donkey, the palm branches, the cloaks, all of that like Solomon, all of that is befitting a king riding into Jerusalem. He’s a king, hosannah, and then how many times in Matthew chapter 27 did people, not even knowing what they were saying with sarcasm dripping from their lips said, hail King of the Jews, this one read is the King of the Jews. Well, they said more than they knew. This Jesus has universal authority, a universal mission, and now we see a universal kingdom which looks like a mustard seed, the smallest seed and would grow to become the largest tree in the world, all that I have commanded you.
And there’s a last all. All the days until the end of the age. It is fitting that this Gospel does not end with a command, would have been nothing wrong with that, God has every right to give us commands, commands are for our good and we obey them, but very strikingly it does not end with a command, but it ends with a promise, I am with you always. Now always is a fine way to translate it, but I just want you to get in your mind that overly literal translation, all the days, because sometimes you can hear, Jesus with you always, yep to the end, but I want you to hear, not just always, but all the days, today, tomorrow, Tuesday, Wednesday, all the days. So, this is what we need, one if we’re gonna worship and not hesitate, two if we’re gonna go wherever He sends us. I mean think about it, that if Jesus could see Him, He could touch Him and He grabbed you by the hand and He was right here and He said, come with me, and you said Jesus I don’t know where we’re going, He said, that’s alright, I’ll be with you, you would go because you’re with Jesus. Yes I’d go, I don’t know where I’m going, you’ll be with me, you’ll lead me all the way, my savior leads me, you would go anywhere with that hand in your hand, and it may not be a mission thing, it may be the scan that you have to receive this week or learning to live this year without your husband or your wife of many years or without a child, or moving away from home or a new job. Jesus says, all the days I’ll be with you, right there at your side.
I told you at the beginning about the few movies I have on my phone and thank you for the cheers for Lord of the Rings. I was watching that for 45 minutes on the short flight from DC and I was watching Return of the King and that section’s so good and the scene with the giant spider, right you should have read the book already, Shelob and Mr. Frodo gets the stinger right in the back and gets wrapped up and you remember Samwise Gamgee is at the bottom of the mountain because he’s been deceived by Gollum and then he realizes and you just, I mean Sam is such a good character, “I won’t leave you Mr. Frodo and he comes in there with the light and he comes in there with the sword and he’s there, there’s so many good scenes with Sam and I thought to myself two things, I thought, one, I hope I’m a friend like Samwise Gamgee and then I thought even more importantly, wouldn’t it be amazing to have a friend like Samwise Gamgee. Even when you don’t deserve it, even when Frodo misunderstood him, even when Frodo tried to send him away, still he sticks to him and he says, “I won’t leave you.” Well, you see where I’m going. You have a friend like that. Jesus says, “Behold I am with you in the spiders lair, into the very fires of Mordor, into the boredom of life, I’m with you.” You see this last sentence in Matthew’s Gospel could not be anymore perfect. Matthew in particular has all this fulfillment language in his Gospel and this was to fulfill and these explicit Old Testament promises, the book is about all of these promises coming true and so you’re meant to go through the Book of Matthew and you see one promise after another, fulfilled in Jesus, fulfilled in Jesus, wow, fulfilled in Jesus, everything God promised came true and so then when Jesus makes one last promise to you, you think I can trust this promise, all the other promises have come true, and it ties in what may be the most important theme of all, when Jesus says, “Lo, I will be with you all the days until the end of the age”, is this not the absolute brilliant fulfillment of what we saw in the very first chapter of Matthew, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emanuel which means God with us all our days. Let’s pray.
Our heavenly Father, we give thanks for your Word, for the scriptures which are there for our correction rebuke for training and righteousness. Oh Lord, give us such hope and courage from these four alls and lead us now even if some may have hesitation to bow and to worship and to receive from your hand by faith all that you mean to give to us. In Christ we pray, Amen.