<p>Sunday June 15, 2014 “The Revival of The Sent’ - Matthew 28. Earlier this year, my son, a 36 year old United Methodist Pastor from Oklahoma spent a Spring break weekend w/ me studying the Scripture and planning sermons together. There in the quiet of our Hot Springs Condo with the two grandchildren off with their Grandmother to Mid- America Museum, we enjoyed a quiet house where we could bat around all sorts of ideas. Out of the solace & banter came this sermon preaching series I in today </p><p>“Revive us Again”</p><p>“But be careful” Nathan says, “The very word – Revival is poisoned” Most folks his age either don’t even know what it means or spit the word out as if it’s some sort of distasteful poison pill conjuring up all kinds of weirdoes & TV Evangelists begging for money or predicting some sort of doomsday. But on the other hand, take a look at the Church in America and you can’t help but agree that something is needed! There’s plenty of room in The Pews – Including our own! Some things needed. Our worship can feel limp; our witness wavering. Something is needed.</p><p>Our Bishop will convene Annual Conference in Rogers, AR this week, and he’s said we need Revival. Adam Hamilton, Pastor of The Largest UMC in America where nearly 18,000 people are members says the same thing- Revival. And that’s saying something – in a congregation only 20 years old which began specifically as a church that would reach the disillusioned & non- religious – now only three decades later 18,000 people need revival? Guess so.</p><p>1 Because the flame does burn low. The embers that were on fire die down to an ashen gray like death. And whether you’re in a church with thousands of young people or a church like this one nearly 200 years old with hundreds of people, the revival of the hot flames of Pentecost must occur! But much has changed since Pentecost on the dawn of Pentecost, Jesus told his disciples to wait. That was his command. And when they obeyed and went to Jerusalem and gathered to wait The Holy Spirit did come as they waited! But today is different, Pentecost has passed and the word from Jesus is not, wait. It’s GO! It’s not, wait, it’s not countless other verbs he used before when he was teaching his disciples. It’s not “come unto me” It’s not pray, It’s not rest. It’s, go!</p><p>“Go make disciples of all people” (Gentiles – People very much unlike yourselves) GO! Apostoi - The very word from which we derive our word apostle. Apostolic ministry, The ministry of the SENT. And I fully believe our Revival is wrapped up in our Re-claiming our apostolic ministry - obeying Jesus’ command to Go! Go Baptize, Teach, making Disciples. Tom Long, prominent Scholar and wise pastor at Emory in Atlanta finds some humor in Jesus simple command- and with good reason.</p><p>2 (Page 47- f word). T. Long Quote: The scene is one of near comic irony. Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” but nothing in the surroundings seems to support such a claim! If Jesus had been speaking to vast multitudes, rank upon rank stretching toward the horizon as far as the eye could see, with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir humming the “Hallelujah Chorus” in the background, perhaps it would seem plausible. However, Jesus is on an unnamed mountain in backwater Galilee with a congregation of eleven, down from twelve the week before, and even some of them are doubtful and not sure why they have come to worship this day. What Jesus tells them presses credulity even further: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations?” “Nations,” By the way does not mean nations in modern sense of nation-states, but something more like “foreigners,” -tribes of people who are not at all like you or to put more succinctly, “Gentiles.” These eleven disciples are Jews, and they knew the Scripture. God had promised Abraham that all the tribes of the earth would one day be brought into the family of God, that even alien Gentiles would bow before Israel’s God (Gen.12:1-3) but like a lot of things in the Bible, this was a truth easier to swallow when it was a nice thought in the prayer book, rather than something you were expected to strap on your boots and get done. Telling this little band of confused and disoriented disciples that they were to herd all the peoples of the earth toward Mt Zion in the name of Jesus would be like standing in front of most congregations today-many of them small and all of them of mixed motives and uncertain convictions- and telling them, “Go into all the world and cure cancer, clean up the environment, evangelize the unbelieving, and, while you’re at it, establish world peace.”</p><p>3 Something unbelievable happens when we go. When we get outside ourselves and leave our precious comfort zone & “happy place” and go. Something unexpected and unplanned happens. Something almost reckless and dangerous happens. It happens when a Sunday school class convenes on a Monday night as well as a Sunday morning and brings a meal to (Samaritan House) feeding homeless men. It happens when dozens of kids and their overly-busy parents dare to “Rock” their neighborhood with kindness and let go of their weekly allowance and “Reach our Community with kindness” when they Go. The very ones going become Revived!!! We are Revived; We are Renewed; we are made – new when we go. When we let go and follow Jesus commands instead of the safety constraints of our hearts; The inner voices whispering to us to keep things safe, manageable & in our own control. Oh yes- it’s easy to stay right when we are and create our own safe little nest. In fact, that might even be our first tendency – to “feather” our little religious nests with things we like. Things we like to hear. People we like to see. But that is not responding to Jesus’s call. He said to Go. Go Baptize, Teach. When we Baptize, we are not finished- The work continues. We must teach. (And that takes time!) When we teach we are not finished. The work continues and that too takes time. As we go to “All The Nations” we find we can’t just teach from our own perspectives and limited experiences. We have to branch out, stretch out, reach out to the new cultures and languages we meet – and that too takes time. But when that’s done, even still we are not finished. The work continues. Because Jesus said all & not “some”. He did not say “Go, make disciples</p><p>4 of some people” He said all because I suppose our natural tendency would be to stop when we reached all of our friends or all the ones in our neighborhood or school district. Our vision is limited Christ’s vision is unlimited. So we continue. So, how are you feeling about the “last word from Jesus” That we like to call THE GREAT COMMISSION? Are you feeling Revved up and Revived? Or are you feeling doubtful? If you are, you’re in good company. So were those first eleven who heard it That Momentous day in that little “backwater town near lake Galilea “. But when we dare to need the call to go, we find ourselves Revived again! Of that dear friend, I AM SURE.!! </p><p>5</p>