Hello and welcome to the Church Newtown Square podcast.
If we can serve you in any way or if you'd like to learn more
about our church family or the Acts 29 network, please visit us
at church nsq.org. That's CHVRCHNS q.org, and now
let's listen in to today's teaching.
I do have a couple of questions for you as we begin this
morning. I wonder how many of you are
clear on your assignment from God.
Take a moment and just think, is it crystal clear?
Is it murky or do you have no clue what you're supposed to do?
And I guess the second question is how many of you are living
with some doubt? It's an incredibly confusing
time. I look out across this sanctuary
and there's some young people and there's some younger people
and there's some youngest people.
And depending where you are on that young stage, I imagine this
has been an incredibly confusing time for some.
And maybe you're sitting here today in church and you've got
lots of doubts and you have lots of questions.
Maybe as you grow in that youngest to young stage, you
also have doubts as the thought of heaven draws near.
And so my prayer is that you would find Jesus today welcoming
you with his love in the midst of your doubts.
As Pastor Tom shared, My name is Ben Thomas, I am married to
Susie and we have 4 kids. I am the son of the King of
Kings and Lord of Lords. Now I'm going to share something
with you that I hope doesn't disqualify everything else I'm
going to say. I was born in Brooklyn, grew up
on Long Island. I was cheering for the Sixers
last night because I'm so excited for the Sixers and
Knicks to be able to play over these next few weeks.
I've been knowingly walking with the Lord since I was 17.
That was a little over 30 years ago, and I'm grateful though
that He's been walking with me for my entire life.
Susie and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary this
year. And in those 25 years, we've
lived in India, we've lived in Rwanda, we've seen God bless us
with children. We've seen God walk us through a
brain tumor while Susie was pregnant.
We've seen God heal Susie of that brain tumor.
And we walk by faith in God's manna and quail every day.
So those 25 years have been a gift.
From 2014 to 2024, we lived in Kigali, Rwanda, where we were
part of the Kigali International Community School, a school not
that dissimilar from Delaware County Christian School.
And we've now made Philadelphia our home over the last two
years. I like to say we live in a
forest near Skippack, PA. I had the joy of having
breakfast with Pastor Tom and we discovered many mutual
connections and he was gracious enough to invite me to worship
with you all today. And my prayer is that the Lord
would use us to mutually encourage and bless each other
as we seek to live for Christ and His Kingdom here on earth.
I'm an educator, I'm a minister, a missionary.
I love God's Word, and it's a joy to open up Matthew 28 as you
continue in your study on Matthew.
May God's power, spirit, and understanding be ours as we open
His Word together. If you would stand with me as we
read Matthew chapter 28. Now after the Sabbath, so
meaning Sunday morning, as it began to dawn toward the first
day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look
at the grave, and behold, the severe earthquake had occurred.
For an Angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came
and rolled away the stone and sat upon it.
And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as
white as snow. The guard shook for fear of him,
and became like dead men. The Angel said to the women, do
not be afraid, for I know that you're looking for Jesus, who
has been crucified. He is not here, for he has risen
just as he said. Come see the place where he was
living lying. Go quickly and tell his
disciples that he is risen from the dead.
And behold, he is going ahead of you into Galilee.
There you'll see him. Behold, I have told you.
And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran
to report it to his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and
greeted them, and they came up and took hold of his feet and
worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, Do not
be afraid. Go and take word to my brethren
to leave for Galilee, and there they will see me.
Now while they were on their way, some of the guard came into
the city and reported to the chief priest all that had
happened. And when they had assembled with
the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum
of money to the soldiers, and said, You were to say, his
disciples came by night and stole him away while we were
asleep. And if this should come to the
governor's ear, we will win him over and keep you out of
trouble. And they took the money and did
as they had been instructed. And this story was widely spread
among the Jews, and is to this day.
But the 11 disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain
which Jesus had designated. When they saw him, they
worshipped him, but some were doubtful.
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has
been given to me in heaven and on earth.
Therefore go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.
And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
Let's pray, Jesus, we come before you, we come before your
word. Holy Spirit, would you lead and
guide us? Would each of us indeed decrease
and would you increase in these moments?
Speak to us. We pray through the power of
your spirit in Christ's name, Amen.
Just I'm going to share a little bit of my contact information
for you. I just kind of find that
preaching is one of the most unique forms of communication
that we've come up with where I don't know about you, but
there's no other setting where somebody talks for 35 minutes
and you don't ask questions, right?
That I don't know if that works for your kids, but that
certainly doesn't work for mine, for the teachers in the room,
that certainly doesn't work in a classroom.
And so I don't know if you're the type of church that you
could just raise your hand and ask me a question while I'm
preaching. So if you have any questions,
feel free. I would love to be able to
dialogue with you if you have any questions along the way.
And yeah, just know that there's no question that's off limit,
but my desire not only during this time, but that God's word
would continue to transform my heart and your heart as we go
through together. You have to understand that
Matthew 28 is probably the most profound passage that God has
used to shape my life. God began His call on my life
when I was 18 years old at a student missions conference
called Urbana. He used Acts 1 verses 7 to 8,
which is another version of this Commission.
And since then, God has ordered my steps in such a way that I
have been pointed towards what does it mean to go and make
disciples of all the nations? So when Pastor Tom said, hey,
we're concluding Matthew, and you could preach anything out of
Matthew, I thought, wow, that's great.
And one thing I've been wrestling with since Easter
Sunday has been what happened in those days between the initial
appearance of Jesus before he ascended.
And so I've had the joy of reading through each of the
gospel accounts to see what took place in that time.
And so it's a joy for me today to be able to say that there
wasn't necessarily a clear line up and to the right, which is
how I like lines to work for me. In terms of how the disciples
took on this resurrection of Jesus, they had some serious
doubt every time that Jesus appeared.
Even if they finished one time with rejoicing and worship, the
next time Jesus appears they're doubtful.
So I want to as we look at this message called Commissioned by
Christ, I want to spend some time with this thin line between
belief and doubt. What does it mean to live
between belief and doubt? And living believe between
belief and doubt does not disqualify us from Christ's
love. So if you're here this morning
and you have some doubts, I want you to know that there's even a
disciple named Doubting Thomas. You're in an OK space.
Jesus can handle your doubts. I want you to know that if you
have questions, Jesus can handle your questions.
Your doubts do not disqualify you from Christ's love.
Matthew first invites us to see the exchange between Mary and
Mary in verses one through 6 on Easter morning.
Each account of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
have a viewpoint of this exchange between Mary and Mary
and an Angel. We can go to the next slide if
that's helpful. Let me just read again verses
one through 6. Now after the Sabbath, as it
began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene
and the other Mary came to look at the grave and behold, the
severe earthquake had occurred. For an Angel of the Lord
descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and
sat upon it. And his appearance was like
lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.
The guards, and keep this in mind for a little bit later,
shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.
The Angel says to the women, do not be afraid, for I know that
you are looking for Jesus, who has been crucified.
He is not here, for he has risen just as he said.
Come see the place where he was lying.
So we see Mary and Mary approaching the grave.
We see an earthquake that takes place and an Angel descend from
heaven and roll away the tomb. In Mark's account, he lets us
know as Mary and Mary were approaching, they wonder a very
practical question. How are we going to move the
stone? I don't know how big this stone
was, but I think that's a very practical question as they're
walking to this grave. Returning to Matthew's account,
we see the guards are trembling and look like dead men as they
see the Angel. The Angel now speaks to Mary and
Mary and says in verse 5, do not be afraid for I know that you're
looking for Jesus who's been crucified.
The Angel sees this wrestle in their heart of fear and assures
them do not be afraid. Then comes the line that we
celebrate and sometimes greet each other with on Easter
morning. He is not here, He has risen.
We see the Angel instruct them to go and tell the disciples.
In Mark's account, we see the Angel say go, tell the disciples
and Peter. We'll come back to that a little
bit later. Peter, of course, had denied
Jesus three times. The Angel wants to make sure
that Peter is included. They do this and they do it.
In verse 9 of Matthew's account, we see Jesus meet these ladies.
They take hold of His feet and they worship.
Their belief leads to worship Mary and Mary are a great
example of turning our doubt to worship.
They asked them hard questions, they took every step along the
way, and when they are encountered with Jesus, their
response is worship. They fall at his feet and they
worship him, Mary and Mary. The good example you could say
of doubt to worship. Well, what happens when our
belief turns to doubt? You can go to the next slide if
you like. Let's focus quickly on the
disciple Thomas, who for me and millions of other Indian
believers, we derive our name as he came to India in the year 52,
we believe is a direct result of this Commission.
He traveled further than any other disciple, even though he
was called Doubting Thomas. In John 20, we see a similar
account of the resurrection, and we see in greater detail
interactions between Jesus and his disciples.
Starting in verse 19, we see Jesus showing them his hands and
his feet. We see the disciples rejoice,
and we see Him give them instructions.
But John also notes that Thomas was not with them when Jesus
appeared in this instance. And Thomas responds to his
disciple friends full of doubt and saying in verse 25, Unless I
see in his hands the imprint of the nails and put my finger into
the place of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will
not believe. Have you ever had a friend or
maybe parents in the room who are so excited to tell their kid
about an idea, and the kid responds with, yeah, So what?
Yeah, that's fine for you, but not for me.
I'm not going to believe it. That was Thomas's response here.
Let's pause for a moment. Does doubt seem to be a normal
reaction we have in life? Does Thomas's request seem
outrageous or justified? I think sometimes in the Easter
retelling of the story, we miss this line between belief and
doubt. My prayer and my encouragement
for us is that living between belief and doubt does not
disqualify us from Christ's love.
Jesus can handle your biggest doubts and your biggest
questions. You don't have to have it all
figured out before you come to Him.
He doesn't need you all cleaned up and neat.
He loves your mess. He loves you and he loves me.
Let's see how Jesus responds to Thomas's doubts.
Verse 26 of John 8:20 days his disciples were again inside, and
Thomas with them. Jesus comes, the doors having
been shut, and stands in their midst, and says, Peace be with
you. Then he says to Thomas, Reach
here with your finger, and see my hands, and reach here your
hand, and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but
believing. Thomas answers and says to him,
My Lord and my God, Jesus says to him, Because you have seen
me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see
and yet believe. Pause for a moment.
Did you catch that small detail? Jesus didn't show up right away
to answer Thomas's doubts 8 days later.
What those eight days signify is that Thomas was in Jerusalem for
the full amount of time of the Passover and the Feast of
Unleavened Bread. This was the second Sunday.
Jesus doesn't step into Thomas's doubt right away.
Thomas had to sit with his questions.
Why did Jesus appear to the others and not to me?
Could he not have waited? Are they really telling the
truth? Why didn't he appear to me?
Is he going to come back? We haven't seen him since.
Just maybe a few questions that this doubting Thomas thinks
might have been going through Thomas's mind.
But when Jesus appears to him as the doors are shut, and every
time the gospels talk about Jesus appearing, it's referenced
as a manifestation. So did Jesus just like arrive?
Did he find his way through the door?
We don't know. But we know the door was shut
and it doesn't say the door was open.
And then Jesus appeared and he says peace be with you.
He does not greet Thomas with condemnation.
He greets him with the message of peace.
And he says, reach here with your finger, see my hands.
Jesus answers everyone of Thomas's doubts specifically.
He does not ridicule him. He literally answers and has him
touch him. He makes it so concrete that
Thomas's doubts are not met with anger, but with peace, with
grace, with the physical answer, and also with the command.
He says to him, don't be unbelieving, but believe you've
believed Thomas because you've seen.
Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe.
Friends, here at church today, we have an opportunity to
believe in a way that the disciples didn't.
We don't get to feel with our own hands, and yet God invites
us to believe. I don't know what you're
wrestling with and the thin line that you're living between
belief and doubt. Maybe it's a doubt about Jesus
and his love for you. Maybe it's a health concern that
you have. Maybe it's a financial issue.
Maybe you're wondering what's happening in our world and in
our country. Maybe you're thinking, can I get
a ticket to the PGA Championship, right?
I don't know what the doubt is. Could be small, could be big,
could be practical, could be existential.
But I want you to know that Jesus wants to meet you in your
doubt. My prayer is that your doubt,
that you would know that your doubt does not disqualify you.
If anything, your doubt puts you in good company, or at least in
the company of one of his disciples named Thomas.
Now, friends, there's lots of stories that I could share about
our life, but let me just share quickly and briefly.
When a doctor comes and tells you your wife has two to three
years to live and she's pregnant with your youngest, it's a great
opportunity to work through doubt and faith.
And we held on to this idea of manna and quail that God was
going to provide what we needed in that moment for that day.
And it was a great discipline that we didn't do great at, but
God's grace covered our deficiencies to say, what do we
need today? And so I talked to you as one
who is a doubting Thomas. I can break down every aspect of
my life and tell you where and how I doubt Jesus.
But I could also testify that God has met every single one of
my doubts. I love working with young
people, and so if you're a young person, I'm going to put that in
the category of 35 and below because the way you grew up is
different than people who grew up who are older than 40.
There are some serious doubts that you have, and I want you to
know Jesus wants to meet you in your doubts.
Those doubts don't disqualify you and you don't have to figure
it out. The next thing is, and I'll do
this really quickly, the cover up following Christ is not a
pursuit of increasing our power. This next part of Matthew 28 is
super interesting. We see the belief of Mary, but
then in verses 11 to 15, we see a parallel story of the guards.
The guards come to the city, the same guards who are frightened
and appear like dead men. I imagine that they were just
like. And let's not forget the
centurions who guarded Jesus. They were the first ones
accounted in the Bible to say after the crucifixion, this was
truly the Son of God. So these guards who were put
there by the chief priests and the Pharisees, and you can read
about that in Matthew 27, you see the same guard saying, hey,
the bodies no longer here, no longer here.
They go to the chief priests and the Pharisees and in true
fashion they say, hey, let's cover this up.
Here's here's a bag of cash. Here's what the Pharisees and
the chief priests wanted to do with their doubt.
They wanted to cover it up. They wanted to make sure that
their doubt was so buried behind a couple of bags of cash that
that's how they wanted to answer their doubt because their doubt
would have led to a very different life for them.
And so I think my encouragement to you is, it's OK to have
doubts. I believe that Jesus looks
kindly and gently on our doubts, but I do believe that he does
not invite us to follow him for any personal, institutional, or
national power. Much as the Pharisees and chief
priests are examples of what not to do, I think it's wise for us
to consider how white, how might we be conflating or mixing Jesus
and power? It's a tricky world we're living
in, and our young people are looking to us for examples of
Christ and his love. Jesus says the greatest of you
shall be a servant the least. The first shall be the last.
If you want to follow me, wash each other's feet.
It's not an example of accumulating more for us.
And this example, I think the gospel writers put in there of
people who wanted to accumulate more.
And so, friends, let's make every effort not to substitute
pursuing Jesus as a means to increase our standing in the
world in any way, personally, financially, institutionally, or
even nationally and geographically.
There's obviously more we could say about that and unpack that
as well. But let's move to the
commissioning, which comes up on our next slide.
Our doubts do not determine our assignment.
The final part of this passage is called the Great Commission.
This passage is in all the versions, including Acts in some
way, and as I've shared, have had a profound impact on my
life. Let's read verses 16 to 20 from
Matthew 28. But the 11 disciples proceeded
to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated.
When they saw him. They worshipped, but some were
doubtful. And Jesus comes and speaks to
them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and
on earth. Go therefore, and make disciples
of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
that I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always,
even to the end of the age. Now one thing that's really
important to see, even though we're reading 1 chapter, this
chapter takes place over a period of time.
The journey from Jerusalem is not a one day journey.
It's about 70 to 90 miles. The fast way is about 3 to 5
days. The slow way is about 7 to 9
days. And to get up to the mountain,
you've got to have some good hiking skills.
So even though I could read like this happened all in one time,
this was overtime that this is happening and I love this.
We see in verse 17 as the disciples get to Galilee, they
see Jesus and they worship and go ahead.
If you're OK with writing in your Bible circle the phrase,
but some were doubtful. And what do we see Jesus do?
Do we say, OK, the doubters, you guys are on the right.
I just want to talk to those who were fully convinced He
commissions all of them, even the ones with their doubt.
Was it not enough that he had already appeared to them?
Apparently no, they still doubt it.
But Jesus commissions all of them.
Friends, our doubts do not determine our assignment.
The assignment God gives is not dependent on our strength, our
smarts, our belief. It's solely based on who Christ
is. The Great Commission is a
perfect example of this, and I'll go quickly through the
Great Commission. Whose authority?
It's Jesus's authority. His authority supersedes any
other authority, the authority of the chief priest and the
Pharisees, the authority of the Romans, the authorities of any
nation on earth. Go or in the translation, it
should be as you are going, make disciples of all the nations.
So it's not necessarily a destination, but it's on the
journey. Be making disciples.
Parents. This is a word to us as we're
parenting in these years. Make disciples of our kids.
That's our first and primary responsibility.
As you're living in your community, make disciples.
This is not necessarily just a passage for missionaries to be
sent overseas, although I believe in that so much.
This is a as you're living, as you're rooting for the Sixers
this week, make disciples. As you're at school, make
disciples. As you're at work, make
disciples. And the term disciples Jesus
used over and over again, those are ones who followed him, who
doubted, who denied him, who were shut in in Jerusalem.
And the Gospel, the book of Acts shares the stories of how the
disciples went about living out this Commission.
And then he says, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit, the Trinity. And then he says, teach them to
observe everything I've commanded you.
And when the disciples asked him or the question was asked of
Jesus, what's the greatest commandment?
What did he say? Love God with all your heart,
soul, mind and strength. And the second is like it, love
your neighbor as yourself. I'm not discounting a seminary
degree. I have one and I enjoyed it.
But you do not need to be seminary trained to go and make
disciples. It is not for a professional
Christian only to do. We all have this assignment from
God to go and make disciples. And then he says I am with you
always. Teach them to observe everything
I've commanded you and I am with you always, even to the end of
the age. No one is excluded.
This is not a Jewish only call. It's not a male only call.
This is all people, every man, every woman, every child.
National boundaries are not reasons for exclusion.
Religious beliefs are not reasons for exclusion.
And as they do this, Jesus is with them in every moment.
Now I'll, if you want to look at the story of Peter in John 21,
we're not going to jump through that now because I want to be
sensitive to our time. But you see Jesus not only
restoring Peter, but in John chapter 21, you see him say
follow me in verse 19. And what does Peter do?
The great denier? He doesn't say yes, what does he
do? He looks around and says, what
about that guy? What are you doing for him?
Hey, what about her assignment? What about his assignment?
What why is this my assignment? And Jesus says, what is it to
you what I do with him? You, Peter, you follow me.
So I do not know the specific assignment that God has for you,
but I do know He has an assignment for you.
May you not falter. May you not give up on the
specific assignment that God has for you.
If you have questions about your assignment, if you have
questions about God's call over your life, I see some high
school students here. I see some young people here.
If you're wondering what does this mean for me, please let's
have a conversation. I believe God can use those that
are young, younger, and youngest for His purposes and His
Kingdom. No matter where you are on that
stage, if you're in your 70s, eighties or above or a little
younger than that, God wants to use you.
He wants you to have every day on purpose for Him.
Now, friends, I'd love just to share a little bit about our
ministry of Beat of the World. You've seen a brief video and we
can go to the next slide if we want.
But did you know that there are more people living, more
children living in countries impacted by war?
Then there are people living in America.
America has something just north of 300 million people.
Today there are 520 million children who are impacted by
war. We currently serve in five
countries. You guys could skip ahead to the
map and we develop schools in these countries.
You might ask why school? I believe school is a great
place. I believe a school led by a
believer is an incredible tool to be used in God's Kingdom.
My assignment from God is to help share the gospel with the
520 million children who are impacted by war by building
great schools. So we have schools in South
Sudan. You saw a little glimpse of
Cameroon, Rwanda, where we served Pakistan, where we serve
children of persecuted Christians.
And we're getting the we're getting started in Iraq as well.
Just a few weeks ago, we got our registration to operate in
northern Iraq and are in the process with Iraq itself.
I believe every parent wants a great education for their child,
and so when we go in with a school, it's open to people from
all backgrounds and all faiths. Also, most studies show that the
years of ages 4 to 14 are when people are the most receptive to
the message of Christ. Friends, we'd love to have you
join us as a church or individually.
There's a sign up sheet in the back if you'd like to leave your
information. If serving children in countries
recovering from war, if reaching kids who are living in unreached
countries, if serving some marginalized Christian is a
place where you'd like some of your Great Commission focus to
be, we would love to talk to you.
Please text me or give me your number.
Would love to set up a conversation.
And of course, we'd love to have you join our global partners
today by signing up for a monthly or one time gift at our
website, beatoftheworld.org. As we conclude, I just want to
say thank you so much for your time.
If you have questions or want to talk to someone about your
doubts, please know that I'd be honored to talk with you.
God has a call over each one of our lives.
The Commission is so clear. Because of the authority of
Jesus, we can go and make disciples of all the nations and
that doesn't involve us having to get on an airplane to do it.
We can do it in our daily life. May we walk in great faith
knowing that Jesus is with us, and may we be OK with the mix of
doubts and belief as we live for Him.
I'm grateful that we've each been commissioned by Christ and
our doubts do not exclude us. The sermon you've just listened
to is a presentation of Church Newtown Square.
To find out more about our church, check out Church
nsq.org. That's CHVRCHNS q.org.
You are welcome to copy and distribute this sermon to others
as long as you do not do it for commercial purposes or alter,
transform, or build upon this talk in any way.