It’s amazing what we hear and don’t hear. Most of us can be justly charged with selective hearing.
If mention to you, “I’ve changed cars, my son is starting a new job this week, and Hey, you look great – you’ve must have lost 15 or 20 pounds,” what are you going to remember?
Do you ever wonder why men don’t listen? There may be truth in the female complaint that men don’t listen to what they say. Researchers have found that men only listen with half their brain, while women use both sides. Men listen to conversations with the left side of the brain - associated with understanding language. But women also used the right side.
Dr Joseph T Lurito, assistant radiology professor at Indiana University School of Medicine, said: "I don’t want to provoke a battle of the sexes. I just want people to realize that men and women may process language differently."
The apostle Peter had selective hearing for sure. One good example is found in Matthew 26:31-33. [Please open your Bibles to see this. It’ll help you to listen.
How many prophecies did Jesus give here?
1. Tonight many of you will fall away and be scattered
2. Tonight the shepherd will be stricken?
3. But I will rise from again from the dead
4. After the resurrection, I will go to Galilee, you will go there too, and I’ll meet you there.
What did Peter hear? Only the part about his coming failure. “Even if all the others fall away, I never will.”
Peter, you’re so predictably human. You heard the part about you. But we do the same. What did you think about when you heard Jesus’ words? Probably you heard that Jesus was going to die for you and rise again as your savior.
One matter of high importance to Jesus is the statement that most listeners overlook. “After I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”
Jesus said, “Men, put it in your appointment books. After the resurrection we all need to travel from Jerusalem to Galilee. We wiil meet at the usual spot.”
Jesus didn’t have too many appointments. Life was lived at a different pace back then. Jesus said that he, the son of man, often didn’t know where he would lay his head at night.
He had no appointment secretary working out all the details of his itinerary weeks ahead of time. I won’t say that he never had appointments. He met with people for dinner gatherings and these had to be planned hours or days ahead.
But there were only two major appointments in Jesus’ life that he talked about, appointments that are referred to repeatedly, and that obviously carried great importance in his plans.
One appointment was the cross. Jesus was born with an appointment to die for your sinful heart on the cross. He often said that his time had not yet come. In other words, “I have an appointment with the cross to shed my blood for your life, your life which is so far short of the glories and expectations and demands of heavenly acceptance. But that appointment with the cross isn’t for today. I’ve checked the prophetic appointment book. No, the cross isn’t scheduled for today.” And he would walk away by walking right through the crowd.
The only other major appointment that is repeated with almost nagging frequency is the post-resurrection appointment in Galilee. Let’s review these just to synchronize our thinking with the events themselves.
In Matthew 28:2, resurrection Sunday, we are introduced to an angel. This angel had two assignments.
One, he was to roll back the stone covering the empty tomb, to show to friends and foes that the tomb no longer had a crucified resident. “He is not here – he has risen.”
The other thing the angel had to do was tell 2 ladies named Mary to find the disciples and tell them to go to Galilee. [v7]
This was a reminder to check their appointment books and follow-through with the appointment Christ had made with them before the crucifixion. Apparently they knew the place to meet, a special mountain known to them that required no additional explanation.
As the two Marys left the angels to look for the disciples, they met someone else. [v8-10].
They met the risen Jesus, fell at his feet and worshipped him. What would we do if Jesus showed up physically this morning? These ladies fell at his feet to worship him.
If we have a full record of all the words exchanged, we’d say that Jesus was gracious with these women but didn’t give them much time. He greeted and received them, but what he said didn’t have anything to do with these women. There were no words acknowledging all the pain their hearts felt in the last few days. There apparently was no special blessing for them, or at least the Holy Spirit didn’t guide the Apostle John to record any.
Jesus had a one-track mind after the resurrection. He directed these two ladies to go find the disciples and tell them to hurry up to Galilee to meet him. Jesus was good at follow-through.
He is not just the alpha who begins a lot of projects. He is also the omega who sees everything through to completion.
He made an appointment with his disciples in Galilee. He would be there and He wanted his disciples to show up too.
In Matthew 28:16 we find the disciples have made the trek to Galilee. Instead of the seashore, this appointment had reservations on a mountain. There they met Jesus, worshipped him, and also struggled a bit more with their faith. Some doubted.
In the past Jesus was sympathetic with their doubts. He broke bread with them, directed them where to fish, and invited them to feel his hands and sides. Today he has no time for annoying doubters. The excuses for doubting the resurrection are history. He dealt with those excuses, answered them. We can’t play the doubt game forever. Now it’s time to own up to the obvious truth and play the part of a man.
Who was present on the mountain? Well, it was the disciples. How many were there? Eleven. These were the men that Jesus had chosen to carry on the work the Father had been given him. And there were 11.
Can’t you just imagine the scene in heaven when the Lord gets back and the angels ask, "How did it go?"
And he says, "Ah, it was great!"
"Well, how many do you have?" "Eleven."
"Eleven million?" "No." "Eleven thousand?" "No. Eleven."
"Wait a minute. 33 years and all you have are eleven?"
"Yes – Eleven good men."
These eleven changed the world forever.
So we have a summit meeting – all twelve showed up – Jesus and the eleven. What was the big deal? What could be as big as Calvary? What was so important?
The agenda is found in verses 18-20.
The one thing that happened was the command for total, passionate, committed, first place in your values, “world evangelization.” The gospel of Matthew begins with the announcement that Jesus would save his people from their sins. But his people were everywhere. There were Jews scattered in dispersion all over the continents. And there were all the others too. People of every color and language and culture. Jesus loves the little children of the world – all of them, red and yellow, black and white.
This great meeting had a one-item agenda. “GO.” Go and teach. Go and make disciples. Go and baptize. Go to each and all the nations of the world. Go in the power of the Holy Spirit. Go in obedience to my command. Go with my constant presence. Go now. Go in 36 Ad. Go in 2006 AD. And keep going to the end of the age when I break through the clouds at my return.
All four gospels end with this one item agenda for follow-through, and the book of Acts opens the same way. This certainly shows how important it was in the mind of Jesus and the impression it made on the disciples.
The one item agenda is given in differing words in these five Scriptural texts:
Mark 16:15 – “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation…”
Luke 24:47 – “Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are my witnesses of these things.”
John - Feed my lambs, feed my sheep, get ready to go where you didn’t plan to go. Get ready to die in a time and manner you didn’t choose. “Follow me.”
Acts 1:8 – “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
These five accounts don’t read the same. Some have used the varied wording in these accounts of the last command to show that the Bible is less than reliable, not inspired by God -- that it was written by men with faulty memories.
The truth is that the varied accounts don’t weaken the command or God’s Word – they reinforce it. Because these accounts aren’t five records of one event.
John – resurrection day
Mark – at a meal near Ascension Day
Matthew - at Galilee between resurrection & Ascension Day
Luke - a few hours before the ascension.
Acts – minutes before the ascension.
Go - teach – evangelize – baptize.
This was the only thing Jesus talked about after his resurrection. If we are to follow Christ we must be committed to going with the gospel, and we must make this commitment the highest value we own, in both church and personal lives.
A few days ago I told a class of students this story.
A pastor stood in front of the church youth with a four-liter wide mouth jar. He placed the jar on a table for all to see.
Then he produced twelve large fist sized rocks and placed each one in the jar, being careful not to break the glass. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is the jar full?” Everyone in the room said, “Yes!”
He said, “Really?” He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. He poured the gravel in, and shook the jar so the gravel worked its way down into the spaces between the big rocks. When the jar was full of gravel he asked, “Is the jar full?” This time the group was quiet, but one teen said, “probably not.”
“Good,” he replied. Then he reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked, “Is the jar full?”
“No,” the young people shouted. Once again he said, “Good.” Then he took a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the top. Then he looked up and asked the youth group, “What is the point of this demonstration?”
One eager teenager said, “The point is no matter how full the schedule is, if you really try hard enough you can always fit more things into it.”
“No,” said the pastor, “that is not the point. The truth I want you to learn is: IF YOU DON’T PUT THE BIG ROCKS IN FIRST, YOU’LL NEVER GET THEM IN AT ALL.”
What are the big rocks of your life that Jesus wants you to put in first? More time with your family? Daily Bible reading? Participation in a church group?,Your education? Your finances? Teaching or mentoring someone younger?
Please remember that the biggest of the big rocks is to “Go with the Good News of salvation.”
The main big rock is to always see lost people as Jesus did, and love them as Jesus did, and always seek to bring one or more into the family of God.
This was not soft teaching at the Galilean mountain.
When Jesus told the disciples to Go to the world, it meant the same to them as it means to us. It meant they could not be possessive and protective of their time and things. “Get ready to let go of house and car and business success – go to the world. Prepare to say goodbye to parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles – you’re going to another part of the world. Get ready to eat foods you’ve never tasted before. Get ready to give your testimony. Get ready to have people praying for you. Get your tickets and go!!
At the church where I was pastor, it meant we had to evaluate the church activity schedule and the church budget with this Big Rock in mind first. Did our church budget and church planning calendar show that we believed the Big Rock was the Great Commission? Did we believe that Jesus will judge and evaluate our church on how well it lives out Matthew 28:19,20?
It meant starting a new church plant in Paddock Lake, 25 kilometers to the west of Kenosha. It meant training people in evangelism. It meant Friendship Sundays to bring people to church. It meant teaching people to be lighthouses in their neighborhoods, to know and pray for those who lived near them. It meant they must see all they worked with and went to school with as people that God loved and wanted.
It meant a large missionary budget including sending short term missionaries to China, Central America and the Czech Republic.
Ultimately it meant Nancy and I would have to leave the parent church and move to Svitavy, the Czech Republic.
An English theologian asked the Duke of Wellington, a military general, his opinion of the Great Commission. The Duke simple replied, “What is your command, sir?”
What part of the Galilean call are you living out?
Here are a few Suggestions:
Walk through your neighborhood and pray for people behind every curtain. Ask God to bring his love and peace to these who live near you. Pray for his Spirit to stir their hearts with longings to know God.
This week, see every person you meet as a treasure God wants to find and save. Please do it for one week. That ornery person at work is someone precious to God.
Put some Gospel literature in your pocket of purse. Have it ready to give away.
Prepare your testimony. Be ready to give the story of your faith to anyone, anytime.
If you’re young, ask the Lord if he wants you in lifetime missionary service.
If you’re in the middle of life, listen for short-term or special summer holiday opportunities. I have friends in America who are eager to give up all their holiday vacation time to serve the Great Commission in the Czech Republic, or Romania, or Kenya, or New Orleans. They live to bring one more to Jesus, or even to tell one more of God’s love.
If you’re approaching retirement, it’s time to think again about missionary options.
Every church God blesses and prospers knows that going to the world isn’t optional, it is mandatory. We are under command, the orders given at Galilee by the resurrected Jesus. The world we go to is as far away as China and as near as your neighborhood.
May God bring the miracle of the new birth to many through you and this church. Amen.
By Daniel Lupton
Missionary with First Love International
To Svitavy, the Czech Republic
Web page: Czechoutreach.org
Email: Dan@czechoutreach.org
