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Houston's First Baptist Church is a relevant biblical community where we gather our hearts, grow our souls and give our lives as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). This podcast provides weekly messages from Pastor Gregg Matte and others. Visit us at HoustonsFirst.org to learn more about HFBC, and visit us in person the next time you're in Houston!
Let us turn to John chapter 20, please. If you have a Bible, share one with a friend that maybe didn't bring theirs this morning. And let's look at some verses beginning in John chapter 20. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. The fourth book of the New Testament, chapter 20, verse number 21. John chapter, let's back up to verse 19. John chapter 20, verse 19. This was just a few days after the death of Jesus Christ and the resurrection, the news of which had not accurately reported, been reported to the ears of the disciples that had become cowards at the cross. And they were very uncertain what was going to happen in the future. John chapter 20, verse 19. Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. Now they were so afraid he had to say it twice. And when he had so said, he showed unto them his hands and his sides. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. So he starts all over again and says, Peace be unto you. As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them. And whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained. An old missionary had retired in the little village about 70 miles south of Japan in which he had served so faithfully for many years. And he had settled down to serving, even in his retirement, the people that he had loved in his active missionary time. He himself was very sick. But he continued to counsel and conduct services and portray a consistent Christian image and witness to the little tobacco -growing community. One, when they understand that the man, because of disease contracted in that far -off Orient country, had buried a wife and two sons beneath the soil of Japan. Why such a man would even go in the first place? Why would stay on the field as a missionary? But most of all, why such strange activity as to decide to stay there and retire when his period of active missionary service was over? Well, the answer that he gave when this question was posed to him is one which serves as the thesis for my message this morning. For very simply, when asked that precise question, he said quietly, because my missionary service has not been merely a job, it has become my very nature. To do less would be to die. Let us examine for a moment from the perspective of the church what such a man meant when he said, it is my nature, it is my life, and to do anything else would mean for me to die. Often I am asked why Baptists can't be content to let well enough alone. Somebody said, you've already got three times as many members as you get to come to church anyhow. Why not just work on them? Why are we so evangelistic? Why so zealous? Why does everything that Southern Baptists do have to be culminated in a lifestyle that is trying to proselyte others who don't know Christ? Why so much evangelism and missionary activity? When we talk about the nature of man and the nature of the church, we understand what it means for a man to be made in the image and nature of God. But when we refer in common conversation to the concept of the nature of a person or the nature of a thing, we begin to understand that nature is to be interpreted not in abstract terms, but can only be understood in terms of behavior. We know, for example, if we know certain things about a man that we can look into the past and tell very much about what he was earlier that makes him what he is today. And when we see certain lifestyle behavior characteristics about a church or an individual, it is fairly reasonable to assume that we may predict with some degree of accuracy what that person is going to be like in the future. Now, while it is not entirely the way in which the nature of the church is to be interpreted, it is not an unjust approach to the subject. Because when one begins to study the nature of the church, we find that there are 96 metaphors used in the New Testament to refer to the nature of the church and most of them refer not simply to her being but to her behavior not merely to what she is but what she is being interpreted in terms of what she does we find for example that the church is referred to as as light and as heat and as salt and fire and as a key now now these things are best understood in context of penetration and the new testament writers were trying to say to us that it is our nature to evangelize that we are probably that organization unique in all of the world that is most marked by the fact that she does not exist for the sake of her membership fire is is is fire because it consumes and penetrates the fuel and to shut off the fire means merely to cut her off from her source a key is a key when it is penetrating the lock and opening up light is light when it is penetrating darkness salt is salt when it is penetrating the meat and so jesus said that such is the nature of the church that it penetrates that it is on the conquest that it moves that when it loses that zeal it is good for nothing but to have ichabod written over its doors to go out of business and to be cast out of foot and trodden under the feet of men jesus said i am going to build the church my church on myself and all of the gates of hell will not prevail against it and so jesus is saying that the nature of the church is that its behavior will thrust it into conflict with the world and it is going to be coming up full press against the authority the gates of hell now when a city goes out to battle it doesn't pick up its walls and its gates and moves it stays where it is the walls the gates stand still so how is the church going to come in contact with the world it is the church that moves it is the church that is the battering ram it is the church that assaults evil that evangelizes that is missionary in its zeal and is consumed with something which says we the story to tell to the nations now if it is true that nature is to be best understood in terms of of behavior and experience of the past i suggest to you that we must look at this the initiating of what was to become the great commission of our lord jesus and understand what the disciples understood jesus to say when he came to them in that upper room and told them something in four simple little truths that caused them to be thrust into a world into a life of world conquest and missionary zeal that would cost most of them their very lives because it was their nature to do so well i would suggest for you one thing that when jesus came to this upper room where they were afraid for the jews where they were in a state of uncertainty as to the future the first thing that jesus said peace to them suggests for us that we are missionary in our zeal that we are evangelistic in our nature because jesus trusts us and we talk about trust we we usually understand it in terms of our trust in christ but i want you to look for a moment at jesus and his trusting of us now these men were afraid they had blown it they didn't know what was going to happen you will understand that immediately after the resurrection after the the crucifixion of jesus the disciples fled for their very lives they didn't know what was going to happen and they began to piece meal together the fear of the truth and and out of jerusalem there began to come reports that filtered to them uh something about someone having seen him alive again but maybe it was a mirage maybe it was a a some kind of psychological phenomenon that really only occurred as many liberal theologians suggest that the resurrection really only occurred in the minds of the disciples and they believed that he had lived but in fact he did not live at all and then in the the confusion of the fear of what was going to happen and what they wanted so desperately in their hearts to happen they began to remember the claims of jesus something about a dying and living again something about preaching the gospel to all the world and something about destroying the temple and raising it up in three days but they were very very much afraid they were not at the cross they were not at the tomb they had given up and in fact their dreams had fallen and they began to believe in all probability that they had been deceived and that the messiah while he loved as no man had ever loved while he was the ultimate example was after all a phony in these claims of deity, the best man that had ever lived, but really only a man after all. Probably they wanted to believe. Perhaps they're glistened from their eyes a beam of hope which said maybe, just maybe, it could still be a reality, but it was probably too much to ask for. And in the midst of this, Jesus Christ walks into the room and says, peace be unto you. I rather imagine the fact that he had to say it twice suggests that they did not believe their eyes and that they stepped back aghast and had to touch his hands and touch his feet. And again, Jesus said, I say, peace be unto you. Now, what was Jesus saying? Jesus was saying, I know what you're thinking. I know what you're feeling. I know how you have doubted. And I want you to know that everything is still all right. I still believe in you. I remember that you weren't at the cross. I know you really didn't believe I was alive, but I've not come to put you down. I've not come to discourage you. I've not come to scold you. He says, look, I had a plan one time. I had a dream. And I trusted you. And I believed you. And I thought that you believed me. But you didn't. And I want you to know it's still all right. I still believe in you. I still trust you. There is enough grace in the mercy of God to cover even your sins. You see, the whole nature of the gospel is that men can come to the cross and say, I blew it. I made a mistake. But God still trusts me and I can start all over again. He's giving me a second chance. The story is told of a young soldier who didn't do anything malicious, but in the heat of battle made a fatal error in judgment that cost the lives of several men in his battalion. Later at the court -martial, the colonel who was in charge stood and said, it was a mistake, but it was an honest mistake. And I fear that we must support the lad and that we must give him our best encouragement or he'll go to pieces. Many months later, after he had been released and court -martialed and released from imprisonment and paid his fine, the young lieutenant was back at the, the young soldier was again back at the post. And this time another battle arose in which there was a necessity of a man to take charge of the troops when the colonel left. And he entrusted this young man with the job. Over the next few days in that brief battle that followed, he so gloriously and bravely handled himself that he was to be decorated time and time again for his bravery in the face of the enemy. When the officers that came by the parade line asked him for a testimony of why it was he had done so brilliantly in the face of overcoming odds, an awesome enemy in his battle, he said very quietly, turning to the colonel that he had learned to love, I failed him and he trusted me. How could I do any less? Jesus comes to us again and again and again and says, look, I have a plan for carrying the gospel to all the world and I have entrusted it to you and you have failed, but I want you to know I haven't changed my plan and I still trust you. I still believe in you. It's still all right. Let not your hearts be troubled. Peace. Everything's okay. I still believe you're going to do it. And I think that that truth, if it ever grips the heart of our church, of how much trust he has put in us, how he is depending on us to do his work, somehow that it will be a force that can transform our very lives. Well, the second reason I believe that it is the nature of the church for us to be missionary is that because he has commissioned us, oh, you would be surprised, I suppose, to know how many theological footballs have been battered around by the theologians over the matter of the nature of the church. Here Jesus is saying, as the Father hath sent me, so send I you. Bart and Bultmann both agree that what Jesus was saying was that you yourselves are to go into the world as Christ's as new and fresh incarnations of Jesus that is the father sent me as an incarnation so I am sending you as an incarnation of deity I must take exception with that I don't believe that's what Jesus Christ was saying I think when he said as the father has sent me so send I you that he was not saying that we are are a living reincarnation or even an extension of the carnation of Christ because when you and I project ourselves as incarnations of Jesus we put ourselves on trial and what begins to happen is that what so many times unconsciously happens in the lives of unbelievers they look at us they assume that we are like Christ and we are not and so they reject Christ because they reject us no I think he was saying in the same manner that the father has sent me with the same thrust that the father has sent me so send I you there's a danger there's a kind of teaching in the Roman Mass for example that the bread and the blood literally become again the event of Calvary and it is literally again an incarnation of the blood of Jesus Christ I cannot believe that Jesus who said do this in remembrance of me was literally meaning that that was his blood nor can I believe that he was saying that you and I are again Christ living and we are to trust in ourselves because we are the very Christ now that's not what he meant what did he mean there what he meant was that you and I have an unspeakable attachment to Christ and in the New Testament there is a vast difference between identity with Jesus and relationship to Jesus the writer of the Ephesians letter begins by saying that you are holy ones builded upon Jesus Christ who is himself the chief cornerstone he is saying that we are the branches and he is the vine and Jesus I think is trying to say look there is a relationship between you and I and while it is true that you cannot do anything without me conversely it is true that I can't do anything without you I need you I have to do what I'm going to do through you and if the world is to be one if men and women who work and live in Houston are to be touched with the gospel of Jesus Christ he is saying I have chosen to limit myself and the dispersing of the good news from first city to foley's to east and south and west and north and all to the ends of the earth beginning in the front of the church and consummating in Africa and Jerusalem and Judea and Asia and wherever the other most parts of the world may take you He is saying I am sending you because I trust you and you must dwell in a relationship with me you are not me I am not sending you like that but I am sending you in a relationship with me in which you are ambassadors for Christ and you can do nothing without me and I can do nothing without you that's the way I've decided it's going to be the third thing is it is the nature of the church to be missionary because he has trusted us because he has commissioned us because he has empowered us the next word is and he breathed on them and said receive ye the Holy Ghost of the Holy Spirit most commentators agree that the original language does not include the article V and so it can best be said like this receive ye Holy Spirit receive ye Holy power one uh preacher suggested perhaps humorously I don't know if he was serious or not that he could see Jesus sort of shaking the disciples and taking each of them individually by the nap of the neck and saying ye shall be my witnesses whether you like it or not you have no choice you may be a bad witness or a good witness but you are going to be a witness I don't think that was the spirit of the great commission I think he was imparting to them as in Genesis 2 17 when the father breathed his life into the body and life of the first man he was saying I breathe into you Holy Spirit I breathe into you Holy Power I am in doing you I am anointing you and I think it would amaze us to understand that in the context of the early church at this point in history and in the book of Acts which followed that there was very little confusion in their minds that the power of the Holy Spirit was related to mission activity because not only of what was given, but because of where and when it was given. I need only to remind you that this mighty, enduring, and anointing of the breath of God of men followed immediately upon the heels of the Lord Jesus commissioning the disciples to go out and preach the gospel. And I hold that the personal satisfaction, the personal exhilaration of the fullness of the Holy Spirit was never intended to be person -centered. That the purpose for the fullness of the Holy Spirit was to be others -centered. Jesus poured out the Spirit of God on the day of Pentecost. And the reason that it happened was that 3 ,000 men might be saved. Read again and again through the book of Acts. The purpose of the book of Acts is not the understanding of the Holy Spirit as a power for personal experience, but the power of the Holy Spirit for witness, for testimony, for evangelistic outreach, for missionary service. You may work across the street in a bank. You may work down the road. You may drive a truck. Look, you may sell insurance. You may own a firm. No matter where you are and what you do, you're a missionary. You are an evangelist. And Jesus is saying, look, I trust you. I believe you. And though you fail many, many times, still I trust you to do it. Still, I want you to be my disciples. Well, the last thing that he says, I think, is that we are missionary by nature because of a responsibility that is given us. I suppose that perhaps one of the most controversial scriptures in the New Testament is the 23rd. Whosoever sins you remit, they are remitted unto them. Whosoever sins you retain, they are retained. What does that mean? Does it mean that you can come to me and I can say to you, I forgive your sins or I refuse to forgive your sins and I retain you in your sins? I don't believe so at all. Listen very closely. Jesus is saying, I am making you responsible. I trust you. I am anointing you. I am relating to you. I am commissioning you. Therefore, you are responsible for this sacred trust. I hold that this verse of scripture means simply this. That God has entrusted with men and women through the giving of money, through the praying of prayers, through going themselves for interest in those who do and for the verbal witness of the gospel of Christ. That God has charged us with the responsibility of announcing to unsaved men the terms of the gospel under which their sins may be remitted. Let me say again. We do not forgive sins, nor do we remain men in their sins. But we are responsible for announcing by every vehicle at our disposal unto men the terms of the gospel under which their sins may be forgiven. And if we go, we become the vehicle responsible for their salvation. If we refuse to go, we are the agency responsible for retaining men in their sins. It's as though there were a great epidemic in the land. I'm a doctor. I've discovered some new medicine. I call a hundred of you together. I say, here are a hundred injections of medicine. Here are a hundred hypodermic needles. Here are thousands of sick people. I charge you with the responsibility of going across Houston and giving men injections. Now, they go out and they give the injections. What makes the man well? The hypodermic needle? No. The man? No. The serum. But I say to you that if you go and give men these shots, you are not making them well. The hypodermic needle is not making them well. But you are the vehicle responsible for their becoming well. And if you do not go, you are the vehicle responsible for their not becoming well. Jesus is saying, I believe in you. I trust you. Though you are human, though you've erred, though you've failed, I still have no other plan. Here is the world. You have the means to give. You have a tongue to tell. You have the power to go. You have the endowment to make it come to life. Now, the world is dying with an epidemic of sin in the grade schools, in the junior highs, in the businesses, and all over the world. Get out there and spread around the good news but he is saying if you don't go you are responsible for retaining men in their sins and if you do go you will be the agency responsible for the forgiveness of their sins. Dr. W .A. Criswell tells a story about a man one of his deacons who worked for TVL an airplane manufacturing plant just outside the city of Dallas and he said one day the man came in and talked to the pastor with his head down for half an hour and told him a story. Dr. Criswell he said a man was under a large cable a large vat of molten metal and the cable broke and it splattered over him and the man was dying and so he said somebody screamed call an ambulance and the poor dying man said no not an ambulance tell me about my soul and he said Dr. Criswell three hundred of us stood around that man and watched him die and not one of us told him about his soul. Dr. Criswell said man why didn't you tell him you're a deacon you're a Sunday school teacher you're faithful I know you and he said still looking down at the floor and never raising his head he continued Dr. Criswell I'm not the same man at work I am at church he said I laugh at the same jokes I use the same language and he said every time I'd start open my mouth and talk to him I'd look at that circle of three hundred faces around me those men that knew me and he said the words would stick in my throat and I couldn't tell him Dr. Criswell with a lot of wisdom said sir that's all right God still trust you you can do better and he said he became for 20 years the greatest soul winner that his church ever had he trusts us folks he has empowered us he has related himself to us he has commissioned us there's no other way he entrusts it to us I plead with you beginning in Jerusalem first starting at the filling station starting at the restaurant starting the way home from work starting in school tomorrow starting in the job starting with a postman that comes to your doorstep starting with your salesman starting with your secretary that you will use the responsibility that is yours to allow your tongue and your brain and your body to be a hypodermic needle and announce to men the terms of the gospel let the serum flow through your self and tell men about Jesus and pray for missions and give the missions and starting in Houston first to be a missionary oh can Baptist be anything less it is the nature of our church and it must always be we are evangelistic outreaching missionary people by our very nature to do less would be to die I want us to sing a verse a verse of we have a story to tell to the nations you don't need to turn everybody knows it a story of truth and light a story of peace and justice a story of may we do need to turn 455 the darkness will turn to dawning the dawning the noonday bright 455 Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth the kingdom of love and life this is not the invitation we'll sing just this verse and pray will you stand together 455 let's sing a verse the story