Title: Go to Galilee (Matthew 28:10-20)
Today is a very burdensome day for those who consider Christianity as a hobby or culture. This is because it is a day of listening to the Word that is too great to be considered as a hobby or just for culture. The fact that Jesus died and rose again three days later is unacceptable to those who come to church as a hobby or to those who consider Christianity as a culture.
There are many supernatural events in the Bible that cannot be accepted by the human mind, and the most representative of them is the resurrection of Jesus. If you see the resurrection of Jesus with your own knowledge or experience in any age, you cannot believe it. Likewise, those who lived at the time Jesus was resurrected did not believe in others or even his disciples until they saw the risen Jesus in person, but only after seeing the resurrected Jesus. However, some disciples even saw Jesus in person and even worshiped Him (verses 16, 17). If you look at this, you can see how hard it is to believe in the resurrection.
Occasionally people will be dead for a while and then wake up again, but then they die again. There is no case in the history of mankind that a person was resurrected with a changed body after three days of death. Therefore, it is a great grace of God if we believe in this event that transcends human reason, even though it is something that is difficult for human wisdom to accept. You don't know how blessed I was. For this one fact alone, we should give thanks and praise to God this morning.
But what we should pay attention to this Easter is that the resurrected Jesus gathered his disciples to Galilee. Before he died, Jesus resurrected in Matthew 26:31,32 and said that he would go to Galilee first. And after the resurrection, in verse 7, to the women who came to the tomb on the day Jesus was resurrected, he said to the women who came to the tomb on the day Jesus was resurrected, “Go quickly and say to his disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead, and he is going before you into Galilee, and there you will see him. In verse 10, Jesus told the same women to tell the disciples to go to Galilee.
Where is Galilee? Galilee is the region around the Sea of Galilee in the northern part of Israel. Because Jesus was from Galilee, he was often called a Galilean, and people scoffed at Jesus, saying, 'Can such a prophet come from Galilee?' Jesus grew up here and started his early ministry around this place, and the disciples were also from this place, and there were many people who fished in the Sea of Galilee.
Why was it called Gathering to Galilee? In verse 16, the eleven disciples do not know what kind of mountain Jesus commanded, but they went to Galilee and gathered on the mountain to see Jesus and worship Him. And he said. “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; behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” (19- verse 20). The core content of these verses is to 'make disciples of all nations'. To make disciples, you must first go to others, baptize them by making them aware of the cross and resurrection of Christ, and teach them everything that Jesus commanded so that they obey the word and keep it.
To say this, before he died and after his resurrection, he did not say many other words. He told them to go to Galilee and gather in Galilee.
We speak of Paul as one of the greatest figures in Christian history. Before he met the resurrected Jesus, he was a leader in arresting people who believed in Jesus, but after meeting the resurrected Jesus (Acts 9), his life changed 180 degrees, and he preached that Jesus was the Savior, died on the cross and was resurrected.
Do you and I believe in the resurrection of Jesus? If you believe in the resurrection, how should your life change? You must live for the Lord. How do you live a life with the Lord as your master? There are many other things, but we must keep in our hearts what Jesus said in Galilee, 'Make disciples with all the nations,' and obey it.
Those who enjoy Christianity as a hobby do not make disciples, and those who know Christianity as a culture are not interested in what Jesus said in Galilee. Christians are people who obey what Jesus said in Galilee. The church is an institution that obeys the words of Jesus in Galilee. That's why we baptize and make disciples today. If there are some of us who consider Christianity as a hobby or culture, I hope that we can quickly get out of that level and confess Jesus as my Lord and my God.
And as Jesus said in Galilee, it is our mission to visit others, to meet them, to preach the gospel, to baptize them, and to help them meet God and live righteous and pleasing lives.
Let's try to make our lives a little more honest and beautiful this morning, thinking about the risen Jesus again, meditating on the Word, praying, and doing our best not to fall into worship services.†††(Deaconess: Kang Mi-ra)