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.”—Matthew 28:16–20 

My family is at the dinner table: mom and the baby are here; my seven-year-old is here; my five- and four-year-olds are here, and they are not eating their veggies. Parents, you know how this go. It’s one of the most classic scenarios in modern American life. Well, I needed to mix things up, so as a way to incentivize the three older kids to eat, I said: “Okay, if any of you eat all of your green beans, after dinner, I will give you a body slam.”

Now, My kids don’t know what a body slam is, which is why they were excited about this offer. In case you don’t know, a body slam is a wrestling move when one person proceeds to lift another person and then slam that other person’s body onto the wrestling mat. We don’t have a wrestling mat, but we have a couch, which works great. In five minutes after the kids finished their green beans, I had them line up in the living room to each get their turn. Come to find out, they love body slams—sometimes now, during dinner, they ask if they can get body slammed instead of having dessert.

There we were that night doing the body slams—please don’t try this at home—the kids are in line. One steps up. I can actually lift my kids over my head, they’re so light, and then I discard them on the couch. Then, Micah, the four-year-old, the lightest of the bunch, whom I can throw the highest, steps up for maybe his fifth turn, and I take him, and lift, and I’m about to throw him, and that’s when it happened.

Some of you—parents especially—might know where I’m going here, but trust me, it has everything to do with Matthew 28:18–20. 

Matthew 28:18–20 is our text tonight and this morning, and it’s a passage that you’ve probably heard preached several times before. But as we look at it this time, I want us do so with something really important in our minds about the Gospel of Matthew as a whole.

Gospel of Matthew Overview

One thing to nail down about the Gospel of Matthew is that Matthew is writing to show us that Jesus is God. He wants to be super clear about it. He’s not trying to leave any questions. We see this in how the book begins. He tells us that Jesus is Emmanuel, which means, “God with us” (Matthew 1:21). So from the start, we see that Jesus is God and that he is with us here and now. 

There are other high points in the book, like when Jesus walks on the water, and the disciples respond this way: “those in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God’” (Matthew 14:33). That’s really big deal that they worship Jesus and he receives it, because back in Chapter 4, when Satan was tempting Jesus, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:13, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”

So Jesus, quoting the Old Testament, says you only worship Yahweh. You only worship the Lord God. And then a few chapters later, the disciples worship Jesus, and he’s good with that—and this is not to mention seven other scenes in this Gospel where people come to Jesus in the posture of worship.

Of course, there’s the things that Jesus claims for himself like when he says, “Something greater than the temple is here” (Matthew 12:6), which means that he himself is superior to the center of Jewish life which represented the presence of God. And then Jesus says, “My words will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35), which is a claim that only one other person has made and that is God himself. Places like Isaiah 40:8 say, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever,” and now Jesus is saying stuff like that about himself.

Make no bones about it—Jesus is God, and Matthew wants us to know that. He wants us to know that Jesus is God and that Jesus came here.

We need to have this in mind when we look at Matthew 28:18–20, or what we call the Great Commission. I love the Great Commission. I love Jesus telling us what to do. I love the clarity this brings for the mission of the church. In fact, at Cities Church, our mission statement is pretty much Matthew 28:18–20 verbatim. We want to make disciples. That’s what we’re supposed to do. I love this passage. 

However, knowing what Matthew is all about in his Gospel makes us realize that the Great Commission just might be less about what we do, and more about who Jesus is.

I think it is precisely that, actually. The main point here in these verses is the identity of Jesus. Matthew holds Jesus up for us, even to the last line, to say, “This is who he is.”

As your preacher now, I want to do the same thing.

Who Jesus Is

We need to look at the first and last thing Jesus says. So let’s look first at verse 18. “And Jesus came and said to them . . . ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Jesus.Could you do something for me, for just a second? Could you just repeat that quietly to yourself? Just say that in your mind: All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Jesus.

This is a hefty claim, especially in light of Daniel 7:13–14. In Daniel 7, we see an Old Testament vision of the end times when the “son of man” is given dominion over everything.

And to [the son of man] was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.—Daniel 7:14

That’s an amazing thing to say about someone, and here in Matthew 28, Jesus is claiming that for himself. He is the one with the glory and with a kingdom, and he’s taking it to the nations. He has that kind of authority. In fact, he says he has all authority.

Having all authority means having all control. It includes both the right and the power to call the shots. Jesus occupies this role over the universe, in heaven and on earth. Because Jesus has all authority, he is the one that every created thing answers to. This means that he’s not just a guy in the system you have to talk to. He’s not just a hoop you have to jump through in the process. He is the one that every created thing must one day stand before. ISIS will answer to him. Kim Jong-un will answer to him. President Obama will answer to him. Everyone in this room will answer to him.

This is the incomparable power of Jesus. He is that great. His authority means that he has the power to rule and judge, but it also means more. Having all authority also means that he has the power to love. He is great, and he is good, and an all-authority kind of goodness means that it is both free and unstoppable.

The goodness of Jesus is free in that he loves us because he loves us. Nothing outside of him has forced him to do something he didn’t want to do. His love for us is the Trinitarian prerogative that, as Ephesians 2:4 tells us, the Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. God in Christ freely set his love on his people not because we were more in number than any other people and not because of our righteousness or the uprightness of our hearts. He set his love on us because he loves us and keeps his promises(Deuteronomy 7:7–8; 9:5). Jesus loves us because he can, because he wants to—because he has that kind of authority.

We have to see this in his face. His love for us is not reluctant. His arm has not been twisted. Jesus does it because he wants to, not because I earned it, not because I’m great, but because he has all authority in heaven and on earth and because his goodness is free. 

Having all authority means that Jesus’s love is free—nothing outside of him can create it. Having all authority also means his love is unstoppable—nothing outside of him can restrict it. We know this, right? Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth, which means there’s nothing in heaven or on earth that can stand in the way of his grace. You can’t veto his love for us. You can’t hold it back. In fact, you can’t even separate us from it. Remember? No angel, no ruler, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ because he has all authority over all creation.

We have to be careful here, but there is a sense that when we read the end of Romans 8 that we’re both blown away by it, and we say, “Of course, Jesus said he has all authority.”

And having all authority in heaven and on earth, because of that authority, Jesus tell us, “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” (v. 19-20).

“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (v.20). There’s that second verse we should look at, the end part of verse 20. Remember, if this book and this commission is more about who Jesus is than what we’re supposed to do, what do we make of this statement? “I am with you always, to the end of the age,” he tells us. This is where, in my opinion, it’s about to get crazy.

You should know that this is not the first place in the Bible where something like this is promised. In fact, God’s promise to be with his people is a central theme in all of the Bible. We can’t get into all of this now, but this is actually at the heart of how God reveals who he is. He is the God who is there, who promises to be with his people. You’ll remember how Moses puts it in Exodus when Israel was commanded to leave Sinai for the promised land. Moses, speaking to God, says, “If your presence will not with me, do not bring us up from here. . . . Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 33:15–16)

That—to be with his people—was God’s promise, and we see this very clearly in another Old Testament passage, back in Genesis 28, when Jacob has his dream of the ladder.  Jacob had been on the road, and he’s camping out, and he goes to sleep, and then he dreams of these steps reaching up to heaven. There are angels going up and down, and then God himself is at the top, and he speaks to Jacob to reaffirm his promise to Abraham.

And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”—Genesis 28:13–15. 

There are three pieces here to this promise. There is first a declaration of identity: God says who he is. Then there’s a mention of the nations: all the families of the earth are blessed. Lastly, there is the statement: “Behold, I am with you.”

Right away, we’re starting to make the connection to Matthew 28. In the Great Commission, we see these three pieces again. There’s first a declaration of identity: Jesus has all authority; he’s the Son of Man from Daniel 7. Then there’s the mention of the nations: we’re to make disciples of all nations. Lastly, there is the statement again: “Behold, I am with you.”

These last words in Matthew 28:20 are almost identical to the Greek version of Genesis 28:15. Here, I think, is one of the clearest places in the Gospel where Matthew shows us who Jesus is. God promised to be with his people, and here in this last line, in the same way, Jesus promises to be with his people. 

Jesus can say the same things that the God of Israel has said because Jesus is the God of Israel.

That means Jesus is the God with us. The Gospel of Matthew starts with Jesus as Emmanuel, God with us, ends the same way. Jesus is God, and he is with us. That is the resounding message of this book.

And he really is. Jesus means it. It’s true. And the question for us is whether that matters. Does Jesus’s promise to be with us really make a difference in our lives?

Does It Matter?

One of the things that we say over and over again at Cities Church is that Jesus is real. We want to come awake to that fact, simple as it is. He’s real. He’s not some historical figure like all the rest. He’s not just some character on a page. Jesus is a real person. He really is. And he’s alive right now. More real than all of us in this room. More real than the person sitting next to you. Jesus is real.

But our problem as the church in America is not that we don’t believe Jesus is real. It’s that we’ve created a brand of Christianity where he doesn’t need to be.

The church in America at large has created this thing where we just drive into a certain place for an hour one day a week with a group of people. We worship together, leave, and come back the next week. We do the same thing, repeat for a few decades, and then we die. Maybe we throw a small group in there, maybe we make some big, key decisions, and maybe we get some good theology—we call that “Christian maturity.” But the thing is, decent ideas cause people to do stuff like that all the time.

Jesus is not an idea.

So I had my four-year-old—I’m holding him up with my arms, ready for this body slam. This is about the fifth time through, and I’m just getting ready to throw him. We’re all laughing and having a great time. Just as I’m about to push him up and let go, I look at him, and I realize that right here in this moment, I am more real to my son than gravity. The power of my arms to hold him up, my love for him that means I’m not gonna let him fall—in that moment, to my son, I am more real than gravity.

And I wondered: Jesus, could I wrestle with you like this? Are you this real to me? 

I think that’s the question we all should ask, and it’s the question I’m leaving with you. Is Jesus real to you? Is he more real to you than the security of your job, more real to you than the coziness of your comforts, more real to you than the threat of your fears? Is he real to you?

If he is, what is it in your life that you can only do because he is? What is it in your life that demands Jesus be who he says he is? What steps of faith might he be calling you to that mean that every now and then, you have to stop and say, “Jesus, you said you’d be with me.”

We’ve seen who Jesus is. We’ve seen that he has all authority in heaven and on earth and that he promises to be with us always. He is God, and he is with us. He reigns right now at the Father’s right hand, and he has sent his Spirit to fill us and to be for us his abiding presence—so much so that we can say what Paul said: “the Lord [Jesus] stood by me” (2 Timothy 4:17).

Jesus will stand by you. Because he’s real. Because he has all authority in heaven and on earth. And because he said, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”