Missions is Personal
After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples had to do a lot of walking! Jesus told the women at the tomb that Jesus would meet the disciples in Galilee. (Matt 28:7) Galilee is no short walk; it is about 150km from Jerusalem.
The trip for the disciples would have been a trip down memory lane, highlighting different memories of their time with Jesus, depending on which route they took.
On the map shown here, the white route shows the road to Galilee via Samaria, a route that devout Jews never travelled, but Jesus did. We know this because John records Jesus stopping in the village of Sychar in John chapter 4. If the disciples chose to travel by this route. They would have gone through Samaria, where Jesus healed 10 lepers, Sychar, where He met the woman at the well, and Nazareth, which was Jesus’ hometown. They would have passed by Chorazin, a city which Jesus cursed and Bethsaida, where He fed the 5,000, before going to Mt Arbel, where it is presumed that Jesus met with His disciples post-resurrection.
If they chose the red route, which is the way that most devout Jews travelled to Galilee, they would have travelled on the Jericho Road, which was the setting for Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. They would have passed through Jericho, where Jesus healed blind Bartimaeus and called Zacchaeus out of the sycamore tree. They would have passed through the Decapolis, where Jesus delivered the man from a legion of demons, passed by Mt Tabor, where Jesus was transfigured, through Galilee, where Jesus gave the sermon on the mount, onto Mt Arbel and the meeting with Jesus. Either way, meeting Jesus in Galilee was going to be a 150km trip down memory lane!
The meeting on Mt Arbel
After a 150km walk, they meet with Jesus. In Matthew 28:16-20, we see the details of that meeting, which is thought to have been held on Mt Arbel. There, the disciples receive the Great Commission.
The Bible says that even though Jesus was alive and standing before them, some doubted.
The resurrection had changed everything and given them a reality check … death had been conquered … this was bigger than loaves and fishes and changing water into wine, the resurrection challenged reality as they understood it. Jesus was alive. What could all this mean?
After receiving the Great Commission, to make disciples of all nations, Peter and the other disciples went fishing. We read this in John chapter 21. They catch nothing, and Jesus appears on the beach and asks them if they have a catch. When they say no, Jesus tells them to cast their net on the right side of the boat, and they will get a catch. The catch is so big that they cannot handle it.
John recognises the circumstances and the person on the beach and says to Peter, “It’s the Lord”. Peter remembers how Jesus called him when he was a fisherman. It also had to do with a large catch of fish, in Luke chapter 5, and he swam ashore. He and Jesus have a conversation that changes his life.
Jesus tells the disciples in Luke 24 that they are to wait in Jerusalem to receive power from on high and the promise of the Father.
The Mount of Olives
So, at the time of Jesus’ ascension, the disciples had travelled over 300km to Galilee and back, and they are now in Jerusalem walking with Jesus on the Mount of Olives.
The disciples are still trying to work out what happens now, they still cannot fathom the resurrection and ask Jesus if this is the time He is going to restore the Kingdom to Israel. Jesus says that the Father has those things worked out, and these are His last words to the disciples.
but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” Acts 1:8
So, Jesus has given them both the Great Commission and is now sending them to the remotest parts of the earth.
Incidentally, if you are standing on the Mount of Olives, you can’t get much more remote than Tasmania. So if you are a Tasmanian resident like me, congratulations, you are preaching the Gospel in the remotest areas of the earth. If you measure remoteness by distance alone.
After saying these words, Jesus defies gravity and ascends into the clouds. With jaws wide open, the disciples watch Jesus disappear.
A couple of Angels turn up and point out that Jesus will return in the same way that He left. The disciples don’t know what to think. Jesus conquers death, defies gravity, and the Pharisees are still looking for them.
They go back to the city and lie low in the upper room and wait to see what happens. When the day of Pentecost arrives, we see transformed disciples. No more doubt, no more uncertainty, they are bold, they understand the meaning of the resurrection and what God has done, and they are willing to die for their faith. The difference is the Holy Spirit.
Here is what we can learn from this. If you find parts of the scripture difficult, or if you're not quite sure what the Gospel truly means, the best thing you can do is ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. He will reveal the truth that will set you free.
At Pentecost, the church was born, and the gospel went forth and continues to do so, and we all have a part to play.
My call to missions
My part in missions began when I was about 14 years old. God called me to be a missionary when I was a teenager, but I did not know how to answer the call. After a few years, I eventually dropped out and became a hippie. I thought I could change the world that way. However, God had other ideas, and I eventually got saved and have been preaching the Gospel ever since, both within Australia and overseas.
Over the years, I have spent a lot of time thinking about Acts 1:8 and the Great Commission and how I can best respond to those calls.
In 1998, I took over a YWAM international ministry that was supposed to be caring for the poor but had trouble finding its way. As I prayed about what God wanted me to do as the ministry’s new leader, God spoke to me. He said, “I want to be represented to people who are experiencing the ‘worst day of their life.’
Worst day
We all know what a bad day is, but what about a ‘worst day’? What was the worst day of your life? Was it when someone close to you died? Was it an event that changed you in some way, or a failed relationship? Or something someone else said about you? There are lots of worst day experiences, and we need to know that in our worst day experience, God is closer to us than our own heartbeat.
Within days of God nudging me in this direction, I received an email from a man in the US who wanted to set up an international disaster response ministry. This email ended up with the ministry I was leading, setting up an international disaster response ministry with this guy. It took us years to train; our first outreach was the Iraq War.
Iraq
Two of us deployed, and after a few days, we found ourselves talking to a US Marine Colonel who headed up the US medics that were supporting the forces in Iraq. We needed his permission to cross the border into Iraq. When we told him what we were planning to do, he laughed and said, “Why hasn’t someone thought of this before? Trust the Australians to come up with something this good.” He gladly gave us passes for us to travel in and out of Iraq as many times as we wanted.
So, what were we planning on doing? Firstly, there was only a small planned medical response for civilians in Iraq; the major medical focus was for troops. A small number of medical teams were set aside for civilians, but nowhere near enough for the needs. In the early stages of the war, the medical focus was mainly on the military.
We were planning on being first responders for civilians at local hospitals, doing basic medical stuff that would keep the few doctors that were available focused on the more complex cases.
Over the years, this ministry ended up going to dozens of disasters, and people who were experiencing the worst days of their lives were bumping into God’s representatives who were there with them, and when they asked why we were there helping them, we would tell them about Jesus, the God who loves them right where they are.
Boxing Day Tsunami
I remember in the Boxing Day Tsunami, a Muslim teacher who came to our clinic had lost his adult children in the tsunami. He came to me on several occasions for medical treatment, and through an interpreter, we would talk as I treated him. Before returning to Australia, I gave him some money to help him and his wife. He looked at me and said. “You are a Christian, aren’t you?! To which I said “Yes”. With tears in his eyes, he hugged me and said, “You have given me hope.”
Through this worst day, we also became involved with refugees and in refugee camps. For more than 30 years, I have had an ongoing relationship with the refugees in the Mae La refugee camp in Thailand, journeying with these guys as they experience the pain of refugee life and the hatred that is expressed to them in the country in which they have sought refuge.
And there are many other things that God brought our way on this journey.
Leasts
Matthew 25:31-46 is set in Jesus’ last days. He tells a story of the final judgement, where everyone is brought before the throne and divided into two groups.
One group Jesus welcomes to heaven with these words,
‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’
And those people will ask, “Lord, when did we do these things for you? And the Lord replied
‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
And we all know the rest of the story. The other guys did not do these things and were condemned for it.
God does not expect us to just go to the remote parts of the earth and hand out a few tracts; He wants us to get involved with people, especially the least.
Who are the least in Ulverstone? Who are the least in your workplace? Who are the least at your school? If you can put your finger on someone who is a least, then perhaps you are the answer to that person’s prayers, and God wants you to engage with them.
A “least person” does not necessarily have to be poor; they can be affluent but could still be suffering. Did you know that cyberbullying, specifically, is cited as a factor in at least three suicides per week among young people in Australia?
These kids may have all the nice stuff and come from wealthy families, but somehow, they are seen as ‘leasts’ and undesirable and are persecuted for it and are at risk. You don’t have to be poor to be “a least”! And I think that part of my journey has been to find and reach the least.
Thanks
Our calling as Christians is to make a difference in the lives of those who may not be able to say thank you or even know our name. At the Boxing Day Tsunami, we treated hundreds of patients a day, but there are only a few people I specifically remember, one of them, whom I mentioned earlier. I don’t know their names, but I can recall their circumstances.
Tears and grief
One of the other stories was about a woman who had lost her children and her husband in the tsunami. She just wanted to cry, but the Mullahs had told the people that it was disrespectful to Allah to cry and grieve. This lady was a time bomb of tears looking for somewhere to explode, but she feared the Mullahs. If her eyes leaked tears, she would wipe them away and put on a respectful face.
After a day or so, one of the girls on our team walked up to this lady, grabbed her, put her head on the lady’s shoulder and began to cry. The woman’s tear dam broke, and she began to howl. A Mullah came over and told her she should not be crying. Our translator explained to the Mullah that our team member was very sad with all the suffering that she was seeing and that this kind lady was helping her in her grief. He said that was ok.
I am very sure that these two ladies are no longer in communication with each other, but they will remember their encounter together for life!
Something happened to a "least", who was experiencing the worst day of their life, and God was there for them.
Rose Moo
I said that I have had the privilege of working with the refugees in Mae La camp for more than 30 years. One refugee I knew well was named Rose. She was a teacher, and her husband was a doctor; they were rich and lived in a mansion in Yangon. They started secretly visiting Mae La camp and provided help for the refugees. When the government found out, it confiscated all their money and real estate and put out warrants for their arrests. They were seen as traitors. Rose and her husband were stuck in Mae La camp.
They and their children lived in the camp for some years. Rose felt that she needed to go back to Yangon to see her mother and father, so she did. On the way back to the camp, she was arrested at a military checkpoint, jailed and tortured for 6 months in a military prison. When she was released, she went back to the camp and found that her husband had died in tragic circumstances just a few days before her release.
She cried out to God and said, “Lord, help me, what do you want me to do?” God told her to make sure that the children in the camp received a good Christian preschool education. And that is exactly what she did, she founded preschools and looked after orphaned children in the camp.
Rose was my friend. One day, I was talking to Rose, and I asked her if she was ever angry with God because of her journey. This is what she said to me.
“It does not matter what you think, or what happens to you in life, God is still God and He is good!”
So why do we as Christians do this? Is it because doing good works will get us to heaven? No, we are saved only by the grace of God, through the blood of Jesus. Jesus’ blood is enough on its own. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves.
We value kindness, compassion, mercy and do good works because that is how God has acted towards us.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16
God loved us, and acted for us, his enemies, the least persons He knew who were experiencing the worst day of their lives. He calls us to do the same to love our enemies and to reach out to the least persons we know.
We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
1 John 4:19-21
Let’s pray.
