Prepare your heart for Sunday by looking through these suggestions that will assist you in making the most of our time together.
You will find suggestions for thinking more critically through the passage, meditating more intently on the text, and tangibly putting scripture to action in your personal life, and in our corporate body.
Carefully Think
- Read Matthew 28.
- This week we start in verse 16. How did the disciples know to meet Jesus on a specific mountain in Galilee? Who told them? Why is this important to include here?
- Why would some still doubt if others were worshipping him? In other gospel accounts we know the ones who doubt, why does Matthew not focus on an individual but still mentions those who doubt?
- In verse 18, why does Jesus need to inform the disciples to his authority? Do you remember the authorities that were in the last couple of chapters that challenged Jesus, testing him and even putting him to death? Do you remember the one who has authority over this world who offered to give Jesus authority back in chapter 4? What authority does Jesus now have? Who gave this authority to Jesus and what is the scope of its magnitude?
- Why does the "therefore" in verse 19 point back to the authority passage? What emphasis does that add to commands in verses 19 and 20?
- Jesus has the disciples meet him in Galilee and tells them to go into all the world. What shift does Jesus have here from his earthly ministry before his death compared to the commands he is giving his disciples now? Why?
- How are baptizing and teaching related to making disciples? Are they additional to the making of disciples or are they the description of how to make a disciple? How do you know?
- What is the purpose of the final statement Jesus declares he is with the disciples always until the end of the age? What is the end of the age? Do Jesus' words apply to us today? How do you know this as well?
- How does Jesus view making disciples? Is it a one-time event or something that happens over the course of a life? Or something else altogether?
Prayerfully Meditate
- How should Jesus appearance to his disciples (and even more people) affirm our faith today? Pray for confidence in the risen Christ who is attested in the written word of God.
- Pray for our hearts to be wrenched by the full, complete and absolute authority of Jesus Christ over all the creation, that we might respond in obedience to Jesus' commands to make disciples in all the earth. Pray for ways to do this as our church and also how you specifically can do this locally and around the world.
- Ask God for confidence, obedience and opportunity to make disciples in your families, in your neighborhoods, in your work environment, in your city, in your state, in your country and in your world. How many opportunities do we miss because we selfishly ignore God's work over our own work and priorities?
Intentionally Act
- Pray for clarity in understanding God's expectation of believers to do the work of making disciples and that each one of us would be obedient to that task.
- Talk with Todd Arnold, elder for local evangelism, and Adam Naler, elder for world missions, about ways to be involved in joining in the ministry of making disciples outside of your immediate context; in prayer, financially and even physically going to do the work Jesus is commanding.
- Pray the Lord would bring them to you and you could be used by God to make a disciple.
- Pray for those who will be leading our gathering this week: Dawson Bryant, music; Todd Arnold, Elders' prayer and Scripture reading; Bret Capranica, teaching.
- Prepare for our gathering on Sunday by reading through the lyrics of the songs and reflect on them, so that you can focus on edifying one another through song and give praise to the King.
Songs for Sunday
- Come Thou Almighty King (Video)
- Lead On, O King Eternal (Video)
- Our Great God (Video)
- Show Us Christ (Video)
- My Heart Is Filled With Thankfulness (Video)