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Matthew 28 Breaking Out of the Box
Matthew 28 be reading the entire chapter starting verse 1 here the Word of the Lord. Now after the Sabbath toward the dawn of the first day of the week Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb and Behold, there was a great earthquake.
For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothes were white as snow and for fear of him. The guards trembled and became like dead men, but the angel said to the women do not be afraid.
For I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He's not here for he has risen as he said come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell the disciples that he has risen from the dead and behold He is going before you to Galilee there.
You will see him. See, I have told you. So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples and behold. Jesus met them and said greetings and they came up and took hold of his feet and Worshipped him.
Then Jesus said to them. Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee and there they will see me. While they were going behold some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priest that All that had taken place and when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel.
They gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said tell people his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep and If this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.
So they took the money and did as they were directed and this story has been spread among the Jews to this day. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them and when they saw him they worshipped but some doubted and Jesus came and said to them all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
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 and behold. I am with you always to the end of the age.
May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word. Well, are you are who you are? Because of nature or nurture. Really what made you the person that you are. Was it your DNA your chromosomes?
You know one half inherited from your mother and one half from your father. They determined whether you would have black hair or blonde whether you'd have brown eyes or blue. Whether you'd be left-handed or right-handed light-skinned or dark.
What was it nature in other words or are you who you are because of your your nurture? Your upbringing because of particularly as a young child what your family exposed you to. Maybe a little league baseball or basketball.
Or in Singapore abacus lessons math drills. Because of the values of your culture that you grew up in teaching you that. Whatever they taught you maybe that family is the most important or money or sports is the most important thing.
Some psychologists sociologists economists who lean toward nurture. They think nurtures the dominant factor in people who making people who they are. Say that what we are is determined by our particularly our experience as young children.
Our the environment that we are raised in whether our parents hugged us enough or maybe too much. Whether we were raised with kindness and warmth and discipline. By whether we had a stable home or were exposed to immoral and discipline or drunken parents.
Sometimes fractured homes. That's the environment somehow that that formed us and it so makes us what we are now by whether We were fed well growing up or by what kind of education we had. Whether learning and books were respected in our home or not.
Our is it athletic performance this most respected the body. Is it nature or Nurture or is it some combination of both, you know, you could inherit all of Albert Einstein's IQ. But if you soften your brain with constant TV watching and video games, you never read you don't study math.
You know, you don't bother to apply yourself you have no discipline. You'll never be able to break out of the the box that your bad environment put you in your environment nurture limits the expressions of your talents.
Your nature so the scientists are always debating. Is it nature or nurture either way they say. What you are is determined. I hope you notice that that the whole debate is about which one determines you which one?
Confines you to be who you are the Nate the nature the environment biology or your nurture how you were. Shaped by your experiences and those those two they say or some combination of them are like the walls of a box.
You're in this box.
That.
Confines you you really can't break out of those walls out of that box. We're told that is the box the modern world says we're trapped in but when we say we're Christians We say that there's more to the universe Than just nature or nurture.
There is a God who raises the dead and a Lord who has been raised. Now here in this chapter this with triumphant chapter after two long chapters of darkness and betrayal and abandonment and brutality and death here we see that God breaks out of the box and Raises the dead and then we see What we are to do about it and we see that in four parts here the the miracle.
Then the message and third the misrepresentation and finally the mission. But first there's the miracle. You know in science This is box of cause and effect if you want an effect. You have to have a cause.
Every natural effect must have a natural cause and the dead do not rise. Because there's no there's no effect that can cause that in nature now sure we can resist it. Resuscitate someone with CPR or defibrillation after a few seconds or on occasion a few minutes of the heart stopping.
But not after hours not after the cells throughout the body have each individually died because of a lack of oxygen. Tissue death has set in rigor mortis the body heat ebbs away then in nature. There's no effect that can produce the cause of The dead rising.
There's just no way to make it happen. The box of the laws of nature does not allow it it confines us Into death so there's no way to break out of it. But here we see God breaks through that box sometime on the first day of the week.
This day right Sunday is the first day of the week Jesus rose from the dead. That's why we meet on Sundays, by the way. Not on Saturdays anymore we meet on the first day not on the seventh. We do so every week to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.
I Easter is so important. We celebrate it 52 times a year. It's just so important. We don't celebrate just once a year, but every week. That's why Christians gather once a week not on just a few special occasions through it through the year.
But every week on the first day we assemble to celebrate the resurrection and the two ladies here they came to the tomb on the first day of the week and there's the guards our place they're still at their post and these.
Guards.
Felt the ground quaking underneath them. Then they saw an angel descend roll back that huge stone this angel rolled it away and. The stone acted like a vault door on the tomb. It says in verse 3. His appearance the angels appearance was like lightning.
I was he sort of. He emitted light flashing and his clothing was white as snow. What they saw was this brilliant angel and. Then an empty tomb that was enough to freeze the guards with fear. Kind of ironic here.
You know, they were sent to secure a dead man and now he's alive and gone. While they it says are like dead men. Notice that it says that they're stiff with fear. They're like dead the angel doesn't bother.
With these like dead men notice the angel. Right. There's the guards. They are frozen with fear. There's these two women. There's the angel the angel just doesn't bother with it with the guards. He speaks only to the women.
He comes to the women. To tell them about the miracle. The resurrection is outside the box of nature. That women are the first messengers about the resurrection is something outside the box of their Nurture.
The testimony of women wasn't accepted in courts in those days their culture Didn't listen to women and that tells us that this is not a made-up story. You know if Matthew were writing fiction He wouldn't make the first witnesses to be women.
It just wouldn't it wouldn't occur to him that you wouldn't do that if you were just making up a story. We are told that women were the first witnesses. Because that's what really happened. It's just the fact of the history the angel speaks to them.
Do you not be afraid because you see this angel you're gonna be. That's sort of your natural reaction is to be afraid. So he has to angels often in the Bible are Introducing themselves with don't be afraid.
Don't be like these soldiers. He did tell the soldiers. Don't be afraid those guys should be afraid. But don't don't be like them now looking dead. I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. Here Jesus identified notice how Jesus is identified a Jesus of Nazareth not Jesus the Christ.
He's Jesus Who was crucified? But the miracle is that he is no longer just the one who was crucified the angel says in verse 6. He is not here. For he has risen as he said. The angel didn't come to let Jesus out notice that some people get this idea the angel come to roll away the stone so Jesus Could come out.
Jesus was already gone. The angel came To show us that he wasn't there anymore. Jesus had come alive and broken out of the tomb and so broken out of this box of Death and of nature of this box that nature produces for us and the box of nurture for that matter that we can never break Out of ourselves.
He has risen. The angel says he's the crucified one who was for a time. Submitted to the laws of nature and nurture. Who suffered all that we do who allowed himself to be bound and beaten and butchered who was inside the box of death?
But now has broken out of it. That's the miracle. Then there's the message. The angel tells the two Marys first, you know to be witnesses. See the evidence and then go. Go report it as these guards lay there helplessly frozen in fear looking as if they were dead.
The two Marys are told come come here look in come and see the place where he lay. He's not there anymore. The evidence is that there is no no body. There there had been a dead body there and the two Marys had seen that in chapter 27 verse 61.
The tomb had been closed that had been sealed. They were witnesses to it all the guards were put in place making sure. But now as the angel rolled back to stone, there's no body there. Because he got up and walked away.
The miracle.
Well, the message is to go and tell see the evidence and.
Go tell.
Specifically there are to go and tell the disciples tell them to meet him in Galilee be a messenger pass it on. So they leave. They leave the terrified soldiers behind going quickly. They leave with a mixture says there both of fear and joy.
They're bewildered and.
Exhilarated at the same time they're doing confused because this is so outside the the box of their experience. But exuberant. They have a message and so they run. To give it but as they're on their way, they encounter the Lord Jesus and immediately instinctively.
Naturally, you could say They worship him. They have been think about that says they worshiped him. They have been nurtured as Jews from infancy. Nurtured on the idea raised Constantly on the idea that there's only one God and only God is to be worshiped.
They see Jesus and they naturally Worship him. And they worship him because now they know he is God he has broken the bonds of nature. He's broken out of the box. And he's done what only God can do and so they worship him and they're kneeling before him.
Apparently on the ground because they're touching his feet the Lord Jesus tells them the same, you know, don't be afraid. They hold his feet. He's not a ghost your hand doesn't go through is through him.
Like he's some apparition. He's not an image or a mirage or illusion. He could be touched and held on to and grabbed. Here they hold his feet prostrate on the ground before him overwhelmed with with love and fear and joy and surprise just moments before.
They've been slouching. Toward the tomb to see the dead body of their teacher the one they had put Had before the crucifixion had put so much hope in. I'm sure they had heard. They had heard him say something about him rising after three days.
But notice here. That neither they nor the disciples. Kept a vigil at the tomb, right? When you expect that if they were really believing that there was going to be a resurrection. And they'd be like camped out there at that tomb just waiting for him to come.
Okay, the soldiers there, but we could still sit outside. It's just waiting for this to happen or maybe okay, you can sleep a little bit at home. But get up early Sunday morning jump out of bed. Now Jesus is gonna rise and run to the tomb hoping to be eyewitnesses.
No, they none of that happened because they didn't really believe it. Like this idea that the resurrection is sort of the fulfillment of their their wishes. They just so hoped that it would happen if they kind of fabricated in their imagination.
No, they had no idea of what's gonna happen. He was now in that box called death that no one could break out of and so they had no expectation. It would happen in just moments before they were shuffling along to the tomb.
They're grieving and sad and depressed not knowing what to do next. They're gonna do this gruesome chore of treating the body and that basic after this is all over. They don't know what app comes after this but now in a flash all that had changed.
They're holding on to his feet holding those feet feeling their warmth and their life. Worshipping. Jesus gives them the same mission take this message to the disciples. Notice he calls the disciples brothers.
Go tell my brothers. That too is part of the message. You know, he could condemn them criticize them. If it were if it were me, maybe I'd want to say, you know. Go tell those no good bums those cowards who left me hanging out to dry.
Tell those blowhards who talked so much about how I'm never gonna deny you and Couldn't even stand up to little servant girls. Go tell those jerks to get lost. I'm gonna go find another 12 will be better than them.
That may be what I'd want to say. But here he already he calls them, you know brothers go tell my brothers and that too. Forgiveness the miracle of love despite our failures. That too is part of the message.
Well, there's the miracle he's broken out of the box of death, then there's the message that he's alive and that he's forgiving and then. As we look back at the world. There's the misinformation. Now some of the guards after getting off up off the ground.
They finally Overcame their enough terror so they could start moving again. They go tell what had happened with the priest. They make up this cockamamie story about the disciples stealing the body of Jesus while they were asleep now first.
There's all kinds of problems with that story first the penalty in that day for still actually well. Maybe not quite for death in our day, but in some places guards are really strictly punished when they're supposed to guard.
Isn't guarded the penalty in that day for guards sleeping and letting someone escape or someone steal something could be death. Second if you think about it. Their story their alibi of how you know, they were supposed to guard a tomb and the body's not there anymore.
It makes no sense. Are we really supposed to believe? That even though you only had to stay in guard for less than three days. Okay, there were several of them and there's responsible soldiers. Some of them can sleep while the others stay awake on watch now.
Are we supposed to believe that they all managed to fall asleep at the same time and that they all slept? So soundly that they weren't woken up by a group of men coming in and rolling away a huge stone and Taking the body out.
Are we really supposed to believe that and.
Finally.
Guards if you were gonna ask them, but wait guard you say the disciples stole the body while you were asleep. Okay, how is it that you claim to know that the bot that the disciples took his body if.
You were asleep.
No think about your own story here fellas. I mean if you were asleep all at the same time and you didn't hear a group of men coming and rolling away a large Stone. Yeah sure, but if you were really all asleep You couldn't know what was going on.
If they were really asleep What they would have said was we don't know what happened. We woke up in the but the tomb was empty and the priest rather than paying them. It says in verse 12 a sufficient psalm that is a lot of money.
They would have blamed them and demanded their punishment their story their misrepresentation.
Is.
Self-refuting. Let me just think about it that didn't make any sense. What a great favor that the leaders the chief priests and the Pharisees of the others They did for us to place guards by the tomb ends up being a great favor for us, doesn't it?
Now there can be no accusation that Jesus's body was stolen. So here even their misrepresentation this self-refuting contradictory nonsensical Misrepresentation even it is evidence of the resurrection.
Now if we're naive We might be surprised that.
All the guards.
Didn't end up believing in Jesus. We might think the evidence now is so clear. Yeah, after all they they these got these soldiers they they saw evidence of the resurrection. The priests now have proof of it.
They have these men telling them about an angel and an empty tomb. They had scoffed at him on the cross. Remember on Friday. They scoffed at him on the cross. They didn't you know, if you come down from the cross, then we believe in you.
But now they hear from the guards that Jesus has broken out of a much stronger bond than the nails of a cross. But they still won't believe. Will they I? Mean death is a lot harder to get out of Than a crucifixion and they're still not believing.
But people are not really won by evidence. They have plenty of evidence irrefutable evidence. People that really are not won by evidence by logic, you know, there's an empty tomb. He must have been raised you even saw an eight and these guards even saw the angel therefore.
He must be Lord. That's the evidence they should all believe shouldn't they. People are not really won by evidence by reason now. He should be but they're not. They are won by the Lord working in their hearts by him taking a heart.
It was dead it was trapped in the box of sin and Making it alive. They are won in the same way. The Lord Jesus was raised By God working and doing something That no one can do for themselves in the in the tomb of our dead hearts closed up sealed and guarded he comes and Brings us to life.
Without that new life the world will try to cover up all the evidence that we can provide. And they'll try to cover it up with one misrepresentation After another no matter how ridiculous sometimes they are and they still do but we have a mission to keep telling them the message anyway.
Beginning in verse 16 the eleven disciples make their appointment in Galilee. They meet him in the mountain that Jesus told them about like Moses coming down from a mountain. So the Lord Jesus gives up gives us his word on a mountain.
When they first see him apparently from a distance in verse 18 It says Jesus came to them that is apparent implying that he approached closer when they first saw him some worshipped. Like Mary falling down before him outside the tomb like the two Marys they but others doubted they doubt as they were a little uncertain and Hesitant could it really be him?
They're all in their experience the dead don't rise. That's a iron box you cannot get out of. They certainly don't rise after they've been beaten to within an inch of their lives. Crucified had a spear jabbed in their chest pronounced dead by professional executioners wrapped in a cloth that would have Suffocated them even if it somehow survived.
The crucifixion put in a sealed tomb under armed guard. Everything about nature and their nurture told them that the dead don't rise. This box of existence Doesn't allow it. Christ Jesus lay in death-strong bands.
But then they believed. When he came closer, they saw him up close. And here was the miracle. The box had been broken now. They have a message that will withstand any misrepresentation and Now they're given a mission.
And tell them first that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. There's a lot in that one statement. And his temptations before his ministry Satan offered him remember all the kingdoms of the world.
All the kingdoms means all the authorities all the authority in this world and their glory. If Jesus would only worship him but now by the way of suffering and death He has received far more than Satan could offer all authority not only on earth, but in heaven.
Jesus began his ministry in Matthew 3 by declaring that the kingdom that's the rule the authority of God is at hand. It's it's close. It's nearby. Here he says it's arrived. It's not something he's waiting to get anymore.
Notice at the end of the verse 18. It has been Given to me it's a past completed action. He has all authority everywhere. Of course we could think well, they sure does it look like that sometimes does it it looks like there are a lot of authorities that are outside of his control a Lot of things that are going on.
Still in opposition to him a lot of misrepresentations about him. Pandemics that appear out of his control. Sometimes we might look at our own lives and think there's things On our own lives that are out of his control.
If Jesus has it all under his authority. Why doesn't he straighten it up? Why does he bring back the wayward child or heal that cancer? Why doesn't he stop terrorism and poverty and the corona virus, you know, there are bad things that we experience sometimes.
We experienced the confining box of death. That we cannot break out of but the miracle is that God can break up break us out of that. That's what the resurrection proves. He already broke out some of the Saints some of the Holy Ones remember the previous chapter chapter 27 verses 51 to 52 as if this cosmic Asteroid like impact of the resurrection of Jesus sent life-giving shockwaves that other nearby bodies of Saints.
The shockwaves caused them to break out of of death and come alive.
As if.
So so we know as we live in this in-between time. Between the time that Jesus has been raised and given all authority in the time that we will be raised We know that he will finally use that authority that he now has to crush all evil.
He reigns. And we are to believe the miracle. So take the message endure the misrepresentation and Receive the mission and because he reigns therefore on the basis of that fact We go the mission is to go.
We go with a mandate that the one who sent us has all authority. That's the authority we go on of the one who sent us is in complete control. He's indestructible and defeatable and conquerable the greater is is he who is in us than he was in the world.
So we go to make disciples. Those are the two great commands of the mission. Go and make. Disciples now go tells us that we can't expect people to come to us. We have to make an effort to go out to them and it is to make disciples.
Notice Jesus doesn't say it's just to make converts. Make people who agree with you. Spread your information and hope to get it where people understand it. It's not that it's not just to get people to come forward at a meeting and say a prayer and pronounce them saved and feel good that the job is over it is to make disciples and disciples.
As the word suggests are people who discipline themselves. They're disciplined people. They're disciplined to follow Jesus who discipline their hearts to love the Lord who discipline their minds to learn his word.
Who discipline their bodies not to rule them? We make disciples of all nations all ethnic groups whether they live in our in our nation. Next door or whether they live in some other country where few have heard the gospel his mission to us here is to make disciples of him out of every kind of.
People.
Every race and. Once you make disciples we baptize.
Them.
Who is them?
Who are we called to baptize?
It's pretty obvious right here. Something so obvious we miss it. We're called to baptize disciples. Notice, we don't baptize babies that we hope and we pray will grow up to be disciples. We don't baptize someone just suddenly because they prayed a prayer That we hope will become a disciple.
Baptizing is not how we make disciples. Is what we do to people who are already Disciples. Go make disciples now once they're made baptize them. Our mandate to baptize is Only to baptize people we reasonably believe are already.
Disciples.
Baptism is for disciples. And we baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. As people who believe in the Trinity that son is fully God. That's why they worshipped him and we should do that.
The spirit is a person of the Trinity too, and we teach. Disciples are learners. They are their students. They are learning more and more what the Lord Jesus taught. Learning how to break out of the box of the society that they were nurtured in.
Breaking out of what their sinful natures tell them how to live. They're learning. They're just disciples or they're learning how to live in a way that is outside This world. Notice in verse 20 disciples are to be taught to observe all That I have commanded you.
That's why we make it our goal to eventually get to all portions of Scripture and we give some special attention to what? The Lord Jesus himself taught in the Gospels and we teach for a purpose. Notice it's not just to teach everything Jesus commanded.
Notice he doesn't say go make disciples teach them all that. I have commanded. Does he he says teach them?
To observe.
That's to do.
To live by how he commanded teaching them to do.
Disciplined to follow Jesus make them into that kind of people. So preaching then teaching like right now is not a performance art just kind of for the entertainment of the spectators. Some people like football some like basketball some like to watch preaching.
No, it's either training you to be a disciple a doer. Or it's failing. It's for approving rebuking exhorting as we saw in 2nd Timothy and Titus to make you a Disciple to change you to make you into someone who lives according to Jesus's commands and this command go make disciples.
Baptize.
Teach them to do surrounded by. Promises on both sides. Notice that promise leading to it and promise coming out of it first. He has all authority. It's all under his control. His kingdom has come already.
So with that you can go with that confidence and finally having already gone. Teaching baptized teaching them to do baptizing then then he says behold look pay attention to this. I Am with you always to the end of the age.
He assured us of his presence. So we'd be empowered to go. It's not so much a Cozy reassurance to make us feel comfortable no matter what we do, even if we're not doing anything. We're not going anywhere.
We're not making disciples. We can just like he's assuring us. No, it's a promise that he'll be with us when we go. Make disciples. It's a necessary equipment for mission. So we have the miracle the message.
There's the misinformation and Finally the mission and if we're doing that he will be with us until the end. That's the end of this age this present evil age when when Christ is using his all-authority.
To put his enemies under his feet. We will never reach a stage in this world in this age at this time. When we don't need the miracle when we don't have a message when we're not confronted with the problem of misinformation.
We'll never get to where we can just kind of sit back take it easy. Everyone knows the gospel now. It's been it's been every people group has it so we don't have to do mission anymore. We can just entertain ourselves.
No, not in this age in this age. He'll be with us to the end. To the end as we go on our mission. We're called to break through the box of all kinds of cultures all those ethnic groups. Break through the boxes they're nurturing produces for them confining people.
In sins that their culture thinks are just normal. Confining people in sense of racism or immorality or familyism or materialism that's living for money or consumerism. Everything and everyone is for me to make me happy to consume the these there's these walls.
The cultures these ethnic groups that he's calling us to go to there's those walls that say these cultures say can't be broken. You know, that's just the way you have to live. You have to segregate black people.
You have to follow your sexual desires. You don't really expect me to master them. Do you have to chase every dollar? That's just what life is about referring to for the money. You have to burn incense to your ancestors.
Don't you know? Don't you love your grandmother? Just you can't just not do it. You have to treat every relationship like a consumer good for your personal consumption. You just have to even the church.
We're called to break through those walls. They're called cultures. Tell us we confine by break through the box of our cultures of nurture and make disciples of Jesus.
Who do?
What he taught? Now it looks impossible. Sometimes sometimes you look at the man. What can you ever break some of these people out? Of what they've been raised in of how they've been nurtured. It's impossible.
Sometimes you fake to get Americans not to be consumers. Impossible to get Southerners to break out of their old-time religion. Impossible to get people to not live for money. Impossible. The same sometimes to get people to to break through the way they were nurtured and then follow Jesus, but it is possible.
He told us why?
Because he's with us.
To the end of the age. He's with us is the one who has all authority. He's with us as the one who has already broken through. The the most ironclad box. There is the box of death. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of speaking about the resurrection Is that it's entirely different from anything we've known.
There's really no analogy for it something to compare it to. It's not like anything in our experience. It's really not exactly like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly or spring flowers budding after a long hard winter.
There's nothing not like anything that we've experienced.
It's a miracle.
It relies completely on God doing something that is outside of the box of our experience. Something that's supernatural and that's what it means to be a Christian. To be a supernatural person. With a miraculous life from above to be a Christian means, you know, not just have turn your life around.
You decided to keep the rules and to be moral. You nurture yourself to be a nice person nurture your children and and manners and how to be good little boys and girls. You cannot Be naturally born into salvation and you cannot be nurtured into the kingdom of God.
God must do a miracle in your life. You must be born again. You are by nature dead in your sins. The world is nurturing you to stay dead. Satan is standing guard. There's no way out of that Iron box no natural way out.
But God can do a miracle. To be a Christian is to believe that God has done That miracle that he did it with Christ that he broke him out of the box of death and That he can do it with you. Do you believe him?