Rise! Let Us Go.
Global Outreach Month 2011
Primary Text: Matthew 26: 36-46
As we approach the text today, we must ask ourselves, “To what purpose do I rise and go?”
Every person has been created to participate with God in His mission. Part of God’s mission in our world today is, “That where I am there you may be also.” John 14:3
There are thousands of ways to say the mission, but all of them include one of God’s primary themes of history, “Returning home to Father’s house.”
Everywhere a person looks there are folks away from Father and His house and we are on mission to help them return.
Principles of “Rise! Let us go” Missional Living
1. This type of missional living always includes the “my will – thy will” struggle that is only resolved through total yieldedness of my will to God’s. Matthew 26:39, 42, 44.
2. This type of missional living is, in human power, impossible. So the recognition of the demand produces feelings of sorrow, being troubled, and overwhelmed. Matthew 26:38
3. This type of missional living is from prayer, through prayer, and empowered by prayer. Matthew 26: 39, 42, 44
4. This type of missional living suggests that the very people closest to you will be asleep to you and your missional struggle. Matthew 26:40, 43, 45
5. With this type of missional living you sweat, as it were, drops of blood. Luke 22:44
There is a very high cost to the more common slogan, “Sleep! Let Us Stay.”
1. In verse 40 Jesus wakes them and says to Peter, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
2. Peter slept through our Lord’s life-giving admonition. Vs. 43.
3. He continued to sleep and rest. Vs. 45
4. Twenty-five verses later Peter is yielding to the very temptation Jesus had suggested could be overcome by an hour of prayer.
5. I wonder, did Peter weep bitterly (75) because his greatest failure would have been totally prevented by just an hour of prayer with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane?
This month I urge you brothers and sisters to look around and see the hundreds upon hundreds of people in your world who are far away from Father and His house and simply invite them to come home.
Going deeper in prayer will result in going wider to the world.
“Rise! Let us go!”