“Obeying Jesus”
We are called to be followers of Jesus; believers, yes, but more so followers. While we sat with the disciples as our proxies on that hill in Galilee two thousand years ago, Jesus commissioned us as a community to be disciple makers. He said we are to make disciples by going, baptizing and teaching. There is a lot to consider here. I’d like to focus on the third thing: teaching to observe/obey everything that Jesus taught us.
Sounds easy, right? Pull out the Sunday School curriculum, put some flannel graph characters on the wall (if you are old school) and make the students sit still and listen. But to be an effective teacher, we first must know the material we’re teaching and I’m not sure I’m solid on everything that Jesus taught. There are parables I’m not clear on. Sometimes He seemed to say some troubling things. There are several books written about ‘the difficult sayings of Jesus”; and those sayings must be part of the ‘everything’ that Jesus taught, right? In Bible studies I’ve been to, Jesus’ words are sometimes ignored, perhaps because they don’t make sense in the way we think things must be. I had a professor in Bible college say that the entire sermon on the mount was not for today but for the future kingdom era because it would be impossible to conduct business in our country if we followed Jesus literal words. I prefer to err on the side of obeying Jesus.
What I want to suggest is that we need to wrestle with all of Jesus’ words. I love the picture of Jacob wrestling with the angel in the desert the night before he was going to meet his brother Esau (and probably be killed, he thought). Many theologians believe Jacob was really wrestling with a preincarnate Jesus! The story shows me that God wants to wrestle with us, and that can mean in His word. Too often we don’t try: if we don’t understand something we just give up. We try to figure it out on our own without being in community. We’re happy with our understanding as is. Or we’re too busy and don’t have the energy for one more thing.
To fulfill Jesus’ commission, it is true that we need to read and understand the entire Bible, but we need to be ‘reading Jesus’ all the time: He is the one we follow and are called to be part of showing others how to follow. The Old Testament can only be understood rightly by reading Jesus. The epistles can only be understood rightly by reading Jesus. Here’s my suggestion: read all four gospels slowly and deeply. Study them in your small group. Do it as part of your daily time with God. Listen to what Jesus is saying and carry it into your day with you. Bible gateway and others have reading plans that can put structure to your plan. Here’s an example: Bible Reading Plans - Read the Gospels in 40 Days - NIV - Today's Reading (biblegateway.com). We have to be disciples to make disciples. Let’s wrestle with the One we follow, so we can effectively make disciples.
Blessings in Christ,
Tim Grebe
Interim Director of Music Ministries
If you missed this Sunday’s sermon, click here to listen now!
