Exodus 18:13-23; Luke 10:1,2;
Matthew 28:19,20
April 18, 2010
Resurrection Life: The Call to Mission!
Rev. Meagan Boozer
On Easter Sunday, we began a series of sermons called “Resurrection Life!”
• A Christian who is living a resurrection life is someone who lives with a constant awareness that the four big bad wolves have been defeated: the wolves of sin, death, judgment, and the devil! Jesus defeated those wolves by his submission to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and then rising from the dead to give us resurrection life!
• A Christian who is living a resurrection life is someone walking in grateful praise to God for giving us what we do not deserve for no other reason other than pure, true, unconditional love.
• A Christian who is living a resurrection life is someone who clings to God’s promise that He is making all things new!
I could go on and on, but I hope you get the point! If you’re living a resurrection life, your life is going to look very different than the lives of a lot of other people around you. When you are facing a hard time, you are not going to be the one who pulls the covers over your head and falls into despair: You’re going to take your stand on the promises of God! Conversely, when you see the despair and struggles of others, you’re not going to turn away and merely say, “Too bad for them.” A resurrection lifer is going to ask God, “What can I do to help?” This is our focus for today.
Let’s take a look (on the new screen!), and listen to God’s word for us today:
Exodus 18:13-23:
13The next day Moses sat as judge for the people, while the people stood around him from morning until evening. 14When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, while all the people stand around you from morning until evening?” 15Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God. 16When they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make known to them the statutes and instructions of God.” 17Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. 18You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. 19Now listen to me. I will give you counsel, and God be with you! You should represent the people before God, and you should bring their cases before God; 20teach them the statutes and instructions and make known to them the way they are to go and the things they are to do. 21You should also look for able men among all the people, men who fear God, are trustworthy, and hate dishonest gain; set such men over them as officers over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. 22Let them sit as judges for the people at all times; let them bring every important case to you, but decide every minor case themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. 23If you do this, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all these people will go to their home in peace.”
Luke 10:1,2:
1After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
Matthew 28:19,20
9Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
It’s not very difficult to figure out what I’m zeroing in on today as we considering our call to mission, is it? Our mission, given so clearly by the risen Christ to his disciples, is to go and make disciples. First we have to be a disciple, and then we’re supposed to go and make more disciples who will go and make more disciples and so on. If the first disciples had not “gotten” that, we wouldn’t be gathered here today, and we must “get” it for those who come after us!
A disciple is a follower: a person who wants to be like his/her teacher. When Jesus walked among us in the flesh, he had groupies, and he had disciples. There’s a difference. Groupies just gawk and gossip. Disciples watch, listen, learn, and grow more like the teacher. Jesus commanded his disciples to multiply just as God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply.
We read in Exodus how Jethro urged his son-in-law to spread the work around. If you’re only one person strong, your influence is limited. Moses did what Jethro suggested, and so much more was accomplished in the course of a day’s work! I think and remember with a grateful heart how so many who came to our Seder Meal on Maundy Thursday stayed to clean up what had taken days to set up. What a blessing this was for me and for Dennis!
As we read the four Gospels, we learn that Jesus was particularly focused on the twelve disciples, but from the passage in Luke 10, we also learn how he sent seventy others ahead of him into the towns already on his itinerary. A little later in the passage (v. 16), Jesus told them, “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” Wow. That’s a powerful commissioning. What responsibility they carried! And yet, they went – and in verse 17, we read that they returned with joy!
There is great joy in doing what Jesus asks us to do. There is great joy in serving others in whatever way we are gifted and called to serve.
• There is great joy in following our teacher, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Seventeen households have been called to support these eighteen children all over the world through Compassion International. Every time we receive a letter from “our” kids, we know the joy of serving.
• There was great joy in this building every Monday night from December through March as we served others a delicious meal in Jesus’ name.
• There was great joy at Apron Tree a couple of Mondays ago, when our Deacons took a home-cooked meal to the home and sat and ate with the guests of the home.
• There will be great joy tomorrow night, when the Deacons take a meal to Gold and Gray in Dry Run. There is joy in serving. Joy in representing Jesus to others, who would most definitely stop and share a meal with the lonely, the aged, and infirm.
• There has been great joy in the young men’s ministry at the Parsons’ home every Monday night.
• There has been great joy in the relationship building times with the young women’s ministry, the Warrior Chicks.
• There is great joy in our Sunday school classes as we watch, listen, learn, and grow.
• There is great joy when we know we are doing as Jesus commanded: Go and make disciples.
Sometimes making disciples looks like something we would expect: like students and a teacher gathered around God’s word. Other times, from the outside, it just looks like people sharing an experience.
When Chris, Betty, Emma, and Darla head to Victory Junction Camp in North Carolina next week, they will be helping to make disciples. It may not look like that: but that’s why they are going. Jesus has called them. They will be serving handicapped children in whatever way they are instructed to serve by camp leaders. They will have to leave their expectations behind, and seek to follow the Teacher. How would Jesus minister love, compassion, and joy to these children? How can they pass on his teaching to those who may not be able to communicate in ways we’re used to? They can and will do it: Because it’s not about our limitations, it is about Jesus’ command to us to go and make disciples – and whatever Jesus calls us to do, he equips us to do with joy and grace.
When six of us head to Honduras tomorrow morning, we will be helping to make disciples. We believe Jesus has called us, and we pray that our eyes and ears and hearts and hands and feet will be responsive to what the Lord has for us alongside Scott & Diane Karper and the people of Guadelupe Carney.
You can see in the yellow insert in your bulletin today, the many, many ways God has called this congregation to be active in Christ’s mission to make disciples all over the world. Today, I’m grateful to God for the presence of dear friends, Dave & Michelle McBride and their 3 beautiful little girls. David serves the Lord through Coalition for Campus Outreach. As a congregation, through our mission budget, we support David for $100/month as he travels from college campus to college campus, overseeing the ministry of dozens of college ministers. It is especially timely to have Dave with us this year, as we prepare to send a bunch of high school seniors off to a myriad of places later this summer.
For the reader: I regret that we do not have David’s words here for you to read. But I ask that you would pray for him as he seeks to serve God on college campuses near and far.
Please also pray for the Victory Junction team leaving on April 29th and returning May 2nd, and the Honduras team leaving on April 19th and returning on April 25th. Thank you! May God bless you for your support of the mission expressions of the Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church!
