In his sermon 'Jesus Commissions His Heralds,' Peter Allison explores the passage from Luke 24, emphasizing Jesus’ commission to His disciples to preach repentance and remission of sins. He explains the concept of a 'commission' as a formal charge or instruction, drawing parallels to his own experience receiving a military commission. Allison underscores that all Christians have a divine commission that cannot be resigned, tracing this back to God's charge to Adam and Eve. The sermon delves into the Great Commission, highlighting how Jesus invested in training His apostles as His heralds, who were entrusted to carry His authoritative message to all nations. The role of a herald is defined as one who speaks with the authority of the sender, emphasizing the importance of not altering the message. The sermon also reflects on the transformation of the disciples from fearful followers to bold heralds after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. Allison concludes by encouraging worship and praise as appropriate responses to the Gospel, highlighting the joy and worship experienced by the disciples as they returned to Jerusalem after witnessing Jesus’ ascension.

Please turn in your scriptures to Luke 24. Will begin reading at verse 46. Then he said to them, Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. Behold I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.

And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. Now it came to pass while He blessed them that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven. And they worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God. Amen. May this word be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

Almighty Heavenly Father, we remember Diane this morning who was not able to be with us and asked that you might speak to her through your word this morning, that you would heal her. We ask for Ben Greer and his family as they minister this morning, may your word Lord come through them to your people, to their family. And ask Lord now that you would sanctify my sinful lips to proclaim the gospel of repentance and for the remission of sins. In Jesus name, amen. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Jesus commissions His heralds. Maybe commission is not a word that's in your everyday vocabulary. But so a commission is a charge, or it's an instruction, as to how a trust should be carried out. It's a formal Written warrant or authority that authorizes or commands the performance of certain duties. I once received a commission.

It read this way. It's written on parchment. The President of the United States of America, to all who shall see these presents, Greeting! Know ye that reposing special trust and confidence in the patriotism, valor, fidelity, and abilities of Peter Allison, I do appoint him an ensign in the U.S. Navy.

This officer will therefore carefully and diligently discharge the duties of the office to which appointed by doing and performing all manner of things pertaining thereunto." And it goes on, I do strictly charge and require of those officers and other personnel of lesser rank to render such obedience as is due an officer of this grade and position, and this officer is to observe and follow such orders and directions from time to time as may be given by the President of the United States of America or other superior officers acting in accordance with the laws of the United States of America. This commission is to continue in force during the pleasure of the President of the United States of America, done at the City of Washington this 21st day of March in the year of our Lord, 1986, and of the independence of the United States of America 210th When I could no longer carry out that Commission I resigned it Now maybe you're thinking or you've never received a commission like that. But actually, you have. We have. We all have.

And we can't resign it. See, God commissioned Adam and Eve to be fruitful and to multiply and to subdue the earth and to exercise dominion over the fish of the sea, of the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moved on the earth. That commission extends to all their descendants as well, the entire human race. Of course, those that aren't married as Adam and Eve were should not multiply. You should wait until you're married to carry out that part, that responsibility.

But this morning, we're going to look at the other commission in the Scriptures. Sometimes called the Great Commission. The one that God gave to His Apostles and to His church through the Apostles as the foundation of the church. You remember a number of weeks, probably been months ago now, earlier in our look in Luke, where Jesus, early in His ministry, after spending an entire night in prayer, chose twelve men from among His disciples to be trained as His heralds. And they accompanied Jesus everywhere.

Jesus personally invested His time in training them above and beyond all the teaching that He gave to the crowds and the multitudes that flocked to Him to hear. He invested His time in training them above and beyond all the teaching that He gave to the crowds and the multitudes that flocked to Him to hear. He invested His time in training these twelve disciples above and beyond what He gave to the other disciples. It was these twelve disciples that He would continue to instruct after He'd sent the crowds away. It was to these twelve disciples that He would explain the parables that he had taught to the crowds.

And then from those twelve, he chose three more, or three, to see them even more. And these three alone saw Him raise the daughter of the synagogue ruler from the dead. These three alone saw His glorified body on the Mount of Transfiguration. These three alone were taken with Jesus further into the Garden of Gethsemane in the night that He was betrayed. It was to these eleven disciples, because remember Judas hung himself after betraying Jesus.

That was the result of his pride when he realized he'd made a mistake, his remorse. It was not a godly sorrow for sin, it was the fruit of pride that caused him to be filled very down upon himself when he realized he made a mistake. So there were only eleven. Jesus appeared to these eleven. After he appeared to Mary Magdalene, and to the other women, and to Peter, and to Clopas, and the other disciple on the way to Emmaus.

He then appeared to the eleven. Actually, there were ten, because John says Thomas wasn't there that night. But he was at a later night. And then in the forty days between that day that he rose from the dead and the day He ascended into heaven, Jesus appeared to His disciples on several different occasions. And He expounded the Scriptures to them, showing how the entire Bible, from Moses to the prophets to the Psalms, We would say Genesis to Malachi.

It was Genesis to Chronicles for the Hebrew Bible. But how everything in the Scriptures spoke of Christ. Everything. And we looked at that a little bit last week. And then Jesus says in verse 46 that it was necessary, it was necessary for Christ to suffer, to die, to be buried, and to rise again from the dead on the third day.

It was necessary for Christ to suffer, to die, to be buried, and to rise again from the dead on the third day. It was necessary for Christ to fulfill His commission because He was sent by the Father for a certain role, for a certain work. But Jesus said that there was one more thing necessary to happen. Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and it is necessary that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem. Jesus commissioned His disciples to be His heralds of His message of repentance and the remission of sins.

A herald is an official messenger sent by the King to proclaim His message. Only those who are sent by Christ can be His heralds. Many people can speak, but only those who have been authorized, to whom who have been commissioned, can speak with the authority of the one who sent them. We might go over to France and tour around there. And when we do that, we represent America to all the people in France.

Their view of America is formed by what they see in us. And in that sense, we are an ambassador. But we cannot speak with the authority of the United States when we do that. Only those who are sent, formally commissioned, can speak with the authority of this country. Romans 14 says, How then shall they call on Him whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard?

And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?" A messenger can't go before he's been given authority to go. The Old Testament brings us out in a number of places. Jeremiah probably almost more than anyone else. Jeremiah in several places speaks about the prophets that I haven't sent.

Jeremiah 14, 14. The prophets prophesied lies in My name. I have not sent them, commanded them, nor spoken to them. They prophesied to you a false vision, a worthless thing. Jeremiah 23, I haven't sent these prophets, yet they ran.

I haven't spoken to them, yet they prophesied." Or Jeremiah 27, "'Don't listen, ' Jeremiah says, "'to the words of the prophets who speak to you. You shall not serve the king of Babylon, for they prophesy a lie to you, for I haven't sent them, ' says the Lord. They prophesy a lie in My name that I may drive you out and that you may perish. That's not a message of life. Or in Jeremiah 29, thus says the Lord of hosts, do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you.

Don't listen to them. I haven't sent them, the Lord said. Jeremiah, a little later in that Chapter 29 says, Thus says the Lord concerning Shemaiah the Nehilimite, because Shemaiah has prophesied to you and I have not sent him, and he has caused you to trust in a lie. This word that is translated preach, repentance and the remission of sins should be preached in His name, is a word that is used only three times in the New Testament for people that were not ordained. All of them in the Gospels.

One of those times is in Mark 1, 45, where Jesus healed a leper, and He strictly commanded him not to tell about what he had done to him. Of course, this leper didn't obey Jesus, and He went about proclaiming what Jesus had done for him. The only other person it's used of is the demoniac that Jesus healed in the Gadarenes. The Gadarene demoniac. Luke and Mark both record this.

After Jesus had healed him, he wanted to get into the boat with Jesus and the disciples. And Jesus said, no, you may not come with me. But he said, you need to go back to your family and tell them about what I did for you." And he did. He went back into this region of the capitalists and proclaimed what Jesus had done for him. That was not an area that Jesus ministered in other than this one time.

And Jesus sent him as a messenger. But every other time, it's used in the New Testament. It's always used with respect to people that God has ordained and sent. A herald is somebody who speaks with the authority of the one who sent him. A herald speaks with the authority of the one who sent him.

In my family growing up, my father would also often give us instructions to give to another sibling. And we would carry those out. Very, very dire consequences if we didn't. But sometimes the person we were talking to would question it. They say, well, yeah, but that's just you talking, right?

I don't have to listen to you. And then we would say, well, no, daddy said to do this. You see, when we were speaking in that situation, it wasn't just me telling somebody a year or two younger than me. It wasn't just a five-year-old telling a four-year-old or three-year-old to do something. It was daddy speaking to them.

When he gave us that warrant, that commission, to tell somebody, to give an order to somebody, then we would speak that order with his authority. And We would listen. Maybe somebody would come to me and say, well, Daddy says you should do this. And then I recognized they weren't speaking on their own initiative. If they were, I could ignore them.

But if they're speaking with Daddy's authority, I better not ignore them. And so Christ's own voice is heard in the preaching of the Gospel by those that He has sent. Christ's own voice is heard in the preaching of the Gospel by people that He has sent. Paul wrote to Titus, he called himself a bond servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. For the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to Godliness and the hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, but at the proper time manifested even His Word.

In the proclamation, that's the same word there, it's a noun form of the Word, but It is the message, it's the content that is being proclaimed. Paul said, that the proper time manifested even His Word. God manifested His Word in the message, the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior." That has it all. Paul was carrying a message, but that message was the Word of God. And that message was entrusted to Him by the commandment of God our Savior.

A herald can only be one who is sent by Jesus Christ. He speaks with the authority of Christ, but He is not allowed to speak His own message. Only the message of the one who commissioned and sent Him. This concept is so important that Paul repeats this twice in his letter to the Galatians, back to back. Here's how it goes.

But even if we, or in Galatians 1, 8, but even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you, then what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. Now that's an imperative, so it really should say He must be accursed. It's third person. We don't have a good way to translate that. But He must be accursed.

If anyone comes with another message, then the true message from Christ, then He must be accursed. Anathema. But here's the next sentence. And as we have said before, so now I say again. He just said this.

He says, if anyone preaches another gospel to you than what you have received, let Him be accursed." He repeats the exact same thing in the next sentence. It's that important that the messenger only bring the message of the one who sent Him. The messenger is not allowed to alter the message. He can't add to it and he can't detract from it. It's not the message if it's only 90% of the message.

If you leave out the one thing that is most needed at that point, then the messenger has failed to bring the true message. The messenger is not allowed to add or subtract to the message. Can't give all the message and then some additional things. God strictly commanded in Deuteronomy 4.2, You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandment of the Lord your God, which I command you. You shall not add to it or take from it.

This word that I'm giving you, remember Paul called the message that he was proclaiming, he called that the Word, God's Word that was manifested. And Revelation adds similar warnings in the New Testament. That if any of his messengers take away from the Word, from the message, God would take away their part in the book of life. Or if they add to that message, God would add to them the plagues that were written in that message. So he's not allowed to change the message.

And lastly, the fifth thing that we need to know this morning about this preaching business, is that the message is what's important, not the messenger. The message is what's preeminent and not the messenger. This word, preach, is a verb. And that verb in various forms is used 61 times in the New Testament to speak about this work of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In its noun form, it's only used three times.

In his letters to Timothy, Paul twice calls Himself first a preacher, then an apostle, and a teacher. Putting preacher, His office as a preacher, ahead of an apostle. And even when it is used in Romans 10, passage where it says, How then shall they call on Him in whom they haven't believed, and how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach unless they are sent." That word, how shall they hear without a preacher, is actually the verb. It's a participle. It's the one preaching.

So this is saying it's a present participle. It means one who is continuously keeps on heralding. One who keeps on heralding continuously in an ongoing way. So the emphasis is upon the act. The emphasis is upon the proclamation and not upon the person.

The person is really unimportant. The person is going to pass away. John the Baptist said of himself, and he was called a preacher. He came to preach repentance for the remission of sins. He said, I must decrease, but He must increase.

God doesn't need any person. If all of the people are silent, He said the stones can cry out. God doesn't need any person. He uses people, but He doesn't need us. The important thing is the message.

And so it's very dangerous if the messenger becomes of equal importance with the message that he's proclaiming. The preeminent and prominent thing must always be the message and the proclamation of it and the subject of that message, which is Jesus Christ, and not ever the messenger. The messenger is really unimportant. Now, obviously the life of the messenger should match the message that is being proclaimed. It would be incongruous for a glorious and great king to send out messengers in rags and tatters.

And it would also be incongruent for the king to send out messengers who are not representative of his message. So in that sense there should be a match between the messenger and the message. But the important thing must be the message and its proclamation. The Apostles in Luke 24 are also called witnesses. Are also called witnesses.

It's necessary that repentance and the remission of sin should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. All Christians are called to be witnesses, to tell the good news. Acts 8-4 speaks about those who were scattered everywhere. In most translations, they say preaching the Word, but it's a different word for preaching.

The New Testament has a number, a great number of words that are used to convey the giving of this message. It's maybe a bit unfortunate that they in English they're all usually translated with preach And so we lose the the difference in the nuances in the different words that are used But this word that's in Acts 4 where those who were scattered when everywhere preaching the word is the word you want to live so which is to evangelize There to witness their witnesses To the to the Word of God the Apostles were the witnesses of the events of the resurrection They were they They were eyewitnesses of Christ bodily after He rose from the dead. That was a requirement to be an apostle. We're not witnesses to those facts, but we are witnesses to the Word of God and to what is recorded in it. And we should be testifying to the truth of that message.

Now what was the content of the message that was to be proclaimed? Jesus said it was to be a message of repentance and remission of sins. Repentance and remission of sins. Repentance is something that only a sinner can do. Only a sinner can repent.

So right off the message, the content of this message is that we are sinners. We have broken the law of God. We have transgressed His commandments. And because we have transgressed His commandments, we are under the wrath of God. This is how Paul summarized the Gospel in the book of Romans, which is one of the most extended discourses in the Gospel and all that's involved in it.

It's summarized in these two verses. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it's the power of God, the salvation for everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, that just shall live by faith. Why? Because for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth.

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness, against all the wicked. And that's what we are. There is none righteous. No, not one. There is none who understands.

There is none who seek after God. They have all turned aside. They are all unprofitable. Their throat is an open tomb. Their tongue, as they have practiced deceit, the poison of asps and snakes is under their lips.

Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. In the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." This is what Paul says, all men, Jews and Gentiles alike.

This is his description. This is the Bible's description of us. This is the first thing that these disciples were to proclaim. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness. There has to be a conviction of our sin and an imporance and a detesting of our sin.

There has to be that knowledge that we are sinners. That knowledge that the natural man wants to suppress. God uses the preaching of the Word to bring it back to us and to impress it upon us so that we cannot ignore it. Through the preaching of the Word, God brings faith. And through the preaching of the Word, we are enabled to see and to realize the magnitude of our sin against the Almighty King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And it is through the preaching of the Word then that we are enabled to repent, to turn around, and to go a different direction, to go the opposite direction. Repentance unto life, this is how our confession summarizes, it is a saving grace. It's a saving grace because it is grace that converts us, unlike the sacraments which are not converting graces. They are graces to those to whom grace has already been given. This repentance is a saving grace.

Wrought in the heart of sinners by the Spirit and Word of God. It's the Spirit working through the Word of God, that message as it is proclaimed, whereby out of a sight and sense, sight and sense, all of our senses, not only the danger but also the filthiness and odiousness of our sins, and upon the apprehension of God's mercy in Christ is such as our penitent, so we grieve for and hate our sins, such that we turn from them to God." That's repentance. Turning from our old way of life, turning from the things that we used to love to do, the things that seemingly gave us pleasure. Turning from those to serve the living God. Purposing and endeavoring constantly to walk with Him in all the ways of new obedience.

That's the message that Christ has commissioned his heralds to proclaim that through repentance, which is a grace of God through repentance, we can be brought out of the wrath of God, removed from being under condemnation and brought into communion with Him so that we who were once under His wrath are now at peace with Him. We who were once under His condemnation, now We are no longer under condemnation. The remission of our sins, the guilt of our sins is paid for by Christ. So we are no longer guilty of them. We who committed those sins are no longer guilty of those sins.

Our sins have been remitted. The debt that we owed for those sins is paid by Christ's suffering in our place on the cross. That is the best news, the most wonderful news that anybody could ever proclaim. And this is the message that Jesus commissioned His disciples, His apostles, to proclaim. It was a message that was to go not just to the Jews, but it was to go to all the nations.

Remember, this isn't something new. God promised to Abraham that in him, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. He would be the father of many nations, and in Him all the nations. It wasn't just His physical descendants through Jacob and the twelve patriarchs who were called the Jews, but it was all the nations of the earth would be blessed. So this Gospel, now as Paul said, it was kept secret, but now it has been manifested and it is to go, It is to be proclaimed to all the nations.

We said that this morning in our confession. We spoke of the great commission from Matthew 28, the parallel passage here. This parallel passage from Matthew of this commissioning of the disciples, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of this age." So the disciples were to go, and God sent them throughout the whole known world. Paul said the Gospel in his lifetime was preached throughout the entire world by these apostles and the pastors that they commissioned. But they were not to go just yet.

There was one last test, their qualifications, a test which they all passed. He says, Behold, I send you the promise of My Father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem." You need to wait. You need to wait because you cannot do this in your own strength. You cannot preach this message in the flesh. You will fail every time.

Carry in the city. Wait. Wait in Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high. Wait until you receive the Holy Spirit, which I will send to you. But you need to wait.

Don't go on your own strength. And they obeyed that. They passed that test. They waited. And Lord willing as we move into Acts, we will see Luke's greater detail and greater account of the falling of the Holy Spirit upon them, in doing them with power from on high.

That was the promise of the Father, that He would send the Holy Spirit to them and enable them. He led them out as far as Beth, and He lifted His hands and blessed them. And while He was blessing them, he was received into heaven. He was parted from them and carried up into heaven. Mark tells us that he sat down at the right hand of God when he was received.

He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God and they went out preaching. Luke says Mark got a little ahead of the story there or ahead of where Luke is I should say. Luke says he was parted from them and carried up into heaven. And what was their response? What was their response to all of that they had witnessed in the last forty days?

This amazing transformation of disciples who were afraid of Pilate and the Roman army and the Jews, such that they deserted Christ, such that Peter even denied Christ, that he even knew Him, and denied it with an oath, such that nobody except John of the disciples apparently was near the cross. They had all abandoned him. Yet in this forty days there's this remarkable transformation from these disciples who are fearful and unbelieving and slow to believe that when they did see Jesus rise from the dead, when they did hear the testimony, witnesses, A transformation from that to these messengers, these heralds, who spoke boldly with the authority of Christ. What is their response to having witnessed all this? They worshiped Him.

They worshiped Him. That should be our response. To worship the Lord Jesus. It's something that we do, not just with our words, as we praise Him. That is a sacrifice.

The Bible calls that a sacrifice of thanksgiving. That is worship and praise and adoration. We ascribe to His name the worth that is due His name. We do that privately. We do that as families.

You should do it as families. We do it corporately like now when we are gathered as God's people, we praise Him, we worship Him. We worship Him by hearing His Word. And this is the response of God's people when they hear the Gospel. This is the response of God's people when we know Him, when we see Him, we worship.

It's appropriate to worship. Remember when Jacob blessed his children, his grandchildren, he worshiped. He leaned on his staff and he worshiped God. That's why we have sermons at funerals. Because it's the appropriate time to worship God when we see God work.

When we see His hand in our lives. Whether it's taking a loved one or giving a life, it's appropriate that we worship Him. They returned to Jerusalem with great joy and they were continually, continually in the temple praising and blessing God. Amen. May it be so in our lives.

Let's pray. In our lives. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do love You. We love you because you have loved us.

And you have shown to us the way of life. You have shown to us the fullness of joy that is in your presence. And the pleasures forevermore that are at your right hand. You are a son and a shield. You give grace and glory.

And We praise Your holy name. We worship You this morning as the creator of heaven and earth, as our Savior, as our Father in heaven. The one who loves us, The one who provides for all of our needs. The one who has spoken peace to us. The one who has taken away the guilt of our sin and its stain.

And the one who has enabled us to know peace, to know You as a Father and not just our Judge. To know You as our friend and elder brother, Christ our elder brother, and not only our creator and sovereign King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Help us, Father, to present our bodies as living sacrifices to You. To worship You, sincerely and truthfully. To worship You with our praise and our adoration.

To worship You in Your Word as You bring it to us. Lord, may we seek that word. May we have a hunger and thirst for it that we might know more of You, the one whom we love, the one whose enjoyment is our chief purpose. Father, may every other purpose be insignificant in our lives next to our enjoyment of You, next to our knowing you and worshipping you. And we thank you, Lord, that you have so greatly privileged us to know you and to worship you and to put us in the midst of your people.

We ask for your blessing and for your presence as we continue our worship today. In Jesus' name, Amen.