The Last Chapter...Matthew 28:1-10...Easter in August
A great Lord's Day with the church family on Sunday. We ended the day with a baptism of J.T. with his mom and dad and stepmom along with other family and friends and his church family looking on. The waters of Grand Lake weren't too cold and I'm thankful we get to re-create this scene in a couple of weeks. Be in prayer for this young one who desired to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It has been awhile since I was in the water doing this type of service.
This sign means I made it up to the Ditch Road at 10,300 ft. I am strengthening up my knee and calf and it was a good 10 mile loop last Friday. The second picture is the contour of the Ditch Road and the Grand Ditch along the Never Summer Mountain Range to catch the snow melt and send it to reservoirs in the opposite direction for Denver. I came from around the corner of the ledge formed by the road on the mid far right of the picture. It was a section I had not been on before. Hopefully another hike planned for this week.
We have entered the last chapter of Matthew. I have been here before back in Gaylord, Michigan at GFF, Gaylord Family Fellowship. I think we will finish up by the end of August with 106 sermons total. It is ironic that 6 years ago to the actual day of the week, I was covering the same passage of scripture in the Gospel of Luke in Machias, ME at MVBC, Machias Valley Baptist Church. We had Resurrection Sunday in August just like we had this year at SCC, Stillwater Community Chapel in Grand Lake, Colorado. Finding out that fact made me feel like I have been doing this a long time. It was kind of like an Easter Sunday because we had our highest attendance for the summer at 63!
The non witnesses, eye witnesses women are at the tomb again probably not knowing the activities that took place by the non observing Sabbath religious leaders the day before while they were observing the Sabbath day. Now there is a guard set and also a seal of Caesar across the stone. They were wondering who would roll away the stone for them so they could attend to the dead body of Jesus. They were surprised to have this chore done by an angel of God and that their spices and ointments were not needed. He had risen was conveyed to them by the angel in the midst of the Roman guard laying lifeless on the ground.
Obedience is key. Jesus Christ's death on the cross and resurrection from the grave is the saving agent of our lives and we are to respond to this loving act on our behalf with obedience to repent, to turn to Him as our Savior and Lord. That obedience is followed up by a life of obedience to follow Him. We see the women at the tomb doing this. They obey the instruction of the angel of God and even after they see Jesus on the road, they follow His same instruction to take the message to His disciples. One of the greatest characteristics of a Christian is to love but that comes from an obedience to Jesus' command for us to love one another and even to love our enemies.
How is your obedience gauge on the dash of your life in regards to Jesus' instructions? Have you been making rationalizations in some areas? Have you been making excuses and exceptions to His rules? Have you modified His instructions to meet current and cultural standards? Have you simply thrown out Jesus' commands and replaced them with less offensive ones? Doing the right thing, the Jesus thing, is getting tougher as our society veers farther and farther from the truth of God's word.
I think of the old hymn,
"Trust and obey,
For there's no other way
To be happy in Jesus
But to trust and obey."
"When we walk with the Lord
In the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will,
He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey."
This was penned in 1887 by John H. Sammis. The backstory is that the inspiration came from a young convert at a D.L. Moody revival meeting.
“Mr. Moody was conducting a series of meetings in Brockton, Massachusetts, and I had the pleasure of singing for him there. One night a young man rose in a testimony meeting and said, ‘I am not quite sure—but I am going to trust, and I am going to obey.’ I just jotted that sentence down, and sent it with a little story to the Rev. J. H. Sammis, a Presbyterian minister. He wrote the hymn, and the tune was born.”
Adam
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