In Everything

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. So welcome again, and this is the closing of our series on God with us, what that means. The term Immanuel, which is, I guess, Hebrew, not Aramaic, but Hebrew. That was the name that was used for Jesus, or the promised Messiah. And it comes up in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 1, verse 23, where the angel Gabriel talking to Mary said, behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us. And so, as we've done on a number of Sundays, let's say that together, the next one, just this. And they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us. Now what you could say here, actually, as we've been looking at what this means, the incarnation, God with us, God among us, God one of us, God for us, God alongside of us, God always with us. You could say this Matthew 1, verse 23 verse is actually the theme of the entire Gospel of Matthew. It's what begins the Gospel, but then also the passage we're looking at today, to finish this off, is the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew 28, verses 16 to 20. Now you can look this up and see all this on the Bible app. And we've got all the little wonderful notes and stuff on that. And you can download the Bible app. It's the U version. And when you hit more and events, you will find, if you've got your location services on, you'll find the notes for today. But today, whether you do that on your phone or tablet, or if you're going to do it on the screen, we're going to read now Matthew 28. Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain 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. Powerful words. Words that you might have heard before. Maybe you have not. But we're going to look at how the beginning and the end of the Gospel of Matthew basically brings that home, Emmanuel, God with us. I am with you always to the very end of the age. And what we're going to look at today is, what does it mean? He talks about disciples in here. What are the characteristics of a disciple? What characterizes a disciple of Jesus Christ? We're going to look at these four things. And one of them might be surprising to you. But the first is doubtful. Disciples are doubtful. Secondly, is they are adopted. Thirdly, they are formed. And finally, they are empowered. We'll take them on. I know, four points. But guess what? We're going to go through them pretty quickly. Well, relatively speaking. First of all, doubtful. I know that one might shock you, but it's right there in the text. I don't know if you noticed that, right? In that text. So it says that the disciples gathered together and they came up to the mountain at Galilee where Jesus had told them. And it says, and when they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted. Now, I am amazed that Matthew actually includes this in his Gospel. In fact, a lot of details are not included in the Gospel. But he did definitely place this one in here. Isn't that interesting? And I think it proves kind of the authenticity of the actual experience. Because yeah, these were the eleven. The eleven. That is, minus Judas. They had come together. So they had been the ones that were with Jesus for three years. They were the ones that also saw his crucifixion. But they were also the ones that had, up until this point, seen a number of times where Jesus had actually appeared to them resurrected from the dead. And yet, these eleven, the ones closest to Jesus, still some of them doubted. I think there's both comfort in that and, shall I say, a challenge. First of all, comfort, having doubts, is our fallen, normal state. If you've got doubts, everybody else does too. God still uses doubting people. In fact, there is no other type of people that he uses in the Bible. There's no super saints, no super, stupor, spiritual, always convinced, always on top of things individuals that God ever uses. There's only one hero in all the Bible. And it is not Moses, it is not David, it is not Ruth, it is not even Mary. It's Jesus. Everybody else has doubts, and struggles, and fallenness, and sinfulness, and all that stuff going on. So if he's going to use anybody, and he chooses to use us, that's comforting to me. If he chooses to use doubtful disciples, even after the resurrection, even after everything was proved in their presence, in a sense, he still uses them, even with their doubts. Now, the challenge is, your doubts are no excuse. That is, I don't think you get to say, well, pastor, you know, you must ...