"A Different Kind of Power" - Chris Schoon

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Thank you, Pastor Erica. It is indeed good to be home. Madison Square was my home from 1993 to 2002, and many of you uh uh have been friends of mine even longer than that. Um, Tom and I, Tom Hooksema and I, I think uh was it like second grade, third grade, we met each other, something back then. We played baseball at Southern Little League together and went to school together way back then. Um so some good friends and good place to be here. And my my call to ministry really is rooted in this place. Pastor Dave Bielan and Pastor Dante Venegas, Pastor Sam Reeves all mentored me as I took eight long years to go through seminary. Uh it is uh it is good to be back here this morning. Uh I also bring you greetings today. I serve right now as the preaching pastor at First Church, just around the corner on uh Martin Luther King Drive. Uh so greetings from your siblings in Christ uh who are gathered there uh worshiping as well this morning. The text today is from Acts chapter one, and in a moment I'll invite you to rise for the reading of that. But but Acts chapter one is telling the story of Ascension Day. It is uh the day Jesus uh rises back up to be with his father, and it's it's a day that um typically the church worldwide would have celebrated this past Thursday, but we we kind of don't gather in the church building every day now. So we we we call this Ascension Sunday, and it anticipates the coming of the Holy Spirit, which will be celebrated on Pentecost next week. So I invite you now, rise in body or spirit as we hear the word of the Lord this morning. In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Then they gathered around him and asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. Men of Galilee, they said, Why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven. This is the word of the Lord. There's really three scenes in this story, and and the first one we'll talk about is is this friendship Jesus has with his apostles, the disciples, those closest to him. So we'll we'll talk about that friendship with Jesus. The main part of what we're gonna focus on is verses six through eight, and it's all this language about kingdom and power and authority, and there is a whole lot in here, way more than we're gonna get through today, but we're gonna touch base on it today and kind of sit with that power and kingdom and authority language for a bit. And then the end that we'll touch on briefly as well is this encouragement that the two men in white, angels, give to the apostles. So friendship, power, and authority, encouragement. That's where we're headed today. Friendship, I it's really we're joining a sequel, uh, a sequel here, and this is the sequel to the whole gospel of Luke. It's the same author, Luke and Acts, put together, and and he's been telling this long story about who Jesus is from the very beginning, from from just before Jesus being conceived all the way up through his death and resurrection, and now we're kind of into the second scene. Now what? Where do the things go from here now that Jesus has been raised from the dead? And what we see in these first few verses is this incredible friendship that Jesus has with his disciples. He appears to them over 40 days, helping them realize again and again that Jesus really is alive. I know if you sit with those first Easter Sunday stories, there's a whole bunch of Jesus and the angels having to say, Don't be afraid. It's okay, I really am alive. And even a week later, after he's risen from the dead, uh Thomas, who hasn't seen him yet, Jesus says, Come touch my side and my hands. It's okay. You can you can touch me. I'm really here. And in a bit of comedy, he says, Does anybody have broiled fish for me to eat? And he eats some broiled fish with them. And he appears again and again over over this 40 days, again and again, reassuring him, reassuring the disciples, he really is alive. You know, it's important to recognize what's happening there because in in the book of Revelation, which we're not gonna get to today, roasts won't burn, don't worry. Um, that book of Revelation, Jesus introduces himself as the one who was dead but now is alive. That's a title that Jesus takes on for himself. I am the one who died but is now alive, and Jesus does that with his friends. But the part, the part that really sticks here on one occasion while he was eating with them, there was something casual about that. This big, magnificent story of the creator God who took on flesh, became one with us, dwelled among us, died, rose from the dead, and it casually says, on one occasion while he's eating with them. Jesus loved to eat with his friends. He shared food with them. There was something about that friendship with Jesus, that intimacy with Jesus, that he gives lesson after lesson, he tells them truth after truth around a shared meal together. And you know, if we just peek past Pentecost, just a little bit, that early church that gathers, one of the things they get known for is that they share food with each other. They break bread and they share meals with each other in each other's homes. They're taking the friendship that Jesus modeled with them and they put it forward as an example of the life in the spirit. This is how we are to live, to be a people who share with each other, who who have meals together, who are present with each other. And it's in the context of that friendship that Jesus kind of leans in a little bit. And he says, People, hey, you know that thing I've been talking about? The the promise that the Father's gonna give you? The Holy Spirit, you remember that? We've talked about them several times along the way. I've been I've been telling you the Holy Spirit's coming. Well, it's gonna happen in just a few days. It's no more future thing. As your friend, as one who loves you deeply, I have to tell you, the power of the Holy Spirit is coming. The Father's promise is almost here. And then we just jump to the Holy Spirit Pentecost day, right? Here's how Jesus' friends respond to that promise, Holy Spirit. Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? No, I'm not Jesus. But in my mind, when I hear that question, I'm like, weren't y'all listening? You can't enter the kingdom of God unless you become a child and you want to be the dominant nation. You can't be the greatest in the kingdom unless you become servant of all and you want to rule over everybody. I mean, Jesus that sometimes says, Oh, you of little faith, and how long will I put up with this generation? That's where I would have gone. Right? But let's unpack what that question is from the disciples for a moment. Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? I want to judge them, and in confession, that's where I went when I started preparing for the message today. I was like, oh, you disciples, you done messed up. But when I took that phrase and talked about restoring Israel, and I look back through scripture, it's all over. It's all over the prophets, it's all through the Psalms as a prayer. And in fact, at times it says, Restore the fortune of Israel. Restore the fortunes of Israel. It is a prayer of God's people from the time basically that they were they were dealing with just getting into Canaan all the way through the exiles, all the way through the prophets, this repeated refrain, restore the kingdom, restore Israel, restore Israel's fortunes. There is a built-in cadence to them longing for God to show up. And I don't want to take that away from them and fast. I had to confess, I longed for God to show up too. This was the language they had. And that came in three ways. That restore the kingdom had three parts to it. One was a military part. And in their time with those disciples and what they saw just happen to Jesus on the cross by the Roman centurions, the military power was first and foremost on their minds. Kick the Romans out of Israel. When they said, Lord, restore Israel, they wanted the Romans out. It was military power. It called back to David's time as king when they were the dominant military power. The second part was religious freedom. And under Roman rule, there was a bit of tension, but it's more than just the Romans putting a curb on their religious freedom and their the freedom worship God the way they wanted to. It was actually much deeper than that. They longed for the temple. They had been longing for the temple to actually be the center of God's people. And in fact, in their way of looking at the cosmos, the whole universe, the center was the temple was the center of the whole universe for them. God at the center. Religion in Jerusalem, based there, being the center of the way people around the whole world would interact with God. It was the religious center, but they they wanted that control back. They wanted that prior priority position back. The religion centered there. And the third thing that they would have longed for in this is economic prosperity. And this calls back as well to the time of Solomon, King Solomon, when there was gold and silver, so much that the value dropped because it was so plentiful. It was so available to everybody. And in fact, at that time under Solomon, there were very few Jewish people who lived in poverty. It was a time of plenty. So when the disciples say, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom of Israel? They're thinking military power, they're thinking religious centering of the whole universe back among them, and they're thinking economic prosperity. Make Israel great again. That's what they're saying. I'll let that sit there for a moment. Because the result of the nationalism and the result of those dreams that, Lord, we would be a military power, Lord, we would be a religious power, Lord, we would be an economic power. The result is there is always an enemy. There is always another person that has to be divided out and kicked out and cast off. There is always a threat to the kingdom of their making. And that's no different than today. We live with the same type of idolatry, the same type of longing for military power, religious power, economic power in our country and in multiple countries around the world, the same ideology exists today. It is a longing to be at the center, to be in control. And if we peel back all those layers, we end up back at the Tower of Babel. We want a name for ourselves, and we want to use you, God, to make that name for us. We want to lift our name up high, and we want to be recognized as being at the center, and you, God, can help us get there. That's the underlying idolatry in it. It's taking the God of the cosmos, the God who created everything, and making that God a servant to our dreams and our ambitions. And that is a dangerous idolatry that lives not just out there in our political and economic systems today, but quite frankly, it enters our own hearts too. So, how does Jesus respond to this understandable but distorted desire of his disciples? Not a harsh rebuke, a gentle redirecting. It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Father, Spirit, Son, all wrapped up in here. Trinity is present in this response from Jesus. Authority belongs to the Father. It's not to you or to me or to any of those disciples standing around Jesus that day. Authority belongs to the Father and to the Father alone. And Jesus points and redirects them to go. You think it's about the kingdom you're making and having the authority there? The authority always and only rests with the Father. Your eyes need to go back to Him, not to the earthly kingdom that you want to make. Gentle redirect. Where are you looking? What are you desiring? Who are you following? The second part: you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. That word power, dunamis, is where we get dynamite from. You will receive dynamite level power. It's pretty tantalizing, right? But it's power that's rooted in the presence of the Holy Spirit with you. In other words, it's not a power you possess, it's a power that you are brought into when the Holy Spirit comes on you. It is not something that you get to hold on and claim and put in your back pocket and say, I've got God level power I can bring out and play anytime I want. It is only power that is connected to the Holy Spirit being present with you, living in you. It is not something you control. The promise here, the promise and the redirect is that the power that the world tells you about is not the power of God's kingdom. It's not a power over, it's a power in the presence of God that belongs to God, that God shares with you. And that power has a purpose. Did you catch what that power is for? The power isn't to build a kingdom, the power isn't for military power, it isn't for religious power, it isn't for economic power. That power is a power in order to be a witness. Literally, the underlying word here is marturia, which we get the word martyr from today. In other words, Jesus is saying, your job is to be my character witness to the rest of the world. So when we gauge the world around us, we are not to go out to say, I'm witnessing to Jesus that he lived in the past. We are to be Jesus' character witness to say, I'm living today because Jesus is alive, and this is the type of character he produces in other people. The power of the Spirit is not one to rule over, the power of the Spirit is one to display the character of Christ to the whole world. The power not to rule, but to display the character of Christ. One last little piece here. You will be my witnesses, my martyrs in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Samaria, just for geography, overlaps with the West Bank today. Same territory. Not completely identical, but they overlap. Samaria was the place Jesus' disciples wanted to go around and avoid whenever they could. And Samaria was the place, even way back then, that they wanted to call down fire from heaven to destroy. Jesus is saying, now you need to bring my character there. You need to go to those people that you think are the enemies of me, and you need to be present with them in a way that they see my character in you. That's hard. And if we just peeked a few chapters ahead, they don't want to go. For almost that whole first generation, they're pretty content to stay sitting in Jerusalem. It's not until persecution starts in Jerusalem that they spread out to Samaria and to the ends of the earth. They were quite content just to sit there. That's a temptation for us too. It's it's pretty comfortable just to stay with people that we like and people we know, to just stay with family. The Spirit, from the beginning of the commissioning of God's people, is to take God's character to those places that are enemies to us and that we perceive as enemies. To go, even to the ends of the earth, which certainly would have included Rome and all those other places that they saw as outside of God's grace. In God's community. Those are Jesus' last words. His last recorded words on earth. It puts a different weight to it, doesn't it? His last recorded words are a reframe of power and authority and a commissioning not to rule over, but to witness to the character of Christ and the way we live. That's what we are to be about. That's who we as Jesus friends are to be. Encouragement. There's a little humor here. I mean, if I saw Jesus rise up in front of me, and some of y'all better say amen because it's true to you, I'd be looking up in the sky too. Right? Amen. Yeah. Jesus standing there talking to me, gives this big, powerful speech, and then suddenly starts rising from the ground, levitating upwards. My eyes be following him, looking up at the clouds. I might, in a good moment, go, huh, that's interesting. I'd probably be sitting there with my mouth open, though. And the angels go, Why are you standing there looking up into the sky? Like they know darn well why they're standing there looking up into the sky. It's just like at the grave site when they're the women come to the grave and they're like, Where's Jesus? And they're like, Why are you looking for him among the dead? You know why they're looking for him among the dead. Angels have a little sense of humor. Again, Willie James Jennings is helpful here. He says, You know the temptation? The temptation for the apostles at that point was to build a shrine. It's the same thing as on that mountaintop when Jesus is there and he's transfigured and he's shining like something they can't even explain. And Peter, James, and John, and Peter's like, uh, Lord, we see you, Moses, and Elijah here. Should we start building little shacks and and and kind of houses for you here? They want to make a shrine out of it. They want to enshrine that space in that moment. And the angel's encouragement to them is don't get stuck here. Don't get stuck and make Jesus as if he is died and gone. He's coming back. In other words, Jesus is still alive. Don't forget it, Jesus is still alive. That's the heart of it. You are not serving a dead God who has gone and disappeared. You are serving a living God who is now with you in a way you cannot yet comprehend. And that God has told you to get back into Jerusalem and wait for the Spirit. Don't stand around, get going. And the temptation for us, come here on Sunday, have beautiful worship, and it was beautiful worship team. Have beautiful worship and go, ah, wasn't that good? And then forget about it when we walk out the doors. The temptation is to make it all about this building and this space and call this the house of God again and again to the point that this becomes an idol for us. And we start saying the Ten Commandments got to be put up everywhere, or whatever part of Scripture got to be put up everywhere. That's not the point of it. The point of it is we need to get going. We are the witnesses, we are Christ's body, we are Christ's presence that He intends to go out into the world. And the angels, right at the beginning, right at the seed where that temptation would come in, said, uh-uh. You don't stay here, you don't make an idol out of this place, you don't make an idol out of this experience. You get going, you get to work on what Jesus has told you to do. Now get back to Jerusalem. And they go back. And I don't know who's preaching next week, but they need to pick up right there. That's where Pentecost picks up. The disciples are back in Jerusalem praying. They're waiting, they're all gathered together praying, and the Spirit comes on them. The Father delivers the gift promised by Jesus. The Spirit comes. So we don't do it on our own. But we do have work to do. And we need to get going on that work, to bear witness to Christ and the way we live, not just with the people we're comfortable with, but to use every bit of power that the Spirit gives to us in the Spirit's presence to make Christ known to the ends of the earth. Let's pray. Thank you that you are good and holy and faithful, and all authority and all power belongs to you. And thank you that in the midst of our hard-heartedness and stubborn-headedness, you love us and are gentle with us. Thank you for these words where you reframe power and authority for us, Lord. Thank you for noting something that has been a constant temptation for us and for turning it around and showing us how to live faithfully. May you indeed empower us, Holy Spirit, to be witnesses of Jesus Christ. That through our lives and through our deaths, we might make Christ known. It's in Jesus' powerful and good and faithful name we pray. Amen.