Matthew 28: Jesus Took Back the Keys for the Nations

Introduction

Jack Reed and his wife live in Armenia. For nearly twenty-five years they have trained and sent workers to the hardest-to-reach peoples: first in the United Kingdom, then on the Korean peninsula, then for almost ten years in Kathmandu, Nepal, among Tibetan Buddhist villages. Invited to Kingdom Faith Church, he speaks about the Great Commission, a text everyone thinks they know.

When he asks students where God's heart for the nations comes from, the answer comes fast: Matthew 28. So he pushes them further: "Close your New Testament and give me the proof from the Old Testament." Silence often follows. This message traces that thread, from Genesis to the mount of the ascension, to show that the Great Commission is "an exclamation mark at the end of a very long sentence."

He also warns that following Jesus puts us "on a collision course" with the darkest places on the planet, because that is where he wants to bring the light. And sometimes, all it takes is crossing the street.

Message Outline

1. Following Jesus Leads Us to Those Who Do Not Know Him

• Jesus tells his disciples, and us: "If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me" (Luke 9:23).
• "You don't need to cross the world to find people sitting in darkness. Maybe you can cross the street, right here in your own city."
• Jack Reed warns against a self-centered version of faith that "spins its wheels in the rut of self-improvement" without ever following Christ in his mission.
• His ministry now focuses on the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia: about 2.2 billion people, 32 majority-Muslim nations. Of that total, 1.5 billion are under 35, almost all of them have a phone, and many are looking for something else. "A 25-year-old man on the streets of Tehran has more in common with a 25-year-old in Horsham than perhaps with his own parents."
• He builds on the promise made to Abraham: his descendants will possess the gate of their enemies, and all nations will be blessed through them (Genesis 22:17-18). From this comes a strategy in three words: prayer, praise and proclamation, with an "air" campaign (media, worship in Arabic, Farsi and Russian) and a "ground" campaign, because in Yemen you cannot say "find a local church": there isn't one.

2. From Genesis, God Entrusts the Keys to Humanity

• In Genesis 1, God gives his mandate: be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Man becomes the steward of creation. "God reaches out and hands him a set of keys."
• Psalm 8 says it again: what is man, that God is mindful of him? God has given him dominion over the works of his hands.
• In Genesis 3, through deception and sin, this mandate is hindered. The keys pass into the hands of Satan, who becomes "the god of this age" who blinds minds (2 Corinthians 4:4). In the book of Job, he appears before God after roaming the earth.
• With Noah, God in a sense presses the reset button and gives the same command again: be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth (Genesis 9:1).
• But twice, instead of scattering, humanity gathers together. At Babel, they build to make a name for themselves (Genesis 11). God confuses their languages, and the peoples are finally scattered.

3. The Nations, the Powers and the People God Sets Apart

• Jack Reed reads Deuteronomy 32:8 as an echo of Babel: when the Most High separated the sons of man, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples. He follows the reading "according to the number of the sons of God," which he understands as the principalities, the spiritual powers that receive jurisdiction over the nations.
• He does not believe we need to name and study every principality: "I believe we can light a candle, lift up a light, and when Jesus is lifted up, his enemies are scattered. When we bring the light, the darkness has to flee."
• Right after, the text adds that the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob (Deuteronomy 32:9). And in Genesis 12, God calls Abraham, promising to make him a great nation, and all the families of the earth will be blessed in him.
• Daniel 10 shows this struggle in the heavenly places: Daniel's prayer is held up by the prince of the kingdom of Persia, until Michael steps in and the answer arrives.

4. In the Wilderness, Satan Offers Jesus the Keys

• "For God so loved the world" (John 3:16). Jack Reed likes to put it this way: God so loved the nations. The Son becomes man, tempted in every way as we are, to be a high priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15).
• In Luke 4, after forty days without eating, the temptation is real. "If I go four hours without eating, I feel it."
• In the second temptation, the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and says: "I will give you all this authority, and their glory, for it has been delivered to me; and I give it to whomever I want" (Luke 4:5-6). As if he were pulling from his pocket the set of keys Adam lost.
• For the preacher, this is exactly what Jesus came to recover: to restore humanity to its rightful place. But he refuses to obtain it that way. He comes out of the wilderness clothed in the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:14).

5. Through His Death and Resurrection, Jesus Strips the Powers

• Jesus is crucified, dies and is buried. Before ascending, he went down to the lower parts of the earth (Ephesians 4:9), like Jonah three days and three nights in the belly of the fish (Matthew 12:40). Peter says he went and preached to the spirits in prison (1 Peter 3:19), and Revelation shows him holding the keys of death and Hades (Revelation 1:18).
• Risen, he tells Mary not to hold on to him, because he has not yet ascended to his Father (John 20:17). He enters heaven with his own blood, not that of goats and calves, and obtains eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12). Eight days later, he invites Thomas to reach out his finger (John 20:26-27). The work is finished.
• It is somewhere in this period, according to Jack Reed, that Colossians 2:15 takes place: he stripped the principalities and the powers and made a public show of them. Jack Reed compares this verb to a surrender ceremony and recalls images from the end of World War II, where defeated officers have their medals and ranks torn off, one by one.
• "I believe Jesus takes all those medals, all those stars and all those stripes, and puts them in his pocket."

6. "All Authority Has Been Given to Me": Authority for the Nations

• Before Pentecost, Jesus gathers his disciples on the mountain. We often jump to verse 19, but it all begins in verse 18: "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth" (Matthew 28:18). Jack Reed imagines Jesus pulling from his pocket the keys Satan had offered him in the wilderness.
• This authority has a purpose: "It's not to make our Christian lives more comfortable. It's not to claim whatever we want. These keys come with a responsibility." It is given so that we go: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19).
• Christ is waiting until his enemies are made a footstool for his feet (Hebrews 10:13). The preacher is speaking here of victory in the spiritual realm, won through prayer, praise and proclamation, which then shows up in lives surrendered to Christ.
• "To this end the Son of God was revealed: that he might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8). Jesus is the good shepherd who takes you in his arms, but there is also in him a side that destroys evil, the one Revelation 19 shows when he comes on a white horse to make war in righteousness.
• "We love this world well. We serve it well. We give our lives for it. But let the spirits above it take note: we hold the keys our Savior held."

7. From Genesis to Revelation, the Healing of the Nations

• To the one who overcomes, Jesus promises authority over the nations (Revelation 2:26). He comes to redeem, reconcile and gather the nations.
• The last chapter of the Bible shows the tree of life beside the river of the water of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2).
• "Mission isn't my thing," some say: they don't like traveling or spicy food. So mission gets handed off to a department. "But my friends, this is the central DNA of God's Church."
• "There is only one line: following one Savior on one path," the one in Galatians 2:20: it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
• In his closing prayer, he reminds us that Abraham's name means "father of a multitude of nations." As heirs of Abraham, we also receive an almost parental responsibility toward the nations. "The days of the pioneers are not over."

Key Takeaways

• The Great Commission is not an isolated verse: it is the culmination of a thread running from Genesis to Revelation, God's heart for the nations.
• The authority entrusted to Adam was lost at the fall. Jesus refused to receive it from Satan in the wilderness and took it back through the cross and the resurrection.
• Jesus stripped the principalities and the powers. The Church has no need to back down before them.
• This authority is not given for comfort but for mission: to pray, praise, proclaim and go.
• Mission is not a department of the Church, it is its DNA. There is only one line for following Jesus.

Personal Application

1. Does your faith look more like a self-improvement project than following Jesus in his mission?
2. Which street could you cross this week to reach someone who does not know Jesus?
3. Do you tend to back down before the forces around you, even though Jesus stripped the powers?
4. Which nation could you carry in prayer by learning about what it is going through, so you can pray more specifically?
5. Do you see mission as "not your thing"? What would change if you saw it as the DNA?

Verses Cited

• Matthew 28:18-19
• Luke 9:23
• Genesis 22:17-18
• Genesis 1:28
• Psalm 8:4-6
• 2 Corinthians 4:4
• Genesis 9:1
• Genesis 11:1-9
• Deuteronomy 32:8-9
• Genesis 12:2-3
• Daniel 10
• John 3:16
• Hebrews 4:15
• Luke 4:1-14
• Ephesians 4:9
• Matthew 12:40
• 1 Peter 3:19
• Revelation 1:18
• John 20:17
• Hebrews 9:12
• John 20:26-27
• Colossians 2:15
• Hebrews 10:13
• 1 John 3:8
• Revelation 19:11-15
• Revelation 2:26
• Revelation 22:2
• Galatians 2:20

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Jack Reed begin the Great Commission at verse 18 of Matthew 28?

Because people often jump straight to "go." But Jesus begins by saying: "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth." For Jack Reed, this is the culmination of the whole Bible: the authority entrusted to Adam, lost at the fall and taken back by Jesus through his death and resurrection, is now given to the Church to go to the nations.

What does "Jesus stripped the powers" mean in Colossians 2:15?

Jack Reed compares this verb to a military surrender ceremony, where the defeated have their medals and ranks torn off. Through his finished work, Jesus removed the authority of the spiritual powers and made a public show of them. The Church therefore has no need to back down before them.

Is mission reserved for those who go overseas?

No. For Jack Reed, mission is not a department of the Church but its DNA. There is only one line: following one Savior on one path. Sometimes all it takes is crossing the street to meet someone who lives in darkness, and everyone can pray for the nations.