Hallelujah! Almighty Father, the mighty Man in battle, our God You reign forever more. We thank You Lord; we thank You for life, we thank You for Your faithfulness of the sun, of the moon, of the night, of the day, of sleeping and waking, thank You Lord Jesus.
Father we thank You for this morning that we have the privilege to come before You; Father Lord God of heaven, we thank You for Your presence in our midst already, we thank You Lord for Your word that You’ve shared with us in times past and that which You are going to share with us this morning; we thank You Lord for Your spirit that is in us and the empowerment that You are going to give to us to do Your bidding, to take Your mandate to the whole world, Father we thank You, we pray Lord that You will speak to us, You will give us understanding and You will stir up our spirit to do that which You want us to do in the mighty name of Jesus,
That great commission that You committed to us, Father Lord God of heaven, don’t let us fail in it in the name of Jesus. Father we appreciate You, we bless Your holy name, now and forever more in the mighty name of Jesus. Praise the Lord! Praise the living Jesus!
Good morning brethren, daddies, mommies, God bless you in the name of Jesus. I welcome you to church today and I pray that you have come to seek God, you will encounter God in the mighty name of Jesus. I want to acknowledge God for the gift of life, I’m standing here because I have His breath in me and I believe that’s why you are also here. I’d like to also appreciate our father in the Lord, the APICR of Region 11, Pastor Tunde Netufo, for this privilege that I have, I pray that the Lord Almighty will show Himself in our midst.
This month has been declared month of abundant grace and we would enjoy, we would benefit from that declaration in the mighty name of Jesus.
Tomorrow by the grace of God, we have the prayer chain at 6:30; for those who may not know, prayer chain is a time where we come together, when we come for prayer chain we hold hands together in a chain and pray and pray. Tomorrow’s topic is “The Indomitable Warrior”; our passages are taken from Exodus 15:3 and Psalm 24: 7 & 8. Please come, also invite as many people as you can, God will bless us as we do in Jesus mighty name.
The first flyer that the media projected, we have some special people in the house this morning that we want to acknowledge, we want to celebrate them, they are women, today is Mother’s Day; even those of them that are yet to be women, the seed of motherhood is in them, so they are permitted to also sit down, let’s just wish them ‘Happy Mother’s Day’, we appreciate you, we celebrate you all, what makes you a mother, God will not take away from you in the mighty name of Jesus.
This morning by the grace of God, we’ll look from Matthew 28: 19 & 20, many of us can recite this without looking, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Mark 16:15-20, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature, 16he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. 17And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. 19So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. 20And they went forth, and preached everywhere (in Lekki phase one, everywhere) the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following, amen”.
This morning by the grace of God, this message I will title “Go and Make Disciples of All Nations”, praise the living Jesus! In the Redeemed Christian Church of God, the months of May and November are set aside to pursue our evangelism drive which for some time, about two years plus now has been tagged Explosive Growth Drive, and is also tagged Vision 2032.
What the church seeks to do is saying that by 2032, (this started in 2023) we should have 40 million people who are members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, that is on a Sunday service like this in all the Redeemed Christian Church of God parishes, if you take the number you will have 40 million people. This started in 2023, today if you ask me how far have we gone, we are falling flat on this assignment, we are far from where we are supposed to be, but we will not lose focus because we know that it is possible, for with God all things are possible, all we need to do is to put our heart to it and follow through.
So in this month of May, throughout the month of May on Sundays, our messages will focus around evangelism, how to go about it and winning souls; is just so to remind us and also to equip us so we know what it is that we need to do. The same will happen on Tuesdays in our digging deep and on Thursdays for our faith clinic, it will focus around this, so I would say to you, please tune in, stay with me, stay with us as we go through and most importantly, we will do what is necessary in the mighty name of Jesus, because where we are is very far but we believe that it can be done, hallelujah!
Go and make disciple – the choir, in the hymn, that hymn said it is with loyalty to Christ that we will go and conquer the land; the land that is talking about is actually the land of people who are yet to be converted, I will get to it later but maybe now I can put it – of all the people on the surface of the earth, have you ever asked yourself the question, how many people are saved and heaven bound? You will be shocked about the statistics when I get there, barely 10% of the world from the statistics available are saved and heaven bound, estimate, the Lord will help us in that mighty name of Jesus.
So it means if you have a household of 10 people, only one today is assured of making it through, I think that’s a scary statistics and it should jolt us into actions. In the beginning, God’s plan and purpose for the earth was declared in Genesis 1:3, and what we see there is that God said let there be light and there was light; and the reason why He said let there be light is because there was darkness, so the plan of God and purpose of God for our world is that wherever there is darkness we must go there and shine our light, and remember the Bible also tells us in Matthew 5:14, it says that we are the light of the world, and 16 says let your light so shine that men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which art in heaven. So brethren, our light must shine into the darkness that is all around us, praise the living Jesus!
And to pursue this cause, this eternal agenda of God to shine light on everywhere there is darkness, a time came that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, who came in the person of God in man form so as to bring the plan of God to reality because maybe to man, it felt like this was not possible, so Jesus Christ came to show us the example of how it could be done.
John 3:14 – 18, Jesus Christ came and He became that light that will shine lightness to the world and He came as an example for us so that we also can be lights in our respective domains and shine into the darkness around us; please ask your neighbor, is your light shining or maybe even before that, are you a light? Are you darkness? Which one are you? I didn’t hear anyone say I’m darkness, so the next question becomes natural, is your light shining? If your light is shining, by now that statistics must be like 90% but we are getting there, praise the living Jesus!
The plan of God for light to cover the whole earth will be fulfilled or was to be fulfilled through Jesus Christ is the true light that shines in the heart of all men, and if indeed is shining and now that Jesus Christ has resurrected, the idea was for us to see what He had done and copy His examples and continue to shine delight, praise the living Jesus! A time will come brethren, by the grace of God that the whole world will be seeking Jesus, say ‘I just want Jesus, please save us, I want Jesus’, but God needs us to be part of that plan, praise the living Jesus!
So let’s go quickly, a few notes that I want us to hold as we continue to shine our light in the midst of the darkness around us, the first point is that Jesus Christ is our perfect example; after Jesus Christ resurrected, before He went back to heaven, He had a few stop points and one of the places where He stopped over was with the disciples, in John 20: 21 after He introduced Himself to the disciples particularly Thomas who had said behind Him that I do not believe until I see Him, so He showed His hand, He did everything; then in verse 21, He said to them peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you; we’ll take the first part, ‘as my Father has sent me’, so Jesus Christ came as an example to us, the Father wanted us to know what He expected of us, so He sent Jesus Christ to us so that He will show us the example, so Jesus Christ is our perfect example.
The great commission to go and win the world, convert all nations, shine light into darkness around us is the command of God, is the great commission, is what God wants us to be involved in, Jesus Christ only came to show us how to do it. Many people thought maybe it was Jesus Christ’s assignment and once Jesus Christ had died it was over, my own, once I’m saved I’m saved, I’m heaven bound, God help us in the mighty name of Jesus.
In His life, some of the examples Jesus Christ gave, I will share three of them; one, He came to save and redeem humanity from their sins; the whole world was in sin, this is comparable to the darkness that God saw in Genesis 1, the Bible says and God saw the darkness and then He said light; the whole world was in darkness, was in sin. Isaiah 60:1, the Bible says arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you; telling us to rise, but look at verse two, it says behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people, there’s darkness everywhere but God will rise upon you, and His glory shall be seen upon you. So God is waiting for a manifestation of the light to shine which was what Jesus Christ came to do, to draw humanity unto God.
The second thing that Jesus Christ did in His life summarized is that He came to destroy the works of Satan, 1 John 3:8. The Bible says he that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil commit sin from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
Now this is how it works, man becomes the captive of the devil by something called sin, so the devil goes about and wherever he finds anyone in sin he possesses, he takes over, because the rule is clear, the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:56, the sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. Now God is a God of order, and in putting order in place God has laws, for example the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament, then the two laws in the New Testament, God has laws, so anyone that transgresses the law is a sinner, anyone who is a sinner becomes captive of Satan which is destined to die, that’s what that passage is saying.
The strength of sin is the law, where there is no law there is no sin, but with God because there is law, then there is sin and because there is sin the devil can then say this is my own, hallelujah! And when the devil has taken anyone into captivity, the devil can do anything that he likes with his captives; some of the things that the devil does with his captives, sicknesses, failure, stagnation, rising and falling, lack of future, sorrows; John 10:10, the Bible tells us for the thief comes not, but to steal, to kill and to destroy: but I have come to give you life and give you life in abundance. All that the devil has to give his captives is to steal from them their destiny, is to destroy them, is to kill them, nothing good, so anyone who lives in sin the devil will inflict this, no progress, praise the living Jesus!
The third thing that Jesus Christ came to do is that He came to restore man’s relationship with God. You know what happened in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3, then man lost out with God and God sent Adam out of the garden and ever since it has been a story of trying to put man back to God and then Jesus Christ was sent and He reconciled man back to God by shedding His blood; the Bible says if there is no shedding of the blood there can be no remission of sins, Jesus Christ had to die, shed His blood and also now resurrected and the blood that He shed now became a propitiation for our sins, it became a thing that we can plug in easily and say by the blood of Jesus I trade over my sins, I trade over my past, I trade over my darkness, I come into a life of abundance, I come into a life of light, a light that is shining, praise the living Jesus!
So these are the things that Jesus Christ had come to do, hallelujah! Now the second thing that we need to note is that we are like Father like son, like Master like servant, hallelujah! The outline that I’m using says ‘so send I’ that same passage, let’s go back to John 20: 21, like Father like son, like Master like servant; so Jesus Christ is saying here, the Father has sent me now I’m about to leave, I am also now sending you, so go and do likewise, go and do like Me, your Master, like Father like son, like Master like servant, praise the living Jesus!
So what does God expect of us? In 1 Corinthians 11:1, Apostle Paul said be ye followers of me, even as I am of Christ. Apostle Paul was saying Jesus Christ when I met Him handed over this ministry to me and said I should continue in it, you also should continue in it, that is the expectation of God for every Christian, every child of God is that the same ministry that Jesus Christ had when He was here on earth, we should take it over. Remember the first thing says He’s our perfect example, He only came to show us what we needed to do, now that we have seen what we need to do, then we should continue to do it.
It’s just like if you have a child, how does a child learn to walk? When a child is born, they didn’t learn how to walk while they are in the womb, but over time the child sees people walking, then one day the child – me too I can walk, he will take the first step and fall, will take another step and fall, after some time he will start walking, how, because he saw examples of people who are already walking; Jesus Christ is our perfect example, so the same things that He did we are expected to do.
So what are these things, let’s paraphrase them again, He came to reconcile sinners to God, 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. The word reconciliations means two people are not in agreement, you want to bring them back in agreement; now the first part is God which is light, the other side is people who are in sin which is darkness; darkness and light never comes together, so the only reconciliation you can have is to have darkness subsumed in light and then everything will be light, so it is your duty, it’s my duty to reconcile sinners to Jesus Christ and how do we do this, we’ll get to that, by just showing them the light the same way as we got the light, praise the living Jesus!
The second thing that we summarized that Jesus Christ did was that He came to destroy the works of darkness, 1 John 3:8, praise the living Jesus! By the grace of God, the Bible tells us that these things that Jesus Christ did in John 14:12, we can also do and even do more; [inaudible] among us the Bible says and we shall lay hands on the sick and the sick shall recover; you pray with them, you lay hands on them, encourage them and they will recover, praise the Lord!
If anybody is oppressed of the devil, the Bible says in Acts 10:38, how Jesus Christ of Nazareth was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power and He went about doing good, delivering those who are oppressed of the devil, so if you see anyone who is oppressed, let us take on the burden, let us share in their burden, pray with them, pray on their behalf, intercede on their behalf, pray to the Father concerning them that they will be released because as many people that we get released that’s the many that you will bring back into the kingdom of God, hallelujah!
So having said that Jesus Christ is our perfect example, like Father like son, then the third thing is what is next, how do we go about doing this? How do we run this mandate that He has given to us? Jesus Christ did His assignment perfectly, Matthew 4:23&24, the Bible tells us in Matthew, Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people; He preached; many of us will say oh and I must admit the world today is a bit different, you may not be able to go all Nigeria because of many reasons but start from your street, go house to house on your street, extend it to the next street, extend it to the whole of Lekki, extend it to Lagos, If you need you can combine in a team with people, you can join an evangelism group and if it becomes difficult to go out there, there are people who are called missionaries, missionaries to places unreached in the world either locally or abroad, you can support missionaries, you can send money, you can take care of their welfare, you can do anything and by so doing your hand is in their work but let us consciously do this work of preaching.
There are many people who have never heard this word and there are some people they have heard the word but at the time they heard it the devil blinded their mind so they were unable to receive it, so you need to keep putting the word and with prayers, praise the living Jesus!
So we are expected to preach the word, God committed to Jesus Christ the ministry of preaching and reconciling the world back to Him and the same He has also committed to us. Some people will say I’m not a pastor, some will say I’m not an evangelist, some will say I’m not even a worker in the church, what’s my own, I just want to be prayed for, if you are a child of God, you’re a Christian, the preaching we are talking is simple, it won’t even take you as much time that it took me to read the texts, what is the message, John 3:16, for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have eternal life, that is the message.
God loves you, I’m sure there are many people who are going about with a lot of burden today, they want to hear sweet words; there are people who feel condemned, you can imagine if you tell them that God loves them, they’ll say me, God still remembers me? And that opens the door for you to be able to speak with them, to speak the message, God loves you, what do I need? All that you need is to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and accept Him as your Lord and Savior, simple message.
How many people can preach that message? How many people cannot preach that message here? So I assume that everybody can preach that message, it’s simple, from today let’s begin to preach that message, remember, start from your household, your streets, your neighborhood, Lekki, the places where you work, the marketplace and everyone you come in contact with, hallelujah!
If we fail to do this, we know the word, we are saved, we keep it to ourselves, it has two implications: the first is that the provision that Jesus Christ made for the whole world through His death will be wasting; you know the parable of the banquet, a man wanted to have a feast and sent people, go and invite people to come and only a few came, what did he say? He said go to the bystands, go to the highways, get anybody and let them come, why, the banquet is set, it can accommodate let’s say 10,000 people and only 500 are sitting, it will waste, bring as many people in, let everybody enjoy it. Jesus Christ has shed His blood on the cross of Calvary for us, we are beneficiaries, why not other people, praise the living Jesus!
The second thing also is that if we fail to preach the message, the Bible says in Ezekiel 33:8, it says their blood I will require of you; when I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou does not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man will die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand, may the Lord not require from you the blood of the sinners around you, of the wicked around you in the mighty name of Jesus. Because the destination of sinners as we all know it is hell, praise God!
You can do it in different ways, Jesus Christ in His ministry in His time, sometimes He was speaking one to one, He would take on one person like in John 4, a woman came to Him when He was at the well and said give me water, (you remember that conversation) and then went on, through that one woman when she was saved, she went to the village and brought everybody and said come and see this, a whole city was won.
There are times when Jesus will also minister to a household, to a small group of people, hallelujah! He will minister to a small group of people like we are here, and there are times when He will minister to the multitude as in Matthew 5 says “And he called the multitudes’, He will minister to a whole nation, praise the living Jesus! Brethren, we can make it simple, start one on one, join our evangelism move and do then the next one, and the Lord Almighty will bless us in the mighty name of Jesus.
As I try to round up, we have this mandate to bring as many people; I want to share the statistics, the population of the world today is about 8 billion people, (8.2, 8.3 let’s say 8 billion people); there are different religions in the world, Christianity is about 31%, that’s about 2.4 billion people are Christians, now Christians, meaning churchgoing people, now if you distill this Christianity into the different this one that one Pentecostals and all that, you have effectively 11% of 8 billion, that’s about 900 million people who are saved, less than a billion, so it means 7 billion people are on the way to hell and they live around us, they are our friends, they our neighbors, they are our drivers, they are our workers, they are our employers, they are our employees, brethren from today, let us have a passion for these souls because we have a commission that God has given to us to go out there into the whole world and win souls and convert them and we are moving close enough to the end time, the Bible says hell has opened itself, the devil continues to acquire even from the 900 and we are just sitting, we can no longer continue to sit brethren, let us wake up, let us rise up and go into the all nations, God helping us in the mighty name of Jesus.
There are people in our midst who have heard this message, some have never heard it like this before, some have heard it before but they never understood it this way, Romans 10:13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord (the same) shall be saved, all that you need is to call upon the name of the Lord; but verse 14 says how then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? Now you have heard, what is expected of you is to believe and as you believe, then confess so that you’ll be saved.
You are here this morning, you have heard the word and by the grace of God it has come to you clearly, believe the word and be saved, if you do not come to be saved, John 3:14 & 17, we read this earlier, whosoever believeth shall not perish but have everlasting life; 14 and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; 15whosoever believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life; 16For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believe Him should not perish but have eternal life. I’m looking for a verse that says those who do not believe him are condemned already, so you are here this morning, you have heard this word, you understand what we need to do but to step into what you need to do you will need to believe and the way to show your belief is to be saved.
You are here you want to be saved, you don’t want to perish, you don’t want your life to end in disaster…
[Altar call]
Brethren let us rise up, let us thank the Lord Almighty, imagine if God has not sent Jesus Christ to us, many of us will be part of the 7 billion on the way to hell, let us thank God; Father we thank You, thank You Lord for Your Son Jesus Christ, for the ministry of reconciliation, for saving us through Jesus Christ Your Son, Father thank You, thank You Lord, Father we thank You, glory be to Your name forever more, in Jesus mighty name we have given thanks.
The Bible says in that Book of Romans 10:14-17, how will they hear of Him that we have not preached, how will they hear if there’s no one who will take the word to them? We are going to ask the Lord Almighty, if before now I have been in my comfort zone, I’m saved, I’m heaven bound, nothing concerns me with my brother and sister, is a wrong approach to life, they need to hear. We are going to say Father, please have mercy on me; I have chosen to sit in my comfort zone, I have failed to share the message of salvation to people around me, Lord please have mercy on me in the name of Jesus.
Have mercy on me and write on the back of that prayer, ask Father please empower me, give me the grace, give me Your word, give me the grace to share without fear, give me the grace oh Lord to share without blemish Your words, to preach the word, give me the grace oh Lord in the mighty name of Jesus, thank You heavenly Father, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
Finally, Apostle Paul said having preached the gospel that I may not become a cast away; you know there are people at the bus stop, agbero, they say ‘Ibadan Ibadan challenge’, the bus will be full, the bus will leave for challenge but agbero is still there, he calls people into the bus for his destination but he himself is not traveling anywhere, may your portion not be those who will point people to God and at the end of time you remain out in the mighty name of Jesus.
So you are going to pray and say Father in the mighty name of Jesus, please don’t let me become a cast away; whatsoever You will do Lord, please help me that I will not preach the gospel in vain, I will not call on Your name in vain, I will not point people in Your direction in vain; Lord please help me to make it eventually to heaven in the mighty name of Jesus.
