GO BACK, GO WORSHIP, GO OUT!
By
Bishop Melvin L. Maughmer, Jr.
The number 3 biblically represents fullness. Past, present, future, outer court, inner court, Holy of Holies, Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Body, Soul, Spirit. Death, burial, resurrection, Joseph had 3 coats, his father gave him his first coat, Potiphar gave him his second coat, Pharaoh gave him his 3rd coat. There were 3 deaths at Calvary 1 died in sin 1 died to sin, 1 died for sin. Today I want to deal with a process of 3. Process being the steps to complete something. This is a 3step process to bring you to a level in being used by God. GO, GO, GO – GO BACK, GO WORSHIP, GO OUT.
PRAYER:-
SCRIPTURE:- Matthew 28 10 & 16 – 19 “Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me. Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”.
Now at the reading of this scripture tradition would have us believe that this is a sermon for Resurrection Sunday or what we commonly call Easter. Thank God we are not dealing with tradition but dealing with relationship!
QUESTION: - Have you ever felt like everything is against you. You walk with God yet circumstances and situations leave you feeling alone, scared, frustrated, confused, and uncertain. This may sound like a miserable place to be but many of us are living right here. Some may say well as a child of God you should never feel like this, but I am dealing with real life and there are times when we feel this way. As a matter of fact, this place of uncertainty and fear is the same place the disciples found themselves in. It was after the resurrection but before the return of Christ. After the death of the Christ, the disciples had scattered; their faith had been shaken, everything seemed over, all their certainties had crumbled, and their hopes had died. We see the disciples turning from people with apparently strong faith and firm convictions to those who appeared weak, unfaithful, lacking in convictions, fearful and even cowardly.
After all the things they had said and gone through with Jesus, they had deserted Him and Peter even denied knowing Him and now He had been crucified. The disciples are now fearful of their lives, future scared of the people of Jerusalem and uncertain about what lied ahead.
UNDERSTAND:- This place of loneliness, despair, frustration, uncertainty, and fear is not a demonic place but a place that we must leave and travel back to the beginning before we are able to move forward. This place can be called the place between here and there. It is a place where we need to make a conscience decision, chose to be obedient, worship God and experience an awesome transformation before we can go forward. This place is part of the process.
We like the disciples of Christ have been entrusted with a message that is wonderful and life changing; however, there are some parts that we just may not understand and even doubt.
You know the story, Jesus had been crucified and buried, it was now the 3rd day and Mary and the other Mary went to the tomb of Jesus but when they get there Jesus had already resurrected. Matthew 28:10 says, “Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me”.
GO BACK - GALILEE
At first, the good news of Christ’s resurrection brought by Mary Magdalene, was considered as idle tales and discarded by the fearful and doubtful disciples Luke 24:11 says “And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not”. That showed their ignorance and unbelief! John says in John 20:9 “For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.”
Jesus told her to tell them to go to Galilee! Galilee means a passing over from death to life; for Jesus had already passed from death unto life.
Galilee is the place where everything began. They are to return there, to return to the place where they were first called. In Galilee, Jesus had walked along the shores of the lake as the fishermen were casting their nets. There he had called them, and there they had left everything and followed him.
For each of us, too, there is a Galilee at the start of our journey with Jesus. Go Back to Galilee means rediscovering our initial conviction and conversion experience, draw new energy from the sources of our faith and our Christian experience. To return to Galilee means to return to that blazing light with which God’s grace touched us at the start of our Christian journey.
Galilee is home. Jesus knew the mental state of the disciples at this point. He knew they were broken and in despair, uncertain of what lied ahead and scared. Judas was dead, Thomas was in his own dark depression, the others were confused. His goal would be to reconfigure this group of soon to be Apostles and reconstruct their faith.
Whenever a person has issues in their life and needs to find security and understanding they go back home. Home is where we find security, love, remembrance of the good times, a sense of belonging, hope and encouragement. I know during this pandemic especially because my wife and I are so far away we long to get back home. Jesus knew that taking them back to Galilee would help remind them of their time with Jesus, the successes, the miracles, casting out demons, healing the sick, preaching to the multitudes. It would take them out of the hostile environment of Jerusalem the place of conflict, away from the attacks of the Jewish leaders, the place of death. In Galilee they would find it easier to see the mission.
For them to go to Galilee with the purpose of meeting Jesus there would be an act of faith. They would have to believe the eye-witness testimony of the women that they saw Jesus alive from the dead. They would also have to believe that Jesus was going to appear to them. This would separate them from the highly emotional environment of Jerusalem.
Where is my Galilee? Galilee does not have to be a place for us. It is a situation, a frame of mind, or a choice we make. Galilee is our each and individual experience and encounter with Jesus Christ.
In this sense, returning to Galilee means treasuring in my heart the living memory of that call, when Jesus passed my way, gazed at me with mercy, and asked me to follow him. Andre Crouch made the song Take Me Back where he says Take me back to the place where I first received take me back to the place where I first believe.
When we first got saved, when we first gave our lives to Christ there was a fiery and passionate desire to worship God. We would look for churches having service, we could have 2 or 3 services on Sunday, Sunday School at 9:30, morning service at 11, afternoon service at 4 then we would go to another service at 7 just because we wanted to worship.
I remember going to the evening services at Livingstone or Akron Apostolic after being in church all day just to be in worship. Now so often we have just one service, if the music isn’t right, if the praise team doesn’t pump us up, and if we are there more than 2 hours, we become frustrated upset and confused. However, God says we need to go back to Galilee.
Going back to Galilee is not to go back in time; it is not a kind of nostalgia or spiritual eutopia, but it is returning to our first love, to receive the fire that Jesus has kindled in the world and to bring that fire to all people, to the very ends of the earth.
If you want to see Jesus like never before you have to go back to Galilee.
Once you go back to Galilee you must worship! Not sign a couple of song and think you have done something but experience Transformational Worship!
GO WORSHIP
TRANSFORMSTIONAL WORSHIP IS WORSHIP THAT PRODUCES A CHANGE
Verse 17 says “And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted”.
There is power in worshipping God. If we want to see breakthroughs in our life and in the lives of others, then this is the time to enter deeper levels of worship both personally and corporately. We were created to worship God. Worship is a state in which our soul finds true peace, rest, and purpose. However, worship must become a condition of the heart, and a way of life not just something we limit to a few minutes that we do on Sunday morning.
Having seen Jesus the disciples are now fully persuaded that He had conquered death, and now will never be the same. Their worship brought about a transformation. They had a new perception and revelation of Jesus Christ. The resurrection of Christ gave His disciples a deeper understanding of His divinity, glory, and power. It radically and permanently changed their knowledge and understanding of who Jesus truly was. They had now developed a fresh perspective and new insights into God’s redemption plan for mankind. After they worshipped Him no longer afraid of dying for Christ’s sake. Now that the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead demonstrating His authority and supremacy over death and grave, there was nothing left to fear. Death, their greatest fear, had been swallowed up in victory perfectly and permanently! Their faith increased, they developed confidence and boldness. As a result, they became powerful, bolder and a fearless witness for Christ, going everywhere and proclaiming that Jesus was indeed the Christ – the Messiah. No persecution or threat could silence them. They went from being scared and fearful and uncertain to bold and determined.
Similarly, worship should deepen our spiritual knowledge of Christ. It should bring to our understanding a new dimension of Jesus’ glory, dominion, and power. Transformational worship gives us fresh insight, revelation, and understanding of Jesus Christ. It. changes our character from a state of unrighteousness to a state of righteousness in the eyes of God. It changes us from an enemy to a child of God because we are adopted into the family of God. It changes our life to reflect who you are in Him
If the worship, you do does not cause a transformation then something is wrong.
Go Out – The great commission!
Verse 19 says “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”. This is called the Great Commission! Who did Christ give the Great Commission? Jesus gave the Great Commission not only to His eleven disciples, but to everyone who has believed in Him. Therefore, everyone that calls themselves a child of God should be purposefully and continually involved in helping to fulfill the Great Commission as a way of life.
The Great Commission is our Lord’s command to take the gospel to every person throughout the world and to make disciples in all nations. It involves building and multiplying disciples in all nations so that they can, in turn, saturate the nations with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and train other disciples to do the same generation after generation through the process of spiritual multiplication.
WATCH THIS:- Christ did not commission us to Christianize all nations; He called us to disciple and evangelize them. Our responsibility is to preach and teach Christ’s dynamic gospel; it is the Holy Spirit’s responsibility to make our witness effective.
Christ issued a command, “Go,” and no true child of God can take this order lightly. But most so-called Christians have never taken this command of our Lord seriously. There has been a lot of games being played while our world is in flames. So often times are like men and women who are straightening pictures on the walls of a burning building. We are dealing with insignificant issues when it is the hearts of people that need to be changed. The problems in the world that are threatening to engulf humanity can only be solved through faith in Christ and obedience to His commands.
If we take our Lord seriously, we must dedicate ourselves fully time, talent and treasure, body, soul, spirit in order to fulfill the Great Commission and make disciples, not out of a sense of duty, but out of love and gratitude for what Christ has done for us.
Somehow, we have gotten the idea that the early Christians were different from us – that they possessed a quality of life to which we cannot attain. But it is a fact of history that the people to whom Jesus gave His Great Commission were common, ordinary, working people plagued with the same weaknesses that we have.
Fulfilling the Great Commission does not mean that every person will respond to the gospel in our generation, but it does mean that we should seek to make a prayerful, intelligent, aggressive presentation of the gospel to every living person and leave the results to God.
It does not mean that the majority who hear the gospel will become Christians, but it does mean that they will at least have a chance to hear and believe. We believe that every man, woman, boy and girl should have the chance to say yes to Christ after hearing a clear, culturally relevant presentation of the gospel.
If the Great Commission is to be fulfilled in our generation, now is the time for action. We must begin now and dedicate ourselves as a way of life to communicate God’s love and forgiveness to everyone we meet. We must GO Back to our personal Galilee, GO WORSHIP God in beauty and Holiness, and the GO OUT and make disciples.
CLOSING:- In John 21:15-17 Jesus asked Peter 3 times “Lovest thou me”? Peter answered and Jesus replied “Feed my sheep”, Feed my Lambs” Feed my sheep”. Jesus made sure that each one of His sheep or followers was loved and cared for. Jesus needed someone to feed His sheep, that is, to teach and care for his followers and to teach them when He was no longer with them. He asked His disciples who loved Him to do this.
Feeding the Sheep is teaching and bringing into the unity of the Faith those that are following Jesus. Feeding the lambs is missionary work and working with new converts in Christ. Feeding the sheep is taking care of the elderly and less active, who need to be cared for because they are the flock or even those that have strayed from the flock.
The questions now are Will you GO BACK TO GALILEE? Will you GO WORSHIP? Will you GO OUT?
Bishop Melvin L. Maughmer, Jr.
