38 Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. 39 He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.a 40 Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41 At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42 Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. [1] John 19:38-42 (NIV)

The Pain of Failure

We’ve all known this before haven’t we?  I guess if we haven’t failed then we haven’t tried hard enough.  Think about it.  There are people who simply don’t try as a tactic to avoid failure.  It’s not failure that’s bad – it’s the refusal to try what may cause us to fail.  And so in the church you have folks who will never attempt to do anything except the things in which they have confidence.

This morning we talk about Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.  We could see them as abject failures.

They were first class politicians and second class saints for sure if you could even call them that.  A second class saint is a loser all the way around.  In my mind there is no such thing, I’m being extremely facetious. 

Often we assume that God is unable to work in spite of our weaknesses, mistakes, and sins. We forget that God is a specialist; he is well able to work our failures into his plans.

-- Erwin W. Lutzer (1941- )

God’s forgiveness is always perfect – there’s always a way back home and a place for you when you get there.

But there are people and perhaps some here today who have difficulty receiving God’s forgiveness and in turn forgiving themselves. 

They don’t measure up in other people’s estimation and what is worse they are a disappointment to themselves.  It’s one thing when someone else is disappointed in you but the pain is intensified by the suspicion that these critics are right.  When it comes to God and spirituality and devotion and discipline, you just don’t cut it.

I think that a person can feel bad about their performance without feeling bad about themselves.  When I consider what I feel God would have me to be and I superimpose my weaknesses; my losing battles with temptation; my own willfulness that has harbored fugitives like pride and envy and a critical spirit and impatience and a host of other escapees on the lam from the ever searching Spirit of God, . . . there are those days when I feel like a miserable representation of Christ.

When the frustration of my helplessness seemed greatest, I discovered God's grace was more than sufficient. And after my imprisonment, I could look back and see how God used my powerlessness for his purpose. What he has chosen for my most significant witness was not my triumphs or victories, but my defeat.

-- Charles Colson (1931- )

What effect does that have on me?  If the spotlight remains on my strength and my performance the result is emotional and spiritual paralysis.  Ever read Romans 7?

21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. [2] Romans 7:21-25 (NIV)

This has always encouraged me to know that Paul at times asked himself similar questions or made similar observations about his own post conversion experience.

I’m driven back in wonder each time God’s utterly amazing grace.

“That God should love a sinner such as I

Should yearn to change my sorrow into bliss.

Nor rest til’ He had planned to bring me nigh

How wonderful is love like this

Such love such wondrous love

Such love such wondrous love

That God should love a sinner such as I.

How wonderful is love like this.”

So when I go on about my own failures today, I’m not blue or downhearted.  I am eternally grateful to God for His goodness, His love for me and the more I fathom the depths of that love the more I lose myself and find Him as the greatest reality of my life.

I feel really good to be so loved by God today.  Sometimes the greater question than my own belief in God becomes the reality of His belief in me.

I’d like to show you a clip from a classic movie called, “The Count of Monte Cristo”.  Here’s a man falsely accused and imprisoned by the betrayal of a friend who wants his girlfriend.  He has languished for years, forgotten in a prison cell.  His faith has worn as the etching on the wall has gathered dirt and mold and become almost indistinguishable.  As we lose hope something insidious is birthed within our hearts.  In this case, the desire for vengeance and the cold icy fingers of hate strangle the spiritual vitality from a once warm heart.  The once hopeful markings, “God will grant me justice.” are barely visible on the walls of his cell.  Watch this exchange between himself and his prison mentor who restores his faith – a relationship that God uses in a dark dank dungeon to fuel hope within his heart.

View Clip

The Power of Faith

I want you to know today that God believes in you.  He loves you desperately and longs to have you know and experience Him fully.  Some of you today are fearful of such love, such wondrous love because unleashed in your heart you would discover what you really want.  Most people apart from Christ spend lifetimes discovering things that fail to bring them lasting joy and peace and purpose and fulfillment.  And I guess there is reason to fear on one hand because when a person really encounters Christ they are never the same again.  There’s no going back to the way things were.  You can’t if you want to because the world is never the same once you meet Christ.

And from the perspective of heaven, these men were more than prolific politicians, for whatever that may be worth.  They were not second hand saints experiencing “hand-me-down” holiness.  They were disciples.  At least, that is what John the Beloved says from the scripture today. 

Joseph was a secret disciple for fear of the Jews, and Nicodemus a nocturnal one.  Really both the same. 

They watched the tensions of the religious leaders build at the impact of the ministry of Christ and their own

They were people who were well up on things.  They held influence that was powerless to save a man condemned from eternity, the God-man, Jesus Christ.

45 Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?” 46 “No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards declared. 47 “You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. 48 “Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.” 50 Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, 51 “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?” 52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a propheta does not come out of Galilee.” [3] John 7:45-52 (NIV)

In John 3 we find the account of Nicodemus seeking Christ in the shadow of night.  He hears the clear message of the need to be “born again”.  It doesn’t seem that he understood it and we have no record that would indicate to us that he responded in any way to those words but he went away somehow changed.  In the scripture that we have just read, it is clear that he sought to stand among his peers in defense of Christ.  There is a certain amount of courage required to do something like that, to raise the question of protocol relative to the San Hedrin’s dealings with Christ.  He took his stand and risked identification with Christ.  Every disciple must take a similar step at some point of the spiritual experience.  There must be a place where you stand apart from the crowd.  Regardless of what the price may be I am still of the opinion that the people that you work with should have reason to suspect that you are somehow different.  You hear voices that they don’t hear.  You have priorities that they would see to be ridiculous.  There comes a time for every disciple of Christ when they will have to stand for Christ.  It may not always have fatal consequences but it will always reveal a person’s allegiance.

And then there’s Joseph of course.  We never hear of him until he comes to collect the body of Christ.

The other gospel writers add these details:

·         As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. [4] Matthew 27:57 (NIV)

·         Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. [5] Mark 15:43 (NIV)

·         Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea and he was waiting for the kingdom of God. [6] Luke 23:50-51 (NIV)

These men may not have fit the typical mold of a disciple but they were clearly that.  Those who had walked with Jesus day after day were nowhere to be found.  Sometimes the ones who have had the greatest exposure to spiritual truth are the poorest practitioners.

Not everyone who looks like a disciple always acts like a disciple.  The most devout were nowhere to be found in this their greatest test.  They had the most exposure to Christ and yet they ran away and forgot everything that he had promised.

Nicodemus and Joseph on the other hand, those who were in the shadows, had gained some sort of relationship to Christ perhaps by studying the OT prophets and watching the ministry of Christ.  It could be as well that they found Christ through their relationship with each other.  I believe somehow that as they discovered the truth about each other they discovered the truth about God.  I believe that they were convinced that Jesus was the Christ and they were clearly responding at this point in their lives.

How do you make a disciple?  What is the recipe?  Christ left his message in the hands of ordinary men.  It’s still there today.  As a matter of fact, many of us in this room are much more extraordinary than the 12 who followed him for 3½ years of earthly ministry.  We have resources in our hands that should equip us to be much more impacting than they ever were.  We go through courses to train us to do things that we really don’t need training to do.  We learn about the spiritual gifts that we fail to exercise.  We sing a prayer for a 1000 tongues to sing his praises and fail to use the one that we have.  We want to be trained to tell people about Jesus but no one can teach you to communicate your personal experience.  I bought a new Jetta and I feel pretty good about it.  No one has to teach me to talk about the things that make me happy.  Maybe we should have a training class for new grandparents to give you instruction about how to talk about the grandbabies.

There was some kind of spill over effect to the grace of God that allowed these two prominent men to be “discipled” without ever being closely touched by the teachings of Christ.

That means that today there is great hope for the church.  The physical presence of Christ is not required to create a person equipped to do His work in the world today.  God still equips men and women apart from our awareness and knowledge.  The greatest discipleship that happens in the church is that which is a natural process of the body.  The body of Christ rebuilds itself even as our own bodies heal and rebuild.  That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be deliberate and engage in the process but it does mean that God raises people up for particular roles at particular junctions in the life of a church and we need to recognize that and celebrate it.

Dying churches want to hold on so tightly and rigidly and define so clearly what the process and the result looks like that they choke the life out of the church in the name of wanting to build it.

The Process of Spiritual Formation

1.   Providential Partnerships

God brings people into my life who represent a personal or providential need.

God delights in raising up the least likely people to play significant roles in His kingdom.  Not only that but he chooses to assemble them in groups.  Teams even.  Do you know what a team is?  It is an assembly of people with complementary and different gifts and abilities, particularly equipped for His purposes.  I’ve wondered at times why people move from church to church and we know that happens.

Sometimes people who we would never imagine are the ones that God selects and raises to fill significant places in the scheme of spiritual things.  I imagine that Nicodemus and Joseph were complete surprises – right out of left field.  I believe that these people are there in the wings, being prepared and they will become visible when God calls them forward.

These men did not garner their strength from direct exposure to Christ.  They existed in an environment where they had no freedom to discuss their true and honest questions.  They had no measurable impact on the other religious leaders.  They did however, have each other.  God ordains and uses focused friendships to produce His likeness in us and to accomplish His will.  Together these men stepped forward.  I am sure that they were aware of their position relative to Christ before the time came to take the stage.

2.   Shared Struggles

We discover the heart of God and become like Him as we face common struggles and obstacles with our faith family.

The life of the church is in the cell just as the life in the human body is in the cells.  When it comes to true change and transformation it is found in relationship to Christ and others.  The larger the group, the easier it is to escape.  That’s one of the reasons that we must constantly try to divide people into smaller groups.  This is where growth occurs.

The 11 disciples rose to the occasion once Christ was gone.  They found something together as a group of believers that they had not found with the physical presence of Christ in their midst.  They were changed by Pentecost but they were charged through the relationship that they shared as a part of the church.

To be accepted unconditionally by a person who represents wholeness is a powerful relationship.  The degree of respect that we have for the person who accepts us impacts us directly.  It is in these relationships that we find positive motivation to grow, develop and change.  Jesus breathed on the disciples telling them to receive the HS.  He told them that they needed to forgive sins in order for people to be forgiven.

An atmosphere that facilitates honesty.  In order to have honesty, it must be a safe place.  The church must be a safe place.  Often we fail in this department.  Our response to sin in a person’s life must always be restorative.

3.   Radical Reality

We enter into a new relationship with God as we accept personal responsibility to advance kingdom interests.

Joseph and Nicodemus saw a task that needed to be cared for and they accepted the risks and stepped forward.  Every time you step forward there are risks.  If you don’t want to get hurt keep your head down in the trenches and wait for someone else to go ahead.  You’ll never get hurt.  You’ll probably cause some hurt because someone out there is trying to fill your spot and their own.  You’ll cause casualties because you refuse to take up arms and answer the battle cry.

Not every activity that disciples undertake is so heroic as some others are.  We tend to see the church through the lens of our giftedness or our passion and we question those who do not share the same degree of passion.

I find this in areas like soul winning.  People who are constantly involved in this practice believe at times that they are the more spiritual or daring and that other activities are not so important.

Missions is another one, and related to the first.  Forever in a given church, you will have people who feel that the total focus of the church should be on what is happening somewhere else.  I believe that missions is important but there are many other important ministries as well.

The issue is that we are all different and gifted differently.  If God has raised a passion in your life then that is for you to exercise and for God to worry about.  If He has called you, He can call others.  When we become critical of others then we lose some of our own effectiveness.

They were united by a common mission.  It was theirs to do and they accepted it – they didn’t look for someone else to make it happen – they accepted awareness as assignment.  I see paper on the living room floor – I pick it up.  I don’t pass it over because I didn’t put it there and I don’t proclaim myself to be the Divine Pollution Protector because I picked it up.  I don’t walk into the kitchen and tell my wife that there is paper on the floor.  Now I have to admit that I’m not perfect and there are certain things that I have passed off that I should have addressed.  The dog regurgitated some food on the carpet the other day.  I didn’t clean it up.  I didn’t go tell my wife that the mess was there.  It seemed at the time that the most spiritual thing to do was to ignore it – to pretend that I hadn’t seen it.  Shame on me – and this really is a confession – I really did do this.  Complaining without action is the worst.  Acting and then complaining is the next worst thing.  Reporting or highlighting without accepting responsibility is another rung up the ladder.  To act on awareness – obedience is worship.  To do the good we ought to do.

The scripture says:

Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins. [7] James 4:17 (NIV)

To act and then forget about what we have done is the very best.  Many acts of kindness and compassion are negated when we allow our actions to become expectations for others.

They were willing to do the dirty work, to clean up someone else’s mess.  The Jew asked Pilate to do it.  They wanted to make sure that the bodies were not there over the Sabbath.  They however were unwilling to take them down because they would defile themselves and be unable to observe the Passover.

----

a  Greek a hundred litrai (about 34 kilograms)

[1]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[2]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

a  Two early manuscripts the Prophet

[3]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[4]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[5]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[6]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[7]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.