When God Became King
After Easter, Christian life should really start to make logical sense. Things should get clear. A lot of times it seems that questions like “what should I do with my life?” and “what kind of person do I want to be?” or even “what should I do today?” get bogged down in the mess and mire of everyday life. You might be asking yourself those questions, or questions like them and hearing back a hundred voices, all singing in their own key, none of them harmonizing with the other. Your job, your spouse, your politics, your Facebook friends, your phone bill, your clothes, your mortgage, your car making that funny sound, each a voice in what adds up to be a giant wall of white noise; an overwhelming cacophony of expectations, wants, needs, desires, and responsibilities.
But the resurrection is the slashing sound of breakthrough. The sound of a voice that silences all the rest, the only true voice. With the resurrection of Jesus cutting through the noise we find that all the other voices are either harmonizing with, or conspiring against the kingship of Jesus. Things get really clear.
After the resurrection Jesus said “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18.)
All the other voices have no authority. They either speak on behalf of Jesus, or they don’t. The ultimate authority, the kingship of Jesus, that’s the thing that happens in the resurrection, the thing that is proved by the resurrection. Anything else that defines our life is pretending, if it’s not Jesus, it’s a lie. That’s just all there is to it.
So once you have that in place, it’s just a game of “if → then” logic. One of the “if → then” statements that Jesus’ brings to his disciples is this: If the resurrection → then you should go out and tell everyone about me, they should die to their old life, and rise to a new life that follows my authority. Jesus said it like this:
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Matthew 28:19)
So if the resurrection → then we ought to be calling people to dying to their old life and rising to a new one (baptism). If the resurrection → then we ought to be dying to our old life and rising to a new one. If the resurrection → then we should be doing what the church calls “evangelism.”
Do you know someone who needs to know that Jesus is the only real authority on what it means to live? If you do → then, maybe it’s time to start convincing them that Jesus is for real.
Of course the tricky part is “how?” How do you do that? Here’s an easy 4 part answer. 1) Start living like it yourself. 2) Start talking about the reason you live the way you do. 3) Start praying. 4) Let God do the work because believe it or not He cares more about it than you do and He is more able to do it than you are.
Jesus rounds out his if → then logic by making sure that the task at hand won’t be overwhelming. Because the one who has all authority, the one who has beaten death and is now ruling and reigning, the one who has proven His kingship by being resurrected from the dead says “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)
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