When Jesus first rose from the dead, there were no Christians, no churches, no presbyteries, no councils. There was only Jesus standing in a garden, maybe stretching a little. And Psalm 2 says that the Father was sitting in heaven laughing, saying to the nations of men: I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. This is my Son, today I have begotten Him: all the nations are His inheritance, the ends of the earth belong to Him.
Forty days later, when Jesus ascended there were under a thousand Christians, with eleven leaders who had only recently run for their lives a little over a month before. They didn’t have fully developed creed; they didn’t have a book of procedures; they didn’t have Roberts Rules; they didn’t have doctrine of justification by faith alone hammered out; they didn’t even have the Trinity articulated clearly yet. What did they have? They had a risen King. They had seen with their own eyes sin, death, and the devil dead on a field. While they had cowered in their tents, they had watched Jesus face down the Greatest Goliath – Death itself – and Jesus had cut off his head and held it up for all to see.
And that was the signal to charge. Our Jesus struck the mortal blow and now the nations belong to Him. Now sin and death are on the run, like the first soldiers guarding the tomb. Our King lives, and He must reign until all of His enemies have been put beneath His feet. There are different gifts and different tactics in every place, but there is one mission and let there be no excuses. We have the good news that will fill this world. The nations must come. Every knee will bow.
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