Carrying the Torch

SERMON: 2008-09-20--ac0801--carrying-the-torch SOURCE DURATION: 00:36:50.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.98 APPROVED: false REASON: All candidates form a continuous devotional/hymnal closing sequence (a benediction or hymn). Since there is no clear transition to non-sermon material after this segment, the final candidate [candidate 15] is selected as the last piece of sermon content. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:33:15.560-00:36:48.460 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Well, I've always been struck personally by the way Luke Begins the book of Acts listen again to how he puts it in my former book Theophilus I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach Until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the Apostles He had chosen in those two verses three little words that stand out first is the word began all that Jesus Began to do and to teach now to begin something is to start something It implies that it is not yet finished and therein of course lies the significance of the book of Acts Because the book of Acts is the ongoing ministry of Jesus Through the Apostles, that's why Luke is very specific about using the word Began the full title of the book of Acts is the Acts of the Apostles It might better be called the Acts of Jesus Christ Through the Apostles in the power of the Holy Spirit Then there is the little word to do followed by the word to teach Let me talk about each of those in reverse order To teach of course is to impart information Knowledge or wisdom to a student and there's no question But if you look at the life of Jesus as it is told us in the Gospels That one of the outstanding characteristics of the ministry of Jesus was his teaching ministry and He not only taught the big crowds. He not only taught his disciples in small groups He also taught people one-on-one Nicodemus He met alone at night because Nicodemus was afraid to be seen coming to Jesus But here's the question then if you were to summarize the teachings of Jesus What would you say is the focal point of the teachings of the Lord Jesus? Well, you ask a lot of people that today and most people would say something about well It's all about love and it's all about loving your neighbor. That's sort of the the popular cultural Understanding about who Jesus is and when Christians stand up for a particular position Then immediately the criticism that is directed towards us is that we're not very good followers of Jesus because Jesus accepted everybody unconditionally well, that's Not exactly true but neither is love for your neighbor the only or the exclusive Entity of the teachings of Jesus It is a subcomponent of a much bigger picture and the much bigger picture focuses on the kingdom of God Verse 3 of this chapter puts it this way He appeared to the disciples and he spoke to them about the kingdom of God Now at the risk of sounding like a broken record the kingdom of God is the reign of God Over all creation we sang a little while ago about how he reigns and the Bible talks about all of creation Rejoicing in the reign of God and the trees of the field clapping their hands. Why? Because when God reigns there is truth there is justice there shalom and there is harmony and the fact that the world is in the kind of mess that it is is not because God is unkind is not because His hands are tied or that he doesn't care about what happens to you or to me No, no, it's because we have rejected his kingdom reign and We have invited Satan's reign into the world and until Jesus comes and restores all things That is the tragedy that we have to live with and as you know diagrammatically, I like to picture it this way I like to picture it in terms of the kingdom of God. This is how God created the world originally God at the center of life all of creation looking to God receiving the blessing from God thanking God living according to his revealed will that meets the deepest needs of the human heart that Enables us to have compassion for our neighbors if I have a dollar and you have no dollar I can give you my dollar because I know that God in heaven cares for me and he will meet my deepest need You having your need met means you can do it with your neighbor and he with his or her neighbor And so the result is what it's what the Bible calls shalom and if you want to see what that looks like then you look at the opening chapters of Scripture Genesis 1 & 2 God Adam and Eve and all creation in incredible glorious harmony along comes sin Satan the great adversary of God deceives Adam and Eve breaks this Relationship, this is the result God is excluded. So to speak from relationship with us He withdraws because he is angry at our sin Satan becomes the god of this world fills us all with a philosophy That nobody's gonna look after me. I got to look after myself and so now each person by nature is selfish in Fragmentation and as we are selfish in orientation and I grab for that one dollar and you grab for the other dollar Then before you know it there's conflict and tension and turmoil that sets in and the result is a spiraling downward of life There is no one of us here that hasn't experienced that to one degree or another We experience that fragmentation in our personal lives when we lose our way We experience it in our family when we have conflict and trust is destroyed. We Experience it in broader relationships we experience it in community when it's Everybody after himself and we live in a world and you know that as well as I do Where the wages of sin are piling up and in fact all of creation groans Under the travail. I mean we talk about hurricanes. We talk about earthquakes. We talked about wars and thousands of people sometimes who lose their lives and and everybody says God where are you and God says Adam. Where are you? Why did you walk away from home? Why did you get so lost and of course that's where it could have ended? But God in the greatness of his love didn't want to destroy his creation didn't just want to wipe it out Didn't just want to get rid of it You know as well as I do that in the greatness of his love what he does is he reaches into this world now? in the person of Jesus Christ and the Bible story from the book of Genesis to the closing chapters of the book of Revelation Are how God is in Christ? reconciling the world to himself How if people will only acknowledge their sin admit they've wandered away from God confess their foolishness Humble themselves before God and received a forgiveness that only God can provide through faith in Jesus Christ Then God forgives our sins. He brings about reconciliation and he begins to move us from this world of brokenness Into the kingdom of God and that kingdom of God which we experience in part already here today Will one day come about in full reality when Jesus comes in glory when sin in the world will have run its course When salvation will have been finished in that day God will utterly destroy This whole structure Satan will be thrown in the lake of fire I always picture God twirling him around his head like this and then sending him flying while all the angels and all the redeemed of God stand there and clap their hands for joy in glee Because the destroyer of mankind will finally get his comeuppance And in that day then and it's hard to picture what that's gonna look like but in that day Shalom will be restored So the Bible talks about when it talks about a city whose streets are paved with gold and where there are no tears and where There is no brokenness or heartache anymore all symbolic imagery. I think of life restored to God now that is the summary of the teaching of Jesus and Everything else that he does is a sub component of that element So that's what Luke talks about when he says Jesus began to teach But then of course he goes on to say he also began to do In my former book Theophilus. I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach Until the day he was taken up into heaven. So Jesus not only teaches but he does So again think back with me to the Gospels What is it like Jesus did? Well, the first thing that strikes you beside his incarnation when you read the gospel story is how busy Jesus was Working the miracles of God I mean no sooner had he been baptized in the Holy Spirit and he began his public ministry when the first creature that recognized him was a demon in a demon possessed man in Capernaum in the synagogue and Jesus cast him out and then there was this centurion whose servant was terribly ill and Jesus went to his home and and healed that man and then there was Peter's mother-in-law who was sick with a fever and Jesus raised her up and then the Bible adds that nifty little piece where she got up and she served them all and and I'm always intrigued by that because that is such an example of what the healing of Jesus ought to lead to a life of fruitfulness and a life of service and All through his earthly ministry particularly in the early years of that ministry Everywhere he went he went about doing good Peter summarizes it this way in the book of Acts he says how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power and he went about doing good and Healing all who were under the power of the devil because God was with him Not only that but in entering into time and space He became one of us and as one of us he took upon himself all our sin in the Garden of Gethsemane and allowed himself to be taken to the cross where he died a criminal's death and Then gloriously three days later was raised from the dead And he was raised from the dead so that the power of death and hell could be overcome And the reason Jesus does these things is not just to prove that he is somebody in my younger years they used to think that the key to miracles of healing was because Jesus wanted to demonstrate that he was the Son of God and There's an element of that in there to be sure but I've since come to understand that the purpose of the healing miracles of Jesus was on the one hand to demonstrate the compassion of God for a world lost in brokenness and sin and it was also his way of modeling the coming of the kingdom He not only talks about the kingdom. You see he enters into our world and He brings about the kingdom. He sets the captive free. He opens the eyes of the blind He proclaims good news to the poor. He enables the lame to walk and what's significant in this passage that we're looking at is the order in which Luke puts these words. I wrote all about that Jesus began to do and to teach Now I would have thought He'd say to teach and to do But he doesn't I believe there's a reason for that and The reason is that while it's important to teach people the kingdom of God is such an other reality that you can talk about it forever and People have no clue what it is that you're talking about It's like you go visit another country you take in all the sights and the sounds and the smells and you come back home and you try to tell it to other people and they nod politely and they You know are kind of a little bit excited before their eyes glaze over Why? Because they can't enter into it I mean I'll never forget a story that Jacob Eppinga used to tell us Jacob Eppinga for many years if you read the banner he wrote this column in the back of the banner about and Michelle and I lived in his church or the church that he pastored Le Grave Avenue Christian Reformed Church For a whole year during my last year of seminary. It's an interesting story Because we were poor as church mice and Le Grave Avenue is probably the richest congregation in the denomination So here we were rubbing shoulders with all these very rich people Hoping some of their money would rub off on us, but it didn't quite do that But I remember Eppinga telling the story About this missionary who would come home regularly and furlough and he would tell his supporters All the adventures that he went to and this went on for a number of years until one day this one particular couple that was supporting him actually had a chance to go with him to the mission field and They were just blown away And I'll never forget their closing comment to this missionary Now remember they had heard this guy talk about the mission field forever and ever amen and their comment was Why didn't you tell us? It was like this And I think we can all identify with that So here's Jesus And the one hand he does a lot of teaching about the kingdom of God But you can talk about the kingdom of God till the cows come home at some point or another somebody has to experience the power of God's kingdom and so the miracles of Jesus the acts of Jesus Bring about the reality of the kingdom. It is the kingdom of God breaking into the world That enables us to understand the powers Of the age to come do you understand what i'm trying to communicate here? It's often said you cannot base your theology on your experience and there's truth to that because your experience can be out to lunch But i'll tell you something. There's an awful lot of bad theology that would be straightened out By one experience of God's presence and God's power it fixes you In ways that no amount of talking can do And so here's Jesus He's doing his ministry He is teaching not only but he is doing the works of God And Luke says in my former book I wrote about all That Jesus began to do and to teach Now if you're with me You'll understand that just maybe that has some implications for you and me today. Wouldn't you agree? In the time that remains, let me try to spell out for you what those implications would be Implication number one Jesus Is still at work today Did you know that? Earlier on in his earthly ministry, he said to his disciples my father was always at his work to this very day And I too am working And while it is true that upon his ascension he sat down at the right hand of the father To wait until all his enemies be made a stool for his feet That waiting was not a passive waiting was it? That waiting is an active ongoing involvement in the history of the world. And what is Jesus waiting for? For all God's enemies to be destroyed And for God's kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven And so Jesus how does he do this? By being actively involved in the history of the world Keeping sin in check so that it doesn't get out of hand And by sending forth the gospel message So that men and women boys and girls can still hear about the love of God God's desire for reconciliation and God's promise to make everything new That Is what Jesus Is about today. Did you know? That at the right hand of God the father One of his primary tasks today Is to pray for you and for me As our heavenly high priest he's our intercessor And so when you're having a spat with your wife Your kid's out of whack Or you face a great tragedy or a great difficulty Or when he just wants to pour out heaven's blessings into your life There is Jesus talking to the father Reminding the father of his incredible sacrifice So that you and I are eligible for God's grace and for God's blessing That's what enables us to hold on That's what enables us to keep on going Because Jesus is sustaining us at the right hand of God the father his work is on going Which is why I said earlier that is precisely the point of Luke's observation He began to do and to teach because guess what flows out of this Well, what flows out of this, of course Is that Jesus has chosen to share His work with us I love that little story about a father He was working in the garden. He had a little garden farm and He had Reminds me a little to the Baudelon family had had a whole bunch of kids You know put them all to work And these kids weren't terribly well trained and so for every plant he put into the ground some other kid came along Dug it up and it was just a mess And next door lived one of these very self-controlled Rigid obviously a non-parent type of person. He was just shaking his head at the futility of this guy trying to grow his garden and after a while The man who was doing this with his children looked up and he said I know what you're thinking He says but you're wrong I'm not trying to grow a garden I'm trying to grow my family Have you ever wondered why God bothers to entrust the program of salvation to you and to me? I mean, he's got tons of angels and he says go and they go and he says woe and they woe You and I we sit there we hassle we argue we debate Half the time we're like a paralyzed body. We can't respond the way that we're supposed to be. So why does he put up with us? Why does he put up with Peter? Why does he put up with any of these disciples who so blatantly and so openly denied him? Because he's not just growing a garden He's not just building a kingdom He's raising a family And in raising a family He wants us to share with him in the work of redemption Why do you think it is that in this passage? Jesus after his resurrection from the dead hangs around for 40 days and for 40 nights now You know if you were in his shoes and you'd gone through the crucifixion and and you had been gloriously raised from the dead Wouldn't you like kind of be anxious to go home? Like enough of this already I've had it with you people He hangs around for 40 days. Why? Well, the bible says Because he wanted to teach and be with his disciples to instruct them in their mission of carrying on the kingdom of god as I said earlier that is why in this passage Luke says i've already told you theophilus about all that jesus began to do and to teach The church is the ongoing ministry of the lord jesus And all you have to do Is look at the book of acts? to see what happens When those disciples those apostles are filled with the holy spirit And they go out And they do the works of god and they speak His word and that of course is a third implication of this We are to do his works And we are to speak His words, let me briefly talk about that and again i'll take them in reverse order Because it's a lot easier to speak Than it is to do sometimes What is the church's message? What is the message that is entrusted to us? Well, clearly the message of the kingdom, which is the message of jesus But if you look at the disciples and if you look at at at how they engage the nations in the book of acts They bear witness to the Rejected jesus Because it's the resurrection of jesus that demonstrates that he is everything That god said or that he himself said that he was namely the son of god who has come to bring about restoration to all of creation And jesus in conquering death and hell And ascending at the right hand of god the father and sitting down at his right hand Has been crowned king of kings and lord of lords I wonder this morning if we understand the implications of that Because what it means is that no matter what ails humanity No matter what ails you and me individually our families our cities our nation And the nations of the world There is only one name given among men under heaven Whereby the effect of power of sin and death can be destroyed and his name Is jesus And the effectiveness of our life And the effectiveness of our ministry Doesn't consist in you know grand theories of theology and profound understanding of all the world's complexities They may be important But the core of our message Is that jesus is alive And because jesus is alive and because he chose to die for the sins of the world Including your sins and my sins And because his heart is filled with compassion anybody That will humble themselves under his mighty hand Admit they are powerless to change the world themselves or their own world And they turn to him in faith He will come And he will save them Whoever calls On the name of jesus peter says later on in his pentecost sermon whoever calls On the name of jesus Will be saved And so that's our message and you and I If we're going to be effective In carrying on the ministry of the lord jesus We need to learn how to articulate the reality of the resurrected christ Don't just bring them to church. That's a good place to start And don't just bring them to the preacher Or your small group leader Ask the lord to help you to tell somebody about jesus The marriage is in trouble Or they don't know what to do with their kids Or they face issues of another kind As the holy spirit gives you utterance and as you have the freedom to express it Take them by the hand and say to them listen I have no idea where to start But let me take you by the hand and let me lead you to jesus Because you'll discover that jesus is more ready to meet people And to transform them Than you and I have yet begun to understand sometimes when you're a little along in the christian journey And you experience a lot of god's discipline and prayer is no longer so simple and troubles don't disappear so quickly Then you sometimes forget That's not typically where the christian life begins And typically god goes out of his way To show himself to those Who are hungry for him and that's how we Get into doing the works of god Jane and charles britches were here just visiting ben and will even use it Michelle and I had the privilege of having them over for supper the other night and Some of you will remember that jane and and charles were with us here a number of years ago when he was With the military here on loan from england And since that time and some of you know this story too jane has been ordained as a cleric in the church of england Jane was telling me that one of the advantages of being a cleric in the church of england is that the church of england is sort of seen as the parish church that everybody belongs to even if they don't go to church at all and she was telling us the story about how this woman had Called her up and said we need your help because our house is filled with evil spirits and she went on to talk about how the children were waking up at night and things were you know going bump in the night and all that kind of stuff and and jane Seizes upon moments like that as an opportunity to present jesus so she went and visited She asked the lady if she knew about jesus and who jesus was and if she thought jesus could take care of this and And yes, and amen. So jane prayed and prayed a prayer of deliverance over that house. Well time went on and sometime later jane was back there for one reason or another and Jane wondered if anything had happened as a result of the prayer. So she asked her and the lady said oh, yes She says ever since that time the the air has been cleared and the kids have been sleeping and peace had descended upon that house I'll tell you the story to share with you what doing the works of god looks like We don't all have to become preachers. We don't all have to become full-time evangelists. No you and I we can just live our life And as we live our life and as we seek to do the will of god in our daily professions Always being attuned and sensitive to the holy spirit. There will be opportunities that arise in our Relationships where somebody will share with us their struggle their burden their difficulty when our eyes are opened to the reality of a broken world And as the holy spirit gives us utterance and as we learn to step into those situations We become the agents of jesus. We are his hands his body his mouth his feet And he begins to move through us as we speak into that situation sometimes Just faltering words sometimes just a sharing of our own story And in that context we will discover very often that god will meet us He will confirm our story. He will confirm our testimony with signs and with wonders And lives will be changed and transformed for the glory of god That was the genius Of the early church the early church was composed of ordinary men and women just like you and me But once they understood their mission and then once they understood The reality of the baptism of the holy spirit They were an unstoppable force that turned the world upside down or right side up depending on how you want to put it in their generation And I know you and I we shy away from that We don't have the words. We don't know How to do these things we're afraid of making mistakes But you see that's precisely Why jesus in this passage tells the church? to linger in jerusalem Do not leave jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised which you've heard me speak about For john baptized with water But in a few days you will be baptized with the holy spirit And the same spirit who came upon jesus at his baptism Who enabled jesus to go out and do the mighty works of god and to speak the mighty word of god Is the same spirit that has been promised to you and to me in our mighty baptism of power So that we can be fitting agents to carry on the mission of jesus And the challenge for you and me Is to believe that To embrace that And then to step out into it And watch what god little dear [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:33:15.560; remove through 00:36:50.000] Take us to the river Take us there in unity to sing the song of your salvation To reign this generation Take us to your throne And give us things to hear the cry of heaven for that cry is mercy Of mercy to the fallen sons of man mercy has triumphed Triumphed over judgment by your blood take us to the river in the city of our god Oh the spirit of the sovereign lord is upon us Is the spirit of the sovereign lord is upon us Take us to the mountain Lift us in the shadow of your hand is this your mighty angel Oh stand the stride the ocean Take us to the city of our god The spirit of the sovereign lord is upon us This is Salvation For it is the place that rivers take us to the river Take us to the river in the city Of our god [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:36:50.000; resume after this marked segment]