Summer Challenge Week 5: Jesus's Charge in John's Gospel

“When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” – John 20:20-23

Why are there so many great commissions?
Again! This is another Great Commission that Jesus gave to his people. By this time, we have observed two other great commissions. I am not theologian and nor do I claim to be so here me out on this.
The great commissions can be seen as “charges” or “commands”. Trying to not to simplify the text too much, the big picture of each one of these great commissions is to point to Jesus and make his name known. They serve to spread Jesus’ name to people and places that do not know him. We are charged as the people of God to make his name famous.

Jesus’ charge in John’s Gospel
There are a few things that I want to point out in this text that are helpful for me and hopefully will be for you as well.
1. Jesus revealed himself to his people - “When he said this, he showed them his hands and his side…”- John 20:20

• The greatest miracle just happened that they world have ever seen. The Christ rose from grave, he died a death that no human being should ever experience. He took upon the wrath of God, which is by far the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone. Then he arose, walked into a locked house where his disciples were and revealed himself to them. There are few things that not “right” in this scene.
•  Jesus walked into house that was locked and just appeared, showing his godliness
• He showed them his hands and his side and how they were pierced, showing his humanity.
• What we learn from this scripture is that Jesus was fully man and fully God. Now he can understand the sufferings of humanity but still be God all at the same. What this means for you is there is nothing that Jesus cannot do. If he wants to make himself known to you, he will!

2. Jesus made things right with the Father - “Peace be with you…” – John 20:21

• Jesus settled the hostility between God and humanity. He took upon all of the Father’s fury and placed it on himself and gave us his right standing before the Father. Therefore, we now have access to the Father. Jesus created peace between God and humanity.

3. We are a sent people - “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” – John 20:21

• Because of our right standing with God, we are a people sent to proclaim the excellency of Christ to the world, to tell the world about what Christ has done for us and what he can do for them!

4. Jesus empowered his people - “…He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” – John 20:23

• We now have the spirit of God in us. We were helpless and dead before then. As God breathed into Adam at creation and gave him life with his breath, so Jesus did with us. Because of what Jesus did on the cross, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to preach about the peace that has been given to us.

5. They were charged to preach forgiveness - “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” – John 20:23

• We are compelled to make peace in all things because of the peace he made with us. Here are five relationships where the crucified and risen Christ brings peace into your life, by John Piper:
• i. Peace between us and him. That’s the first and most obvious meaning: he is standing there among them offering them himself as a friend and helper, not a judge.
• ii. Peace between us and God. That’s why God sent him — so that God’s justice and wrath could be satisfied another way besides eternal punishment. God makes peace with us by substituting his Son’s suffering for our penalty. Now he comes to us as a loving Father.
• iii. Peace between us and others who are in Christ. To be reconciled to God is to be reconciled to all who are reconciled to God. No hostility vertically or horizontally. No racism. No ethnocentrism or classism or sexism. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
• iv. Peace between us and our own souls. The New Testament letter to the Hebrews says,“The blood of Christ . . . will purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God”(Hebrews 9:14). O the precious peace of a clear conscience. How many people laborunder the misery of a defiled, guilty conscience. I read on Thursday the testimony of awoman who had an abortion 8 years ago and who said, “I cannot forgive myself.” I wrote,“That’s what Good Friday is for!”Peace with yourself doesn’t mean that you start seeing past sins as desirable. Peace doesn’t mean that past sins cease to be painful. It means they cease to be paralyzing. The pain may not be taken away immediately, but the penalty is taken away immediately through Christ. And that makes it possible to heal. And to move on with hope-filled life while you do.
• v. Peace with the world. Yes, when Jesus died he did what needed to be done (Colossians1:19–20) so that someday, in God’s time, all evil will be cast into outer darkness and theentire new creation will be full of peace and righteousness. “Of the increase of hisgovernment and of peace there will be no end… with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore” (Isaiah 9:7).

So for this week, let's be in prayer about this. Ask the Lord for this to be true for you!

Summer Challenge Week 4: The Great Commission

“Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power on high.” “– Luke 24:45-49

This is one of the great commissions Jesus told his followers before he ascended into the heavens.

What is the Great Commission?
The “great commission” is thrown out a lot among Christians. It is similar to words like “holy”, “amen”, and “hallelujah”. We use them carelessly and tend to forget the meaning behind them. The great commission is God commanding his people to spread his message to ends of the earth of how Jesus came to save sinners and redeem a people to himself. We call this sharing the Gospel.

What is so important about sharing the Gospel?
Gospel means “good news”. The reason why it is “good news” is because we had some “bad news” before. The bad news is that mankind sins against God. With God being a holy and just God, He has to punish sin or He would not be holy. Every single person that was born after Adam inherited a sin nature. But God being a merciful and loving God wanted to redeem a people for himself and to save us from his wrath. He wants us to follow him and to obey him. So he set the Law for us but we failed miserably. So God sent himself in the person of Jesus to be our atonement and sacrifice for sin. Not only did take away the sins of humanity but he gave us his righteousness to live a life pleasing to him. The “good news” is that we do not have to be slaves to sin anymore, death is not a tragedy and we can faithfully obey the father.
So here’s the deal. It is important that we share the Gospel. First of all, God receives glory. The goal of sharing the Gospel with someone is that they would worship Jesus and make him known. There was no hope for us but God saved us from hopelessness. He deserves all praises.

Below are some compelling reasons by Pastor Mark Dever to why we should share the Gospel.

1. A Desire to Be Obedient to God’s Commands
Jesus commanded his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations. That is exactly what the early disciples did. Paul spoke of a compulsion to share the gospel. To evangelize is to obey.
In Acts 8:4, we see that those who had been scattered preached the gospel wherever they went. One of the clearest examples of evangelism being commanded is in 1 Peter 3, where Peter commands believers to “always be…prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” Our silence is not a matter of neutrality. You need to tell yourself that. Our silence is a matter of guilt and sin. Obedience is definitely a biblical reason to evangelize.

2. A Love for the Lost
Preachers, we have got to stop avoiding the topic of lostness—hell. Jesus spoke of God’s wrath remaining on those who don’t believe on him. God will cause terror in us if we appear before him apart from Christ. Apart from God’s grace, the sinner will never stop sinning. God’s judgment will never end. Their rejection of God never ends. God will inflict extreme and unnatural pain on them forever.
As preachers of the gospel, we have no business making God seem more humane to sinners who are in rebellion against him. Think about if hell were unleashed on you forever and tell unbelievers how horrible it is. Christians are motivated by a love to others. Hudson Taylor said he would have never thought of going to China if he didn’t know that they were lost. It’s people who are this lost, who have this fate awaiting them, that we are aiming to convert. We can confidently tell people the basic message of the gospel and trust that God’s Spirit will faithfully pick up our message and use it to save people.

3. A Love for God.
We want to see God glorified. We want to see the truth about him told in creation. The desire to see God glorified was the motivation for all Jesus’ actions. Everything exists for God’s glory (Romans 11:36). Our salvation is “to the praise of his glorious grace” (Ephesians 1:6). God does everything he does for his own glory, and we should do all we do for the glory of God. To tell the truth about some people is not to honor them, but to tell the truth about God is to honor him. God is glorified in the gospel.

**Excerpt is from Desiring God: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/3-reasons-to-share-the-gospel

Summer Challenge Week 3: Crucifixion

So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor's headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion. And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews! (Mark 15:15-18 ESV)

This may seem like this is passage is more informative than transformative because there is not anything that is obviously convicting. I even selected these verses by accident! However, this has become a great lesson to learn about scripture. 2 Timothy 3:16 says “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Therefore, while these verses might not stand out upon initially reading them as being transformative, remember that because it is scripture, it has power. Additionally, remember that all of scripture is about Jesus! This approach to studying the Bible through the lens of Christ is called Biblical Theology.
• Biblical Theology: It is following the bible story line knowing that Jesus is the main character of the story. The New and Old Testaments point to Jesus and how God is redeeming a people to himself to make his name famous among the earth.

Historical Context
In these verses, Jesus was being handed over to Pontius Pilate. Pilate was not the Emperor but more like a mayor or governor of a province of Rome. Authority had been given to him on what to do with Jesus. Jesus was being accused of being a liar and causing a lot of trouble because he had been boldly proclaiming that he was king of the Jews. The decision to punish Jesus was in Pilate’s hands. For some reason, Pilate decided he did not want to be guilty of killing on innocent man and gave the people the deciding power on what to do with Jesus. He gave them an option to kill Jesus or the town murderer, Barabbaas. With the help of the chief priests (aka the pastors) the crowd chose to kill Jesus.

The Reality of the Situation
Now, all of this may seem crazy to you that people would want to kill an innocent man. But keep in mind; this is all a fulfillment of scripture! Jesus kept telling his disciples that this was going to and had to happen.

Why the cross?
There was (and still is) a problem between God and humanity - sin. By nature we are not good people. Look at this passage! The people God created wanted Jesus dead. He was betrayed by one of his disciples. The pastor’s of that time were leading the charge for Jesus to be killed. And these are supposed to be the good people! Let’s not talk about the other chaos that was going down. According to Romans 3, there was no one righteous. There was not a man on the planet that did not have sin except Jesus. Jesus followed the Father’s laws perfectly. He obeyed everything that the Father commanded. God was pleased with him! Yet, there had to be a ransom for humanity and Jesus was the guy!

What now?
Jesus willingly took the sins of the world and gave us his sinless perfection. Think about everything in your life. How many times have you not gotten what you deserve? Well, Jesus got what he did not deserve. He experienced the wrath of God, he was beat, he was outcaste, ridiculed, laughed at, spit on and murdered! The result: we got what we did not deserve. We got freedom from sin, access to the father, freedom from the wrath of God and an invitation into the kingdom of God.
So this passage that may not seem important, but it is! As you pray this week, ask the Lord to give you an understanding of the crucifixion of Jesus. Ask him to melt your heart, knowing that without Jesus there would be no hope for us. Rejoice in that fact that the Lord has called you and saved you! A lot of us go about our day as though we deserve things. We walk around with our nose in the air and act like we are in control of our life. But let this reality sink in deep - God controls everything, including the death of Jesus.
This should change the way you respond to life. We are an underserving people that God has graciously given more than we deserve. If you are in a place right now and feel like you have no friends, that money is tight, or you are having a rough family situation, remember God is here! He understands! We deserve death and nothing good but God has given abundantly more than we need. More importantly, we get him. We get Jesus! He is the most important thing in this universe. Let this reality should fuel you to obedience! That’s my prayer for me and for you!

Summer Challenge Week 2: Following Jesus

“Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” Matthew 16:24-26

I love how Jesus presented this passage knowing there were some that would not truly follow him. Here, the audience he was speaking to were his disciples, the guys that were closest to him. In our day they would be 12 of our best homies! Although all were with him, not all of them were going to pledge their life his cause. But before I move on I want to explain  what a disciple of Jesus is.

What is a Disciple?
A disciple is a follower of Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection.

• In his life to obey all the commands of God
• In his death to die to our desires and live to glorify the father
• In his resurrection to live a new life that has died to the old ways

There are multiple passages describing how Christians or disciples are to act in ways that show that we have been changed by the living God. Here are just a few, but keep in mind, the whole bible is about Jesus and how we as a people should respond to God.

• Romans 12: 9 -21
• Ephesians 4:17 – 5:211
• Thessalonians 4:1-121
• 1 Timothy 4:6-16

Self-Denial
Jesus says if you want to follow him you must deny yourself. A lot of us think self-denial is self-degradation. In our society we are taught that everything should be about you all the time. If you think this is not true, you are fooling yourself. Our natural inclination to a text like this is to go into self-degradation. But when Jesus says we must deny ourselves he means to die to the things that are going to make our name or self proclaimed kingdom great. Self-denial is dying to the desires to make yourself famous and accepting the reality that Jesus wants his name to be famous. It is taking the love of self and loving God with all you got, which would include his people. Don't go in the direction of self-degradation. You have worth in Jesus.
Ephesians 4:23-24 talks about taking off the old self and dying with Christ and put on the new self because Christ has conquered sin and death. As a Christian, you have died to your old self but have a new life in Christ. And if you are the person that does everything to build your kingdom, you still have time to give your desires over to Jesus and to let him to be the king of you life.

Taking up the Cross and Following Jesus
During the time of Jesus, the cross was not a dignified way to die. In fact, it was one of the most shameful ways to die in that society. And Jesus hung on that cross for you and me. When Jesus tells us to take up our cross is saying there no way for a prideful man to follow him. Pride is the reason why marriages fail, why wars start, and why sin came into our world. If you are going to be follower of Jesus, there is no room for pride. Pride stops you from confessing your sins, pride tells you are better than others, pride stops other people from speaking in your life. Is this true for you? If have been in and out of church and you feel dry, maybe it is because you are building yourself an untouchable kingdom.

• “Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.” – Proverbs 19:20
• “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” – Philippians 2:3–4
• “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.” – Proverbs 11:2
• “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you…” 1 Peter 5:5–6

Losing your life
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

Jesus is telling his disciples there is real life in him. Our generation has the “S on our chest” syndrome. We think we are invincible. We follow the words of Drake: “you only live once”. Drake would tell us that you should do whatever you please because you only got one life to live. What if God says the life you live should be His. You see, when we become followers of Jesus, we die to the old self and become alive to a new life in Jesus. According to Ephesians 2 and Colossians 1 we were enemies of God, hostile to God, children of wrath, sons of disobedience. God created the world, mankind sinned against God and therefore broke our access to God. Since God is holy and just God, he cannot tolerate sin, there had to be punishment for the sin that mankind committed. Since Adam, every person that was born has been born into sin, making every person a offender of God. But God is his grace and mercy saved us! So when he calls us to follow him, we owe him our life, because living in the old life there was no hope!

What now?
Repent. If you are a follower of Jesus and have not fully followed him, I urge you to repent. Ask to Lord to give you the strength to die to yourself and live to him. If you are not a follower this reality can be true for you. Listen to the spirit of the Lord and repent as well. Repentence is our sign of surrender to Jesus.

Summer Challenge Week 1: The Great Commission

“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 behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

These couple of scriptures have been coined as The Great Commission. There are more Great Commissions in the bible like Mark 16:15-18, Luke 24:45-49, John 20:20-23 and Acts 1:7-8. All of these commissions are not contradicting one another. They are expressing the heart of God for His name to be great among the nations. Jesus is calling every Christian to make his name famous. This is what we call making disciples.

This particular commission has commands that are considered "not optional" for the person that claims Jesus as Lord in their life.

1. Jesus says all Authority has been giving to him on heaven and on earth. This means Jesus rules everything. All power, dominion, and kingdoms are in the control of Jesus. In this commission, when Jesus is telling us ,as believers, to go make disciples, he is telling us that it is impossible to make a disciple without him. He is in control of everything.
Before we move on let this point rest well in your soul, that with your efforts to advance the Gospel, Jesus is in control of the situation. To make stick, here is what Pastor John Piper would say about it:
“ The command to go make disciples is not arbitrary. It is reasonable. Jesus did not say, "Do it because I told you, and that's it." He said, "Do it because all authority is mine." Nothing is more reasonable and more loving than to plead with the rebellious creatures of Jesus Christ that they turn and give their devotion to the King of kings who will have the last say in this world.”

2. Jesus goes on to say, “Go make disciples of all nations!” I want to emphasize the “Go” part of the verse. This is a radical statement. Every time Jesus told his disciples to come follow him, he was always going towards the cross. He knew that he was going to die a bloody death and take upon the sins of mankind so that we may live an abundant life in him. If we are going to be like Christ, we must walk in the implications of what he did. We must die to ourselves!  We make disciples by teaching others to die as well to selfish and sinful desires and to put on Christ. “You can’t serve Christ, that is, you can’t make Christ look great, if you are always second-guessing the value of following him. Looking back means longing back. It means that we are not really sure he is worth following, especially to Jerusalem. Divided hearts like that are not useful in displaying the worth of Christ.” Discipleship takes precedence of all things! Discipleship demands whole-hearted and immediate commitment to Jesus Christ.

3. Making disciples is not only a local cause but also a global cause. It is important to make disciples where you live at right now but it also important for the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be advanced to all the nations of the world. So let the words of Jesus rest in your soul when you think about the nations. He died for the multiethnic church. Most of you are in school and right now it may not be plausible for you to be a missionary at this moment of your life. But it may happen in the near future,but for right now there are practical ways to be apart of this global mission.

• You can give money to your local church that supports missionaries.
• You can pray for people overseas that you may know.
• You can pray for a people-group that does not know Jesus. On the side of my blog there is a people group that you can pray for daily.
• You can befriend someone from another country and show him or her the love of Jesus.

4. Baptizing the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I will post another on the trinity some time this week to explain what it means. The reason why Jesus says to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit is because all three persons of the Godhead play a significant role in people becoming Christians. The Father is the one that chooses us, the Son is the one that gets bruised and crucified for us, and the Spirit is one that gives us a new spirit to obey the Father. Now we have access to God when before we did not. Baptism is a symbolic expression of a desire to be a disciple of Jesus. We are saying we want dying to the old life and want to live a new life in Jesus. If you a follower of Jesus and you have not been baptized, please contact me so we talk more about it.

5. Lastly, Jesus says to teach people to observe his commandments until he returns. When we become Christians we are called to grow more in the knowledge of Jesus day by day. His greatest commandment is for us to love God and to love people. We are called to love God's word and to obey it. Because Jesus' finished work on the cross, he has empowered us with work of the spirit to obey the father. We will continue to grow in the knowledge of Jesus until he returns. Therefore, this Christian walk in not a race, it is for the one's that endure.

I pray that this helps you as you meditate on this scripture this week. There is of course more detail that I could go into but I pray this will give you some guidance.

Summer Challenge

The Summer Challenge is a scripture reading and memorization plan that will go through the New Testament over the course of the summer. The reading plan starts on June 1st and each week will have a new scripture to memorize and daily chapters to read.  If you are interested in taking this challenge, you can download the entire reading plan click here: Summer Challenge

I am excited that the summer challenge is starting today! I will be posting a blog a week about the scripture that we are memorizing for the week so that what we are memorizing will make sense and you will know why you are learning. Here are some things I want all of you to keep in mind as we go through this reading plan and memorize.

1. We memorize scripture as a spiritual discipline. The purpose for memorizing is so that we can have God's word on our heart. As the psalmist will say "My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on tablet of your heart. So you will find good success in the sight of God and man." Proverbs 3:1-4. So as you memorize see it as an opportunity to know God's word so that you might not sin against him. There is no merit in memorizing scripture besides getting to know the Lord in a better way.
2. As you read, meditate on the chapters that you are reading. This is going to take some time but how we learn God's word is by taking time to study it. At the bottom of this email I am going to direct you to some helpful resources to spur you along.
3. Lastly, spend time in prayer and ask God to transform your heart. He powerful and mighty there is nothing that the Lord can not do. So let this be an encouragement to you and I pray that you will grow deeper in Lord with God this summer.

Helpful Texts

• Study Bible (ESV Study Bible, MacArthur Study Bible, NIV Study BIble)
  

•  How to Read the Bible for all its Worth by Gordan Fee
  

In order to help encourage you during the summer and keep track of who all is participating, please email Rashard if you want to take the challenge, rashard@redeemerlubbock.org.