For your calling?

First Things First

As we come to the end of Matthew we find what is appropriately called the Great Commission;

Context: Jesus has ministered for 3 to 3 1/2 years, He called 12 men to follow Him (including the one who betrayed Him), He has been challenged, arrested, tried, convicted, scourged, crucified, and resurrected;

Now He is giving the disciples their marching orders - make disciples;

But how did they do that - the better question is how do we do that - through absolute faith;

Faith

In order to share what you know you have to be secure in your knowledge of the topic;

So what if you wanted to convince me that eating cauliflower would help me become healthier - how would you do that;

Would just tell me about the taste, the versatility of uses or just how much you enjoy eating it - no - why not - because your satisfaction in cauliflower will not display to me the benefits of it for my health;

But isn’t that what we do with our faith we share “our satisfactions” about Jesus and not necessarily the value of Jesus;

What if we started sharing the value of Jesus - His sacrifice, His love, His promise, His faithfulness and our personal need of Him - would that be more convincing:

Now in order to that we have look at the first thing first which is being completely sure of our salvation, our faith and the truth of Jesus Christ - why, which seems like a silly question, because we will typically not share what we are not completely passionate about or what we completely believe in because “when in doubt we typically don’t speak”;

So what is faith - let’s let the Bible answer that turn to Hebrews 11:1;

Here is what all this boils down to - if you are not completely bought into your faith, your faith will sit dormant and you will not “make disciples”.

Doubt

One of the things I love about the Bible is it does not leave out the human aspect in the story;

What do I mean - look at the last couple words in v. 16 “some doubted” so if a man was writing the Bible - uninspired - do you think they would include their short falls;

So what do these would mean or imply;

Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 28

The Greek verb used here implies hesitation or indecision, rather than unbelief. The disciples are struggling to comprehend what they are witnessing.

Most people do not want to talk about there struggle to understand something because it shows a weakness;

What we typically will do is totally avoid the conversation or topic and if we cannot avoid it we will joke about it to hide our weakness or lack of knowledge;

But doubt can cripple you in your faith in so many areas to include the whole “make disciples”;

If are struggling - especially in secret - about our understanding and confidence in Jesus then we will most likely not “make disciples”;

So how can we - individually - move beyond our struggle, lean in to what Jesus declared about Himself in the Scripture.

Authority

Jesus starts this encounter with declaring His authority in heaven and on earth;

But where else in the Bible is this declared;

Matthew 7:29

Matthew 9:6

Matthew 21:23

So if Jesus has authority “in heaven and on earth” should we not give Him authority in our lives;

Should we not trust His authority in our ability to “make disciples”;

How valuable is His authority to you;

Here’s something to consider;

Just because someone says they are a Christian; it doesn’t mean that they’re an actual disciple of Jesus. Is your worldview centered on Jesus to the point that he is first in all things (Luke 14:26–27)? Are you sitting at the feet of Jesus and learning from him? And are you, in turn, telling others about Jesus? Who or what is your master? Ministry Pass

Everyone has a “worldview” what is yours most centered upon;

Let’s watch this short video about people’s worldview;

Is the world seeping into your Christian worldview, are you trying to cram everything that is happening into the Bible story or are you trusting the authority of Jesus?