The Encounter with the Lord

By Pastor Young Joon Park

November 29, 2009

Mark 16:14

¹⁴ Afterward He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at the table; and He reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen Him after He had risen.

I. The meaning of the Encounter

¹⁴ Afterward He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at the table;

This is the first time since His Resurrection to appear to His Disciples on Sunday.

He could have manifested Himself to His Disciples first, but He chose to do it to 3 women first, Mary Magdalene, Mary James?mother and Salome, and then two other disciples who were on their way to Emmaus instead of Jesus?11 Disciples.

1. Lord’s work is lot different than our concept,

So we need to keep open-minded in every area of His Work. Our understanding and ways are lot different than God’s, and we need to accept all that God works in everyone.

It was a dinner time, but His 11 Disciples were gathered together (it might be 2^nd time or 1^st and 2^nd time mixed together because of space of recording: Thomas was not there at the 1^st time). They did not have any idea of the Resurrection of Jesus even if there were at least 5 people who testified on Sunday before this dinner when Jesus had encountered with His Disciples for the first time, but Thomas was not there. 8 days later Jesus had another encounter with them, and Thomas was there on this Jesus 2^nd encounter.

They had faced the first great wonder and sign from the Heaven, but they were confused and ignorant.

These Disciples were filled only with flesh mind, because they were caught up with full of emotion of grieving and hopeless future. That is why they could not understand the heavenly matter at the point.

2. New Revelation

During Jesus' Ministry time for 3 1/2 years

Jesus spoke many words of the Heavenly matter to His Disciples, but they could not understand and even they were too afraid to ask the meaning of the word.

That time they did not have any capacity to receive and to understand the secret things of Heaven that Jesus released to them at all.

John 16:12

I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.

After His Resurrection

Not only Jesus did manifest Himself to His Disciples, but also He revealed Himself to them.

We meditated the word of God for the last two weeks (November 8 & 15) on the Power of the Resurrection.

The result of the encounter with the Lord

This is the great encounter, and this encounter had big impact on their personal life deeply at different levels.

Their eyes were opened and started understanding Jesus?teaching and the word of Jesus becomes their life gradually during this 40 days. Also they received the revelation who Jesus is and why He died on the cross. They were starting to see the secret things of Heaven through the encounter with Jesus.

John 2:19-22

^{Jn 2:19} Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy This Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

^{Jn 2:20} Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt You rear it up in three days?

^{Jn 2:21} But He spoke of the temple of His Body.

^{Jn 2:22} When therefore He was risen from the dead, His Disciples remembered that He had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

Encounter with Jesus is not just a meeting with Him, but way beyond the transformation of their life. Their life was brought to the new level from this impact and into the deep intimate relationship with the Lord.

Jesus did not have encountered with them to show His Resurrection to let them to believe Him, but to open the door of the greater relationship with the Lord individually.

3. The promise of the Encounter for you

Why did Jesus not stay with His Disciples physically for 40 days?

During 40 days after Jesus was Resurrected, Jesus encounter with His People only certain times. He did not spend time with them physically everyday as He Did during His 3 ?years ministry with His Disciples because of His Omnipresence.

Jesus manifested Himself to His Disciples and encountered with them with His Heavenly Body. His Disciples and believers never saw Jesus Heavenly Body except 3 Disciples who saw His Glorified Body temporarily with their eyes on the mountain months (or with in a month) ago before He died on the Cross.

Heavenly Body, there is no limitation for His Heavenly Body that is the Glorified Body.

Jesus did not need to stay with them physically because of His Omnipresence after His Resurrection. He was not with them physically, but He was with them at all times, and sometimes He manifested Himself to them for the special reason of the Encounter to have impact on their life.

Matthew 28:20b

…And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

We need to understand that Jesus is always with us no matter what.

Our limitation is to think or analyze on our own narrow limited concept and understanding. We cannot comprehend the secret things of Heaven.

That’s why we have to lay down all of our knowledge under the feet of Jesus and give up our life to the Lord and fully rely on Him alone in every aspect.

So we have to have ourselves to die, and let only Jesus Christ live in us alone.

Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

This means Our Lord will have encounters with you. This also means that you have been encountered with the Lord. That’s why you received Jesus Christ as your Savior and the Lord in your life.

Your first encounter with the Lord - your first love

You encountered with the Lord from the beginning of your Christian life, because you received Jesus Christ as your Savior and Your Lord and committed your life to the Lord.

Romans 1:16

For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the Power of God unto salvation to every one who believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

John 6:37

All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me; and one who comes to Me I will in no wise (in no way, never, certainly not) cast out.

John 6:44

No one can come to Me, except the Father which has sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

The promise to encounter with you continually

Jesus did not have encounter with His Disciples only one time, but several.

It means that He is not going to have encounter with you just one time only for your Salvation, but the Lord will continually have encounters with you.

John 14:21

He who has My Commandments, and keeps them, he it is who loves Me: and he who loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest (encounter) Myself to him.

Jesus will manifest us even today, because He loves us, and also we love Him.

So today our Lord will manifest Himself to us in many different ways, and encounter with us for the special reasons.

3 women - Jesus manifested as Himself directly - they recognized Him

2 disciples - Jesus manifested as a Stranger - they could not recognized Him at all

Jesus?11 Disciples - Jesus manifested with the wounds of the Crucifixion

Paul - Jesus manifested as the Light and Voice

My self - Jesus, Father God manifested through the Word of God, Holy Spirit by Power

Others - His Voice, Vision, Dreams, deep conviction and understanding through the sermon, worship, the Bible, fellowship (like as Cell Ministry), the nature, counseling......

Whenever we encounter with the Lord, our level always is shifted up into the different level.

The manifestation (encounter) - Transformation of personal life

The Revelation - Transformation of the world

The Manifestation & the Revelation

II. Correction in Encounter

and He reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen Him after He had risen.

It is very important to be corrected of sin which is not aligning with God’s will at the beginning of our life.

1. For the Salvation

We were separated from the Lord eternally because of our sin.

God hates sin, so the sin has to be destroyed completely and removed from us before God, but God knows that we do not have any ability to cleanse our sin or be separated from it. This is why God sent Jesus Christ on earth to die for our sins to restore our relationship with God. He paid the penalty of our sins and opened the door of His Kingdom, and He is inviting all sinners to come to the Lord to be saved and have the eternal life.?

Without removing the sin issue, we cannot go to God at all, and there is no other way around it. We have to repent our sin and receive Jesus Christ in our entire life and have to commit to the Lord totally. Then we have the eternal life and be born as His sons and daughters, because Jesus paid all the penalty of our sin through His Blood on the Cross.

Jesus Christ is the only One, the Way, the Life and the Truth, so without Jesus no one can come to the Kingdom of God at all with no exception.

John 14:6

Jesus said unto him, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no one comes unto the Father, but by Me.?/span>

We do not need to do any work to gain or to earn our salvation at all, because He prepared for our salvation and gave it to us as a gift.

Ephesians 2:8-9

⁸ For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

⁹ Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Only what we can do is just receive Jesus in our life.

John 1:12

But as many as received Him (Jesus), He gave to them power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name:

This faith is the first step of living the Christian’s life.

Our Christian life is standing on the faith in God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ.

Maybe you can say, “I do not have any capacity to have a faith.?/span>

But I am going to prove that you have a good and strong capacity of faith.

You are sitting on your chair right now, because you have a strong faith that your chair is safe enough to sit. You also believe that this chair strong and give a good cushion too.

You are sitting on it because of your faith and trust your seat 100%.

You have a strong capacity of faith for the lifeless things, and then you should have a stronger capacity of faith and trust for the Living God.

We cannot compare our Living God with the lifeless chair. Then how much more important to you to have a faith and trust in the Lord who is the Living God if we have a heart to trust the lifeless chair?

2. for the spiritual maturity

Let's look what Jesus' 11 Disciples situation

Jesus' 11 Disciples' problems were

1) Unbelief

   Jesus' Prophetic Word

   Testimonies of His Resurrection

2) Hardened heart

1) Unbelief and hardness of heart

Jesus? Disciples were in the grief and weeping, and they were surrendering from their emotion of Jesus?death.

This is not their only problem, but they lost all their hopes on Jesus and faith in Him.

They felt that they were in horrible situation with their heart full of unbelief (lack of faith) and hardness of heart (stubbornness of heart) even when Jesus has been teaching, training and anointing them.

Jesus Prophesied His Resurrection, however, they did not believe it or did not understand it. They did not believe His Resurrection even there were at least 5 people who testified His Resurrection. You cannot see the truth when your eyes are blind. Your heart will be hardened and every truth will be rejected.

This is common problem among Christians today. Christian life is the Center of Jesus Christ, and the Christianity is established by faith in Him. The unbelief is the opposite of faith, so we know that the unbelief comes from satan. We need to repent our unbelief.

We have to bind the spirit of unbelief and cast them out from us.

If we live under the influence of unbelief, our heart will be getting harder and harder. Our heart will become hardened if we continually live in the unbelief.

God wants us to grow and conform to the image of His Son continually until Jesus comes. The spiritual growth is not how much we know the word of God, but it is how we live with the Word of God in our daily life by faith.

The Lord warned us the corruption among Christians at the ending time.

2 Timothy 3:1,5

¹ This know also, that in the last days perilous (dangerous) times shall come.

⁵ Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

Many times people know the will of God with the knowledge of the word of God as they have a form of godliness, but they do not live with it at all as denying the power of the godliness. Furthermore they do have their own reason why they do not live it. No matter what their excuse are, the reality is that they will receive the consequences from the Lord sooner or later with eternal regret.

Sometimes I have a fear of the Lord for this ministry, because I have the responsibility for every individual in our congregation in the Lord. I believe that someday I will be standing in front of the Lord and He will evaluate me for the reward or the punishment.

So my crying out to the Lord:

"Lord, save our entire congregation whosever souls You send to us."

"Lord, raise them as Your Disciples and Laborers of the Kingdom of God and use them."
"Only Your Will will be done among us."

My vision and dream of each member of our congregation is to raise them as the totally committed strong special soldiers of the Lord by the Holy Spirit, to live the power of godliness and to multiply His Disciples among the nations.

So God does not want us to have any kinds of sin in our life at all. He cleanse us from it. Sometime His cleansing is so hard and painful.

John 15:2

Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away: and every branch that bears fruit, he purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

This hardship is needed for His Kingdom, and we need to remove it from our life willingly.

Hebrews 12:11

Now no chastening for the present seem to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

2) The sin among Christians

Most Christians who love the Lord do not commit sin like the wicked evil things such as the criminal’s horrible wicked crimes.

I just emphasize again God's children's sin is not the same as the world's. But then again, it still is sin against any God's Will or is not aligned with God's Will.

Most popular Christians' sin is sin against God's Will, or is not aligned with God's Will because of their strong flesh desire, not by faith. There is no way God can use us for His Kingdom if we continually live on our own will instead of according to His Will by faith.

I want to give just simple example.

God wants us to have fellowship without any interruption, because the Day is approaching. So here is the Word of God.

Hebrews 10:25

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as you see the day approaching.

This is God’s will to have fellowship, but people do their own things. Some people habitually distract the fellowship, instead of gathering together to worship the Lord as a family of God on Sunday or any other fellowship in Church.

We know how much the Day is so close right now, but this ending time warning is not serious to them at all even while they, themselves, know and talk about it constantly.

I am not talking about missing Sunday Service one or two times, but the people who keep continually ignoring the Sunday Service or Christian fellowship.

It is sin that it is not aligned with God’s Will. This is just one small example, but there are so many different deep issues and basic foundation issues among Christians today.

Many people follow the Lord by their own way and own will instead of the Will of the Lord, because they do have the lack of faith in the Lord.

There is no way to grow if there is sin issue in our life even if we have a desire to grow eagerly and badly.

Conclusion

Jesus rebuked their sins to be removed from their life.

All of His Disciples gave their lies for the Lord and followed Him with full of faith in Him until they died. Jesus removed their sin of the lack of faith from the beginning of the first Church.

The Faith

Hebrews 11:6

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

The Encounter

Jeremiah 29:13

And you shall seek Me, and find Me, when you shall search for Me with all your heart.

John 14:21

He who has My Commandments, and keeps them, he it is who loves Me: and he who loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest (encounter) Myself to him.