Well, we have come out of Easter having taken some time looking at some of the area’s where God is calling us to follow in his steps. And we have seen how God is inviting us to walk with him in resurrection power, so we are now moving beyond the resurrection to see.
Into the bigger picture, because God had no intention of having us do this following of Jesus’ story on our own, but instead to be connected within community, and that is a part even of what we just did within Baby dedication. There is a biblical story that is a bit hard for us within our culture that talks so much about the individual, but a biblical faith is tied in to community, and that this community is itself a part of how the world sees that God is doing something special. A community built of so many different types of people, of all different ages, unified through Christ.
Out of Activity and into action in ACTS:
God is not just interested in us being busy, but in us being a part of the Action of God. How do we know we are a part of that action and not just meaningless activity? That is the big question that we will be 8looking at through this series.
For today, I wanted to start by asking this: Have any of you been scared? Have you ever been so scared that you couldn’t do something at all?
Working on the scaffolding a few years ago
For all of us who know a bit of what this fear is like, fear that stops you from doing something you might want to do, or you should do, this passage might make sense of things
John 20:19-22
19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
A friend of mine, who is studying theology in England right now, so he might be biased, maintains that everyone is a theologian, in that theology is our understanding and beliefs about God, what He does, how it relates to our lives...
If everyone is a theologian, then I think every follower of Christ has an ecclesiology, which is one of those fancy theologian words for the beliefs and understanding of what is the church and what it’s here for.
All too often, the beginning of this passage can describe us, both individually and even at times, for the church. We are behind locked doors, busying ourselves with all sorts of things, but not really doing anything.
I think part of it has to do with how we understand the church, our ecclesiology (what we believe about the church, what it is and what it is for)
We have a pour theology so we have a poor ecclesiology, a pour understanding of the church. When we understand that God is the sending God, we understand that we are a sent people. We do not exist for ourselves, we exist for the world. What ails us as churches is that we have forgotten the theology of the missio dei, the sending God. As the father has sent me, so I send you.
So let us look at some of the factors that changed this group of people from a fearful group hiding behind locked doors into the people that transformed the whole world.
Flow –
It is night – still in the darkness, there is still darkness gripping the disciples
But, it is the first day of the week – the day that would come to be their rejoicing, as well as ours. It would move the celebration and remembrance of the people of God to a new day, what would later be called the lord’s day. This is why many years ago, the early church chose to gather not on Saturday (Sabbath) but on Sunday. Because starting this day, a whole new creation springs forth, all through the work and new life of Christ. John is hinting that something new is beginning, and the creation he begins his gospel account with is being redone in a new way starting this day. But it is just a hint, because the door is still locked.
The door is locked for fear of the Jews – The disciples are afraid, their teacher and leader has been killed, they are personae non grata in Jerusalem, they fear the authorities and guards and what they are going to do, so they stay put, hunkered down in a place that feels safe – How often this is the case for us?
Jesus came to them – They were found, but not by the authorities and security forces, but instead by Jesus.
Peace be with you – A call that goes out again and again, and becomes a defining part of Paul’s theology (grace and peace at the beginning of nearly every letter). A group who feels nothing of peace, but is locked in, freaked out and the only peace they can see is that of death. A sudden appearance in their hiding spot is not exactly calming them down, so Jesus calls for peace, and he comes to bring hope.
There is a few of these moments, where there is an appearance of God to people, and it tends to go in a few standard steps: God appears, people get scared, God tells them to not be afraid, they get instructions on a further step that usually needs to be taken (coal from alter, taking of shoes, ect), they are commissioned.
But in this version, instead of instructions or some sort of requirements to accomplish for this peace to come, they just get the statement of peace and then God shows them the wounds, and they rejoice.
This is at the heart of our identity as the people of God, his church. We are called to see what he has already done for us, and that is what has given peace, and that is how we stand before God.
He showed them his scars – they know it is him by his scars, and suddenly hope is rekindled
As the father has sent me, now I send you –
This is it, this is our identity,
We are the sent ones of God; it is our very nature as a church, and a part of the identity of God. God is the sending God, and we are the sent church. We are a community that exists to carry on this trajectory. And it is phrased in the same way as earlier in the book of John where the writer gives us another statement of Jesus “Just as the father loves me, now I love you” John 15:9
We are transformed and saved through the sending God, who sent his son so that we could be changed, sent the Holy Spirit so that we can be empowered and we are to carry it to the next step.
Do you get the picture?
As the father sent the son, and the Father and the son sent the Holy Spirit, now the full Trinitarian God (Father, son and HS) is sending us into the world.
This gets us thinking that it is our thing, but it isn’t. You see, it is not the church that has a mission of salvation to complete for the World; it is the mission of the Father, son and Holy Spirit that now also includes us.
Jesus brings this out when he says, once you were as slaves, not knowing the will of the master, but now you are brothers, because you are of the same heart...you get it, you are a part of this in a whole different way.
Mission is not simply one of many actions of the church, but that which constitutes its very essence, its very identity and the reality of its nature. (Bosh)
The calling and sending action of God forms the churches identity, and therefore missional is who we are, and when we get that, when we figure it out, we can’t stay behind locked doors, we cannot let ourselves hide in fear, because who we are is the people who are being sent out.
Breathed on them, giving them the promise of the Holy Spirit, empowering them on to be missional. To be the people God is calling us to be, so that we can understand
Upper room transformation: We need to be transformed into action
Our locked doors,
Consumerism: from demanding spectators to participants in understanding that the church does not exist for them, but for the needy, broken, and poor.
Individualism: Resists authentic sacrificial community, if we resist this, how do we welcome other people into it. As martin Luther said, we are curved in on ourselves, when we need to be bent outward, towards others, caring for those around us.
Control: Within our modern society
Apostle’s means sent ones, and they are hiding.
Double helping of peace, which is the antidote of fear, and brought the releasing of the people to their true nature. To convince them that the impossible is nothing for God, and that in resurrection reality, we are transformed.
The next is the fact that it is not by our own action or antidote, Nestled between the two peace statements we see the wounds, which makes it right between us and God.
This means that we need to make sure we understand the gathering of God’s people, the church as a community where Christ is encountered. Where we see every part of our time together looking beyond what the worship leader does and the one preaching says, and every other part, that we understand that in all of these things we are seeking that the people come into contact with the living God. Understanding that worship, both musical and every other part, is not just something we do, but something that we join into.
TO be transformed into a people that will change this world, we need to understand that we are loved as the father loves the son, so too are we loved. And that just as Jesus was sent, so he now sends us.
And that we are given the promise of his presence and power in this mission, and that in presenting this news, this story that is too good not to be true, we hold that which can truly liberate and transform people, and it is our call to do something, and the thing I am excited about in this series is we can look at what is true action, and what is just activity.
So are you ready, because you are called to action, We are called to action.
To hear an audio version, go to www.spbf.ca
