On Good Friday, as Jesus breathed His last and spoke the words “into Your hands I commit my spirit”, the Christian movement looked as good as dead. Jesus’ closest friends and disciples had betrayed and abandoned Him in His hour of darkest need. Most of them were hiding in cowardly fear, terrified of the possibility that they might undergo the same torture He endured. Jesus’ public ministry had gathered massive crowds with tens of thousands of adoring fans and interested spectators. Now the visionary leader was dead, the adoring fans had scattered and only a handful of terrified, confused followers were left.
And yet, two millennia later, Jesus is the most famous, loved, followed, worshipped man who has ever walked the planet.
This historical anomaly happened largely because without them fully comprehending it, Jesus was preparing His disciples for years in what they would do after He left. In Luke 8, we begin to see Jesus’ shift the focus of His time and effort on training His disciples instead of doing the work of ministry. We see Him equipping, sending out and coaching His closest, most bought-in disciples in how to spread the good news of His kingdom.
As we study these middle chapters of Luke (8-14) in the upcoming months, we will learn from Jesus Himself not only how He ministered, but how He trained regular humans like us to carry the torch when He left. In the process, we will receive invaluable encouragement and instruction in how to become the kind of people that God works through regularly.
Jesus desires to work in you.
And He desires to work through you…
…In the lives of those He’s placed you around.
Jesus equipped, trained and shaped some terrified, unskilled, unprepared disciples into the leaders of the greatest movement the world has ever seen.
And He’s still doing it.
He’s still using ordinary sinful humans who have been and are being radically changed by His grace to work in the lives of other ordinary sinful humans all around them.
We’re excited for you to join us as we study Luke 8-14 and look at how Jesus the King commissions His people.