Following Jesus the Lord of All

Two weeks ago, we started a new sermon series (year long!) in our church entitled “Following Jesus the Lord of All.” Its goal is to obey Jesus’ Great Commission of making disciples of all nations. Before he ascended into heaven, the risen Christ said:

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 28:18-20 ESV).

Because Jesus is Lord of all – of all areas of the lives of all people from all nations for all time – we must follow him as Lord of all. Because of that, we must take seriously Christ’s demands as Lord. These commands are not just for us to consider, think through or study. These commands are for us to obey.

For each sermon in the series, I considered all the commands of Jesus in the Gospels. I categorized them, arranged them, and closely followed John Piper’s chapter divisions in What Jesus Demands from the World. In his introduction Piper wrote about the basis for studying and obeying Jesus’ commands:

One may ask, did Jesus give all these demands to the world, or did he give them only to his disciples? Is this an ethic for the world or just for the followers of Jesus? The answer is: The demands he gave only to his disciples are also meant for the world because he demands all people everywhere to become his disciples. That is the point of his final command: “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” (Matt. 28:19-20). Jesus dares to lay claim to “all nations”—all ethnic groups on the planet. No exceptions. Jesus is not a tribal deity. All authority in the universe is his, and all creation owes its allegiance to him.