Acts 1 - Church

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0:00 The rest of us, we're going to talk about Pentecost 2. It's in the book of Acts, if you want to follow along, the Acts of the Apostles. And we've been talking about this idea of vocation. We spent a little over 30 weeks going through the whole story of scripture. And the question I was kind of left with after going through the whole story of scripture is like, that's a really beautiful, compelling, interesting story.

0:33 And now, what are we supposed to do with it? How do we, what should I do with my life in light of the story of scripture? How should I spend my time? What am I obligated to do? And we've been talking about how God works in the world through people. And so the church has had these, like, has encouraged over the course of centuries people to consider that they would love God and love neighbor through these three major arenas. That you would love God and love neighbor in your vocations

1:03 and you would have vocations that would be grouped into three major arenas. And the arenas are family, church, and we'll call it neighborhood. And last week we talked about family and how peculiar it is. Actually, it feels almost reckless that God would collaborate with humans on the conception and maturation of other humans. It seems crazy. Remember we talked about the metaphor of the gauntlet, that childhood is like a gauntlet that you're running.

1:34 Nobody comes through childhood unscathed. Everybody comes through with some wound from being a child. And so it seems reckless that God would trust this gauntlet to other people, that he would subject us to other people. But we consider that the potential healing outweighs the potential wound. And so when we lean in to our places, to our family vocations and take those roles seriously, the potential to bless overwhelms and outweighs the potential to wound.

2:10 So when we have the capacity to repent and to forgive in our vocations of family, we can see healing that outweighs the woundedness. And this week we were talking about church and it just happened to also land on the week of Pentecost, where we wrap up the seven weeks of Easter in a row and remember when God gave the gift of the Holy Spirit. He talks about it here in Acts chapter 1. And remember that the book, Acts of the Apostles, was written by Luke.

2:48 Luke was originally a Greek physician. And then at some point he joined up with Paul. They're not sure, 100%, but remember that Paul was in Antioch. Barnabas brought him over to Antioch and they lived there building the church after they had been dispersed by the Pentecost. And then Luke met Paul and they went on these missionary journeys and Luke ends up writing the Gospel of Luke, the precursor to the Acts of the Apostles,

3:19 and then the Acts of the Apostles, which gives us the story of how the church grew in time. And this right here, this moment in Acts chapter 1, is just before Jesus' ascension. And he talks about here just before the part we'll read, he talks about how Jesus appears to over 500 in his resurrected body and teaches them what it means that the kingdom of God has arrived. And then he has this moment here in Acts chapter 1 starting at verse 7, where he has just his core followers, not the 500, but maybe the 11,

3:53 maybe a little bit more than the 11, maybe all those who were in the upper room together. And if we look at Acts chapter 1 starting at verse, well, let's look at 6. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? They had thought like, okay, Jesus, you beat death and you were raised from the dead. Now you get to be king, we'll all kick back.

4:24 Plus, we cast our lot with you a while ago, so it'll be good for us because now we know what a king looks like. We heard stories about David, we know Herod is a puppet king, we know David was a real king, we'd love to have a real king like that. Now you're going to set things up and set the world straight, right? Now the time when you're going to restore the kingdom and Jesus surprises them because he's going to do something different. So when we look at, they said, Jesus is now the time you're going to restore the king to Israel,

4:56 and he said to them, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And when he had sent these things as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were engaging into heaven, as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said,

5:26 men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way that you saw him go into heaven. He's like, they've gotten, they've realized now by this point that Jesus, what he accomplished, that he was crucified fully dead, raised himself back to life, and that he's fully alive. When you read the story of his resurrection, he eats with them several times.

5:57 They're able to lay their hands on his body. He wants them to know that in his resurrected experience, he's fully enfleshed, body and soul, mind and spirit, the same person with the marks of the cross that the life that he lived on earth has shaped who he is now and will be forever. They've begun to grasp that Jesus is fully alive, so they're like, okay, now you'll ascend to the throne and everyone will get it, right? And Jesus is like meh, maybe, but what we're going to do instead

6:31 is we're going to empower you. This is the kind of amazing thing about the work of Christ. This is why I want you to ask a project you never give up on. We talked about it a little bit before, but when you think about God working in the world immediately through means, primarily through other people, think about the very beginning. God makes the world out of his own imagination by the force of his will out of nothing. He conjures a universe into existence and then shapes humanity out of the dust of the clay

7:05 and breathes into the very breath of life and doesn't just like set up the throne and go now, all my little minions serve me. He puts his image on humanity and he gives them the creation. He's like, you'll be my image bears in the world. You fill the earth and subdue it. You take care of it. He's always had in mind that humanity would be this like authority bearer, this image bearer of God, this purveyor of peace and justice,

7:38 this arbiter of decision and creation to manage life in all its forms such that it thrives under the lordship of the God. This is what he wants humanity to be. And he sets them into the garden and they, for the life of them, right, can't be content with being human, they'd like to be God.

8:08 And the fascinating thing as we read through the whole story of scripture is we get to this finally at the fullness of time when it seems like one generation after another continues to fail. It seems like one group of people after another finds a different way to fail. It seems like God moves towards humanity with one grace after another and they continue to repeat the folly of the first ones. Finally, it says in the fullness of time, he comes into the womb of Mary incarnates in the flesh of Jesus, accomplishes the cross, death and resurrection

8:42 and is about to release the great spirit of God that has been bound up somewhere waiting since the garden to be released again on humanity and he's going to release the Holy Spirit for what purpose? For the same purpose he had at the very beginning that maybe people could be people. Humans could be image bearers of God in the world. That they could love and serve one another.

9:15 He's like, I'm about to give you the spirit of God that you could be my image bearers in the world in every corner of the world. That you could actually be again the person you were called to be. So that when you get to the kind of famous story of Pentecost and Acts chapter 2 where they have the tongues of fire over their head and they begin to announce the way of Jesus,

9:47 people are kind of taken by it. But before we get to that, I want to look at one other place with you. It's in Hebrews chapter 10 if you're following along or punching in verses. Hebrews chapter 10 starting at verse 19. Hebrews is one of these books that there's a little bit of mystery around. It wasn't clear even in the early tradition who wrote the book of Hebrews.

10:18 Excuse me, some people think it was a Paulus who, you know, was kind of a contemporary of Paul's. But clearly it has kind of Paul's theology, but it's written completely different than Paul would write stuff. So we're pretty sure it's not Paul, but maybe a student of Paul and that it was written to all of the Hebrew, kind of the Israelite diaspora spread around Asia Minor, trying to

10:50 square with themselves in what way, what might it mean, how might we believe that Jesus is the Messiah because it's kind of incongruent with what we expected. And so the book of Hebrews is trying to unravel for people what it means or in what way or how might Jesus be the long-promised Messiah. And in Hebrews chapter 10 starting at verse 19, he's kind of summing up the way that Jesus has transformed what they know

11:21 about worship to God at the temple. So if you look at Hebrews chapter 10 and you find yourself to verse 19, he says, therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with the true heart in full assurance of faith,

11:54 with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful. That's one sentence. That's a long sentence. What he's trying to say in there, he's summarizing what Christ has accomplished in his life, death, resurrection, ascension, and dispatching of the Spirit.

12:24 He's like, we used to have the presence of God locked up in one room in Jerusalem in the temple. Remember David moved the temple there before it was in the tabernacle. He said, we used to have this one, and it was kind of divided by this curtain, and we had one priest who would go in there on our behalf to the room and make the blood promises, and we stayed separate from the presence of God. But now the writer of Hebrews is saying, Christ has now, his body is this curtain, and he's invited us all to go through

12:57 it into the presence of God. So what he's saying is that Jesus did this thing that humanity hasn't had since the garden. Remember the story of the garden, how the earth gave up its food, so that it produced, and it was without toil that they could get what they needed.

13:27 Remember how Jesus said, you could eat from any place that you wanted in this garden, and the rivers flowed from it. Remember how the humans walked through and named all the animals, so it was their job to kind of cultivate and care for all these animals in this garden that produced the food that they needed Remember how when the parting vision that we have of the garden is Adam and Eve were together, they were naked, and they felt no shame.

14:01 Could you imagine moving through a place designed specifically for you, with food coming up out of the ground, with companions of animals who respect and listen and follow what they're called to do, a place designed just for you, not alone but together with people with whom you are completely vulnerable and feel no shame, and then in the evening it says that they would walk in the cool of the evening with the God, not a bad situation.

14:38 And that's why it's so crazy that they can't rest in it, but there's something about God being apart from them that keeps them from trusting. The writer of Hebrews is saying that God has done something in Christ for humanity that they haven't had since the garden. He takes the presence of himself out of wherever it dwells infinitely and finds a way to put it together with humanity so that people are able to move about in the spirit, in the presence of the God.

15:14 This is true for you now. A pretty good situation, and actually kind of the culmination, right? Of what God has said, he was trying to find a way for humanity to get back. When he ushers us out of the garden, he's like, go out of the garden, I'll put the flaming sword, but I'll fix this. I'll get humanity and God back together again.

15:44 And the writer of Hebrews is telling the Israelite diaspora in the first century after the ascension of Jesus that the death resurrection ascension of Jesus accomplished that long plan of God to merge humanity and God back together again. I don't know if you've encountered moments like that. Where it's almost like you're in the garden.

16:15 I don't know if you've encountered moments where it seems like things are set up for you. Where maybe in relationship you get little glimpses of both vulnerability and safety. That is miracle. That is God in our midst.

16:48 If two humans can be vulnerable and safe, there is the spirit of God there. Maybe you've felt moments where you are walking outside and it occurs to you that there are animals flying through the air. And that there are plants recycling what you exhale and giving back the oxygen that you need. That there's just the right amount of sun filtering through the atmosphere

17:22 to warm your skin and bring you the vitamins without burning you up. That there's water, just enough water already in the biosphere for you to have all that you need. Maybe you've had moments where you can recognize that the earth is a gift. Your recognition of that kind of gift is the presence of God in your life. It is a miracle that we are capable of being human.

17:58 And the cross of Christ accomplishes the presence of God in our midst. That we might glimpse periodically what we were made for. So we might think that the job is done. So this is why I pulled this passage out from Hebrews. He gives us this beautiful picture of what Christ has done and compared it to the temple and said it's like we're living in the holy of holies now, unmitigated.

18:29 So he goes on. So he's like, let's see where we were. Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Verse 24. And let us consider then how to stir up one another to love and good works.

19:00 Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing near. It's funny that the writer of Hebrews is like, he did it y'all. We are walking around in the presence of God. What used to be in the holy of holies? Now we come into without shame or fear. We can experience the presence of God as we move around in the world.

19:32 And each time that we fall short or fall back or give up or turn around, we come back again without shame or guilt. Because the cross of Christ has covered every shortcoming and every failure. And he's like, now you're walking around with the presence of God. And he doesn't say then, so just go and enjoy it. He's not like, you got what you need. Tell somebody else that they might have what they need but live your life.

20:03 You know, there is sometimes a sense where it's like, hey, I am doing me and God have an understanding. I don't need anybody else. If God has given me what I need, I'm aware that he's done it. I'll be fine. This is not what he says. He says that God has accomplished all of this. In order that, we might encourage one another.

20:41 In order that we might not give up the habit of meeting together, but we might gather together on a regular basis and remind one another of what's accomplished. And then you start playing back in your mind the story of Scripture and you realize God has never been interested in just a bunch of individuals. He told Adam and Eve to fill the earth and subdue it. And when he started over with Noah, he told his family the same thing. And when he called Abraham, he wasn't like, Abraham, I'm going to deal with you.

21:13 Forget everybody else. He said, Abraham, I'm going to deal with you for the sake of everyone else. God has always been interested in a nation, in a tribe, in a people who are people and let him be God. And what Christ is trying to do before he ascends and he tells us, 11, hey, guys, chill out. I'm going to give you the spirit so that you could be church for one another. So that you could be people, I'll be God.

21:43 You live here. Love one another. You're going to need the actual presence of God to pull it off. But I figured out how to do that too. Took it out of the garden. It'll be here in a minute. Go and wait. You'll know when it comes. It's crazy to think that God would have to figure out the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection, and the ascension and the dispatching of the spirit in order to get us to like take care of one another.

22:25 But here we are. This, what happens here in this room and in the relationships that endure and persist outside of this room is the culmination of an ancient plan of God. Unfolding over generations and guided by the divine creator spirit.

22:56 In order that you and I might glimpse now a life will live forever where we get to be fully human with one another. We are practicing now the life will live forever. The church is the closest thing we'll get to being people of God forever. And so we lean in man. This is why Paul spends so much time.

23:26 You know when you read his letters, he's on the move man. He is starting at least 13 churches by hook or by crook. He is walking. He is taking boats. He is running from being stoned. He is working hard to build churches. And when he does build a church in a place, he tells him, hey everybody just be cool. He's not dispatching all these missionaries and telling them go take over the world. He's telling Timothy, hey pray for the leaders that all of us in churches might live peaceful and quiet lives until the day that Jesus returns.

24:01 Paul is trying to set up outposts of the reign of God where people can live now like they will forever in peace and vulnerability and safety with each other. Empowered by the spirit. This is what the church is intended to be. Little pockets of heaven on earth. We get to be that. You get to be that. For one another.

24:31 The call is to love one another. The assumption is as we do, the world will notice. That's always been the plan. From Israel through Christ down through the church today. It's compelling when people love one another. Jesus says in the gospel of John, this is how they'll know you are mine by the way that you love one another. If we want to know how to live lives will like.

25:02 That are fulfilling. We lean into our role and family. Mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, we lean into our role and family. And we lean into our role in church. How might we love, serve, uplift, encourage? How might we put up with all of the difficulties and the confusion and the failures?

25:39 How might we persist amongst all the shortcomings? We don't have to do it forever. Justin Tillie comes back and he's given us his spirit that we might endure. Let's pray that we could endure together. Hey Lord, thank you for the gift of your spirit. Teach us how we can be church together with your spirit. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.