The following sermon was presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on April 5, 1987. The title is, If It Can't Get Out, It Can't Get In, and the scripture reference is Matthew chapter 28, verses 16 through 20. 

A reading from the 28th chapter of Matthew, beginning at the 16th verse. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped 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, lo, I am with you always to the close of the age.

The Gospel of the Lord. We interrupt our regularly scheduled Lenten program to bring you this important message from our sponsor. Get all excited. Go tell everybody that Jesus Christ is king.

That's a pretty good paraphrase of the Great Commission when you stop and think about it. Get all excited. Go tell everybody that Jesus Christ is king.

Three times in those two sentences, the last two sentences that Jesus spoke as recorded by Matthew prior to the resurrection, three times in two sentences he uses the word all. And I want to look at each of those three times. They're very important.

Number one, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Not some of it. Not part of it.

Not authority for the Episcopalians or for the Protestants or for Christians generally, but the rest of the world can be left to its own devices. No, all authority. Not authority that ends at the line dividing church and state.

All. authority. Not an authority that says go evangelize in those countries whose governments welcome that sort of thing.

Not an authority that recognizes the impenetrability of the Iron Curtain or that stops at the Burmese border or that says India can't possibly be reached for Christ. Not an authority that says We have Christ as our way to God, but of course Muslims and Buddhists have their way. Not an authority that says it doesn't matter what you believe so long as you're sincere.

All. All authority. In heaven and on earth has been given to me.

The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. and He will reign forever and ever, only they don't know it yet. But they're His right now.

All authority has been, not will be, has been given to me right now. What Satan offered Jesus, if he would compromise on the Mount of Temptation, God gave Jesus because of His obedience on the Mount of Crucifixion. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and has bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Right now. Not someday in the never-never land of the future. Right now, Jesus Christ is Lord.

Go tell everybody that Jesus Christ is King. That's the first one. All authority.

Second one is, because that's so, go and make disciples of all nations. Lots of people will tell you that the day of Christian missions is over. We sent in our missionaries, and right after them, we sent in our folks who just pillaged the land and took it for themselves, and we got Christianity all mixed up with Western culture and Jesus said, this gospel must be preached in every nation under heaven before the end of this present age.

There are approximately three and a half billion people alive in the world today. Two-thirds of them have yet to ever hear that name which is above every name at which every knee shall bow two thirds have never heard even the name of Jesus let me give you some statistics this ought to just about knock you out of your pew nine percent approximately world's population speaks English. 90% of the world's Christians come from the 9% who speak English.

94% of the ordained ministers in all the world come from the 9% who speak English. 96% of the church's income is spent among the 9% who speak English. What happened to our priorities?

The missionaries are reaching approximately 2 million people, 2 million pagan people per year with the gospel of Christ. The population explosion continues at a rate of approximately 65 million per year. Do you know what that means?

We would have to convert 180,000 people a day just to keep pace. And you've still got over 2 billion who have never heard. Right in the United States alone, There are approximately 12,000 births and 5,000 deaths every day, which means we have to convert 7,000 people a day just to keep pace.

Do I have your attention? Let me tell you a story. 1886, 101 years ago, The evangelist Dwight L. Moody held a summer conference up in Northfield, Massachusetts, and he brought missionary speakers and missionary statesmen from around the world for a month-long conference aimed at university students from around the USA.

Many, many students came great distances for a month-long conference. the watchword of that conference was the evangelization of the world in this generation. That was the goal.

That was the dream. One young man, an undergraduate at Cornell University, was named John R. Mott. Some of you have heard of him.

He became what was later called the father of the ecumenical movement. He had such a heart for the reunion of a broken Christendom. We have a broken world here.

We have a broken church, and his heart was one that not only wanted to see the world evangelized, but the church reunited. Mott walked from Cornell to Northfield, Massachusetts to be at that conference. And the goal, the hope, was that out of that conference, God would call 100 university students to volunteer their lives to go onto the foreign mission field.

And at the beginning of the closing day, there were 99 signed up. They went into the final service. It was a communion service.

And when the service ended, the final benediction was about to be pronounced. And the 100th student stepped forward. And that began the student volunteer movement.

The greatest explosion of Christian missions to date. Over the years, it evolved into the student Christian movement. It eventually became part of the World Council of Churches.

And today, it's dead. But I heard that from a gentleman who went out with the student volunteer movement. When I got acquainted with him, he was very elderly.

He was at the end of his career in ministry. He had gone out to China and become desperately ill, had to come back, and became the world's greatest church historian. He was Kenneth Scott Ladorette who taught at Yale University.

And Uncle Ken said this to me. He said, the watchword of the student volunteer movement was, you don't need to wait to be called to be a missionary. Jesus Christ has commanded it.

Go into all the world and preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations. the burden of proof is on you why you shouldn't go. I think that's still true.

You know what my goal is? To empty this church. Now, I have another goal.

I want to fill it up again. So we can empty it again. So we can fill it and empty it.

And send you all out. All of you. It's not an option.

It's not some are called to be missionary. No, we're all called. We're the sent out ones.

Some internationally, some closer at hand. Let me just speak about internationally. Today many, many countries are closed, completely closed, to Christian missions in the traditional sense.

But you know what? Those same countries are hungry to have folks come in as teachers, scientists, technicians, data processors, agriculturalists, doctors, nurses, lawyers, administrators, folks with the very skills that you have. Folks who can go into countries that are closed to missionaries, go in as St. Paul went in.

He was a tent maker. He supported himself with secular work and preached the gospel everywhere he went. Some of you know Lori Lawrence.

All of you have heard her name. We pray for her with some regularity. A young woman from this parish.

She's in Communistina. You know what she's doing there? She's teaching at the National Defense University.

English. Not telling them how to make bombs. She's teaching them English.

They're paying her to do that. And she's sharing the gospel. Scores of Chinese students have become Christians and have been baptized in Lori's bathtub.

And some of you can do that. if you sense that God is calling you to work for Jesus Christ to serve Him in the area of your expertise we can put you in touch with the right folks to help you find out where you know there's a whole network called Interchristo which will help you find a placement in a specifically missionary oriented or ministry-oriented place somewhere. It could be nationally, it could be internationally.

You don't have to go to seminary and get ordained. It might be better if you don't. You might be able to go where the ordained can't go. That's one way.

Many of you are already traveling all over the world in your business, whatever that might be. It's sending you all over the world. How about the next time you take a week of vacation in addition to the business and let us know where you're going and we'll put you in touch with the church in that area I want to tell you something it will change your life it will change your life go out, do whatever it is that your business requires you to do and then spend another week just visiting the church getting acquainted go and see what God is doing make yourself available you say I don't have anything to share Yes, you do.

You have Jesus. You have what Jesus did in your life, what he's done in this church. Share that.

You will be absolutely amazed at how God can use you and how much you have to share. You never even realized it and what a blessing it is to share. Because it's sharing.

It's two ways. You will give and you will receive far more than you give. Those little flags over there are from the 35 countries that you've sent me to.

And it's changed my life. And it'll change yours. That's another way.

Get all excited. Go tell everybody that Jesus Christ is King. That's a good thing to do that wherever you work.

That's a good thing. But mind you, 94% of all the clergy in the world are available to the English speaking. You can hardly turn on television without finding it, sometimes to our great disgrace.

Think about the two and a half billion who have never heard. You could do something about that. That's the second all.

The third one is this. Teach them to observe all that I've commanded you, Not just part. Not just a kind of a superficial Gospel, get them saved and let it go at that.

Teach them everything. Teach them the fullness of what I've shared with you. You know, the great thing that God is doing in our generation is pouring out His Spirit in a new way.

Filling people with His Holy Spirit. Baptizing them in the Spirit of God. Renewing His church.

Distributing gifts and signs and wonders and miracles. moving among His people and making them new. And He's done that here.

And He's doing that here. And He wants us to share it wherever we go. Not just empty form, not just superficial liturgy, but the richness of knowing Him in a personal way and experiencing the power of His Spirit.

We have that to share. And unto those to whom much has been given from them, much shall be required. We're surrounded by opportunity.

I call you seriously to consider international ministry. But I call you seriously to consider getting involved even if you don't go overseas. There's so many ways to do it.

So many ways to help. Starting Bible studies in your place of business. Supporting the ministries of which we've been hearing this morning.

You know why the electrical repairman can go up into those high voltage wires and handle them with his bare hands and not be electrocuted? You know why that is? Because he's insulated.

If he were grounded, he'd be killed instantly. But if the power can't get out of him, it can't get into him. think about that did you hear what I just said if the power can't get out of him it can't get into him I wonder how many of you want more of God's power in your life that's not a power that kills that's a power that makes alive and blesses if it can't get out of you it isn't going to get into you if you want to have more of His power, more of His strength and health and joy and blessing and more of His gifts and signs and wonders and healings and miracles and more of His victory and more of the fruit of His Spirit, you're going to have to give it away.

Get all excited. Go tell everybody that Jesus Christ is King. I said last week that I believe God is going to call some of you some of you seated here now into the ordained ministry I believe that I know that I believe he's going to call some of you onto the mission field in the classical sense of going out as missionaries some of you who have never thought about it and some of you who have been deathly afraid of it God's going to call you you can resist that call if you want but he's calling you he's going to call some of you to give a week of your vacation and go visit the church he's going to call some of you to get involved in supporting some of these ministries with your time, your money, your prayers and he's going to call all of you he is calling all of us to a deeper level of informed commitment have ever had before.

That's what today is about. We're here to celebrate what He's done. We're here to rejoice in what He's doing.

We're here to learn more about opportunities involved. You talk about people. You talk about things that really aren't important at all.

You talk about weather. You talk about problems we have here at home and abroad, but my friend, I'm excited about a solution for the world. I'm going to shout and sing that Jesus Christ is still the King of Kings. This concludes Mr. Howe's sermon.