TUESDAY 6 April 2021 “Make Disciples”

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Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,

The Book of Psalms in the Bible ends with this phrase: “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.” (Ps. 150:6) As I write this, the birds are beginning their pre-dawn, early morning greetings to each other outside my window. Sometimes I wish I could understand ‘bird language’! This Tuesday, as you and I go through our day let’s LISTEN to anything (or anyone) that ‘has breath’. How much of all that you hear today will ‘praise the LORD’? And what does that tell you about the world in which we live?

In the days and weeks following that Easter Passover weekend, I have no doubt that the resurrection of Jesus was a major topic of conversation, rumor and disagreement. The disciples and the women who had been with Jesus in Jerusalem were mostly from the Galilee region and after Passover they returned home. They took the story with them thus in Nazareth, Cana, Capernaum, Bethesda, Tiberias and other places where Jesus had frequently been, the debate over the report of a resurrection was spreading like wildfire. Of course what everyone hoped for was a ‘sighting’!

SEEING Jesus… either His dead body or alive and healed from His crucifixion would answer the rumors and the questions, right? So, many people were living very alert, everyday, to any news, any update of this raging controversy that they might hear. I suspect the most often asked question as people greeted each other on the street was, “have you heard any news of Jesus?”

Matthew tells us about a ‘Jesus sighting’! It appears to have been planned. Matthew reports: “The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted.” (Matt. 28:16,17) By my count this is now at least the third time most of these disciples had seen and talked with the resurrected Jesus since Easter. So I have a question… if a good friend of yours had died and you were certain of that, you’d grieve deeply, wouldn’t you? Yet, if a few days later your friend suddenly appeared to you alive, not once, not twice, but three times over several days… how long would it take you, how many encounters would you need with them, to be convinced they really are alive again? That is exactly what the disciples were struggling with. They knew they had seen Him, touched Him, had conversation with Him… but when Jesus wasn’t with them the impossibility of a resurrection once again swept over them. That is why Matthew writes “some doubted”. Do you blame them for their skepticism?

My friends, would you consider for a moment the five generations who are alive today around the world as they shape the global attitudes about God, about truth, about moral right and wrong, even about the reality of Jesus and the resurrection? While stats, years and definitions vary, consider this:

* Silent generation. . . . are those born between 1927 & 1945

* Boomer generation . . . born 1946 – 1964

* Generation X . . . . . . . . born 1965 – 1980

* Millennial generation . . born 1981 – 1998

* Generation Z . . . . . . . . born 1999 – 2015

Now I ask you, how has the society, the city, where you live changed as these different generations have been born and grown up and grown old? As parents and grandparents have passed their values, their beliefs, their convictions, their experiences to their children and grandchildren, what has changed? Specifically, how do you see attitudes changing toward God, the Bible, Christianity or any religion, Church, moral right and wrong, what is truth, even the resurrection of Jesus?

In most of Europe and much of North America, the phrase “post Christian” is now being used to describe the religious attitudes of the majority of the people. Churches stand empty. A new word now describes how a very large portion of European and North American people view their spirituality. The word is: ‘NONE’! They have moved beyond doubting to simply not believing in anything religious. They would say, ‘If there is a God, if Jesus really is a historical figure, if Easter really did happen…it has nothing to do with me!!’ Do you know anyone who views life in that way my friends?

Let’s rejoin Matthew and the disciples on that Galilean hillside. I presume it’s the same hillside where Jesus preached, healed many people and even fed more than 5000 people with a little boy’s lunch. As Jesus joins the disciples that day, He again opens His hands for them to see the nail scars. It’s still so hard to believe, isn’t it? I presume He spoke to them about many things. Matthew records this especially important thing Jesus said: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…”

They had seen Jesus’ authority over illness as He healed cripple people and gave sight to the blind. They’d seen His authority over storms when He calmed them, or even death when He raised Lazarus who’d been dead several days. There was nothing Jesus’ power could not overcome here on earth. But that Jesus had authority in heaven also, was a huge statement!

How could Jesus exercise His authority here on earth and up in heaven at the same time? That concept left them bewildered… but then they remembered that Jesus had told them in the upper room that Passover night “I came from the Father and entered the world, now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.” (John 16:28) Jesus would soon be leaving them and returning to heaven! But… what then? What were they supposed to do then? Things were changing so rapidly for the disciples, they struggled to make sense of it all.

The best translation of what Matthew records that Jesus said to His friends that day is this: “As you are going through life, make disciples of all people, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matt. 28:19) I suspect Jesus paused, letting this powerful commissioning sink in.

These simple men who had spent these months with Jesus had just received from Him their purpose, their mission for the rest of their lives. They were to ‘make disciples’. It means they were to tell the story of Jesus to any and all who would listen. Of course, they knew His story better than anyone! Then as people believed in Jesus, they were to baptize them, and teach them all they had learned from Jesus. Then in turn, those people whom they had taught, were commissioned to take Jesus’ story to anyone they knew.

It was a genius plan. Do you see it my friends? Jesus had accomplished His mission and He was now entrusting that Gospel to them, and they had the freedom to share it with their family and friends and anyone who would listen to them.

But oh my what a new life mission, how could they possibly do it? In the upper room, the night before He was crucified, Jesus had promised them that He would send them the Holy Spirit of God who would teach them, remind them of all Jesus had said, lead and guide them through the rest of their lives, and empower them to be the primary representatives of Jesus to our world in their generation!

Let’s sit with them on that hillside my friend, for a little while. As the disciples looked out from that hillside over the Sea of Galilee and the towns they knew so well, I’m sure each of them was in some inner struggle. How would the words Jesus had just spoken shape the rest of their lives, their priorities, their relationships, their families, their ambitions? Then they lifted up their eyes and looked at the horizons, out beyond their familiar Galilee region and they wondered… what’s out there? What kinds of people live in the cities far beyond the horizon? Was Jesus asking them to trust Him and go out there, far beyond the borders of Israel, to places they knew nothing about, maybe even to people who spoke languages they didn’t know?

Why? And then I believe they began to get it. As we go, as we share with people our experience that we’ve had with Jesus, they will come to know Him as we know Him and experience the life change only He can accomplish in them. A vision of the purpose of the rest of their lives was forming in their hearts and minds of the disciples that day.

But then anxiety, fear, worry began to well up as all the ‘what if’s’ started bubbling up in their minds and hearts. Jesus could see the looks on their faces, so He said “Surely, I will be with you always, even to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20) Oh how that brought a new wave of confidence! If Jesus was with them, they’d be willing to go anywhere, speak to anyone, do anything He told them to do! Then they remembered how on Easter weekend, Jesus had said He would NOT be with them much longer but He would be sending the Holy Spirit to be with them and live powerfully within each of them, all the time! It was confusing, but now a new, almost indescribable future for all of them was beginning to take shape in their minds. What an adventure it would be!

How long they sat on that hillside that day, I don’t know. But I do know, for each of these men, this conversation shaped the rest of their lives. And these same words of Jesus have shaped my life, my friends, and millions of other people who have believed in Jesus for their salvation from their sin, and we’ve trusted in Jesus to guide our DAILY lives, for the rest of our lives! Are these words of Jesus shaping your life my friends? I assure you, there is no more exciting way to live life!

I challenge you to join with me and millions of others, living everyday intentionally following Jesus, empowered by His Holy Spirit! We’ll look more closely at this over these next few days. For now, let’s just sit on the hillside a while with Jesus! Ponder His words. Look over the road map of your life past, present and future. What questions do you have for Jesus? Go ahead, ask Him! He can see every day of the rest of your life!

Today’s Scripture is Matthew 28.

Choose below to read or listen.

Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.

Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.

Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)

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