Message Information
- Key Scriptures: Matthew 28:16-20, NASB
- Series: Sent for the Sake of the Gospel (2026), no. 1
- Date: Sunday, May 31, 2026 (Morning)
- Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
- Speaker: Jared Byrns
- Audio File: Open/Download
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Asking Why
Kids love to ask the question, “Why?” don’t they? Have you ever gotten tired of that question over and over? “Why?” And then you explain, and they ask, “Well, why?”
I don’t love just hearing “why” over and over, but as a rule, I don’t mind the question why, because it gives us a chance to explain what’s going on. Now, hear me on this: “Why?” when I’ve just told you to do something is not the appropriate time to ask why. I need you to do it, and then I’m glad to explain. But as a general rule, I love those conversations with my kids that start out with the question, “Why?”
I think the reason I like it so much is because I’m prone to ask why as well. As a grown man, you don’t want to sound like a little kid and just ask all the time, “Why?” So there are subtler ways to ask it. Those who work in the office can tell you that I will frequently ask, “Okay, what are we trying to accomplish with this?” That is just a fancy way of asking why.
What is our purpose in doing this? What would be our reason for making that change? I have found that asking why, in all its variations, can be a really helpful question in figuring out the way forward. In my involvement with things like the Pregnancy Center, LaRae will call and say, “I’m thinking about making this change.” And I’ll say, “What is the purpose for that change?” Then, once I understand, I can say whether I think it’s a good idea or a bad idea.
We do that with ministry here. I do that with my own life. Why? What am I trying to accomplish?
A few weeks ago, I was wrestling with something. I had been invited to participate in a ministry project that was ongoing, and I could see the good that would come out of it, but I could also see that it might suck up more of my time than it needed to. “God, what should I do?” And the question I came back to was why. What am I trying to accomplish with this? That gave me my answer.
As a church, if we know what our why is, it can help us discern more easily whether we ought to do this or that. Is this a good idea? It may be a good idea, but it may not be what we’re supposed to do. A church is like us individually. There are a lot of good things we could consume all of our time and energy on, but they may not be the thing we’re supposed to do.
I’ve spent a lot of time lately with people preparing to go on the mission field or people coming back from the mission field. We had an excellent presentation from Caleb on Wednesday night about the work that he did in West Africa and the work that is ongoing in West Africa. These conversations with people who are going to the mission field and coming back from the mission field have really solidified for me the importance of asking why.
Why are we here? What is it that we are here to accomplish? As believers, as a body of believers, what is it that we’re here to accomplish?
Our Why Begins Here
We are at a pausing point in the book of Luke. We are sort of in the middle of this final journey where Jesus goes from Galilee to Jerusalem to prepare to go to the cross. Last week we were in the middle of that journey, and after wrestling with this for several weeks now, I felt the Lord leading me to say, “You’re going to pause for a little bit, and you’re going to come back to the book of Luke.” But we’re going to spend some time this summer as a church exploring our why.
What is it that God has put us here to accomplish? So we’re going to look at Matthew 28 this morning. This is where our why starts. This is where the why of any group of believers starts.
These are the final instructions that Jesus gave to the disciples as they were gathered together in Galilee. These are the final instructions He gave to the big group before He went and ascended. And even at the ascension, He echoed these same instructions. So this morning, we’re going to look at Matthew 28:16-20 and talk about our why, this mission that the Master has given us.
Why do we exist as a church? We exist to fulfill this mission. If we understand what that mission is, it clarifies so much about what we’re supposed to do. It will clarify for us as individual believers what it is we’re supposed to do, how we’re supposed to spend our days, and how we’re supposed to allocate our time.
Here is what Matthew records:
But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped 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. 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.”
This is called the Great Commission, meaning these are the marching orders that Jesus gave believers to go and live out, to go and follow. Typically, when we teach on the Great Commission, we focus on those last few verses, 19 and 20, sometimes 18, 19, and 20. But if we back up to the beginning of the story, where they are gathering, we can learn some things from that as well that we would easily miss otherwise.
Obedient Readiness
This story starts out with Matthew making it clear that the disciples were gathered on a particular mountain where Jesus had told them to go and wait. They had actually traveled there from Jerusalem to be on this mountain. One thing we can miss if we don’t look at verse 16 is that our mission begins with obedient readiness.
The mission He has given us begins with obedient readiness. We see this in the first couple of verses. They have made an effort to be exactly where Jesus told them to go. They had gone to the mountain He had designated. Before He gave them any kind of clear instructions about what came next, they had to be obedient to the last thing He had told them to do.
We see this repeated over and over as they begin to live out this commission. In Acts, they are told a variation of the same thing, that they are going to be His witnesses when the Spirit has come. Then they are told to go back to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them. So what did they have to do? They had to go back to Jerusalem and wait.
God worked through them, and God moved through them, when God found them being obedient to the last thing He had called them to do. As much as this bothers me in my flesh, because I would like to see the whole plan, He doesn’t always share the whole plan with us. He shares a step or maybe two at a time. But before we get the next information, typically He wants us to be obedient to the last thing He’s called us to do.
Then we see in verse 17 that it says, “When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful.” As somebody who spent over a decade trying to put the timeline of every detail of these resurrection stories together, this has always bothered me a little bit. Not bothered me in the sense that I don’t believe it, but bothered me in the sense that there is something here I didn’t immediately understand, because this was not the first of the appearances of Jesus.
What we are shown as we put all these appearance stories together is that over time, they became convinced. They were certain that Jesus was alive. Then we get to this, the next-to-last time they see Him, if I’m remembering correctly, and it says some were doubtful. In my mind, I’m thinking, how do they go from being convinced to now they’re not sure He rose from the dead?
That is not what this is saying here at all. I’ve written an article about it. If you want to see that, let me know and I’ll get it to you later. But to give you the basics, the word here does not mean disbelief. It doesn’t mean they are sitting there going, “Maybe He’s not risen from the dead.”
It can mean they hesitated a little bit. It can mean they wavered a little bit. There are times when we know something to be true, but we are still scared to do anything about it. We’re not sure we trust enough to take that next step. It can mean they just weren’t sure what to do.
What we see here is not a group of people who are thinking, “Maybe He’s not real. Maybe He didn’t really rise from the dead.” What we see here are people who are paralyzed because they don’t know what to do next. I think that would be true of any one of us.
For some of them, I think it had to do with the fact that the last time they were in a situation like this and saw Jesus in His glory on a mountain was at the Mount of Transfiguration. They wanted to bow down and worship, and Jesus said, “No, we’re going to leave, and you don’t tell anybody.” So some of them may have just been thinking, “You tell us what to do. We’re not doing anything until You tell us.” But this time, He answers the question and says they are supposed to go and tell.
What we see here are people who are where Jesus told them to be, but they are not moving off of that spot until He gives them the next instructions. There are a couple of things we can learn from this and apply to our lives when it comes to fulfilling the mission He has given us. We need to be where He put us and be obedient to the last thing He told us in order to take the next step He is calling us to take.
We will sometimes wonder, if we’re not walking in that kind of obedience, “Why is He not working through me?” The first church I ever pastored, I’ve told you all before, I did not want to go there. I did not want to go there. God had to spank me pretty hard to get me to go there. I wanted to stay at my church where I was a member and where I was getting to go out and be the fill-in guy preaching at all these little churches, and then not have to deal with the mess.
I wanted to stay where it was comfortable and easy, and I wondered why those opportunities started drying up and why the ministry just wasn’t as effective as it used to be. It was because I wasn’t being obedient. I wasn’t on the mountain that He designated. Sometimes the first step in fulfilling the mission He has given us is just to get where He told us to go.
But once He has told us where we’re supposed to be, we don’t move off that spot until He tells us. There will be times when we’re serving in a particular area, witnessing to a particular person or a particular group of people, and we’re not seeing the fruit we think we ought to see. We’re tempted to think, “Let me go over here. Let me work over here. Let me stop doing this and go start doing this.” Until God tells us, we don’t move off the spot where He last put us.
What the disciples present here for us in verses 16 and 17 is not a group of people who had everything all figured out. It’s not a group of people who knew every next step through to the end. It’s a group of people who, with all their flaws and all their doubts and all their insecurities, knew the very simple truth that we just have to be ready and available to say yes to the Lord in whatever He calls.
That’s what they were doing. Jesus said, “Go up to that mountain.” They went up to the mountain. They got to the mountain. They were not sure what to do. They stood there and waited for instructions from Him.
For us to fulfill the mission God has given us as a church and as individuals, we have to be ready to obey Him. We have to adopt a posture of obedient readiness, of saying, “Lord, whatever it is You call me to do, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Sent Under Jesus’ Authority
Then we get to the actual commission itself there in verse 18. When Jesus answers, “What are we supposed to do next?” they haven’t asked the question yet, but Jesus knows what the question is, and He’s already got the answer. He says, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.”
This is another part that sometimes we overlook in the Great Commission. We jump right to “Go therefore.” But He starts out with this idea of authority. “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” We have to understand that our mission flows from Jesus’ reign.
Is Jesus the King or is He not? Yes, He is. He’s the King. What He says to the disciples is that all authority has been given to Him, has been handed to Him by the Father, in heaven and on earth. Then He turns to the disciples and gives the instructions.
What He doesn’t spell out, because He doesn’t need to, is still there in the implication. What He’s telling them is, “I have the authority, and I am sending you in My authority to go.”
Sometimes we will think that the mission He sends us on, the service that we perform, and the way we fulfill this Great Commission has to be about our skills, our attributes, or our effectiveness. It has nothing to do with any of those things. God knew before you were ever born who you were. He knew there were going to be things you were pretty good at. He knew there were things you were not great at. That was all baked into the cake.
When He called you to serve Him, when He called you to go and carry His message, He already knew all the excuses that we make. He already knew those things. I’ve said it numerous times, and people think I’m exaggerating because I’m up here every Sunday talking to a big group of people, but I am an enormous introvert and a little bit socially awkward sometimes.
There are all kinds of reasons to tell God, “I can’t do this. I can’t go. I can’t go talk to that person in the store.” God knew all of that, and He doesn’t care. He gives us the ability to do what He’s called us to do.
We see examples of this in Scripture. Moses said, “I can’t go speak to Pharaoh.” And God basically said, “Take Aaron along if you need him.” I don’t recall one time where Aaron has to speak on Moses’ behalf to Pharaoh. As I recall, and maybe I’m missing something, but if it happened, it was rare. Just about every instance was Moses carrying the words of God directly to Pharaoh.
We are sent here, and we are sent out where we go throughout life, to represent the One who already reigns. This ought to give us confidence, because the gospel is not proclaimed through our skills. Sometimes you’re going to get tongue-tied. Sometimes you’re going to get tongue-tied at 11:40 on a Sunday morning in front of a bunch of people. Maybe not in front of a bunch of people, but it happens to me.
Sometimes you’re not going to have the right words. Sometimes you’re going to walk away and say, “I wish I’d said that differently.” Guess what? The power of the message is in the One who reigns and the One who sent us. He has baked all of our flaws into this. It’s understood.
When we truly understand that we go, not as a consequence of being good at anything in particular, but as a consequence of Him having the authority and Him sending us and saying, “Go and take My message. I’ve got you,” it should give us a confidence and a sense of purpose that goes beyond our abilities.
You don’t have to be the most eloquent. You don’t have to be able to answer any possible question that may come up. You represent the King. Not only that, you represent the King of kings. He is the One who sent you and said, “Take My message.”
Making Disciples as We Go
Then we get to verses 19 and 20, and we see that this Great Commission, this mission He has given us, demands an outward focus. We will look at this passage, and the way it’s almost always translated into English makes it sound like the command here is “go.” Without getting too much into grammar, there is something called a participle. We have them in English. They have them in Greek. In some places, it can be hard to translate into English and make it sound natural.
It doesn’t sound natural to say it this way, but if we wanted to translate the Greek, it would say, “Going, disciple all the nations.” Go is not the command. Go is the assumption.
Sometimes, yes, we are called to go to a particular place. People are called to go overseas with IMB. People are called to go to another state. People are called to go to their neighbor. Sometimes we experience a particular call to go somewhere. I don’t dispute that.
But in this passage, the assumption here is that we are going throughout our daily lives. Evangelism and making disciples is not something we set aside time to do maybe on Saturday morning or Tuesday evening. It is something we are doing as we are going through life. Going is the assumption. Making disciples is the command.
This is important because otherwise we can easily understand it from our church culture, not our church in particular, but American church culture. We can start to understand this as, “Well, we’re called to set some time aside to go and do something.” But the reality is that whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re doing in the regular days of your life, you’re a missionary and a disciple maker who happens to be doing those things.
My dad used to talk about the realization that he wasn’t a banker. He was a missionary who worked at a bank. Some of you may be missionaries who work at a bank. Some of you may be teachers, but really you’re missionaries who teach school. Some of you may see yourselves as, “I’m a retiree.” No, you’re a missionary whom God has gifted with a lot of time.
Now, I hear from some of you that you’re busier than when you had a nine-to-five job. You’re a missionary with a lot of time to go and be busy about things you’re passionate about, if that’s what you choose to do, but you’re a missionary nonetheless. Maybe you’re a student. That means you’re a missionary in your school.
As we go through our daily lives, disciple making is part of everyday life. It should be woven into the fabric of who we are. You’re sitting down to lunch with a colleague. As you have the opportunity, you are pointing them to Jesus. You’re retired and you’re going grocery shopping. As you have the opportunity, you are pointing people to Jesus at Walmart. They need it.
That’s not a knock on Walmart. That’s just any time I’m at the grocery store. Jesus needs to be there. Wherever we go, it’s expected that we’re making disciples. Going is the assumption. Making disciples is the command.
Calling Unbelievers to Follow Christ
What does that look like? He explains it to us. There are two components in this idea of disciple making. What is it that we’re supposed to do as a function of everyday life?
He tells us in verse 19, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” To the disciples, yes, they needed to go out and physically baptize people. As a church, we should physically baptize people. I am not telling you that this means for you that as you’re going through daily life, you’re at Walmart, and you run into a lobster tank, you’re supposed to immerse people in the lobster tank because you’re following the Great Commission. I don’t think they even have those anymore. When I was a kid, they had the lobster tanks.
But that idea of baptism was something that was done because somebody was making a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ. When the commission is given to us as believers to baptize, it’s with the assumption that we are leading people to trust Christ.
Disciple making calls unbelievers to follow Christ. When He says, “baptize them,” what we sometimes miss, but what they would have understood, is that there is a whole process that leads up to that baptism. When they are baptized, they are making that statement, that profession of faith in Jesus Christ.
If we want to see them get baptized, this is us talking to them about Jesus. This is us sharing the gospel wherever we go. When Preston Condra has been here to talk about his method of evangelism, he has repeated a phrase that has stuck with me. He said that sometimes we’re afraid it’s going to be weird. He said, “It’s only weird if you make it weird.”
That’s true about a lot of things in life. There are ways that will be natural for you to engage somebody with the gospel that might not be natural for others. But there are ways for us to engage people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
As we’re going, we are looking for people who need Jesus, and we’re pointing them to Him. Sometimes that means we have the time, the interest from them, and the opportunity for a full gospel presentation. Sometimes we don’t have that much time. You may run into somebody for 15 seconds at a convenience store.
There is no shame in a situation like that in handing somebody a gospel tract or giving them an invitation to church, if you’re inviting them to a church where they will hear the gospel. That’s not a substitute for speaking the gospel with our mouths, but sometimes that’s all we have the opportunity for.
Whatever we do to point that person to Jesus Christ in hopes of them coming to a saving knowledge of Him is part of this disciple-making process.
Helping Believers Obey Jesus
When we get to verse 20, disciple making teaches believers to obey Jesus. He says, “teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you.” We use the phrase discipling or disciple making, but just to define it very clearly from this passage, making disciples is calling nonbelievers to follow Jesus and helping believers to obey Jesus.
If we’re doing those things, we are making disciples, and that’s part of the Great Commission. You may be sitting there saying, “But teaching them to observe all that I’ve commanded you—does that mean I have to teach a class?” No. Teaching a class can be part of that, but a lot of our teaching happens through relationships.
How many of you have been taught by somebody in your family how to bake a particular dessert? Did somebody get out a big whiteboard and say, “We’re going to have a class; come sit with your notebook”? Is that how they taught you to make that dessert? No. It was hands-on. You got together and made a dessert, and you learned from that.
I don’t think I’ve ever, maybe one time with something in French, sat down with the kids and gotten out a whiteboard. But beyond that, all the ridiculously obscure, useless trivia that I have imparted into their heads, all of the theology, all of the political philosophy, all of it, has been as we’re just doing stuff together and talking. I’ve radicalized my children and never taught a class.
We are teaching just by being around people. We are teaching with the way we live our lives. We are teaching with the way we prioritize things. We are teaching with how we encourage people through difficult times as we point them back to God’s Word.
If you are building relationships with people and encouraging them to obey Christ as believers, that’s part of disciple making. We make this way harder than it needs to be. We make this way scarier than it needs to be. This is something every one of us can do, and it’s something every one of us should be doing.
When we see the opportunity to invite somebody to follow Christ who never has before, and lead that person to Christ, we take the opportunity. And as we’re with other believers, especially younger believers or less mature believers, we encourage them to follow Christ with the way we interact with them. We encourage them to obey Him with the way we interact with them.
That’s disciple making. It’s something we are all supposed to be engaged in. It’s something this church relies on. It’s something the advancement of the gospel relies on. This is what we’re called to do. This is what we’re called to make the main thing.
The Main Thing
We will sometimes look at the world around us and complain about the circumstances we find in our world. I’m not getting on to you about that. I’m guilty of that as well. I will sit there and complain about the world we’re in.
Do you know what the answer is for families that are constantly in crisis in our society? It’s the good news of Jesus Christ. Do you know what we need to address the problems of violence and suicide and all sorts of ills that plague our society? We need the good news of Jesus Christ.
Do you know what’s going to prevent an Islamic takeover of the West? The gospel of Jesus Christ. We look at all the things where we want to nip around the edges and try to fight back against this or that. We go back to the main thing He has given us to do: make disciples.
If it sounds like I’m mad at you, I’m not. I’m just really excited about this. Not like it’s new or anything, but sometimes hearing stories from people who are doing it makes me realize again how easy it can be and how natural it should be.
Sustained by His Presence
Our mission is sustained by Jesus’ presence. Even as I say it should be easy and natural, there are going to be times when it’s hard. Anything worth doing is hard. Is marriage ever hard? Some of you don’t answer too quickly or too enthusiastically. It can be hard. Is parenting ever hard? Hallelujah. Parenting is hard. Ministry is hard. Anything that we do that’s worth doing is hard.
There are going to be hard moments, and there are going to be moments where we feel like throwing in the towel because we’re not seeing the fruit we think we’re supposed to see, or it’s not happening as fast as we think it ought to happen. Our mission is sustained by His presence.
He tells us in verse 20, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” We can’t see Him in a physical way, but what He’s talking about is that His providential care is always with us. And when He left, He sent His Holy Spirit to come and live inside of us.
Don’t ever get over that fact: the third person of the Trinity lives inside of you if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ. “I don’t think I can go on. I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I have the strength to do this.” The Holy Spirit is right there. Just do what He says, and He’ll give you the ability to do it. He’s with us always.
So we are able to go forth and do this because He’s with us. And because our mission is centered on Him, because He deserves to be talked about. Think about what Jesus did for you. If you’re a believer, you’ve been saved by Him. You’ve been transformed by Him. Think about all that He’s done for you. Doesn’t He deserve to be talked about?
We look at all these things. He has the authority. We are going and telling people about Him and calling them to faith in Him. We are teaching them to obey Him because He deserves to be obeyed. He deserves to be followed. He deserves to be glorified. Every time we see somebody transformed by the gospel, Jesus Christ is glorified.
This is the main thing. This is what we’re supposed to do. Is it the only thing we do? No, there are other things that we do. But this has got to be the main thing.
There are other things we do as a church. We get together and encourage each other, and we have fellowship that encourages us. We do all these things, and those things aren’t bad. Caleb made a statement talking about synagogue. I was so convicted the other night about these people. They just get together and have church in a coffee shop. They’ve got to have a place to gather, so they gather and have church in a coffee shop. It doesn’t bother them at all. They’re there to worship the Lord.
But Caleb made a statement about these young people who are being sent out by the college to go and do missions. Talking about their perspective as people who are training for a career, he said, “If all we do is get our degree and make money and die, we have wasted our lives.”
That’s true for each of us individually. It’s true for us as a church. If all we do is get together and have a good time and nice fellowships and die, we’ve wasted our time. Now, I’m not saying that’s what we’re doing. I’m just saying that’s a fact. We will have wasted our time if that’s all it is.
We want to see the gospel advanced throughout this city. We want to see the gospel advanced from this city throughout this region to the ends of the earth. It starts with the very simple decision to get up every day, as we go throughout our daily lives, and say, “Today, as I’m doing what God has put in front of me, I’m looking for people who need the hope that Jesus Christ offers. They need that message of salvation. If I can point them to it, I’m going to. If there are people around me who need to grow in the faith, and I can help them do that and help them obey Jesus, I’m going to do it. And I’m going to do it today.”
We get up every day and make that decision. That’s what He’s called us to do.